The Well of Fates Read online

CHAPTER 1

  The Wildspring

  One clear night as summer died, a young woman stepped into the busiest inn in the shadow of the Western mountains. To the east the low plains of Amanheld swept all the way to the Haldon Kai, the Mountains of the Wall that divided Arith in half. To the south, the Wildspring River wound its way into the hills of Emon’s March, then to the sea. To the north and west, the mountains of Hasile loomed, blanketed in thick forests. Few ever went there. Strange creatures were loosed in the Invasion, things not seen by men in generations. Of the towns that had dotted the roads leaving Hasile in its days of glory, only Tar Haviel survived. That was why the inn was the busiest for miles—it was the only inn for miles. It didn’t hurt that Master Edmons, the innkeeper, stocked the finest wine that could be found.

  The young woman that came to the inn, though, had not come to drink. Her honey-brown eyes searched the room, dismissing the tables she came to one by one. There were rough-skinned farmers, leaning against the boards on heavy elbows, tired from fighting earth and rain and other things no man could defeat. In the back were a collection of youths, faces flushed as they watched their dice bouncing across the wood. They were playing for buttons, but that never dimmed their enthusiasm.

  Broad shouldered men with rough voices to match rough clothes seemed to take up more space than their single table—miners down from Cavilnor in the North. Few ever made it all the way out to Tar Haviel, but it wasn’t unheard of. Cavilnese miners often eyed the mountains of Hasile, wondering what treasures lay under the stones even if they could not get to them. Two serving girls moved between the tables, cleaning and refilling drinks, flashing dimples under bright eyes as they worked.

  At last the girl’s gaze came to rest on the table of an older man in a baggy brown coat smoking on a long-stemmed pipe. His strong arms made him more formidable than the crutch that leaned behind him suggested. The girl threw her loose braid over her shoulder and flopped down at his table.

  “How did the day treat you, Hetarth?” she asked with a mischievous smile, as if she knew the answer. When he scowled, bushy black eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose, untouched by the gray that streaked his hair. Muttering around his pipe, he didn’t really reply, but it seemed answer enough.

  She laughed. “I’ve tried to tell you to stay away from the Counsel, you seldom agree with them.” He only gave her a hard look for her advice, puffing furiously at his pipe until he could not resist.

  Snatching it from his lips he informed her in a gravelly voice, “I am aware my opinions are unique among the Council members, but they asked for my advice, Elaina.” He paused long enough for her arch an incredulous eyebrow at his sense of civic duty, then admitted, “Besides, it is amusing to watch their eyes pop half out of their heads.”

  “What did they ask today? Must have been something—they do hate asking your opinion.” She noted with a smile.

  He waved an errant hand in the air, sending the smoke twirling “Oh, what else? They want to know what to do about the deaths in the night. The farmers living outside the city are demanding something be done, as usual.”

  “Any suggestions?” She examined the end of her braid as if she were trying to decide if it were more brown or blonde. But a sly, sideways look betrayed her interest in the man’s advice.

  “I merely told them what they already know—farmers cannot stop the creatures of the Wilds. They must either come into the city each night and huddle behind the walls, or be content with the fact they might get eaten.”

  Her reproachful look had no visible effect; he continued blowing smoke rings in the pause.

  “That is not what they wanted to hear, obviously. The Counsel, in its great wisdom, was rather hoping I would come up with some impossible answer to a very simple question.” He snorted.

  “Well, you can’t blame them,” she noted, “They’re convinced you know the secrets of the Wilds.”

  “No one knows the secrets of the Wilds!” He burst out, “If they did it wouldn’t be the Wilds! What fluff do these fools have floating about in their heads? They should just be glad that the beasts set loose in the Invasion stay in the mountains! Why would I know how to stop the things?” He waved his arms in energetic exasperation, but she rolled her eyes.

  “Because we live on the very edge of it—a man who walks with a cane and his niece, all alone—and we have never in all these long years been attacked. Of course they wonder! They suspect you’re not telling them something.”

  “Nonsense.” He muttered. She knew he wasn’t angry that she’d mentioned his lameness, because he never was. He said he was injured by his own pride, whatever that meant, but a crippled leg did not make a crippled mind, he often reminded her, or a crippled life.

  “You can see well as I how they look about when they dare to venture out to the house—last time all the farmers lined their fields with chicken’s blood just because I’d killed one while Mattis was over.” She sat back in her chair to watch him roll his eyes and puff furiously on his pipe.

  He was remembering what he called the chicken-famine that had resulted from Mattis’ rumor mongering. It had only ended when the Baley’s farm was attacked despite the chicken blood. After that there was chicken on the table again, but only the two youngest Baley children had survived.

  For a few moments Elaina and Hetarth sat in silence. They were interrupted only by the curses a bad toss drew from the gamblers until the cloud of smoke around Hetarth’s head settled to a normal level. The Counsel annoyed him, but they had good reason for their questions. The Baley’s had been a nice family, and they were only the most recent.

  “Did you note the stranger?” Hetarth asked at last. Elaina pursed her lips, annoyed with his evasion, but she went along. Her eyes slid around the room again. He couldn’t mean the miners—they were not particularly strange.

  A movement in the corner drew her gaze. She blinked. Someone sat there in all black, the cowl of his cloak up despite the warmth of the room, shadowing his face.

  Interesting. Nothing interesting happened in Tar Haviel, tucked away at the very edge of Amanheld and the Empire, a backwater still half-immersed in the old ways.

  “He looks about as relaxed as a wound spring.” She observed. “Who is he?”

  Hetarth shrugged and said with poorly fabricated innocence, “Don’t know, perhaps you should go speak to him.”

  “True spirits! Why?” She ignored his exasperated look—he was convinced the Neverblind would count that mild curse as some minor blasphemy when they weighed her soul, but she wasn’t worried. There was no way that such a little thing would send her to the far side of Evermore, otherwise everyone would end up there.

  “Because you want to know,” he began, continuing when her eyebrows flew up again, “. . . and because I want to know, but I don’t have the ankles to make him talk to me.”

  Elaina snorted. “Well, he can’t see my ankles in this,” she nodded to her outfit, a long belted tunic over loose trousers. All the women in Amanheld wore them when they worked in the fields, but Elaina preferred them to dresses all the time.

  “I’m sure he can use his imagination. You’d better get over there before one of the serving girls catches his eye, though. They have the advantage of ankles.” He twisted her argument around nicely with a sage nod. Elaina crossed her arms, firmly in her chair. If he was going to be stubborn, she would be too.

  Hetarth settled back in his chair. “Winter’s on its way, you know…”

  “People can travel in the winter, Hetarth, this isn’t Cavilnor. I’m sure he’s nobody, and he’ll soon be on his way.” She interrupted.

  “Yes, but we’ll be needing firewood. I suppose you were going to start chopping that in the morning?” he didn’t meet her eyes, but she understood the threat.

  “Half that firewood is for you!” she reminded him

  “True, but I’ll never convince him. Quick now, before the Edmon’s girl gets to him, I hear she’s a fine dancer.” He warned.
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  Elaina rolled her eyes again. Jolina Edmon had been the talk of the town for the way she danced at the Midwinter Festival last year; such a scandal! Lawson Tebus had never really recovered.

  Out of the corner of her eyes, Elaina watched Jolina sweeping ever closer to the stranger. Hetarth might talk about ankles, but that was not Jolina’s most obvious feature. Elaina thanked the spirits for modest, square-necked Amanheldic dresses when Jolina threw her shoulders back and pranced in front of the stranger’s table. He didn’t turn his head under the hood.

  Elaina wanted to smirk as Jolina flounced into the kitchens, pouting. Instead she fixed a smile on her lips that clashed with her final glare for Hetarth. A thrill of excitement ran along her skin as she rose to go meet the stranger. Her smile grew. Excitement, much like interesting things, seldom happened in Tar Haviel.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked brightly. The hunch of his shoulders and shadows across his face made clear that he did, but he merely shrugged.

  “Welcome to Tar Haviel!” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could fake. “Did you just now arrive?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s so brave! The gates close to visitors at dusk, you might have been locked out, so close to the Wilds, too!” she chattered, feeling for all the world like a mindless squirrel. Her bright eyes sparkled with her flattery. He snorted, distain coloring his soft laugh. It made her suddenly uneasy.

  “You should audition for a show—you’re quite talented, but don’t waste my time with your acting. If I wanted to be entertained, I would go to the theatre. Stop babbling and thaw that smile. It’s been frozen on your face since you stood.” His voice was low, pleasant, but still young. Elaina hid her embarrassment behind a grimace. Well that failed miserably.

  “I’ll stop if you’ll answer my question.” She offered. He hesitated for a moment.

  “Very well.” He relented unhappily. Elaina frowned. My company isn’t as unpleasant as all that! A normal question would be his name, or his hometown, but I think he expects that and not in a welcome way.

  “Why keep your hood up? It’s rather warm in here.” For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he shrugged and tipped his head back to let the cowl fall, revealing messy brown hair and wary green eyes that surveyed the room from under lowered brows. Elaina had to catch herself from looking around too, his suspicion was contagious.

  “I’d rather not be recognized.” He admitted, with a coldness that surprised her. Only nobles talk that way, and nobles don’t come to Tar Haviel. No one comes to Tar Haviel if they can honestly avoid it. Most people find that they can.

  “Who are you that you’d be recognized out here?” she wondered aloud. Of course, she had used up her one question.

  “Landon. Of Loth Daer,” he surprised her by answering anyway.

  “Loth Daer! I can’t think anyone would recognize the King of Loth Daer if he walked in with his whole court!” she laughed at the thought of the King of Loth Daer marching across the world just to come to Tar Haviel. He didn’t join her.

  “You’re not the King, are you?” she teased. She’d tried that sort of thing on the boys at the Midwinter Festival, and it usually worked—they stammered and laughed and blushed, and then they asked her to dance. This time it didn’t work in the slightest.

  “Of course not!” he spat with a scowl. Elaina bit her lip and looked away. True spirits! And I thought I might be good at that!

  “What brought you all this way?” she tried again, more serious this time, but he only shrugged and looked away. They sat in silence until Elaina decided she should just ask him or go back to Hetarth—at least chopping wood wasn’t awkward.

  “Do you have a room here?” she asked.

  “No,” was the clipped response.

  “Then you should stay with my Uncle Hetarth and I,” she gestured over her shoulder to the older man, who removed his pipe to wave at them, leaving a thin stream of smoke trailing after.

  Landon flicked his suspicious gaze back to Elaina with a frown. Those penetrating green eyes made it seem like she was sitting across the table from a wildcat.

  “Why?” It was a biting question. She was taken aback, but kept her voice as casual as she could, forcing an apologetic grin.

  “Because it will be less expensive for you than staying here, and because I do not like to chop firewood.” He frowned at the firewood comment, but seemed to work it out.

  “Very well.” He agreed at last, “Your home is nearby?”

  “Just outside the walls,” she assured him, rising to her feet.

  “To the east?” So he knows that much at least. The east was supposed to the safest direction, the farthest away from the Wilds. Her smile widened.

  “No, the west.”

  “By the Wilds of Hasile?” To his credit, his tone was only surprise, not unease. Not yet.

  “Not by the Wilds,” she corrected with a feral grin, “more like in.” Elaina turned away from the table, hoping he would still follow after. When she reached Hetarth she looked back.

  He was on his feet, staring after her with a peculiar expression that lay somewhere between surprise and hope, but he hadn’t moved. She arched one eyebrow at him and followed Hetarth’s uneven gait out into the night.

  At last, she heard him dart after them with an oath that would have impressed an Morayen pearl diver. Elaina grinned. I’ll have to remember that one.