03. Gods at the Well of Souls (35 page)

But if those suckers could fly, she wanted to see it! 

She wondered if perhaps such clever folk might have hot air balloons or  something like that which the Lebans would consider flying. That was a thought,  although it wasn't at all something she would have thought common in a hex like  Verion. Like Erdom, Verion was against an impenetrable barrier, in this case the  equator, and so wasn't hex-shaped at all. Balloons might well be practical in a  compact hex-shape, but unless they were pretty well staked down and used only  for lookout purposes, they were unlikely to be practical for travel here. Still, after seeing those bridges, the cable car, and the container apparatus in  action, she wouldn't put anything past these people. In a sense, she admired  them from what little she'd seen. Most of the nontech hexes seemed to have  accepted their lot and mummified their culture and society. Erdom was a perfect  example of this-static, with change considered a threat. The Verionites, though,  had refused to accept their limits and become at least in part a culture of  engineers. It was almost as if they'd said, "Okay, here are the limits, and  here's what we want to do. Now figure out how we do it!" 

That made them dangerous as well. They couldn't afford to treat this society as  a standard, lazy nontech culture. 

Remaining in the groves all day, Julian also noticed one other characteristic of  the hex that seemed quite odd. Everything animal appeared to be bipedal for some  reason; even the insects ran around on two legs, looking almost like miniature  varieties of Mixtimese. Yet another very odd place, but not nearly as strange as  Leba or even Mixtim. 

That night they had to face the problem of the bridges. 

There was no way around them; who knew how long this canyon was or how far it  stretched? And even if it didn't go on forever, what of the river at the bottom,  which certainly seemed large and wild running? There was a sort of tollbooth,  but both it and the cable crew and shack seemed to shut down shortly after dusk;  they had watched the creatures lock up and leave. Lights indicated a town not  too far on the other side, probably a farming center and way stop for bridge  travelers, and everybody on this side seemed to cross the bridge and go off in  that direction. Whatever justified the whole system was either to the east or to  the west of them; they certainly did no traffic with Leba. 

There was no way to be completely safe crossing the bridge, but nothing in the  infrared showed that they had left any kind of guards around, although Julian  had half expected to be barked and growled at by bipedal dogs or something. The  big problem would be that they had no idea what was on the other side. The  guards might be there, where the bulk of the people were, since a barrier on  either side would do to block passage, or they might ring alarm bells over there  by merely shaking the bridge up and down as they walked. Although Julian had  heard nothing specific, an alarm system might be hooked up when they closed, or  it might be something she wouldn't recognize as an alarm but they would. What they found was a solid wooden gate, a sign, and a large bell. The sign was  in Verionese. not commercial, so it was impossible to read it, but they could  all guess what it said: 'To use bridge, ring bell for attendant." There was an opening on either side of the gate, but it was much too small for  either Lori or Julian. Mavra went to it, looked in and up, and saw that the gate  was secured from the other side with a large wooden bar. This was one time when  her lack of arms might be an asset, although not for actually moving the thing.  She was, however, able to wiggle through the opening at ground level with  minimal loss of feathers and get on the other side. That left the bar, which was  a bit above her eye level. It looked to be a simple enough system, but how to  move that bar when she didn't have any arms?  

Ultimately, she pressed her back against the gate, got her head under the bar,  and tried to straighten up as much as possible. The bar moved, but not enough to  come out of its latch. 

After several frustrating attempts, after which she realized that she needed to  be about her old height, small as that was, to get it high enough, she decided  to step out and look at the thing. 

It was just a board, nothing spectacular but effective enough. She finally  decided that the only chance was to lift the thing as high as she could and  then, when the weight of it, which was not inconsiderable, was on her head, to  move sideways and hope she could slide it enough so that it would fall outside  the latch on one side. 

Several attempts failed, but finally she managed it, her head hurting like hell,  and the end of the board fell to the floor of the bridge with a clunk! The other  end remained precariously balanced on the other latch. 

Dizzy and with a whale of a headache, she nonetheless stepped back and gave off  a single low squawk. Julian heard it and slowly and carefully pushed against the  gate. The board jammed a couple of times, but Mavra was able to help free it,  and finally they had it open enough for Lori, then Julian to squeeze through. The trouble was, if word had reached here about them and the Verionites were on  the lookout for signs of strangers, the open gate would be a signal. Julian  pushed the gate closed and strained to lift the board back up into place, but  she just didn't have the strength. Lori, seeing the problem, didn't stop to  wonder why she was doing it but came over and put his head and neck under  Julian's arms and lifted slowly, giving her the added strength she needed. It  wasn't neat, but the gate was again locked and bolted. 

Julian helped Mavra onto Lori's back but didn't bother to tie her. At the speed  at which any of them could cross the swinging span, it was unnecessary and would  take time they couldn't spare. 

The roar of rapids came from far below, masking out much of the sound once they  were out over the chasm, and the bridge rippled and swung back and forth as they  crossed. But it was a sturdy and well-built structure that had seen much  traffic. At least the idea of alarms rigged to the bridge seemed remote; there  was a distinct night breeze that caused it to sway slightly entirely on its own,  making it more difficult to keep one's own balance on it but possibly explaining  why the crossing was usually restricted to daylight. 

There was a small house at the other end with a light inside, apparently the  toll keeper's house. Before they even reached it, the pungent smells of Verion's  masters hit them, and it wasn't much more pleasant than the odors of Mixtim,  although it was more varied-the scent of massive sweat, garbage, and pungent  spices all rolled into one unappetizing and somewhat sickening perfume. Just before they reached the other side, somebody came out of the house and  started fooling with something unseen on the side of the building. They froze,  and for a brief nightmare moment they had the swaying, the winds, and the odors  all at once. 

Then whoever it was went back inside, and they finished the walk slowly and  quietly, trying to keep hoof sounds to a minimum. They were relieved to see only  a small wooden crossbar on a pivot where the bridge again reached land. As  quietly as possible, Julian raised it enough for Lori to get through, then  ducked under it herself. 

The wind really started up on the other side; while unpleasant, it had the  effect of masking their own sounds as they moved between bridge and town, across  the road, and around the main settlement. 

Well over a hundred more miles of this, Julian thought nervously. Too long in  such a civilized country. They had gotten lucky this time, but there was no way  of knowing what other obstacles this land had in store for them before they  reached the final and largest obstacle of them all. 

Beyond the town the bizarre mixture of twisted land-forms-spires, pinnacles,  tiny table rocks-grew even more dense, and the Verionites had planted virtually  every available space in between. Here and there were virtual herds of the huge,  lumbering bipedal draft animals just wandering about or lying around sound  asleep and snoring loudly. The wind rippled the grains and grasses as if they  were a gigantic sea and made its own series of groans and moans as it twisted in  and out and all around the natural statuary. 

As morning approached and false dawn was illuminating the western sky, Julian  searched for a good camp. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps she had  misunderstood the "up" warning of the Lebans or if there were Verionite  sentinels, like shepherds, atop some of the broader rock forms as watchmen. It  was still hard to see, though, how they'd get up or down without wings. They would have to camp at the base of one of them, though-a particularly large  tower of twisted black rock that had shallow cavelike indentations at the base  that would provide at least some cover. There was no choice; it would have to  do. 

Julian, as usual, took the first watch. Mavra's own sense of time from watching  the shadows seldom failed her here; her second watch was as reliable as  Julian's. Only Lori seemed to have little sense of time, so he took the last  watch, since it was fairly difficult to miss the sun going down if the others  weren't already awake by then. 

For Mavra, so long out of the chase, every step took her closer to her goal.  Somehow, some way, she would get inside. Nothing and no one was going to stop  her this time. Lori, on the other hand, was going through the motions with  little hope; everything that could go wrong up to now had, and he fully  expected, after such an epic walk, to wind up caught and back in the hands of  the enemy when they reached wherever it was they were going. 

It hardly mattered to him anymore if they even got there. Seeing Julian and  being so dependent on her all this time could only remind him of what he had  lost. Considering how she'd handled herself so far, she needed him or anything  he might do other than carry Mavra about as much as he needed a sewing kit. He  didn't even have desire, only a sense of guilt and loss. 

For Julian, although taking it one day at a time, there was a sense of the  endgame in this. She hadn't the slightest idea if they could get Mavra into this  Well place or not or what would really happen if they could, but either they  would or they would not. If they did, then at least victory would be denied the  evil people both from Earth and from this world. If they couldn't, she was  pretty sure they'd not be given a second chance at it. 

Anything you desire. That had been Mavra's promise to them. Anything you desire.  A nice phrase, that, but what did it mean? Was it like the ancient genie,  granting wishes? That was always an easy one in fairy stories. They wished for  wealth and romance and happily-ever-after endings. It wasn't that simple in real  life. It particularly wasn't simple for her. She'd had a series of shocks and  psychological changes that almost outdid her physical ones, and they'd even  messed with her mind with her own consent. 

What did Julian now, today, really desire? Not to go back, to become Julian  Beard again. For all his glamour, she hated his stinking guts. Still, why had  that earliest incarnation wanted to become an astronaut? Because of a need of  adventure, of challenge, the excitement of the new frontier. That much remained  of him, she thought. She didn't want a happily-ever-after ending; she wanted new  challenges, new chances to do something different, worthwhile. Erdom was hardly the place for that, permanently and happily stuck as it was in  a kind of bizarre variation of the permanent twelfth-century Earth. And yet she'd come to like who she was and what she was and dreamed of the  desert lands that she'd hated when she'd been there. 

It seemed as if there had always been something tearing at her since she'd been  here. Male, female, master, slave, rebel, wife, loner, lover of the herd. The way they'd rearranged her head, she could never go back; the society would  burn her at the stake as a witch. But if it could somehow be countered or  removed, she'd become that servile little wimp again, and that she didn't want,  either. What if she could go back as an Erdomese man? It solved most of the  conundrums, but the trouble was that she didn't want to be a man, not anymore.  She'd been one once, and while he'd loved it fine, she didn't think very much of  him now, and that was just what she would become. Look at what it had done to  Lori, whose own contrasting Earth background was the opposite of hers. She  didn't exactly want that guy back, either, let alone want to become another one. There was a real catch in that three-wishes business that the fairy-tale writers  hadn't ever faced. In order to make decent use of them, one first had to know  what to wish for. 

On the third day they passed near another small town and then another. The  roads, which they stayed off but which they watched carefully, seemed to grow  more frequent, wider, and better maintained, not to mention more crowded. And on the third day they also saw that pigs could fly. 

The last thing anybody would have expected to come across in even the most  sophisticated high-tech hex was an airport, but that was exactly what it was.  There was even an unmistakable wind sock on a large reflective pole. Making camp  in some trees not far from it because the timing was right more than because  they wanted to be this close in, they actually could watch it in operation. There were two types of fliers: the aircraft and the kites. 

Watching a kiter take off was something of an amazing sight. Strapped underneath  a massive width of a canvaslike material, the hoglike Verionite was then placed  on a wheeled dolly. Then a team of the big, lumbering creatures that Julian had  dubbed bigfoots were brought out, hitched as if they were pulling a cart. When  the omnipresent wind was right, someone gave a signal, and the four-bigfoot team  would start lumbering down a cleared path, gaining speed until they were running  flat out. This plus the wind would catch the leading edge of the kite, and it  would rise into the air, the dolly dropping away, and up it would go, breaking  free of the ropes or whatever they were that the bigfoots used to pull. In fact, once aloft, the kite fliers seemed to have some sort of rudder control  and perhaps ways of seeing the wind currents aloft, which must have been pretty  tricky from what Julian could see. She had been a pilot once, too, and had done  some hang gliding off Maui, so she knew that this would have been nearly  impossible, no matter what the design of the kite, under Earth-type conditions. But this wasn't Earth, nor was it supposed to simulate the Earth. It was  simulating some other world somewhere else.