Jack Chalker: Echoes of the Well of Souls

When she moved from behind the desk, however, the differences were more apparent. She had no navel, but at about where the navel should have been, the skin became darker and light wheat-colored hair began—from this point on down, and back through all four hoofed feet to her tail, she was very much a horse. The fact that the seemingly unbalanced front and rear halves managed to work so well together was even more amazing.

There was a buzzing sound, and she turned and looked toward her office door. “Come in!”

A large creature walked in, in some ways the reverse of Ursoma. His body, while chunky, was quite humanoid, but upon his thick neck sat a face that most resembled a great bull’s head set in a permanently pissed-off expression. Because of the differences in them, she was almost as tall as he was.

“You left a message that you wanted to see me?”

She walked over to him slowly, all four hooves clattering on the smooth floor. When she reached him, her face grew suddenly very angry and she slapped him hard.

Although she didn’t look it, female Dillians were very strong, and the bull-headed creature reeled from the blow, then snorted and roared, “How dare you do that to me?”

“Because you are a pigheaded asshole, and I’m in charge by mutual consent of this operation. I can have you executed for what you pulled! Your punishment would be far worse than slapping if I reported you!”

“What do you mean?” the creature grumbled, but calmed down.

“I mean these reports! Brazil and that mute girl. Mavra Chang down in Erdom. I know you hired those killers. It wasn’t hard to trace a turd-brain like you!”

“So they failed. They won’t next time. I am tired of all this stupidity, this sneaking around and spying. Direct action is the answer! Just eliminate the threat!”

She sighed. “I think I will have you executed! That’s Nathan Brazil, you idiot! You can’t kill him! No matter what you do, the Well won’t let you! And since we have no reason to disbelieve her, the same goes for this Chang woman. All you can do is scare them underground, put them on their guard, and if you kill any of their friends or associates, you’ll have them so pissed off at us that when one or the other gets into the Well, they’ll take a revenge more terrible than the legends! Didn’t that ever occur to you? Didn’t you listen at the briefings, when we played the tape of her talking to her compatriots before they went through? Didn’t you hear the proof that it was Brazil coming through, unchanged but with a translator module implant so he could speak to the Ambreza as soon as he awoke? And the same for Chang? Our computers state that there is almost a dead certainty that at least one and possibly both are of the First Race, locked in Glathrielian bodies for some reason of their own but heading for the Well.”

“It was boring and stupid. When you started on that immortal crap, I fell asleep. I’m an atheist. I do not believe in immortal godlike beings. I think we were being had with that briefing shit. Either that or the female is crazy. If it wasn’t one or the other, she makes a pretty dumb goddess using a translator and never once thinking that it might be recorded or monitored.”

“Well, wake up now and look at the evidence! Did it ever occur to you that after all those centuries Chang just might be a wee bit rusty ? Oh, I don’t know why I don’t put you permanently to sleep. One more, just one slight deviation from plans, one teensy, infinitesimal attempt to think or act on your own and you will forfeit your lands, your possessions, all wives, everything you have, and then you will beg to be executed after we are through with you! Our chances of pulling this off are slim enough now. Once they get into the Well, who can limit their power? Who can override them? Not any of us! And you —you get them running scared and threaten any possibilities of a deal we might have!”

“All right, all right. So what do you want me to do?”

“Call off your assassins. At once. Then start attending briefings, and this time stay awake and listen! Brazil and the girl are now headed west across the Gulf of Zinjin. If they connect at the narrows, he will be almost two-thirds of the way there, while Chang is still getting organized in Itus. We must slow Brazil and direct Chang so that the two are likely to end up near the equator in the same general region at the same time. That is going to be tricky enough, but we can’t depend on fate to do it for us. This is going to take a lot of coordination. And we must all work as a team. All of us! If we don’t, then armies will mobilize once either or both get near their goals, and we shall be fighting each other over them! Understand?”

He nodded but said nothing.

“There is a briefing over the secured channels in one hour. Be on and be awake!” she snapped, then whirled and trotted back to her desk.

In the darkness, under cloudy skies with a drizzly rain falling, with the air seeming heavy and solid and the mists moving like wraiths through the tops of the trees, there was a Gathering.

By the hundreds they came, male and female, young, old, and in between, to sit in the open on that wet, swampy ground, eyes closed, and to touch one another in such a way that both arms were linked to or clasped by different people. The Gathering itself was brief and silent. Thoughts, as most of the other races of the Well World had them, were not transferred, yet information was. The combined analytical data was sifted, sorted, and examined; all possibilities that might be foreseen were equally and clearly laid out in an instant, and a collective decision arose as if spontaneously out of the combined input of the Gathering.

It was over in just a few minutes, but had they been Ambrezan, or Erdomese, or Dillians, or even Terrans, they might have run on for hours and never even seen all the data or all the ways it might be used, let alone make decisions. But if the Gathering were translated to a linear form and distilled, it might have been something like this:

“The stepchild of the group does well.

“That which we imparted to her blends well with that which had come before. She has now ensured that she will enter the Well of Souls with the man of the First Race.

“It is surprising that the Power works even on one of his strength.

“The First Race was great enough to know, even at their height, that they were flawed beyond redemption. That is why the Great Experiment was decreed. But as the Watchman, he is less than he was, although all that he was is still within him. Consider the shock to the Monitors when he instinctively reacted to the Power! Yet, in taking on the form of a Colonial Race, living as one with them, he shares their defects and weaknesses as well as their own strengths. Otherwise he would have recognized us and sensed us.

“And so he proceeds to do for us the one thing that we could never do for ourselves. Our opportunity comes early. We must seize upon it and hope that it has not come too early for us, as it did for them.

“So far, things go well. It is good that the girl was not given to know that she and the First One are proceeding toward the end of the universe as they know it.”

The coastline was now out of sight behind them, and the mighty stacks of the great ship belched out plumes of white smoke as the ship accelerated to full speed.

Terry sat on the afterdeck next to Nathan Brazil, oblivious to the stiff wind and chill in the ocean air, looking not back but forward.

Brazil himself stared into the rolling waters, put his arm around Terry, and thought only of good possibilities. Since no one could possibly know which route he would take and no passengers or crew had signed on to the ship after he purchased their tickets, he was reasonably certain that whoever had hired those bumbling assassins was left behind. It would be next to impossible to set up anything serious at his destination before they arrived, unless somehow they already knew that destination and had allies there. Unlikely, but he could cope. If it was Mavra, she’d be more likely to go hell-bent north herself than worry anymore about him. She had started from the same place and at roughly the same time, so they had equal distances to travel. He would also have liked to have checked up on Tony and Anne Marie, but they, too, could wait. If there was any place a potential foe would figure he’d show up and be laying for him, it would be around either one of them.