Midnight at the Well of Souls

“The Diviner indicates that they are both there and otherwise alone in their working place,” The Rel said. “In a way, I am suspicious. This is too good fortune, and I do not believe in luck. Nonetheless, we do what we must.

“All right— now!”

DILLIA—UPLAKE

Wu Julee groaned and opened her eyes. Her head was splitting and the room was spinning around.

“She’s comin’ around!” someone’s voice called out, and she was suddenly conscious of a number of people clustering around her.

She tried to focus, but everything was blurry for a few moments. Finally, vision cleared enough for her to see who each was, particularly the one non-Dillian in the crowd.

“Brazil!” she managed, then choked. Someone forced a little water down her throat. It tasted sour. She coughed.

“She knows you!” Yomax yelled, excited. “She remembers things agin!”

She shut her eyes tightly. She did remember—everything. A spasm shook her, and she vomited the water.

“Yomax! Jol!” she heard the Healer’s voice call. “You louts take her behind! Captain Brazil, you pull; I’ll push! Let’s try and get her on her feet as soon as possible!”

They fell to their tasks and managed to pull it off with several tries. No thanks to me, Brazil thought. Man! These people have muscles!

She was up, but unsteady. They put side panels padded with cloth under her arms and braced them so she could support herself. The room was still spinning, but it seemed to be slowing down. She still felt sick, and started trembling. Someone—probably Jol—started stroking her back and that seemed to calm her a little.

“Oh, my God!” she groaned.

“It’s all right, Wu Julee,” Brazil said softly. “The nightmares are past, now. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But how—” she started, then threw up again and kept gagging.

“All right, all of you outside now!” the Healer demanded. “Yes, you, too, Yomax! I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

They stepped out into the chill wind. Yomax shrugged, a helpless look on his face.

“Do you drink ale, stranger?” the aged centaur asked Brazil.

“I’ve been known to,” Brazil replied. “What do you make it out of?”

“Grains, water, and yeast!” said Yomax, surprised at the question. “What else would you make ale out of?”

“I dunno,” Brazil admitted, “but I’m awfully glad you don’t either. Where to?”

The three of them went down the main street, Brazil feeling like a pygmy among giants, and up to the bar, front on now.

The place was full of customers—about a dozen—and they had trouble squeezing in. Brazil suddenly became afraid that he would be crushed to death between equine rumps.

The conversation stopped when he entered, and everyone looked at him suspiciously.

“I just love being made to feel welcome,” Brazil said sarcastically. Then, to the other two, “Isn’t there a more, ah, private place to talk?”

Yomax nodded. “Gimme three, Zoder!” he called, and the bartender poured three enormous steins of ale and put them on the bar. He handed one to Jol and the other to Brazil, who almost dropped it when he found out how heavy the filled stein really was. Using two hands, he held on and followed Yomax down the street a few doors to the oldster’s office.

After Jol stoked the fire and threw some more wood in, the place seemed to warm and brighten spiritually as well as literally. Brazil let out a long sigh and sank to the floor, resting the stein on the floor beside him. As the place warmed up, he took off his fur cap and coat. Underneath he didn’t seem to be wearing anything.

The two centaurs also took off their coats, and both of them stared at him.

Brazil stared back. “Now, don’t you go starting that, or I’ll go back to the bar!” he warned. The Dillians laughed, and everybody relaxed. Brazil sipped the brew, and found it not bad at all, although close to two liters was a bit much at one time for him.

“Now, what’s all this about, mister?” Jol asked suspiciously.

“Suppose we swap information,” he offered, taking out his pipe and lighting it.

Yomax licked his lips. “Is that—is that tobacco?” he asked hesitatingly.

“It is,” Brazil replied. “Not very good, but good enough. Want some?”

Yomax’s expression, Brazil thought, was as eager and unbelieving as mine was when I saw that steak at Serge’s.

Was that only a few months ago? he asked himself. Or was it a lifetime?

Yomax dragged out an old and battered pipe that resembled a giant corncob and proceeded to fill it. Lighting it with a common safety match, he puffed away ecstatically.

“We don’t get much tobacco hereabouts,” the old man explained.

“I never would have guessed,” Brazil responded dryly. “I picked it up a fair distance from here, really—I’ve traveled nine hexes getting here, not counting a side trip to Zone from my home hex.”

“Them rodent fellas are the only ones in five thousand kilometers with tobacco these days,” Yomax said ruefully. “That where?”

Brazil nodded. “Next door to my home hex.”

“Don’t think I remember it,” the old official prodded curiously. “Except that you look like us, sort of, from the waist up, I don’t think I ever seen your like before.”

“Not surprising,” Brazil replied sadly. “My people came to a no-good end, I’m afraid.”

“Hey! Yomax!” Jol yelled suddenly. “Lookit his mouth! It don’t go with his talkin’!”

“He’s using a translator, idiot!” snapped Yomax.

“Right,” the small man confirmed. “I got it from the Ambreza—those ‘rodent fellas’ you mentioned. Nice people, once I could convince them that I was intelligent.”

“If you and they was neighbors, why was that a problem?” Jol asked.

The sadness crept back. “Well—a very long time ago, there was a war. My people were from a high-tech hex, and they built an extremely comfortable civilization, judging from the artifacts I saw. But the lifestyle was extremely wasteful—it required enormous natural resources to sustain—and they were running out, while the by- products curtailed good soil to the point where they were importing eight percent of their food. Unwilling to compromise their life-style, they looked to their neighbors to sustain their culture. Two hexes were ocean, one’s temperature was so cold it would kill us, two more weren’t worth taking for what they had or could be turned into. Only the Ambreza Hex was compatible, even though it was totally nontechnological. No steam engines, no machines of any kind not powered by muscle. The Ambreza were quiet, primitive farmers and fishermen, and they looked like easy prey.”

“Attacked ’em, eh?” Yomax put in.

“Well, they were about to,” Brazil replied. “They geared up with swords and spears, bows and catapults— whatever would work in Ambreza Hex—with computers from home telling them the best effective use. But my people made one mistake, so very old in the history of many races, and they paid the price for it.”

“What mistake was that?” asked Jol, fascinated.

“They confused ignorance with stupidity,” the man explained. “The Ambreza were what they appeared to be, but they were not dumb. They saw what was coming and saw what they had to lose. Their diplomats tried to negotiate a settlement, but at the same time they scoured other hexes for effective countermeasures—and they found one!”

“Yes? Yes? And that was…?” Yomax prompted.