Well Of The Damned Part 5

Chapter 11.

Gavin stood at the window in the downstairs library where he usually went to read or ponder the problems people were faced with, most notably the rain. It tapped against the gla.s.s in the darkness, sometimes softly, sometimes heavily, but never letting up. It hadn't just swollen the River Athra and the lake that fed it. It had flooded fields, making the upcoming autumn harvest impossible. How many people would be without grain or vegetables this winter? How many farmers would be unable to feed their livestock? Unless the rain stopped immediately, he would need to look to foreign merchants to feed his people and their livestock. Even if it stopped now, the ground was saturated. It would take weeks to evaporate the standing water, and in the meantime, the crops would rot.

Edan knocked and entered. "Sorry to interrupt. I found something you need to read." He handed a piece of paper to Gavin. "This was among the messages I've been reading through."

Though Gavin had been working on his reading skill the last three months, he often struggled with cursive writing. The message, however, had been written in a plain style and, although it took time to sound out some of the words, he managed to read it himself.

1 Julis 1624 To the warrant knight Gavin Kinshield: Your claim to the throne is false. Thendylath has an heir to the crown, and his name is Brodas Canton, epithet Ravenkind. He is descended from King Ivam, and we have proof of it. It was Ronor Kinshield and the former Lordover Tern who conspired to keep our ancestor, the infant Oriann, from claiming her right to rule. It was they who wrote the law, proclaiming "whoever claims the king's bloodstone shall rule as king."

We demand you cancel this fraudulent coronation and restore the crown to its rightful heir. Do not, and this land shall be flooded by unceasing rain until you submit and acknowledge your wrongdoing.

Fabrice Canton, mother to the true King of Thendylath "Today's what?" Gavin asked. "The sixteenth of Renovare? This letter was written two and a half months ago. Why haven't I seen this afore now?"

"Pryan took that message for the ranting of a madwoman and not a real threat," Edan said. He'd hired the young man to help sort through the hundreds of messages that had begun poring in as soon as Gavin started cleaning out the palace in preparation for taking up residence. "He put it with the other messages deemed trivial. It was an understandable mistake. Do you know anything about this girl Oriann? Could she have pa.s.sed down a legitimate claim to the throne?"

"No," Gavin said. "She couldn't pa.s.s down what she didn't have. Her mother and father were siblings."

"Ah, yes," Edan said, "I remember reading about that in Mr. Surraent's encyclopaedia, though he listed her name as Orlan."

Gavin snapped his fingers, recalling a task he'd promised to see to. "Did you send the original encyclopaedia back to Ambryce?" He'd enlisted a team of scriveners working in shifts to copy the entire book in a plain script that he could read with his unpracticed eye. The museum curator would be glad to have his prized possession back in his arms.

"I did, a few days ago. He should have it soon." Edan relaxed in the chair beside him. "Are the scribes finished writing the index?"

"Not yet, but they're making good progress."

Gavin's blood stilled in his veins when a thought came to him. Magic ability was inherited, and Brodas Ravenkind had been a powerful mage with black hair and brilliant blue eyes, like the two women Adro had seen. Had Ravenkind's mother been in his home? For what purpose? Looking for Brodas? For Gavin? "Those two women Adro saw - I wonder if this Fabrice Canton is one o'them."

Edan blanched. "Perhaps she came to challenge you for the crown."

"Then why wait until three weeks after the coronation?" Gavin asked. "She could have contested it at the time, in front of thousands."

"What else could she want here?"

"Maybe she thinks we're holding her son. h.e.l.l, if I'd seen this letter two months ago, I could've told her about Ravenkind's death then and saved us all this rain."

"If she brought it, maybe you could stop it."

"If I knew how. Would you look for mentions o'rain brought by magic in the encyclopaedia? You'd find it faster than me."

"You'd find it more quickly than I."

"Huh? No, I wouldn't."

Edan smiled. "You said-"

"Awright, I get it." Edan had recently picked up Daia's habit of correcting his speech habits, as if talking with perfect grammar was as important as what he was saying. They understood what he meant, so their constant badgering to talk right was growing more annoying by the day. "If we don't stop her, we'll lose the crops."

"You've already appointed a Supreme Councilor of Agriculture. Kollie's ambitious and determined, and he knows plants. Let him worry about the crops."

"I know, but it's not a problem one person can manage. With all the rain, the fields are probably flooded. If there's no harvest, there's no grain or food crops for the winter. If there's no gra.s.s, there's nothing to feed our livestock. If our livestock starves, we have no meat. If we have no meat, grain or vegetables-"

"I get the idea," Edan said. "What can you do that Kollie can't?"

Gavin threw up his hands. "I don't know, Edan. That's why I'm asking the Supreme Councilor o'State. You're my adviser. Tell me what I can do."

"All right, calm yourself. Give me the book. I'll start searching for magical rain tonight. In the morning, I'll send some people out to find this Canton woman and arrange a meeting between Kollie and the scholars at the Inst.i.tute of Science. Maybe they'll have some ideas about how to evaporate the water more quickly. In the meantime, why don't you try it?"

"Try it? How?"

"Start with a dish of water or something. I don't know. You're the mage. In a matter of a few months, you learned to read shadows, find people, back-travel, visit other realms of existence, summon a demon, move objects, shoot lightning out of your sword... Try it, Gavin. You might surprise yourself. If you can do it, surely other mages can, too. We can send teams of them to farms across the country to dry them out."

Gavin felt foolish. Of course, his friend was right. He'd learned to use much of the magic King Arek had left him. If it were possible, he would learn to do it and teach others the skill. "They're hazes, not shadows," he grumbled.

"How're you coming with a detection spell for the bridge?" Edan asked.

"It wasn't difficult." Gavin had found a reference to such a spell in the encyclopaedia, which gave him an idea for storing the spell in one of the gems he'd found in King Arek's vault in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He didn't know how to make himself invisible as Ravenkind had done, but he'd borrowed the stable dog, cast a spell to double its size, and had the stable hand walk it over the bridge. The magic he'd put in the gem removed the size spell, and the dog had set feet on the island at its normal size. "I don't know if it'll reveal invisible women, but it's a start."

Chapter 12.

Aldras Gar, the sword whispered in his mind.

Hands grabbed him. Claws snapped the rings of his mail and dug painfully into his flesh. He screamed. Ritol lifted him over its head and hurled him again into the rocks.

He landed so hard, he heard something crack. Pain exploded in his side. "Daia," he whispered. The pain lasted only an instant before blackness engulfed him.

Gavin awakened with a start and found himself in his own bed. His sword, the finely crafted and enchanted blade he'd received as valour-gild for saving the drowning wife of a blacksmith, leaned against the wall to his left. The gems in its hilt were dark. He heaved a sigh and relaxed back into the mattress and pillow to still his pounding heart. Ritol was gone. He'd banished it from this land, and everyone was safe.

"You're awake," Feanna said.

With elbow bent, Gavin propped his head on his palm and watched his wife from their wide, four-poster bed as she stepped into the tub. Her robe dropped to the floor. Though rain pattered softly on the windows, the morning sunlight kissed her silky, bronzed skin with a radiant glow. She was a lovely figure of a woman with curves in the right places, and a delicate, womanly muscle tone - not like the battlers he kept as guards, but like a woman who'd spent her life working for what she needed. He appreciated that she wasn't overly modest about her nudity and didn't try to cover herself while she bathed.

Something had changed in her. It wasn't so significant a change that others would notice, but over the three months since they were wedded he'd become intimately familiar with every inch of her, and he knew something was different. He unfocused his eyes and looked at her with his hidden eye.

The mystical, hidden eye was roughly between his eyebrows over the bridge of his nose. Everyone had one, but few ever learned to use it. With the help of the mage who'd enchanted his sword, he'd learned to find people at great distances, identifying them by what he called their haze - the unique, egg-shaped bubble every living being had.

Feanna's haze had an unusual ring of white hovering around the brilliant golden-yellow bubble, which he suspected had something to do with her empathic gift. In the center of her haze, he glimpsed something new - a tiny bubble so pale-white it looked almost clear. It was so small and fleeting, he immediately lost sight of it. Unsure whether he'd imagined it, he rose, still naked, and knelt by the side of the tub. Her handmaiden, Eriska, averted her eyes and blushed, but Gavin barely noticed her embarra.s.sment. He put his hand over the spot where he'd seen the peculiar bubble, just above her navel and beneath the surface of her bath water.

"Gavin, what are you doing?" Feanna asked, a laugh in her voice. She scooped the scented water in a cupped palm and lifted it to her shoulder to let it wash down her arm.

He shut his eyes and examined her with his hidden eye again while he felt for the tiny bubble with his haze. Almost indistinct from Feanna's haze, it had a delicate softness to it, like eider down. "Your haze - it's different. There's something--" He gasped when he realized what it was. "You're pregnant!"

Her smile fell away, and she stilled. "Don't trifle with me, Gavin. I couldn't take it. I skipped my last menses, but that's happened before."

"I'm not trifling with you." With his haze, he tentatively touched it again, so gently. Yes, this had to be the newly formed haze of a baby. He grinned as the realization sank in. "I'm going to be a papa." Exhilaration and joy threatened to burst through his skin. Leaping to his feet, he thrust his fists into the air. "I'm going to be a papa," he shouted.

Feanna began to cry, covering her face with her hands.

Gavin fell to his knees beside her once again and took her wrists to gently pull her hands away. "Aw, sweetheart. What's wrong? Don't you want this?"

She nodded and cried harder. "More than anything. I'm so happy," she managed to say between sobs. She put her wet arms around his neck and held him tightly, desperately.

He laughed again and kissed her cheek soundly several times. She released him, laughing and crying in the tub. He couldn't remember the last time he was so happy. "A papa." He leaped to his feet again and shouted, "Papaaaaaaaa!" By now, he was fairly sure the news was spreading through the palace, starting with his own manservant, Quint, waiting outside with the clothes and boots he would wear that day, or the battler standing guard at the door. No doubt the whispers were at this very moment igniting excitement and relief throughout the palace and soon the city - an heir would be born to ensure the kingdom didn't go another two hundred years without a monarch.

"Are you sure, Gavin?" she asked, standing. "We can't announce this news if you're not absolutely certain." Her grinning handmaiden handed her a towel and helped her step out of the tub, and she began to dry herself.

"I am. Completely, utterly," he said, unwilling to admit to that sliver of doubt in his mind. He'd never sensed a woman's pregnancy this way before. It could have been something else, he supposed, but what? An illness? A tumor? No. No. Those possibilities he pushed from his mind. A baby it was, and that was that. His baby.

He took his wife, mostly wet and wrapped in a towel, into his arms and spun her around so that she squealed with both fear and joy. They laughed together and kissed, and after Eriska had stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her, he took Feanna to the bed and made love to her.

"Can you tell whether it's a boy or a girl?" she asked later, lying in his arms.

He shifted, moving her gently aside. "Let me try again. Hazes aren't male or female, but when I use the healing magic, I can feel if the person's a man or woman." Sitting cross-legged beside her, he placed his hands on her belly and shut his eyes. His hands began to warm, but they didn't heat up the way they did when he was healing an injury. There was movement under her skin, like the flow of a river, but it went in both directions - her blood, maybe. He identified the female nature of her body, which permeated every drop of blood, every speck of tissue and bone, and focused on what it felt like and how different it was from his maleness. There was more he could sense if only he had more strength in his magic.

Excited, he used his hidden eye to find Daia and the orange, swirling tendril in the center of her egg-shaped haze - a conduit with which he could access his full potential for power. As usual when she sensed him trying to connect with her gift, she extended her tendril and strengthened his magic.

Returning his concentration to Feanna and the life within her, he let the sensation envelop his hands, felt it carry his awareness, his thoughts, through her body to the center where it fed this new life. It was so small, no larger than his thumbnail, but big enough that he could sense the life flow within it. "It's a boy," he whispered, unsure how he knew but certain it was the truth. His son. He was feeling his son, connecting to him.

Something changed. Something shifted within the tiny baby forming within her, and he knew. His son had reached with his own tiny haze to touch Gavin's. "Feanna," he said in a whisper. "He's aware. He knows me."

A surge of emotion swept through his body, his arms, and his hands. It was too powerful to contain, and he let it flow into her belly. Gavin knew at that moment he had never loved anyone more than he loved his son. His vision blurred, and he blinked it clear, feeling water trickle down his face. His son, so tiny yet so powerful, able to bring a grown man to tears with the intensity of his own love. Slowly, gently, he pulled back, spent yet fueled by what he'd just experienced.

"What is it?" she asked, touching his arm.

Gavin could only shake his head while he grappled with the notion of what had just happened. Now he understood the bond between mother and child. It started with the connection of their hazes early in the pregnancy and grew stronger over time. He was both jealous of what Feanna would develop with their son, and terrified he would never again experience what he had today. "I- I love him so much," he said in a whisper, laying his hand gently on her belly. "I can't describe it. My heart aches not to touch him."

She pulled him back down with her, and they lay together for another hour, whispering of their happiness and awe in the wonderment of such beauty and love.

Chapter 13.

After the noon meal, Gavin hunched over his desk in the downstairs library, skimming his copy of Laemyr Surraent's encyclopedia. Though his nephews often teased him about moving his lips as he read, he didn't let that embarra.s.sment keep him from his task. No one was present to see him guide his eye across each line with his index finger as he scanned the pages.

He was looking for the word "rain," hoping some mention of rain brought about by magic was mentioned. Edan had checked the first two-thirds, and Gavin picked up where he left off. So far, there was little to get excited about. Perhaps talking to King Arek was the best approach. He was startled by a knock on the door. "Come in."

Quint entered with a bow, carrying a tray and a gla.s.s of red wine. He was a slender, clean-shaven man of average height, about forty years old, who tended to blend into the background. "I thought you might like a refreshment, sire. Would you care instead for water?"

"The wine is fine, thanks."

Quint set the gla.s.s on the desk, bowed and started towards the door but stopped before opening it. "My liege, if I may have one moment of your time?"

Gavin looked back up at him, wondering at the worry lines wrinkling his attendant's forehead. "O'course, Quint. What is it?"

"Sire, the rumor about Queen Feanna's condition has spread quickly, and I wanted to a.s.sure you I neither started it nor repeated it. Whatever I accidentally overhear of your conversations with others are held in the strictest of confidence."

Gavin did wonder whether Quint had helped to spread the news. "I'm glad to hear it. You have my leave to confirm the rumor if anyone comes to you to ask."

Quint pressed his lips into a smile. "Thank you for understanding, sire. It pained me to think you might not trust me to keep your confidences."

"There's no one I'd rather have attending me."

"Thank you, my liege. And may I offer my most hearty congratulations." Quint bowed once more and started to close the door behind him.

"Wait," Gavin said. "Would you find Daia and ask her to come see me?"

"Right away, sire."

Gavin smiled at the closed door. He'd resisted the notion of having his own personal attendant at first, but Quint had proven invaluable for simple things like when to wear his formal jacket, which utensils and gla.s.ses to use at the dining table, and seeing that Gavin didn't walk around with muck in his teeth after a meal.

A few minutes later, Daia opened the door and poked her head in. "Did you need me?"

"Yeh, come in. I want to try some magic I've never done before."

"Of course." She sat in a chair across from his desk, arranging the sword on her hip. "What magic?"

"If I can evaporate water, I might be able to save crops."

She tapped her chin with one finger. "In a field? That's an awful lot of water. Even if you manage to evaporate some standing water, that doesn't solve the problem. It's still raining. Fields will fill up again."

"That's no reason not to try."

She nodded and gripped the arms of the chair. "I'm here to help you. Pull what you need from me. I'll let you know if it's too much."

He'd never known anyone with the gift she had. She'd explained it to him shortly after they first met, while sitting in a tavern - she was a mystical conduit. Using her will, she could connect with and empower people, even without their knowledge, helping them to reach their highest potential. His first experience with it had been more than enlightening - it had taken him to what he could only describe as a different level of consciousness. He'd found himself on the floor, empty tankards and tipped furniture all around him, and tavern patrons staring in stunned silence. Since then, Gavin had learned to use her gift to help him with difficult tasks, and in fact, he couldn't have defeated Ritol without her.

"Thanks." He closed the encyclopaedia and went around the desk to sit beside her. Closing his eyes, he used his hidden eye to see her haze, clear blue with a yellow ring near the top. A swirling tendril of orange, the source of her gift, reached towards him from her abdomen. With his own haze, he grasped it.