False Wells

Overview

A False Well is a being of the Parched, counted among its Sand-Stalkers, that lies in a hollow of sand and looks like a pool of clear water. A traveller who kneels to drink finds the water closing over hands and face, and the pool drinks the traveller instead. There is no surface water anywhere on the plane, so every pool a traveller sees there is either a mirage or a False Well.

Appearance

It lies flat in a hollow, from the width of a wash-tub to the width of a cart, and its upper surface is a skin so clear and smooth that it shows the sky and the sand beneath like still water. At its edges it thins into the sand without a seam. Under the skin it is pale and jelly-like, the colour of clouded water, and a close look shows slow currents moving in it. It has no eyes, mouth, or limbs that anyone has seen. It makes no sound. Where the dry wind smells of dust and salt, the air over a False Well smells faintly of rain, and that is what draws the thirsty to it.

Habitat and Range

False Wells lie singly in hollows of the deep sand, in dry riverbeds, and on the floors of the canyons that old rivers cut, often within sight of a mirage, where a thirsty traveller is already looking for water. They seldom move, and a Dust-Eater band may know where one has lain for a generation.

Behaviour and Temperament

A False Well waits. It does not hunt, follow, or call; the thirst of the plane does its work for it. When something touches the surface to drink, the skin softens and closes, and the whole body tightens around whatever it holds, a beast's muzzle, a traveller's hands and face. It drinks the water out of its prey through the skin, as the land of the plane drinks a spill, slowly and without letting go, and leaves a dry husk in the hollow before it smooths over again.

Abilities

It keeps its body moist on a plane where water boils off in minutes, holding a film of clear water on its surface that it draws from the air and from its prey. Once it has closed, it cannot be pulled off by hand. Fire and cuts make it let go, and a blade drawn across the skin sends it shrinking into the sand.

Life Cycle

How False Wells breed no one knows. Dust-Eaters say a well that has fed well splits in two, and that the smaller part creeps off at night to a new hollow. One that goes long unfed shrinks to a damp stain in the sand and waits; that is how most are found.

Uses and Dangers

To the Dust-Eaters a False Well is a known danger and a resource: they throw a carcass onto it and cut the well open while it feeds, and squeeze its body for a few mouthfuls of water that taste of salt and the creature's last meal. To travellers new to the plane it is the plane's cruellest trap. Its prey is those who have not yet learnt that the Parched has no pools.

Lore and Belief

Travellers bring home the tale of a well in the desert that drinks men, and on the Material Plane it has grown into stories of haunted oases and wells that call the thirsty; the Dry Gates, abandoned wells that open into the plane, get the blame. The Dust-Eaters have a saying for anyone who trusts too easily: "you would kneel at a pool." Some travellers believe a False Well can be tested by throwing sand on it, since sand sinks into water but rests on the skin; the Dust-Eaters laugh at this, since there is no true water on the plane for it to be told from.

Desert raiders on Caeldon are said to drive their pursuers towards the abandoned wells that open into the plane, and some of the haunted oases of the songs are remembered as the graves of whole war-bands.

Where It Appears

• The Parched