Water-Robed

Overview

The Water-Robed are the natives of the Truthwell, the deep well that rejects falsehood and drowns oath-breakers. They hold it as a sacred trust and call themselves guardians of the truth.

Appearance

A Water-Robed is tall and still, of a Human's build or a little heavier, with skin like polished stone, grey or green-grey, smooth as the worn rim of the well. Its eyes are clear and reflective, like the surface of the water, and in them a visitor sees their own face. It wears robes of woven water: a garment that ripples, drips, and never soaks the ground, cool to brush against, clear blue in the light. It moves calmly and seldom, and speaks only when it must, in a low voice that carries over the water. It smells of cold spring water and wet stone.

Habitat and Range

They live at the well, in the grove or ruin around it, and never far from the basin. A Truthwell holds a few, often only one or two.

Behaviour and Temperament

Water-Robed are calm, direct, and serious. They value honesty and integrity above everything, and regard visitors as impure or deceptive until shown otherwise. They watch every oath sworn at the well and every question asked over it. They do not lie, cannot be lied to with any profit, and do not stop the water from doing what it does.

They guard against misuse. The well's water can be carried away and forced on others to make them speak only facts; Water-Robed decide who may take it, and refuse many.

Abilities

They draw sustenance from the purity of the water and need no food or sleep. The water's reactions do not touch them: they can stand in it while it boils and freezes around a liar. They are thought to know at once when a lie is told near the well.

Life Cycle

Some believe the Water-Robed were once the Pure, travellers who never lied and were blessed by the water, and who stayed. Others say they rose from the well's stone. They seem very long-lived.

Uses and Dangers

People come to settle a dispute beyond doubt, to swear an oath, or to confess, and the Water-Robed watch over it. Whoever wants the water for interrogation must deal with them. Their danger is only to those who lie at their well, and that danger is the well's.

Lore and Belief

In the country around a Truthwell, a Water-Robed's word is taken as truth itself, and a few lords have tried to drag Water-Robed into their quarrels. Some faiths count them as servants of a god of oaths. The Choked hanging in the water, liars it drowned, are often said to be the victims of the Water-Robed; it was the water that took them.

Feuding clans bring their quarrels to the well under truce, and every clan tells of the two warlords who met there to end a ten-year feud, and the Water-Robed who would not let either draw a blade until both had spoken true.

Where It Appears

• The Truthwell
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Resonant Zones