The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The Well

  On Salt’s Day, 28th Aoust 3471, five months after her eighteenth birthday, Jewel was wedded to Arran in the octagonal Tower of the Winds on Rowan Green. Her dress was of pure Saadian silk crêpe lasheen, with full, flared sleeves and a long train. It was trimmed with gold thread embroidery of intricate snowflakes around the neckline and sleeves, and laced at the back with gold ribbon. The boned and fitted bodice was of ivory velvet, and goldwork edged the over-skirt. A girdle of delicate filigree clasped the waist of the bride. Her headdress was a circlet of twisted yellow-gold and whitegold wires embellished with pearls and transparent crystals, holding in place a gold-bordered veil of ivory-colored silk chiffon. At her throat nestled a cluster of moonbeams, the gem her father had taken from the Iron Tree. Her eyes reflected the vivid blueness of flag-lilies studying their own images in clear waters.

  What of Ettare Sibilaurë, who had been close to Arran? She was blithe to behold the couple’s happiness, and delighted to be Jewel’s bridesmaid along with Elfgifu and Hilde Miller. Bliant Ymberbaille, recovered from his wounds, played the part of best man. Avalloc Maelstronnar performed the ceremony, and afterward the Wedding Feast took place in Long Gables. The mighty Hall was crowded, for guests numbered in the hundreds. Representatives from the royal families of the Four Kingdoms had been invited: the wedding of the son of the Storm Lord was an affair of inter-realm importance.

  Sustained by enormous entourages, there came Warwick Wyverstone, King of Narngalis, with Queen Emelyne; Halfrida, Queen of Grïmnørsland; King Uabhar’s brothers Gearóid and Páid, and the sister of the King of Ashqalêth. The Druids Imperius of Narngalis and Grïmnørsland attended, accompanied by their assistants and an assortment of minions. The Sanctorums of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth sent their Druids Secundus.

  There were many other visitors, not so lofty. For Jewel the greatest joy was to be united with Arran. Second only to that was her delight at welcoming her friends and family from the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, as wedding-guests. With open arms she greeted Earnán Mosswell, her grandfather—his hair and beard whitened by sixty Winters—and the marshfolk who arrived with him. Cuiva Rushford, the White Carlin of the Marsh, presented herself with her numerous clan: her father, the elderly Marsh Chieftain Maghnus; Muireadach, her brother; Keelin, her younger sister; her husband, Odhrán; her sons, Oisín and Ochlán; and her daughter, Ciara. They brought with them Rathnait Alderfen, and her husband the cooper, and Suibhne Tolpuddle with his sister Doireann. Neasán Willowfoil, the captain of the Marsh Watchmen, put in an appearance, along with Lieutenant Goosecroft.

  Jewel seized the opportunity to relate her adventures to Earnán and Cuiva and to quiz them about the fateful connection between her father and the two Aonaráns.

  “Who are these people, these Aonaráns?” she asked. “That dotard the sorcerer recognized Fionnbar as resembling one of his old servants; indeed, Fionnbar told us himself that his great-uncle served at Strang. But why did the woman, Fionnuala, seem to recognize me at our meetings? Why should she and her brother wish ill to our family? It is scarcely credible that they were ever associated with my father. I never heard him speak of them, and yet you tell me now that they were acquainted with him.”

  Apologizing for his sometimes-erratic memory, Earnán related everything he knew. “This is how it was told to me: The uncle of the Aonaráns was a servant of Janus Jaravhor. It was he who first discovered that your father was the sorcerer’s scion. The man Fionnbar Aonarán supposed Jarred possessed special powers. He was wanting to make your father open the Dome for him, so that he might seize its fabled treasures. Your father, of course, refused to cooperate. It was Fionnbar’s sister Fionnuala who was falling into an infatuation with Jarred. When he spurned her I daresay she was greatly angered, much as, long ago, Jaravhor of Strang was enraged by the rebuffs of Álainna Machnamh, your great-grandmother. So you see, because of their own greed, these two Aonaráns were fashioning for themselves a grudge against your father.” Thus the eel-fisher revealed much that illuminated Jewel’s past, and finally explained the history entwining Jarred and the Aonaráns.

  Other eagerly looked-for guests included Yaadosh, Michaiah, Gamliel, Nasim, and Barakiel, Fridleif Squüdfitcher with his wife, Heidrun, and their children, and Heidrun’s brother, Heiolf Meckerilnitter. By the time every introduction had been performed Jewel began to surmise she would require a notary’s tome inscribed with genealogical lists in order to keep track of everyone.

  The guests toasted the bride and groom:

  “Long may they live—happy may they be,

  Sained in contentment and from misfortune free!”

  Of laughter and jollity there was sufficient and more, and as the newlyweds sat together upon their decorated chairs beneath the bridal canopy, they leaned together in private discourse, their hands continuously intertwining, their thoughts and breath mingling, their smiles inextinguishable.

  “Of all the wedding gifts I have brought you,” said Arran, “the one I most desired to bestow is not here.”

  “All that I crave is here before me now,” she said.

  “It is eternal life I wanted to give you.”

  “I am satisfied with your vow to be my husband.”

  “I am almost satisfied, but I cannot be completely so because I have failed you. I vowed to bring back for you the Draught from the Well of Dew, and I did not. In addition, I now desire the more urgently that you should be given the opportunity to join me in perpetual existence. Without you at my side, dearest love of my life, how shall I face infinity? Fortunately, there is a second chance. I will bring you the prize from the Well of Tears.”

  “There is no need for haste. Tarry a long while before you go questing.”

  “You might accompany me!”

  Jewel pondered. During those terrible days when she and her uncle had fled from the tragedies of the marsh, when she wandered, burdened with grief, in the wilderness, she had privately determined that she would never again allow herself to suffer a plight so devastating. To avoid such misery she would strive to gain immunity from life’s vagaries through the accumulation of wealth or knowledge or status, and moreover she would never entrust her heart to any living creature.

  Now, everything had changed.

  Events had radically altered her opinions; she had found security in her marriage to Arran and her home amongst the weathermasters at High Darioneth. She had cast to the eight winds the notion of eschewing love; love was too felicitous, too potent, to be avoided. Never had she guessed what joy true passion could bring. Loving Arran was an addiction that could not be cured, and she wished only to dwell with him indefinitely, in intimate affection and safety. Her former recklessness had been replaced by utter contentment.

  “I have had enough of perilous adventure to last me for a goodly while,” she said to her bridegroom. “I would prefer, for now, to stay at High Darioneth and rejoice in our new home, my new family, our friends, and other peaceful things.”

  “Then I might go without you.”

  “Prithee, do not!”

  “Why not?”

  “To be parted from you would sorely wound me!”

  He looked straight into her eyes and said, “I swear I shall never wound you, except once, on this our wedding night.”

  She laughed and blushed, and then the musicians struck up a melody and it was time to dance.

  It was a celebration of gigantic proportions, lasting for five days and nights. After the wedding Jewel dwelled with her husband in their own apartments, at the spacious and rambling house of the Maelstronnar. For more than two hundred years a domestic brownie had been attached to the household; like all the members of its species, it efficiently kept the premises spotless, working always during the night when mortalkind was sleeping. The new bride’s duties were light. Married life began in gladness, and continued in bliss and harmony. Few concerns flawed the happiness of Arran and Jewel.

  One such concern was the fact that neither Fionnbar Aonarán
nor his sister Fionnuala could be found. The authorities in all Four Kingdoms had been informed that Fionnbar was in league with the Marauders, and he was wanted for questioning in every realm. King Warwick of Narngalis had issued a decree that the fellow should be arrested on sight, should he stray within the borders of the northern domain. Employed by the weathermasters of Rowan Green, sleuths went prying amongst the citizens of Cathair Rua. They learned much about the pale-eyed man and his half-sister, but not enough to discover where they were hiding themselves.

  A second source of unrest for bride and groom was Arran’s constant yearning to obtain the water from the Well of Tears. The reality that he was immortal while she was not drove him to distraction. She insisted that the matter need not plague him.

  “There is no need to vex yourself. Let us linger in contentment. Besides, we do not know where the Well is located. We have only the riddle to guide us.”

  Arran spent numerous hours in the library of his father’s house, trying to unravel the puzzle:

  My hair is white, my bones are old.

  Steadfast I rest, for ages cold

  And still. So silent, lacking breath,

  That men think I’ve been touched by death.

  But deep within my chilly breast

  My living heart can find no rest.

  What falls and never breaks, but would

  Be broken if it ever should

  Stop falling? What is darkness? And

  Can mortalkind make ropes of sand?

  On an evening early in Autumn, he was thus occupied at home. Flames sizzled in the library fireplace. Brassware gleamed with licks of amber radiance. From floor to ceiling, the walls were lined with shelves of books. Fire-glow flashed and dithered up and down their gilded spines. Jewel sat on a cushion at Arran’s feet, resting her head on his knee as he pored over tomes of vellum set out upon an escritoire. The fire was mirrored twice in her eyes, two miniature burning tiger-lilies.

  Abruptly, Arran started up in a state of excitement.

  “I may have solved the first part of the mystery!” he exclaimed. Without waiting for her response he spoke rapidly, “I believe the answer is ‘A cascade of water in the core of a snowcapped mountain’! ‘Deep within my chilly breast,’” he quoted, “ ‘My living heart can find no rest. / What falls and never breaks, but would / Be broken if it ever should / Stop falling?’ The solution is, ‘a waterfall’!”

  “An insight indeed!” said Jewel, lifting her head to gaze up at him. “It makes sense, certainly. Yet, what of these ropes of sand?”

  “That is more difficult to decipher,” he said, thumbing through the book in front of him.

  “The phrase puts me in mind of that song you sang to me,” she said.

  “I, too, have pondered on that song, in case any answer should be found between the lines. Recall, we found out how to reach the Well of Rain by listening to a children’s ditty. Yet ‘Ropes of Sand’ gives no clue. In fact, the entire object of the song was to emphasize how impossible it is to weave ropes out of non-adhesive grains.”

  “Aye,” she agreed ruefully. “Even an eldritch wight could not achieve it.”

  “An eldritch wight! That gives me another idea. I shall consult a book of weird lore.”

  “Since you are so determined to pursue these researches,” said Jewel, “I shall admit defeat, and help you. Sometimes I wish we possessed the lore-volumes of Strang, which were destroyed in the explosion. Wondrous indeed they must have been, without doubt, antique and extensive anthologies! Does your father’s library contain any books about the highlands of the Four Kingdoms? I now wish to read about a mountain that contains a waterfall.”

  “There must be many such mountains!”

  “Nevertheless, I wish to aid you, and so I shall study!”

  “Nay, you are merely bored, pursuing amusement.”

  “Not so! Or if I am, shall you not remedy my boredom in other ways?”

  “In more ways than you can imagine!”

  She climbed into his lap. The kiss they made together was long and sweetly languorous, but their indulgence was terminated unexpectedly when the door to the library burst open and Dristan came running in, laughing. His nurserymaid pursued him, entreating him vainly, “Come here, young man! It is well past your bed-time!”

  Jewel jumped from her husband’s knee and ambushed the errant child, scooping him in her arms. She planted a kiss on his brow and returned him to his protector, bidding him enjoy sweet dreams.

  “Good night, Dristan!” Arran called out good-naturedly to his sibling.

  Cheerfully the child returned the salute and permitted himself to be carried off by his nursemaid.

  “Is there no privacy to be found in this house?” said Jewel, feigning indignation.

  Arran replied dryly, “Not in the library.”

  Jewel wandered up and down the rows of books, peering inquisitively at the gilt-embossed titles upon their spines. While she examined the literary hoard, Arran returned to his musing, repeating the lines of the riddle.

  Presently he said, “One line does not fit in with rest. ‘What is darkness?’ The phrase seems to be just stuck there with no link to the rest of the poem.”

  Returning to his side, Jewel said, “I understand your meaning. The initial six lines describe, as we believe, a mountain. After them follow three questions, the first hinting at a waterfall, the third setting forth the conundrum of ropemaking. But there would seem to be no reason for the second question. It is as if the verse-maker has merely included it to keep the rhythm regular.”

  “Yet the rhymester might have possessed more cunning than we credit,” said Arran. “Perhaps ’tis another clue in the riddle, to pinpoint the precise location of this mountain. ‘What is darkness?’ Of course, it is the lack of light. Any cavern at the root of a mountain must be lightless. How can this be a clue?”

  “I daresay it is some anagram,” suggested Jewel.

  “Ah! Perhaps you’re right! Let us work it out.”

  The escritoire’s shelves held an assortment of inkbottles, quill pens, pensharpeners, blotting-sand, and blotting paper. Arran opened a drawer and withdrew a thick sheaf of paper. Together the couple scribbled away, forming various combinations of letters.

  “Hearken to this,” said Jewel, holding up a sheet covered with scrawled characters, mostly crossed out. “ ‘Wards she knits.’ That might indicate an ancient site where some eldritch hag sits forever knitting metal wires into chain mail, or weaving indestructible hauberks from enchanted thread.”

  “That makes sense, but I have another for you,” said Arran. “ ‘Dark swan, he sits.’ It might mean large flocks of black swans inhabit this place.”

  “ ‘A hand strew kiss,’ ” said Jewel, kissing him quickly.

  “ ‘A hand wrest kiss,’ ” he rejoined, reciprocating.

  With much merriment they labored at their task. Every re-arrangement of the phrase’s letters began to sound more foolish than the last.

  “ ‘A shard west sink’: A tall peak, in the shape of a jagged shard, looms against the setting sun!”

  “ ‘A dart hews sinks’: Pieces of rock shaped like arrowheads continually break off and fall from the heights. Over the decades, their impact hollows out a sinklike crater.”

  “ ‘A swan-herd skits’: At a certain location, a village swan-herd regularly performs a short, usually comic theatrical performance.”

  By this time, both newlyweds were holding their sides and gasping with laughter. Tears streamed down Jewel’s face.

  “ ‘Dark sanest wish’!”

  “ ‘Dark ashen wits’!”

  “ ‘Sand hawk sister.’ ”

  “Oh, ‘sand’!” exclaimed Jewel, sobering abruptly. “That is an excellent notion. We ought to include the word in all our conjectures. ‘Sand saw the risk.’ ”

  “ ‘Sand was the risk.’ ”

  “ ‘Sands at whisker.’ ” She tweaked the stubble on Arran’s unshaven chin.

  “ ‘Sand sh
aker wits.’ ” He entwined his fingers in her hair and gently shook her head.

  “ ‘Sand wreaks this.’ ” She poked him in the ribs, where he was ticklish, and for a while they abandoned their paperwork.

  Eventually they gave up on their puzzle solving. “There are too many possible permutations!” Jewel cried. “What’s more, the phrase might not be an anagram at all!”

  “What is even more,” said her husband, “there are distractions unnumbered between the walls of this library!”

  “And the hour is late,” said Jewel, pointing her finger toward a diamondlatticed window. “See, the moon has arisen.” Beyond the embrasure a vast, illuminated disc hung in the void, almost filling the frame entirely. Thin purple smokes streamed across its face, which glimmered softly azure.

  “A storm moon,” commented Arran, “blue as your eyes.”

  Sudden solemnity overcame the couple. He wrapped his arms around her and she leaned against him, alive to his warmth. They stood together, gazing through the leaded panes to where the moon walked in her garden of sidereal blossoms. Her glow sifted over the watchers, like silvery dunes.

  Arran bent his head close to his bride’s ear and whispered, “Let us hie to our own apartments, where privacy does prevail.”

  The tiny wight that had accompanied Arran from Grïmnørsland, hidden in his pocket, had appeared unexpectedly out of the folds of his cloak when he arrived at his father’s house.

  “I have come to dwell with you,” it had declared. When examined closely, it had shown itself to be about six inches high, with paw-like hands and a slender tail that ended in a tassel, like a cow’s tail. It was in the habit of picking up this tail with one of its paws, and twirling it rapidly. Black as coal was its skin, as if the creature had been burned in a fire. A pair of eyes like shiny beads peered from a face that resembled a walnut, or a dried pea slightly squashed. Its garments comprised a collection of patches and rags, of the kind usually worn by wights of minor ilk.