The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The riders passed through a narrow defile in the foothills. Steep, rocky walls loomed high at either hand, blocking out most of the sky so that only a narrow strip of brilliant blue could be seen. The hoofbeats of their horses echoed doubly from the rough-hewn escarpments and a cool, profound shadow enveloped them.

  Arran scanned their surroundings warily. To Jewel, he said quietly, “This would be a strategic emplacement for an ambush.”

  Their two Ashqalêthan companions had given no cause for distrust, yet Jewel and Arran preferred to keep most of their discourse private. Even the desertmen, riding a little distance ahead, had fallen silent as if apprehension stole over them.

  Half a mile farther on, the rocky walls dropped away on either side, revealing expanses of broken ground strewn with the humped forms of crouching boulders and dwarf shrubs. A tiny stream tumbled from the distant heights. “The last water source before the dusky wells of the R’shael crossroads,” announced Scorpion, calling out over his shoulder. “Let us water the horses here, and fill our bottles.”

  “We have been fortunate,” Jewel said, as they led their mounts to the stream. “We have encountered no Marauders. And few travelers either,” she added.

  “It is yet high Summer,” replied Scorpion, who was now wearing a turban of striped calico in place of the fez. He wiped a sleeve across his dripping brow. “Most folk prefer to wait for milder seasons before they take to the roads of the south. Even brigands avoid the desert Summer, if they have a choice,” he added, “for that is when the southerly airstream called the Fyrflaume blows from the Stone Deserts. Let us hope the mountain-dwelling highwaymen have got good pickings elsewhere of late, and will have no need to plague desert wayfarers. By Lord Fortune, ’tis hot!”

  Indeed, the air was like the breath of a furnace. Unaccustomed to ambient heat, Jewel and Arran had both been rendered uncomfortable by its effects, but despite Jewel’s intermittent pleading whispers, the weathermaster refused to summon a cooling breeze.

  “You called a wind to mask your footsteps in the Dome,” she muttered. “Why not a refreshing gust or two in the desert?”

  “I contravened weathermaster code,” Arran murmured in return. “I should not have done so, and I’ll not do it again. Does the heat much trouble one who is invulnerable to fire?”

  “Not overly, but I am not used to it.”

  “You will adapt.”

  While their steeds drank copiously downstream, the travelers splashed their hair and garments, and refilled their water skins. They seated themselves in the thin shade of some stunted mallee eucalypts to partake of their noonday repast, rye bread and cheese wrapped in dampened muslin.

  “Back there,” said Scorpion, indicating with a jerk of his thumb the road they had already traveled, “back there was the last place you’ll find between here and Jhallavad where an ambush might be successful.”

  “Do you refer to the place where the road is cloven between rock walls?” Arran asked.

  “The very same. Except at that place, which we call ‘Bandit’s Alley,’ those who made this road ensured there was scant cover at the verges, nothing much to provide concealment for archers and other snipers.”

  “ ’Tis the same along many of the greater highways in all kingdoms,” said Arran. “In regions where brigands are most active, local villagers endeavor to ensure the roadsides are kept clear of trees and large rocks, for the distance of a shotten arrow.”

  After taking refreshment, Scorpion and Lizard fell into a doze. Jewel and Arran seized the opportunity to move several yards away into the temperate shadow of a standing boulder, that they might converse without being overheard, or disturbing their companions.

  “I have spied very few wights,” Jewel commented, still chewing a last mouthful. “Had we met some of the seelie sort, I would have liked to approach them, to speak with them.”

  “Why?”

  “I would like to ask them—” Jewel broke off momentarily. She swallowed, then resumed more softly, “what it is like to be immortal. . . .”

  They spoke no more for a time, relaxing in sociable silence, listening to the gurgle of the water, the reedy churr and loud tuk-tuk-tuk of White-Browed Babblers in the boughs overhead, the muted jingling of harness as the horses grazed on low-growing glasswort and acacia.

  “How strange,” mused Arran. “If it is true that there is a well made from a star, and it holds the secret of eternity, then we find ourselves upon the threshold of momentous times. For a mortal creature to cross the border into deathlessness . . .” He paused, temporarily lost for words, then continued, “Indeed, countless sages and philosophers and druids have sought this prize for untold centuries. Some might regard it as the ultimate goal of humankind.” He brushed three crumbs from his linen surcoat and said deliberately, “We mortal beings are heroes.”

  “What can you mean?”

  “We walk—nay, we run down the path of Time while blindfolded. At any instant a chasm might open before us. At any moment we might run straight into a wall. Yet we keep on—most of us do, at any rate. We love, while knowing that someday our love might be lost forever. We laugh as we stride along, even while recognizing that doom lies at the end of the road. We give, while comprehending that in the end ’twill all be taken away. We are nothing less than heroes.”

  “What strange words you speak!” commented Jewel.

  “They are merely words from a song,” Arran told her, and in low but melodious tones he commenced to sing:

  “Some wights play jestful tricks. Some are inclined

  To work malicious harm on humankind.

  Some help goodwives at spinning wheel and hearth,

  Or aid the honest farmer in his garth.

  “Yet, while they oddly disparate may be,

  One attribute they hold in common fee—

  Their days and nights roll on forevermore

  And never reach the threshold of Death’s door.

  “No darkling grave awaits beneath the grass,

  No dreadful fear of what might come to pass.

  Oh, blithe and empty-hearted must be he

  Who’s cosseted by immortality!

  “But mortal creatures walk along the road

  Of Time—nay, we make haste! Despite our load

  Piled high with weary trouble. And withal,

  We’re blindfold, so at any step might fall.

  “At any instant chasms might unclose

  To swallow us, beneath our very toes!

  At any instant, blindfold and alone,

  We might run headlong into walls of stone.

  “And yet we keep on running. On we go,

  Most of us, this despite the fact we know

  ’Twill all be swept away. We love, aware

  That some dark hour, love shall be lost fore’er.

  “We laugh and joke, we seek to banish gloom,

  Knowing the while, we speed toward our doom.

  We give, knowing all gifts will turn to dust,

  And still we keep on running, in blind trust.

  “Like luminescent falling stars—”

  Abruptly, the young man ceased his singing.

  “What’s amiss?” inquired Jewel.

  “Naught,” he replied casually. “Merely, I cannot recall the last couple of verses. Now, we had better rouse our snoring friends and be on our way once more.” He sprang to his feet and went to attend his horse, brushing flies from its eyes and retightening the buckles of the surcingle. Jewel watched him, suddenly aware of the way he moved—so utterly self-assured, so graceful and lithe. His long hair swung with every shift of balance, and the dark strands whipped across his back. The look of him stirred an ember within her being, but she quickly turned away and let the sensation subside.

  Like some unrelenting foe, the sun hammered its fists on the shoulders of the travelers. They took to journeying at nights, when the temperature dropped sharply and a bitter frost spread across the desert. During the noonday hours they dozed beneath awnings of b
leached canvas stretched on poles hammered into the ground. Here in the southern desert there was scant natural shade to provide relief to humankind. Across hundreds of leagues the landscape on either side of the road rolled on as level as a placid lake, unrelieved by any projection more significant than the occasional small boulder. Bald patches of terra-cotta dirt showed like bloodstains between clumps of spinifex and dwarf acacia, and strewings of rusty rocks.

  Jewel recalled her visit to her grandmother’s village, R’shael, when she was five Winters old. The memory tugged at her heartstrings, giving rise to a halfformed desire to turn off the main road and revisit the place. Yet it was too far out of their way, and besides, she had no family living there now and it was unlikely that any of the villagers would remember her.

  Sunfall, its spectacular vistas of splendor dazzling like wildfire across the skies, brought relief from the heat. Refreshed by the mild desert evenings, Scorpion would often lift his voice in song as they rode.

  The highway crossed the sandy wastelands, making for Jhallavad, the capital city of that southern kingdom. Upright milestones, waist-high to a man, faithfully punctuated the road’s edges. The surface itself was paved, here and there, and packed hard along other stretches. Restless windblown sands had made surprisingly small incursions; conceivably the highway was protected by some ancient, lingering enchantment; otherwise it might have been choked and buried long ago.

  After sunfall, shy nocturnal animals would go scurrying amongst clumps of wiry grass, and hopping over stones: tiny kultarrs with their huge, dark eyes and their long tails, pointy-nosed bandicoots, long-eared bilbies digging in the sand for larvae, seeds, and fungi. Other creatures of the night were just as elusive but not so mortal. No water-loving wights haunted these regions; most were subterranean dwellers, including coblynau, buccas, gathorns, bockles, and nuggles. Occasionally, one or two such manifestations would skitter across the sand in the moonlight, darting from the shelter of a tussock to some small, secret cave-mouth, conceivably an entrance to underground labyrinths.

  From time to time the riders met wayfarers coming from the other direction, unprosperous folk who, to eke a living, were forced to keep plying their trade no matter how hot the season. To replenish their water supplies from the wells the travelers broke their journey at hamlets along their route. Always they were met with hostility at first, for the desert-dwellers never ceased to be on guard against Marauders. When they proved themselves peace-loving, the travelers were offered hospitality in exchange for tidings, songs, tales, and coin. Yet never did the villagers allow their wariness to subside.

  On a couple of occasions Jewel noted odd behavior on the part of the Ashqalêthans. Twice, as Scorpion left their lodgings in the morning, she spied him slipping money and some token to the inn-keeper, whispering the while. Scorpion was not aware that she saw him, and Lizard was otherwise occupied, but Jewel relayed her observations to Arran and they both increased their vigilance.

  The farther west they rode, the drier the landscape became. Low, scrubby, and sparse was the vegetation clinging to the barren, hard-packed gravel that covered the ground. Dust clung to the ample folds of Jewel’s burnous, and to the baggy sleeves of Arran’s shirt. Grit infiltrated the camel-hide sebbats on the travelers’ feet, and the fluid scarves of muslin that covered their heads beneath their hats and turbans. Not even weeds could steal a foothold in the dehydrated gravel. The only grass was tough-leafed spinifex, surviving tenaciously, but Arran and Scorpion had brought sacks of lucerne and oats to feed the horses.

  “Sand everywhere,” said Jewel, shading her eyes against the sun’s glare. “As far as the eyes can see! Sand!”

  “It hardly ever rains here, “ said Arran, “perhaps once in four years, or nine, or fifteen. But when it does rain, the desert blooms everywhere like a garden, the fairest garden ever seen.”

  “You are a fount of knowledge,” she bantered, “but I already knew that.”

  As always, he took her teasing in good part. He was, by nature, somewhat restrained and not given to extrovert behavior, yet he was a young man of common sense, wise, just, and fair, dependable and steadfast. Her badinage delighted him, even though he seldom replied in kind.

  “Methinks you and your sister have passed this way before, young master,” Scorpion said good-naturedly to Arran.

  “That we have,” replied the weathermaster, who had several times flown over Ashqalêth in a sky-balloon.

  “We cannot help but wonder where a brother and sister might be bound, across these withered lands,” Scorpion went on.

  Arran remained sitting astride his horse, but the line of his body subtly altered. Jewel observed the change, noting his watchfulness.

  “For our part, we cannot help but wonder why a couple of fellows who do not appear to be merchants or peddlers are traveling through Ashqalêth,” the young man countered.

  “We are happy to broadcast our enterprise. Neither merchants nor peddlers are we, but water-diviners. Our tools of trade are naught but a forked hazel rod and, in Lizard’s case, a pair of sturdy copper wires. We are returning to our homes in Jhallavad.”

  This revelation alleviated Jewel’s uneasiness; in the city she and Arran would be able to take their leave of their companions and be free to seek the Well of Rain in far-off Saadiah.

  Courteously, Arran said, “We shall be sorry to part company with you both.”

  “Likewise,” affirmed Scorpion.

  “One can understand why water-diviners are sought after in arid lands, but what work did you find in Slievmordhu?” Jewel asked. “ ’Tis a kingdom abounding with rivers.”

  “Underground springs are always of value to farmers,” said Scorpion. “What’s more, sometimes we’ll stumble across metal-lodes while we’re looking for water.”

  “And sometimes we’ll find nothing at all!” chuckled Lizard. “ ’Tis an uncertain business, water-divining!”

  “For folk such as we, that is,” amended Scorpion. “Not for weathermasters and the like. But their fees are too high for the common peasant to afford, so when farmers hear of us, they hire us instead! And now,” he added, “ ’tis only fair that you must satisfy our enquiry in return. Whither go you?”

  “We hie to Grïmnørsland,” said Arran without hesitation, glad to deflect the topic from that of weathermasters. “To a small hamlet just over the border.”

  “Oh? What might be the name of this hamlet?”

  “Müdgaard.”

  “I know of it,” said Scorpion, flashing his usual grin. “It lies on the border between Grïmnørsland and Ashqalêth, on the road to Füshgaard. But you might have traveled a shorter path to get there from Cathair Rua.”

  “Shorter perhaps, but passing too close to the Wight Hills.”

  “What business have you in Müdgaard?”

  “Our own.”

  The Ashqalêthan chuckled. “Hey, Lizard, the young master keeps close counsel!” he said, winking breezily. “Well, so be it. A man should not pry too deeply into his friends’ affairs.”

  It was a seven-night more before they reached Jhallavad. The first sign of the distant city was a faint smear of smoke against the long shimmer of the western horizon. The hour was late, and the sun was falling into a welter of glory. Suffused ribbons of wine-red, long ovals of strawberry and soaking sheets of gold provided a backdrop to the dirty stain of smoke.

  “The chimneys of the glass-furnaces are many,” said Scorpion, ever the informative guide. “The smoke they pump out blows away to the north, on the prevailing winds.”

  “We always get nice sunsets in the desert,” put in Lizard.

  “The prettiest ones always happen when there’s a lot of smoke and dust in the air,” Scorpion said authoritatively.

  “Indeed this sunset is surpassing fair!” said Jewel. Turning to Arran, she murmured, “But why?”

  “Do you truly desire further explanation?”

  “I do!”

  The weathermaster grinned, amused at Jewel’s enthusiasm
for knowledge. “The fine particles in dusty atmospheres scatter the blue and green light from the sun’s rays,” he said, “and only the yellow, orange, and red beams shine through. But sunset is most beautiful when there is airborne moisture, such as those lenticular clouds you can see just above the horizon, from which the colors are reflecting with a tint of roses.”

  Admiring the panorama, they rode on.

  Closer to the royal city the landscape altered, becoming greener, and sparsely wooded. Like supernatural trees, thousands of metal-bladed windmills whirled atop their tall stanchions, pumping up water from the city’s aquifers and artesian wells. The sun’s elongated shafts of rosy light lingered on legions of grapevines and battalions of crops, watered by irrigation channels. Goats and dromedaries grazed in fields surrounding farmhouses that squatted on stilts so that cooling airs might circulate beneath the floors. Such dwellings reminded Jewel of the marsh. The city itself, behind its high walls, had been constructed in and upon a vast hill of sandstone jutting out of the desert floor, riddled with deeply mined cellars that remained cool both day and night. The hovels of the poor had thick walls of dried mud and camel dung, while the abodes of the wealthy were primarily built of greenish slate, milky limestone, and sandstone the color of parchment. The western facets of the buildings were tinged carnation in the dying radiance of evening.

  “Jhallavad is not an unlovely sight, no?” said Scorpion proudly. “Yet, an even better sight awaits within, and that is the king’s palace. The gargoyles and adornments of our sovereign’s halls are sculpted from fluorspar, a stone that glows like phosphorescence when illuminated in a certain way. Pale green and yellow are the colors of desert fluor, and the topmost turret of the palace is carved and sculpted entirely of butter-colored jasper. In the king’s courtyards stand statues made of jadeite and nephrite, green as rushes and white as pups’ milkteeth!”