When she broke away, more winded now than at any time during their morning trek, Tharadis noticed the tears in her eyes.
“Come,” she said quietly.
They walked west out of the clearing, and Tharadis suddenly knew where she was taking him.
* * *
People often feared what they didn’t understand, which was why so many stayed away from the Wishing Well. Tall cliffs surrounded the place on all sides but one, which was itself shielded from casual visitation by rough ground and the thickest part of the drytree forest. Tharadis knew why Serena had wanted to leave so early now; it was past noon by the time they arrived, and it would likely be dark by the time they returned home.
The place still shocked him, even though he had been here a few times before. It was so unlike anything else south of the Rift, so unlike anything else he had ever known. It was how he imagined the world looked north of the Rift.
It was green. Vibrant, brilliant green.
Green grass, green leaves on the trees, green moss growing on boulders. Two waterfalls poured out of nooks in the cliffs, sending up clouds of mist that drifted across the water. They emptied into the basin of the Wishing Well, filling it with fresh water, clean enough to drink and clear enough to see the deepest parts nearly thirty feet below. No one knew where the water came from, as it was impossible to climb the rugged cliffs and follow it to the source. Those few that had tried had gotten turned around and confused, and eventually gave up. Some said that the Wishing Well existed as a result of a fold in the Pattern, and that no one save Patterners should try to plumb the depths of its mysteries. Yet even Larril threw up his hands in frustration and promptly changed the subject at any mention of the Wishing Well. He was among those unsettled by it. Perhaps the most unsettled.
Tharadis couldn’t understand their feelings. He was in awe of the place.
From the grassy area that ringed the basin extended a tiny isthmus, barely wide enough for two people to walk across side-by-side, which led to a grass-covered mound in the center. It was for this that the Wishing Well got its name.
Tharadis didn’t believe in Farshores, but if any place in the world came close to paradise, it was here.
Serena removed her sandals. Tharadis followed her lead and removed his own. It was as much to feel the springy, damp grass under his toes as it was because the place felt hallowed.
As they walked together towards the island in the center, Tharadis felt a prickling on his skin, the tiny hairs on his arm standing on end. He watched Serena sidelong. She faced forward, calm yet intent, eyes fixed on the destination. He wanted to ask her why she had brought him here, but he knew she would tell him in due time.
Once on the island-like mound, she eased herself down to sitting with her hands in her lap, legs folded in front of her. Tharadis sat down next to her, and once he draped an arm over her shoulders, she leaned back until they were both lying down. A sleek blue bird with bright orange bars slashed across its wings, a kind of bird never seen outside the Wishing Well, swooped past them with a chirp.
“I’ve learned how to deal with what’s happening to me,” she said in a strangely flat voice, as if she were talking about someone else. “As much as I can, I suppose. Some things … certain things are too painful to bear. I don’t like admitting it. It makes me feel weak to say it aloud, as if I’m not trying hard enough, but it’s the truth. I think I’ve just gotten better at hiding the pain, from myself and everyone else, than truly dealing with it.”
Tharadis didn’t say anything. Serena was not like other people, who often liked hearing soothing lies. She was smarter than that, more honest with herself. It was one of the things he loved about her.
She took a deep breath and shuddered as she let it out. “The healers say there is no question that I will die when I have our child. The pain of it will kill me.” She turned to bury her face in the crook of his arm. “I believe them. No, I knew it was true before they even told me.”
Tharadis stared up at the empty sky. He knew he should say something, but words couldn’t form in his head. He wasn’t even sure he understood what she said. It almost sounded like she was talking about a world without her.
She clutched his tunic tightly and began to silently weep. He pulled her in close. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Serena.”
“Tharadis,” she whispered. “It’s already happening. You’re going to have to get used to it. It’s just the way things are … the way they are going to be.”
He doubted it. Things like that just didn’t happen. Serena would be fine; she was strong. She had kept two steps ahead of him all the way here. There was no way this could get the best of her. Everything was going to be—
Time seemed to pass at a strange, jerking pace once her words crushed his understanding of the world. He wasn’t even sure what he had done, but some time must have passed since he lost track of himself, judging by the position of the sun. It was as if he had lost consciousness while he kept on talking and moving around, like a sleepwalker. It didn’t feel like he was ever really asleep, though, just as if his mind rebelled at everything around him.
The brief touch of Serena’s fingers to his cheek brought him back to reality.
She was sitting on the other side of him now, though he couldn’t recall how she had gotten there. That he could lose so much control …
He took her fingers and kissed them. Her eyes were wide. “You scared me there for a moment,” she said.
“Serena,” was all he could manage.
She nodded. “You’ve heard the story about how this place was named, haven’t you?”
He blinked at the change in subject and felt tears roll down his cheeks. He tried to focus on her question. “I believe so, though it’s been a while.” He wondered what this had to do with anything, how it could be important in light of the news he had just been given, but he waited for her to go on.
She hooked a strand of hair that had come loose behind her ear. She rested a hand on his chest. “Three people, a mother, a father, and a baby, had been cast out of the city by the Warden of that time, a corrupt man who believed that everyone in Naruvieth belonged to him,” she began. “They had been cast out because the father had called that Warden a traitor to his office, saying he was the very sort against which the people needed protection.”
She paused, no doubt remembering Trandsull’s words, but then continued. “Knowing that executing them would turn the people against him, he banished them from the city, calling them anathema, saying that anyone who helped them would suffer an even worse fate. It was cruel enough to create greater fear of him, but not so cruel that a whipped and stricken people would rise up against him.
“So no one helped the three of them, even though they would starve. They wandered off into the wilderness, living off the land as best as they could, though the Warden’s enforcers made even this difficult.
“They made it into an empty place, dry and dusty and windswept, completely devoid of living things, before they could go no further. They were blocked off by cliffs on all sides except the way they came. They were starving and too exhausted to go on.
“They had been just, good people, made to suffer because of one evil man’s lust for power. And they would die because they stood up to fight against him, to fight for what was right.
“As the three of them lay down to die, each of them, even the little baby, begged the World Pattern to help them. Each of them made a wish. While the World Pattern does not grant wishes, it does love virtue, and so it shaped this place into what it now is so that they could look upon beauty before they left the world, so that they could remember life fondly. And so it has stood since then.”
She bent to kiss him lightly, a mere brushing of their lips. “This is where I want to have our baby. Here, in the Wishing Well.”
With all the strength left within him, he nodded.
“Help me with this.” She untied her belt and struggled to pull her arm out of her sleeves.
“Are you sure?” Even as he asked, he helped her out of her dress. He already knew the answer.
When she lay back against the grassy slope of the hill, he kissed her lips, kissed her breasts, kissed their child in her belly. He could have sworn he felt a kick. He began to remove his own tunic.
“Yes,” she said, breathless. “Let me see beauty once more, so I can remember life fondly.”
* * *
There you went to have our child, two weeks later. The people I trusted the most, my mother, my sister, Rellin, and two healers helped you walk all across town. The healers said it was dangerous, but you didn’t care. Screaming in pain at each contraction, you walked, or let us carry you, but you would not change your mind. You would have your baby at the Wishing Well.
The baby crowned almost as soon as you lay down on the island. You insisted on a water birth. The healers did what you asked.
I held your hand as they delivered our baby. Your hand shook and was soaked with sweat, so much that I almost couldn’t hang on. But hang on I did. I would never let go, not as long as you needed me.
You screamed. Oh, how you screamed. It tore my heart apart to hear your pain, to know how much you suffered. But I wanted to know. I wanted to be there with you. I wanted you to believe that maybe the load you carried could be lighter if someone was there to carry it with you. I wanted you to know that you weren’t alone.
You looked so pale, so thin, yet when it was finally over, when you opened your eyes to see the face of our daughter, I saw all the love in the world there. More than I ever saw when you looked at me. I couldn’t possibly be jealous of what I saw in your face. All I could do was rejoice that anyone could ever feel that way, that such an expression was even possible. I was in awe of you then. And I was in awe of our daughter, that she could do such a thing to you.
You smiled and said, “Beauty, one last time.” You let go of my hand, and you were gone.
The world changed in a great number of inconsequential ways. That same day, I just so happened to become Warden in truth. Rellin said that I had lost something precious, so I knew what it meant to protect. He said I became a man that day. He said I was ready.
In front of a crowd of a thousand people, I swore to protect the people of Naruvieth from injustice and violence. I also swore to protect your child … the child of my brother.
That was a day of shame.
I sometimes wonder if I should have claimed her as mine and defended her against anyone who thought her unfit for life, as if my transgression were hers too. Rellin told me that not claiming her would appease the men who still supported my brother. He asked me what it would be like if I lost her, too.
I had failed to protect you back then. I guess I didn’t believe I had what it took to protect her, either.
The only thing that mattered to me from that point on was our daughter. Nina is amazing. If only you had gotten a chance to know her. She is your daughter utterly and totally; all she got from me was my ears … which is fine by me. She’s a wonderful, good-hearted little girl. You would be proud of her.
Some have said there is balance in the World Pattern, that her birth is the balance to your death. I know that’s not true. Her birth was a result of something we chose. She is our daughter. She does not belong to the Pattern.
The responsibility for what happened to you … that, that was the Pattern.
That’s the problem with the story of the family and the Wishing Well. The Pattern doesn’t care about virtue, about truth or love or justice. It lets the best among us die for no reason.
I made a wish that day at the Wishing Well, the day our daughter was born. I wished I would see you again.
But the world took you from me anyway.
And I don’t know that I can ever forgive it.
* * *
Before Tharadis knew it, bars of daylight streaking through the slats in the window shutter were moving over his face as he lay in his cold bed in Garoshmir. He hadn’t slept at all. His memories, the memories of all he had lost, saw to that.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position, then stood and crossed to a basin filled with cool water. He splashed it on his face and dried himself with a rag. He felt more awake. Serena was gone, true … but he still had a job to do. It wouldn’t do for him to fall asleep in the middle of it.
Forcing his memories back into the shadowed corners of his mind, Tharadis left the room to get ready. It was time to speak to the Council.
Chapter 39: Flight from Falconkeep
Finding a way out of Falconkeep was proving impossible. Nina and Chad trudged through the shadow world for a long time. Daylight never came to this place. All she ever saw were the images in the walls, and she could never tell day from night in them.
The shadow world was a maze, but Chad navigated it with confidence. Or at least he seemed to. But as time wore on, she saw his confidence begin to crack, replaced by a worried frown. No matter how confident he seemed, they couldn’t find a way out, and Nina could see it was wearing on him as much as it was her.
They often snuck into the kitchen, filling sacks with food before dashing back into the shadow world. No one saw them. Luckily, Falconkeep was large enough that it was impossible for the Falconkeepers to look for them everywhere at once.
But they couldn’t stay in the shadow world forever.
The two of them sat hunched with their backs against the rippled stone. Nina was holding a piece of hard cheese in her hands, nibbling it thoughtfully, while Chad was working on a piece of bread.
She paused, cocking her head to look at him. “How did Vidden reach through?”
Chad finished chewing and swallowed before speaking. “I can’t just walk in and out of the shadow world. There are doors in the shadows. I have to open them, and I have to shut them. If I don’t, then other people can come in too. That’s how you’re here.”
Nina frowned. “But what about in the room with the …” She trailed off. She didn’t even want to mention the stones.
A shadow of the old Chad came back as a small smile spread across his lips. “I’m very good at opening the doors.”
Nina went back to her cheese. Chad must be good, to have opened it so fast. Once they were finished, they brushed the crumbs from their hands, slung the sacks of food over their shoulders, and continued looking for a way out. However, Nina soon found that the two of them weren’t even looking at the forks in the tunnel or the images in the walls anymore, only where they were putting their feet.
“Nina,” Chad said softly. “Can you hear your mother?”
She shook her head. “Not since the first time.” Not since she’d been in the box.
She shivered, remembering that awful place. But there was something about it that seemed strange. “My mother told me someone was coming. Then you pulled me here.” She looked at him. “Was there anyone else nearby?”
Chad shook his head. “No. I checked. Alicie and Vidden were the only ones down there, and I waited for them to leave.” His eyes widened. “Your mother must’ve been talking about me.”
Nina nodded. “Which means she can see in here.” She paused a moment. “But why doesn’t she help us?”
“Maybe she can’t speak to us in here for some reason.” Chad shrugged. “I don’t really know much about ghosts.”
Ghosts. I can talk to ghosts. Now that she thought about it, she knew that’s exactly what her ability was. Realizing this made her feel a little better. As if she understood what she needed to do with herself.
Once she got out of Falconkeep, that is.
If she ever got out of here.
Hopelessness overcame her. She squatted down, trying to bite back the sobs and failing utterly. Chad was there, standing by her side. “Hey,” he said, his own voice betraying tears. “We’ll get out of here. I promise.”
“Mommy,” Nina whispered. “Mommy, where are you?”
She heard something. Far in the distance.
A voice.
Nina shot to her feet. “I heard her!” She started running. “This way, come on!”
She thought of the stones then, those screaming voices, trapped there forever. Those were ghosts, too. They were stuck in that room. Ghosts couldn’t be everywhere all at once. Maybe they could only be in one place. And maybe Nina’s mother was just somewhere else, looking for her.
She ran up steps cut into the glassy stone, around bends, through narrow gaps and down passages that seemed to wrap around on themselves as Chad struggled to keep up with her. The passages followed no pattern that Nina could see; the twisting tunnels certainly didn’t match the layout of Falconkeep. Every step of the way, she heard her mother’s voice calling, getting louder, and when it got softer, she doubled back.
It wasn’t long before she found herself running in circles. “This way,” Chad said, waving her to follow. “I think I know where she’s leading us.” Nina followed him, and sure enough, her mother’s voice was soon louder than ever before, whispering her name.
They came to a place where an image shone through the wall, an image of a place Nina hadn’t seen but knew nonetheless. In this room she could see the ghostly flicker of a candle, as well as the shape of a box a little bit shorter than she was. It was the same room where Chad had freed her. It was where her mother had last spoken to her. Perhaps her mother believed Nina was in there still.
Chad pressed his fingers into the image, darkness flooding out from them like spilled ink. He met Nina’s eyes, and with an encouraging nod, he pulled her through the darkness and back into the real world.
Nina took in a sharp breath as she stepped onto cut stone, the air tasting drier and smokier than in the shadow world. Her eyes took in details that her mind had only guessed at before, when she’d had the bag over her head: the box resting atop two barrels, herbs hanging racks on one wall, a bench with the candle on the other. A large bag of nails sat on near the candle, its contents spilled out carelessly. The hammer they had used was nowhere in sight. The candle was nearing the end of its life, wax pooling around it, the uncertain flame casting shifting shadows across the room.
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