Jack Chalker: Twilight at the Well of Souls

The leader was thinking it over. “Huh? Oh, a little over three years.”

“Wouldn’t you like to hold on and maybe break that fellow’s old record? Hell, even if the yen doesn’t fade with the war, think about this: your biggest threats are going to be in the forefront of planning and leadership in this thing—not only too occupied to have a serious go at you, but up front, where you can see who’s really got a chance.”

“The people… they’ll have to be pre-prepared for this, you realize,” the Hakazit leader muttered. “It’ll have to be carefully planned, carefully orchestrated.”

Marquoz nodded. “That’s why I was sent here, specifically here, to Hakazit,” he told the other, realizing the truth himself, now, for the first time. “Uh, tell me, you have a secret police, of course.”

“A very good one,” the Supreme Lord confirmed proudly.

“Uh huh. And how does one get to head that service?”

The leader looked a bit sheepish. “Well… you know…”

“Oh,” Marquoz managed. “Your Secret Police chief, he doesn’t have this place bugged, too, does he?”

The Supreme Lord looked shocked. “Of course not! Only I control this. The proof is that I’m still here.”

That seemed reasonable to Marquoz. “Hmmm… this chieftan, is he a nice fellow as people go? Loving wife and kiddies?”

“General Yutz? Ha!” the dictator chuckled. “He’s a rotten son of a bitch, the rottenest I’ve ever seen. Strangled his last wife and his oldest son because he thought they were plotting against him.”

“I’m so very glad to hear that,” Marquoz responded sincerely. “Otherwise I’d have guilt feelings when I knocked him off.”

The leader looked surprised. “Knocked him off? Easier said than done, my friend.”

The newcomer chuckled dryly. “Oh, come on, Your Lordship. If you couldn’t kill him any time you felt like it, he’d have your job by now. His death should be simple to arrange.”

The Supreme Lord of Hakazit looked at Marquoz as if for the first time, shaking his head slowly in undisguised admiration and fascination. “You know, Marquoz,” he said after a while, “I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Could be, Your Lordship,” Marquoz responded, managing a slight smile on his stiff, fierce face. “Could be indeed. I’d much rather work with you than overthrow you. It makes my job so much nicer.”

So much nicer, he thought to himself, and so much easier. Much easier than the alternate plan, which would have been to overthrow the whole damned system.

“Let’s do it,” the Supreme Lord said at last.

The land of Awbri was a strange jungle rainforest, thick with huge trees growing out of a dense swamp, rising thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of meters into the air. The atmosphere was heavy and humid; little droplets seemed forever suspended in the air and there was nothing, really, but water, water, water… Water from waterfalls spilling down the trees and over broad leaves in a series of cascades, going down, ever down, into the forest floor below. And yet there was little sunlight; the great trees blocked it somewhere, up there, in the omnipresent gray clouds themselves, perhaps even above those clouds. The people of Awbri, if they knew, did not seem to care.

And below, far, far below, was the Floor, the base of the forest and the destination of those cascades. Down there, it was said, was a horrible swamp with quicksand and quagmire the rule and in which lived terrible, voracious mud and swamp creatures, creatures both animal and parasitic plant—and even carnivorous plant—that fought one another in a continual battle and devoured all that came near. None could climb, however, and even the parasites seemed stopped as they grew upward, halted by secretions from the great trees. The insects were mostly symbiotic, or, if parasitic, were so on animals and not the trees. Of insects there seemed an infinite number, some of which could penetrate and draw life-giving blood even from the bodies of the Awbrians, but that, too, was fair: in addition to the fruits of the trees and the vegetables from the vines that clung to great limbs, the Awbrians ate enormous quantities of those insects.

The Awbrians themselves lived only in the trees, from about the hundred-meter level to the clouds at about the fifteen-hundred-meter level. They had comic-looking short duck bills that were somewhat flexible, mounted on thin, flat heads whose long supporting necks joined lithe, almost infinitely supple ro-dentlike bodies. Their four limbs all terminated in identical monkeylike hands, each with opposable thumb; there was no difference between hand and foot, which, with the Awbrian’s infinitely flexible backbone and limbs, were used as either as the situation warranted. Except for their bare gray palms and long, flat, almost rigid, kitelike tails, their bodies were covered in thick fur whose oils repelled water. All limbs were connected by fur-covered membranes, and their bones were hollow, allowing them considerable bird-like buoyancy in the air, something they needed because, with arms and legs outstretched and using the tail as a rudder, these creatures could fly between the treetops and glide for long distances, agilely darting around limbs, leaves, and other obstructions. Unlike birds, they were ultimately victims of gravity, more gliders than powered flyers. Yet by sensing the air currents and speeds and distances, they could, like a glider, remain aloft a long, long time.

Such was the physical world into which Yua, former high priestess of Olympus, had been reborn through the Well of Souls. The cultural world had been, for her, the greater shock.

As with her own people, there were many more females born here than males, perhaps ten or more to one. But here the men ruled supreme, whereas in her old world they had functioned merely as pampered courtesans. She had sought out the leadership of this land when she first awakened here and had been directed, finally, to the local council, which had its headquarters in a great tree that seemed set apart from the rest. So far, she had been treated with discourtesy, even downright rudeness, and had little liking for her new people, a feeling that grew even more ominous when she discovered she was to be assigned to a family of low rank. She was pragmatic; she accepted their rule for now because she could do nothing else about it, and because the alternative was to be drugged or lobotomized into acceptance and submission.

Awbri had no central government. It was made up of clans, each of which was an extended family all living and working together. Each tree could support between a dozen and twenty or so Awbrians; clans spread to adjoining trees and their relative power and social ranking was based on the number of people in the clan and, by extension, the number of trees it inhabited and controlled. Within each clan, which ranged from as few as a hundred to more than five thousand, male rank was a combination of age, birth, and tests of strength and endurance. Female rank depended more on age and relationship to the chief male of the clan than on anything else, although the highest-ranking female was always well below the lowest-ranking male.

A young Awbrian female came for her in the morning. She was Dhutu of Tokar, she told the newcomer, and she was here to help Yua get to her new home and to help her in adjusting.

Dhutu was friendly, at least, and helped her with the fine points of flying, although the more Yua did it the easier it became. She seemed instinctively to know distances and to “feel” and “see” the sluggish air. Still, lacking complete confidence in her ability as yet, she grabbed trees and took things in short stages. Dhutu was amused but patient, and it was during such stops that Yua learned more of the culture of Awbri.