Read Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) for Free Online Page A

shaft.
    Tiaan looked in. Blue tendrils rotated down as far as she could see. The Well seethed with power, like a spring under tension.
    The Matah put one knuckle against her lip and gnawed at it, then bent to stroke the hair out of Haani’s eyes. As abruptly, she stood up.
    ‘Wait!’ She strode off along the further extension of the tunnel.
    Tiaan sat beside Haani, holding the frigid wrist, not thinking at all. After a long wait, the Matah reappeared with a basket in one hand and a roll of fabric in the other. Placing it on the floor, she offered the basket to Tiaan. It contained small bunches of cuttings from a black, glossy-leaved plant, at the tips of which were small flowers, purple outside and white within, crimped in the form of five-pointed stars.
    ‘We Aachim cleave more to metal and stone than we do to gardening,’ she said, ‘but there are one or two among us who care for growing things. These are the best I could find in this part of the city.’
    ‘They’re beautiful,’ Tiaan said. ‘Haani loved trees and flowers.’ Folding the child’s arms across her broken chest, Tiaan placed a bunch of flowers in her hand.
    The Matah unrolled the cloth, woven of a thread like metallic silk in subtle patterns of green and gold. They wrapped the child in it, leaving just her face exposed.
    ‘I would, if you see fit,’ said the Matah, ‘send Haani to the Well. It is an honour accorded to the greatest of us after death, and occasionally taken before that, if we so choose.’ She looked sideways at Tiaan. ‘I do not know …’
    ‘She is dead!’ Tiaan said more harshly than she felt. ‘She does not care.’
    ‘The ritual is for the living as well as the dead. But only if you judge it fitting.’
    ‘I would honour her to the limit of my ability.’
    ‘Just so.’ Again the Matah went up the passage, returning with a metal object like a sled with three runners. Of blue-black metal, it was chased all over with intricate, interwoven patterns.
    They lifted Haani onto the sled, binding her there with silken cords. She looked tiny. ‘Make your farewell,’ said the Matah, ‘then push her to the centre. The Well will take her in its own time.’ She walked away.
    Tiaan stood over the child, thinking of all that might have been. Tears spotted Haani’s face, forming frost marks there. Tiaan murmured a prayer, remembered from her childhood, and then could stand it no longer.
    She thrust the sled into the shaft. It sat in mid-air as if resting on a sheet of glass. Scooping a handful of flowers from the basket, Tiaan sprinkled them over the body. Errant petals moved about as though on a current of air. Some drifted around the shaft.
    The sled moved down, almost imperceptibly at first. Staring at the little pinched face, Tiaan felt such a pang in her heart that she thought it was going to tear apart. Letting out a great cry of anguish, she leapt into the Well.
    She landed on an invisible barrier that would not let her through, no matter how she screamed and clawed at it. The Matah had anticipated her. Tiaan went still, watching the sled drift down. The Matah, hands out, drew her back. They looked at one another.
    ‘The Well is only for those at peace with the world.’
    ‘And if you are not?’ said Tiaan.
    ‘I made sure it would not take you.’
    ‘
You
were going to the Well.’
    ‘I felt my time had come. Did you not say that you have much to put right?’
    ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’
    The hand released her. ‘Don’t stand too close,’ the Matah said.
    Haani’s body drifted down and out of sight. A long time later there was a bright flash in the depths. A shiny bubble came rolling up the shaft. Tiaan ducked out of the way as it burst with a set of silver rays and a faint scent of flowers.
    ‘The Well has taken her,’ said the Matah. ‘Come.’
    Rubbing her eyes, Tiaan followed the Matah back to her chambers, where she unsealed a flask of turquoise liquor, so thick that it oozed.