Well of the Damned

by K. C. May

  The mage made a twisting motion with her outstretched hand. “Your guards are. Tell me where my son is, usurper.”

  Behind him, someone rattled the door, and then pounded on it. “Hey! Open the door.” It sounded like Tennara. The door rattled again. “Hey!”

  “Ignis ocidar,” the mage shouted.

  Gavin focused through the gems in his sword and gathered power in the center of his haze as if he were taking a breath to blow out a lamp. Before he could release the magic, the hair on his arms rose. From the clouds came a flash of brilliant white. Pain burned through every fiber of his body. For the briefest of moments, he was aware of an arc of white light stretching from his rigid body to Daia’s. In that moment, which seemed both brief and eternal, he knew her every thought, desire, fear and dream — and she his. They shared a single thought: Survive this.

  And then the world went black.

  Unarmed and unnoticed, Cirang watched with horror as the king, bleeding from his arm, nose and ears, collapsed. She had no defense against a magical attack, but she had to do something. Saving the king would be a step towards redemption. She ran around to the rear of the temple and yanked open the back door. She entered the nave and saw the three battlers at the main entrance, pounding on the doors, trying to get out. Their cleric prisoners were seated in pews, cursing them with the wrath of the Almighty Savior Asti-nayas. She rounded the altar and ran up the steps onto the dais. There she found a tray of porcelain cups, the same cups she’d used to serve the tainted water to the queen. She took one and dipped it into the font, and then walked as quickly as she could without spilling the water.

  “Cirang?” Brawna said behind her. “Stop! What are you doing?”

  Footsteps pounded the floor behind has as the battlers gave chase. She raced through the store room and outside, then around to the front of the building. The mage was squatting over Gavin. Standing a few feet away was the mage’s twin, the one without magic power. Cirang circled around and approached from behind. With her left arm, she reached around the woman and grabbed her by the face, pinching her nose shut with her thumb and forefinger and tilting her head back, which forced her mouth open. In her other hand, she held the cup with her palm over its lip to keep from spilling the water.

  “Help! Fabrice!” the twin cried, trapped against Cirang’s body, arms flailing. As a battler, Cirang knew how to get out of such a hold, but she was counting on this woman’s lack of hand-to-hand combat training.

  The mage turned with fury in her eyes. “Release her!”

  “Get away from him,” Cirang said, “or this water goes down your sister’s throat.” She heard the sounds of banging and shouting at the back door of the temple through which she’d just come. They truly are trapped, she thought.

  Fabrice smiled haughtily. “Blessed water, is it? We don’t believe in the power of your little god.”

  “This water’s been tainted with water from the Well of the Enlightened, though I think a more apt name would be Well of the Damned. Once she drinks this, she’ll loathe you, maybe even try to kill you in your sleep, and there’s nothing you can do to change her back.”

  The twin stopped struggling. “Do as she says, Fabrice.”

  Fear flickered in the mage’s eyes, but she took a step towards Cirang and away from Gavin. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I served this water to the queen, four of Kinshield’s First Royal Guards, and about a hundred worshipers. What makes you think I won’t?”

  A few moments passed in silence while Fabrice considered the situation.

  Daia gasped and opened her eyes. “By Yrys! Gavin...” She crawled over to where he lay, his eyes open and staring, his outstretched hand inches from his sword. “What have you done to him?”

  “He’ll awaken,” the twin said. “Let me go.”

  “I need assurance,” Cirang said. “Open the temple doors.”

  When Fabrice hesitated, Cirang tilted the cup over the twin’s open mouth. The mage gestured in the air and whispered a word. The doors flew open with the force of three battlers pushing it from the inside.

  “Now go inside,” Cirang said. “You won’t be able to attack the king in the temple. Not with magic, anyway.”

  “I’ll do as you say. Release her.” Fabrice backed into the temple. Once she’d stepped over the threshold, Brawna and Calinor each pointed weapons at her and forced her farther inside. Cirang released the twin, who ran to her sister. They tearfully embraced, and Fabrice stroked her hair.

  Cirang threw the contents of the cup onto the ground, where it mixed with rain that continued to fall.

  Gavin’s entire body burned from the inside while all around him was nothing but fluttering whiteness he’d come to recognize as his healing magic. Words echoed in his mind, words that made no sense. Why would she help us? Perhaps Gavin’s right. Perhaps she truly has changed.

  They were thoughts, but not his own. Who’s thinking in my head, damn it?

  “Gavin? Can you hear me?” It was Daia’s voice, far away.

  I thought it was a dream.

  When the white fluttering sensation stopped, he opened his eyes to find Daia’s light-blue ones gazing down at him. A lock of her dark-auburn hair had escaped its braid and tickled his face. “Thank Yrys,” she said. “You had me worried.”

  “You gave us a fright, my liege,” Tennara said. Her forehead was crinkled with concern.

  “Damn that hurt.” His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. His muscles trembled, and he struggled to sit up. Tennara grasped his arm to help. Cirang helped Daia to her feet.

  Brawna stood on the other side of the threshold, propping open one of the temple doors with a foot and holding Aldras Gar as if it were made of glass. Calinor kept his sword pointed at the mage and her twin. Gavin let Tennara help him to one of the benches in the temple, where he leaned heavily against the wall. He felt groggy, as though he’d been awoken from a sound sleep, and had trouble focusing his eyes.

  Daia sat beside him. Her hand trembled as she raised a waterskin to her lips. Her forearm was marked with a red welt in the shape of a tree branch. Then he noticed his own were similarly marked.

  The welts started under the sleeves of his tunic and went all the way to his fingertips. His fingernails were blackened. “By the seven hells. Would you look at this?” He pulled up his sleeves to reveal the marks just under the surface of his skin, like red veins.

  Daia gestured at his face with one finger. “Your face has it too.” She handed him the skin.

  He drank deeply and wiped the stray droplets from his chin. “Damn. There goes my dashing good looks.” Daia’s face and neck were unmarked. Apparently she’d received a smaller dose of the lightning than he had.

  “Let’s sit and have a courteous conversation, shall we?” Tennara said, pushing down on the mage’s shoulders to force her to sit on one of the pews, facing Gavin. “You don’t simply attack the king when you imagine some slight or injustice.”

  “He’s not the rightful king,” Fabrice replied.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Tennara said. “Who are you?”

  “Fabrice Canton, mother of Brodas Canton, though you would know him better by his epithet, Ravenkind. This is my sister, Cabrice Dartillyn. Her son is Brodas’s cousin, dearest friend, and confidant.”

  The other woman said, “Warrick Dartillyn, who took the epithet Darktalon.”

  “Where are you holding our sons?” Brodas’s mother demanded. A tear trickled from her eye, and she hastily wiped it away. “We want them released immediately. My son is heir to the throne. The rain shall not stop until you restore what you’ve taken.”

  “Brodas is dead.” Gavin didn’t mean to blurt it so bluntly, and certainly not slurred like a drunken lout. “I’m sorry to have to tell you.” He pushed himself more upright.

  The mage stared at him, her face twisted in horror and grief. “That can’t be. No.”

  Gavin wrestled with how much information to give Ravenkind’s mother. He had no reason t
o believe she was anything but a mother who loved her son. “I wasn’t there to witness it,” he explained, speaking more slowly, “but Daia and Cirang were. He was attacked by the demon that was trapped in the palace. His magic wasn’t strong enough to defeat his enemy, and the demon took his life. I arrived too late to save him.”

  Fabrice burst into tears and embraced her sister for comfort.

  “Judging by his injuries, I don’t think he suffered.” Gavin tried not to let his own feelings about Ravenkind interfere with the delivery of the news that devastated these two women. He’d have sung joyously of his nemesis’s death to anyone else but the man’s own mother. He was glad the wizard was dead, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard. A parent’s love was blind to a child’s failings.

  “And what of my son?” Cabrice asked through her tears. “Do you know what has become of him?”

  Gavin nodded. “I’m sorry. Warrick never left Brodas’s side. He was loyal to a fault.”

  The two women cried in each other’s arms for a minute. At last Fabrice looked up and tearfully asked, “Where are they buried?”

  Four bodies had been collected from the cottage that fateful day. The two dead Viragon Sisters had been taken to the cemetery and buried. Gavin had instructed the city custodian to burn the other two — Brodas Ravenkind and his henchman, Red. Daia had left Warrick’s dead body in the alley behind an inn in Sohan, but there was no reason to torture his mother with that detail. “Their bodies were cremated in Tern. Talk to the city custodian. Maybe he still has their ashes. You can take them, if that’s your wish.”

  “Then I suppose the right to rule is mine,” Fabrice said quietly.

  “I’m afraid not,” Gavin said. “It was never yours to claim or abdicate.” She drew back with an expression of shock and indignation. Gavin didn’t want to belittle the woman, but neither did he want her to continue spreading falsehoods about his claim. “I know the story of Oriann Engtury. She would never have inherited the crown, and therefore she couldn’t have passed it down to you or to Brodas.”

  She shook a finger at him. “You know nothing!”

  “I know she was the illegitimate child of an incestuous rape. King Arek told me that himself, during my travels backwards in time.”

  “Your ancestor conspired with the Lordover Tern to conceal the truth.”

  “I know King Arek named Ronor Kinshield as his successor, and as you say, I’m his descendant. I also know the Lordover Tern acted within his rights as the Supreme Councilor o’State to decide the next king after Ronor died. I’m sorry for your loss, Lady Canton, truly, but I’m the rightful king, and my child will succeed me. Take your sons’ ashes and give them a proper burial. You can trust me to lead Thendylath. It’s what I was meant to do.”

  Fabrice glared at him a moment, but then her eyes began to soften. “I suppose I haven’t any choice now. My only son is dead.” She drew herself up taller and squared her shoulders. “I, Fabrice Canton, descendant of King Ivam and rightful heir to the throne of Thendylath, do hereby abdicate my rule to Gavin Kinshield as these witnesses will attest.”

  Gavin said nothing but did incline his head. The woman was acquiescing. He didn’t want to argue with her about how it should be done.

  “Do you know what’s become of Brodas’s journals.”

  Gavin’s battlers had recovered several journals from Ravenkind’s manor in Sohan. He’d skimmed a few, mostly complaints about lordovers and rambling professings of his own royal blood and statements of lust for the King’s Bloodstone. Some had details of the brutal attacks Ravenkind had waged upon the innocent families of men he thought had wronged him, including Gavin’s own. Very little in those journals had any value to Gavin, but the one written by Crigoth Sevae would remain in his possession, as would the copy Ravenkind had made of it. “I have some of them,” he told her. “If you want them, they’re yours.”

  Fabrice’s eyes lit up. “Yes, give them to me. He was always such an articulate man. I would very much like to read his adventures.”

  Gavin thought she would be disappointed, but that was for her to decide. “They’re in Tern, of course. Give me your address and I’ll have them sent to you.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. They’re not much, but... Brodas mentioned two other journals, not his own but old books he was most interested in acquiring. Their spiteful owner had promised to sell them to him but after selling the first, he went back on his word. A Nilmarion man, I believe, and longtime business associate of my son’s. Might you have that one as well? I should very much like to see what he was so eager to obtain.”

  Gavin cast a glance at Cirang. “I have them both,” he admitted. “They have information about why King Arek was murdered. I’m sure you can understand why I got to keep them.”

  Fabrice sighed. “I suppose I can. Very well, then.” The two sisters stood to leave, arm in arm. Gavin stood as well. Just before the door, Fabrice paused and curtsied low. “You’ve a hard road ahead of you, young man, especially with your... humble ancestry. You’ll need as much good fortune as you can find, from wherever you can find it.” She stepped over the temple’s threshold, closed her eyes and, with an elaborate hand gesture, whispered, “Sisto pluvar.”

  Daia tried to stand, to go after her. “Wait. What about the—”

  Gavin held her back with one hand. “Listen.”

  All they heard was silence.

  The rain had stopped.

  Chapter 50

  People were coming out of their homes and businesses to look up at the clearing blue sky. Gavin didn’t bother to put his disguise back up when he joined them on the street. It was time to celebrate with them, not escape their notice. At first, no one recognized him, but as the rest of the mail clad battlers came outside without their cloaks obscuring their mail, people did notice.

  Daia and Tennara frantically tried to keep people from crowding him at first. Gavin just laughed. “It’s awright. Calm yourself. Let’s just enjoy the sunshine together for a moment.”

  He was swarmed by happy, spirited people. Hands patted him, congratulated him, thanked him for stopping the rain. He looked over the tops of their heads at Cirang where she worked, alongside Brawna and Calinor, to prohibit entry into the temple. Even unarmed and without magic, she’d played a crucial role in ending the rain. Crafty, she was, even now that she was zhi-bent. The question that plagued him was: would she have forced the water down Cabrice’s throat if Fabrice hadn’t relented?

  “What about the temple?” someone shouted. “Why can’t we go in?”

  The crowd was so loud, it seemed Gavin was the only one who heard the question. “Quiet down a moment,” he said, gesturing with his arms to get their attention. “Quiet down.” His deep voice boomed over the other voices, and gradually people quieted and settled down. “I’m sorry we got— have to interrupt your communion with Asti-nayas for a time. The water in the sacramental font’s been fouled. Let us clean it out and send for a new High Cleric to lead your prayers, and the temple will be open again soon.”

  “Fouled? How?” someone asked.

  “A new High Cleric? Why?” asked another.

  “Was Seer Mirfak responsible for the font being fouled?” asked a third.

  “Let’s just say it’s a poison of sorts. Seer Mirfak wasn’t responsible,” Gavin said, “but he’s been affected, along with two of his clerics. He’ll be unable to perform as High Cleric for a time. I’ll contact the Supreme Council of Clergy and have them send someone to replace Seer Mirfak and his other clerics. It shouldn’t be long.”

  He shook some hands before excusing himself to go back into the temple. Daia and Tennara shut the doors behind him, and Brawna remained outside with his sword and the two magical rings. He tried to ignore the anxious feeling of it being outside his reach.

  “Are you responsible for this?” one of the clerics demanded. “Unleash me this instant! I’m the High Cleric here. You can’t do this. I’ll have Asti-nayas strike you down where you stand, you ignorant cur!
”

  “Strike him down!” said another cleric, a short, plump buck with sagging jowls.

  “Can someone gag him?” Gavin asked as he headed towards the altar.

  “No,” the cleric said. “No! Unhand me, filthy wench. This is an outrage. I demand you—” He tried to shake off the gag, and failing that, he shouted muffled curses.

  “There are buckets back here, my liege,” Cirang said. She skirted past him to grab a candle from the altar and opened the door on the right.

  “I’ll fill them, you evaporate them?” Daia said from behind him.

  “Your Majesty,” Cirang said, lighting the way. “Let me fill the buckets from the font. The water won’t do me any harm. If anyone else touches it... I wouldn’t want anyone else to suffer for what I’ve done.”

  Gavin looked her up and down, trying to reconcile what he was hearing with the woman in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought this was Cirang’s twin. It was a good idea, though. They would be wise to treat the water carefully. “Awright. Does that door lead outside?” he asked, pointing to a second door.

  “Yes, sire. A small alley.”

  “I should do it outside,” Gavin said, “so the steam doesn’t touch anyone when it rises.” He opened the door and stepped into the alley behind the temple. It was a weed-choked gravel alley littered with broken and water-logged benches and chairs, scraps of cloth and the ant-covered remains of some dead animal. With no one around, this was a good place to take care of the tainted water. “Cirang fills the buckets, Daia and Tennara bring the water to me — carefully. Don’t let it splash out. Someone go tell Brawna to bring Aldras Gar around to this door.”

  It took the better part of two hours to drain the font. Cirang had to resort to using rags to soak up the last of the water, wringing it into the bucket. Everyone took care handling the water, and no one suffered any ill effects. They used soap and brushes they found in the storage room to scour the font, and then rinsed it thoroughly with clean water from the public well. Though he was satisfied it was clean and free of the tainted water, Gavin would have liked to examine the font with his hidden eye, to see whether any droplets remained. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even find his hidden eye while he was inside the temple, much less see anything with it.