Jack Chalker - Midnight at the Well of Souls

“Big talk, Nate,” Ortega said confidently, but there was an unease in his manner. “But we’ll go along if you do.”

“I gave you my word, Serge,” Brazil said. “I’ll keep it.”

“Look!” the Slelcronian cried. “The light’s gone on!”

In back of Brazil a section of the floor corresponding to The Avenue was lit into the Equatorial Barrier.

“Let’s go,” Brazil said calmly, and turned and stepped into the barrier. The others, tension on their faces, followed him.

Suddenly Skander cried out, “I was right! I was right all along!” and pointed ahead. The others looked in the indicated direction.

There were several gasps.

Wuju stifled a small scream.

The Well had changed Nathan Brazil, just as he had warned.

The creature stood at the end of The Avenue, where it passed through a meter-high barrier and stopped.

It looked like a great human heart, two and a half meters tall, pink and purple, with countless blood vessels running through it, both reddish and bluish in color. At the irregular top was a ring of cilia, colored an off-white, waving about—thousands of them, like tiny snakes, each about fifty centimeters long. From the midsection of the pulpy, undulating mass came six evenly spaced tentacles, each broad and powerful-looking, covered with thousands of tiny suckers. The tentacles were a sickly blue, the suckers a grainy yellow. An ichor of some sort seemed to ooze from the central mass, although it was thick and seemed to be reabsorbed by the skin as fast as produced, creating an irregular, filmy coating.

And it stank—the odor of foul carrion after days in the sun. It stung their nostrils, making them slightly sick.

Skander began babbling excitedly, then turned to them. “See, Varnett?” he said. “See what I told you? Six evenly spaced tentacles, about three meters tall! That’s a Markovian!” All traces of animosity were gone; this was the professor lecturing his student, in pride at the vindication of his theories.

“So you really was a Markovian, Nate,” Ortega said wonderingly. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Nathan!” Wuju called out. “Is that—that thing really you?”

“It is,” Brazil’s voice came, but not as speech. It formed in each of their brains, in their own languages. Even The Diviner received it directly, rather than through The Rel.

Skander was like a child with a new toy. “Of course! Of course!” he chortled. “Telepathy, naturally. Probably the rest, too.”

“This is a Markovian body,” Brazil’s voice came to them, “but I am not a Markovian. The Well knows me, though, and, since all lived as new races outside, it was only natural that we be converted to the Markovian form when entering the Well. It saved design problems.”

Wuju stepped out ahead of them, drawing close to the creature.

“Wu Julee!” Hain shouted insanely. “You are mine!” The long, sticky tongue darted out to her, wrapped itself around her. She screamed. Ortega spun quickly toward the bug, pistols in two hands.

“Now, now, none of that, Hain!” he cautioned carefully. “Let the girl go.” He pointed the pistols at the Akkafian’s eyes.

Hain hesitated a second, deciding what to do. Finally the tongue uncoiled from Wu Julee, and she dropped about thirty centimeters to the floor, landing hard. Raw, nasty-looking welts, like those made by rope burn, showed on her skin.

The creature that was Nathan Brazil walked over on its six tentacles, until it loomed over her. One tentacle reached out, gently touched her wound. The smell was overwhelming. She shrank from the probe, fear on her face.

The heartlike mass tilted a little on its axis.

“Form doesn’t matter,” it mocked her voice. “It’s what’s inside that counts.” Then it said in Brazil’s old voice: “What if I were a monster, Wuju? What then?”

Wuju broke into sobs. “Please, Nathan! Please don’t hurt me!” she pleaded. “No more, please! I—I just can’t!”

“Does it hurt?” he asked gently, and she managed to nod affirmatively, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Then trust me some more, Wuju,” Brazil’s voice came again, still gentle. “No matter what. Shut your eyes. I’ll make the hurt go away.”

She buried her head in her hands, still crying.

The Markovian reached out with a tentacle, and rubbed lightly against the angry-looking welt on her back and sides. She cringed but otherwise stayed still. The thing felt clammy and horrid, yet they all watched as the tentacle, lightly drawn across the wound, caused the wound to vanish.

As the pain vanished, she relaxed.

“Lie flat on your back, Wuju,” Brazil instructed, and she did, eyes still shut. The same treatment was given to her chest and sides, and there was suddenly no sign of any welt or wound.

Brazil withdrew a couple of meters from her. There was no evident front or back to him, nor any apparent eyes, nose, or mouth. Although the pulpy mass in the center was pulsating and slightly irregular, it had no clear-cut directionality.

“Hey, that’s fantastic, Nate!” Ortega exclaimed.

“Shall we go to the Well?” Brazil asked them. “It is time to finish this drama.”

“I’m not sure I like this at all,” Hain commented hesitantly.

“Too late to back out now, you asshole,” Skander snapped. “You didn’t get where you were without guts. Play it out.”

“If you’ll follow me,” Brazil said, “and get on the walkway here; we can talk as we ride, and probably panic the border hexes at the same time.”

They all stepped onto the walkway on the other side of the meter-tall barrier. The Avenue’s strange light went out, and another light went on on both sides of the walkway, illuminating about half a kilometer to their left.

“The lights will come on where we are, and go out where we aren’t,” Brazil explained. “It’s automatic. Slelcronian, you’ll find the light adequate for you despite its apparent lack of intensity. You can get rid of that heat lamp. Just throw it over the barrier there. It will be disposed of by the automatic machinery in about fourteen hours.” The Markovian’s tentacle near the forward part of the walkway struck the side sharply, and the walkway started to move.

“You are now on the walkway to the Well Access Gate,” he explained. “When the Markovians built this world, it was necessary, of course, for the technicians to get in and out. They were full shifts—one full rotation on, one off. Every day from dozens to thousands of Markovian technicians would ride this walkway to the control center and to other critical areas inside the planet. In those days, of course, The Avenue would stay open as long as necessary. It was shortened to the small interval in the last days before the last Markovian went native for good, to allow the border hexes some development and to keep out those who had second thoughts. At the end, only the three dozen project coordinators came, and then irregularly, just to check on things. As any technician was finally cleared out of the Well, the key to The Avenue doors was removed from his mind, so he could not get back in if he wanted to.”

They moved on in eerie silence, lighted sections suddenly popping on in front of them, out in back of them, as they traveled. The walkway itself seemed to glow radiantly; no light source was visible.

“Some of you know the story of this place already,” Brazil continued. “The race you call the Markovians rose as did all other species, developed, and finally discovered the primal energy nature of the universe—that there was nothing but this primal energy, extending outward in all directions, and that all constructs within it, we included, are established by rules and laws of nature that are not fixed just because they are there, but are instead imposed. Nothing equals anything, really; the equal sign is strictly for the imposed structure of the universe. Rather, everything is relative to everything else.”