02. Shadows of the Well of Souls (19 page)

"There is a large stand of trees just about two kilometers in," Julian noted. "It would afford some shelter and protection."

Mavra was dubious. "That's your Erdomese instincts talking. In the desert you head for the trees and the oasis. Think more like the Africa you talked about. I remember a part of it much like this, going on almost forever. It was
huge,
with vast herds of game and great cities and civilizations, until the coastal folks chopped down all the trees and the rains were able to erode and undermine the soft rock and good soil and the whole thing turned into a desert. The last time I was there, it was desert wasteland from almost the Mediterranean shore as far in as I knew. When I saw what had happened and what greatness had been lost, I cried, and I don't do that much."

She paused a moment, remembering the devastation, the eternity of baking hot sand, then regained control.

"Well," she continued, "the point is that when you had thick areas of trees like the ones you describe, it meant a water hole, maybe a spring at the surface, just as in the desert, but it also was where all the nastiest predators went and spent the night. Wouldn't you? They sure don't sleep out here in the grass. Otherwise the herds of prey would be somewhere else. You don't see any signs of some kind of camp, some kind of civilization in that grove, do you?"

Both Julian and Lori looked hard, using magnification as well. "No," Lori answered after a bit. "But you're right; there are some pretty large creatures in those trees."

Julian pointed to their left a bit. "The grass seems to get lower over there. It is possible that there is some surface rock. I do not see anything much right in that area, either. Lori?"

"No, I don't, either. It's a good bet, although it won't give us a lot of cover."

"Better than nothing," Mavra said at last. "We're not exactly inconspicuous anywhere in these parts, you know."

"Or anywhere else, as a group," Lori agreed.

"Well, I for one think we all look just
splendid
!" Anne Marie announced, missing the point.

The area
was
a rocky outcropping that wind and rain had worn clean of soil. It was a large tabular rock, cracked in a few places, that ran about twelve meters by nine. There were some raised sections of what looked like the same material along two sides, although nothing that would really conceal them from an interested onlooker. It was, however, barren of grass and didn't seem to have been staked out by anything else alive, and that was good enough.

"It's basically a form of sandstone," Julian noted, "not unlike on Earth. It's a common pattern. The stuff will eventually erode back to sand—and you can see some of that along the back side there—and probably underlies the whole plain. Basically, this isn't much different than Erdom, except that this region gets an adequate rainfall that allows the grass to grow and stabilize the rock."

Mavra nodded. "That's right. You were a geologist, weren't you? Okay, let's get the bedrolls down for us three bipeds. Anne Marie, do you still have the firestarter? I want to check on something."

"Yes, yes. I believe . . . Half a moment!" With that the centauress turned on her forward hips almost all the way around and fumbled in one of the large packs, then said, "Aha!" She pulled out a long, thin metallic rod and handed it to Mavra.

As the supplies were taken off and the three bedrolls were spread out in the middle of the slab, Mavra went over, picked a strand of the grass, and brought it back to the center of the rock, well away from anything else. She pressed a button on the end of the stick, and from the other end came a tiny jet of flame, which she applied to the grass.

It caught fire but went out as soon as she removed the source of the flame. She tried it two or three times, and each time the result was the same. Satisfied, she tossed the remains of the grass stalk away and put the lighter back in the pack.

"If you don't mind, what was
that
about?" Tony asked her.

"Testing fire hazard. Either it's not long after the rainy season or this soil really holds water well. Maybe both," Mavra explained. "It also means that the grass is probably just grass. Plus, it shows that the reason for not seeing any sort of fires or fire remains isn't because it's too dangerous to build one. And
that
probably means there aren't any Gekirs around at the moment, whatever they are."

"Either that or they just don't use fire," Lori noted.

Mavra gave her a look she hoped the Erdomese could see in the darkness. "Don't kill my optimism too quickly! I was
enjoying
this," she said grumpily.

Lori looked around with his night vision from atop the centaur's back. "I wonder what would be the most logical life-form for a place like this?"

"Either carnivores or omnivores," Tony guessed. "Probably carnivores. They would have the most stake in managing such a place, and it would explain the lack of any sort of groves or cultivation in such a desirable spot. I would wager that they eat a lot of meat, anyway."

Lori frowned. "Um, I hate to bring this up, but you Dillians are herbivores, aren't you? And Erdomese are basically herbivores, too." He decided not to mention that another staple of the Erdomese diet was almost any form of insect. He realized that that might well put the others off.

"
That,
I think, was the point," Mavra commented dryly, deciding not to remind them that she was the only true om-nivore there. She looked around. "We
could
risk a fire, though, either to ward off our theoretical predators or even to cook something. I'm not going hunting out there, though."

"Get me down first," Lori asked. "I'm feeling a little better. Julian—help support me and I'll see how the ankle is doing."

She came over as Anne Marie lifted Lori off Tony's back and gently to the ground, where Julian braced him.

He tried a few steps, and although he continued to put a hand on her shoulder, it was more as a stabilizer than as a full support. "Not too bad," he said. "It's still sore, but it feels a
lot
better. At least I know now that it's not broken." He took his hand away from Julian and tried an uncertain step, then reached out with his right hand and pushed on Tony's side. "
Ow
!
Damn! I think the
leg's
going to be fine, but my wrist feels
terrible
!
Shit! And I'm right-handed!"

Julian looked first at his leg, then at his wrist. "There is very slight swelling in the leg, my husband, but as you say, it does not look like much. Perhaps one more day of riding and then you should be able to walk. The wrist, though, looks very bad. It should be in a splint and bandaged."

Mavra came over to them. "Trouble?"

"His wrist," Julian told her. "It is bad, and I do not know how bad."

"Can't you feel along it for a break?"

"No, she can't," Lori told her. "Because our females carry children to term on all fours, they need forelegs, and the way that's done makes their hand basically a hard, fixed surface and a thick separate segment for grasping. But no fingers as such."

It disturbed Mavra that she'd barely noticed. "Let me see. Give me your hand, Julian." She took it and felt it. It was hard and resembled a hoof, but unlike a true hoof, the hand was segmented in two parts, one tapered and rounded and a bit softer inside so that it could be used as a giant thumb against the other, slightly flexible part. When closed, it made a nearly perfect hoof. "That's
awful
!"
she exclaimed, then immediately felt terrible because she'd said it.

"Oh, it's not bad once you get used to it," Julian replied sympathetically, remembering how
she
had felt when she'd first awakened and seen those strange hands. "You would be surprised what I can do with them. Not as much as true hands, but about as much as, say, mittens would allow. No, the
real
problem is, since I can use them as forelegs, I have no feeling in them. Having no sense of touch in my hands, I have to be looking at them whenever I am using them. That's all right for many things, but there is no way I can feel Lori's wrists."

"You'd be surprised how much she
can
do with them," Lori assured Mavra. "But not this."

"Well, then, big man, grit those teeth, because
I
sure can," the tiny woman replied. She took his right hand, noting how squared off and hard his hands were, even with three distinct and bendable fingers and a fairly prehensile thumb, then felt back to the wrist.

"Augh!"
Lori grunted in obvious pain.

Mavra let go and shook her head. "I think you might well have some kind of a fracture there. I didn't feel any protrusions, though, so it's not a clean break we can set. Probably some hairline thing or chip. That swelling
is
pretty bad, though. It's hard to say how it would heal—I don't know enough about Erdomese, obviously, to make a guess—but Julian's right. We're gonna have to bind it in some kind of splint so it's immobile and then bandage it. Bandages we got in the pack, and tape, so if we can find something to use as a splint, we'll be okay. I don't know what I can give you to treat the inflammation, though. The stuff that would help me might kill you or burn a hole through your stomach."

"Believe it or not, aspirin," Lori told her. "It seems aspirin is the number one miracle drug of Erdom. We don't make it, but I ran into a drug trader on the ship to Itus. One of our biggest imports."

Mavra sighed. "Well, I have a small tube of aspirin tablets in the pack for my own use. I wish I'd known—or thought to ask. It sure explains why I was able to buy it in the dockside shops! I doubt if there's more than sixty tablets, though, and you, with your large size and particularly with that break, will need all of it and more. Lie down on the bedroll and I'll get them."

With Julian's help, he managed to get over to the bedroll and sink down on top of it. Mavra came back with the small vial of aspirin and a canteen. "I'd take four of them now if I were you. Damn it! We should have started this as soon as we started out!"

They pried apart the plastic box Mavra had used as a medical kit and were able to form, with the aid of a large knife, a pretty rigid set of splints that were tightly taped to the wrist, lower arm, and hand, then wrapped with a green-colored plastic bandage. When it was done, Lori could not move the wrist at all, and after an initial, intense period of pain, it subsided and he felt some relief. Then it was a matter of waiting for the aspirin to kick in.

Anne Marie came over to them. "I do so hope that does it," she said, concerned. "I know how it feels."

Mavra nodded. "What do you want to do about something to eat?"

"Well, the grass
smelled
all right, so we tried some and it will do. We have to eat an awful
lot,
you know. While I'd much rather have it processed, baked in breads and cakes and pastries, or steamed with veggies and spices, that seems a
teeny
bit impractical here. We'll just graze nearby until we've had our fill. As basic as it is, it is ever so much better than those
horrid
jungle leaves!"

"Okay, but don't stray too far from camp," Mavra warned. "You don't know what's out there."

"We'll be careful. We drank our fill in that stream back in Itus, so water is not a problem. Back as soon as we can. Ta!"

"Are they
safe
out there alone and unarmed?" Julian asked worriedly.

"Dillians are tougher than they seem, or at least they used to be," Mavra assured her. "Those hooves can give a hell of a nasty kick, and while their arm strength isn't close to a male Dillian's, they're pretty damned strong compared to us or most others, and I have a feeling that they can twist and move those bodies in ways we can only imagine. And they're not unarmed, really. They both have the big knives we used on the jungle vines."

"You have other weapons, I assume?" Lori asked.

"Some. The absolute best weapons for the Well World are knives for close in and crossbows for long shots."

"Crossbows?"

"Sure. They're accurate and powerful, and they work anywhere: nontech, semitech, or high-tech. I have some other items, too, but they're for various special circumstances."

"I have a saber and scabbard in my pack," Lori told her. "I was pretty good with it, too, but I'm not sure how well I'd do left-handed."

"Well, we won't have to fight a duel with it—1 hope. So long as you can stab something with it, I think it's better than nothing. You sure aren't gonna be winning any fist-fights any time soon!" She paused a moment. "What about food for you two? I have a small kerosene-type cooker that'll work here, or there are loaves in the emergency rations that supposedly give any of us what we need. They taste lousy, but they're better than raw grass."

"I could prepare something from the supplies," Julian suggested, but Lori shook his head.

"No, not tonight. Tonight's for resting and taking it easy. If Mavra can stand one of those loaves, so can I. I might like it a lot more than she does."

"Or less. Still, very well, if that is your wish. I could try that grass, but I do not want to leave you alone here."

"No! Eat one of the loaves, too. We're heading for the coast, which shouldn't be that far, right, Mavra?"

"Shouldn't be. Certainly not a day's walk."

"When we are hard up, we will eat grass. Until then we will do what is easiest and most convenient," he pronounced.

"As you say," Julian responded, and went to get the rations.

Mavra was a little irritated. Julian had talked about the confusion over Tony and Anne Marie, but at least there were two of them. She began to wonder if there weren't two Julians as well—the one that led them through a dark jungle safely, reconnoitered the area, and located and approved the campsite and the other one that she now was, subservient, obedient . . . somewhat sickening.

On the other hand, if she had four big tits, hands like claws, arms useless for much lifting and better designed as legs, and if the only hope she had of not being cast adrift as some kind of chattel slave was to keep the one husband who understood her happy enough to keep her around, then maybe she'd be two people, too, no matter how difficult it might be.