Midnight at the Well of Souls

attached by what looked more like thick rope than chain to a small, wooden paddle wheel in the back.

About twenty varicolored Dillians stood on the first deck, some between oaken trunks full of unguessable cargo. Under the cross-bracing there seemed to be a counter and some kegs and steins. A large bale of grain flanked it.

Wu Julee could guess that this was the snack bar. She had already had a brunch with Yomax and discovered that the centaurs were herbivores who occasionally cooked various dishes but mostly ate raw grains and grasses grown in their fields. Tasted good, too, she had found.

Ropes from wooden posts on the side of the primitive steamer were tossed to a couple of villagers on the dock who tied the boat off. Satisfied, the captain went to the back and came down an almost disguised grooved ramp to the first deck.

Yomax tossed the mail to a crewman who idly threw it toward the center of the boat. The captain picked up a similar sack and jumped off to the dock, clasping hands with Yomax and then handing the old official the sack.

Yomax introduced the steamer captain to Wu Julee.

“This here’s Klamath,” the old man told her. “Not a proper name for a good Dillian, but he was born with it.”

“Please to meet you, Lady um…?” The captain’s expression prompted a lead.

“She don’t know her name, Klammy,” Yomax explained. “Just kinda showed up all blanked out early this mornin’. I think she’s an Entry, and thought maybe you could help.” Quickly he explained his language idea to the captain.

“Harder than you think,” the captain replied thoughtfully. “It’s true that I think in the old tongue, but everything’s instantly and automatically translated in and out. It’d be easier if I could write something for her.”

Julee shook her head sadly. “I am certain that I never learned to read. I just know it.”

“Hmmm… Well, Yomax, you’re the control,” Klamath said. “It’s going to take a lot of concentration to get out some old word stuff through the translation process, and I’m not really going to know if I’m successful or not. It all sounds the same to me. If she understands it and you don’t, then we’ll have it made.”

Klamath took chin in hand in a thoughtful pose, trying to think of something he could do to break through the barrier. Suddenly he brightened. “Worth a try,” he said at last, “but even if she doesn’t understand it, it won’t prove much. Well, here goes.

“Using the Three KY spectroanalysis program, stellar motion can be computed by phase-shifting observations using the infraspectrometer circuits in the navigational matix for visual course plots,” Klamath intoned. Suddenly he stopped and turned to Yomax. “How was that?” he asked.

“I got maybe one word in four,” the old man replied. “How about the lady here?”

Julee shook her bead in bewilderment. “A lot of big words but I didn’t understand what they meant.”

“Can you remember a big word?” Klamath prompted.

She thought for a minute. “Ma—matrix, I think,” she said hesitantly, and, she looked totally perplexed, “phase shifting?”

Klamath smiled. “Good old basic navigation manual!” he exclaimed. “You’re from my part of the universe, all right. There’s just no equivalent for that stuff in this language.”

Yomax nodded, an expression of satisfaction on his face. “So she’s one of the last four.”

“Almost certainly,” Klamath nodded. “I’ve been keeping track of them since I know one, at least slightly. He’s almost a living legend among spacers, and we know where he is and where the one called Vardia is. You must be that girl that was sick; that would explain the memory problems.”

“Who am I, then?” she asked excitedly. “I want to know.”

“Probably a girl named Wu Julee,” Klamath told her.

“Wu Julee,” she repeated. The name sounded strange and totally unfamiliar to her. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

“I’ll be heading back downlake in an hour or so, and when I get to Donmin I’ll see the local councilman and pass the word along,” Klamath said. “In the meantime, you might as well stay here. It’s about the best place to relax and enjoy things, and that might be just what you need.”

Their course of action agreed to, they all went to the local bar. She felt somewhat left out of the conversation after that, and the thick, dark ale made her slightly giddy. She excused herself and wandered out onto the main street.

Jol and Dal were there, and, seeing her, rushed up for the news.

“They say I’m an Entry,” she told them. “Someone named Wu Julee. They said I was sick.”

“Well, you’re healthy now,” Jol replied. “And whatever you had got cured on the way in. Maybe your memory will come back, too, after a while.” He stopped and fidgeted nervously for a time, glancing once in a while to Dal. Finally the spotted female threw up her hands.

“All right, all right. May as well,” she said enigmatically.

“Sure it’s all right with you?” Jol responded.

“Why not?” his girlfriend replied, resigned.

Jol turned back to Wu Julee. “Look,” he said eagerly, “we—Dal and me—we been thinkin’ of putting together our own family, particularly with Dal pregnant and all. There’s so few folks our age up here, and we aren’t gettin’ along with our own families too good now. Why don’t you come in with us?”

Julee hesitated a moment, then replied, “I’d like that—if it’s all right with Yomax.”

“Oh, he won’t mind,” Dal replied. “He’s been itchin’ to see us take jobs anyhow, and if we form the group we’ll have to to get our share of the harvest.”

And it was that easy.

They picked a spot fairly deep in the woods upvalley and started by building a primitive but efficient trail to the site. It required little clearing, but it did wind in and out between the giant trees. Borrowing a large handsaw and with some help from a forester they chopped down two trees near a tiny creek and burned out the stumps. Villagers helped them clear the area and cut up the trees into useful sizes, as well as providing smaller, more useful logs and hauling reddish clay used for insulation.

Wu Julee—the others nicknamed her Wuju, which she liked better—threw herself into the work, putting any thoughts of Klamath and governmental problems out of her mind. She hadn’t seen the captain after the first day, since the boat came only once a day and stayed barely over an hour. Weeks passed.

They put in the sawdust floor, and built a stone cairn to use as a stove and winter heater, fueled with wood left over from the project. The cabin had a large central area with crude tables and a work area, and five stalls— bedrooms, really, with leaning supports, since the Dillians slept standing up. The extra stalls were for Dal’s increasingly obvious new arrival and a spare in case someone else would join them. Jol and Dal took her trapping in the woods, and showed her how to skin and weave the animal furs and the skin from various plants into clothing. Once settled in, she and Jol were assigned to survey and check some back-country trails, particularly noting log bridges that might not stand the weight of winter snows. It was easy and pleasant work, and she enjoyed the peace and natural wonder of the mountains. When winter came they would help dig out snowed-in cabins and ensure safe paths around the small lakeside community.

In late summer Dal dropped her foal, large and fully formed but barely covered in a soft, neutral, downy fur, with reddish, wrinkly skin that made the boy-child look like a wizened old man.

Although born looking physically eight or nine in size and proportion—and able to stand, walk, even run within a few hours of birth—the child would be toothless for over a year and could only feed by nursing. It needed almost constant supervision, even though hair developed in the first few weeks affording a measure of protection. Born only with the instincts of a wild animal, the boy would have to learn how to reason, to speak, to act responsibly. It was difficult for Julee to get used to at first, since after the first month the child looked like a boy of about ten.

But he would look that way for years, they told her, perhaps eight or ten, until puberty. Until then they would be his world; after that, he would have to pull his own load.

But this peaceful, almost idyllic existence was interrupted by the start of her nightmares. They often involved racing pain, torture, and an evil, leering monstrous face that demanded horrible things of her. Many nights she woke up screaming, and it took hours to calm her down.