Exiles at the Well of Souls wos-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  Trelig liked him. If he were representative of this hex’s people, he would not find life unbearable.

  “No,” he chuckled. “I haven’t seen any Entries. Have you? Ever, I mean?”

  The grouch shook his head slightly as a negative. “Nope. And never will, either. Met one, once, a long time ago. Big, nasty-looking birdlike reptile from Cebu. Kind of a local celebrity for a while. Big deal.”

  Trelig was relieved to hear that Entries weren’t boiled in oil or something, but the official notice that the man had received said that this was no ordinary case. Somehow, he decided, they were on to him. At least, he had to act that way. And he wanted to check out the lay of this new land before revealing himself, if he could. It might be easier than he’d thought, considering how automatically he was acting and how readily this man had accepted him. He hoped so.

  “Been traveling far?” the man asked him.

  Trelig nodded. Farther than this creature could imagine.

  “Headin’ for Druhon for the government tests, I’ll bet,” the frog-man guessed.

  “Yes, you guessed it exactly,” Trelig replied. “I’ve thought of nothing else since”—he started to say “since I got here” but caught himself—“I was very small,” he finished. “At least it’ll give me a chance to see the government in action, no matter what.”

  That started the other off again. “The government inaction is what you’ll see, but that’s the future for you. Shoulda done it myself when I was young. But, no, I had to get into farming. Free and independent, I said. No bosses.” He let out an angry, snakelike hiss. “So you wind up being run by the government, bossed by the government, taxes and regulations, regulations and taxes. Some freedom!”

  Trelig clucked sympathetically. “I understand you perfectly.” He looked around, as if sensing time was pressing and he had an appointment. “Well, it was nice talking to you, and I wish you better luck and much prosperity in the future, but I must be getting on.”

  The man seemed to appreciate the nice comments. “Been a pleasure, really. Sure you won’t come in for a drink of good beer? It’s only an hour or two more to Druhon.”

  Thatwas good news. His cup was running over today. “Thank you, no,” he replied. “I must be in the city. But I’ll remember you, sir, when I’m rich and powerful.”

  “You do that, sonny,” the other chuckled. Trelig went on.

  He wondered as he continued what the old man had farmed; there was no sign of fields or cultivation of any kind. Best not to ask and appear too ignorant, particularly with a wanted poster out.

  There was also the matter of money. He saw a number of the creatures as he went on, living together in groups or singly, on the ground, in trees, and even some floating dwellings in the countless lakes and marshes. All wore no clothing of any kind, and he wondered where you’d put money if you had it. He worried that there was some sort of identity system that would unmask him. But, no, he told himself, technology was obviously primitive here. There were torch stands all over, but not a sign of a powered light or device. Besides, if they had such a system they wouldn’t bother sending out all those wanted circulars on him.

  More confident and proficient now, he stopped and talked to several others along the way. They were mostly plain, simple creatures, close to the soil. Females were slightly smaller and had smoother top skin than the males, their voices slightly higher and smoother, but they were otherwise identical. He was a male; their comments told him that, even without the skin-texture difference, he was a young one at that. That made the first few days easier. He was expected to be curious and not expected to know anything.

  But he learned. A casual reference told him that the country, the hex, was called Makiem, as were the people. It was a common, although not universal, practice on the Well World to have the race name and place name coincide. He learned, too, that it was a hereditary monarchy—which was bad. But the hex was administered by a large corps of civil servants, chosen by merit of brilliance and aptitude through a massive battery of tests, from those of every class and walk of society—which was good. That meant that the king of Makiem would listen to and take seriously advice from anyone he considered qualified, thus decisions were almost certainly made not by the royal family but by an individual or council who would be the best, greediest, most ambitious and able people in the country.

  His kind of people.

  Druhon, the capital city, was a surprise. First, it was huge—a great city, really, carved out of the jungle and sitting on a series of low hills that raised it slightly above the swamp. There was a broad, clear lake off to the west, and it was crowded with swimmers. Trelig had been feeling slightly itchy and uncomfortable; now he guessed the reason. Although these were land people, they stayed very close to the sea that gave them birth, and they had to return to it occasionally to wet down their skins. Once a day, probably, although in all likelihood a washdown with a hose would do as well.

  Another surprise was the buildings themselves. Great castles and huge buildings of stone showing superior masonry skills, and homes and businesses built of good handmade brick mortared so well that nothing would get through them. Heavy wooden doors also showed great craftsmanship, and figures of brass and iron on gates, fences, and doors were evidence of a fine artistic skill. Considering that this was obviously a nontechnological hex, these people had developed a really surprising, modern culture. His estimation of them, and his optimism, went up accordingly.

  There was still the problem of money. He walked the streets filled with stalls outside the places of business, with great frog businessmen and women hawking their wares and calling and cajoling customers. And money they did have and did carry. Watching the Makiem buying at the stalls, he saw that they carried everything they needed or used in their mouths—the lower jaw area was flexible, roomy, and, when he tested it with his own hand, had a thin, rigid flap controlled by a small muscle in the back of the throat. Evolution had obviously placed it there to store food for long periods. Civilization had given rise to more practical and cosmopolitan uses. The flap on the outside contained enough folded skin that one might not notice it, but occasionally people went by who looked like they had goiters. Trelig finally understood that it wasn’t because of physiological differences but because they had a lot to carry.

  The sights and smells of the city also excited him. They were strange smells, odors that his former self perhaps would have found foul or offensive, but they smelled wondrous and sweet and new to him now.

  And there were the tattoos, mysterious symbols drawn by some device on the underbelly. Not everybody had them—most of the farmers he had met didn’t—but a lot of people here did. They were symbols of authority, he surmised. Policemen, perhaps, and government officials. Somehow he’d have to find out what all those things meant.

  The police, who were his first worry, were easiest to identify. He didn’t know just how many people lived in this city, but it was easily a quarter-million, most residing in four-storey brick apartments entered by walking up the walls. That created pedestrian traffic jams. He saw carts, lots of them, moving goods from one place to another, pulled by giant insects, larger than a Makiem, that looked a lot like walking grasshoppers. All this meant traffic control, and so there were traffic cops.

  He checked out several, looking particularly at the big symbol on their chests—a sort of double wheel with two diagonal crossbars. To be safe, he decided to act as if a double wheel with any crossbars was a cop.

  The city’s size and complexity gave him no small measure of anonymity; he was just one of the crowd. It suited him for a while, although shelter would have to be attended to, and sooner or later he’d have to face the problem of money and food—there were no big, fat insects or groves around here. He’d never stolen anything small, but it shouldn’t be all that hard.

  He checked out the massive stone buildings with the towers and the flags. Government buildings without a doubt, the largest of which, with a tremendous amount of impre
ssive brass grillwork and high iron spiked gates to snare the unwary intruder, was obviously the royal palace. At the gate there were guards armed with vicious-looking crossbows and pikes, and an impossibly complex symbol on their chests matched the ones wrought in iron at regular intervals in the fence.

  The royal symbol, obviously. He was learning fast.

  The itching was getting to him. His skin felt dry and uncomfortable, almost as if it was ready to peel off. He decided to head down to the big lake. It was a beautiful setting, particularly against the waning sun. A sparkling lake, fresh and surprisingly clean considering the nearby population, dotted with myriad islands and flanked by small but imposing granite mountains.

  The lake was somewhat crowded, but not enough to cause real problems. He slipped into the water with ease, and found it surprisingly cold. The chill lasted for only a few moments, however, and then, somehow, the water temperature seemed to rise until it was just perfect. Cold-blooded, he decided. It wasn’t the water temperature that had risen, but his body temperature that had lowered to match the water.

  Swimming was as easy as leaping had been. His rear legs, large and thickly webbed, propelled him, and he floated naturally across the top of the lake. This, however, didn’t get rid of the itch on his back, and when he got out a ways he angled downward.

  A strange thing happened suddenly. A membrane came down over his eyes, transparent as glass, yet totally protective. And too, his vision seemed to alter, becoming less depth- and color-sensitive but tremendously respondent to changes in light and dark. His nose also seemed to close off by internal flaps, but he experienced no discomfort from not breathing. He wondered how long he could stay under; quite some time, he thought, and decided to test it.

  The longer he stayed down, the less he seemed to mind it. He had the uncanny sensation that he was breathing, slightly and shallowly, although there were no bubbles. No gills, either. He finally decided that something in his skin could absorb a certain amount of oxygen from the water. It was not, as he found out with time, enough for him to live underwater, but it was sufficient for him to stay down at least half an hour, perhaps much longer, before coming up for air.

  He came up near one of the islands and looked around. The water felt soothing and comfortable. Lazily, he turned and looked back at the hilly city. It was getting dark, and lights were coming on—and not just torchlights, either, although there were plenty of those. No, those strange glass streetlights he’d seen were what he guessed they might be—gas lamps. These people were at the peak of their technological limits.

  The great palace, on the highest bill, was illuminated by torches and multicolored gas lamps almost completely. It had a fairy-tale look to it, an air of unreality that, he suspected, was deliberate.

  Reluctantly, he headed back toward shore. Hunger was starting to creep into him, and there was much to do. He made shore swiftly, experiencing the slight shock of getting out of the water into what felt, curiously, like almost oppressively hot, thick air. His body adjusted to it in moments, though, and he went on.

  He first looked for the inevitable low-dive district common to all big cities, but, after much searching, he had to admit defeat. A lot of neighborhood bars, with big frogs reclining on form-fitting cushions so they almost sat up like humans, gulping beers and other spirits from enormously wide glasses with narrow stems. The glasses had one gentle flat side, and you drank by putting it to your mouth and raising the glass while throwing your head slightly back.

  No dives, though.

  What was missing, he decided, was sex. They just didn’t seem to engage in it or be motivated by it. No romantic couples, no advances—lots of friendly groups, mixed and not, but nothing at all sexual. Even he, a mature and young Makiem, had felt nothing particularly inside him when near any of the females. Only the Comworlds where cloning was the norm and everyone was an identical neuter approached the sexlessness of this society, yet there were clearly two distinct sexes. It was a puzzle for later.

  In his wanderings, he found that he had waited too long. The streets were brightly lit; so were the apartments, with some people relaxing on the street outside, others in their open doorways or, from the sounds, on the roofs. There were regular beat patrolmen, too.

  He decided to head toward the outskirts of the city, the direction from which he’d come. Maybe something would present itself; if it didn’t, well, he could always go back to that glade where he woke up and chance that, if, as was likely, it was somebody’s property, he could use it as a base temporarily.

  * * *

  The female Makiem at first seemed almost heaven-sent. She was obviously well-off, perhaps a farmer just in the city for the evening. No tattoo. And young and very small.

  And drunk out of her mind.

  She couldn’t hop; she could barely crawl, mumbling something to herself or perhaps singing although so badly and distorted that it sounded like the rumbling and croaking it was even to Trelig. She tried one last hop, fell flat on her face, and rolled over into a ditch. A nice, dark drainage ditch.

  “Oh, shit!” he heard her exclaim loudly. Then, a few seconds later, he heard tremendous snoring. She had passed out in the culvert.

  He bounded over to her. His night vision was about the same as it had been as a human, and so, though it was dark and shadowy—and mucky—it wasn’t a helpless situation.

  She was lying on her back, big bow-legs outstretched. He took a moment to study her. He’d discovered, by necessity and experience, how a Makiem went to the bathroom and where, but by no stretch of the imagination could that apparatus be sexual. There wasn’t much of a clue with her, either. A fine little puzzle, he thought sardonically. I know most of what it’s like to be a Makiem except the facts of life. He turned to other, more pressing matters. He carefully felt her jaw-pouch; it definitely had something in it, perhaps a moneybag. He hesitated an instant, then shook her. She didn’t wake up, didn’t even react. He shook her harder. Still nothing.

  Satisfied that she was dead to the world, he leaned over and tried to pry her mouth open.

  And tried. And tried.

  It was shut as tightly as if it were welded in place.

  He was about to give up when she gave a great snore, and the mouth opened a bit as she turned slightly on her side. Carefully, he reached inside—and felt a smooth, bone-hard plate that fit so exactly he couldn’t even get a grip on it. And then the mouth shut. She didn’t wake up, it just shut, right on his hand. He tried to pull it free, and couldn’t. He spent the better part of half an hour trying to get his hand out. She turned more, almost pulling him on top of her, but he couldn’t remove that hand.

  He was almost in a panic, particularly when her ribbonlike tongue came over to explore the object. He felt its stickiness and felt it wrap around his hand, wondering what he could do. There were no teeth in the front part of the jaw, but there were three rows not far back. If the tongue pulled his hand just a little bit more…! Then, mercifully, the tongue recoiled and her mouth opened. She let out a nasty hiss and turned some more. He almost fell backward into the ditch and cursed softly to himself, nursing his hand, which was now feeling bruised. She must not have liked the taste, he decided with thanks. He sighed, knowing now that personal robbery here, unless it was armed robbery, was pretty near impossible.

  He thought things over. He could drift for a while, make do, but only as a beggar and a fugitive. Force was out; he didn’t know how to fight as a Makiem, and they’d probably beat the shit out of him. Furthermore, he would not be able to enter Makiem society at his own pleasure.

  The only thing left to do was to turn himself in.

  * * *

  The guards looked bored. They sat there, motionless except for an occasional blink, as only reptiles could—but they were very much awake. Eyes were on him as he approached, and the crossbows were armed and cocked in their hands. Still, they looked like nothing so much as statues.

  He marched up to one. “Pardon me, sir, but is this the royal palac
e?” he asked pleasantly. He had no desire to fall into the hands of local police or lower-level bureaucrats.

  The guard stood still, but his eyes gave the newcomer a once-over that could almost be felt. The guard’s mouth didn’t move, showing once again that the sound-producing apparatus was elsewhere, but he said, “Go away, farmboy. No visitors except on Shrivedays.”

  “It is the palace, though?” he persisted.

  “Naw, it’s the headquarters of the limbush-producers union,” the guard responded sarcastically. “Now, go away before you get hurt.”

  Trelig decided on another tack. He took a deep breath. “Are you still looking for any Entries like the circulars said?” he asked casually.

  The guard’s eyes lit up with renewed interest. “You know of an Entry in Makiem?” The question was sharp, businesslike, but interested.

  “I do,” Trelig told him. “Who do I talk to about it?”

  “Me,” the guard replied. “If I like what you say, I’ll pass it on.”

  Like fun you would, Trelig thought. Only if there was something in it for you. “All right then,” he said flatly, resigned. “If you’re not interested then…” He turned to leave.

  “Hold it!” called a different voice, perhaps the other guard. The tone was commanding, and Trelig froze, smiling inwardly.

  “If somebody else gets it, and it is an Entry, it’ll be our skins,” the new voice pointed out. “Better we should take him to the old man.”

  “Oh, all right,” grumbled the first. “I’ll do it. But what’s in it for us?”

  “I know what we’re in for if he’s okay and we blow it,” the other responded. “Go on.”

  Trelig turned back around. “Come on, you. Follow me,” the first guard mumbled resignedly, and came to life, turning and slow-hopping with short motions up the brick-paved walkway. Trelig followed, feeling better. If, as Ortega had said, all the races of this universe—and this world—including humanity had sprung from a single source, all the races so created would have certain things in common reflecting their creators. Human nature was Antor Trelig’s life and profession, and it didn’t matter to him what form that human took.