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

seemed right , somehow. The helpless, disfigured boy in some way reminded her of her own differences, and she took the Ambreza's comments personally.
    She accompanied the boy and the doctor to Ambreza and saw him later, still sedated in a high-tech hospital. He was a mass of scars, and both hands and feet had been amputated.
    They argued with her. Ordinarily they wouldn't have paid any attention, but the Ambreza felt a special guilt and a special responsibility for Mavra Chang.
    "But what can he do?" they had asked. "The tribe would kill him. You can't help him. Make sense!"
    And, suddenly, the solution had risen, unbidden, in her brain and come out. Such intuition was uncharacteristic of her; it was the change.
    "He's a male!" she'd shouted back. "If the Olbornians still have those yellow stones, take him there! Touch his shattered arms until they change, then his twisted legs until they change! Make him a Chang like me, and give him to me!"
    They were stunned. They didn't know what to do.
    So they did what she had asked, with a little push from their psychiatric technicians and a lot of nudging from Serge Ortega.
    They hypno-burned his tortured brain clear of memories and then adjusted him for his new existence, with Mavra doing the instructing. She was like a maniac as she went at it, but the Ambreza indulged her because they owed her something and because, for the first time, she had a passionate interest beyond escape.
    Joshi was the first step in the project that had been forming in her mind, a project she was now frantic to live to see: the establishment of their own independent little world.
    He wasn't as bright as she by a long shot. That is not to say that he was stupid or retarded, merely average. She taught him to speak Confederation, in which she still thought, and to read Ambreza and the old Glathriel tongue, no longer used but still enshrined in prewar books maintained by the Ambreza. Most of his knowledge had to be force-fed; the studies didn't really interest him, and he tended to forget things he didn't use, as most people will.
    Their relationship was an odd but close one; she was both wife and mother to him, he her husband and son. The Ambreza, who followed her activities off and on, believed that she had to play the dominant role, that she had to feel and actually be a little superior to one close to her.
    * * *
    Joshi stirred behind her. It was getting dark, their natural time to be active established by long routine. The helpless ten-year-old had grown and matured; he was larger than she, and almost coal black, although the pinkish scars of the fire marked him all over.
    He came up to her. They had been careful in transforming him; too long an exposure to that Olbornian stone made one a docile mule in all respects.
    In some ways, despite the scars and darker coloring, he resembled her—same type of legs, ears, and downward angle to the body. But he had no tail, of course, and his hair was quite different. Some of it had been burned away in the fire, but he still had a fairly full head and a manelike growth down the spine to the waist. He was also fat. The native diet was not the world's best balanced. His scraggly beard was tinged with white, although he was still in his twenties.
    They were used to each other. Finally, after drinking, he asked her, "Going down to the beach? Looks like a clear night."
    She nodded. "You know I will."
    They left the compound and cantered down the trail. The sound of the pounding surf grew very loud.
    "Must've been a storm out there," he remarked. "Listen to those breakers!"
    But far-off storm or not, the sky was mostly clear, obscured here and there by isolated wispy clouds that lent an almost mystical atmosphere to the scene.
    He lay down in the sand, and she settled more or less atop him, propping herself up enough so she could see the stars.
    In many ways, she had changed less than she thought. She had genuine affection for Joshi, and he for her. But Joshi was, in the