Midnight at the Well of Souls wos-1

by Jack L. Chalker

  They moved along at a fast clip, and the old pains came back almost immediately, although he was getting to the point where he was going up when she was and down when she did. It helped a little, but not much.

  They cleared the top of the hill in about five minutes, and he saw immediately what she meant. A half dozen vehicles were parked in a little paved area near the border. They were mostly open, except for one with a roof of canvas or something like it. None of them had seats, and, from the looks of the one with the top, their drivers were very tall and drove by a two-lever combination. The road was wide enough for one car to pass another, and it had a white line painted down the center of the black surface.

  She stopped near the lot. “Look!” she said. “Now you’ll see what I mean by weird people!”

  And she was most definitely right, Brazil decided. The last time he had seen anything remotely resembling it was on a long-ago, month-long bender.

  Imagine an elephant’s head, floppy ears and all, but no tusks, with not one but two trunks growing from its face, each about a meter long and ending in four stubby, jointless fingers grouped around the nostril opening. Mount the head on a body that looked too thin to support such a head, armless and terminating in two short, squat, legs and flat feet that made the walker look as if he were slightly turning from side to side as he walked. Now paint the whole creature a fiery red, and imagine it wearing green canvas dungarees.

  Nathan Brazil and Wu Julee didn’t have to imagine it. That was exactly what was walking at a slow pace toward them.

  “Oh, wow!” was all he could manage. “I see just what you mean.”

  The creature spotted them and raised its trunks, which seemed to grow out of the same point between and just below the eyes, in a greeting. “Well, hello!” it boomed in Dillian in a voice that sounded like an injured foghorn. “Better weather on this side of the line, hey?”

  “You can say that again,” Brazil responded. “We almost got caught in the storm and missed the roadhouse. Spent the night over in the field, there.”

  “Heading out, then?” the Slongornian asked pleasantly. “Going to tour our lovely country? Good time of year for it. Always summer here.”

  “Just passing through,” replied Brazil casually. “We’re on our way to Czill.”

  The friendly creature frowned, which gave it an even more comical aspect that was hard to ignore. “Bad business, that. Read about it last night.”

  “I know,” Nathan replied seriously. “One of the victims—the Czillian—was a friend of mine. Ours,” he quickly corrected, and Wu Julee smiled.

  “Why don’t you go into the roadhouse, have breakfast, and try to bum a ride through?” the creature suggested helpfully. “All of these trucks’ll be going back empty, and you can probably hitchhike most of the way. Save time and sore feet.”

  “Thanks, we’ll try it,” Brazil called after the Slongornian as that worthy climbed into the covered truck and started backing it out, controlling the steering with a trunk on each lever. The truck made a whirring noise but little else, and sped off down the road at a pretty good clip.

  “You know, I bet he’s doing fifty flat out,” he said to Wu Julee as the truck disappeared from view. “Maybe we can move faster and easier than we figured.”

  They walked over the border to the incongruously snow-clad roadhouse. The cold hit them at once, Wu Julee being unclad except for the pack, and his clothing not much more than protection from the sun. They ran to the roadhouse, and she was inside almost a minute ahead of him.

  Five Slongornians stood at a counter shoving what appeared to be hay down their throats with their trunks. One drained a mug of warm liquid somewhat like tea and then squirted it into its mouth. The innkeeper was a middle-aged female Dillian who looked older than her years. Two young male centaurs were sorting boxes in the back, apparently arranging the deliveries the Slongornians had made.

  And there was one other.

  It’s a giant, man-sized bat! Brazil thought, and that is what it did look like. It was taller than he was by a little bit, and had a ratty head and body with blood-red eyes; its sharp teeth were chewing on a huge loaf of sweetbread. Its arms were slightly outstretched and they melded into the leathery wings, the bones extended to form the structural support for the wings. It had long, humanoid legs, though, with a standard knee covered in wiry black hair like gorillas’ legs, and ending in two feet that looked more like large human hands, the backs covered with fur. The thing was obviously double- or triple-jointed in the legs, since it was balanced on one with no apparent effort while holding the loaf in the other, the leg brought up level with the mouth.

  The creature seemed to ignore them, and no one else in the place seemed to pay any attention. They turned and ordered breakfast, a thick porridge in a huge bowl served steaming hot with wooden spoons stuck in the stuff. Wu Julee just ordered water with it, while Nathan tried the pitch-black tea. It tasted incredibly strong and bitter, and had an odd aftertaste, but he had found from the days he had spent in Dillia that the tea woke him up and got his motor started.

  It didn’t take long for one of the Slongornian truck drivers to strike up a conversation. They seemed to be an extraordinarily friendly and outgoing people, and when curious about this strange-looking one in their midst felt no hesitancy in starting things off. Between comments about the weather, the porridge, and the hard and thankless life of truck drivers, Brazil managed to explain where he was going and as much of his reason as he had told the one in the parking lot.

  They sympathized and one offered to take them the nineteen kilometers to his base in the nearest Slongornian city, assuring them that they could probably hitch rides from terminal to terminal across the country.

  “Well, Wu Julee, no exercise and no aches today,” Nathan beamed.

  “That’s nice,” she approved. “But, Nathan—don’t call me by that name anymore. It’s somebody else’s name—somebody I’d rather not remember. Just call me Wuju. That’s Jol’s nickname, and it’s more my own.”

  “All right,” he laughed. “Wuju it is.”

  “I like the way you say it,” she said softly. He reflected to himself that he didn’t feel comfortable with the way she had said that.

  “Excuse me,” said a sharp, nasal, but crystal-clear voice behind them, “but I couldn’t help overhearing you on your travel plans, and I wondered if I could tag along? I’m going in the same direction for a while.”

  They both turned, and, as Brazil expected, it was the bat.

  “Well, I don’t know…” he replied, glancing at the willing truck driver who cocked his head in an unmistakable why-the-hell-not attitude.

  “Looks like it’s all right with the driver, so it’s all right with us, ah—what’s your name? You’ve already heard ours.”

  The bat laughed. “My name is impossible. The translator won’t handle it, since it’s not only a sound only we can make but entirely in the frequencies beyond most hearing.” The creature wiggled his enormous bat ears. “My hearing has to be acute, since, though I have incredible night vision, I’m almost blind in any strong light. I depend on my hearing to get around in the day. As for a name, why not call me Cousin Bat? Everyone else does.”

  Brazil smiled. “Well, Cousin Bat, it looks as if you’re along for the ride. But why not just fly it? Injured?”

  “No,” Cousin Bat replied, “but this cold’s done me no good, and I’ve traveled quite a distance. Frankly, I’m extremely tired and sore and would just as soon let machines do the work instead of muscle.”

  The bat went over to settle his bill, paying in some kind of currency that Brazil guessed was valid in Slongorn, which would be used to pay for the supplies.

  He felt a sudden, hard pressure on his arm, and turned. It was Wu Julee—Wuju, he corrected himself.

  “I don’t like that character at all,” she whispered in his ear. “I don’t think he can be trusted.”

  “Don’t be prejudiced,” he chided her. “Maybe he feels uncomf
ortable around horses and elephants. Did you have bats on your home world?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “They were brought in years ago to help control some native bugs. They did, but they were worse than the bugs.”

  Brazil shook his head knowingly. “I thought so. Well, we’ll meet some even more unpleasant characters along the way, and he seems straight enough. We’ll find out. If he’s honest, he’ll be a great night guard and navigator.”

  She resigned herself, and the matter was settled for the moment.

  Actually, Brazil had an ulterior motive. With Cousin Bat around, there was less likelihood of the emotions of the night before getting aired or strengthened, he thought.

  * * *

  The ride was uneventful. Cousin Bat took the floor next to the Slongornian driver and promptly went to sleep, while Wuju and Brazil sat in the rear bed, the only place she could fit.

  The Slongornian city was modern enough to have traffic jams as well as signals and police. Had it not been for the mushroom-shaped buildings and the total incongruity of the inhabitants, it would have been very comfortable. They waited there for two hours before another truck going in their direction was sufficiently empty to fit Wuju in the back, and even then she was uncomfortably cramped. Still, it was faster than her own speed.

  Shortly after nightfall, they were more than halfway across the hex. Cousin Bat was wide awake by this time. Since there were no inns that could accommodate someone of Wuju’s size and build, they made camp in the field of a friendly farmer.

  The bat had looked like a cartoon version of a villain by day, but in the dark he took on a threatening aspect, his red eyes glowing menacingly, reflecting any light.

  “You going to fly on now, Cousin Bat?” Brazil asked after they were settled.

  “I will fly for a while,” the creature replied, “partly for the exercise, and partly because there are some small rodents and insects roaming about here. I am sick and tired of wheat cakes and the like. My constitution is not constructed for such fare. However, Murithel, which is the next hex, is a bit nasty I’m told. I’ll stick with you to Czill, if you’ll have me.”

  Brazil assured him he would, and the bat leaped up into the evening sky with a flurry of leathery wings and vanished.

  “I still don’t like him,” Wuju insisted. “He gives me the creeps.”

  “You’ll have to get used to him,” he told her. “At least, until I find out what his game is.”

  “What?” she yelped.

  “Oh, he’s a phony, all right,” Brazil said. “Remember, in the old life I was nothing much but a truck driver like these folks here. I was even delivering grain. Truck drivers see a little of everybody and everything, know isolated facts about all sorts of things from the people they run into. They knew where our flying companion’s home hex was. It’s nine hexes north-northwest of here—almost exactly the opposite direction to the way we’re going, at least the wrong point on a V.”

  “Now who’s getting nervous?” she retorted. “He could be going someplace on business. He certainly hasn’t told us much about what he does.”

  “I know what he does,” Brazil replied evenly. “One of the other drivers saw him flying south, toward Dillia, two days ago.”

  “So?”

  “He was coming to meet us, Wuju. He stayed at that roadhouse knowing we’d have to come that way to get to Czill. He almost missed us in the storm, but we managed to blunder into him anyway.”

  “Then let’s get away, Nathan. Now. He might—kill us, or kidnap us, or something.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Nobody goes that far out of his way to kill somebody. You just hire it done and that’s that. If it’s kidnap, it’s the same gang that got Vardia and Skander, and if we joined it would solve one of my problems. But I smell something different here—I don’t think he’s one of their side, whoever they are.”

  “Then he’s on our side?” she asked, trusting his judgment.

  Nathan Brazil turned over on his towels and yawned. “Baby, you better remember now that the only side anybody’s ever on is his own.”

  He slept far better than she that night.

  Cousin Bat, looking tired, woke them up in the morning, but it was hours before they got a ride, and they made poor time. Brazil was plainly worried.

  “I’d hoped to get to the border before nightfall,” he told them, “so we could see what was what tomorrow. Now, we won’t get there until midday, and not really in until nightfall.”

  “That suits me,” the bat replied. “And both of you can make do in the dark. I suggest we make the border, look over the terrain, but not enter until darkness falls. Better to keep to the dark for movements.”

  Brazil nodded approval. “Yeah. At least that’ll put the Murnies on the same footing, and with your eyes we ought to be able to even out the odds.”

  Wuju looked alarmed. “What are the Murnies?” she asked.

  “I see we’ve got the same information,” Cousin Bat said. “The Murnies are the folk of Murithel, of which we have over three hundred kilometers to traverse. They are a nasty bunch of carnivorous savages that seem to be half-plant and half-animal. They’ll try to eat anything that doesn’t eat them.”

  “Can’t we go around them, then?” she asked, appalled at the idea of crossing such a land.

  “No,” Cousin Bat replied. “Not from here. An arm of the ocean comes in to the east, and from what I’ve heard of the Pia we’ll take the Murnies on dry land. To go up the other way we’d go through Dunh’gran, a land of nicely civilized flightless birds, but then we’d have to cut through Tsfrin, where the giant, crablike inhabitants are quite antisocial—not to mention armor-plated—and down in through Alisst, about which I know nothing. Not to mention about fourteen hundred kilometers.”

  “He’s right, Wuju,” Brazil said. “We’ll have to try to sneak through the Murnies.”

  “Any weapons?” Cousin Bat asked.

  “I’ve got a light-pistol,” Brazil told him. “In the pack, there.”

  “No good,” the bat replied. “Nontecbnological hex. Those great weapons are never any use where you need them.”

  Brazil rooted around in the pack and pulled out a gleaming short sword. Looking at Wu Julee, he asked, “Remember this?”

  “It’s that Com girl’s!” she exclaimed. “So that’s what that damned thing was that kept hitting me on the side! How in the world did you wind up with it?”

  “It was left in Serge’s office at Zone,” he reminded her. “I went back there a few days after arriving in my home hex. I found the Zone Gate, dodged Ambreza guards, and jumped in, managing to get word to Ortega before those giant beavers made me into a domesticated pet. Old Serge gave it to me. Said it might come in handy. Ever used one?”

  She looked at it strangely. “I—I don’t think I’ve ever even killed a bug. I don’t know if I could.”

  “Well, you’ll have to find out now,” he told her. “Your arm muscles and speed make it a better weapon for you than for me.”

  “What will you use, then?” she asked.

  “Five thousand safety matches and a can of flammable grease,” he replied cryptically. “You’ll see. What about you, Cousin Bat?”

  “Carrying a weapon would keep me off-balance, but I can always pick up and drop rocks,” the creature replied. “Besides, my teeth and my airborne punch are extremely effective.”

  “Okay, then,” Brazil nodded, reasonably satisfied. “We’re as good as we’re gonna get. Remember, our best hope is no fight at all—to sneak through and that’s that.”

  Wuju took the sword and tried a few awkward thrusts. She didn’t look sure or confident. “What—what do I aim at if I have to use it?” she asked uncertainly.

  “The head’s always the best,” Cousin Bat told her. “Even if it isn’t the brain, at least it’s the eyes, nose—things that matter. A second choice is the genitals, if any.”

  * * *

  No roads led to the Murithel border, and they had to
walk the last several kilometers in the dark.

  “We’ll stay on this side through tomorrow,” Brazil said tensely. “Then, near sundown, we’ll go.”

  They spent the night talking, except for an hour or so when Cousin Bat left for his nightly feeding. Brazil tried to keep Wuju awake most of the night, so they would sleep the following day, but well before the night was half over she had succumbed.

  He decided to let her sleep, and spent the earlier hours talking to the bat. The creature was easy to talk to, but gave little useful information and rather glib lies.

  Brazil resisted the temptation several times to come right out and ask Cousin Bat who he really was and what he wanted, but never quite got to the point of doing so.

  Both finally were asleep by morning.

  * * *

  Wuju was up first, of course, but she didn’t stray far from them. Brazil slept until almost midday, and Bat finally had to be awakened later on when he showed every sign of sleeping until dark.

  Murithel was clearly visible from their camp. It didn’t look very menacing; in fact, it looked beautiful.

  Brazil had one of those uneasy memories again. He remembered a place long vanished and forgotten. He’d been standing on a barren hill overlooking some rough but scenic landscape. A couple of thousand meters from that hill ran a line of trees lending color to the landscape. What he could see of Murithel reminded him of that long ago day, and gave him the same feelings, for the river that had fed those trees was something called the Little Bighorn, and a few years before he had seen it, others had as well. He bet that that landscape had looked as quiet and peaceful as this one did to that general who came into primitive territory.

  How many Indians are behind those rocks and trees? he asked himself.

  The landscape was formed of low, rocky mountains and rolling hills, some made up of bright orange rock eroded into strange and eerie patterns. Others were more a dull pink, with clumps of trees here and there and grass on the tougher portions. A line of trees betrayed a small river or stream off to their left. The sky was cloudy and the sun reflected strange shadows off the landscape.