03. Gods at the Well of Souls Read Online Free

to wander this world, or as much of it as can be wandered  through, taking little from it and seeing what is seeable. Sooner or later I  will find a place for myself or I will die. Either way, it is the most I can  expect." 
     
    "But you're talking about living like an animal! Anne Marie exclaimed. "You are  better than that! Not to mention the fact that by your own admission you are  defenseless against the horrid beings that are a part of this world. It is a  death sentence either way." 
     
    "I will never go back to Erdom," she repeated, "but I will die an Erdomese.  Those are facts. I choose my own course. It is more than any Erdomese woman has  been able to do before." 
     
    Anne Marie sighed. "Then we shall simply have to contact our embassy in Zone and  tell them the situation and location. Then we will find some part of this land  that has some decent pasture and a few trees and wait them out." "Or wait until they throw us out," Tony noted. 
     
    "Then we will leave, but only far enough to find some hospitality elsewhere,"  Anne Marie proclaimed. "I positively refuse to abandon this poor child to the  wolves!" 
     
    Tony sighed. "Don't overdramatize, Anne Marie. There are no wolves in a place  like this except perhaps the foul creatures who run the place. But we must also  be practical. If we remain, we need to find some sort of work, and this is a  high-tech hex surrounded by others that are not." 
     
    "But the closest ones are water!" 
     
    "True, but what of that? If a ship cannot come in to high-tech, then there is at  least some point where it must be handled by the old means. Compared to one of  our men we are not very strong, but the closest of our men is probably half a  world away. In these parts we are probably quite strong, and even if we cannot  lift what is required, we can certainly pull great weights." 
     
    "And Alowi?" 
     
    Tony shrugged. "She can cook. And supervise if need be. If we must remain in  this godforsaken country, let's try and make the best of it." 
     
    This time it was Anne Marie who was doubtful. "But for how long?" Tony shrugged. "Until one or more of us goes crazy or gets fed up or something  breaks. It is better than this. Who knows? The council might at least extend us  some seed money. It was they, after all, who got us into this." "Oh, Tony! You're such a dear! You're making me feel guilty about dragging you  along on this!" 
     
    "I have never been dragged," Tony responded. "I followed of my own free will,  and I stay for the same reason. And when all hope is gone, then I will go home  the same way!" 
     
    Anne Marie squeezed Tony's hand and then kissed her. "Of course you will, dear!"   
     
    If there had been no hope, they would have headed home long before this, but the  problem was, as Anne Marie put it, they had been placed on hold but no one had  hung up on them. Anne Marie noted that in spite of many areas where the Well  World seemed futuristic to the point of being magical, the lack of any way to  fly or even send signals any great distance between the worldlets led to  everything more or less moving at, at best, a nineteenth-century pace. Nobody  was ever in a hurry here, it seemed, unless it was to do evil, and so long as  they were no threat, even evil seemed willing to leave them alone. The council, still divided over exactly what course to take and thus taking very  little, or so it seemed, asked them in fact to stay on "in the Agon region."  They advanced the Dillians some credit and even found the pair a job of sorts,  although not quite what they had in mind. Hexes in the region produced a variety  of products that were of great interest to Dillia, but it had never been  practical to manage much trade with nations so far away without some sort of  permanent trade office coordinating things locally. Dillia was half a world  distant-almost five thousand kilometers away over a vast stretch of water going