Ghost of the Well of Souls

Cobo—Night

There was a certain peace to the open ocean at night.

Jaysu didn’t like the big ship, even though it was designed for comfort and convenience. She hadn’t been taught to appreciate such things; they were a sign of laziness and decadence, an attempt to make heaven out of the here and now without any real sense that there was something higher or greater.

Out here, on the open deck at night, she could appreciate what was really important.

Normally hazy, the sky was for some reason crystal clear over the Cobo deeps this night, and on the Well World, the clear night skies were taken for granted by most of the people. Not by her; never by her.

The spectacular sight of millions of stars forming a vast pattern in the sky was good enough, but the swirls of gases and clouds of interstellar material made a clear night a wondrous sight of the heavens.

She had mentioned this at dinner, and one of the passengers—an officious fellow who looked like an orange, vaguely humanoid fish, but was actually a creature of some desert hex—started going on about being in the midst of a globular cluster and adjacent to spectacular twin nebulae that caused such a lit and crowded sky, and on and on and on without any sense of the poetry of the gods inside him. She hadn’t any idea what a globular cluster might be, let alone nebulae, but she could see the handiwork of powers greater than she just by looking up, and that work was of great beauty.

She did understand, and accept, that each of those was a sun like the one that rose every day, and that around some of those far-off suns there might well be planets, and perhaps even planets with highly developed life-forms, but that was an easier part of her cosmology than reducing beauty to chemical compounds.

She had long gotten her sea legs, as the crew called it, and no longer even thought of the motion of the ship. Fliers would more easily adapt, she knew, because balance was all-important to them, but she still would have preferred to be up there than down here.

She’d thought she lost the wonder of flight when she’d accepted her calling to the priesthood; to have it back and not use it seemed somehow sacrilegious, even though she knew it was just her own impatience.

Carefully using the stretched rope lines for safety’s sake, she managed to easily walk around the great vessel and up and down its stairs and decks. It was difficult to think that it had somehow been built, and by the hands and perhaps tentacles and claws of many races working as shipwrights.

The boat—no, it was a ship, as one of the crew had explained, since it had a solid superstructure and was stabilized by ballast, whatever that meant—was surprisingly uninhabited for something so huge. Oh, there were cabins capable of holding hundreds of people from a vast number of races, but most were unoccupied. That was not the standard for some routes, it was said, but for this particular run the demand for passengers was always low, while the cargo, which was still the main reason for such a ship’s existence, was packed as solidly as it could be. This was because all of the great ocean ships followed one of a very few standardized designs, all of which allowed for some passenger transits and services to match. It was just that where this ship was going, few wanted to travel, and fewer were welcome to travel to them.

She could understand that. Nobody traveled to Ambora, nor would they be welcome if they did, and she had seen at least one Pyron, and the thought of a whole nation of those giant snake creatures wasn’t exactly the kind of place most people would be anxious to pay money to visit. There wasn’t a whole lot of tourism on the Well World anyway; travel tended to be for business, although a ship like this could and sometimes was used by large groups for local functions and recreational use.

So, hundreds of cabins but only a few dozen passengers. It made the great ship seem somehow empty, and, at night, a little creepy. That was another good reason why she liked being outside during this period. So long as there was access to the skies, she felt she could cope with almost anything, even though the great map in the lounge showed them to be far from land, headed for a long stretch where anything solid would be most likely beyond her flying range. It was not a good thought, nor a secure one.

She walked down to the main deck and forward to the bow area. It was the least congested in terms of ropes and masts and the like, although it was littered with all sorts of things on the deck itself, including small cranes and winches and stuff she couldn’t imagine the use for. With the swift forward motion of the ship, even with the roll and rising and falling motion of the bow, it would be easy to take off into the night sky.

The noise of the ship slicing through the great waters masked other sounds, if any existed, save the rattle of things around her caused by the ship’s movement and vibration from the big engines.

In spite of the clear night, the sea was hardly gentle; the stiff winds had created a choppy sea, and though the main deck was quite a bit higher than the water, there were points where the bow seemed to dip. There was then an odd shifting feeling, and it seemed the waves would break over the bow and onto the deck. They never quite seemed to make it, but she involuntarily reached out to take hold of the safety guide rope and began to wonder if she shouldn’t go inside after all.

The bow dipped again, and some spray came over it and wet down the area forward of the superstructure, making her nervous enough to edge back and look for the closest main door inside. Suddenly, when the bow was at its low point, something dark and fairly large seemed to launch itself out of the waves and onto the deck, where it landed with an inglorious splat. She stepped back against the rail and for a moment weighed the odds of flight versus making the closest ship’s entryway.

The creature appeared momentarily stunned, then swore in a loud voice, “Damn! I hate it when I do that!” It shook its head as if to clear it of cobwebs, grabbed for the rope and pulled itself erect.

Her night vision was not the best, but the creature now loomed in the darkness, taller than she was, a kind of dark blob sitting atop a slightly smaller blob. What made it stand out and seem threatening, though, wasn’t the size or shape, but the eyes, which reflected even the small amount of light there and seemed to shine. It was eerie and unsettling.

The creature saw her. “Terribly sorry,” it said, sounding sincere. “Didn’t mean to be so dramatic, but my biggest problems are always the landings. Hadn’t guessed anyone would be out and about on deck on a night like this anyway, and particularly not you.”

She was still nervous and resisting the urge to fly or otherwise flee, but she summoned up her courage. “You know me?”

“Well, bless my soul! Never laid eyes on you in my life. Don’t have to, though, if you’re the only Amboran on this vessel.”

“I am Jaysu, Priestess of—”

“Oh, I know that,” the creature responded. “Pleased to meet you. Name’s Zicanthripes, but most everyone calls me Eggy. Terribly undignified, I know, but I’ve gotten used to it.” He paused for a moment, then seemed to realize that he’d neglected some vital piece of information, or, perhaps, assumed more than he should have. “I’m your contact. I’m from Core.”

“You—You are of Cobo, then?”

“Oh, goodness me! No! These chaps live so far down I’m not terribly certain what they are! If they even were in the top layers of the ocean here they’d fall apart. Deep pressure types, y’see. No, I’m an Ixthansan. As air breathers, we don’t use much of anything the folks of Cobo want or need, but since the ocean is our element, we can use the waters and the life that’s only in the upper fifty meters or so of the ocean. We’re also from a nontech hex, which is kind of limiting, so it’s handy sometimes to have base ships in Cobo where we can do some fancy things. It’s a treaty, y’see. We don’t use our depths at all, couldn’t even get down that far without being crushed like a spoiled grape, but they can use even a nontech region for whatever sort of agriculture they do. So, we have a deal. They get free use of our bottom and we get free use of their top. Works out fine.”

“You—You are a marine mammal, then? I do not see well in this darkness.”

“Oh, goodness no! I suppose our ancestors were birds, possibly like yours. There’s a mild similarity in the way we’re built. The difference is that you fly in the air and we fly in the ocean.”

Eggy stepped forward so the light from the nearby forward lounge windows caught him and she could finally make him out.

He didn’t walk very well; it was actually a highly comical gait, the legs too short for more than waddling along. The feet were birdlike, though, but like aquatic birds, wide and webbed with long curved claws at the end. He also had wings; stiffer, barer than her own, and situated along the sides of the torso. Unlike her, though, the wings were also hands, the tips ending in grotesque fingers after the bones had first curved around to form and support the wing. The neck was short but flexible, and the head far more avian than humanoid, as hers was, with a flexible, dark-colored bill that was perhaps half the width of a duck’s in proportion to the body, yet resembled a duckbill more than anything else. The nostrils were atop the bill, and in back of the whole thing were two large eyes that resembled not a bird’s so much as a cat’s eyes, changing with and reflecting the light. It appeared smooth and inky black, but when it waddled a bit closer, it looked like short fur. It was neither bald nor fur-covered, though; they were densely packed feathers.

“You look a tad uncomfortable,” Eggy commented. “Why don’t we go inside and talk for a bit?”

She welcomed that idea, although she asked, “Won’t they find you and charge you for passage?”

He chuckled. “Perhaps they will, as far as it goes, but I’m only here for a bit. I’ll consume nothing costing the line anything, and I’ll make my own exit. If they wish to send a bill to the embassy for a few hours’ passage in mid-ocean, they’re welcome to try.”

It really was a large but ungainly creature, and she couldn’t imagine what it was like in the water. It was difficult to think of such a strange and oddly constructed being as existing comfortably in any environment.

He seemed to catch her thoughts, or was used to others thinking it and guessed at the subject.

“We are designed for the water, as you are truly designed for the air. Unlike you, we don’t need to ever land. Our country is a great mass of floating, living sea grasses that provide all the support we require, which is primarily for laying and hatching eggs. I believe that flying for you is no different than swimming for us. For all the differences in our appearance, you’re about as comfortable aboard this thing as I am. Just imagine being able to fly at all times, finding food, companionship, everything you require, without ever landing save to keep the young safe until they can join you. We’re weightless in our environment, and we can chase down, outrun, or do virtually anything in that element. Gravity is the only enemy, and that’s only when we’re out like this.”

He made it sound almost poetic, and she could at least imagine what it might be like, applying her own joy of flight with never having to fight the pull to earth.

“You have a message for me?” she asked him.

He seemed amused. “I thought it might be the other way around. I’m curious, though. Why do you take my word for it that I’m from Core? I know I frightened you with that entrance, and I’ve said and shown you nothing to indicate that I’m really on the side of the just, but you have accepted it.”

She hadn’t even thought about it. “No one can lie to me without my knowing it, and the truth is always evident to me,” she told him honestly. “If you had been playing me false, I would have known it.”

“Indeed? Never saw my like before, yet you are that confident? If you aren’t being naive, then you’re one of the most dangerous folks to have around in any conversation. Good heavens! Everyone would always have to tell the truth around you! The whole of civilization would be jeopardized!”

She didn’t understand the comment and would have liked to know why he thought her “dangerous,” but she sensed that he was at least partly speaking tongue-in-bill, as it were, and decided not to press the point. There were things that many of these strange creatures said that she knew she’d never truly understand. Instead she decided to get right to business. “So you have no message for me?”

“Oh, a few things, but first things first. I realize you haven’t been aboard here very long, but if you can truly sense the just and the ungodly, then are any of the ungodly aboard? And can you describe them?”

“A large green spider-thing,” she told him. “Pleasant enough, but he radiates an evil I cannot quite describe. I find it difficult to cope with someone who has manners, education, vast experience, even a sense of humor, yet seems to have absolutely no moral sense at all. He seems to divide everyone and everything into ‘useful’ and ‘not useful,’ and I’m afraid that anyone in the second category is pretty much irrelevant to him if they get in his way. He is, I believe, the most dangerous person I have ever met, yet so far he radiates no particular intent toward me.”

“He has a name?”

“He says that we could not pronounce nor understand it. He calls himself Wally.’”

“Interesting. Any companions?”

“Two horrid little creatures that resemble the small apes of the coastal cliffs of Ambora, but they wear clothing and have serviceable wings. I believe they can fly if need be, although not great distances. They also sit around smoking horrible smelling little cigars and giggling at inane things. They are as evil and cold as their spiderlike companion, but I do not think they are very clever, either of them. They work for him.”

“Hmrnm… Well, at least you know your enemies. Anyone else?”

“It seems as if everyone on this ship, even half the crew, have some sort of coldness or cruelness in them, but those stand out because they appear to be the ones interested in me.”

“Well, you watch them. We have no idea who the Askoth is, but he was behind the securing of a piece of the Straight Gate only last month. We have to assume he’s working for Chalidang, if not directly, then as a freelance agent, a hired gun. They need some operatives that aren’t of the races in their alliance and can breathe air just to do some background dirty work. Assume that they know you are with us, and also assume that they will not hesitate to move against you, even kill you, if they think you are a threat. I would strongly recommend that you cease doing what you were doing tonight and be very social with the other passengers and crew here as much as possible. You may not like them, but these types do not like to do nasty things around lots of witnesses. Stick to your cover story and stay in well-lit, populated areas.”

“Just as others cannot be false with me, I cannot lie to them,” she told him. “It is not something that I have any choice over. It is a part of my calling.”

If Eggy had shoulders, his motion would have been an easy shrug. “So don’t lie. Just don’t tell them what you don’t have to. You are going to Quislon for religious reasons, and for an exchange of religious thought. That is by no means untrue.”

“But they know it’s more than that.”

“Yes, they do. But they can lie, and usually love doing it. Just keep telling yourself to never volunteer information. That is almost always sufficient.”

Eggy was clearly not the religious type, nor comfortable with those who were. He couldn’t help wondering if this priestess wasn’t going to wind up spider dinner, unable to protect herself. He’d never seen such a helpless young thing before, at least unless it was a dumb fish swimming toward an Ixthansan hunting pack.

“Have your spider and winged apes dropped where they are getting off?” Eggy asked her.

“They are being met at sea, as I understand it,” she replied. “Only I get the idea from the time line expressed that they will be leaving close to either Quislon or Pyron.”

“Yes, that fits. They’re after the Quislon part of the Straight Gate. Well, they won’t find this as easy as Pegiri, but I won’t underestimate this sort.” He reached into a natural pouch in his abdomen, something she’d not suspected was there, and brought out a tiny object which he held out for her to take. She did so, and examined it.

“You know what that is?”

“No, not really,” she admitted.

“Well, it’s a camera. Takes pictures that can be printed or digitized. It’s quite simple. You just hold it in your hand so that that little gemlike spot isn’t covered, and point that spot at whoever or whatever you want to photograph. Squeeze here, and the picture is taken. We want you to take pictures of our spider friend, his henchmen, and, for that matter, anybody else you don’t feel is a saint who’s aboard. Don’t worry about whether the subject’s in the picture or anything like that. It’s a very smart little camera and it knows what we want. When you’re done, someone, maybe me, probably somebody else, will pick it up and take it off to a hex Gate, where it’ll go to Zone. There they can identify and check out everybody. Can you do that?”

“I—I suppose so. Anything else?”

“Well, first you must take the photos in a high-tech hex, so please take them in Cobo if you can, and don’t bother in a nontech or semitech environment because the thing won’t work. Second”—he reached back into the pouch and took out a small plastic-looking device, a wafer-thin hexagonal block with a red area in the top center—“take this. When you’re alone in your cabin and are sure nobody is lurking about, press this red spot. It will give you a general briefing. Use this tonight if you can, too. Don’t worry about security, except being overheard—once you use it the first time, it will respond only to your touch. When you don’t need it anymore, toss it overboard. No, I’m not joking. It will dissolve long before it hits anything and it won’t foul the water.”

She took it and stared at it, wondering if it was even moral to use such devices. Finally she decided that, after all, she had been the one who volunteered, and she put it in her small belt purse.

Eggy bobbed his head, apparently in satisfaction. “Got to go now. Being on land like this for very long makes me itch, even if it is just a ship. Any message you want to send to Core while I’m here?”

She thought. “No, nothing I haven’t said. I thank you for this, though. It gives a bit of purpose to the day.”

“And that’s literal,” he reminded her, waddling back toward the door. “Remember, you’ll be out of Cobo and into a semi-tech environment on this route in only thirty-two hours unless they’re forced to reduce speed. Get it done, and good luck to you!”

“I do not believe in luck,” she told him as he left the interior of the ship. But I do believe in destiny, she added to herself.

“Although not true bugs, having spines and some internal structure as well as a soft but naturally protective exoskeleton, they have a communal insectlike social organization that is centered in underground complexes,” the voice from the small hexagonal player informed her. “Place this unit on the floor and step back at least one meter,” it instructed.

She was puzzled, still fascinated by the idea of voices from tiny little wafers, but she did as instructed.

As soon as she stepped back, an image formed in the air directly over the tiny thing. It was not a tiny image, but about half life size, and it startled her and triggered her panic reflex until she caught herself and realized that it was just a picture.

“This is a Quislonian,” the voice informed her. “Most of them look just like this. There is no specialization, as there is in the insect world, for example.”

The thing was really ugly, and she had to pull all of her training from within to keep from being revolted by it. A giant segmented scorpion with a drooling mouth and a lot of feet wasn’t exactly her idea of a friendly race. They were more gruesome than the big spider, which, at least, had texture and color and a sense of individuality.

“The Quislonians are organized into tribal groups each led by a prince. The prince is the only male in the tribe; all others are sacrificed to their gods shortly after birth. The prince spends most of his time impregnating the others of his tribe; otherwise he acts both as high ruler and as high priest, although both roles are essentially ceremonial. There is a council of senior wives, headed by the prince’s mother, who organize the daily lives and activities of the colony and dispense aid and favors in the name of the prince. Princes do look different from the females; you will recognize one in a moment if you get to speak to one. It is most likely you will deal with, at best, the Prince Mother. Prince Mothers are identified because they dye their bodies the colors of the tribe, and the dye patterns indicate rank within the hierarchy. Only the Prince Mother also has a dyed head.”

The image changed, and she saw the same creature essentially colored, with each of the segments a different color. She suspected that the order of the colors indicated the rank and perhaps title within the tribe, but it would be a code she’d never try to crack.

“The tribes are autonomous,” the voice continued, “but all are subject to a single tribe that is at the pinnacle of society because it controls access to a central volcano that forms the core of their worship. It is active, but erupts with slow, thick lava that is rarely explosive and flows with slow deliberation. They, and most others, could outrun it. It is not, of course, constantly erupting, but there is always lava in the central crater. They appear to believe that their god or gods lives in the crater and can control it. You may take that as you will. Know, though, that the volcano also sits at the geographic center of the hex, which means that the Zone Gate actually emerges from the side, and access to it is also via the premiere tribe, whose sole function is religious. The male there has a title that translators make as ‘King,’ and his mother is the ‘Queen Mother,’ but there are, again, religious offices that are more important. They generally leave the more secular tribes alone, but a pilgrimage is required once a year, at which time high rites are done in a massive religious exercise around the volcano. This is what you are going to attend, and it is also where what our enemy wants and we must protect what is most vulnerable.”

She wasn’t at all sure she liked this, and understood why Core had withheld the nature of these people until she was committed to go. She had felt that, within certain limits, there was a commonality of culture at its most basic level between even the likes of those water-breathing Kalindans, the ones she’d met on board, and the others who allegedly came with all of them to this world. But these—these were not only physically unlike anything else she’d seen or known, they appeared to have a belief system that would be very difficult to accept. How could a race as ancient as the others on this world still be worshiping a volcano and throwing its men into it?

Why did Core, who seemed to know at least a little bit about everything, think that Amoboran beliefs were compatible enough with these people as to create a dialogue between she and them? Oh, she could see why they hadn’t had much luck with these people, but, she thought, ones like Core were cold in a different way than the evil ones aboard this vessel, but spiritually empty nonetheless. Core had once been a machine, and she could well believe it. To those with no souls, all religion would look pretty much the same.

Almost as if it could read her mind, the voice continued, “Do not dismiss the Quislon religion as some sort of primitive sacrificial cult. It is quite sophisticated, but it does have its unpleasant aspects, we realize. The sacrificial part certainly seems extreme, but in one sense it is no different than another religion’s commandments on dietary laws or cleanliness rituals where a social good—such as making sure a population didn’t eat things that made them sick—is incorporated into a belief system so that it is universally enforced. The society, physically and even in its genetic design, cannot tolerate multiple males. They are smaller, weaker, and will not live long without a great deal of attention, but they are essential for the equivalent of sperm. Rather than watch most of them die very young for lack of what would be required to sustain them as social invalids, a ritual exists so that their inevitable deaths are given meaning while not impacting on the very limited resources their harsh land provides them. Genetically, biologically, only one of them is going to survive and prosper.”

In one way she could understand this, but in a more basic sense she still couldn’t get past tossing live babies into steaming lava. It was something she would have problems with even though she accepted the explanation.

The fact that they had no choice from their biology and geography did not make it right, but it did not make it evil, merely tragic.

“I am preprogrammed to answer questions in some detail about this subject,” the voice told her. “However, we must remind you that we can only function in a high-tech hex, and there is not a great deal of time for that on this journey.”

She was uncomfortable speaking to what she knew was a machine. She did not like to think that a machine could think in such a fashion. Still, time was running short.

“What is the object that your people do not want stolen and that these creatures worship?”

“It is a piece of a device known as the Straight Gate. Although Chalidang claims it was a device invented by one of their own a thousand or so years ago, in fact its composition and method of power and operation, plus obscure accounts that go back as far as we have coherent records, suggest that this was a device of the Makers, the ones who created and populated this planet. It is thought to be a tool of theirs that was somehow left and later discovered by descendants of those who were here at the start. This is why it is venerated by the Quislonians. They incorporate the Makers into their complex cosmology, and thus this would be the most sacred of all objects known.”

“Did they just find it? How did they get it, or is that known?”

“The device disassembles. From the earliest times it appears that wiser heads believed it too dangerous to be used by anyone here, and so it was taken apart and distributed to those races that would be most likely to both venerate it and also keep it from being reassembled. It has been assembled at least once in the known record, by a Chalidang Emperor named Hadun approximately 1,022 years ago. The Chalidang were one of the races given a part to protect, but, of course, politics and attitudes change over time and with leaders. He fought a war that appeared to be aimed at the impossible: the conquest of the Well World. It is possible to conquer but never to hold it. The races and biomes are simply too different, and designed so that no one race could extend supplies over that large an area for any length of time. In point of fact, it was to secure the pieces of the Straight Gate, which he did.”

“And he put it together? What happened?”

“Unknown. He and most of his court vanished and were never seen or heard from again. It was believed they went into another dimension and were lost. In the power vacuum, the enemies of Chalidang attacked and defeated it and took back and redistributed the Straight Gate pieces. Chalidang royalty afterward always called itself Hadun, almost as if it were a title rather than a name.”

“And these people are trying the same thing again?”

“More or less. They are not attempting to conquer the whole world, simply to secure the pieces once more. It is believed that this time they know what the thing is and how to use it.”

“And what is it?”

“All of its capabilities are unknown, but we must deduce the worst from the fact that the Ghoman, a race in the Corish Galaxy, which some races there call the Milky Way, are definitely descendants of the Chalidang; that the last Ghoman emperor we know was called Josich the Emperor Hadun; and that it is this very Josich who secured a device not very different from the assembled Straight Gate there and is now here as the Chalidang Empress.”

She was startled. “He became a she?”

“It is unknown if this was deliberate, but it allowed Josich to move into power here with great speed, as there was already a Hadun Emperor. As Empress, Josich is, by the standards of Chalidang, apparently everything a male Chalidang could dream of. Core suspects that this means the transformation was in fact deliberate and preplanned. Since no one has ever been able to direct and preplan an entry to the Well World in known history, this implies that the power of the Straight Gate is massive indeed.”

“Well, if she’s already got one, why does she need another?”

“She hasn’t ‘got’ one. That one is back on the world she left to come here. We believe it is part of a set. The other is the one that could be assembled here. If it is, it appears that it could confer unbelievable power on the operator. Perhaps a passage back and forth as anything one wishes. Perhaps worse. Perhaps the user of such a device is recognized incorrectly by the Well master computer as one of the Makers. It does not matter what it does, really. If it gets in the hands of someone as ruthless as Josich, and if Josich, as it seems, knows how to use it, then Josich will have so much power she will become, for all intents and purposes, a god. This has been determined by most races here to be a bad thing. Josich, in her home galaxy and system, was known to destroy whole inhabited worlds that displeased her.”

Jaysu was stunned, but now, at least, she understood why the gods of Ambora had selected her and endowed her with unnatural powers. She felt both humbled and unworthy of the job. Why her? Could it be that her whole existence was designed for this challenge? That she had to be an empty vessel so she could be given this great power and the training and discipline to use it?

In her past life, Core had said, she had also been a cleric. Perhaps this truly was a divine commission. She could not refuse it, of course, but that didn’t stop her from feeling that somebody else had to be better at this than she.

“One more question,” she said to the small object on the floor.

“Yes?”

“Is it true that if we deny Josich just one segment, it will not work? That we only need to keep one part away from her to win?”

“Yes—and no. Yes, she can do nothing without all the pieces. No, it will not be a victory, since it has proven impossible to even destroy the pieces. The Quislon dropped theirs into the volcano long ago, and it spit it back out somehow. Keeping it disassembled is the constant task, at least until Josich is dead. It is unlikely that she would tell anyone else how to use it. Then they wouldn’t need her anymore, you see.”

It had actually been a very nice period, this passage through a high-tech hex aboard a ship designed to carry a massive amount of cargo of all sorts and a large complement of beings of different races and requirements, and which had far fewer passengers than it was set up to cater to. This meant you could get anything you wanted, and you had free rein of a ship that seemed as vast as a small country.

While in the high-tech mode, anything special that any of the races aboard wanted could be accommodated; she wasn’t sure how it was done, but she decided to test their seemingly boastful claims with a couple of Amboran vegetarian dishes that required very rare ingredients native only to small parts of the hex, and they served them to her within minutes, perfectly done. The others aboard seemed to have equal success with their own culinary requirements. Some who wore various clothing or uniforms got new fittings that looked tailor-made; it seemed anything you asked for could be provided by the attentive staff. This made for congenial passengers; even Wally and his two nasty henchmen were on their best behavior.

But it was a short-lived joy.

Jaysu had no idea if she’d managed to take the pictures requested, but she’d done what she was instructed to do. It was only when they were about to leave Cobo that she remembered the instructions about what to do with it. She therefore went on deck shortly before dawn, looked around at the nothingness of the sea, and obligingly threw the camera into the ocean. She had no idea how they would find it, but she suspected that some underwater races, or perhaps the Ixthansans, were shadowing the big ship, and that they had some sort of device that would tell them when the camera was dropped. At any rate, she’d followed instructions, and it was now their problem.

It was so close to dawn that she decided to hold her morning devotionals on deck rather than go back to sleep. Her rituals, mostly to calm and strengthen her and to allow her to plead with the gods to remain with her and not forget or abandon her, were not complex, but also not entirely silent, and yet out of respect were best done outdoors if not in a temple or at an altar.

There wasn’t much wind, except the breeze generated by the great ship, and the sea seemed unusually calm for Cobo, so being on the forward deck just below the wheelhouse was a perfect place to do her rituals.

As the sun came up, Jaysu felt the great steam engines below throttle back and the ship slow to a crawl. There didn’t appear to be a reason; it was a beautiful day and, aside from a few fluffy clouds, there was high visibility. She became aware of a lot of activity behind her then; much shouting, doors slamming, winches turning, and so as soon as she completed her devotionals, she went to the side to see what was going on.

It seemed as if the entire crew, those not on the steward’s staff anyway, was out and on deck, manning the ropes—the “rigging” they called it—and even climbing the huge masts. Belowdecks she could feel the vibration and hear the noise of great machinery going into action. Just above, the first mate, whom she’d met over dinner once, looked serious, despite the comic opera uniform that seemed designed for a far different creature than the squat, bipedal elephantine mate whose hands were at the end of a twin trunk. Mr. Scofflet, though, was all business, and had the kind of blasting voice to prove it, shouting a command here, another there, as the rest of the crew prepped the ship.

Algensor, a Kehudan passenger she’d rarely spoken to, came on deck. The Kehudans looked delicate enough to be blown away in a stiff breeze; their hex was all water, yet they were air breathers—silvery, heart-shaped, insectlike beings with thin, inverted V’s for legs. It was said they lived and even built somehow on the surface of the waves. Algensor was on her way home even though the ship spent very little time in her home hex’s waters. Now, after saying virtually nothing to her or most anybody since Jaysu had boarded, the silvery creature wanted to talk. Jaysu had trouble reading the Kehudan’s empathic elements, which were so contradictory as to be meaningless.

“They are preparing for Mogari,” Algensor said out of the blue.

“Mogari?” Jaysu repeated, shaking her head, a bit ashamed of her ignorance.

“We are about to hit what mariners call the Eastern Wall,” the Kehudan explained. “Along here there are a sequence of nontech hexes joined so that it is impossible to avoid one without sailing a thousand kilometers around. Since ships of this size and weight are not good sailboats, they avoid non-tech hexes when possible save as destinations. Thus, the ship slows, the machinery below redistributes cargo and ballast so it is as optimized for sail as possible, and the boilers are brought down to a simmer, as it were, from a boil. They cannot afford to let them go out, but the steam pressure must be constantly vented or it will blow up in a nontech environment. It cannot reach the aft propellers and drive the ship forward. You may boil water in a nontech hex, but if you try and route it, it will blow up, and so you must vent it harmlessly.”

“I am well aware of this principle,” she told the silvery creature. “My own home allows no machinery that is not powered by wind, water, or muscle directly.” It had not, however, occurred to her that what didn’t seem much of a problem at home would be a serious problem to a ship of this size and weight.

“The crew is professional enough,” Algensor noted approvingly. “The problem is speed and handling. We will be at the mercy of the winds, and, after entering, our speed will be cut from a bit more than twenty kilometers per hour to perhaps six or seven. We will spend as much or more time going down a mere single edge of Mogari as we did to sail all the way here from where you boarded, perhaps much more. Then we will gain power back and turn sharply southwest. It will be sailing the wrong way, almost, for where the ship is bound, but it will be speedy and will allow them to route the rest of the way almost entirely in hexes where the engines can be used. Once the Wall is cleared, though, it will be ten days or so to landfall in Pyron. I, of course, shall be gone by then.”

Jaysu wasn’t cheered by the news. Ten days! How was she going to stand it? Still, if it could be mostly in high-tech hexes, she could adjust. Or was that sinful decadence creeping in? Was her faith really that shallow? She hoped not.

She turned at the cry of the mate to the crew and saw the hex wall looming ahead. It looked just like all the others, a kind of dark, shimmering mass that you could nonetheless see through, and which seemed to go all the way to heaven and from horizon to horizon.

With the crew positioned all through the masts and rigging, she was surprised to see the ship suddenly roar into life, as if revving up to maximum speed. It took a kilometer or so, but it was getting up a head of steam when it reached the wall. Then all power was cut, and it seemed as if the world suddenly stood still as the vibrations of the engines and from equipment below shut down.

The ship slid through the hex wall and the quiet became even eerier. It was as if someone had suddenly made them all deaf and without a sense of feeling, but there was the sound of wind and wave and the bow breaking through surf.

And then the loudest series of noises she had ever heard threatened to make her deaf for real, as three stacks blew their ship’s whistles full and didn’t seem to let up. Getting a headache from the terrible noise, she almost ran back inside. Even the sliding door didn’t mask the noise completely, but at least it was no longer deafening.

The little purser was coming from the dining lounge at that moment, apparently lighting the internal oil lamps. He saw her and immediately guessed what had happened.

“So sorry,” he called to her, and her eardrums were so shocked he sounded a million kilometers away. “Should have warned you. Got to do that. Let steam out. Otherwise we go bang really fast. They won’t do it forever. Just have to get pressure down. Once the boilers are down to minimum, they only do it twice a day, at breakfast and at dinner, and not for so long.”

“It is all right,” she assured the little Kuall. “I am aboard for a long time yet, it seems, and whatever will be is at least some break from the routine.”

“Could be more big break, yep yep,” the purser warned her. “Big storm coming up.”

That was unnerving. There were some things that made boredom seem acceptable. “Will it be bad?”

“Could be. Yep yep. We will head right for it, see.”

“You don’t try and go around such things?”

“Not most times, nope nope. Got to keep to route and schedule. But in nontech hex, we like storms, you see. Big wind. Dangerous for crew, but they know how to do their jobs, yep yep. Just stay off outside decks while we’re in the storm and always hold on to something. Faster we go, rougher it gets, but we’ll make speed.”

She made her way back to the upper deck passenger lounge, which was just below her cabin. It had heavy reinforced glass windows all around, and from it you could see what the captain and bridge crew were seeing two decks up in the wheelhouse.

Wally was in there, without his little friends at the moment, and so were two or three other passengers. She was getting to know everybody aboard; there weren’t all that many people, after all, and there was even less to do.

After a couple of days of powered light the lounge looked dark, shadowy, almost sinister, but it was more than adequate for most races, and for her. This was, after all, fairly normal lighting for Ambora, although they were using some tricks with mirrors and such to make the smaller sealed oil lamps as bright as the near torches Amborans tended to favor.

Out ahead she could see the darkness, almost as if the bright dawn was being reversed, turned back into night. It was a natural sight on a clear horizon; she’d seen it many times herself from the Amboran cliffs. Still, she was home when she was on the Amboran cliffs, and could retreat into structures of thick wood or stone. Out here she was aware that the ship was the sole anchor for her existence. Nobody could fly in that stuff, not with those winds and violent downdrafts, and lifeboats would fare poorly if it were rough enough to sink a ship. The purser was right about one thing, though— although there was a clear way around to the south, the captain was heading right for the darkness.

“It is still difficult to not hear and feel the engines,” Wally commented, almost certainly to her, though apparently to nobody in particular. “It had become so much a part of the day-to-day. Good morning, my dear. I hope you slept well.” This was clearly directed toward her.

“As well as I can in this confinement,” she answered. “I was not made for this sort of living.”

“Who was? I suggest that you go to the first-class mess and eat some breakfast now. It is still hot and properly cooked and prepared, but things will be getting rough soon and they will have to put it away or it will go flying. I fear we’ll eat a lot worse until we clear this hex.”

She decided that he had a point, and made her way back to the small restaurant amidships. Normally you could walk in and get what you needed any time of the day or night, but apparently things would be different for a while.

She could feel the tension, both on the part of the passengers in the lounge and even the stewards in the restaurant and other crew that she passed. Clearly this was not going to be an experience they relished.

They were securing almost everything that was loose when she entered, although two of them took some time out to prepare an Amboran sweet cereal for her, garnished with native fruits. Still, everybody was so frantic she wasn’t sure she would have time to eat before things started to happen, and she didn’t want to think of what those things might be.

She thought of Eggy and wondered what these storms were like under the sea. Probably not as bad as up here, she decided. They said that you didn’t have to go far down to be almost completely ignorant that a storm was even raging above. She wouldn’t know; Amborans could manage an emergency float in a pinch, and even do a snatch and grab on fish just below the surface, but the oils in their feathers were not dense enough or insulating enough to allow them to swim.

“I, too, fly,” the creature had told her, but not in the air. What a strange variety of creatures there were in this world.

Before she finished her breakfast, the storm hit, or, more properly, they hit the storm, and things began to lurch. The action, which became rhythmic but unceasing, frightened her, and she saw concern even in the eyes of the stewards, creatures of several races who now rushed to gather up the last loose bowls, plates, bottles, and utensils and get them under either locked bars or netting. They tried to allow her to complete her meal, but she was no longer hungry, and it wasn’t much fun eating, anyway, when most of the time you were trying to keep your bowl and spoon on the table.

As loose goblets and cups began flying, she understood why there was little or no glassware in the restaurant. It was wooden or some sort of artificial substance that was smooth and molded.

Some of the stewards were more sure-footed than others. Some were clearly at home in a surface of rough water, or just seemed built to stick to whatever they were standing on.

Now, holding onto the table, she wondered how she was going to make it anywhere more comfortable, even to the lounge. She wasn’t one of those who stuck to things, and her tough feet and claws occasionally lost their footing even when sailing was smooth.

One of the stewards, a creature that seemed more like a walking plant than an animal—with leafy arms and a head like a pastel blue and pink head of cabbage—was one of the stick-to-the-floor types, and he approached her.

“Take my arm,” it invited her. “I will make certain you get to the walking rope. Can you manage from there?”

She wasn’t sure, but said, “Yes. Thank you.”

The “arm” was covered with little leafy smaller arms and ended in a “hand” of three rubbery, long fingers. The creature’s grip, though, was surprisingly strong, and its footing as steady as a rock. She pulled herself up, depending on its grip, and allowed it to pull her to the bulkhead and the thick guide rope. She used her free hand to grab the rope, then said, “All right! You can let go now!”

“Use both of your hands and grip hard,” the steward warned, guiding her other hand to the rope and ensuring that she had a two-handed grip before releasing her.

She immediately saw what it meant by the suggestion.

She had never before been moving in so many directions at once, not even in the air. The ship didn’t just rock back and forth, it also simultaneously moved side to side, and at the end of one sequence of motion it seemed to literally twist, first one way and then the other.

She made her way forward, slipping once but catching herself on the rope before she fell, and nervously made her way forward, out of the restaurant doorway, and across the common area and stairwells, toward the lounge. As she passed this area, she could look out of the sliding doors, but wasn’t sure it had been a good idea. Although it was still early morning, it was pitch-black out there, broken by dramatic flashes of lightning. Some of the sounds she’d assumed in the restaurant were ship noises, she now realized were thunder. She couldn’t help but wonder about the poor crew on those masts, and hoped they’d all found some shelter before the ship entered this terrible environment.

Getting into the lounge not only didn’t help, the row of rectangular windows provided a frightening panorama that was a terrible dark gray, with lightning all around and rain beating against the windows. Worse, though, was that she could see the bow of the ship stretched out in front and below her, and the gigantic waves breaking over it, some, it seemed, as high as this upper deck!

The raging sea would roll over and the entire bow would dip and then vanish under the water, followed by that funny twisting motion, and then, almost miraculously, the bow would rise back out of the depths to repeat the sequence. It was dramatic, and scary. Each time, it seemed as if the bow would never rise back up, and if it didn’t, they were going down, and fast.

It was the greatest test of faith she’d ever undergone, because she was completely helpless; she could do nothing to make it stop.

Jaysu was surprised to find nobody else in the lounge area. They were probably all riding it out in their cabins, she thought, since there was little you could do but be frightened in such conditions.

She wondered about the crew, who apparently took this as just another part of the job. How many times did they go through this in a month, a year, whatever? Was it ever routine?

“Quite a magnificent sight, is it not?” a familiar voice commented above and behind her. She jumped, turned, and saw Wally rise from a flat deck area between two types of seating in the back.

“Oh—I’m sorry,” she responded. “I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

“Racial habit, I’m afraid. We’re natural lurkers,” the giant spider commented.

“I expected more passengers here,” she told him.

“Most land passengers are busily giving their breakfasts back to nature,” he told her. “The others have pretty well anchored themselves in. My two associates are all right but rather small, and they found themselves unable to stand erect under these conditions and so have battened themselves down, as it were. I suspect that your stomach and general balance are also all right, being a flier.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Of course, the action of the ship, while alien, wasn’t as extreme as some flying maneuvers she did routinely, and she always knew where the ground was. “Yes, but it does not mean that I can stand on hard, polished wood in this movement,” she replied. “In the air it is I who control the movements, and I am not subject to traction.”

The spider seemed to think a moment, then approached her confidently. A creature of this size who still walked up walls and across ceilings did not have any problems getting around under these conditions. A leg reached under and into some natural pouch, then brought out a glistening strand of what seemed to be rope of smooth, translucent color. He put out the leg and offered the rope to her.

“Please—take this. It is a natural substance my people make, but it is strong as steel and it is, well, sticky without being wet. Take a seat in the center here, which is the point where you will sense the least movement, and just put this around your lap and secure it to the bottom of the seat. It will hold you, and the seats are bolted down. You can peel it off slowly from anywhere or anything, but if there is a sudden jerk, it will hold a boulder. Go ahead—take it. It won’t hurt you.”

She didn’t trust the spider, but on the other hand, he seemed to be telling the truth and just being helpful. She took his offering, pulling it to her. Now, for the first time, she saw that the legs, all of them, ended in what looked like mittens.

She studied the ropelike substance. “This is your webbing?”

“In an evolutionary sense, yes,” he admitted. “But we don’t build webs. As far as I can tell, we never did. Still, it comes from the same source as a spider’s web, and we use it very much like ropes, vines, whatever. A bunch of it gets made every day whether we need it or not, and we actually sell the stuff as a trade good for uses just like this. It keeps its properties for quite some time, although, of course, like everything else, you can use it too much. My gift. In fact, if you give me one end of the coil back, I’ll go over to one of these backless chairs and hold it taut so you can make it.”

The stuff had an odd feel, almost like it was trying to grab you, and using it hand over hand to go toward the great spider, it seemed she was climbing a web to her doom. But Wally, as usual, was as good as his word, even helping fasten her to the seat.

It helped. “I fear I’m still looking out at that scene,” she told him. “I feel we’ll go down every time I see the bow vanish.” Even so, she felt more comfortable secured to the seat.

The noise was also unnerving. Not the storm outside— save for the thunder claps, which were dulled by the tight insulation and triple-thick bulletproof window materials—but rather the groans, shudders, and moans of the ship itself, punctuated now and then by the sound of things smashing against bulkheads.

“You seem to enjoy the storm, Mr. Wally,” she commented to the spider. “Is your race one that swims?”

He chuckled. “No. If we go, I go, I’m afraid, but I’m not all that concerned. While it’s not unheard of, these ships are built for this sort of thing, and this crew is highly experienced. And, while I must say I’ve never been on a ship through a storm like this before, I’ve been in much more dangerous and less comfortable spots in my long life. I rather enjoy viewing the wonders of nature, really, so long as I am warm and dry and looking out.”

“It seems a huge storm,” she noted. “I mean, we have thunderstorms, some of them quite fierce, but they are generally local affairs. They blow and roar like this, it is true, but they are soon gone. This one just seems to go on and on and on.”

“It does,” he agreed. “I believe this may be more than a mere storm. I heard one of the crew refer to it as a tropical storm, and another as a typhoon. These appear to be much larger and meaner storms than the ones you or I are used to. It is a wonder to me that they can sail in this, but apparently they have a way to do it. As I say, experience. Experience and thousands of years of clever engineering design.”

It did seem to go on for a terrible length of time, but then, as suddenly as they had come upon it, it died down, even stopped, and for a brief moment there was even a bit of sun.

They could hear the shouts of crew all over, but they didn’t sound happy.

The purser rushed in, saw her, and said, “Thought somebody might be up here. Yep yep. Everybody all right?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” she assured him.

“If you want to get to your cabin, go fast,” the purser told them. “This is the middle of the storm. All quiet, still. But we’ll hit the other storm wall in about ten minutes. After that, it’s back to the wind and waves for another couple hours.”

She thought it might be a good idea, tried to get up and found herself held tight.

“Oh, sorry, let me help,” Wally commented, reaching over, putting a leg under the chair and pulling. “Here. Take this. You may find it useful. We will talk later, after we are through this mess.”

“Yes, perhaps we will,” she replied, unnerved at just how well tied down she’d been without realizing it.

She made her way back to the doors, then out onto the deck. It was a strange feeling, this “middle” of the storm. She could see it, all around her, and certainly forward, yet it was almost as if they were becalmed, with the sun peeking through the strange, spiral cloud shapes above.

She also saw that the crew was busy hauling down some very torn-up sail and putting up some others. She knew that those sails were made of the kind of stuff you couldn’t tear, and to see them now in this condition was more sobering than watching the bow sink and rise.

She hurried to her cabin, not wanting to be caught when they hit that storm again, and made it barely in time.

The embedded log in the box of sand provided sufficient grip and comfort for her when it started again. Alone, inside her cabin, for once she felt not claustrophobic, but safe.

She decided that the best way to spend the rest of the day was in prayer and meditation, if she could hear herself think over the racket that began again outside.