The Dry Well

By Sue Bridgwater

SYNOPSIS

 

The Dry well is the continuing story of Saranna’s wanderings over the lands of Akent. After the emotional reunion with her brother Drewin that closed Shadows of the trees, Saranna travels on to the City of Sen-Mar in the hot southern land of IssKor. She is now searching for her

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eluth Publishing Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995453630

Sue Bridgwater

SUE BRIDGWATER was born in Plymouth in 1948 and has now retired home to Devon. She has generally earned her living as a librarian, and has been writing seriously since the early 1980s. Sue's main interest is in Fantasy and Science Fiction. She is currently working on novels in the Skorn sequence, some co-written with Alistair McGechie, and non-fiction in the field of mythopoeic studies, specialising in Tolkien Studies. She contributes editing and writing skills to Dreamworlds Publishing; http://www.dreamworldspub.org.uk/ and is CEO of Eluth Publishing - BlogSpot - sarannarandir.wordpress.com

Book preview

PROLOGUE

There was burning sand beneath his feet. Light speared upward from the sand, a blue shimmer obscured the horizon and a yellow glare wavered overhead. He looked down, trying to move rapidly to ease the burning of his feet. But he fell, scorching his hands and knees.

He began to crawl forward, but found no shade. His tears dried up, his lips were cracked and sore. Sand stung his face; he whimpered. He fell into darkness.

Dreaming of coolness beneath island trees, he strove to see the face of the woman who turned away from him. He thought she was weeping. In the dream, water sounds were everywhere; the swooshing of waves upon the shore, the splashing of fountains and waterfalls. He plodded towards a deep brown pool beneath a cliff face straggled with fern. The woman was gone. He could not reach the water.

A rough hand grasped his hair and a warm trickle dampened his stretched lips. A cracked voice hissed in his ear, ‘Look at me, destroyer. Look at me.’

He opened his eyes and the sun blazed into them. Turning his head he saw a face staring close to his. The face laughed. Tilted against his lips he felt the touch of glass. He swallowed the precious drops of moisture greedily. He tried to speak, but the owner of the face was chanting, crooning, eyes closed and body swaying. One hand still gripped his hair while the other pulled the ancient bottle away.

‘I want more,’ he whispered.

The song was ended. Dizziness swept over him and he thought the sky was turning above. The sun dwindled away into the blue, and the face above him was less and less distinct. He made one weak effort to twist away but found himself falling, falling out of the light and the heat into a place where silence wrapped around him and he lost all memory of day.

The City

Mal-Den stretched out his hand and leaned wearily against the window-frame. Outside, the black-robed figures moved in the slow ritual of evening, their voices stately in the thin, cooling air.

Conscious no doubt of his eyes upon them from behind the window, the celebrants stepped with agonised grace around the ancient mud-brick parapet, pausing after every three paces to face the well and bow low while they intoned the evening prayer;

‘Jaren, lord of drought

We thank you for this water.

‘Jaren, lord of dryness

We thank you for this water.

‘Jaren, lord of the desert

We thank you for this water.

‘Jaren, lord of death;

We thank you for our lives.’

On they paced for three more circuits, two plump old priests in their dusty black robes, their arms raised in token of supplication. Behind them came two novices in sleeveless gowns, their hands folded across their breasts as a mark of humility. Mal-Den sighed, and turned away from the window. He moved to his table of burnished cedar-wood and sat down. From the darkest corner of the room a life-sized statue, carved in dark wood, of a man in archaic robes stared blindly at the priest. Mal-Den gazed back at the image of his lord and god, Jaren the Terrible, Scourge of the Desert, Breath of the Burning Wind. Slowly his lips parted and he whispered, ‘Are you even real?’

The statue went on staring. Mal-Den looked around, into the familiar shadows. He buried his face in his hands and sat on in the growing dark. Silence fell outside as the celebrants concluded their ritual and moved away about other business. Inside, man and statue waited, still and quiet as the grave.

Beyond the decorous precincts of the temple of Jaren, the city of Sen-Mar was filled with noise and movement. People jammed the streets; nobles and artisans, peasants from the precarious coastal and oasis farms and the inhabitants of the disreputable Southgate. Even some black-robed priests and novices wandered about, their usually hard faces wreathed in smiles. Smells of wine and beer, of food cooked in palm-oil and of sweating bodies, mingled and arose into the early evening air. Both the city gates stood open wide, and the sentries lounged at their posts.

At the Northgate a blockage of the roadway was causing amusement to some and fury to others, as city-dwellers who had drifted out along the coast road on this rare holiday clashed with farming folk who had hastened in to enjoy the delights of the city and were now trying to get home again. Laden donkeys, hand carts, horse-drawn chariots and wagons had come to a standstill in the gateway and people were screaming abuse or advice at one another in roughly equal measures. The guards stood back and laughed, heedless of the fact that most of the abuse was being hurled at them.

‘Do something, ye apostate idlers! Sort this lot of heathens out! Earn your wages for a change!’ A small red-faced farmer jumped up and down in front of the guards as he shouted.

Others joined in. ‘That’s right, tell ‘em. We wants to get home this night.’

‘All right, all right, you smelly soil-grubbers, cool down! We’ll soon have you on your way.’ A sergeant, emerging from the small guardhouse built into the wall, broke up the quarrel. Grumbling, his men followed him into the chaos and began to direct some people to the left, some to the right, some to back up and some to push forward.

‘Mind where you’re stepping, you unwashed peasant pig! Them’s my good sandals put on special for the festival!’ One guard was flinging people out of his way left and right, tumbling them and their possessions to the ground in his haste.

A comrade rebuked him. ‘Hold on, Mor-Len, duty’s soon over. Then it’s the tavern for us, and the procession. Torchlight and a grand parade, and the princess in all her finery - think of that.’

Mor-Len’s grunt suggested that he thought very little of it. He seized a fat old woman by the elbows and propelled her through the gate, running along behind her until she was onto the open road. He took no notice of her screams and protests. ‘Get on, you old cow! If you can’t stop for the procession our good king’s put on special for you, it’s your own fault. Get off to your stinking little hut. Don’t deserve holidays and festivals and that, you peasant hag!’

Stung to tears, the old woman tottered off down the road, and Mor-Len turned, looking for a new victim. As he swung around, he almost bumped into someone standing still and quiet against the city wall, close to the gateway. Startled, he stayed where he was and said nothing. The figure stepped forward and spoke to him.

‘I see that you are busy, guardsman; but please tell me, will it soon be safe to pass through into the city? I cannot push through this crowd, but must find lodging before night falls.’

Mor-Len stared. The soft voice came from a woman, wrapped in a travel-stained cloak that might have belonged to any beggar. Yet she’s no peasant or Southgate trash – look at her eyes, brighter than them stars up there. And expecting too. What’s the likes of her doing on the road? Best mind me aitches. He bowed as smartly as he could. ‘My Lady, please allow me to assist you. I will guide you through the crowd with pleasure.’

She smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back. Proudly he offered her his arm, and swaggered with her through the gate, crying, ‘Way there! Clear the way! Let the lady through, you ignorant devils!’

Soon he had brought his charge safely inside the city. She gave him another smile. ‘Thank you. You are very gallant.’

Some of Mor-Len’s comrades sniggered as they overheard this unlikely compliment. He drew himself upright, bowed to his lady, and boldly planted a respectful kiss upon her hand. The sniggering broke out into whistles and catcalls. Mor-Len and his protégée ignored them. ‘Can I do any more for you, my lady?’

‘Only direct me to the part of the city known as the Southgate, if you would.’

‘The Southgate? What does a lady like you want with that rabble, begging your pardon?’

‘I have a message to deliver. So if you would direct me - ?’

Shaking his head, Mor-Len looked about until his eye fell on a small skinny boy sneaking past into the city. ‘Here! You! Cummere!’

The urchin looked as if he would flee, but then shrugged and slouched across. ‘What d’yer want?’

‘I want you to take this lady safe through the streets and through the square and into the Southgate, and not to leave her until she’s got to where she wants to get. Understand?’

The boy shrugged again. ‘What’s it worth?’

‘I can give you a small reward,’ said the woman; the boy stared up at her.

‘And if any harm befalls her, I can give you a thrashing you’ll never forget.’

‘All right. This way, lady.’

Before moving away the woman turned back to Mor-Len. ‘I should like to thank you for your trouble, guardsman.’

‘No, no lady, it was nothing. Really.’

‘At least accept my blessing, if you will. May the peace of the Lady attend your path forever.’

Startled, Mor-Len looked quickly around - O please don’t let the sergeant hear, great Jar en save me - but no one had heard her dreadful blasphemy, not even the waiting urchin. And strange to say, it did not seem to have harmed him. He felt a little less cross and tired, if anything.

He watched his lady move slowly away beside the bemused boy, and vanish in the festival crowd. ‘And lord Jaren bless you, too, lady,’ he said softly.

Towards midnight Mal-Den was roused from an uneasy doze by the faintest of scratches upon the outer surface of his door. He sprang to his feet and crossed the room.

‘Who is there?’

‘We are here, Jar-Den,’ came a familiar voice. Mal-Den sighed deeply and opened the door. Two black-robed and hooded figures slipped past him, and as he shut the door they cast back their hoods to reveal their faces. One, like Mal-Den himself, was a man of sixty; the other so ancient he seemed scarcely able to stand. His face was lined and shrivelled. Yet he, like his companion, bowed before Mal-Den.

‘Hail Jar-Den, Voice of Jaren,’ they intoned.

‘Hail Jar-Dal and Jar-Men, Servants of Jaren,’ he replied, then gestured impatiently towards the door and muttered, ‘Come, let us be about our business, my brethren.’ They bowed again and preceded him through the door.

Solemnly the triad of Jaren’s servants passed along stone-flagged corridors in the secret places of his temple. Around corners and down stairs; always down and down until they passed through a short passageway and came to a heavy wooden door. Here the aged Jar-Men drew out from beneath his robes a massive key, and unlocked the door. Beyond, stairs wound yet further down into the darkness, and the three began to descend. The old man faltered and stumbled, and Mal-Den took him by the arm. ‘Al-Nen, my brother, you should not subject yourself to this nightly journey. The two of us must contrive to bear the burden alone, you are old now and should spare yourself.’

The aged head shook from side to side, and Al-Nen gripped his companion’s hands. ‘No! I thank you for your care, but no! My lord Jaren asks this service of us, bitter though it be, and I shall not falter until my spirit leaves me. Let us get on now, the night passes.’

Down and down again they went, by the light of one flickering torch borne by Jar-Men. At length they came to another door and beyond that a cavern. Here a spring of clear water welled in a fissure of the rock, and formed a brimming pool. Buckets lay there, heavy wooden pails with handles of rope, and the three companions stooped to fill these at the well. Then, carrying five buckets between them, they set out on the long return journey. The old man’s breath was rasping as they re-entered Mal-Den’s room.

‘Sit here, brother. That is my command,’ ordered Mal-Den.

‘As Jar-Den wills,’ he gasped. Nodding to the third priest, Mal-Den took up his burden and led the way into the courtyard, the inner court of the temple. Passing by the holy Place of Jaren the Proud, the inmost sanctum, they bowed their heads, but did not pause until they came to the holy well. Lifting the wooden cover they emptied into it the contents of four buckets, then of the fifth that Mal-Den hastened to fetch.

‘Will it suffice, Jar-Den?’

Mal-Den peered into the well, shook his head. ‘I fear we must make one more journey at the least. But I will send the old one to his bed; he cannot continue.’

‘As Jar-Den wills.’

Through the silent hours of the chill night the two returned, refilled their buckets, and bore them back along the empty passageways and up the long stairs from the hidden spring. It was almost dawn by the time they had made their final journey, to return the pails to the secret cave. Mal-Den dismissed his weary companion, and fell into his narrow bed. The empty stare of the statue regarded him impassively as he surrendered to his long-delayed sleep.

‘Stay! Please slow your pace, young man. You will leave me behind.’ Reluctantly the boy stopped, and turned to look back at the lady who was weaving a slow path through the revelling crowd, trying to catch up with him. He heaved an exaggerated sigh and struck a waiting pose, hands on his hips like an angry parent held up by his child. ‘Ain’t got all night, lady,’ he grumbled as she came up to him.

‘No indeed; and it is very good of you to set me on my path. But remember that I do not know your city and also I am older than you - and slower.’

He glanced at her belly and hastily away again. ‘Forgot about that,’ he mumbled.

‘Now walk beside me and talk with me. Tell me about all that we see as we go along.’ She smiled down at him and held out her hand. At first he stared into her face sullenly, thrusting both his hands behind his back. The lady looked steadily at him until, abruptly, he brought one hand back into view, wiped it on his ragged britches, and put it awkwardly into her hand. They set out again through the crowd.

‘What you called, lady?’

‘I am Saranna; and what is your name?’

‘Ar-Nen. I’m the oldest, nine summers seen. The littles need me.’

‘Your brothers and sisters?’

‘Three sisters, us two lads, and old Grand. Need a lot of food and stuff for all them.’

‘Yes. I am sure that you do.’ Saranna listened and nodded as her young guide poured out to her the story of his life. They made slow but steady progress through the crowd, and all at once came out of the narrow street into a great open place. Ar-Nen broke off the tale of his father’s death at the hands of the temple guards, and waved an expansive arm. ‘This here’s the square, the Place of the Majesty of Jaren the Terrible the priests call it. We just say the square. Over there’s the temple where lord Jaren lives.’

Saranna saw a towering column in the centre of the open space, and upon it the vast figure of the god, Jaren, represented as a man of great stature. Saranna stared up into the gathering darkness for a time then turned away with a shudder. ‘Is the square always so full? Do the people come here to worship the lord Jaren each day in such numbers?’

‘No, lady. This lot are all waiting for the procession. Shouldn’t be long now, it’s getting dark. Our princess is being betrothed, see, to this Tel-Kor, so he can be the king when the old king’s dead. Soon they’ll all come down here to the temple...’ Ar-Nen stopped, as he felt Saranna’s hand suddenly grip his shoulder. What’s she doing? Oh lord Jaren, she’s falling over! What’s up?

She leaned towards him, her weight pressing him down. ‘Hey! What is it, lady? Here, you lot, my lady’s fainting, someone lend a hand!’

Ar-Nen and some of those waiting nearby helped Saranna to sit down on the low stone parapet of one of the fountains that graced the square. Ar-Nen put a protective arm around her. ‘What is it, lady?’

‘Nothing - I will be better soon. You were telling me of - of Tel-Kor?’

‘That’s right, him that was a foreigner. Now he’s the vizier, no less. If we wait to see him go by, and all the other grand folks too, would you like that?’

‘I should indeed. But have you time to wait with me? I shall need help to find the way to the Southgate.’

Ar-Nen shrugged his eloquent shrug. ‘Don’t see why not,’ he muttered.

Far to the south and east of the city of Sen-Mar, near to the foothills of the Spine Range that divides in two the southern lands of Akent, darkness lay soft and still upon a small cluster of tents; square tents the colour of the desert sand and almost invisible until you stumbled over their coarse ropes of woven goat-hair. Tents where men and women and children slept, far from the noise and revels and sorrows of the city.

In the finest tent, set at the heart of the cluster, the Old One turned over in her sleep and came suddenly awake, her heart racing. She sat up and peered into the dark, struggling for breath. ‘A dream, just a dream, old fool.’ Reaching out in the dark she found both lamp and tinder, struck a dim and flickering light. Then she groped under her pillow and drew out a bundle of cloth. Unwinding this she revealed a small bottle of dark glass, tightly corked and sealed with wax. The Old One brought the lamp closer to the bottle and peered through the glass. The light awoke an answering flicker within and a movement, as if something were trapped inside yet still lived and struggled for freedom. She nodded, satisfied, and smiled as she saw the fluttering inside the glass. ‘All safe, my pretty. Warm and safe.’

Secreting the bottle once more, she extinguished the light and lay down again to sleep.

‘Here it is, lady.’

‘Thank you, Ar-Nen. Is it far to your own home?’

He shook his head, and turned away.

‘Wait - let me give you a small reward for your trouble.’

The boy took a step away from her.

‘But you must - think of all your little ones at home. I should like to give you something for them.’

Ar-Nen looked puzzled, then sighed heavily and held out his small, dirty hand. Saranna placed some coins on his palm and closed the hand gently with her own, saying, ‘Thank you again. You have been a true friend to a weary and lonely traveller. May the Lady bless you.’

The child shuffled his feet, and muttered something. Saranna stooped lower to hear him.

‘Dunno what lady you mean - but she can’t be no nicer than you.’

Saranna planted a gentle kiss on the grubby cheek nearest her, and Ar-Nen’s eyes opened wide with shock. Then, smiling so broadly that Saranna could not help but smile in return, he dashed away and was gone - like a small grey shadow, she thought - into the winding lanes of the Southgate.

In the place where he was there was never more than a dim greyness of light, and that at intervals so infrequent that by the time one came along he had forgotten all previous interludes.

Mostly he lay or squatted or paced a few short, tight paces in a blackness so absolute that on occasion he doubted his own presence there. He could not see, not even his own palm pressed painfully against his staring eyes. His mind retained no memory of a time when he had not been confined there, he could not recall that he had ever slept or indeed ever felt weariness, that he had ever eaten or even felt hungry. He paced only because pacing was a relief from squatting. He squatted only when it seemed to him that he had been lying down for a very long time indeed and needed to move.

In the darkness there was no more sound than light, and he himself never spoke; he had forgotten about speech.

Now out of nothingness and darkness came one of the infrequent irruptions of dim light. He knew that it was coming when the place he was in began to shake and move. He had been lying down; now the surface on which he lay began to tilt, and he to slide upon it. With a crash he collided with another hard surface at a right-angle to the one he slid on. His mind groped thickly for little-used words to feel with. Wall. Floor? Fall. Wall. There was a moving away of something somewhere and he was no longer in deepest dark. There was grey about him. He stood up on the hard flat surface that he had just bumped into. Four other surfaces stretched away above his head, but he did not look upwards for long because darkness remained there, high above. He braced his back against the hardness and felt – what? Feet. His feet on another surface. Not wall-floor! This time the silent word was right. Floor.

He turned about and faced the upright surface nearest him. He patted it with his hands, peered at it closely, sniffed it and licked it with his tongue. Cold and smooth. Greyness beyond. Wall! And then another silent, melancholy word in his mind: trapped. Leaning his head against the hardness, he was startled by a suddenness of something else beyond the surface, brightness flickering amid the grey. Pressing his face and hands close against the wall, he tried to see the brightness more clearly; but it moved, receded, and in its place came a denser shadow, darker against the misty grey.

He thought he heard a noise, a sound muffled in his ears as though it came from far away. Then the brightness winked away back into nothing, and blackness absolute obliterated from his sight the walls and floor and from his mind the words with which to know them.

‘Hello! Is anybody there? Mistress Tamnet, are you within?’ Saranna knocked again, still harder, upon the door before her. At last she heard noises from inside the house, and a voice answering her.

‘Who’s there?’

‘A stranger, mistress; a traveller from far lands. I seek the lady named Tamnet, sister to master Kor-Sen, late of the Academy of Drelk.’ There was a cry from behind the door, followed by a crash.

Saranna waited quietly while bolts and bars clattered, and at length a face appeared beyond a narrow crack as the door was drawn slightly ajar. ‘What is your name, stranger? And how may I know that your tale is true?’

‘Tamnet. Tamnet, dear sister, I am Saranna.’

A long silence followed; then the woman drew back the door a little further and thrust through the gap a candle in a battered tin holder. She peered closely at Saranna’s face.

‘You are, in truth, like the lady my brother told of, traveller. Yet it is no small thing, here in the Southgate in these days, to admit an unknown wanderer to the hearth.’

Saranna smiled. ‘I have seen Kor-Sen, Tamnet, less than a year ago. I have much news for you.’

There followed yet a longer silence, during which those neighbours who had been curious enough to peer through their shutters at the sound of Saranna’s knocking, closed them up again in disgust. Tamnet’s anxious face suddenly relaxed, and she smiled a wide smile that made Saranna’s heart turn over, it was so like Kor-Sen’s.

‘I think I may believe you - for if we have no trust,