Quest for the Well of Souls

“What the hell is going on here?” Joshi gasped.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But it’s the end of our world, that’s for sure.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “They won’t be back.”

“Oh, yes they will,” she retorted. “Them or somebody worse. They weren’t just pirates, Joshi. They landed here just to get us—kill, kidnap, I don’t know what. But they were pros. They wouldn’t go after us with a village full of cured tobacco just a little ways off. Somebody’s put a price on my head.”

He shook his head unbelieving. “But—why?”

“The only reason I can think of is that somebody’s finally figured out the way to that Northern spaceship, and they’re eliminating the competition,” she replied in a strange, coldly professional tone he’d never heard in her voice. He was experiencing the true Mavra Chang for the first time, and she bewildered him.

But her eyes were shining. After all these years—the great game was on again, the game she was born to play.

“Fire’s already down, probably almost out,” he noted, uncomfortable. “Want to see what we can salvage?”

“We’ll keep away, spend tonight here in the bushes,” she responded, tone still businesslike but with that same excited undertone.

“The natives—” he began, but she cut him short.

“Won’t come close on Ship’s Day, no matter what. You know that.” If they did, they would risk the wrath of the Ambreza.

“What about the Ambreza?” he pressed, trying to find some way to return to the comfort of his old situation. It was all he’d known since the fire that scarred him.

“No flares were fired, so they’re not alerted,” she pointed out. “If they don’t have a random patrol in this area they might not find out about what happened until it’s too late.”

He looked at her strangely. “Too late for what?”

“I haven’t tried to escape in so many years they take it for granted now,” she pointed out. “No tight watches any more. But even though I long ago gave up on the idea, I always kept a trove, just in case. You know that. The dried tobacco in the back shed and the little gold bars I’ve collected over the years by bartering the stuff through the Trader.”

He nodded. “I always thought that was all it was for—petty bribes. I never thought—”

“Stay alive, think of everything,” she said evenly. “Now, if we’re lucky, our little bank account there will buy us a smuggle on the Toorine Trader.”

The Trader arrived in early morning. Mavra and Joshi could see its sails as it rose from the clear horizon, great masts holding weathered white clouds.

It was hardly the only ship on the Sea of Turagin, but it was one of only six packet-boats to make a complete circuit, servicing all the hexes who cared to, or needed to, get trade and transportation. It was a grand ship, almost a hundred meters long, made of the finest copper-clad hardwood. The crew would have preferred steel, but that proved too heavy for fast movement under sail.

It was a three-master, with odd bowsprit and gunwales through which a wicked-looking cannon could peer if needed. But its central housing also bore twin black smokestacks over an engine, which, in all but nontech hexes, could power huge twin screws in the rear. Everod, the sea hex adjoining the coast of Glathriel, was nontech; its denizens, huge clamlike beings with masses of tendrils piercing their shells, were deep-water types, and there was never any real contact between them and the land-dwellers, nor did they seem to mind the surface commerce that the Trader represented. In fact, they, too, used the Trader, placing orders with its Zone broker and having what they needed weighted and dropped to them.

The Trader’s crew of thirty-four was an amalgam of Turagin races. Batlike Drika stood the night watches and occasionally scouted ahead for storms. The scorpions of Ecundo climbed her rigging deftly and managed the sails with claws of amazing versatility. The captain resembled a great tangled ball of nylon twine, out of which spindly limbs appeared as needed.

They took in sail, and stood to, anchoring on a reef that was marked with yellow buoys. Not good for business to anchor in deep water and maybe conk an Everod on the shell.

The longboat was lowered off the stern, and large oars raised and lowered in cadence as it headed toward the compound.

The first mate, a shiny triangular Wygonian, whose six tentacles looked like huge, furry pipe cleaners, scanned the shore through his small stalk-mounted eyes, occasionally muttering instructions to his muscular Twosh oarsmen. When he finally noticed the crushed wall of the compound, he shouted to the oarsmen to slow. A few wisps of smoke still rose from the interior, and he knew something was wrong.

Mavra and Joshi trotted onto the beach just up-shore from the longboat and walked to the landing. The sight of them put the mate more at ease, and the longboat turned and docked easily.

They were old friends by now. Many of the Trader’s crew had been with the ship, off and on, for a decade, and their contract had always called for this supply stop.

“Mavra!” Tbisi, the mate, called to her. “What in the world happened here?”

Quickly she explained the previous night’s visitation and her own fears. The crewmen nodded sympathetically; they knew why she was here and why she was the way she was.

“So, you see, we can’t stay here,” she concluded, “and we can’t go back to the Ambreza. You know what would happen. Ortega would just take us to Zone and lock us up in a nice little cage for the rest of our lives.” Tbisi was pretty low to the ground, and Mavra could almost look into its strange face and eyes. “Imagine what that means, Tibby! Think about if somebody told you that they were going to take you off the Trader and put you in a nice dark hole for the rest of your days!”

Not only the mate but the Twosh as well nodded sympathetically. “But what can we do to help?” the mate asked, feeling his tendrils were tied.

She gestured to the compound with her head. “There’s almost a half-ton of vintage tobacco and about thirty pounds of gold in there. It’s yours if you get us out of here.”

“But where will you go?” Tbisi asked in a tone that was more an objection than a question.

“Gedemondas,” she replied. “Oh, I know it doesn’t have a coast, but you serve Mucrol next door. A little detour?”

He shook his incredibly thin head slowly. “True, we could do it, but not directly. We have our own jobs, our own livelihoods to consider. It’d be at least a month, maybe more. If Ortega or anybody else is looking for you, the Trader’s going to be pretty obvious.”

She considered what he said. “How about this, then. Take us across to the island, to Ecundo. I know you stop there. We’ll make it overland through Ecundo and Wuckl and meet you on the other side, say at the Wuckl port of Hygit. Then it’s only a short hop across.”

The mate was still dubious. “I don’t know. It’s true we have some Ecundans, good people, in the crew; but that’s a nasty bunch generally. The ones we have are mostly wanted men back home. Those Ecundans are a vicious bunch who don’t like outsiders.”

She nodded. “I know that. But they herd bundas, and, if you think about it, bundas look something like us with hair. A lot of it’s open range—we could make it across, I think.”

“But the Ecundans eat bundas,” Tbisi pointed out. “They might just eat you, too. And what will you eat? You’re talking about 350 kilometers across Ecundo, then all the way across Wuckl—almost a thousand kilometers in all, on foot.”

“These Wuckl,” Joshi asked, “what are they like?”

“High-tech hex. Kind of hard to describe. Nice folks, really, and vegetarians. I’m sure you’d have no trouble if you explained your problem, although they might not help much. But—wait a minute! I’m talking like this crazy thing is going to work! Hey, look! If you’re right, Mavra, and somebody is trying to get rid of you as a threat to that ship, won’t Ortega need you then?”

She laughed derisively. “For all I know Ortega’s gotten impatient and decided to kill off all three pilots.