“It’s clear,” Swain announced, and Darien nodded his agreement.
After that, they settled down together in a dry corner of the room. Kyel immediately broke into his pack, rummaging though it for a bite to eat. All he had managed to find was stale bread to pack for the journey, so stale bread was what he had. Darien produced an apple from his pack that looked only a few days too old. He handed it across to Naia, who smiled her thanks before nibbling on it under her veil.
After the short and meager dinner, Kyel decided he’d better ask Darien the questions that still remained about what he’d learned from his readings. He still had no clear idea what his part of the task ahead was going to entail. Removing Treatise on the Well from his pack, he opened it to the page he had been concentrating on.
“I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” he said, moving over to sit beside Darien. “It says to deactivate the rune sequence in reverse order. How do I do that?”
“What’s the order?” the mage asked.
Kyel had no idea. Flipping back to the runes listed a few pages back, he handed the book to him. “Here, have a look.”
Darien stared at the page for a moment, increasing the intensity of magelight that surrounded him. Finally, he muttered, “This isn’t the true sequence. It’s a cipher.”
Kyel frowned, not really understanding him. He watched as Darien bent over the book, tracing the line of markings with a finger. “Metha, calebra, noctua...benthos....”
He paused, brow wrinkled in concentration. His finger moved back again to the beginning of the line, squinting down at the page. Then he sat back, eyes narrowed, his gaze cast down in thought.
Above him in the air, a faint blue line sprang into being. Kyel scooted back, startled at the line’s sudden appearance in front of him. Twisted branches grew out from the line, until Kyel realized he was looking at one of the strange characters in the book. The rune moved, circulating upward as a different character appeared where the first had just been.
Soon, the air was filled with glowing runes that formed a large circle that hovered, floating. Naia and Swain both crept forward to gaze at them, mouths open and staring in fascination. Slowly, the runes moved to form a line that crossed the length of the chamber. Kyel recognized the order of the characters. It was the sequence from the book. But then, abruptly, the runes began rearranging themselves. The first one slid upward and to the right, settling into the space between two others that moved over to make room for it. Then another character near the end of the line suddenly slid all the way across the chamber to the beginning of the sequence.
As Kyel stared in awe, the glowing blue figures began moving, sliding in and out of sequence, spiraling up from their positions and dropping back into new ones. He glanced at Darien and saw the mage’s eyes rapidly sliding back and forth, tracking the motion of the runes.
And then all motion abruptly stopped.
Kyel let out a breath as he stared at the glimmering chain of characters hanging above him in the air. He almost flinched when the entire line suddenly collapsed, shrinking and falling at the same time, rotating once as they plunged downward to fall onto the open text in Darien’s hand. Kyel heard a faint sizzling noise as the markings scorched themselves into the page.
“Here’s the reverse sequence,” Darien told him, handing Kyel the book as if nothing had just happened. Kyel could only stare at the fresh markings that had inscribed themselves across a previously blank portion of the page, hardly listening as Darien went on, “Progress left to right, just as you would reading. Begin with this one, dacros.” He indicated the first rune of the sequence. “Ledros will be on the far side of the rim. Work counterclockwise around the Well, following this progression.”
Kyel looked back up at him, dumbfounded. “What do I do? How do I deactivate the runes?”
Darien scowled. “They were activated with Meiran’s blood. You must purify each rune, one by one, in that order.”
To Kyel, the thought was repulsive. Dubiously, he wondered, “How do I do that?”
Darien stared down at the markings his action had scorched into the page, a solemn and resolved expression on his face. “Fire should work best,” he answered in a voice strangely gruff. “Burn them clean.”
Kyel swallowed. Then he nodded. “I’ll try.”
Darien’s shook his head. “No,” he said. “There can’t be any halfway with this. You know fire. You know how it’s made. Your doubt is the only thing holding you back; don’t you see that? You had better start believing in yourself. Otherwise, all of this is for nothing.”
Swain broke in, “What exactly do we do if this doesn’t work?”
Darien turned toward him, eyes adamant. “Then there’s nothing you can do. Renquist wins. He’s a demon—he’s dead. When he died, his gift was Transferred to another mage, that or lost to the air. His power over the magic field comes from his link with the Netherworld, through the Well of Tears. The only way to stop him is to seal the Well. That is the only thing that will cut him off from his power.”
Swain nodded thoughtfully, sucking at his cheek. “So if this doesn’t work, then we’re left facing that Enemy host down there as well as Renquist at full strength.”
“And six more just like him,” Darien reminded him. “You won’t have a chance.” He turned back to Kyel. “Do you understand, now, how much of this depends on you? Once I walk into that Gateway, I won’t be able to help you anymore. You’ll be completely on your own.”
Kyel dropped his gaze to the floor. For a long moment, he couldn’t bring himself to respond. He felt too ashamed.
“I understand,” he muttered finally.
Darien stared down at the scars on his wrists, grimly contemplating them. He sat with his back against one of the rough walls, listening to the steady sound of Kyel’s breathing. The others had chosen to try to get some sleep; they hadn’t had much the previous night. Darien had offered to stand watch, knowing there was no chance sleep would come to him. There were too many things on his mind, too many emotions churning inside his head. And he didn’t want to face the dreams he knew would come. He’d had enough of them.
The sound of Naia stirring broke him from his thoughts. Lowering his hands, he looked up and saw her pale legs moving toward him. Swain had done a number on her gown; it came to only knee-length now, with frayed threads hanging off where the captain had ripped it. Darien appreciated the look; Naia had beautiful legs. He found it hard to shift his eyes away from them.
“I can’t sleep,” she complained, sliding down the wall to sit at his side.
“You ought to go back and try,” he told her.
But Naia shook her head, leaning back against the rough, dark wall and gazing at him through the fabric of her veil. “No. I want to be with you.”
Her eyes held his own, capturing him. Slowly, he reached his hand up and drew the glittering veil off her face.
“You are beautiful,” he remarked quietly, gazing into her eyes. “Thank you for everything. I should have told you that before.”
He looked back down at his wrists, feeling suddenly very sad. “You should try to get some sleep,” he whispered, glaring dismally down at the scars of his discarded Oath.
The feel of her lips on his made him forget the scars, forget what could not be. For one brief moment, he closed his eyes and forgot everything but her.
Chapter Forty-Two
The Well of Tears
“IT’S TIME TO GO.”
Kyel hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep. Stretching, he sat up and stared around the dim chamber that glimmered in the quiet tendrils of Darien’s magelight. The others looked like they were already prepared to set out again. Swain was walking away from him toward one of the exits, his pack swung over his shoulder. Darien had burdened himself with the weight of both his own pack and Naia’s. They were standing together in the center of the chamber, the mage’s hand clasped around her slender fingers. For once, Naia was without her veil. Kyel found himself sta
ring openly at her naked face, smiling; he was glad for them. Stuffing his blanket into his own pack, he pushed himself up off the ground, the magelight swirling like a shimmering mist around his feet.
“It’s not far,” Darien assured them. Guiding Naia by the hand, he moved toward one of the dark, arching doorways.
Kyel fell in behind them, limping on legs that ached even worse than they had before. Swain followed at the rear, drawing his blade. The magelight lit their way, trailing ahead as Darien led them through a series of adjoining chambers, each as dark and empty as the last. After minutes, they came to the stair Darien had promised would be there. Kyel followed him up the rough stone steps that wound around into blackness. The stairwell almost reminded him of the tower of Greystone Keep, but infinitely darker and wet. Water dribbled under his feet, running over each step in thin streams before trickling down to the one below it. The water spilled over the side of the first landing they came to, falling like a thin waterfall to the floor below.
“Stop,” he heard Darien’s voice echo in front of him.
Kyel stood motionless, staring up into the pale glow cast by the magelight. The Sentinel was groping along the wall with his hand, bent over as if looking for something. Kyel heard a faint clicking sound emanating from deep within the wall.
“What was that?” he wondered.
“A trap,” Darien stated, pointing out a small circle recessed into the wall. Kyel would never have noticed it. Darien explained, “Thanks to that map you found, I knew to look for it. Otherwise, we’d all be dead.”
Kyel stared fearfully at the small but lethal circle, wondering, “Are there more?”
“Two more up ahead, before the chamber of the Well.”
“How do you know there aren’t others?” Kyel asked. “Ones not marked on the map?”
The mage shrugged as he started forward again. “I don’t.”
Kyel kept his gaze angled at the wall from that point on. But Darien didn’t stop again until they reached the third landing on the stair. There, he did another quick inspection of the wall, this time beckoning Kyel forward to point out the circle he found before depressing it.
“You’re going to need to remember where these are,” he instructed, “for when you come back this way.”
Kyel nodded, swallowing, as Darien pressed his finger against the circle. Again, there was a faint click. Then Darien moved on, clasping Naia’s hand as he led her beside him through an opening. Kyel followed, glancing both ways as he stepped into a long and narrow corridor that looked almost like a cave that had been scraped smooth to create a floor. The passage ran perfectly straight, angling slightly upward. It was also perfectly black, except for the dimly swirling magelight. Up ahead, Kyel could see a faint green glow. Darien paused, reaching to disarm yet another trap, and then they were moving forward again toward the source of the light.
“We’re nearly there,” he announced grimly.
The passage brightened gradually as they drew ever nearer that strange and sickly glow until Darien was able to release the magelight altogether. The intensity of the light ahead increased, becoming almost overwhelming after the time they had spent in the darkness of the caves. Darien turned a corner, moving cautiously through a doorway into the spill of filthy green light. Kyel followed him inside with an unfolding sense of fear. He did not like the look of the light, felt almost repulsed by its unnatural hue.
He stopped within the stone frame of the doorway, holding a hand up before his face to shield himself from the intense glare coming from a column of pure, terrifying brilliance at the far end of the chamber. He stared at it with a mingled sense of awe and horror, eyes taking in the strange surging energies that swept upward from the column’s base, from a dark ring of stone set in the center of the floor. Beyond it, he could make out the black silhouette of what appeared to be a stone table or altar with sinister-looking chains dangling from its sides. His eyes went back to the circle of stone, then looked to Darien for the confirmation he was dreading.
“Is it...?”
“The Well of Tears,” the Sentinel affirmed.
Kyel stared at the Well, transfixed by the scintillating light that stabbed upward from its cavity. The color of the light was repulsive; it was the hue of pestilence, the sickening pallor of disease. The air of the chamber crackled with the energies given off from it. The room itself was permeated with a revolting odor, the sweetly pungent scent of decay. A low humming noise echoed off the walls, intermittently overlaid with a sharp, hissing noise. Kyel let his eyes trail down the terrible pillar of light to the rough black stone of the Well itself. There, along the rim, he could see the glowing outlines of the runes. It came almost as a shock when he realized that he could actually read them. The first rune glared out at him with a piercing brilliance that seemed to want to inscribe itself into the backs of his eyes: dacros.
Mesmerized, he moved slowly forward, his boots sloshing through the dark puddles of water collected on the floor. He wasn’t aware of the others behind him, knew nothing but the glaring markings that looked so much like slashing clawmarks raked into the stone of the Well’s rim. He knelt down beside the character of dacros, his hand reaching out until he could almost touch the luminous marking with the tips of his fingers. He traced the rune’s outline in the air above it with the two fingers of his right hand, lips moving silently to form the syllables of its name.
“You know what to do,” he heard Darien’s voice from behind him. Looking up, Kyel found the Sentinel standing over him, face bathed in the ghastly green hue that saturated the chamber. Shadows swarmed over his features, his eyes like seething black cauldrons of intensity.
“Remember,” the mage’s voice was suffused with authority. “Believe in yourself. Be steadfast, and do not doubt.”
As Kyel looked up at him, Darien nodded slightly, confidently, then turned briskly away. Suddenly dismayed, Kyel realized that it was Darien’s way of saying goodbye. Kyel didn’t want him to go, didn’t want to be left without the comforting scaffold of his presence. He had come to depend on Darien’s strength. Kyel watched the mage’s cloak sway as he crossed the chamber away from him, heart sinking as he realized he would never see him again. The thought brought with it a pang of sadness. Through everything they had been though together, Darien had never shown anything but confidence in him. Through all of the tests he had prepared for him, all of the trials, Darien had never doubted him even once. He had always believed in him. The mage had been his friend all along, and Kyel had just never realized it.
He watched as Darien stopped beside Naia, turning to regard her with a softened expression on his face. “Stay here,” he told her. Almost reverently, he traced the tips of his fingers down her face.
“Darien—” she began, eyes imploring.
He shook his head, silencing whatever it was she had started to say.
To Swain, he uttered, “Take care of them.”
The captain nodded, eyes sincere as he assured him, “I will.”
The thanacryst padding at his side, Darien strode out through the chamber’s dark opening, disappearing into the shadows on the other side. Kyel stared after him, eyes gazing silently into the darkness beyond the doorway, feeling profoundly saddened and alone.
With fresh resolve, Kyel turned back to the Well. He had a part to play, and he couldn’t falter; he owed it to Darien not to fail.
First, he needed to locate the rune progression. Then he could wait, give Darien the time he needed to accomplish his part of the task before them. Lifting his fingers back to the rune, Kyel muttered, “Dacros.” Moving around the rim, he located the next marking in the sequence. “Ledros.” He found he didn’t need to refer back to the text to remember the pattern. The sequence was already established in his mind. With growing confidence, he hunted down the next vile marking. “Noctua.”
Darien moved through the darkness of the caves, a pale azure glow of magelight marking out the path before his feet. He was somewhere near the surface, he knew,
thinking of the lines drawn on Kyel’s map. Somewhere up ahead, if he remembered correctly, there was another trap. This one he intended to trigger. He needed to draw Aidan’s attention to him; he didn’t have time to go hunting through the rubble of Aerysius to find his brother. Somewhere deep below, Kyel was preparing to start his work on the Well of Tears. There was not much time. He would have to find Aidan before Kyel finished his task. Otherwise, his brother would be alerted to the threat to the Gateway. Swain was an accomplished blademaster, possibly the best, but he was no match against a mage. And, Bound and inexperienced as he was, Kyel was all but defenseless. If Aidan discovered the danger posed by their presence in the chamber of the Well, he would throw every asset he had against them.
The corridor he moved through was slim and dark, its walls wet and covered with spongy secretions from the rock. The magelight groped along just ahead of his feet, lighting his way with faintly glowing ribbons of mist. He tried not to let his thoughts wander back to his companions at the Well, but they kept slipping back that way despite his efforts. It had been hard to leave them. But what awaited him ahead, he had to face alone. Where he was going, his friends could not follow.
The glow of the magelight revealed the shadows of an intersection just ahead. There, Darien paused. His eyes scanned the walls to either side as the magelight traveled up the stone, following the motion of his gaze. He found the small circle on the wall that depicted the nature of the trap that was set: the circle was inscribed with a small pictogram situated within it. The marking was so worn by the constant trickle of water and the passage of years that it was almost indiscernible. It took him a moment to interpret the symbol, but at last he realized that it was the exact sort of device he needed. Any movement through the intersection would trigger it, unless the marking of the circle was first depressed.
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