Three Wells of the Sea- The Complete Trilogy

by Terry Madden

  After spiraling up an infinite number of steps, the Sunless deposited Dish on a gleaming stone floor. With his hands free at last, he worked at getting the feeling back into his palms and fingers. He levered himself to an upright position so he could see more than Glaw’s legs.

  The walls of the circular room were faced with polished white stone upon which lines of text were carved and gilded. The writing reminded Dish of the runes Connor had drawn upon the horse. Dish couldn’t read them, but he understood these must be the runes of Arianrhod, and this must be the Chamber of the Sun.

  There were no torches in the room. Nothing lit the chamber but the faceted shard of the sunstone that hung from the domed roof. Though it was night, the crystal radiated a golden glow. For some reason, it made Dish think of the little stove in Merryn’s cottage, the one with the fake coals that glowed when the electricity was switched on.

  The sunstone seemed to contain stored sunlight, and now released it slowly. Inside the swirling luminescence, he could discern a dark, shapeless mass, just visible in the low light.

  The creature who had once been Glaw and several of the Sunless surrounded Dish. Did they think he could run?

  Dish twisted around, looking for Lyl. Her captors had dropped her on the floor near the door, her hands bound in front of her. Beside her stood a man dressed in a gleaming white robe collared with fur. The god-king’s head was crowned by a wreath of blooming flowers, and his hair radiated an aura not unlike the sunstone. His warrior braid was tied with swan feathers and gilded acorns; about his neck, he wore a torc in the shape of a snake, fashioned from a milky white stone.

  Dish remembered his face, or Black Brac did—a recollection as if it were from a distant childhood.

  Where was Merryn? As Tiernmas’s solás, she should be with him.

  As if in response to his thoughts, the man turned his exquisite face to Dish, saying with a grin, “I know full well why I have returned to the Five Quarters, but I’m a bit confused about you. Have you come to lead the Ildana once again? To vanquish he-who-brings-life?” Tiernmas indicated his deific person.

  “Where is Merryn?”

  “A crippled king has not the love of the land.” Tiernmas ignored Dish’s question. “At least, that’s what I am told. The land spurns your withered limbs, she detests your crookedness, for the land tests all the living. She alone chooses the stag that will rut, and the salmon that will reach the headwaters to spawn, but the crippled…ah the crippled are but food for the strong.”

  “Is that what Caradoc taught you?” Dish asked. “Strange, because he told me you were twice the man as a ‘cripple’ than you are now.”

  The flowers on the god-king’s wreath burst open. Petals and downy seed flew in a stormy drift about him.

  How long had Dish lived to confront this man once again? His memories of that day were incomplete, with all the detail of a fleeting dream. How much was memory, and how much was legend was immaterial. He remembered clearly the rage that had consumed him on the day he took this land from Tiernmas.

  “I lost a thousand men to you once, and today I lost hundreds more,” Dish admitted. “As Black Brac, I led the Ildana to these shores. Yes, we were the invaders. But you, the Old Blood, were invaders ages before that. You took the realms of the green gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and made this land your own. You played house in this, their fortress.” Dish motioned to the room that surrounded them. “You married them, you blended your customs with theirs and claimed it all as your own. But none of us are the first men of these lands. None but the green gods. So, really, we’re not so different you and me.”

  Tiernmas laughed.

  Dish pressed him. “Do you consider it your right and destiny, Tiernmas, to feed upon the souls of vast forests, of entire villages, captured enemies, and the first-born babes of your own people? The stag will die one day, as will the salmon when he reaches the headwaters of his journey. They know, as you’ve forgotten, that if they do not, their souls will remain unchanged. In death they know their purpose—they find their way.”

  “Purpose?” Tiernmas scoffed. “Is this your purpose, my legless friend? To wallow about on my floor? Little fish, you swam right back to your spawning grounds, did you not? Right back to the point of my blade.” Tiernmas moved the point of his blade from Dish’s face, to the water horse tattoo on his wrist. Then he squatted before Dish, his face so close the color wheel of his irises became apparent. Tiernmas lay the cool, flat edge of the blade against Dish’s wrist. Dish wondered if he intended to cut of his hand, too.

  Tiernmas puffed warm breath on Dish’s face. “Do I understand correctly? You would choose your crippled flesh over this?” He indicated, once again, his perfect vessel.

  “A thousand times over,” Dish said with a conviction he’d begun to believe. “I’m not the same person I used to be. Perhaps for the better, or the worse, I cannot judge. But I have changed, and the loss of my legs has taught me things no other experience could. It’s taught me what true strength is. It’s taught me that an eternity in the sun would rob me of a night of perfect starlight.”

  Tiernmas laughed. “A poet! We have a poet-king! But you’re still a fool.”

  “And the Ildana still rule the Five Quarters,” Dish said with gritted teeth.

  Tiernmas frowned and tipped his chin in mock agreement, then said, “For now. Where is this daughter of yours, poet-king? The Child of Death? Incarnation of Arianrhod, keeper of the silver wheel, spinner of destinies and liberator of the immortal king of the Old Blood. I need to thank her for my rebirth.”

  When Dish made no answer, Tiernmas said, “I’d like you to remember. I’d like you to know what waits for you in these,” he swept his arms about him, “Halls of the Sunless, as the Ildana call it.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” Dish said. “A blow for a blow, and all that.”

  “There will be time for such deliciousness,” Tiernmas said. “Rest, now, little fish. We shall speak in the morning.”

  Dish and Lyl were taken down the endless spiral of stairs. When they reached the main hall, they descended again. Deeper they went, into the dank bowels of the fortress where they would wait for the dawn.

  Dish would never know if night had ended here, or if it went on forever. Glaw had dragged him through the maze. They’d taken a dozen turns, which Dish had tried to memorize, but failed. The ceiling of the room in which they left him was so low, that if Dish could stand, he’d have hit his head. Lyl made enough noise to let him know that she lived, and her prison cell was not far from his. They exchanged idle stories and Dish dozed on and off. They spoke of nothing that could be used against them by Tiernmas, for the ever-present sprites certainly heard every word. Dish told her of his studies at university, how he met Connor, his favorite memories of childhood, which mostly took place on Merryn’s farm.

  Lyl shared the details Angharad’s birth, and the signs of her precocious abilities that began to show even before she was two.

  “Did you know?” Dish asked her.

  “Know?”

  “Who she is?”

  Lyl laughed. “She was and is my daughter, your daughter. She carries with her the echo of a god. Don’t we all?”

  He slept.

  Dish awoke colder than before, his cloak wrapped tightly around himself. A sprite had settled on his chest. It watched him with faceted eyes, and when Dish stirred, rattling the chain that bound him to the wall, it took to wing.

  Glaw appeared not long after. The eye that had been dislodged in battle was entirely gone now, and a flower bloomed in the empty socket.

  Dish was taken back through the maze, up the endless stairs to the Chamber of the Sun. It was clearly day here, for the beam of sunlight swept the walls like the slow hand of a clock. As it did, Arianrhod’s runes ignited, one after the other. It was a good place to die.

  Tiernmas stood before the open doors that seemed to lead to a balcony.

  “I have a task for you,” he said, without turning toward Dish.
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br />   Glaw and another goon lifted Dish’s arms again and dragged him after Tiernmas. The balcony faced north toward the Felgarths. But it was not the mountains that drew his eye. Ranks upon ranks of men and horses moved through the charred forests. They were a little more than a kilometer away. It had to be Pyrs and the chieftains of the north. Dish now understood why it had taken so long for them to arrive. Pyrs must have gathered warriors from every village in the north, for the numbers were far larger than Arvon and Cedewain together. Twice their numbers.

  A battalion of archers a thousand strong marched behind as many horsemen. Among them, a battery of mangonels and rams, ladders and scorpions that looked newly built. The wood for them must have been harvested far to the north, for there was not a tree left for leagues around the bog. From this distance, it looked as though they all wore hoods. Pyrs had been informed of what awaited him here, and Dish could not help but feel a swell of hope course through him.

  But certainly, they hadn’t counted on the dragon. Prickling with arrows, Connor’s blood beast clung to the north wall. It snapped at the shafts, pulling the ineffective tips free. For it was risen now, commanded by one or more of Tiernmas’s Sunless. It made Dish wonder how Tiernmas had chosen the soul that entered the dragon. How could he be certain of its allegiance? Could Connor turn it again if he drew close enough to the fortress?

  Dish closed his eyes, tried to imagine the dragon flying from the wall, leaving Pyrs and his men untouched. But the connection Connor had forged between him and the beast was clearly severed. Instead, its claws broke the masonry as it moved along the battlements, flapping its injured wings to stabilize itself. Smaug and Fafnir. It certainly was. And now it guarded Tiernmas.

  The cloying scent of Tiernmas’s flowers failed to cover the stench of death that clung to Glaw and the other creature.

  “Where is Merryn?” Dish demanded for the second time.

  “Merryn?” Tiernmas seemed surprised by the question. “You know Merryn, too? My but she made a lot of friends in the land of the dead.”

  “By the looks of that army, you’ll need her to negotiate a peace.” Dish indicated the swarm of men that drew closer by the moment.

  “No, no, it’s you who will do the negotiating. For you command those men. At least, it’s what these have told me.” He indicated Glaw. “You are their king and these northerners, have come at your request. Or more accurately, your solás’s request.” He motioned for his men to bring Lyl to the balcony.

  She stepped outside, her head held high as she shook off the hands of those who held her. “They come,” she said, “to bring you down. But if you wish to send me to them with news of your surrender…”

  Tiernmas laughed.

  “Merryn has told me much about you, Lyleth. Mother of the Child of Death, she who freed me. Did you know when you bedded this Ildana,” he pushed a finger into Dish’s chest, “that your rutting would free your people, and free your true king?”

  “Where is Merryn?” Lyl demanded. Dish recognized the struggle to keep her voice even, to control her temper. “The only reason Nechtan and I live is because you fear the army of Arvon, and rightly so. For if you do not make peace, and you kill us, you will pay their price.”

  “Oh, I wager you tell prickly bedtime stories to your daughter.” There was something in the way Tiernmas said it. He was trying to make them believe he knew where Angharad was, that he had her. But Dish no longer thought it possible for Angharad to be taken prisoner. By anyone.

  Lyleth took a deep breath and her eyes flashed to Dish. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was. That Connor had been sent across the void by Angharad, that she had staged this battle and was waiting for them to put this vile creature down for good.

  “Send us,” Dish urged Tiernmas. “Send us, and we will present your terms to Pyrs.”

  “These are my terms, Ildana dog.” Tiernmas stepped back into the chamber. Dish’s handlers dragged him after, with Lyl right behind.

  A woman, bound by hands and feet, knelt at the base of the sunstone. She wore a rich gown that was torn and soiled. Her dark, expressive eyes welled with tears as they found Lyl. Dish would know those eyes anywhere. He’d seen photos of his mother and sister in their school days. Connor had sketched her.

  She said softly, “Hugh…I’m sorry.”

  “My solás,” Tiernmas said, cupping her chin and wiping at her tears, “has chosen once again to defy me. She wants me to make peace with you.”

  “You’ve seen Pyrs’s army,” Dish said. “She speaks the truth.”

  “Does she, now?” Tiernmas tut-tutted. “You know her well, I believe. So, you know it was her plan that brought us all here. She, who called upon the well guardian to carry her nephew to the Five Quarters. There, he would spawn a child from the seed of death and the womb of the living. It seems Arianrhod has been whispering in Merryn’s ear for some time. Give me flesh, the old bitch said. Merryn only thought that she would free the exiled Old Blood. She didn’t know that my stony prison sealed the well. So, she can’t be blamed for everything, just…almost.”

  Merryn’s sad eyes flitted from Dish to Lyl and back. “It’s…true.” Her voice was barely audible. “I brought this upon the Five Quarters. I thought…I thought he would listen to me but—”

  “Back to my proposal,” Tiernmas said, resuming his pacing. “Call off your northerners, or Merryn dies.”

  “My life means nothing here,” Merryn said.

  “If I ask Pyrs to hold his attack,” Dish said, “in exchange…you what? You don’t kill Merryn? That doesn’t seem like fair trade. For, if he agrees…how long will it be before you consume the villages and forests of Arvon? Before you take everything to the north to sustain your immortal kingdom?”

  “Hmm, I see. You want assurances I’ll stay out of the north.” Tiernmas clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. “I could move south. Take the Southern Marches.”

  “No,” Merryn said.

  “Just to be sure you understand Merryn’s fate, we are inside Caer Sidi, bound up in blood magic. Those who die here, remain here, with me.” He raised both palms and some stray sprites fluttered to alight in his hands. “They sustain me. Merryn will sustain me. And so will you when I’m done with you.”

  “No,” Merryn said more firmly. “Hugh, you will not do as he says. Promise me, you’ll not do as he commands.”

  “I hold no sway over Pyrs,” Dish said with as much conviction as he could muster. “I’m no more his king than you are.”

  “Your solás rules the Ildana. Her skill at negotiation is legendary,” Tiernmas said. “She will take my demand for their surrender.”

  Tiernmas reached to his belt of blooming vines and withdrew Connor’s gun.

  He looked down the barrel quizzically, and then pointed it at Merryn’s temple. “Glaw tells me this a powerful weapon of the dead. Bring the northerner’s surrender to me.”

  “No,” Merryn pleaded. “Hugh, you cannot. You know you cannot. Be the king I remember, and drive him from our land as you did before.”

  Dish felt a pit open in his soul. She was right. Pyrs was their only hope now. If Connor lived…he knew where the labrys was hidden. There was still hope, if Pyrs launched the attack. Merryn must have known it would come to this, that she could never lead this creature to peace. Tiernmas would take it all, enslave the Ildana or exile them to suffer the same fate as the Old Blood. If he agreed to this truce, the Ildana would fall, and the Five Quarters would become a wasteland of immortals feeding upon the dead.

  “I’m sorry, Merryn,” Dish said through the knot in his throat. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  She nodded, just perceptibly, and the corners of her lovely mouth turned up.

  With a look of surprise, Tiernmas glanced at Dish and smiled. Lyl fell to her knees and clutched Merryn to her until Glaw pulled her away.

  The report of the gun echoed around the chamber, incongruous and horrific. The sprites fled in the wake of the sulfurous stench of
gun smoke. Merryn crumpled to the floor as Tiernmas laughed, the gun raised over his head like a trophy. Before she’s struck the floor, the impish young woman changed before their eyes. The woman who came to rest, bleeding across the inlaid marble floor, was frail, stooped and withered, her large, dark eyes staring at the sunstone. The sprite that was her soul coalesced at her thin, wrinkled lips with the dew of her last breath.

  Merryn flew free.

  Chapter 24

  Lyleth could not move. She was slumped on top of Merryn’s frail body. Two of the Sunless lifted Lyleth, and dragging her, they followed Nechtan out of the Chamber of the Sun. She could see nothing through her tears but Merryn, and the look of victory she’d worn as she died. In death, Merryn had deprived Tiernmas of his solás, but to what end? Connor had given him a dragon to take her place, to rain fire on any who would attempt to take Caer Sidi.

  Lyleth was weak with hopelessness.

  The way back to the labyrinth took them through the canals. She recalled feeling her way through these long, vaulted corridors with Merryn. Then, it had been lit by swarms of the Sunless sprites, for it was still far beneath the Earth. Now, daylight glittered from a thousand windows and sunstones imbedded into the high ceiling. The canal ran silently, narrow and crystal clear, for the water issued from the well that marked the center of the fortress. Legend said it spilled into four channels and ran to the four cardinal directions.

  She searched the sunlit space above her, looking for Merryn’s sprite, hoping she had followed. Now that she had shed her flesh, was she entirely under the control of Tiernmas?

  Lyleth had to believe that Merryn retained the kernel of free will that had cost her life. Tiernmas was right about one thing—the green gods, that is to say, Arianrhod, had chosen Merryn to bring about the exile’s return. She’d chosen Merryn for a reason. She was relentlessly faithful. She believed she could change Tiernmas with her love. Lyleth understood her need, and felt a pang of remorse that she’d distrusted Merryn from the moment she found her among the roots.