Jack Chalker - Shadow of the Well of Souls

Nathan Brazil nodded and got painfully to his feet. “God! I need an intravenous coffee transfusion,” he groaned.

“Sorry. Fresh out. Never touch the stuff myself. You’re stuck with water or beer for breakfast. I used to have a ‘Beer—Breakfast of Champions’ shirt once. Wouldn’t fit now, though, I suppose, and I don’t have much of a taste for beer anymore, either.”

“Well, let me get some water on my face and see if I can wake up,” the captain moaned. “Then, if you can hold on for another couple of minutes, I want to take some sightings of the sun and get a rough position.” He went over to the small jug that was just where he’d left it in the night and splashed some of the water on his face and neck. It felt warm, but it was better than nothing. “How long was I out?”

“Can’t say, not having a watch, but the sun’s been up quite a while.”

Nathan Brazil looked up and took a sight reading. “Um, yeah. Way up. Sun’s not quite over the yardarm, though, so I’ll pass on the beer. Uh, don’t take this personally, but just exactly what the hell do you eat, anyway?”

“Most anything that won’t eat me, really. Preferably live when I get it, but anything that’s reasonably fresh is okay. Strictly carnivore. These small vampire teeth inject a nasty venom into whatever I want that kind of kills it and then softens it up so it goes down. Not much in the taste business, but if the critter’s big enough, I don’t have to eat or even drink much for days. Don’t worry—I’d eaten just the night before we all scrammed out of Hakazit.”

Brazil wasn’t all that worried, but he decided for now not to ask what, in high-tech Hakazit, the Dahir had eaten.

“Have you ever heard of Dlubine?” Nathan Brazil asked the Dahir, changing the subject.

“No. Sounds like the noise you make when you throw up, sort of. Hell, I’m new here. You’re supposed to be the expert, right? The god of the Well World, or am I being too limited?”

Brazil chuckled. “No, that’s the reputation but hardly the truth. I’m the genuine handpicked successor to the equally genuine handpicked successor of the creatures that helped build this whole thing. We used to call them Markovians in the old days, a term without meaning now, but if I use it, you should know that’s who I mean. The highest race in all creation, at least as far as there’s any evidence. Got to the point where matter-to-energy and energy-to-matter conversions were old hat. Roamed the whole universe using interdimensional pathways; never needed to take a lot with them because they could have anything they needed by just willing it. They could become anything, too—so close, nobody could tell the difference. Just rearrange the atoms. They knew they were gods, too. And that’s what drove ’em nuts.”

“Huh?”

“Well, you ever consider the real problem of being a god? No surprises, nothing more to learn, nothing new to discover, everything you ever wanted or needed there at your whim. Not even time has any real meaning to a god, not in the sense that it does to most folks. After a billion years or so things are absolutely the same, nothing to look forward to, just an endless present. Of course, they built this world as the center—the center of the universe, more or less. All their roads led to here, and from here. A whole damned planet-sized master computer that coordinated all the zillions of lesser ones and was the true source of their power. It’s still here, still working, maybe thirty, thirty-five kilometers beneath us now. The whole damned ball except this surface shell is self-repairing, self-maintaining, just going on and on long after there was anybody around who could use its power.”

Gus was appalled. “You mean they died of boredom ?”

“More or less, I guess. I wasn’t there, but I’ve kind of felt an affinity for them over time. But with me it’s strictly one-way, from the Well to me, not me to the Well. To get in real communication with it and have access to any of its power, I have to be inside, at the controls, in the form of one of the founding race. No other form I know can handle it. A big lump of rubbery brain case with six huge but remarkably sensitive tentacles. You don’t even need eyes or a nose or a mouth or any of that. You’re kind of beyond all that. You don’t just see an object in three dimensions, you see it in all dimensions, and you see it from all angles at once. Things you couldn’t even keep all in your head become so simple and obvious, they don’t even require thought. And what you don’t know, the Well does, and it’s all there and available to you. The powers of God almighty, almost.”

“I’m surprised that you change back,” the Dahir commented. “Seems to me it’d be kinda hard to give that up, at least until you had your own billion years or so to get bored in.”

“No, it’s not that simple. Maybe if I was one of them it would be, but I’m not. I have strict limitations on what I can and can’t do. I’ve got the form and the power while I’m in there, yeah, but not the independence. I’m not there to tell the Well what to do, I’m there because the Well needs me to do something it can’t do itself. And when I do it, it wants me out of there, pronto. Back in the tool chest, as it were, until the next time.”

“But it’s true you can’t be killed?”

“It’s true. Something, no matter how ridiculous the odds, always comes along to save my ass. Not that I can’t get hurt or have all the other problems that anybody else might have, including all the weaknesses, but no matter what, I’ll survive. The Well manipulates probability so I’m available if needed. You know, I once stood in front of a firing squad, and every damned rifle was defective. I’ve survived massacres, even a crucifixion or so. Even so, I guess I’ve been shot, stabbed, speared, strangled, drowned, you name it, many a time. No matter what, something happens to save me. I will tell you, though, that it’s no fun at all.”

“Yeah, I can believe that. Still, I’d think you’d be a mass of stumps and scars by now.”

Nathan Brazil shook his head. “Nope. Every part of me constantly regenerates. Cut off an arm and it’ll hurt like hell, but eventually I’ll grow a new one. Even my brain regenerates, which causes trouble over time. There’s not enough room in there to store or copy all the information you get from living so long. Eventually, things you don’t need or haven’t thought about in a long time just get spooled off, stored by the Well, outside of your head. I don’t know how much I’ve forgotten, but it must be an enormous amount. There were times, I know, when I had no memory of who or what I was at all, until I got manipulated and wound up spending time here. The funny thing is, while I don’t remember those periods all that much, I think of them as the happiest of times. After you live as long as I have, you discover that ignorance really is bliss.”

“You sound like you’d almost like to join those Ancient Ones,” Gus noted.

“Sometimes, maybe a lot of times, I think about that. The last time—the details are hazy, but I know I’d just gotten so damned sick of it, I was ready to at least start the process. See, I’m the safety valve, the one left around just in case there was something those Ancient Ones hadn’t thought of. Like my predecessor, I can’t quit until somebody else is groomed to take my place and has proved acceptable and competent to the Well.”

“This Mavra Chang. She was supposed to be your replacement?”

He nodded. “In a way, anyway. At least it was a start. I took her in, changed her so that she was part of the Well’s system, and made her do all the work. I remember that much. Then we had to go through a whole new cycle to see if she could and would be able to handle the burden. I really thought she could, but now I’m not so sure.”