The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3)

by Travis Simmons

  Joya realized what Jovian did not; this poplar dryad was literally filtering his wyrd through her fingers to get a feel for him.

  “So,” the white dryad finally said. “You are LaFaye? Obviously you have died before, there is a sense of death about you. You do realize that death is not completely out of your system yet, correct?” The dryad cocked her head curiously to the side. “Death is not something you will ever be able to escape, for it will court you right up to its final embrace.

  “I am Uthia,” she said, not extending her hand to shake it or proffering any other custom that the humans would recognize as greeting. Jovian’s head was spinning from the contact with the dryad and her words about death. He supposed that it had something to do with his wyrd being affected by his death; after all it had been the Pale Horse that had helped him slay all those hobbedy’s lanterns.

  “You fight the darkness plaguing our home,” Uthia said, withdrawing her hand. “For that I will go with you for as long as I’m required, and from there, if my thicket decides to help, I will take the charge placed upon me by the Realm Guardians Sara and Annbell, and aid the falling Realm of Earth in their plight.” They could tell by the way she spoke that Uthia, and most likely all the dryads, were not accustomed to being told what they would and would not do, least of all from humans.

  “I didn’t realize that the Realm of Earth was falling,” Angelica said anxiously, more to herself than to those around her.

  “The Realm Guardians Sara and Annbell face a great foe right now. It is a historical foe that has plagued the Realm of Earth for ages — the chaos dwarves. You may be familiar with their brethren, the dwarves of Nependier, as they are from your Holy Realm.” Uthia pointed to Jovian’s upturned palm in his lap to explain how she knew where they were from. The white stigmata shone in the ambient light like a beacon, announcing they were from the Holy Realm. “It would be much better for us if the chaos dwarves were extinguished for good, but such genocide would do more than rid us of the chaos they breed.”

  “What would it do?” Joya asked.

  “None of us are sure, but we can speculate,” Uthia told them in her odd guttural accent. “Let me tell you how it works. When the Great Realms were formed, and the different races placed upon it, wyrd was linked to wyrd. The wyrd of the gnomes was linked to the earth, the wyrd of the dryads to the trees, the averanym to all earthen things, and so on. The wyrd of the races that took up residence in each realm became a near-integral part of the realm. Each race gave to the realm something that should not be taken from it. Each one of us are, in a sense, an extension of the realm, but still just a race no matter how linked.

  “When Aaridnay ‘founded’ the Great Realms, she saw the need for humans to govern in each realm. Now, mind you, she was very smart and had incredible foresight, maybe to a fault. She drafted the Racial Proclamation and wyrded each realm to the document so that no Realm Guardian was able to rid their realm of any race. In essence she linked all the races to their separate realms, thereby protecting all of us from total extinction.

  “Now, this is where the speculation comes in. Each Realm Guardian is linked to the land, almost as if the land and the Guardian are one. If the land is fractured, who knows what would happen to the ruling Realm Guardian? One could imagine that the mind of the Guardian bent on tyranny would also be fractured. Now Sara and Annbell, being very good Realm Guardians, would not think of such a thing as genocide. They might have entertained the idea, and how much easier it would be on all the Realm of Earth to finally be rid of the chaos dwarves, but they would not make plans for such a thing.”

  “So you are helping them?” Joya asked, pushing the question a little more.

  “That hasn’t fully been decided. The gnomes refuse to help, and the dryads normally follow them. But now it’s different. The dryads feel the burden to act in accordance with the Realm Guardians. War is eminent in the Realm of Earth. It has recently come to the attention of the Realm Guardians that the chaos dwarves are amassing forces around a weapon of great destructive power. The dwarves are flocking around this relic as if it was sent by the hands of Chaos himself, which it very well might have been. This one weapon they could use to bring the legislature of the Realm of Earth to its knees.”

  “But that wouldn’t be so bad for the other races, would it?” Angelica asked. “Don’t all the races of all the realms live independent of humans?”

  “That is how it was upon a time. Now there are no forbearers of the races that remember the time before the humans came, except maybe the averanym, but they choose not to speak of it.” Uthia shook her head, the velveteen softness of her hair catching on the rougher bark of her skin, which randomly stuck out at precarious angles like it would on an actual tree. “Now racial government and human politics are so closely linked that it would be a great struggle for the multitude of races to learn a life without humans. Only the strongest of the races would survive the plight, for some races are very dependent on humans for their survival, though they weren’t always.”

  “What is this weapon?” Joya asked.

  “The Realm Guardians do not know much about it yet, but they know its name: Wyrders’ Bane.” Uthia’s voice held a shiver of fear.

  “You’ve heard of this weapon?” Maeven asked.

  “I have. Wyrders’ Bane is not part of the Wyrding Ways, but instead the opposite of the Ways. It is the antagonist of wyrd.”

  “What can you tell us about it?” Joya pressed, going back to eating.

  Some of the dryads, settling in for the night, began to take root around them. They lifted their arms high and the change began. The fingers of their hands extended from twigs to branches, and the leaves all along their hands grew longer and more mature. The toes of their feet lengthened and burrowed into the ground like roots. They closed their eyes, and their mouths and facial features looked more like the knots and scars on the surface of trees. Before long one might think they were only looking at a small tree instead of a once moving, lucid being. Others just chose to sit and listen instead of taking root as their sisters did.

  “I can tell you a great deal about it. What would you want to know about such a foul object?”

  “Everything, but mainly, what is its power?” Joya asked.

  “Very well,” Uthia agreed. “The chaos dwarves consider wyrd and all wyrders to be a plague that needs curing. Wyrders’ Bane is their answer to that plague.”

  “So they are looking to get rid of all wyrders and wyrd?” Angelica asked.

  “Very much so.” Uthia nodded. “The unforeseen problem is that when non-wyrding people learn of this, and with the current state of wyrd…” Uthia just held up her hands, and all of them understood that she thought the general populace of humans might rally on the side of the dwarves.

  “Well that’s dumb,” Joya piped in. “All creatures have wyrd in one fashion or another.”

  “But it’s only the wyrd of one fashion that it affects, not the other.”

  None of them understood what she meant, and so Uthia explained.

  “They seek to eradicate the Wyrding Ways within people, not the wyrd that runs the courses of the lives of the races. They seek to make the Wyrding Ways come to an end, not to end fate.”

  “Who would make such a horrible weapon?” Angelica asked.

  “It was not made; it was found many ages ago when the chaos dwarves lived within the Barrier Mountains. It was mined along with their ore. They found out how it worked nearly by accident. A long time ago, even the chaos dwarves had wyrders among their community. When the stone was found that all ended. Some of the wyrder dwarves escaped to their brothers, the dwarves of Nependier, where they were either killed or taken in. Not all the wyrders were that lucky, and instead became experiments for the inquisitive minds of the loathsome chaos dwarves.

  “Eventually they began to regard the stone as holy, and they reasoned that if Wyrders’ Bane was holy, then those it afflicted must then be less than holy. It was after all the wyrders ha
d been killed or run off from their community — though death was preferable in their minds — that the stone had been given its name.

  “It had fallen out of their hands years back, when the first Guardian of the Realm of Earth, Darenous, pleaded his case before Aaridnay, and the Eradication Edict was drafted. Without the aid of their hideous stone they fell rather easily to the human forces and were driven out of the Barrier Mountains and their Council Building, what is now known as the Guardians’ Keep.”

  “And now it’s back,” Maeven said.

  Uthia nodded. “Yes, it’s back, and with it the numerous chaos dwarves who are joining forces for the first time since they were driven out of the mountains will be a great opposition for wyrders. Now that they have the stone, they will render the wyrders worthless so they will have to be fought on their own terms, in normal combat, which they are proficient at. There is rumor that the trolls are siding with them; together they will outnumber the humans three to one.”

  “But the other races can still use their wyrd, can’t they?” Angelica asked.

  “All of the races will be affected, and many of us will die from the effects of the stone itself. Some races were made from the wyrd of humans, and are in essence living wyrdings. They will take a heavy toll.”

  “And yet you throw yourself into the thick of it?” Jovian scoffed.

  “What would you do?” Uthia asked. “In point of fact, what are you doing at this very moment? You are going up against insurmountable odds to preserve your family, which is no more than we are doing.” Uthia seemed to be ruffled for the first time, and her thick black lips thinned into a frown. “We will be not throwing all our might at the chaos dwarves, however, and will instead leave behind a fraction of our numbers to carry on our race if we all die on the field of battle. We know that if all of us were to die it would affect the Realm Guardians greatly, and we would not add another burden to them in this time of need.”

  “So you are prepared for death?” Joya asked. “And all of the side of good will be killed by this stone?”

  “We are more than prepared for death. No, not all the races will be killed, for giants have no wyrd and will not be affected. They may be the only saving grace, but as they are matched height for height, strength for strength, and in numbers by the trolls, they will have their own hardships and most likely their own separate war in the mountains.”

  “I almost consider us lucky for leaving the Realm of Earth when we are,” Jovian commented.

  “I wouldn’t,” Uthia said. “Do you think the greed of the chaos dwarves will be sated with one realm when they could have all of them bow before their tyranny? The war will spread. Already it has been spread about the enemy camps that this war will be one that goes down in history as the greatest war ever fought. They are calling it the Wyrding Wars.” And that was when Angelica realized what was bothering her. With Uthia’s words her stomach tightened and she felt a tingling in the lower regions of her body. Fear spread through her and she set her food aside as nausea took over. She was afraid more than anything that this nightmare would spread. By the way Joya stopped picking at her food and set it aside, her sister was experiencing the same feeling.

  So now I guess we know what weapon it was that Porillon spoke of giving to the chaos dwarves, Jovian said mentally to Angelica and she nodded her agreement.

  Stephen listened to the reports of mayhem from the table behind him. He shook his head. Melody, his wife, sat across from him, tentatively nibbling on the end of a stalk of asparagus. She had insisted that he take her out tonight to a nice restaurant — nothing too rich, but something nice so she had an excuse to dress up and wear the ivory necklace he’d bought her months ago. It was a nice place, low naolyn lighting, an ambience of incense somewhere, and from the swinging doors at the end of the establishment, the smell of cooking food wafted to the patrons.

  The conversation came to a close behind him with a devastating finale. An entire city block of Fairview in the Realm of Air had been swallowed up by the ground after a wyrder had tried a simple weather spell. Stephen had heard weather-working was difficult, but that was something for wyrders, and he wasn't one.

  "See," he said to Melody, now working her way around a slice of lamb in some wine sauce he couldn't name. "This is why we don't let wyrders on the force."

  Melody sighed. She had wanted to get out that night to surround herself with things other than talk of wyrders. She was a congressional advocate, and lately that was all they dealt with. Plus, Stephen was biased, prejudiced, and ignorant when it came to things of wyrd. Melody often found herself at odds with him because her own sister was a wyrder, and not a day went by that she didn't worry how her sister was faring.

  Thinking of her sister, Tally, having to leave her home on the outskirts of town and seek shelter in the mountains was enough to make Melody sick. She had left behind her family, her children, and the pets she loved so much just to protect herself from the people now hunting down wyrders.

  She tried moving the conversation to other things. A shout arose from outside and the conversation in the restaurant hushed as everyone looked outside, where a gang of people were dragging another individual out of sight.

  Stephen nodded justly, but Melody closed her eyes in a wash of emotions. No one protested when a wyrder was attacked. Either they thought the wyrder deserved it, or they were too afraid to protest and find themselves the victim of violence as well.

  Melody shook her head, unable to think that wyrder being attacked was someone’s brother or son. What if it was Tally? Stephen’s firm hand on her wrist stopped her from standing and going to the wyrder’s aid.

  "You can't tell me you sympathize with them!" Stephen nearly roared. Everyone in the restaurant turned to their table, mingled looks of outrage and fear painted on their faces. Melody blushed.

  "Will you quiet down?" she asked as everyone went back to their meals. "Tally is a wyrder, you know I worry about her."

  Stephen frowned. She knew what he was thinking, that Tally was probably better off dead, and Melody should forget her.

  Melody tried to think of something to talk about, but their normal conversation in the past few years of their marriage surrounded their work. It seemed lately that was all they had in common. But talk of work would consist of wyrders and the well, and she wanted to avoid that at all costs. If they couldn't talk about work, what was left?

  Melody sighed and took another bite of her lamb.

  Karic couldn't believe the constable behind him. They were charged with the protection of all people, and here he was blatantly outcasting wyrders. He scoffed and downed his shot of Bahagreshian whiskey. It burned on the way down, and he hoped it would sooth the anger kindling in his belly.

  When the shout came, he felt the anger swirl more. He could feel the fear of the wyrder outside, dragged off by the mob. Karic could even nearly feel it when the wyrder came to the end of his life. He frowned. All of these bastards deserved to die. How could they sit around and watch something like that happen to another individual and do nothing?

  Karic didn’t stop to think that he also hadn’t done anything.

  When the constable nearly shouted at his meek wife, Karic jumped in shock.

  He had had enough of his kind being feared and hated like this. It wasn't enough that all of his friends were chased into hiding, with only a few like himself refusing to flee, and remaining in the cities. But now to have even constables vying for their death — it was sickening.

  It took all the strength Karic could muster to call his wyrd with any kind of control. A simple fire spell the flame the size of a candle flame danced along his fingertips. He sweated with the effort to control it.

  The bartender dropped the glass he was polishing dry and stepped back, fear in his eyes. Karic smiled at his fear.

  "Yes, you know what this is," he said.

  "Wyrder!" the bartender shouted, and rough hands grabbed him from behind. He knew it was the constable.

  Karic
let control of his wyrd vanish, and the corruption of the well rushed through him, igniting his very skin with living flame. The fire was wyrded, and so didn't act like a normal fire. It quickly spread from Karic and up Stephen's arms in a rush and from there jumped to the bartender. When the bartender stumbled into the liquor wall behind him and the bottles cascaded to the floor, shattering their multi-colored liquid across the floor, the restaurant exploded in flames.

  Shards of windows and broken tables erupted into the street, and ash settled across the severed neck of the headless wyrder in the alley beside the restaurant.

  The first time they had entered the well it took the might of three powerful sorceresses — Dalah, Pharoh, and Porillon — to control the ebbing Chaos. This time they only had one of those people, and she was much older than she had been last time.

  While it was true Dalah was immortal, Grace was worried that she could overextend herself, let the Chaos of the well in too deeply, and become a caustic: a husk of the person she once was, a vessel for Chaos in the realms.

  Grace prayed that maybe this time it would be different. Last time the Well of Wyrding had been corrupted for a much longer time before they had all ventured in. The well had been corrupted for a much shorter time this time around and Dalah was much stronger in wyrd. Grace genuinely hoped that Dalah would be able to take care of the situation, for there was little that Rosalee and Grace could do except that which they had planned at the last moment.