The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) (13 page)

As the smoke rose higher and higher, something happened that none of them had ever witnessed before: the four bells in the four directional towers began to toll in a cacophony that vied for attention with the thunder raging outside. As if the bells had summoned it, a fog began to rise around them. One last step had to be completed, and they withdrew their blades for the bloodletting.

“One comes with the knowledge of the Past,” Grace said, slicing her palm and letting some of her blood leak onto the surface of the engraving at their bare feet.

“One comes with a vision of the Future,” Rosalee said, copying Grace’s motions.

“One comes with the plight of the Present,” Dalah intoned, following suit. The blood of all three mingled in the center, changing color to match the current malaise within the Well of Wyrding. All the elementals turned and watched as the green luminescent fluid that their blood had become slithered through the water and the cracks and lines of the engraving to light the image of the Evyndelle and the well with perfection, as if the engraving were a living image of the tree and well itself, brought to life in green brilliance.

And then the fog which had been growing around them intruded, and removed them from the Mirror of the Moon. Where the three ladies had once stood there was now only a green glowing door. As the last of Grace’s gray hair whipped through the opening, the door slammed shut and the green brilliance collapsed in on itself back into the engraving in the center of the circle.

The copal burned on in their absence.

Lush green gardens stood all around them. In the hallway it was nighttime, the roof opened to alien stars above in a wide, purple night sky. The last time she had been here, Grace tried to find familiar constellations, and failed. Even the stars looked different, somehow closer and larger than on the Great Realms. Grace looked around her at the beauty she had only witnessed once before. Evergreen trees of all shapes, sizes, and kinds grew all around the yard beyond the hall, spilling their beauty and rich scent into the air.

Grace felt as though she had stepped into a fairytale setting, with the trees nearly black in the night soaring to heights no human should be able to see, yet she was able to see them. The trees were rounded in the darkness, none of their lines sharp or jutting, but almost as if they were well-manicured into a flowing work of art, their limbs and leaves all creating gentle bends and curves that the eye followed serenely.

Grace closed her eyes, and could feel her inner being moving with the currents and ebbing of the power within this setting. In that moment Grace knew that this was where all inspiration and creativity lay. It was a thought more real than any she had ever had, but Grace was almost certain that if she were to look at the trees and the columns of the hall that she would be able to see songs and writing, stories both epic and short being created right out of the matter that made this place.

This was a place more real than any other she had ever witnessed. This world, this hall which existed within the living world was independent of it, and more real than even the reality from which they had just come. Grace was almost certain that this hall belonged to more than one time and world.

Behind them a fogbank obscured the end of the cloister from view, or maybe the fogbank
was
the end of the cloister, it was hard to tell. The one thing Grace knew from both looking at the fog and from past experience was that it was most certainly a living, thinking entity. It twisted and turned in on itself, as if it were not fog in the least but a dense, consuming smoke that was eddied and manipulated by wind. Occasionally tendrils would lick out of the fogbank as if wishing to caress the three women it had just spat forth from the Mirror of the Moon and into the Hall of the Well. Grace looked down as a stray wisp of fog snaked across the ground and brushed at her ankle, and even as she watched the old woman could see the altar room of the Mirror of the Moon beneath that foot, a world contained in the fog of the cloister. But as soon as the fog touched her it retreated back into itself and the world she once knew was again contained.

“It certainly has grown poisonous, hasn’t it?” Dalah asked, not having taken her eyes off the other end of the hall. Her words urged Grace to turn from her contemplations of the fog to the other end, where she could sense as well as see the malaise of the well, pulsing in a rhythmic green noxiousness, like an evil heart. The great Evyndelle rose out of its inky depths, up into yet more fog and out of sight.

“Yes, but at least it has not yet reached the tree,” Rosalee commented.

“Though I’m sure that even now it’s working its will upon the roots,” Grace took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Well ladies, this is what we came for.”

“Yes,” Dalah nodded, smoothing the front of her yellow robe.

“What is it?” Rosalee asked.

“Where are they?” Dalah responded.

“Who?” Grace wondered.

“Don’t you remember the Norns?” Dalah asked.

“No, we didn’t see them last time, remember, they possessed you, Pharoh and Porillon, not us,” Grace reminded her.

“Can they even possess one that’s not a sorcerer?” Rosalee wondered. “After all, it is a sorcerer that has to work with the Well of Wyrding.”

“Well, if they couldn’t possess one that was not a sorcerer, why then would there be need for three, and only one having to be a sorcerer?” Dalah asked.

Grace was now troubled. Could it be there was something more happening here than merely the problem with the well? “Well, we can’t wait around here all night, there is work to do.”

“Will we be allowed further in without the aid of the Norns?” Rosalee asked.

“The need for three is merely for balance. The Norns possessing you doesn’t really give you any added benefit, it’s only balancing out. What you take from the living world and bring here must be swapped. The Norns’ energy goes there, ours come here.” Grace explained. “From what I understand the Norns have to enter Saracin through us, that’s the possession. While we can come and go by way of the fog, they can only come and go by way of us — we act like a channel to Saracin for them.”

“I never was much good with balancing things,” Rosalee admitted, swatting at some of the fog which twisted out toward her in a playful manner as if she were slapping away a dog. She tightened the red sash around her blue robe. “But if the balance is out of sorts, what happens then?”

“I don’t know, Rose,” Grace sighed. “As I understand it, that,” she pointed toward the enormous pulsing green well behind her, “means that the balance is already compromised. Who knows what Porillon did while she was here? That could be the problem with the Norns.”

“This is very true. And, if there’s a shift in the balance with us being here and the Norns not holding our spots in Saracin, it will only make things worse the longer we stay here, which means we’d better hurry on with what needs to be done.” Dalah made sense, and so they all stepped forward together toward the pulsating green well.

Dead leaves and needles could be seen bustling around the base of the well, and that disheartened them even more. “Evyndelle is dying,” Grace whispered.

It was true; leaves and needles and seed pods and cones lay about the base of the Well of Wyrding in dried, discolored lumps. The tree itself was one of the most amazing sights that Grace had ever seen. It was large enough that looking at the base was not like looking at the trunk of a tree so much as looking at a living wall of wood, bark, vines, and creeping flowers. It was so tall that its upper branches were lost in clouds. Grace knew why there were a mixture of leaves and needles below it, and that was because Evyndelle was a representation of every tree that was ever known, some that were as yet unknown and some that would never be a possibility while man existed. Some said that it even had parts of dryads and averanym in it.

The tree had its own cycles, possessed its own forces and moved with an intent that none could know, not even the Norns who were placed to keep watch over it. It was constantly moved by a wyrded wind that was said to be the movement of fate through the world. As they gazed upon it, a light that they could only describe as the sun broke free of the clouds and shined through the gigantic boughs to shimmer at them, though they knew no sun existed here and instead it must have been the light of the Goddess.

The branches possessed by the Evyndelle sported a variety of leaves and needles from trees as diverse as evergreens and elms, maples and aspens, willows and cherry. They were not surprised to see among the blossoming flowers the tree also harbored lilacs, cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, plum and orange blossoms, all filling the air with a heady, soapy smell they could have lost themselves in. Every magnificent bud and leaf and flower whispered in a wyrded wind, and shifted in giant falls from the clouded sky as if they were watching an ocean of forestry. Flowers of all shapes and sizes clung to leaves and vines that wound their way up the Evyndelle and hung in colorful garlands from branches stretching down to trace their way through the darkening green fluid in the Well of Wyrding.

The well was one of the most beautiful constructions they had ever seen, whether crafted by human, dwarf, or elven hands. It was a light gray stone laid in bricks, yet the stone shimmered with a light and fluidity that reminded them not of stone but opals. There was a fire within the gem-like bricks of the well that was both terrible and incredibly beautiful to behold. The well was larger by far than the tree, and though they could easily step up onto it (in no small part due to the winding stairs that led up to the rim) the well was also as much like a wall as the Evyndelle was.

Along the wall of the Well of Wyrding were carved characters of a past so ancient that none now knew the tales to which they belonged.

There was a faltering of steps, but Grace pushed on and her friends had to follow.

“We’re almost there,” Dalah said, looking at the other two as they approached the first step leading to the well. Rosalee was smiling and watching things in the air that only she could see, and Grace had her eyes so intently focused on the tree that Dalah wondered if she was actually present with them. The dead leaves and needles from the tree gusted around their ankles and Dalah felt with the whisper of dead foliage on her feet the very touch of Death and his three Wisdoms. She shuddered, realizing that while there was a large amount of dead foliage about them, she could not see where it had come from on the tree.

None of them spoke a word, for there was no need and no desire for words. Instead, as one entity, they grasped hands and stepped up the stairs to finally stand on the rim.

“Well,” Grace sighed. “This is—” but whatever she was about to say was lost in a gasp as icy gray webbed hands grasped her ankles and pulled her into the green fluid-air that comprised the Well of Wyrding.

Sometime in the night the Germinant Gob arrived, and whether he had been called by the averanym, the joyous mood, or by some other means was not clear. It was certain that he had brought with him a guest, though they did not arrive in the normal way, which would be on foot, across the ground.

The first was a gnome who snapped into reality before their very eyes, startling them all out of the near-sleep they had been in.

Though the Germinant Gob appeared like his charges, he was not like any gnome they had seen thus far. They knew that this was the gnome king, the one that would soon settle into a plant of some sort. It was never known what type of plant a gnome would turn into before they began to settle, but once they had settled enough to be a Germinant Gob it slowly became apparent what their averanym shape would be. This particular Germinant Gob, whose name had been forgotten once the title of Germinant Gob had been adopted, appeared very different than they had expected.