The Weaving of Wells (Osric's Wand, Book Four) (12 page)

Her life had been devoted to delivering words of prophecy in faraway lands. Her gift had brought her before the highest seats in all of the lands, and to the lowliest child hidden within the trash behind buildings while looking for warmth.

She had delivered words of doom and salutations of joy. Once, she had been tasked to deliver ominous news of the coming extinction of an entire race, and she had spoke of births that accompanied new gifts. Words had been her partner through it all; even in the long, lonely walks between destinations, her words had been with her. Words of joy, words of praise, words of training, words of rejoicing, words of love and of death—always she had carried words. It was fitting, in her mind, that this day should be met with the absence of words. It was as if her words were in mourning, and they too longed to feel the loving caress of the wind offering its soothing touch in remembrance of the long, fruitful life she was leaving behind. But unlike man, who mourned by wailing, words offered only silence in condolence.

The cool breeze came from the east as the two aged friends departed the invisible shelter at the barracks. She faced west, heading into the trees and wishing for a few blooming flowers to greet them, but even the traveler’s companion hid its purple bloom in the early dawn.

While they walked, she could feel words attempting to gain an audience in the way her companion shifted his gate. She could sense his tentative attempts at communication in the way the air would catch in quick intakes followed by a long slow release. She felt for him, knowing what they both knew, but she savored a few more moments of silence while the smells of the forest lingered in the humid air.

“When did you realize how close this day was?” Serha’s words were soft, but the breaking of the silence was sharp as she finally bid Aridis to speak.

“This morning I awoke early and even the wind whispered of my coming pain. I dreamt all night of this day, and there was no denying that it was no dream,” he answered.

“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “I began this path with the first vision I was given as a child. All pathways led here, for me.”

“Are you sure there is no other way?” His voice pleaded with her.

“Our world is on the verge of a great awakening. If we do survive, everything will change—it already began with magic. Today an event takes place that will bring about many different paths in the way Archanans live their lives.”

“But if this day happens as the stones tell it, nobody will remember you.” His argument was feeble, and his voice portrayed his knowledge of the fact.

“I know you will remember me; that’s enough for an old woman like me. I must admit that I always hoped for an end like the one that the Seer who brought Osric his first prophecy enjoyed, and I would have loved to be buried below the funeral rune. Serha Aranthian sounds nice, don’t you think?” For the first time, her own lips quivered—the time was close.

“You can still have that day. Come back with me and spend your last days with an old man who has been waiting for you his whole life.” His pleading took on a desperate quality.

“What a lovely thought.” She sighed.

“Damn the hands of time that steer us toward an end we cannot see. Our lives are meant to direct the path of every life that follows, but what of happiness?” Aridis protested vehemently.

“It is a selfish mind that insists on survival as long as it does not have to endure the sting of unhappiness.”

“I would settle for death today, if I may have some small measure of a peaceful walk with a mind such as yours.”

“Then a small measure you shall have, my dear friend.” She could see the hunger for a different resolution in his eyes. Sure, the bright and vibrant color of youth had departed from them a long time ago, but the shimmer of moisture still lent its aid, tempting Serha’s heart to alter her path.

“How is it that two disparate gifts such as ours can share so much in common that our meeting rekindles feelings of long-lost friendship, in spite of the fact that we had never laid eyes on one another?” She smiled a sad but genuine smile.

“Magic is a difficult thing to understand,” was his only reply.

“And you will have another age to ponder all of the meaning it may hold, and you will guide many minds long after I am gone.” She looked over at him with kind, brave eyes.

“It will be a lonely existence without you.”

“Aridis, you and I both knew how this day would end when you opened your door to greet me. Could we just enjoy what is left of this walk in one another’s company? Or do you want to continue to sulk right up until the end?” There was nothing accusing in her tone—no malice, no impatience or frustration in her voice. The words were a query of sorts, and the inflections carried nothing more. She just wanted to know how he wished to proceed.

He faced her with regret in his eyes, and he shook with the desire to share a different path. He searched her eyes for an answer that he couldn’t find. Reluctantly he sighed, tucked his chin to his chest, and closed his eyes while he gathered the courage to proceed.

“You want to enjoy this trip as if it were any other day?” he asked in all sincerity.

“If I had but one wish, that would be it.” Serha smiled and nodded as a tear fell from her eye.

“Then it would be my pleasure to give you what you ask for.” Aridis put his right arm around her shoulders and kissed the tear off of her left cheek. “Can I ask you which flowers are your favorite?”

“Traveler’s companions have always been my favorite.”

Aridis bent his creaking knees and plucked one of the purple blossoms from between the long blades of grass along the path. He tucked the flower behind her ear and wrapped an arm around her subtly trembling shoulders. She leaned into his embrace and resumed their stroll.

As they walked along the path, he held her, the only thing left for him to bring comfort in these last few moments or hours. Both of them knew there was no way to inspire the changes Archana would need without it, but it was no easier to take each step knowing what was to come. Serha shook slightly as Aridis leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek.

* * *

“Quickly, place him on the table and get me some water. Put half of it in the pot over the fire, and the other half needs to be chilled—we don’t know what’s wrong yet and I want to be ready,” Bridgett shouted as the group of Hunters brought Aridis’s unconscious body into the room.

Osric looked on with worry-filled eyes, staying a safe distance out of the way. Nearly everyone who knew Aridis had been informed that they had found him in the woods, bloodied and unable to speak, and were on their way to lend whatever aid they could.

In moments, Bridgett had cut the robes off of the old man and was wiping every wound clean with a warm cloth to better assess the damage. She worked fast and steady, with practiced patience, while speaking to herself in hushed tones.

Kenneth joined Osric, mouthing questions about what had happened. Osric shrugged and shook his head, but stood in silence watching Bridgett work. Eublin, Gus, Pebble, Macgowan, and Jane joined in the silent vigil.

Aridis was breathing at least, and none of the wounds seemed to be life-threatening to Osric.

“He’s got a nasty bump and bruises on his head, and a few scratches, as if he fell down or was hit over the head by someone. I think he’ll be fine when he wakes up.” She wrapped his head in a cool cloth and turned to face the group.

Just as she turned with sad eyes, Aridis whimpered, letting out a long slow whine. His eyes opened slowly, and then came the weeping. His face contorted in agony as his cries rang out.

“No, no, no.” His voice was soft and pleading. The old man’s chest rose and fell with the ferocity of his cries, while his hands moved to cover his eyes.

“Aridis, don’t get up. You took a nasty blow to the head. You shouldn’t be out walking in an unfamiliar forest without some company.” Bridgett moved to his side and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Her attempts at consoling the elderly man had no effect. “It’s okay. Everything will be fine after you get some rest.”

“Serha’s dead!” The words burst out from his mouth between sobs.

“What?” Osric stepped up to the bed. “Was she with you?”

Aridis nodded shakily. “She was hunted.” He rolled onto his side.

“I’m sorry, my friend. We all know how much she meant to you.” Osric attempted to comfort the frail old man, but his own grief and anxiety prevented his efforts from being effective. Osric had come to care for the Seer, admiring her both for her talents and her compassion toward his people. She had savored life, and the thought of it being taken from her was somehow wrong. Though she had lived a long and full life, she was still vibrant and almost playful in her seriousness. It simply wasn’t fair that she had lost so much time that she could have spent with friends and loved ones—time she could have spent giving to the world what only she could give.

Osric’s grief was heavy, if more subdued, than Aridis’s, but he was also struck by the anxiety of never understanding the visions Serha had seen surrounding the books and the wells around Archana. There was still so much they needed to learn, to see, and now Serha was gone and so was her gift.

“She told me she wished to be buried beneath the stone at our borders.” Aridis still wept, but his words were growing more clear as he expressed her final wishes.

Osric spared a moment to look towards Eublin, whose eyes burned with passion as well as sorrow. There was a life’s worth of intensity buried in the expression, but he held his tongue. Osric nodded out of respect to the gnome for keeping his call for social reform to himself, for the time being. Still, Osric knew that there would be a reckoning to come. No small part of him wished to join in the call, but how could they change a world of culture with the strength of one man’s cries?

He needed time to figure out how to deal with his new powers—to learn how to incorporate a constant stream of new abilities in a way that was good for something more than boasting of the power within. He needed time to figure out the whole truth behind his wand—what new magics his wand could introduce to him. He needed time to repair the separation that he and Bridgett had endured—their relationship deserved the time that faulty prophecy had taken from them. He needed time for Machai to get the dwarves to join their side—they couldn’t hope to gain access to the Well of Strands without their help. He needed time to learn what was behind the dragon attacks—for as far back as known stories were told, dragons had always been friends to walkers. And now, it seemed, he needed time to figure out how he was going to help Eublin change the hunt—maybe the most daunting task of them all.

The hunt was a tradition that claimed to keep all of the species of Archana at peace. Meat was something that was highly sought after, and if it weren’t for the hunt, wars might have broken out based on the fact that families needed meals in order to survive. Populations of cities and animal colonies would have grown so large that there would not have been enough farmland to sustain them. Then wars would have been fought over the shortage of land to cultivate crops for the masses. It was the hunt that kept all of Archana from erupting into war at any given moment.

These were the ideas behind the tradition that Osric had grown up hearing, internalizing, and repeating. He truly did believe that the hunt kept the world fed while also keeping Archana peaceful. He had never thought to question the ideas, but then again, he had never thought he would be leading an army into war. These days he had to question everything he had ever known, and that included the hunt. Could the gracious acceptance of a loved one serving as someone else’s meal truly keep the world at peace and keep the populations in check?

No, it would take decades for problems like that to arise, and Eublin was very convincing with his arguments that those were problems that could be solved in the intervening time. Osric was starting to see that there was wisdom in the gnome’s words. It was time for the hunt to change or to evolve into something that wasn’t quite as open to interpretation as the hunt had been for so long. It was time to provide a way for some to have an existence outside of the hunt, but what would a world like that look like? How would they implement such a drastic change? What could he do?

Yes, he needed time…

Unfortunately, time was one of the many things they had too little of. Soon Dredek would be ready to achieve his final goal, to revive the caldereth. Who knew what would happen if the caldereth controlled the Well of Strands? He felt as if he knew too little about the race to know what Dredek would do once he had brought his people back from the dead. They had learned a great deal about the way the caldereth taught their people, and about their language, the way they lived, mated, and farmed. The instructional lessons recorded on the stones had given them a picture of a culture that strove to advance their understanding of magic, educate and train their youth, and maintain healthy, happy communities in the frigid environment they favored, but there was still so much they didn’t know.

To be fair, while studying the stones had been a priority, it took a long time to filter through all of the material to find something useful. Dozens of stones were still waiting to be viewed because they still had not figured out how to duplicate the viewing device. Only one stone could be activated at a time, and there were many other things that needed to be accomplished by the small population of the Aranthian compound.

They had no idea how the caldereth had known so much about the Well of Strands, or why they had believed that moving their entire population to the well’s site was necessary. They had not learned much about the magic that the caldereth knew, as the lessons were largely focused on what young members of the society needed to learn first. They didn’t know exactly why Dredek had lived for so long, although it was clear that the normal caldereth lifespan was significantly longer than a human’s. They certainly hadn’t learned how Dredek was capable of taking another’s ability and fusing it into himself. Most of all, nothing on the stones could tell them the lengths to which Dredek’s mourning would drive him. The emotional turmoil that he had sensed from Dredek in their fight caused Osric to doubt that this was the fight that all of the prophecies had been warning him about, but it was obvious that Dredek was willing to kill as many people as it would take to bring back his people. If he would go to such lengths to revive his race, what might he do once they were alive and he felt the need to protect them or provide them all with the wealth and the power he had grown accustomed to himself?