Every ancient courtyard is centred around a well. They were once the heart of any medieval town or sprawling castle, providing the water that helped the rest of it to grow, the lifeblood that every inhabitant depended upon. There were cities famous for their gleaming spires, fortresses renowned for their fearsome battlements, but each of them had the same thing at their core. A dark hole in the ground, surrounded by a stone circle. The source of all their prosperity.
Some of those courtyards are still open today, but their wells have not been used to draw water for centuries. Instead, each black pit is enclosed within iron bars, closed off from the living world it once helped to feed. If asked, those who built the cage will say it is for safety, to keep children from falling to a deep and watery grave, but they won't say why that would ever be a danger, why any child would ever be drawn towards this musty pit. They trust them to stand on the balustrades and bridges without falling, at least an equal height, but not here. They can't explain why.
Darkness rises like heat. There is a power at the heart of every well, an energy that brought people to build their settlements around it. One hundred years ago, deep fields of oil were drilled, and cities rose from the desert after one drop of their liquid wealth. Two hundred years ago, deep coal reserves were mined, and they fuelled the growth of all of the surrounding towns.
One thousand years ago, we drilled deep wells, and we built our civilisation around them. Humanity has always looked towards the planet's core for strength. We build churches pointing up towards the light, but centre them around these holes, drawing down into the dark. When we need saving from our thirst, we don't appeal to the heavens, whose rain is unreliable, but to the certainty of hell.
Darkness rises like a mist. Every success comes at a cost, a price that must be met. Faust made his pact with the devil, but sold his soul for everything he gained. The town of Hamelin tells a similar story. The earliest entry in the town's record states "it is 100 years since our children left". The tale is told of a plague of rats, led away to be drowned with the playing of a pipe, a payment that was due, and the terrible vengeance when it wasn't made: the pipe's power was turned against the town itself, and their children were led to drown with the rats.
A well is a type of pipe. There is no musical instrument that can channel an infestation of rats to and from a town, but the ancient water channels would have been perfect for the task. A swarm of rats could be sent out of a well, and then drawn back into it, once a ransom had been demanded. Children could fall down a well, dropping like pennies into its dark and hungry throat. Hundreds of them could vanish into the void. There are few other places they could go without leaving a trace.
Centuries on, the story is told using a wooden pipe in the hands of a colourful figure, leading them away to a river to drown, but there is no evidence of that. The records only show that the children disappeared. There are memories of rats, and pipes, and drowning, but little else besides embellishment of these historical facts. All that can be known for sure is that the children disappeared, and that the quickest way to the river was through the black pipe of the well.
Darkness rises like the damp. In many other ancient towns, visitors are still invited to make tribute to the local well. They are told to make an offering to it, in the form of an old coin, and expect that it will grant a wish to them in recognition of their sacrifice. None of them question why they expect a well to have the power to grant their heart's deepest desires. None of them question why they know that it requires a payment. It just feels necessary, somewhere deep in their bones.
