Flashback Benachag

[Gad]

31st of Summer, 501 AV A certain well in the hills around Sunberth The remnants of an engorged Leth sat sentinel over the horizon even as his lover ascended from her palace beyond the sea. Zulrav swirled his children around in playful embraces that moved billowing indigo mountains of mist, high above the heads of mortals, churning in their wakes. Somewhere behind these scenes, Ovek rolled the invisible dice of the universe, Avalis read the numbers, and Lhex laughed, or perhaps wept; he was a hard read. Incidentally -ostensibly- beneath the cosmic spheres of the Ukalas, the morning crickets were hopping about the dew ridden grasses that doted the hillside. They sang their songs of love and chirped out their last lusty matting calls before their rivals -the birds- woke up to snatch them, and take over as the day's musicians. Nearby, Gad was making a mad dash, a gang of young pursuers tailing closely. His hands chopped the air, and his legs were pumping so hard, his knees were almost hitting his chest. He huffed and wheezed as his feet pounded the red dust of the beaten path. “In the nose, out the mouth” went out the window after the first two minutes of dead-sprinting, and now he was on the verge of hyper-ventilating. Against his backbone he felt the thud of a thrown stone, and he let out a groan of pain. Somehow, at breakneck speeds, these kids still had good aim. A few more rocks went flying past Gad, and he started to run in a zigzag pattern in order to avoid them. In his artless dodging he happened to spot, upon a hill, an old dilapidated well looking down over the path, just a ways ahead of him. Thinking it was a better idea than getting the shit beat out of him, Gad made for it. The long Benshira legs he'd inherited from his father served him well in his escape, and he made it to the small sanctuary a few breaths ahead of the mini-mob hunting him. Gad swung his tired legs over the mouth of the well. Down below, about twenty feet, it was shimmering black. Better than the dead coals in the eyes of his attackers. He observed something though, that might provide him with a safer way down. A wooden beam bridged the gap of the well, and it was only about ten feet down. The shuffling feet behind him told him just how little time he had for deliberation. Gad leaped down, and landed on the beam almost perfectly. For a split tick it seemed like a feat of amazing acrobatics but the very next moment Gad slipped and fell. He caught himself on the beam, and it slammed into his chest at diaphragm level with a noticeable creak. With his arms draped over it and holding on tight and his long legs dangling below, he looked like a cat caught in a tree. The other young men, who'd been harassing him, did their best to upset his balance by tossing down rocks and insults. Gad hung there with his head ducked down, frozen in patient endurance. This was just another thing, something else wrong with the game. What did it matter if he was hated now? When he was winning, he'd hate them so much more. The young tyrants got bored tormenting their quarry. Like the dog that chased the cat up the tree, they could only bark and bite the air for so long before they went to chase their own tails. Gad was still breathing heavy from his chase when things went quiet. He wondered if they were up there, circling the well, waiting to spring on him when he crawled out. He doubted they had anything better to do, so Gad hung there with his muscles getting stiff and tightening up every tick. Eventually, once the Sun was really out and risen, he pulled his legs up to the beam. It was quite the effort on his exhausted arms, but he managed to drape his legs over and sit there. There was another creaking sound. He froze his body, except for his pounding heart which only got more excited. Gad sat there for another ten chimes or so, in quiet contemplation of the stagnant pool below. He didn't know that in ancient times -at different periods- prospectors, diamond miners, and magical overseers would all draw their drinking water from this well. Eventually it was only the horses, and then they were even too good for the water it held, which was given to lowly mules and asses. But that was ancient times; before the Valterrian. Now no one drank from the well. Even the sweet faced donkeys hadn't come near in five stoney centuries. It made the well sad. It still had so much to give, and there were many different kinds of thirst that needed to be satiated. Or sated. Perhaps the boy that had fallen down it's throat would find relief in it's stale waters. He looked thirsty. Gad wasn't above some stale well water- figuratively, because literally that's exactly where he was- but, at the moment he was more concerned with getting out of the well, and less with taking a drink. With every movement he could feel the molded wood beam creaking, and the rusty nails that held it in place give just a little. Or just enough. Gad got his feet under him, to where he was in a squatting, owl-like position. And like that plate faced bird of prey, he stretched his arms out to either side for balance as he slowly rose to his full height. The whole time he'd kept his eyes on the beam that was supporting him, only now did he look up to the ring of light above him, the portal to freshness and freedom and the outside world. Slowly, he reached out with his left hand to grab for the ledge that was clearly out of reach, and quickly the beam decided it didn't really like it's dead-end job, and snapped like the so many unappreciated before it. It wasn't the concussive snap of young well maintained wood, or the conclusive break of old and dried wood. The log bowed out and bent a little before it gave and the cleavage was like ripped wet paper mush. It didn't take long for Gad to fall the remaining ten or more feet into the water below, but it felt like an eternity. Well, that's just me being dramatic. It felt like nothing, and then suddenly being ass deep in cold muddy water. Clouds of brown sediment plumed in storms under the black surface of the well's pool, but Gad wouldn't be able to see that until the afternoon when the Sun was over the well. The boy sat there, stunned for a few moments. The well wondered how he'd take it. He was quiet. Then, his young mouth exploded with curses and expletives the well had never heard before, and the well had been around a long, long time. People tended to feel comfortable around the well, to talk freely near it, and tell it secrets, or let it hear their interesting conversations. But none of them had ever said the things the Boy had, in Myrian and Shiber and even the common tongue. The visitor flopped around for a few moments, then stood in the well. He sunk down into the muck at the bottom of the well and slipped, then regained his balance. Gad looked up at the golden halo above him. The only way out was up there, the way he'd fallen, but he wouldn't be falling up anytime soon. Wouldn't that have been something? Gad yelled for someone to help him through his cupped hands working as makeshift amplifies. The Well felt a bit dejected at this, was it not a source? Of aid? Of help? It had all the water you could drink. Sure it was old, and cruddy, but it was better than dehydration. Possibly. No one came to help Gad, he'd hoped that some of the boys who'd attacked him would hear him and at least come back to torment him, but they were long gone. Now his hope turned to his escape. Gad observed his watery oubliette. He could stand in the middle with both arms stretched out and not touch either side of the well by a decent birth. The water in the shallow reflection pool came to a half foot above his ankles when he first stepped in, but if his foot rested on one place of the sedimentary bottom, he'd down another half foot. Gad noted where the snapped wooden beam had fallen in two pieces. The thick, old board was actually a single tree trunk; a log that had been cut into a rectangular shape for use as a beam. Poking out of the water was an overturned and decently large wooden bucket. Gad stepped on it. I didn't give much and held his weight above water. He then took the two halves of the beam and stacked them upon one another, then the bucket on top of those. Once that was done, Gad stepped onto small the wooden platform he'd made and took his shoes off, using the bucket as stool and the beams as a foor. He wrung the water out of them as best he could and set them there, then he stripped off his pants and did the same, and so for his shirt and jacket. He put back on his clothes, but left his shoes, and kept his pant's legs rolled up. Now, being as dry as he could be, he looked around for a way up. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Gad could see the sides of the well was cobbled of large stones of varying sizes and shapes, but for the most part in the form of round edge rectangles. In the dim light, Gad traced a crag in the stone masonry, up the side of the well. He couldn't chart a path straight to the top, and he was no rock climber, but he figured he could hack it. He moved over to the wall of the well, and raised his hands up to the first handhold he'd noted, and dug his fingers into the spaces in between the stones. He pulled himself upwards, and found it difficult to raise his body weight, but was able to get his feet above the water line. He flailed, slapping his muddied feet against the cold stones, slipping. He stumbled back to the bottom of the well, wringing his fingers. Noting his problem, Gad moved the wooden platform he made over nearer the wall. He stood on it, and dried off his feet before making another attempt. This second time, he had a little height advantage, and was able to get his toes into the cracks. Now he lifted himself up, reached up to the next crack, but slipped back down. He wasn't ready to give up, but he always only managed to get so far, and it was a few bells passed before he decided to give it a rest. He was sweaty. The air out had been getting drier and the sun had been getting brighter so that by afternoon it was fairly sweltering. A Summer heat wave was moving in over the city, and though it wasn't as intense at the bottom of the well, Gad could feel the weather change. Exhausted from his futile attempts, Gad decided to drink some of the water. It was gritty, but didn't taste especially foul and so he took a few handfuls and then leaned back against the wall. He sighed and closed his eyes, and Gad's mind wandered across a range of discursive thoughts. At first, his mind lingered on his current predicament. How would he get out? Would he get out? Would someone come looking for him? Probably not. He hoped, still, that someone would come along and find him down there. He suppressed that nagging doubt, and discouraged as he was from his failed attempts, he began to cling to the idea of being rescued. He didn't linger long on that thought, because who would come to rescue him? His father? Gad's face turned sour, and his mind bitter. His father wouldn't care if he never came back. The geezer would probably be clicking his hills together when Gad didn't show up tonight. "IF" "if", he told himself. He would probably get out in the next bell, no problem. And what would be the look on the old man's face then? Well, Gad could guess. He would be on about how it was Gad's fault for falling down there in the first place, and then he'd complain about how long it took him to crawl out. Never mind, if he'd had been there, Gad wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place! No, but it couldn't ever be his fault. Never. It was Gad's fault they were poor, that they lived in Sunberth, that all the coin got gambled away or drunk, that they were hungry. To hear it from his fathers perspective, it was Gad's own fault he was alive. All the pain, all the suffering either of them had ever experienced was Gad's fault. But, that didn't matter now. Not here, in the well. Gad could feel his pulse pounding in his ears when the anger filled him up. He sighed, but the pressure in his chest didn't go away. He clenched his teeth and looked up at the Sun. The Sun, so bright, sitting there, watching him. Gad stared into the bright until his eyes watered and he had to blink the tears away. He rested his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. The swirling clouds of murk under the surface of the water reminded him of cream in tea. He could go for some tea. He took a sip of the water and pretended it was tea, unsweetened of course. No, it didn't taste much like it, but imagining a bitter taste made the water seem sweeter by comparison. Gad overturned his hands and let the drops fall out onto the surface of the well water, rippling disturbances across the surface of the muck clouds. He thought about how strange it was; the water tasting sweeter. Just by thinking, he changed the way it was. His perception had altered his reality. He liked that, being able to change whatever he wanted, even if it was just in his head. He imagined suddenly, calling up a storm to fill the well with water, then just swimming out over the top.It would've been great to have magic like that. That was why he loved magic, he'd realized. If you were powerful enough, and there was something you didn't like, all you had to do was magic it away. He didn't know about every kind of magic but he'd heard there was more kinds than a single man could ever learn. He wondered if that was just something people said because they were stupid, or if it was true. Even if it was true, he thought, he figured he could probably learn them all. Then he could come back to this well, and throw those kids in. Then shoot fire out of his eyes and boil the water and cook them alive and feed them to the dogs and then send the dogs to the for corners of Mizahar and tell their parents what happened and laugh. Their dads would probably swear oaths to murder him, but what could they do? He'd be the greatest wizard alive. He would just shoot them with thunder blasts and blow them away. And then their mothers would be widows, and they'd weep and weep and cry and beg him to bring their loved ones back to life, and he's say no, because... Because he could. And Gad would laugh. People said to him he was trash, without a mother. He would laugh, and point at their ashes and say "Ha! Look! See!? See where having a mother got you!?" People said he was a worthless half-breed, but what did they know? Short peons who didn't even know any magic at all. Of course he was better than them! Who would say he wasn't? Who would say what he couldn't do? When he got out of the well. Yes, he would show them. What the hell did they know, anyways? A bunch of backwater slobs living in an open sore, afraid of their own shadows. They were all evil, he knew. They were all behind it. They'd put him here, he was sure. They had some meeting before he was born, and conspired, and plotted to put him here in this position. No, they didn't want to just kill him. They wanted to break him, to torture him, and when he was broken they'd swoop in. But, HAHA! Gad would be the one swooping in on them! He'd turn into a giant bird, an eagle, or a raven -or something like that- and drop them from the sky, and eat their corpses. It would be great. He imagined himself turning into a bird and flying out of the well. But, he dismissed that as unrealistic. There probably wasn't any kind of magic that could turn you into a bird. That'd be ridiculous. Probably. Well, at any rate, it wasn't something he could do now, so he turned his attention back to more practical solutions. He did a good job of getting his feet good and dry so they wouldn't slip against the slick stone, and he even took a chunk of splintered wood off of the beam to dig out the grit in between the stone blocks. His fingers fit nicely into the grooves, and when he pulled his weight up he had enough purchase to support his body until he could get his toes in the grooves. He made it up a little, then a little more, but his fingers and toes were under much strain. He growled in pain hopped back down with a splash. He stretched his jammed digits out and they gave satisfying pops. He massaged his aching toes, which were getting wrinkly from constant dips in the well water, so he dried his feet off and put them up against the the stone sides of the well to rest. He was leaning sort of catercorner in the well, like a chord, so that his back was against one "side" and his feet against another, but of course, with out it being across the widest distance of the circle. He let out a signature puff, not so much of desperation but of boredom. He noticed a slight cooling. It was still very warm, but the sky was getting to be a deeper blue and the sunlight more golden so that Gad could tell it was the end of the day. The odd cool breeze would blow off of Baroque Bay but mostly it was stiff warm air in the well and out. The birds massed for an evening choir. Caws and chirps and squeaks shuttered together in an odd, but emotive disharmony, like the powerful drones of an orchestra tuning up before a performance, not that Gad would know. Gad listened to the noise intently, and added his own whistle to the bird's. It had a ring to it, he guessed. His song was drowned out by the bird's, though, and they didn't much care to make him the star of their show. That's how it always was in Sunberth, Gad thought. It was a mob of hungry mouths, he knew, all crying out "Me! Me! I! I!" too fast and too loud to make any sense of it. And even if one could, who was there to answer back? Who cared if you died, knifed down in a bar over a bet, or dropped dead into the bay over a debt? Or, at the bottom of a well. Well, you thought it was your rescue didn't you? Now the avian opera was all he could hear. He covered his ears trying muffle them but the sound went on. Soon the sky was going from royal blue to indigo and the last of the tall clouds that where there that morning were wisps, evaporated by Syna's impartial gaze, and now whisked away by the evening's more restless winds. Gad wondered if all the Gods were real. He wasn't educated in the ways of faith, and had only been exposed to the fringes and outermost limits of worship. In Sunberth, people didn't worship any gods of abstract ideas, for the most part. They wanted something tangible, and so he'd heard of goddesses of coin and gods of luck, or something similar. He'd heard of others being invoked, "heard of" only, like goddesses of night and theft, and of lust, and of murder, and of death. Those gods, they were feared in public, and revered in private, for what they might give you. But Gad was hazily aware that there were gods worshiped, he supposed in other places, for just about everything. He wondered how many there were. One of sailors, and one of farmers, one of fishers, one of hunters. He craned his neck up. Were there for the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars? Could they see what was going on down here? Did they care? He supposed it would be obvious if they did, and it seemed to him obvious that they didn't. Gad wondered how, or why. Maybe they used to care, and just got tired, or bored. Maybe watching people eat each other alive was just more fun. He couldn't come up with any more justifications for the way things were. To him, that meant something. Maybe, he thought, there wasn't any reason for it all. Maybe it was just a long list of unanswerable questions, asked in the dark, by no one at all. Well, that was enough to make the young wannabe wizard recoil a little, and duck his head down and lean back. Gad was really dealing with some heavy shyke down there in that hole. Like, was the well really just the belly button of the universe? All of a sudden, a member of the cricket choir hopped down there into his lap. Gad picked the little bug up between thumb and forefinger, and could feel it's thorax heaving between them. He lifted it up to the waning light to inspect it's wriggling, leggy body. When he got a good look at it, he found he'd been mistaken. It wasn't a cricket; it was too big, with fat leathery wings, and bulbous eyes with rectangular black pupils which must've made it's view of the world very interesting. It was a grasshopper, Gad realized. Unlike it's musically inclined cousin, it did it's very best to bound through the grass without belting out tacky love songs so every jay and robin could snatch it up, unlike some straight winged insects crawling around this place. No, the humble grasshopper did his best to keep his head down, and blend in. It's body was the green color of the grassy hills, and it's simple song was that of rustling leaves. Everything about it was unassuming, so that it could live free and unharassed. Gad might've done well to learn a lesson or two from the meager grasshopper. He tossed the lone bug "gently" against the opposite wall and it rattled of and buzzed a bit before splashing in the water. He laughed. The moon was out. He was fat, and swollen, and showed all but the smallest silver sliver of his face, a sliver that was shadowed dark and silhouetted against the blue night. He peaked through the last mists of the morning's clouds like a mirthful lurker through the window, or a dangerous stranger in the smokey brothel. Gad couldn't really see him, from where he was though. The moon would perch itself over the open air prison later in the night, when it could watch Gad sleep, and not be watched back, as it pleased. He was waxing, and he'd want to see his reflection in the pool at the bottom of the well. Gad called out one last time, yelling for help, cursing demands for aid, at none. And the creatures in the hills halted. What was that? A monster with forward-facing eyes, to eat them? Where was it? What was it? A bat? An Owl? Something worse. Up above, while the foolish crickets sang in choir, the grasshoppers massed for a sermon of their own. END OF PART I