milky whirlpool and was lost from view.
She was alone, alone again with the liquid and the horrors that floated by her, mocking her, striking out at her.
Alone.
“Help me!” she screamed at nobody in particular. “Will no one help me now?”
Figures appeared, kind-looking human figures. A handsome, middle-aged man and a stunningly beautiful woman. They stretched out their arms to her, beckoned her to come to them, to run to their protection. She started for them, but suddenly a great dark shadow came out of the whirlpool and intervened between the pair and her. A great, angelic shape in white robes, it smiled at her even as it put out its own outstretched arms.
She hesitated, then started to approach, but the kindly figure began to undergo a terrible metamorphosis, changing from its human perfection into some sort of hideous, ugly frog-creature that gibbered and drooled and turned from her to devour her parents far in the distance, laughing as it did so.
She felt herself falling, down, down, into some sort of pit still awash in that liquid that now had the foulness of decaying garbage.
She struggled even more against the noxious odor, reached out for something to grab onto, but no one was there, no one at all. She was sinking, sinking further into the filth and slime, and the terrible creatures still floated around laughing, mocking, joking, and jabbing.
A tough-looking pasty-yellow face with hair nearly white appeared at the edge, smiled at her, and offered a hand. But the hand decayed as Mavra touched it, became a skeletal thing. The infection finally consuming the old woman, and when that happened she felt herself sinking even more into the bottom layers of slime. She felt more and more alone, more and more like she was going to remain forever in this bottomless pit of torment and corruption.
Now another face appeared, a kind face, a face that was representative of all the races of Old Earth, a handsome face that said it wanted to help. He reached out his own hand and took hold of her, pulling her up, up from the muck and the mire, and for a moment she thought she was free. She could see air ahead, and stars, millions of twinkling, blinking lights spread everywhere before her.
There was a sound, a loud explosion somewhere near her, and as she looked again in horror, her savior’s face seemed to be coming apart, exploding grotesquely, and the grip slipped.
But he was gone, and she was alone again, sinking again in the filth, never free of the swirling liquid, and it seemed to her as if the gibbering creatures were enjoying it all the more now.
Black shapes moved in, bound her, sliced her up into pieces of herself, made her a deformed, helpless monster. Still she struggled against them, fought the dark forces pushing her deeper and deeper in the muck. Another, misshapen, mutilated like herself, approached as the creatures swirling around started to close in on her, to choke her off. A gargoyle raised a spear and thrust it at her, hate in its eyes, but the other moved quickly, took the spear, and vanished, too, into the corruption.
A purplish light broke through the muck, and she heard Obie’s voice, calling to her, and she reached the light. “I’m your magic genie,” he told her. “Where in the universe do you want to go?”
“Everywhere!” she cried, and, in fast, flashing scenes she did. Yet, there was something wrong, very wrong. Every place they went had more of the foul corruption she thought she had escaped. Every place had more and more, all stinking, rotting, garbage.
The purple glow faded, and standing there, once more, was Nathan Brazil. He shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. “Well, what did you expect?” he asked her. “After all, I created the damn place in my own image.”
And there was just the swirling, engulfing liquid and the stench and corruption, the chills and burning sensations, the pain, and nothing else. Nothing. Nothing.
Alone. She was alone. Alone forever in the muck… She hated that muck, she hated that stench, and, most of all, she hated a universe teeming with life in which she could be so utterly, so completely alone. If this was the way the universe was, it was better destroyed, she thought fiercely. Clear the muck, throw out the garbage, clean and cleanse, cleanse… But so empty now, so alone, so very alone…
Yet somehow she was not alone, not now, not at this point. She had the impression of someone hugging her, transferring warmth and caring to her, someone whispering gently to her, telling her it was all right, that someone else was there. She anxiously fought to open her eyes, to see who or what it might be, and finally managed, but the world wouldn’t focus. A figure, just a figure, no more, no less. A figure, bending down, concerned, worried. A weathered, tough, handsome face whose eyes showed some ancient wisdom and gentleness he might try to hide but could not.
Suddenly she felt terribly tired, terribly worn, and she sunk back, not into the coma, not into the muck, but into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She awoke, Wearily looked around, and tried to move. She was in some kind of harness and couldn’t quite get free.
There was a crackling fire in the fireplace. Two of the party were in sleeping stalls like herself, suspended by elaborate but obviously jury-rigged harnesses made of belts, straps, strips of fur, anything available.
Two other centaurs moved around, one stoking the fire and checking a pot of what was probably melted snow, the other standing at a small table and looking over some papers. Neither looked in the best of health themselves; the one at the fire, a mass of professional-looking bandages and deep scars, was favoring his right foreleg; the other, at the table, was Colonel Asam, whose humanoid torso was covered with puffy bruises. He, too, had a number of slick surgical bandages on various parts of his body.
“Asam?” she called out, sounding weak even to herself. “Asam, what happened?”
Both men turned, and the Colonel approached her quickly, a smile on his face. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut and his face was so bruised and puffy it shocked her, but he smiled, reached down to a pouch, and took out a cigar. “Well, well! Welcome back to the land o’ the almost-living,” he cracked.
She smiled. “What—who were those things?”
“Tilki. Pretty far from home, too. Bloody bastards. If this hadn’t been a nontech hex, they’d have had us sure. Them high-tech bastards usually are pretty lousy with close-up weapons.”
“Bandits?” she guessed.
He shook his head. “No. They had uniforms. Army. A neat little ambush team.”
“They were… assassins, then?” she asked cautiously, still thinking of Asam’s tale of a blood feud.
“Assassins, yes,” he agreed, “but not for me. We got ’em all—I think, anyway. Unless they had some they held back who took off when we got the upper hand. Doubt it, though. One or two more would’ve finished us.”
“Not for you? But—”
“I’ve got a translator, remember,” he told her. “I understood their jabberin’. No question in my mind it was you they was after. Heard your name a coupl’ve times. They mighta gotten you, too, if there’d been fewer of us, or if they hadn’t been screwed up by the earlier group of hunters. They picked their spot well —this would be the logical first night’s camp, and, flying, they could reach it without havin’ to go over the tall peaks. Trouble was, when they got here they found the hunters already there. They knew you wasn’t with ’em. I don’t think they had too clear an idea of your looks, but the others were all men and they knew you was a woman. Only a guess, you understand—no witnesses left. I’d say they probably drew out the hunters, who had no reason to fear and would be just damned curious at meetin’ Tilki up here, of all places. My guess the bastards took ’em so quick they never even knew what hit ’em.”
She considered this. “You said they were Army. Why me?”
He grinned. “You told me a lot about what was goin’ on right now. I’d say the Zone Council’s decided on war, sifted through their records to find who the key ringleaders on the other side would be, and are out to wipe out Brazil’s generals before they start. They might also be nervous about Gedemondas. Unknown quantity, you know. If you can’t get to ’em, they’re outta the fight.”
She nodded and looked around. “The others…?”
His expression became grim. “We’re it. The surivors. Malk and Zorn, there, they’re gonna need better medical care than we can give ’em. In a way we were lucky they hit us here, instead of just inside Dilla—infection’s
