Read Online 03. Quest for the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker - Free Book Online Page A

by the injured lizard.
    Breathing hard, Mavra and Joshi stopped and turned toward the compound. They could see the fire's glow, but it seemed to be localized. They watched as the two great shapes dashed out onto the beach, and they saw that while one seemed almost to blend into the beach, hard to see, the other had big dark spots on it that made it easy to trace.
    "What the hell is going on here?" Joshi gasped.
    She shook her head. "I don't know. But it's the end of our world, that's for sure."
    "What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. " They won't be back."
    "Oh, yes they will," she retorted. "Them or somebody worse. They weren't just pirates, Joshi. They landed here just to get us—kill, kidnap, I don't know what. But they were pros. They wouldn't go after us with a village full of cured tobacco just a little ways off. Somebody's put a price on my head."
    He shook his head unbelieving. "But—why?"
    "The only reason I can think of is that somebody's finally figured out the way to that Northern spaceship, and they're eliminating the competition," she replied in a strange, coldly professional tone he'd never heard in her voice. He was experiencing the true Mavra Chang for the first time, and she bewildered him.
    But her eyes were shining. After all these years—the great game was on again, the game she was born to play.
    "Fire's already down, probably almost out," he noted, uncomfortable. "Want to see what we can salvage?"
    "We'll keep away, spend tonight here in the bushes," she responded, tone still businesslike but with that same excited undertone.
    "The natives—" he began, but she cut him short.
    "Won't come close on Ship's Day, no matter what. You know that." If they did, they would risk the wrath of the Ambreza.
    "What about the Ambreza?" he pressed, trying to find some way to return to the comfort of his old situation. It was all he'd known since the fire that scarred him.
    "No flares were fired, so they're not alerted," she pointed out. "If they don't have a random patrol in this area they might not find out about what happened until it's too late."
    He looked at her strangely. "Too late for what?"
    "I haven't tried to escape in so many years they take it for granted now," she pointed out. "No tight watches any more. But even though I long ago gave up on the idea, I always kept a trove, just in case. You know that. The dried tobacco in the back shed and the little gold bars I've collected over the years by bartering the stuff through the Trader ."
    He nodded. "I always thought that was all it was for—petty bribes. I never thought—"
    "Stay alive, think of everything," she said evenly. "Now, if we're lucky, our little bank account there will buy us a smuggle on the Toorine Trader ."
    * * *
    The Trader arrived in early morning. Mavra and Joshi could see its sails as it rose from the clear horizon, great masts holding weathered white clouds.
    It was hardly the only ship on the Sea of Turagin, but it was one of only six packet-boats to make a complete circuit, servicing all the hexes who cared to, or needed to, get trade and transportation. It was a grand ship, almost a hundred meters long, made of the finest copper-clad hardwood. The crew would have preferred steel, but that proved too heavy for fast movement under sail.
    It was a three-master, with odd bowsprit and gunwales through which a wicked-looking cannon could peer if needed. But its central housing also bore twin black smokestacks over an engine, which, in all but nontech hexes, could power huge twin screws in the rear. Everod, the sea hex adjoining the coast of Glathriel, was nontech; its denizens, huge clamlike beings with masses of tendrils piercing their shells, were deep-water types, and there was never any real contact between them and the land-dwellers, nor did they seem to mind the surface commerce that the Trader represented. In fact, they, too, used the Trader , placing orders with its Zone broker and having what they needed weighted and