Well of the Damned (46 page)

Gavin
cast a glance at Cirang. “I have them both,” he admitted.
“They have information about why King Arek was murdered. I’m
sure you can understand why I got to keep them.”

Fabrice
sighed. “I suppose I can. Very well, then.” The two
sisters stood to leave, arm in arm. Gavin stood as well. Just before
the door, Fabrice paused and curtsied low. “You’ve a hard
road ahead of you, young man, especially with your... humble
ancestry. You’ll need as much good fortune as you can find,
from wherever you can find it.” She stepped over the temple’s
threshold, closed her eyes and, with an elaborate hand gesture,
whispered, “
Sisto pluvar.”

Daia tried to stand, to go after
her. “Wait. What about the—”

Gavin
held her back with one hand. “Listen.”

All
they heard was silence.

The
rain had stopped.

Chapter 50

People
were coming out of their homes and businesses to look up at the
clearing blue sky. Gavin didn’t bother to put his disguise back
up when he joined them on the street. It was time to celebrate with
them, not escape their notice. At first, no one recognized him, but
as the rest of the mail clad battlers came outside without their
cloaks obscuring their mail, people did notice.

Daia
and Tennara frantically tried to keep people from crowding him at
first. Gavin just laughed. “It’s awright. Calm yourself.
Let’s just enjoy the sunshine together for a moment.”

He
was swarmed by happy, spirited people. Hands patted him,
congratulated him, thanked him for stopping the rain. He looked over
the tops of their heads at Cirang where she worked, alongside Brawna
and Calinor, to prohibit entry into the temple. Even unarmed and
without magic, she’d played a crucial role in ending the rain.
Crafty, she was, even now that she was zhi-bent. The question that
plagued him was: would she have forced the water down Cabrice’s
throat if Fabrice hadn’t relented?

“What
about the temple?” someone shouted. “Why can’t we
go in?”

The
crowd was so loud, it seemed Gavin was the only one who heard the
question. “Quiet down a moment,” he said, gesturing with
his arms to get their attention. “Quiet down.” His deep
voice boomed over the other voices, and gradually people quieted and
settled down. “I’m sorry we got— have to interrupt
your communion with Asti-nayas for a time. The water in the
sacramental font’s been fouled. Let us clean it out and send
for a new High Cleric to lead your prayers, and the temple will be
open again soon.”

“Fouled?
How?” someone asked.

“A
new High Cleric? Why?” asked another.

“Was
Seer Mirfak responsible for the font being fouled?” asked a
third.

“Let’s
just say it’s a poison of sorts. Seer Mirfak wasn’t
responsible,” Gavin said, “but he’s been affected,
along with two of his clerics. He’ll be unable to perform as
High Cleric for a time. I’ll contact the Supreme Council of
Clergy and have them send someone to replace Seer Mirfak and his
other clerics. It shouldn’t be long.”

He
shook some hands before excusing himself to go back into the temple.
Daia and Tennara shut the doors behind him, and Brawna remained
outside with his sword and the two magical rings. He tried to ignore
the anxious feeling of it being outside his reach.

“Are
you responsible for this?” one of the clerics demanded.
“Unleash me this instant! I’m the High Cleric here. You
can’t do this. I’ll have Asti-nayas strike you down where
you stand, you ignorant cur!”

“Strike
him down!” said another cleric, a short, plump buck with
sagging jowls.

“Can
someone gag him?” Gavin asked as he headed towards the altar.

“No,”
the cleric said. “No! Unhand me, filthy wench. This is an
outrage. I demand you—” He tried to shake off the gag,
and failing that, he shouted muffled curses.

“There
are buckets back here, my liege,” Cirang said. She skirted past
him to grab a candle from the altar and opened the door on the right.

“I’ll
fill them, you evaporate them?” Daia said from behind him.

“Your
Majesty,” Cirang said, lighting the way. “Let me fill the
buckets from the font. The water won’t do me any harm. If
anyone else touches it... I wouldn’t want anyone else to suffer
for what I’ve done.”

Gavin
looked her up and down, trying to reconcile what he was hearing with
the woman in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he’d
have thought this was Cirang’s twin. It was a good idea,
though. They would be wise to treat the water carefully. “Awright.
Does that door lead outside?” he asked, pointing to a second
door.

“Yes,
sire. A small alley.”

“I
should do it outside,” Gavin said, “so the steam doesn’t
touch anyone when it rises.” He opened the door and stepped
into the alley behind the temple. It was a weed-choked gravel alley
littered with broken and water-logged benches and chairs, scraps of
cloth and the ant-covered remains of some dead animal. With no one
around, this was a good place to take care of the tainted water.
“Cirang fills the buckets, Daia and Tennara bring the water to
me — carefully. Don’t let it splash out. Someone go tell
Brawna to bring Aldras Gar around to this door.”

It took the better part of two
hours to drain the font. Cirang had to resort to using rags to soak
up the last of the water, wringing it into the bucket. Everyone took
care handling the water, and no one suffered any ill effects. They
used soap and brushes they found in the storage room to scour the
font, and then rinsed it thoroughly with clean water from the public
well. Though he was satisfied it was clean and free of the tainted
water, Gavin would have liked to examine the font with his hidden
eye, to see whether any droplets remained. No matter how hard he
tried, he couldn’t even find his hidden eye while he was inside
the temple, much less see anything with it.

They
put the three clerics on the backs of Brawna’s, Cirang’s
and Tennara’s mounts, and the three women shared a ride to the
lordover’s property with Gavin, Daia and Calinor. As they
approached the gate, Gavin could hear Feanna hollering all the way
from the guesthouse.

“Has
she been screaming the whole time?” he asked Rikard.

“Yes,
my liege. We’ve had quite a few people come to ask who the
maniac— uh, I mean, who was making so much noise.”

Gavin
scowled. They were talking about his wife and the mother of his
unborn son. After seeing the clerics into the gaol, he decided to
spend the night at the Princess Inn. There would be plenty of time on
the ride home to listen to her screech and complain.

“If
you don’t mind, my liege,” Tennara said, “I’d
like to relieve Lila.”

Gavin
nodded. “I’m sure she could use a bit of quiet. Tell
Eriska and the others to have my wife ready for travel at first
light. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sleep
well, my liege. You’ve earned it.”

“What
about her?” Daia said, indicating Cirang with her thumb. “Can
I kill her now, or do you want to do it?”

What
would a king do?
Gavin eyed Cirang up and down. “No. She
drank the well water. She’s different now.”

“That
doesn’t change what she’s done.”

“No,”
he said, “but it changes how she feels about it. She’s no
longer a danger to anyone.”

Calinor
gripped Gavin’s shoulder. “You’re going to set her
free?” he asked, his whisper fierce. “After all she’s
done?”

“What
we’ve done matters less than who we’ve become.”
Gavin raised his eyebrows at Cirang. “What do you think a
suitable punishment is?”

Cirang
burst into tears. The guilt and shame were heavy burdens, and now the
king was sparing her life? She didn’t think she could bear the
memories of her crimes or the faces of the people she’d slain
haunting her dreams. “For the terrible things I’ve done,
I deserve death, my liege, and I would be grateful for it.”

“No,”
he said. “I disagree. You deserve worse than death. You deserve
to live with your memories and guilt. Until I find a way to repair
the damage you did, consider yourself indentured.”

Look for the conclusion of the story in book 4 of The Kinshield Saga, coming in 2013!

About the author

I grew up in the mid-western USA and in Hawaii,
and earned a B.A. in Russian from Florida State University (go
’Noles!). After a year in Taiwan teaching English and studying
Mandarin Chinese, I lived in the Arizona desert where I founded a
Rottweiler rescue organization, studied karate, rode motorcycles,
and wrote software. In 2010, I
retreated to cooler, greener Georgia. I earn my living as a full-time
writer.

As an independent author, I don’t have a
team of publicists and marketing specialists to spread the word about
this book. I’m just a writer sitting at my keyboard searching
for readers like you. If you enjoyed the story, please tell a friend!
If you are so inclined, a review or rating on Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, Kobo, Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing would also be greatly
appreciated.

If you’d like to contact me, visit my web
site at http://www.kcmay.com or email me at [email protected] — I welcome your emailed comments! Sign up for my newsletter to get the latest news about my books and special offers not made elsewhere.

Thanks for reading!

~KC

Acknowledgements

I’d like to express my most sincere appreciation to my brother, Kirk, for his honest and sincere feedback. It was absolutely invaluable to me. He read the book three times in its various incarnations, and never let on that he was tired of it. Thanks also to Deb for her feedback during the revision phase of the book. Most of all, thanks to you, my readers, who inspire me to keep writing!

Books by K.C. May

The Kinshield Legacy

A mysterious stone tablet with five magical gems has sat abandoned in a cave for two hundred years. The kingdom is in ruins, with only warrant knights to keep the peace. But then, the gems in the tablet, one by one, disappear.