Well of Sorrows

by Benjamin Tate

  When everyone had settled, only two of Aeren’s followers still standing at the edge of the circle of grass, Aeren motioned for a pouch from the man who’d leaned forward to murmur in his ear. Opening it, he withdrew two bowls, one wide and shallow, the other small and deep, and two packages that appeared to be wrapped in long, wide leaves, the outermost leaves charred. He unwrapped one of the packages, sniffed at the haunch of meat inside, nose wrinkling, then proceeded to draw a wicked- looking knife from a sheath at the small of his back.

  Arten instantly tensed, hand falling to his sword, over an inch of the blade appearing in the strengthening sunlight. On the opposite side of the circle, Aeren’s guards barked a warning, drew their short swords in a flash of motion that stunned Colin, so fast that he saw only a flare of light as sunlight struck against metal. Aeren stilled, his expression annoyed.

  No one moved.

  Aeren murmured something under his breath.

  Neither of his guards looked pleased, but they resheathed their swords. Slowly. They didn’t take their hands from the hilts, however.

  Aeren set the meat down into the shallow bowl. His knife never wavered. Without taking his eyes off of Arten, he lowered the long knife to the meat and began to cut it into thin slices.

  Arten released the hilt of his sword, letting it slide back into its sheath.

  Only then did Aeren look down at what he was doing. All of the meat sliced, including the second package, he sheathed his knife, reached back into the pouch, and produced a drinking skin. Pulling out the stopper, he drained it into the deeper bowl, then set the skin and the leaves used to wrap and cook the meat aside.

  Standing, he picked up the bowl of meat and moved to the center of the circle of grass. He motioned Tom to do the same, and when he stood opposite him, he said something in his own language, the words formal, and then presented Tom with the bowl of meat.

  He took the bowl uncertainly, and at Aeren’s insistence he picked up a thin slice and passed the bowl around to the others. Colin took a slice last, then returned the bowl to Aeren, who smiled and passed the bowl among his own group until everyone had his own piece.

  Then he said something more in his own language and bit into his slice.

  Colin waited until his father took a bite before he tried his own. It smelled spicy, with some type of chopped green herb he didn’t recognize coating the outside edges. It tasted even spicier, salty and peppery, with something hotter kicking in at the back of his throat after he started chewing. There was a citrus taste to it as well, like lemon. The meat itself was wild and gamy in flavor, and he guessed it was one of the deer, like those they’d killed yesterday.

  He heard someone choking and glanced up to see Walter coughing into his hand, looking as if he wanted to spit the food out. Arten glared at him, and he grimaced, forced himself to continue chewing, and swallowed with effort.

  Aeren’s followers glanced at each other, troubled, but no one said anything.

  Aeren stepped back to retrieve the other bowl. As with the meat, he said something over it, like a benediction or prayer, and then presented it to Tom. This time, his father took it without hesitation and sipped, his face carefully neutral. He passed the bowl to Arten next, and Aeren nodded, watching as it was passed around.

  Colin was last again, the dark red liquid some kind of wine, drier and more tart than he was used to. It made the inside of his mouth pucker.

  The wine made the rounds of Aeren’s group, and then Aeren motioned everyone to sit back down, taking his own place on the other side of the circle.

  The formalities over, Aeren’s expression grew stern. He considered Colin and the rest seated before him, glanced at all of those up on the bank, Karen and Colin’s mother at the front, behind the line of sentries, then looked hard at Colin’s father. “Where go?”

  His father shifted, then pointed. “South and east.”

  Aeren shook his head. “No.” He motioned toward the group on the bank, mimed all of them turning around and heading back the way they’d come. “Go.”

  Tom frowned and leaned back, shaking his head. “We can’t go back. There’s nothing for us back there. We want to go to the south and east.”

  “No!” Aeren said more emphatically. He said something sharp in his own language. “No go southandeast!”

  “We can’t go back,” his father repeated, patiently. “Why do you want us to go back? And how do you know Andovan?”

  Frustrated, Aeren waved toward the northwest. “Go! Go!”

  When Tom only continued to shake his head, Aeren snorted in disgust. Behind him, one of the other men said something, and he stilled, listening.

  As they spoke, Arten leaned forward. “I think they’re trying to warn us of something.”

  “They aren’t doing a very good job of it,” Tom responded. “And even if they are, we can’t afford to go back at this point. We’ve come too far.”

  “It’s obvious they don’t know our language well,” Arten said. “We’ll have to be patient. They’re trying to tell us something. And as Colin says, I don’t think they intend to harm us.”

  Opposite them, Aeren finished the argument with his guard and turned back to Tom, who’d straightened. Seeing the stiffened back, Aeren sighed.

  Carefully, he folded the leaves that had been used to wrap the meat and placed them, the bowls, and the wineskin into the pouch, handing it off to one of the guards. He motioned to Colin and the rest, to those on the embankment behind them, and then said, “Come.” When no one moved, his expression darkened. “Come,” he said more forcefully, indicating a direction almost directly south of them. Part of his group had already stood and headed off ahead of him, spreading out in a wide line. Most of them didn’t seem all that concerned with making certain the people from Portstown were following them, their attention turned outward, as if they’d already forgotten they’d met the group. Only Aeren and one other stayed behind, inside the circle.

  Tom hesitated a long moment, frowning, eyes locked on Aeren, then stood, brushing off his breeches before heading back toward the camp.

  “What are you doing?” Walter demanded. He’d remained quiet for the entire exchange.

  Without turning, Tom said, “I’m going to order the rest of the wagons loaded. He obviously wants to show all of us something, and I intend to see what it is.”

  “Why are you helping them? They obviously don’t want to listen, like the last group.”

  Aeren didn’t turn to his Protector but kept his eyes on the strange group of brown-skinned people as they made their way back to their wagons and cook fires. The one called Walter was already speaking to the group’s leader, Tom, arguing with him. He found their language harsh, their names strange . . . but intriguing. Their beasts called horses—so large, so powerful—frightened him, their clothes coarsely woven and cut, and their customs savage, without proper form and structure, but still . . .

  “I’m helping them because they do not understand.”

  “You are helping them because you are curious. They are primitives, wandering into a land they know nothing about. We should leave them to the dwarren.”

  Aeren turned to his Protector then, frowning at Eraeth’s scowl. “This is not your Trial,” he said defensively, even though he knew the Protector was partially correct: He was curious. He’d approached Colin because they’d appeared to be the same age. And because Colin did not carry a weapon.

  “No, it is not. But I am your Protector. I—and the Phalanx—are here to protect you. From the dangers of the plains, from the risks of the Trial . . . from yourself.”

  Aeren stiffened, his shoulders straightening in indignation. “I am not the child my father assigned you to protect twenty years ago!” The words came out harsher than he intended, petulant and not fitting for the son of a House Lord, even a second son. He saw the instant disapproval in Eraeth’s eyes, in the lips pressed tightly together.

  He turned away from that look, caught his breath and held it to calm himself, t
hen said, “This is my Trial, Eraeth. Are you now an acolyte, part of the mystical Order? Who are you to say that they,” he nodded toward where the strangers were preparing their wagons for travel, “are not part of the Trial? Do you know Aielan’s will?”

  Eraeth stepped forward, so that Aeren could see him out of the corner of his eye. “No, I do not know Aielan’s will, but I fail to see how they could be part of your Trial. You have already passed. You’ve faced the dangers of the plains and the dwarren. You have seen the Confluence, have drunk its rose-tinged waters, have gathered those waters—the Blood of Aielan—as your proof.”

  “But I have not yet returned home.”

  “All the more reason to leave these strangers to the dwarren. This is not our land. This has nothing to do with the Alvritshai.”

  “Not now,” Aeren agreed, “but they continue to appear on the plains. Eventually, they will head northward. We should learn as much about them as we can.”

  Eraeth merely grunted, although it was tainted with grudging agreement.

  They remained silent for a long moment, the air between them tense, shouts from the strange group rising from the hollow where they’d taken refuge for the night. Eraeth had been his Protector for twenty years, had taught him the nuances of being a member of a House, had trained him in the art of the sword, the bow—all the arts of the Phalanx guard.

  But everything would change now, with his passage through the Trial. He would no longer be Eraeth’s student; he would be a full member of the House, the Protector’s master.

  And neither of them had figured out exactly what that meant yet.

  “What is it?” Karen asked, falling in beside Colin as soon as Walter, his father, and Arten reached the top of the bank. Tom barked out some orders a moment before Walter would have done the same. Everyone on the bank hesitated, uncertain, glancing back down at the circle where Aeren and his guard waited, the pattern woven into the grass clear now that the sun had risen completely, a swirl of lines like the patterns on their shirts. But when Tom clapped his hands and repeated the orders, prodding the nearest sentry into motion, the rest of the group began to move toward the wagons.

  Colin led Karen toward the campfire from the night before and began scrambling to load up the pots and kettles, dismantling the spit. Karen stooped to help.

  “I don’t know,” Colin said. “They tried to get us to turn back. Now I think they want to show us something. They want us to follow them.”

  “Where?”

  Colin shrugged. “Somewhere south of here.”

  Trying to handle too many pots at once, Karen dropped a few with a rattle and cursed. On all sides, men and women were running to and fro, tossing supplies into the backs of the wagons, where the older children were shoving them into place. The younger ones were trying to see what everyone was doing and to catch sight of the strange men, their attention focused on the embankment. Some of the men were hitching the horses.

  Someone rushed forward and doused the coals of the fire with a bucket of water, steam rising with a harsh hiss. Colin and Karen handed off the last of the supplies from their wagon, and then Colin searched for his father. He wanted to be at the front of the wagon train, near Aeren.

  “Come on,” he said, catching sight of his father near the lead wagon. He was talking to Arten and Walter, surveying the mad rush to pack and head out.

  “—were heading southeast anyway,” his father was saying as they approached. “Why shouldn’t we see what they want to show us?”

  “Because we don’t know what their intentions are!” Walter answered. “What if they’re leading us to the rest of their people? We have the advantage of numbers now. We might not if they take us to one of their villages or towns.”

  Colin’s father glanced toward Walter and said grudgingly, “You have a point. But then why would they try to get us to turn back?”

  “So they wouldn’t have to deal with us at all! But since we refused to turn back—”

  “I don’t think they live on the plains,” Arten cut in, and all of them turned toward him.

  Walter snorted. “Why not?”

  Arten shrugged. “Their clothes, their swords. Their breeches make sense, but their shirts aren’t made for the plains, and their boots are too high. Half of us don’t even wear shoes anymore, they’re too painful. It’s easier to go barefoot. And their swords make no sense at all. We haven’t killed anything with the swords since we headed out.”

  “But they have bows,” Colin’s father said.

  Arten nodded. “Which makes sense if they intend to be here for a short time. They’d need them to hunt with. But if they lived here permanently, they wouldn’t need the swords at all.”

  Sam appeared out of nowhere, breath short. “We’re ready to leave. Paul’s stowing the last few things into Tobin’s wagon, with Ana’s help, but they’ll be done by the time their wagon has to start moving.”

  Tom nodded and turned to Walter. “We’ll follow them, but we’ll be cautious. I don’t see any reason not to trust them at this point. They know the plains better than we do.”

  Walter didn’t argue any further, storming away to where Jackson waited with their horses.

  Tom put two fingers in the corners of his mouth and whistled, the sound piercing the commotion of the rest of the wagon train. “Let’s move out!” he shouted, motioning with one hand over his head. Men climbed up into their seats and snapped the reins, and the lead wagon creaked forward, heading toward the gap between the two banks.

  “I think we should stick close to Aeren,” Tom said to them all, then turned to Colin. “He seems to have bonded with you, possibly because he’s younger than the rest of his group. Hell, you two may even be the same age, I can’t tell. But see what you can find out about him and his people.”

  Colin nodded.

  They passed through the gap and found Aeren and his guard waiting on the far side. The rest of Aeren’s group had vanished into the plains.

  “We’re ready,” Tom said as they approached the two strange men.

  Aeren nodded, watching the first wagon as it began to ford the stream, wheels splashing through the water. He eyed the horses intently, not without a little fear, and Colin realized he hadn’t seen anything like horses here in New Andover. The closest animal had been the deer.

  But then Aeren motioned toward the south. “Suren,” he said, in his own language.

  “Suren,” Colin’s father repeated as they began walking in that direction.

  Aeren grinned and nodded, then pointed north, east, west, and south, as he said, “Nuren, est, ost, ai suren.”

  Tom followed suit. “Nuren, est, ust—”

  “Ost.”

  “—ost, and suren?”

  When Aeren smiled, Tom repeated the directions in Andovan, Aeren frowning seriously as he listened, repeating the words as they both pointed, the directions getting more complicated as they started doing southeast, northwest, southwest, and northeast. Aeren’s guardian scowled until Aeren threw him a dark look. Everyone else smiled or chuckled.

  “Eraeth,” Aeren said, pointing to his guardian, who scowled again, pointedly ignoring Aeren. Colin saw Aeren’s mouth twitch. Then Aeren motioned to Karen, his eyebrow raised.

  “Karen,” Colin said. “Her name is Karen.”

  Aeren paused and gave Karen another of the formal bows, almost the same he’d given Tom but slightly different. He said something in his own language, and even though no one except Eraeth could understand him, Karen lifted her head higher and blushed.

  They traveled through the morning, pausing to rest on occasion, Aeren pointing out animals and plants and flowers as they went, speaking mostly to Colin and Karen, trading the names of each object in the two languages. At one point, Aeren began quizzing them all, and Colin discovered that Karen was more adept at remembering the new language. The strange deer were called gaezels by the Alvritshai, the name of Aeren’s people. Colin couldn’t determine exactly where the Alvritshai were from, but after
numerous attempts he thought they came from a range of mountains to the north. At least, Aeren kept pointing to the mountains to the east, making jagged up and down motions with his hands, then shaking his head when Colin or Karen pointed east and saying nuren instead.

  Eraeth listened to all of this disapprovingly, keeping his eyes on Arten and Tom. Sam had drifted away to help one of the wagons when it got stuck in a low spot.

  Toward midafternoon, both Aeren and Eraeth grew quieter, Eraeth speaking to Aeren in a low voice, as if trying to convince him of something. Aeren kept shaking his head but otherwise didn’t argue with him. Until at one point he grew exasperated and said something short and curt, raising his arm across his chest, his hand in a fist near his shoulder. The band of gold around his wrist gleamed in the steady sunlight.

  After that, Eraeth kept silent, his face studiously blank.

  It was after this altercation that Walter and Jackson approached the group, drawing their horses up sharply. Both of the Alvritshai stepped back, distancing themselves from the animals, their eyes slightly wider than usual, although they showed no other signs of fear.

  Walter ignored the two of them completely. “Jackson says that, according to his map and calculations, we should be nearing the river that leads to Portstown, assuming it kept the same general course. He estimates the Bluff and Falls are about two, maybe three, days travel to the west.”

  Colin’s father raised a hand to his eyes to shade them from the sun and scanned the horizon. “I don’t see anything.”

  “What about that?” Arten pointed toward the southeast, where a darker line appeared on the plains, blending into the heat waves on the horizon.

  At Aeren’s quizzical expression, Colin tried to explain the river. Eraeth snorted and said something in Alvritshai, and Aeren motioned them forward, but not toward the darker spot Arten had seen. They continued south, the dark line spreading, until they were close enough to see that it was a low ridge where the plains were interrupted by a line of trees and brush cutting its way almost directly east. As they drew closer, Colin heard a strange rustling, then realized it was the leaves of the trees brushing against each other in the breeze. He hadn’t heard the sound in so long, he barely recognized it.