Chapter Fifteen – The Weeping Well

  They were all gathered in the living room, protected behind Captain Sevanya’s wards.

  Settie sat nervous—she was trying to hide it, but Gray could sense it because she was being a bit more careful with her words, and she was trying to be encouraging. Yes, the dragon lady being nice was more unnerving than the sloth dogs they’d seen the night before XXX.

  Settie smiled even as a trickle of sweat leaked down her face. “The way is clear to the Well. We are going to run there, take a moment to appreciate the history, and then we are going to run back. We’ll spar on the street in front of my house.”

  Midj was holding Gray’s hand, and she was sweating as well. She squeezed it. “You stay close to us, Grayson Fade. I’ve been able to manage a couple of mana hands, back-to-back, but it takes a lot out of me. You giving me mana makes all the difference.”

  “We’ll stick together,” he said.

  Midj nodded.

  Tomi grunted. “Well, this is fun. Everyone is sweaty and scared. We get a murder last night, a big fight this morning, and now we’re taking a little break by running to ancient portal of evil. Good times. Good times.”

  “This is not a break,” Settie said. “This is training. And you all should get used to being in Old Town. When you’re full manamancers on kill squads, this will be your life. But then, you won’t be trying to avoid demons, you’ll be hunting them for their mana. Now, let’s proceed.”

  Rynn shot Gray a worried glance, and then, they were out on the street, on their way to the Weeping Well. They all carried swords on their backs, except for Ames, who had both a sword and spear.

  Gray ran with his sword on his back and his stick in his hand. He wasn’t sure which he trusted more.

  Settie was out front with Rynn and Ames behind her. Gray ran with Midj with a disgruntled Tomi trailing. It was their familiar pattern for running, and like always, Midj began to sing one of her little songs. “Taking a trip to hell, taking a trip to hell. Ain’t it swell, going to hell, hope we’ll live, but who can tell?”

  Tomi hissed from behind them. “Not helping.”

  The sound of their footfalls filled the silence, echoing off the sides of the crumbling houses and buildings around them. The sky was a cold ceiling of gray clouds.

  Gray was familiar with the neighborhoods around Rini Manor, since he’d run them when he’d first been brought to the Belly. In those early days, he’d been so curious about the Weeping Well, but Captain Sevanya hadn’t wanted to risk it.

  Then he’d gotten swept up in the drama of First Field, his new love, and Culling Day.

  The excitement was building, and he couldn’t wait.

  Ames dropped back to run with them, and the dark elf turned to smile at him. “Some of these buildings were built by the Troublemaker. When he flung open the gates of hell, and all of hell’s royalty emerged, they built fabulous palaces and houses for themselves. It was during the Third God War that Shuddertown was built.”

  “Demons fighting angels,” Tomi added behind them. “No gods, but you know, an archduke is kind of like a god. Tell us about the Cambrosians, Ames. You know you want to.”

  “Most of these houses were built by the Cambrosians,” she said.

  Midj grumbled. “And I get teased for singing. My little song, which helped me relax, is a lot more interesting than this boring history stuff. Who are the Cambrosians again?”

  Tomi answered behind them. For once, she wasn’t complaining, but then, she was talking about history, which she loved. “The Cambrosia League was a coalition formed by the cities of half-demon blood races that had cities all along the coast. The Quelling elves on the Mal’Mireth Peninsula, the cambion orcs in Pubis Port, and the dark fae in the Thistle Mire, that’s the swamps on the other side of the Belly from Mal’Mireth. They did trade with the demonic royalty and the rest of the world.”

  “That is correct,” Ames said quietly.

  “So boring,” Midj complained.

  “You’re getting too jaded, Midj,” Tomi said with a laugh. “Here we are, taking a trip back through time when huge demonic palaces circled the literal gateway to hell, and you’re bored.”

  “And the towers, there,” Ames pointed. “The towers that sealed the Weeping Well for generations. Forged with Quelling magic. The Quelling, the descendants of the Troublemaker himself.”

  In the distance, they could three of the six remaining towers—from right to left, the Lust Tower, the Gluttony Tower, and the Greed Tower. The other towers were hidden either by the city itself or by the clouds, or just they were so far away.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The Weeping Well had to be massive.

  With her long legs, Ames could easily keep up with Gray, but Midj had to start burning mana. Her little legs were whirring underneath her.

  Ames turned to him. “The Quelling are the Troublemaker’s children, but we helped close the Well. That should be important. That should be enough for the rest of the world to forgive us.”

  “You don’t get teased for being a Quelling, not that I’ve seen. Not like Rynn.”

  Ames took a moment to catch her breath before she could respond. “They are jealous of Rynnanatha because of her angel heritage, jealous and hateful. They fear the Quelling because there is a darkness in us. In me.”

  Gray remembered something. “Like this morning, with the orcs. What did you do to them?”

  “Like the rest of us, my second mark is burning, but already, it has given me another skill. If I can heal, I can hurt.” She turned to him. “In the Ambition Instinct, there is both envy and kindness, but then there is the opposite of kindness. There is cruelty.”

  Tomi heard that and just had to respond. “The goddess of kindness became the goddess of cruelty in the Second God War. The Troublemaker killed her and used her blood to weaken the magic sealing the Weeping Well closed.”

  “Three damn gods wars and the fall of Alastria,” Midj complained. “And one of the god wars didn’t even have any gods fighting in it, just angels and demons. It’s all such a waste of time to even consider.”

  Gray wanted to hear more about Ames’s cruelty skill, but then, the captain turned around. “Enough of that chatter. We are nearing the Weeping Well. We need to stay vigilant. While the Well is still mostly sealed, enough to prevent the royals from emerging, their offspring can sneak through.”

  Gray knew there was a big difference between the royalty of hell, which had sentience, and the demonic animals he’d seen since his first days in Old Town. But were those animals offspring of the royals? How did that work? He’d have to ask Ames later. She seemed to know more about the demons than anyone. Well, Settie might know more, but she hated questions.

  They took a turn down a main avenue, which was nothing but crumbled rock. There were few pillars, but it looked like someone had sheared off the tops. Around them was just gravel and weeds. Some of the walls had lichen clinging to it. The place had almost entirely been destroyed. He saw something that looked like a temple—had they worshiped the gods of the seven instincts there? Or had they worshiped the demonic royalty?

  Gray’s attention was pulled away. They were coming up on the vast pit of the Weeping Well.

  They stopped at the edge. A freezing wind blew out of the black depths of the hole—and that was what it was – vast hole in the world lined with stones that had, at one point, had all sorts of designs carved into their surface. Some were words, others were friezes of people, but time had basically erased all of the original designs.

  The sides of the hole were smooth rock—unnaturally polished a black color. It was far bigger than Gray would’ve thought. Was it a mile to the other side? Perhaps not, but it was at least a quarter mile if not more. And it was perfectly circular.

  Glancing back, Gray saw the Hellbinder Barricade rising up above the crumbling ruins. He could also see the Pride Tower far in the distance.

  Then, his eyes were drawn back to the absolute darkness of the hole. And it was so cold, he started to shiver. No wonder the rain turned to snow. No wonder the breeze was so chilly in the summertime.

  That vast hole was cold darkness personified.

  No one said anything.

  It was finally Tomi who said something. “This was here before the world. The world was built around it. It was the goddess of lust who wanted the love nest the most. She would’ve just created the Belly and not cared about anything else. It was the God of Chastity that opened the doorway at the Crown and insisted on a proper world. I guess what I’m trying to say is that…this isn’t just history. It’s myth. And I’m seeing it. Mother’s whiskers, I’m seeing it.”

  “Yes,” Settie snapped. “It’s a big, cold fucking hole in the world that’s dangerous. Let’s consider ourselves lucky that we’re not fighting for our lives and leave. Immediately.”

  But Gray didn’t want to go. He might not see it again for a long time. That darkness was so complete, and even though it was cloudy, there was enough light that they should’ve been able to see farther down. But no, he couldn’t see anything.

  Wait. There was a flicker of light, a jagged piece of lightning, but not vertical, horizontal, along the surface of that darkness. It was silent, but he smelled a rank odor, a sulfurous stink. But then the strange lightning was gone.

  For a moment, though, he saw yellow mana rising from the surface like a mist before it dissipated. He blinked. Was that new mana coming into the world?

  “Has anyone tried to go down there?” he asked.

  Settie sighed. “Questions. Fucking questions. What do you think, Gray?”

  “I don’t know. It’s why I asked.”

  “You’d have to be an idiot to go down there,” Midj breathed. “That cold isn’t right. But then it all feels wrong. I’m with the captain. We need to run away, and I never want to think about this place ever again.”

  It was no surprise Rynn was quiet. Around other people, she had two speeds—silent or rambling, though with their squad, she had relaxed some.

  But Ames? This was the perfect time for her to say something strange.

  No. But she took one step, then two, then three, toward the edge.

  Gray grabbed her arm. “Hold up, Ames. Not too close.”

  “My ancestor is down there, still, in palaces made of bones, in the flickering light of lakes of fire. All manner of abominations are there, the children of rot. Purtrid things that only know hunger, only know lust, never satisfied. Never satisfied.”

  She blinked. “They’re coming. You have to let me.”

  “Let you do what?” I asked.

  And then the hissing started, rising up from the top of the darkness. The hissing became a whistle that felt like someone was cutting into Gray’s bone. Along with the horrific whistle was a crackling crunch, like a street dog chewing chicken bones.

  Fingers of lightning crisscrossed the pit. In the next second, sloth dogs leapt out of those cracks in the darkness. One was on the ledge next to them, and Settie hurled a fireball into the thing. The thing yelped, lost its grip on the edge, and then fell whimpering into the darkness. It was swallowed up. Gray waited for the sound of the thing hitting bottom, but it never did.

  But another of the dogs had latched onto a stone on the other side with one of its long, green tentacles. The other tentacled lashed out and grabbed another of the dogs, then another, until there was a half-dozen of the green, tentacles sloth dogs, all floating there, until each of them was pulled onto the ledge.

  It all happened so fast that Gray wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  “Run!” Settie shouted. And then, she ripped through her clothes as her body transformed into that of a long black dragon.

  But three of the dogs were in the way, all growling, slavering, and clearly wanting to devour them whole.