Well of Sorrows

by Benjamin Tate

  Colin didn’t hear the commander’s response, only the sudden rise in volume as they argued. The taste of blood filled his mouth, its scent swelling and smothering his senses. He struggled against it, fought the expanding film of yellow over his vision, the sudden muted ringing in his ears that blocked out all sound—

  Then the heat became too great, and everything went black.

  13

  THE SHIP ROLLED BENEATH HIM, and Colin clutched the wooden support, the press of the other refugees from Trent close around him. The sour-sick stench of vomit filled the dark hold, and he tried not to gag as he breathed through his mouth. Not ten paces away, he heard someone heaving up his minimal breakfast, and he blocked out the sound, closing his eyes and tucking his head down between his shoulders, cowering against the support. Someone nearby wept, and a baby cried—had cried non-stop for the last two days, sick with colic—its mother shushing it.

  Overhead, on deck, the sound of running boots thudded into the hold as the ship lurched to port. Everyone cried out as they were thrown to the side.

  Then a hand fell on Colin’s shoulder. He looked up, even though it was too dark to see any faces, and felt his mother’s breath against his neck as she spoke. “It’ll be all right, Colin. It’s just a storm. It’ll be over soon enough.”

  She pulled him close, hugged his body tight to hers, nestling him under her arm. He didn’t let go of the wooden support, not completely, but he did bury his head against her chest. He could smell her sweat, the reek of the potatoes she’d been peeling for the cook for the captain’s dinner, the collected grime from unwashed clothes; he could smell her.

  He wanted to stay here, in her arms, in her warmth.

  The ship lurched again, and suddenly there was another hand, on his other arm.

  “Colin,” a girl whispered, tugging at him, trying to gain his attention.

  He pulled away, clutched tighter to his mother. She smiled down at him—he could feel it—tousled his hair—

  And the girl tugged harder. “Colin! Colin, listen to me!”

  Colin growled and turned his head to snarl, “What?”

  It was Karen.

  A cold, cold hand sank deep into his gut.

  Karen shouldn’t be here. Karen shouldn’t be on this ship. He hadn’t even known her yet.

  With a look of pity and patience, Karen said, “You can’t stay here, Colin.”

  Confused but with a growing awareness that this couldn’t be happening, that Karen was dead, that his mother was dead, he whispered, “Why not?”

  “You have to wake up. There are things you need to do.”

  “But . . . but,” he stammered, aware now that he could taste blood in his mouth, warm and metallic. The visceral sensations of the ship were receding—the smell of vomit, the warmth of his mother’s body, the splinters biting into his hands.

  Karen receded as well.

  “What do I need to do?” he shouted into the burgeoning darkness, but the words were mumbled, the blood thick on his tongue.

  He woke with a jolt and spat blood to one side of the bed he lay in, moaning as a tendril of the spit drooled down from his mouth. He wiped it away, his body aching, his head pounding, then lay back on the bed again.

  He smelled leaves and earth and snow.

  After a moment, he realized that the rolling sensation of the ship from the dream had not ended.

  His eyes flew open and he turned onto his side—

  And found three Alvritshai watching him from the opposite end of the narrow room. Aeren, Eraeth, and a guardsman Colin didn’t know. They stood just inside the narrow doorway. Colin could see a ship’s corridor outside, and with a quick glance he determined that the room they held him in contained five more bunks, two above him and three across an aisle. Lanterns burned, swinging at the motion of the ship, and he could hear the thud of numerous feet around him.

  Eraeth said something in Alvritshai. Colin caught a few words he recognized, but not enough to translate it. He’d learned more dwarren than Alvritshai in his time in the forest.

  “Speak Andovan, Protector,” Aeren said, and when Eraeth sneered, he added, “as a courtesy to our guest.”

  Eraeth’s sneer vanished, his eyes going flat. “I told you he would wake soon.”

  Aeren nodded. His eyes didn’t leave Colin’s face. “Yes. You were correct to summon me.”

  Eraeth snorted. “I do not know why you wanted to bring him with us. He’s nothing more than a commoner, and he stinks.”

  “I brought him because he stopped those who attacked us, those who killed one of the Phalanx and nearly killed Lord Barak. He stopped them even when it was obvious the Legion’s commander would have allowed them to escape. I brought him because he appeared sick, and the honor of Rhyssal House demanded it, but also because I felt that the Legion’s commander intended him harm.” Aeren stepped forward, a frown touching his lips. “And I brought him because he seems . . . familiar.”

  Both Eraeth and the other guard stiffened when Aeren moved, their gazes falling on Colin as if they expected him to leap up with bared sword at any moment. Colin didn’t have a sword, didn’t even have his staff or satchel, although the satchel must be close if he could smell the Lifeblood. He hadn’t dared move since he’d caught sight of the three Alvritshai; he’d seen how fast they could move when there was need.

  Now Aeren tilted his head slightly, his attention focusing completely on Colin while the two guardsmen shifted farther into the room. “Who are you?”

  Colin cleared his mouth of blood-tainted saliva and swallowed. Then, in a hoarse voice, he said, “Colin. My name is Colin.”

  Aeren’s eyes narrowed as he thought. Colin could see his mind racing, reaching back, then back farther, memory tugging at him.

  And then his eyes widened. He swore, in Alvritshai, but the flavor of the words was clear.

  Eraeth asked him something, and he responded in a hushed voice. Eraeth said something, realized that Colin couldn’t understand, and repeated himself in Andovan. “Impossible!”

  Colin eased up onto his elbow, swung his legs off the edge of the bunk, aware of the Alvritshai’s swords. And aware that doubt had settled into Aeren’s gaze.

  “I survived the attacks by the dwarren and the Shadows . . . the sukrael,” he said, “but only with the help of the Faelehgre.”

  “The Faelehgre?”

  “The lights in the forest. The ones that burn with a pure white fire. They’ve lived there with the Shadows for hundreds upon hundreds of years.”

  Aeren’s eyes narrowed. “The antruel. The Guardians.” Both Eraeth and the other guardsman shifted nervously.

  Colin thought about the Faelehgre, of the Well. “They call themselves the Faelehgre.”

  Aeren nodded. But he hadn’t relaxed. Neither had Eraeth. “And how did these . . . Faelehgre help you?”

  Colin shifted uncomfortably, dropped his head, the memories rising up so fast, so vividly. He breathed in deeply to steady himself, smelled the grass of the plains, the clean wetness of the storm that had passed. “Most of the wagons managed to escape the dwarren battle,” he began, his voice low. “We halted at the edge of the forest. The dwarren followed us, but they refused to come to within a hundred paces of the edge of the trees. We thought we were safe. But then the Shadows attacked. The sukrael.”

  “We warned you,” Eraeth said, voice tight with contempt.

  Colin looked up, anger rising in his chest. “Where else could we go?” he asked bitterly. “After the fight near the underground river, fleeing across the plains, the storm. . . .” He shook his head. “Even if we had followed you, we wouldn’t have been able to go far. We were exhausted. We would have slowed you down, even without the wagons.” He remembered how fast the Alvritshai warriors had moved back then, how fast they could run, nearly keeping up with the horses.

  Eraeth grunted, still dismissive, still suspicious. But Aeren intervened before he could say anything more. “How did you escape the sukrael?”

&
nbsp; “I . . . didn’t.”

  Aeren’s brow creased in confusion.

  Pain filled Colin’s chest, cold with the memory of the Shadow’s touch, but he forced himself to continue. “The sukrael attacked the wagons, and everything went to hell. Karen and I tried to find our parents, but everyone was running back and forth, and the Shadows were everywhere, falling on everyone, taking the horses, the Armory . . . nothing could stop them, not swords or axes. When we finally found Karen’s father, he’d been cornered near a wagon. I watched him fall, tried to hold Karen back. But she broke free.” His throat closed up but he forced himself to swallow. The emotions weren’t as raw here, away from the forest, away from the plains, but they were still strong enough to make breathing difficult.

  He glanced up, met Aeren’s pained look, Eraeth’s narrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown. “I stayed with her, held her. I couldn’t move. Too drained—from the run, from the intensity of the dwarren battle, from the horror of what was happening around me. So I simply sat there and let the Shadows touch me.”

  Eraeth hissed, the sound so unnatural that Colin started. Then the Protector muttered something under his breath, lips drawn back from his teeth as he reached for his sword, but he didn’t draw it. The effort not to draw it was clear in the tension on his face. “No one survives the touch of the sukrael,” he said sharply.

  Colin felt his anger escalate. “I wouldn’t have. I wanted to die. But the Shadows didn’t take me right away, like the others. They’d been sated. So they tested me instead, touched me, searching for something. But then the Faeleghre came, and the Shadows fled. They saved me, led me to the Lifeblood, and—” He halted, about to say the Faelehgre had forced him to drink the waters; but that wasn’t true. “—they had me drink from the Well. That’s what saved me from the Shadows’ touch, but it changed me as well.” He hesitated, then shoved back the cuff of his robe, exposing the black mark on his skin.

  Eraeth stilled, his body going rigid, but the other guardsman wasn’t as controlled. He stepped back, eyes wide with fear, and hissed, “Shaeveran,” warding himself.

  Eraeth barked something in Alvritshai, the guardsman arguing with him a moment, until Aeren finally cut them both off with a gesture.

  Colin covered the mark again. The other guardsman whispered something to Aeren, his glance shooting toward his lord. Aeren’s lips pursed.

  “He says you’ve drunk from one of the sarenavriell, from a—” He paused, brow creasing as he translated the Alvritshai word, “—from a ‘Well of Sorrows.’ He says that you are cursed.”

  “Well of Sorrows.” Colin barked bitter laughter. He thought of all those who’d died in the wagon train, of his parents, Arten, and Karen. “That’s appropriate.”

  Eraeth’s suspicious gaze hadn’t wavered. “It could be a trick,” he said tightly. “He may not be the boy we met on the plains. He may have assumed the identity to get close to you.”

  Aeren frowned. “Very few knew of the wagon train on the plains: you and the rest of the Phalanx present for that portion of my Trial, but no one else. Are you saying I cannot trust my own House guard?”

  Eraeth’s lips peeled back from his lips in a silent snarl, but then he relaxed, the snarl vanishing. He shot Colin a black look. “Of course you can trust your guard.”

  Aeren nodded, accepting the emotionless words without comment. He regarded Colin a long moment, the silence thick, his face unreadable, his gaze intense. Colin shifted nervously beneath that gaze, the rolling of the ship beginning to make him nauseous again. Then he straightened.

  “I can prove that I’m the boy you met on the plains,” he said suddenly.

  Before any of the Alvritshai could respond, he concentrated. His age fell away, the wrinkles of the fifty-year-old man smoothing, muscles tightening. He took himself all the way back to twelve, the age when he and Aeren had first met.

  As soon as he started to change, the guardsman Colin didn’t know whispered something long and complicated. Colin could taste his fear. Eraeth’s blade slid from its sheath, and with a fluid grace he stepped in front of Aeren. The Alvritshai lord didn’t protest, his own eyes wide. Fear tightened the skin at the corners of his eyes, pressed his lips into a thin line.

  “Stop,” he said, and waved his hand. When Colin only frowned, he repeated in a harsher tone, “Stop!”

  Colin returned to the older version of himself. He could feel the tension in Aeren now, the lord fidgeting, as if he wanted to pace, which the confines of the cabin on the ship didn’t allow. He shot a hard gaze at Eraeth, then turned back to Colin.

  “Do not allow anyone else to see you . . . change,” he said, his voice soft but dangerous. He waited until Colin had nodded agreement before continuing, relaxing only slightly. “Is this a consequence of the sarenavriell?”

  “Yes. I can become any age I want, up to my true age.”

  “And can you shift into other forms? Can you make yourself look like Eraeth, or myself?”

  “No.”

  “I see. And were there . . . any other consequences?”

  “I have seizures, like the one you saw.” At the look of concern that flashed in Aeren’s eyes, Colin ran a hand across his mouth, as if there were blood still there, then grimaced. “There’s nothing you can do for me. If it happens again, let it run its course.” He didn’t explain that the seizures had gotten worse since he’d left the Well’s influence or that he’d only coughed up blood once before, on the plains.

  Aeren regarded him a long moment, then nodded, as if he’d reached a decision. He said something low to Eraeth, the Protector’s expression darkening, but he stepped outside the room, returning with Colin’s staff and satchel. He handed them off to Aeren.

  Kneeling down, Aeren set the staff aside and reached into the satchel. Colin felt his heart leap into his throat, thinking of the flask of Lifeblood, hoping that neither Aeren nor Eraeth had tasted it or even opened it, but Aeren didn’t remove the flask. He drew out the small vial of pink-tinged water instead.

  From his crouch, turning the vial over in one hand, Aeren asked, “Do you know what this is?” He looked up, met Colin’s gaze. “It’s water from a ruanavriell. It has the power to heal. Not completely, but enough to halt blood loss, to seal a wound long enough for it to heal on its own.” He closed the vial in a fist. “Where did you get this?”

  Colin swallowed, felt sweat break out on his forehead and upper lip. Aeren had given the question a weight that Colin didn’t understand. But he sensed that of all of the questions that Aeren and Eraeth had asked, the answer to this one was the most important.

  “I don’t know where it came from,” he said. “But I found it on my father’s body.”

  Aeren’s eyes narrowed as he considered. Then, abruptly, he stood, and Colin felt nearly all of the tension drain out of the room. Only Eraeth still remained wary.

  “The vial is marked with a sigil,” Aeren said. “My own House sigil. Only someone from my House could have given this to you—or your father—and at present, I am the only remaining member of my House.” He grimaced, and Colin heard the pain and grief he tried to keep hidden. “I gave such a vial to your father, before the dwarren attack, to help him heal someone’s shoulder. I see no other way you could have possession of this . . . unless what you say is true.”

  Eraeth drew breath as if to protest, but Aeren stiffened. Eraeth’s jaw clenched, his eyes darkening as he glowered at Colin. Aeren stepped forward and handed Colin his staff and satchel.

  “You may move about the ship with one of my guards as escort if you wish. We are headed toward Corsair, where I intend to meet with the King. I realize that you more than likely were not headed to Corsair when we took you on board. Once we arrive, I will make arrangements for you to be returned to Portstown, if that is your wish. Now that I know you are . . . well.”

  “I had only arrived in Portstown the day of the attack in the thoroughfare,” Colin said. He shrugged. “I have nowhere to go.”

  Aeren hesitated
, and behind him, Colin saw Eraeth make a warning gesture, one his lord couldn’t see. “Then you should remain with my party, at least for the moment,” Aeren said. Eraeth swore silently, flashing Colin a vicious glare. The guard’s hand dropped, clenched slightly into a fist. Aeren’s gaze fell on Colin’s robes. “You should change into the shirt and breeches in your pack. Those will suffice until I can have suitable clothes prepared.”

  When Colin nodded agreement, Aeren glanced down at the vial of pink-tinted water he still held in his hand. He started to hand the vial back to Colin, but stopped.

  “There is one other thing, Colin,” he began hesitantly.

  “What?”

  Aeren looked up. “During the attack in Portstown, the lord accompanying me, Lord Barak, was mortally wounded by the attacker’s crossbow bolt. We have stabilized him, but our healer does not feel that he will survive the journey back to our own lands, and there is no one within the Provinces who would be willing to help heal . . . one of our kind.” He said it with the barest hint of bitterness, but even that faded as he continued. “The Alvritshai are not welcome along the coast, and the hatred is not entirely undeserved. The attack in Portstown was not unexpected.” His hand closed over the vial again, and he straightened. The guardsman behind him shifted nervously, his gaze falling to the rolling floor. Even Eraeth shifted uncomfortably.

  “The waters of the ruanavriell are rare, collected only by members of the Evant during their Trials, as proof that they have, in fact, seen the Confluence and tasted its waters. It is not the Alvritshai custom to ask for gifts—”

  And suddenly Colin understood. “Take it.” He smiled and pushed Aeren’s closed fist toward him, both guards stiffening until he withdrew his hand. “My father would have wanted you to have it back.”

  Aeren frowned at Colin a long moment, then bowed, the gesture formal, reminding Colin with a lurch of his heart of their first meeting on the plains. “Thank you. I—and Lord Barak—are in your debt.”