05. Twilight at the Well of Souls - The Legacy of Nathan Brazil Read Online Free Page B

possibilities of instant electrocution should he not meet with the unseen onlooker's approval. He studied that great set of doors now sliding shut behind him. Some kind of detection system there, too, he noted. Probably x-ray, flouroscope, metal detector— the whole works. One thing beyond the power of this Supreme Lord was dead certain: Whoever and whatever he was, he was scared to death.
    Finally he heard a click, as if a speaker had opened, and an electronically colored voice instructed, "You will go to the center of the room, under the large chandelier, and stay very still." The voice held no menace, just a little suspicion. He did as instructed, and was told to move his tail a little this way or that, shift a bit here or there, until he was wondering if he was posing for a magazine layout. Finally the voice said, "That's excellent. Now remain perfectly still. You will not be harmed."
    Suddenly he was engulfed in a series of colored beams, some of which felt oddly hot and irritating. That lasted only a few seconds, but it was damned uncomfortable. Even after they were cut off, he tingled uncomfortably.
    "Now proceed to the door and enter the audience chamber," the voice instructed. He looked around, realizing for the first time that an entire wall was silently sliding away. He shrugged and walked into the smaller chamber, which was spartanly furnished with a few tables, some glasses, and little else. The wall slid shut behind him, and he glanced back at it for a moment. Guards, booby traps, steel doors, wired rooms, sliding walls—what else?
    What else proved to be a flickering in the air opposite him and the rapid fade-in of a figure much like himself, differing mainly in the fact that this newcomer wore a scarlet tunic and cape trimmed in expensive-looking exotic furs. The Supreme Lord, he knew, appearing as some sort of hologram. What kind of paranoia would sterilize somebody against germs when he was only going to meet a projection?
    The Supreme Lord looked him over critically. "Well, I can tell you really are an Entry," the Hakazit leader snorted. "None of the bowing and scraping or inbred social gestures."
    "For a solidograph?" Marquoz retorted.
    The other laughed. "One of my predecessors had people salute his photograph, which was everywhere," he responded. "He didn't last long, needless to say."
    Marquoz studied the image, thinking furiously. "So that's why you take all these precautions? Everybody's out to bump you off?"
    The Supreme Lord roared with laughter. "Now I know you are an Entry!" he laughed. "Such a question! Tell me, how did you come to that conclusion?"
    "Most dictators fear assassination," the Com worlder noted. "It's not unusual, since they hold power by everybody else's fear of them."
    The Supreme Lord stopped laughing and looked at the newcomer with interest. "So you know that this is, in fact, a dictatorship? You're not very much like any Entry I've ever heard of before. No, 'Where am I? What am I doing here?' and all that. That's what's so interesting about you, Marquoz."
    The Entry looked around the room. "Is that why so many security precautions? Because you think there's something funny about me?"
    "Well, no, not really. Not entirely, anyway," the Supreme Lord replied. "Ah, you call Hakazit a dictatorship. In the purest sense of that term I suppose it is. I flip the intercom, dictate an order, and it is unquestioningly carried out no matter how stupid. And yet—-well, Hakazit is also the most democratic nation on the Well World."
    Marquoz's head snapped up. "Huh? How's that?"
    "I am fifty-seven years old," the dictator told him. "Fifty-seven. And do you know how many Supreme Lords there have been in my lifetime? Sixty-seven! And at least one ruled for almost four years. The record according to recent history is nine years, three months, sixteen days, five hours, forty-one minutes. In a history that goes back over a thousand years!"
    Marquoz sighed. "It figures," he muttered. "And that's