Well of the Damned

Chapter 49





With Lilalian staying behind at the guesthouse to guard his wife, Gavin took Daia, Brawna, Calinor, and Tennara across town to the temple. He brought Cirang as well, thinking she could provide some helpful information. Calinor traded his leather cuirass for Adro’s mail, and Gavin swore him officially into his service. He cast a disguise for himself as a blond and balding warrant knight, and one for Calinor to hide the mail, and together they rode behind Daia and the three First Royal Guards with Cirang between them.

Sitting tall upon their mounts, the women battlers, clad in mail under their cloaks with matching blue and gold trousers and saddle pads, presented a sight the people of Ambryce would not soon forget. They drew enough attention that the three scraggly riders who followed went unnoticed. At last, they arrived at the temple and tied their reins to the hitching post on the side of the building.

“Brawna and Tennara,” Gavin said, “guard the door and don’t let anyone in. The four of us will secure the water.”

The two women slapped their chests in salute. “Your will be done.”

As Gavin crossed the threshold, he was yanked to a stop. “What the hell?” He tried once more and again was stopped. Something was holding him back. Then he realized he could enter the building, but his enchanted sword couldn’t, nor could the ring he wore on his right hand. “Bloody hell. The magic barrier won’t let Aldras Gar inside, and I’m not going in without my sword.”

“You’d better put your disguise back before people recognize you,” Daia said.

He did, quickly replacing his own hair, scars, and eye color as before.

“We’ll handle it, my liege,” Tennara said.

“They’re just clerics,” Calinor whispered. “We should be able to arrest them without trouble.” Brawna nodded her agreement.

“Awright. Cirang stays out here with me and Daia. Don’t touch the water. We’ll get some oat straw to soak it up.”

The three battlers went into the temple while Gavin and Daia stood under the eaves and turned worshipers politely but firmly away. Cirang stood obediently by and waited.

Aldras Gar, the sword whispered.





Gavin’s body reacted instantly — muscles tensing for combat, hand drawing Aldras Gar. “Something’s wrong,” he said, not knowing whether to expect an enemy or earthquake.

The rain began to pour down harder. Cirang ran to stand beneath the awning of the shop across the street.

Two women appeared a few feet in front of him, identical but for their dresses. They wore no cloaks nor did they carry rainshades, yet the rain didn’t touch them. One of the women had the intense golden haze Gavin recognized as magical power. Their brilliant blue eyes and black hair, though streaked with white, were alarmingly familiar. More alarming was the fact that they had simply appeared there as if stepping out of the very air.

“Your little disguise doesn’t fool me, usurper,” the mage said.

Daia drew her sword and then let out a groan. The sword slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground. She bent over, gripping her belly with both arms, her face clenched in a grimace of pain.

“Stop!” Gavin shouted. He angled Aldras Gar’s blade at them while reaching with his haze for the source of Daia’s gift. It wasn’t there. He focused his hidden eye on her and saw a gray finger like smoke stretching from the abdomen of the mage to Daia, stabbing her haze in the center where her orange tendril originated.

His access to the full potency of his magic was gone.

“What are you doing to her?” he hollered. “Let her go.”

“The vusar belongs to us now,” the second woman said.

Oh hell. He angled Aldras Gar’s blade at them, focused through the gems, and pushed with his will. A crackle of white power shot down the steel and erupted from its tip in a slight arc towards the two women.

The one on the left held her hands open, palms up, and took a deep breath as the lightning reached her. Her eyes seemed to glow brighter for a second, but she was otherwise unruffled by his attack. “Don’t try that again,” she said. She turned her palms and pushed them towards him.

A gust of wind hit him squarely. His feet left the ground, and he slammed into the closed temple doors behind him, though he didn’t lose his grip on Aldras Gar. He managed to land on his feet, but the blast pushed Daia onto her side, where she curled into a ball. “Stop what you’re doing to her,” he said.

People in the street fled, some screaming for the lordover’s soldiers, others just screaming.

“It doesn’t belong to you,” the mage said, her voice quavering. She drew a shape in the air with one finger and whispered a word that he couldn’t make out. A beast materialized in front of her, a snarling wolf the size of a bear. It leaped at him with snapping jaws.

Gavin swung his sword and missed. It lunged, snapping and snarling, and jumped back out of reach. Aldras Gar normally helped him with some kind of magic bolt, but now it did nothing but miss his target. Then there wasn’t one wolf but two, lunging and snarling, snapping and growling. He swung furiously, missing first one, then the other. Just when he wondered whether the wolves were an illusion, one of them clamped down on his right forearm with very real fangs. He gritted his teeth, but a growl of pain ripped from his throat all the same. Desperately, he focused on the gems in his sword and pushed a bolt of lightning down the length of its blade. The force went through the wolves without effect and struck the mage. She jerked stiffly for a moment, staggered and then fell to the ground. Her twin screamed and bent to help her. The beasts disappeared, leaving Gavin’s forearm torn and bloody.

Heat built up in his forearm as his healing magic began to repair his wounds. Without Daia’s help, he wasn’t sure he could fully heal himself without fainting. With his hidden eye, he examined Daia again and saw the smoky gray finger had withdrawn, but her orange tendril was still missing. “Daia,” he said, squatting beside her. He shook her shoulder. “Daia. Wake up. I need you.”

Daia stirred and opened her eyes. Her orange tendril snaked towards him and took hold of his haze like a fist. “I’m all right.” She grasped her sword and climbed to her feet with Gavin’s help.

“Stop this,” he said to the twins. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Something wet trickled across his upper lip, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. Blood.

“Release him,” the mage said. She held up her hand again, finger extended as if to draw another shape.

“Release who?”

“Brodas Canton,” she shouted. “Is he in there?”

Seven hells, Gavin thought. He’d never considered that he would have to be the one to deliver the news to Ravenkind’s mother that her son was dead. Although he would have gladly seen to the deed, he hadn’t been responsible for delivering the deathblow. Ravenkind himself had done that through his foolish pursuit of what wasn’t his to begin with.

“Do you have him imprisoned in that temple, blocked from my sight? Release him immediately.”

“Nobody’s imprisoned in there,” Gavin said. His arm burned and itched, but he ignored it.

The mage made a twisting motion with her outstretched hand. “Your guards are. Tell me where my son is, usurper.”

Behind him, someone rattled the door, and then pounded on it. “Hey! Open the door.” It sounded like Tennara. The door rattled again. “Hey!”

“Ignis ocidar,” the mage shouted.

Gavin focused through the gems in his sword and gathered power in the center of his haze as if he were taking a breath to blow out a lamp. Before he could release the magic, the hair on his arms rose. From the clouds came a flash of brilliant white. Pain burned through every fiber of his body. For the briefest of moments, he was aware of an arc of white light stretching from his rigid body to Daia’s. In that moment, which seemed both brief and eternal, he knew her every thought, desire, fear and dream — and she his. They shared a single thought: Survive this.

And then the world went black.





Unarmed and unnoticed, Cirang watched with horror as the king, bleeding from his arm, nose and ears, collapsed. She had no defense against a magical attack, but she had to do something. Saving the king would be a step towards redemption. She ran around to the rear of the temple and yanked open the back door. She entered the nave and saw the three battlers at the main entrance, pounding on the doors, trying to get out. Their cleric prisoners were seated in pews, cursing them with the wrath of the Almighty Savior Asti-nayas. She rounded the altar and ran up the steps onto the dais. There she found a tray of porcelain cups, the same cups she’d used to serve the tainted water to the queen. She took one and dipped it into the font, and then walked as quickly as she could without spilling the water.

“Cirang?” Brawna said behind her. “Stop! What are you doing?”

Footsteps pounded the floor behind has as the battlers gave chase. She raced through the store room and outside, then around to the front of the building. The mage was squatting over Gavin. Standing a few feet away was the mage’s twin, the one without magic power. Cirang circled around and approached from behind. With her left arm, she reached around the woman and grabbed her by the face, pinching her nose shut with her thumb and forefinger and tilting her head back, which forced her mouth open. In her other hand, she held the cup with her palm over its lip to keep from spilling the water.

“Help! Fabrice!” the twin cried, trapped against Cirang’s body, arms flailing. As a battler, Cirang knew how to get out of such a hold, but she was counting on this woman’s lack of hand-to-hand combat training.

The mage turned with fury in her eyes. “Release her!”

“Get away from him,” Cirang said, “or this water goes down your sister’s throat.” She heard the sounds of banging and shouting at the back door of the temple through which she’d just come. They truly are trapped, she thought.

Fabrice smiled haughtily. “Blessed water, is it? We don’t believe in the power of your little god.”

“This water’s been tainted with water from the Well of the Enlightened, though I think a more apt name would be Well of the Damned. Once she drinks this, she’ll loathe you, maybe even try to kill you in your sleep, and there’s nothing you can do to change her back.”

The twin stopped struggling. “Do as she says, Fabrice.”

Fear flickered in the mage’s eyes, but she took a step towards Cirang and away from Gavin. “You wouldn’t.”

“I served this water to the queen, four of Kinshield’s First Royal Guards, and about a hundred worshipers. What makes you think I won’t?”

A few moments passed in silence while Fabrice considered the situation.

Daia gasped and opened her eyes. “By Yrys! Gavin...” She crawled over to where he lay, his eyes open and staring, his outstretched hand inches from his sword. “What have you done to him?”

“He’ll awaken,” the twin said. “Let me go.”

“I need assurance,” Cirang said. “Open the temple doors.”

When Fabrice hesitated, Cirang tilted the cup over the twin’s open mouth. The mage gestured in the air and whispered a word. The doors flew open with the force of three battlers pushing it from the inside.

“Now go inside,” Cirang said. “You won’t be able to attack the king in the temple. Not with magic, anyway.”

“I’ll do as you say. Release her.” Fabrice backed into the temple. Once she’d stepped over the threshold, Brawna and Calinor each pointed weapons at her and forced her farther inside. Cirang released the twin, who ran to her sister. They tearfully embraced, and Fabrice stroked her hair.

Cirang threw the contents of the cup onto the ground, where it mixed with rain that continued to fall.





Gavin’s entire body burned from the inside while all around him was nothing but fluttering whiteness he’d come to recognize as his healing magic. Words echoed in his mind, words that made no sense. Why would she help us? Perhaps Gavin’s right. Perhaps she truly has changed.

They were thoughts, but not his own. Who’s thinking in my head, damn it?

“Gavin? Can you hear me?” It was Daia’s voice, far away.

I thought it was a dream.

When the white fluttering sensation stopped, he opened his eyes to find Daia’s light-blue ones gazing down at him. A lock of her dark-auburn hair had escaped its braid and tickled his face. “Thank Yrys,” she said. “You had me worried.”

“You gave us a fright, my liege,” Tennara said. Her forehead was crinkled with concern.

“Damn that hurt.” His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. His muscles trembled, and he struggled to sit up. Tennara grasped his arm to help. Cirang helped Daia to her feet.

Brawna stood on the other side of the threshold, propping open one of the temple doors with a foot and holding Aldras Gar as if it were made of glass. Calinor kept his sword pointed at the mage and her twin. Gavin let Tennara help him to one of the benches in the temple, where he leaned heavily against the wall. He felt groggy, as though he’d been awoken from a sound sleep, and had trouble focusing his eyes.

Daia sat beside him. Her hand trembled as she raised a waterskin to her lips. Her forearm was marked with a red welt in the shape of a tree branch. Then he noticed his own were similarly marked.

The welts started under the sleeves of his tunic and went all the way to his fingertips. His fingernails were blackened. “By the seven hells. Would you look at this?” He pulled up his sleeves to reveal the marks just under the surface of his skin, like red veins.

Daia gestured at his face with one finger. “Your face has it too.” She handed him the skin.

He drank deeply and wiped the stray droplets from his chin. “Damn. There goes my dashing good looks.” Daia’s face and neck were unmarked. Apparently she’d received a smaller dose of the lightning than he had.

“Let’s sit and have a courteous conversation, shall we?” Tennara said, pushing down on the mage’s shoulders to force her to sit on one of the pews, facing Gavin. “You don’t simply attack the king when you imagine some slight or injustice.”

“He’s not the rightful king,” Fabrice replied.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Tennara said. “Who are you?”

“Fabrice Canton, mother of Brodas Canton, though you would know him better by his epithet, Ravenkind. This is my sister, Cabrice Dartillyn. Her son is Brodas’s cousin, dearest friend, and confidant.”

The other woman said, “Warrick Dartillyn, who took the epithet Darktalon.”

“Where are you holding our sons?” Brodas’s mother demanded. A tear trickled from her eye, and she hastily wiped it away. “We want them released immediately. My son is heir to the throne. The rain shall not stop until you restore what you’ve taken.”

“Brodas is dead.” Gavin didn’t mean to blurt it so bluntly, and certainly not slurred like a drunken lout. “I’m sorry to have to tell you.” He pushed himself more upright.

The mage stared at him, her face twisted in horror and grief. “That can’t be. No.”

Gavin wrestled with how much information to give Ravenkind’s mother. He had no reason to believe she was anything but a mother who loved her son. “I wasn’t there to witness it,” he explained, speaking more slowly, “but Daia and Cirang were. He was attacked by the demon that was trapped in the palace. His magic wasn’t strong enough to defeat his enemy, and the demon took his life. I arrived too late to save him.”

Fabrice burst into tears and embraced her sister for comfort.

“Judging by his injuries, I don’t think he suffered.” Gavin tried not to let his own feelings about Ravenkind interfere with the delivery of the news that devastated these two women. He’d have sung joyously of his nemesis’s death to anyone else but the man’s own mother. He was glad the wizard was dead, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard. A parent’s love was blind to a child’s failings.

“And what of my son?” Cabrice asked through her tears. “Do you know what has become of him?”

Gavin nodded. “I’m sorry. Warrick never left Brodas’s side. He was loyal to a fault.”

The two women cried in each other’s arms for a minute. At last Fabrice looked up and tearfully asked, “Where are they buried?”

Four bodies had been collected from the cottage that fateful day. The two dead Viragon Sisters had been taken to the cemetery and buried. Gavin had instructed the city custodian to burn the other two — Brodas Ravenkind and his henchman, Red. Daia had left Warrick’s dead body in the alley behind an inn in Sohan, but there was no reason to torture his mother with that detail. “Their bodies were cremated in Tern. Talk to the city custodian. Maybe he still has their ashes. You can take them, if that’s your wish.”

“Then I suppose the right to rule is mine,” Fabrice said quietly.

“I’m afraid not,” Gavin said. “It was never yours to claim or abdicate.” She drew back with an expression of shock and indignation. Gavin didn’t want to belittle the woman, but neither did he want her to continue spreading falsehoods about his claim. “I know the story of Oriann Engtury. She would never have inherited the crown, and therefore she couldn’t have passed it down to you or to Brodas.”

She shook a finger at him. “You know nothing!”

“I know she was the illegitimate child of an incestuous rape. King Arek told me that himself, during my travels backwards in time.”

“Your ancestor conspired with the Lordover Tern to conceal the truth.”

“I know King Arek named Ronor Kinshield as his successor, and as you say, I’m his descendant. I also know the Lordover Tern acted within his rights as the Supreme Councilor o’State to decide the next king after Ronor died. I’m sorry for your loss, Lady Canton, truly, but I’m the rightful king, and my child will succeed me. Take your sons’ ashes and give them a proper burial. You can trust me to lead Thendylath. It’s what I was meant to do.”

Fabrice glared at him a moment, but then her eyes began to soften. “I suppose I haven’t any choice now. My only son is dead.” She drew herself up taller and squared her shoulders. “I, Fabrice Canton, descendant of King Ivam and rightful heir to the throne of Thendylath, do hereby abdicate my rule to Gavin Kinshield as these witnesses will attest.”

Gavin said nothing but did incline his head. The woman was acquiescing. He didn’t want to argue with her about how it should be done.

“Do you know what’s become of Brodas’s journals.”

Gavin’s battlers had recovered several journals from Ravenkind’s manor in Sohan. He’d skimmed a few, mostly complaints about lordovers and rambling professings of his own royal blood and statements of lust for the King’s Bloodstone. Some had details of the brutal attacks Ravenkind had waged upon the innocent families of men he thought had wronged him, including Gavin’s own. Very little in those journals had any value to Gavin, but the one written by Crigoth Sevae would remain in his possession, as would the copy Ravenkind had made of it. “I have some of them,” he told her. “If you want them, they’re yours.”

Fabrice’s eyes lit up. “Yes, give them to me. He was always such an articulate man. I would very much like to read his adventures.”

Gavin thought she would be disappointed, but that was for her to decide. “They’re in Tern, of course. Give me your address and I’ll have them sent to you.”

She nodded. “Thank you. They’re not much, but... Brodas mentioned two other journals, not his own but old books he was most interested in acquiring. Their spiteful owner had promised to sell them to him but after selling the first, he went back on his word. A Nilmarion man, I believe, and longtime business associate of my son’s. Might you have that one as well? I should very much like to see what he was so eager to obtain.”

Gavin cast a glance at Cirang. “I have them both,” he admitted. “They have information about why King Arek was murdered. I’m sure you can understand why I got to keep them.”

Fabrice sighed. “I suppose I can. Very well, then.” The two sisters stood to leave, arm in arm. Gavin stood as well. Just before the door, Fabrice paused and curtsied low. “You’ve a hard road ahead of you, young man, especially with your... humble ancestry. You’ll need as much good fortune as you can find, from wherever you can find it.” She stepped over the temple’s threshold, closed her eyes and, with an elaborate hand gesture, whispered, “Sisto pluvar.”

Daia tried to stand, to go after her. “Wait. What about the—”

Gavin held her back with one hand. “Listen.”

All they heard was silence.

The rain had stopped.