Midnight at the Well of Souls

I must be drugged, he told himself. These are aftereffects of some drug they gave me.

The big Murnie ambled up to him.

I must be standing upright on a rack or something, he thought. I’m as tall as he is, and he’s at least two meters, judging by his size, large compared to the run-of-the-Murnie crowd around.

Two grossly distorted Murnie hands took his head, lowered it slightly, so the creature was looking right into Brazil’s eyes.

The Murnie grunted, and said, in Confederacy, “Ah! Awake, I see! Don’t try to move yet—I want to let you down easy before that. No! Don’t try to talk! You can’t, so don’t bother.”

The creature walked a few steps in front of him and sat down tiredly on the grass.

“I haven’t slept in over a day and a half,” the Murnie said with a sigh. “It feels good just to relax.” He shifted to a more comfortable position, and considered where to begin.

“Look, Nate,” he began, “first things first. You know I’m an Entry, and I’ve been told I’m not the first one who knew you that you’ve run into here. It kinda figures. Well, if your mind can go back ninety years, you might remember Shel Yvomda. Do you? If so, shake your head.”

Brazil thought. It was an odd name, he should remember it—but there were so many people, so many names. He tried to shrug, found he couldn’t, and so moved his head slowly from side to side.

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. They call me the Elder Grondel now, Elder because I’ve lived longer than fifty years here and that makes for respect. Grondel is their name—means The Polite Eater, because I continue to be civilized. I’m one of two people in Murithel who can still speak Confederacy. We would have lost it, except we ran into each other and practice for old times’ sake. Well, enough of that. I guess I’d better tell you what happened. You aren’t gonna like this, Nate.”

* * *

Brazil was stunned, but he accepted the situation and understood why they had done it and why they had thought it necessary. He even felt a deep affection for Cousin Bat in spite of the fact that he had fouled up the works.

As they sat there, the last of the drug wore off, and he suddenly found himself free to move.

He looked as far down as possible first, and thought, crazily, This is what Wuju must have seen when she first appeared in Dillia. Long, short-furred legs, much more graceful than hers, with dark hooves.

He turned his head and saw his reflection against the tent nearby.

He was a magnificent animal, he thought with no trace of humor. And the antlers! So that’s why his head felt so funny!

He tried to move forward, and felt a tug. The Murnie laughed, and unfastened him from the stake.

He walked around on four legs for the first time, slowly, just around in circles.

So this is what it feels like to be changed, he thought. Strange, but not uncomfortable.

“There are some hitches, Nate,” Grondel said. “It’s not like a transformation. The body you have is that of a great animal, but not a dominant species. You’ve got no hands, tentacles, or any other thing except your snout to pick things up with, and you’ve got no voice. These antelope are totally silent, no equipment to make a noise. And your only defenses are your speed—which is considerable, by the way, cruising at fifteen or more kilometers per hour, sprints up to sixty—and a tremendous kick with the rear legs. And the antlers—those are permanent; they don’t shed and won’t grow unless broken off.”

Brazil stopped walking and thought for a while. Arms he could do without if necessary, and the rest—but not being able to talk bothered him.

Suddenly he stopped and stared at himself. All the time he had been thinking, he had been automatically leaning over and munching grass!

He looked back at Grondel, who just was watching him curiously.

“I think I can guess what you just realized,” the Murnie said at last. “You just started munching grass without thinking. Right?”

Brazil nodded, feeling stranger than before.

“Remember—you, all of that inner self that’s you—was transferred, but it was superimposed on the remarkably dull antelope brain and nervous system. Superimposed, Nate—not exchanged. Unless you directly countermand it, the deer’s going to continue acting like a deer, in every way. That’s automatic, and instinctive. You’re not man into deer, you’re man plus deer.”

Brazil considered it. There would be some problems, then, particularly since he was a brooder given to introspection. What did a deer do? Ate, slept, copulated. Hmmm… The last would cause problems.

There were, as Grondel had said, many hitches.

How do I fit inside this head? he wondered. All of my memories—more, perhaps, than any other man. Weren’t memories chemical? He could see how the chemical chains could at least be duplicated, the brain-wave pattern adjusted—but how did this tiny brain have room for it all?

“Nate!” He heard a call, and looked up. Grondel was running toward him from whatever distance this fish- eye vision couldn’t tell him. He would get used to it, he thought.

He had moved. As he brooded, he had wandered out of the camp and over almost to the herd! He turned and ran back to the camp, surprised at the ease and speed with which he ran, but he slowed when he realized that the distorted vision would take some getting used to. He almost ran the Murnie down.

He started to apologize, but nothing came out.

The Murnie sympathized. “I don’t know the answer, Nate. But get used to it before doing anything rash. Your body’s either dead or it’ll be even better the longer you give it in Czill. Hey! Just thought of something. Come over here to this dirt patch!”

He followed the Murnie curiously.

“Look!” Grondel said excitedly, and made a line in the dirt with his foot. “Now you do it!”

Brazil understood. It was slow and didn’t look all that good, but after a little practice he managed to trace the letters in the dirt with his hoof.

“where is wuju?” he traced.

“She’s here, Nate. Want to see her?”

Brazil thought for a second, then wrote, very large, “no.”

The Murnie rubbed out the old letters so it was again a virgin slate. “Why not?” he asked.

“does she know about me?” Brazil wrote.

“Yes. I—I told her last night. Shouldn’t I have?”

Brazil was seething; a thousand things raced through his mind, none of them logical.

“don’t want,” he had traced when he heard Wuju’s voice.

“Nathan?” she called more than asked. “Is that really you in there?”

He looked up and turned. She was standing there, looking awed, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief.

“It’s him,” Grondel assured her. “See? We’ve been communicating. He can write here in the dirt.”

She looked down at the marks and shook her head sadly. “I—I never learned how to read,” she said, ashamedly.

The Murnie grunted. “Too bad,” he said. “Would have simplified things.” He turned back to Brazil. “Look, Nate, I know you well enough to know that you’ll head off for Czill as soon as you’re confident of making the trip. I know how you feel, but you need her. We can’t go, wouldn’t if we could. And somebody’s got to know you’re you, to keep you from straying, and to do your talking for you. You need her, Nate.”

Brazil looked at them both and thought for a minute, trying to understand his own feelings. Shame? Fear?

No, dependence, he thought.

I’ve never been dependent on anyone, but now I need somebody. For the first time in my long life, I need somebody.

He was dependent on Wuju, almost as much as she had been dependent on him in the early stages of their