01. Labyrinth of Dreams by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker [Chalker, Jack L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-31T22:40:34+00:00

6.

Of Seasonings and Secrets

I don't know how long we'd been in that place; any semblance of time was shattered after we discovered the Wall and determined to our satisfaction that it went pretty well around the place. Long enough for Brandy to grow back a fair amount of hair, and me the fullest, thickest beard I ever had. Long enough for the both of us to become slimmer, trimmer, yet more weathered and worn on the outside. Brandy isn't built to be thin; she had a wide frame that was designed to be somewhat substantial. Still, she'd lost all her gut and much of the fat off her hips and thighs, and replaced them with hard muscle. It was a dramatic improvement, probably the best she'd ever looked or felt, although she was somewhat surprised that her breasts didn't shrink proportionately. I was delighted with that.

I, too, was as tight and as lean as in my Air Force training days, although my stomach showed the scars and stretch marks, as did hers, of past abuse. What was most startling, and next to Brandy's figure the most pleasing, to me was that, incredibly, I started to grow hair again where none had been for several years. It itched for a while, but then it started to come in, black speckled with gray (what the hell, it was hair), and Brandy really was impressed. My beard, as I mentioned, also came in very full and thick, something that also surprised me because the only other time I'd tried to grow one it had been thin and uneven and scraggly. The new combination was very much to Brandy's liking, which was a good thing since I had no way to shave the damned thing off. The fact that being outside all this time had turned my complexion quite dark brown was an added bonus.

There were negatives, though. Constant exposure had weathered and toughened the skin, which also aged it. Both of us certainly looked older than we were, and we were developing lines in our faces and skins. My vision was still pretty good, but Brandy's, which hadn't been that good when I met her, had deteriorated more. She was having a hard enough time that she no longer went to any lengths to conceal it. I had the distinct and uneasy feeling that she was going blind and she knew it.

We had our share of cuts and bruises and scrapes, and even developed some small scars from them, but we weren't ambitious enough anymore to try anything really dangerous, and if infection was possible here it sure didn't bother us. It kind of figured. If there were no animals or people on this world, then the local germs wouldn't know what to make of us.

The feared winter weather just didn't come. There were two temperature conditions within the Wall: hot and hotter; and two conditions of moisture: ninety-nine percent humidity and heavy rain. The storms varied in intensity and duration, but there was always one sometime in the afternoon and another in mid-evening.

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