07. Ghost of the Well of Souls (13 page)

But Core—Core was unique, at least in her experience. In many ways an empathic scan brought that cold empty intellect to the fore and screamed that she was still a machine indeed. And yet . . . and yet . . . even since the last time they'd met, there was something more, something else there, something more—
human,
used in that broad sense of covering any sentient beings. Core indeed was something of a counterpoint, yet kin to her. The Kalindan was turning into a human, and deep down, although Jaysu tried desperately to hide it even from herself, this frightened her as much as she was frightened of becoming more than she could handle.

There was reassurance in that.

"What am I becoming?" she asked the Kalindan pointedly.

"I have no idea," Core replied honestly. "However, I would say that you are getting close to it. There is great power in you, the kind of power that was attributed to angels in the ancient religions. Physical strength and near supernatural power. You know it, and you are mostly worried that you can't handle that kind of power. Am I correct?"

"That is as close as I can get, yes," she admitted.

"If you must know, I believe that there is a threat to both the Well World and to the Realm, the great Commonwealth from which we originally came. It is related, and the Well requires people like us to meet that threat. I think you and I are a part of stopping it."

The records were obscure, but between the factual data and the legends and myths, a coherent frame for the way the Well worked was becoming clear. Somewhere, out there, was one creature, possibly more than one, either a Maker restricted to the kind of physicality as everybody else, who could in fact come here and repair the Well if it malfunctioned.

But they were there only for malfunctions and breaches of the Well if any existed. Otherwise, the Well ran as it was designed to do.

And it was designed to allow the myriad races who had been developed here by the Makers—in times so ancient as to be beyond anyone's memory to develop in their natural places in the universe—to evolve, grow, mature. If they died out, well, so be it. If they reached the stars, all the better. Overall, though, they were nurtured, not managed, by the Well, which simply maintained conditions that would allow them to develop. Whether they did was up to them.

There was, however, one area where the Well intruded— when some sort of external disruption would screw up the experiments. When that condition occurred, Core was convinced that the Well could and sometimes did manipulate probabilities to the extent of putting in place those people who could keep the experiments, the development of the races, from being "contaminated," as it were. The Well did this by creating conditions that allowed the experiments to defend themselves. No more. Anything else would create a counterforce that would be as much of a contaminant as that which they were formed to prevent.

Those who had come from the Commonwealth—as unlikely a group as Core could have imagined—were the counterforce. They had the means, but only if they applied themselves and actually stopped it.

Josich was the contaminant. There was no doubt about that.

Or were they truly the ones intended to stop the monster, rather than some offworlders who just fell through? Core had worried about that, and about the whole theory of intervention, but there was no way to prove things one way or the other. It didn't matter anyway; if they could stop Josich, then they had to do it. There were higher obligations even if the Well had nothing to do with it.

Sitting here, looking at "Jaysu," though, it was hard to imagine that the god machine hadn't come up with something very original. Core had always thought itself to be at least a demigod in status because of the range of knowledge it had and the enormous resources it could control back when it was a machine. Now, even with those capabilities gone save from memory, the former computer was forced to admit that, next to the Well, it had been so minor as to be insignificant.

Now, as a Kalindan, she often wondered if the limitations she faced, the aches and pains she endured, and the comparisons to what she once had been, weren't very much like what the Makers would have felt after processing themselves through the Well.

"Madam Core?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, my dear. I get reflective once in a while, I'm afraid. It is the habit of an old recluse. I'm physically just another Kalindan now, it is true, but mentally there is still a part of me that I cannot let go of nor explain to others."

She nodded. "You are as afraid of losing your loneliness as you are desperate to get rid of it. It is a very sad paradox."

"Eh? That's an interesting way of putting things. I'll have to think on that one. Still, let us get back to the problem at hand. What do you want of me that I can give you?"

"I want to know where I should be. I have to believe that I am undergoing this—this metamorphosis or whatever it is, for a reason. I have been given great power in order to do something, but the ones who have bestowed this upon me have not told me what it is I am supposed to do."

"And you come to me for the answer? Jaysu, nothing in creation is all one thing or the other, not even good or evil, although I admit that nobody has figured out anything good in Josich's nature. Still, he, or she, or whatever, is just a creature like you. Born of parents in some far-off place, raised one way, now here and playing out what is deep within its soul. The Well and the Makers are the closest things to gods that I have come across that I can accept, and the former is only interested in maintaining a status quo, and the latter didn't give a damn about us. In one way I envy you your faith, because it convinces you that there truly is destiny. Because I'm a rationalist, though, I can't tell you what to do. I
do
welcome you to our fight and cause simply because I feel that all of us are uniquely endowed to combat this menace. Right now, though, the only air-breathing freelancer I have available is O'Leary, and somehow the idea of an angel with a serpent seems oddly wrong."

She frowned. "I remember him from that meeting. The snake is not a good figure in our faith, you know. Still, I did not sense evil in him."

"Nor in your old one," Core told her. "O'Leary, however, is a very good man, born of the same race as Angel Kobe."

"That explains it," she responded. "He has a different soul. The body changes, the soul remains the same."

Core decided not to ask her if she believed that sentient machines had souls, or whether she believed that Angel's soul was really inside her. Core suspected where Angel's soul, such as it was,
really
resided right now. Those things, however, would only complicate matters.

"Do you think you could work with him, then?"

She seemed startled. "Work with him? In what way?"

"I believe that some sort of military operation is about to be launched on the nation of Quislon. The inhabitants are very unlike any of our team, and they greatly distrust anyone from Pyron, such as Mr. O'Leary, because historically Pyrons used to make sport and hunt and eat the inhabitants of Quislon. That has made it difficult for us to deal with them in any meaningful way. But the folk of Quislon have an odd religion that venerates a number of sacred objects, and one of these is, we believe, part of a machine that, when assembled, will give Josich horrible, perhaps unstoppable, power. In ten weeks they will celebrate a festival on their sacred mountain that involves this object that Josich would do anything to get. I believe that she
will
do anything to get it. Something is up, partially involving military action of some limited nature, but we haven't yet determined what. I can arrange for a ship to pick you up anywhere along the Amboran coast. You tell me where, and I'll make sure they are there. Because you can fly, an anchorage wouldn't be necessary, just a rendezvous point. It will be a long sea voyage, but during that time I will try and feed you every bit of information we have on Quislon and the festivals and what action is being taken against them. You will be well-briefed by the time you meet O'Leary."

She was startled. "And then what?" She could not imagine herself actually fighting someone, physically
harming
another, even a Josich type. It would be a violation of all she believed in.

"O'Leary and others will do the military part, but you will need to get through to the Quislon religious leadership. They must trust us and take precautions. You will be our bridge. I won't minimize things. If you fail, it will be very dangerous for you, and if you are there at all, it might put you in the middle of a nasty and violent fight. But a lot of lives are at stake here, far more than even the whole of Quislon or of our team. Josich must not get that object. It is safe so long as it is deep within the underground cities of Quislon where none but they can go, but if they bring it to the surface for their festival, it is certain to stir an attempt to take it. They won't listen to O'Leary, or trust him sufficiently to change any plans. You must convince them. Failing that, you both must ensure that, no matter what the Chalidang Alliance attempts, they will fail. It seems a mission for which you are well-qualified, religion to religion. Want to give it a try?"

She barely hesitated. "Yes, I believe I would," she told her.

Core nodded. "I'll set everything up, then." She thought a moment. "You know, maybe there
is
some sort of divine intervention here. Until you showed up, I hadn't worked out any way at all I could act on this problem."

She had spent the better part of a week in prayer and fasting, trying to find some guidance, some sign that, at least, she was doing the right thing, but no matter how much she pleaded for divine advice, nothing came.

She ultimately decided that fighting evil was part and parcel of the job, and that if she turned her back on that fight because it was elsewhere in the world, then she would be as guilty of allowing it to fester and grow as if it were coming Ambora's way. In fact, the way the strange creature Core explained it, Ambora would sooner or later be consumed in the same evil wash as the rest of the world if they didn't stop this now.

She wished she felt up to the task. What, after all, was she? She had no memories of a past life, no memories of growing up in
this
life. No sense of family, of parents and siblings, of much of anything at all. She had awakened fully grown but without experience on these very cliffs, and she'd been taken in and tutored by the clan High Priestess who seemed to sense in her some special destiny but could not explain it.

The name Angel Kobe troubled her, too, primarily because it struck no true chord within her. She didn't know that woman, nor anyone else by that name, and even though there seemed an odd sensation that she had somewhere heard that name before, that was all it was. There was nothing to grab on to, no background, no self-image, no sense that she was ever anything but an Amboran.

It wasn't fair, she thought, not for the first time, as the winds blew across the rocks and the waves below crashed in endless parade upon the rock walls. The others remembered. Core said she'd been a machine, which was impossible to believe, but even if she no longer was what she had been, there was still a past, a memory, a continuity of identity, and Core was who and what she was by choice.

The others who had gathered there for what was clearly the start of a war council also knew who they were and who they had been. Perhaps they were not here by choice, but they had a sense of identity, of a past, of a connectivity to that past.

They were whole people.

Why not her? Why was she, and she alone, the one cast fully formed with nothing solid to plant her feet in? She had asked Core that, and gotten the impression that Core was lying when she said that she did not know, but it was a lie tinged with some guilt, as if Core had somehow been a cause of it; yet she'd clearly gotten the sense that Core was as surprised as she that she existed at all, let alone like this, and that it wasn't guilt that kept Core from telling her the reasons, but more the fact that the Kalindan simply had no way to explain it.

Somehow, she thought, the others had come through with bodies and souls. Core had come through with a body, but it was uncertain whether or how a machine could
have
a soul, while she . . .

Angel's soul had come through but not her body.

There was a sort of symmetry there. Core, the body with no soul, and she, the soul with no prior body.

And now, unprepared for any of this, uncertain of anything at all, still without an anchor or even a confidant, she had somehow wound up volunteering to get involved in their war.

A woman of the gods wasn't supposed to kill. That wasn't their purpose. The warriors might, but only in defense of themselves and their clan against external threat. She even had trouble fishing from the air, but it was necessary to supplement her otherwise vegetarian diet. The reasons were physical, not psychological or moral. Her body required that she take the lives of some fish and shellfish, and on occasion a small animal. She prayed for them before she hunted, but she'd had to hunt.

Priestesses weren't supposed to have to do that. Warriors of the clan did that, and offered a portion of their catch to the holy ones. That had always satisfied her moral misgivings about killing other creatures, but now she realized how hypocritical that position had been-—not just for her, but for all the Holy Order. Was having someone else hunt and kill for you any different, morally, than doing it yourself, or was it worse because it removed you from the act while still requiring the kill?

Something inside told her that she had best resolve this question before too long.

It was one of the oddities of the Well World that one could step into a Zone Gate and be instantly transported to Zone at the pole and back again, but that was the only magical ride you were allowed. Zone had become the place where embassies and diplomacy ruled, but it had been designed as a control center for the ancient and long-gone Maker's grand experiments, a place to monitor and transfer new beings in and possibly out, although none had ever managed
that
trick in the historical record.