Jack Chalker: Twilight at the Well of Souls

The men, it seemed, spent most of their time in combat-type sports and rivalries, although they also regulated commerce and trade, swapping whatever their clans produced for whatever they needed. They decided what would be grown on the limbs and in the mulch-lined hollows of branches; they decided just about everything, in fact. Only males received any sort of education. She found Dhutu’s ignorance almost appalling. The female considered reading and writing things of magic; books and letters were mysterious symbols that “talked” only to males. She had no idea what lay over the next grove beyond her own local neighborhood, let alone the fact that she was on a planet—-or even what a planet was. She knew there were other races, of course; hexes were too small to conceal that fact. But she knew nothing about them, for they were all monsters and could be understood only by clan chiefs. And anyhow, she had no curiosity.

The women, it turned out, provided the labor. They not only bore and raised the young, they farmed the limbs, harvested the vines and fruits, created the special mulches for better yields, and were also the craftsmen and manufacturers. Working in wood was elaborate work here, since it was incredible and ornate, yet it had to be done without killing the tree. They built and maintained highly detailed homes inside the trees and created the intricate woodwork, the distinctive furniture, objets d’art, and household equipment, such as vases. They also made strange musical instruments for elaborate compositions—written by men, of course—and the tools and weapons for their own work and for the men’s sport.

They reached a tree— her tree, Dhutu told her— and landed on a lower limb. “This is a new tree,” she was told, “that is, it was acquired in a trade with the Mogid clan, who needed additional fruit production. We had extra fruit trees off near their border, they had some spare life trees near by, and we needed new space. It has caused us great excitement, for such a thing has not happened before in any of our memories. We are only now starting to develop the tree properly, work in which you will share.” She said it with such enthusiasm that Yua supposed that she was expected to feel thrilled or something at that.

They entered a large cavity and descended a ladder to a lower floor that was more developed. The trees were huge; she guessed that the tree must be thirty or more meters in diameter, with its own life system in its outer area. The trees seemed naturally hollow, so there was little damage done by living inside them, but what was done inside was something impressive indeed.

The new level was in the process of being transformed. Females busily worked hand-sanding areas, using planes and small tools to refashion and reshape the interior into something that looked more manufactured than grown, yet with such thought that it used the contours of the tree and the tree’s various natural wooden supports to good benefit. Shaping, sanding, polishing, and finishing were all being done in different areas. Artisans also worked carving elaborate designs into the wood. It was obvious that the thick flooring was also mostly natural, but it had been finished so slickly that it was now completely level, shined, and polished like finished wood on furniture.

Dhutu stopped and called out, “My sisters! Meet our new sister, Yua, who will join us!” The others halted their work, turned, nodded to her in friendly fashion, then went back to work. “Come on, let’s get you settled in,” the Awbrian continued, and went to a neatly concealed trap door, opened it, and climbed down. Yua followed. There seemed nothing else to do.

Lower levels were finished and appeared all the more impressive. What was most fascinating, she thought, was the way in which some sort of luminous sheen had been carefully applied all around, allowing the light from very tiny glass-covered lamps to illuminate those huge rooms. The living tree was moist enough that the small oil lamps provided almost no threat of fire, but a huge blaze, like the kind that would be required to illuminate the room in normal circumstances, would have been far too dangerous even if there had been some outlet for the smoke.

On one level they did not stop at all, and it was blocked by high curtains from floor to ceiling from view. “The men’s quarters,” Dhutu explained, and they continued. The next level was living quarters for a number of older Awbrian females, the supervisors of this world. “All are past their Time,” Dhutu whispered enigmatically. “Respect must be shown them at all times.”

Yua was taken to one ancient Awbrian, who was reclining on a soft, huge pillow, somewhat catlike in manner. Yua needed no guide to know that this one was old indeed; her bill was blotched with odd marks of age, and her fur seemed mottled not only with white but with mange. Her hands were wrinkled and withered, and she was so thin she looked almost skeletal; her skin, already loose because of the membranes, seemed to hang baggy and limp all about her, from face to tail.

“Revered grandmother,” Dhutu said, bowing slightly, “this is the one we have been told to expect.”

The ancient female peered myopically at the Entry. Finally she said in a cracked, withered voice, “You are one who was once some other creature?”

Deciding that it was better at this stage not to anger the leadership, particularly the lower-echelon leadership, Yua nodded but said nothing.

The elder seemed satisfied. “You won’t like it here,” she said abruptly.

Yua decided that called for a comment. “It is not what I am used to,” she admitted. “I admire the trees and the work, but not some of the ways I have been told you have here.”

The elder nodded. “What work did you do—before?” she asked.

“I was a speaker, a traveler, a… a religious leader,” Yua replied, groping for the right words in this new tongue.

“I suppose you could hold a book so it would talk to you?”

Yua nodded. “I could—but in my old tongues, of course.”

The elder Awbrian sighed. “You won’t like it here at all,” she repeated with emphasis, then fell silent for a time so long that Yua felt awkward and feared the old one had fallen asleep. But Dhutu still stood there respectfully, and so she thought she might as well do likewise.

Finally the old female opened her eyes again and looked right at Yua. “Better you had been a carpenter, or farmer, or artisan,” she croaked. “You have no skills of use here, so you are fit only for the most boring, repetitive, unskilled work. It will drive you mad. You will try to show your cleverness, and if there is one thing men will not allow, it is that in women. You will be a threat, and threats must be dealt with. Eventually they will send you to a Healer and then you will think no more.”

Yua considered this. “You don’t sound very dumb or ignorant yourself,” she noted.

The old one’s bill curved in the Awbrian version of a smile. “But I am a survivor,” she said proudly. “Growing up in this society I found ways to be clever and to learn but never to betray that fact. It is something born of a lifetime’s experience, and you have not the lifetime to learn it. It is called subtlety, I believe. And to what end? To spend my last days on a cushion inhaling drugged vapors and dreaming of what a waste it all has been?”

If Dhutu was shocked by all this, she showed no sign. In fact, she barely moved at all.

“I should think,” Yua almost whispered, “that there is more here to this society than meets the eye of a newcomer—or a man.”

Again that smile. “Yes, that is so. Within the clans are the guilds, and within the guilds are things that— help. A hidden school, you might say. I tell you this only because it will be more obvious to you than to the men, and you will get along better if you make no obvious betrayals, to ask no wrong questions. You understand the men’s rule here is absolute. You are property, not a person at all. They may do anything with you they wish, and you have no rights or say in the matter. As a result, all that we do is at great risk, yet it is necessary. We have the same brains and talents as they, yet we cannot show it. We must work far in the background, so that our own ideas are thought of as men’s ideas, not ours. It is the way we progress, and it is the only way possible.”