Well of the Damned (44 page)

“That’s
why I couldn’t enter with my ring,” Daia said.

“Gems
and gilded lines,” Cirang said, “similar to the wards
Nilmarions tattoo into our skin to protect us from evil.”

The
door opened behind her. “Is it true?” someone asked in a
whisper. “Did Brawna get her?”

She
turned and met Calinor’s hard blue eyes. Her gaze fell to the
ugly scarred skin on his throat, and guilt burned in the pit of her
stomach. “Calinor, I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

“What
you did to me?” he whispered fiercely. “What about all
the children you sold to slavers? What about the lives you ruined?”

“One
minute, Calinor. Go on, Cirang,” Daia said. “What
happened after you got into the temple?”

“Last
night, I poured water from the Well of the Enlightened into the
sacramental font. Dressed as the acolyte, I was the one who offered
the sacrament to Queen Feanna, four of her guards, and dozens of
others throughout the day.”

King Gavin’s entire body
went rigid, and he let loose what Cirang could only describe as a
roar of anger. “Why did you come here?” he hollered. “To
tell me you took my wife from me?” His expression was angry and
confused and sad and lost. “To rub my face in it, knowing I
would kill you for what you’ve done?”

“No,
my liege,” she said. “To warn you. The clerics in the
temple have all taken the sacrament as well. People are fighting in
the street — even women, while their husbands bet money on the
outcome. Unless the font is drained and scrubbed, and the water
disposed of, Ambryce is in grave danger. I tried to warn the High
Cleric, but he can’t be trusted. You’ve got to stop it.”

“After
seeing what the water did to people, why did you drink it?”

“I
didn’t mean to,” she said. “I refilled my empty
skin with water from the public well, but I didn’t think to
rinse out the remaining droplets of wellspring water first.”

Gavin
beckoned two of his battlers into the room. “Awright. Tennara,
Brawna, lock Adro and the others in the lordover’s gaol for
now, and then meet us at the stable. Lila, keep my wife here. Don’t
let her leave unless you hear directly from me or Daia. Give her food
and water, and nothing more.”

“You
can’t keep me locked up like a prisoner,” Feanna said.

“Yes,
my liege,” the battlers said, almost in unison. Adro was led
out dressed as he was: barefoot and shirtless, hands bound. Daia
closed the windows, and Lilalian said she would see that the shutters
were nailed shut from the outside. “The door can’t be
locked from the outside,” Lilalian said. “How do I keep
her in there?”

“I’m
the queen! How dare you. I’ll have your heads for this. All of
you.”

Daia
perked up. “One minute. I have just the thing.” She ran
across the yard towards the stable, returning breathless and
sprinkled with rain a couple minutes later. She handed King Gavin a
wooden gargoyle lock. “I thought it might come in handy
someday.”

He
gave Daia a crooked smile and shut the door to the bed chamber,
leaving Queen Feanna alone inside.

“Gavin,
don’t you lock me in here.”

He
pressed the gargoyle against the door. Cirang watched its claws flex
and its wooden feet fuse with the wood of the door, becoming one.
“Don’t try to open the door, Feanna,” he said.
“I’ll be back to get you later.”

“Gavin,
Savior damn you! Let me— Ouch!” Feanna cried, screeched,
and demanded to be released. Her voice faded as they headed to the
stable.

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.