Well of the Damned

Chapter 40





With the help of two of the lordover’s armsmen, Gavin and Daia made their way through the eager and growing crowd to the Gwanry Museum of History, which had once been a large house. The sitting room, dining hall and music room were converted to display rooms with rows of shelves upon which ancient artifacts were neatly arranged. Gavin had come to know most of the items in the King Arek room, with the help of the assistant curator, Tolia. She’d read him the letters King Arek and Queen Calewyn had written, and told him the story behind objects they’d owned or given to others. He’d hoped they would shed light on what had happened to King Arek, but now he knew more from experience than he’d ever learned at the museum.

When he and Daia stepped into the foyer, Tolia rounded the corner. She was, as always, crisply dressed with her gray-streaked brown hair wound into a neat bun. “Your Majesty!“ she said with a broad smile. She dipped a low and impressive curtsy as though she’d been practicing, but she was slow to rise.

He took her elbow and helped her stand. “My lady Tolia, it’s always a pleasure to see you.”

Tolia batted her eyelashes at him. In the past, he had flirted with her, not out of genuine interest, but because she was learned and a former lordover’s granddaughter, and he was a warrant knight of hearty peasant stock. They’d been worlds apart culturally and it had become a game between them. Now that he was a king — and a married king at that — flirting with her would have been indelicate, even if she understood it was only in jest. “And you.” She gazed up at him with the large, unblinking eyes and a silly smile plastered on her face.

“I understand you have something for me.”

She blinked and started, seeming to snap out of whatever trance she was in. “Yes, I do. Your First Royal left it with me yesterday. Please allow me to take your cloaks.” Gavin and Daia removed their rain cloaks, shook off the water and handed them to her. She hung them on a hook near the door. “Let me get that book for you, but first...” She glanced uneasily at Daia. “May I have a moment with you? Privately?”

Daia raised her brows at Tolia, but Gavin reassured her with a nod. “Give us a minute,” he said, and she inclined her head and went into the King Arek room.

Tolia seemed more alive than he’d ever seen her, and breathless as if she’d been running. Her eyes sparkled and danced. She put one delicate hand on Gavin’s mailed chest. “I wanted you to know I feel the same way. No disrespect to the queen.”

He waited for her to explain what she was talking about, but she didn’t go on. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know,” she said. “Our feelings for each other. I know you’re married now, and it would be disgraceful to divorce your wife, especially now that she’s pregnant. I’ve never said this to anyone before, but I would move to Tern if you asked it of me. You could visit anytime, day or night.”

He was stunned to momentary silence. He’d never thought she would take his flirtations seriously, nor had he ever considered she might’ve had feelings for him. She had always maintained a certain coolness, drawing an understood line for how far he could take the jests, and he’d never crossed that line. Now she was leaning towards him with her head craned back, lips pushed forward into an expectant pout.

He took her hand from his chest and held it gently, fragile and small in his meaty paw. “Tolia, I always thought we were playin’ a game, and we both understood it. I’m sorry, but I only have feelings for my wife. It’s why I married her.”

Tolia drew back, her face reddening into a mask of shock and embarrassment. “But... your First Royal said—” She put a hand over her mouth, and her eyes welled.

“The one who brought the journal? She told you I had feelings for you?”

She nodded, knocking the tears loose to spill down her face.

“That wasn’t a First Royal. She murdered one o’my guards and stole her armor and weapons. She left me the journal hoping I wouldn’t chase her down and kill her. I’m sorry she deceived you. I love my wife.”

With her eyes lowered, Tolia whispered an apology. “If you’ll pardon me, I’ll fetch it from the vault.”

Gavin nodded, and she curtsied before dashing away. He could guess how embarrassed she felt right then, and he didn’t want to make matters worse for her.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Daia asked, rejoining him in the foyer. “If we don’t disguise you somehow, you’ll never get close enough to Cirang for us to capture her.” She peeked through the curtains at the crowd outside.

“Disguise me how? I’ve never been a man who blended into a crowd.”

She let the curtain drop and assessed him thoughtfully. “You’re not the only tall man in Thendylath. We just need a way to cover your head. Your rain cloak isn’t going to do it — something like a cleric’s robe.”

“And cover my sword. People have surely heard about Aldras Gar, too. A cleric wouldn’t be walking around with such a weapon.”

Tolia returned empty handed with a flush on her face and eyes rimmed in red. “I— I beg your pardon. I must ask Mr. Surraent—”

“It ain’t there?” he asked.

“Perhaps he took it out.” She wrung her hands. “I’m sure it’s safe. Let me ask him.”

“No, I’ll do it.” Gavin started up the stairs. “He’s up here, ain’t he?”

“Yes, but—”

“If he has it,” he called behind him, “you’d better get some bandages ready.” Gavin reached the top with Daia on his heel. Thick red carpeting muffled his steps as he stormed past four closed doors to the one at the end of the hall. He opened it without knocking and caught Laemyr Surraent with two books open, and a quill in one hand, writing furiously.

The curator jumped with a surprised squeak. The pen scratched a line across the page he’d been writing. “Gavin! Er, I mean, King Gavin. What a—”

“Where is it?”

Surraent stood, setting the quill down on a wooden platter and pushing his spectacles up his nose with his free hand. “Where is what, my liege?”

Gavin approached the desk and pointed to the smaller of the two books, the one the curator had been copying from. “Is that it? Is that my journal?”

Surraent tried a dim smile. “Oh, is that yours? I found it in our vault and hadn’t seen it before. It was such an intriguing—”

“Whatever pages you copied into your encyclopaedia — tear them out.”

“Copied? Oh, no. You misunderstand. I was merely writing my own notes.”

Daia went around to Surraent’s side of the desk, nudged him aside and flipped through both the encyclopaedia and the journal. “Copied.”

“You can’t!” Surraent cried. “This is a part of history. I deserve— the people deserve to know about the wellspring.”

“The wellspring is gone,” Gavin said. “Do you hear me? It’s gone.”

He blinked his magnified eyes. “Wh—what do you mean ‘gone?’”

“It’s just a mud pit,” Daia said, tearing out two of the pages from the encyclopaedia. She crushed them into a ball. “The centuries haven’t been kind to it.”

Surraent’s face fell. “Then why do you care whether I write down the history?”

“He only copied the part about the wellspring. The rest isn’t in here.”

“Rest of what?” Surraent asked. “What is it you don’t want me to write?”

Gavin picked up the journal and tucked it under his arm. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. Nice to see you again, Surraent.” He started to leave and stopped short. “One more thing,” he said. “I need a disguise to move around the city without the people gathering around and calling attention to me. Do you have anything I can use?”

Surraent smiled crookedly. “What can you offer in return?”

“He’s the bloody king,” Daia shouted, her fists clenched tightly. “When your king asks for aid, you give it without hesitation, without bartering for trinkets.”

Gavin’s surprise was echoed in Surraent’s shocked expression. He was usually quick to tire of the curator’s evasiveness, but apparently Daia was even less patient.

“I beg forgiveness,” Surraent said, looking like a frightened rabbit. “Habit, you know.” He turned his wary eyes to Gavin. “Why don’t you do it the way King Arek did?”

The question tickled an old memory from Gavin’s distant past. From his years as Arek’s champion, Ronor Kinshield. “Explain.”

“Yes. King Arek was known to have used a magical disguise to enable him to walk around the city incognito.”

“In-what?”

Surraent gave him a superior smile. “Incognito. It means with your identity concealed. I wrote about it in my encyclopaedia.”

“I haven’t read the whole thing yet,” Gavin said. With Daia’s help, he could have explored his ancient memory and remembered what Ronor Kinshield knew, but it was easier to hear what Surraent had to say. “Go on.”

And he did. King Arek had found he could change most elements of his appearance, such as hair and eye color, skin tone, facial features and weight. He could even make himself look like a woman. The changes were only illusions, however, and so he couldn’t rely on anything but his own physical traits.

“Do you want to try it?” Daia asked. “If it works, it’ll solve our problem.”

“Can I make myself shorter?” Gavin asked.

Surraent flipped a page, shaking his head. “I don’t believe so. Height seems to be one characteristic he had no success with, though you could make yourself look frail or portly.”

“What about my scar? How many giant men with a long scar on his face are there in Thendylath?”

“Oh, now that you should be able to hide. You can give yourself different scars, in fact, or none at all.” Surraent picked up his encyclopaedia and beckoned Gavin to the room next door and the large mirror stand inside.

With a couple lamps lit to brighten the room, Gavin assessed himself from the knees up. At the moment, with his unshaven face, uncombed hair and dirty clothes, he looked anything but majestic. It was a wonder people recognized him at all, unless they expected their king to look like a warrant knight. Possible, he supposed. The mail shirt and gemmed sword might also have given him away.

“All right,” Surraent said, looking down at his book, “it says here you can change your hair color. Perhaps you’d like to start with that?”

He studied the reflection of his dark brown hair, thinking it should be easy to darken. Black, he thought. Nothing happened. Make my hair black. He flicked his gaze to the gems in the hilt of Aldras Gar, peeking up over his left shoulder, and then concentrated on pushing his will through them. Black hair.

“I see it,” Daia said. “That looks good.” He met her eyes in the mirror. “Try making it blond.”

He imagined hair like Edan’s, and the mustache, too, but thicker like the one he’d worn in his younger days. Blond hair and blond mustache. Shaven face.

“Ho!” Daia said. “That’s amazing. I wouldn’t recognize you at first. The scar does give your identity away though.”

Gavin couldn’t help but smile at his reflection. Seeing himself as a blond was amusing. No scar. The skin on his face smoothed to perfection, erasing evidence of the most traumatic day of his life. He touched his face, but his fingers felt the whiskers and bumpy skin, confirming the scar was still there. It just looked gone. Replace the tooth. His eyetooth was no longer absent from his smile. He actually looked like a fairly handsome buck now. “I could amuse myself for hours with this skill.”

“Can you disguise me?” Daia asked. “Or is it limited to you?”

He shrugged, facing her. “Let’s try.” He looked her over, imagined a more feminine version of Daia, and then pushed that image towards her with his will. Her enormous new breasts bulged over the low neckline of her blouse.

She first scowled at her reflection then shot him an annoyed glare. “I should’ve known.”

Gavin doubled over with laughter. The image of her like that was amusing as hell, but her reaction was doubly so. Even Surraent stifled a laugh behind his fist, pretending to cough. Reaching towards the illusory breasts with both hands, Gavin wanted to squeeze them to see how they felt.

She slapped him away. “Touch me and you’ll lose your hands, king or not!”

“But they aren’t real,” he said through his laughter.

“Well, the breasts underneath the illusion are. Give yourself tits if you want to feel them.”

And so he did. Now all three of them guffawed at the sight of Gavin with his blond hair and mustache and gigantic, hairy tits bulging beneath a billowy pink blouse. To his disappointment, his hands passed through the false bosoms as he squeezed nothing but air.

They created such a rumpus, Tolia opened the door and leaned partway into the room. She gasped in horror and pressed one hand to her heart. “Gavin? Oh, my heavens. I don’t think I want to know what’s going on in here.” With that, she shut the door again, prompting renewed laughter from the three inside.