Quest for the Well of Souls

Wuckl

After their escape, things didn’t seem so simple. Mavra’s mind continued to increase its working capabilities; there were gaps here and there, and how the present situation had come about was beyond her, but she continually found it easier to remember things about the past.

As she and Joshi hid out in the hills from the sun’s revealing light, now just starting to flood the horizon, she took stock, of what she knew and what she had to do. She wished she knew how much time had passed between first hitting the fence and this moment.

The last thing she remembered was that fence. Somehow it had knocked both of them out—and they’d awakened as odd pigs. Why and how was something to be discovered much later, if ever.

So she was a pig, she thought unemotionally. In some ways it was a distinct advantage. Her breed was obviously born to the wild; it was therefore equipped with survival mechanisms heretofore denied them.

Considering the swill they’d eaten in the zoo, food would not be a problem. The Wuckl, for all their strangeness, ate foods rather similar to that consumed by the humans of Glathriel; as such, they had garbage cans and garbage dumps. Mavra wasn’t proud; if the stuff was something she could eat without ill effects, she would eat it. And, all the life forms of the South were carbon-based; some were herbivores, some carnivores, some omnivores, but in general the food of one would not kill a member of a different race, although it might not do much good.

Most important was the new head angle. For the first time in long memory she was looking straight ahead, not down. The tremendous sense of confidence in movement this brought was a fair tradeoff for the nearsightedness, which was still a better range than what she’d been able to manage in the old form. Finally, the sharp quills provided a defensive weapon that might come in handy.

All in all, it was better to be a pig, she reflected. In most ways, the Wuckl or whoever had done this to them had done them a favor. The only major problem was communication. She realized that their bodies had been highly modified, not changed, for she still had translator capability from the tiny crystal surgically imbedded in her brain. The implant allowed her to understand the Wuckl and others, but it didn’t allow communication with them. Joshi, who had no translator, remained very much in the dark.

Either their larynxes were paralyzed or they had been removed; the pigs had only the classic grunt of the hog.

She wondered just how much Joshi remembered. Was he better off than she, mentally, or worse? Was there some way to communicate? She would have to try. They could hardly move about in broad daylight, and the appearance of the animal life in their vicinity convinced her that in this hex pigs belonged only in zoos. They would continue to be forced to move by night.

She considered what he knew. Universal code, yes—he’d learned that in order to help signal the supply ships in foul weather. If she could manage to regulate her grunting, and if he got the idea, and if he was mentally capable of understanding it, then it might suffice.

A lot of ifs.

She nudged him with her snout and he snorted, more in curiosity than annoyance. Time to begin.

She tried a simple phrase—“We are free”—to see if she could get something across. It was slow going, and she did it endlessly, hoping he’d catch the repetitive pattern.

Several minutes of this passed, and he seemed confused. She was afraid he hadn’t gotten it when suddenly his ears twitched.

In truth, Joshi had received far less of a shock than she and so had recovered earlier. He simply did not have her drive or ambition. Now, though, he caught a word after first realizing that she was trying to talk to him. The group for “we” was brief and basic. He picked it up, repeating her grunt-pulses aloud. She became excited, tried it faster, and he followed again, excited himself now.

Now she stopped, and he did, too, a moment later. It was his turn.

“We are pigs,” he grunted.

Breakthrough! She would have hugged and kissed him if she could.

“We will go on,” she said to him.

He groaned in a more universal code. “What can we do now?” he asked her. “We are pigs.”

“Chang pigs,” she retorted. “We think. We know. We are still we. If we stay free, we can still make it.”

He seemed resigned.

They worked out a short series of sounds for important concepts and practiced them until both had them down. The messages were basic, a few grunts and squeals, but they could signal “stop,” “go,” “run,” “danger,” and other basics whenever time would not permit the length of a conversation. A sentence could take close to a minute.

Eventually, Joshi signaled, “I’m hungry.”

She sympathized. They were always hungry. But they had reason, and reason said they would wait until eating was less risky. He accepted her logic and decided to sleep instead.

Mavra Chang couldn’t, though, not right away. Watching Joshi, thinking the way he was thinking, and knowing her own feelings she realized that there was a split here, a dichotomy that craved resolution in her mind.

Joshi looked normal. She felt hunger as a pig would, felt all of the things a pig would feel. In a way, she realized, this latest transformation had snapped the last bands connecting her to humanity. These past decades she’d clung to her humanity; she had still been human, just a different and unique variety that in an odd way had pleased her. She no longer felt that For a while she wondered if her new attitude was part of what they had done to her. She doubted it; it wasn’t like being hypnoed to accept her new life as a being on all fours. No, it was something else, yet something familiar. Rather, it was like that change when she had stopped thinking of how she would one day regain humanity and had accepted herself as she was, when she stopped thinking as a human woman and started thinking as a Chang female. Once again, her mind was split and she was trying to reconcile the opposing halves. She did not fight it, she let it happen this time.

Pig—all the elements that made up the animal to which she was now akin—struggled with human personality and point of view. What, after all, did she owe humans? What had they done for her? Even in the old days, as one of them, she’d been apart, different, an odd element that felt itself somehow superior to, alien to the “normal” people around her. They hadn’t done much for her, only a lot to her. In turn, she had used them, as one would use a tool in completing a task. She had been among them but not of them, always, for as long as she could remember. They had made her an animal; very well. She would be one. A pig or whatever this was. A very smart pig, to be sure, but a pig just the same.

The competing elements inside her mind stopped their warfare. A pig she was and would always be, and it was all right.

Dusk found them both feeling as if they were starving to death. Cautiously they made their way toward some lights in the distance. This was a high-tech hex; the Wuckl were obviously creatures of the day, but, like humans, they could exist at night and were active then.

It was a small town; not the major population center, no, but a community of several thousand. They would be on the lookout for two escaped animals, so Mavra Chang and Joshi had to be careful. They circled the town, searching with the heightened senses of their new noses for the telltale smells that had to be present Had to. These people had garbage cans, but she preferred not to nose into them if she could avoid it—too much noise and clatter. But garbage cans meant a garbage dump, and they spent half an agonizing night looking for it.

What they found was a landfill—lots of trash and garbage all around and mounds of dirt that were being bulldozed to fill in a marsh. Some of it had been chemically treated to avoid contamination, but their noses led them to the untreated garbage. They managed to gorge themselves on material that in their former existence would have revolted them. As wild pigs, it didn’t bother them in the least, and the thought barely entered their minds.

Unfortunately, their hunger was omnipresent; even when it lessened they found it difficult to leave a sure source of food, for they knew they would soon need it as much as ever. They had to make time for traveling, though; Mavra knew that to remain in the area would mean inevitable capture, and at best a return to a much more secure compound, even a cage—a horrifying thought.

Earlier, the sun, now long gone, had indicated which way was east, and they headed overland. Much of the area was marshy, but they did not mind; their breed of pig was a tireless swimmer in the deep places, and neither dampness nor mud bothered them. In fact, mud smelled rather good to them, indicating to Mavra that their land was originally from a swamp like this.

Things seemed to break their way. The second night found them near what appeared for all the world to be a near-ripe corn field, and this was like Christmas to them, particularly since an ear eaten here or there would hardly be noticed, and the standing vegetation provided excellent cover.

On the third night they could hear the roar and pounding of the surf from afar, and it was almost too much for Joshi to bear, particularly when they reached a cliff and looked out into the darkness and smelled the mildly salty air. This was the eastern side of the Sea of Turagin, but it reminded them of home.

Blinking lights not far offshore marked dangerous reefs, and powerful lighthouses warned of more extensive dangers.

They savored the sights and smells for some time, but Mavra did so with mixed emotions. The sea represented a curious contradiction. There was freedom, salvation, and escape—and a nearly insuperable barrier to such things. Beyond were the water hexes. This was probably Zanti, which led to Twosh. That was too far from their goal. Beyond it was Yimsk, which led to Mucrol, next to Gedemondas, but also next to the spider hex of Shamozan, which was in league with Ortega. To the north was Alestol, with its deadly gas-shooting plants. They still had hundreds of kilometers of swamp to get to Mucrol, and at least one hex side to Gedemondas. Yet somehow their goal seemed so very close, just beyond her reach.

Joshi seemed to catch her thoughts. “Now what?” he signaled.

Now what, indeed, she asked herself. They couldn’t swim. If her memory served her, as it always had, those lights meant that they were just north of the chief Wuckl seaport, the very place where they were to meet the Toorine Trader once again if all went according to plan.

But how long had it been? What day, week, month was it? And, even if they were still in time, how could they board without attracting attention, and then convince the crew of their true identities?

Well, there’d be garbage there, and a place to sleep.

They started south along the beach, and as they did she could almost hear the voice of the Gedemondan coming in on mystic breezes and roaring seas.

You will descend into Hell, it whispered. Only then, when hope is gone, will you be raised up…

Hope was only gone when you were dead or might as well be, she thought. Two pigs would tell that to the Gedemondans in their ice-covered volcanic caverns, and throw it in their smugly all-knowing faces.