Well of Sorrows (39 page)

Read Well of Sorrows Online

Authors: Benjamin Tate

BOOK: Well of Sorrows
6.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“A battle between whom?”
It took place outside the Well’s influence. We couldn’t get close enough to see.
Colin grunted. “I’ll check it out. After.” He watched the flock of carrion birds a moment more, then turned away, searching the nearer grasses for the shepherd’s hook.
He spotted it almost instantly, and his breath caught, his throat tightening. As it did every time he came here, every time he traveled through the forest to this place, to where the hopes and dreams of all of those who were part of the wagon train out of Lean-to and Portstown ended. The wagons had vanished long ago. He’d scavenged as much as he could of the supplies that first year, taking whatever he thought he’d need to survive in the forest, before he knew how much the Lifeblood had changed him. The rest had been looted by the dwarren or had simply rotted and decayed and been claimed by the grass.
But not all. He’d used some of the metal from the wheels and the wagons’ hitches to fashion a shepherd’s hook, and he’d planted it where the wagons used to be, had sunk it deep into the earth to mark the location, years after most traces of what had happened there had vanished, after he realized that if he didn’t do
something
, all traces would be lost completely.
Initially, he’d come to this place every year with a lantern taken from the wagons, lit it, and placed it on the shepherd’s hook. To remember. But after ten years he’d turned his grief outward, turned his rage onto the Shadows. By then he’d learned enough of how the Well had changed him that he could hunt them, learned enough from the Faelehgre and the forest to kill them. That pursuit had consumed him for nearly twenty years. He’d forgotten about the lantern, the shepherd’s hook. He’d forgotten himself. When the Faelehgre finally convinced him that his hunting was merely making the Shadows stronger, more dangerous, he’d sunk into listlessness, wandering the forest, the ruins of Terra’nor, letting its cool depths enfold him. Only when Osserin began following him, began relating the history of the Faelehgre—how they’d built Terra’nor near the Well, how they’d built their entire culture around its power, worshiping it, reveling in it, using it—did he reawaken.
He began to learn then. Of Terra’nor and its fall, how the power of the Well had slowly begun to corrupt the Faelehgre, how it began to distort their bodies, changing them. Of how the Faelehgre had refused to leave until it was too late, until the Well had changed them enough that they could no longer leave. And of how it had continued to change them, the corporeal bodies of the Faelehgre finally fading and splitting into the Shadows and the Lights.
And once he’d learned of the Faelehgre and the Shadows, he turned to the plains, exploring their reaches, although never moving too far from the forest. He’d watched the dwarren and their tribal wars from afar, watched the humans continue to attempt to settle on dwarren lands, watched the Alvritshai attempt to as well. The plains had become a battlefield, blood spilled across its length. He’d watched it all.
Until seven years ago, when he’d finally noticed that the black spot on his arm—a mere sliver of darkness then—wasn’t a freckle.
Suddenly, he knew his time in the forest was running out. Unless he wanted to become like the Faelehgre and the Shadows: trapped.
It was then that he’d recalled the shepherd’s hook, had begun returning every year with the lantern.
“How long have I been here, Osserin?” he rasped. He felt tears burning at the edges of his eyes already, heard them in his voice, but he choked them back. “How long since I drank from the Well?”
Sixty-seven years.
Colin’s breath stopped, his eyes widening. The tears that had threatened dried up. “Sixty-se—” he began, but the word caught in his throat.
He swallowed. “How is that possible?” he breathed.
Because you willed it,
Osserin said, and Colin heard the edge in his voice.
Because the Lifeblood made it possible.
Before Colin could respond, the Faelehgre moved toward the hook, hovering close to the ground at first, as if looking for traces of the wagons, of the bodies, of the deaths. When he neared the hook, he spun around it, halting near the top.
Colin struggled a moment longer, then exhaled heavily. Staff in hand, the lantern banging against it as he moved, he trudged forward, the weight of the years he hadn’t realized had passed—not consciously—making the trek more difficult. His leg screamed in tingling agony, but he ignored it, pulling up beneath the S-shaped curve of the hook. Setting the lantern on the ground, he pulled the hollow bowl, tinder, and flint from the pockets of his robe, and using some of the surrounding dried grass, he got a flame started in the bowl. Blowing on it to keep it lit, he opened the glass door of the lantern and set the small bowl inside. It wouldn’t burn long, but he’d run out of oil from the wagons ages ago.
Then he closed the lantern and hobbled backward, pocketing the flint. He stared at the flames until he was satisfied they would continue to burn, then looked around at the surrounding grass.
You don’t need to relive—
“I
need
to remember,” he said, cutting Osserin off, angry. Then, in a softer voice: “I want to remember. I don’t want to forget her.”
Osserin flickered, troubled, but said nothing.
Colin bowed his head, took a few deep, steadying breaths, eyes closed, trying to relax himself.
Then he opened his eyes . . . and
sank
.
Around him, the world stilled, the grasses stirred by the breeze halting in mid- motion. Sound died, the quiet so profound that Colin shifted uncomfortably. He felt the stillness—the utter absence of motion—pressing against his skin, felt it resisting him, trying to shove him forward, back into his proper place, the sensation prickling, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. He had never liked this initial quiet, this absence of life in the world around him—knew that if he remained in this limbo too long he wouldn’t be able to breathe—and so he shoved against the pressure, thrust himself backward through its resistance.
And crossed a barrier, thrust himself through it . . . pushed himself beyond.
The sun dipped down toward the horizon as if it were setting . . . but to the east. He slogged backward without moving, the effort like trying to walk on sand. Night fell, but in reverse, as midmorning pressed into dawn, and still he shoved, pushed farther backward, moving faster and faster, the amount of effort required increasing. The sun rose in the west, set in the east, rose and set, again and again, picking up speed until it was only a flicker, a blink between light and dark, light and dark, and still he forged backward.
On the plains before him, in the stuttering blinks of light, the grasses turned from dried dead stalks to lush greens with heavy heads of grain, then shrank into slender sprouts before vanishing, replaced by brief fields of snow—a rare occurrence this far south of the mountains—and then back to a swath of dried yellow. Colin watched the seasons pass again and again, in reverse, then frowned and shoved harder, speeding up the process until there was no distinction between light and dark, only sunlight. Birds appeared, a flicker, nothing more, soaring in the sky. A fox, a grouse, passing by the shepherd’s hook, their appearance so brief Colin didn’t have time to gasp. Farther out, he caught a stutter of wagons, the passing of an army of men, a shadow of darkness as a herd of gaezels spun by.
He pushed harder, sank himself into the past, forced himself down roads already traveled, and the farther he went, the greater the pressure against his skin, the greater the resistance. The prickling became an itch, the hairs on his arms shivering, stirring, vibrating. A sound arose, deep and throaty, resonating in his chest, as if the world were moaning, but he forged back farther, shoved harder, grunted with the effort it took, and the moaning increased.
Then, on the ground before him, within the space between heartbeats, the remnants of decayed wagons appeared.
His heart lurched and he gasped, the press into the past slowing, losing momentum. He staggered under its weight, fell to his hands and his good knee, his Shadow-touched leg stretched awkwardly behind him, the staff pressed into the grass and earth beneath his hand. His satchel slipped from his back and hung beneath him. But he was too close to let the pressure thrust him back to the present. He remained where he was and shoved harder, a cry escaping him as the decayed wagons rose from the concealing grasses, as the bodies rose with them, as if being pushed upward out of the earth, as if it were rejecting them, denying them—
And suddenly the wagons were whole, the bodies complete. White lights flared from the forest and then vanished, and with another gasp Colin stopped shoving against the tides of time, letting his head drop.
The world settled, shuddering as it did so. The moaning halted, and normal sounds returned, normal textures and scents. Pine, trampled grass, upturned earth. Horse musk and the stench of fear. The sun beat down on his back, warming his skin from the chill of the passage, and wind tugged at his robes, drying his sweat. Far off, the sounds of a battle raged on the plains, a battle they’d attempted to flee.
Colin closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, steadied himself . . .
And looked up.
Karen’s father lay where he’d fallen, where the Shadows had taken him, the sword he’d tried to use lying useless in the grass beside him. Other bodies lay scattered around the wagon where he and Karen had stood last, and Colin knew there were more behind him. Many more, including his mother and father, both of them on the far side of the wagons, as if they’d been caught trying to flee to the plains. He’d come here, like this, many times, had searched out everyone. Not all of those who had made it this far from Portstown had died here. Some had managed to run outside the Shadow’s reach; some, like Walter, had been chased into the forest; some he’d never been able to find. But everyone of significance was here. His family, his friends.
His chosen.
He pulled himself up,
dragged
himself upright with the staff, adjusting the satchel, and moved to the edge of the wagon, so that he stood over his own crumpled form. He watched as his younger self stared out over the plains, face smeared with tears and dirt and snot, eyes vacant. Empty of everything, body and soul. Karen lay slack in his arms, her dead body across his chest, her head rolled back, throat exposed. Her skin glowed a pale white in the sunlight, the freckles across her nose dark in contrast, her mouth slightly open, her green eyes eerily vivid.
Colin knelt down beside himself, the position awkward with his deadened leg. He reached out a hand, wanting to touch her, to close her eyes, her mouth, to trace the line of her jaw and brush the wild brown hair from her brow one more time. And he
could
touch her, could press his hands against her flesh. He was present—it wasn’t simply a dream; Osserin had assured him of that—but it wasn’t the same. It was a strange half-presence. He wasn’t really there, no matter how much he felt the wind gust against his face, or how visceral the scent of grass or the sounds of the far-off battle. He could feel everything, could sense it, but he couldn’t change any of it. As soon as he thrust himself past that barrier to come here, nothing could be changed.
And yet every time he came, he tried. Partly because Osserin had said that there were some who could touch the past, could manipulate it. But mostly because he couldn’t help himself.
His past self ’s chest hitched, his gaze drifting from the plains upward to the sky, and he withdrew his hand where it hovered over Karen’s face. He watched himself. But unlike all the times before this, the ache in his chest—beneath where the pendant burned against his skin beneath his robes, the blood vow still empty, never claimed—that ache didn’t crush him. It didn’t rise into his throat and cut off his breath, didn’t fill his chest and suffocate him. He felt it, a fist of pain, hard and unforgiving, but it remained contained.
He stood and stepped back from himself, from Karen, a moment before the Faelehgre sped from the forest and began their first frenzied searching of the bodies around the wagons. They flitted from one lifeless figure to the next, their agitation growing. He could hear them clearly now, unlike the echoing half-voices he’d heard back then—another consequence of drinking the Lifeblood according to Osserin. They hovered over Lyda’s body, over the womb that would never bear a child, and Colin swallowed back the same sick nausea he’d felt back then over the Shadow’s gluttonous feeding. They slipped inside the backs of the wagons, where Colin knew they’d find Tobin’s body. He’d never had a chance to escape with his broken legs. They hovered longest over the children—Lissa and her brother, Ron, all the rest—their despair palpable.
And then they discovered that he was still alive.
As the argument over whether or not to save him erupted, Colin wandered away from himself, from Karen, and knelt beside Sam’s body. The mason had died attempting to protect a group of women, had fallen facedown into the grass, his sword beneath him. He desperately wanted to turn Sam’s body over so that he could see the sun, look at the sky, but he couldn’t.
Instead, he stood and wandered among the rest of the fallen: Miriam, the burns from when the dwarren fired the wagons still etched on her skin; Brant, his shoulder bound from where the dwarren arrow had been removed; Barte, the wagon driver; Domonic; and Jackson, the West Wind Trading Company’s representative. Walter had escaped the wagons, but the sukrael had caught him in the forest. Colin had gone back once and watched as they fell on Walter, as they smothered him. They’d been sated by then, had tortured Walter as they’d started torturing Colin, but the Faelehgre had not arrived to save him as they had Colin.

Other books

Premiere: A Love Story by Ewens, Tracy
Catch by Kenyon, Toni
Tabula Rasa by Kitty Thomas