Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

She thought she spotted Wally, flattened down and probably asleep on one of the sleds just in back of a cube. The little winged monkeylike creatures were there, too, each one sitting atop a cube, and she decided that she’d rather not have a confrontation with them if she could help it. Best they not know that she’d made it this far, let alone all three of them.

She was curious that they were not heading due south, but southeast. It didn’t make sense if they were going to try a snatch at the ceremonies at Quislon Center, but she couldn’t waste time shadowing them. She’d been told to get to Quislon Center as quickly as possible, and that had to be her duty.

She would have to undergo some fasting, but if she could find some water, somewhere, anywhere in this barren place, she could make it in just a couple of days.

It turned out to be easier than she thought.

Thirsty, heading south, she passed over a particularly elaborate complex and decided that, if she was here to speak to the locals, she should try and make contact. Everyone had warned her that they were very ugly, but she was beginning to see that looks had little to do with good and evil, the spiritual and the profane.

She circled and landed in front of the largest pyramid structure near twilight, figuring that if the natives were nocturnal or diurnal, it would be a good time to make contact. She could feel beneath her the sense of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of creatures moving about, all with complex and overwhelming empathic waves, but far too dense for her to pick out any and make any sense of it. Their lives, almost entirely underground, must extend to great but deep complexes. Since this was a nontech hex, she wondered if they might be blind.

“Hello!” she called out. “I am Jaysu, priestess and servant of the Grand Falcon of Ambora. I am on my way by invitation to witness your great forthcoming religious affirmation, but I fear that I am unable to forage or find food and water. Does anyone guard these buildings? Can anyone hear my call for assistance?”

There was an odd reaction. The area directly beneath her and extending to the big structure simply stopped, as if a stampede of wild animals had somehow been frozen in its tracks. She sensed that she’d been heard, and that somehow this had been instantly communicated to a large mass of others. It was fascinating. While the rest of the complex went on, this area suddenly seemed to lock on as if the individuals within were now one organism. A door in the pyramid that she hadn’t realized was there opened, and a grotesque face with big round eyes and insectlike fangs peered out and looked at her.

“Interesting,” commented the Quislonian. “Don’t believe we ever saw one like you before. You say you are going to the festival?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, then, camp here tonight. What is it that you require?”

“Just a little food for energy and some water.”

“Water is easy, but what do you eat?”

She hadn’t considered that. “Anything that is not of animals. Vegetables, breads, confections…”

The creature paused. “No vegetables here, but we’ll see what we can do.” The door shut.

She had a sense that she’d been wrong; they weren’t blind. Rather, from the little bit she had seen, they were self-luminescent and possibly secreted the substance and rubbed it on their walls and tunnels. This festival was beginning to sound more interesting.

In about fifteen minutes, just as darkness fell completely, the door opened and two of the creatures crawled out. They were grotesque, multilegged, fanged, glowing, but with no discernible color. The forelegs appeared to be usable as claws, perhaps all the legs. They brought out a long oval bowl in which there was water and some kind of reddish-brown cake-like substance.

“Our elders believe that the cake will be compatible with your system,” one of them told her. “The water is fresh. Please take it and continue in the morning.”

Before she could properly thank them, they went back inside and shut the door.

Curious creatures, she thought, eyeing the cake. She would have liked to talk to them a bit, but this would have to do for now. She picked up the spongy cake, sniffed it, and found it hadn’t much smell. She tasted it cautiously. It was almost sickeningly sweet, like bread soaked in pure honey. Still, it appeared to be edible, and would give her energy. As she ate it she realized she was being watched. She drank some of the water and tried to relax as the darkness swallowed her.

“Thank you!” she called out to the hidden watchers, aware now that she’d passed some sort of test by taking the offering on trust. They didn’t reply, but she sensed that they were no longer potential adversaries. It was a start.

It seemed the natives had a rapid method of communication, nontech or not, since she had only to land in what she thought of as a “village” and someone would come with water and cake. She hoped, though, that she’d be able to speak to their holy ones at Quislon Center.

It wasn’t difficult to spot, once you got near it. The enormous volcano was smoking and churning, and there, embedded in the side of the great mountain, was the bizarre hexagonal shaped nothingness of a Zone Gate.

The region was also so dense with settlements that she wondered how they all fit down there. This was no collection of villages, but a great underground city. She couldn’t help but wonder what happened when the volcano erupted, as it most surely did—they had volcanoes in Ambora, and she could see the evidence of fresh flows.

If there were preparations for the great event to come, they were not evident, nor was any area obviously reserved as the holy place for a priesthood. Maybe they had group minds and no need of priesthoods, she thought, but she didn’t get that impression from the sensations emanating beneath her. No, these were individuals who could also become a single group entity. Not the same thing, and probably not that simple, either.

She decided to set down amidst a large complex and call out for aid. This time, though, it wasn’t food and water that she needed, but authority.

These were such different creatures than any others she’d dealt with that she was unsure how to proceed. She assumed from the way she’d been treated that they had some sort of empathic ability to read truth, sincerity, and perhaps threat as well, and that was why they had fed her, but their society was a closed book, buried deep underground in a self-illuminated complex. The translator always made every creature sound quite normal, but in this case she understood that it was being a deceiver. She didn’t know how these people thought, or whether she ever could know. She was beginning to wonder why Core and the others thought she could speak to them on more than a basic level, and of course, anybody could do that.

And so she stood before the largest of the pyramid entry-ways and said, loudly, “Hello? I am sure you have some way of already knowing who I am. I am here to witness your great festival, but I wish more than just to witness, for to witness without understanding is to see nothing. As different as we are, we have in common certain religious truths at the very center of our beings. I need to speak with, to learn from, anyone within your society who can communicate this understanding to one such as me, or at least as much as one not of Quislon could understand. I do not wish to see merely what you do, but why you do it.”

She waited, feeling that she’d been heard. The door opened then, and one of the creatures with a different striped coloration about its head looked out at her and said, “Northwest past two principalities, then east directly toward the Holy Mountain to the next one you see. They might be able to help you.”