The Well of Fates Read online

CHAPTER 3

  The Telling

  Hetarth leaned back in the big tin tub tucked under the eaves on the south side of the house. Scowling fiercely, he didn’t notice how the water cooled while he massaged the stiffness out of his leg. The embers laid out under the tub were dying in the cool wind that snuck through the curtain, but he wasn’t thinking of his bath. There were more troubling things on his mind, like how he had not been entirely truthful with Elaina. He knew why the creatures didn’t approach her, and it wasn’t because she was pretty—though she was, with her mother’s fine features. They know what we are and take warning. What he didn’t know was whether to tell her.

  No, I have to tell her. She’s of age. It’s how to tell her that is the question, and what to do with the boy. He sighed, rubbing a hand across his chin. This would all have been much easier if her parents hadn’t attracted so much attention. They’d had to, of course, but it was unfortunate.

  He gave a start. The water was cold! He frowned and swirled his finger through the water, sending out little waves that suddenly steamed. Too hot, should have been paying more attention, he thought and sighed again. He’d just have to tell her as best he could, and then he’d figure out what to do with the boy.

  Elaina sat at the table across from Landon, nursing her lukewarm tea. She’d been asking him about Loth Daer, what it was like. It was pleasant to talk about home, but he was careful not to reveal too much. They heard Hetarth’s crutch on the porch, and her bright eyes flicked to the door. He ducked inside and came to stand at the head of the table. To Landon’s surprise, the man’s solemn eyes turned to him instead of Elaina. It made him uneasy.

  “I think it’s time you were honest with us, lad. Who are you, and why are you here?” Hetarth asked bluntly. He was a formidable man, but he wasn’t threatening. Looking from Hetarth face to his niece’s, neither was hostile or frightened, just curious and perhaps a little grim. Landon studied the table in front of him, tracing the whorls on the wood with a finger as they waited. What do I tell them?

  “You’re not going anywhere without one of us, Landon, or have you forgotten this morning already?” Hetarth reminded gently. Landon considered pointing out that he had never actually seen the beast, but even if she’d been lying about it, this was still the Wilds. There is no ignoring that many reports—something is out there, whether or not it is after me yet.

  “Young men do not walk across the known world simply because they are bored. They may fight in silly duels or become the most honey-tongued cad in three kingdoms, or scheme and pull pranks, or join the army, but they don’t trek across Arith and they don’t come to tiny little nowhere towns like Tar Haviel.” Hetarth’s voice had taken on a tone of warning. It was a tone Landon’s father had often had occasion to use. It meant he would not be lied to again.

  Landon sighed. I have to tell them some of it, but how much? There was at least one thing he absolutely wanted to keep secret. How much do they know about Loth Daer? They would never believe I am a farmer or shepherd, but perhaps the son of a minor lord? Surely they do not know our Houses all the way out here . . .

  “My full name is Landon Damon Ren’jedal, of the House of the Seven Stars in Loth Daer.” He saw something flicker in Hetarth’s eyes. Have I said too much? Landon ploughed on before Elaina noticed the pause.

  “I left home because Yaldra, a caster, told me the only chance I had was to find someone in Hasile who could help me.”

  “The only chance you had to do what?” Elaina broke in. Can I trust them? He wondered, hands frozen on the table. They’re out here by themselves, on the fringe, no one will believe them if they tell. But then, what if someone does? I’ll have to tell someone eventually, if they’re to help me, but how do I know who I should trust? The questions raced through his mind. He jerked his eyes to Elaina’s as if he could read the answers there. She flinched, but didn’t look away. True spirits save me!

  “To bring down the Empire.” He held his breath.

  Elaina’s eyes widened with her gasp. Hetarth closed his eyes, head bowed as if he could keep from hearing, but no fear was on his face, only tired sorrow. Neither laughed, though perhaps they should have. Even though he was absolutely serious, it was an absurd thing for any one man to say. He could be executed just for saying it. His jaw clenched involuntarily. It has to be done. And if it can’t ever be done, it has to be tried. Taking a breath, he launched into the explanation he had shared with no one since leaving Loth Daer. He only hoped he could finish before they cut him off.

  “The Drethlords do not belong here. They’ve usurped every throne in Arith. They silence everyone and force those they cannot silence into hiding. They should not rule, and they won’t die in a natural span of years. They must not be allowed to stay, they cannot be allowed to stay.” He hissed. Looking down, he found his hands were in fists. His heart raced in his chest. Would they turn him in? An agent of Hurndrith would recognize him in an instant. Oh spirits, it’s too late to take it back.

  “My only hope is some help I would find in the Wilds of the far west, so I am here. I walked most of the way, working for my bed and supper when I could, sleeping under hedges when I couldn’t. It was the hardest thing I ever did, but I’m here. All that’s left is to find what I need.” He spread his hands again and dared to look up.

  His audience was unchanged. Elaina was still surprised, perhaps a little admiring. Hetarth looked like an old man in a way he hadn’t before, leaning against his crutch with both hands. His eyes, so like Elaina’s with motes of gold in brown like warm honey, were inscrutable.

  Hetarth stared down at the young man seated at his table speaking high treason. Any man could be killed for saying what he said, for being accused of saying it. He could probably be killed just for hearing it. Hetarth almost shook his head. House of the Seven Stars, indeed. I knew there was something familiar about the boy—he has his father’s nerve. He turned to Elaina, waiting for her to decide.

  “Truth, you’re serious.” She breathed, then looked up at him with her mother’s eyes. “Can we help him?” He closed his eyes on the two of them for a moment. Can we help him? It was done then. The thing he had worried over for so long was here in his kitchen, the answer to a prophecy he wished he’d never heard.

  Years before the Invasion he had been told this road would lead to his death, and it would start with that simple question. That was not what troubled him. All rivers come to the sea, all men die. His nineteen years since the day he was crippled were a gift. It was Elaina he worried for. What would happen to her without him? She was too young for this, too inexperienced. If he were dead within the year, who would teach her? How many prophesies will find her now, I wonder.

  Prophecy was a reflection in the Well of Fate, from whose waters the Neverseen fed the River Evermind that divided Evermore, the world of spirits. The Evermind flowed in an unending circle, separating the island resting place of true spirits from the far shore to which false spirits were condemned. The Neverseen drew up souls from the Well of Fate and cast them into the Evermind. One day they would be brought to shore by the Neverblind, the judges of the souls of men.

  Hetarth had often wondered if the water-bearers of fate were really called the “never-seeing,” and the name had been corrupted over time. Only a blind fate could throw an untried girl into the world like this. No, the Neverblind might be all-seeing, but the Neverseen had to be sightless.

  It was time to tell her the beginning. The end she would see soon enough.

  He adopted an even tone in the hopes that it would keep them steady. “Very well, Landon, we will help you. You have trusted us enough to tell us this, so I will trust you in return. You have found what you were looking for.” Landon looked up at him, wary.

  “I am not a fool, sir. I ask you do not treat me as one.” Ah, there is the cold pride of a king. Hetarth smiled wanly.

  “I don’t know if that is as true as you believe, Landon Ren’jedal, but I am not playing you for the fool. Elaina is the onl
y person alive who could help you defeat the Drethlords.” He paused significantly, letting the boy’s incredulous eyes dart to his niece. Oh, little ‘Laina!

  “She is a Guardian. As is happens, so am I.”

  After a suitable pause, Elaina burst out “What on Arith do you mean?” She waited for him to start laughing at his joke, and part of him wished he were joking.

  “I mean,” he went on deliberately, “That you and I are the last surviving members of the Order of the Guardians, Creators of the pillars of the earth. You will be much stronger than I ever was, however.”

  Elaina didn’t look at their guest, but Hetarth didn’t think the boy had moved an hair. He could almost hear the wheels turning in his head—with them he had the chance to destroy the Empire, to free and avenge the nations. On the other hand, who wanted to be involved with power like that, power that could kill before you saw it coming? The boy was half jubilation, half violent suspicion.

  “Guardian?” Elaina breathed. How like her mother she looks! Oh Esania, are you watching this from Evermore? Your little girl, the last child named in the Hall of Giants, is ready to begin. Truth, how I wish you were here! Hetarth gathered himself and smiled at his niece.

  “You are. That is why we live where others do not dare, why our eyes are halfway to gold when everyone else’s are not—though of course mine are merely an Illusion to keep people from wondering where you got it. Did you never wonder?” He teased.

  Her shrug was stiff and her lower lip pouting. Now that is her father as a child—the very same mule-stubborn, ears-back pout that had made Esania laugh every time he was told he did something the wrong way. Hetarth remembered thinking that his little sister and the Tristarine boy would make each other happy even then.

  “We just did, is all. Lots of farms have never been attacked, even if they’re not so close to the mountains. And plenty of people have different eyes—look at him!” she pointed at Landon, who remained silent.

  “Well, now you know. That’s why we’re safe here; the monsters know what we are and they stay away. None of them want to be your enemy. After your first casting, they may even wish to be your friend. A few of them trouble me to no end, following me about.” Hetarth rolled his eyes.

  “You should look out for one in particular, the most enormous Girswit I’ve ever seen. He keeps trying to come in the house, which would never do, since he’s about the same size—” He shook his head. Ridiculous beast. “That’s just one of a thousand things I must teach you.” Somehow he kept from finishing his sentence: while I still have time.

  “What sort of things?” Landon asked, finally breaking out of his silence.

  “And how do you know I’ll be stronger than you? What does that mean?” Elaina added. Hetarth chuckled. Always an eager child . . .

  He turned away and limped for his room. The Book would be better explanation, better proof for the two of them. Kneeling by the wardrobe was a challenge, but hidden in the false bottom lay the enormous volume he was looking for. He ran his fingers over the familiar cover like the face of an old friend.

  The pages were darker with time, and the leather had stiffened in the ten years since he had last looked at it. The leather hardens the longer it stays out in the world, away from the cool darkness of the Hall of Giants. The inscription was still clear though, all loops and curls and thick lines that trailed into nothing.

  Balthezin, the language of the Dynasty, overtook the old tongues of the nations. Many nations had forgotten their heritage. The Guardians did not. They went on speaking the language they had spoken since time immemorial. Other than the Order, only nobles spoke it and not well. Because it was used to crown kings and bury the dead, the language became solemn among the common people—men would die before they broke an oath in the True Tongue, though only royalty learned enough of it to actually come up with an oath on their own.

  Elaina would have to learn to read it before she could unlock all the Book’s secrets. That was well enough. There were things in there she should not see yet. Hetarth ran his fingers over the title. Shavira a’ Casse, the Book of the Broken.

  Well, it broke me, he thought, remembering his journey across half the world, following Savana and the Book. The Book he found and saved from the Drethlord’s clutches, but not Savana. And then he’d come home a cripple to find Elaina orphaned. It certainly broke me.

  It was a struggle to rise with the heavy thing in one arm, but using the wardrobe he got back to his feet and returned to the young ones, still silent at the table. He set it down with a thump that jarred the wood.

  “Where have you been hiding that?” Elaina asked, squinting at it. She’d read every other book they owned a hundred times over. “I’ve never seen it.”

  “It wouldn’t have been well hidden if you had,” he said with a chuckle. A little mystery is good. And we have more important things to discuss than the hinge at the bottom of my wardrobe. “This is where we begin.” He stated, “You with your rebellion, Landon, and you with your training.” He focused on Elaina.

  “I’ll train you the way Guardians have always been trained, the way Creators have been taught since everything began. The power of Creation could not be destroyed by the Drethlords any more than they could destroy the sky.”

  “They said they destroyed it, were they lying?” Landon asked.

  “Yes, and no. They stopped anyone from using it, which might be thought of as destruction, but it isn’t gone.” All Hetarth got for this explanation was a puzzled look. He tried again.

  “Think of it this way, you could kill every musician, and then there would be no songs, but you haven’t ended Music, have you? All it takes is another musician to play it again. Elaina is our last great musician.” The metaphor worked much better, the boy nodded and eyed Elaina. She looked uncomfortable, uncertain if she could do it. He wasn’t. The girl was born for this.

  “Won’t the Drethlords come for us?” she asked, eyes far away. No doubt she was thinking of her parents being taken to Hurndrith. Thank the true spirits for their neighbors hiding the child from the agents.

  “They may.” He agreed, solemnly “Once you are strong enough they will notice—sooner or later they always notice if someone is doing anything especially large with the Pillars—it creates a resonance, it does. I haven’t done more than a petty caster since you came to me, child.” He knew his voice was bitter, bitter from years of hiding under a rock from lesser men, bitter from the loss of a family and a homeland.

  “Mama and Papa were doing more, then?” she asked quietly. “Is that how they found us?”

  “Yes, child. You remember the fire in Conde’tair? Your parents revealed themselves to save their neighbors, and the Drethlords felt it. Those neighbors couldn’t save your parents, but they cared for you until I returned.” Elaina nodded, tears sparkling in her eyes. She had been old enough to know what was happening, even if she could not understand why.

  “Must I be a Guardian, Uncle?” she asked. Suddenly she was the orphaned child he had come back to, himself newly crippled from regaining the Book. Landon looked up sharply, but Hetarth silenced him with a gesture. This is no time for the fire of the Seven Stars. She needs to find her own reasons to fight, not adopt the boy’s.

  “Yes,” he said sadly, feeling the burden he was settling on her shoulders. “It will come upon you sooner or later. It’s easier if you accept at once and begin to learn.” He paused when she ducked her head, then went on, “Would you have it another way, if you could choose?” Her head came up again, and now there was a fire in her eyes.

  “No. I will be a Guardian and then they’ll be sorry. Sorry for everything. I’ll make them wish that they had never left their cursed islands, that they had never seen a ship!” Hetarth smiled gently. There was the backbone she would need, even if it was a little early to imagine great victories. Landon’s grin was triumphant, there was his passion matched. He turned to Hetarth, then frowned.

  “So your eyes are really grey?”


  “Since I was Elaina’s age. Though I didn’t have to hide it until the Drethlords came. It’s Illusion, a trick of Water and Fire and Air. Some casters cannot hide—those that cannot touch all of pillars they need. It leaves them vulnerable. Everyone knows about the Changing; grey eyes draw attention.” Hetarth explained.

  “Are mine hidden too?” Elaina asked suspiciously.

  “Not yet. They won’t begin to grey until you cast. For weak casters it takes longer, but for a Creator it will be a matter of weeks or days before they change. Then you’ll have to hide your eyes from the world, or you’ll draw the sort of attention you don’t want.” She grimaced at the thought.

  She wasn’t much for hiding. He could still remember her expression when one of the other children explained the game of foxes and hounds to her. She never understood why they played, because only one person got to be the hound, and what was the fun in being the fox hiding behind the woodpile for hours?

  “Unless I am mistaken, this is your twentieth winter?” he asked her. Elaina nodded. Her birthday was sometime just before the onset of winter. “Good. When a Guardian is about that age, their power awakens. You must bring it to heel and then it will be at your fingertips until you’re older, grayer, and more wrinkled than I.” She rolled her eyes.

  “What power is that?” Landon asked.

  “You are familiar with the world of spirits,” Hetarth began after a pause.

  “Evermore,” Landon answered promptly, “Divided by the River Evermind, which runs to keep the true spirits on the near shore and the false on the far shore. The Neverseen draw spirits up from the Well of Fates to cast into the river, and the Neverblind draw them to shore in the end.”

  Hetarth smiled. As different as the nations of Arith were, even in Loth Daer every child knew that by rote.

  “Yes, that’s right. The power in the River is Sa’ara, the Unknowable. It is the spark of Life and the heart of Trust and all those other ideal, unmatchable things: Love, Time, and the rest. No man or woman can meddle with things of Sa’ara. Even the greatest Creators who ever lived never brought life to the dead, nor altered the passage of time, nor manufactured love.”

  “What can a Creator do?” Elaina pressed. Hetarth held out a hand. Always was an impatient child.

  “We’re getting there. The physical world is built out of Evermore, supported by the four pillars of creation: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, which rise out of the Evermind. The power of casters and Creators revolves around the pillars. Casters can rearrange them, like a puzzle. They do not create anything.” He explained.

  “I’ve seen a caster fill a glass with water and light a fire just by looking at the wood.” Landon countered, “How is that not creation?”

  “It seems like it, certainly, it resembles creation. But they are categorically different. Those casters probably collected Water or Fire out of the air around them.”

  “Then it doesn’t make a difference that they can’t create.” Elaina pointed out.

  “Wrong. A caster can only gather what is available. In the Harsonrim Desert, a Creator could make a lake. A caster would be hard pressed to scrounge together a flask of water. In battle, one side’s casters are often busy dismantling each other’s arrows, but the other side is just as quickly trying to remake them. A Creator could banish all of the arrows in an instant—remove the material. And then only a Creator could make another arrow.”

  Landon nodded, beginning to see the tactical advantage of a Creator. Elaina frowned at him. As the young lord gained confidence in the advantage of having her on his side, she looked to be getting nervous about how useful she would be.

  The passion of the Seven Stars again. One untrained girl who has only known for a minute or two, and look at him plot his great coup d’état!

  “Is it hard to do?” Elaina asked, uncertain. Hetarth shrugged.

  “It isn’t easy, but you were born for it. It takes concentration, practice, and knowledge, but that will come with time. We’ll likely know your strongest and weakest pillars by the end of today, if you manage to cast at all.”

  “Cast?” Landon repeated. “I thought casters cast and Creators created.”

  “That’s right,” Hetarth rolled his eyes, “But as children learn to run by first walking, Creators learn to create and banish by first casting. Enough chatting. You’ll learn more by doing, Elaina. This should be good.” He chuckled.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Landon, suspicious as ever.

  “Normally, new Guardians trained with an adept that was stronger than they—just in case they lost control. It was a guarantee that the teacher could counteract anything the student did. Elaina would have been trained by the Naedar, however, one of the nine strongest. Any of them might have crushed me like a beetle.”

  “Are you saying she’s going to squash us like insects?” Landon asked dryly. Hetarth waved a dismissive hand.

  “Unlikely. She won’t be up to her full potential for some time, and I have the advantage of experience. I’m sure we’ll all live to see dinner, thank the Truth. Come along!” He reassured them both as he made for the door, clutching the Book with one hand. He chuckled at their pale faces. Ah, well, a little fear will make them cautious. Caution will temper them when the fun begins.

  He found his bleak mood lifted as he led the way away from the house. Fate might be waiting, but today was his, his and Elaina’s. She will be great, the greatest of the age. Her story will dominate the Eighth Chronicle the way Hector dominated the Third, or Alecto the Fifth. And I have the privilege of being her teacher.