The Weaving of Wells (Osric's Wand, Book Four) (31 page)

“It never hurts to have more hands to help, and we have no secrets in this habitat,” Kenneth agreed.

“Fine. So, let’s hear it. What did you find?” Gus hopped down several stacks of books to the ground, and his tone reflected his excitement to hear their report.

“Exactly what I expected. It was another well, but the construction was never finished. I could feel the increase in power in the area, but there was no wall keeping us out to require the symbols. Now let’s see if the book gives up any more of them, shall we?” Osric gestured for Chanda to sit at the table again.

When all was done, thirty-seven wells were located with the aid of the book Serha had helped them find. Several were too small for any significant use, but there were at least twenty-four with larger than expected strand collection, though significantly smaller than the Well of Strands that Bridgett described. Osric still had no idea how they would utilize the wells, but portent showed that they were of vital importance.

The solution would come to him eventually, he knew. No doubt he would have to bring Bridgett and Trevar to each of the locations to figure a way to enter, at least for those where visions hadn’t shown the symbols. The day’s magical exertion of the traveling spell, Wand-Maker sight, and sharing Seer visions with Chanda had brought him a great deal of fatigue. Entering the wells would have to wait. The group’s excitement had passed, and when Chanda finally touched the last page of the book, they were all looking forward to their beds. When nothing happened, she sighed audibly with relief, and the others nodded and began gathering their things to leave. Osric’s mind was flooded with the images of the various locations, but he was too tired to sort through all that they had seen and learned. Osric slept heavily through the night, the constant portent ignition causing no more than slight stirrings in his slumber. It was the best night’s rest he had had in days.

19 — Bubbling Black

Dredek ran the long bone through his hands. Did this femur belong to Aeya? He had lost track of her bones years ago, thanks to an encounter almost a decade earlier with bandits who had dumped the contents in search of coin. He knew they were in one of the chests he had kept safe, but which box and which bones were hers, he no longer knew. Centuries were too long to keep track of something so small, yet he handled each bone as if it belonged to the love he had lost so long ago.

He hadn’t found her body with his children, and none of the bodies of the young were recognizable. Most had been trampled beneath the hooves of horses and were too badly broken to be salvageable, and he hadn’t gone back to gather what he could until he had formed his plan years later. It was then that he had decided not to bring the children’s bones at all. Someday, he was certain he would have to answer for that, but he couldn’t help but wish his children could rest through the struggles the caldereth would have to face, until they had established themselves again.

He placed the bones neatly on the floor inside the well. He made sure each and every one was perfectly placed in the correct place to ensure as much success as possible. He hadn’t attempted the spell with only bones before; there had always been some tissue remaining to hold everything in its place. Dredek knew it would be different this time, but with the power of the Well of Strands to aid him, he knew he could do it.

The bones had all been placed carefully in cloth years earlier. Each bone had been collected and wrapped, and then separated into individual bundles belonging to each of two hundred slain caldereth. It had taken him a great deal of time, sitting at the bottom of the well, to put just over half of the bodies in order. It would take him another few weeks to duplicate the effort. Weeks of verifying and correcting the placement of every tiny bone after his tremors forced his hands to shake so badly that he couldn’t control where he placed them.

“Sir!” a shout rang out from above. A young man, thin yet muscular, in light chainmail that covered his hardened leather armor, leaned over the path leading to his location. “I’m supposed to tell you that it just turned black!” The voice was difficult to hear from the doorway above, but the point had been made. Dredek stood up and craned his neck to reply.

“Take it off the flames! Take it off the flames and ice it! Go! Tell them, now!” Dredek followed as close as he could, but he was cramped from hours of sorting on his knees, and he tripped over a set of bones at the foot of the stairs, swearing as he fell. “They need to throw the herb bundle in as soon as it hits the ice!”

The young man ducked his head back into the well and nodded before disappearing again through the opening. Dredek hoped they got it right. He had been expecting it to happen at any time, but sitting in the room and waiting would have accomplished nothing, and sorting through the bones was his task and his task alone.

The steep incline of the stairs leading out of the well was difficult to climb after spending so much time crouched on the floor of the well, but he found it easier if he used his hands to aid himself as he circled the shaft in a sprint on all four limbs. His natural caldereth speed could easily be a danger on the stairway, so he was careful to stay close to the outer wall. Once he reached the door, however, he could safely and quickly cover the distance to the chamber where the potion was brewing.

Still, the chests that carried the remaining caldereth bones hampered him in the hall leading away from the well. He wished he had planned for the moment better, but there was nothing for it now.

As soon as he was past the obstructions, he sprinted on limbs meant for speed. He would pay for the exertion with aches and fatigue, but the next few moments counted toward his being able to revive his people, so he was willing to endure the suffering. When he could finally use the thick, black liquid, the small amount of discomfort he was about to face would seem insignificant anyway.

In the distance he could hear the voice of the man who had brought him the news shouting instructions with short breath.
At least they sent a competent man to fetch me
, he thought.

Moments later, he was entering the room. Three men had already placed the pot in the ice bath he had prepared, and the herb bundle was tossed in as he entered the room. The herbs were only necessary to mask the horrific taste of the potion so he would be able to choke it down, but he was glad they had followed the instructions before the heat of the black liquid lowered and was unable to draw out the flavor from the mint leaves. He smiled at the men, nodding his gratitude for their efforts. It would be a while before it would be cool enough to drink, but the hard part was over. In a few days, he would have his physical strength back, along with the full use of his magical potential.

20 — Trained but Deadly

Osric stepped into the cave, knowing the paun would still be where he left them. It had taken time for him to find them after his long period of unconsciousness following his battle with Dredek, but once they had been located he moved them back into the cave he had met them in. They had taken to training faster than any dog he had ever known, but teaching them to eat all of their prey was the most daunting task he had undertaken.

Cooking the meat of the animals they brought back had been the solution to the problem, though they still ate the internal organs and eyeballs before bringing their hunt to the cave. Osric felt that it was nearly time to bring the two out to meet his friends. He had kept his nightly routine secret from all but Bridgett, but she hadn’t been eager to meet the beasts. He understood her worries, but he was convinced that the paun could be valuable companions. He had been bringing the two pups along with him to different towns to expose them to human contact for some time, albeit he made sure they remained invisible the entire time. He felt that they were ready to join the rest of the world, though he was nervous about how they would react if everyone who saw them screamed and ran away.

There had been no doubt in Osric’s mind that they were intelligent, as he could get them to drop their invisibility on command and he had witnessed them using magic to start fires and bury their possessions. Though what the paun saw as possessions was laughable to most humans; they seemed to form odd attachments to different rocks they had discovered in their wanderings. The larger of the two adolescent paun would even spell the area where he buried his rocks to protect them.

As he entered the room, the two became visible and approached him playfully. A fire was burning and the cave had been cleaned of any evidence of last night’s meal, though there was the last quarter of a doe waiting for him to cook.

“Looks like you two have been busy. Good job!” He patted them on their backs, feeling strange to treat larger-than-human animals as pets. It had taken him time to get used to the act, but they didn’t speak. However, they responded very well to verbal instruction, learning dozens of commands during his first week of visits.

He took out his large hunting knife and began to prepare the doe. Most of his actions were habitual, muscle memory from the time he had spent training Happy and a lifetime of hunting. He knew he couldn’t bring them back to the Aranthians without names. Though genitals were not evident on either of them, the smaller size and narrower chest of one led Osric to assume she was female. He called her Vesh. The larger of them was dubbed Kane, because he had taken a liking to the flavor of raw sugar, and Osric often found scraps of sugarcane scattered around outside the cave. He had no idea where the paun found the plant, but the two often wandered far from the cave to hunt and play while Osric was away.

Osric was in awe of the paun body, and he took time to study their structure and movements every chance he got. They were lean, and their heavily muscled bodies would put even Kenneth’s dense musculature to shame. Yet, it wasn’t only their muscles that gave them the strength and speed he knew all too well. The paun had many more muscles than a human body has, with muscle attachments at more points along the adjoining bones. That wasn’t the only thing remarkable in their makeup; each limb had an additional joint that allowed for even greater speed and flexibility of movement.

Kane and Vesh both could, at times, choose to stride at a normal human pace to walk alongside Osric. Yet, they could run at astonishing rates by recruiting more muscles and extending the joints of their limbs to the full extent. The length and sharpness of the claws, however, seemed to be dependent upon how much use they received while hunting and taking in prey. Vesh had clearly been superior to Kane in the hunt, and her razor-sharp claws had grown significantly longer than her brother’s. There was nothing else like them on all of Archana.

In the time he had spent with them, he continued to marvel at the speed with which they grew. When Osric had been forced to fight it the day Orson died, the third of their group had been about the size of the two pups combined. Now, both were not only taller than the paun he killed, but even Vesh was wider and bulkier than that paun had been. Kane was also significantly larger than the first paun Osric had encountered in the forest. He wondered if they were yet fully grown, but he had no idea how large a paun could get, as so few had ever been seen. Both of them easily dwarfed him in size, but they showed no sign of making him their next hunt. And the only thing he ever sensed from them was import from the Portentist gift and a sense of calm curiosity from the Empath gift.

For lack of any other explanation, he attributed their growth to the change in diet he had introduced. How long the paun had lived only eating a small portion of their prey was unknown, so feeding them all of the animals’ meat after cooking, no doubt, had contributed to their size.

“Do you two think you’re ready to take a trip? I have some friends I’d like to introduce you to.” Osric spoke calmly as he watched them strip the last remaining scraps of flesh from the bones. He had tried to speak with the paun using the Telepathy gift he had gained from his proximity to Thamas and Legati’s magic, but the two pups showed no signs of recognizing the mental prodding. However, they did respond to audible commands, calming down noticeably at the sound of his voice. They knew they were going to be leaving soon.

Osric looked at them for a long moment, and they twitched with eagerness. He was nervous, but every previous day had been leading to this. Both pups sensed his anxiety, whining slightly, but they continued to show their readiness to leave with quick nods in the direction of the cave’s exit. He had come early in the day this time, choosing to reveal the proof of their existence to the Aranthians in the light of day, rather than at night. Too many nightmarish stories were told to children about the paun to bring them to the barracks without light to dispel the myths. The story of his first and second encounters with paun did not help to inspire trust of the creatures either.

Osric, however, knew the truth of the matter, after the time he had spent with the pups. They were not evil, inasmuch as it was said; they were simply carrying out their version of a hunt. It would take some effort to convince his brethren of the truth of the matter. He stood up, motioning for the paun to gather at his sides.

“Well, let’s do it then. Delaying won’t help the matter.” He was speaking more to himself than to the paun, but they moved close to him, knowing that contact was how he brought them to new places.

After they took a place on either side, he spoke the spell and soon arrived outside the barrier to the Aranthian home. They moved as if to run and play, but Osric halted them with a word. It wasn’t easy for them to restrain themselves, but they did.

A merchant screamed in terror at the sight of the three of them in the road, but to their credit—and to Osric’s great relief—the paun looked at the man in alarm but held their place at his side. Osric attempted to calm the merchant down with a smile and a friendly greeting, but there was nothing he could do. The man, in tan breeches and a dirtied yellow tunic, fell off of his cart in an attempt to run away and sprawled flat in the dirt. It took only a moment for him to regain his footing and dash off in the opposite direction, looking back and screaming with every breath.