“I think it was there,” Slia said pointing a few metres ahead. Besides her, her father and a few other villagers of Collosi had also accompanied Dani, Lia and me.

We moved in the direction Slia was pointing. The well—or rather hole— was surrounded by plants so well that I could only see it when I had reached very close to it.

“Here it is,” I said. Dani and Lia and the others too came near me and looked down at the well. It was large enough that a man could easily fall into it.

“So what next?” the chieftain asked from behind. I had told him that the sorcerer of the Wahaki mountain had abducted my wife and I was on a quest to save her. I had however not told him of my true identity of being a king.

I scratched my chin. I had thought that I would get a notification or something similar upon arriving to the well that would make it clear why the well was important in rescuing Rozy. But no such notification appeared in my vision.

And then a new urge came to me. A new, almost suicidal, urge that I tried hard to fight— to jump into the well. And then, before I knew it, I had leapt into the well, the shrieks of Dani and Lia following me. However I had fallen only a few metres into the well, when I stopped falling.

No, I had not reached the bottom of the well. I was just hovering in air! I could barely believe it!

“Are you all right?” Lia cried from outside the well.

“Yes!” I laughed.

And it was now that a notification appeared in my vision.

I am the Well to Everywhere.

Where would you like to go?

Well to Everywhere? Was that the name of the well?

“Can I go anywhere?” I asked the well verbally, so that Dani asked me from outside who I was talking to.

Yes. The reply came as a pop up in my vision.

“I would like to go to my wife, Rozy,” I said. My heart was beating fast. So that was why I had felt the urge to come to this well: Because it could take one to anywhere! I tried to suppress my excitement. Was I really going to get to Rozy within the next few minutes?

And then a new urge appeared came to me. To tell the well that I did not want to go to my wife. I dismissed the urge even though it was a strong one. No rabbit was going to stop me from getting to Rozy now.

Thank you for choosing your destination.

And then I let out a yelp as I began to fall again. Down and down the well I went, a cry in my throat the entire while. And then suddenly the bottom of the well came, but it was more like an opening of sorts. Through the opening, I fell right in front of Rozy, who was chained to two pillars on either sides. I hit the floor softer than I had expected and quickly I got up to my feet.

Rozy who had been leaning against her right arm that was tied to the pillar let out a gasp. I went and grasped her face with my hands. She had lost quite a lot of weight and her cheek bones were visible and her eyes had sunken in. But they still lit up seeing me.

Before I knew it I was passionately kissing her. She tried to say something to me, but I did not allow her and kept kissing her, even as tears went down my cheeks. I had never known that getting to her had been as simple as jumping down a well!

And then I heard sounds all around me, followed by the voices of people.

“Who is that?” someone said.

“Has to be her lover!” another said, “But I thought you said that he had quit the quest to save her and had gone towards the civilised realms, lord!”

I parted my lips from Rozy’s and for the first time I took in the place that I had really come to. It was a great hall probably inside some great castle or fort. The pillars to which Rozy was chained to were at one of the corners of the hall. There were daises along the length of the hall, on which a number of Wahaki tribesmen were seated (I knew they were Wahaki from their tattoos), and many of them were standing up and looking at me. In the farther section of the hall there were quite a bunch of common Wahaki: Men, women and children. There was a taller person who had been pacing about the length of the hall, probably preaching things to the Wahaki. This taller person wore a black cloak and there was a turban on his head. His face had been painted black and he had also drawn rings of red around his eyes, which made him look very fearsome and aggressive. Without a doubt I knew that this taller person had to be the very same sorcerer who had abducted Rozy from my castle under my nose.

“You?” the sorcerer spoke in a booming voice. There was something very calm about his voice and this made it sound very frightening. “How did you come here?” There was only the smallest trace of surprise in his words, as though regardless of how I had been able to come to this place he would still be able to deal with me. I recalled the urge to not want to come to where Rozy was that I had experienced while I had been in the well, and I now knew that that had been a very wise urge. Had I just put Rozy in an even graver situation by coming here? How was I going to escape with her?

Mintuk the sorcerer pointed a finger with long nails at me. Instinctively I leapt away and next moment there was a small explosion on the side of one of the pillars to which Rozy was tied to and bits and pieces of the pillar flew away in different directions because of whatever spell the sorcerer had thrown at me.

Mintuk again pointed a finger at me and fired a spell, this time I was slow, The spell hit me. I expected bits and pieces of my own body to fly in different directions, but that didn’t happen. Instead, my entire body was gripped by a crippling pain. I barely had any control of my muscles which were exploding in pain. I felt like there was an internal fire going on inside my body. At the same time I experienced a rather foreign panic inside my head, which was greater than my own panic.

The sorcerer began to approach me, even as the other Wahaki present began to mumble amongst themselves probably about how I had been successful in coming to this place. I was afraid.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I thought you left for the civilised realm,” the sorcerer said after reaching me, looking at me like I was some unwanted pest that he had thought had gone but had returned.

At that moment a new notification appeared in my vision.

Were you pleased with your experience of using the Everywhere Well?

Yes/No

Hell no! I thought.

We are sorry to hear that you did not like your experience using me.

I would be very happy in doing any of the following in the hope that your experience of using me would be improved, even if by a small degree:

1. Go back to where you entered the well.

2. Go to a different place.

I would like to go back to the place where the well is! I thought, even as the sorcerer continued to watch me keenly. The next moment a hole appeared in the floor right below me and down I fell through it. Down and down I went. I saw the bottom of the well or rather the opening and through it I was expelled out of the well into the air. I fell down just next to an astonished Lia.

A notification appeared in my vision.

I hope that you do not use me again a second time. I do not need travellers like you who do not like the extremely high-end travelling experience and speed and accuracy that I provide.

Goodbye!

I groaned and grunted and that was all I did for the next few minutes. The spell that the sorcerer had used on me was still on and it was causing me intense pain.

“What happened?” Lia asked, kneeling next to me.

“The sorcerer,” I said wincing,”… Shot a spell at me.”

“Sorcerer?” Dani said, “There is a sorcerer in the well?” And she peered into the well as if expecting to see a sorcerer there. “There is no one here!”

“Ugh!” I cried. “This pain is unbearable!”

“I think we should take him back to the village,” the chieftain said, concerned, “the healers might be able to help him.”

By now I was beginning to see stars in my vision. I was reminded of the last time I had been bitten by the snake. The pain this time was doubling and tripling with every second as though it wanted to burst everything that was within me.

“Let me… let me see,” Lia said and she placed her hands over my chest and closed her eyes and began to use her healing powers.

“Urgh!” she cried out. “I don’t understand this. There is nothing wrong inside him, but there is a lot of pain and every time I try to take it out the pain bites into my soul.”

I was gasping for breath now. From the next time on I was going to listen to all the urges that I had. I reckoned the sorcerer would now be questioning Rozy and asking her how I happened to get there and she would have absolutely no answer. Perhaps the sorcerer would use the same spell that he had used on me on Rozy. She would be in pain much like me. Oh Rozy… what had I done? What had I done!

Before I knew it I lost consciousness. And even then I kept experiencing the pain. There was only pain and nothing else existed. And then after a long while that could as well have been eternity, the pain slowly left, and was replaced by peacefulness.

And then the rabbit Xoris appeared. I was very certain by now that he was no figment of my imagination and was in fact an autonomous entity residing in my mind. He did not seem very pleased. He was frowning hard and was angry.

“Tell me the truth, do you even want to save you wife?” Xoris asked me.

I did not answer, too ashamed at what I had done to speak anything.

“Like I said earlier, I can only create an intense urge inside you to do something but it’s entirely up to you whether you give in to the urge,” Xoris said. “I created the urge in you to go see Slia because the more I thought about the place where you found her in the forest, the more the place felt similar to the area near the Well to Everywhere and there was every chance that Slia had come across the well. The Well to Everywhere can transport you everywhere. But at the same time you should have been able to reason that your wife is with my evil son, and he is very powerful. You should have been able to think when the well offered you to go to any place you wanted to that if you go to your wife, there was a very good chance that my son would be near her and he wouldn’t be very pleased to see you. What more he knows now for certain that you did not leave for the civilised realm!”

“Ok, I admit that what I did wasn’t wise,” I said, “but what can I do to fix this? At some point I will have to face your son again if I want to rescue Rozy, what will I do then?”

“You will have to take the aid of the well again,” the rabbit said, “I had once used the well a long time ago. My son doesn’t know of its existence in the forest. There are wells similar to it spread throughout the world and they can be used for quick travel from one place to another. However, this particular well won’t work for you anymore because you told it that you are not pleased with its service. Pleasing people is what the well dreams of. But the well does have some personality issues… yes, the well is like a person. The well only likes to serve people who are pleased with its service.”

“If I somehow find a way to use the well again, where would I use it to go?” I asked.

“My son is powerful, you see,” the rabbit said in a thoughtful voice, “and the only way you might be able to save your wife from him is if by becoming powerful yourself. Not far from the Wahaki mountain is an ancient temple. There is supposedly a powerful artefact there. While I cannot guarantee you that using it you will be able to save your wife, I think it is the best chance you have got. There are artefacts of power scattered all over the barbaric realm, and the one in the temple is nearest to you. All the same it is very hard to obtain them. The temple would probably offer you many obstacles to overcome before it deems you worthy of possessing the artefact. We sorcerers give up our natural ability to level up and instead use rituals to gain powers and skills. I doubt that my son has any interest in the artefact and has probably not bothered obtaining it. You see the powerful artefacts have the drawback that they can be lost and once they are lost you lose your powers. But for now, the artefact in the temple might be your only chance.”

“Well, I know that powers can be lost,” I said, recalling the night when the Wahaki man had placed the vile gemstone on my chest. “Your son was the one who took them away from me.”

“Did he use some precious gemstone to do that?” Xoris asked, and there was an almost proud edge to his voice.

“Yes, he sent his men to place the stone on my chest and rob me of my powers.”

“Excellent! I still remember teaching him the ritual to create such a gemstone,” Xoris said and he was not quite looking at me and seemed lost in some memory, “He has grown up to be a master sorcerer!”

“Are you with him or with me?” I asked very seriously, for once afraid that all Xoris had said earlier about teaching a lesson to his son had been a lie.

Xoris suddenly seemed to snap back to the present.

“I am sorry!” he said, “Please do not misunderstand me. I guess at the end of the day a father remains a father and at the end of the day, I will always cherish the old memories that I had with my son when he was a child. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to teach him a lesson. I can never forget the hurt that I experienced when he turned me into a rabbit. Please understand that despite everything my loyalties lie with you, not with my son. I am going to help you rescue your wife from my son. You have my word for that.”

I wasn’t a father, but I reckoned whatever Xoris was telling me was the truth as he looked genuinely keen to help me.

“Okay,” I said, “Would it be wise if I send my wives to the temple to get the artefact. I believe they would be able to use the well, even though I cannot use it any longer?”

The rabbit Xoris pulled his whiskers in thought.

“I think that can be done,” he said, “all the same I must warn you that it will be no easy task to take the artefact from the temple. Or else someone would have taken the artefact from the temple long ago, which I hope hasn’t happened. If you want to put your wives in a dangerous situation that is up to you and I wouldn’t say anything. But keep in mind that I wouldn’t be in the minds of your wives and in no way would I be able to suggest them to do the right thing.”

***