Shadow of the Well of Souls watw-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  How much of that old Terry was still somewhere inside her? Had her essence simply walled off, or had she been reprogrammed beyond any hope of recall? Or was Terry the newswoman somehow still all there and along for the ride? Was her old personality erased or suppressed? Were her old memories gone or modified or merely filed under “old business” somewhere?

  There was a real human being in there somewhere, he was sure of that. The girl who’d made love to him and fought alongside him and who had sent him signals on all those others with whom he’d come into contact was certainly no monster, and even if she had rejected or hadn’t been able to use the sophistication of Ambreza or Hakazit, she’d understood it and coped with it. A savage would have been awed, amazed, confused by high-tech life; a savage would have had to be protected from being run over at the first busy street. She was neither ignorant nor stupid. What she did and what she would not do were conscious decisions to accept or reject, not the products of either upbringing or lack of understanding.

  She manipulated that sailor as coldly as if he were a puppet…And with a coldness he’d never felt inside her before, not really. It was almost as if… as if she were two creatures, both Terry the human and something else. That something else, the coldness, had the power and made the rules, but in exchange it protected her against everything from the elements to sailors with guns, and so long as she followed its rules, then it was the passenger, emerging only as needed. Its control over her was not absolute; she, Terry, had overruled it and opted for his plea for mercy for the man over the other’s computerlike direct and deadly course.

  Not parasitism, then, but symbiosis of some sort. Terry had not been infected; rather, she had made a bargain and now had to live with the consequences.

  If what he’d been told was true, if her news crew had been kidnapped out in the middle of the jungle by some Stone Age tribe of women, then the way Gus said he was treated made one kind of sense. But how did they treat the women they also took? From the pictures and data he’d gotten from Zone, they all looked like they’d walked in out of some cave in the distant past.

  As with most primitive tribes who captured people, the prisoners were given a choice: join, assimilate, or die. All things considered, he’d have signed up if they’d have let him under those circumstances.

  So they had been lost, taken captive, forced to live a Stone Age existence in a hostile jungle they didn’t quite know and thus had become dependent on the tribe for survival—and then they had been translated here.

  Terry hadn’t come with the initial group, and that was a story only she could know. But she’d come before the gate had closed, alone, sneaking in past the monitors, seeing bizarre places and even more bizarre creatures. She’d followed to the Zone Gate and gone through, probably trying to catch her friends, and had wound up in Ambreza stark naked, defenseless, and scared to death. Why she went to Glathriel was another unknowable, but it was not hard to figure. Maybe she just saw some recognizable humans working for the Ambreza and followed them. It would be the natural, cautious choice of a survivor in a horrendous situation ignorant of where she was or what the hell was going on. So she’d gone in, made contact… and then what?

  A bargain. Under the circumstances and considering what she’d just been through, who wouldn’t take such a bargain? As in the jungle, what was the alternative?

  It explained everything—and nothing. A bargain with whom? Or, more properly, what! There weren’t any creatures like that on the Well World. At least no creatures designed and created here. The Well protected them from external influences, anything that would be a contaminant. It couldn’t be an external force; even if it somehow got by the Well, such a thing would have caused the system to summon him long before it got this firmly established. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to the Glathrielians that had made them what they were, was homegrown, of that he was certain.

  “There’s what looks and smells like several kegs of beer, some fresh water, and those charts you wanted,” Gus’s voice suddenly said next to him.

  Brazil jumped and lost the wheel again for a second. Wrestling it back, he yelled, “Now cut that out! You do that one time too often and we are going to capsize!”

  “Hey, sorry! I told you I couldn’t exactly turn it on or off.”

  “Well, make some noise, then! Yell at me as you’re coming up! Something! At least when we’re not in dangerous territory.”

  “Hey, I’ll try, but it’s always turned on. I practically have to shout in your face for you to consciously notice me.”

  And that, of course, was it. Somehow, something inside the Dahir broadcast something that could be received on some mental level by just about every other organic race. Something that made other beings simply not notice them. That was why he’d almost always been able to tell that somebody was there, following him. He could see Gus, would even give way for him, maybe with a “Beg your pardon.” So could the girl; so could everybody else.

  But some signal in the mind said, “Pay no attention to him. Don’t notice him at all. He’s not interesting or important.”

  Gus, he decided, for all his worldly experience and ambitions, was a bit too much the product of his roots to see the real possibilities here. Why, with a little technical help, Brazil thought, the Dahir could become the greatest bank robber in history.

  Still, for all the problems a being he never noticed until it yelled for his attention presented to his nerves and his longstanding paranoia, he was glad to have the big creature along. In one being Gus gave his team physical strength, unparalleled scouting, and spying potential, and most of all, Gus gave him somebody to talk to.

  “How long can you keep this up?” Gus asked him worriedly, watching the small man fighting the wheel and seemingly doing three things at once all the time.

  “Oh, a good while. I’ve had a lot of rest these past several weeks, and I’ve seen worse than this. If I can get us around the storm to where we can use it, you might spell me. Until then you’ll probably have to find me something to serve as a chamber pot before long. Until then, could you get me a tankard or mug or whatever they use of that beer?”

  “Sure. You want some of the bread, too? It’s hard as nails, but it looks edible. At least, I’d have eaten it if I were hungry enough and still my old self.”

  “Yeah, thanks. You didn’t mention the bread. That will help. But make sure those charts don’t blow off anywhere! We’re gonna need them bad as soon as I can get a look at them.”

  “I’ll be sure. I’ll leave them below until you want them. Beats me, though, how they’ll do you much good here. I mean, how the hell do you know where you are now? We could be going in circles for all we know.”

  “No, I’m a better sailor than that. You’re right, though,in the sense that we’ll need to see the sun or stars to get a bearing and figure out exactly where we are. You see that little dome atop the wheel housing?’

  “Uh, yeah, now that you mention it.”

  “Well, that’s the equivalent of a compass here. That bubble is always at true north in this hemisphere. That’s how I know we’re not going in circles. We have been going farther west than I’d planned, but I couldn’t guess at our speed or how far we’ve come, but against this wind it hasn’t been all that much. That’s why I’m trying to get the western edge of the storm. If I can catch it and keep steering forward with the wind at our back, we can hoist some real sail and make good time. Now, how about that beer and bread or whatever it is? And if you can, find me something to sit on!”

  The wind was brisk but behind them, and under nearly full sail they were making excellent time in a north-northwesterly direction. Although he was more than a little hesitant, Gus took the wheel after some basic coaching by Brazil and found that it wasn’t that hard, provided that little changed in the weather conditions and the seas remained fairly steady. Gus still didn’t really want to do it, but he knew that Brazil had been at the wheel and fighting the storm for the better part of a day and into the
night; he had to be totally exhausted.

  Still, the little man hadn’t gone down for a rest yet. He had taken the opportunity to inspect the ship from bow to stern and to inventory the supplies below, but he insisted on remaining near the wheel in case Gus should run into problems and need him in a hurry. Protesting that he was literally “too tired to sleep,” he now used an oil lamp and sat there going over the charts and navigational books about the region.

  Although they were out of the rain, the sky was still completely overcast, and in the darkness the stars could give him no guidance. He knew the bearing they were now on and had a fair estimate of their speed, but the hours of battling the storm itself gave him no clue as to just where on the charts he’d started from. He particularly worried that they might have gone far enough west to cross the Mowry border, though he thought he would have felt the passage through the hex boundary. While that wasn’t in itself a problem, Mowry was a high-tech hex with all the sophisticated technology for locating almost anything on, above, or below its surface, and it was dotted with thousands of small volcanic islands, some of which were submerged and could easily wreck a ship.

  Dlubine suited him far more. While he probably couldn’t outrun a sleek steamer without a wind at least this good if not better, both mass communications and navigation were far more basic. Before he could be caught, they would have to know that it was he and immediately engage the chase.

  Dlubine, too, had a number of islands, both volcanic and coral, but they would be more handy than a threat, or so he hoped. He wasn’t at all sure what the Dlubine looked like, but the chart showed small harbors on some of the islands, indicating that they did a direct trade with surface ships. He was willing to take the risk.

  If Gus could continue to bury his moral qualms, there should be little problem picking up what they needed on one of those. He hoped the natives were at least initially friendly, but that was a secondary concern. First, of course, he had to find them.

  Finally, in spite of everything, he drifted off into a deep, deep sleep.

  When he awoke groggily, feeling as if someone had beaten the hell out of him and he’d just recovered consciousness, he grew suddenly aware that the wind was down and there was direct sunlight hitting his skin. He opened his eyes, and for a moment sheer panic went through him as he saw no one at the wheel.

  “Gus!” he called.

  “Oh, you’re awake,” the gravel-voiced Dahir responded, and in the blink of an eye the huge, colorful snakelike form was there, less steering the ship than kind of leaning lazily on the wheel. “I was thinking of waking you up, considering I haven’t had much rest myself.”

  Nathan Brazil nodded and got painfully to his feet. “God! I need an intravenous coffee transfusion,” he groaned.

  “Sorry. Fresh out. Never touch the stuff myself. You’re stuck with water or beer for breakfast. I used to have a ‘Beer—Breakfast of Champions’ shirt once. Wouldn’t fit now, though, I suppose, and I don’t have much of a taste for beer anymore, either.”

  “Well, let me get some water on my face and see if I can wake up,” the captain moaned. “Then, if you can hold on for another couple of minutes, I want to take some sightings of the sun and get a rough position.” He went over to the small jug that was just where he’d left it in the night and splashed some of the water on his face and neck. It felt warm, but it was better than nothing. “How long was I out?”

  “Can’t say, not having a watch, but the sun’s been up quite a while.”

  Nathan Brazil looked up and took a sight reading. “Um, yeah. Way up. Sun’s not quite over the yardarm, though, so I’ll pass on the beer. Uh, don’t take this personally, but just exactly what the hell do you eat, anyway?”

  “Most anything that won’t eat me, really. Preferably live when I get it, but anything that’s reasonably fresh is okay. Strictly carnivore. These small vampire teeth inject a nasty venom into whatever I want that kind of kills it and then softens it up so it goes down. Not much in the taste business, but if the critter’s big enough, I don’t have to eat or even drink much for days. Don’t worry—I’d eaten just the night before we all scrammed out of Hakazit.”

  Brazil wasn’t all that worried, but he decided for now not to ask what, in high-tech Hakazit, the Dahir had eaten.

  “Have you ever heard of Dlubine?” Nathan Brazil asked the Dahir, changing the subject.

  “No. Sounds like the noise you make when you throw up, sort of. Hell, I’m new here. You’re supposed to be the expert, right? The god of the Well World, or am I being too limited?”

  Brazil chuckled. “No, that’s the reputation but hardly the truth. I’m the genuine handpicked successor to the equally genuine handpicked successor of the creatures that helped build this whole thing. We used to call them Markovians in the old days, a term without meaning now, but if I use it, you should know that’s who I mean. The highest race in all creation, at least as far as there’s any evidence. Got to the point where matter-to-energy and energy-to-matter conversions were old hat. Roamed the whole universe using interdimensional pathways; never needed to take a lot with them because they could have anything they needed by just willing it. They could become anything, too—so close, nobody could tell the difference. Just rearrange the atoms. They knew they were gods, too. And that’s what drove ’em nuts.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, you ever consider the real problem of being a god? No surprises, nothing more to learn, nothing new to discover, everything you ever wanted or needed there at your whim. Not even time has any real meaning to a god, not in the sense that it does to most folks. After a billion years or so things are absolutely the same, nothing to look forward to, just an endless present. Of course, they built this world as the center—the center of the universe, more or less. All their roads led to here, and from here. A whole damned planet-sized master computer that coordinated all the zillions of lesser ones and was the true source of their power. It’s still here, still working, maybe thirty, thirty-five kilometers beneath us now. The whole damned ball except this surface shell is self-repairing, self-maintaining, just going on and on long after there was anybody around who could use its power.”

  Gus was appalled. “You mean they died of boredom?”

  “More or less, I guess. I wasn’t there, but I’ve kind of felt an affinity for them over time. But with me it’s strictly one-way, from the Well to me, not me to the Well. To get in real communication with it and have access to any of its power, I have to be inside, at the controls, in the form of one of the founding race. No other form I know can handle it. A big lump of rubbery brain case with six huge but remarkably sensitive tentacles. You don’t even need eyes or a nose or a mouth or any of that. You’re kind of beyond all that. You don’t just see an object in three dimensions, you see it in all dimensions, and you see it from all angles at once. Things you couldn’t even keep all in your head become so simple and obvious, they don’t even require thought. And what you don’t know, the Well does, and it’s all there and available to you. The powers of God almighty, almost.”

  “I’m surprised that you change back,” the Dahir commented. “Seems to me it’d be kinda hard to give that up, at least until you had your own billion years or so to get bored in.”

  “No, it’s not that simple. Maybe if I was one of them it would be, but I’m not. I have strict limitations on what I can and can’t do. I’ve got the form and the power while I’m in there, yeah, but not the independence. I’m not there to tell the Well what to do, I’m there because the Well needs me to do something it can’t do itself. And when I do it, it wants me out of there, pronto. Back in the tool chest, as it were, until the next time.”

  “But it’s true you can’t be killed?”

  “It’s true. Something, no matter how ridiculous the odds, always comes along to save my ass. Not that I can’t get hurt or have all the other problems that anybody else might have, including all the weaknesses, but no matter what, I’ll survive. The Well manipulates prob
ability so I’m available if needed. You know, I once stood in front of a firing squad, and every damned rifle was defective. I’ve survived massacres, even a crucifixion or so. Even so, I guess I’ve been shot, stabbed, speared, strangled, drowned, you name it, many a time. No matter what, something happens to save me. I will tell you, though, that it’s no fun at all.”

  “Yeah, I can believe that. Still, I’d think you’d be a mass of stumps and scars by now.”

  Nathan Brazil shook his head. “Nope. Every part of me constantly regenerates. Cut off an arm and it’ll hurt like hell, but eventually I’ll grow a new one. Even my brain regenerates, which causes trouble over time. There’s not enough room in there to store or copy all the information you get from living so long. Eventually, things you don’t need or haven’t thought about in a long time just get spooled off, stored by the Well, outside of your head. I don’t know how much I’ve forgotten, but it must be an enormous amount. There were times, I know, when I had no memory of who or what I was at all, until I got manipulated and wound up spending time here. The funny thing is, while I don’t remember those periods all that much, I think of them as the happiest of times. After you live as long as I have, you discover that ignorance really is bliss.”

  “You sound like you’d almost like to join those Ancient Ones,” Gus noted.