Huw Gilliand prepared to leave the gardens surrounding the Well of Life in the center of Platonia an hour before sunset. He was to meet his friends, Berwyn, Reginard, and Rolant, at Berwyn"s inn, the Bull and Boar, for supper. The gardens grew all around him, flowers and more beds of flowers in a rough circle surrounding the ancient well. The well was more spring than well, but it had been called a well for hundreds of years, as waters from deep within the earth rose up and over moss-covered stones set low upon the ground. The brilliant blue water of a hue unknown outside the gardens streamed to the surface, pouring over a low stone lip worn smooth by countless centuries and splashing into a pool twelve feet wide and twenty feet long before forming a narrow, deep channel that flowed to the
