"Do something. That's all. Just do something. You're the wellkeepers of the well! You’re in charge of the water! I'm the mayor, and, as overseer of the water, I - I order you to make it rain!" she demanded authoritatively, while standing as straight and tall as she could (which was pretty straight and tall). Then, stepping off again in her long-legged stride, she marched westward. "Come along, Wuderbutz!" she ordered without looking back.
Mr. Pulpitt cringed. He hated it when she called him that. It wasn't his name. His name was Wudrick - Wudrick Pulpitt, but ever since he could remember she called him Wuderbutz, and always disparagingly so. For despite her assurances that it was her term of “endearment” for him, she only expressed it in more or less derogatory tones, and always, embarrassingly, in the presence of others. Long ago, he should have told her how much he despised the name, but he could never muster the courage to express any of his own true thoughts or feelings to her. So, like Loden, he remained silent, appearing almost relieved when his wife called after him to hurry up. Immediately, obediently, he dashed off after her.
Loden watched the pair disappear among the western huts. Then he turned to Bourg, who hadn’t glanced up even once from staring into the dark depths of the well. Loden felt disappointed. There were so many thoughts longing to burst forth from his tongue concerning the mayor. But sometimes the big, burly male was just too difficult to talk to, especially when he was intently focused on some important matters at hand. For this reason, everyone considered Bourg to be little more than a simple-minded oaf. Although Loden often suspected there was much more to him than anyone had ever supposed. "Then, again - maybe not,” Loden usually concluded. And he knew Bourg better than anyone.
Continuing to slowly turn the crank handle, Loden, too, shifted his attention to the mysterious cool depths of the well. “How many people will die before the rains come?” he wondered in silence. Pentalope’s last fallacious demand was one he would have gladly obeyed - if only he could. But, just like everyone else, all he could do was hope the rains would come quickly.
***** ***** *****
Neither the strutting Mayor Pentalope Pulpitt, nor her short, fat waddling husband, "Wuderbutz", nor the two wellkeepers bent over the well, nor anyone else in the town, for that matter, had noticed the strange spectacle in the sky which was about to change the little town of Nuttinnew forever.
In the east, the sun crept over the slumbering, sandy, hills, its golden rays slowly changing the misty grey of early dawn into the deep azure blue of the coming day, while revealing, even at a cursory glance, the disappointing absence of rain clouds. Having no reason to search the sky any further, none of the sleepy-eyed inhabitants of Nuttinnew noticed the small, mysterious, black spot at the center of the sun.
Chapter 2
The alarm rope suddenly snapped to life, violently whipping and thrashing the air. Loden’s head jerked upwards as he looked over at Bourg, who had also raised his head in surprise and was staring back at him. Then both stared at the agitated alarm rope which only moments earlier had hung limply from the well pulley. Although stunned by the suddenness of the rope’s quickening, Bourg instinctively shoved the reverse pin into the gear mechanism. Then, frantically, he and Loden cranked the handles. For the first three rods the well seat ropes whizzed out of the well, wrapping tightly about the crank shaft. Then abruptly stopped, jerking the handles out of the surprised wellkeepers’ hands.
Quickly, each wellkeeper recovered his grip on his respective, immobile handle. Between them the signal rope continued whipping about wildly, while the well seat ropes remained stretched taut. Again, the wellkeepers combined their strength to turn the crank handles. But the well seat ropes only quivered as they stretched even more tightly under the added strain, as the cranking gears creaked and groaned their age, but still the ropes held fast. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the alarm rope ceased its violent action.
Loden shouted for Bourg to ease back on the crank handle, allowing just enough slack for Loden to jam a locking peg between the gears so the rope which refused to ascend, could neither descend.
With his hands free from the crank handle, Bourg grabbed the alarm rope and lifted it slightly, then gave Loden a puzzled look. Loden took it from his hand and cautiously gave it a slight tug. There was no resistance from the other end. Hand over hand, Loden slowly raised the rope for nearly ten reeds. It continued to hang limply from his hands.
"Wha - what happened?" Bourg gasped barely above a whisper, not expecting a reply. "Tyter, he - he’s gone. TYTER!” Bourg bellowed his grief into the belly of the well where it amplified a hundred fold, then reverberated upward, exploding out of the mouth of the well with such a mournful wail, all of Nuttinnew was disturbed by the sound of it.
***** ***** *****
In the well Tyter spat and sputtered, hacked and wheezed - a typical reaction for anyone in the misfortunate act of drowning. Moments earlier, he’d been sitting on the well seat counting the stones as he slowly descended into the black bowels of the well.
"Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine."
Out of the stillness, he began to hear an occasional slurping and gurgling sound, which reminded him of the unusual sound Bourg made when he puckered out his lips to suck in a spoonful of hot veget mush, in a futile attempt to keep remnants of it out of his thick, gnarly beard. No sooner had Tyter thought this thought when he could feel his bare feet dip into the chilly cold waters. Startled, again, he grabbed the rope from between his teeth with his free hand and he began to vigorously yank on it. At the same time he straightened his legs out in front of him to keep his feet out of the water and to push himself away from the encroaching southern wall.
In performing this maneuver, he had expected his feet to strike solid stone. Instead, they shot forward into open air allowing him to slip forward, off of the well seat and into the water. Only one hand still held fast to the well seat rope, while the other hand, flailing about in the water, clutched the alarm rope.
The swirling water wrapped about his lower body like a large hand grasping, pulling, tugging on him until he could no longer maintain his grip on either the seat or the emergency rope. He barely had time to suck in a quick gasp of air, before the molesting waters pulled him under. But even this didn’t end his torment. For beneath its surface, the water currents swirled about him, determined to take his arms one way, his legs another, and his head in yet a third direction.
He felt like a veget pod in a press, as the water threatened to crush his chest. No longer could he withhold the last stale breath to fill his lungs. Terror seized his heart. Yet Fate was kind, and in less than a heartbeat, his body went limp, sending his mind drifted into another reality. One no longer constraining his lungs from their natural function.
Just then his head momentarily bobbed out of the water, allowing his starving lungs to hungrily devour a huge gulp of air - of life, before his head re-submerged. An instant later, he bobbed upward again and sucked in another breath, then another, and another. Nourished back to semi-consciousness, Tyter found himself staring into the face of a beautiful, fair featured, female, whose eyes glistened like the brightest stars in the sky on a clear Nuttinnewian night - only they were green.
Briefly, he wondered if they were the eyes of his own mother. Then somewhere in the realm between this world and another, the two gleaming, emerald eyes began to grow brighter and cast a pale sheen upon the gentle facial features. Tyter watched in horror as they melted into the most grotesque, hideous looking, stone face one could ever imagine. It’s huge snarling lips and crooked teeth lurched out at him as the surrounding waters worked with one accord to willfully force him down the creature’s gaping gullet. Even in his weakened condition, Tyter struggled to resist, then....
Thud! Something slammed against his forehead, sending him into a twisting, turning, churning flood of currents which assailed him, mind and body, until everything suddenly stopped.
***** ***** *****
It has been said, time waits f
or no one. Events unfold with or without us. Although we measure it, use it, waste it and curse it, time has no thought of us. We, are completely unnoticed by it, and most of what occurs in time goes totally unnoticed by us. And so it was, that as Tyter lay somewhere in Underearth, the morning sun continued to move across the clear, blue, Nuttinnewian sky, marking off in subtle gradation the measured lives of the inhabitants below.
***** ***** *****
When, in time, Tyter did regain full consciousness, he found himself lying on his back in a shallow of water which rippled up over his face, filling his nostrils, and causing him to sneeze and cough and hack and spit. In an awkward, reptilian fashion he scrambled up the gradually inclined, slippery stone slope upon which he was lying, until he came to rest on a fairly level pallet of dry stone.
For several moments he just lay there, inhaling and exhaling as if air were more a luxury than a necessity. With each breath he was thankful to be alive, yet couldn’t help but wonder if he truly was. Seeking some level of assurance, he peered into the dim glow of his surroundings. There was just enough light for him to see he was in some sort of underearthian compartment formed in the hollow of a huge, smoothly rippled stone. Looking about, his eyes fell upon the source of the dim light. It was an object of irregular shape, about the size of Bourg’s hand, laying on the ground a few rods further up the incline.
Beyond all doubt, it was the most beautiful object he’d ever seen. Its self-generating radiance reminded him of the large arc of colors called a skybow - a common apparition appearing among the clouds after a good, hard rain had dissolved into the air as a gentle after-mist. This piece of skybow, however, had a hundred times more colors, and even as he watched, they continually varied in hue and intensity. He was so delighted by his exceptional discovery, he forgot about his near drowning, his wet clothes, his home above, and even Bourg (who, unknown to Tyter, had just startled the town folks with his first cry of anguish into the well).
Like an infant drawn to its mother’s tote, Tyter eased closer to the unusual piece of skybow as its soft, luminous radiance dancing mystically about the smooth, rippled walls of the small cavern.
***** ***** *****
"TYTER!” Bourg roared a second time, dropping the alarm rope back into the well, and anxiously trolling it back and forth, as if he were trying to find just the right spot where some large, pond fish might be lying in stillness, just waiting to be tempted by a cleverly baited hook. However, for Bourg, there was no grand strike, not even a tiny nibble.
By the second roar, all of Nuttinnew, both east and west of the well, had been startled awake. Those alarmed by the first yell, had already begun to gather at the well wondering what all the commotion was about, hoping nearly beyond hope someone had sighted the first rain cloud. But to their great disappointment, the vocal alarm had nothing to do with rain. Instead, they found themselves listening to Loden very elegantly and precisely explain how the young wellwalker, Tyter, was lost somewhere in the depths of the well.
Having heard the sequence of events and seeing the taut chair rope and the dangling alarm rope, all who had gathered decided for themselves the wellwalker had most certainly met with a most tragic death. While many satisfied with this knowledge, began to drift back toward their homes, saddened somewhat by the young wellwalker’s fate, but more, disappointed the commotion had nothing to do with the sighting of rain clouds, others fell into a lively discussion as to whether or not the decaying corpse of the lost youth in the bowels of the well would forever pollute their one and only water source during the dry season? It was a valid concern to be sure, one which kept many lingering at the well, offering their unneeded assistance and proffering their unsolicited advice.
The suggestion was made by someone that someone else should shimmy down the alarm rope and retrieve the lad’s body. Although this suggestion received the unanimous support of all those gathered, not one among them volunteered to be the “shimmier”. All in all, they talked much, but did little. Their only real accomplishment was to divert their attentions away from the sun as it rolled toward them through the mid-morning sky. Had anyone bothered to look up, he or she might have noticed that at its very center there was a small, black spot which was gradually growing larger as the sun crept closer to high noon.
"Where's the mayor?" someone shouted.
"I saw her go into the Veget Health Spa about an hour or so ago,” someone else shouted.
"Someone should tell the Mayor about this!" shouted yet another.
“Yes, the mayor will know what to do. Quick! Let’s get the Mayor!” several random voices concurred.
“Get the mayor! Get Mayor Pulpitt!" a spattering of voices rose among the small crowd gathered about the well. Eventually, these blended into a unified chorus, then solidified into a bonafide chant as the impetus of their collective thoughts motivated a couple dozen of them to march westward toward the Veget Health Spa.
Loden just shook his head in disgust. Then he turned toward Bourg to make a snide remark, but when he noticed the pooled water in the corners of Bourg's wide eyes, he kept his comment to himself. He was sure Bourg had all the thoughts his simple mind could handle for the present.
"Don't worry Bourg. The lad's alright. We'll get him out,” Loden wanted to say, but found it difficult to form the proper words of encouragement, especially since he, himself, believed the youth was lost for good. All he could do was place his hand on the big male's shoulder. So, he did. Bourg just shook his head in grief. If only he hadn't made Tyter go back down into the well. If only....
Loden could only wonder what twisted, tortured expression lay hidden beneath the mass of black, tangled hair covering his friend’s face.
***** ***** *****
For what felt like a very long time, Tyter lay beside the strange, colorfully illuminated object. He was still wet and shivering, but beginning to gather his wits about him.
"Where am I? Where was I? I think - yes, I was in the well!” Tyter looked up at the solid sheet of curved rock overhead. “I’m not in the well now. It looks more like a stone hut. But how did I get in here? Let’s see, the last thing I remember, I was falling off the well seat. Blast! I’m in Underearth! I’ve got to get back up the well shaft - back to Nuttinnew - back to Bourg? But how? I’ll yell for help. But will anyone hear me? Oh, Fate, I going to die down here! Or am I - already dead?”
Tyter's thoughts raced so wildly through his mind, it made his brain ache. Then he realized it wasn’t his mind that hurt, but his head. Slowly raising one hand to the offending spot, he discovered it was bleeding. Immediately his mind was filled with the image of the emerald-eyed creature, the blow to the head, and the sensation of drowning. All these were like a dream now. So much so, he might have convinced himself that was all it was. That is, if it weren’t for the beautiful luminary object laying there before him. Still, even its presence made the whole experience seem less real. Gaining courage from curiosity, Tyter slowly stretched out his hand toward the strange illuminated object.
Although a seasoned adult might have considered being cautious, the inquisitive impulse of a child often acts without the prejudice of forethought, and therefore without fear of consequences. Thus it was that Tyter, being in the twilight between childhood and adulthood, opted to play the reckless youth. Reaching out the fingers of his hand, he lightly touched the object.
From its visual cues he had expected it to feel cold, but to the contrary, it felt quite comfortably warm. Or did it? For although he didn’t understand it, he soon realized that what he was feeling wasn’t the object at all, but a flood of warmth rushing through his own body. Just as baffling was his discovery that, whereas the object appeared to be made of a substance as hard as stone, it was really quite soft to the touch, yet completely unyielding under the pressure of his fingers.
These oddities puzzled Tyter, but he didn’t dwell upon them long. He had just come through a terrifying, exhausting experience, and was a very long way from home. Nonetheless, he felt safe an
d comfortable in his strange environment, even as the blood trickled from the wound on his forehead to the corner of his mouth. Safe, that is, so long as some part of his body continually touched the luminary object.
"Yes, I am still alive,” he affirmed as he instinctively lapped the blood from his lips. With no further thought, he let out a deep sigh, curled one arm around the object, then laid his head upon it. As if it knew he needed rest, the luminary’s already subdued light, dimmed even further, casting only a soft, warm glow about the cave. And in that glow, Tyter drifted into a comfortably deep, dreamless sleep.
***** ***** *****
Mr. Pulpitt didn't know what to do when two dozen people came rushing into the Mayor's private suite at the Veget Health Spa. Too late, he grabbed for a bath towel to cover his nakedness, but quickly discovered what he snatched up in haste was only a hand towel which proved quite ineffective to cover all but the most intimate appendage of his chubby, round body. Had the intruders not been on such an urgent mission they would probably have found his predicament quite amusing. As it was, they all dashed right past him with hardly a glance. All, that is, except the widow Forbal, who paused for a moment, smiled at him, raised one eyebrow in a most seductive fashion, then proceeded to follow after the others.
Mr. Pulpitt gave a deep, grateful sigh of relief. There were times when being generally ignored by everyone in Nuttinnew, clothed or not, had its advantages. Apparently, this was one such time.
It wasn’t that nudity in Nuttinnew was considered a bad thing. In fact, it was fairly common. Wudrick’s embarrassment was more in the fact that over the years his male appendage had somehow disappeared. Of course, it hadn’t really disappeared, but was so hidden among the rolling fat drooping from his rotund torso, the very absence of its exposure would surely have been the topic of future gossip and thereby engendering a lifetime of embarrassment. Fate knows, the people of Nuttinnew already encumbered him with more ridicule than any one person should have to bear.
Pieces: Book One, The Rending Page 3