Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

And then her eyes widened, and she swore, although Colin couldn’t hear the words. They were lost to the wind.

Faeren slid past Grae and Colin and joined the Tamaea. Grae glared at Colin, turning his back only as he ducked outside. Colin followed.

The wind stole Colin’s breath away, slamming into him with a violence and force he’d never felt before. Men and women were screaming and running on all sides, dodging debris in the air as tents shivered and shuddered. Before he could turn, one of those nearest collapsed with a sudden whoomph, stakes and ropes flailing, chunks of dirt thrown into the air and whipped away. The tough canvas snapped and cracked, a few stakes still holding it in place, and then those gave and it tore free of the earth, carried up and away. Horses reared, men desperately trying to control them, a few riderless mounts tearing through the encampment as they fled.

Colin turned into the wind, dust and grit stinging his skin, his eyes tearing up… and felt his heart shudder in his chest.

The Drifter was almost upon them. He could see the setting sun through its eye, and that eye stretched up and up, higher than most of the trees on the plains. It stretched to the left and right even more, larger than the Well.

It would swallow them all.

He turned toward the Tamaea, toward Faeren and Grae and the rest of the Phalanx who’d been waiting outside for the Tamaea to join them, and bellowed at the top of his voice in Alvritshai, “RUN!”

His roar broke the Tamaea’s paralysis. Without waiting for her Phalanx, without waiting for Faeren or Grae, she spun and headed away from the Drifter, angling toward its nearest edge, her dress thrashing in the winds, slowing her down.

They ran, the pressure of the Drifter threatening to crush Colin to the ground, the scent of the forest, of loam and leaves, choking him. The taste of the Well filled his mouth, his body clenched with longing. He fled without looking back, could feel the Drifter rushing forward, the howl of the winds increasing even more, the earth seeming to tremble beneath his feet. Splinters of wood and stalks of dried grass sliced across his exposed skin, and small pebbles pelted him. A tent torn free from the ground caught one of the guards ahead and he fell, thrashing as it bore him to the ground, but none of the Phalanx stopped. None even slowed. Terror clutched at Colin’s heart, pulsed in his blood, the same terror he saw on all their faces, even the Tamaea’s. The facade of her rank had been completely stripped away, leaving nothing behind but raw panic and unadulterated fear.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the edge of the Drifter sweeping across the tents and grass beside them, sucking them into the eye, into its heart, and he felt a single moment of clarity through the pounding of his heart.

“We aren’t going to make it,” he whispered.

There, in the infinite space between one heartbeat and the next, without any conscious thought, his hand snapped out and caught the Tamaea’s arm And he shifted and pushed.

He cried out as something inside threatened to tear apart, something vital, wrenched in two different directions at once. His body tried to slow, but the Tamaea’s body held him back, like a weight, anchoring him to the real world, to real time. He’d never tried to draw anything along with him larger than a flower, a lock of hair, or his staff, never anything as large as another person. He dragged the Tamaea toward him, shoved against the pull of time harder, tried to envelope her with the throbbing pulse of the Well he could feel inside himself, which was echoed in the Drifter itself, and felt the world twisting around him, pulling taut, the muscles of his body screaming at the resistance.

Then, with a wrench, time gave, the wind halted, and the Tamaea lurched into his body. He wrapped the arm carrying his staff around her, drew her in tight, heard her scream in panicked terror as she fell, her other arm thrashing. She clawed him across the face, her fingernails sinking in deep, and then they were rolling on the ground, Colin gasping, but holding onto the Tamaea with a death grip, knowing that if he let her go, she’d be lost, caught back up in the tide of time, and the Drifter would have her.

They rolled to a stop, the Tamaea still struggling, tangled up in her dress, in the staff, until Colin cried out, “Stop!”

She halted immediately, trembling in his embrace, and with an effort that Colin felt shudder through her body, she stilled.

“What’s happened?” she heaved, her breath coming in ragged hitches. “What have you done?”

She tried to pull away from him, a new horror crossing her face, directed at him.

“Don’t,” he barked, and he heard the weakness in his voice. He could feel himself trembling as well, shudders running through his body. In a halting voice, in Alvritshai, he said, “Don’t let go… or you’ll end up… back there.” He swallowed, the tremors in his arms increasing. His grip on time slid slightly, not enough for the Tamaea to notice, but enough to make him gasp.

He wouldn’t be able to hold them here long. Not both of them.

“We have… to move,” he managed, stirring.

“You’re shuddering,” the Tamaea said. Now that he’d told her not to let go, she seemed determined not to move at all. “Are you hurt?”

“No. But we have… to move… Must move.” He glanced significantly at the Drifter.

The Tamaea looked in its direction, and he felt her stiffen. It hovered over the tents, the chaos caught and held, debris in the air, Faeren, Grae, and the Phalanx suspended in midcharge, their terror clear. The iridescent arms of the Drifter, invisible except for here, swept back and forth greedily, as if tasting everything before it gathered it into its eye. One of those arms flickered past overhead, and the Tamaea flinched.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered, but her voice was layered with dread.

Colin pushed her away slightly. “We have to move.”

She responded to the urgency in his voice, wincing as she shifted away, his grip on her arm so tight her skin had turned white with the pressure. He tried to relax it, but he was afraid to let her go.

They climbed to their feet, Colin stumbling, his legs giving way beneath him, using the staff for support. The Tamaea caught him, held him upright. “What’s wrong?”

“My legs,” Colin gasped. “Weak. Holding you here is-”

He cried out as he stumbled again, and the Tamaea shrugged his arm over her shoulder, supporting his weight.

“Then let’s move,” she said, and she began half-dragging, half-pulling him forward. She’d regained some of her composure and drew the mantle of the Tamaea around her like a shield.

They staggered out of the tents, past men and women, horses and guardsmen. The farther they moved, the looser Colin’s grasp on time grew, and slowly the Tamaea began to notice as first they felt the breath of the wind, then gusts, and on all sides the people and debris began to take on visible motion. She lurched forward at a faster pace, the world picking up speed around them.

“Can’t-” Colin gasped, swallowing hard. “Can’t hold it.”

And then he lost his grip completely.

Both of them cried out as they fell to the ground, Colin releasing his hold on her arm. The wind howled overhead, spattering them both with debris, and Colin rolled to his side.

To catch the verge of the Drifter sweeping past overhead, the ripples of the distortion no more than six feet away. Every hair on his body prickled and stood on end, energy pouring over him, filled with the taste of the Well, the loam and leaves so thick on his tongue he thought he’d swallowed dirt. His body shuddered with the ecstasy of the Well, with its blatant potency, and he felt tears streaming down his face.