Twilight at the Well of Souls

effect is permanent, the damage beyond repair. Note how the arms and legs are frozen in position, a protective biological mechanism when there is nervous damage. They can die if not on their feet, so they freeze when the nerves are cut or damaged to avoid this. The autonomic functions are not affected; they are taken care of by a different set of nervous controls on the other side of the cartilage that routes and supports them. I was careful not to touch those areas.”

“They will not go for this,” the Dahir priest warned darkly. “They will not trade Brazil for this one in such a condition.”

The Dahbi chuckled. “Your magic could freeze her like a statue here. Could not your magic also make her walk?”

The head of the Dahir cocked itself slightly to one side as the priest considered it. “Why, yes, of course.”

“And then again in Zone?”

“Ah!” The priest brightened.

“You see? No chance for escape, for without your spells she is frozen helplessly. But the evidence will be otherwise. It will be so reported, the exchange will take place, and the woman will be returned to Dillia.”

“Magic has no worth in Dillia,” the priest pointed out. “She will arrive a helpless cripple.”

“Exactly,” responded the Dahbi. “Our bargain was to deliver her alive. Nothing else. We keep our word —to the letter.”

“It seems a bit cruel, though,” the Dahir commented, not sounding as if he was particularly upset by the idea.

“My master, His Holiness Gunit Sangh, has a claim against the one who loves her,” the Dahbi told him. “Killing him would be so very… final. And quick. Nor is he easy to kill. This will haunt him and harm him worse than any. His love a hopeless cripple for the rest of her life, and he a betrayer of his cause and his trust, branded so forever even into the histories and legends, and with no prize to show.”

The priest nodded admiringly. “It is incredible. Such a settlement of a debt of honor is beyond all save admiration.” He looked over at Mavra. “And how much control does she retain?”

“A statue, totally, as if made of stone, from the neck down,” the Dahbi assured him. She will be able to control only her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. All else is forever frozen.”

“She can talk, then,” the priest noted. “Only if we let her,” responded the Dahbi.

She awoke before dawn and almost immediately realized what must have happened. Mad, upset, her pride hurt, she had stalked out of the meeting and wandered, eventually, down to the river where she had just walked along, occasionally kicking this or that or just looking at the stars.

They hadn’t even made much of concealment. She knew that creatures were in the trees ahead, could see an occasional shape shift or even hear occasional whispers. You just didn’t think about risk when surrounded by ten thousand of your own people.

They had used some sort of tranquilizer gun, the kind used on vicious wild animals when you had to get close to them or capture them but not kill. She had no idea what the stuff was, but it was certainly fast: she had heard the report, felt the sting, whirled and started to cry out, and then lost first her balance and then consciousness in what must have been, oh, no more than fifteen or twenty seconds.

She tried to move, to see what sort of bindings they had on her now and where and in what she might be, but found she could not. There was a sudden, eerie sense of deja vu about all this. Once before on this strange world she had been captured, paralyzed, and stored in a stable. At that time she had been a sacrifice to the Well by those who had worshiped the thing and had been turned into a malformed monster because of it.

There wasn’t much light in the place, although she heard the movements of what appeared to be other large animals, and the aftereffects of the drug, she guessed, were keeping her more or less muddy in the head.

She stood there, unable to do anything, afraid to say anything, for quite some time. Once someone had come, opened a door to one side, and peered in for a moment, but they were out of her peripheral vision and did not come in, but for a very long time now she had just had to stand there stiffly and try and fight through the malaise in her mind.

Now, though, she heard the rustling of something, like feed going through straw, coming close to her. She was surprised, for she would have bet that there were none but animals in the stable up to now. She waited, more curious than apprehensive, to see who it might be—and what. That they would kill her was unlikely; she knew a hostage when she saw one, even if it was her.

The creature stepped out of the shadows and walked almost up to her face. She brightened when she saw it, and the creature put up a shaggy rounded finger to its snout to signify silence.

“We must act quickly,” whispered the Gedemondan. “We have very little time and much to do.”

“How… how long have you been here?” she asked it quietly.

“We have been with you since Gedemondas,” the creature told her. “We have kept out of sight and out of mind, as is our wont and our ability. We thought they would try for Brazil, not for you, which is why we couldn’t prevent this. The damage to the Well is clouding our perceptions.”

“They couldn’t be sure it was him,” she explained. “So they figure to blackmail him through me. Fat chance on that.”

“Nevertheless, you are essential to him,” the Gedemondan assured her. “He will not make the repairs without you. And he may not get the opportunity. My brothers and sisters with your force yet tell me that it is not Brazil but one who cares deeply for you who is being blackmailed.”

She was puzzled. “Who? Oh—Asam? But—what could he do?”

“Deliver Brazil in exchange for you,” she was told.

“And we believe he might do so.” Briefly the Gedemondan explained to her the sadistic plot he had overheard in the same barn only a few hours earlier.

“But what can we do about it?” she wanted to know. “If what you say is true I… I’m paralyzed.

Completely.” It shook her to say it, as if voicing it would make it an actuality.

“There are two alternatives,” the Gedemondan told her. “The first is to kill you. That would deprive them of a hostage and would, at least, give Brazil a chance to do the right thing.”

She considered it. “I think I would rather be dead than… like this… for so long.” She meant it, but it seemed somehow abstract, as if discussing a theoretical problem or someone else, not her. She needed more time to get used to the idea she was a statue, a living lump of immobile flesh.

“There is only one other alternative, and it is a risk and an experiment,” the Gedemondan told her.

“Please accept my assurance that they have done an expert job on you. There is no way that your body will move again except under the magic of the Dahir.”

She had an uneasy feeling, and seemed to recall little donkeylike creatures in the back of her mind. “What’s the alternative?”

“There is a procedure, an odd one, used by a few Well World races, mostly in the North,” the white creature explained. “Only in one spot here in the South is it done—and it is as hazardous to the doer as to the subject. It involves the transference of the soul.”

She stared at him. “You mean changing bodies?”

The Gedemondan nodded. “Exactly so. The intellect is a thing which may, under certain conditions, be wrenched from the body. We, ourselves, have done this, but always returning to our own physical selves. In your case, of course, that is not possible, nor could we teach it to you in the hours, perhaps minutes, we have left.”

“You mean I’d swap bodies? With one of you—or the Dahir, or something like that?” She was fascinated.

“Not exactly,” the Gedemondan replied cautiously. “Two souls may occupy the same body only at the price of total madness. An exchange is theoretically possible, but no one has ever done it. Something is lost. The body rejects the newcomer as it rejects the implant of a heart or other organ.”

Hope fell. “Then what are you talking about?”