Three Wells of the Sea- The Complete Trilogy

by Terry Madden

  “Of course he refused, Lyl, what did you expect?”

  “We need someone who can bring these armies together. They may kill each other before we ever meet the Sunless.”

  He poured her a cup of ale. She didn’t realize how weary she was until she sat down. The folding stool might have been the very one she’d sat upon, bound and beaten by Fiach’s men so many years before. She had to will the memory away.

  Fiach took another stool and pulled it close. “What makes you think this man can unite our armies?”

  “He has Nechtan’s soul, Nechtan’s mind.”

  “Taking a cripple into battle will only cause problems. He’ll burden our men. He can’t fight—”

  “You should remember, Fiach. You met him on the battlefield in Cedewain six years ago. Who prevailed? Was it because of his superior strength? No, it was because he brought the fight to you. He confused you. He attacked your soul, not your body. He’ll be the one who finds a way to defeat Tiernmas.”

  “That man’s not bringing the fight anywhere, unless he’s carried.”

  Lyleth set her untouched ale on the waiting table, and stood.

  Fiach stood as well, and closed the space between them, taking her hands. “You’ve let your feelings for him cloud your judgment. I’ll send him back to Caer Emlyn. He’ll be safe there—”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” She took her hands away roughly, and took a step back.

  He sighed, and gazed at her as if she were a troublesome child. “You see what you want to see, Lyl. Nechtan was never the king you wanted him to be, not from the day he was crowned till the day you took him to your bed. Tell me, was he the lover you wanted him to be?”

  She wanted to strike him, but she couldn’t afford to lose Fiach’s support. His men represented more than a third of their strength.

  “We are planning to march into the Halls of the Sunless, Fiach.” Her voice climbed with rage. “Whatever we need—whoever we need—to have any chance at all to kill Tiernmas, we will use them. Use them until they’re dead. Tell me I’m wrong about that.”

  He tipped his chin in a subtle nod of submission, but he wore a taunting little grin.

  “The others wait for us,” she said, and left his tent.

  Saeth was standing just outside the tent with her hands on the hilts of her two swords, the points crossed in the ground before her. Her glowing eyes scanned the dead forest beyond the fire.

  “Join us, Saeth,” Lyleth said to her.

  She showed her palms and followed Lyleth inside the tent.

  The leaders of these estranged armies were already gathering. A fire burned in a brazier around which the men had taken chairs. Glaw represented both Ys and IsAeron. Like the fool that he was, he was wearing two ragged battle flags like a cloak. On one flag, a fat dove clutched a dagger, the sigil of IsAeron. On the other, the water horse of Ys, covered his left shoulder.

  The wearer of the silver acorn, Cyr of the Old Blood, asked Lyleth to provide a translation. She agreed.

  Lyleth went back to the tent flap and scanned the camp. Finally, Dylan appeared from the darkness. He was pushing a handcart over the rough ground with Hugh Cavendish inside.

  Out of breath, Dylan pushed the cart into the tent. Lyleth silently motioned to the spot he should take, not the end, but the center of the gathered men.

  By the dancing light of the fire, Lyleth tried to see Nechtan’s face in that of Hugh Cavendish. The fire reflected red in the man’s bloodshot eyes, and the stubble of his beard cast hollow shadows beneath the ledges of his cheekbones.

  His eyes flamed with resentment, no doubt for bringing him into this circle.

  Fiach took a seat beside Glaw, who was already talking about entering Caer Sidi through the rising spire. As Glaw yammered, Lyleth spread a ragged piece of parchment out on a low table beside the brazier. She began sketching with a burnt twig.

  She had sent for Ragnhast, who stood beside her. She’d drawn just the well, and the point where she and Merryn had seen Tiernmas standing before the copper doors. Ragnhast added some corrections to her sketch, pointed out things she had not seen.

  “Surely we can’t get many men down in those tunnels,” Glaw complained. “Not without some means of cover—”

  “Show us where you entered,” Lyleth said to Ragnhast.

  “I falls here.” He pointed in the general area east of where the well lay. The entire hole spanned at least a hectare, maybe more. It represented the perimeter of Caer Sidi. “I awaked in dark. Things,” he took the twig and marked straight lines along an arcade.

  “Pillars,” Lyleth said.

  “Ja. These pillars along straight river. Where boat might go.”

  “The canal,” she said. She and Merryn had taken a corridor that opened from the canal.

  Within an hour, they had a rough drawing of the various levels within Caer Sidi which seemed to spiral upward from the labyrinth deep beneath the castle. Lyleth was able to add the location of the great hall and the chamber of the sun, the only two parts of the castle she remembered clearly from a thousand years before. They were fairly certain of the position of the outer ward and the main gate where Ragnhast and Lyleth had escaped, and where the labrys had fallen outside the wall. They argued until into the night about ways in and what they could do if they got in.

  “We find that labrys,” Cyr said in the tongue of the Old Blood. “’Tis the only thing we have that can kill that creature.”

  “We can imprison him,” said Glaw. “It’s as good as death to him. Right Lyleth?”

  “We had to take his head off his shoulders in order to imprison him,” she replied. She couldn’t help glancing at Hugh Cavendish. He had to remember as well as she did.

  “We throw our men at one of the gates, take it down, and command the fortress,” Fiach said, ever the one to plunge in without thinking…in all things.

  “And our dead will become fodder for his Sunless,” Lyleth said. “They’ll rise again and turn on us.”

  “Do we wait here until we either starve or—”

  “Or until Pyrs comes,” Glaw added. “With more men.”

  “More men? What good will more men do you?” Lyleth said.

  “Your men…” the voice was that of Hugh Cavendish, even and low. “Your men must not die. And if they die, they must not be taken by the Sunless.”

  “How can we do that?” Glaw asked him.

  Hugh turned to Lyleth, and asked, “How do they invade the bodies of the dead?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t watched it.”

  “We could burn them.” The idea was Cyr’s.

  “Will you be able to burn every man as he falls?” Hugh asked. “As the battle rages around you?”

  Heads shook.

  “We need to know,” Hugh said. “How a fallen man, or animal, is taken by the Sunless. Lyleth saw such a man on the battlements, but you’ve not seen it made.”

  “How do you propose we find out?” Fiach asked, a look of worry on his face.

  “Send some men,” Nechtan said. “With dogs. And hope they take the dogs.”

  Hugh looked into the fire as the men wailed in protest around him.

  “Sacrifice our own?” Glaw said. “Send men to become these creatures?”

  “You’re mad.” Fiach was pacing.

  “So, I’ve been told,” Hugh said.

  Then Cyr spoke and Lyleth translated. “’Tis the only way to know. We must send men, and dogs.”

  “How many do we sacrifice?” Fiach asked.

  “If you send a hundred men, a hundred men will die and those will then be added to his army, reanimated like the one that attacked Lyl,” Hugh said. “The fewer men you feed him, the better.”

  “Who will live to tell us what happened?”

  Hugh was nodding absently. “Aye, we must be certain some live. A forward party with a second behind. Their only job is to watch. And run.”

  “We need the fastest runners.”

  “We need mounted men,�
�� Hugh corrected in low voice. “They’ll stay behind, just close enough to see.”

  Glaw huffed, “Then why did we go fetch these worthless men of Ys and build our army?”

  “Because after we find a way to fight them, we will take Caer Sidi,” Nechtan said, “and Tiernmas with it. We’ll find the labrys and remove his head.”

  Lyleth met his gaze and held it. One eyebrow was arched, just as it always did when he was deep in argument. He looked back at her with eyes full of reluctance, and a deep sadness she had seen so many times before on the eve of battle. He’d always said that he hurt too much inside to be king.

  “It’s why you are king,” she’d once corrected him.

  “What of Merryn?” Fiach asked. “Lyl said that Tiernmas’s solás has returned to him. He’ll be stronger than we thought.”

  “The green gods bestow their aid where they will,” Cyr said.

  “The green gods bestow no aid,” Lyleth corrected. “They merely sit back to watch the entertainment.”

  “The gods should want us to prevail against this monster.” It was Fiach.

  “’Twas the gods who loosed him,” Glaw retorted. “It would seem the gods have taken up sides with this sack of snakes!”

  The others muttered in agreement. Without unity, all plans would fail. Wasn’t that what Lyleth always told Nechtan? Did she really believe it?

  The next day, men drew lots for the scouting party. The idea was to sacrifice dogs, rather than men, if possible.

  They returned before sunset. Two of the six men and three of the dogs. The outer gate was just showing above the bog, they reported. The risen had attacked them from the shallow waters there, they said. Their description matched the thing Lyleth had battled inside Caer Sidi. When one was killed, it cast out a glowing insect from its mouth. These insects quickly reentered the next body.

  The buzzies, as Ragnhast called them. But why had they not entered Lyleth or Ragnhast when they were inside the caverns? The sprites had simply watched them.

  Lyleth and Hugh Cavendish sat with one of the scouts and asked questions.

  “The glowing demons enter through the eyes and the ears and the mouth,” the man said, his trembling hands trying to cover his face as if the creatures were after him. “Nostrils and, and ears. Turning on us. Killing us.”

  Lyleth gave the poor man a sleeping draught.

  With a hand lightly resting on the young man’s head, Nechtan watched him fall asleep. He swallowed hard, then asked Lyleth, “How can we stop this?”

  “We might hope to make it past the gates,” she whispered. “But can we fight and find the labrys? I don’t know. And even if we have it, how do we get close enough to him to use it?”

  “You told me once that maker and made are one. What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, striking down one, harms the other.”

  “You mean—”

  “Aye. We need Connor,” she said.

  Chapter 15

  Connor needed time to think. His plans were all fucked up now. He had a salamander, a sliver of his own soul, hidden in the tank of the toilet. The little strategy he had worked out—at least before he had seen Angharad riding Brixia into King Arthur’s Labyrinth—would have to be amended, or delayed or…chucked.

  He flushed the toilet again to make sure the salamander would be okay in its jar inside.

  When he exited the loo, Celeste was waiting for him in the narrow hall, a look of warning on her face. She had control of both Bronwyn and Elowen, which meant she had control of Connor. He was ready to give her whatever she wanted if she just let those two go.

  He was sweating in spite of his rain-soaked clothes.

  “I’ve already told you, Celeste, you’re the one crossing over.” He struggled to keep his voice blasé. “If you’ve bound those two as some kind of collateral—”

  “Rubbish! You think I don’t trust you? You, my master and eternal teacher?” Her sarcasm was chewable.

  “Look, I know I can be a real asshole, and the idea of juking you has crossed my mind. But Elbin Elfid is two days out. I will send you as promised, no tricks, no switches. Just—let those two go.”

  Celeste leaned against the doorjamb to the loo and laughed. “You’re scared. You really care about those two, eh. I didn’t know Caradoc could be so soft and squishy.” She pinched his cheeks. “But here’s the truth, and you know it, love. If Bronwyn had control of herself, she’d call the coppers on us in a hot second. Breaking and entering her posh little cottage? She’d have none of it. She gave me a bit of a fight, too. She’s a bit scrappier than I thought.”

  Two more days, was all Connor could think about. He’d have to juggle all three of them until then. “Yeah,” he said finally. “You’re right.”

  Unfortunately, Celeste was right. Bronwyn could pose a real problem. Having her and Elowen on a leash was the best solution for now. Connor could try to explain, but any attempt at the truth would only make her see that he really was a monster. Elowen had likely explained that part to her by now.

  Wearing vacant stares, Elowen and Bronwyn sat at the tiny kitchen table with steaming mugs between their palms. The rain hammered angrily on the slate roof of the hobbit house. The sky out the window was so dark Connor had to switch on the bare light bulb that hung in the center of the room.

  Celeste spoke to Elowen in the tongue of the Old Blood. “It must be terrible being away from the Five Quarters. You’re as exiled as any of the Old Blood, child.”

  “Aye.” The glassy look in Elowen’s eyes disturbed Connor more than the loathing he had seen in them just a few days before.

  “You know,” Bronwyn leaned toward Celeste as if sharing a dark secret, “Kevin and Aiden are both looking at offers to play soccer in America.” It was as if she was lunching at a café, expounding on her darling children. She didn’t see Connor there at all.

  Celeste was able to create an environment, a modified reality, for those she controlled. It worked much like hypnosis. Blood scribes understand that everything is subjective. The mind is marvelously susceptible to suggestion and control from the outside. Mesmer had uncovered the first principles of blood magic, but never took the next step. Inducements for mass hysteria and the collective unconscious could all be found in Arianrhod’s runes. As such, they could be a force for tremendous social change, or so Connor had once believed.

  Connor had even marked Merryn when she’d first come to Caer Sidi. Merryn was chosen to serve as solás to Elgar, Tiernmas’s brother. It was not so much that she feared the duties required of her, but she knew she would long for those close to her. She had begged Connor to mark her. It had taken all of Connor’s will to abstain from giving her a suggestion of fondness for himself, an attraction he knew was not there.

  “That’s lovely, Wyn.” Celeste poured herself some whisky. “And what of that delicious brother of yours? Where has he gone to?” She gave Connor a wink. “I thought he’d be here waiting for us at the club?”

  “Hugh can never be trusted to arrive on time, or at all. I thought I warned you about him, love.”

  “Oh, you warned me, certainly.”

  Celeste got up, slipped her arm through Connor’s, and brought him to the small table. “But look who I found, Wyn. The American lad.”

  Bronwyn saw him for the first time, and the old enmity resurfaced.

  Connor also knew that maintaining this level of control was difficult. It was like sharing a nervous system with someone. He was surprised that Celeste could exercise such control without dropping into a trance. Physical control was like everything else in blood magic—only the maker could unmake the connection.

  Connor took a chair beside Elowen. The table was barely big enough for two; four of them made it look like a child’s tea party.

  He trapped Elowen’s glassy eyes. She was trained as a druí. She might have some resistance to such tampering with her will.

  In response, Elowen stood, went to the little kitchenette, poured a teacup of whisky, and the
n set it before Connor. The look she gave him made him hopeful that she was awake inside, that she understood what was happening. That meant it wouldn’t be long before Celeste knew, too.

  “You have the heaviest hand,” he told Elowen in Ildana.

  “You have the fairest face,” she replied. She sat down again, pulling her chair closer to his. She traced a finger over the back of his hand. He wanted so much for those feelings to be truly Elowen’s. He knew better.

  Celeste wore a look of deep concentration. She was working Elowen like a puppet. She finally burst into laughter. “Bloody hell, the lass has her eyes on you. My, my, but if she knew your history…”

  “Celeste,” he said, struggling to keep his voice down, “it’s one thing to bind people to protect yourself, but not to toy with them.”

  “You think I put her up to that? Oh, no. That’s the genuine lass there. She wants in your pants, love.”

  Before he could think, he had Celeste’s wrist in a tight grip. He held on while she struggled to free herself. “If you use either of them again for your entertainment—”

  “You’ll what?”

  He let go of her wrist, got up from the tiny table, and headed for the door.

  Celeste’s voice followed him. “You need me, remember?”

  He stepped out into the rain.

  That night, Connor demanded that Elowen and Bronwyn be given the bedroom. He discovered the sofa pulled out into a terrible bed with broken springs that rolled him to the middle. Celeste settled in beside him, wearing her gym clothes.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “You want me to sleep in the car?”

  “Preferably, yes.”

  “Bugger off.” She flopped down beside him, springs squealing.

  The car wasn’t so bad. The seats of the Beamer reclined fully. Connor pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, and listened to the patter of rain on the car roof. His sunglasses dulled the glare of the yellow porch light. But through the polarized lens, he watched rainwater trace languid tracks down the windshield. It was like the Zen water fountain in Dr. Adelman’s office.

  Gravity dragged him toward the center of the Earth, toward the center of himself. It was a place he’d avoided for centuries. It was so dark there.