The Wellspring

by M. Frances Smith

  But his voice only confused her further. Wasn’t this one of the Archetypum? It wasn’t as if she could mistake this bronze Hercules for anyone other than an Archetypum. Then why was he speaking with Marc’s voice? She reached for her head, feeling dizzy.

  “I was—in a cave. . . .I think?”

  “The Tahain Grotto kidnapped you right out of the wind,” he explained. “That took power we didn’t realize any of them had.”

  “Prosser was there and they wanted me to—to. . . .” Her mind was foggy on a large portion of what they wanted because all she could recall was waves of lust—and she blushed furiously, hoping this stranger couldn’t see her thoughts.

  “They took you for the Ritual, we know,” he spoke soothingly.

  “I tried to tell them I’m not the Wellspring, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” he asked with Marc’s voice.

  “No, they were just—strange.” Then she realized she’d thrown away her shirt and was standing before this beautiful man in only her bra! She quickly folded her arms across her chest.

  “I’m so sorry, here.” A saffron pareo appeared in his left hand and he held it out to her.

  “Thank you,” she accepted the fabric, wrapping it around her upper body like a bath towel since she didn’t know how to tie the knot the women of Shangrilonn used.

  “I’m so grateful you weren’t hurt. If you like, I can create a sentinel imp for you. If they did this once they’ll probably try again.”

  “I think I should turn the matter over to the Court. I know Magus Teomond and Sheirienu are high-ranking spell casters, but even they can’t get away with kidnapping,” she declared.

  “I’m afraid they’ve probably gotten away with much worse,” he remarked.

  “They need to accept I’m not their Wellspring and just get on with their lives,” she commented. She was startled when he gently cupped her cheek in one large hand.

  “You must take all of this more seriously, Yule. They will hunt you until they are convinced you are not the Wellspring, and there is only one way to truly convince them.”

  “I—I’m sorry, do I know you?” she stammered, wondering if this was one of the Archetypum she’d met.

  “Yule, it’s me—Marc,” he told her.

  “What?” She stepped back from him, confused.

  “You don’t recognize me?”

  “But you’re—you’re one of them, the Archetypum!”

  His eyes widened. “You see me?”

  “Of course I see you. You’re standing right in front of me.”

  “I mean, you can see me as I am? The way I really look?” he questioned and Yule felt suddenly unnerved. “Yule, how do I look to you?”

  “Like they all look. . . .I don’t really like being made fun of so I’ll just say thanks for saving me and go home. Hermes is probably—” She was interrupted when he caught her upper arms in his large hands, preventing her from leaving.

  “You see through the glamour! That’s never happened before! You’ve never done it before!”

  “I don’t know who you are, but you need to let go of me right now.”

  He smiled widely and Yule’s breath caught. “Yule, it’s me, it’s Marc Woodmont, I swear it is.” And she knew he was telling the truth, because she knew that smile. “I have to wear a glamour disguise to prevent the Atlanteans from recognizing me, but you can see through it!”

  “You’re one of them?” she accused him. “You’ve been an Archetypum all this time and pretended to be—” She broke off and shrugged out of his grasp.

  “How has this happened?” he wondered aloud, looking her over like the answer might magically appear.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care!” she cried. “I’ve never really known who you are! I’ve never had—” She stopped herself before she blurted out that she never had a chance in hell at dating him and wouldn’t have wasted time daydreaming about the possibility if she’d known what he was and how he looked. “Just—stay away from me!”

  “I don’t understand,” he replied, clearly confused by her attitude. “Now that you know I can tell you how I feel about you! We don’t have to have any secrets between us.”

  “How you feel about me?” she echoed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You can see through my glamour, but my love is still hidden from you?” he teased genially.

  Cold rage washed through her and she stepped forward without thinking, delivering a hard slap to the handsome face it would have occurred to her to dare to caress. She found the surprise on his sculpted visage satisfying.

  “Whoever you are, whatever you are, stay away from me,” she ordered with quiet fury. Then she turned on one heel and stalked away from him, going to the rooftop door.

  “Yule, you can’t mean that!” he called after her. “I love—” the thick, heavy door snapped shut on his declaration and Yule burst into tears, hurrying down the seemingly interminable stairwell to her door—and into Hermes’ waiting arms.

  Chapter Eight

  The days passed more and more rapidly after that. Yule focused on forgetting Marc and finding a job. Hermes initially remained doggedly at her side, but he soon realized there were guardian imps protecting her and slowly resumed his usual routine.

  The only things from which Hermes and the imps could not protect her were the nightmares that dogged her sleep.

  She stood in Shangrilonn once more. Night blanketed the surrounding jungle and only the occasional cries of some night hunting predator echoed up to where she stood at the feet of the black Goddess.

  “Faithless.”

  It was like a whisper, but it roared across the jungle, silencing the animals and even the wind itself. Yule spun around and looked up, a shard of terror lancing through her body as she realized two baleful green eyes were open and looking down at her.

  The Goddess was angry.

  “You denied me,” the Goddess accused.

  “No! Not you!” Yule denied shrilly. “It was a mistake, that’s all! They thought I was something I'm not!”

  “Your lack of faith has capped the well.”

  Yule shook her head violently. “No! That isn’t how it works!”

  “You presume to know the way of magic when you lock it out of your soul?” There was a long, low rumbling within the mountain and several rocks pelted down the steep slope, past Yule’s bare feet.

  “I didn’t! I just wasn’t born with any!” Yule tried to explain, backing away from the trembling stone.

  “The faithless will perish,” intoned the Goddess. And now the rumble became a grinding, ripping sound as the statue shrugged one shoulder and pulled free of the mountain.

  Yule gasped, her foot catching on one of the fallen stones, tripping her so that she fell back upon the grass, staring up in wide-eyed horror as the black stone behemoth dragged itself free of the mountain in which it had been enfolded for uncounted centuries. The Goddess looked around the jungle for a moment then slowly turned her baleful gaze upon Yule. Yule screamed and got to her feet, fleeing blindly through the jungle, hands outstretched before her as she pushed through hanging vines and drooping branched.

  The ground shook under her feet, accompanied by a thunderous boom and Yule knew the Goddess walked upon the earth! Each booming footstep behind her was accompanied by the crash and snap of tree trunks being demolished under massive stone feet and Yule couldn’t help uttering a shrill scream of anticipation at being crushed beneath a foot at the next boom.

  She suddenly broke through the heavy curtain of jungle into a small clearing and staggered, throwing herself on the ground to keep from running headlong off a high cliff into the foaming sea far below! Yule jumped to her feet and cast about wildly in search of some other route of escape, but there was only the cliff, the sea and—she looked up and screamed. The Goddess loomed over the treetops, bending towards her, a blacker outline against the star-speckled sky, eyes glowing like green fire.

  �
��Die, unbeliever!” intoned the Goddess, reaching toward her.

  Yule screamed, stepping back, and found herself in Prosser Teomond’s arms! He wasn’t looking at her, he was glaring at the Goddess.

  “No! I won’t allow this to happen!” he shouted, raising a hand and firing a magical blast of power at the Goddess.

  The gargantuan statue roared in pain and rage, the jungle shattering and the night sky peeling away like melting wallpaper in a fire. Yule screamed too and woke, but not to her bedroom. She woke to the jungle, and the cliff, and Prosser’s arms! This wasn’t Shangrilonn, the stars were wrong for that. Instinctively she knew this was Atlantis, but how had she gotten there?

  “You take the side of the faithless?” the cold, enraged voice drew her eyes back to the jungle and Yule drew in a sharp breath of fear when she saw Sheirienu, robed in darkness, standing there.

  “She isn’t faithless, Sheiri, she’s just a girl. You have to let her live her life in peace now,” Prosser tried to reason with the First Witch of the Tahain Grotto.

  “She denied her heritage, her destiny, and the Goddess!” Sheiri shouted.

  “We were wrong, that’s all!” he contradicted her, guiding Yule to stand behind him. Yule looked over her shoulder and saw the sea lashing itself into white foam against jagged rocks. She wrapped her arms around Prosser’s waist and closed her eyes, pressing her face against his back.

  “And now you’ll let her destroy you? When the Council calls her to swear you kidnapped her, what will happen to your career?” Sheiri demanded.

  “It was a mad impulse,” he told her. “The thought of all of that power—was too much for me to resist. I suppose that means I wasn’t meant to have it.”

  “You’ll lose the Throne!”

  “Then I’ll lose it,” he said simply.

  “And what about my position?”

  “Sheiri, we made a mistake, we should be willing to pay the price for it,” he said reasonably.

  Yule heard the woman scream something unintelligible and wondered if it was a word, a simple outcry of rage, or an incantation, but she braced for impact because it sounded like something physical would come on the heels of all three.

  Crimson light burst all around them and Yule gasped at the force of the killing spell just unleashed at them as well as the power it took to shield them from it. She felt Prosser’s muscles bunch under her arms as he strained both physically and magically then he relaxed, the crimson faded, and he tensed again as he retaliated with a spell.

  “Sheiri, please stop this!” he pleaded.

  “Not until she’s dead,” the sayer vowed, and Yule thought her voice sounded like ice being chipped from a larger block.

  “All of the power in the world isn’t worth that,” he extolled.

  “Do you have any idea what I’ve done to bring the two of you together?” Sheiri snarled and Yule felt the ground beneath their feet tremble as power slammed against the cliff wall. “I ensnared her mind and made her hide in the back of your car—or did you think that was just some amazing coincidence of fate?”

  “Sheiri did that?” Yule whispered.

  “You were the one who did that?” Prosser echoed Yule’s thought. “Why?”

  “I hoped the two of you would find each other interesting enough for at least one round of hot, sweaty sex, especially after I primed her with a couple of erotic dreams, but neither of you would make a move.” She sighed heavily. “Just as well, since she’s not the Wellspring. Too bad for her parents, though.” The cliff shuddered again and Yule looked out from behind Prosser.

  “My parents?”

  “If I’d known you weren’t the Wellspring I wouldn’t have ripped away the wind when they were leaving the Shelf,” Sheiri said casually and Yule felt her blood run cold.

  “You killed them?” Yule asked with a voice suddenly hoarse.

  “Just like I’m killing you,” the sayer replied. She raised a hand and another blast smashed into the cliff, the edge finally crumbling from the assault and pitching Yule and Prosser toward the sea.

  Yule felt no fear as they fell. She distantly heard Prosser shout a spell to call the wind, heard Sheiri laughing and shouting that a dampening field ensnared them which Yule knew meant no magic could work—but it all seemed to be happening very far away. All she could think was that the woman who’d killed her parents was laughing, and that had to stop.

  The wind was suddenly around them, truly around them, rushing and roaring, holding them aloft even as the cliff continued to crumble toward Sheiri. Yule clung to Prosser and watched as the cliff fell away to the sea and Sheiri, ensnared by her own dampening field, fell helplessly with it, screaming, to the jagged rocks and crushing waves.

  This scene faded and was replaced by Yule’s living room. She was still clutching him tightly and slowly released her grip, stepping back from him.

  “I don’t know what happened,” his voice was low and shaken. “We were in a snare, I felt it. My power was gone, but somehow—”

  “You saved both of us, Magus Teomond. It was—awful, but she would have killed us.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “I’ll have to notify the Council—explain what happened.”

  “I’ll tell them as well,” she supported him. He nodded at this and looked surprised when she hugged him. “Fair winds, Magus,” she bade him good fortune—and goodbye.

  Chapter Nine

  Yule was closing the lid on her picnic basket when Hermes entered the kitchen with his Viking (whose name she’d eventually learned was Haraldr), laughing at something they’d been discussing in the next room.

  “A picnic basket, Dorothy?” Hermes teased.

  “I’m having lunch in the Grove,” she told him. “I’m showing a house in the area so I thought I’d visit.”

  “You’re still guarding it?” asked Harry. “But I thought it was safe now?”

  “It is,” Yule assured him. “The planned community is including it in the courtyard design, they’re even adding a fountain. I just like to spend time there.”

  “So you’ll be gone all day?” Hermes asked with a familiar twinkle in his dark eyes, throwing Haraldr a wink.

  “Yes, the two of you may move as much furniture as you like.” Yule smiled and shook her head. “You know, I was thinking that I might like to take one of the new condos by the Grove—once they’re built,” she told Hermes.

  “Leave the nest?” Hermes exclaimed.

  “The nest is getting crowded,” she genially observed. “I think I need to find another branch.”

  “Sweetheart, you don’t feel like we’re crowding you out?” Hermes was concerned and she hugged him.

  “No, it’s just getting to be that time, you know? I need to be on my own, maybe move some of my own furniture.” She winked at Haraldr and he grinned.

  “Has Marc started calling again?” Hermes asked.

  Yule picked up her basket. “No, and I don’t expect he will anymore.”

  “Good, he was always calling at the wrong time,” Haraldr complained. “Maybe if you’d taken his calls you could have set a schedule.”

  “I didn’t want to encourage him,” she said, walking to the front door. “He was only interested because he thought I might be—someone I’m not,” she finished, she and Hermes having agreed not to mention what they now called “the Wellspring business” to any of their friends.

  “Too bad, but that happens more often than you might think,” Harry consoled. “You will find someone else to help with your furniture.”

  “Thanks, Harry. See the two of you tonight.” She gave them a wave as she left the condo.

  Hours later she made her way along the path leading into the now deserted Grove, spreading her picnic out on the stone altar. “I sold the house,” she announced to the Grove. “And I told Hermes I wanted to move out. I think it’s the right choice, he and Harry need the privacy. I really think they’re going to last.”

  “It sounds like you’re doing well,” the quiet voice startl
ed Yule and she turned toward the stone arch of the ancient doorway, losing her balance and tumbling from the altar with a small, surprised cry. “Are you all right?” Yule blinked and looked up into the rich emerald depths of Marc Woodmont’s eyes as he bent anxiously over her, his long black hair falling forward.

  “I’m fine,” she told him, getting to her feet, ignoring the hand he held out to offer assistance. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m visiting all of the Groves formerly part of the Reclamation Project,” he told her. “It’s part of the follow-up plan, to observe changes whether positive or negative.” He offered his patented smile that she recognized even on this exquisite face. “It all seems pretty positive around here.”

  “It is,” she agreed, nodding. “It has been—ever since I left the Project.” Which she actually meant since leaving him, or at least thoughts of him behind, since they were never together.

  “I’m glad,” he said approvingly though Yule imagined she saw a trace of hurt in his expression, as if he understood the meaning of her words. “You deserve to be happy, Yule.”

  “I am,” she assured him. “How about the others; Brenna and Jory, are they still with the Project?”

  “Jory decided to stay out on the Shelf with the Falmont source mining camp and I understand he’s having the time of his life. Brenna,” he related with clear amusement. “Married a Magus and is living in Bahatego Bay.”

  Yule couldn’t help laughing lightly. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “It’s good to hear you laugh again,” he remarked and she saw how closely he studied her.

  “It took a while before I felt like it,” she admitted.

  He nodded. “I followed the proceedings against Prosser Teomond, I think the decision to rescind his title was just. Imprisonment wouldn’t have changed anything that happened.”

  “Sheirienu’s death was a tremendous blow to him,” Yule commented sadly, recalling Prosser’s haggard features the last time she saw him, when the Council passed their decision.

  “The Tahain Grotto was summarily disbanded by the Council as well,” he told her. “The members were each put on probation for being party to your kidnapping.”