Manvayar waited impatiently while Seppan's mare plodded up the rise. At last Seppan reached the crossroads, and together they gazed down the lane that wound away from the high road.
"This must be the way," Seppan said.
"They could have sent a guide for us," said Manvayar.
Seppan smiled faintly. "You will get used to serving the Temple Court. No one wants to travel with an inquisitor on the hunt."
Manvayar urged Raven down the bank of the high road and onto the lane, into the green shadows of the forest. He noticed that the country folk had done some cutting and coppicing along the edge of the lane, but further in the wood was an impenetrable tangle. The lord of this place had not even fired the brush for hunting.
Then he saw mounds of rock and a gap-toothed section of wall. The stones where the wall remained standing had been mortised together so closely that no weed had taken root.
"What is it?" Seppan asked, stopping his horse beside Raven.
"A Nariyo ruin," said Manvayar. A trace of a path led toward the broken wall. He guided Raven down it a few steps.
Beyond the wall he could see an opening in the forest canopy. An old lattice of power prickled at his bones. He opened his soul-doors with care. And tasted something, power recently astir--
"Our business is at the manor," Seppan said.
Manvayar glanced back. Seppan's impassive face and priestly soul-mask concealed all trace of emotion, but from their brief acquaintance, Manvayar guessed the fat old inquisitor was yearning for his dinner.
He turned to the ruins and sent soul-touch questing a moment longer. Then, unexpectedly, the taste of putrefying flesh flooded his mouth. He gagged and nearly vomited. Old terror surged through his limbs. Raven reared up in response, whinnying shrilly. Manvayar slammed shut his soul-doors and clamped his will upon the sudden chaos of his emotions. "Here!" he shouted to Seppan. "It's here!"
"What?" said Seppan. "Where?"
But it was already gone. With an effort Manvayar swallowed his nausea and moved his hand, which had seized his sword hilt, to stroke Raven's velvet neck. He looked up. A breeze riffled the numberless leaves of the forest.
He understood why the inquisitors in the High Temple had sent him to this remote province. They would help cover his tracks, hide him from his old master. But in two scant weeks in the provincial capital, he had begun to feel impossibly lost. He did not belong in the placid countryside any more than a corpse-wagon belonged at a young ladies' dancing party. The slow ride into these hills, while cloud-shadow and sunlight chased each other across the summer fields and he held Raven tightly in check to pace Seppan's swaybacked mare, had not changed his mind. He had been sure the murder would prove nothing worse than a drunken quarrel and a bad dream sent by a country witch to plague her neighbors. The neighbors would fill the inquisitor's ears with gossip while children chased puppies in the yard.
He had been wrong.
He was in familiar country again. The terrified guardsmen had not mistaken the power that had savaged their captain.
The necromancer was real.
[The complete version of "The Poison Well" appears in Issue #7 of Black Gate magazine.]
