The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  “Arran has seen them,” said Galiene.

  “Tell more, prithee!” begged Jewel, overcome by curiosity.

  “One eventide, about five Winters ago,” said Arran obligingly, “as my father and I flew home in Northmoth, returning from a mission in Narngalis, we came low over the Forest of Huntshawe Cross. It is a region of mighty timbers, one of the most ancient forests in Tir, dense and dark, the lair of many bizarre beings. Just after the sun dipped below the western ranges we heard a whirring and a fluttering in the tree-crowns below, as if a bevy of large, winged insects had stirred and was pushing its way through the foliage. We peered over the side of the gondola. There, riding upward out of the forest canopy like”—he cast about for similes—“like a flock of ragged flowers, or bird-skeletons threaded on sticks, was a group of perhaps twenty odd-looking figures mounted on ragwort stems. We made no sound as we watched. The little creatures were no bigger than my hand, and they clung tightly to their weedy steeds with scrawny fingers. Some rode astride, while others were seated ‘side-saddle.’ Their gauzy garments streamed out in black tatters across the yellow sunset as they directed their odd steeds up and away. Then they were gone, lost to view against the dim backdrop of the forest canopy.”

  Galiene sighed. “You ought to be a poet, Arran,” she said earnestly. “No, I do not mock. You have a way with words. I have always asserted thus.”

  Again she fell to conversing with the purser. Windweapon’s support structure creaked as it shifted subtly in the currents, like the sound of dry branches abrading together, or crows muttering their avian curses. Arran spoke again to the sun-crystal and the color of its internal rays transmuted from apricot to sullen cerise.

  “Crystals,” said Jewel to regain his attention. “I presumed weathermasters had no power over them. They are, after all, extracts of the Land, not of Air, Water, or Fire.”

  “ ’Tis true we have no mastery over most crystals,” he said.

  “Over any crystals,” she insisted pedantically. “Salt, quartz, amethyst, basalt, coal—all are ultimately derived from the ground.”

  “There exists one kind of crystal,” said Arran, “called Ice Seven, that was first created by the master-smith Alfardēne Maelstronnar, long ago.”

  “That renowned forefather of your house? He who fashioned the sword Fallowblade?”

  “The very one. He bore great fragments of ice deep into the heart of Wych-wood Storth. Then he rallied all his talent and learning, and put forth his power of the brí, calling upon the phenomenally high pressures that can be exerted by air and water. After being subjected to these extreme forces, the miniscule particles of the ice were crammed so closely together that even enormous heat could not prise them apart. Crystals of Ice Seven will not melt, even at temperatures that cause water to boil.”

  “I am astounded,” said Jewel, candidly, “to think there are such toys as icecrystals one can hold in one’s palm without their melting. But what use are they?”

  “Of great use and value, because we have mastery over them.”

  “Is the sun-crystal really ice?”

  “No. It is a naturally occurring but rare type of matrix that absorbs heat energy.”

  “I own a crystal,” Jewel said impulsively, drawing the white gem from concealment beneath her bodice. She had worn it once in a while ever since the urisk had so mysteriously returned it.

  It glittered like a perfect tear wept by the moon in ages past.

  Arran took the jewel in his fingers and examined it. The limit of the neckchain caused him to lean close, and the damsel felt his breath, sweet as vanilla essence, caressing the side of her face. The sensation, so unanticipated and sensual, caused her to shiver. Apparently the young man failed to notice, for he did not draw back. “Ah yes, the Star from the Iron Tree. ’Tis beautiful,” he murmured at length—so near to her that Jewel could feel his warmth against her skin as he spoke. “ ’Tis not Ice Seven, but some marvelous mineral treasure from underground.”

  Beneath her blue-butterfly eyes, Jewel’s cheeks were delicately brushed with a carnation tinge. “By my troth! That sun-rock’s heat is excessive!” she protested, turning away and replacing the gem in its hiding place.

  “Lo!” called Galiene, extending her arm. “I see the line of the Border Hills!”

  After setting down for a brief stop in the Border Hills, where they took refreshment and a short stroll to ease their limbs after the cramped conditions of the basket, the company set off once more on their aerial voyage. There was little sensation of forward movement. The air seemed motionless, due to the fact that they were traveling with the wind, equaling its speed. The only sounds were the intermittent creak of the basketwork or the struts of the cradle, a desultory flapping as a gust punched the envelope, the miniature ching of a bell, and the occasional muffled sough of heat rising from the crystal, so soft it was almost subliminal.

  On occasion, the craft abruptly lost altitude upon encountering a sudden change in air pressure, or unexpectedly shot upward as it crossed into a thermal updraught. These disturbances, however, were minor.

  Arran, working a vent-line to release puffs of air from the balloon’s crown, apologized to his passengers and crew. “I shall direct my efforts toward avoiding these sources of turbulence. It becomes more difficult, however, as we approach the region of high-speed winds.”

  “You need not bother to strive for perfection,” said his sister Galiene, with a laugh. To Jewel, she said aside, “Flights with some pilots are like sledding down the side of a boulder-heap. They hardly bother to make adjustments.”

  The ground drifted closer.

  “,” said Arran in a low voice, making a rapid, subtle gesture. The crystal blazed up as before, exuding silent, shimmering blasts of energy. The perimeters of the landscape opened out as the aircraft regained altitude. A brief, whimsical gust pummeled the envelope. With another murmured command, the young weathermage directed the rogue current away.

  High above the bellying curve of the envelope, fast-moving jet streams were driving the upper-atmosphere clouds toward the east. Windweapon, maintained at an altitude that ensured it was affected only by currents closer to the ground, continued its journey southeast.

  As the aerostat neared the storm-whipped lands, capricious cross-winds buffeted it more and more frequently. The bells on the sides of the basket rattled their silver tongues in chorus. Windweapon passed over forests that raged and seethed like boiling spinach. In the villages, one or two tiny pocket-sized buildings lay open to the sky, their roofs torn off. Beside a river, trees lay on their sides where the winds had hauled them down. Their roots appeared to be reaching out, trying to grasp the clouds.

  “We have reached the outskirts of this troublesome southern wind-system,” Galiene told Jewel.

  Appearing somewhat apprehensive, the purser was grimly hanging on to the rigid cane uprights that held the crystal-cradle in position. His eyes were squeezed shut, two puckered creases in his pallid visage. Jewel pitied the man. He was no weathermaster—besides which, he was as vulnerable as any mortal creature, leaving aside herself. For her part, she expected that if the winds tore open the envelope and they all fell out of the sky, she might merely bounce, or roll unhurt upon the grass. None of her companions would fare so well.

  Yet she harbored no doubt that Arran was adept enough at piloting to ensure their safe passage, even through the roughest weather. She watched him as he worked to cheat and deflect the ever-strengthening gusts. It was the first time she had witnessed a weathermaster fully engaged in his profession. Facing south, toward Cathair Rua, he seemed to be hearing sounds she could not catch, seeing sights invisible to her. He uttered the arcane words of weathermastering, the calming phrases, the commands to subside, to weaken, to lie down and rest; and as he did so, he raised his arms like a conductor of a musical band and sketched the ancient, potent signs upon nothingness.

  Tranquillity expanded from a center, and the center was him. Like concentric ripples traveling ove
r water, it spread outward. First, Windweapon ceased to jump and rock. It floated smoothly and levelly, as if sliding on silk. Next, the surrounding clouds quit their panicky flight, slowing almost to a halt. Then the more distant sky-billows and the vapors at higher levels followed suit.

  The chastened winds had fled away to the southeast, where the dark, impenetrable acres of the Tangle bordered Slievmordhu. There, far off, furious masses of steam, as white as a madman’s spittle and as livid as strangulation, fumed and ripped themselves inside out, as evidence of the winds’ torment. Yet they did no further harm to the lands of men.

  Down below, the treetops were no longer being tossed and wrenched and whipped viciously about. Only a light shiver scampered through their leaves, as if unseen entities passed swiftly amongst the topmost boughs. By now the local winds had quieted to mere eddies, but they were still fretful and capricious.

  Winter days were short. In the western sky, the sun was already a scarlet stain, its face grazed by horizontal streaks of cupreous cloud and scored by the rusty razors of dying smoke plumes. By now, the city was in view: a jumble of roofs and towers and belfries. This conglomerate of architecture was gradually increasing in size.

  During her childhood in the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, Jewel had twice visited the Summer Fair with her family, and once the Spring Fair. The last trip had been seven years previously, but she still retained clear memories of the terrain around Cathair Rua. Leaning over the side, she could make out the road leading to the marsh, and the line of frozen bulrushes marking the hidden channel of the Rushy Water on the other side of the Fair Field. She peered toward the southwest, but of course the marsh was much too far away to be spied. A thick fog was rising from the Water.

  “If we land over there to the west,” Jewel said to Arran, waving one hand, “there’s a chance we’ll escape the eyes of the city watchmen.” He nodded acknowledgment.

  Nearby cloud enveloped the balloon, and the skyscape began to fade from view. Soon, all that could be seen beyond the basket’s rim was a dense, gray wall of insubstantiality. Arran seemed unperturbed, but Jewel began to imagine sudden collisions with unseen towers. Such accidents would be fatal to her friends.

  She asked Galiene, “What is happening? How will Arran be able to navigate?”

  “Be not afraid,” replied Galiene. “Our people can penetrate fog in ways that do not require eyesight. Sensing air pressure, we can calculate our height above land-level with fair accuracy.”

  Now that the jolting had ceased and Windweapon was flying on an even plane, the purser had obviously returned to good spirits. He was a seasoned voyager, and known to be careful about protecting his hide, so Jewel decided to take her cue from him. If he was unconcerned about the lack of visibility, that was enough to encourage her. She thrust aside her apprehension.

  The fog closed in, wrapping itself around the aircraft as firmly and imperviously as a wet cloak of fine weave. Arran Maelstronnar reached up and tugged on a vent-cord. High in the crown of the aerostat a small, temporary rift appeared. As there had been scant sensation of the climb into the sky, so there was barely a hint of descent, save for the rarest impression of lightness. No landmarks or horizons were visible to be used as measures of altitude. Thus, it was with surprise that Jewel saw, through the thinning fog, an expanse of grassy ground rushing up toward the gondola. Its pace slowed, and with barely a jolt the aircraft kissed the land, touching down. The buoyant envelope continued to tug restlessly, dragging the jangling basket along the bumpy terrain for several yards. The gondola, nonetheless, remained upright and did not overturn.

  Soon Windweapon came to rest.

  “This is where we must part,” Arran said to his sister and Jewel. “If all goes to plan we shall meet again at sunrise tomorrow.” He and Gauvain Cilsundror lifted the two damsels over the side of the basket and set them down. The girls would have been mightily hampered by their voluminous gowns and cloaks, had they attempted the feat unaided.

  “Fear not for our safety,” Galiene said cheerfully to her brother, while crewman Engres Aventaur handed out their bags. “If any man offers us ill, I shall summon such a gust as will sweep him out of his boots and into the nearest tree.”

  Arran looked skeptical, but, leaning from the gondola, he kissed his sister’s brow and bade them both farewell.

  As Jewel and her companion shouldered their bags and walked away, the fog began to lift. With it went the balloon. Like layers of gossamer curtains being parted, the vapors melted to translucency, then disappeared.

  In front of the two girls loomed Cathair Rua, the Red City. The lofty machicolations and crenelations of the outer walls, and the conglomerate of rooftops and gables, towers and turrets, spires and belfries they enclosed were grilled red and orange by the radiation of the scarred sun. Above all, suspended like an apple of rosy wax, floated a sphere of silk, from beneath which dangled a tiny basket, like a child’s plaything.

  “This way!” said Jewel, beckoning to Galiene before gathering up her skirts. “This way to the Fair Field!”

  Of Bards and Birds

  As it sailed over the roofs of Cathair Rua, Windweapon attracted much attention from the populace. On the Fair Field, in the streets, on balconies, in courtyards, from windows, folk threw back their heads and flung up their pointing fingers, exclaiming, “The weathermasters are here!” Exuberantly they whipped off their caps and scarves and neckerchiefs, waving them to welcome the voyagers from High Darioneth. They guessed, accurately, that the visitors had soothed the violence of the maddened airs that had been plaguing them for the past two days. “Thanks be to ye, mighty lords!” they shouted gratefully. “All hail! All hail to the weathermasters!”

  From an arched window in a lofty tower of the city Sanctorum, the druid Imperius stared stonily at the approaching aircraft. The envelope seemed to glow with a soft incandescence of its own, like a white lamp, opaline against the deep purple of the eastern sky. Without a word he turned and began to descend the spiral stair.

  In over the walls of Uabhar’s palace floated the sky-balloon, as though sliding effortlessly down an oiled ramp. It swam through a gap in the trees of the ornamental gardens. With the dexterity born of intense training, Arran Maelstronnar used his native brí to manipulate the local air streams and pressure zones, causing the vessel to drop gently and neatly into the center of a closemown area of lawn in the palace grounds. This green rectangle was maintained and kept clear purely for the use of visiting weathermages.

  Liveried stewards had been waiting at the perimeter of the balloon-lawn since first the aircraft had been identified through the long spyglasses of the watchmen on the parapets. As the basket touched the ground, they ran forward to secure the trailing ropes cast over the sides by the crew of journeymen.

  With ceremony, Arran and the purser were conducted through the grounds, toward the palace. As they progressed, servants and courtiers alike watched them with awe, saluting respectfully. After the weathermasters had passed by, the women who had watched them fanned their faces with their aprons, or their peacock fans—depending on their station—and whispered to one another. So handsome was Arran that most of the ladies at the palace had long since been smitten with love for him. Each time they set eyes on him they loved him afresh. Never had they beheld a more comely youth; oft they secretly named him the noblest of bearing, the most courteous of speech, the handsomest amongst men.

  The visitors were ushered into a splendid chamber overlooking the grounds. Soaring stained-glass windows depicted one of the former kings of Slievmordhu kneeling at the feet of Ádh, Lord Luck, who rested his benevolent hand on the man’s bowed head. The glinting star bound to the brow of the Fate was a real topaz set into the leadwork. Beyond these intricate panes the gigantic dome of the sky-balloon could be seen, slowly collapsing inward as the crewmen deflated it.

  Many ornaments decorated the magnificently furnished chamber, all to a common theme. On a sideboard stood the pentacular lucky star of Ádh, made of diamonds a
nd set on a pinnacle. An oak cabinet upheld a cluster of horseshoes cast in bronze, and a bunch of four-leafed clover fashioned from jade. Pairs of porcelain rabbits’ feet dangled from a writing stand.

  But by far the most numerous objets d’art were marble figurines of the Fates: the well-favored Lord Ádh exhibiting his charming smile; robust Míchinniúint, Lord Doom, shouldering his double-headed axe while tolling his bell with the other hand; a statuette of the seductress Mi-Ádh, armed with slings and arrows, carrying her black cat. At the feet of the latter an epigraph announced: “In the misfortunes of others we find solace.” The scowling crone Cinniúint, with a drop-spindle and a pair of shears, stood in the center of a dish of flowers—these blossoms apparently another attempt to win favor with the obnoxious Lady Destiny, whose engraved motto was:

  A man must ever strive to be

  The master of his destiny.

  The druids interpreted this couplet as meaning that whosoever donated the most generous funds to the Sanctorum could be assured of triumphing over his fate. Atop massive plinths, much-amplified statues of the Fates looked out from the four corners of the chamber. Each figure loomed twice the height of a man.

  Uabhar’s red-robed seneschal effusively welcomed the Storm Lord’s son, and servants plied the young man with refreshments while the purser engaged in parley with the royal treasurer. Tax-levies funded weatherworking, but instead of coin, the weathermasters often preferred to receive their fee in the form of goods delivered to High Darioneth by way of road-wains. The exact measure of the fee depended on the destructive potential of the deflected weather system, and the amount of difficulty involved in mastering it. In the tradition of the marketplace, the purser’s task was to inveigle the largest possible sum, while that of the treasurer was to allow a minimum of largesse to escape the royal coffers. The negotiations always took place with strict regard for protocol and the veneers of courtesy, according to diplomatic precepts.