Three Wells of the Sea Series Box Set: Three Wells of the Sea and The Salamander's Smile

by Terry Madden

  Dylan was on his feet, the axe a forgotten task. “Aye, my lord. You’ll not regret this.”

  “I’m certain I won’t.” Nechtan forced a smile.

  They rode out under a setting crescent moon, Lyleth behind Nechtan on the plow horse, her arms wrapped around his waist, her grip weak.

  “You don’t let go,” he said to her. “Not for anything.”

  “Never.”

  The warmth of her body was already seeping through the cold mail, through his gambeson, and her breath warmed his neck.

  Elowen rode one of the dead men’s horses, and Dylan ponied a third that would be Lyl’s mount as soon as she was strong enough. Trailing them all was the little horse, Brixia. Her fancy for the plow horse hadn’t flagged, and she dashed after them once she realized they were riding out.

  Dylan was already proving useful. Three rivers drained the mountains surrounding the vale, tracing watery barriers across the land. Dylan knew the bridges, but most importantly, he knew the fords and ferry tows that Ava’s men wouldn’t, those used by farmers and huntsmen.

  After the moon set, Dylan lit a shepherd’s lantern, a cone made of tin punched through with a design of stars all around. The metal cone slid down over a fat candle, and the lamp spilled yellow light in the shape of dancing stars over the ground of oat stubble and stones. It gave them just enough light to avoid badger holes and rocky outcrops. The wind that gathered force and slapped at their backs had no power over the lantern; it just whistled through the holes in the tin like breath through Dylan’s small pipes.

  Nechtan pulled his hood closer against the wind and Lyleth’s hair came with it, for she rested her head on his shoulder. He laced her arms around him more tightly.

  They trekked northward, through fields of harvested oat, barley and flax, through apple orchards and sheep pastures. Dawn found them in the hollows of a rugged heath. The birds were awake, and a flock of larks erupted from a stand of gorse, spooking the horses. The birds rolled over them like one great creature.

  A dolmen provided the only cover from day. Three giant upright stones held a long, flat slab of blue granite. It was the skeleton of what had once been a barrow of men more ancient even than the Old Blood, men whose name had been lost with their bones and their songs and their tongue. It would be no different for the Ildana. Someday, their barrows would be looted, their blood mingled with that of an invader. If Lyleth was right, that day was coming soon.

  She was asleep, her arms limp around his waist.

  “It’s day,” he told her softly. She woke with a start, and he helped her down from the horse.

  “Hobble the horses where there’s some forage,” he told Dylan.

  “As you say, my lord.” The boy strung the horses along behind him.

  Elowen had already found a brambleberry patch. “The birds missed lots o’ them!”

  “Save some for us,” Nechtan called back.

  He climbed to the top of the dolmen and scanned the countryside, warming with dawn. They were more than halfway across the vale. To the north, the black woods of the Pendynas Mountains fell like a dark curtain. To the south, the nearest holding was a black spot in the distance that sprouted smoke from a morning fire.

  He jumped down and found Lyleth with her back pressed to one of the old stones, her face to the rising sun.

  “It’s good to live,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He sat down beside her. The stone felt colder on his back after the warmth of her body. “How many times have you sewed me back together?”

  The smile she gave him was none he’d ever seen on her before, something between wonder and bewilderment.

  “What is it, Lyl?”

  “I know now.”

  “What do you know?”

  “You’re the boy I knew on the Isle of Glass—the man I was bound to.” She proclaimed it like a judgment.

  She was talking nonsense. He touched her cheek, checking for fever, and found none.

  “You’re as full of life as you once were,” she said. “Full of truth, strength of will… love.” She looked into him with resolve. “I’ve missed you, my lord.”

  His heart must have stopped. His face went hot and his tongue fell mute.

  “When I lost you,” he finally said, “it was like losing my legs.”

  He wanted to touch her, hold her, but a cold wall lay between them.

  “The last thing I remember,” he said, “is watching you ride away from me. I need to know why. Tell me.”

  She faced him squarely, her legs tucked under her.

  Her look said that whatever it was would change everything between them. But he needed a chance to set it right.

  “I must remember everything,” he said. “You told me so yourself. Everything.”

  She took his hands as she had so many times. She could feel his thoughts this way, a tool of the greenmen. But this time, it wasn’t his thoughts she felt for, she let her own flow through her hands and into his mind. Images flared, a landscape lit by lightning flashes.

  “I took a lover—” she said.

  “Fiach.” He completed her thoughts.

  Those simple words painted the scene in his mind’s eye. “You have the right to take whomever you wish—”

  “He came often to Caer Ys,” she said. Her voice was even, controlled, as if she’d rehearsed the words. “Fiach was more to you than a chieftain under your protection. He might have been your friend if not for that night.”

  Her brow furrowed, her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “It was Midwinter last,” he said for her, seeing it all take form in his mind.

  He couldn’t meet her eyes any longer, so he watched the sun rise, and with it, the scene he’d forgotten.

  “I sit in the revel hall at Caer Ys,” he said, “at one end of a crowded table. I can’t see anyone but you. And Fiach.”

  He let go of her hands and dragged his palms down his face. “I was drunk. Oh, Lyl, I remember.”

  She took his hands again and trapped his eyes with her own.

  It was as clear as if it was yesterday. He watched her and Fiach at supper, the way he stole touches—his fingers to her lips, her cheek, her hair. The way he looked at her.

  Late that night, Nechtan ordered Ava to her chamber and ordered the guards away from Lyl’s door. He took up their post, until he slid down the wall to the cold flagstones, his back against her closed door. The rest of the castle slept. And Nechtan poured more ale down his throat and listened to Fiach make love to Lyl.

  They were both asleep when he burst through the door and staggered to her bed. He remembered his fists beating Fiach’s face, Lyl screaming. He drove Fiach from the room, naked, at the point of a sword.

  He wanted her more than life. And that was what it had cost him, his life, and so much more. It had cost him Lyleth.

  He held her down on the bed, fumbling and stupid. He could still feel the tip of her dirk cutting into his cheek; feel her breath coming in fast spurts beneath him.

  “I am your solás, my lord! Give me your respect or your life. Which will it be?”

  He had wanted her to drive that dirk into his brain. In that moment, he understood he was already dead long before Ava sent him on his way to the Otherworld.

  “Grant me your mercy, solás,” he’d said to Lyl that night. He repeated the words now. “For I am a lost man.”

  She had pushed him away, wrapped a blanket around herself, and left him in her bed to drown in the spreading pool of his shame.

  Her grip tightened on his hands, her knees met his, just as they used to sit in the bottom of the coracle when they were children, fishing for perch on the Broken Sea. A deep silence stopped time, and he felt much more than warmth flow from her hands to his.

  “I called you back to make you suffer the way I’ve suffered since that night,” she said at last. “I wanted you to pay, Nechtan, not with blood but with a will to protect this land we’re bound to. But, instead of that tormented king, I woke just a man. The man
who knows me as I know him. The man who keeps no secrets from me, nor I from him. The man I once lived to serve as solás and friend.”

  He looked from the expanse of warming heath back to her eyes. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She turned his wrist up, covered now by a bracer, and dragged her fingers over the rough sharkskin, then over his open palm.

  “That’s why you have no mark.”

  His hand closed on hers and he held on tightly. Tears clouded his eyes when Elowen appeared from around the standing stones like a sprite, her face a purple stain. She held out a hand full of fat brambleberries.

  “There’s more,” she said.

  Lyleth took one, put it in Nechtan’s mouth, and her trembling fingers lingered there.

  Under the cool roof of the dolmen, Nechtan watched the others sleep. Clouds streamed from the north, joining hands and breaking again, curling and dissipating like souls in flight. Nothing moved on the horizon but a stag that sniffed the air, and sprang off through the gorse. Though the air was cold, needles of sunlight pricked his skin until he started to sweat. He wondered at this body he wore. He wondered at the wrath that had driven Lyleth to clothe him in it. He could feel nothing but gratitude for the chance to set things right between them, but how to right something so terribly wrong?

  The boy on the other side would wake him soon, and the gods would set the cogs of their wheel back in place.

  It was nearly midday when he could no longer keep his eyes open, so he roused Dylan to take his place.

  “Keep your eyes on the horizon. Wake me if you see anything.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  The shadows beneath the dolmen were icy cold. Nechtan lay down beside Lyl and Elowen. The child was clinging to her, snuggled close so their foreheads touched, their breathing measured and melodic.

  He pulled his cloak close and watched them sleep until his breathing matched theirs, until he dreamed of a sea strand where he ran and ran and ran. The boy was there, too, running beside him and smiling. He had a book in his hand, open as he ran. The book was bound in white birch bark, and the pages were green leaves. The lad held it out as if to show him something. From the book, vines sprouted and grew, tangled and knotted to form a water horse, armored in fluttering leaves, its eyes two blazing golden tansy blooms. From the air above the book, it wound around Nechtan’s right arm.

  He woke with a start, his hand on his dagger hilt. He looked into Dylan’s face and for a moment, he thought he still dreamed, thought it was the face of the boy on the other side.

  “’Tis nearing dusk, my lord.”

  He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, then climbed out from under the stones to see the sun floating near the western horizon. Lyleth was awake and handed him a portion of bread and cheese.

  “Your color’s come back,” he told her. He took a bite of the hard cheese.

  “I’m stronger.” She smiled.

  Nechtan looked up at a rasping sound coming from the capstone of the dolmen. A crow sat fretting its beak on the rock, as birds will. Its black eye met Nechtan’s. Its tongue throbbed with the rhythm of its panting.

  “Been here for some time,” Dylan said, “looking for our bread scraps, likely. Never seen a crow that color. Red like wine from Cadurques.”

  It hopped to the edge of the stone, its gaze locked on Nechtan as he took a seat on a rock. He broke off a chunk of bread and tossed it up to the bird. It made no move to take it, but continued to stare at him, its head cocked. He shooed the thing away, but it just hopped to the other side of the stone. With one last look, it took flight, its wings the color of embers.

  Lyleth appeared beside him, watching the bird fly into the evening.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “We must go. Now.”

  Stars blistered the night. Lyleth had enough strength to ride alone, so they moved as fast as the little lantern would allow. Darkness had fully claimed the land when Nechtan saw the distant flicker of torchlight behind them.

  “How far to the river?” he asked Dylan. It was the last to be crossed before they reached the safety of the woods.

  “Perhaps a league, but—” Dylan saw the torchlight too. “By stars and stones.”

  “Take us there. Quickly.”

  Dylan led the way over uneven, shadowy ground until they reached a bluff that overlooked a black snake of water, winding between swells of earth.

  Lyleth rode up beside Nechtan.

  “We won’t make it across the tow,” she said.

  “Indeed.”

  She caught his arm, the horses’ warmth filling the space between them.

  “You and Dylan go on,” she said.

  “I go nowhere without you.”

  “I didn’t risk my soul’s peace so Ava can kill you again. Ride to Cedewain. Then come back, and cut her down.”

  “Lyl—”

  She pushed her horse close, their legs pressed between two sweaty hides.

  “I’ll ask nothing else of you, my lord, not in this life or the next.”

  Her hand slid softly around his neck, and she pulled him to her. Her kiss tasted of blackberries, and of forgiveness.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  Then she was gone.

  Chapter 19

  From school, Iris had followed Connor through the trails all the way to Ned’s house and from what Connor could tell she’d heard everything, from Dish’s search for the well to Connor’s trip to the other side.

  “Jesus, Iris, now you’re a stalker.” Water streamed from Connor’s shorts and he shivered. He had one wet arm through his T-shirt and was stuck.

  “Dish’s soul is in the Otherworld,” she said with that perpetual heavy metal rasp. “That is so awesome.”

  The candy skull tattoo over Iris’ left breast couldn’t have been more distracting. She sank into the hot tub beside Ned and draped her arms over the edge, her little boobs bouncing in the jets.

  “I always knew there was something special about Dish.” She eyed the joint in Ned’s hand expectantly. “Mind if I have a hit?”

  Ned was frozen. He finally handed it over to her.

  Iris took a drag. “Who was the chick you saw with Dish?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Connor had succeeded in pulling on his shirt and was lacing his shoes.

  “When I went to visit Dish in the hospital,” she said, “I saw the tattoo and knew something weird was up. Dish would never get a tat. His ass is way too tight for something like that.”

  “Good for you, Iris.” Connor squished toward the trail. “You should really leave Ned alone. He doesn’t deserve this. Sorry, Ned.”

  “Everybody just get the hell out of my hot tub. Pretty soon I’ll have the whole school over here on a weed field trip. Shoo!” Ned rose out of the water, offering Iris the full glory of his naked form.

  She didn’t flinch as she said, “No problem. Thanks for your hospitality, douche bag.”

  For some reason, Brother Mike believed socializing meant watching a bunch of retards paw each other under a disco ball. Connor leaned against the wall and did just that. Watched, that is. It was the Homecoming Dance. The only difference between this dance and any other was that ties and dress shirts were mandatory, and one wall of the gym was plastered with aluminum foil stars, each framing a picture of a St. Thom’s student. A big butcher paper banner announced, “Shining Stars.”

  Connor couldn’t stop thinking about Dish’s destination the day of the accident. An errand, he’d said. That could be anything: picking up clothes from the cleaners, ice cream, cigarettes. No, there was no way Dish was a smoker.

  It’d been two days since Connor smoked weed in the hot tub with Ned, two days of ditching Iris as soon as the afternoon bell rang. He’d failed to convince her that he was writing a short story and that he’d made up everything about Dish and the well.

  “You didn’t make up that tattoo,” was all she said.

  Over at the turntable, the D.J. had a weird pelvic thrust going in time with
the music. Connor slipped under the bleachers and found a plastic bucket that made a decent seat.

  He took the map out of his pocket and unfolded it. He’d marked the location of the accident and done some digging to figure out which businesses he and Dish had already passed, and which lay between there and Santa Monica. Two coffee houses, five restaurants, a ballet studio, a bookstore and a few realtors. Dish could have been going anywhere. South of Malibu was Santa Monica and L.A.

  Connor looked up from the map at Iris.

  “Whatcha doin’ under here all by yourself?”

  “Avoiding you,” he said.

  “Very funny.”

  She wore so much eye makeup it looked like somebody had punched her. The fringe of straight blond hair was twice as long on one side of her head as the other, making her look like a cocker spaniel listening to its master. She’d even gotten past the chaperones with her nose ring tonight.

  Snatching up his map, she ran her finger over his scribbles and tossed it to the floor with the candy wrappers and loose change that had fallen from the bleachers.

  Before he could react, she straddled his lap, one arm around his neck, the other hand sliding down the length of his tie in a very suggestive way. He realized she was wearing a tie too, and a black silk shirt and a pink tutu. The disco ball made weird flashing signals behind her head and her breath smelled like liquor. Her hands wandered to his face, then his earlobes.

  “Christ!” He grabbed her hands and looked into her dilated eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “I feel like sitting too,” she said with a pout. “I never noticed how cute you were before.”

  “Oh come on, Iris. Leave me alone, huh?”

  “Face it, Connor, you’ve seen the Other Side. You’ve had a mystical experience. Fate swept you up and delivered you to Dish like it was your destiny.”

  “Destiny? Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I believe it. Our future and our past already exist and there’s nothing that can prevent us from acting out the parts we play in this universe.” She was so close her face was out of focus. “I believe you saw him. On the Other Side, with the woman he’s been searching for all his life.”