Well of the d.a.m.ned.

The Kinshield Saga.

by K.C. May.

Chapter 1.

Sithral Tyr had been trapped in a long, dreamless slumber. He knew as he started to awaken that something was terribly wrong. Before he even opened his eyes, his body was besieged by a pain so intense as to drive him to the brink of madness. It centered in his spine and pulsed with every frenzied beat of his heart and, mercifully, faded to numbness as it spread from his hips towards his feet. He couldn't move. The lack of feeling in his legs left him with no sense of where they were.

Tyr opened his eyes for a moment and was horrified by what he saw: a monster- no, a demon. Half again as tall as a man but black as night and glossy with a triangular head, it stood over him, blood dripping from its six-inch claws. He shut his eyes again, hoping to be mistaken for dead. This was impossible. Such a creature didn't truly exist, but the foul stench of decay and the m.u.f.fled screams coming from below were real. An alien memory came to him of its black eyes glittering with antic.i.p.ation as it sank its claws into him.

"Stop," a man cried in a voice shrill with fear. He sounded close, but Tyr didn't dare open his eyes again to see. "I'm your summoner. I called you forth as my champion. You're bound to me."

Familiarity danced around Tyr's mind. A man he knew perhaps, but the pain in his back made his thoughts sluggish and put recognition out of reach.

"You are mistaken," it said. Its tri-tonal voice felt like knives slicing Tyr's ears to ribbons. "I am bound to Crigoth Sevae. You do not command me."

Then he heard the man choking, followed by a sharp intake of breath and the thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

The screaming below started anew but faded to silence as Tyr's mind lost the battle with pain. He slipped into comfortable nothingness.

When he next awoke, all was quiet, and a merciful, heavenly warmth was flowing into his body, washing away the pain as water did blood from a wound. He willed it to continue, nearly coming to tears with relief. The sensation of pinp.r.i.c.ks moved down his legs and dissipated as the agony in his back faded to a dull ache. After a moment, he could feel his feet and even wiggle his toes. With his mind no longer clenched in pain, a memory began to take shape: being stabbed in the belly by the sword of Daia Saberheart and sinking to his knees in the weeds beside the road while blood and entrails filled his hands. Distantly he wondered why the pain was in his back rather than in his gut.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the warrant knight Gavin Kinshield kneeling beside him, looking at him curiously. "You!" Tyr said. Then he caught sight of his surroundings. This wasn't the road where he and his friend Toren had battled Kinshield and Saberheart but a cottage upon whose wooden floor he lay, unarmed and defenseless.

Tyr blinked, confused, unsure how he'd gotten here. Images of an otherworldly demon plagued his thoughts. Not far away, his former a.s.sociate Brodas Ravenkind lay unmoving. He must have been the man Tyr had heard begging for his life. Then that would have meant the demon was real. Ravenkind's guard Red and two women battlers were also dead. Then he saw what was left of his token, a green cat figurine made of porcelain. He had chosen it to house his soul when the clan elders condemned him for saving the children of his village several years earlier. Now it lay shattered on the floor.

Kinshield took him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Pain flared in Tyr's hip and shoulder, not completely healed. "You can thank me later," Kinshield said. "Now you're going to gaol."

Gaol? Before Tyr had a chance to understand what was happening, Kinshield pulled him roughly outside. Tyr blinked hard in the bright sunshine while his eyes struggled to adjust. "What are the charges?" he asked. His voice was higher in pitch than usual but not high enough to sound effeminate.

Two women battlers bound his wrists with a leather strap. That was when he first saw that his hands were much paler than they should have been and lacked the tattooed ward lines he'd had since he was born. Seeing his unwarded hands was shocking, but when he saw b.r.e.a.s.t.s jutting from his chest, he cried out in alarm.

A woman? How is this possible?

He thought of the soulcele token shattered on the floor, his memory of being stabbed on the road and subsequent dreamless slumber, this new body. By the G.o.ds! He hadn't been asleep. He'd been dead.

Things were starting to make sense. The previous owner of this body must have died at the hands of the monster he'd seen, and Tyr's soul, released from the token, had taken up residence, submitting him to the excruciating pain of the injury that had caused her death. "Where's the demon?" he asked his captors. "It killed- tried to kill me. It killed Ravenkind."

"King Gavin saved you," one of the battlers told him, a woman who looked vaguely familiar. "He saved us all."

King Gavin? he wondered. How long have I been dead?

The next couple of hours pa.s.sed quickly. Tyr was taken to the Lordover Tern's gaol and walked forcibly down a corridor while prisoners on both sides hooted and whistled and propositioned him. He was put in a cell that measured roughly one and a half paces by two with stained brick walls. The bed was a canvas hammock whose four corners were tied to a stiff iron bed frame. Dark, wet filth had gathered in the corners of the cell where the floor met the walls. The smell of old human waste and sweat permeated the gaol, causing Tyr and the other prisoners to cough, sometimes in uncontrollable fits.

He was given a dented, tin cup and two buckets, one filled with water and the other empty. He looked down into the water bucket at his reflection. For all his thirty-three years, the only reflection he'd ever known was Sithral Tyr's narrow, angular face with the black lines and swirls around his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The face looking back at him now was not only more feminine but wider of jaw, thicker of lips, and rounder of eye. The b.u.t.ton nose had a b.u.mp at the bridge. The chin was flat and smooth, lacking his whiskers and cleft. He touched the soft, black hair that hung forward and pushed it back over his ears as he gazed into the dark eyes. Who was this woman and how had she died, leaving a body that, with a bit of magic healing, was perfectly serviceable? She hadn't even been dead long enough to soil her clothes before Tyr's soul took it over.

He lay on the bed and tentatively explored his new body with slender fingers, trying to force his mind to grasp what his hands were telling him. He was a woman now, and judging from the thickness of his forearms and the hardness of his biceps and legs, a battler. The Tyr he'd always been was male. Could he learn to think of himself as a she? He'd always considered the women of Thendylath pathetic, foolish seductresses. Now he was one of them, but he didn't feel any less dignified or wise. The notion both disturbed and intrigued him. At least he was alive, by the grace of the G.o.ds he thought had forsaken him and, he thought grudgingly, Gavin Kinshield.

He looked up and saw someone peering at him through the little window in the door, a man with black hair and beard and decisive eyes.

"Who's there?" Tyr asked, sitting up. "What do you want?"

"You'll find out soon enough," the visitor said. He chuckled and walked away.

Chapter 2.

Some hours later, after the sun had set and the gaol was lighted only by a few lamps on the walls in the corridor, roaches and centipedes crawled boldly across the floor and up the walls. Several pairs of footsteps approached, but the bugs didn't bother to hide. Tyr stood against his cell door, looking out through the square opening. The black-beard returned with two guards and a squat, well-dressed man, who wore his long, white hair braided and tied back into a single tail, and another braid in his gray beard. The old man's eyebrows were so bushy, he ought to have braided them as well. The guards each held an oil lamp. This new visitor put on a pair of spectacles.

"Who're you?" Tyr asked.

The black-beard struck the iron door with the underside of his fist hard enough to make it clang. He was dressed in the red and black livery of the Lordover Tern. "Shut your mouth, wench, or I'll shut it for you. Continue, Chancellor."

The white-hair unrolled a scroll, and began to read aloud. "I, Feelic Durras, Chancellor to the Lordover Tern, hereby proclaim, by the power granted to me by His Lordship, that the following charges are brought against Cirang Deathsblade..."

Cirang Deathsblade. The name was unfamiliar to him yet fit comfortably in his mind like well worn boots. Yes, he thought as a memory surfaced. That had been her name, the woman whose body he now owned.

"... formerly of the Viragon Sisterhood, in the name of the King of Thendylath. Charge one: murder of the man Rogan Kinshield, a husband, father and brother."

"Wait," Tyr said. "I'm innocent of this charge."

"Quiet, wench," the black-beard barked.

"You'll have your chance to address these charges during your hearing before the lordover," the chancellor said. He looked back down at his paper. "Charges two through eleven: kidnapping of the woman Liera Kinshield and her three sons, kidnapping of the woman Feanna Vetrin and her three daughters, and kidnapping of two Viragon Sisters, Nasharla and Dona. Charge twelve: treason against the King and the Kingdom of Thendylath."

"Is that all?" Tyr asked. He yawned.

The chancellor huffed and bl.u.s.tered, rolling up the scroll hastily. "I suggest, young lady, that you more carefully consider the att.i.tude you display in the face of such serious charges. c.o.c.kiness is unflattering in a woman. Perhaps you require extra time to consider your manner before the lordover hears your response."

Tyr listened to the men's footsteps fade down the hall. He had no memory of kidnapping anyone or doing anything treasonous, and had only learned there was a king earlier that day. These allegations were false, though proving his innocence might be challenging.

As soon as the door shut at the end of the corridor, his fellow prisoners broke their silence.

"Who's the new king, Cirang?" his neighbor asked. "Tell us his name."

If the knowledge was uncommon, then that must have meant Gavin Kinshield had only recently claimed his place on the throne. There Tyr was, in gaol, and already he had something to bargain with. "What's that information worth to you?" he asked.

"Even if I had coins to pay for it, you'll never be able to spend it."

"You'll be lucky if you don't lose your head," someone else said. "Tell us who the king is."

"If I tell you, then you will each owe me a favor, payable at my request."

"Yeh, sure."

Other prisoners agreed to the terms, probably thinking that Tyr would never be able to collect. "All right, we owe you one favor each," the first fellow said. "Who is he?"

"The new king of Thendylath," Tyr said, "is the warrant knight Gavin Kinshield."

Some of the prisoners cursed or groaned in despair. Others expressed outrage that a 'ranter could rule a country. Tyr lay back down on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, smiling into the darkness.

Of all the predicaments Sithral Tyr had ever found himself in, the most annoying was being a woman. The first time he squatted over the p.i.s.s bucket, he messed his trousers. The menses came after a few days, and it embarra.s.sed him to have to constantly ask the guards for rags to wear between his legs. They made him rinse the b.l.o.o.d.y ones himself and drape them over the posts of his bed to dry. The cramp in his lower belly was terribly uncomfortable, and his request for pain tea went ignored. He found no relief aside from the pa.s.sage of time when the menses ended their course.

Eventually, Tyr learned to remember bits of Cirang's life as a girl, a woman and a sword fighter, yet he also remembered his own life as a Nilmarion man, husband and father. He remembered traveling to Thendylath aboard a ship pulled through the water by two huge sea snakes, committing his first murder, and feeling his soul darken with the foulness of evil. Over the following few years, he'd stolen things and murdered people and sold orphans to slavers, whose ships docked in Lavene - things he'd never have done before his descent. He had no use for remorse or sorrow. Even in this body he was unburdened by female sensibilities. Thinking back on the crimes he'd committed as the man Sithral Tyr, he regretted nothing except the clues he'd left behind that had gotten one pesky 'ranter closer to arresting him than he'd have liked.

Cirang Deathsblade was not without her own dark past. Though he felt no shame or remorse for her murder of a Viragon Sister and the framing of Daia Saberheart for it, he was clever enough not to boast. It was a crime for which he'd never face justice as long as he kept it to himself.

Days stretched into weeks while he waited for the new king to judge him for Cirang's crimes. He went hungry at times because some of the guards claimed to have run out of food by the time they reached his cell with the slop bucket. In truth, they were afraid of him. He was certain of it, for he'd heard them arguing in whispers outside his door over whose turn it was to enter her cell to feed her or take her waste pail or fill her water bucket. His memory of Cirang's life shed no light on the reason for their wariness, but he saw it in their eyes when they approached and in their haste in performing their tasks before locking the door and scurrying back up the corridor.

During the days, he spent his time staring at his pale, unwarded hands. Sewn into the skin of every newborn Nilmarion by the village shaman, the natal ward kept him safe from the evils through childhood. Its purpose was to protect him until he was old enough for the ward of readiness. While Tyr had become accustomed to seeing the unwarded faces and hands of the people of Thendylath, the lines on his own hands, and the reflection of those on his face, had always provided a comfort that resonated with the deepest, oldest part of himself. Although the ward lines hadn't ultimately protected him from the evils as he'd been raised to believe, seeing his hands without them disturbed him greatly.

Nights were the worst. Time and again, he dreamed of b.l.o.o.d.y claws sinking into his skin, twisting his body and breaking his back with a snap. He awoke gasping for air and clutching at the muscle spasms in his back. He relived the demon's brutal attack so many times over those weeks that he feared falling asleep. The injury that had caused Cirang's death had only hurt for an instant, while the memory of it would be eternal. One night after another, he lay on the bed late into the mirknight, too tired to stay awake but too fearful of that awful pain to let his mind relax without jerking awake in antic.i.p.ation every few minutes.

Some nights weren't as bad. Those were the ones in which the horror of the demon, reaching for him with its black-clawed hands, made him scream aloud, waking with a start before the worst part came. Those nights, his fellow prisoners cursed him unsympathetically and promised to punish him in the most unpleasant of ways once they were freed.

One night, he dreamed the demon had him by the throat in its vice-like grip, just as it had done to Ravenkind. Tyr awoke gasping, unable to breathe. Something covered his mouth and pinched his nose shut. He tried slapping it away and felt what seemed like dozens of arms and hands pushing him down, wrestling his arms to his sides and spreading his legs apart. A candle cast shadows of his multi-armed attacker onto the wall above his bed. Trying to climb on top of him was the dreaded black-beard - the new gaol warden, appointed after the old warden was promoted to lordover's captain. Tyr fought harder, realizing the warden had brought a friend.

Then Tyr realized he'd been stripped of his trousers. He managed to shake off the hand over his mouth. "No! Get off me, you ugly bas-" he said before he was muzzled once again.

"What's happenin' over there?" asked the prisoner in the adjacent cell.

"Shut up and mind your own business," black-beard snapped.

Tyr got his right leg free and tried to slam his knee into black-beard's groin, but the man was already on top of him. The blow did little to deter his attacker.

"Hold her legs, d.a.m.n it."

The guard got a hold of Tyr's ankle and pushed it down onto the bed. Tyr bucked as hard as he could under the warden's weight. He slammed his forehead into black-beard's face. Black-beard reeled, freeing Tyr's right hand. He drove his thumb into black-beard's left eye. The warden rolled off him, screaming, and fell onto the floor. Now, with his hands free, Tyr sat up, grabbed the guard's head, and jammed both thumbs into his eyes too. The guard screamed and let go, flailing with his arms and stumbling backwards. Other prisoners demanded to know what was happening.

Now free, Tyr leaped to his feet and into a fighting stance. "The warden and his guard are trying to ravish me," he said.

"Who the h.e.l.l cares?" said one prisoner. "Just shut up and take it."

"The lordover'll hear about this," said another.

"Extra meal rations for a week might keep us quiet about it, though," said a third.

Such a mixed reaction from his fellow inmates reminded Tyr that he hadn't made much of an effort to win friends here, but at least the attack was halted. For now. He hated to think he would have to call in his favors to corroborate this a.s.sault.

Black-beard got to his feet and yanked his trousers up. "You gotta go to sleep sometime," he said with a sneer.

The guard picked up his candle. In its flickering light, Tyr could see his eyes were b.l.o.o.d.y. He smirked, certain he could use this proof to get the warden and guard fired for their attack or at least branded.

He was wrong. He had only the guards to hear his complaint the next morning, and it went unreported, as did his demands to see the lordover. Over the next few weeks, he slept as he could during the day and remained watchful at night.

One afternoon, he was awakened by the bells in the temple tolling. He counted twenty times, though it may have been twenty-one. The other prisoners speculated and bet each other on the reason for it, but Tyr had no guess as to why they would be ringing. Later that day, a new guard with puppy eyes and a boyish smile arrived with the slop bucket and spilled the news: dignitaries across Thendylath, as well as a few visiting from friendly nations, had come to watch Kinshield receive his crown in a huge ceremony.

So it was official, Tyr thought. He wasn't surprised. The warrant knight had taken the gems from the rune tablet - a feat Tyr had attempted many times over the years - and that was proof enough to the people Gavin Kinshield deserved to rule Thendylath.

It started raining the next day. It rained for one week, then another, then another. Tyr couldn't help but wonder whether the G.o.ds were drowning Thendylath in retribution for putting a 'ranter on the throne. It seemed fitting somehow.

Late one morning, roughly three weeks after the coronation, the clang of the door being unlocked echoed down the narrow corridor, followed by two pairs of boots clomping rhythmically on the stone floor. With every approaching footstep, keys on an iron ring jingled a tune that made Tyr's grumbling stomach sing in antic.i.p.ation. The other prisoners began to complain loudly when the guards didn't stop at their cell doors. Not feeding time. Perhaps someone would be freed. Or put to death.

The warden's ugly bearded face filled the small window of his cell door and Tyr's heart with apprehension.

Chapter 3.

Water ran down the slopes of the mountains that embraced the capitol city of Tern, streaming from every direction to converge and rush down the main road. It covered the street, gushing downhill and threatening to carry with it anything or anyone not heavy enough or tied down strongly enough to resist its force. Those whose homes sat at higher elevations used bags of sand and gravel to direct the water around their houses instead of through them. Others weren't so lucky and had to abandon their homes and seek refuge with relatives or friends whose houses had not yet flooded.

The River Athra, swollen to the tops of its banks, roared through the city like an angry beast. The river that provided the citizens of Tern its drinking water now threatened their lives with its crumbling banks and overflow.

Gavin Kinshield called for a halt where the water had started to spill over the eroded bank and form a rivulet that, if left unchecked, would damage the homes and businesses in its path. "Let's build this bank up here," he shouted over the roar of the river. He swung down from the back of his warhorse and joined the dozen others with him in unloading sandbags from their wagon. The people working alongside him, men and women who served as battlers and carpenters and cooks and acolytes of the church, formed a line and began pa.s.sing sandbags from the wagon to where Gavin received and stacked them on the bank. With his great height, every time he bent down to place a bag, the cloak on his back shifted forward and got in the way. It wasn't keeping him dry anyway, and so he pulled it off and tossed it over Golam's gray rump, then turned back to the task at hand. He'd lost his hat at the last spot upstream, and now rain dripped into his eyes and mouth and soaked his tunic and trousers, making them cling heavily to his body.

"My liege," one of the men said. "We can handle it from here. Why don't you go inside and dry off? We wouldn't want you catching your death."

Gavin grinned and shook his head. "And let you have all the fun?"

He preferred any sort of physical labor to sitting on his a.r.s.e listening to people bicker over whose idea had the most merit or whose fault this or that problem was. Becoming king hadn't been his choice. Not truly. He'd gotten trapped into the job when his ancestor Ronor Kinshield made a promise to King Arek two hundred years earlier, but that wasn't where the story started. It hadn't even started when the king's trusted mage, Crigoth Sevae, summoned the beyonder champion Ritol to kill King Arek. It had begun when Sevae decided to take the throne for himself, begging the question that tapped Gavin's shoulder: why? He didn't have the answers, not yet, though he awoke every morning with the question on his mind. Hauling and stacking sandbags in the pouring rain was a pleasant diversion.

After he'd closed the rift between the realms to stop the constant invasion of beyonders upon Thendylath, clearing the palace of debris had provided Gavin a means to keep his body strong, but that task was finished. Now, his most pressing concern - more urgent than satisfying his curiosity about the country's history - was keeping his people safe.

He took another bag from the woman beside him and stacked it on the ground to build up the eroded riverbank. If the residents of Tern were in danger of losing their homes or livelihood from the flooding, the people living in towns downstream could be worse off. If the levees held, they might escape disaster, but many of those levees were old and in need of repair. His mind continued to churn as he arranged bags until the rivulet disappeared. How was the rest of Thendylath faring in this torrential rain? Crops would be under water, livestock would be going hungry. A hard winter was in store for his people.

Gavin paused with a bag in his hands, uncertain whether the sound he heard was a rumble of thunder or something else. There was no lightning flashing among the dark clouds.

"Anyone hear thunder?" he asked.

"No, my liege," came several replies.