Well of Darkness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Map

  Part I

  1 The Whipping Boy

  2 The Lesser Guardian

  3 The Reading Lesson

  4 Tangled Threads

  5 Royal Audience

  6 Crown Prince, Lord of Ghosts

  7 The Burning Lake

  8 Star Brothers

  9 Dunner of the Unhorsed

  10 The Portal of the Gods

  11 Children Should Be Neither Seen Nor Heard

  12 The Well of Darkness

  13 The Gifting of the Sovereign Stone

  14 The Bitter Center

  Part II

  1 The Lady Valura

  2 Heart’s Desire

  3 The Whipping Boy Grown

  4 Heart’s Ease

  5 The Dark Draught

  6 The Dagger of the Vrykyl

  7 The Nomination

  8 Shakur

  9 The Creation of a Vrykyl

  10 The Seven Preparations

  11 The Votes Tallied

  12 The Will of the Gods

  13 The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

  14 The Lord of the Void

  15 The sacrifice

  Part III

  1 Split Apart

  2 The Keepers of Time

  3 Command the Darkness

  4 The Battle of Vinnengael

  5 The Portal of the Gods

  6 The Well of Darkness

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  The Sovereign Stone Trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

  Praise for Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and Well of Darkness

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Whipping Boy

  The boy gazed up at the castle. Its shining white marble walls were wet with the spray from the seven waterfalls that flowed on either side of it, four to the north and three to south, and glistened in the early-morning sun. Rainbows shimmered and danced around the castle walls. The peasants believed the rainbows were fine cloth spun by fairies, and more than one silly lad had gone to his death in the tumbling water trying to snag them.

  The boy knew better. He knew that rainbows were not substantial, being made of nothing more than sunlight and water. Only that which exists in both the darkness and in the light is real. The boy had been taught to believe only in what was real and substantial.

  The boy looked at the castle without much feeling, good or bad, nothing but a sort of uncaring fatalism that is often seen in ill-used dogs. Not that the boy had been particularly ill-used in his life, if to be ignored is not to be ill-used. He was about to leave his parents and his home and enter into a new life and by rights he should have felt sad, homesick, frightened, and trepidatious. He felt none of those: only tired, from the long walk, and uncomfortably warm and itchy in his new woolen stockings.

  He and his father stood before the gate set in a high outer wall. Beyond the gate was a courtyard and beyond the courtyard myriad steps leading up into the castle, which had been built against a cliff. The castle looked out to the west, gazing out over Lake Ildurel, its back planted solidly against the rocks to the east. Its very topmost turrets were level with the River Hammerclaw, which flowed from east to west and whose rushing water, tumbling over the cliff face, created the rainbows.

  The castle walls were white marble—the boy had once seen a representation of the castle at a feast, made of sugar lumps—and it was several stories tall. How many stories the boy could not count because the castle roamed all over the cliff face. So many turrets jutted off every which way, so many battlements slanted off in such different directions, and so many small lead-paned glass windows winked in the sunlight that the sight confused him. He had wanted to play with the sugar castle, and his mother had told him he might, but the next morning he found it had been eaten by mice.

  The boy gazed, awed, at this castle, which was not made of sugar and not likely to be eaten by mice or even dragons. One wing of the castle caught his eye. This was a wing to the east, overlooking the four waterfalls. Atop it was a turret larger than all the rest, with a balcony that stretched around it. That was the King’s Walk, said his father. King Tamaros, blessed of the gods, was the only person permitted to walk that balcony.

  The King must be able to see the whole world from there, the boy thought. Or if not the whole world, then at least the entire great city of Vinnengael. The boy could practically see the whole city himself, just standing on the palace steps.

  Vinnengael was built on three levels, the lowest level being even with the lake, which stretched to the horizon, its distant shore just barely visible from the King’s Walk. The second level of the city was built atop a cliff that rose up from the first level. The third level was built atop another cliff, which rose from the second. The palace stood on the third level. Across from the palace, behind the boy and across a vast marble courtyard, was the Temple of the Magi.

  Temple and palace, the heart of the kingdom and its head, were the only two major structures standing on the third level. Soldiers’ barracks occupied the north; the barracks were attached to the palace. To the south, built on a jutting rock groin, were the elegant houses of the foreign ambassadors.

  The men-at-arms guarding the outer gate gave the boy’s father a bored glance as the two of them passed through. The boy craned his neck to gaze up at the huge portcullis, with its rows of grim teeth. He would have liked to stop, hoping to see some blood, for he was well acquainted with the tale of Nathan of Neyshabur, one of the heroes of Vinnengael, who had ordered the portcullis to be lowered though he himself was standing beneath it, fending off the kingdom’s enemies, refusing to give ground though the wicked teeth thundered down upon him. Nathan of Neyshabur had lived and died several hundred years ago, when the city and the castle, but not the rainbows, were young. It was therefore unlikely that his blood would still be dripping from the portcullis, but the boy felt disappointed, nonetheless.

  His father yanked at the boy’s mantle and demanded to know what he thought he was doing, gawking like an ork during festival time, and hustled the boy along.

  They walked across a vast courtyard and entered the castle proper, where the boy was immediately lost. His father knew the way well, however, being one of the King’s courtiers, and he led the boy up marble stairs and down marble halls and around marble statues and past marble columns until they reached an antechamber, where the father shoved the boy down onto a carved wood chair and summoned a servant.

  The boy gazed at the high ceilings, stained with soot from the winter fires, and at the wall opposite, where hung a tapestry that depicted long-bodied, long-snouted, long-eared dogs that resembled no known dog then living and people all turned sideways hunting a stag which, by its expression, appeared to be enjoying it all immensely though it had six arrows in it.

  A man entered the antechamber, a youngish, bad-tempered, grim-looking man clad in a high-collared tunic, buttoned down the front, of rich design, with long flowing sleeves. His legs, visible from the calf down, were thick and bulky, his ankles being nearly as wide as his feet. His hose were of different colors, one red and the other blue to match the red-and-blue design in the tunic. His drab hair was combed back in the current fashion among humans and curled around the neck; he was clean-shaven.

  The boy’s father was dressed in a similar manner, though he wore a surcoat over his tunic, and his colors were green and blue. The boy was dressed the same as his father, except that his mantle and hood covered his clothes, for the season was late autumn and the air was chill. The man conferred briefly with the boy’s father, then turned his gaze upon the boy.

  “What did you say his name was?”


  “Gareth, Lord Chamberlain.”

  The chamberlain sniffed. “I do not know when I have seen an uglier child.”

  “Any child would appear ugly compared to His Highness,” said the boy’s father.

  “True, m’lord,” said the chamberlain. “But this one appears to have worked at it ’specially.”

  “His Highness and my son are the same age to the day, born the very same night. Her Majesty wished—”

  “Yes, yes. I am familiar with Her Majesty’s wishes,” said the chamberlain, rolling his eyes and tucking his thumbs in his wide leather belt to indicate that he thought Her Majesty’s wishes a crockful of crap. He frowned down at the boy. “Well, there’s no help for it, I suppose. As if I didn’t have enough trouble. Where are the rest of the lad’s clothes? You don’t expect us to clothe him, I assume.”

  “My retainer is bringing them around the back,” said the boy’s father with a hint of frost. “Surely, you didn’t expect us to cart them through the streets.”

  The two men regarded each other with ice-rimed stares, then the chamberlain placed his thick leg and pointed shoe in front of the other leg and bowed from the waist. “Your servant, sir.”

  The boy’s father also “made a leg” as the saying went, his hands at his waist so that the surcoat did not fall forward and pick up dirt from the floor. “Your servant, sir.”

  The boy stood in his hood and mantle, hot and itchy, and stared at the stag with the six arrows sticking out of its side, kicking up its heels and looking very merry.

  “Come with me, then, Gareth,” said the chamberlain in resigned tones. “Say good-bye to your father,” he added indifferently.

  Gareth bowed to his father in a courtly manner, as he had been taught. His father gave the boy a hurried blessing and left quickly, to attend His Majesty. Neither father nor son was saddened at this parting. It had been a six-month since the boy had last seen his father, as it was. The fact that the boy was now a member of the court meant that he would likely see his noble parents more often than at any other time in his childhood.

  The chamberlain laid a heavy hand upon the boy’s shoulder and steered him through the palace rooms.

  “These are the private quarters for the royal family,” explained the chamberlain in sonorous tones. “They will be your home, too, from this day forward. To be chosen as the prince’s whipping boy is a high honor. I trust you are sensible of it.”

  Gareth was not sensible of much of anything at the moment, except the man’s heavy hand pressing him into the marble floor and making his shoulder ache exceedingly.

  “The position was much coveted,” the chamberlain continued, his words pressing down on the boy with as much weight as his hand. “Many fine lads were put forward as candidates, lads of sixteen and some even older. Much coveted,” he repeated.

  Gareth knew this to be true. His father and his mother and even Nanny had ground the fact into him over and over, until it seemed a part of his flesh, like the charcoal ground into the smithy’s hands. The whipping boy bore the prince’s punishment, because the prince, chosen by the gods, could never be touched in anger by mortal hands. The whipping boy also served as companion to the young prince, and was educated alongside the prince. Since the two would grow up together, the whipping boy and his family must naturally profit from such an arrangement.

  Gareth was also well aware that he had not merited this honor. His father was a lord, but not a very important lord; his mother one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. The coincidence of the boy’s birth being on the same night as that of the young prince was all that had recommended him.

  Her Majesty the Queen came from Dunkarga, a kingdom to the west. It seemed that the people of Dunkarga held the belief that the stars affected their lives. Gareth knew this was nonsense; his father had told him as much. How could far-distant, coldly sparkling objects, as big as motes of dust, have an effect on mankind? But Gareth’s parents had been quick to take advantage of the fact that Queen Emillia believed that the stars took an interest in her.

  Hearing of the search for a whipping boy, Gareth’s mother had hinted to the Queen that only a child born under the same stars as the prince should be considered worthy of sharing the prince’s destiny. The Queen was quite taken with this notion and called for the royal astrologer, whom she had brought with her from Dunkarga. His hand fingering the coins in his purse deposited by Gareth’s father, the royal astrologer solemnly confirmed that this was indeed the case. Gareth being the only child of noble blood born that night (his father had checked to make certain), he was chosen.

  At the age of nine, Gareth was to take his place at court and start upon the performance of his new duties, which would be to bear the punishment for the prince’s infractions. As they walked through the palace, Gareth recalled the story, which his mother often told, of how the Queen—on hearing that one of her ladies-in-waiting was also in labor and about to give birth—had ordered that his mother’s legs be tied together, so that no other child should precede her son in anything. His mother’s pains had fortunately stopped—scared out of her, likely enough—or it was probable that Gareth would not be walking the palace halls this moment. His mother’s labor having started up again after the prince’s arrival, Gareth was born three hours later. His first cries were drowned out by the explosions of the celebratory fireworks.

  Gareth’s mother had handed him off to a wet nurse the very night he was born, so that, after her lying-in period, she could return to her duties as lady-in-waiting. He was raised at his father’s country estate, brought up mostly by servants, who had either indulged the boy or neglected him as the whim took them.

  Thus in his fourth year, Gareth’s parents, on one of their rare visits to their son, were dismayed to find their child a spoiled brat, a little hooligan, as dirty and uneducated as any peasant child of similar years. Gareth’s father sent for his own former nursemaid, who had retired to help her husband make cloth. Now a widow, she was glad to hand over the business to her grown sons and enter, once again, a noble household.

  She took Gareth in hand and taught him to read and write and provided him with the manners he would need when he was old enough to take his place at court. Gareth missed Nanny at that moment far more than he missed either his father or his mother. Her task done, she had been sent back to her family.

  “Do you say your prayers, Master Gareth?” the chamberlain asked suddenly.

  “I do, my lord,” Gareth replied in a small voice, the first words he had spoken.

  “Then say them, now, young sir. Pray to the gods that His Highness takes a liking to you, for if he does not, Her Majesty will be rid of you, stars or no stars.”

  Gareth peered out from under the folds of his hood, looked again at the soot-stained ceiling. The gods were somewhere up there, beyond the soot and the marble. Like the rainbows, the gods could not be touched. Gareth didn’t think they would be much interested in him. Besides, his only prayer at that moment would have been to go back home, which would have made his parents exceedingly angry, and so Gareth considered it better not to pray at all.

  The palace was a grand confusion to Gareth. He seemed to have been walking through it for most of his life; though it was probably only an hour since he had entered the main gate. He would come to love the palace, love its cool, serene beauty, love its mysterious alcoves and secret passages, but that would happen much later, after he’d recovered from homesickness and the fear of sleeping in a strange place, and after he’d learned his way around, which took him almost a year. For now, the palace was immense, cold and empty corridors that led to immense, cold rooms filled with massive, heavy furniture, everything tinged with the scent of woodsmoke.

  “His Highness is here, in the playroom,” said the chamberlain.

  Two guards—the prince’s bodyguards—flanked a large wooden door. Gareth had seen the King’s Guard only on parade days and then only from a distance. Clad in their shining plate armor and chain mail, they appeared enormous in his si
ght, ferocious beings, who inspected him thoroughly from top to toe, searching him for weapons, thrusting their hands beneath his velvet doublet and even peering at the insides of his small shoes.

  Gareth held still and meekly submitted to the indignity. Somewhere in the past some rival chieftain had sent in his young son, armed with a dagger, to stab the royal heir.

  “He’s clean,” said the guard, and opened the door.

  The chamberlain nodded and, grabbing Gareth again by the shoulder, ushered him into the playroom. As they were walking across the threshold, the chamberlain leaned over to whisper harshly, “Don’t touch any of His Highness’s toys. Don’t look at any of His Highness’s books. Don’t fidget, don’t pick your nose, don’t gape or pass wind or stare out the window. Don’t speak unless you are spoken to. Do not sit in the prince’s presence, never turn your back upon him, for that is a terrible insult. If you must use the privies, ask His Highness’s permission to be excused. When you are whipped, scream loudly and cry a great deal in order to impress upon His Highness how much the beating hurts him.”

  The numbness, which had carried Gareth this far, gave way to despair. If the gods had been anywhere near at the time, Gareth would have prayed—not to leave the palace, for it seemed hopeless to him that he should ever find his way out—but to simply die on the spot.

  He could not look at any of the wonders around him—marvelous toys, from all parts of Loerem. He took no interest in the shelves of books, though he loved reading and had read over and over all two of his father’s books—given to his father as gifts, he had never been known to look at them. Gareth did not even see His Highness, for the whipping boy’s eyes were filled with tears and it was all he could do to stumble alongside the chamberlain and not fall over any of the clutter that filled the playroom.