Well of the Damned

by K. C. May

  Daia fell onto Adro’s back, pressing one knee into his spine. “Lila,” she shouted. “Bring something to tie him with.”

  From where he lay on the floor, Adro could feel the hatred emanating from Gavin, though his eyes were no longer glowing. Feanna wrapped the bedsheet around her body and ran to Gavin’s side. “Gavin, thank goodness you’ve come. He forced himself on me. It was awful! I was so frightened.”

  “Lying whore!” Adro said. “She’s been giving herself to me since before you were even married.” It was a lie, but Gavin’s magic vision had failed him when he used it on Cirang. It was his word against hers, and she’d turned on him. She deserved it. “The baby in her belly’s not even yours, Kinshield.” Adro laughed. He hadn’t planned to say that, but it was perfect. Even if Kinshield suspected he was lying, it would plant a seed of doubt and worry him for the rest of his days. “That’s my son she carries.”

  Lilalian came into the room and tossed Daia a thick leather thong, which she used to bind Adro’s wrists behind his back.

  “It’s not true, darling,” Feanna said. “This is your son. Your magic tells you that, doesn’t it?” She clung to Gavin as if he was a raft in a sea of doubt, but he took her by the arms and pushed her away.

  Gavin looked down at her with cold eyes. “No, it doesn’t. And your word is worth no more than his.”

  “When you see his blond hair, then you’ll know.”

  “Shut up, Adro,” Daia said, hauling him to his feet, “or I’ll do it for you.”

  He saw doubt flicker in Kinshield’s eyes, and beneath it, fear.

  Cirang walked along a gravel path from the stable towards a small, white building with her head bowed, hands clasped behind her, unbound, and her upper arm locked in Brawna’s grip. She had no desire to resist, and in fact welcomed whatever punishment she was due. Her only hope was that King Gavin listened long enough to hear her warning.

  As they neared the building, she heard raised voices, though she couldn’t make out the words. Brawna guided her inside, where Hennah, Mirrah and Anya lay on their bellies, bound and gagged. To see those once-noble Viragon Sisters treated like criminals wrenched Cirang’s heart. This, too, was her fault, but if the wellspring water was responsible for turning them into what they were, and it had reversed her own wickedness, then King Gavin could simply turn them back with a drink from the water in her skin.

  Lilalian and Tennara stood near an open door. Over their heads, Cirang spotted the king and the jeweled sword on his back. The sword that would soon end her life.

  “Move aside,” Brawna said. The swordswomen looked at Cirang first with surprise and then with anger or perhaps hatred, but they stepped aside to let her pass. “King Gavin, I found Cirang.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  Daia was standing behind a shirtless Adro, holding a knife blade against his neck. Standing beside the king, Queen Feanna was wrapped in a beige sheet from the disheveled bed. King Gavin turned, his eyes dark with fury and his jaw clenched.

  “I intended to slay her,” Brawna said, her voice slightly higher than it had been a moment earlier, “but she begged me to give her a chance to speak with you and to answer your questions.”

  He cocked his head and regarded Cirang with a curious expression.

  “She has nothing to say worth hearing,” Daia said. “Take her outside and kill her. Let her blood spill into the earth. Maybe it’ll kill the weeds.”

  “No,” King Gavin said. “I want to hear what you got to say, Cirang. Are you responsible for this?” He put his hand on the back of the queen’s neck and pushed her forward, putting her on display. Feanna’s eyes were dead, as though she were a hollow shell in the shape of a person with nothing inside. No, not nothing. Something... awful, like the beyonders that used to plague the land.

  That’s how my eyes must’ve looked before I drank the water.

  Cirang swallowed hard. “Yes, my liege. It’s my doing, and I’m so very sorry, but I can fix this. If Queen Feanna drinks—”

  Feanna pointed at her. “Traitor! She kidnapped me and tried to feed me to a demon. Now she wants to poison me. I demand her head.”

  “Quiet,” King Gavin said. “You can’t fix this, Cirang.” He pulled Feanna back again. “My wife,” he yelled, “is corrupted. My battlers are corrupted. What about my unborn son? Is he corrupted, too?”

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know,” Cirang said.

  “Where did you get the water? The guardians said you didn’t take any from the wellspring.”

  “There was a leak down the side of the mountain caused by the landslide. I filled two waterskins, and I still have the second full skin. If they drink it again, maybe the effect will be reversed.”

  The king motioned toward Adro. “Try it. Give him a cup of it.”

  “What? No,” Adro said. “I’m not thirsty.”

  Brawna dug into the knapsack for the waterskin, and poured a bit of water into a cup on the side table. She offered it to Adro, but his hands were bound behind his back.

  Daia took the cup and held it near his mouth. “Drink it willingly, or drink it by force. Your choice.”

  He laughed. “You can’t make me drink it.”

  In reply, Daia kicked his knee out from under him and took him to the ground. In seconds, she was sitting on his chest, holding the cup over his mouth. “By force it is.” She pinched his nose shut.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll drink it.” He opened his mouth, and she poured the water in. When he swallowed it and opened again to show her his mouth was empty, she got up and pulled him to his feet.

  Several moments went by in silence. Everyone watched Adro expectantly, waiting. Cirang prayed silently for the first time since she’d been the man Sithral Tyr, begging any god that might be listening to please set things right.

  Adro jumped suddenly and said, “Boo!” When a couple of them flinched, he cackled gleefully. “Got you.”

  “Nothing’s happening,” King Gavin said. “Seems drinking the water again doesn’t fix the problem.” He turned his angry eyes to Cirang. “How’d you do it? How’d you get her to drink it?”

  She swallowed. The temptation to bow her head, to hide from what she’d done, was strong, but she came here to own her actions and to face justice. She trembled under the weight of his powerful gaze. “I murdered an acolyte and stole her robe and veil. I slept in her bed in a cellar room, and only went outside dressed as the acolyte Altais.”

  Daia’s jaw dropped open. “You were in the temple?” she asked. “I searched it for you.”

  Cirang nodded. “I saw you come in, heard you ask about me, and so I slipped out the rear door and waited in the alley until you left.”

  “I should’ve been able to see her,” King Gavin said.

  “The temple’s protected from magic — even yours,” Queen Feanna said.

  “Explain.”

  Queen Feanna sighed. “In the olden days, charlatans posing as clerics used magic to forge miracles. Every temple embedded gems in the ceiling and walls to block magic. It’s the only way to know whether Asti-nayas is performing a true miracle.”

  “They use magic to block magic?” King Gavin asked.

  “That’s why I couldn’t enter with my ring,” Daia said.

  “Gems and gilded lines,” Cirang said, “similar to the wards Nilmarions tattoo into our skin to protect us from evil.”

  The door opened behind her. “Is it true?” someone asked in a whisper. “Did Brawna get her?”

  She turned and met Calinor’s hard blue eyes. Her gaze fell to the ugly scarred skin on his throat, and guilt burned in the pit of her stomach. “Calinor, I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

  “What you did to me?” he whispered fiercely. “What about all the children you sold to slavers? What about the lives you ruined?”

  “One minute, Calinor. Go on, Cirang,” Daia said. “What happened after you got into the temple?”

  “Last night, I
poured water from the Well of the Enlightened into the sacramental font. Dressed as the acolyte, I was the one who offered the sacrament to Queen Feanna, four of her guards, and dozens of others throughout the day.”

  King Gavin’s entire body went rigid, and he let loose what Cirang could only describe as a roar of anger. “Why did you come here?” he hollered. “To tell me you took my wife from me?” His expression was angry and confused and sad and lost. “To rub my face in it, knowing I would kill you for what you’ve done?”

  “No, my liege,” she said. “To warn you. The clerics in the temple have all taken the sacrament as well. People are fighting in the street — even women, while their husbands bet money on the outcome. Unless the font is drained and scrubbed, and the water disposed of, Ambryce is in grave danger. I tried to warn the High Cleric, but he can’t be trusted. You’ve got to stop it.”

  “After seeing what the water did to people, why did you drink it?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I refilled my empty skin with water from the public well, but I didn’t think to rinse out the remaining droplets of wellspring water first.”

  Gavin beckoned two of his battlers into the room. “Awright. Tennara, Brawna, lock Adro and the others in the lordover’s gaol for now, and then meet us at the stable. Lila, keep my wife here. Don’t let her leave unless you hear directly from me or Daia. Give her food and water, and nothing more.”

  “You can’t keep me locked up like a prisoner,” Feanna said.

  “Yes, my liege,” the battlers said, almost in unison. Adro was led out dressed as he was: barefoot and shirtless, hands bound. Daia closed the windows, and Lilalian said she would see that the shutters were nailed shut from the outside. “The door can’t be locked from the outside,” Lilalian said. “How do I keep her in there?”

  “I’m the queen! How dare you. I’ll have your heads for this. All of you.”

  Daia perked up. “One minute. I have just the thing.” She ran across the yard towards the stable, returning breathless and sprinkled with rain a couple minutes later. She handed King Gavin a wooden gargoyle lock. “I thought it might come in handy someday.”

  He gave Daia a crooked smile and shut the door to the bed chamber, leaving Queen Feanna alone inside.

  “Gavin, don’t you lock me in here.”

  He pressed the gargoyle against the door. Cirang watched its claws flex and its wooden feet fuse with the wood of the door, becoming one. “Don’t try to open the door, Feanna,” he said. “I’ll be back to get you later.”

  “Gavin, Savior damn you! Let me— Ouch!” Feanna cried, screeched, and demanded to be released. Her voice faded as they headed to the stable.

  Chapter 49

  With Lilalian staying behind at the guesthouse to guard his wife, Gavin took Daia, Brawna, Calinor, and Tennara across town to the temple. He brought Cirang as well, thinking she could provide some helpful information. Calinor traded his leather cuirass for Adro’s mail, and Gavin swore him officially into his service. He cast a disguise for himself as a blond and balding warrant knight, and one for Calinor to hide the mail, and together they rode behind Daia and the three First Royal Guards with Cirang between them.

  Sitting tall upon their mounts, the women battlers, clad in mail under their cloaks with matching blue and gold trousers and saddle pads, presented a sight the people of Ambryce would not soon forget. They drew enough attention that the three scraggly riders who followed went unnoticed. At last, they arrived at the temple and tied their reins to the hitching post on the side of the building.

  “Brawna and Tennara,” Gavin said, “guard the door and don’t let anyone in. The four of us will secure the water.”

  The two women slapped their chests in salute. “Your will be done.”

  As Gavin crossed the threshold, he was yanked to a stop. “What the hell?” He tried once more and again was stopped. Something was holding him back. Then he realized he could enter the building, but his enchanted sword couldn’t, nor could the ring he wore on his right hand. “Bloody hell. The magic barrier won’t let Aldras Gar inside, and I’m not going in without my sword.”

  “You’d better put your disguise back before people recognize you,” Daia said.

  He did, quickly replacing his own hair, scars, and eye color as before.

  “We’ll handle it, my liege,” Tennara said.

  “They’re just clerics,” Calinor whispered. “We should be able to arrest them without trouble.” Brawna nodded her agreement.

  “Awright. Cirang stays out here with me and Daia. Don’t touch the water. We’ll get some oat straw to soak it up.”

  The three battlers went into the temple while Gavin and Daia stood under the eaves and turned worshipers politely but firmly away. Cirang stood obediently by and waited.

  Aldras Gar, the sword whispered.

  Gavin’s body reacted instantly — muscles tensing for combat, hand drawing Aldras Gar. “Something’s wrong,” he said, not knowing whether to expect an enemy or earthquake.

  The rain began to pour down harder. Cirang ran to stand beneath the awning of the shop across the street.

  Two women appeared a few feet in front of him, identical but for their dresses. They wore no cloaks nor did they carry rainshades, yet the rain didn’t touch them. One of the women had the intense golden haze Gavin recognized as magical power. Their brilliant blue eyes and black hair, though streaked with white, were alarmingly familiar. More alarming was the fact that they had simply appeared there as if stepping out of the very air.

  “Your little disguise doesn’t fool me, usurper,” the mage said.

  Daia drew her sword and then let out a groan. The sword slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground. She bent over, gripping her belly with both arms, her face clenched in a grimace of pain.

  “Stop!” Gavin shouted. He angled Aldras Gar’s blade at them while reaching with his haze for the source of Daia’s gift. It wasn’t there. He focused his hidden eye on her and saw a gray finger like smoke stretching from the abdomen of the mage to Daia, stabbing her haze in the center where her orange tendril originated.

  His access to the full potency of his magic was gone.

  “What are you doing to her?” he hollered. “Let her go.”

  “The vusar belongs to us now,” the second woman said.

  Oh hell. He angled Aldras Gar’s blade at them, focused through the gems, and pushed with his will. A crackle of white power shot down the steel and erupted from its tip in a slight arc towards the two women.

  The one on the left held her hands open, palms up, and took a deep breath as the lightning reached her. Her eyes seemed to glow brighter for a second, but she was otherwise unruffled by his attack. “Don’t try that again,” she said. She turned her palms and pushed them towards him.

  A gust of wind hit him squarely. His feet left the ground, and he slammed into the closed temple doors behind him, though he didn’t lose his grip on Aldras Gar. He managed to land on his feet, but the blast pushed Daia onto her side, where she curled into a ball. “Stop what you’re doing to her,” he said.

  People in the street fled, some screaming for the lordover’s soldiers, others just screaming.

  “It doesn’t belong to you,” the mage said, her voice quavering. She drew a shape in the air with one finger and whispered a word that he couldn’t make out. A beast materialized in front of her, a snarling wolf the size of a bear. It leaped at him with snapping jaws.

  Gavin swung his sword and missed. It lunged, snapping and snarling, and jumped back out of reach. Aldras Gar normally helped him with some kind of magic bolt, but now it did nothing but miss his target. Then there wasn’t one wolf but two, lunging and snarling, snapping and growling. He swung furiously, missing first one, then the other. Just when he wondered whether the wolves were an illusion, one of them clamped down on his right forearm with very real fangs. He gritted his teeth, but a growl of pain ripped from his throat all the same. Desperately, he focused on the gems in his s
word and pushed a bolt of lightning down the length of its blade. The force went through the wolves without effect and struck the mage. She jerked stiffly for a moment, staggered and then fell to the ground. Her twin screamed and bent to help her. The beasts disappeared, leaving Gavin’s forearm torn and bloody.

  Heat built up in his forearm as his healing magic began to repair his wounds. Without Daia’s help, he wasn’t sure he could fully heal himself without fainting. With his hidden eye, he examined Daia again and saw the smoky gray finger had withdrawn, but her orange tendril was still missing. “Daia,” he said, squatting beside her. He shook her shoulder. “Daia. Wake up. I need you.”

  Daia stirred and opened her eyes. Her orange tendril snaked towards him and took hold of his haze like a fist. “I’m all right.” She grasped her sword and climbed to her feet with Gavin’s help.

  “Stop this,” he said to the twins. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Something wet trickled across his upper lip, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. Blood.

  “Release him,” the mage said. She held up her hand again, finger extended as if to draw another shape.

  “Release who?”

  “Brodas Canton,” she shouted. “Is he in there?”

  Seven hells, Gavin thought. He’d never considered that he would have to be the one to deliver the news to Ravenkind’s mother that her son was dead. Although he would have gladly seen to the deed, he hadn’t been responsible for delivering the deathblow. Ravenkind himself had done that through his foolish pursuit of what wasn’t his to begin with.

  “Do you have him imprisoned in that temple, blocked from my sight? Release him immediately.”

  “Nobody’s imprisoned in there,” Gavin said. His arm burned and itched, but he ignored it.