03. Gods at the Well of Souls

GODS OF THE WELL OF SOULS 

Copyright © 1994 by Jack L. Chalker 

ebook ver. 1.0  

This one's expressly for 

David Whitley Chalker and Steven Lloyd Chalker- To the future, wherever it  leads! 

A Few Words From the Author 

THIS IS THE THIRD AND FINAL BOOK IN THE NEW WELL WORLD project. The Watchers at  the Well, which began with Echoes of the Well of Souls and continued in Shadow  of the Well of Souls. It completes the massive novel. 

If you've just come across this and haven't read the other two, you should  immediately look for them where you found this copy. Any reputable, responsible,  intelligently run bookstore should have the previous two so that anyone  happening on the third one by chance doesn't have to hunt for them just to read  the entire work. If they don't, tell them what they aren't and find a better  bookstore! 

There are also five original Well World books. You don't need them in order to  read Watchers, but it would be a good idea to start at the beginning. The first  was Midnight at the Well of Souls, followed by (in order) Exiles of the Well of  Souls, Quest for the Well of Souls, The Return of Nathan Brazil, and Twilight at  the Well of Souls. All are still available from Del Rey Books, and don't let any  book dealer tell you differently! 

The Well saga now spans sixteen years, although with a twelve-year break. Will  there be any more? None are intended, but I didn't intend to write this one,  either, and I'm quite pleased with it. 

Those of you who have been waiting, I've planted some good action, added a lot  of nasty plot twists (but you were ahead of me on those already, right?), and  tied up all the loose ends in nice, neat knots. You may not like all the things  I do (I am expecting some adverse reaction to the very last one), but they are,  I assure you, carefully and logically thought out. And if, along the way of  entertaining you, I've raised a few points and made you think a little, well,  that's fine, too. 

And now (drum roll, curtain up) here's the way it works out ... Jack L. Chalker Uniontown, Maryland August 1993 

Between Galaxies, 

Heading Toward Andromeda 

The Kraang had been wondering much the same thing. The limitations placed on it  still prevented it from direct contact with beings on the Well World unless,  thanks to the happy accident that allowed it net access, someone was in the  transitional stage, totally energy within the net in midtransmission. Otherwise  it was strictly read only, and that was proving less amusing now than  frustrating. 

Monitoring the lives and thoughts of these beings had reawakened in the Kraang a  feeling it had thought long dead, a taste of what it was to be alive again. It  wanted that now more than anything; the lust for it was cracking its heretofore  absolute self-control, bringing back longings that it had believed it had long  outgrown. 

The Well perceived no threat to itself or its master program; it only desired  that what it considered an anomaly- the relinking, however tenuous, of the  Kraang to the net-be rectified. A simple matter, really, for anyone capable of  plugging into the net; not even seconds to find, comprehend, and repair, cutting  the Kraang off once more from the system. Brazil was the threat-he'd been there  many times, been changed into the master form, and would hardly even think twice  about it. He'd do whatever the damned Well said and be done with it, and he  would understand the threat sufficiently to be impervious to the Kraang's  entreaties and offers. There was nothing Brazil really wanted except, perhaps,  oblivion, and the Kraang wasn't so certain that the captain would really take it  if it were offered in any event. Brazil was so damned .. . responsible. Duty  above all. 

No, if the Kraang were to effect a return, it would be Mavra Chang. Human,  inexperienced, self-involved, and unencumbered by any sense of duty or mission.  Mavra Chang would listen before she acted and believe what she wanted to  believe. She was certainly tough, no pushover, but she was far too-human-to  blindly obey the dictates of an ancient race she neither knew nor understood.  According to the data, she'd been close to being a goddess before, going from  world to world, taking many forms, playing both explorer and missionary to the  misbegotten. 

The Kraang could deal very comfortably with an activist. 

Brazil was at the moment romping in mindless joy with that silly girl on that  speck of land in the ocean, but the Well would never leave him there. If Mavra  Chang's progress to the Well had been stopped, then Brazil would again get the  nomination and be forced to accept. The longer there was no movement or  probability of movement by Chang, who was by far closer to the Well gate than  Brazil, the more likely the Well would be forced to make the switch. The others  would never find her, and it would be all the worse if they somehow did track  down Campos but never recognized Chang in her current form. 

Campos was the key. Such a limited mind! Not stupid, not by the likes of the  races there, but sadly warped. Campos was so enjoying her revenge and was  comfortable enough in an environment not all that different from the one back on  the home planet that had bred and shaped her, that she was in danger of losing  sight of the ultimate game. The Kraang had not counted on her adjusting, though,  and that was the real problem. Since Campos had been a male from a background  that had little value for women, the Kraang had been certain that she would be  driven to the Well to reclaim her manhood. 

It wasn't happening. 

If Campos had gotten hold of Mavra Chang earlier, it would have, but the Well  had its own ways of subtly adjusting a subject to a form. The brain chemistry,  the hormonal balances, and being completely immersed in a new culture eventually  took hold. A transformation that seemed horrible when first discovered began to  seem normal; prior life and existence were distanced in the mind as it adjusted,  becoming more and more remote. If one were to go mad from the process, it tended  to happen rather quickly; otherwise that barrier the mind erected became  progressively insubstantial until it either shattered, as in the case of Lori  and Julian, or, as in Campos's case, just slowly evaporated to nothingness. Without even realizing it, or perhaps admitting it to herself, Juan Campos no  longer thought it odd. or even wrong, to be female, let alone a Cloptan female.  She had managed in a relatively short time to gain a fair amount of power and  influence, in part because she was attractive to male Cloptans who already had  that power and influence, and she was actually enjoying it. Experience counted.  The Well might have played a joke on Campos by making her female, but it also  had dropped her into a totally familiar milieu. Being the tough girlfriend of a  drug lord wasn't much different from being the son of one. and the knowledge and  ruthlessness actually made her a valuable asset to the organization. After that  first month she hadn't even experienced much of the fear and insecurity that  being a woman in such a society inevitably produced; everybody dangerous knew  how suicidal it would be to mess with the boss's girl and how vicious that girl  could be if she perceived one as a threat. 

Not that Campos didn't want to get at all the power the Well represented; it was  just that she was smart enough to know that before she let Mavra Chang near the  Well, her control had to be ironclad. And until Juan Campos figured out how to  do that or was forced by circumstance to gamble, she'd keep things pretty much  the way they were. 

It was frustrating to the Kraang. If only Campos would go through a Zone Gate.  Then some contact, some influence, could be attempted. But Campos wanted no part  of those Gates if she could avoid them. She remained where she could ensure  protection. 

Somehow there just had to be a way to kick Campos in the ass. There just had to  be! 

But until and unless it found a way to make contact, the Kraang knew it had to  depend on forces beyond its control. The psychotic former Julian Beard-now  turned into a complaisant wife for that female astronomer turned male swordsman  who was now gelded and trapped as a courier for the Cloptan drug ring-was  showing some promise, after all. Aided by the Dillians, who were somewhat in the  pay of the Zone Council, she might well disrupt things sufficiently to cause a  major move. When one no longer cared if one lived or died unless one attained  one's objective, it made for a spicy and dangerous time for all those in one's  way. The threat there was the Dillians. If they did come upon Mavra Chang by  some miracle, helpless though she was, would the Dillians' first loyalty be to  their former Earth comrades or to their new leaders and lives? Unknown to any of  them, forces were moving in on the region and the situation was getting very,  very dicey as the council and the various hexes weighed their own options. If  they captured Chang, no matter what her form, while the surprisingly resourceful  Gus liberated Brazil, everything could go wrong. Of course, there was always the  colonel ... 

Possibilities! Far too many! This was getting much more difficult than the  Kraang had originally thought. And there were far too many ways for things to go  wrong . . . 

Buckgrud, Capital of Clopta 

lately, IT was always pretty much the same dream. A dense, living forest filled  with strange, twisting plants shimmered in a nearly constant but gentle breeze.  Not familiar in any waking sense, yet familiar somehow to her in her dream.  Comforting, safe, secure. 

She would awaken into this living darkness in the Nesting Place, along with many  others of her kind, and then proceed out from the hollow tree and onto the  forest floor. Most of the night would be spent in the hunt, sometimes searching  out and sometimes lying in wait as still as one of the bushes that were all  around, waiting for prey to venture forth. Tiny animals, large insects, it  didn't matter, so long as it was alive and small enough to be swallowed whole.  There was always plenty of prey, for they bred all the time, or so it seemed,  but much needed to be eaten to satisfy, and it was a task that consumed much of  the night. There was no particular fear on her own part, though; there were no  natural enemies in this forest for such as they, and the Big Ones who lived  among the treetops ate no flesh and seemed appreciative of the service she and  her kind did in keeping the crawling things in check so that they could not  become so numerous as to threaten survival. She knew each by the scent and by  the sounds it made. 

The scent from a small mound nearby told her that there were delicacies inside;  she moved to it, and her powerful claws dug into it, and she bent down so that  her long, sticky tongue could go inside and sift through and find and draw the  little Insects Into her beak . . . 

It was near dusk when Mavra Chang awoke. She slept more than she was awake now,  it was true, but that was blessed relief in more than one way. It not only meant  escape from the sadism and torments of Juan Campos, when, of course, the Cloptan  was awake and not busy with other things, it also was relief from the strange  and unpleasant sensations that seemed unending. 

There were feverish flushes, dizziness, unexpected pains of varying degrees in  various places, and, above all else, a nearly universal itch that was driving  her crazier than Campos ever could. 

At first she thought that the sadistic surgeons employed by the drug cartel had  been butchers as well, but over the passing weeks she had come to realize that  it wasn't that, either. Something-strange-was happening to her, something even  someone with her vast life and long experience in what evil could do had never  undergone before. Still, that life allowed her to understand to a degree what  was happening, if not exactly why. 

She had been surgically altered, mutilated, disguised, but that was only the  start of it. She had become other creatures before, but always the way the Well  did it: quickly, without pain or sensation. She was becoming another creature  again for the first time since she had last been on this world, but by a  different method, and slowly by the standards of the Well but with astonishing  speed by any other means. 

She knew that now for several reasons, not the least of which was that what the  surgeons had removed, such as her arms, had not even begun to grow back. She  recalled that sensation well. Her body was changing. Grafted feathers were being  replaced by real ones just as colorful and even more dense. Her center of  gravity had moved down, and her midsection had thickened, while her head seemed  to be enlarged and set flush on the shoulders, but with a neck that could pivot  the head amazingly far. All this had been at the cost of an already shortened  height; she was now a bit under a meter tall, but somehow she knew she would  grow no shorter.