Well of Sorrows (51 page)

He heard Lotaern gasp, heard the acolyte guardsmen cry out, and then Aeren said, “In here!”

They crowded the doorway to Benedine’s chambers, all staring at Colin in shock. All except Aeren and Eraeth.

“Well?” Eraeth asked.

Colin spat out the sour taste in his mouth, swallowed, then pulled himself upright. One hand had landed in Benedine’s blood, and with a grimace he wiped it off on a clean edge of Benedine’s blanket. “It was a Wraith,” he said. “I couldn’t see his face, but he moved like I do. And he reeked of the Lifeblood.”

“Could you identify the Wraith?” Lotaern asked. “Was it one of Khalaek’s men?”

“No. He wore a hood and kept his face concealed. But he wasn’t one of Khalaek’s men. He was human.”

Lotaern swore, glanced toward the carnage in Benedine’s room, then asked, “What should we do?”

Aeren frowned. “We need to find out what Benedine found in the Scripts regarding the sarenavriell, what it was that Khalaek wanted. Without Benedine, we have no way to connect the Wraiths to Khalaek. We have nothing.”

Lotaern turned to Colin. “Can you go back to see what he was researching?”

Colin shook his head, one hand falling to his stomach and the vague heat and pain there. He still trembled, shaken by the Wraith’s cruelty. Like that of the Shadows. “Not right now. I’m still too weak. Unless . . .” He trailed off, catching Eraeth’s eye. He could smell the vial of Lifeblood on the Protector. If he drank that . . .

“No,” Eraeth said, frowning. When Colin began to protest, his eyes hardened and he repeated more forcefully, “No.”

“And we’re leaving with the Tamaell tomorrow,” Aeren said. “We’ll have to discover what Benedine found another way.”

Colin turned to Lotaern. “He was reading that book when he died.”

Lotaern moved to the desk. The parchment Benedine had been writing on was destroyed, soaked in blood, but the Chosen gingerly lifted the edge of the book to look at the cover, then set it back down. “This wasn’t part of his research. This was for daily study as an acolyte. It tells us nothing. Which means we still don’t know what Khalaek intends.”

Aeren regarded Lotaern for a long moment, then turned away, motioning Eraeth and Colin to follow. “Find what Benedine found,” he said.

“And where are you going?”

“To finish preparations for the meeting with the dwarren.”

Garius reached down and tugged on one of the gaezel’s horns, and the animal snorted and angled slightly right, thundering through the grasses of the plains, reaching a slight rise and charging down into the dip beyond. Hot wind blasted his face, catching his beard as he leaned forward into it. He could hear the beads tied into his braids clicking together, beads that signified all his accomplishments throughout life: his marriage, the births of his sons and daughters, his feats in battle. Behind, the thunder of the hundred other Thousand Springs Riders, including Shea, was a distant rumble. They’d been riding hard for two days. They were almost at the designated meeting place for the Gathering: the warren of the Shadow Moon Clan.

He’d returned to his own city immediately after the meeting with the Alvritshai and had barely spent an hour seeing to the needs of his wife, Tamannen, and of his sons and daughters and extended family. Shea watched and scowled the entire time as he explained what had happened and what needed to be done. Then he’d donned the mantle of clan chief and, with Shea and the rest of the Riders as escort, descended from the height of the cleft to the central chamber of the warren. There, beside the central pool and the cascade of the river, he’d ordered the great drum brought forth and a signal sent through the great tunnels to the other dwarren cities and their clan chiefs.

The Riders he’d selected for the journey mounted even as the first hollow boom of the great drum echoed through the city’s cavern, its voice deep and hollow, vibrating in Garius’ bones. Aimed at the wide mouth of the largest tunnel leading out of the city, its slow rhythm called a Gathering of the clans a ten-day hence at the Shadow Moon Clan’s city, a message that would be heard and relayed by drum throughout the warrens. Shadow Moon wasn’t the most central of the clans on the plains, but it was close enough to the designated meeting place with the Alvritshai to give the clan chiefs time to gather, discuss the situation, chose a Cochen—a Gathering leader—and then arrive on time if it was decided to meet with the Alvritshai.

Assuming all the clan chiefs heard the drum message in time. Ahead, Garius caught sight of the outermost scouts of Shadow Moon. One of them stood and signaled that they’d been recognized and could proceed without stopping. Garius thundered past them, and minutes later the outer tent city rose into view.

Swirls of cloth wrapped around poles and stakes emerged from the plains in a confusion of colors and shapes. Some pierced straight up to the sky, those nearest the gaping hole of the entrance to the warren the highest. Others jutted out to the sides at odd angles, the fabric stretched taut here, falling in soft folds there, the entire array of cloth and pole and ties giving the sense of movement, the blues and greens blending together to give the impression of water, flowing free aboveground, without constraints, without boundaries. A river without banks, dwarren walking free among its eddies and currents. The tents filled the entire length of the shallow valley.

Garius headed his group toward the center of the vortex of cloth along the main approach to the warren, dwarren carrying trade goods and leading wagons and pack gaezels scrambling to get out of the way. Once, only the Riders would have appeared aboveground near the main entrance to the warren, to protect the most exposed portal to the underground tunnels beneath. The women and those protecting them and the clan’s shamans would ascend through the network of much smaller hidden entrances near the communal fields scattered throughout the plains.

But the introduction of the Alvritshai and then the humans onto the plains had changed everything. The dwarren had been forced to live aboveground more and more, the threat from both foreign races too great. It became inefficient to keep supplies and resources below, and once the Riders shifted to the surface, so did the women and the trade. Within a decade, the tent cities gained limited permanence, and from there they only grew.

Garius ignored the tents and the people and angled his gaezel toward the dark depths of the entrance instead. The well-trampled ramp sloped downward, and he ducked his head as he passed through into the shade beneath. Riders lined both sides within, most standing near a double line of giant pillars embedded in the walls on either side, supporting arches overhead embellished with ancient stonework. The stone between the successive arches was rough and unworked, rigged to collapse and seal the warren if the dwarren destroyed the pillars. But this defense passed by in the space of a heartbeat, Garius not slowing his descent into the massive tunnel. The sound of Shea and the rest of his Riders increased behind him and echoed out ahead. Tunnels branched off to either side, much smaller in diameter, intersections lit with metal-worked stands containing wide flat bowls of burning oil. The walls were lined with stone, buttressed with supports at regular intervals, the stone shifting in color until it had run the entire spectrum found on the plains, including the vivid reds from the desert near the Painted Sands Clan to the east. As above, fellow Riders and dwarren transporting goods dodged out of their way as the roar of Garius’ gaezel reached them.

Then the worked stone ended, the walls and floor abruptly white and smooth, no supports visible. This was the stone of the Ancients, the ones who came before, the ones who gave the Lands to the People, to guard and protect. The rounded edges of the tunnel above became sharp rectangular angles, although the tunnels were still lit with the basins of oil.

When the stands of flame began appearing closer together, Garius pulled back on the gaezel’s horns and slowed.

Moments later, the Ancients’ tunnel ended, opening up into the true city of Shadow Moon, a rounded room that could enclose the entire tent city above. Like that of Thousand Springs, the wide floor swept away to a massive pool, the river cascading down from the circular opening high above, wider than the tunnel they’d just left, frothing in the pool before spilling over its edge into another channel and funneling down into a second circular tunnel. The open holes of the dwarren’s clefts surrounded the walls on all sides, some lit from within by lantern light, but more than half of them dark and empty when once they were crowded, teeming with families. Dwarren scrambled from level to level in the lowest tiers, using stairs cut into the stone walls, but most of the dwarren were on the floor, the wide plaza choked with blankets spread with wares as women bartered for goods and children dodged and cavorted around them, laughing and screaming as they played. Garius saw earthen bowls painted with geometric designs, woven blankets with depictions of Ilacqua and the Four Winds, spears and bows, fabric, produce, and butchered animals, all offered up for the women’s examination. The chamber echoed with a dull throb from the rushing water and the noise of the marketplace, dampened by the immensity of the cavern.

Garius’ attention was caught by the waiting Riders at the far side of the thoroughfare ending near the great pool. Mannet, clan chief of Shadow Moon, stood with three other clan chiefs, including Harticur from the Red Sea Clan—the most powerful clan at the moment—each with his own shaman and at least four of his own Riders. It appeared that the clan chief from Painted Sands, Adammern, had arrived shortly before Garius. His mounts had been herded to one side. Only two clans were not present: Broken Waters and Claw Lake.

Garius frowned as he led his group toward the others. Broken Waters was the clan farthest from Shadow Moon, so it wasn’t unexpected they had not yet arrived, but Claw Lake lay adjacent to Shadow Moon. Its clan should have been one of the first to arrive.

Pulling his gaezel to a halt, Garius dismounted, heard the rest of his group doing the same behind him. Smoothing the tangles of his beard, he stepped toward the other clan chiefs and felt his son and Oudan, his shaman, falling into step behind him.

Mannet broke off his conversation with the others as Garius approached. “Garius, Chief of the Thousand Springs Clan, the People of Shadow Moon welcome you.”

Garius nodded in return. “May Ilacqua blaze down upon you and the Four Winds keep your granaries full.”

Mannet grunted. “And yours.” Pleasantries complete, his face darkened. “Why have you called a Gathering? We are nearing the end of harvest and must prepare for the Tesinthe and the blessing of the Lands for renewal.”

Behind him, the chiefs from Silver Grass and Painted Sands grumbled in agreement. Sipa stood as far from Mannet as possible and shot the clan chief a hostile glare. Their clans had warred for generations across the boundary of the Tiquano River. Both Harticur and Adammern were separated for a similar reason. Garius could feel the tension on the air, although all the clan chiefs were respecting the sanctity of the Gathering.

He suddenly realized that getting them to agree to meet with the Alvritshai and to choose one of their group to be the Cochen might be harder than he’d thought. He needed to make them understand the seriousness of the request for this Gathering, serious enough that they needed to set aside their conflicts.

Running his fingers through the beads in his beard, he drew himself upright and in a deep voice said, “This discussion requires the use of the keeva, and the presence of our shamans.”

Mannet’s eyes widened, and a growling murmur rumbled through the rest of the group. Use of the keeva and the presence of the shamans meant the words would be heard directly by the gods, the actions of the clan chiefs judged by them. It was used only for the most powerful ceremonies and rites or to commune with the gods before the clan chief made crucial decisions.

“Hochen!” Mannet barked, and his shaman—older than Oudan by at least ten years—shuffled forward, the plains snake tails on his spear rattling as he moved. He glared at Garius with a flattened, wrinkled face. “Prepare the keeva.”

Hochen smacked his lips together, mumbled something incomprehensible, then began shuffling off toward the wide doorway of the ritual chamber at the base of the tiered clefts near the cascade. Oudan and the rest of the shamans moved to help, some already beginning the blessing and the litany that would seal the oval chamber from evil spirits and prying ears and open it up to the gods.