Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2)

by Clive S. Johnson

  Storbanther had looked shamefaced. “Forgive me me oversight, Lord Nephril, but I never thought.”

  He rose, reached across to the wall and lightly pressed a square, scribed upon its surface. “Given where we are,” he mumbled, “this should work as it ought to.”

  Although the room fell silent, Nephril’s mind didn’t. It seemed as loud as one of Melkin’s loom shops. He concentrated on the ring and tried to remember exactly how it had been got to his keeping. However hard he dug, though, it remained elusive. He thought ruefully of all the years he’d kept it with him until ... until that accursed and aborted journey north.

  So precious had he known the slip to be that when the need came for him to visit Nouwelm, he’d reasoned it would be far safer left behind with another, secure within Galgaverre’s walls. His decision had seemed sound enough at the time.

  It was as though Storbanther had once more been reading Nephril’s thoughts. “Don’t know if thee remember why thee thought thee were meant to visit Nouwelm. Must admit I can’t quite remember t’subterfuge misen, but t’real reason were to deliver t’ring. Ha! Ay, but didn’t we get that one wrong an’ all.”

  A profound look of regret came over Storbanther, but he was interrupted by a knock at the door. A guard entered at Storbanther’s command and received brusque instruction for Nephril’s supper, and was then dismissed to his task.

  “Bugger it,” Storbanther continued, “but we didn’t expect thee to leave t’ring behind, not in a month o’ Sundays.” The surprise on his face quickly gave way to guilt. “Bit of an error on me own part, that one. Hmm, didn’t quite get me understanding right there, a bit too little Bazarran in me to give proper insight, tha sees.”

  A hint of a genuine smile slowly crept onto his face. “Put t’cat reet amongst pigeons, tha did. Aye, were a reet worry that. Instead o’ t’ring being got safe into Nouwelm’s Repository, grit removed from Leiyfiantel’s wheels as it were, we ‘ad it ‘ere still, but in yer nephew’s keeping, of all places.”

  Unearthing memories of Auldus brought intense guilt for Nephril. As those memories became solid, a large lump of stone seemed to form in his stomach, a fragment rising to his throat where it almost choked him. As tears threatened to well, the guard returned, carrying a large tray laden with dishes and goblets. A tempting waft of thick broth coiled to Nephril’s nose before the guard had even left.

  Storbanther quietly watched Nephril eat until shifting in his seat and sitting more upright. “Ain’t no way ‘round it, but ‘tas to be said, otherwise t’story stops ‘ere.” Nephril looked at him, across his now motionless spoon of steaming broth, and let his own moist, pink-stained eyes show some curiosity.

  Storbanther soon revealed how the ring’s presence on their own side of the Gray Mountains couldn’t long be endured by Leiyfiantel, that its proximity greatly wounded her fibre. It had been destined for safekeeping in Nouwelm, beyond the granite range, where it could harmlessly wait its far future return.

  Unknown to Nephril until now, a repository of texts had long been secreted to Nouwelm, a store of knowledge suffice to work anew the Living Green Stone Tree, to put in place a natural successor to Leiyatel. All it lacked was the ring; the form and figure, the template and cipher from which a new tree could be grown, a cutting to carry the parent’s nature into its offspring’s nurture.

  Covertly, Bazarral had withdrawn all wit and knowing to that obscure place, that distant sanctuary made accessible only by the Certain Power’s clement influence. Nouwelm sat beyond the newly melted snow and ice of the pass through the Gray Mountains, at the very end of the Northern Way, where Bazarran true-blood had settled about the Warmswin river. The last piece owing them had been the ring, the last act its unwitting delivery. Fate, though, had barred the way with returned snow.

  The pass had closed but days before Nephril’s ascent, although it mattered little, the ring having been left behind with Auldus in the one place it couldn’t long remain. Leiyatel’s lessening vigour had weakened against an early Winter and so had failed to hold back the snow, had let the door slam firmly shut.

  Storbanther knew his remaining story would likely strike too hard at Nephril’s newly firmed fibre, but tell it he knew he must. “Thee thought tha’s nephew got caught up in some kind o’ misunderstanding whilst thee were away, that he’d foolishly let imsen take blame for some ‘urt done Leiyfiantel. And therein lies me second sorry, I’m afraid.”

  For Nephril there’d always been doubt riven through those ancient events, an oblique mystery to the bottom of which he’d never really seen. It hadn’t helped that guilt had always flooded his thoughts whenever his mind drifted that way, that cold light of day could ne’er shine through such dark clouds of remorse.

  He’d drawn an oath from Auldus that he’d never forsake the ring, never let it pass into hands other than their own, that he would guard and protect it with his very own life if need be. Little did either of them know that it would indeed come to that. A nephew’s brave denial of a ring and his fealty to his uncle had so surely taken him to little more than his own sad end, finally and fatally at the Farewell Gap.

  In a remarkably short space of time, Auldus had been tried and found guilty, guilty of bringing injury upon The Living Green Stone Tree, of having disfigured and endangered both her, and by it, the realm of Dica. Given his aristocratic birth right, Auldus could take the noble path unto the Garden of the Forgotten and there end both his life and the memory of his own foul deeds.

  As fate would have it, Nephril had been drawing near to the castle when a fleet-footed messenger brought him the news, when he extolled him to make haste unto the Foundering Wall and there draw Auldus back. Despite Auldus’s great fatigue at the drawing end of his arduous journey, he’d soon raced along the Northern Way onto Eastern Walk, and into the Eastern Gate’s cold embrace.

  The castle’s thronged streets and the rising toil of Eastern Street had all passed in a blur. Nephril had slipped and stumbled, only to be righted and helped on his way by his attendant heralds, until they finally came to Foundering Wall and its vast, paved terrace.

  The Royal Pavilion sat on its inner side, bloated by dignitary witnesses, whilst at the Farewell Gap itself stood Auldus, so proud and noble and entirely alone. Nephril could see it still, burned so clearly into his memory, perversely sharp and detailed, the bitter, salty taste of his brow’s sweat and the sting of it in his eyes.

  “I failed, Storbanther, dost thou know that? Failed mine own nephew most horribly, and was close witness for mine sins ... for I saw him fall.” For the first time in such a very long time, Nephril began to see some purpose. Perversely, it all started to make sense, began to sow seeds of understanding throughout his mind.

  Storbanther assumed Nephril to be overwrought, for he’d watched his face go blank and then seen him fall, but this time only to his own silence.

  He hadn’t been overwrought, not wholly. What had stilled Nephril was the fact he could now see just beyond what he’d always thought to be Auldus’s final act. Nephril still recalled seeing his nephew fall, as though time itself had slowed, but could now also see the few seconds that had followed on.

  16 The Crux

  When Nephril demanded a break, to put his thoughts in order, Storbanther had willingly withdrawn, leaving the door open. It had tempted Nephril in search of solitude without, but he got no further than the door to the walkway, where he found his way barred by a rather large guard. The Galgaverran turned out to be both courteous and considerate, but resolutely obstinate.

  Despite Nephril’s most imperious tone, he couldn’t budge the man. Even when he ordered him, as his supreme commander, it was to no avail. His allegiance to Drax, and therefore through him his subordination to Storbanther, proved complete and unbending.

  Nephril was respectfully informed that he had free run of the place provided he remained indoors, that he could wander as far as he liked within the confines of the wall. Given it never narrowed to less than a mile, the guard consid
ered the restricted remit more than enough, although he didn’t exactly say so, not in quite so many words.

  Nephril saw the futility of arguing and so turned from the guard and wandered off along the corridor. He only really became aware of his surroundings again when he felt the sparse wisps of his remaining hair being whipped across his eyes. He realised where he then was when he swept the errant strands back.

  Before him, a shallow vale leisurely swept past and along the wall from which he now stared. The vale ran east to west through the gap between Galgaverre’s southern boundary and the slow but steady rise of the Southern Hills. That western arm of the Eyeswin Vale lazily nestled the meandering Suswin River, and saw it on its way the twenty or so miles to its mouth on Foundling Bay.

  Ever an austere and uninspiring view - for reasons of the lie of the land, of its swampy peat masses and sucking sodden sand - it had never tempted cultivation but had always remained wild and untamed. So poor was the drainage that no roads passed through, and what little the drought-stricken Southern Hills could offer had never warranted a bridge or a ferry to cross the river’s broad spread.

  Standing there, on a short balcony part way down the southern wall’s meagre height, the view offered little to draw Nephril’s eye, little other than its rude depiction of savage freedom and perilous passage. The best it could offer was to swathe its distant swell of heather-clad hills with purples and mauves, softening their heights to a lavender-fringed horizon.

  Nephril drew in the fresh air and savoured its flat smell of bog moss and pimpernel, its resinous aroma of rosemary, the hint of bloodwort and thyme. He also listened, enrapt, to the rising calls of siskin and nuthatch.

  That unchanged and unchanging view, so unprepared for, readily threw him back to much earlier times. He’d been about to dwell on a once seemingly pointless waste of a man’s life, on Auldus’s fateful fall, when he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.

  He turned sharply and came face to face with Storbanther. “Lord Nephril? Are thee alright?” Nephril just smiled. “Thought thee were intent on escape or summat. Well, seemed that way from what me sentry had to say.”

  “Needed mine fill of fresh air, that was all, although thou do appear keen to keep me within the wall.”

  “Aye, ‘tis true, ‘tis most important thee not be seen be others o’ Galgaverre, not quite yet anyway. There’s good purpose in it, as thee’ll see when thee hears me story out.”

  “Then thou had best press on for I do not take kindly to imprisonment.”

  At the furthest end of the balcony, a small wooden table was crowded by sun-whitened, wicker chairs. Nephril wandered over, pulled two out and beckoned Storbanther to sit on one as he lowered himself to the other. It seemed a peaceful place, eminently suited to unfolding tales.

  “Nah, where’d we get to?” Storbanther absently wondered. “Ah, yes, me second sorry!” He paused, as though searching for the words. “I’m afraid I ‘ave to say that I were t’cause o’ yer nephew’s death, though maybe I could’ve put it a bit more kindly like, but then, it wouldn’t change truth o’ it, now would it?” Nephril’s eyes widened but he said nothing.

  A number of things Storbanther had said earlier, and his very name itself, all came together in Nephril’s mind. Storbanther Scaedwera, of course, Storbanther the ‘Shadow’, now he remembered. A ‘shadow’ that must truly have been here all that time ago. It was the only way it made sense, but it still didn’t answer how. “Dost thou know of Leigarre Perfinn, Storbanther Scaedwera, eh, dost thou? Be it somewhere familiar to thee?”

  Storbanther grinned, seemingly quite naturally this time. “Oh aye. Know it well, as thee do. T’was t’place I were fashioned afore becoming thy shadow.”

  Nephril winced. “Mine shadow? How could thee have been mine shadow without mine knowing?”

  Storbanther rose, strode to the parapet and looked out at the unprepossessing view. He seemed fascinated by the unerring flight of a heron, although he was actually thinking hard. “Said afore how thee were placed here against Stewards’ wishes, foisted on ‘em by that bastard Belforas, and ‘ow t’Stewards weren’t at all ‘appy. Made ‘em very jittery it did, specially t’engers an’ wrights. Summat ‘ad to be done, summat to lessen yer impact here, and so allow t’Stewards some control again.”

  “And thou wert that something, were thee not, Storbanther Scaedwera?”

  Nephril’s shadow finally turned to face him. “Aye, I were that, a shadow to much of yer life, indeed, that I were. I ‘ad to be t’pearl, ya see, to yer grit, grit thee were putting ‘tween Leiyfiantel’s wheels.”

  Had it not been for Leiyatel’s reinvigorating embrace then Nephril would surely have been crushed, crushed under the weight of Storbanther’s revelations. His own newly firmed fibre kept him emboldened, though, enough to resist great pressing, until a doubt then pierced him.

  “Did thee shadow me into Baradcar itself, Storbanther Scaedwera? Did thee? Were thee imbued with weft and weave enough to tread there with impunity? Was mine love of Leiyatel tainted by thy presence in the marital bed, as it were?”

  Storbanther slowly lifted eyes that were surprisingly filled with compassion.

  The distant piping call of a wading curlew drifted in as Storbanther slowly pushed himself away from the parapet and returned to his chair, where he settled himself before casting Nephril a wary eye. It was as clear an answer as Nephril needed, spoke far more than words could have done and left but the curlew’s persistent song thinly filling the air between them. Storbanther was the first to displace its lonely lament. “There’s still summat thee need to know, Lord Nephril, summat that’ll make a deal o’ difference.”

  He began to explain what he was, in fibre and form and function, and in much detail, candidly enough truly to shock Lord Nephril. It appeared that Storbanther was only marginally a man, almost wholly of Leiyatel - a thin envelope of Bazarran in which her essence could walk abroad. He’d been carefully fashioned in Leigarre Perfinn of course, by the very best Bazarran engers, cleverly made to be no more than Leiyatel’s sum. Being but extract and not surfeit, unlike Nephril, his presence didn’t injure her.

  “Unlike mine,” Nephril said, before sadly noting, “Not only like the damage mine presence did, but still does.”

  “Aye, the very reason I were wrought in t’first place, as it ‘appens, why I were set as yer shadow, to offset and ameliorate yer constant injury.”

  “Injurious to Leiyatel and therefore a thing to be got rid of, eh, Storbanther? Something to be drawn out and thrown away, was that it?”

  Storbanther actually did laugh convincingly, instinctively and freely, but soon became serious. “Aye, extracted at all costs, tha’s right, but thee couldn’t be thrown away, not like t’slip, no, thee couldn’t simply be destroyed for thee has Leiyatel’s weft an’ weave in thee.”

  “Of course, thou could never have me fall from the Farewell Gap, for the sure injury it would cause her. Now I see it plain. Now I see why I was cast out into the wilderness instead.”

  It was some time before anything but the vale’s distant wildlife stirred the air, a long while before Nephril let his gaze again wander to Storbanther. “How could Leiyatel form reason for thy instruction, eh, Storbanther Scaedwera, how could she think and thereby give thee guidance?”

  Storbanther was now on thin ground for he and Leiyatel, of whom he was but a limb, were indeed unable to think, had no organ for such. He tried hard to find some match within his dictates, some pattern or texture bound by his limited remit, anything at all to lend wit and knowing. There was that Bazarran part, of course, the part given him not only to fashion form but also to yield affinity, to equip him with some meagre empathy with the minds of men.

  “I were originally meant as a palliative,” Storbanther eventually revealed, “but I had the cure added later, along wi’ t’means to Leiyatel’s salvation. You see, the two were entwined, getting rid o’ thee and our own replacement.”

  “Salvation? Replacement? I see no
t thy meaning, Master Limb. What kind of salvation?”

  Storbanther looked a bit confused himself but soon seemed to see the omission. “Oh, sorry, thought I’d explained the greater scheme.”

  “Greater scheme?”

  “Aye, Leiyfiantel’s daughter, as thee’d probably call it, you know, t’engine that were to come after us.”

  He’d said it as though it should have been as plain as the nose on Nephril’s face. When Nephril still looked nonplussed, Storbanther furthered, “What t’slip thee dutifully carried were for, eh? Knowledge and wit and ring, all held in Nouwelm and wi’ which the new Certain Power were to be fashioned, to plant and nurture a new Living Green Stone Tree.”

  Nephril looked even more confused.

  “That’s why Leiyatel’s gaze ‘as been set to t’north all this time, along a narrow tract unto t’pass. Surely thee must’ve seen what were ‘appening, how t’pass has been kept open some ninety years now?” Nephril hadn’t, and it had hardly been surprising given the state he’d fallen into through his wilderness years.

  It steadily came to light how the ‘Shadow’ had been set here to watch, and then when the time became ripe, to act. Originally a foil to their despised and deleterious Master of Ceremonies, the Stewards had soon found further use for Storbanther, had given him observance and criteria, had set within him a fuse and the means to inseminate Leiyatel with a fresh form and function; a form and function that would once again open the pass through the Gray Mountains to Nouwelm

  “Trouble is,” Storbanther said, “we expected the descendants o’ those Bazarran who’d taken the wit with ‘em to Nouwelm to ‘ave come south by now.”

  “And that plainly has not happened.”

  Storbanther looked down at the floor for a moment, but then back out, across the parapet and onto the vale once more.