Well of Sorrows (63 page)
Authors: Joshua Palmatier
The two faced each other, both breathing heavily, Colin with the staff angled before him, the Wraith on one knee, sword leveled, the world stilled around them.
And then the Wraith chuckled. A deep sound, unpleasant, rumbling from its chest, laced with hatred and contempt.
“What’s the matter, Colin?” the Wraith sneered. “Don’t you recognize me?”
Colin frowned, but before he had a chance to think, the Wraith swept the cowl from its face.
It took Colin a moment. The thin forty-year-old face beneath the cowl was mottled with swirling blackness, like oil, the darkness beneath the man’s skin, like the mark that had slowly begun taking hold of Colin’s forearm. But this darkness, this shadow was more complete, had reached a point where there was more darkness than there was skin. The face was scarred because of that darkness, age lines marring the flesh, as if the man beneath had suffered for long years, had been forced to suffer. The hair was a dirty blond but streaked with gray—at the temples, on the sides—long and unruly, tangled and mussed, with leaves caught in it, small twigs. The mouth was twisted in a sardonic smile, edged with vicious anger. And the eyes . . .
The eyes were not those of a forty-year-old man. They were the eyes of someone much older, someone who had experienced far more . . . and yet they were the eyes of a younger man as well, one who didn’t know his place in the world, who desperately wanted a place but, however hard he tried, could not find it. Gray-green, those eyes regarded him with heated, deep-seated anger.
An anger Colin recognized.
The eyes, the face, the hair, the rage— Colin sucked in a ragged breath. “Walter.”
Walter’s smile broadened even as his eyes narrowed, and Colin could see the fifteen-year-old boy who had beaten him in the back alleys of Portstown, could see the slightly older boy who had pissed on him while he was locked into the pillory and had choked him against the side of the wagon on the plains. “So good to know I haven’t been forgotten,” Walter murmured.
And now Colin recognized his voice, the younger Walter still hidden in the undertone, in the contempt. As all of the memories of his time in Portstown—the harassment and vicious bullying, the times that bullying had crossed over the line into something more deadly, more dangerous—as all of that and more returned, Colin found himself hardening. His chest tightened, the warmth of rage burning deep, sliding down into his gut, into his arms and legs. The coldness on seeing the Wraith vanished, subsumed by the anger, and he found himself slipping into a more solid stance, his jaw set in quiet resolve.
“I thought you’d died with all of the others in the wagon train, there at the edge of the forest,” he said, his voice like stone. “I thought the Shadows got you.”
Walter chuckled again. “Oh, the Shadows did. Only, unlike the rest, they didn’t kill me. They took me to the Well. They made me drink, and then they fed off of my soul. They made me into
this.
”
Walter leaped forward. Colin hadn’t noticed him shifting his weight onto his bent leg, but he dodged to the left as Walter thrust upward. He brought the staff down hard toward Walter’s exposed back, but Walter rolled, the heartwood thudding into the earth. Colin bit out a curse, already moving, Walter doing the same. He swung at Walter’s retreating figure, the two dodging in and out among the static figures of the dwarren, the humans, and the Alvritshai. Blade met staff, both shoved aside as they parried, struck again, spun and twisted. Walter’s sword sliced through Colin’s shirt, nicked him in the arm, across the cheek, along the thigh, each cut stinging, blood flowing, soaking into his clothes, trailing down his leg. He hissed each time metal kissed flesh, but he struck back, using all the skills he’d mastered hunting the sukrael in the forests surrounding the Well, calling on everything he’d learned. The staff thudded into flesh with bruising force, catching Walter on the upper arm, the thigh, in a glancing blow across his back. Walter shouted with each touch, but he didn’t slow. His attacks grew less precise, more haphazard, as they both began to tire. Sweat ran down into Colin’s eyes, blurred his vision and stuck his clothes to his back, his sides. Weight settled into his arms, weariness and exhaustion setting in. He saw the same weariness lining Walter’s face with every swing, but Walter wasn’t tiring as fast. Colin thought about his time in the forest, fighting the sukrael, hunting the Wraiths, the Faelehgre at his side. He suddenly realized that nearly all the attacks he’d suffered from had come from one Wraith, from Walter. His hatred of Colin had never died, even after suffering at the hands of the Shadows. Walter had been the Wraith at the Well his last day in the forest, the bait for the trap that had lured him into the Shadows’ grasp. Walter had been the one to hunt him throughout the years, even as Colin hunted the Shadows.
Which meant Walter had more practice with the power of the Well.
Even as he thought it, Colin felt his grasp of time slipping, as it had when he’d dragged Moiran outside the reach of the occumaen. He realized Walter would win. The Wraith could hold himself suspended longer.
And then Walter stumbled, tripped over the rough, trampled grass, falling to his side, his free hand reaching out to catch himself. He cried out, began scrambling away, sword clutched tight, feet digging into the earth. Colin slammed the staff into his back and he collapsed to the ground, sword arm beneath him; Colin struck him again as he tried to rise, and this time Walter stayed down, heaving, face pressed into the earth.
Colin stood over him, rage burning in his chest, through his blood, pounding in his ears. He could hear it, a rush of wind that throbbed with every pulse, that filled his mind, that bled from his fingers and seeped from his skin like sweat. He trembled with it, felt the urge to strike Walter again and again and again, once for every kick that he’d landed in the alley of Portstown, for every blow he’d suffered, every time he’d been spat upon by the townspeople while in the pillory. He wanted to see Walter bleed—for his father, his mother, for Karen and all that they had suffered at the hands of Walter and his father. He wanted Walter to bleed for Benedine, for the Tamaell Fedorem and the shattered chance of peace, for all of those who’d died at the hands of the sukrael.
He’d raised his staff to strike again when Walter rolled, a growl rumbling from his throat. His sword arm came free and he swung, even as Colin reacted, his shoulders tensing, the staff descending.
Walter’s sword hit the staff between Colin’s hands, and with a sharp crack, the staff broke.
Pain shivered up into his hands, numbed them. Colin gasped as he felt the shock tremble up through his arms, as he felt the power of the staff, gifted to him by the forest, release, a pulse that shuddered through him in a wave. The staff tumbled from his grasp, the two pieces returning to real time.
And then Walter’s foot drove into his stomach, shoving him up and back.
He struck someone as he fell, tumbled over the immobile form, then struck the table where the Tamaell’s body lay. His breath exploded from him, and he felt his hold on time loosen. Gasping, he snatched at it, the world lurching for a moment with motion, a roar of sound swelling, then dropping as he firmed up his grip. He tasted blood in his mouth, realized he’d bitten down on his tongue as he fell—
And then Walter loomed above him.
He saw one of Walter’s booted feet rise and he rolled away.
But not fast enough. Walter’s heel slammed into his side, dug into his back as he twisted, pinning him to the table. Something hard gouged into his stomach, trapped beneath him and the table and he hissed at the pain, Walter’s weight digging it in deeper as he leaned into his foot.
And then he remembered what it was: the knife. The knife he’d used to try to kill himself in the forest. The knife Eraeth had begun training him with weeks before at the same time he started to teach him the Alvritshai language.
“All those years,” Walter said, grinding his heal in harder, his teeth clenched with the effort. His breath came in haggard gasps. “All those years in the forest, near the Well, learning from the sukrael, learning how to speak to them, learning to manipulate them. All those years trying to hurt you, trying to catch you away from the Well, away from the cursed white stone of the city, so that I could make you suffer as I had suffered. All those years learning to live with myself! All because of you and your damned father, because of that stupid expedition.”
The weight pressed into Colin’s back released, and he shifted, rocked far enough that his hand could scrabble in the loose folds of his shirt, reaching for the handle of the knife. The tip of Walter’s sword appeared in his line of vision, digging into the wood of the table a few inches in front of his face, and he stilled, fingers curled tight around the knife’s handle, hidden from Walter’s view by his body.
“If it hadn’t been for you,” Walter said, his voice close, leaning forward, weight on his sword, “I would have been the Proprietor of Portstown in my father’s stead.”
“No,” Colin said, voice calm. He tensed, hand tightening its grip on the knife. “Your father only thought of you in one way.” He turned slightly, so he could see Walter’s face, the half-Shadow, half-man bent slightly forward, brow creased in consternation. “As his bastard
son
.”
As he spat the last word, Colin flipped onto his back and brought the hand holding the knife out from under his body and up, inside the curve of Walter’s arm. Walter lurched back, but he was too late.
The knife drove into Walter’s chest with enough force to sink to the handle. Colin felt the blade strike bone, felt it scrape across it, shunted to one side, before puncturing deeper.
Walter screamed, pulling away with enough force to rip the knife from Colin’s hands. His sword tore free of the table. Before he’d taken two steps, the scream turned into a liquid gargle as blood from his lungs filled his throat. Colin swore as he scrambled away, to the opposite side of the table. He’d missed the heart. And now he had no weapons at all.
On the far side of the table, Walter’s scream gurgled out into a harsh cough as he leaned forward, spitting blood. He reached toward the dagger’s handle protruding from his side, and with a wrench, he yanked the blade free. He screamed again, staggering to one side, nearly collapsing. Using his sword as a brace, tip dug into the earth, he steadied himself, still coughing, still spitting blood, although not as much as before.
Then he raised his head.
The lower half of his face was covered in blood, and when he grinned—a snarling, vicious grin—his teeth were stained with it. His face had gone pale, the swirling, mottled blackness more vivid in contrast. His hand, still holding the knife, clutched at his side, blood pouring over his fingers, saturating his black shirt.
“I—” he began, then broke into another fit of coughing. More blood—a dark, red, heart’s blood—snaked from the corners of his mouth.
When he recovered, he was no longer grinning. His face was harsh, caught between rage and a grimace.
He’d hurt him. Hurt him more than Walter had thought possible. Colin could see it in Walter’s eyes.
“I don’t have time for this,” Walter said, low and pained, but clear.
He drew himself up, wincing with effort, and considered Colin for a long moment, seething. Colin searched frantically for another weapon, but the only weapons available were being used by the Alvritshai, the Legion, and the dwarren surrounding them, and he couldn’t touch them, couldn’t drag them into his time frame. Not without restoring time first.
“I don’t have time,” Walter repeated.
And then he drew his hand away from his side, fresh blood spilling out as he released the pressure there and adjusted his grip on Colin’s knife. Turning it, he flicked his wrist and threw the blade.
But not in Colin’s direction, Colin realized in horror, even as the knife slowed in midair, returned to real time, no longer under the influence of Walter’s or Colin’s grip. Walter hadn’t thrown the knife at him because he’d known Colin could move out of its way after it returned to real time.
Instead, he’d thrown it at one of the only other people in the tent that Colin cared about:
“Aeren,” Colin said, eyes widening in horror.
Walter smiled grimly—
And then he blurred . . . and vanished.
21
WAVE OF WEARINESS WASHED OVER COLIN the moment Walter Traveled. He raised a hand to his face, his arms trembling, tremors coursing through his legs, wincing at the small cuts that riddled his body. When he tried to take a step forward, he stumbled, nearly fell—
And his grip on time slipped again.
Sound rushed back, motion, the sharp tincture of spilled blood.
Colin cried out, seizing hold again, his hands closing into tight fists in reaction.
It had only been a moment, but it was long enough for him to see the knife Walter had thrown fly toward Aeren, enough for him to see that it would hit the Lord of the Evant in the chest.
Breath hissing out through his teeth, Colin staggered to where the knife shivered in midair. Walter had been close to Aeren when he threw it. There wasn’t much space between the blade and Aeren himself, barely enough for Colin to slip between the two.
Colin reached out with both hands and grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled, trying to move it, to make it budge.
Nothing.
He growled in frustration, even though he’d known the gesture would be useless. He’d never been able to change anything once it had happened. He hadn’t even been able to brush the strands of hair from Karen’s eyes. He’d never be able to move the dagger.
But perhaps he could shift it if he just loosened his hold on time. Steadying himself, hands wrapped firmly around the handle, he let the part of his mind that held time relax, just a little, like letting a contracted muscle release.
The blade slipped forward, slowly, the sound of the fight in the tent surrounding Colin like a low, muted murmur. He began pulling on the knife, applying a steady pressure, even as it edged toward Aeren. Sweat broke out on his face, and he gritted his teeth, the muscles in his hands and fingers cramping. The knife shifted forward an inch, then two, and Colin felt his hold on time growing tenuous.
He began to growl, the sound rising as he exerted more effort, until—the growl escalating into a roar—he released the blade and fell back, halting time again.
Panting, one hand rising to wipe the sweat from his face, he inspected the blade, its angle, its path.
Nothing had changed.
He spat a curse. Because now the blade was a handspan closer to Aeren. He could barely squeeze between the two.
Still cursing, he began to pace. “Think, Diermani damn you, think!”
He paused in front of Aeren. The lord was looking toward where Colin had stood, one hand still gripping Eraeth’s arm, hard, his grim, determined expression beginning to shift toward hope, the transformations subtle. He’d begun to turn, toward Eraeth, or perhaps Thaedoren. Colin could see it in the musculature of his neck, in the angle of his body. He had no idea the knife hung two handspans from his chest.
Colin couldn’t tell the precise location where it would strike him, but he could see that it would likely be fatal. It might miss the heart, if he turned fast enough, if the blade struck bone, if . . .
Colin sighed.
He couldn’t stop the blade. He couldn’t move it, and there wasn’t enough room left for him to deflect it once he restored time. The blade would hit Aeren in less than a breath, less than a heartbeat.
But he could let the knife hit something else.
Straightening grimly, steadying himself, he slid between the blade and Aeren, felt the tip of the knife catch on his shirt, then dig into flesh. The height put it near the level of his heart and he grimaced, thinking back to the time he’d used this same knife in an attempt to kill himself.
It had hurt like all hells. But it hadn’t killed him.
He drew in a deep breath, felt the tip dig a little deeper into his chest. He shifted slightly, so that the blade was centered over the right side, so that it wouldn’t hit his heart. For a moment, he considered letting it strike his arm, but he needed to make certain it stopped, that it didn’t simply tear through flesh and muscle and hit Aeren anyway.
“And I can’t die,” he whispered to himself. He looked toward the heavens, raised one hand to grip Karen’s pendant around his neck, felt the sharp edges of the vow that he’d never been able to fulfill digging into his hand. “I can’t die.”
And then he released time. No slight relaxation like before. He didn’t need to feel the knife sinking into his flesh inch by inch, didn’t need to feel it cutting through muscle, scraping across bone.
He just wanted it to be over. So he let time go.
The knife punched into his chest with enough force to throw him backward, directly into Aeren. He screamed, the sound filling the tent, blending with the cacophony of blades clashing, lost among the blur of shouts, of commands, of battle cries that had been bellowed only moments before. White-hot pain shattered through Colin’s chest, exploded outward, so intense it muffled the noise, dampened his own scream in his ears. He felt himself falling backward, felt tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, heard Aeren shout as hands scrambled at his body, caught him and lowered him to the ground. His scream died down into a low moan, punctuated by sharper cries as the hands holding him jostled the knife before he felt the prickling sensation of dead, dried grass pressing through his shirt as they lay him on the ground.
“Colin,” Aeren said, his voice calm, but urgent. “Colin, can you hear me?” Hands tugged at his shirt, jogged the knife, and Colin hissed. Blood began to bubble up into his throat, choking him, and he realized it had become difficult to breathe.
In a voice barely above a whisper, Aeren muttered, “Aielan’s Light, what happened?” Then, harshly, “Eraeth!”
Colin opened his eyes, the light in the tent, the sun that glared down on the canvas above, too bright. So bright he felt his eyes watering. A shadowy figure moved into view, and with effort he focused, recognized Aeren, the lord joined a moment later by Eraeth.
“What’s he saying?” Eraeth asked.
“It sounds like ‘I can’t die, I can’t die.’ He just keeps repeating it over and over.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I told him to protect Thaedoren and he vanished, but before I could turn he fell into me, and—” Aeren broke off, then said, “Thaedoren!”
Aeren’s face slid out of view and he felt the lord moving away. The sounds of the fight intensified, the voices of everyone blurring into a senseless mess of Alvritshai, dwarren, and Andovan.
Colin swallowed the blood in his mouth, fresh pain tearing through his chest. He could feel the knife where it had lodged against his rib cage, could feel it scraping against one of his ribs. His entire right side throbbed, and he felt the blood soaking his shirt, felt it pooling beneath his back. His right side felt hollow, yet leaden with weight.
He swallowed again, his mouth strangely dry even though it continued to fill with blood, and he tried to speak.
Eraeth leaned forward, close enough Colin could feel his breath, could smell his sweat, dark and musky, like turned earth. “What, Colin? What are you trying to say?”
“Lift,” Colin gasped. He motioned feebly with one hand. “Lift.”
Eraeth’s lips pressed into a thin line, his expression one of doubt, as if he’d refuse—
But then he grunted, shifted to Colin’s shoulders, and with more gentleness than Colin would have expected, lifted his torso up so that Colin could see.
He sought out Thaedoren first. Walter had vanished, but he had no doubt that the Wraith would try to kill Thaedoren again if he could. But Thaedoren stood surrounded by Aeren and at least three of the Phalanx, the group already beginning to retreat from the table, one of the Phalanx members dragging the Tamaell’s body with him. Colin choked, tasted still more blood in the back of his throat, swallowed it down.
The look on the Tamaell Presumptive’s face was terrifying. Colin waved his hand, and Eraeth set him back down on the ground. Waves of heat washed through his body, and darkness had begun to edge his vision, a darkness tinged with a deep yellow. He fought it, not wanting to pass out, knowing that it was inevitable. It was how he’d healed when he’d stabbed himself in the heart in the forest, knew that’s how he’d heal from this.
But then Aeren knelt down next to him, Thaedoren standing above, looking down, the rest of the Phalanx surrounding them on all sides.
“Colin,” Aeren said, “what happened to the Wraith?”
“Walter,” Colin breathed. The darkness had begun to converge, the heated ache in his chest throbbing outward.
Aeren frowned in confusion. “No, the Wraith, Colin. What happened to the Wraith?”
Thaedoren sank down beside Aeren in a crouch. “We don’t have time for this, Lord Aeren. The dwarren are retreating, and the Legion is pushing us hard. I don’t know how long we can hold them here. And once they reach the field . . .”
He trailed off, but neither Colin nor Aeren needed him to continue.
Once they reached the field, it wouldn’t be a conflict between a select group from each race. It would be an outright battle.
Just like before. Everything that Aeren had feared, everything that he’d attempted to forestall, would happen again.
“Colin,” Aeren began—
But a spasm rocked through Colin’s chest. He gagged on blood, his chest rising from the ground as he rolled and choked and spat the blood to the side. Hands held him in place, kept him from thrashing around as he coughed up the blood.
When he settled back, his tongue sliding over his teeth, slick and coppery tasting, he saw a flicker of shadow.
Ten steps distant, Walter blurred into view at Lord Khalaek’s back as the lord and his men pressed the Legion forces back. Walter looked as bad off as Colin felt, perhaps worse, his hand clutching at the wound in his side, beneath his armpit. But he didn’t notice Colin, didn’t even glance to the side. His face—eyes sheathed in darkness, mouth drawn down in rage—never wavered from Khalaek’s back.
With his free hand, his sword now sheathed at his waist, he reached out, grabbed Khalaek by the shoulders—
And then the two vanished.
Colin held his breath, eyes going wide . . .
Then he rolled onto his back, stared up into Aeren’s face, caught Thaedoren’s hard expression, and said, “Proof. Need proof.”
“What are you talking about?” Aeren said.
Colin’s hands reached out, caught hold of Aeren’s arm and Thaedoren’s hand in a death grip. He didn’t know if he could take them both, or how long he could hold them there, not after the great effort it had taken to save Moiran, not with the knife digging into his chest, but he had to try. “Proof,” he breathed, then squeezed his hands tight, made certain he had their attention. “Don’t move. Don’t speak.”
And then he
pushed
.
It felt as if someone had taken the knife in his chest and ripped it out by dragging it down and to the side, tearing through bone, through lungs and muscle and gut, opening him wide. He wanted to scream, to shriek until his throat tore, but he knew he couldn’t, knew he had to be quiet, hoped and prayed that both Aeren and Thaedoren would remain silent as well, and so he clamped down on the scream, bit down hard on his tongue; he tasted fresh blood, but he focused on that small pain to take his mind away from the agony that his chest had become. And through that agony, through the exquisite pain, he felt the world slow and settle.
And he heard Walter’s voice, black and deadly. “That wasn’t the original deal,” Walter said.
“No, it wasn’t,” Khalaek spat, contemptuous. “That was before my esteemed colleague, Lord Aeren, brought forth this preposterous treaty, before the Tamaell Presumptive was brought back from his banishment, before this foolhardy envoy left Caercaern and came to the plains!”
“None of that is my concern. I only care about the Well. I’ve done what you asked—done more by killing the acolyte. The Tamaell is dead. Now give me the location of the Well.”
Colin felt the muscles in Thaedoren’s arms tense, heard the Tamaell Presumptive draw in a ragged breath, but he squeezed hard, warning him to keep silent. Thaedoren’s blood pulsed beneath Colin’s fingers, a quickened throb, but he restrained himself. Colin stared up into Aeren’s widened eyes, saw the lord relax, saw Thaedoren’s face beyond, the Tamaell Presumptive’s eyes locked on the two figures Colin could not see, the muscles in his jaw clenching.
Colin heard someone shift.
“You’re bleeding,” Khalaek said, his voice low. “I’ll heal.”
“What happened?”
“I ran into an old acquaintance.”
Khalaek drew in a deep breath. “Perhaps I made a mistake in dealing with you. Perhaps you aren’t as strong as I thought.”
Silence. And then Khalaek gasped. At the same time, Colin heard the faint scrape of metal against metal as a sword was drawn.
“You,” Walter said, his voice deadly, “are simply a convenience. The Well will be found, whether you help us find it or not. The Lifeblood will be restored. All of it. Every last node. You provided a way for us to shorten that task, nothing more.” The rustle of clothes, followed by a gasp from Khalaek. “Now, tell me where the Well is.”
Colin couldn’t see what was happening, but he didn’t need to. He’d begun trembling, his hold growing more and more tenuous. His vision had narrowed down to a thin tunnel, the darkness creeping inexorably closer. The effort to hold himself, Aeren, and Thaedoren here had escalated it.