Echoes of the Well of Souls watw-1

by Jack L. Chalker

  Even pushing her pace as much as she dared, it took hours to reach that shimmering boundary glimpsed much earlier from the top of the tree. It wasn’t easy to see even in the bright starlight, but she could sense it, almost feel it. And yet it could be seen, for on this side of the barrier things had a brighter, more orderly look, while beyond it things seemed much darker. She had no sense of it as something dangerous or even unusual, but it was unique in her experience, and she could not be absolutely certain that it was safe.

  She approached it cautiously, then stood right up to it, finally putting out a hand to touch it. It radiated warmth and a sense of thicker air, and after hesitating a moment, she thrust her right hand into it.

  It passed through with no resistance, but the feeling on the other side was quite different. Hot and wet were the two impressions that came to mind, and the sense of something striking and tickling her caused her to withdraw the hand. It seemed all right, and when she touched it, the hand was wet; what she’d felt were raindrops.

  Her new self did not react, but her old self caught the immediate sense of incongruity. She looked up—and, to the very boundary itself, the starfield shone in a cloudless sky. Rain? From where?

  Taking in a deep breath, she walked straight through the barrier—feeling a change in environment but no resistance—and into a pitch-dark land of steady, gentle warm rain. The temperature was considerably warmer than it had been on the other side, almost steamy and very reminiscent of the Amazon jungle. The rain, however, was more subdued, which was actually a welcome change from what she’d been used to.

  She turned and stuck her head back through the “barrier.” Although it hadn’t seemed cold to her, the shock of suddenly going, wet-faced, from a steam bath to a spring night made it feel almost frigid. It was fascinating, as if the whole world were one huge house and each “room” in the place had its own weather and climate.

  She withdrew her head. It felt somehow better to be over here, even with the extreme darkness and the rain. She wasn’t certain if this was because of her newfound instincts or because this region was more like the northwest Amazon, but it felt more like, well, home.

  She walked away from the boundary slowly and carefully, almost tripping on wild, junglelike vegetation, until the soft glow coming through from the other side of the barrier was no longer visible. Suppressing as much as possible her feelings of disorientation and fear, she tried to empty her mind, relax, and let that new set of senses take over.

  And slowly, strangely, she began to see her surroundings in a way she’d never seen anything before.

  Ancient trees rose all around her; she saw them as a throbbing, pulsing reddish color, the leaves almost black in the inky darkness. Variations of the same red color also appeared in the bushes, other plants, even mosses, everything alive that was organic, all glowing with the energy of life.

  Other spots glowed yellow and purple and orange. Smaller things mostly, but brighter, often moving either in or on the vegetation or occasionally on the ground or even in the air. The yellows were some form of reptile, perhaps many forms; the purples were small warm-blooded creatures; and the oranges were flitting insects of the night.

  The ground seemed mostly to remain black close by, but not too far off it seemed to shimmer as if something transparent and yet also reflective were on top of it, distorting the colors or auras that she saw clearly above it.

  Water, she realized. Mostly standing water, except for the effect of the raindrops. The vegetation was dense, but it was no jungle, and there were openings among the trees that were not overgrown. Neither was it any sort of farm or orchard as on the other side; it was random, natural… as it should be. It was, she realized, some sort of vast swamp.

  Curious, she closed her eyes for a moment and found that the scene was still there. She moved a little, cautiously, keeping to the “black” areas, and saw that the scene moved with her, changing point of view as if all this were the same as the vision her eyes brought.

  But she was not seeing with her eyes; rather, she was somehow seeing the essence of life in the wild and its reflections in her mind.

  She began to walk slowly but confidently, using the black areas as her guide. Some points were quite small, but overall they seemed to almost form a network of paths through the wilderness, paths taking her through great beauty in a direction that seemed to draw her.

  Navigating by this new second sight also became easier the longer she did it. While it hardly gave full circular vision, it was far superior in some ways to normal sight because it covered a wider area. Several times she was aware of large creatures she took to be snakes of some kind lurking high in the trees; when they watched her, they burned exceptionally bright, and she avoided them. The water was mostly just the reflective sort, but occasionally it, too, would have brightly glowing forms in it. Most of these had pale greenish tinges—fish, perhaps? That was what came to mind. Here and there would be large orange masses, sometimes in the water, sometimes out, and these, too, she quietly avoided while always looking for an unoccupied nearby tree just in case those orange shapes became a bit too interested in her. Once or twice one seemed to do just that, but none of them ever really approached her with any speed, and she never felt in real danger from them.

  It was also getting easier to isolate sounds and smells and associate colors with them. As the night wore on and her journey continued, these supplemental senses and her discriminatory abilities concerning them increased greatly, the data fed and either filed or rejected automatically as it rushed in.

  Crocodiles to the left, thirty feet, floating lazily… Two big snakes above and to the right, neither hungry… Colony of strange birds roosting in the tree to the left…

  At a junction of “paths” she stopped suddenly, catching an odd scent from the ground. She realized suddenly that it was fecal matter of the sort whose smell would have repulsed her even days earlier. Now it was just information. It wasn’t all that fresh, but the odor put a picture in her mind that excited her.

  People!

  Was it just a random dropping, or did it also have another purpose? A territory marker, perhaps, like animals used? Or an indicator of a trail to follow? But if the latter, which direction did it mark to go? Surely, if it was some sort of message as well as a simple call of nature, it meant to go up the path it was on. Having no other road signs to guide her, she went up that path.

  There were more at other junctions, each having a different scent. That meant that these were trail markers, laid out by intelligence, not mere territorial boundaries that would involve the same few people—or so she hoped. Such a system, however primitive or however revolting it might have seemed to “civilized” people, made a lot of sense. Only those who could sense and figure them out would understand their meaning.

  Was this something new, a function of this strange place, or were things like her new mind-sight and such finely honed senses of smell and hearing something all people had once possessed but had somehow lost? The latter seemed more likely; she, after all, was using them, and that meant that they were a natural part of her, perhaps sealed off in that unused part of the brain. Were those untapped parts of the human brain really unused excess capacity, or were they vestigial remains of senses civilization had made unnecessary?

  What other powers might these people possess, these people who were clearly up ahead, clearly at the place where she felt driven to go?

  There was only one good way to find out.

  The Ambrezan came out on the porch and said, “We have just had a report from the capital that a second party has come through the Well.”

  Nathan Brazil took his feet down from the porch railing, slowed his idle rocking in the chair, and took the cigar out of his mouth. “All Glathrielians?” he asked.

  “It seems so. Two males and two females in a single party, and then a third female later, who, it is said, evaded the alarms and security measures and went through without detection.”

  Brazil stop
ped rocking and stood up. “That’s probably the one. No word from anywhere else that a Glathrielian female like myself came through here unaltered?”

  “None, although it’s a big place. If she didn’t want to be found, it is entirely possible that she’s made some sort of deal. Not everyone might advertise as blatantly as you, you know.”

  Nathan Brazil grinned. “You’re just trying to get rid of me. I make you uncomfortable.”

  “No, not at all—”

  “Oh, come on, Hsada! A civilized, talking, technologically sophisticated Glathrielian must awaken ancestral nightmares.”

  The Ambrezan stared at the little man with its big brown eyes outlined by a slight frown. “I never know when you are joking.”

  Brazil chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. As soon as I can link up with her, I’m out of here. Promise. I have friends that are a very long way from here that I promised I’d see, and I already feel guilty I haven’t done it yet.”

  The truth was, he didn’t really want to see either Tony or Anne Marie, even though he wouldn’t mind a trip up that way. He really didn’t want the burden of getting the two of them together as they were now. Deep down, he was hoping that each, being now healthy and hearty, and both, to his relief, in rather comfortable hexes, would use these months to settle in and build new lives and new attachments. It wasn’t as if he’d forced either or both into coming, after all, or as if they wouldn’t be dead by now if they hadn’t chosen to come through, but if ever a match of love and devotion had been made in heaven before, he hadn’t seen it in all his long life. He could, ofcourse, fix them up if he went up to the Well, but he didn’t really want to do that just yet. He felt no sense of urgency, and he wanted to stay here a while and enjoy the difference.

  The Ambreza had not initially been all that thrilled at his appearance, and he knew it—they hadn’t reacted much differently the last time or two, either. But they were civilized in the extreme, suckers for a good story, and, well, he’d been useful to them, working for a few months helping them redesign rather than merely repair and upgrade their failing irrigation system, saving them a lot of investment and foreign involvement. Now he had clothes specially made to his design, some local money, and chits for a decent supply of the prime Ambrezan export, tobacco, with which to make his way anywhere he wanted to go. He lacked only Mavra, and he very much wanted to find her, see her, have things explained to him. It would be like old times, and this time he’d teach her the full operational details of the Well—as soon as he got there and could remember them again—so he might not ever have to carry this burden again.

  He knew that last was selfish, but damn it, it was hard to be all that sentimental toward somebody he could hardly remember and last saw maybe twenty-five hundred years ago.

  Maybe now it was time for a reunion.

  He walked into the house and back to the communications room. The Ambreza had quite a sophisticated setup, able to call just about anywhere they had people in what was now Ambreza, the high-tech hex that very long ago had been the common ancestral home of the Terran races.

  The furniture in an Ambrezan house was not made for his anatomy, but he could make do. He sat at the console and dialed in the communications ministry in the capital city of Khor.

  “Oh, Solomon—yes. The group that came through. We had the ambassador run a systems check for placements, but it was inconclusive. However, we are certain that the last one, the female who didn’t clear entry, came to Glathriel. We registered a surge in section—um—B-14. Yes. Agricultural district up north not far from the border with Glathriel, which is where you’d expect a deposit, matching exactly the time of Zone entry. It’s always easier to track an individual than a group, although this is hardly an everyday thing. In fact, counting you, I can remember no other but this one even in the records.”

  “All right. But she made no contact with the locals?”

  “Not that we can determine. A search of the area using the local manager’s dogs indicated that she went south into Glathriel. Beyond that we can’t say, since it’s too much of a mess in that district to do decent tracking, and frankly, it’s far too much trouble for something that is your business, not ours. As long as she’s gone to Glathriel, she’s not our problem.”

  He frowned. “Gone to Glathriel… Well, I suppose that if she didn’t want a lot of immediate attention, she might head for the coast strip there. I don’t suppose that there’s any word from them.”

  The technician was not terribly patient with this imposition. “Look, Glathriel is a nontech hex. No communication works except the direct kind, and no vehicles work except animal power. The people along there are mostly a religious sect that’s antiprogress, and we and they don’t talk much to one another except when they come south twice a year to sell their crops. It might be weeks, even months before we hear any news from them. I admit that a talking, civilized, and sophisticated Glathrielian might cause quite a stir, even some sort of religious crisis among them, but it’s still not something we’d hear anytime soon.”

  Brazil scratched his chin and thought about it. “I don’t know. If she’s heading toward them, it’ll almost certainly be ones near the border. I suspect we’d hear pretty fast for those very same reasons.” He sighed. “Okay, that’s all you can do now. I’ll take it from here. Thank you very much.”

  “Very well. Out,” the comm tech responded curtly, and switched off.

  Nathan Brazil sat there a moment trying to decide what to do. Finally he got up and went over to a far wall where a map of Ambreza and part of Glathriel was tacked to a cork board.

  B-14… There it was. Not that far from the Ambrezan strip in Glathriel. A country road was marked as heading through the district toward that point, so that was the logical place to start. It looked to be maybe three, four hours drive if he could bum one or a day on horseback if he couldn’t. It was certainly worth getting off his duff and going after her. He had no doubt that it was Mavra Chang; it was inconceivable to him that any of the new entries would wind up Glathrielians. He’d pretty much seen to that long ago.

  He turned and saw Hsada standing there looking sternly at him from the doorway.

  “No, you cannot borrow the car,” the Ambrezan told him flatly. “You will be going into Glathriel, and I would have to send somebody down there and lose a day getting it back. However, delivery trucks go through town all the time, and some may have stops at or near there. I will get someone to drive you in, and from there you can make your own arrangements.”

  Brazil grinned and shrugged. “Good enough. What can I say?”

  “Say good-bye,” responded Hsada. “And don’t forget to settle your rent through today before you leave.”

  It turned out that settling the rent was more of a problem than finding a ride to near the border. Hsada was a very hard bargainer and was more creative in finding extra charges to spring on him than anybody since that lowland Scotswoman at a bed and breakfast about a hundred years ago. Extra sheet charge, indeed.

  There were only five cities plus the capital worth the name in Ambreza, and maybe forty small towns spread all over, but the two basic occupations of those in the country were raising crops for export and truck farming. Over the centuries truck farming had become quite sophisticated, with regular routes and a whole guild of middlemen doing the shipping to and from the markets on a daily basis. Tobacco was grown best in the southeast; the southwest was better suited to longer-growing but high-demand produce like subtropical fruits due not to location but to a strong warm current off the Gulf of Zinjin that came in very close to shore and created a more or less subtropical pocket. This, of course, had been allowed by those who had created the hex; weather and climate were not of the natural sort on this world, but when they saw that the water hex of Flotish had such currents designed in, they simply made use of them.

  By that evening he was within a few kilometers of the plantation nearest the designated spot, and he stayed over with some very surprised and curious farm
supervisors that night so he’d have the full next day for the quest. While the field bosses were somewhat taken aback at a glib Glathrielian wearing clothes and speaking like them, they were suckers for a good set of stories and even worse suckers at cards and dice.

  The next morning he saw the first Glathrielians he’d seen since—well, a very long time ago. He had forgotten their rather exotic “look,” a unique yet homogenized blend of just about every racial type on Earth. Being of a near uniformly brown skin, with a variety of Oriental features yet with brown, black, and reddish hair was only the beginning of it. One could look at anyone and see suggestions of somebody one thought was familiar, yet the entire amalgam was something totally unique.

  This time, though, they also seemed decidedly, well, odd. There was no other way to explain it. True, their tropical hex didn’t really require clothing, but these people wore nothing. Not amulets or paint or markings of any kind, nor earrings, nose rings, bracelets, anklets—nothing at all, men or women. They also seemed to let their hair and, on the men, facial hair as well simply grow. He couldn’t understand why some of them didn’t trip over all that hair or strangle on it. Some of the shorter women seemed to have to wrap it around themselves to keep it from dragging on the ground, and he had never seen men with hair that long. Hair that, oddly, didn’t seem to tangle or get matted. Had he done that? He didn’t remember doing it, but if he’d altered them significantly, the computer would have filled in the logical items which he’d left out but which might be required for some reason.

  Other things also bothered him. Their remarkable silence for one thing. Watching them, it seemed at times as if there was some kind of communication going on, judging from the gestures, the playful actions, the coordination they exhibited, but aside from some grunts and occasional laughter they said nothing.

  He wondered if they were at all aware that they now worked the fields that their distant ancestors had once owned. He watched as they seemed to have some kind of silent prayer vigil before starting to work, then they went to it, picking fruit and stacking it in neat piles every few bushes.