Melkin then furthered, “Seems Master Crowbeater gave you ten out of ten for rote learning, but only three for delivery. Said you didn’t fully appreciate the subtleties of stress, nor have correct guttural stance, whatever that’s supposed to be. If only he knew, eh, Lord Nephril, if only.” Melkin forced his smile wider as he closely watched Nephril’s eyes.
The sun had in the meantime risen high enough to boil off some of the fret and so have its light reflected from newly exposed sea, up onto the two far lighthouse towers to the west. They seemed so strange, lit from below by the dappled light, their crystal lanterns speckling the normally shadowed hollow beneath with further rainbow colours. Somewhere, amidst that unusually shattered and scattered light, lay The Three Tuns, with its hoard of dark stout wealth.
For a while they’d no need of talk, the still morning air seeming to smooth their brows and lift their hearts. It was only when a nearby foundry gave vent to a great cloud of steam, a booming hiss close on its heels, that Pettar’s mind moved on. He slowly turned to Melkin and was about to speak when he realised he’d caught him unawares.
Melkin was looking intently at Nephril, but with an anguished face. His lips were pulled thin and taut, and his eyes were narrowed. When he felt Pettar’s gaze, though, he relaxed, a quick and well-practiced act that lent his face a convincing smile. His unprompted words, however, seemed a pace or two behind.
“Pettar? Are you sure all is well, I mean, by your own reckoning?”
Pettar was slow to answer, but when he did his voice was quite natural. “Aye, Stew…, err, sorry, Melkin. As well as can be hoped.” He’d flicked his eyes at Nephril. Pettar then more casually asked, “Your students? They’re unhurt I hope?”
Melkin assured him they were as comfortable as they could be, although somewhat singed, but was sure they’d come through it well enough. “Could’ve been far worse, I suppose,” he added. “At least the casket were small and so held little water, and the rupture seemed to pass them all by, quite fortunately.”
It was as though he’d managed to hold to propriety long enough for Melkin now couldn’t help but enthuse, “Feather in the cap for Laytner, though, and there’s no denying it. Bugger me, but he were right all along. Must admit, though, I didn’t really hold out much hope for his ideas.”
He went on to explain that Laytner wasn’t one of the college’s best pupils, that he seemed to have a poor grasp of mechanicking but an unusually keen interest in the old tongue, his saving grace as it turned out. He’d been in imminent danger of being sent down had Crowbeater not fought his corner, not prised a last minute reprieve from Melkin.
Crowbeater’s winning argument had come by way of an obscure and difficult text Laytner was finally untangling, one he was sure held immense promise. Melkin had begrudgingly thrown down a decisive challenge at Crowbeater, and through him at Laytner, that if they were convincingly to demonstrate a useful principle from it then Laytner would keep his place.
As a consequence, Melkin now nurtured some guilt. It was Nephril’s ‘horse’ that had, before its destruction, been that very principle’s champion, but one that had nearly cost lives. “Certainly did show his translation to be right, though, there’s no denying that. As solid a piece of work as you’ll ever see, but I must say, its proof hasn’t quite fulfilled its promised degree of work. Still, with a bit more adept mechanicking, I’m sure we can better it and then maybe we’ll have something to stand us in stead of the Bhleustrang Treowlicas. Hopefully something just as potent but considerably less fraught.”
Nephril, overlooked until now, suddenly turned to them both. “Flow-force truths? What be such a thing?” Melkin, momentarily wrong-footed, only blinked back, leaving Pettar to supply the look of confusion. “Thou made mention of a compound I know not of, nor hath heard afore. Bhleu … strang? Hmm?”
Melkin at last understood. “Please, Lord Nephril, please forgive me my dereliction. I’m forgetting how much time has passed since having the pleasure of sitting at your feet. There’ll be many such novel terms today, I’m sure, so do please remind me to explain them when they arise.”
He addressed their current one by way of a short history. “My dear Lord Nephril? I think I owe you a sincere apology. I think I rather, well, rather took sudden leave of you all those years ago.”
Nephril’s brows lifted.
Melkin turned from them and looked towards the north, past the gable end of the college, past the arc of the great wheel - now stationary and peeping above the yard’s old wall - and away to where the top of a distant structure could only just be seen. For a brief moment, when he too looked that same way, Pettar remembered the previous day’s phoenix.
The still morning had finally given way to the bustle of a busy day, the air thinly filling with many and varied sounds of toil and labour, all drifting up from Yuhlm. Above it all, though, they could hear Melkin absently clicking his thumbnail, as he marshalled his thoughts. Finally, his mouth found melody in his mind’s toying and so cautiously unfolded his tale.
“In truth, the city today bears little more than its once great name. There’s none of the old determination and endeavour, none of the adventure and confidence that once filled its people. Slowly, over the millennia and with unrelenting Dican help, the Bazarran have been worn down to the smooth pebbles you see today. Their rough edges and sharp wits have been eroded, ineluctably, until their very verve and vibrancy has been lost to stultifying, all-pervading certainty.” Although they could see nothing of his face, turned away as it was, his slumped shoulders spoke volumes.
They could sense him looking back through the window of his ancient scripts, seeing all his blood had once achieved. They could see him compare it with their own time and bitterly regret the loss of so very much. When he spoke again, in a quiet and measured way, they could almost sense a determination to avenge that past, to rewrite a history he clearly felt had fallen far too short of its own promise.
He turned to them. “I know I’m a maverick, an oddity, a bit of a puzzle. That’s been made more than clear by all too many, but I accept it for I firmly believe it to be the true Bazarran within me.” He paused, with an almost beseeching look. “Does that make me mad or far too sane, eh? Does it excuse me my many faults, does it repay my thoughtlessness and intransigence, my single-mindedness, my clumsy handling of those I … of … of those I …”
He seemed newly aware of his audience, of their shock and alarm. He coughed, shifted weight uneasily and tossed his head back towards the north, towards that distant tower top.
It was Nephril who seemed to understand and who soothed, as he stepped nearer, “Thou art a true Bazarran, Master Melkin. Do not berate thyself for that. It was always a strong blood, the Bazarran one, but so easily set against itself.”
Nephril smiled, a smile that welled from a much earlier and happier time. “I knew who thou wert, and to where thou were heading, even when first we sat in mine chambers, when I saw the fervour that drove thee to learn. I saw in thee the Bazarran of old, the true and honest folk I had once so cherished. That was why I knew thou wouldst depart from me as thou did, and so why I was not truly hurt by it.”
Somehow, Nephril had seen the nub of Melkin’s guilt and had lain his own soothing hand upon it, so much so the Steward’s spirits seemed to lift. It urged Melkin to look deeply into Nephril’s eyes and there find a calming peace, one that eased his words.
“I’ve lived such a solitary life, even amongst the many, that I’ve just about forgotten what it is to be shown understanding and trust. Neither of you are of Yuhlm, nor of Bazarral come to that, but maybe that’s why you’ve worked your magic, and for that I’m grateful.”
The sun had climbed still higher, had burnt away the last of the fret and left Yuhlm stark amidst its seaboard setting. The sea’s distant swell hinted its presence with a grey speckle of rippling light. It seemed to point the way west, to those ancient Bazarran roots.
Despite the day’s own stride fast eroding their time, Melkin leisu
rely took up his tale once more. He explained how his life’s work had been to reseat that Bazarral of old, to resurrect the seemingly extinct Bazarran and give them back their rightful nature.
He revealed how he’d unearthed a collection of ancient texts, how they’d fascinated and intrigued him, how they’d spurred him on to discover their meanings, and why he’d attached so much importance to them.
His eyes had steadily gained a sparkle that infused his words. “I could see what our forebears had achieved. Well, after all, it’s so plain to see. The monumental works, the exquisite buildings, the harbour, the Graywyse Defence and, well, just so many unbelievable things, and all so obviously not Dican.”
Pettar was intrigued. “Why not Dican, Melkin?”
For a few moments Melkin looked stumped for an answer. “Well, you’ve only to look at the architecture. It’s so obviously Bazarran, so full of beauty and elegance, whereas the rest of Dica’s … well … how can I put it? Utilitarian, I suppose. They do the job admirably, have lasted well enough but … but, well, they’re just so damned ugly.”
They were both distracted by soft laughter, laughter that seemed to teeter on the edge of coughing, and so turned to see Nephril beginning to choke. His words finally fought through, though. “Ha, thou art right there, young Melkin, thou hast put thy finger well on’t. Yes, as I have been fortunate in learning, the Dican tribes hath always had poor grasp of the finer points of art. Indeed, ‘tis only poorer than their wit in poetry.” As he began laughing again, his eyes started to mist, to cloud over, as though some great curtain was being drawn across them, and unnoticed, he soon became still.
Melkin’s tale, however, carried on to reveal how much of the old knowledge had been prised from his hoard of scripts. He explained how their long hidden lore had proven so useful in so many practical ways that he’d soon been courted by the various Guilds of Yuhlm, to turn that wit to trade.
There had then begun, by his own admission, a dark and sadly soiled period, a long night of being drawn into the competing guilds. For a while he’d been aligned with one only to be stolen away by another, until the whole thing proved too much and he’d tried to withdraw.
He wasn’t left in peace, though. No, the guildmasters had tasted profit in his skills and so continued to harass, threaten and cajole.
One day, in the midst of all that, he met with another Bazarran, one who showed great interest in his ancient texts. It was an honest interest, though, in the language itself, not just its promised profit. That quiet, unassuming and simple soul had been Crowbeater, his interest having been forged by his own small collection, one he’d not long after freely donated to their nascent library.
It was that unexpected friendship, forged over the months Melkin spent passing on his linguistic lore, that had set seed for his great idea, had made solid the notion of a college. Yes, a separate and distinct body that could be made to stand free of the guilds, that could play honest broker within their often fraught and dangerous dealings.
The idea was simplicity itself, even if the practice proved far more difficult and at times politically fraught. If they could grow a body of wit in the old language, and with that wit multiply their library’s mined yield, then they could sell that extract on as refined benefits to each of the guilds, in equal parts. By proving and working their newfound knowledge into practical, wrought goods, they’d retain a power born of obscurity and thereby remain aloof.
It had worked, although not without much strife and suffering. They had, for more than thirty years, kept the guilds at arm’s length. They’d conspired to balance trade between them and in the effort had grown the college’s own wealth and foundation. In time, it had steadily become a melded part of the life and trade of Yuhlm, secure in its wealth of promised secrets, inviolate in its balanced dealings and bolstered by its very own body of watchmen.
Melkin had proven astute in his dealings, had found a skill he’d never suspected he had, and applied it with a cold and calculated exactness born of his mechanicking mind. Crowbeater, for his part, had piloted the college’s inner workings, had settled down to refine the minutiae of lessons, of exams and tests, and set standard for entry, for scholastic grading and ultimate graduation.
Between them they’d fashioned the mechanicking houses; smiths and potters, tanners, engravers and crystal growers, brewers, weavers, braizers and cutters, twinemen, and many more, all marshalled to bring skills to bear on all manner of strange ideas. All swore allegiance to the college, to their college, to the College of Yuhlm. They’d displayed a fealty succoured by renewed surety and confidence, and so had furthered the one great goal Melkin had always nurtured.
That simple idea had sustained them well enough through the early years, but those times had been hard, uncertain and wearying. They’d managed to grow slowly, in fits and starts, until a particularly difficult text had crossed their paths, one that took both he and Crowbeater to tease meaning from.
Its title had been ‘Bhleustrang Treowlicas’, which took some time to fathom. Only when they’d just about translated the whole treatise did they understand what it really meant.
Melkin’s eyes had become distant but keenly alive, his voice almost reverential. “As Lord Nephril too literally translated, as we both did at the time, it simply says ‘Flow-force Truths’, but its actual meaning was far more momentous.”
At the mention of Nephril’s name, they’d both absently turned to acknowledge him, but it was a while before either recognised the change. Nephril was staring, empty-eyed, at the newly turning waterwheel, his lips strangely quivering.
Bubbles were beginning to gather at his lips, forced there from a deeply gurgling throat. Suddenly, the bubbles were all blown clear as a flecking froth by an unearthly cry, as Nephril fell to the ground like a sack of spuds.
7 Safe in a Gross World
Naningemynd ganan nioere ta der aedre … down to the stream, down to the stream where it falls, tumbles and loccianes … loccianes … yes, where it soothes … but, but what does it sooth? What does complete forgetting go down to the stream for, and why does it tumble and fall and soothe?
Nephril knew it to be important, very important, but couldn’t quite remember why. What in blazes would Naningemynd want to go down to the stream for? He could conceive of nothing that absolute nothingness would ever want to do, let alone soothe all hurts.
Ah! Yes! That was it, that was exactly what it was doing … soothing all hurts, aeghwilc awierdnes loccianes. Of course, that was it, that was what it was doing all along.
Well, that made it all clear once more, put paid to his panic, sluiced fretting from his guts and left him calm at last. And his calm did last, for a short while at least, until he began to worry about the darkness.
Why was it so dark? Dark like … like … well, dark like Naningemynd itself. The darkness you’d expect only of der lande af ure dead, a darkness perfectly fitting to the land of everlasting dreams.
In his mind’s eye he sat up straight with a jolt and blinked sightlessly into der lande af everlasting swefnen. It was certainly very, very dark in his dream. Too dark surely? After all, they’d always been lit before, had been riven with revealing light and raked with reason’s rays. How could his lande af swefnen, of dreams, be so different.
His panic began to return as he toyed with the nature of his dream, when he began to understand the real significance of it being aefreniehstan - everlasting. To last forever was a very long time indeed, even longer than the very long time he’d already known, as many times as much again, and more, and still he’d be no nearer its end. What hope did he have then? What hope could he hold to?
What eyn der lande af ure dead could there be to promise solace, to make the eternal bearable? What hurts would Naningemynd soothe? What hurts? Hurts like remorse and vainglory perhaps, the kind of things only yfel memories could foster, the hurts that arise from human failings in thought and deed. Perhaps thaer he could infinda no remorse, no vainglory, neanig regret for a life ill
spent or the yearned-for life of onoder.
Solace, indeed, and dearly yearned for, a solace freely given by Naningemynd. Yes, there in the death of memories he would find no remorse. And what will be left there when all those yfel things hath been soothed, when Naningemynd has fallen and tumbled? Thaer will be found ure habban treowlic, our own truth, yes, a truth guarded from lies, one that would be safe in its purity from a coarse world.
Finally, it all started to make sense, started to fall together and so led him into his own poetic self, started to scratch quill against parchment in his darkened world and by it shed light. He saw an ancient and happier place, and in it a favourite verse. He could also hear its native voice set clearly against his own degenerate late-tongue, could separate their disparate rhythms and cadences. As the old slowly but surely gave way to the new, he recited it once more to himself, and in so doing, brought light into his own everlasting dreams.
“Naningemynd goes down to the stream
Where it tumbles, falls and soothes all hurts
In the land of our dead,
In the land of everlasting dreams.
There will be found no remorse,
No vainglory,
No regret for a life ill spent,
Or for the yearned-for life of another.
There will rest our own truth guarded from lies,
Safe in its purity from a gross world.”
Pettar slumped forward as his elbow slid from the arm of his chair and rudely jerked him awake. He grunted and swore as he tried to place himself. He was, as it turned out, still at Nephril’s bedside.
Although he recognised where he was, it took a few moments for his ears to catch up with his eyes, to hear Nephril’s soft tones floating through the otherwise night-stilled air. The words didn’t make much sense at first, not to Pettar’s sleep-befuddled mind, but it didn’t really matter for Nephril was only oft repeating some obscure, old verse.
Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Page 9