She looked over at the bales of strawlike material at the far side of the cabin. She didn’t really feel like eating, but decided he knew best.
The stuff tasted awful, but she found herself unable to stop once she started. Asam chuckled and told her to go ahead. “You don’t realize just how much food we Dillians need a day. Eatin’ regular like we do, that is. When you take it in at one gulp after a few days off, it can seem pretty piggy.”
Piggy wasn’t the word for it, she decided when she was finished. She went through most of a bale, a little at a time, and each bale weighed close to twenty kilos.
Later she did feel better, and managed to find a small mirror. She had double black eyes and felt like she had bitten the inside of her mouth half through, but otherwise the damage didn’t appear all that bad. The wounds on her equine back and side were painful and there was some internal bruising, but there didn’t seem to be serious damage and she felt she could live with them.
Asam, too, was as tough as his reputation. After seeing him in action, she decided she wouldn’t doubt any of his stories and legends again, and she said as much.
He grinned. “You did pretty fair yourself, you know. I don’t know too many folks, man or woman, could hold their own like that.” He looked at her and the grin faded, but only a bit. “You know, you asked me once whose side I was on. After this, you don’t have to ask any more. You understand? And not just me. Those fools did half the work for you. They slaughtered innocent Dillians in cold blood, Dillians with no politics, no positions, just good, ordinary people. I know my people, Mavra. They’ll want to get even.” He paused and smiled broadly once again. “And as for me, I’ve gotten to know you and see you in a number of different situations. I’d be proud to serve with you, any time.”
She smiled, took his hand, and squeezed it. She felt like hugging the old adventurer, but they were both too bruised for that. Still, she thought back to that dream, that bastard child of her innermost mind that had been raised by the sapper. She wished she was as certain of her side and her cause as he now seemed to be.
“So what do we do now?” he asked her. “I wouldn’t stay here much longer, if you feel like moving. There’s always the chance that they had somebody as observer, or maybe agents in Dillia will carry the news. Either way, they hit us again here as soon as they can mount another force. I’ve been uncomfortable with the idea for the past couple of days. How do you feel?”
“Lousy,” she replied glumly. “Still, what are the options?” She looked at the cabin, which had become such a hospital ward.
“We can wait for the rescue party. They should be here in the next few hours if luck holds. Remember, they had nobody to send without leavin’ Uptake without its one good healer. Probably a good, strong team came in on today’s boat or on a special and they’re on their way even now. They’d need supporting equipment, anyway, which would slow them down.”
Going back. She wanted to go back, back to the peaceful village with its ale and companionship and gentle waterfalls.
“If anybody wants to make a try at us, that’ll be the time to do it,” she pointed out. “And any observer will have a pretty good description of me now.”
“The only alternative is for us to press on,” he pointed out. “And neither of us is strong enough to carry a full load or force-march. In a few days, yes, but not now. You’re still pretty rocky, and the trail gets pretty hairy from here on.”
She went over to the table Asam had been standing at when she had come out of it. Spread out was a chart of Gedemondas, a topographic map with trails, shelters, and cabins marked. It was easy to find where they were now, the first cabin above the snow line. She studied the map, and he came over and looked over her shoulder.
“What’re you lookin’ for?” he asked.
“A collapsed volcano,” she replied. “A huge crater of some kind, high up, surrounded by high mountains.”
“Most of Gedemondas is volcanic,” he noted. “Active, too, a lot of ’em. Not very dangerous, for the most part—you could outrun a lava flow if you had to. Some of the big ones puff a lot, though.”
She nodded. “The Gedemondans live in volcanic chambers and use interconnecting lava tubes to get around beneath the surface. The network is fantastic and complex. They also use the volcanic steam for heat and primitive power—even though this is a non-tech hex, they have natural, rather than machine-generated, steam combustion. It’s comfortably warm in there, too.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Steam power? And what do they use it for?”
“I have no idea,” she told him honestly. “We heard what could have been the turning of gears and levers for some great machine, and we got the idea that there were lots of things going on there we never knew about, but we saw only what they showed us—and I was in a worse position than most to be observant. I think all the entrances are farther in, though, in the high country.”
“On some of the old and little-used trails, maybe?”
She shook her head negatively. “Uh uh. It doesn’t matter where—might as well be comfortable. We just need to be higher…” Her voice trailed off as she continued to look at the map, settling on an odd set of concentric rings, like tree rings, and an open area in the middle. “In that direction,” she told him, pointing to it. “I know they have openings into that crater from their main complex.”
He looked at the spot. “Or did have, centuries ago,” he half-muttered, worriedly.
“We go there. Easy stages. You game?”
He grinned. “You know I am. But, like it or not, I think we ought to leave tomorrow morning, not right now. We need the extra rest and healing”—she knew he referred to her—“and we ought to make sure these folks get back—at least wait for the rescue party.”
She didn’t really want to, but her head was throbbing and she felt very weak and tired. “All right, Asam. In the morning.”
Although the trail was firm and well-marked, it was not easy going for either of them. The wind cut into them, and even the reduced packs seemed to shift onto every cut and bruise. Asam, as befitted his character in more ways than one, grimaced occasionally but never complained, nor did she. Still, dark thoughts pervaded their climb, mostly her own self-doubts about what she was doing. Was she, in fact, on the right side? Not that she should be on the Well’s side, but why should she be on any side?
She knew the answer to that, of course. Brazil had refused to fix the Well unless she was there, unless she specifically ordered it. She wondered who would give the order if she were killed in this crazy battle of wits. Maybe nobody. Maybe he would just go into the Well, put himself back in the regular universe in whatever place he liked, and sit back and wait for eventual destruction. The responsibility was hers, not his. He had as much as said so.
Well, she hadn’t asked for that responsibility, she told herself, and didn’t want it. It wasn’t fair. Nothing in her whole damned life had ever been fair, but at least she had been the mistress of it. Now they had even taken that away from her.
There were doubts, too, about her part in it all. She was to establish herself in her hex and wait for instructions. That had been all they had told her—that and the fact that the Entries would eventually rally around her, form up into a multiracial fighting force, one of several that would, on signal, converge on a single spot and combine into a mighty army, perhaps the greatest the Well World had ever seen: an army fed and supplied by other hexes as it marched, by other Entries and diplomatic friends who would, it was presumed, be there always with whatever was needed. It sounded pretty damned chancy.
And yet, if Asam were right, Dillia would follow her. Right now they would follow—not all, of course, but enough for a substantial force. That was all she had been asked to do. Why was she in Gedemondas? A hunch? Or was it, she wondered, her subconscious self’s desire to throw enough of a joker into the deck that she could, as usual, be more in command?