They slept fitfully that night, not wanting to think about, let alone face, the day ahead. And when the first of them awoke and looked around, hope was dashed even further. The clouds had risen now; the whole world was a sea of swirling white in every direction.
They nibbled some snow and relaxed, unable to move until the sun or weather patterns burned some of the fog away.
“It’s like this a lot near Avenues,” Brazil told them. “You get the same reaction when two dissimilar hexes—seasonally, that is—meet at a border, and that’s a border out there, of course, a border with a thirty meter strip in between that’s subject to wind and weather patterns from both hexes.”
They were silent most of the morning, and the mists would not clear. Brazil finally motioned for the Gedemondan to come over and “plug in,” as he thought of it.
“Mavra—what have you been thinking about?” he asked gently, trying to get her mind off the situation.
She gave a wry chuckle. “Other places. Other people,” she replied. “I wonder how the battle went? I wonder who won? And whether it made a damn bit of difference? I wonder if they bit on that empty shell of a body you left them, or if they’re all lined up somewhere, fighting yet. It would be nice to know before I. . .”
“Die?” he completed. “Does that really scare you?”
“Yes, of course, ” she replied. “I’m not like you, Brazil. I don’t think anyone is. I’d like to see that new universe.”
He hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, that tells me something about you I was wondering about.” He didn’t elaborate, but it settled a nagging reservation he had had. He had wondered, up to this point, whether or not she might not have desired, been happy, in her Dillian existence. Of course, Asam’s treachery would have dispelled that, but only for the two of them. It wasn’t fair, though, to do to anyone what he intended for her if she could have been happy in some alternate existence.
It wasn’t fair anyway, he knew, but she wouldn’t believe that until she found it out for herself.
The Gedemondan broke the contact. “The fog is lifting,” he noted.
They looked around and saw it was true. The sun was visible now, about a quarter of the way up in the sky, and it was burning through the thin cloudiness that seemed impossible at this altitude.
“I think I see a peak over there!” Prola called excitedly. “And another, there! Yes! I think it’s clearing.”
The Gedemondan suddenly stiffened and looked around nervously. “I don’t think all is well,” he whispered. “I sense others near by. I—I allowed my own personal emotions to cloud my senses,” he explained apologetically. “Now I can read them. We are being watched!”
They tensed, and the Agitar drew his coppery swordlike tast, which could conduct thousands of volts of electricity from his body. They waited tensely to see who the hell could possibly have penetrated this fog and found them at such a height.
“Helloooo . . . !” boomed a voice from somewhere just to the left of them, a call that echoed back and forth between the peaks. “Hey! Nate! Where are you?” it called. “Come on—I won! I gotcha dead to rights. You can’t move. I took your challenge and I’ve won, Nate! I’ve won!”
Brazil gestured with his head to the Gedemondan, who placed a pad on his head allowing speech.
“Over here!” he called wearily. “How the hell did you ever find us?”
A huge figure glided out of the fog and approached them carefully. It carried in two of its six hands a small electronic device.
“This is a high-tech hex, Nate,” Serge Ortega told him. “Haven’t you ever heard of radar?”
Above the Borgo Pass
ortega had a fairly large force around, and as they walked with him the size became more apparent. They were also well armed and well equipped with the best in weaponry and detection gear and obviously digging in.
“I must say that it’s damned hard to think of you as a pegasus,” the Ulik said jokingly. “And a passionate pink one at that! My, my!”
Brazil could only snort at this commentary, since the Gedemondan could only be an effective speech conduit when they were standing still. He and Mavra could only seethe and take it; all hope was now gone.
“The Borgo Pass,” Ortega told them. “It’s the narrowest point in the whole chasm, barely ten meters clearance on either side of the Avenue and with nice, natural fortifications on both sides. As you saw from the landscape above, anyone who wants to reach the equator has to come up the Avenue itself—and has to get past this spot.”
There was a lot of activity around the mostly obscured pass; they could see a portable crane lifting some gun emplacement down into the mist and cloud layer below, supervised by a number of small flying things.
“You might be interested to know how I figured out your plot,” the Ulik continued, gloating unashamedly. “To be truthful about it, I deduced it as you went along and the final pieces only fell into place a couple of days ago, but I’d already guessed the rough outline. It was clear from the start, at least after I discovered how you’d evaded our traps in Zone, that yours was a campaign of misdirection. Still, nothing could deny the fact that, sooner or later, you would have to move in force toward one or more of the Avenues, and as soon as the Hakazit moved up the Isthmus I knew from its direction and the direction of the Dillians that you had to be coming to this area. Although your double in the ship gave me some uneasy moments, I admit, I rejected water Avenues as simply too risky. That left Yaxa-Harbigor or here. Now, you had an army for each, as did the council, and a double for each, which drove us crazy. So, which Avenue?” He paused, savoring his moment of triumph. “I rejected Yaxa-Harbigor not only because the inhabitants around there are incredibly formidable anywhere and damn near absolute in their own neighborhood, but also because that would put Gunit Sangh’s army in between, by far the more formidable of the two,” he continued. “But a glance at a map showed that, if you turned westward and started the other Awbrian force northward, you’d have a massive double army coming down on a smaller and less equipped council force. Ergo, Ellerbanta, since Verion is inhospitable, nasty, alien, and probably lethal. I’m not sure those fancy charged-up glowworms can be reasoned with. Good thing they’re superstitious, though, or we couldn’t hold both sides of the pass.”
Brazil halted and gestured with his head to the Gedemondan, who understood and made the link.
“All right, Serge, but how did you get here?” he wanted to know.
Ortega chuckled. “All in good time, my boy, all in good time. So, anyway, old Gunit Sangh and his crew wouldn’t listen to a lot of what I had to say and paid for their mistakes. They got outmaneuvered time and time again. Well, once I knew where you were headed, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Your curious friend Gypsy had told me that I could leave Zone without withering into dust, and I finally had it, completely, up to here, with sitting in my private little prison while everybody else had all the fun. Oh, I could have ordered folks over here, but I simply could not deny myself the pleasure of this. You don’t know what it’s meant to me, Nate, leaving that stinking hole. Seeing stars, breathing clean air, feeling the wind and heat and cold and rain . . . It’s almost like being reborn. I may be the only man anywhere who can identify with you, Nate. My little prison, really, isn’t that much different than the prison you’ve been living in all those thousands of years. We were both trapped by our own devices.”
“But how did you get here?” Brazil persisted. “I mean, Ulik’s almost on the other side of the world from here, even if it is at the equator, and that bulk of yours can’t fly.”
Ortega laughed. “Oh, but it can, Nate, although it damned near killed me from being out of practice. I’ll show you one in a little while.”
“One what?” he wanted to know.
“A trublak,” the Ulik replied. “It’s a huge, pulpy worm with six pairs of huge, tough, transparent wings, about six meters long. Nasty-looking, but harmless. They are to Ulik pretty much what the horse was to our ancestors—transportation, muscle power, you name it. They’re not very bright but easily domesticated. You have these reins, you sit on a saddlelike thing, and you use your own tail as part of the guidance. Took us about five days to get here, but we knew where you were heading before we started, even if you hadn’t taken off yet. And no matter what, a good look at the relief maps told me you had to come by the Borgo Pass. Just had to. It’s almost designed that way.”
“But how the hell did you know what we were or who we were?” he persisted. “We’re pretty well disguised, I think you’ll admit.”
Ortega shrugged. “Remember, the last time we met you were in the body of a stag. I knew the trick could be done and I knew you knew it. When we got word yesterday that your comatose body had been found in the rubble of battle I pretty well guessed what had happened—and waited here. It had to be a pretty fast ground animal or an airborne one, and I guessed a flyer since you’d want to make speed. What large, flying animal was on the continent and near where your armies had passed? It’s easy when you’re thinking dirty and playing with a full deck.”
Brazil looked around at the frantic activity, slightly puzzled. “What’s all this now, Serge?” he wanted to know. “You’ve won. Looks more like you’re still moving in than preparing to move out.”
Serge Ortega chuckled even more at some private joke, then called out, “All right, boys! Come on up!”
Out from a point beyond the portable crane came two figures. Two very familiar creatures.
One was a Hakazit, huge and imposing, and the other a tall human with a big grin on his face.
“Hello, Brazil,” called Gypsy. “We were wondering if we’d beat you here or not.”
“It would seem our timing was perfect,” Marquoz noted with satisfaction. “A last reunion before the windup.” He turned to Brazil. “I told you I wanted to be in on the finish.”
The shock of seeing those two was so great that the communications link was broken for a few moments. When he regained it, all Brazil could blurt out was, “What the hell is going on here?”
Ortega grinned. “I resigned from the council, Nate. Oh, I’ve got to admit, up to the last moment I didn’t know which way I would jump, didn’t even know if I had the nerve to ever leave that place, but, when push came to shove, I really didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t condemn you to the same prison I hated so much. Not me—anybody but me, maybe. But I couldn’t do that to somebody else, particularly an old buddy like you. I’d done all I could to keep the faith with the council; I’d given them every lead, prodded them this way and that, and even managed to save an awful lot of those Entries from being wiped out. I didn’t worry about that after a bunch of the boys decided to ignore me anyway and sent a squad of fifty in to start killing the Entries in the Well Gate. You know what happened? Those amazons of yours got so pissed when the first volleys of arrows flew, they charged that squad and tore it literally to bits! They can take care of themselves pretty good, they can! And since high-tech weapons won’t work in Zone, well, there’s nobody with nerve enough to try it now,”
Gypsy looked at him, a smile on his face. “And, of course, Saint Serge, personal motives had nothing to do with it at all.”
Ortega looked sheepish. “Well, of course, in a very minor way. I’ve been fighting that bastard Sangh for fifty years, and he’s going for broke with this one. If he loses, he really loses, this time. He’s the greatest threat to the stability of this world that ever was born, and he has to go. Some of the Dahbi aren’t that bad. Gruesome, maybe, but a lot of other races are, too. Evil, though? No, that’s reserved for Sangh. And his whole pitch has been that if he were in complete charge, he could do anything. Well, he’s been in complete charge, and he’s botched it. If you make the Well, he’s botched it totally. He’ll not only never be a threat but he’ll lose face and standing among his own people, maybe lose his power base. Nobody likes to back a loser, and there’ll be a lot of bitterness after all this. The Wars of the Well showed that—people don’t like their sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, to be sacrificed at all, but when they get slaughtered in a losing cause, well, that’s more than some can stand.”
“So you changed sides,” Brazil sighed.
Ortega’s bushy eyebrows went up. “Why, Nate! I’m surprised at you! You know there’s never been any side except my side. Hell, I’ve had my cake and eaten it too in this go-round. I’ve figured you out, outwitted and trapped you, and now I can turn around and stick it good to the ones I have a lot of scores to settle with. It’s the time to settle scores again, Nate, I’m dying now and you know it and I know it. There’s no way I’m going to die in peace and solitude.”
Mavra caught the attention of the Gedemondan, who linked her as well.
“Gypsy, this is Mavra,” she began, having to explain it because the Gedemondan was doing all the physical talking. “What happened—after we left? How did Marquoz get here?”
“I’ll answer that,” the Hakazit told the others. “What happened was that we really had to pull out too quickly and Sangh’s army was on the move. They caught us in Mixtim and there was a bloody battle. In strictly field terms, it was a draw—we might even be said to have won, since a lot more of them died than us. But, strategically, they managed to split our forces and ram through. We couldn’t hold, not forever, and the Awbrians were pinned down to the southwest of us, a little too far to help. Gunit Sangh wasn’t really fooled by your body, Brazil, any more than Ortega was. It’s something he’ll keep in reserve to claim a moral victory, maybe, but that’s all. He doesn’t know you’ve changed form but he guessed somehow you were making for the Avenue and he’s unnerved about what happened to Mavra, here. He took his fastest, most versatile, and nastiest two thousand and punched through the hole, heading straight for here. We couldn’t stop him; the balance of his army prevented that. His force is on the Avenue right now, and along about dawn tomorrow he’s going to be coming straight up that canyon.”
They all turned and looked in the indicated direction, although there wasn’t much that could be seen. Finally Mavra asked, “You said he punched through, Marquoz. What about Asam?”
The Hakazit paused a moment before answering. “He’s dead, Mavra,” he said flatly. “He went out like he’d have wanted to, though. In the midst of the battle, when Sangh’s forces bulged and broke the line, he left his command post with two submachine guns, one in each hand, trying to rally the troops to beat back the advance. He almost did it, too. Oh, he was a sight to see, all right! Galloping, cursing, yelling, and screaming as he fired both guns into the troops. His own just had to follow him in, and the carnage they wrought on the enemy was simply fantastic. But Sangh had better field generals than we, and there were simply too many at the breakthrough. He made them pay dearly for him, I’ll say that. They were piled up on all sides of him, mowed down like grains of wheat, but no matter how many he cut down, they just kept coming. And when his guns went dry, riddled with wounds himself, he pulled that old sword of his and waded on in, a magnificent madman. There’s never been anything like it before on this little world, nor many others, either, I’d say. The Dillians will make him their martyr and legend forever, and even his enemies will sing songs in praise of him.”
She said nothing, but there were huge tears in her eyes at hearing this. She hoped it was true, that it wasn’t being embellished for her benefit. But, then, she told herself, it was exactly what he would do under the circumstances.
“After the battle,” Marquoz continued, “I managed to get together with Gypsy, who’d changed form to avoid being captured, and we tried using Brazil’s old body as the final ploy. It looked like it worked—they cheered and celebrated, and the fighting stopped pretty well up and down the line. Still, the force that broke through didn’t stop and turn around; we figured Sangh wasn’t totally buying. We fooled him too many times before. He’s going to make sure this time. He’s coming all the way up the Avenue.”
“I decided to scout up ahead of them and see if I could locate you,” Gypsy added. “It wasn’t long before I came on Ortega’s group settling in here, and I decided to find out what was what. When I learned that he wasn’t here to capture you, and that you hadn’t been seen, I got back to Marquoz, and with the aid of one of those trublaks he’s got, we were able to get him up here to assess the situation.”
“You took a chance,” Brazil noted. “You couldn’t be sure of Serge’s intentions. He has a history of being devious.”
Marquoz only shrugged. “It didn’t really matter any more. The end of the game was up here, not back there. I’d done all I could. And, if there were any tricks, maybe Gypsy and I could do something about them. It worked out, anyway.”
“Yes, it worked out—somehow,” Brazil agreed. “It always seems to. It’s part of the system. The probabilities, no matter how impossible, always break for me when my survival is at stake.” He paused a moment, then continued.
“Serge, how many people you got here? I mean all told, except for us?”
“Sixty-four,” he replied. “We had to travel fast and light and I was cashing in I.O.U.s as I went on a target of opportunity basis. Got a lot of good equipment, but not much else. They’re all good people, though, Nate, and the position’s incredible.”
“Sixty-four,” Brazil repeated. “Against Gunit Sangh’s battle-hardened two thousand.”
Ortega grinned. “About even, I think. Oh, I don’t think we can hold forever, but we don’t have to. First we get you down to the bottom by crane or whatever it takes, get some food in your bellies, then you get the hell out of here. We did a sweep up and down the Avenue this morning—there won’t be any nasty surprises. We eliminated them for you.” His expression turned serious for a moment. “I had seventy-six when I started. Would have been worse if this high-tech hex didn’t abut the Avenue. You get on down there, now. We haven’t a lot of time to waste.”
Nathan Brazil looked up at the huge Ulik and cursed his inability in this animal body to express what he was feeling inside now. It was odd; until a few minutes ago, he would have sworn such emotions had died within him thousands of years before. Finally he said, “You could come with us, you know, Serge.”
“I thought about it,” he replied. “Thought about it a lot. But, now, standing here, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He stared hard at Brazil’s huge animal’s eyes. “I think you understand. You, of all people, should be the one to understand.”
Brazil gave an audible, long sigh. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I think I do.” He looked over at the crane. “Let’s get on the road, then.”
Serge Ortega nodded. “Good-bye, Nate. For all of it, it was fun, wasn’t it?”
“That it was,” Brazil responded a little wistfully. “That it was. So long, you old bastard. Give ’em hell.”
Ortega grinned. “Haven’t I always?”
High, towering cliffs rose from both sides of the Avenue as it made its way from the swampy lowlands up to the Equatorial Barrier. Wind whipped through the pass, creating an eerie, wavering whistle that also carried the subtle undertones of a crashing sea, although there was no sea nearby. The Avenue here was on two levels, a fairly deep center filled with crystal-blue water that allowed the summer melt to drain off, creating the Quilst swamp far to the south; the bank on either side was wide and smooth, although weather-worn and covered with a fine layer of silt and occasional rocks from the slides. It was quite a natural-looking valley except that the stream ran almost dead straight for the length of the border, more a canal than a river.
The valley ranged from twenty or more kilometers across to less than fifty here at the Borgo Pass. Large rock and mudslides had closed it in over the ages to such an extent that, from a practical standpoint, there was only two-or-three-meters clearance on the Ellerbanta side, even less on the Verion. The walls of the canyon, however, were not sheer and never less sheer than now, at the pass; craggy outcrops every ten or so meters on both sides of the narrow section made ideal emplacements and outposts.
Serge Ortega surveyed the scene from almost ground level with some satisfaction. Things were getting set up pretty good; as darkness fell there was little left to do.
Marquoz walked up to him and looked around, admiringly. “It’s damned good organization,” he told the Ulik. “I’m impressed.”
Ortega turned and gave an odd half-smile. “I am always this way,” he told the Hakazit. “Even more, now, at what might be the climactic point of my life.” He settled back on his huge tail and smiled fully now, eyes looking beyond the other, toward places only he could see. “Consider the life I lived,” he reflected. “It’s been a damned full one, an important one, I think. Rebel, privateer, smuggler, soldier-of-fortune, star pilot—you name it, I’ve done or been it. Then I came here where, in a very short time, I became a politician, then ambassador, statesman, and, ah, world-coordinator. I’ve romanced thousands, drank, fought, generally had one hell of a good time doing it all, too. Now I’m tired and I’m bored. The only thing I haven’t done is die.”
“You picked a hell of an exit,” the Hakazit noted good-naturedly.
“Hah! Think I could end a life like mine rotting away in some retirement home? A nice, peaceful death propped up by some nurses so I could gaze lovingly at the stars? Bullshit on that! No, sir! Never! When I go out it’ll be like Asam. They’ll make up songs about me for generations. The bards will tell the tales by firelight and my enemies and their children and their children’s children shall drink toasts to my glorious memory!”
“And use your memory to scare hundreds of races’ children into being good little kiddies,” Marquoz cracked. “Hell, man, you’ve been around so long they won’t believe you’re dead when they see your body.”