Exiles at the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  Vistaru returned. "Barissa say no, too moch dangar," she told the human. "T'ere is bettar way. Is latch on cart back, see?"

  Mavra sighed and walked to the rear of the cart. There was a latch, a big wood-and-iron one, there obviously for loading sheep or something. Two of the creatures were working on it.

  Mavra turned to Vistaru. "What are you called?" she asked.

  "I tol' you. Veestaroo," she responded.

  Mavra shook her head. "No, no. I mean all of you. The"—she struggled for a word other than creature—"whole race of you."

  The tiny pixie nodded understanding. "We are Lata," she said. "At leased, t'at is what it comes out een Confedera-tion," she added. "My name be," there was a series of bell tones, "and the people be," more tones, "in our talk."

  Mavra nodded, and saw just how hard it was for the Lata to talk. She apparently strained to translate every word and remember its pronunciation and it was obvious that neither the grammar nor anything else was common between the human language and theirs.

  Vistaru seemed to sense this concern. "Not worree," she assured the human. "We weel get t'em to help in time. An' we weel be a-ble to talk more bet-tar soon."

  Mavra wondered what that meant but let it pass. The first order of business was Renard and Nikki; after that, there would be time for her own problems.

  They managed to throw the latch, and it fell out and hit the ground. There was a sudden sharp series of bell tones which even Mavra interpreted as a warning. The two Lata hovering at the top of the cart pushed the back with an audible whack. It fell away and crashed down, forming a ramp. Pretty good hinges for hand-forging, Mavra noted.

  She helped three Lata remove the unconscious bodies from the cart. The Lata male, Barissa, came over to her and motioned to Vistaru. He said something to her, and she nodded and turned to Mavra, who was thinking that sexual characteristics among the Lata weren't very pronounced.

  "He say you can wake t'em op?" the translator asked.

  Mavra nodded, and they watched in some surprise as she pricked each one of them with her nail.

  "Nikki, can you hear me?" she asked.

  The girl nodded, eyes still closed.

  "You will get up and walk with me," she instructed. The girl opened her eyes, got uncertainly to her feet, and stood there. "You will walk when I walk and stop when I stop and sit when I sit," Mavra instructed.

  She did the same to Renard, noting with satisfaction that Nikki repeated her every movement, about a meter away.

  This seemed to excite the Lata. They tinkled and chimed all over. Vistaru came up to her.

  "How you do t'at?" she asked. "T'ey want to know if you have stingars in hands."

  "Sort of," Mavra replied, and they started off.

  * * *

  The trip was fairly easy. Mavra discovered that the top of the mountain range was also the border between the cyclopses' hex, which the Lata called Teliagin "becous' t'at is its name," and the hex called Kromm. The change was amazing. There was still a chill in the air from the rain, and the wind had picked up to unpleasant proportions when they reached the border. No lines, guards, or sentinels stood there; not even a sign to mark the spot, yet one knew it was the border. It was like passing through a curtain.

  Suddenly the air was thick and muggy; it was so humid that Mavra was covered in perspiration in minutes. Insect sounds, vague and faint in Teliagin, were almost overpowering here, as if someone had suddenly cut on a giant loudspeaker. The air seemed thick, oddly scented, and slightly wrong somehow.

  "Not worree," Vistaru assured her. "Deeferent, yes, but t'at is all: It weel not hurt you."

  Maybe not, Mavra thought, but it was turning the caked mud back to real mud, and the ground itself got progressively moist, the vegetation almost jungle-like as they descended. At the bottom of the mountain was a swamp that seemed to stretch in all directions. The water didn't appear very deep—perhaps fifty centimeters—but it was dark and dank and foul-smelling and almost certainly hid deep spots. The water seemed to be stagnant, and smelled it. Moss was everywhere.

  "Do we have to walk far through this?" she asked the Lata. "You can fly, but we can't."

  "Onlee short ways," the pixie assured her. "Jost keep in back of me."

  With that the creature turned her light back on—she apparently didn't like to have it on all the time, and they had all taken turns in lighting the way for them—and did a very nice imitation of walking on top the water. Mavra knew she was flying, somehow, but the effect was doubly eerie. She hovered so close to the surface that the Lata's stinger occasionally made a wake in the water.

  The mud became terrible, and the water did get deeper, deep enough so that it seeped into her boots and made them feel awful. Oh, well, what the hell, she thought philosophically. Back to your beginnings.

  They walked through the stuff for about an hour, until Mavra began to think that she was becoming one with the swamp. She was even beginning to get used to the odor, and that worried her. The thick growths thinned out. Even so, there was one last indignity, an underwater vine that caught her, and she went face down into, fortunately, very shallow muck.

  Dutifully, Renard and Nikki, who had not tripped on anything, fell face down, too, and it took a little effort to collect herself and get them up before they drowned.

  She used some of the water to get the muck out of her eyes, nose, and mouth, and, with Lata help, cleaned off the other two. It wasn't much of a cleaning, though. They all looked more monstrous than any creature they'd yet seen on the Well World. Even her gift from Trelig, her horse's tail, was so mud-caked it felt like there was somebody sitting on her rear end.

  Finally everything cleared. It was a strange transformation—from horrible swamp to calm sea. Vistaru told her to wait, and one Lata, probably Barissa, who seemed to be the leader, took off for what looked like a far-off clump of floating bushes.

  The sea, if it was a sea, was strangely beautiful. The sky was clear despite the oppressive humidity, and the great sky of the Well World, with its great multicolored gas clouds and bright stars, reflected an eerie, and yet magical glow on the waters.

  Suddenly she looked over to her left, sure she detected movement. She did. She stared in new wonder as one of the large clumps of bush seemed to break away and now head toward them, a bright-blue light shining atop it. The light, she knew, was Barissa.

  The bush proved to be a giant flower. It looked like a huge rose, closed, flanked by a great, thick green membranous platform.

  Barissa smiled and said something. She turned to Vistaru.

  "He say ol' Macham is sleepee and grumblee bot he know the pro-blem and he weel tak you and the othars."

  Mavra looked again at the creature. It was a bright orange, or would be if it were fully opened. From the center of the closed flower rose two stalks, like giant stalks of wheat. Following the Lata's lead, she stepped up onto the green base of the creature. Nikki and Renard followed, and imitated her when she sat down, cross-legged, on the edge. Vistaru came over to her.

  "We will balance and take a break too. You just sit and ride. I hope you not get easee dizzee."

  Mavra barely had time to wonder about that remark when she discovered its full force. The creature spun around slowly, then started moving out across the quiet lake. It seemed to move by this circular motion, and while the movement wasn't tremendously fast, it was somewhat unsettling. Closing her eyes helped a little, but her inner-ear balance still conveyed the motion. She began feeling a little nauseated. After an hour or so she was simultaneously wishing she were dead and afraid she was dying. She was very seasick.

  Dawn broke after what seemed like an eternity. She continued gagging occasionally and watched the two hypnoed people, whom by this time she envied, imitate her. Vistaru walked calmly around to her.

  "You are steel sick?" she asked needlessly.

  "You better believe it!" was all Mavra Chang could manage.

  The Lata radiated concern. "Not worree much more. We are almos' t
'ere."

  By this point Mavra didn't care if they ever got "t'ere," wherever "t'ere" was, but she managed to look around her for the first time.

  They were no longer alone.

  All over, by the thousands, other flowers were moving, spinning, dancing in a great ballet on the waters. They created myriad colors and color combinations, graceful and particularly resplendent now that they opened to the brilliant rays of the sun. In other circumstances, Mavra might even have enjoyed the show.

  The Krommian they rode was slowing now, to her considerable relief. It, too, had opened over them, forming a curtain of brilliant browns and oranges. The great stalks, she realized, were eyes—long, oval, curious brown eyes with black pupils that looked so strange it was as if a cartoonist had drawn them on. They were independent of one another and sometimes looked in different directions. Of the core, the "head" of the creature, little could be seen. A pulpy bright-yellow mass, it appeared, more like thick straight hair than the center of a flower. The spinning had slowed enough now that she actually managed to wonder if these creatures were really plants or some sort of exotic animal.

  The creature finally stopped spinning entirely and drifted slowly toward something. This didn't stop the rest of the world from spinning, but it helped a great deal. They had traveled a great distance, that was for certain. Whatever means of locomotion these—people?—used, it shot them in the direction they wanted to go at many times their rate of spin.

  Mavra crawled around slightly, making sure that her imitators wouldn't fall off doing the same, and looked in the direction they were drifting. She could see an island—a tall but not very large rock outcrop in the middle of the sea. There appeared to be an artificial cave of some sort in the face, jet-black and without perspective.

  She suddenly realized it was a black hexagon.

  Vistaru came around. "We dock up close to the Zone Gate," she said enigmatically. "You most tell the othars to go in the Gate." She pointed to the rapidly approaching blackness.

  "Not me?" she asked.

  The pixie shook her head. "No, not now. Latar. The Krommeen ambassadar say no to you for now."

  Mavra nodded toward the huge cave or hole or whatever it was—it looked curiously two-dimensional. "That thing will help my friends?"

  Vistaru nodded. "It is a gate. It weel tak' t'em to Zone. T'ey weel be put through the Well of Souls. T'ey will become people of t'is planet, like me."

  Mavra considered this. "You mean—it'll change them into Lata?"

  The creature shrugged. "Maybee. If not Lata, sometheeng. No more sponge. Memory back, all bettar."

  Mavra wasn't quite ready to accept that, but she had to act as if it were true. It was certain she couldn't help them.

  Seeing Mavra's doubt, and realizing it came from ignorance of the Well World and its principles, Vistaru said, "Evereebodee who come from othar world t'ey go t'ru the Well. Come out all changed. Even me. I once as you. Went t'ru Well, woke up as a Lata."

  Mavra almost believed her now. It explained why the creature knew her language. But that brought up another question.

  "Why not me, too, then?" she asked.

  Vistaru shrugged. "Ordars. T'ey say you are not Mavra Chang. T'ey say you some sort of bad person."

  Mavra opened her mouth in surprise, then closed it again. "That's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "Why would they—whoever they are—think something like that?"

  Vistaru shrugged. "T'ey say t'ey already met Mavra Chang, and Reenard, and Neekee. T'ey say you are fakars."

  Mavra started to respond, then thought better of it and sat down. She was mad as hell. It was the crowning touch to her being on this crazy world in the first place.

  Somebody was going to pay for this.

  South Zone

  "They certainly look like the same people," Vardia said in some amazement.

  Serge Ortega nodded, looking at the two nearly comatose people lying on the floor in front of him. "That they do. Doctor?"

  They were in the Zone clinic, and Dr. Muhar, the Ambreza who looked like a giant beaver, was examining Renard and Nikki Zinder.

  "I wish I knew what kind of drug they'd been administered," the doctor said. "I've never seen anything quite like it. But it's brain-localized; the other infection isn't."

  Ortega's busy eyebrows went up. "Other infection?"

  The Ambreza nodded. "Oh yes. It seems to have infested every cell of their bodies. Some sort of enzyme, it looks like, and quite parasitic. There is evidence of tissue breakdown everywhere, and it's continuing at a fairly steady rate. Would you recognize this sponge if you saw it?"

  The other two both shook their heads in the negative. "We have both seen the effects of it, long ago," Vardia told the physician, "but the pure stuff, under a microscope, no."

  Just then there was a commotion near the door. It opened, and a creature new to the group stood there.

  It was about 150 centimeters tall, and stood on two thick but jointless tentacles. It had some to spare—three more pairs, going up its midsection. Each seemed to have a cleft at its end, capable of picking up something much as a mitten might—or coil around, with the full forward part of the tentacle. It stood on the rear pair, but needed at least four to walk toward them. Its face was broad, with close-set, broad nose and flaring nostrils and two rounded eyes that looked like large velvet pads of glowing amber. Its mouth had a dislocatable jaw, and inside it was coiled, Ortega knew, a long and ropelike tongue that could be used as a ninth prehensile organ. It had two areas on either side of its head like saucers, and they were slightly offset from the head, yet seemed able to open and close on joints.

  But as the creature entered the room, all else paled before the great wings, like a giant butterfly's, along its entire back, the wings of brilliant orange and spotted with concentric brown rings.

  Both Vardia and the Ambreza stepped back a bit at this entrance. Ortega had no such feelings, although its grim visage was frightening, almost menacing. Neither of the others had ever seen a Yaxa before, but Ortega had. He even knew this one. He slithered up to the newcomer.

  "Wooley!" he boomed. "I'm very glad you could come."

  The creature remained coldly distant, but it responded, "Hello, Ortega." It looked over at the comatose bodies of Renard and Nikki. "Are those the ones?"

  Ortega nodded, all business suddenly. "Dr. Muhar has some cell tissue under the microscope. Can you look into it or should we project it?"

  The Yaxa walked fluidly over to the microscope, peering at the sample with one of those impossible padlike eyes.

  "It's sponge," the creature said. "No doubt about it." It turned its gaze back to the two people on the beds. "How far advanced are they?"

  "Five days with no dose," Ortega told it. "What would you say?"

  The Yaxa thought a moment. "Depends on how they started out. The cell deterioration isn't far along, but the mind goes first. If they were around average intelligence, they should be a lot brighter than the village idiot—for about another day or two. Then the animal-reversion stage sets in. They become great naked apes. I'd run them through the Well as soon as possible. Now."

  "I agree," Ortega told it. "And I appreciate your coming all this way to do this."

  "They're from the new moon?" the Yaxa asked, its voice, even through the translator, cold, sharp, emotionless.

  Ortega nodded. "And if they're real we got big trouble. That means we got fooled by an earlier set of duplicates, at least one of which was the head of the sponge syndicate and the other two of whom know the principles of operating the Well."

  For the first time the creature showed emotion. Its voice was harsh, excited. "The head of the sponge syndicate? And you let it slip through you like that?"

  Ortega turned all six palms up. "We didn't know. They looked just like them. How was I to know?"

  "It's true," Vardia put in. "They were so nice and gentle and civilized—particularly that one," it gestured at Renard.

  The Yaxa almost spit. "Agh! Fools! Any
body without sponge that long would have shown signs! You should have known!"

  "Come on, Wooley!" Ortega chided. "You're a fanatic, and with good reason. But, hell, we weren't expecting this sort of thing. Everything's been more than a little crazy around here lately."

  The great butterfly's nostrils opened, and it actually snorted. "Oh, hell. Trust you to screw things up anyway." It turned its great head, apparently on some kind of ball joint for a neck, and looked straight at him. "Give me the bastard's name. He won't always be so clever. One of these days I'll get him. You know that."

  Serge Ortega nodded, knowing that nothing could stop Wooley except death. Sooner or later, if that man surfaced at all, it would nail him.

  "Antor Trelig," he told the Yaxa.

  The creature nodded its great, strange head as if filing the information. Then it said, "I've got to get back home. A lot's going on. You will hear from me, though." And, with that, it turned, not easy in the clinic's space with those great wings, and went out the door.

  "Good heavens!" Vardia managed. "Who is that?"

  Ortega smiled. "Somebody you used to know. I'll tell you sometime. Now we have more urgent work to do. We have to get these two through the Well, and I have to talk to the Council."

  * * *

  There was no Council chamber for the ambassadors. All communication was done through intercoms, both for diplomatic reasons and to make it easier on everybody. There wasn't much room for everybody, anyway.

  Ortega summarized the events to date, adding, "I've put out tracers on the first batch, and I hope that anyone will report their whereabouts if they appear in your hex. All Entries are to be checked out. These people are tricky as hell."

  The speaker cracked to life. "Ortega?" said a metallic, toneless voice. "This is Robert L. Finch of The Nation."

  Ortega couldn't suppress a chuckle. "I didn't know The Nation had names," he remarked, remembering them as communal-minded robots.

  "The Nation has its Entries, too," Finch replied. "When it is matters concerning such, the appropriate persona is selected."

  Ortega let it go. "What's your problem, Finch?"