Quest for the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  The large room prepared for them was extremely comfortable; rugs and drapes had been hung to mask its glassy structure, and quantities of provisions suitable for all their needs were neatly arranged. Only an occasional hiss from the pressurization system reminded them that this was a sealed room, and that here alone the atmosphere and pressure—a compromise of their respective hexes—were made sufficient for them to live without suits.

  After Wooley and the Torshind had removed her suit, Mavra groaned. "I could sleep for a week," she told them. There were muttered assents.

  Wooley managed to shake herself out of her stupor to inspect some of the leatherlike pouches. With mittenlike hands on her tentacles, she opened one, pulled out a large folding map, and spread it out on the floor. The others gathered around, and the Torshind took the floor.

  "First of all, we have designed the breathing apparatus to work in semi- as well as high-tech hexes," it began. "That's fine—but no amount of storage will get you through even a full hex side of a nontech hex. There you would have perhaps eight hours at best. This means avoiding such hexes." It pointed a glassy tentacle at the map. "As you can see, we are only four hexes from Bozog, three from Uchjin. A direct route from here avoiding nontech hexes would be across Masjenada into Poorgl, then through Uborsk to Bozog. However, the Poorgl are not cooperative. They have refused us permission to cross and promised attacks if we try—and as a high-tech hex it's almost impossible to get by them for the distance we have to go. That means an indirect route."

  The tendril shifted to the northwest. "Masjenada is easy and helpful; my people and theirs have not exactly been friends, but we have so little in common that we are not enemies, either. They value certain minerals as luxury goods, and my people were in a position to supply them from the South, thanks to the Yaxa. The Yaxa themselves have been helpful in dealing with Oyakot, which otherwise would never aid someone of Yugash. Pugeesh is an unknown quantity. We will have to tread carefully there, and we'll have to do things ourselves. Wohafa will aid us because they are friendly with the Bozog, and while Uborsk can't really help tremendously, they'll do what they can. Thus, it should be a fairly easy journey."

  "Too easy," responded Ben Yulin, worried. "I can't help but think there's a joker in this deck somewhere."

  "The distance is great," Wooley admitted, "and parts of it will not be easy, but it's the best route."

  "What about the other party?" the Dasheen bull persisted, feeling ever more pessimistic as he looked at the distances involved.

  "Ortega has his own friends among the Yugash," the Torshind replied. "We can not stop them here. But they will be at least a day behind us, and may well decide on a different route. If not, we will have to plan a surprise for them."

  They understood what that meant. In totally unfamiliar terrain, with only the suits to protect them and the supplies to maintain them, both parties were extremely vulnerable. If one could surprise the other, there would be big problems for the defender. The suits were tough, but even in a semitech hex a bullet—even an arrow—might do the job.

  Mavra filed that information in her mind for later. There was nothing she could do now, and she felt little loyalty to either side as long as she got to the ship. She would not like someone she knew, such as Renard or Vistaru, to be killed—but where had they been for the last twenty-two years? Did she have any more responsibility toward them than they had felt to her?

  In the meantime, she would be totally dependent on these people for survival, and self-preservation was always the first priority.

  Yugash, then Masjenada

  Small figures traversed an eerie landscape; bleak gray-black rocks rose all around, and they made their way in, out, and around the jagged forms like ants in a granite quarry.

  There were seven in the party: two Makiem frogs in stark white spacesuits; a small Agitar in a transparent, form-fitting model; a Lata wearing a suit of her people's design; two large Dillians—a male and a female—heavy-laden, with packs on their backs and pulling a wheeled wagon with more supplies; and the crystalline crab in which the mysterious Ghiskind rode.

  "How much of a start do they have on us?" Renard asked.

  "About six hours," the Ghiskind replied. "Not very much, but they are traveling lighter than we—we have only two resupply points, where they have five."

  "Then they'll certainly beat us," Vistaru said unhappily. "Every hour they'll get farther ahead."

  "Not necessarily," the Ghiskind told her. "We have advantages in travel they do not. My own company has established some better relations than the Torshind's ilk could, and Ortega has been skillful as well. I think we have a good chance. The main danger is our running into them. We will have to be prepared for a trap."

  The Lata sighed. "I wish I could fly. It would make things so much easier." As it was, she was too small to keep pace, and so rode atop the supply cart.

  The Dillians, Makorix and Faal, a male and a female who were married in the manner of their people, pulled the loads effortlessly and without complaint. Yugash had a slightly lower gravity than Dillia, which helped considerably, although they dreaded the idea that one or more of the places ahead might be just the reverse.

  "How much longer before we reach the border?" Makorix asked the Yugash.

  "Not long," the Ghiskind replied. "Just over the next rise."

  Renard looked around dubiously. "Nice place for an ambush right here," he noted. Antor Trelig, peering around with his great independent chameleon's eyes, nodded in nervous agreement.

  "They won't dare do anything in Yugash," the Ghiskind assured them. "The cult is not strong here anymore, and my own people have been with us, unseen, as guards and preparers. They know our strength, and they also know they'd face an attack on their main temple if they tried anything. No, an ambush won't happen here. And we'll outflank them in Masjenada, I think. If we don't jump ahead of them then, at least we won't run into them. The best place would probably be Pugeesh, about which we have been able to learn next to nothing. But—wait a minute! There! You can see the border now!"

  They crested the hill. Although all on the Well World were used to sudden changes at hex borders, this one was more stunning than usual.

  The dark bleakness of Yugash ran to that intangible line, and across from it the horizon exploded in light and color. The ground itself was ablaze with glowing light, iridescent yellows and greens and oranges that seemed to have a life of their own, and was dotted with thick pale-red plants, like exotic coral, all over the rolling plains. The sky was a bright green with clouds of wispy brown and seemed to reflect some of the colors radiating from the ground.

  "Masjenada," the Ghiskind announced. "Do you see that outcrop of rock over to the left? That's our rendezvous."

  They headed for it. As they crossed the border in their protective pressure suits, there was a slight gravitational adjustment downward to perhaps .8 Well World average, giving them additional quickness and buoyancy.

  The plants proved as rock-hard as they looked, and the expedition avoided them as much as possible, for some of their growths were sharp and might puncture a suit. They reached the barren rock outcrop shortly, and the two Dillians unhitched the wagon.

  Various supplies were unpacked, food and water cartridges were checked and changed if necessary. The rebreathers continued working normally; their action was primarily chemical, but the apparatus also had small power-storage cells that somehow worked within the semitech limitations.

  Trelig and Burodir did little to help in the operation; they sat patiently and seemed to accept being waited upon as their due. Though this irritated the others more than a little, they could do nothing but grumble. Trelig was in the driver's seat and he knew it.

  They didn't have long to wait for contact.

  The Masjenadans were definitely unusual. Several were soon seen flying nearby; then a small number circled around, finally approaching slowly and circuitously. Resembling the kind of swan a master glass blower would create, but three meter
s long and of a transparent material that caught and reflected the predominant colors like small starbursts, the creatures appeared to have no functional neck or head, nor legs. They were stylized crystalline forms flying effortlessly on nearly invisible wings.

  The team watched them in fascination. Renard gasped as two of the creatures headed right at each other. "They're going to crash!" he yelled, and stood up.

  But the Masjenadans didn't crash. They met and seemed to pass right through each other as if neither were aware of the other's existence—as if both were made of air.

  "How the hell . . . ?" Trelig managed.

  "I'm afraid they exist in a few planes more than we do," the Ghiskind explained. "I'm not certain I understand it. But they fly through each other all the time with no ill effect—and they can combine, too."

  "What are they? Gas bubbles?" Vistaru shook her head.

  "We're not sure what they are," the Ghiskind admitted. "One thing is for sure—they have mass, and all that implies."

  The Masjenadans who'd flown through each other settled a few centimeters above the ground just before their visitors.

  The Ghiskind approached to within a few meters of them. "The Lata hate snakes," it said mysteriously.

  A bright yellow light suddenly glowed inside one of the creatures. "Unless the snake is a Lata," responded the creature, in a voice thin, high-pitched, and somewhat reverberant.

  The sign and countersign properly given, the group relaxed. "I am the Ghiskind of Yugash," the crystal form resonated. "These are Antor Trelig and Burodir of Makiem, Makorix and Faal of Dillia, Vistaru of Lata, and Roget of Agitar," it introduced, using Renard's alias, "all of the South."

  The Masjenadans' bodies turned slightly, apparently to survey the others.

  "We have just signaled others," the one glowing yellow said. "In a few minutes we'll have everything we need here. It is possible that we can transport you across in a day, a bit more at the most."

  That was good news to all of them.

  "What about the other party?" Burodir asked them. "Any word?"

  The light went out for a moment, then returned. "They crossed well north of here," the Masjenadan replied. "They, too, are using friends to fly them. We would think we will maintain about the same distance, about a half-day's walking."

  "Anything more about Pugeesh?" Renard asked worriedly.

  "You will receive better information in Oyakot," the swan replied. "We know little."

  They paused for a few moments. Suddenly the air was filled with glittering Masjenadans. The strange creatures began to fly into one another, weaving back and forth, into, through, and between one another in an intricate pattern. As they did, things started to happen.

  First, each pass-through seemed to generate a long strand of glassy rope. The patterns became more intricate, and they wove the stiff substance into a single fabric, like a great net.

  "Where does all that stuff come from?" Vistaru wondered aloud.

  "From them, I think," the Ghiskind responded. "Parts of their bodies. Remember, in the North things might be totally different from one hex to another. Not merely different varieties of life, but different kinds entirely—one totally alien to the other. Yugash has bordered here since Midnight at the Well of Souls, yet we have no better notion of what they do, why they do it, or how they do it than at the start."

  The eerie aerial ballet was completed now and a great woven structure that seemed to have real flex was the result. The Ghiskind was right: the construction seemed actually to be a part of the creatures, attached to them.

  Now swans not connected to the net looped and flew and crashed into each other—only this time they did not reappear on the other side, rather they merged into each other, into single Masjenadans twice the bulk of the original. These then repeated the process with other combined creatures, until eight huge swans perhaps twelve meters in length almost covered the group. These fanned out and paired on either side of the netting, flowing a bit into the webbing but not into the still normal-size creatures attached, and lowered the whole thing to the ground.

  The travelers were a bit awed by all this, and it took the Ghiskind to snap them out of it.

  "Let's get the equipment onto the net!" it ordered, and after a few moments they started, first rolling the cart on, then the loose packs. Finally they spread a huge skin rug to the rear and another forward, with the freight between. Some experiments with balancing freight and people were needed, but after a few false starts they had it.

  Vistaru was nervous about the spartan accommodations. "Shouldn't we all have seat belts or something?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Just relax," the Ghiskind said. "You will see that this is not as bad as it looks. Just keep from the edges and maintain the balance."

  Before any of them could reply, the assembly took off. It was an odd sensation—no jerk, no sense of acceleration, as if they had suddenly become weightless and floated off. Only the eight huge Masjenadans, whose wings overshadowed them all, and the dozens of smaller ones expended any energy, their wings moving slightly up and down in graceful unison.

  They were over a thousand meters off the ground before they knew it, and the land opened up beneath them.

  Masjenada from the air looked like a rough, rocky canvas on which millions of gallons of luminescent paint had been spilled. It was a stunning vista, particularly when contrasted with the drab darkness of Yugash behind them or the sickly yellow atmosphere and dark-blue carpet of the nontech Zidur to their right.

  Although there was an uncanny lack of any sense of motion, the ground below had changed every time they looked.

  Hours passed, vistas changed, a low mountain range was crossed effortlessly, and their only problem was arranging the slight shifts in load necessary when one or another of the passengers moved.

  The sun dipped below the horizon and slowly faded, but their mysterious and enigmatic transporters carried on. By night the countryside was even more aglow in eerie beauty, and the swans added a ghostly radiance.

  Renard looked around at them in wonder. "Don't they ever get tired?" he wondered.

  "Or hungry?" Faal joined in, chomping on a thick material that oozed from a thick tube.

  But there was no answer.

  "What do they trade with the South?" Vistaru asked the Ghiskind, looking for a clue as to the mysterious swans' lives.

  "Copper and coral, mostly," the Yugash answered. "What they do with it is anybody's guess. There is no oxygen here for combustion. Maybe they eat it."

  The Masjenadans provided no information, so it was the best guess that could be made.

  They slept, more from boredom than fatigue. Dawn broke again, flooding the landscape with new light.

  * * *

  Ahead was a hex border, that was clear. They had been paralleling it for some time, but now before them a three-point junction appeared.

  "That should be Avigloa on our left." The Ghiskind pointed. "Oyakot ahead and to the right. We should be landing soon."

  High mountains filled the skies in both hexes and even below them in Masjenada; indicators in the suits showed the temperature to be extremely low, as cold as eighty below, Celsius. Only the internal heaters of the suits kept the travelers comfortable.

  They descended a little to land on a small plateau. Opposite, Oyakot presented a chilling vista: the snow was oddly colored and definitely not water of any sort, the rocks eroded into strange shapes.

  The set-down was gentle, the unloading easy and quick. They watched them as a new ballet was performed; reversing the original dance the large Masjenadans produced smaller creatures, gathering up the net into their bodies.

  All but two of the creatures immediately flew in the direction from which they had come.

  The remaining swans floated near, and one turned its internal yellow light on again.

  "We wish you good fortune. Oyakot borders the far edge of this small plateau. Someone should meet you there in a few hours."

  The group thanked
the strange creatures, and watched them take off and turn, flying back into the colorful glow to the east.

  Suddenly they felt terribly alone.

  Oyakot, Nearing the Pugeesh Border

  The Oyakot continued the relatively swift and comfortable passage the group had thus far experienced. The creatures resembled olive-green canvas bags with small, sharp spikes all over. They had hundreds of tiny legs beneath and a central network of long tentacles atop. The location of their eyes, ears, nose, or mouth was not apparent, and the mountainous landscape with its strong cold winds didn't seem to faze them.

  But they had roads, and vehicles that traveled swiftly along single lines of light. The hex was crisscrossed with a tremendous transportation network, and the journey took them over massive bridges and through tunnels many kilometers long. Speed was constant and control automated; drivers only monitored progress and took over in an emergency.

  The Oyakot were also talkative; a friendly, practical people, they had made the most of a harsh land. That oxygen was a solid to the Oyakot didn't dim the mental kinship the travelers felt for these clever, industrious people.

  Wooley was worried, though. Word had come through the dispatching network that Trelig and his party were also well into Oyakot, and only a few hours behind them. Too, her party was already approaching Pugeesh, and information was still sparse.

  "Can't tell much on them," their Oyakot driver admitted. "Much too hot over there. Sure death just to cross the line. Ugly-lookin' place, though, all boilin' and hissin'. I'm told they don't have anybody at Zone, neither—so your guess is as good as anybody's. There—you can see it ahead. Gives me the creeps just to look at it."

  It was a jungle, that was for sure. A solid wall of purple plants rose before them, and tremendous vapor veils drifted here and there, between the leaves of thick growths.

  As they unloaded, Wooley warned them, "The Sea of Borgun is just to the north of Pugeesh, and it's primarily liquid chlorine, so that will give you an idea of the place. The Oyakot think of it as hot, but it's still extremely cold to any of us."