It was as the others were beginning to lose spirit that Phaylan’s resolve welled up. He tried in vain to see anything around him and so fell back on his remaining senses. There was the lifeless smell of the place of course, a mixture of mould, stale air and tepid water, but there was also a whole wealth of sounds. “Please!” he shouted. “Please keep very still, I need to listen.”
Under normal circumstances they’d have taken offence at his upstart manner, but as they stilled, and the sounds of lapping water disturbed by their feet slowly receded, their ears began to fill with the eerie music of a thousand drips and drops.
The constant fall of indoor rain played numerous and varied instruments about them; staccato strings plucked upon pooled water, dull drumming from the rocky floor, even the faint wind of their passing through the dark and dank air.
In it all there were hidden tunes and rhythms, phrases and ayres, all manner of tempos insidiously embracing, all forming a framework for a most singular, but until now, overlooked voice. Hidden within it all was a solo song, a subterranean voice full of enchanting melody. It gurgled and laughed, was coy, vivacious and playful, whilst all the time staying elusive and secret amongst the echoes.
Eventually, Phaylan sought it out. From some way off he shouted, “I’ve found it! It’s here! Come and look.” Their splashing feet finally dashed the fragile music once and for all.
As Phaylan heard them draw near, he explained, “I was right. It seemed odd there was so much water falling yet so little of it pooled here, but look!” He pointed, pointlessly as it turned out, at a wide crack formed where the rock floor met the quarried wall. It was only when they came beside him, though, that they could all clearly see daylight reflected from its furthest flooded course, miniature spumes and cascades wrought as silver by the beckoning light.
Phaylan was already into it, quickly contorted as he started pressing his body through. After some minutes, and the odd few yelps, they finally saw him push himself free. He then went silent, motionless, clearly peering off into their bright escape.
Only Lady Lambsplitter didn’t worry when he failed to call back, only she guessing what had stolen his breath. Indeed she’d been right. He’d been smitten dumb by the unexpected close sight of the sea. She quietly hoped it wouldn’t to be too intimate, that his first close encounter wouldn’t be her wet and cold embrace.
It took quite a while for the others to follow. Nephril had found his joints too stiff, although his slight frame had been a boon, but he was eventually pulled free by Phaylan. Whilst Nephril nursed his grazes, and stared up at the cliffs now behind them, Phaylan returned to the crack to await the others, but Nephril readily saw how the lad’s gaze was forever drawn to the sea.
It was perhaps some fifty feet below the ledge on which they now rested, swelling in and out on a high tide, the wind cutting foam from its crests to fleck white spume across the darkened rocks. The air was refreshingly sharp, laden with ozone and the metallic tang of seaweed, filled with salt-laden mist and spray that crusted their lips with drying salt.
Nephril realised that not only had they found their way down through the mausoleum’s very foundations, but had also come out beneath the castle’s walls. They were now on a ledge that looked out northwards across the estuary, with glimpses through the rocks to the east of a small cove.
Phaylan shinned his way up a rock outcrop to get a better look, but then shouted back, “I can see houses, all up against the far cliff, and there’s a wall of sorts… Yes, there’s a small wall with boats bobbing about behind it.”
The more he reported, the more certain Nephril became that Phaylan was now looking across the bay at Grayden and its small harbour. Even when the young priest enthusiastically reported an easy way down, Nephril only sighed and looked out across the estuary’s grey waters.
He looked beyond the wind-smeared crests towards the Vale of Plenty, and imagined the Lost Northern Way. In his mind’s eye he saw Penolith, Melkin and the others soon tramping there. He saw them slowly shrink to the distance without him, and by it, becoming more and more lost to the Forest of Belforas. He sighed and thought, ‘What a shame. What a waste, eh? Saved from the boiling broth only to find oneself in its heating flames.’
24 A Portent is Witnessed
“Will Lord Nephril be alright, Stor’? I mean, he won’t suffer too much from being in Leiyatel’s shadow will he?” Penolith’s voice would, to anyone else but Storbanther, have carried clear intimations of genuine concern, plainly stemming from anxiety. To anyone but Storbanther, though, the root of it would have been plain to see, Nephril’s place in her suddenly new, and if she were to be honest with herself, quite frightening world fulfilling something of a father-figure.
“Nay, Guardian, he’ll be alright. He ain’t goin’ to be away for more than a few days, an’ t’shadow ain’t as black as thee thinks.”
She turned from viewing the distant desert, beyond the Plain of the New Sun’s haze. “What do you mean, not as black?”
“Well ... although Leiyatel gazes towards Nouwelm, there’s peripheral spillage.”
Penolith screwed up her face. “Peripheral spillage? I don’t…”
“Well, ya see … it’s like when there’s an eclipse, ya know, when moon’s over t’sun. Don’t go pitch black, now does it, eh? Still some light sorta scatters about a bit.”
Her face seemed to capture a touch of that faint and ephemeral glow. “Oh, I see. So Lord Nephril will still…” she broke off at seeing Storbanther’s suddenly perplexed face, as he looked past her towards the north. She spun about, her gaze quickly following his, past the great cliff of the Scarra Face and into the far distant northern sky.
Drifting from the west, seemingly far above the Forest of Belforas, a clotted cloud of black smoke stained the whiteness of the thin clouds. They both looked at one another, and when no better informed, turned to Melkin's approaching figure.
He didn’t meet their eyes for he too had seen the smoke, as had Drax and most of the others now threading their way towards them along the Aerie Way.
“What in the blazes is that, Storbanther?” Melkin asked. “Is it usual to have smoke over there?”
“I don’t think so. Don’t generally get up ‘ere that often missen, so can’t really be sure.” It soon became evident they’d learn no more from where they were, the Scarra’s mass plainly hiding the source of the smoke.
Although they pushed on with more haste, as best they could with some twenty five young priests all laden down with seeming essentials, it was a while before the view began to open out.
They must have missed something for one of the priest came running up from the rear, crying, “Let me by, let me by!”
Drax turned and saw Cresmol pushing his way through to them, and so called a halt. When Cresmol came before him and hurriedly gave his report, they soon followed him back down the line.
He’d only had to lead them a short way past the tail of the group for them to see the fleetingly narrow vantage he’d had to the northwest. It gave them sight of a black plume of smoke billowing from somewhere beyond the swell of the castle.
“Where is that?” Penolith asked.
Only Storbanther could make a stab at an answer. “I reckon it’s somewhere near t’Park o’ Forgiveness. Aye, look thee there,” and he pointed. “Pettar? Ain’t that t’King’s Court there, just beyond t’line o’ t’Outer courts?”
They all stared the harder but were still none the wiser, not even Pettar.
Storbanther seemed quite convinced until he whistled and said, “Nay, ‘taint t’Park at all, but I’m pretty sure I now know where it is.” A flicker of sombre red light ominously lit the belly of the smoke. “Aye, seems to me that that’s t’Lords Demesne, and it’s bloody well up in flames!”
25 To Embark Anew
“Men! How damned well typical of the sex,” Lady Lambsplitter had muttered. She wasn’t particularly impressed by them, not at the moment, which did seem something of an habitual attitude.
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Nephril wasn’t at all surprised she’d never married. ‘Wed only to her blasted history,’ he privately thought, but was genuinely thankful for it, that and her cold, clear thinking. It was her astute reasoning that had made her seek an escape, one that would circumvent Grayden’s small fishing port, but her all-consuming interest that had actually delivered the means.
They’d carefully joined Phaylan, considerably less adroitly it had to be said, and were now straddling the rock blade from where he’d first spied the harbour. On the far side of the small bay, Grayden huddled about a small stream’s narrow cleft in the sheer cliff face. Its harbour could hold but few boats and was now crammed full of fishing smacks, all rigged as sloops. Along its short wall, though, they could clearly see an angry mob. The men - Nephril, Que’Devit and Phaylan - saw only entrapment but the Lady knew better.
Only a few feet below their perch, a slanting ledge ran back towards the cliffs and on to a flat of rock, a terrace of sorts, well clear of high water’s reach. Its strangely level expanse gained access to the sea by means of a well-worn flight of steps, the lowest matted with bright green seaweed.
It was the surprising features in the terrace’s rear wall that intrigued the men, although not Lady Lambsplitter. A quite ordinary door stood open between two quite ordinary windows, both hung heavily with latched-back shutters. To the left was a wider door, although now firmly closed. The narrower one revealed a black patch of shadow from which a single table leg protruding into its snatch of bright sunlight.
With help from Lord Que’Devit, Lady Lambsplitter climbed down to the ledge and led them right up to that door, and there breezily called in, “Steermaster Sconner? You about?”
They could hear the sound of tools being laid aside and the clomp of stout-soled boots drawing near across a stone floor. The table leg was soon joined by one of those boots, the darkly tanned and polished toe kicking glistening sunlight sharply into their eyes.
From within, a deep and burring voice swelled out. “Ai! I be ‘ere and ahearing thee well enough. Who be astirring at us door, acalling me?”
The only other part of Steermaster Sconner that became apparent was his hand, large and callused, tanned and as shiny as his boot leather. It lazily wrapped itself around the doorjamb but then tensed. “May t’spirits o’deep ‘ave mercy. Lady Lambsplitter!”
It wasn’t long before they were stumbling about Steermaster Sconner’s dark and dingy abode, inadvertently knocking things from their places on stools and tables, or from shelves and racks. It took so long for their eyes to adjust they’d all been guided to seats well before they could begin to see their host in any real detail. It turned out he was a big man, a very big man, so big in fact that he stooped against the low ceiling.
He wore a dirty smock from which brown and bare arms grew like tree trunks, just as his unclad legs seemed well-rooted in a pair of enormous brown boots. He looked as though he’d been carved from mahogany and then highly buffed and polished. Topping it all, at a slant, his head boasted dark red hair pulled tight to a ponytail, its oily sheen glassily curved like a boat’s wet sails.
Steermaster Sconner was a boatman, and a very fine one at that. So fine in fact that he’d long since forsaken fishing for the more lucrative rewards of a pilot. He knew the sandbanks, the shelves, eddies and racing currents far better than any man alive, and his knowledge had steered many a ship to safe anchorage in Utter Shevling’s harbour.
The luggers and hoys that ploughed their trade along the coast found easy and safe anchorage off Pilot’s Point, where they’d await Sconner rowing out to them. They’d then trust to his renowned skills to steer them safely along the estuary’s treacherous southern shore. Once in harbour and his fee paid, he’d soon row himself back the eight miles or so, if no ship had outward need of him. So much rowing had lent him muscles of anchor-rope, skin of cowhide and an unstoppable determination.
His need to live there had, however, separated him from his Grayden roots, had set him apart from its townsfolk and made him a solitary and self-sufficient figure. He also had an inordinate amount of spare time on his hands, time he’d fill with a host of interests. Like Lambsplitter, his keenest was history, or to be more precise a liking for stories of old.
His remit was purely Dican, although the sea brought much Bazarran lore his way, but his love largely centred on the Eyeswin and its estuary. Much of his knowledge came first-hand from the second-hand telling of seafarers, although with most of it being oral he’d taken to jotting it all down. Over time he’d amassed quite an informal library.
His rather unusual interest was common knowledge, and so it was no surprise that Lady Lambsplitter had often been a visitor. Calling on Steermaster Sconner, though, had never proved trivial. At all but the very lowest tides, his point was completely cut off from all who couldn’t get there by sea. Even at springtides, visitors needed to be fleet-of-foot to win against their change, to race them along the narrow, shingle beaches and through the persistent shallows. Lady Lambsplitter had always hired a boat and boatman from Grayden, although she’d invariably be ferried back by Sconner himself.
What set her mind at ease now was knowing that only small boats could put people ashore here. She knew that the angry mob now at Grayden’s harbour were entirely impotent, her own party perfectly safe in Sconner’s sanctuary, and that they were by no means trapped.
Unfortunately, it took a while for Sconner’s excitement to ebb, despite Lady Lambsplitter’s best endeavours. She’d tried to bring their discourse to their own immediate plight but was too often distracted. It was only when Nephril’s name came to be mentioned that the Pilot’s torrent faltered.
“Lord Nephril!” Sconner’s eyes had widened whitely in the gloom. “Then this ‘ere coming high tide and swell will serve they well. But ah never. An high born Dican here, in us own ‘ome. Whatever next? But how in blazes did they get ‘ere, wi’out boat an’ all?” It was only then that he became opportunely lost for words.
Lady Lambsplitter soon explained how they’d got to his door. “You see,” she said, “we’re marooned here and so are now quite naturally beholden to you.”
Without saying a word, Sconner left the room, out onto the terrace and soon passed by the small window. They could hear his stout boots clomping their way up some steps until all went silent, somewhere above them.
They’d got as far as looking at each other uncertainly when they heard him stomp back down, again pass in front of the window but then stand monumentally before the open doorway, his full, un-stooped height starkly apparent.
“It be come to it at last ah see,” he announced through the doorway. “So, rope’s finally frayed enough to go an’ snap ‘as it? Long time acoming if they asks me. Well, stands to reason ah suppose.” His astute eyes darted to Nephril. “Be after they Lordship ah wouldn’t wonder. A fair prize to assuage thems' foolish resentment.”
“But how did they know we’d be here?” Lord Que’Devit asked.
“Oh, way from mausoleum be common knowledge to folk o’ Grayden, all of us ‘aving played there at some time as kids, dared each other into its fearful chasm.”
“I’d be surprised if Lord Que’Devit and myself don’t figure in their ambitions, though,” Lady Lambsplitter warned, making Sconner’s mouth drop and his eyes fill with alarm.
“Aar, no doubt be true, but can’t be ‘aving that, nah can us.” His gaze seemed to enfold her even more protectively. “Only trouble be the tide.” Phaylan’s blank look made Sconner add, “Tide be on its turn, they see, my lad,” but it still meant nothing to Phaylan.
It took Lord Que’Devit to reveal how dangerous a turning tide could be, how it caused strong and unpredictable currents and eddies, how it could so easily push a small boat against the rocks or even pull it under.
“Only an hour or so,” Sconner promised. “Time enough to get us boat ready for the off, and enough time for theys all to take a bite.”
He offered them simple but fine fare, hoarded produc
e of a fast diminishing trade. Once they were eating, Sconner left them alone. They then clearly heard the wider door creak open but nothing more.
Phaylan was so smitten by the sea’s novelty that it wasn’t long before he’d taken his buttered bread with him out onto the terrace, there to stare at the ceaseless waves. He thrilled at the prospect of being borne along upon them, gently cupped, as he imagined, by some trough’s carrying cradle.
He found Sconner next door in what was in fact a very narrow boathouse. The heavy sea-barring doors had been thrown back to reveal the prow of a rowing boat, its gay, green paint standing proud of the dusty and cramped darkness within.
When Phaylan was spotted gawping in at the crowded space, at its ropes and nets and floats all hanging amongst awls and planes and chisels, the pilot’s strangely softer voice floated out to him. “They not be familiar wi’ sea, eh, Master Phaylan?”
The lad’s answer came as though from a dream. “No, Steermaster Sconner. Never been up so close before. To tell the truth, I only saw it for the first time earlier today, and then from afar.” He couldn’t help but turn back to it, to watch the slightly giddy effect of the sea’s swell.
Sconner squeezed between the boat and a bench and stood close behind the lad. “She be a stern mistress, make no mistake on that. To theys own green eyes she no doubt looks fair dangerous enough already, and so she be. Be a wise seafarer, take good note, one as lives long who ne’er forgets that.”
When Phaylan naively turned him a worried look, Sconner’s broad face softened and his eyes began to sparkle. “Treacherous, wily and unforgiving she may be, but she ain’t full of malice as men can be. A far kinder companion to thems that respect her, that she be.” He clapped Phaylan on the shoulder. “Come on, gi’ us hand, eh boy. Dirty ‘em wi’ a bit o’ fair toil.” Phaylan couldn’t have asked for more.
Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Page 24