Clearwater Shrimp
Clearwater Shrimp live in the unnaturally pure water of the Truthwell, the only living thing besides its keepers that the Well tolerates. They are the first to answer a lie. Before the water boils, freezes, or rises, the shrimp cloud it, and a speaker who watches them has a heartbeat’s warning.
Appearance
Each is the length of a fingernail and so clear that it shows only as a faint outline and a pair of black pinhead eyes. A thread of silver runs down its back, catching the light that comes up from the water. They hang in loose drifts along the stone of the shaft, a few hands below the rim, and from above the drifts look like dust motes in a sunbeam. They make no sound and have no smell.
Habitat and Range
They are found nowhere but in the Truthwell’s shaft, clinging close to the inscribed stone and thinning out with depth. How far down they go no one knows.
Behaviour and Temperament
They graze an invisible film on the stone and drift with the water’s slow turning. At a truth they do nothing. At a lie spoken aloud by the Well, every shrimp within reach of the voice sheds a puff of milky fluid at once and darts for the stone, and the water goes white as whey for a breath before the Well’s own answer comes. Silence before a question, which the Well takes as a lie, clouds them as well.
Abilities
Their only gift is that they feel what the Well feels, and a little sooner. The cloud is theirs, not the Well’s: it fades in moments and leaves the water clear again. They do not judge and cannot be deceived by a careful lie, because the Well cannot.
Life Cycle
Females carry clusters of eggs like grains of salt under the tail; the young are clearer still. They seem short-lived, and the drifts renew themselves season by season. Dead shrimp vanish into the water, and nothing of them is ever found.
Uses and Dangers
They are harmless and cannot be kept: taken out of the Well, they cloud once and die. Those who come to the Well to settle a dispute often have a kinsman watch the shrimp rather than the speaker, since the white cloud is easier to see than a change in the water’s colour. The Water-Robed are said to be able to read a speaker’s lie from the size of the cloud.
Lore and Belief
Some visitors believe the shrimp are the drowned liars of the Well, and that each cloud is one of them, remembering. That is not so; the Choked hang in the water as Echoes, and the shrimp are living things. Others say a shrimp that clouds at a promise means the promise will be broken.