The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) (11 page)

“So you are prepared for death?” Joya asked. “And all of the side of good will be killed by this stone?”

“We are more than prepared for death. No, not all the races will be killed, for giants have no wyrd and will not be affected. They may be the only saving grace, but as they are matched height for height, strength for strength, and in numbers by the trolls, they will have their own hardships and most likely their own separate war in the mountains.”

“I almost consider us lucky for leaving the Realm of Earth when we are,” Jovian commented.

“I wouldn’t,” Uthia said. “Do you think the greed of the chaos dwarves will be sated with one realm when they could have all of them bow before their tyranny? The war will spread. Already it has been spread about the enemy camps that this war will be one that goes down in history as the greatest war ever fought. They are calling it the Wyrding Wars.” And that was when Angelica realized what was bothering her. With Uthia’s words her stomach tightened and she felt a tingling in the lower regions of her body. Fear spread through her and she set her food aside as nausea took over. She was afraid more than anything that this nightmare would spread. By the way Joya stopped picking at her food and set it aside, her sister was experiencing the same feeling.

So now I guess we know what weapon it was that Porillon spoke of giving to the chaos dwarves,
Jovian said mentally to Angelica and she nodded her agreement.

Stephen listened to the reports of mayhem from the table behind him. He shook his head. Melody, his wife, sat across from him, tentatively nibbling on the end of a stalk of asparagus. She had insisted that he take her out tonight to a nice restaurant — nothing too rich, but something nice so she had an excuse to dress up and wear the ivory necklace he’d bought her months ago. It was a nice place, low naolyn lighting, an ambience of incense somewhere, and from the swinging doors at the end of the establishment, the smell of cooking food wafted to the patrons.

The conversation came to a close behind him with a devastating finale. An entire city block of Fairview in the Realm of Air had been swallowed up by the ground after a wyrder had tried a simple weather spell. Stephen had heard weather-working was difficult, but that was something for wyrders, and he wasn't one.

"See," he said to Melody, now working her way around a slice of lamb in some wine sauce he couldn't name. "This is why we don't let wyrders on the force."

Melody sighed. She had wanted to get out that night to surround herself with things other than talk of wyrders. She was a congressional advocate, and lately that was all they dealt with. Plus, Stephen was biased, prejudiced, and ignorant when it came to things of wyrd. Melody often found herself at odds with him because her own sister was a wyrder, and not a day went by that she didn't worry how her sister was faring.

Thinking of her sister, Tally, having to leave her home on the outskirts of town and seek shelter in the mountains was enough to make Melody sick. She had left behind her family, her children, and the pets she loved so much just to protect herself from the people now hunting down wyrders.

She tried moving the conversation to other things. A shout arose from outside and the conversation in the restaurant hushed as everyone looked outside, where a gang of people were dragging another individual out of sight.

Stephen nodded justly, but Melody closed her eyes in a wash of emotions. No one protested when a wyrder was attacked. Either they thought the wyrder deserved it, or they were too afraid to protest and find themselves the victim of violence as well.

Melody shook her head, unable to think that wyrder being attacked was someone’s brother or son.
What if it was Tally?
Stephen’s firm hand on her wrist stopped her from standing and going to the wyrder’s aid.

"You can't tell me you sympathize with them!" Stephen nearly roared. Everyone in the restaurant turned to their table, mingled looks of outrage and fear painted on their faces. Melody blushed.

"Will you quiet down?" she asked as everyone went back to their meals. "Tally is a wyrder, you know I worry about her."

Stephen frowned. She knew what he was thinking, that Tally was probably better off dead, and Melody should forget her.

Melody tried to think of something to talk about, but their normal conversation in the past few years of their marriage surrounded their work. It seemed lately that was all they had in common. But talk of work would consist of wyrders and the well, and she wanted to avoid that at all costs. If they couldn't talk about work, what was left?

Melody sighed and took another bite of her lamb.

Karic couldn't believe the constable behind him. They were charged with the protection of all people, and here he was blatantly outcasting wyrders. He scoffed and downed his shot of Bahagreshian whiskey. It burned on the way down, and he hoped it would sooth the anger kindling in his belly.

When the shout came, he felt the anger swirl more. He could feel the fear of the wyrder outside, dragged off by the mob. Karic could even nearly feel it when the wyrder came to the end of his life. He frowned. All of these bastards deserved to die. How could they sit around and watch something like that happen to another individual and do nothing?

Karic didn’t stop to think that he also hadn’t done anything.

When the constable nearly shouted at his meek wife, Karic jumped in shock.

He had had enough of his kind being feared and hated like this. It wasn't enough that all of his friends were chased into hiding, with only a few like himself refusing to flee, and remaining in the cities. But now to have even constables vying for their death — it was sickening.

It took all the strength Karic could muster to call his wyrd with any kind of control. A simple fire spell the flame the size of a candle flame danced along his fingertips. He sweated with the effort to control it.

The bartender dropped the glass he was polishing dry and stepped back, fear in his eyes. Karic smiled at his fear.

"Yes, you know what this is," he said.

"
Wyrder!
" the bartender shouted, and rough hands grabbed him from behind. He knew it was the constable.

Karic let control of his wyrd vanish, and the corruption of the well rushed through him, igniting his very skin with living flame. The fire was wyrded, and so didn't act like a normal fire. It quickly spread from Karic and up Stephen's arms in a rush and from there jumped to the bartender. When the bartender stumbled into the liquor wall behind him and the bottles cascaded to the floor, shattering their multi-colored liquid across the floor, the restaurant exploded in flames.

Shards of windows and broken tables erupted into the street, and ash settled across the severed neck of the headless wyrder in the alley beside the restaurant.

T
he first time they had entered the well it took the might of three powerful sorceresses — Dalah, Pharoh, and Porillon — to control the ebbing Chaos. This time they only had one of those people, and she was much older than she had been last time.

While it was true Dalah was immortal, Grace was worried that she could overextend herself, let the Chaos of the well in too deeply, and become a caustic: a husk of the person she once was, a vessel for Chaos in the realms.

Grace prayed that maybe this time it would be different. Last time the Well of Wyrding had been corrupted for a much longer time before they had all ventured in. The well had been corrupted for a much shorter time this time around and Dalah was much stronger in wyrd. Grace genuinely hoped that Dalah would be able to take care of the situation, for there was little that Rosalee and Grace could do except that which they had planned at the last moment.

“Pharoh said that three people must enter the Well of Wyrding,” Grace had told the other two women around dinner the night before. “Three people to embody the three fates of the lives of men; preferably these three would be women, but that is not necessary.”

“Who do you think Porillon took with her?” Rosalee asked.

“That’s something I have been considering as well,” Dalah said.

“I’m sure one would have been Amber,” Grace said.

“The other one was Astanel,” Rosalee said. “Well, it only makes sense doesn’t it? She captured them, and they are both wyrders.” Rosalee held her hands out, inviting another explanation.

“I guess, I mean who else did she have with her?” Dalah asked.

“A verax-acis,” Rosalee replied. “A verax-acis and a snake.”

“A snake?” Dalah asked, perplexed. Rosalee merely nodded and sipped her wine.

“At any rate,” Grace brought the conversation back to the issue of the Well of Wyrding. “It’s said that three must enter, it doesn’t say that those three have to work wyrd.”

“Right,” Dalah agreed, not really seeing where Grace was going with this. “Pharoh only said that the one that alters the Well of Wyrding had to be a sorcerer, for only through sorcery was the well able to be swayed.”

“So, it’s agreed that, while Rosalee and I have wyrd, we will be of little use other than embodying two of the three fates.”

“That sounds about right,” Dalah agreed around a bite of her stew. Goddess, how she was getting sick of stew night after night, but with little other meat than the dried varieties, stew was their main meal.

“Then if we give you our wyrd you will have more power in which to do the swaying,” Grace threw that on the table quickly.

“What? No!” Dalah said. “What if something happens there and you need it?”

“Like what?” Grace asked. “And where would I use my ability to sway the earth?”

“Isn’t Evyndelle a giant tree? I think you will find some wood to use your powers on,” Dalah insisted, deciding that she most certainly couldn’t stomach her stew at the moment.

“That’s true.” Rosalee conceded.

“But the fact remains that Porillon is the sorceress who swayed the Evyndelle this time, and she’s second in power only to Pharoh, which would make her the most powerful sorceress alive today.” Grace was definitely heated about this topic. “
Think,
Dalah! Use your head and not your heart!”

“Easy for you to say!” Dalah said. “You’re not the one being asked to take the power of your two best friends to leave them defenseless and possibly dead on the floor of the Well of Wyrding.”

“That’s enough,” Rosalee said, her tone lethal. It did something that had not been seen in many ages — it shut Grace up mid-tangent. “We are going into the Well of Wyrding tomorrow, all of us. The fact remains that even if only one of us comes out alive and victorious, then all the wyrders the realms over will be safe.”