Where it had come from Pettar couldn’t say for he’d only ever heard its ancient form, and only the once, but somehow it nudged his memory. It was quickly pushed aside, though, when he realised Nephril was at last astir. It was well into the graveyard hours by then, in the dead of night, but it was the first time Nephril had stirred since his collapse.
Pettar bent over him and peered intently at his closed eyes, then at his hardly moving lips as they once more gave faint shape and substance to the repetition of words. Although the room was still, Nephril’s voice rose little above its inky surface, showed no ripples across its dead expanse, only burred softly like the wings of a passing moth.
In their fluttering, Pettar recognised his own tongue, but its poetic lilt and weight seemed to be the only thing to bear meaning. He tried hard to follow its sense but caught only glimpses. He grasped the odd phrase, but by the time they’d been joined by others, the first had simply trickled through his fingers and been lost.
As he was wondering whether to disturb Melkin, Nephril’s voice rose and rippled across the night, his hand lifting to his brow from beneath the coverlet. “Treowlic! Treowlic! Ure habban treowlic!” he gasped before again falling to rambling. “Perhaps our own truth, yes, but certainly not Nature’s, no, not hers. Hers is solid, hers cannot be set against nurture and custom, certainly not, it hast no need of Naningemynd for ‘tis inviolate and born of reason alone, true reason.”
His eyes shot open and he stared manically up into Pettar’s own, but inches away. Nephril reached up and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Dost thou not see it, Pettar? Eh? Dost thou not grasp the twine that holds the two?”
Pettar was stunned speechless, his mind vainly grasping for purchase, but Nephril didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t seem to expect one. “Our own treowlic is but artefact, Pettar, is but consensus wrought of naught but manmade manacles and life’s own selfishness. Dost thou not see, Pettar?”
Even when Pettar managed to stammer the beginnings of a reply, Nephril simply ignored him. “We have our own truths, ure habban treowlic, but Nature, Pettar, Nature hath her own Treowlicas, eh, dost though not see? She hath inviolate principles by which the world turns, and all the stars about it, and they are not wrought at all but are the very stuff of it, the very clay.” Pettar was completely dumbfounded, tongue so stymied it seemed to catch in his throat.
He couldn’t decide if Nephril were delirious or not, whether he spoke from some kind of fever or from revelation. Nephril soon seemed to see Pettar’s quandary for he frowned and looked genuinely lost. The quiet that now settled between them somehow felt dry and cold.
The air almost seemed to sing with the dying sound of a snapped cord, as though their union had suddenly been severed. Deep compassion welled from within Pettar but couldn’t hold his eyes from lowering at Nephril’s heartrending look, his only recourse to ask, “Are you alright, Nephril? Is there anything I can do?”
For a brief but anguished second, Nephril stared fixedly and deeply into Pettar’s eyes. “Bhleustrang Treowlicas! Treowlicas! I see it now, see mine error.” Pettar was still at sea and could think of no answer.
Nephril, though, started to lose his childlike frown with a more adult contentment soon settling in its place. “‘Tis a treatise on some principle of Nature I would vouch, some inviolate correspondence ‘twixt seemingly disparate mechanicking.”
They were both surprised when Melkin’s rich voice vibrated between them. “Indeed you’re right, Lord Nephril, indeed you are.” He’d been standing, unobserved, within the doorway and had heard all, heard the same words Pettar had, but with far greater understanding. He came in and carefully perched himself on the side of Nephril’s bed, but then looked at them each in turn before briefly laughing.
“Seems you’re fully recovered, me Lordship, for your wits are plainly about you.” Nephril only smiled. “Yes, indeed, you’re right, my lord, the treatise addressed some of Nature’s own principles, and their exercise has brought much surety to the college, and promise to the folk of Yuhlm. It’s also brought quite a deal of headaches, though, that I have to say.” He sighed and paused briefly. “You couldn’t have known which principle it dealt with for bhleustrang has only recently re-entered our speech.”
Nephril seemed fully awake by now, in most senses, and rolled the new word about his mouth. “Bhleustrang, eh, flow-force, the force applied to a flow, perchance?”
Melkin smiled. “No, Lord Nephril, not quite. You’ve the cart afore the horse, I’m afraid. Bhleustrang was the name given to the use of a liquid that has had great force driven into it.”
He was mindful of the hour and Nephril’s weakened state, and so for the moment kept his explanation brief. He revealed how the ancient script made plain some useful properties of things that flowed, of how great power could be harnessed within them. Although it applied to all flowing things, it was water they’d chosen to set in bridle, for its plentiful supply and benign nature.
By gathering great weight of it, and constraining and directing it onto engines of their own devising, they’d managed to deliver great effort to the guild workshops. They’d succeeded in making the work of one the value of many. Not only that but they’d also made it possible to create new things, things that couldn’t have been wrought or forged by might of hand alone, nor of ox or of ass.
It was a knowledge that had made good prospect for the hitherto forsaken folk of Yuhlm, had placed before them a betterment undreamed of afore. The Bhleustrang Treowlicas had unlocked untold riches in the midst of Bazarral’s poorest precinct and thereby given prospect of a rightful inheritance. It had promised a very real and tangible True World, the very Treowe Leoht, although still hidden, of Nephril’s beloved ode.
8 Of Weft and Weave
The new day was as different from its predecessors as it could have been and seemed to point the changes in Nephril. Wherever he’d been, whatever paths his mind had followed, and the reborn memories they’d garnered, on that bright and fresh morning they’d brought forth a wholly different person.
No longer confused and distant, or childlike, he’d returned to being sure and confident, just as they’d both once known him. It was a stark contrast and certainly one that warmed their hearts, but it still left niggling uncertainty. Would it last?
In a quiet moment, with Nephril still occupied by breakfast and out of earshot, Melkin and Pettar had discussed him. They’d tried to judge how solid and extensive a return he’d made but couldn’t be sure. What they were sure of, though, was the need for a diversion, and the hope it gave of keeping him from his own damaging memories.
Melkin had passed on his Leech’s assessment, how he’d found Nephril surprisingly robust of body. “It’s strange,” he’d added, “how seemingly un-aged he is within, how the years appear to have passed him by. My Leech was most perplexed.”
By now they’d wandered out onto the Steward’s private balcony, on the north side of the old mill, and were leaning against its parapet, watching pupils pass by below. The sun slanted through a small copse just beyond the mill’s close yard, and scattered watery gems across the adjoining millpond. Beyond its held power, a terrace of ancient weavers houses rose; three storey and strung with newly glazed windows now blinking with the press of passing pupils.
To its left, beyond the copse, a jumble of roofs rose with their spattering of towers all catching the morning sun. The jagged carpet extended some miles north to where Yuhlm’s basin reached its rim, to where it met the denes and cloughs that were once seaboard cliffs and coves. Countless centuries had passed since the sea’s banishment, since Yuhlm had supplanted its prosperous neighbour’s seaward view.
Between the college and the rim, three enormously high towers rose, their dull pewter sheen not reflecting the sunlight but almost seeming to soak it in. They reared far above all else, outstripping the cliffs and crags and those smug neighbour’s heights.
Three great rounded towers, so incongruous they were hard to believe, so at odds with
all else that the eye was wont not to see them at all. Pettar was so distracted by them that he missed Melkin’s words. The Steward wasn’t surprised, knowing full well the impact the towers had, and so bided his time.
Pettar did eventually hear, heard Melkin repeatedly saying, “Hanging Chain Towers.” Perhaps at the third time, and carrying on when he saw Pettar was at long last listening, Melkin explained, “That’s how they’ve been known since they were built, long, long ago, back when there was a large and busy Dican fleet, and we traded far and wide.”
At last, Pettar managed to tear his eyes away, but only just. He could then more readily hear Melkin’s words. “Not a very poetic name, you have to admit, but it’s descriptive if nothing else, although no longer fitting.”
His smile got Pettar’s full attention, and with it a question. “Are they used for anything now?” Melkin’s smile broke into a short and relaxed laugh as he turned from Pettar and stared at the towers himself.
His eyes seemed to cloud with painful memories. “They’re our source of bhleustrang, Pettar, and by it our veritable symbols of security.” He went quiet at first, but then revealed, “They’re the start of Lord Nephril’s diversion, and hopefully a soothing displacement.”
Melkin clapped him on the arm. “We need to find Lord Nephril and start our trip. Have you had enough breakfast to keep you going for the day?” Pettar assured him he had, so they left the balcony, passed through Melkin’s chambers, where they gathered their things, and went in search of Lord Nephril who was now absent.
To be honest, Melkin’s enthusiasm for their day’s tour had more to do with uncertainty than anything else. It would give him a chance to show off his mechanicking prowess without doubt, but also, more to the point, give better opportunity to judge his Lordship’s state.
He also secretly hoped for inspiration, for something, anything, that would make the way forward clearer. He knew they’d have to end up in Galgaverre at some point, but so far had found no good excuse to have himself included.
The message itself seemed, on the face of it, sufficient justification, but only for Lord Nephril and Pettar. No, he needed to find something to give himself as good a reason for going along, and preferably with some clout.
It turned out that Nephril had wandered off to the kitchen’s walled fishpond, where he’d contentedly taken to watching the lazy, glinting paths of its stock. He looked like his old self to Melkin, as he’d remembered him from all those years ago; less stooped, quicker of movement and softer of face. The smile that beamed from him when he noticed their approach also seemed from that same time, with its old astuteness and wit again shining through.
He was, without doubt, quite ready for the off, his meagre appetite well sated and a keen interest honed for what the day would bring. He said little, though, which worried Melkin, and so he tried to engage him the more.
As they were leaving the college and its gate closed noisily behind them, Melkin asked, “Do you feel up to a walk of a few miles, Lord Nephril?”
“I do, young Laixac, indeed I do. Never felt better. I do feel, strangely enough, most vigorous today.” The mistaken recognition stumped Melkin but brought surprise to Pettar’s face, and a questioning look.
Melkin remembered he’d not made mention, certainly not to Nephril, of where they were going today, and so it seemed odd he’d not asked. Surreptitiously, he watched Nephril’s face as they strode down Smiddles Lane to its junction beyond the close and meandering way from the college. There, the lane met a ragged and narrow ginnel to the north, marked by an archway that steeply led onto cracked and broken flags, like a frozen, choppy sea or some petrified mountain stream.
It stumblingly took them over the short brow of a gentle ridge until slowly sinking between ancient and tumbled-down dry-stone walls. Beyond them, seen through rubble-strewn gaping gaps, small paddocks squelched away, sparsely grassed and pocked with rocks, between which great drifts of bog grass guarded muddy pools.
It was as though the college’s newfound vibrancy had scant influence beyond its close, confining walls, that its reinvigoration was still too wan to seep far. So, as they descended the far side of the ridge, everywhere appeared deserted and decrepit. It was only when they’d finally crossed the shallow valley beyond, and come onto the next ridge - still between the ginnel’s old walls - that the place started to look more lived-in.
That next valley was shallower still, being higher up Yuhlm’s basin, but it seemed a wide and busy road still kept it alive and thriving. From their slightly higher vantage, they could see evidence of activity along its course; tavern yards dotted with inveterate drinkers, and plumes of smoke and steam rising from baths and bakeries. There were cows wending their way from field to parlour, carts being loaded and unloaded in tight rear yards and a steady stream of folk passing along the wide thoroughfare.
The road was like a rampant ivy tendril, spreading out from its shadowed host to the lofty, sun drenched promise of the three towers, for there, at the road’s end, they stood like giant trees. Each gently tapered skywards from roots hidden within a close press of buildings. Their boles were vast indeed, broad enough to span many streets, to curve threateningly past hundreds of seemingly diminutive buildings that grew like grass at their feet.
The rough ginnel had become more a walled lane by now, passing beside sparse fields until it dropped between obscuring buildings. There they found more bustle and busyness as they neared the road; the clatter of carts, the clamour of hawkers and pedlars, and the mute and sweaty toil of burdeners and porters. There were the calls and entreaties of purveyors and whores alike, and the slight patter of barefoot errand boys darting their way through the crowds.
Maybe it was the rare sight of such numbers, but Nephril steadily took more interest. After only a short while, he craned his head up at the nearest of the towers. “Are we going to see them making chains, Melkin?”
“No.” Melkin countered, as gently as he could. “No, that one,” he said, pointing up at the first tower, “has another use these days. We’ve turned it over to a different purpose altogether, one I think may interest you.” He left it at that, fearful of pushing Nephril’s memories too far, of making them prey to demons his own history’s silt could so easily throw up when stirred.
“I don’t remember it being so dark a colour before,” Nephril persisted, “and being girded so.” Melkin remained silent, still fearful of raising those demons, and so left them quietly making their own strangely easy progress through the steadily busier street.
The lack of press and jostle intrigued Pettar, made him see how the Steward’s presence here seemed to plough its own furrow so cleanly through the throng.
Their furrowing not only parted the press but also seemed to turn faces away. Something more than simple station cut them at the Steward’s coulter, but Pettar couldn’t quite see what. It wasn’t so much subservience or servility, nor even fear, but more an embarrassment or discomfort, perhaps a wariness born of unfamiliarity.
A profoundly conservative lot, the Bazarran always found change hard to accommodate. They needed much time to take anything new to their hearts, be it for good or ill, and their very long memories were chiefly set but to bolstering the familiar.
That was another weakness the tribes of the Dacc of Esna had used to their own good, that had helped pave their way from vassal serfdom to ultimate mastery. A clear case of the fleet-of-foot steadily overtaking the stolid.
What real part had the lulling embrace of the Certain Power played in it all, Pettar wondered. What advantage had Leiyatel given the more ambitious tribes, tribes that thrived on novelty, on the salacious and self-serving?
Pettar’s introspection was shattered by Nephril’s persistent questions of Melkin, who still fought shy of raising those damned demons.
“I remember them being far more plain, young Melkin, remember them not at all as so ornamented or embellished. What be those encircling bands?”
“It’s reinforcement, Lord Nephril,
a means of adding great holding strength to what’s contained.”
Nephril continued to look up at the tower, his feet finding easy footing on the smooth paving still swept magically clear before them. The obvious question soon came. “And what, pray, dost it house now?”
Melkin grinned. “A treasure of bhleustrang, me lord, a painfully gathered store of fluid force with which to appease the guilds, but which has brought constant headaches, ones that have increasingly burdened my college.”
Melkin looked greatly relieved when Nephril just said, “I am intrigued, most intrigued, and eager for revelation,” but then went quiet. It wasn’t a worryingly withdrawn silence either, but one still alive with interest, still outwardly bent and attentive. Nephril seemed content in their uphill toil; slightly leant against the road’s climb, eyes darting about and feet imbued with vigour.
Another half hour or so and they were plainly drawing near the tower’s huge base. What had from a distance looked like a tight press of circling buildings, with closer inspection revealed a wide, clear deference. The tower’s base was as featureless and blank as the rest of it, haughtily ignoring the buildings that shrank back from its stand.
There appeared to be no way in on their side, no windows or doors, only a relentless rise of massive grey stone blocks arcing away to either side. Although it appeared vast, filling their vision, they were in fact at one of its narrower sides for each tower was far from circular.
Ancient methods had devised chains of almost mythic length and strength, their links forged in one huge piece with no weakening joins, each wrought and tempered in place. That almost impossible task had dictated their oval plan, demanded lateral space in which to progress their growing length, through the smith’s many stages. Their great height, on the other hand, came by dint of the simple demands of time.
Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Page 10