“Although what Whinny is going to say I have no idea,” he said as he stretched his cramped limbs. “We are not used to entertaining I am afraid, and there be but the one spare bedroom.”
Stella noticed Henson raise an eyebrow before he asked Nephril if he would be needed again. When Nephril said he had no immediate plans, Henson passed down Mirabel’s bag, tipped his finger to his temple and urged the mare forward into a turn the yard could barely afford.
When the three of them bustled into the house, it was Winifred’s tone of voice, when she learned of their extra guest, that displayed her displeasure. Otherwise, she set to uncomplainingly preparing a meal for them all.
Considering the short notice, she did them proud, the fare plentiful enough for all eventually to sit back feeling replete. At a slight nod from Nephril, Winifred excused herself and left in search of yet more chores.
Stella thought Nephril at last seemed more his usual self, as though he’d put aside his earlier distraction. He turned to her, seeming to sense her stare, and held her gaze for a disconcerting length of time.
Finally, he spoke. “Did either of thee see or feel anything unusual at the harbour today?” and he turned his gaze to them both. “Anything ... out of the ordinary?”
Stella exchanged looks with Mirabel before they both shook their head, but then Mirabel narrowed her eyes and stared into the distance.
“Yes, mine dear?” Nephril said, leaning forward towards her. “Has something come to mind?”
“Well,” and she glanced between Nephril and Stella, “now you mention it. At first, I was convinced I was falling from the wall, after the shock of recognising Stella, but ... but then I felt ... well, it felt like a push at my back,” and her eyes widened.
Nephril looked at Stella. “And thou saw nothing?”
“No, Nephril. I was just so horrified at the thought of Mirabel falling I only had eyes for her. But she couldn’t have been, could she, Nephril?” but his answer came as little more than a frown.
43 Of Black and White
“So,” Mirabel said to Stella, “what’s this important thing you wanted to discuss with me?”
Stella glanced at Nephril but he’d clearly not heard, once more seemingly lost to his own thoughts. “Well,” and Stella took her chair around the table and sat beside Mirabel. “We think we have a way of...” but her desperation at how best to explain forced an idea of its own starkly into her mind.
“Come on, Stella, don’t keep me on tenterhooks.”
Stella grinned but quickly softened it to a smile. “Well, we’ve found a way to get Dica back to the way it was before the great move within the walls.”
Nephril at last took an interest, but only to stare at her with steadily widening eyes.
“Not only that but to remove Leiyatel’s threat to my own life,” she quickly added.
Nephril cleared his throat but Stella ignored him. “And simply by making Leiyatel complete,” Stella enthused, “as she should have been all along.”
“Eh?” Nephril let slip.
“What do you mean ‘complete’?” Mirabel said.
Stella’s idea had now fully blossomed, already promising a rich crop of fruit. “We’ve discovered an ancient cutting of Leiyatel,” she said.
“Of Leiyatel?”
Stella risked a look at Nephril only to find his eyes had narrowed, a lopsided grin now infusing his face. “Aye, Stella,” he leisurely said, “pray do explain that one to Mirabel,” and he folded his arms across his chest.
Stella looked from one to the other. “Nephril would explain himself but finds it a bit too embarrassing. You see,” she said, drawing nearer Mirabel, “when, forty years ago, he and dad took Leiyatel’s remains from Baradcar to Leigarre Perfinn – as the seed for her regrowth – they’d no idea then there was something missing.”
“Missing?” Mirabel said whilst Nephril only mouthed the word.
“A fresh weft and weave, Mirabel, not the damaged and exhausted one her remains had been left with.” Stella felt quite exhilarated, the more so when Mirabel’s face lit up.
“Of course,” she said, “what Storbanther was supposed to have recovered from Nouwelm.”
Stella’s mouth dropped open and she turned a desperate look Nephril’s way, but he only stared at Mirabel.
“Storbanther Shadowra?” he said.
“Yes. Mum said you knew him.”
“I suppose one could say that.”
“Who?” Stella found herself saying.
Mirabel beamed at her. “He was created by the ancient engers at the same time they created my line of cuckoos...”
“Shortly after they altered mine weft and weave, Stella, some two thousand years ago.”
“I don’t know about that, Nephril,” Mirabel said. “My mother never mentioned it,” but then she bit her lip. “Oops. I shouldn’t really be telling you any of this, but then, well, what the heck. It’s old history now, and I suppose we’re all in the same boat.”
Nephril nodded, again clearly lost to his own thoughts.
“Storbanther was meant to guide our reseeding of Baradcar,” Mirabel told them, “but I believe he came to a sudden end at the Farewell Gap long before we had need of him.”
Nephril grunted. “Yes, at Leiyatel’s own hand, mind.”
“So, I now take it that whatever Storbanther was meant to recover from Nouwelm did in fact get here, and you’ve somehow turned it up?”
“Aye, Mirabel, thou could say that,” but Nephril hesitated. “A ... a ring of sorts, but this time in the form of a cask.”
“A cask?”
He nodded. “Like the one in which we took the remains of Leiyatel to Leigarre Perfinn,” but then Nephril seemed to notice Mirabel’s bag for the first time, where she’d left it on the floor beside her chair.
“I think thou had best take mine own bedroom whilst thou be staying here, Mirabel,” he said. “We can talk about this in more detail after thou hath settled in. I am sure thou must be tired by now, what with all that has happened today.”
She frowned. “But where will you sleep, Nephril?”
“Oh, I will be fine without a bed, mine dear. I have little need of...”
“No, Nephril,” Stella affirmed. “My bed’s plenty big enough for two. We’ll take a side each.”
Nephril stared at her for a moment before slowly nodding. “In which case, thou had best show Mirabel up to thy room, and take her bag with thee so she may settle in.”
“Would you like a bath?” Stella asked her. “I think it’ll do you good after the day you’ve had.”
“A bath? Yes, that would be lovely, but before I do, I’ve an answer for you both.” When they only stared at her, she softly said, “I can work out where all this is leading to you know. Don’t take me for a complete fool, eh?”
She smiled at Stella. “I’ll be more than happy to prepare Leigarre Perfinn to receive your cask,” and she put a hand on Stella’s arm. “If for no other reason than to keep you safe, my love,” and she stroked Stella’s cheek.
Stella closed her eyes for a moment, leaning gratefully against Mirabel’s hand. “Thank you,” she murmured, kissing her palm. “Thank you ... my love.”
When Stella came down after helping Mirabel run her bath, Nephril pointed silently at one of the chairs. She sat and stared up into his eyes, but he said nothing at first.
Stella tilted her head to one side. “It worked, though, didn’t it, Nephril?” she couldn’t help but say. “You have to admit it worked?”
“But thou hath lied to her, Stella.”
“A little, yes, but the risk of her refusing to help was just too great. You must see that, Nephril. If we’d told her what we were really planning to do, and she’d baulked at it, then we’d have had nowhere else to go – and that would have been the end of it.”
“I must say, Stella, thy deceit makes me even more doubtful about pursuing this plan of thine. I even have doubts now over mine own motives.”
“But w
hy?”
Nephril drew a chair away from the table, turned its back to her and sat astride, arms folded along its back. He peered into Stella’s eyes, peered hard for a good while, but then shook his head.
“Thou needst to know of a rather obscure but particular thread of history, Stella,” and he again stared at her before drawing a deep breath.
“I had a nephew once, some two thousand years ago, a fine lad called Auldus, as I have already told thee, although there be more to the story.” Nephril sighed, long and hard. “Through mine own stupidity, he became indicted for an offence against Leiyatel for which he had no guilt. Thou see, he had agreed to hold a ring of mine in his own safekeeping whilst I journeyed to Nouwelm. I returned, but just too late, and reached him in time to see him fall from the Farewell Gap – as was his rightful choice as a High Dican sentenced to death.”
Stella could see the pain of the memory etched across his face.
“The ring was a cutting of Leiyatel, Stella, held as surety for her ultimate survival. Before he fell to his death, Auldus removed and laid it upon the wall beside the Gap. I did not retrieve it, though, for a dark figure stepped in from the void and stole it from beneath mine very nose.”
“A dark figure?”
“An agent of Nature, mine dear. An agent of Nature’s eternal drive towards chaos.”
“But ... but how could Nature enter Dica, Nephril? It’s unthinkable.”
“What I too oft wondered, Stella, until the appearance of another dark figure thirty years ago. It finally revealed a chink in Leiyatel’s armour, the fault through which Nature has at times slipped unnoticed into this realm of ours.”
“A ‘dark figure’ you said, and ‘thirty years ago’? As in ... just before I was born?”
Nephril peered at her. “Indeed. Not long before,” but Stella now stared only at her hands, their fingers nervously entwined in her lap.
“Each time, the dark figures have sneaked in and hidden behind the weft and weave of a vulnerable Dican. Auldus spent hundreds of years in Nouwelm, cut off from Leiyatel’s guarding embrace by the Gray Mountains, and where I believe Nature must have planted her agent within him. When he finally returned to Dica, he tricked Leiyatel into casting him back to the time of his first fall from the Farewell Gap. That was two thousand years ago in what became, as I have explained before, our current thread of time’s own past.”
“And that was when the dark figure first appeared?”
“In our own history, Stella, yes.”
“And what of the time just before I was born? Who was responsible then?”
“We have the Mudark family’s dark secret to blame for that,” and Nephril looked across at the kitchen doorway, as though checking they weren’t overheard.
Stella gasped. “Mudark? That’s what you said Winifred’s family name was, didn’t you? But it’s the chancellor’s too – Melkin Mudark, and Mirabel’s of course. They’re not the same Mudarks are they, Nephril?”
“The very same.”
“Of course, their inheritance of a damaged weft and weave you told me about.”
“And their remote estate, far from Leiyatel when she was at her weakest to guard against Nature.”
Stella herself felt weak at the thought, and without realising, mumbled, “Thirty years ago, when Aunt Prescinda scared it from Melkin by pushing him from the balcony.”
Nephril peered at her. “Stella?” and she forced her eyes to his.
“What?”
“How dost thou know that?”
“What? Oh ... err, well...”
“More importantly for the moment, dost thou know when it was I last saw one of Nature’s dark figures?”
“Err, no, Nephril. When?”
“Today, Stella. On the wall above the harbour.”
“Today?”
“And how dost thou think Nature got into Dica this time, eh, Stella?”
All Stella could do at first was turn her gaze once more to her entwining fingers, but then she shot him a cold and calculating stare.
“Well, Nephril, given Mirabel’s no weft and weave at all, it only really leaves you or me. Doesn’t it? So, which one is it do you reckon, you with your altered weft and weave or me with my alien one? Which one of us is guilty of inviting Nature in this time, eh, Nephril? Which one of us?”
44 A Fear Allayed
The sound of gurgling and frothing water seeped in through the kitchen window, a drain beneath clearly gulping down the scented and soapy remains of Mirabel’s bath. It steeled Nephril to say, “Now, what do we tell Mirabel?”
Stella looked towards the open doorway. “Well, I suppose we could...”
“Without dissembling, Stella. I will have no more deceit,” at which she frowned. “Thou may not hath lied to me so far, mine dear, but thou hath not as yet told me all.”
“All?”
Nephril rose and stood behind Stella, gripping the back of her chair. “How did thou know thine aunt had cast Nature out of Melkin, and the means by which she did so?”
“Oh. That.”
“Besides mine self, only thy parents and thine aunt would know, and only Falmeard likely remember.”
Again, Stella lowered her eyes to her hands, noticing a torn nail at which she absently picked. Finally, in a thin voice, she told him, “It was Aunt Prescinda.”
“Prescinda? No, that cannot be. She would hath long forgotten.”
Mirabel’s voice could now be heard spilling from the bathroom, rising to some song or other’s high note. Stella looked up at Nephril.
“It was something I remembered from my starmaker course,” and with as much haste as she could, she told Nephril about the unique nature of the Star Tower’s lowest depths.
“Ha! Well I never,” Nephril said when she’d finished, but then lowered his voice. “Of all places: the Star Tower. Oh, but had I known this long ago,” and he sat down heavily at the table again, staring into the distance. “It could have saved me an arduous journey over the mountains, Stella, dost thou know that?” and he slowly shook his head. “A perfect carr sceld, and within the castle itself. Typical.”
Stella frowned, but Nephril’s eyes slowly narrowed.
“So,” he said, even more quietly, “if we are to learn which of our wefts and weaves hides our current dark figure, how can we get thine aunt to the Star Tower again, eh, and without revealing thou art still alive?”
Stella grinned. “Easy, Nephril, if I can enroll Henson’s services.”
“Henson?” but the landing floorboards creaked and put paid to any answer. The bathroom door closed and Mirabel’s soft steps could be heard coming down the stairs.
“Oh, that was lovely,” she said as she came into the kitchen, teasing out her damp hair, but stopped at the silence. “Did I interrupt something?” and she looked from one to the other.
Nephril stood and offered her a chair, then sat again and cleared his throat. “We were just discussing things, Mirabel. Making sure that what we have planned is ... is right for Dica’s future. We must be certain of its outcome, absolutely sure we are not being misled.”
“Misled? By whom?”
Nephril hesitated. “By Nature, Mirabel.”
“What? But how could Nature have anything to do with...”
“It be our unusual wefts and weaves, mine dear. Neither Stella nor I have ... have normal ones, as thou art aware, so we must be sure we are not unknowingly doing Nature’s own bidding.”
Stella now added her own voice, explaining that her aunt Prescinda was in possession of a unique gift, that she could somehow recognise the influence of Nature at work within people. She told Mirabel how she herself had already used the Star Tower to get at others of Prescinda’s memories, and how they now intended doing the same to call upon her unusual gift.
“So,” Mirabel said, “that explains how you already knew so much. I did wonder.” She smiled. “Well, I’m not really knowledgeable enough to comment. Mother never instructed me on such arcane matters, but it all so
unds very sensible. So, when are you planning on seeing your aunt?”
Stella looked across at Nephril. “I think it all depends on Henson,” she said, to which Nephril nodded.
“Winifred will have to forgo her morning trip to Onbuthget market tomorrow, though,” he resolved, “even if it means living on bread and dripping for a week. The sooner we sort this out the better, although Whinny is going to have mine hide when I tell her,” and he slumped a little in his chair.
The front door slammed shut and the woman herself breezed into the kitchen, a basket of apples on her arm. She placed it by the sink.
“They’re going to have to come back and sort out that loose tile, Nephril,” she said as she began placing the apples carefully in the sink and reached for the tap. “Some of these have been spoiled by the rain getting in,” but she turned at the silence. “Nephril? You have one of your guilty looks.”
Winifred was not at all happy for the rest of the day. Her sullenness had hardly abated come late evening, when yawns finally began to mark the end of what to Stella had felt like a very long day indeed.
She and Mirabel retired to their now shared room and each prepared for bed. Whilst Mirabel was in the bathroom, Stella donned her nightdress before taking her own turn. When she got back after washing, Mirabel asked which side of the bed she wanted.
“Oh, I’m not fussed, Mirabel. The door side will do me,” and before long they were both in bed and the lamp turned low.
Despite how tired she felt, Stella avoided sleep as thoughts continued to crowd her mind. When all was still, and they’d both warmed their own side of the bed, Stella quietly asked, “Mirabel?”
“Hmm?”
“You know you were telling me about your mother’s death?”
Mirabel turned onto her side and rested her hand against Stella’s back, a brief kiss to her neck. “Yes. What about it, petal?”
“You said she’d completed the purpose of your long line of cuckoos, despite someone else’s best endeavours.”
“Did I? I don’t remember, but yes, it is true.”
“Who opposed her?”
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 19