Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip

Author:Patricia A. McKillip [McKillip, Patricia A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, C429, Extratorrents, Kat, Fairy Tales, Legends & Mythology, Folk Tales
ISBN: 9781616960872
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 2012-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

The water-mage stood listening as well.

In the rocky, sunken cave where the water ran up out of the secret earth, Eada was little more than a bulky shadow in her black skirts and the veil that hid her long silver hair. She might have been a boulder in the jumble of rock that had broken and cascaded down around the Well so long ago that the shards were growing together again, grain by grain, century by century. The water filled its ancient, rounded pool among the stones with only the slightest tremor at its heart, the little flutter in the center of the pool that spoke of the unseen treasure of water buried deep beneath, in perpetual night. Seemingly without end, it pushed itself up into this silent cave with its little circular roof of sky and light; it gleamed a greeting, then passed into darkness again, down a narrow, shallow bed of stones, pushing more quickly now through its ancient waterway to find the light again, beyond the cave, where it bubbled up and pooled beneath the open sky.

That pool was where the city dwellers came to worship. They brought gifts, dropped wishes into it in the form of coins or words written on thin strips of metal.

They crowded around it during the ritual, under the first full summer moon. The knights ringed the Well beneath the ground; the king stood on the earth above, drank water from a gold cup, and dropped coins and jewels the color of blood into the wellspring. Near the natural pool above, and fed by it, a great marble tank had been built, a pretty thing surrounded by broad walkways, flowering vines, fluted pillars with little fountains perpetually offering water to the worshippers. Beyond it, the water flowed free again, very briefly, offering itself to insects, mosses and reeds, birds and wild creatures before it dove underground again, vanished back into the dark. Around this open water, the city dwellers watched the ritual, flooding beyond their human boundaries once a year to honor the mysteries of the Well, and to drink, after the king, the pure water out of the earth.

The water welling up out of the underearth made no sound.

The water welling up out of the underearth should have made no sound.

The mage, standing in the shadows, kept listening for silence from the sunlit pool. An ancient, familiar silence, there should have been in that cave, as old and peaceful as the dark. Instead, there were half-words, like water emptying down a drain; there were hisses, a gurgle like a laugh that echoed against the walls, a sudden splash that left no ripple behind it. The language of water, she recognized. But who spoke? What was said?

She heard a step in the low passageway that led from the Well to her dwelling. The walls echoed suddenly, as though a stone had spoken. Eada looked quickly into the water, saw nothing but the insouciant reflection of the sky.

“Mistress, the knight is here,” Perla said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.