Steve Libbey's Aqua Pura Trilogy

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Chapter One of The Bloodbaths

Crixus Oraan and his two assistants lounged downhill from the dowser and his entourage. The water shaman chanted, anointed himself with pungent oils, cast wild eyes about the hillock, and in general gave a good show for the nobleman who hired him. Salty wind tickled their hair, relieving the humidity common to Rond in summer.

“The usual wager?” Stamm produced a sestric, its silver plating scratched from decades spent in belt-pouches. Crixus dug out a sestric. They held the coins up between thumb and forefinger.

“Two hundred yards,” Crixus said.

“You’re too gentle,” Stamm said, wagging the coin at him. “Three fifty and not one less. He’s got the sense of an aurochs.”

The hill overlooked Restia, a coastal town beginning to bloat with nobles and their summer households. Since the completion of a paved road between Restia and the capital city of Greater Rond, money and business flowed into the town like wine at a wedding celebration. In the last two months, Crixus had made the day long journey every week to arrange contracts for aqueducts and plumbing to the new estates. It brought him into contact with dowsers far more often than he preferred.

For Kharrina, however, it was worth the headache.

He had been haggling with Councilman Stada over costs for running pipes to the main house, the servants’ quarters, the bathhouse, the fountains, and the surrounding vineyard. Crixus had explained the necessary steps so many times that he grew tired of his own voice. Stada’s gaze would wander off after ten seconds of explanation, until the word “sestrices” came up — then he would snap back in a display of decisiveness.

Crixus found himself talking to the bald patch on the older man’s head. Though just a few inches taller than the average Rondan, he towered over the councilman, who refused to look him in the eye as he spoke; thus, the bald patch took on a life of its own as the councilman’s gaze wandered throughout the imaginary work site Crixus described. It irked Crixus now to watch Stada gaze in awe at the water shaman.

“He may have the sense of an aurochs, but he’s got the showmanship of a trained bear,” Crixus said. “Look at him. If he did that in a tavern, we’d call him a drunkard.”

Behind them, Gavri sorted the soil samples she had collected from the far side of the hill, past the stand of trees. At Crixus’ urging, the girl wore her dark hair in a plain pageboy cut and forsook makeup. This, along with the shapeless worker’s garments, hid her femininity enough that she might be taken more seriously in the Guild. Gavri knew stone as well as masons twice her age.

“Ser, I know the man is a fraud, but what’s the harm? Councilman Stada has more money than wit,” Gavri said. They chuckled at her matter-of-fact tone. “It’s not the Water Guild’s problem if he wastes good silver on dowsers. We know where the water is.” She presented the soil samples, arranged in rows in a wooden box separated into a grid of compartments by slats. A metal arrow inset on one side marked cardinal north, so that the box was a miniature cross-section of the hill itself. “Or we soon will.”

In three of the compartments, she had placed a tiny white flower. “We will indeed! Good work.” Crixus lifted a blossom. “However, our mystical friend does more than waste the old man’s money. When his prediction turns out to be wrong, we’ll have dug a well needlessly. We’ll charge the client extra then go dig where there is water to be had, but we’ll have lost his goodwill. If you really want to spend the next year bickering with Stada, I’ll put you in charge.”

Gavri considered this. “Then why do we tolerate him?”

“I don’t,” Stamm said, spitting.

“He has ties to the priesthood. You should know by now that everything is connected.” Crixus’ fingers danced across the sample box, arriving on the section that contained the white flowers. “I wouldn’t mind cutting those strings, though. I can see he’ll be trouble.”

He noticed that the shaman had, after many histrionics, produced his forked dowsing rod, cut from a hazel branch.

“Go back to this parcel, here,” he pointed to the three flowered compartments, “and set up stakes where you think digging will be easiest. I’ll meet you there.”

Stamm and Gavri set off with the sample box, map, and tools. Crixus watched them disappear into the trees. Neither was accorded much respect in the Guild. Stamm was a lazy and unrepentant drunk. Gavri was young, inexperienced, and female, thus not given all the training she deserved. Nevertheless, Crixus liked them better than the veterans he’d worked with, perhaps because they didn’t intimidate him.

And now intimidation was what Crixus needed to muster up. He unbuckled his mason’s hammer, passed into his care by his father. The epidemic that had swept through Greater Rond was so swift and brutal that it even struck down a strong man like Simic Oraan in less than a week. A teary-eyed Crixus had been forced to recite the ceremonial words for his father as the dying artesan coughed his life away.

The gold appointments on the handle depicted the Oraan family crest, a few elements of the Rondan flag, and a bull, the family’s symbolic animal. The head of the hammer weighed five pounds; it was heavy for delicate stonework but so sharp on the wedge-end that he could use it in place of narrower chisels. The steel alloy was many times harder than the average iron smelted for a workman’s tool. Such a hammer cost half a year’s wages, and Crixus took fastidious care of it. He preferred to dent a common mason’s hammer on standard jobs, yet he always wore the family hammer at his side. He hoped the sight of a thick-set, heavily muscled man with a hammer in his hands would elicit a primal fear response in the shaman.

Taking comfort in the hammer’s weight, he approached the shaman’s followers. Up close they looked just as absurd: a half dozen boys in face paint and robes, holding incense; a woman shy of garments, waving a handful of ribbons; an oracle with a gutted goose; the shaman himself, middle-aged but powerful of carriage. Dowsing must have paid well; the man’s fleshy frame and smooth face implied a rich diet. An embroidered robe of azure silk tinkled with tiny bells sewn into the hemline.

He held the forked hazel branch cut fresh that day, no doubt by one of the weary assistants hauling his materials. Magic, apparently, weighed as much as science. The dowsing rod wavered as if controlled by something other than the man’s hands. Crixus scanned the location the man had chosen to focus his efforts. It offered a lovely view of the valley where the councilman’s estate would be, but the dry dirt crunching at their feet told him all he needed to know about the hellacious digging project about to unfold.

The shaman murmured prayers, eyes closed, until Crixus cleared his throat. Councilman Stada, attended himself by young servants, grumbled at Crixus’ interruption.

“Your pardon, most revered one,” Crixus said, keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. “I’m Artesi Crixus Oraan, the engineer responsible for water resources for House Stada’s new estate. I think it would benefit our client if we could have a brief consultation.”

The shaman opened his eyes with supreme, patient dignity to look down his nose at Crixus.

“Artesi? I expected a senior engineer, not a minion.” His gaze drifted away. “Your services are not required until later.”

“I speak for my Guild, ser,” Crixus said, dangling his hammer conspicuously at his side. “Should your predictions fail to identify the underground spring, I fear our client’s money will be wasted.”

The shaman cut him off with a wave of his hand. “They are hardly predictions. The spirits of the land convene on holy days near the purest of water sources. This has been proven time and again. Your inability to understand the innermost workings of nature does not give you the right to judge our work.” He sniffed. “I am most tolerant with my explanations, for which you need not thank me. I trust you do fine work. Now let me attend to mine.”

“Crixus,” Councilman Stada hissed, “leave us alone! Don’t disturb his concentration. The spirits are ephemeral in the extreme, and ephemera costs silver.”

The shaman raised his hands to the sky. “This Artesi is blessed by the water spirits. They flock to him and sing praises to him. Right here”—he dipped the dowsing rod to the rocky ground—“they gather in the greatest numbers thirty yards below our feet. Your interruption has been most opportune,” he said with a mischievous smile. “Do you see where you should dig?”

The councilman’s eyes lit up with gratification. Crixus thought of Stamm and Gavri, staking out the ground where the bastianae flowers had shown them the true location of the wellspring by dint of their attraction to substratum moisture.

“The Water Artesan’s Guild has more tried and true methods for finding water than shaking a stick at the ground.” He felt his face flush at the shaman’s frown. “We’ll be happy to note your recommendation, ser. In fact, you’re welcome to meet me here at dawn to see whether water vapor arises from the ground. But I can’t in good faith disregard scientific methods for superstition. Not when a noble’s hard-won austrices are at stake.”

The shaman chuckled. “Of course not. Your skills are unquestionable.” With a grand gesture, he offered the rod to Crixus. “See for yourself. You are a spirit magnet.”

Crixus hesitated, sensing he was losing control. He returned his hammer to its belt loop and took the rod with an awkward smile. It was light and brittle, no different than any stick found in the woods.

“In both hands,” the shaman urged. “Then concentrate on the essence of water. You, of all people, should be closely attuned to it.”

The water is hundreds of yards away, he thought. There is nothing here but some damp rock at best. Even if water spirits existed and frolicked underground, they would be doing so where Gavri and Stamm planted stakes.

Holding the rod in both hands, Crixus envisioned the location he had picked out for digging. The rod jerked, ever so slightly, inching downwards. Crixus’ eyes went wide.

“Do you feel it?” The shaman leered at him. “The natural power beneath your feet?”

The rod curved down, even as he tried to hold his hands still.

“Relax your hands. Let the rod use you as a conduit.” The shaman’s entourage smirked at him; the rivalry between water engineers and the dowsers had turned violent at times.

There was no question that the rod moved of its own accord, despite his efforts to relax his hands. The engineer in him balked at the phenomenon and sought to explain it: the forked branch might channel any pressure downwards, or the wood was heavier at the intersection of the two branches. The shaman’s explanation simply could not be correct.

“He feels the draw of the water,” the shaman said to the gathered crowd. Stada clapped his hands. “I predict you will be bathing in your own spring very soon, Councilman.” He took the rod away from Crixus with a flourish. Crixus put his hands to his belt, blushing with embarrassment.

Sighing, he knelt and scratched out an X with the haft of his hammer. “It is so marked. I look forward to meeting the spirits in person.” He could not resist catching Stada’s eye. “Meanwhile, I will have my team check the hill for other possible branches of this primary source, which may be more accessible. At no additional fee, and with the blessing of the revered one, of course.”

“You were right, Artesi,” the shaman said, finishing him off. “This has been a fruitful consultation.”

#

Crixus’ posture tipped his assistants off as he emerged from the trees. Gavri took a few steps forward.

Stamm merely lowered his flask. “What went wrong?” The journeyman spoke softly, fearing the worst.

Crixus shook his head. “He’s a canny one. I opened my mouth and he put words in it.”

Stamm spit. “Bastard. How many sites are going to be scarred by those charlatans and their bad guesses? I say we dig right here, priests be damned.”

“We’ll run our tests and choose the spot to drive the well, but we’ll have to do the same at the shaman’s chosen digging point.”

Stamm and Gavri scowled. “Why?” she asked. “Did he find water?”

“I’m not sure.” Crixus shook his head and held his hands as if he were holding the dowsing rod. “He has a glib tongue, talking about the water spirits gathering below us. Stada is convinced. But then he handed me the rod. Damned if the thing didn’t point down to where he said it would. It was eerie.” He shrugged. “It moved in my hands.”

“Huh.” Stamm looked back towards the trees, beyond which the shaman had made his declaration. “So you think there’s something to it?”

“No, but something moved that branch. I doubt it was his water spirits, but still...” He recalled the sensation of the branch moving by itself. “I’ll work this out with the Guild officials. They will want to fine Stada when that site turns up dry, but it might be better to absorb the expense. Restia is a new market.” He brushed the bastianae flowers with his foot. The thirsty little blossoms grew dense in a thirty yard span around them. Weeks before, he and his assistants had scattered the seeds across the hill. The flowers grew quickly when their roots found water, even deep in the ground. Along with some knowledge of geology, they were the Guild’s own fragrant dowsing rod.

The Water Artesans Guild of Rond had little competition, but what did exist thrived in new markets like Restia: renegade Guild members, independents, even the shadowy contractors who courted favor with the dowsers. Anyone who thought they could save money by sidestepping the Guild usually came to regret their parsimony; they would pay far more to the Guild for repairs than the Guild would charge them for doing the job once the right way. Still, money thus spent was money lost to the Guild, and Crixus wanted to secure Restia for the Guild—and not merely out of loyalty or ambition.

“Pack up. We have six other estates to evaluate. Hopefully, we’ll get to the clients before the shamans do.” There was time left before dusk, enough to arrange meetings with planners and rich noblemen—or at least start the lengthy process.

The three Artesans bound the unused stakes with the remaining twine and stuffed them into canvas packs with sturdy shoulder straps. Crixus rolled the shovels and augers in a blanket. The tools weighed plenty, more than Stamm or Gavri could haul, but Crixus had no difficulty with the load. His father and his father’s father had been giants; a lifetime of physical labor had made him strong. And luckily their cart was close, parked on the road at the base of the hill.

Emerging from the stand of trees, they spotted the shaman and his entourage with Stada and his own servants, making preparations for a blessing ceremony.

Stada would get his personal aqueduct despite the shaman’s interference. Restia’s water supply flowed in from a mountain lake, through a rickety concrete aqueduct that had developed cracks from expansion due to temperature changes. As a result, sediment and minerals entered the water during its journey through the tunnel system. Once the arcades were reached, a third of the water spilled out of the cracks; animals used it for bathing as they would a natural waterfall. The water that did arrive in the little coastal city was potable but not clean, and certainly not to the standards expected by the landed nobility of Rond’s large cities.

They could have all saved thousands of sestrices by contributing to the repair and upgrade of the main aqueduct, and thereby won the hearts of the local population. Instead, they brought their snobbishness with them, so Restia would become an outlying suburb of Greater Rond. Their money—and elitism—would put local laborers to work for years. At least the local economy would pick everyone up, to some small degree.

The cart and donkey stood untouched. Lawlessness had not yet found Restia, aside for the docks. That would change with the new road.

The thought caused Crixus a pang of regret as they loaded the cart and watered the donkey. He would never experience life in Restia as it had been — as Kharrina had experienced it.

He flipped his sestric to Stamm, who caught it and winked. It would be spent on ale before nightfall. Thinking of Kharrina’s wry smile, Crixus led the donkey back into town.



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