Well of the Damned

by K. C. May

  “What was that you just did?” Celónd asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “The accent with which you’d been speaking just vanished. How do you explain that?”

  Cirang’s mouth dropped open. It hadn’t occurred to her she’d been using Tyr’s accent and speech habits when answering questions from his perspective, and Cirang’s when answering from hers. She supposed it would be wiser to speak like a swordswoman of Thendylath rather than a carver from Nilmaria. “I’ve been trying to sound more highbrow like your daughter, Daia— oh, sorry. Dashielle, is it?” In the Nilmarion accent, she added, “Am I not doing it properly?”

  His face turned redder than his hair. “You’re a contemptible, common-born wench with no understanding of noble society. Keep to what you know.”

  “The king’s a commoner,” Cirang said. “Maybe he’d understand me better. Because I’m his prisoner, shouldn’t I be answering his questions and not yours?”

  “The king has better things to do than to listen to you prattle. Mind your tongue, or I’ll conclude this hearing now and recommend you be kept in gaol indefinitely. Let’s talk about the kidnappings. You brought Liera Kinshield and her three sons as well as Feanna Kinshield and her three daughters, and two Viragon Sisters against their will to...” He referred back to the paper on his desk. “...be fed to a demon. How do you justify that?”

  Cirang was, indeed, guilty of those kidnappings, and all of them would speak against her if she denied it. Well, all but the two Sisters who were slain by Ravenkind’s henchman and fed to the demon. “Brodas Ravenkind had given magical necklaces to the Viragon Sisters under his control. They compelled us to obey him. To remove them was to commit suicide. If he commanded me to do something, I was powerless against him.”

  “I understand King Gavin severed the magical tie that held your will captive, yet you still followed Ravenkind. Why?”

  Cirang knew she was on unsteady ground here, but when she’d first awoken in this body, she was wearing the necklace that had bound her to him. “I don’t understand it, but I believed the tie to my necklace was somehow still intact. All I can tell you is the compulsion to obey Ravenkind was too strong to resist. Every day, I tried to sever my ties with him and get away.” While that wasn’t true for Cirang, it was true for Tyr. During the years Ravenkind had kept Tyr’s soulcele token, the porcelain cat figurine housing his soul, Tyr had worked tirelessly as the wizard’s indentured servant, trying to earn his freedom back through thefts, murders, kidnappings, and anything else Ravenkind asked of him. If his soul hadn’t already been irreparably fouled by the first murder he’d committed at Ravenkind’s behest, the one that rewarded him with the cure for his son’s illness, it surely would have been by all the other crimes.

  Celónd looked past her at the shadow reader. His face reddened again, and his eyes narrowed. “How did Ravenkind die?” He went around to the front of his desk, leaned against it with his backside and crossed his arms.

  She had to draw upon Cirang’s memories of the day, as Tyr had none. “I knew he had a secret and a plan, but I didn’t know what it was until that day. Ravenkind used some kind of rune to summon a demon. When the demon killed Red, it became clear he didn’t have it under control as he pretended to. He yelled at it, tried to command it, but it turned on him. I tried to escape, but it caught me...” Her throat swelled with the memory of Cirang’s horrible death, choking off her words. The muscles in her back cramped in response, and the pain in her hip and shoulder flared. She coughed. “I must have got knocked out. The next thing I knew, King Gavin was squatting beside me, healing my injuries.”

  What she didn’t mention was the smashed soulcele token on the floor, the only explanation for why Sithral Tyr’s spirit now occupied Cirang Deathsblade’s body.

  Celónd looked back at the shadow reader. Every muscle in his face and neck tensed. “How in the hell can you not know if she’s lying?” he hollered. “What kind of worthless mage are you, anyway?”

  Unable to resist, Cirang turned to look at the little man. On his face was an apologetic wariness. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. Her shadow is... different from any other I’ve seen. I cannot read it for good or bad. It’s just dark. I’m sorry.”

  Cirang smirked. How interesting. All this time, she could have said anything, and he wouldn’t have been able to discern a lie. If only the lordover had tipped his hand earlier.

  “You,” Celónd said, pointing to the shadow reader. “Out.”

  “My fee—”

  “You’ll receive no payment for no work. Out.” Celónd returned to his desk chair, picked up a quill and opened a jar of ink.

  “What about my complaint?” Cirang asked. “You have to ask him about the warden attacking me.”

  “I don’t take orders from prisoners,” Celónd spat. He made a brushing-off gesture in Cirang’s direction. “Get her out of here. Take her back to the cell.”

  “Let me go before the king now,” she said. “I have the right to face my accuser.”

  The warden latched his iron grip onto her upper arm and started to pull her towards the door.

  Celónd didn’t even look up from his writing. “I have every confidence he’ll impose a fair sentence based on my findings. I’ll communicate it to you after he makes a decision.”

  She started to argue and struggle, to stay and convince him to set her free, but the guard held fast. “Wait,” she cried at the door. It swung shut, and the only sounds remaining were her boots dragging across the polished floor as the guard hauled her back outside. Back to the wet, lonely cell and those terrible nightmares of claws and pain.

  Chapter 7

  Mornings, before the doors were opened, were Gavin’s favorite part of the day. The room was quiet enough he could hear himself think, and the clouds that darkened the morning sky left the room too bright to use lamps but dim enough to ease his tired eyes.

  Above him, the sculpted ceiling had escaped virtually unscathed from the two hundred years the Chatworyth Palace had been Ritol’s prison. The beyonder Ritol — what many called a demon — had smashed every piece of glass and furniture, ripped long furrows into valuable paintings, torn doors from hinges, and broken them into splinters. Though there were still some deep scratches and gouges in the once-beautiful marble floors beneath Gavin’s stiff, new boots, they bothered him less than the starkness of the room. Without rugs or furniture, every footstep, voice, and rustle of clothing echoed.

  Once the room filled with people, the constant noise would wear on him, making every problem the people brought before him that much heavier upon his shoulders. He knew he couldn’t fix everyone’s problems, but his goal was to make life a little easier for the ones suffering the most. Some came not to ask for aid, but to hear the hope in his voice as he took his first unsteady steps towards rebuilding his kingdom.

  His personal attendant brought a cup of the hot, brown drink his wife had introduced him to and set it on the heavy writing table before him. Its aroma tickled his brain and beckoned his tongue. The chair creaked under his weight, unusually loud in the large, empty room, as he leaned forward to bring the steaming cup to his lips.

  “May I bring you a fruit pastry, my liege? Perhaps a bit of duck or pork?”

  “No, thanks, Quint. Just the coffee is fine for now.” His kitchen servants were going to make him plump with all the food they cooked for him, and he hadn’t had a real battle since he fought the last beyonder almost three months earlier. Without the daily travel, fighting or labor he was used to, he would grow weak and soft at twenty-six years old, a notion that saddened him. Though he felt good from yesterday’s work along the riverbank, he needed more to keep his body firm and his reactions sharp. Maybe he’d start doing drills with the guards at dawn.

  He sipped his coffee and leaned back to let his mind drift back to the things that needed doing.

  The door in the back of the room creaked open. Edan came in and sat down, setting his writing supplies on the table before him. His blond hair
was combed, his face freshly shaven but for the mustache that framed his ever-smiling mouth. “Good morning, Gav. I hope you don’t catch your death from working in the rain yesterday. How did you sleep last night?”

  The relentless rain had turned the city into a dreary, muddy mess, and its constant patter on the roof and against the newly glazed windows reminded him of the destruction it brought, the lives that were lost, and his inability to do a damned thing about it. The work building up the riverbank had brought sleep more quickly than usual. “Well,” he said. “You?”

  “Not badly.” Edan nodded to Daia Saberheart as she strode in and took her seat to Gavin’s left. “Though I stayed up too late reading.”

  “Again,” Daia added with a grin. Her hair, tied in a long braid that perpetually trailed down her back, was still damp from her morning practice in the training yard. She wore the loose-fitting trousers and half-sleeved tunic that had become the customary uniform of his guards since he’d adopted blue and gold as the royal colors. They hid her bulging muscles well, though one could plainly see by the thickness of her neck and her corded forearms she was lean and strong, despite her natural beauty. She flashed her remarkably pale-blue eyes at Gavin. “Good morning, my king. Edan.”

  “And to you,” Edan said. “I’ve been making good progress getting through the pile of messages.” Starting almost the very day the palace was unlocked, messages had begun to pour in — requests for aid, congratulations from people he’d saved or helped over the years, offers from parents for infant daughters to wed any princes Gavin might soon father.

  At first, Edan had tried to read them all as they arrived, but the king’s demands on his time required him to hire an assistant, who’d separated the messages into two stacks, one marked urgent and the other trivial. Though the rate of their arrival had slowed somewhat, new messages arrived every day, along with invitations and gifts as gestures of goodwill from the leaders of foreign lands, some of which Gavin had never heard of. One day, he would need to begin inviting them to visit or accepting their invitations to travel, but he had many problems to solve and people to care for before he could entertain or enjoy a vacation. For now, all he could manage was a polite reply, penned with Edan’s help, of course.

  “Anything I should know about?” Gavin asked.

  “The Master Scholar from the Tern Institute of Science reports he has men who specialize in studying weather, and they’ve determined that the cloud patterns and continuous rain are unlikely to be naturally caused.”

  Gavin turned to him with a scowl. “Are you saying this rain is caused by magic?”

  “That’s what they’re suggesting. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Have you?”

  Gavin shook his head, troubled by the notion. If it were caused by someone, then whom? And why? Did Thendylath have a foreign enemy that planned an attack? Flooding rains would be one way to wear down its target. “We got to find out who’s doing it.”

  “Do you have ears in the city?” Daia asked.

  “What do you mean?” Gavin asked.

  “My father has people all over Thendylath — merchants, craftsmen, even whores — agents who report rumors they hear. He pays them depending on how valuable the information is.”

  “Might the Lordover Tern be willing to share his information?” Edan asked.

  Daia snorted. “That depends on what he can get in return, aside from the king’s goodwill.”

  “Let’s send a message,” Gavin said. “Ask him.”

  Edan pulled out a clean sheet of paper from his stack. “Consider it done.”

  In the distance, the bell in the temple tower clanged nine times, marking the beginning of another long day. Two guards, women who had trained and served in the now-disbanded Viragon Sisterhood, went to the double doors and waited for Gavin’s nod. The metal locks clanged, the bars were lifted, and the doors scraped open on squeaky hinges. A sense of dread settled on his already weary shoulders.

  People who had been waiting in the rain for hours, perhaps overnight, bustled into the room, eager for a chance to plead their need to the king. Most were poor, judging from their lack of a rain cloak and the stained and threadbare clothing that clung wetly to their thin frames.

  The wealthy tended to send a message asking for a private appointment, as if they were above standing in line with the common people. They failed to remember the king was himself common born and had no tolerance for the haughty attitudes of the wealthy. Although Edan or his assistant brought him these messages, they went mostly ignored, though from time to time when Gavin was in a foul mood, he sent back a reply stating simply, “The king receives petitioners every morning between nine o’clock and noon.”

  The first petitioner of the day was a frail boy no older than ten. He shuffled forward, leaving a wet trail on the floor behind him. Water dripped from his dark hair onto his already soaked clothes. Without sufficient flesh on his frame, he shivered uncontrollably and clutched his arms to himself. He wore a shirt meant for a smaller child, and his mismatched shoes were not only different colors but different sizes as well. A rope around his waist held up his sagging trousers.

  He bowed to the king and smiled. Already three of his teeth had rotted out, and the black spots visible on the remaining front teeth indicated they would be next. What got Gavin’s attention most of all was the indentation on the side of the boy’s skull. It looked like he’d been hit in the head with something very heavy, or maybe kicked by a horse or ox. That might explain why his right eye was turned so far to the right, only a portion of his iris showed.

  Inwardly, Gavin cringed and wondered if his magic could fix this old injury. He suspected not. All the healing had already taken place. “How can I help you, young man?”

  The boy’s teeth chattered as he said, “Me an’ my brother… I was wonderin’ if mayhap… M’Lord King, some chil’ren on the street says our Lady Queen oft helps us who ha’n’t any parents.”

  Feanna had always had a special passion for helping orphaned children, as evidenced by her adoption of four of them before Gavin had met her. That passion had grown since she became queen. With the power and means to help orphaned children, she had a narrow focus every day that sometimes left her own adopted children wondering when they would see her. Every child deserved a loving home, enough food to eat, and clothes to wear.

  Gavin himself had been orphaned at the age of twelve, but he’d been lucky enough to have an older brother who was willing and able to take him in and feed him.

  For all the others, there was the orphanage, but rumor had it the children were barely better off there than they were living on the street. In some cases, they were worse off. Stories of abuse and neglect were too numerous to discount. In fact, she was visiting the orphanage in Tern this morning to see firsthand the conditions there.

  “I know it’s a kindness an’ I don’t ask fer my own sake,” the boy said. “I can take care o’myself, but my brother… He’s only five years old. Our papa died afore last harvest, an’ my brother wasn’t even old enough to lace his boots.” He hung his head and lowered his eyes. “I promised Papa I’d look after him, but I can’t get us enough to eat with just my sling. He ha’n’t grown any in the last year, an’ his belly hurts all the time. Papa always said stealin’ is wrong, but not many people throws out food.”

  Gavin cringed. This boy was hunting rats in the street for his food. “You’re right,” he said. “My wife has a passion for looking after children like you and your brother. She’s away this morning though, visiting the orphanage. Did you take your brother there?”

  “Yeh, m’lord— uh, Lord King, but they said they was full an’ couldn’t take nobody else.”

  What would a king do? he thought. A king would help his people, especially those who couldn’t help themselves. “Awright, listen. Go get your brother and bring him here. You can wait for the queen in the dining hall, and I’ll have my cook fix you a plate.” He beckoned one of the guards and instructed her to keep an eye out for th
is boy returning with another.

  The boy’s mouth dropped open in disbelief at first and then widened into a smile. He bowed deeply several times, thanking Gavin profusely as he did.

  “Off you go then.” Gavin smiled, wishing all the people were as easy to please and help.

  The morning brought one request for aid after another, most having to do with problems caused by the rain. Businesses were suffering, people weren’t getting enough to eat, cesspits were overflowing into the street, the river water was too dirty to drink, and there wasn’t enough dry wood to burn to boil water. Gavin asked himself, what would a king do? But he had no answers, only a question: why was this happening?

  A messenger, dressed in the Lordover Tern’s red and black livery, entered at the back of the hall. His face was familiar enough that the guards checked him quickly for weapons and let him through without an escort.

  “Good morning, my lord king,” he said, handing the message to Gavin.

  “Hail, Hanik. How’s the little one?” Gavin broke the seal and handed the folded note to Edan without looking at it.

  “Much better, sire, thank you. She can’t stop talking about how you healed her arm.”

  Gavin smiled. “Give your wife my best.”

  Hanik nodded with a crooked smile. “Thank you, sire. I will.”

  Edan, looking at the note, said, “The Lordover Tern writes he’s questioned Cirang Deathsblade extensively with the aid of a well-respected shadow reader. He concludes she is blameless for the crimes with which she is charged, and requests you hear her for yourself within a week’s time or he’ll exonerate her and set her free.” He tossed the message onto the table dismissively.

  “Can he do that?” Gavin asked.

  “According to current law, the limit on her time in gaol without a formal hearing is three months, and she’s been in gaol for nearly that,” Edan said. “You should question her yourself. Your magic will tell you if she’s lying.”