Of the Well
A very short story, originally envisioned as the introduction for some longer piece. No direction I turned satisfied me, however, and I’ve since decided to leave this story as it is, as a short meditation on faith.
—
“I weary of these protests, Lady Laythe. The City needs soldiers, not promises.”
The Soldier-Keeper’s heavy iron soles clomped up the stone staircase wrapping around the Soldiers’ Tower like an amorous serpent. He had hoped to ascend in solitude, the rapid staccato of worn leather boots on the weathered stone behind him a persistent reminder of that wish.
On his heels climbed a woman slight of build, yet she met the Keeper’s speed with cautious grace, baby nestled in her arms, swaddled in her woolen cloak. “But they are true!” she pleaded. “I swear it on my husband’s grave! He has the Gods’ Gift, I swear!”
The Soldier-Keeper’s ornate, horned helm swiveled, but not to the beseeching woman, to the dark clouds encroaching the horizon. The air smelled of storm, and he wanted to reach his chambers. “This reeks of a ploy, Elren,” the Keeper warned. “We both know the consequence of shirking conscription.”
The mother’s heart became cold with fear. “My lord, I swear it on my life!”
“Swear until you are for want of breath, Lady Laythe. I cannot hold your words before a council. And your child has exhibited no preternatural behaviors as you have described.”
“I can prove it! Give me time and I can train him to use his power!”
The Keeper stopped at that, his deep laugh resonating amidst the escalating wind. “Its mewling tongue cannot yet parse language, yet you wager it can learn the occult?”
Elren stood tall, resolute. “If that is the first thing it- he learns, it will become instinctive to him. You would know such things; you would have him begin training to become a soldier at such an age for the same reason!”
A point well made. The Keeper sighed and turned away to resume his ascent. “Very well. You will have time to train the boy.”
“Oh thank you my lor-”
“One week,” the Keeper interrupted.
Elren’s relief quickly shattered into horror. “One week? My lord-”
“At the end of which there will be a trial to prove the veracity of your claims.”
“My lord, this training will take time!”
“Which I have given you,” the Keeper growled. “One week.”
Elren’s voice cracked with desperation. “A fortnight, at the very-”
“ONE WEEK!” The Keeper bellowed as he abruptly turned to face her, but he softened as he saw the pitiable gloom in Elren’s amber eyes and how it spilled over her cheeks. The baby began to whimper.
“One week from dawn,” he said much more softly, gaze drifting to the ashen midnight clouds. “If he has the Gift, then that should more than suffice. When that eighth sun rises, you will be summoned.”
With that, the Keeper strode quickly up the remaining stairs, feeling his relief at no longer hearing the importunate footfalls tempered by pity. Elren stood clutching her baby, watching the storm crawl forward before she began to walk back down the stairs in desolation.
As the eighth sun peeked over the horizon, a servant arrived at Elren’s chambers with a summons from the Soldier-Keeper, bidding her to come to the Well, a disquieting and dire proposal. Elren nevertheless removed her son from his crib and pulled her coarse brown cloak over her nightclothes, departing soon after. For most of the long walk, she kept her eyes on her child, drinking in his features with melancholy, preparing the need to sustain herself on memory alone. A week had been too little time, she thought, willing the tears to withhold.
She saw the distinctive points of his helm first as she climbed to the top of the verdant hill, baby asleep in her arms. Then his whole head appeared, stern and squarish jaw exposed under his mask of iron molded to resemble a weirwyn’s fearsome skull, a symbol of predation. Then she saw the top of the device which once lowered thieves and felons into the depths, the coil of rope which would unspool into the Well, and she blanched.
“Lady Elren Laythe,” the Soldier-Keeper boomed, not quite in greeting.
Elren noticed they were alone at the yawning chasm. “Did you see it unfit to invite other members of the council?”
The Keeper stood as resolute and obdurate as a statue. “It was unanimously decided that this was a matter I could attend to alone.”
“You spoke to the council?” A flicker of hope sparked in Elren’s heart.
The flicker was promptly extinguished as the Keeper’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “Yes. And they agreed that this trial was the best method for dealing with this… issue.” He extended a hand, his usual spiked gauntlet absent, brawny arms bare up to the pauldrons. “Now, give me the child.”
“What is it you plan…” Elren began, but pulled her baby close upon noticing the bucket fastened to the hanging rope. “You can't,” Elren gasped, turning pale as bone.
“Elren, the child,” the Keeper repeated, more forcefully.
“You will not send my son into that pit,” she hissed.
“It is the only-”
“It is not the only way and you know it-”
“Elren,” the Keeper began to grow angry, withdrawing his outstretched hand to place it on the hilt of his blade. Elren cried out and fell to her knees, weeping as she clutched the baby close.
The Keeper calmed himself and removed his hand from the sword. “Elren,” he said once more, but gently. “Does he truly hold the Gods’ Gift?”
Elren lifted her gaze, rivulets of sorrow pouring out from her eyes and down her pale cheeks. The baby seemed to be stirring.
“Does he hold the Gift?” the Keeper again asked.
Elren, brushing strands of burn-black hair away from her tears, nodded after a couple of sorrowful heaves. “I swear it.”
“Then he will survive,” the Keeper assured. “And he will return to us.”
Elren looked once more, one last time, at her child, as it gazed upon her with curious eyes. One hand clutching the baby to her heart, the other unfastened her cloak the color of earth, and she gently filled the bucket with it. A reminder, she hoped. At least a comfort.
The Keeper pulled a small wafer out of a pouch along his waist, which he gingerly fed to the child. Within seconds, the baby was asleep again. “A mild sleeping agent,” he explained. “If he returns, it would be best for him to be ignorant to his mother’s role in this.”
Breathing shakily, Elren began to reach out to place the infant in the bucket, hesitating, delaying, prompting the Soldier-Keeper to tenderly reach out and lift the child free of its mother, nestling the infant into the earthy folds of cloth before rotating the crank, sending the bucket down, down into the shadows, down far from the sight of man. Eventually, the rope slackened, as if the bucket had touched ground. The Keeper then produced a dirk and, with a flick of his wrist, severed the rope. Elren yelped in pain, as if he had excised the strings of her own heart, letting them fall lifelessly into the Well.
“Do remember that this was mercy bestowed upon you today.” The Soldier-Keeper turned and descended the hill, leaving Elren alone at the mouth of the Well.