Twilight at the Well of Souls

in the hex with every other.

They passed over the driest spot in the hex, where the land started to rise again in a series of steppes, each rough plateau giving rise to the land. Here had been Khutir’s camp and headquarters, it was clear; the scars—and the equipment—were all too visible, and there were still several hundred creatures of various types there, minding the store or helping maintain at least a tripwire guard to the gateway to the Avenue to their north.

They veered to the south of the camp, hoping to avoid notice, and were soon out of the area and to the west of the great Avenue that could almost be seen in the distance.

They had no intention of approaching from the south or from the east, across hostile Verion, but around and through Ellerbanta, keeping well to the west of the Avenue if at all possible.

It was not the best of Avenues to use, and the closer to it they got the more Brazil realized its disadvantages. The land was mountainous, more like Gedemondas than anything else, and while it wasn’t particularly cold, the elevation was steadily rising, and with that the problems in continuing to fly.

Mavra realized the problem more quickly than he had. She knew that the winged horses had been unable to function in the upper regions of Gedemondas; they had a definite upper limit, aggravated even more by any significant weight, and there was definitely that.

They had to land more frequently now, and landing spaces were becoming harder and harder to find. They wove above the snow line, where footing was more difficult, and still the mountains rose higher to the north and east of them, the distant ones almost totally obscured by clouds.

They got out the maps of the region and, for the first time, Mavra as well as the others could examine them. She couldn’t read the script, but when the relief markings were explained to her it became clear that they could not fly up to the Equatorial Barrier at the Avenue. Not this Avenue.

Using the Gedemondan communicator, whose voice served for both Mavra and Brazil as well as himself in these circumstances, she pointed this out somewhat accusingly to Brazil.

“Well, how was I to know the upper limits of these things?” he grumped. “Hell, I don’t remember them as real creatures at all. They survived on Earth only as parts of the racial memory, mythological beasties and no more. Still, there’s no real choice. We could have gone east, but that would have brought us over Lamotien and Yaxa—and we wouldn’t have stood a chance there. To the west the next hex is completely underwater, which is fine if you’re the underwater type but not otherwise—and we’d have a hell of a fight through there, anyway. Same farther east—the Avenue’s under the Sea of Storms. So this was the only one we could use and we’ll just have to live with it.”

“But we can’t fly much longer or higher,” she objected.

He nodded his equine head. “True, we can’t. So we have to head to the Avenue. I figure it’s over the next range, there, about thirty or forty kilometers at most. It’s the only real pass we’re gonna get. We’ll walk where we have to, fly when we can. Let’s do it.”

There was no other way to go, but all of them could only think that the Avenue, even two thirds of the way up, would be the last place they should go and the first place to meet any determined opposition. No one had any doubt that, between Gunit Sangh and General Khutir, orders for whatever patrols were stationed there would be firm: Kill everything that tried to get up the Avenue. Everything, without exception—and Ellerbanta was a high-tech hex. Anything would work here.

Even the Gedemondan, who felt almost at home in the high, white, and cold environment, shared the apprehension, but there was now no choice.

They came to the Avenue abruptly; a solid mountain wall stood before them, and they decided to make for the top and over in expectation that they would at least sight the Avenue from the summit.

They did more than that. Brazil heaved his large pegasus body over and almost fell into empty space. He looked down, forelegs dangling over the edge, on an almost sheer cliff with a drop of over four kilometers straight down to the Avenue.

He gave a horselike whinny of fear, which brought the others up quickly but cautiously, and together they managed to haul him back from the edge and look out on the sight.

You could hardly see the Avenue at all; clouds, mist, and rock tended to block the view and perspective, but it was there all right, in a couple of tiny clear patches, way, way down. It could be spotted only because it was the one thing nature never seemed to be— straight: A tiny, light-colored straight hairline that was discernible only by the pegasus’s exceptional eyes.

But far off to the north, perhaps peeking up beyond the horizon, they could see a black band stretching east to west as far as vision would take them. The Equatorial Barrier, the access to the Well at the Avenues and the very solid and impenetrable wall that kept the alien North from the equally alien South.

“Can you fly in that gap?” the Agitar asked them.

Brazil and Mavra both looked out, saw the wind and the currents, measured the narrowest points of the gap with the unerring sense of the flying horses, and shook their heads practically in unison.

“No way,” Brazil told them through the communicator. “The air currents are treacherous through there, the valley too narrow in spots. We’re going to have to walk up here as much as possible and try and find a way down there when we can.”

Mavra nodded agreement. “I doubt if any flying creatures could do much in that pass.”

“But it’ll make us sitting ducks for anybody up here,” Brazil said gloomily. “And it’s curtains if somebody’s around who can fly in this altitude.”

They started walking.

The journey wasn’t easy and involved many roundabout diversions and switchbacks just to keep roughly even with the Avenue itself. They made poor time, and spent a cold, hungry night on the mountain.

In the morning, it was little better. The temperature was far below zero and they were faced with a breath- takingly beautiful but hazardous sight as clouds closed in almost all views below them, even of the slight dips, valleys, and cirques, leaving only the points of the highest peaks popping up into a brilliant, almost blinding sun. Had flying not been prohibited by the lack of oxygen at that extreme altitude, it would still be impossible now. Once up, there would literally be no safe place to land.

The Gedemondan continued to lead the way on foot, the Agitar, bundled in heavy clothing, rode atop Brazil. The white creature seemed less bothered by the conditions and totally unaffected by altitude and cold, and navigated the tricky range with unerring precision.

Still, such precision was not at the expense of over-caution, for anything less would destroy you up here above the clouds, and it was even slower going than before. At midday, Mavra guessed they had made only a couple of kilometers; the black barrier to the north looked no closer and they had made barely the next set of peaks popping up out of the clouds, Brazil was even more pessimistic; he began to wonder if they could make it at all. There was nothing to eat up here, and he was feeling starved as it was. The trouble was, all directions looked the same to him—lousy. There might not, he reflected uneasily, be any way to abort the plan at this point.

Nearing dusk, they were all feeling down, defeated, and more than a little cheated by it all. They linked to talk, but there was very little to say, really. They all were sharing the same dark thoughts.

I’ve failed, each one seemed to say to itself or to the others; we’ve failed. We’ve managed to out-think, out-trick, or out-fight every force the Well World has thrown in our way, but now we are dying, victims not of army or plan but of geography.

Darkness fell, and they camped for another lonely, windy, cold night without food and, now, without much hope.

“We tried our best,” Brazil tried to console them, although he felt more in need of it than in the mood to give it. “We’ll continue to try as long as possible, until we just can’t any more.”

“I can see only one way out,” Mavra told them.

“Tomorrow, early, while we still have strength, we must try and fly down into the canyon.”

“How wide is an Avenue?” Prola asked apprehensively.

Brazil thought about it. “Thirty meters, more or less,” he replied. “The chasm is a bit wider, of course, but we don’t know how far we’d have to glide and what narrow spots we might have to dodge.”

“Fully extended,” Mavra noted, “my wingspan and yours is roughly eight or nine meters. It doesn’t give us very much maneuverability—and with those wicked updrafts and downdrafts, and those clouds…”

“It was your idea to fly,” he came back. “Don’t try talking me out of it at this stage.