Exiles at the Well of Souls

retorted.

He nodded. “Of course. But there is a final arbiter of justice.”

“You’re going to kill me,” she said more than asked.

The priest looked genuinely shocked. Mavra wondered why she’d always liked cats in the past.

“Of course we do not kill, except in self-defense. All life is from the Blessed Well, and cannot be taken lightly. As you took no other life, unlike your companions, we could not take yours.”

Both parts of that observation cheered her a little. Alive meant hope, and the news that the others had sent some of these religious fanatics to an early grave was just as satisfying.

“The Well, in Its infinite wisdom and mercy,” the priest explained, as if in a liturgy, “established among the Olbornians a more equitable means of final judgment—final, absolute, and conclusive. The stone that is before you is one of six, located near the six corners of Olborn. It is proof of the favored status of the Olbornians with the Blessed Well. Its power comes from the Well Itself. What it does has never been undone.”

This tack started unnerving her again. She thought of Renard, changed into a different creature. What the hell did this thing do?

“The Well, in Its infinite wisdom,” continued the priest, “saw that Its Chosen People were in a harsh land, rich but without beasts of burden to help Its Chosen People till the good soil, pull its burdens, turn its water wheels. Thus we have the Sacred Stones. When a transgressor, whether alien or Olbornian, is accused, he is brought before one of the High Priests of the Blessed Well, and thence in his company to the Sacred Stone. Should you be innocent, then nothing will happen to you. You will be free to go on your way, unmolested, protected by the Seal of the Blessed Well. But, should you be guilty, it will mete out the most wonderful of justices.” He paused. “You saw the detik upon which you were carried here?”

She thought a moment. The little mules with the big ears and sad eyes. “Yes,” she replied, curious and apprehensive. Where the hell were the Lata and Renard?

“They are sexless, joyless. Totally placid, they are incapable of harming anything, and are forced to obey our commands. Should you be guilty, you will turn to a detik, a beast of the fields, condemned to serve the Olbornians in silent labor the rest of your life.”

She was appalled, unbelieving. “You mean the mules—all of them—were once people?”

The priest nodded. “It is so.” He turned to the guards. “Hold her arms tight,” he cautioned. Then he turned back to Mavra. She felt strong hands holding her arms just behind the wrist. The priest waved his arms again, and she felt movement return to her whole body.

“Touch her hands to the Sacred Stone!” the priest commanded, his voice echoing through the damp cavern. The two powerful arms ignored her twisting and pushed her unwilling hands to the faceted yellow orb.

Something like a strong, burning electric shock went through her arms to her shoulders. The effect was so strong and so painful that she screamed and actually pulled away from the wretched thing despite the strength of her two captors.

“That was Mavra!” Vistaru yelled. “Come on! Hurry!” she called to Hosuru and Renard, who rushed ahead. Neither cared any more if there was a whole army ahead; they were going in now.

Inside the chamber, the priest seemed to smile and intoned, “Again!” This time the terrible shock and pain went from her hips to her toes, and, strangely, wound up in her ears. Again she screamed and fought to pull away.

“Again!” the priest commanded, but at that moment the onrushing Lata and Agitar charged, Renard yelling bloodcurdling screams that echoed terrifyingly off the cavern walls.

The priest turned, looking stunned and surprised. Like most fanatics, the concept that anybody would invade his holiest of places had simply never occurred to him, and he couldn’t handle it. He stood there petrified. Not the two guards. They dropped Mavra and whirled. They had no pistols, which was fortunate, but they bore ceremonial steel swords, which they drew.

Keeping all their attention on the guards and priest, Renard and Vistaru both yelled, “Run, Mavra! Get out of here! We’ll handle this!”

The first guard took advantage of this distraction to advance on Renard, sword poised, saberlike, in front of him.

Renard smiled grimly, and moved his tast out in a similar manner, as if preparing to duel. The guard looked at the thin, snaky copper-clad whip and chuckled. He moved with his sword, and Renard brought the tast up, touching the sword.

Sparks flew, and the guard screamed and dropped to the floor of the cavern, the point where his hand gripped the hilt actually smoking slightly.

Vistaru, who still had some venom left, swooped at the other one, suddenly turning on her internal light to catch the foe off-guard. He was too good for that, and he stabbed in with his sword.

And missed.

She did an aerial backflip and plunged her stinger into his stomach, then pushed off him. The guard yowled, then seemed to stiffen, as he dropped to the floor, limp, lying eyes wide-open and unseeing.

Mavra felt the guards release their grip on her and felt the cold stone as they dropped her. Her whole body was tingling and her mind wouldn’t clear, but she had enough sense to hear Renard’s shout to run, and take that advice. A naked, stunned Mavra Chang wasn’t going to be much good in a fight.

She was dizzy, and couldn’t seem to get up, so she took off on all fours. Her head seemed heavy; she couldn’t lift it, but she could see enough to head for the exit and did so, almost knocking over the guard just now meeting his end from Renard’s tast. She wanted to crawl fast, but she couldn’t lift her head up far enough; a nerve in the back of it was killing her, and her hair was hanging down in front, further obscuring her vision. But she made the steps and scampered out, passing the now-dead guards slumped under their still burning torches. Out ahead, she could see, was blackness, and that was where she wanted to be.

She crawled into the bushes before she stopped, chest heaving, and tried to clear her head. She looked back at the entrance, but she couldn’t get her head up quite far enough, or hold it even far enough to see out of the tops of her eyes without that nerve pinching and hurting.

With the return of her wind came a clearer head. She was still on all fours. Why, she began to wonder. It was dark, but Obie had given her night vision, and she put her head chin against chest, essentially upside down, and looked back at herself. Her hair fell straight down.

Her thin, lithe body was unchanged, her two small breasts hanging down and tugging slightly as a result of being dead weight.

My arms!she suddenly thought in panic. What did they do?

She also felt two long bending sensations with her head that way.

She no longer had arms. She now had forelegs—thin and with a knee joint that bent only one way, locking the other way. It led down to a perfectly formed, fairly thick hoof of some whitish-gray substance like fingernails. There was no hair; the legs were still the same flesh color as the rest of her, the skin still looked human. But they were the legs of the little mule.

Looking farther back, she saw what she expected to see, and sighed. Now she understood why she couldn’t get off all fours, and why she couldn’t seem to get her head up properly. The forelegs were a good twenty percent shorter than the hind legs. In the mule, the long neck compensated; a human head and neck wasn’t designed to go that far.

Renard and the two Lata came out of the cave. She heard them more than saw them, and, after a moment’s hesitation, called to them. They were there in a flash.

“Mavra, you ought to have seen that old boy’s face when—” Renard started cheerfully, when she walked out of the brush into the torchlight. They all three gasped, mouths agape. For the first time they could see and know what the Olbornians had done to Mavra Chang.

First, take the arms and legs off a woman’s torso. Then turn it face down, the hips about a meter high, the shoulders about eighty centimeters. Now put a perfectly proportioned pair of mule’s hind legs on the hips, so that the base of the body kind of melds into it. Now put two mule’s legs on the shoulders, long enough to reach the ground but shorter because of the angle of the body. But don’t add an animal’s hair or skin—keep it all human, perfectly matched to the torso, except for hard, naillike hooves on all four feet, and, as a final touch, remove the