"Forty, forty-one, forty-two,” Brindle stretched out her foot to touch the smooth well stones. Her legs were longer than Tyter's so she had less difficulty reaching them. All around and below her was nothing but more dank darkness. Above her the circle of light diminished slightly with each stone level she counted.
"Eighty-five, eighty-six. . . .” Brindle shivered. She was actually cold. Tiny bumps bubbled up the flesh on her arms. At first the unusual physical phenomenon frightened her, then she remembered a children's song. It went:
It’s hot as hell,
But in the well
It’s really swell.
Yet, who could know
Way down below
It’s cold as snow?
On the top you boil in sweat.
Your skin gets salty, hot and wet.
But down below your heart will pound.
Where there's no sight, you can't be found.
Your skin’s alive, quivers and jumps.
And soon you're flesh turns into bumps."
Brindle must have heard the other children sing the song a thousand times, but it never made any sense to her, or to anyone else as far as she knew - not until that very moment.
"Children's rhymes aren't supposed to mean anything,” she had often heard her Aunt Lythbe say. Brindle had always considered her aunt to be the smartest person she had ever known. However, at that very moment she was having doubts. She began to wonder if anything she’d ever been told as a child was true.
The light of day kept the rope visible for a few yards below the well rim. Bourg anxiously watched it disappear into the dark depths below. He remembered what happened to Tyter when he first hit the one hundredth stone. He wondered what would happen when Brindle reached it. Tyter had almost been lost and he was an experienced wellwalker, but Brindle...? He began to doubt their wisdom in sending the young female to whom he felt strangely bonded.
"Will anything happen when she reaches the one hundredth stone?” Bourg thought aloud.
"I don't know,” Loden responded as if by reflex. "I told her to signal us when she got to the ninety fifth level: a long pull, followed by two short jerks on the emergency signal rope. At that point we will slow her descent. I'm hoping her longer legs will be able to feel the water level before whatever got Tyter, gets her. Of course, we'll have to take those longer legs into account when we calculate the actual water level. I must admit, however, I wish I could have told her more about what Tyter experienced. What did he tell you?"
"Humph! I couldn't make heads or feet out of it. An underwater hut - no, an underground room or cavern - with heat or light and dark - no wait, yes, something else - a funny thing - I think.”
"Funny 'thing'?” Loden gave Bourg an odd look. “What sort of ‘funny’ thing?"
"His mother’s face. But, how? He was just an infant when his mother died. How could he know her lovely face even if he had seen it? Worse, she changed into some kind of monster. Maadle - a monster. Can you even imagine such a thing? Humph! It just didn’t make any sense - no sense at all."
"No, no it doesn't - or so it would seem,” Loden reflected aloud. "Was there nothing else?"
"Well, er,"
"What?"
"I don't know, but even though I couldn't understand what Tyter was trying to tell me, I know....” Bourg paused as if he wasn’t sure whether or not to continue.
"Now, Bourg, you know you can tell me. Please go on, slowly,” Loden urged him in gentle, reassuring voice, famous for coaxing confessions off the tips of even the most defiant tongues.
"Well, by Veget, there is something - something important, that the lad is keeping from me.” Bourg's voice expressed a measure of hurt and disappointment.
"What makes you think so?” Loden pressed his inquisition.
"Well, I don't know how I know. I just know. That's all I know. You don't raise a child from birth and not know when there’s some truth left untold. And mark my word, this truth is bigger than who ate the last crunchy puff in the bowl.”
Loden looked up from the well. Bourg had the voice of a concerned father. Why shouldn't he? He was a father - the only father the young wellwalker ever knew. Somehow Loden never thought of them as father and son. Now, he felt chilled by his own cold heart. How callous he had been day after day as he helped to lower his friend's "son" into the pit of the earth. He thought to tell Bourg right then just how sorry he was, but before he could utter the words, there came a long hard tug on the emergency rope. Both males stared into the hole expecting two short jerks to follow - but nothing happened. The rope continued to hang as it had before.
Then an unsuspected blast of warm air overcame them from behind, blowing Loden’s shoulder length blond hair into his face and tousling Bourg’s thick, black beard straight out from his cheeks. As quickly as it came, it went, causing the well ropes to quiver ever so slightly as it descended down the well shaft.
"What the?” Loden gasped in amazement.
"Believe me, stranger things have happened,” Bourg grunted, stroking his beard.
Loden gave Bourg a puzzled look, but Bourg was deplete of explanation as he continued to stare down the dark well shaft.
Unseen below, Brindle clung frantically to the swing seat ropes. Her hands burned as she struggled to pull herself back onto the seat. "Blass!" she yelped, clinching the emergency rope between her teeth. She had tried to reach down too far and had slipped off the seat. Now all she could do was hang on.
She was strong enough to pull herself back up onto the seat, but the seat was resting just at the curvature of her lower back. When she attempted to pull herself up, the roundness of her firm buttocks caused the seat to rise with her. She tried pulling herself up and wiggle past it, but, after several muscle wrenching attempts, the strength in her arms had given out until she could only dangle there like an unharvested veget puff moments before it’s fall from life to death.
The ache in Brindle’s arms was beyond pain. Her only hope would be if the wellkeepers realized she was in trouble and quickly pulled her out the well. She tried to tug the emergency rope still clenched between her teeth by jerking her head from side to side. At the top of the well, however, this only translated into minute meaningless quivers.
Several times she kicked out her feet in an attempt to get traction, but the well walls were slick, allowing her sandaled feet to uselessly slip away. Still, she tried, again and again. Eventually, her efforts caused her to go into a gentle swinging motion.
"Veget! If only I could get my toes in the crevices between the layers of stone. If only I had entered the well barefoot,” she cursed. "Tyter always removed his sandals just before he entered the well,” she remembered. "Oh, why didn’t I remember sooner?”
Her hands slipped on the swing ropes, burning them all the more. The swing seat now struck her at mid-back. She felt angry with herself, for all she had accomplished was to make matters worse. Her heart sank within her breast, but she wasn’t one to give up so easily. Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she tried to scream, but the emergency rope in her mouth muffled her voice. She was about to spit the rope out of her mouth when she was suddenly engulfed in a bath of dry, warm air.
"Sin-epah!"
"Wheh?” Brindle asked in surprise as her eyes searched the darkness.
"Swin-peh back-eh! Swing-ga ba-ak!" a hushed voice tickled her ears. She could feel the puffs of warm air on the back of her neck with each word. Twisting her head around, she tried to face her strange companion.
"Ooh deh? Ooh seh da?” Brindle fearfully panted with the emergency rope still clutched between her teeth. Her eyes as wide as saucers.
Moments before, Keyshi had drifted over the nearest foothills just in time to see a small human being lowered into Underearth, while two male humans remained on Upperearth. One was massive in form. “It’s the big male human I saw in the dwelling with that poor small one. That must have been him being lowered in that hole. He didn't die!” Keyshi shouted with joy as it swirled sand
twenty feet into the air in celebration. For hours the little breeze had envisioned the death of the small human male. Now, it yearned to see him alive.
In complete contrast to the hours spent wandering aimlessly over the rolling hills, Keyshi pulled itself together in a surge of energy and raced to the well. Without slowing, it overtook the two males. Blasting over, through, and around them, it darted straight down the hollow shaft.
As soon as Keyshi was inside the well, it felt the cool air mingling with its own warm essence, but it didn’t halt its rapid descent. It just had to see the young male human alive - and well. On the other hand, Keyshi was not a total fool. It feared its own demise as much as any other sentient being. As soon as it sensed it was approaching the human, it gradually slowed its descent.
Using less energy now, it could feel its exterior temperature begin to rapidly decrease. Every instinct told it to get out of that death chamber, but Keyshi was determined to at least see the youth’s face. Slowing to a snail's pace, it approached the dangling, human figure and surrounded it.
"What's this?” Keyshi gushed. "This isn’t the small male human. It's that young female I caressed to a restful sleep just last night.” Keyshi was confused. His newly found heart was full of mixed emotions. Part of it was sorely disappointed it was not the human male he desired so much to see alive. Yet another part of it was overjoyed at seeing the young female again.
Its newly found joy was soon cut short by the sudden realization the young female human had obviously slipped from the plank she’d been sitting on and was kicking and thrashing about, trying to get back upon it. However, like itself, her strength was rapidly depleting.
"I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything!” Keyshi protested, sure it would be accused of performing some malicious prank, causing the young female to be in her dire situation. "Oh," it moaned, “how is it I’ve come into this dark, cold hole seeking to rejoice in the life of one human only to be a helpless witness to the death of another?”
Panicking, Keyshi raced upward. Halfway to the well entrance it slowed to nearly a stop. It looked at the morning sky which would soon be filled with the radiant warmth of the sun. Then it looked below at the cold damp pit which promised only doom for itself and the small, frail human clinging by a cord to life. Already its own temperature had dropped dangerously low. Again, it had a decision to make: should it involve itself in the affairs of humans, or escape to freedom and the life of playing pranks with fool-hardy frivolity?
“A summer breeze was born to live a short and frivolous life,” it had been reminded so often during its training. But that was before it discovered it had a heart. And having a heart, Keyshi realized, changes everything.
The pragmatic answer was, of course, to fulfill it’s own destiny. Why then did Keyshi find itself dashing back down the well? What could it possibly do to help her, anyway?
Keyshi heard her painful groans as her hands slipped further down the well seat ropes. It tried to get below her and lift her up, but it didn't have the strength. It felt cold and sluggish. Taking a moment, it watched her kick toward the well wall. Then it understood what she was trying to do. She was trying to get a footing on the wall to push herself upward and back onto the seat.
"But why doesn't she just turn around and step on that ledge right there behind her?” Keyshi wondered, as it studied the ledge which was actually a stone protrusion - a very unusual stone protrusion. For this one appeared to be a carved, contorted caricature of some grotesque bio-creature with the snout of a hippopotamus, eyes of a snake, and the toothy snarl of a full-maned lion. Why such a sculpture should be hidden so deeply within this hole in the earth was a mystery to Keyshi. One which its curiosity begged to investigate, if it weren’t for the cold stealing its warmth and the dire predicament of this struggling human. “Maybe she doesn’t even know it’s there. Oh, if only I could tell her.” But then, it thought, maybe it could.
So often, while traveling on long boring treks across barren wastelands, Keyshi would amuse itself by contorting part of its essence into air patterns which created sounds mimicking the vocalizations of various creatures it had encountered on its more rewarding adventures. One of its favorite imitations was that of a coyote. Of all the creatures Keyshi had encountered, this carnivorous creature had the greatest variety of intonations.
Some coyote tones were high. Some were low. Some went up and down. Some were short syncopations. Others were sustained to the point that the listener felt obligated to take a breath for the poor animal. Some voices thundered, while others whispered like a leaf in the wind. Even though coyotes from different regions had the strange habit of using different sounds to mean the same thing, Keyshi had a peculiar knack for instinctively comprehending and mimicking the various dialects.
While in training, where tales of humans abounded, many were said to be told in an actual human dialect called Anglica. Since there were many tales, Keyshi had been exposed to quite a broad vocabulary. However, since humans were supposed to only be myth, it had never attempted to mimic the sounds of human communication, but how much more difficult than a coyote’s could it be? Its mind made up, Keyshi shot out a jet of air and twisted it in a variety of thin segments which it twirled and popped just inside the young female's ear.
"Swin-epah!" Keyshi whispered in its best imitation.
"Wheh?” Brindle responded.
Keyshi shivered with excitement. "She heard me! She heard me!” Again the little summer breeze twisted out a delicate stream of itself and tickled Brindle's ear. "Swing-peh back-eh!” Keyshi attempted to refine its speech pattern. “Swing-ga ba-ak!" the hushed voice repeated excitedly.
"Ooh deh? Ooh seh da?” Brindle fearfully panted.
"By the big blower, she understood me. The human understood me." Keyshi gyrated with excitement. "Iks me!” No, that’s not right! “It's - me!” Keyshi exclaimed with controlled glee. “Swing Back!”
Brindle could feel the syncopated puffs of warm air gently tickle her inner ear causing her to shudder all over. She didn't know what was happening to her. She felt like she was dancing on the thin thread of life which barely separates dreams from death. Why else would she be conversing with someone who couldn’t possibly exist?
Still, she had to try something, so slowly, painfully, she began to swing back and forth with every ounce of strength. Eventually, she managed to work herself into a steady gradual swinging motion. This increase in expended energy made holding onto the ropes all the more difficult.
"What am I doing?” she screamed.
"You’re doing just fine. Just a little more. Swing, human, swing!” Keyshi urged.
"Just a little more is all I can do! I can’t hold on any longer. If I must die here and now, then let it be so!” Her exhaustion had taken her beyond fear of death. Death, in fact, was beginning to seem like a pleasant alternative to the pain she was currently experiencing.
"Oh, no you won't!” Keyshi roared, then mustered all the strength it still retained, and began to flow in a wave-like current, in sync with Brindle’s swinging motion. Pressing first on her chest, then on her back, Keyshi was able to increase, to a measure, the arch of the swing. To Brindle it felt as if someone were alternately nudging her front and back with a soft puff-filled pillow. She groaned and cursed as her body began to gently sway back and forth. Her arms ached. Her hands stung. Then her body jolted as the back of her lower calves struck something cold and hard.
"Oomph!” she grunted.
"Swing! Swing!” the mysterious voice demanded.
Brindle arched her back and began to swing forward as best she could. Completing the forward swinging motion, she began another back swing. Again her legs jolted against something cold and damp. Then, again, gravity pulled her forward. Keyshi went into a swirl of frustration, engulfing her shivering body in a bath of tepid air.
"Lift your legs! Lift - your - legs!” Keyshi puffed as Brindle reached the forward end of the pendulum swing and was about to begin the return trip toward the gr
otesque face, jutting from the wall behind her.
Brindle had no strength left, but somehow managed to raise her feet. Instead of striking the cold, hard object, her sandaled feet glided along an unexpected slick, smooth, horizontal surface. This so surprised her, she instinctively jerked her feet even higher and her momentum carried her forward again.
"Well, blow me away!” Keyshi cursed.
This time when Brindle swung back, she was mentally determined to plant her feet firmly on the cold, damp, slimy stone protrusion beneath them. However her sandals provided no traction on the slick, smooth surface, and, again, her momentum swung her forward. Keyshi spun about the tunnel walls in a frenzy of frustration. It realized if the female human were ever to be saved, it would have to physically help in some way - but how?
This time Brindle managed to kick off her sandals at the far end of the forward pendulum swing. If she heard them splash the water, she wasn’t conscious of it. Painfully, she drew her knees as high as she could. Then, estimating the amount of her swing, she suddenly lowered her feet just in time to begin dragging them backwards at the edge of the ledge. She desperately tried to grip the smooth surface with her splayed, bare toes.
It worked! She slowed to a complete halt as the pendulum swing paused momentarily. However, to halt her backward swing, she had forced herself to lean far forward. This kept her off balance and gravity pulled her forward once again for a return trip across the well.
Brindle was afraid to let go of the ropes in her burning hands, or the saliva soaked cord in her teeth. How would she be able to return to the surface? How would she be able to signal? She barely had time to think these thoughts when she could feel her feet begin to slide over the smooth surface as the forward momentum of the pendulum journey pulled her toward the edge of the protrusion once again.
Pieces: Book One, The Rending Page 20