SONG of EMBER

22

WISDOM OF THE WELL

🙜

Ember lingered beside the heather mattress, staring down at the soiled linens. Mudstains and bloodstains from his first night’s stay had ruined the unblemished appeal of it, but he dutifully tugged the blankets straight and did his best to make it look nice again.

“Sorry,” he muttered thoughtlessly, flicking a bit of dried gore from the pillow to the stone floor.

There was no reply.

Nobody cared.

Nobody needed this room.

Consumed by an aching loneliness, Ember shrugged his shirt over his head, snatched another fruit from the twisting vines, and stepped out into the central chamber. Early morning sunlight spilled down at a steep slant through the crag far above, glittering on the tumbling stream and refracting within the crystals which grew along the walls. The crystals in turn scattered that light far and wide in a rainbow of dancing colors.

He had only been there a matter of days, but he was beginning to feel restless.

I have all I need to survive, he reminded himself. There’s no hurry.

This place was a sanctuary, and had provided him with everything necessary for his recovery and his peace of mind–including an ethereal companion to keep him company. Not that they could do much more than idly while away the days and nights, but it was not an altogether unappealing prospect. He felt safe here, at least.

And yet, despite his attempts to shove the terrors which had led him here from his mind, he couldn’t help wondering what had become of—

“Good morning!”

Ember glanced toward one of the bookshelves on his side of the stream.

The lady stood primly against the wall, her hands folded and a charming smile curling her lips. Candles flickered around her bare feet and upon the bookshelves, wholly unneeded in the brilliant morning light, and a few dusty wooden bowls and stray books resided on the topmost shelf.

“Good morning…” Ember hesitated.

“What do you require?”

He frowned, kicking a bit of loose stone into the stream with his toe.

“Nothing.”

“Are you well-rested?”

Hardly.

But he merely shrugged. “I suppose.”

She fell silent again, observing him with that winsome expression; though the longer it remained affixed to her face, the less winsome it appeared. A few minutes crawled by in awkward silence, each staring at the other, the lady with her ever-present smile and Ember with an increasingly discomfited frown.

“Can you…”

Her fair head tilted, strands of golden hair catching the light.

Ember flushed. “Can you stop looking at me like that?”

“I do not understand. How else should I look at you?” The lady’s face stilled, her smile slipping into a faint confusion.

“That’s better. Thank you.”

“Oh.” She blinked at him. “A strange request. Are you well?”

But Ember was already trudging along beside the stream, toward the alcove at the top of the stone stairs. He bit into the juicy fruit and chewed while he walked. “Not really.”

“How may I assist you?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“A strange reply.”

“Is everything I do strange to you?”

“Many things,” she called, her voice echoing pleasantly in the atrium.

“Hmmh.”

Ember decided to ignore the oracles’ servant unless he had a question she might be able to answer, for he strongly suspected she would not approve of his tenacity. He did not know exactly what he would do if the well refused him; only that he would take it apart—stone by stone—if he had to.

Clearing his throat, Ember ascended the steps, putting one hand over the knife that was hidden under his shirt. He doubted it would protect him from magical beings or errant spells, but it did make him feel slightly braver.

"Well of the Oracle!" he said loudly, staring hard at it. "I seek your wisdom on two matters—"

The lady shook her head, but he paid her no mind.

"—the first of which: I am trapped within these halls. By what paths might I travel to get myself safely out again? Also, I did not come here alone."

She took a step closer, her dress swishing around her bare feet, and tilted her head curiously.

Ember kept his eyes fixed on the glassy water. "We were unhappily parted in the hall outside your sanctuary. What has happened to her? You might not consider my requests worthy of note, but to me they are of the utmost importance. I beg of you, enlighten me."

Rather pleased with his own little speech, Ember stepped back and waited. For what, he had not the faintest idea. A voice, he imagined, grand and booming. But he waited in vain, and after what seemed an interminable lull, the lady said, "Will you not come away and eat more fruit? Surely you still hunger."

Ember ignored her.

"Show me a way out," he commanded, pointing at the water. It remained dark and lifeless. "Show me how to get out of here! How do I get out of this mountain?"

The lady drifted to the other side of the well, her steps silent and graceful, and then clasped her hands and lowered her chin to stare into its depths.

Ember puffed out his cheeks in a sigh and observed it through hooded eyes. Maybe there was a secret word, a phrase.

"Did your oracles ever say anything to this well?"

The lady merely shrugged her shoulders.

"You can help me by answering the question," he prompted.

"That is not a good and proper question."

"What if I told you it was a matter of life and death?"

"The well cannot speak to you," she said, very firmly. "You are not the oracle."

"Stop saying that."

"As you wish."

Ember crossed his arms for a moment, appraising the well through narrowed eyes.

"Show me my friend!" he commanded, bracing his palms on the crumbling stones and peering in. He thought he saw the water shiver, very slightly, as if under a faint breeze—but nothing more.

"Show me how to get out of here. Show me my friend. Show me… show me something. Anything," he added hopefully.

If the books scattered about the sanctuary had any merit at all, it was likely that the well did not consider the sirena to be or have ever been his friend; Ember himself, though he wondered as to her whereabouts, was very much afraid to meet her again. But if she had made it out of the mountain, he could at least be assured of her relative safety and proceed without any guilt or regret.

"Show me my adversary," he whispered.

Nothing.

Ember shivered and hunched his shoulders, stepping away in annoyance.

The lady smiled at him—that insufferable, intangible, infuriating smile. The smile which said as plain as words, I have no real eyes with which to truly see you, no real hand with which to comfort you, no real heart with which to pity you.

Her very presence here was a thing which should not be, taunting him with how little he knew about the world he had been so unceremoniously thrust into. He decided then and there that he preferred the sociable persona which had accompanied him to the mountain—slimy skin and inky glance and all—to this not-woman, this servant of the oracles.

Perhaps, in bygone days when these halls were filled with talking, laughter, and the living souls of its former inhabitants, she would not have seemed so cold and strange. But now she was merely a relic. A curiosity. Through no fault of her own, this forgotten enchantment represented everything he would be deprived of if he stayed—and sooner or later he would end up another lifeless pile of bones, like the oracle.

The oracle…

His heart pounded once, violently, against his ribs.

Don't be a fool, Ember.

But he knew that what he was about to do was indeed very foolish.

"Very well." Ember gripped the crumbling stones for a moment, gritting his teeth as he looked into the water. "I am grateful for the help I've received in this place, well of the oracles. But if you continue to try my patience, you will find me a more desperate man than you bargained for. I haven't asked for much: how do I get out of here? And is my… friend still alive? Where is she?"

Silence was his only answer.

Growling under his breath, Ember turned his back on the well and took two steps toward the darkest corner of the alcove.

"Stop!"

The lady appeared directly in front of him, and he jumped, startled.

She held out a hand, her face pinched and her blue eyes flashing. "You may go no further."

Straightening his spine, Ember moved to step around her.

The lady stepped with him, unnaturally quick.

"Stop," she repeated gently. "Leave the well. Return to your room."

Ember resolutely stuck out his arm to push her aside—and his elbow passed through her shoulder without the slightest resistance. Disturbed and emboldened, he marched forward. She appeared in front of him again, but this time he did not hesitate to walk directly through her.

"Leave at once!" The lady continually repositioned herself just a step ahead of him, her expression growing more agitated with every reappearance. "Stop! Do not approach the oracle."

Ember kept walking.

She grew brighter and louder each time she spoke, and he was forced to squint, peering around her in an attempt to see the bones.

"If you want to assist me, now’s your chance," he muttered. "Will you ask the well to speak?”

"No! The well cannot speak with you, son of men, for you are not of the oracles, and the last to be the keeper of these chambers has long been with his Maker. You must not do this," she cried, her voice booming around the alcove so that the very floor shivered with it. "We have sheltered you! We healed your wounds! What reason have you to disturb his rest?"

"I have no other choice."

Ember reached out, half-blinded by her brilliance, and his knuckles collided with one of the bones. It didn't matter which, so long as his foolish notion worked; for if it didn't, he had broken all faith with the oracles' servant for nothing.

"NO!" shouted the lady, her form flashing so brightly that Ember had to shut his eyes.

He dragged the bone from the pile, stumbling in the direction of the well.

"YOU MUST NOT—!"

"Tell me what I want to know!"

Blinded, Ember struck out with the shimmering bone.

It broke apart in his hands with a sickening crack.

Dry dust and crumbles fell to the flagstones.

He knelt there for a moment, panting, but no sonorous voice rang out from the well to tell him what the future may hold. And the lady had fallen abruptly silent, not even a whisper of an echo left in the air.

Ember opened his eyes and saw the dust of the bone still hanging in the single shaft of weak sunlight that reached the alcove. The broken piece had bounced onto the stairs, resting partly in the flow of the water, and Ember clenched the remainder in a white-knuckled fist. The powdery residue on the well glowed for a moment, so faintly he wondered if it weren't merely reflecting the sunlight.

Then something flickered above the stones of the well.

He hadn't imagined that.

Wetting his dry lips, Ember gathered himself and stood, backing away from the mossy stones. The water was swirling in a slow circle, as if an invisible finger were stirring it from above, and it cast odd shadows of light on the ceiling of the alcove.

He swallowed and dropped the bone, reaching instead for his knife.

With a dull rumble—more a strain or tension in the air than a true sound—the walls surrounding him vanished in wavering pieces, revealing a wide lazy river, sprawling bank, and dense forest that crept over the patchy clearing beneath his feet and stood thickly upon the other side of the water. It was all very dimly lit and impossible to take in at one glance. The well remained fixed in the middle of the room, rays of light spilling over the stones and spreading along the ceiling and walls, shaping the forest and river in places and bouncing off the stone alcove here and there. Forest colors danced around the room, and his ears popped as the rumble came from the well again.

Ember glanced over his shoulder just as a wisp of shadow appeared where the stairs should have been, fading in and out of view. He caught his breath and drew his knife as the light from the well shifted, illuminating patches of color and depth before him as if shaping this mirage from the air itself.

The figure flickered.

He backed away, feeling behind him with one hand and pointing at the apparition with the knife. His fingers brushed the well stones.

And Ky Veli snapped into existence before him, as real as any living being.

Ember stared, struck dumb.

The light twinkled about her form, shimmering so that he could see the crystals of the atrium behind the image, and her lips moved, but only a faint echoing stutter could be heard, as if from a great distance.

Fear writhed in the pit of his stomach—produced by the horrible, gut-wrenching idea that he had somehow broken the well.

But as light rippled throughout the room, those fractured patches of dense woodland slowly merged, as if the atrium had been an elaborate illusion all along and someone had torn away the lingering bits of tapestry to reveal this hidden nightscape of forest and stars. The trees was lit by a wavering orange glow.

Ky solidified before him, the cast light softening her features, and he noticed that she was still wearing the same jerkin and trousers.

Almost.

These clothes were hardly soiled, and appeared almost new save a few grass stains and loose threads. She was breathing quick and deep as if she had sprinted a great distance, and her hair hung loose about her shoulders in wet tangles; it was slightly shorter than he remembered.

Her mouth had stopped forming words, but he could now hear her raspy breathing and a gentle chorus of crickets and whistling birdcalls. Only a few were familiar to him. Pitch crackled gently near the riverbank, but he could not turn around.

He dared not.

They stared at one another for a moment in silence.

She twitched her right ear, annoyed by a gnat.

And when he shifted slightly, her eyes did not shift with him.

"Sister…"

From behind Ember there came a greeting both deep and delicate, a voice like an axe—one edge blunt, the other wicked sharp. Sweet, dark, enchanting. It froze the air for a moment, and then melted away, leaving him with nothing but the shivers leftover.

He turned, and saw the dying embers of a fire, over which rested a small simmering pot of stew. It was a homely but delicious-looking meal that Ember wished he could smell, but the dusty air of the atrium remained as it had always been.

It was neither the stew nor the fire which commanded his attention.

A woman was seated before it, clothed in nothing but the shifting light… and thick red hair, the color of a rich wine. It spilled across her shoulders in sumptuous waves and tangles, like a blood waterfall.

Ember had once been impressed by the length and thickness of Ky's hair, and she seemed to enjoy playing with it a great deal, but this vision before him possessed a veritable mane: abundant, trailing down well past her bare feet had she been standing, carefully cultivated and, from the way she had arranged it about her shoulders like a winter cape, no doubt a source of great pride. She bore up under the weight as if it were nothing. A taught frame and chiseled shoulders bespoke her strength, but drooping oily eyelids and a slow smile countered that with a peculiar laziness, as of one who enjoyed leisure more than the earning of it.

If she had webbed ears they were lost to the luxurious mane, but two black eyes glinted at him—they no more had a light of their own than would two polished stones. Her skin was pale and shimmered faintly, and as he was standing between her and Ky Veli, he feared he would be consumed by that stare.

"Come and eat," she beckoned him.

He knew she was speaking to the other sirena who lurked in the shadows, but Ember found himself drawn, one step at a time, toward the fire. His bare feet pressed upon cold, chipped flagstones, quietly breaking the illusion. Ky's footsteps rustled timidly in the leaves and he felt behind him with one hand, seeking—against all reason—her reassuring touch. His recent nightmares turned to dust before this redhaired beast; they were caught up together in her spell, Ky of the past and Ember of the present.

Of two things he was quite certain.

That this entire forest had somehow been conjured by the well…

And, if it were real, the creature who sat before the fire could do as she wished to him—with impunity.