Midnight At the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  WEST GHLMON

  The four of them looked curiously at the strange creature. Brazil could only think that he should have been in Alice in Wonderland. The others took the appearance of the new arrival more calmly, having grown used to strange creatures and strange ways by this time.

  "You were sent by Serge Ortega?" Brazil asked evenly.

  The creature took its pipe out of its mouth and assumed an insulted expression. "Sir, I am the Duke of Orgondo. This is Ghlmon. The Ulik have no authority here. They are merely our neighbors. We were approached only a few days ago by Mr. Ortega about this matter, and we are, of course, much concerned. The Ulik interest is—well, frankly, closer to ours. We know them and understand them. We've gotten along for thousands of years with them. With their help we managed to survive when the environment here changed and the soil turned to sand. But all of you—Mr. Ortega included—are here at our sufferance, and we will brook no intrusions into sovereignty."

  "What's he saying?" Vardia asked, and the others added their confusion. For the first time, Brazil realized that now they could understand only people with translators and those speaking Confederacy. Their own translators had gone along with their former bodies.

  "Pardon me, Your Grace," Brazil said politely. "I will have to translate, for, I fear, my companions have no translators."

  The lizard looked at the three humans. "Hmmm. . . . Most curious. I had been told to expect a Dillian, Czillian, and a Creit. We heard that you would be an antelope, and that so far is the only correct information. You are Mr. Brazil, are you not?"

  "I am," Brazil replied. "The male is Mr. Varnett, the female with breasts is Wuju, and the undeveloped female is Vardia. We did, after all, have to come through Ivrom. That, in itself, is an accomplishment, I should think—to have come through unaltered would have been a miracle."

  "Quite," nodded the Ghlmonese. "But we had no doubt you would come through, although there's been hell to pay for the three days you disappeared. We figured you'd been bewitched, and started moving some diplomatic mountains to find who had you."

  "Then that bewitching stuff wasn't part of Ortega's tricks?" Brazil responded. "He seemed awfully confident we'd get through."

  "Oh, no, he figured that you would get stuck," the duke replied casually. "But we of Ghlmon are more adept at the arts than those filthy savages in Ivrom. It was only a matter of finding you. We already had the other party, so nothing was disturbed no matter how long it took."

  "So what's the next move now?" Brazil asked calmly.

  "Oh, you'll be my guests for the night, of course," the duke said warmly. "Tomorrow, we'll get you on a sandshark express and take you to the Capital at Oodlikm, where you will link up with Ortega and the other party. From that point it will be Ortega's show, although we'll be watching."

  Brazil nodded. "This game is getting so crowded you need a scorecard." He provided a running translation of the conversation so that the others could follow what was going on. Finally the creature's pipe went out, and it tapped the bowl and shook out the last remains of whatever it had been smoking. It smelled like gunpowder.

  "Places have been prepared for you," the duke told them. "Ready to go? It's not far."

  "Do we have a choice?" Brazil retorted.

  The little dinosaur got that hurt look again. "Of course! You may go back across the border, or jump in the ocean. But, if you plan to stay in Ghlmon, you will do what we wish."

  "Fair enough," the stag replied. "Lead on."

  They followed the little dinosaur along the beach in silence for a little over a kilometer. There, by the side of the sea, a huge tent of canvas or something very similar had been erected. A flag was flying from the tent's center mast. Several Ghlmonese stood around nearby, and tried not to look bored to death.

  Two by the tent flap snapped to attention as the duke approached, and he nodded approvingly. "Everything ready?" he asked.

  "The table is set, Your Grace," one replied. "Everything should be suitable."

  The duke nodded and the sentry held back the flap so he could enter and kept it open for the others to pass through.

  Inside, the place looked like something out of a medieval textbook. The floor was covered with thick carpeting like a handwoven mosaic. Actually made up of hundreds of small rugs, it looked like a colorful series of lumps.

  In the center was a long, low wooden table with strange-smelling dishes on it. There were no chairs, but the human members of the party were quickly provided with rolls of blankets or rugs that propped them up enough to make things comfortable.

  "Simple, but it will have to do," the duke said, almost apologetically. "You will find the food compatible—Ambassador Ortega was most helpful here. We didn't expect you in these forms, of course, but there should be no problem. Pity you couldn't be entertained in the castle, but that is impossible, I fear."

  "Where is your castle?" Brazil asked. "I haven't seen any structures but this one."

  "Down below, of course," the duke replied. "Ghlmon wasn't always like this. It changed, very slowly, over thousands of years. As the climate became progressively drier, we realized that we couldn't fight the sand, so we learned to live beneath it. Air pumps, constantly manned by skilled workmen, keep the air coming in from vents to the surface—which crews keep clear. Sort of like living under the ocean in domes, as I have heard is done elsewhere. The desert's our ocean—more than you think. We can swim in it, albeit slowly, and follow guide wires from one spot to another, coming up here only to travel long distances."

  Brazil translated, and Vardia asked, "But where does the food come from? Surely nothing grows here."

  "We are basically carnivores," the duke explained after the translation of the question. "Lots of creatures exist in the sand, and many are domesticated. Water is easy—the original streams still exist, only they now run underground, along the bedrock. The vegetable dishes here are for your benefit. We always keep some growing in greenhouses down under for guests."

  They ate, continuing the conversation. Brazil, not knowing how much the Ghlmonese were actually in on the expedition, carefully avoided any information in that direction, and it was neither asked for nor brought up by his host.

  After eating, the duke bade them farewell. "There's a good deal of straw over there for padding if you can't sleep on the rug," he told them. "I know you're tired and won't disturb you. You have a long journey starting tomorrow."

  Vardia and Varnett found soft places near the side of the tent and were asleep in minutes. Wuju tried to join them, but lay there awake for what seemed like hours. Her insomnia upset her—she was tired, aching, and uncomfortable, yet she couldn't sleep.

  The torches had been extinguished, but she could make out Brazil's large form in the gloom near the entrance. Painfully, she got up and walked over to him.

  He wasn't asleep either, she saw. His head turned as she approached. "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "I—I dunno," she replied hesitantly. "Can't sleep. You?"

  "Just thinking," he said, an odd, almost sad tone in his electronic voice.

  "About what?"

  "This world. This expedition. Us—not just the two of us, all of us. It's ending, Wuju. No beginnings anymore, just endings."

  She looked at him strangely in the darkness, not comprehending his meaning. Unable to pursue it, she changed the subject.

  "What's going to happen to us, Nathan?" she asked.

  "Nothing. Everything. Depends on who you are," he replied cryptically. "You'll see what I mean. You've had a particularly rough time, Wuju. But you're a survivor. Tough. You deserve to enjoy life a little." He shifted uncomfortably, then continued.

  "Just out of curiosity, if you had a choice, if you could return to our sector of the universe as anything or anybody you wanted to be, what would you choose?"

  She thought for a minute. "I've never considered going back," she replied in a soft, puzzled tone.

  "But if you could, and you could be who and where you wanted—li
ke the genie with the three wishes—what would you choose?"

  She chuckled mirthlessly. "You know, when I was a farmer, I had no dreams. We were taught to be satisfied with everything. But when they made me a whore in the Party House, we'd sometimes sit and talk about that. They kept the males and females separate—we never saw any males except Party locals and favored workers. We were programmed to be supersexy and give them a hell of a time. I'm sure the male jocks were equally fantastic for the female bigwigs. They shot us full of hormones, thought we couldn't think of anything but sex—and, it's true, we craved it, constantly, so much so that during slack times we were in bed with each other.

  "But the Party people," she continued, "they knew things, went places. Some of them liked to talk about it, and we got to know a lot about the outside world. We'd dream about getting out into it, out perhaps to other worlds, new experiences." She paused for a moment, then continued in that dreamy, yet thoughtful, somewhat wistful tone.

  "Three wishes, you said. All right, if we're playing the game, I'd like to be rich, live as long as I wanted, and be young all that time, and fantastically good-looking, too. Not on a Comworld, of course—but that's four, isn't it?"

  "Go on," he urged. "Never mind the three. Anything else?"

  "I'd like to have you under those same conditions," she replied.

  He laughed, genuinely pleased and flattered. "But," he said, serious again, "suppose I wasn't there? Suppose you were out on your own?"

  "I don't even want to think about that."

  "Come on," he prodded. "It's only a game."

  Her head went up, and she thought some more. "If you weren't there, I think I'd like to be a man."

  If Brazil had had a human face, it would have risen in surprise. "A man? Why?"

  She shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. "I don't know, really. Remember I said young and good-looking. Men are bigger, stronger, they don't get raped, don't get pregnant. I'd like to have children, maybe, but—well, I don't think any man could turn me on except you, Nathan. Back in the Party House—those men who came. I was like a machine to them, a sex machine. The other girls—they were real people, my family. They cared. That's why the Party gave me to Hain, Nathan—I'd gotten to the point where I couldn't turn on to men at all, only women. They felt, they cared, they weren't—well, weren't threatening. All of the men I met were—except you. Can you understand that?"

  "I think I can," he responded slowly. "It's natural, considering your background. On the other hand, there are many worlds where homosexuality is accepted, and you can get children by anything from cloning to artificial insemination. And, of course, men have just as many problems and hang-ups as women. The grass isn't greener, just different."

  "That might be the fun of it," she replied. "After all, it's something I've never been—like I'd never been a centaur before, and you'd never been a stag. I know what it's like to be a woman—and I don't particularly care for it. Besides, we're only playing."

  "I guess we are," he responded. "Since we are, would you rather go back to being a Dillian than what you are now? You can, you know—just go back to Zone through the local Gate and back through again. You'll be readjusted to the original equation. That's the most common way of breaking spells around here, you know. That's the way I'd have handled things if I'd had the time back in Ivrom rather than risking that facedown with the Swarm Queen."

  "I—I'm not sure I could go back to Dillia," she said softly. "Oh, I loved being that big and strong, loved the country and those wonderful people—but I didn't fit. That's what was driving me crazy in the end. Jol was a wonderful person, but it was Dal I was attracted to. And that doesn't go over in Dillia socially—and, if it did, it's impractical."

  He nodded. "That's really what you meant when you told me long ago about how people should love people no matter what their form or looks. But what about me? Suppose I turned into something really monstrous, so alien that it bore almost no resemblance to what you knew?"

  She laughed. "You mean like the bat or a Czillian or maybe a mermaid?"

  "No, those are familiar. I mean a real monstrosity."

  "As long as you were still you inside, I don't think anything would change," she replied seriously. "Why do you talk like that, anyway? Do you expect to turn into a monster?"

  "Anything's possible on this world," he reminded her. "We've seen only a fraction of what can happen—you've seen only six hexes, six out of ftfteen hundred and sixty. You've met representatives of three or four more. There's a lot that is stranger." His voice turned grim. "We have to meet the new Datham Hain shortly, you know. He's a giant female bug—a monster if ever there was one."

  "Now his outside matches his foul inside," she snapped bitterly. "Monsters aren't racial, they're in the mind. He's been a monster all his life."

  He nodded. "Look, trust me on this. Hain will get what he deserves—so will everybody. Once inside the Well, we'll all be what we once were, and then will come the reckoning."

  "Even you?" she asked. "Or will you stay a deer?"

  "No, not a deer," he replied mysteriously, then changed the subject. "Well, maybe it's better over. Two more days and that'll be it."

  She opened her mouth to prod, then closed it again. Finally, she asked, "Nathan, is that why you've lived so long? Are you a Markovian? Varnett thinks you are."

  He sighed. "No, not a Markovian—exactly. But they might as well continue to think I am. I may have to use that belief to keep everything from blowing apart too soon."

  She looked stunned. "You mean all this time you've been dropping hints that you were one of the original builders, and it was all a bluff?"

  He shook his head slowly. "Not a bluff, no. But I'm very old, Wuju—older than anyone could imagine. So old that I couldn't live with my own memories. I blocked them out, and, until arriving here on the Well World, I was mercifully, blissfully ignorant. No mind in history can function long with this much storage input. The shock of the fight and transformation in Murithel brought the past back, but there's so much! It's next to impossible to sort it all out, get a handle on it all. But these memories still give me the edge—I know things the rest of you don't. I'm not necessarily smarter or wiser than you, but I do have all that experience, all that accumulated knowledge of thousands of lifetimes. That gives me the advantage."

  "But they all think you're going to work the Well for them," she pointed out. "Everything you've said indicates that you know how."

  "That's why Serge kept us alive," he explained. "That's why we've been coddled and prodded. I have no doubt that the little voice box on top my antlers has an extra circuit monitored by Serge. He's probably listening right now. I don't care anymore. That's why he could help us, know where we were and what happened to us. That's why we're going to meet him; that's how all this was prepared in advance. Just in case he can't use me, he'll use Skander, or Varnett—he thinks."

  "I can see why he'd be concerned with you three," she replied, "but why the rest of us? Why me, for example?"

  If Brazil could have smiled, he would have. "You don't know Serge—the old Serge. I'd been so lulled by that talk about a wife and kids I'd forgotten how little this world changes the real you, deep down. Hain—well, Hain is useful to keep Skander in check as well as for transportation. I don't know who else is along, but be sure they're there only because Serge has some use for them or he hasn't been able to figure out how to dispose of them properly."

  "But why me?" she repeated.

  "They must have some tame nasties on the Comworlds," he replied sardonically. "You're a hostage, Wuju. You're his handle on me."

  She looked uncertain. "Nathan? What if it really came down to that? Would you do what he asked for me?"

  "It won't come to that," he assured her. "Believe me, it won't. Varnett has already figured out why, although he's forgotten in his youthful excitement."

  "Then what will you do?"

  "I will lead them all to the Well—Skander can do that anyway, so could Varnet
t. I intend to show them everything they want. But they will learn that this treasure hunt is full of thorns when they discover what the price really is. I'll bet you that, once in the control room of their dreams, they will think the price is too high."

  She shook her head in wonder. "I don't understand any of this."

  "You will," he replied cryptically, "at midnight at the Well of Souls."

  * * *

  The trip was uncomfortable and bumpy. They traveled on a huge wooden sled with runners. Pulling them swiftly were eight huge beasts they could not fully see—sandsharks, the Ghlmonese called them. Only huge gray backs and huge, razor-sharp fins were visible as they pulled their heavy load and were kept in check by a Ghlmonese driver with reins for each of the huge creatures.

  The sandsharks were giant mammals who lived in the sand as fish lived in water. They breathed air—a single huge nostril opened whenever their great backs broke the surface—and moved at eight to ten kilometers per hour.

  By the end of the day the travelers were all sore and bruised, but more than halfway there. They spread rugs out on the sand, and ate food heated by the fiery breath of their driver. There was no problem sleeping that evening, despite the hot air, blowing wind, and strange surroundings.

  The next day was a repeat of the first. They passed several other sleds carrying Ghlmonese, and occasionally saw individuals riding in huge saddles on the backs of sandsharks. Once in a while they would see a cluster of what appeared to be huge chimneys with crews keeping the openings from being blocked by sand. Far below, they knew, there were towns, perhaps large cities.

  Finally, near dusk of the second day, structures appeared ahead of them, growing rapidly larger as they approached. These proved to be a network of towers and spires made of small rocks, reaching fifty or more meters in the air, like the tops of some medieval fortress.

  They slowed, and came to a halt near two towers with a wide gate between. A number of Ghlmonese stood around; others were busy going to or from unknown places.