Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (22 page)

“What are you going to do to them?”

“I told you Quinn, they are training.”

Sammah clapped his hands three times. Quinn
was jarringly reminded of Pax, the slap of flesh against flesh
reminiscent of his silent authority over the people of Farn. The
men grouped together had heard the noise before—it made them all
jump in fright. Two mercenaries advanced towards the group, who put
up swords reluctantly. Quinn could see immediately that this would
be a slaughter. She cried out to them.

“Defend yourselves!”

One boy turned to look at her. He was younger
than she—perhaps no older than Neyv, really. A sword, far too big,
shook in a two-handed grip. She was surprised the boy could even
hold the sword up. It would be impossible for him to defend
himself, let alone attack anyone.

“Stop this, Sammah! It’s not fair!”

“Nothing about the world is
fair
Quinn. It is about power, and how those
who have it wield it.”

“You don’t have to kill them!”

“And you don’t have to let them die.”

“I can’t stop this!”

“You can, Quinn. All it will take is a
thought—nothing more than that. You can stop this, with your mind.
Do you want them all to die? Do you want that boy to die? They
will.”

“You’ll kill them all anyway.”

“No. If they can defend themselves they will
survive. It’s you killing them now, Quinn. Look at that little boy.
Do you think this is how he wants his life to end? Cut down by my
men in a filthy courtyard?”

“No!”

“Then stop it! Get them to fight. Make them
defend themselves!”

One of the mercenaries swung his sword. An
old man twisted, crying out. An arc of blood splashed across the
rest of the group as the man fell to the ground. The rest of the
men began to wail, the boy, petrified beyond noise, dropped his
sword.

Quinn started to cry, dropping to her knees.
“You’ll slaughter them. I can’t let this happen.”

“It’
s your choice, Quinn.
Change it.
”

Quinn covered her face with her hands. She
tasted her own breath, and tried to block out the noise of death.
She couldn’t. Sammah was going to do this to her again and again,
and these men would needlessly die, unless Quinn did as he
asked.

Whose fault was this? Sammah’s? Her own? The
mercenaries, for swinging the sword in the first place? What could
Quinn
use
to lever a change? Every time before when she had
managed to change someone, it had been because she had wanted
something to happen. Deeply within herself, caught in the Sighs,
she’d wanted the mercenary to die. Similarly on the return
crossing, she’d wanted Eden above all other things. What did she
want here? She wanted the men to survive, she knew that much. Did
she want anyone else to die, including those mercenaries?

What were the mercenaries feeling?

Quinn kept herself in a tight ball. The men
were still shouting; the mercenaries still attacking. They didn’t
fear Sammah, or his orders. They didn’t pity the helpless men they
had been tasked with slaughtering. They were enjoying themselves.
Icy anger settled over Quinn’s heart. Of the entire range of
emotions possible, why that? How could they take joy in what they
were doing? How could anyone delight in slaughter?

Quinn knew, resolutely, she could stop this
now. She could give someone the power to defend themselves against
this.

The boy. The boy deserved this the least. He
would be desperate to survive. Quinn glanced up at him. He was
cowering now, crouched down like Quinn, covering his head. If he
didn’t move he’d likely be trampled by the other men around him,
before the mercenaries got anywhere near him. Quinn found him with
her mind. He was full of fear. The volume of it was massive, and
Quinn thought it was almost impenetrable. There was a slim crack,
though—desperation. Quinn would pour her own anger towards what was
happening in that gap, and hopefully it would be enough for the
boy.

Quinn concentrated. Desperately, she pushed
her anger into that boy. He stood. Quinn’s heart beat faster. He
picked up his sword. He was going to do it—he was going to fight
back! He swung, but no matter what Quinn had done, the boy was too
weak and the sword too heavy. His swing missed its intended
mercenary, and with a soulless smile, the man cut the boy down. He
didn’t make a noise, though Quinn did. Her mind was pushed
violently out from the boy as he died. The shock and the impact of
the brutal killing sent Quinn reeling. She had done it—he was
defending himself, but he hadn’t managed a single blow, and had
been killed.

Quinn was enraged beyond words. Had she made
the wrong choice? Would the boy ever have survived? She could give
him anger, but she could not give him strength. Sammah had given
the boy an effective death sentence, and his mercenaries might as
well have been laughing as they took to their tasks with joy.

There were three men left.
Men
not
boys. Quinn knew she could save these men. She could give them her
anger; they could fight back.

Quinn unleashed herself on them. The change
was immediate. She could not give them skill, nor could she give
them training, but she gave them the mindless fury to hit back. The
three men swarmed one of the mercenaries. Blood sprayed everywhere.
Sammah was laughing, clapping his hands together in glee.
Everything blurred for Quinn. The shouts of all the men, Sammah’s
celebration, came to her as if through a fog or water. She vomited
before she passed out.

* * *

“We have received another message from Baron
Sammah. He is requesting more assistance—it seems he has
accidentally
estranged his only allies. How are we going to
respond?”

“Have I given you any indicator that I wish
to change our plan?”

“No baron, but that doesn’t mean that
circumstances have not potentially changed. Do you still believe in
the future you could have predicted for us?”

“Fully. My brother has taken this fight, and
he can live or die by his choice. He has picked this fight with
Everfell, not us. Now is not our time.”

“Your intentions were that the men of
Everfell would expend themselves on each other. It does not appear
that that is happening. Shouldn’t we therefore reconsider our
position?”

“I have re-examined our position, and I find
my prediction is no different. You may take a vote in this matter,
but my advice remains the same. We do not send assistance to
Sammah—it is too dangerous, the battleground too far. We don’t have
enough people. Now is not the right time."

“And if Shiver decides to recoil against us
when he’s eliminated your brother? What then?”

“Does he still have his daughters with
him?”

“He does.”

“Then all is not lost—not yet. He will most
likely lose eventually, but it is not going to be a sudden as you
might think. I repeat my recommendation that we do not change our
decision in this.”

“We vote. All of those in favour of sending
aid to Sammah, one of our own, in his fight against the aggressors
from Everfell?"

Pax passed his eye down the line of
councillors, pausing as six hands went up. He feared a seventh hand
would rise, and the decision would go beyond his control. This, he
could deal with.

“Then the vote is even. I decide—we do
nothing.”

“As you wish baron, the meeting concludes. Do
we have any other business?”

“We have one; Rall has come to us regarding
the healer Maertn. He is close to death after expending himself in
the hospitals. She believes the boy is homesick, and has absorbed
himself in his work in order to forget his relationship with Quinn.
How do you think we should proceed in this manner?”

“
I don
’t see how
it’s any business of ours. Rall should deal with his own—that’s
what the masters are there for. Why do you bring this to the
council?”

“Rall believes that, if the empath returns
here and finds her friend dead, she will blame us. This will cause
a difficult relationship between Quinn and the council, and he
wished to avoid such a situation.”

“A fine gesture, but futile. He is a healer
amongst healers, so get them to do their own work. Stop him from
working in hospitals, and assign him to what an apprentice should
be doing—studying. That will stop him from expending himself. No
conflict is required and the solution is easy. Vote?”

The vote on this was unanimous, and Pax was
satisfied. He still had his way, if only just. He hoped that Sammah
was able to hold out within Everfell, otherwise Pax’s hold on the
council might begin to slip. That would be an unfortunate situation
for everybody.

A week had
passed, since Quinn had arrived back in Everfell and she had been
forced to witness the carnage in the courtyard.

She had been consigned to her old rooms, and
her nightmare of suffering under Sammah had begun all over
again.

“It feels just like the old times doesn’t
it?”

Quinn looked across at Neyv, who was sitting
upright in her bed. She was becoming used to Neyv’s vacant stare,
though it was still unsettling at times. Was Neyv ill? Was this
strange behaviour a symptom of the girl’s manifesting abilities?
Whatever the reason, these silent evenings unsettled Quinn, and she
was always desperately trying to fill the silent spaces between
them. She would have given anything to have Maertn with her. Maertn
had always been there when they were growing up. The silence had
probably always existed between Quinn and Neyv, who had shared this
room for so long, but had been tempered by Maertn’s congenial
nature and ever-present humour. The only human interaction she got
now, in a castle full of mutes, was with Sammah himself. Every time
they met, it was for him to work on Neyv’s control of Quinn’s mind.
Each encounter left Quinn with nosebleeds and headaches. It was not
going well.

“Do you like living here?”

It was a simple enough question. Quinn was
trying to draw any conversational the girl. She needed
something—absolutely anything—to fill in the massive stretch of
time between being shut in here by Elias and a time when she felt
she could go to sleep. Relaxing didn’t come easily, despite how
much of a strain the sessions with Sammah were on her mind. Her
mind wouldn’t stop, her thoughts never at rest.

Quinn wanted this to end, and she couldn’t
even get some congenial conversation out of her adoptive sister to
break the monotony.

“It’s safe isn’t it? Why would you want to be
anywhere else?”

Quinn was surprised when Neyv answered. This
was the first time the girl had responded to any of the queries.
Was Neyv finally coming around? Quinn was immediately on the
defensive, despite the fact that she was the one who had instigated
the conversation. Was this how Sammah would get to her now? Lure
Quinn into a false sense of security with her little sister, and
then have Neyv take advantage of that when Quinn wasn’t trying to
defend herself? No, that wouldn’t be true. Quinn’s imagination was
running away with her. She was thinking like Maertn too much, and
she had to start trusting in herself. She already felt her sanity
was fraying at the edges, and Sammah knew that. He was having Neyv
get all of the sensitive little loose parts of her life—any
weakness that he knew Quinn had—and pulling away at them one by
one. Quinn felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside
out. It was only a matter of time. She would take solace where she
could.

“Safe?” Quinn replied, “Did you see it out
there in the city? What it’s like? There’s virtually nothing
left.”

“Isn’t that another good thing? Father always
said the crowded cities were bad things. He says the cities in
Sha’sek aren’t nearly as noisy and dirty as the ones here.”

“
Then
he
’
s wrong on a number of counts. I went
to Farn, and it was just as bad as Everfell, but twice as good at
the same time. There were people in the streets dancing,
merchant
s everywhere. It was absolutely glorious. Everfell
is the opposite of that. People are leaving Neyv, because they’re
afraid that if they stay here they will die. Our father has created
this nightmare. He started a war, and there are lots of
people—innocent people—who are going to be killed, just because he
wants power. You’re helping him get that, Neyv. Don’t you see, he’s
a terrible man who wants terrible things. We are the only people he
can use to get what he wants, do you understand me?”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t
have to agree with you.”

That sounded like a very mature response to
what Quinn had thought was a very simple, and yet very deep,
question.
“Do you really understand? If I
use the word genocide to you, would you know what that meant?
Because that’s what Sammah is doing here. He’s going to turn the
kingdom against itself. The men here aren’t used to fighting, and
if women and children get in Sammah’s way he’ll just kill them too.
If we don’t stop what Sammah is doing, Shiver is going to ride here
with his lords and besiege us. They are going to sit outside
Everfell until they take what they want."

“What do they want?”

“They don’t want Sammah on the throne.”

“But why? What has he done wrong? Just
because he wasn’
t born here?"

“It’s not that simple. There are ways that
things are done, and Sammah is breaking every single one of those
laws. Not even his brother agrees with what he is doing here. Why
do you think no one is sending any help? Why do you think Sammah is
here all alone, and he needs us to do the work for him? No one else
wants to help him, because everybody else knows that he’s in the
wrong.”

“Is that what you believe?"