We got out of the sleigh just as a man and woman landed beside us, having dropped down from some hidden spot atop the ridge. Both were armed with weapons and fierce looks, though they relaxed when the driver gave them an explanation in Icori. Then, the man who’d leapt down did a double take.
“Jago, is that you?”
“None other.” Jago stepped down and shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you, Cai.”
“And you. You are welcome to the Well of the Gods.” The man sheathed his blade and shot me a smile. “As is your friend.”
“Tamsin Wright, Cai Ipaeron,” said Jago.
“Welcome, Tamsin,” said Cai. “Jago, I don’t suppose you’ve come to sell food?”
“Not specifically, but I’ve got a few things that might spice up your winter rations. I’ve got lamp oil too.”
The Icori woman stayed with the sleigh and driver while Cai led Jago and me through a gap between the rocks. It became a winding passageway that made me feel like I was in some sort of labyrinth. Evening’s shadows darkened our path, and I couldn’t see over the stony walls. The only thing I knew for sure was that the ground was sloping downward now, and carved steps soon let us descend at an even steeper angle.
We emerged from the rock maze without warning, and the whole world suddenly opened up. I stumbled to a halt and clutched at Jago’s arm. We stood high atop a cliff, looking over a vast and very deep canyon. At its bottom—way, way, way below us—a river wound through, a little narrower than the Quistimac. On the canyon’s far side, the setting sun ignited the sky with red, gold, and purple, and I could make out the dark shapes of mountains to the southwest. It made for a breathtakingly gorgeous—yet also terrifying—vista.
“That’s the East Sister down there. Want a better look?” Jago asked me. I shook my head. We were about ten feet from the cliff’s edge, and even though a wooden railing stood there, I couldn’t imagine getting closer to that drop. When I simply shook my head, he squeezed my hand and tugged me to the left. “Come over here then.”
When I dragged my gaze from the river, I saw that the stones we’d walked through didn’t form a straight wall beside the cliff. They curved this way and that, eventually angling back from the edge, which was a relief. One curve in particular created a wide, sheltered enclosure that contained a handful of rectangular buildings. They were constructed of river rock and timber, and bonfires blazed between them. Among it all, a dozen Icori dressed like our companions went about their business.
“Is this a village?” I asked Jago.
“More of a camp, I suppose. They guard the Well and serve the high priestess—Shibail.”
I cast a quick glance back at the canyon, wondering if that was supposed to be the “well.” As we approached the buildings, people paused to study us. We walked past them and soon left the cozy-looking buildings behind. Ahead was only darkness, which seemed like a bad idea when you were so close to a perilously high cliff’s edge.
But Cai moved assuredly, and before long a faint glow appeared. It came from a lantern hanging on a pole beside a particularly jagged section of the ridge. Two Icori stood by it, armed. They wore woad on their faces, the blue paint carefully drawn into spirals and whorls.
“They’re going to see Shibail,” Cai told them, and they moved aside, revealing an arched opening in the rock. “And now I leave you. Good luck. Come find Glyn about sugar and bacon when you’re done, Jago.”
Cai returned the way we’d come, and the painted Icori stepped through the arch, beckoning Jago and me to follow. Inside, we found a hollowed-out space completely surrounded in stone. And in the center of that space was an enormous dark hole. A chain with three-foot links came up from the hole, went through a pulley of sorts embedded in the stone ceiling, and then disappeared back into the shadowed depths. One of the Icori who’d accompanied us took a horn from the wall and blew into it three times. A few minutes later, it was answered by a creaking sound as the chain slowly began to move.
A chill ran over me, but it wasn’t because of the wintry air. Jago said, “This is the Well of the Gods.”
I watched with wide eyes and didn’t realize I was gradually backing up until I bumped the wall. On and on the chain went, moving and groaning. I stood on my tiptoes, wanting to see more of the pit without getting closer.
“How deep is this?” I asked. “How far does it go?”
“All the way down to the river,” said Jago. A giant sphere made of metal mesh suddenly emerged at the chain’s end. “And we’re about to go down in it.”
CHAPTER 23
“NO.”
“Tamsin, it’s perfectly safe.”
“It’s a metal death trap hanging over a million-foot drop!”
“It’s not a million feet.”
I dragged my gaze from the pit to Jago. “But it is a death trap?”
“No! The Balanquans made it. They’re excellent engineers.”
When the chain had stopped, the Icori had tossed out lines to pull the sphere up against the hole’s edge. They’d secured it in place and opened its door. They must have been under a vow of silence like the one I’d faked, but they didn’t need any words to express their impatience as they watched us.
“People do this all the time,” Jago said. “Icori pilgrims come from miles away to make this trip, and most of them aren’t personally invited by Shibail.”
“What if one of the links breaks?”
“It won’t. They’re checked constantly. And this actually used to operate with ropes. It’s a lot better now.” When I didn’t budge, Jago put his arm around me. “I’ll be right beside you.”
I shook my head.
“You want Orla to help you get to Denham? Trust me, she’s not going to think well of someone who turned down a summons to one of their holiest sites.”
That reached me. “You think she’d change her mind?”
“I don’t know. She may still want to honor what she offered . . . but her clan might overrule her if they think you’ve insulted Shibail.”
I examined the Well again. Even secured with rope, the metal sphere never stayed still. It could probably hold three people, four if they got cozy. I wondered if Jago was bluffing about Orla, but the Icori’s increasing incredulity at my reluctance made me think he could be right. And I had to have her help.
“Okay,” I said. At least, that’s what I tried to say. It came out as a half whisper, but Jago understood and guided me to the edge.
The sphere’s opening was flush with the stone floor. Jago climbed in first and then helped receive me when the Icori handed me over. I crouched on the sphere’s bottom beside Jago and felt my heart leave me as the Icori sealed the door shut. They untied the ropes, and the sphere swooped out to the hole’s center, rocking back and forth like a pendulum. I screamed and covered my face. Jago patted the back of my hair and kept saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” It was pretty much the same way he soothed his horses.
The horn sounded four times, and the sphere lowered with a jerk. Refusing to scream again, I bit my lip. The chain creaked as it labored to take us down, and all the while, the sphere swayed.
“Tamsin, look.”
I hunched further down. “Isn’t it enough I’m here?”
“You’ll be glad, I swear.”
I cautiously turned my head and opened one eye.
“Six!”
Sitting up straight, I gaped at the stone sides circling us. Every part of them had been carved and decorated. Some designs were flat, etched into the surface like one might draw on a piece of paper. Others were three-dimensional, rendered with astonishing texture and shape. Trees and flowering vines. Animals of land, air, and sea. Faces, both human and fantastic. A few times we passed sections that had been hollowed out into balconies, and statues of robed men and women solemnly watched our descent.
I leaned over Jago to get a better look
at one of the balconies. The people seated on it appeared so realistic, I expected them to stand up and wave. “Is that them? The Predecessors? They look human enough.”
“The Balanquans will tell you they are.”
“But I can also see why the Icori think they’re gods.” I hoped I wasn’t being blasphemous, but it was hard not to believe magic had played a role in creating such a feat. Just one section of this carved onto the side of a cathedral would have been regarded as a masterpiece. To see this sort of skill, in such magnitude, and in such a place, was dizzying. “How did they do this?”
Jago watched a flock of flying fish go by. “I don’t know. The Ba- lanquans have theories. I know the Icori replace the torches with long poles. They have to come through in this sphere a few times a day to do it, and it’s tricky work. Maybe the Predecessors had an easier way.”
I’d been so consumed by the artwork that I hadn’t even considered how the torches scattered among the stonework were maintained. We gazed in awed silence the rest of the way down. When we neared the Well’s bottom, I saw an enormous crank wound with chain. It took ten Icori to turn it. Like those above, they wore woad on their faces.
My legs felt like jelly when I stepped out of the sphere, and it took my brain a few minutes to accept that the world was still again. We followed one of the attendants through twisting halls that quickly left me disoriented. Small alcoves were scattered along the way, occasionally with pilgrims resting or praying inside. Once, we passed a wide corridor with noticeably cooler air flowing from it.
“That goes to the riverbank,” Jago said, seeing me slow my steps. “But we’re going in tonight, not out.”
“What exactly are we going to do when we get to this Shibail?”
“Dunno. Everyone who comes to the Well sees her. Sometimes, she just greets them and sends them on their way. Other times, it’s more extensive.”
“You’ve seen her, then? What happened?”
“She asked me a lot of questions. Some about my life, some that didn’t seem to have any obvious purpose. I assume she must have gotten something out of it, though.”
Our guide brought us to a set of double stone doors carved as intricately as the Well. “Wait. You are next.” She had the thickest accent of any Icori I’d met so far, but it still didn’t resemble that of the thieves in Constancy.
Several minutes later, the doors swung open. An Icori man and woman stepped out, escorted by another woad-marked attendant. Ours ushered us inside to a cavernous, mostly empty room. Its walls were of a different type of stone than I’d seen in the rest of the structure. This was lighter in color, polished to such a high gloss that it came across as mirror-like. It bounced the light of the torches around in a disorienting effect that made it seem as though the room contained more torches than there actually were. The vaulted ceiling was made of the same grayish rock as the Well, but it had been carved into a perfectly smooth dome. I again marveled at the skill to craft something so high.
At the far end of the room, five steps led up to a dais. As we walked closer and my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, an old woman became discernible. She sat cross-legged, her indigo robes spreading out around her. An assortment of objects sat within her reach: a pitcher and cups, a small dagger, a bundle of grass, different-colored rocks. At the base of the steps, a small pool of water had been built into the floor. Beside it was a large copper plate with coins and cloth-wrapped bundles stacked upon it. Here, we stopped.
The woman, Shibail, scrutinized us with dark eyes. Her white hair was pulled severely back, displaying a single woad spiral painted on her forehead. I thought she might be smiling. After a minute, she lifted her gaze and said something in Icori. I heard the attendant’s footsteps retreating behind me, followed by the sound of the doors opening and shutting.
I clasped my hands in front of me, wondering if I should curtsey. From his coat pocket, Jago produced a small jar of what looked like honey and set it on the plate. Shibail made a sound that could have been a grunt or a chuckle. When she spoke, her Osfridian was clear, its sound amplified by some trick of the chamber.
“Jago Robinson, you never need to bring an offering here.”
“Then let me give it on her behalf, Danna Shibail.”
The dark eyes flicked to me, and I met them steadily. “We don’t see many Osfridians in the Well. What’s your name?”
“Tamsin Wright, mistress.”
“Where’s your home, Tamsin Wright?”
“Until very recently, Osfrid. Now . . . I guess you could say I’m between homes.”
“Why did you come to Adoria?”
“To find a husband.”
“Did you?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure which way you mean that. Did I find a husband? Or did I really come here for one?”
Yes, now she was definitely smiling. “It doesn’t matter. You already answered. Do you speak to your gods, Tamsin Wright?”
“I know only one god—Uros, creator of all, attended by the six glorious angels. And I . . . I speak to them through prayer, I suppose.”
“Your church’s creed is ‘There is only one god—Uros, creator of all, attended by the six glorious angels.’ Did you intentionally change the wording?”
“Y-yes,” I said, a bit taken aback that she’d known. “I thought that saying Uros is the only god would sound like I was belittling yours and. . . it, uh, it seemed rude.”
She didn’t comment and instead drank from a stone chalice that had been beside her. As she did, I cast a quick glance at Jago, hoping for a silent indication of whether I was behaving correctly or terribly, but his face was unreadable.
“Do they speak back to you?” she asked. “Uros and the angels?”
“Not directly.”
“Indirectly?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to think of the last times I’d prayed—truly prayed, not just following along with the Heirs. “My ship was in a storm sailing here, and I prayed we’d get out of it. We did. Was it because of my prayers? Someone else’s? Or was it the crew’s skill? I don’t know. And other times I’ve prayed for help with a problem, it eventually resolves through something I think of. I don’t know if those ideas are divine or just from me.”
“Both. Most visions and dreams are simply images and ideas locked away in our own minds. And we are divine.”
Silence. It had a weight to it, and I shifted from foot to foot, uncertain if I was supposed to speak. I honestly had no idea how someone who’d neglected church as much as I had was constantly discussing religion these days.
“If you could have any three things you wanted right now, what would they be?” she suddenly asked. “Not people. Not abstract ideas like love or wisdom. Not sweeping sentiments for mankind. I mean three real, physical objects. What would you wish for?”
“Silver rue. It’s an herb.” It was also the main ingredient in Merry’s hard-to-get medicine.
“I know what it is. What else?”
“Pen and paper.”
She pursed her lips a moment. “That might as well be a single object, since you can’t very well use one without the other. So name one more thing.”
My mind blanked. I was too overwhelmed by being here to reason out something clever or poignant. And lately, everything I wanted was an end goal, like making it to Cape Triumph or escaping the magistrate’s house. Pressured by her unblinking gaze, I finally asked, “What’s your favorite thing to eat?”
A very, very faint flicker of surprise showed in her eyes and was gone in a heartbeat. I didn’t think much surprised her, and I also didn’t think she would answer, but then she said, “Honey, as Jago Robinson well knows.”
“Then I wish I had some of my own to give to you. I don’t like being beholden to others.”
“I actually believe that. Most people I’d accuse of trying to appear selfless. Of course, you’ve do
ne that, intentionally or not. You want each thing you named, but you want it because of someone else who wants or needs it. Someone sick needs the silver rue. Someone far away wants a letter to know what’s happened to you. And you think Jago is inconvenienced, though I assure you, he is not.” She drank again, allowing those words to sink in. “Isn’t there something you covet for yourself? Some small pleasure? Some comfort?”
It was so similar to what Jago had said just before we kissed. Could she know? It was impossible . . . and yet, that piercing gaze seemed to see so much. “I’m sure there are many, Mistress Shibail. I just can’t come up with any right now.”
She picked up a small cup and poured some of the chalice’s contents into it. “Will you share a drink with me?”
I didn’t move. What was I supposed to do? Was this a test? A kindness? She’d been drinking whatever that was throughout our conversation, so it couldn’t be poisoned. Unless the little cup was poisoned? If she really wanted me dead, it seemed like it’d be an easy enough thing to order one of her many attendants to take care of that. Would refusing the drink displease Orla? That was what decided it. Careful of the pool, I ascended the steps and accepted the offered cup. The drink tasted like cloves, a mixture of sweet and bitter and spicy. When I’d finished it all, I returned the cup and made my way back down. Jago watched me with wide, panicked eyes.
“Go to the wall, and tell me what you see in it,” Shibail ordered.
I walked to the nearest one and peered into the shiny surface. “I see the torches and their reflections. I see the steps. And I can just barely see you and Jago watching me.”
“You don’t see yourself?”
“Well, yes, of course. I thought you wanted to know what else I could see.”
“What do you see when you look at yourself?”
I leaned closer and touched my cheek. The wall wasn’t a perfect mirror; my reflection was a little fuzzy. But I could make out enough detail. “My skin is dry. My lips are chapped.”
The Emerald Sea Page 27