Jack Chalker - Shadow of the Well of Souls

“Turn this ship around!” it thundered menacingly. “This is a Chandur ship, and you’re no Chandur, thief!”

“And neither are you!” he shouted back, thinking fast and still steering for the markers. “I know very well whose ship this is! I was hired to repossess it for failing to make payments for much of this past season!”

“Repo—! That’s worse than a damned thief!” the creature roared. “I ate the last repo agent who tried it on my ship! We watermen stick together!” It looked around and saw that they were still headed out. “I said turn this boat around! Now! ”

“If you ate the last repo agent, then I’ve nothing to lose, do I?” he responded, trying to sound as cool as possible. “If I’m going to die, I guess I might as well take you with me. That barge over there looks solid enough to crack us up and put us under.”

The creature raised the pistol. “Get away from that wheel or I’ll blast you where you stand! Move away, I say! Down here! I’ll take her in! Don’t think I won’t shoot, either. It’ll blow your wheel, but I can use the other one in the wheel shack amidships!”

Nathan Brazil sighed and stepped back from the wheel and over to the right as directed. Well, I almost got away with it, he thought glumly.

Suddenly a dark shape moved from the center deck behind the creature forward to where it could sense something moving. It whirled and immediately faced the girl.

It towered over her, and the mouth opened, revealing the very nasty teeth, but she did not seem intimidated. Instead, she looked up at the thing and right into its huge oval eyes.

“You! You get over with your friend—” it began in the same deep, threatening tone it had used on him, but suddenly it stopped. The big eyes seemed to squint, and the huge mouth took on a look of undeniable surprise and confusion. “You—you get—I—uh…” it tried, then stopped, seemingly frozen to the spot, unable to move.

Brazil didn’t wait to find out what was going on. With the gun no longer aimed at him, he went back to the wheel and began adjusting the course. Still, one eye was on where they were heading and the other was on the drama unfolding just below.

Slowly, jerkily, as if fighting something that was making the creature move against its will as if it were some sort of giant marionette, the right arm was coming up to the face, the gun still firmly in its hand, and when it was at mouth level, the wrist trembled and began to turn the barrel inward, toward that mouth.

“No!” Brazil yelled at her, trying to project as much emotion as he could that she should not go through with what she was obviously doing. What he particularly didn’t like was what he was getting back from her.

Nothing.

A cold, empty nothing, devoid of pity, hesitation, question.

Devoid of humanity.

She felt his revulsion, though, and hesitated, as if waiting for instructions.

They weren’t very far from the barges. The water was icy cold, but with that kind of insulation the creature shouldn’t have any trouble making it to them before he froze to death. Frantic to try to communicate with her and upset by this terrible, almost machinelike coldness he felt inside her, he tried mental pictures of the thing jumping overboard and said aloud, “Splash! Swish!”

For a moment nothing happened, then she seemed to get the idea. The big creature turned, walked stiffly to the side of the boat, bent over the rail, then dropped into the water, still holding the gun.

He spun the wheel back toward the center channel and then shouted, “Let go of it! Let. Go. Of. It!”

She again seemed to get the message, and from perhaps ten meters behind he heard the creature break to the surface and roar with fury. When the curses and threats came, Brazil relaxed. The big thing would be okay.

The girl seemed to be back to normal now. The feelings he got were the basic ones, of satisfaction at dealing with a threat, of a job properly done. That deep, abiding coldness he’d felt was now once again hidden, but he would not forget it.

That would-be hero was too much like himself, a fellow sailor doing what honor required him to do. He would kill such a man in a fair fight if he had the chance and no other choice, but always out of necessity, never coldly and never without profound regret.

She either didn’t understand that or had discounted it. It was almost as if she’d observed the situation, done a cold, mathematical calculation, and taken the easiest route. No regrets, no second thoughts, no recrimination, nothing. The fact that she had a kind of mental power that could do this at all was scary enough, but to do it so damned coldly was… scary.

He had never been this frightened of something. Not in a very, very long time. If she could do that to the sailor, then she could do that to him and might well do so. He tried very hard to suppress the fear, but it was there, niggling, and that was the worst of it; he knew she could feel it inside him as surely as if it were inside her. The only thing that gave him some comfort was that she had acted only for his protection, and she had listened to him when he had insisted that the sailor should live.

The truth was, he could sense in her no danger to himself, but that wasn’t what scared him so much.

What if they can all do this? What kind of game is the population of Glathriel playing, and with how much of this world?

He was out into the full channel now and approaching the hex barrier, and he turned to a more practical concern. At least the weather had prevented the other sailors from pursuing them; now he had to prove he was enough of a sailor to get through it himself. The snowstorm wasn’t a big deal, but the dark, swirling clouds in Pulcinell right ahead didn’t promise anything better.

He passed through the barrier, feeling the very slight tingle that was all anybody felt when going through one of the energy walls, and he was suddenly in tropical heat and a roaring wind. For several minutes he was again frantically working for control of the boat in ankle-deep snow on the deck while sweating from the heavy clothing he wore.

He estimated the winds at gale force, no worse, but it meant trimming sail to the minimum, heading upwind, and battling the sea with a wheel that had a mind of its own. He only hoped that the girl didn’t suffer from seasickness; this was going to be one rough time.

No rest for the weary,he thought glumly, but if he could hold out, it would be very much to his advantage. He didn’t care how far he went or if he went very far at all; if the storm grew no worse and if he maintained his current heading, it would put a lot of water between him and any pursuers. He fully expected to use this wind once it slackened off enough to trust.

For now, though, it was a matter of keeping the damned boat afloat. He watched wave after wave crash into the bow and engulf it and then felt that bizarre sensation only those who had sailed into a large storm knew, that of the deck shifting suddenly both horizontally and vertically at once as the bow came up and broke free to await another wave.

There was a lashing post, and he considered tying himself to the wheel station, but he’d sailed worse-handling craft than this in even rougher weather over thousands of years and countless endless seas. Once he got his sea legs and the rhythm of the ship, he would feel fairly comfortable with it. Still, it would be nice to sit down, strapped to a fixed chair rather than having to stand through the storm for who knew how long. Still, he dared to lock the wheel long enough to slip off the heavy coat he was wearing and noted for the first time that he’d lost his hat somewhere along the way.