Jack Chalker - Echoes of the Well of Souls

Nathan Brazil grinned. “Glathrielian.”

Those huge eyes seemed to double in size. “You are joking, of course.”

“No, I’m not. We came through the Well from offworld, and that’s what we are. It won’t be hard even if your guide doesn’t list us. I’ll give you a half dozen or more races we’re compatible with.”

“Very well. So you’re what Glathrielians look like.”

“You work here and you’ve never seen any?”

“I’m actually the purser on the Honza Queen. When we’re in port, we take the late shifts in the company offices. There isn’t much here to interest me, anyway.”

The fare was not cheap, but it was reasonable, and Brazil felt certain he could more than afford this leg. There would be other times when things would be a lot harder.

Besides, it might be interesting to see how hard the ship’s crew and other passengers might gamble.

Finally, Brazil asked, “Is there any outdoor area nearby where we might be able to camp? I suspect that any hotels in this area won’t be set up for us, and I have my own food.” There usually were such places around ports, particularly because most of them naturally provided only for the races that were the most common visitors. The Gulf of Zinjin was an arm of the Well World’s greatest ocean, and there were far too many possible visitors to economically provide for them all, and particularly not Glathrielians.

“Far northern end, past the last pier,” the clerk informed him. “Rather nice, although a bit chilly some nights for hairless types. A number of small merchants have local stalls up there from dawn to dusk, too, if you can tolerate the local food.”

“Some of it. Well, it sounds fine to me. Any permits required?”

“Not at the port one. All others, you’d need to report to the police first.”

The clerk made a series of entries with two huge, clawed hands that extended from under the feathers, and the computer spit out very neat-looking ticket books. Brazil thanked him, put the tickets away, and went back outside, with Terry following. Just walking back out in the air seemed to lift an enormous burden from her, but she still felt a little shaken and a little sick from the experience. Being enclosed was going to be very, very rough on her indeed, she knew. Brazil decided to take the horses with them rather than pay to have them quartered at the warehouse. The odds of their being in the way at the park were more than outweighed by the possibilities of selling them to the locals there if transporting them proved to be a problem, and it might. Hakazit and Agon were also high-tech hexes, and any layover in the former would just leave him with even more ravenous mouths to feed, not to mention the problem of horse droppings, which many places, and particularly high-tech places, tended to frown on.

The park wasn’t much, just a large area that apparently had been part of a much earlier port and settlement, long abandoned. They’d planted some trees, as much to keep erosion down as for shelter, and it fronted right on the Gulf, with a small jetty leading out to guide lights warning off any incoming ships.

If anyone else was using the park right now, he couldn’t see them, although with some clouds and only a few electric streetlights he might well have missed them. Still, there was a nice ocean smell coming in on the breeze and the quiet sound of waves lapping at the old pylons.

He picked a spot just inside the trees and set up the small tent and the camping outfit as he had in Glathriel. Thanks to the brevity of his trip, he still had a five-day supply of food and gas canisters, and there was a very nice if somewhat elaborate fountain in the middle of the park that, thankfully, had fresh water.

Terry used her new night sense to survey the area and found virtually nothing edible in and around the park. She knew she could wander farther afield, but this was a large and strange city and was unlikely to have any real groves close by. Here one didn’t pick one’s food, one bought it.

Thus, when Brazil opened up his food supplies and gestured an offer to share, she had no choice but to accept, although she made it clear with hand signals that it was not to be cooked. Something of an amateur gourmet who fancied herself a very good cook, she now found the thought of cooked food thoroughly repulsive.

Brazil did not compromise his own preferences for hers but did find a perverse fascination in watching her eat. Knowing that she must have been a civilized, modern woman, he was fascinated to see her take an open container of preserved fruit, for example, and just scoop it out with her fingers. He was even more surprised when she took and ate the beef he had, both ground and in small filets, also raw. He remembered then the Ambrezan foreman telling him that Glathrielians would eat meat, but only if it was already dead.

Terry, too, was surprised both at her appetite and at the fact that the meat tasted exceptionally good right out of the container. Until now she’d always liked her meat cooked through, and with sauces and all the trimmings if available. While he packed up and saw to the horses, she went to the fountain and then to relieve herself, and when she got back, he was getting ready to turn in. It had been a long, tiring day, and both keenly felt it.

A very chilly sea breeze was developing, and he was concerned for her. He offered her a spot in his tent, limited as it was, or his sleeping bag, but she declined both with a smile. Then she gave him a little hug and a kiss and went off.

Again he’d noticed that odd, almost static electricity feeling when they’d touched, but now he noticed another thing as well.

She’d been warm to the touch, with no sign at all of the chill he felt on his face and hands. As warm as summertime.

Terry didn’t notice this because she really didn’t feel it. The field around her that she could see, generated somehow by her own body, acted as insulator and even life support system in some odd way. She felt warm and comfortable, and she picked a tree almost over Brazil’s tent and scampered up it, then found a comfortable notch and settled in for the night.

Terry awoke the next morning feeling nauseous, and for a moment she was afraid it was the food. Something inside her, though, told her that it wasn’t, that it would pass, and she trusted her instincts as usual and they proved correct. She still felt a little queasy when Brazil finally got up and found her there waiting for him, but she didn’t let on that anything was wrong, and after getting something to eat, the feeling gradually vanished.

Brazil bought breakfast from the promised local merchants, who set up small booths along the waterfront area of the park selling homegrown produce and other things. He discovered that Terry would eat bread, the first cooked item he had seen her accept, but not eggs. In point of fact, she ate two whole home-baked loaves of bread and two large melons, and Brazil began to wonder if he could literally afford to take her with that kind of appetite.

He walked back into the port district; he’d already made a decision that the horses would be far too much of a burden until they were needed to be worth the cost and had opened some discussions with a stall merchant who kept a couple of horses at his place outside the city. Terry followed him through the now-bustling area, and her head began to reel with the number of races and weird sounds and smells that made the whole place come alive. She had already figured, though, that he was leaving by ship, and she no longer felt compelled to enter the buildings he entered.

So many sounds, so many races… how did they understand each other? She found the whole thing bewildering. The Glathrielians whose lives she’d shared had not prepared her for this.