Three Wells of the Sea- The Complete Trilogy

by Terry Madden

  The Old Blood had chosen to camp a safe distance from the Ildana. Between the two camps, guards patrolled. Distrust was understandable. But Dish wanted to fix that. But moving about the camp required him to crawl, or take the help of Dylan and Iris. They had better things to do than drag his arse around. He resorted to crawling. He could move faster at a guerilla crawl than some men could walk. As soon as possible, he’d have Dylan find a hand cart that could be modified as a wheelchair.

  Cyr came to fetch him.

  “I need you to translate,” he said.

  Dish’s command of the tongue of the Old Blood was nothing more than serviceable. But he was all they had.

  Dish nodded and Cyr called one of his men over to assist in carrying Dish between them.

  On a hummock of drying ground, Cyr deposited Dish in a circle of the armies’ leaders. There was Fiach, his captain of the horse, another man Dish recognized but had forgotten his name, Cyr and Saeth. Should Dish feel honored to be part of it? Or was his presence purely for Cyr?

  The faces in that circle worked hard to avoid acknowledging him. All but Saeth’s. It was hard to say whether she was looking at Dish or not. The green flames that burned behind her dark irises were like watching the embers of a hearth through an iron grate. Saeth spoke for the Knights. She remained standing, her gloved hands resting on the hilts of her swords as if she were continuing to stand guard.

  Cyr had brought two men to guard him. They squared off across from Saeth. The red gambeson Cyr was wearing must have been pilfered from the dead along with trousers, boots and a bauble around his neck shaped like an acorn. It was tarnished so badly it might have been forged a thousand years ago.

  At last, Dish recalled the face that was so familiar to him. It was Glaw, the eldest son of the ancient and demented Lloyd of IsAeron. Glaw took a seat beside Fiach. Glaw’s wide mouth needed merely to half-open for him to speak, revealing horse teeth. The rest of the mouth turned up at the corners where he wiped the gathered spittle away frequently. His nose was as long as his narrow face and his dull eyes drooped like a hound’s.

  How could he fail to remember this man? Glaw had married Nechtan’s only niece. Talan’s sister. The girl had died not long after, but not before she’d birthed this man a son. Nechtan’s great nephew.

  How old would that boy be now? He needed Lyleth to remember such things.

  Now, with Talan dead, Glaw must believe his son to be heir to the throne. For who would put a little girl, Angharad, upon the throne of the Five Quarters? A little girl who was the bastard child of a dead king, who’d opened the well and set the devil himself free.

  Glaw talked too much and laughed too much.

  Of course, he’d aged since Nechtan had met him so many years ago in the battle of Fitful Head. But he recalled Lyleth commenting that Glaw was the only sane member of his family. She’d said this about the time she started lobbying to marry Nechtan’s niece to him. Now, he wondered how she’d talked him into allowing it.

  Glaw was talking already. Dish could see that Cyr, who understood none of it, grew restless. Dish wished Lyl were here, not only to translate, but to calm everyone down and take control of the negotiations.

  It was time to put Hugh Cavendish in a box and find Nechtan in there somewhere.

  “If this is the sum of the Old Blood,” Glaw indicated the small encampment of refugees who’d crossed with Dish, “we’ll have no problem finding land for them. Talan has cleared the ice-born from the northern islands of Arvon, I’m sure there’s room there. Perhaps it’s a decision to be made by the next king.” His eyes flashed to Dish. Presumably, he’d heard about Saeth’s devotion to this pathetic, defective man. Of course, Glaw should feel no real threat from Dish. No man considered to be so far from physically perfect could ever rule the land. The king must be whole and strong, mated as he was to that land.

  Fiach held up a hand to stop Glaw’s yammering.

  “I’ve sent word to Pyrs in Arvon,” Fiach said, “and to the marshal at Cedewain.” Talan had been not only the king, but the chieftain of Cedewain after his father’s death. He’d left a marshal to rule in his place, Dish assumed.

  Fiach went on, “I’ve requested troops and informed them of Talan’s death and the rising of Tiernmas.”

  With the mention of the name, Cyr looked to Dish, obviously needing a translation. Dish did his best.

  Cyr stood, his dark hair cloaking his broad back. “All of this takes time. We may not have time. You think we will meet men in battle. ’Tis not men you’ll fight, children. ‘Tis that which cannot be killed. ‘Tis beasts shaped from forests, rivers turned to fangs. You know not what grows beneath this bog.”

  Dish did his best to translate, but he didn’t know the meanings of some of the words Cyr used.

  Fiach smiled. “Beasts?”

  “Did you not see a headless man affix a long dead skull to its neck?” Dish asked him.

  Fiach nodded with a frown, pursing his lips. “We may have to battle these Sunless with the men we have assembled here.”

  “The men of Ys,” Dish said, recalling the recent events recounted to him by Dylan. “They attacked you, hoping to win Talan’s release from your imprisonment, I was told. You bested them before Talan was beheaded by the high brehon.”

  “Aye,” Fiach confirmed with a puff of pride. “They’re leagues from here by now.”

  “Send someone after them. Send a messenger.”

  “And say what? ‘Please join us in this battle, those of you who escaped our slaughter?’”

  “Not in those words exactly,” Dish said. “Their king is dead. They’re in disarray. Send me to them.”

  “You.” Fiach visibly stifled a laugh. “Can you even sit a horse?”

  “I don’t need to. You have a small cart. I can ride.”

  “I’ll have to send men to guard you. I can’t spare them.”

  “Ys is without a chieftain,” Dish said. “I can bring them back, unite them with your troops.” He lifted the sleeve of his dress shirt, reminding Fiach of the mark he carried.

  Fiach said, “They may not feel too friendly toward us right now.”

  “Maybe they’ll warm up if they understand that what comes for them is not simply death, but their souls decanted to fill the drinking horn of an immortal king.” Dish looked up at the seeming statue of Saeth. Nothing but the flicker of her eyes moved. “I’ll take Saeth with me.”

  She was silent for a long time, then she cast the green flames of her eyes from one man to the next until they rested on Dish. The rustling wind of her voice blew between them. “So be it, Lord.”

  Dish explained the plan to Cyr who nodded assent.

  “In the meantime, we’ll hunt the Sunless above ground,” Glaw said. “And what must we do with these Old Blood?”

  “They’re safe,” Fiach said after some deliberation. “As long as they abide by our truce and fight beside us.”

  “Our only chance is to attack first while Tiernmas is still weakened,” Dish said. “I’ll return as soon as possible with the men of Ys. And,” he added. “I’ll send my own messenger to Pyrs. He’s my oldest friend.”

  Fiach’s eyes met Dish’s. Fiach might be a lot of things, a womanizing letch, a sadistic captor, but he was not a man to let his ego get in the way of reason. Maybe it was one of the qualities Lyl had admired in him. Dish would keep trying to tell himself that.

  “We’ll wait seven days for your return,” Fiach said. “Unless Tiernmas strikes first.”

  Chapter 6

  Tiernmas found his quarters just as he’d left them. Every corridor and chamber pulsed with the glow of a thousand Sunless. Dust yielded to his servants’ hands. The halls and chambers of Caer Sidi were alive once again, his name upon every tongue. Servants bowed and showed their palms in the way of the Ildana. Maidens bright smiles and the admiration of his soldiers—all lifted his weak flesh like the sea buoying a boat to a long-dreamt-of shore.

  Surely, they understood that this place to which he’
d called them was a living thing. Caer Sidi was shaped by the flesh of the green gods, and made manifest in stone. But what his followers didn’t realize was that the architect had also returned.

  Arianrhod had set Tiernmas free, and she was near.

  These halls Tiernmas knew so well had lain in wait these millennia, not for Tiernmas, for he had found this kingdom beneath the earth to be more impregnable as any above. No, Caer Sidi had been waiting for Arianrhod. She who is shaped of the light and the dark, the whisper and wail, the living and the dead.

  Tiernmas had considered the possibility that she intended to take the fortress from him. Let her try.

  Tiernmas thought of Merryn again, for the thousandth time this day.

  He had seen her on the ledge above the gate. Merryn had returned with all the beauty she’d ever possessed. The thought of her should have stirred the flesh of this man, Talan, but his cock was as limp as when he’d awakened from his short life of mediocrity.

  Torches lit the bath, warmed the stale air, and reflected like a string of amber in the silvered dome above him. Images of the old gods watched him sink into the warm water.

  Nurturing memories of Merryn, Tiernmas gazed up at the dome above him. Beauty had been Caradoc’s obsession, not Tiernmas’s. Indeed, the body Caradoc had once fashioned for him was pleasing to the eye, but it only mattered to Tiernmas that it was straight and strong and worthy to be called king. He was that and more now. He just needed strength, then…then he would be fit to hold Merryn in his arms once more.

  He touched the snake that bound his skin to that of Talan’s, then examined it in the mirror above the bathing pool. The serpent had turned to a milky white stone as if it had been carved out of his neck. Tiernmas tugged at the torc of serpent stone, and wondered what might happen if he shattered the stone and removed it. Would his head fall off?

  He laughed.

  It constricted tightly at his throat, becoming more insistent when he swallowed. No, it would remain, Tiernmas thought, the shackles of his destiny.

  The chamber was wet with steam. Through the mists, he saw his new chamberlain. The man had been one of the Ildana judges of the Wildwood, a young man, once a speaker for the trees. Now, he was a worshipper of the risen king. Tiernmas felt no prejudice against his Ildana followers. They were many and they were one. And for now, they were all he had to protect himself against the great armies of the Five Quarters.

  But they’d have to find him first.

  “Is there anything else I might bring, my lord?”

  “Food,” Tiernmas groaned. “Fruit. Damsons or bilberries. I’ll have meat after. Scones,” he said, wondering if the ovens had been fired yet. “Scones with warm honey and cream.” This belly Tiernmas now owned howled with hunger. The man, Talan, was nearly starved to death. Tiernmas felt the washboard of his ribs beneath pale skin.

  The chamberlain bowed and retreated.

  The face that stared back at Tiernmas from the mirror above was the face Caradoc had remade, and yet it was utterly mismatched with this body.

  Tiernmas touched his face, stroked the silky beard, smoothed the perfect brows and looked deeply into the eyes that must still belong to the pathetically twisted man who had once been Tiernmas. Who was he then? He tried to recall. Caradoc would remind him. When he returned, Caradoc would remind him of what he once was and what he was meant to be.

  You were and you are, Caradoc would say, one’s no different than the other.

  Tiernmas could hear that voice as if Caradoc were standing beside the tub. But he’d have to disagree now. Tiernmas was as far from the enfeebled sack of flesh as he could ever be. His spine was as straight as the trees of Broceliande. He’d taken the throne, and would have driven the Ildana from the land if not for the treachery of his loved ones.

  He was forgiving. He was merciful. He was strong.

  And yet his people had turned against him.

  Caradoc had turned against him.

  He would reach out to him—use the tools Caradoc had taught him to kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear. But still, he needed strength for that too.

  The blood of maker and made are one. Caradoc used to say that too. But Tiernmas might prove him false there. For the man Caradoc had become, this whimpering weakling named Connor, had run like a coward into the land of the dead. Did he think Tiernmas could not find him there?

  He had other things to tend to before he could think of Caradoc. Food. Flesh must eat. Even his. And this weakling king Talan must have foresworn every morsel. Was he a pious man, he wondered? Before Finlys had laid roots into his body?

  “Come,” he called to the empty chamber.

  The High Brehon appeared, the torc of his office glinting in the dim candlelight.

  “Tell me your name again,” Tiernmas said.

  “Idwylc, my lord.”

  He was tall but narrow in the shoulders, and rested his hands on a paunch. This man had taken the head of Talan? Tiernmas had always found that men who were narrow in the shoulders lacked conviction. Time would tell.

  “Are you my chamberlain?” Tiernmas stood and stepped from the tub. The High Brehon proffered a length of linen.

  “I serve in any way I may, my lord.”

  “You’re the wrong sex to act as my solás. Is there food?”

  “We brought abundant stores of food and clothing, lord.”

  Maybe he could be useful after all. But as Tiernmas took the cloth, another the earth convulsed beneath their feet. Caer Sidi bucked like a colt feeling the warm spring breeze.

  The hush of falling water and the stench of mud and rotting flesh met Tiernmas in the inner ward. The island of the cromm cruach, his tomb for eleven centuries, continued to give way to the Void, collapsing on Caer Sidi, which in turn, rose in fits and starts to fill the vacancy.

  The inner ward lay at the center of the spiraling network of tunnels and chambers of Caer Sidi. According to the tales, the fortress had been a masterpiece of the green gods. It once stood like a mountain above ground, a beacon of greenstone visible from the sea many leagues to the west and even farther across the plain to the east. Its watchtowers could be seen in the night from the peaks of the Felgarths.

  It had stood so when the Old Blood arrived on the shores of the Five Quarters, before the green gods withdrew their power from the place.

  Lit by a multitude of torches, even the inner ward was nearly as bright as day. Tiernmas longed to see it in the sunlight; longed to send his army through Shrew’s Gate. It was said that passing through Shrew’s Gate when the moon matched its phase, was to grant the traveler the sight of the night and swiftness of foot. In this deep chasm, all that was left of the gate was the great arch. Its carvings of the phases of the moon, once inlaid with shell and coral, now stood blank, crusted over with minerals.

  With the earth collapsing from above, the inner ward had collected a treasure of dead from the battlefield above. Horses, dogs, men and the bones of those who’d slept beneath the bog for centuries, all tumbled into the caverns of Caer Sidi.

  Tiernmas had ordered the dead be brought to the inner ward. Those fallen in battle and those long asleep beneath the waters of the bog, it mattered not. They would be his to command. Arranged now in neat rows for Tiernmas’s inspection, most wore the colors of Ys. It appeared Talan’s army had gotten the worst of this battle.

  His eyes came to rest upon a woman. She was not dressed as a warrior, but wore a necklace of talons around her slit neck. Her eyes, dull with death stared at him. One blue, and one green.

  Tiernmas knelt beside her, wiped the muck from her face, and traced the clean slice at her throat. “The sacrifice. ‘Tis she who set me free. I will do the same for her.”

  This was the blood that had melted the stone, had freed Tiernmas from his bonds. She would have his thanks. He closed her gaping mouth, feeling the rigid jaw resist. The dead would dance again, he vowed silently. They would fill his halls with life.

  “Bring this one,” Tiernmas said to Idwylc. “I
have much to teach one who whispers to trees.”

  The brehon hesitated.

  “Come, come. You must become used to the dead. They are all we have.”

  “I know her,” Idwylc said. “She’s one of us. One of the nine. Nesta is her name.”

  “So much the better,” Tiernmas said.

  Idwylc called upon his younger brethren to heft the stiffening body of the bloodless young woman from the muck.

  Tiernmas led them to the great hall, a cavern of broken rib vaults that had once gleamed with carved oak beams, polished silver sconces and braziers of blue beetlewood, with tapestries woven in the far lands of Thrace and windows glassed with color that must have let in the stainless sky.

  It would be so again, when Arianrhod finished her work.

  A narrow staircase spiraled into the labyrinth. Tiernmas led the way deeper into the bowels of the fortress where the tunnels burrowed beneath the vast forests that draped down from the Felgarths. A tangle of roots made the way almost impassable.

  “Lay her here among her trees,” Tiernmas ordered.

  Some roots were supple and new, others rigid and unyielding. Like the souls of men.

  Tiernmas laced a tangle of roots about both of his forearms and called as a mother does to a child, with the voice of creation. “Come,” he said, “spill into me.”

  The roots tightened, like the snake around his neck. He could feel the life force, the greenflow, coursing down from the green leaves so far above, that they had escaped the suck of his insects. Sap moved from leaf to root as it would with the coming of winter.

  By the light of Idwylc’s torch, he saw the greenflow begin to bead at last at the tip of the longest root. It gathered like honey, like rain, like milk from a teat, like a tear, a brilliant pearl of destiny, just as Caradoc had taught him it would. Channel, gather, and give it away.

  Tiernmas caught the bead upon his finger. It beamed with its own light, green fire.

  “Here!” he said triumphantly. “Here is the life I give to all.”

  With that, he knelt beside the druí and tugged at her chin, then let the bead of life drop upon her tongue. With that which remained on his fingertip, he drew upon her chest the runes of the living. Green fire followed his finger, and seared a mark into the dead flesh. From it, the pink glow of living crept. And when her eyes blinked and saw once more, they fell on Tiernmas. One green and one blue.