Well of Witches

by J. A. White

  Rygoth listed their secrets as though they had been blazoned across the sky. Safi looked away, ashamed that the spell she had cast to shroud their conversations had failed so miserably.

  “I’m doing you a kindness, children,” Rygoth said. “Have you truly stopped to consider what you might find waiting for you in the Well of Witches? An eternity of torment, if the stories are to be believed.” Rygoth crawled her gloved fingers across the table. “I have to confess, though, that despite the risks I’d love to see it for myself. Minoth Dravania’s blessed paradise blackened to purest evil.” The witch scoffed. “You have no idea who he even is, of course.”

  “The headmaster of Sablethorn,” Kara replied, relishing the flicker of surprise in the wexari’s eyes. “He forced you to leave the school. That must have been quite a blow.”

  Rygoth bit her lower lip and regarded Kara with a petulant glare, the wounds as fresh as if this had happened yesterday and not two thousand years ago.

  “Sordyr told you,” she said, a hint of betrayal in her voice. Despite the fact that she had transformed her friend into a Forest Demon, Rygoth apparently still expected him to honor her secrets. “Minoth never liked me. I was a lowborn girl, just a simple miller’s daughter. Not one of his chosen. I showed him, though. All the other students agreed to be Sundered and sent off into the world like docile little sheep, but I refused! Perhaps they needed to prove themselves, but why should I have risked losing my powers and donning the green veil? Even in my youth, I was more powerful than any of them, including the teachers. Minoth called me insolent and dangerous, but the real reason he sent me away was because he feared me! And now look! He’s nothing but bone dust and I’ve become the most powerful wexari that Sentium has ever known!”

  Rygoth’s painted lips curled upward, a wasted smile of triumph for a man long dead.

  “But let us not spend any more words on Minoth Dravania,” she said, spitting the name out like a spoiled piece of meat. “You were about to promise me that you would stop this ill-advised attempt to restore your father’s soul.”

  Kara ran the words through her head a second and third time, wondering if she had misunderstood.

  “You want me to stop?” she asked. “Why? If I undo the curse on my father, Timoth Clen will be erased from existence—which rids you of your greatest enemy.”

  “Nonsense. I want Timoth Clen to forge onward! Why search for witches myself when he’ll do all the hard work for me?”

  “He’s going to kill them!”

  “It won’t get that far,” Rygoth said. She sliced a small piece of rare meat from a nearby platter and slid it onto her plate, making sure not to get any blood on her white gloves. “I’ll wait until all those iron cages are filled and he’s about to perform his public execution—and then I’ll swoop in and rescue them all. How grateful they’ll be! Witches who might have resisted the idea of helping my cause will fall at my feet with gratitude. Timoth Clen is not only gathering my army, he’s building their loyalty to me. I’d be lying if I said I did not appreciate the irony.” She cut a tiny slice from her meat and chewed it slowly. “I’ll kill him afterward, of course, and all his graycloaks. Timoth Clen is not the only one who can arrange a public demonstration of power. But that’s nothing you need to worry about. Just abandon this hopeless quest to help your father, and I’ll leave you and your brother in peace. You have my word. But if you continue along this path, expect something truly unfortunate to happen.” She glanced down at their empty plates. “I really would prefer it if you three ate something.”

  “We don’t want your stupid food!” exclaimed Taff, slamming his fist on the table so hard the silverware rattled. “You talk about killing our father and all those other people like it’s nothing you . . . you . . . witch!”

  Rygoth’s perfect features darkened, the anger held at bay thus far spreading across her face like an ink stain.

  “Of course you want my stupid food,” she said. “You want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your entire life.”

  “I don’t,” said Taff, even as he took a turkey leg and began to chew it ravenously. “I don’t want any of it,” he mumbled, the words barely discernable through a mouthful of meat.

  “Stop it,” said Kara.

  “Or what?” Rygoth asked. “Even when you had powers you couldn’t stop me. What are you planning to do now?”

  Tossing the turkey aside, Taff stuffed his mouth with anything else he could get his hands on: globs of mashed potatoes, green beans, yellow custard. Kara tried to stop him but he danced out of her hands, crawled onto the table. Kept eating. The witches laughed with childlike glee. A cold fury, absent since the days she had used the grimoire, coursed through Kara’s body. She eyed a carving knife leaning against a silver platter, wondered how fast she could get ahold of it and plunge it into Rygoth’s chest.

  Taff started to gag.

  “Release him!” Safi exclaimed, rising to her feet, the grimoire already open in front of her.

  Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

  The other witches slammed their spellbooks on the table and watched Safi eagerly, daring her to speak a single word.

  Taff’s gagging grew louder. His face began to turn red.

  “Calm down, girls,” said Rygoth. “No need to waste your pages.”

  Rygoth glanced at Taff and the spell was broken. He spit out the mound of food clogging his throat and gasped for breath.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” Kara said, rubbing his back. “This is between me and you.”

  Rygoth laughed.

  “‘Me and you’? Is that what you really believe? That there’s some sort of storybook battle looming between the two of us, the forces of good and evil?” She reached over and patted Kara on the head. “You’re not a threat to me, love. You’re just a plaything.”

  Kara felt something slither inside her mind. She wanted to fight back against this uninvited presence, but she was no longer a wexari and had no means to do so. Rygoth laughed softly, covering her mouth. “Such confusion! Such sorrow! And something else. What is that?” Rygoth smacked her lips together as if tasting an unfamiliar food for the first time. “Ahh,” she said. “Guilt. You still have nightmares about him. The boy you killed. Simon.”

  Beneath the table, Kara clenched her fists together.

  “Get out of my head.”

  “I’ve seen wexari who fail the Sundering go mad after losing their magic and donning the green veil,” Rygoth said. “But you . . .” Kara felt a clawing inside her brain, scooping out her innermost thoughts. “You miss it, of course, but you seem almost . . . grateful. Like you wanted to be punished for the things you’ve done. Killing the boy. Failing to protect your father. Forcing mindless animals to do your will.” Rygoth’s nose twitched as though she smelled something unpleasant. “Even the white-haired witch who tried to kill you . . . You feel guilty you couldn’t save her.” Kara felt a slackening in her head as Rygoth pulled away, the wexari looking almost as relieved as Kara to be free. “Are you always burdened by such feelings? How do you even live?”

  Kara, her body shaking with silent tears, was unable to respond.

  “Pathetic,” Rygoth said. She snapped her fingers and a servant brought over a new pair of white gloves, which Rygoth quickly exchanged for the old ones. “You’re nothing but a weak fool. Magic requires control, concentration, focus. I’m glad I took away your powers—you don’t deserve to be a witch.”

  She’s right. All that power and I couldn’t save Father or Mother. . . . The villagers were right all along. . . . I’m no good . . . no good . . .

  “You did set me free from that infernal cave, though,” Rygoth continued, “and I’m grateful for that. Without you, none of these wonderful things could have ever happened. I want you to remember that when the end comes.”

  She dismissed Kara completely and pivoted toward Safi. “Now you, on the other hand, are an interesting one. You stopped Coralis, which is impressive enough, but I know that’s not the extent
of your talents. You see things, don’t you? The future? Had any visions recently? Maybe something about a grimoire stitched back together from four different parts?”

  Rygoth knows what Safi saw inside her cell, Kara thought. That’s the real reason we’re here.

  “I haven’t seen anything about a grimoire,” Safi said, but she didn’t put much effort into the lie. It was useless to try to keep secrets from a woman who could poke around your mind.

  “Now, Safi,” Rygoth said. “That grimoire is very special. It was Princess Evangeline’s. The first. All other grimoires taken together are but a shadow of its power. So I’m going to ask you a very important question. Do you know where the four parts of the grimoire have been hidden?”

  Safi shook her head.

  “I believe you. But you could find out for me. I could teach you how to focus your gift. With my guidance, you could become a powerful seer. We could help each other. I hope that this dinner has shown you that I am not without mercy. I could hurt your friends. I could make you do my bidding. But I have not.”

  “So you’re just going to let us go?” asked Safi.

  “If you wish it. But there’s no need for you to go back into the cold. You’re better than these two. Stay here where you belong.”

  “I belong with them.”

  Kara was afraid that Rygoth would erupt in anger, but instead she smiled—which was somehow worse.

  “You’re free to go, then. The city gates are just an hour’s walk away.” She leaned forward, meeting Safi’s eyes. “I’ll give you one day to change your mind. After that—I may just change it for you.”

  Penta’s Keep was madness, a maelstrom of smells and noises and people. Kara’s head began to pound the moment they passed beneath the city gates. There was far too much to keep track of at once. Black clouds spit from the chimneys of low-slung buildings, cloaking the streets in a coughing mist. Wagons rattled. Babies cried. Talking, shouting, screaming. Frying meat, roasted fish, unwashed bodies. They were shoved along by a tidal wave of people. Stopping, changing direction, slowing down—none were possible. They could only move along with the crowd and try not to lose one another. Vendors strolled the streets, shouting their wares. Pretty mirrors! Sweet candy! Feathered hats! The prices were an affront. Kara longed to swat the vendors away but she was afraid of letting go of the children’s hands, the enthralled glow in their eyes a promise to wander. They drifted down one street then another, no idea where they were going; water sluiced from pipe to pipe. Dark alleyways loomed, populated by shadowy men wearing wide-brimmed hats. What confused Kara the most was the impossible coexistence of wealth and poverty. A woman wearing a fur-lined coat and glorb-earrings stepped over a starving man shivering on the ground. A newly constructed building stood next to a dilapidated shack. The confluence of expensive perfume and rotting trash birthed a profane stench.

  How can people live like this? Kara thought. She wanted to bury herself with forest leaves and drink in silence for a week or two.

  Finally the crowd began to thin out somewhat and they found themselves in a less congested part of the city. Against walls of splintered wood sat men, women, and children—mostly children—with gaunt faces, their hands outstretched, begging for coin. Taff reached into Kara’s pocket but she stilled his hand.

  “There’s too many,” Kara said. “We can’t help them all.”

  “So we’ll just help some of them.”

  “What about the ones we can’t help?”

  Taff shrugged. “They won’t be any worse off than before we came. But the other ones will be better!”

  In the end, she allowed him to take three coins, which he surreptitiously slipped into the hands of the most needy-looking. As he did, he asked them about the location of the Forked Library. The first two stared up at him with uncomprehending eyes and murmured nonsensically. The third one, however, a young woman cradling a baby in her arms, offered to guide them.

  “Thank you,” Kara said. “We’ll pay you for your trouble.”

  “You already did.”

  “That was just a single copper.”

  The woman took Kara’s hands in her own. Her fingernails were crusted with dirt, her eyes pretty beneath a haggard face.

  “You could have walked past us, but you didn’t,” she said. “You’ve paid me.”

  Even with the baby in her arms, the woman was fast. She led them through narrow alleyways and half-flooded streets, into shambling buildings and out back entrances, past luxurious houses that shone with dangling glorb-lights and along a row of lean-tos where barefoot denizens fought tooth-and-nail for a spot closest to the fire.

  Finally, the woman stopped. The baby in her arms instantly began to cry, as though it were only the rhythm of its mother’s movement that had kept it asleep.

  “We’re here,” she said.

  In front of them a tower rose so high that Kara was certain they would have seen it from miles away were it not for the gray clouds of smoke that polluted the air. The base was constructed from some kind of red metal and gleamed brilliantly even in the minimal sunlight. From here, the tower split into four parts, like a candelabra. The first section was made of glass, and though its surface was covered with a thin layer of soot, Kara could still see rows of books inside and small moving shapes that might have been people. From the gray, metallic surface of the second tower extended long rods like antennae. These were punctured with holes that caught the wind as it passed, creating a humming sound that rose and fell like birdsong. A rising spiral of glorb-lights wound about the third, a wooden tower, providing illumination for the entire building. The fourth tower, painted entirely in black and constructed from a strange, organic-looking material, was considerably smaller than the other three. It stuck out of the base at a slightly different angle, like a thumb.

  “It’s amazing,” Safi said, her eyes, for a few moments at least, regaining their former splendor.

  The woman nodded, holding up her baby to see the pretty lights. It cooed softly. Kara couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. There was no pink or blue in this child’s world.

  “Why are the towers so different from one another?” Taff asked.

  “One for each region,” the woman said. She pointed to each of the towers in turn, and Kara used this distraction to slip a handful of coins into the folds of the baby’s blanket. “The Glass Tower for the mirror-makers of Lux. The Tower of Rods for Auren. The Glorb Tower—formerly the Tower of Wind; before that the Burning Tower—for Ilma.” The woman covered her baby’s ears with her hands. “The Black Tower is for Kutt, the body snatchers of the north.”

  The Forked Library was indeed impressive, but Kara was far more interested in the way it rose above the rest of the city as though upon the burial ground of some fallen structure.

  We’ve found it. Sablethorn.

  Before they entered the library, Kara wanted to contact Lucas and tell him what she had learned. The children found a spot as far away from the crowd as possible, and Taff dug the conch out of his sack.

  “So how does this work?” Kara asked. “Do you have to shake it, or say some special words, or—”

  Taff placed the shell to his mouth.

  “Hello?” he asked. “Lucas? Are you there? Helllooo?”

  Passing pedestrians didn’t even give Taff a second glance. Apparently insanity was woven comfortably enough into the fabric of Penta’s Keep that it could be ignored with ease.

  Taff raised his voice, finally drawing some curious glances.

  “Hellooo? Luucccaass? My sister wants to talk to youuuuu.”

  “Taff?” Lucas asked. “Is that you?”

  Kara couldn’t tell if he was whispering or if the softness of his voice was simply a result of the great distance between them, and she really didn’t care. She was just thrilled to know that he was alive.

  “Where are you?” Kara asked.

  “A place called Yandyre. Used to be a big mining town before we learned how to harness glorbs. Now it’s not much o
f anything. Especially after the witch got done with it.”

  “Another one?”

  “And not like Bethany—this one was bad. There was something wrong with her even before she started using a grimoire. I asked afterward. She liked to set things on fire. Only, when she used the grimoire, her fire shed no light. It was dark, and hot enough to melt steel, and alive. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I know you don’t want to hear this, Kara, but Timoth Clen saved this town. People would have died if he hadn’t shown up when he did.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to hear that?” Kara asked. “I don’t want anyone to die! That’s why I have to restore Father to his body before Timoth Clen executes all those witches!”

  A long silence stretched between them.

  “Where are you?” Lucas finally asked.

  “Outside the Forked Library.”

  “You made it! Sablethorn’s underneath, right?”

  “If what your grandfather said is true.”

  “He made no promises.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  A gentle rush of ocean waves, like the echoes that formed inside the curved surfaces of a real seashell, filled the silence. The magic allowing them to speak to each other was weakening. Unsure how much time they had remaining, Kara talked fast, saying only what needed to be said.

  “Rygoth is planning to free all the witches and kill Timoth Clen and his graycloaks.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me over dinner.”

  “What?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Rygoth is going to wait until Timoth Clen is about to perform his public execution. Wherever that is. Have you found out?”

  “Not yet. They’re heading north. I need to warn him!”

  “No! It’s too dangerous!”

  The sound of the waves was stronger than ever now, and they could feel time growing short.