Well of the Damned

by K. C. May

  She uncorked the skin once again and held its open mouth under the trickle of water. Although it took a while, it eventually filled the skin. She lifted it to her lips for a drink.

  An uneasy feeling stopped her. If this water was from the wellspring, perhaps the safer play would be to test it on someone else before drinking it herself. She corked the skin tightly and tucked it into her knapsack. She wasn’t far from the Flint River. She would drink her fill then.

  Something dark near the dead horse caught her eye, and she made her way across the rocks towards it. She used her foot to push the rocks away. It was the second waterskin. The gods favored her indeed. Gingerly, she reached down and picked it up. It had been battered, but it still held a few drops. She drained what was left of it, and filled it from the trickle of water on the mountainside. Two skins of the magical water would surely weigh her down with coins and lift her up with admiration and praise from those who would drink it.

  Without wasting another moment, Cirang slung the strap of the pack over her shoulder and limped as quickly as she could to the south and west, towards Ambryce.

  Chapter 30

  They mounted up and followed the hoof prints left behind by Cirang, riding at as quick a pace as they dared, not wanting to overwork the horses without knowing what lay ahead. It took roughly two hours before they could make out a trail winding up the side of the mountain, and after another couple hours of uphill riding, they came to a fork in the trail.

  “Look at this,” Vandra said, pointing at the ground in front of her. “Her tracks go up and back down. Wonder how far up she went. This trail leads south to the Flint River. That one goes up.”

  Gavin looked up, desperately wanting to see for himself whether the wellspring was real, but his main concern was capturing Cirang. “Let’s keep going then. To the river.”

  They followed the trail as it sloped back downward, but not far beyond the fork, it ended abruptly. At the bottom of the slope lay a pile of rocks, uprooted trees and earth. Landslide. Gavin’s first thought was for Cirang’s health or, hopefully, the lack of it.

  “What about Cirang?” Daia asked. “Is she dead?”

  Gavin connected with Daia’s orange conduit and searched for Cirang in the forest to the south. He saw her making her way on foot down the river, pausing now and then for a moment, but he had to give her credit for perseverance. “She’s alive,” he said, releasing the magic. “Looks as if she might be injured. She’s walking down the river towards Ambryce.”

  “Walking?” Vandra asked with a scowl. “You mean on horseback.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I didn’t see a horse’s haze with her. I’m sorry.”

  Her expression was grim as she looked down at the rubble below. “Argo...” Water dripped down her face.

  “I’m sorry, Vandra,” Daia said. “He was a fine mount and a loyal friend.”

  “No. He could still be alive. King Gavin could heal him.”

  Gavin didn’t see a horse haze, however weak, in the rubble below. “Sorry, Vandra. Argo didn’t make it.” He reached forward to brush Golam’s gray mane and pat his neck. Had Cirang stolen Golam... No. He couldn’t bear to think of it.

  Calinor said, “We should be able to catch up to her afore she reaches Ambryce.”

  She had several hours’ lead on them, but that was before she’d lost her mount. “Maybe,” Gavin said. “I’m not worried. She’ll try to hide somewhere, or just get supplies and a horse and leave. Even in Ambryce, I can find her haze among all the citizens.” He looked back up the mountain, longing to see the wellspring. “Look through the rubble for anything she might’ve lost in the landslide. Hopefully the journal.”

  “You’re not going up there, are you?” Calinor asked.

  “I want to see what she found.”

  “We should leave it be,” Daia said quietly. “King Arek warned you to stay away for good reason.”

  Gavin knew she was just doing her job of guarding his life, but his mind was made up. “I’m going up.”

  “Maybe we should bring Vandra with us,” Daia suggested. “In case we have to fight... something.”

  Gavin gave her an impatient look. “Cirang dealt with whatever’s up there all by herself, and she only has a dagger. We’ll be fine.” In reality, he felt such a strong compulsion to see the wellspring, no argument would have swayed him from this journey. He recognized his own obstinance for what it was, but even that realization didn’t give him pause. He had to see it.

  They started ascending the mountain with Daia leading the way. She refused to let him go ahead, in case the trail wasn’t stable. He didn’t bother protesting. She was at least as stubborn as he was, and they’d spend valuable time arguing. The trail was fairly steep and more slippery than he hoped it’d be. When the horses kicked stones loose, Gavin grew more nervous. Two landslides on the same mountain in the same day weren’t beyond the realm of possibility. He noticed an eagle-shaped rock, perched high atop the mountain as though it were about to swoop down upon those who dared to approach its nest.

  As he rode, leaning forward over Golam’s thick neck, he wondered how the guardians would appear to them. Maybe the eagle rock above him would become a real raptor, twice the height of a man with talons that could crush his skull with hardly an effort.

  He shuddered and shook the thought away. Anxiety, slithering up his spine, warned him to turn back, but curiosity was the greater force within him.

  “Gavin,” Daia said, wariness in her voice, “the hairs on my neck bristle. Rethink your priorities here. Capturing Cirang is the more important goal.”

  Gavin felt the warning in the pit of his stomach too, but Aldras Gar was silent. If there was danger, it would tell him. “If you want to turn back,” he said, “you’re welcome to.” He knew she wouldn’t; she took her job as his protector seriously.

  “I won’t let you go without me,” she said. “I’m just suggesting you reconsider.”

  “Cirang didn’t turn back.”

  “Not before this point,” Daia said, “but she did turn back. We just don’t know why or when.”

  “Then let’s stop yammering and find out,” Gavin said.

  They reached the top without incident. “It’s not raining here,” Gavin said. He looked out at the sky over Thendylath, gray clouds as far as he could see. Here, the clouds broke up, and a clear sky graced lands to the east, towards the neighboring country of Osgan. The air was cool without being chilly, with a sweet lemony scent. The top of the mountain was flat and green with tall grass and immense, strong trees. Bees and other insects gorged themselves on the succulent nectar of the yellow daisy-like wildflowers that covered the ground ahead and to the left.

  To the right, a glassy pool of brilliant blue-green water glistened in the sunlight. He’d never seen water so beautiful nor so alluring. The rocks on the western edge formed a wall, keeping the wellspring water from spilling down the mountainside. The eagle rock stood majestically with its stony wings half open, leaning out over the valley below.

  “This is the wellspring?” Daia asked. “Hell’s bones! What happened to it?”

  Gavin dismounted and let go of the reins so Golam could graze on the grass while he approached the edge of the spring. “What do you mean? It’s magnificent.” He started towards the water’s edge.

  Her firm hand grasped his arm. “What are you doing? Don’t go near it.”

  “It’s awright,” he said, prying her fingers off. “It’s just water.”

  “Water?” she asked. “Are you mad? It’s a black, stinking mud pit. Some kind of magic must be luring you to it. Gavin, listen. It’s just a mud pit. Let’s go. There’s no wellspring here.”

  Rings formed in the center of the spring, widening outward, followed by bubbles.

  “Something’s happening,” Gavin said.

  A figure rose slowly from the water, spinning so fast he couldn’t make out whether it was even human.

  “Look out!” Daia ducked, covering her head with on
e hand and pulling her sword from its scabbard with the other. “Damn, I’ve never seen bats this big.”

  “Bats? What bats?”

  “By Yrys!” Daia shouted. She was crouched down, slicing with her sword at the air. “Let’s get out of here. Gavin, come on.”

  Gavin couldn’t move. He was mesmerized by the sight of the figure, clear like glass, rising up out of the water. It was spinning as it rose. When it broke the water, its spinning slowed. He saw not one face, but two. When it stopped, it separated into two distinct, ghostly Elyle.

  Like others of their kind, they had triangular ears high atop their heads and round eyes, and stood tall with long legs and arms, but these two had no fur. They looked to be made of water. He briefly wondered whether they would speak to him as the Elyle of the mid-realm had, in squeaks and whistles he heard as words in his mind. For a moment, though, they regarded him in silence.

  Behind him, he could hear Daia grunting with the effort of fighting off giant bats only she could see.

  “Wayfarer, you should not have brought a companion,” the two beings said simultaneously. In his mind, he heard both a female voice and male, their pitches harmonized, though his ears heard nothing at all. “She is not permitted here.”

  As Daia’s swipes came faster, her grunts became shrieks. She was in the grip of a full-blown terror. “Gavin! Come on!”

  “Whatever you’re doing to her, stop at once,” he said, gesturing to his champion. “She’s here to protect me, and I won’t send her away.”

  “As you wish,” the guardians said.

  Daia stopped shrieking and let the sword drop to her side. “What in the seven realms?” she asked breathlessly. “Did that just happen?”

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “We protect this wellspring from those who would steal our essence,” the guardians said.

  “Because they were attacking me. Didn’t you see them?” Daia asked.

  “No, they weren’t real,” he told her. “My thanks. How did you know she’s afeared o’bats?”

  “We know what’s in everyone’s heart. We know what’s in yours, too, Wayfarer.”

  “What? Who are you talking to?”

  “The guardians.” The fact that they had made no effort to drive him away wasn’t lost on Gavin. Aldras Gar, too, was quiet. “You don’t see them?”

  “I see a mud pit. That’s all.”

  “Why do you show yourselves to me and not to her?” he asked them.

  “We have always appeared to the Wayfarer.”

  “The woman who came afore me. Did she drink the water?”

  “We drove her from here with illusion before she reached the water,” the guardians said.

  “Tell me about the water. Why do you protect it?”

  “It contains our essence. If one consumes the waters of this wellspring, his khozhi balance is disrupted.”

  “Disrupted how?” Gavin asked.

  “The essence would be reversed.”

  These words stiffened Gavin’s spine. “Our people call it the Well of the Enlightened.”

  “Enlightenment occurs when the soul reaches the end of its journey, and at that moment, it departs the body and returns to the Is. No one who is truly enlightened remains embodied. After consuming this water, the kho-bent become zhi-bent, and the zhi-bent become—”

  “Kho-bent,” Gavin said. Seven hells! That must have been what Arek knew that Crigoth Sevae did not.

  “Exactly so,” they said. “The zhi-bent have an awareness of belonging to something greater than themselves. The kho-bent feel completely separate and distinct, to the point they consider themselves superior to others. However, the individuals in your realm have a mixed khozhi that tends to be zhi-dominant. Drinking the water reverses that balance. Consumers who are zhi-dominant become kho-dominant, not entirely kho-bent.”

  “How did the water get like that?”

  An image appeared in Gavin’s mind of a white crystal in the dark water.

  “This is the Nal Disi,” they said. “It lies deep within the wellspring. Our combined essence is contained in the Nal Disi, but the minerals in the water draw it out of the crystal. Now it floats within the water, contained within each of the mineral’s minute particles.”

  “What are they saying?” Daia asked.

  “Shh. I’ll tell you in a minute. Why does drinking the water disrupt the khozhi?”

  “The essence is anchored in the center of the body. When the water, infused with our essence, reaches the stomach, the essence of the consumer draws it out of the minerals, reversing the khozhi balance.”

  “I was told the wellspring has destroyed cities,” Gavin said. “How could that happen?”

  “Many years ago,” the guardians said, “explorers from the country on the east side of this mountain range discovered our spring.”

  “Osgan,” Gavin said. “I know of it.”

  “We tried to drive them away with illusion, but one of them managed to fill a container with our water before he fled. This individual returned many times to take the water, realizing the illusions were our only defense, and he was in no danger from them. Eventually, many people were affected by the water and changed from zhi-bent to kho-bent. Their violence ravaged the city, and the country’s leaders destroyed it and everyone within it.”

  No wonder King Arek wanted knowledge of the wellspring to be lost. Well, Gavin would take it further and erect magical boundaries to prevent anyone from repeating the mistake of the Osgani people.

  With his curiosity sated and Cirang getting farther away with every passing minute, Gavin bid good-bye to the guardians and watched them disappear back into the still, blue water. As he and Daia headed back down the mountain, he told her everything the guardians had told him. She’d heard the legend of the destruction of Tanecia, but didn’t know it had anything to do with the wellspring. He thought about how he might build a barrier to the spring so the story of the Osgani would never be repeated in generations to come.

  They went left at the fork, towards Ambryce. Before long, they came upon the landslide and saw Brawna below, picking up rocks and tossing them a short distance away. She waved when she saw them. The safest way down was to follow the trail back downhill until the mountain slope was gradual enough to make their way across to where the rubble lay.

  “Have you found the journal?” Daia asked just as Gavin opened his mouth to do the same.

  Brawna wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve. “No, only her boot.” She’d taken the saddle and tack from Vandra’s dead horse and strapped it to the back of her mount. Already a pair of circling condors were urging the humans to leave them to their meal by swooping down as if to land and then rising again into the air.

  “We’d better get going if we want to catch up,” Daia said.

  “Where’s Calinor and Vandra?” Gavin asked.

  Brawna looked toward the south. “They thought they could catch up to her, and so they went in pursuit.”

  “Damn it. They’ll get themselves killed.”

  Daia gave him a doubtful look. “Vandra’s wise to the serragan powder now. Cirang can’t best the two of them.”

  He hoped she was right, but he wouldn’t bet coin on it.

  Chapter 31

  Cirang walked along the water’s edge towards the city, making sure she wasn’t leaving tracks. If Kinshield had managed to follow her this far, she couldn’t count on him thinking she’d been killed in the landslide. When the sun began to set, her path became harder to see, but she slowed her pace and kept going. The pain in her ribs was matched by the pain in her hip. Over three months sitting in gaol, her joints had grown stiff and her muscles weak, despite her attempts to exercise in the cell. To make matters worse, the rocks were shredding her bootless foot. Every step prompted a wince.

  She came upon a house with light emanating from its glazed windows. It was set back from the river, safe from overflowing banks during a heavy rain or spring snow melt but near enough to easily
retrieve all the water a family needed. Someone wealthy lived here, judging from the fine brickwork of the walls and the neat stone path leading to an ornately carved door well-fitted into its frame. She banged on it with the underside of her fist.

  A lean woman with gray-streaked brown hair opened the door, surprise and curiosity on her freckled face. “Lady Sister.” She surveyed Cirang quickly. “Oh, you’re injured. Come in. Ondray, come quickly!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Here, let’s sit you down over here. What’s happened to you?”

  Cirang let the woman take her wet cloak and help her to a chair. It felt so good to sit, to relieve her aching feet, she groaned. “Got caught in a landslide,” she said, letting her exhaustion drag her voice. “I lost my horse.” She set her knapsack on the floor beside the chair.

  “And a boot, looks like,” the woman said. “You’re limping.”

  The house wasn’t large like Ravenkind’s manor in Sohan had been, or the one before that in Lalorian, but it was far larger than the cottage where they’d both died. A big iron stove was ablaze, creating relaxing warmth and a comfortable yellow glow on the dark-gray woven rug. The walls were bare but for the curtains covering the windows. These people were obviously wealthy enough to afford glass in their windows, though they lived more modestly than the wealthy city merchants she’d known.

  The door across from Cirang opened and a tall man came in pulling on a blue shirt. “Bessa, who’s this?”

  “A Viragon Sister. She’s injured.”

  “Are you a healer?” Cirang asked to Ondray’s back as he went to retrieve a black leather satchel on a nearby table.

  “I’m a surgeon,” he said with a note of superiority. “I heal using science, not magic.” He returned and set the bag on the floor. “Now, let’s take a look at your feet. I heard Bessa say you’re limping.”