The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3)

by Travis Simmons

  “They were called caustics, for the damage that they would wreak upon the realms. And what damage it was — slaughtering and corrupting wherever they went. They were, truth be told, a weaker version of Chaos itself brought to bear on the land.

  “So, that’s the reason we do not speak of the well, for fear that we will conjure within us that poison and malcontent.” Even though Flora said it in soft tones Cianna felt admonished anyway, and looked off to the east, for some reason her attention being drawn that way when thinking of the Well of Wyrding.

  “Well, I’m ready to move on. It isn’t much further to the next way station at any rate.” They started out again and the day passed in near-silence. Cianna finally broke it.

  “I didn’t realize the well was capable of doing such things to wyrders,” Cianna said.

  “And there was no reason for you to, either. Don’t fret, I’m sure that you wouldn’t have to worry about the corruption, seeing as you don’t work with wyrd in the strictest sense,” Flora told her.

  “But I do have to worry about it,” she said quietly, and slowly they all stopped.

  “Why is that?” Pi asked concerned.

  “Because of the souls of the departed, they seek to corrupt me, and I think they’re an extension of the poisoned wyrd.”

  “They are,” Flora said with a nod. “You’re right.”

  “Please, tell me,” Cianna urged, and Flora pointed a ways up the bridge.

  “We’re coming to the next way station, in there I will tell you what I know.”

  Before long they reached the way station and ushered inside. It was getting dark, and as they’d learned, when it got dark the kelpies came out. Maybe the corruption of the well was working on the bridge. Cianna wondered if that was why the wardings keeping the kelpies at bay were failing.

  With the sounds they had heard last night from the kelpies, Cianna didn’t wish to stay out at night at all. They hastily made dinner from the stores of vegetables they found inside, all of them pitching in so that they finished their chore faster, and soon they were sitting down to their dinner.

  “So you say that you’re being plagued by the dead?” Pi asked through steaming mouthfuls of vegetables.

  “I was being plagued by the dead until I came to the Realm of Water.” Pi looked at her funny, so Cianna elaborated.

  “A few months ago I started having nightmares of the Necromancers’ Mosque. I was raised in an environment conducive to my wyrd, so it was no surprise to me that I would be receiving the summons soon. I knew what I was from a young age and had read as many books on the topic as I could get my hands on. I was raised by two powerful wyrders, so it was very easy for me to learn a lot about my power.

  “Once I received the summons, I started out on my journey. There were a few hardships.” Cianna left out that she had been abducted by the chaos dwarves, figuring that the fewer people that knew that, the better.

  “When the Well of Wyrding was breached, the wyrd reacted differently within me. Or rather I should say the souls that often visit me changed with the penetration,” Cianna finished, and looked for explanation from Flora.

  “I think it’s obvious why the souls were coming; you are the only one that can see them and they want help,” the old woman said sagely.

  “I know that, but you said there was a reason they were tied to the well or something like that.”

  “Yes. To give you a full understanding, you must know the tree. The tree is split into three parts: the roots, the trunk, and the branches. Each of these parts represent a different part of life. The roots represent the lives of men, while their station, where they are placed, represents the Otherworld. The branches represent the Ever After, and the trunk represents the earthly goings-on.” Flora took a drink of her water and continued.

  “Now, when someone dies, they cease to be of the physical world, and their fate ends. This means that they leave both the roots and the trunk and make their way up to the branches, becoming the leaves basking in the light of the Goddess.” Flora gestured as if to represent the passage of the soul. “It’s said that the wyrd within the well feeds the tree through the roots. The wyrd travels up to the leaves, and whatever is not used gets sent back down to the well as if it were raining wyrd. This passage represents the journey of the soul, or at least the fate.” Flora thought for a moment.

  “Now, think that the well is contaminated. The fates seal off, and while the tree is still being fed by wyrd, it is not fully nutritious to the tree, for lack of a better word, for it is lacking the fates of the dead. It is hollow and without substance, which is the reason the tree begins to die once the well is contaminated. This also means that the souls cannot get into the Ever After, for their fates stay stagnant, remain within the poisoned wyrd at the roots, and corrode. The fates transcribed on the roots are the record of their lives, and hence the only life the dead can cling to. They live on through their memories on the roots, and when the roots are so poisoned, so too are the souls.

  “The souls are coming to you, seeking your help, yet at the same time being poisoned and corrupted by the Chaos within the well just like every other wyrder is. They try to reach out to you for help, but just like a failed wyrding they fall short, and end up causing you more harm than good.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” Cianna said after a time, her food sitting before her untouched.

  “I had to know a lot about the tree and the well; I’m a teacher, after all, and Evyndelle lore was one of my specialties.” Flora got up and began cleaning up the dishes. “Do you have any questions?”

  Cianna didn’t, so she shook her head.

  “Okay then, eat up. You need your strength after what you have been through.” Cianna began eating, and the others just watched her, wondering what kind of hell she must have been in before. They knew the bane of using their wyrd right now, so they simply didn’t. But what Cianna had gone through would have been similar to their wyrd forcing itself upon them, attacking them, and making them touch it, corrupting them even as they fought against the onslaught. They wondered what she was, for no human could have withstood such an onslaught.

  Rama cowered back in her bed as the walls of Fairview Heights groaned around her. She rested her head in her hands as the paneling bowed in toward her, threatening to collapse the entire height of the hotel on her.

  It had been weeks since Dalah had left, and she promised to take care of the corruption. In fact, Rama knew before most anybody else what the thundering in the air had been that night. Dalah had lived through it before, and she warned Rama what it would be like.

  Fairview Heights was Dalah's pride and joy, and she would trust no other with it besides Rama. She had warned the young sorceress that the hotel was built with no small amount of wyrd, and when the corruption of the well got too bad, it might even affect the building.

  Rama had brushed the warning aside. How could the wyrd of a building be affected? She gladly took over the role of proprietor of the hotel. Now she wished she hadn't.

  What had once been a happy place was now nothing more than a tower of corruption. Chaos stalked the halls. Earlier in the week, before the patrons of the hotel had confined themselves in their rooms, a string of murders had started happening.

  Caustics, Rama thought. That's the word she had heard breathed among people at servants’ dinner tables. The caustics were returning, innocent people corrupted to the point of insanity with the toxicity of the Well of Wyrding. The corruption had taken over their entire being, driving out whatever had once been the person.

  Rama shuddered.

  The corruption still worked through the caustics, taking innocent lives, but now it was different. Since the people were locked within their rooms, only daring to come out for food when their rations ran low, the caustics now took their own lives, jumping from windows to dash their bodies on the ground below when victims couldn't be found in the halls.

  There were even reports of people vanishing into the floor or the wal
ls, like Fairview Heights was consuming the patrons, trying to sate a chaotic need to devour life.

  They had tried to leave. But everyone knew that Fairview Heights was built with wyrd, and it didn't take long before an angry mob of citizens ringed the fences of the hotel, not letting any of the people out of the tower of chaos that the inn had become.

  Rama had seriously thought about blasting her way out of the hotel, but that would only cause people to fear wyrd even more, maybe see her dead at the hands of the mob, or speed up the corruption of her own wyrd.

  She eased out of the large bed in her purple room. Snaking a finger through the curtains, she parted them a hairs-breadth and looked out the pane to the ground below. There was the sentry, keeping them locked in.

  Occasionally people tried to get out, and she could see their dead bodies littering the ground below. It was beyond her how the senators and governors let this continue, let alone how the Realm Guardian wasn't aware of this, or working to help them. Rama shook her head. There had to be countless things happening right now. Realm Guardian Rowan had sent out a command to all of the Realm of Air that wyrders were to retreat to a place of safety, but Rama had ignored it. The hotel was to stay open, and she was to watch over it.

  That was foolish.

  She closed her eyes as the room spun, the wyrd of the hotel battering at her defenses. Rama was getting so tired, but sleeping was worse than being awake. The chaos was always present in her dreams.

  She opened her eyes wide, refusing to think of those macabre dreams. A scream sounded overhead, and quickly subsided to a gurgle.

  "Dalah," Rama whispered, looking up as if she could see the person who had just lost their life. "Hurry."

  The substance inside the well was heavy, dense, and supported one as though it was a force more stable than air. There Grace floated, and she thought that if this greenness was air, then she was now able to fly. But there was also a clinging quality to it that reminded her of water, only water she was able to breathe.

  She thought then of why she had been dragged into the well, and cast around looking for whatever might have pulled her in, though she was not able to see anything. The others, having not seen the gray-webbed hand that pulled her in, knelt at the rim of the well and yelled down to her.

  It was then that she heard the booming that surrounded her, as if the Evyndelle, whose very roots were all about her in the green wyrd, had a heartbeat. So intense was the reverberation that Grace felt as though she were in a giant drum, and someone was beating relentlessly on the outside. It was not at all a steady beat like a healthy heart, but instead the rapid beating of a heart that was close to expiration.

  She couldn’t remember hearing the thrumming heartbeat of the tree when she first fell in. No, it was like the thundering started when Dalah and Rosalee called to her.

  It was the heartbeat of wyrd. She had felt it all her life when she used her wyrd; it would pulse through her, and all with wyrd would describe the same sensation when they tapped into their abilities. Wyrd was a living entity, and much like the spirits a necromancer channeled, the wyrd would flow through the caster, a cognizant force that lived in its own rhythms.

  She looked up and saw that her friends were yelling to her in a near-panicked state. Grace urged herself upward.

  When she emerged little beads of what appeared to be moisture clung to her, shimmering in the ebbing light of the surrounding garden as if little green stars flickered from within her silver hair and the wrinkles of her face.

  “It’s all clear in here,” she said, though she knew that it wasn’t, for there was most definitely something within the well corrupting the tree.

  “What happened to you?” Rosalee asked.

  “I must have slipped,” she said, a little confused for Grace was sure that she had felt something on her ankle, pulling her into the depths of the Well of Wyrding.

  “Well at least that settles whether it’s safe to go in or not,” Rosalee joked. “If nothing has eaten you maybe there is nothing in there.”

  “Come, on, if you were a monster, even a starving one, would you want to eat her?” Dalah asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure that she is pretty sour to taste,” Rosalee made a funny face to emphasis how bad she thought Grace must taste. “I’m sure it has something to do with her brain pumping malcontent to each and every fiber of her being.”

  “I’m a lot yummier than either of you,” Grace said scornfully. “Besides, monsters or no, I doubt that this place is safe.” She looked around. “You might want to get in here so that we can finish this.”

  That sobered both of them, and Rosalee slipped into the Well of Wyrding by holding onto the rim and easing herself in as she used to Lake Mirror in younger days. Dalah stepped smoothly off the rim and stood on the water for a moment before slowly sinking into the well.

  “What?” she asked as they both stared at her. “I remembered from last time we were here about moving through the wyrd with your thoughts and not movements.”

  “That’s how you guys did it?” Rosalee asked. “Here poor Grace and I were swimming through it looking daft.”

  “So we just think of where we want to go and the wyrd takes us there?” Grace asked.

  “Yes,” Dalah said. “Now we all remember where the place is that Pharoh took us too when we first cleansed the well?”

  “Yes,” Grace said. “But while we are here can’t we take a glimpse at some of the roots to find out what is happening in the Great Realms?”

  “That wouldn’t hurt,” Rosalee said.

  “Yes, it would. I think it is a great idea, Grace, but just think what this polluted wyrd is doing to us!” Dalah sounded very concerned. “We need you on board. Each and every one of us will have to think of the same destination, or we will get separated. That is highly dangerous. Not to mention, just think what touching your wyrd does to you and your surroundings, can you imagine being submerged in that malevolence for a long time?”

  “You’re right,” Grace said shaking her head. “I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

  “Okay, our journey is going to take us to the bottom of the well,” Dalah said, and as she mentioned that particular destination she slipped under the surface of the wyrd, and whatever she was about to say was lost in the silence that her submersion brought.

  Grace shrugged and thought of the end of the roots of the Evyndelle and the opalescent bottom of the Well of Wyrding, and she too was lost to the shimmering depths of the Well of Wyrding.

  Rosalee followed suit.

  When first observing the wyrd Grace didn’t think that it glowed or had a source of light unto itself. She was surprised, however, that the deeper they went the wyrd around them didn’t grow much darker. For some reason she had imagined last time that going further into the deep brought to them darkness like night. Then they had only been able to see by the way of the shimmering words on roots that passed them by as new fates and destinies were written on the great roots of the Evyndelle.

  This time the corruption was not as bad, and so the depths of the well were not as dark. Presently they had caught the flux of wyrd before it had caused too much devastation.

  The light of new destinies alighted on the roots they passed as new branches were added to long-standing roots. It was like looking at a giant family tree, and each new offspring of root and each new flashing of light as fate was written in differing languages on those new roots represented a new life being brought into the world.

  Occasionally Grace would fall behind as she scanned what was being said about different people. Occasionally she would read something humorous like: Bobby will find the love of his life when a Salamander lights the seat of his pants on fire. Sara Reed will douse the flames, and in the good humor they will find love. Occasionally Grace would laugh, while other times she would look puzzled at the roots, for they were written in a different language.

  “Dalah?” Grace asked. “How many beliefs and continents does the Evyndelle cover? I don’t thi
nk I recognize some of these languages.”

  “It covers all continents on the planet, as well as all times. They are written in the language of the region and time, so ancient languages you wouldn’t understand, as well as foreign languages. There are even parts of the tree where the roots display the story of one’s life in the form of pictures.”

  “So it is almost like the tree learned language as humans did?” Rosalee asked.

  “Precisely.”

  Felicia will not make it past birth, Grace read on one specific root that didn’t grow any longer than was necessary to write the message. Her heart went out to the parents that had lost the life so dear to them in the instant that light slashed words across the stunted root.

  Darcy will plant a large garden that millions will adore.

  Trent will invent a new way of breathing water. Grace would like to see that, but she couldn’t imagine even one way to breathe water let alone more than one way.

  Sheldon will defy gravity.

  Grant will kill his family and destroy the world if he lives past ten, Grace gasped and hoped that someone killed that kid before his tenth birthday rolled around.

  Then as the time carried them deeper into the Well of Wyrding the new fates began to fade from sight, to be replaced by blue glowing fates.

  “These are the older fates, the ones that have been sealed. Most of them will be ancient, older than even Grace, so you likely won’t be able to read them.” And it was true, Grace couldn’t read many of the blue glimmering fates, even though some of the characters seemed to be somehow familiar to her.