Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2)

by Clive S. Johnson

  Yes, like the light of the eclipsed sun, it spills out, scatters around and sheds some light about. That was it. Even beyond his own carr sceld - the Gray Mountains - her gaze would still spill over, just a mite, but maybe just a mite too much. “He’ll have to be taken well down, Steward Melkin, far enough to be beyond Leiyatel’s peripheral spillage.”

  Melkin hadn’t understood at all but wasn’t about to admit it, not in front of Lambsplitter. “So, his lordship stays with us most of the way then. Well, that’s fine by me.” He yawned, dramatically, before bidding them all goodnight, and retiring in the hope of a better night’s sleep.

  Phaylan wondered what the Guardian had meant - peripheral spillage! He thought hard about what had been said, particularly the Guardian’s words, but before he could make any sense of it a different thought struck him.

  Where they were now camped was before the floor of the pass began to level off, no doubt approaching its head. What it meant, he was shocked to realise, was that they were already at their farewell place. Shortly after setting out in the morning they’d leave behind their very last sight of Dica, of the castle and the whole of its realm.

  Mount Esnadac was truly high, but not high enough. He knew they were now well above Dica’s surmounting crown for he remembered seeing its furthest side before the light had failed. He remembered looking down, yes, actually down onto the castle.

  Tomorrow would bring, in the space of but a few short strides, the loss of his entire world. What had Lord Nephril let slip, yes, “Tis a fairy-tale borderland to the unknown ... a formidable beckoning to the foolhardy.” How Phaylan now wished he could ask Nephril what he’d truly meant.

  37 Over the Edge of the World

  They’d been so busy in the morning that Phaylan had almost forgotten to take that one last, lingering look at the Realm of Dica, still nestling in its halcyon setting. When he did eventually find a free moment, after checking Nephril’s body and removing its wilted garland of flowers, he’d walked back the short distance to where the road surmounted its serpentine climb.

  Leiyatel’s clemency had belied a change in the weather. The sea was largely hidden below thin and low grey clouds that drifted in ragged wisps past the castle’s western flanks. The dales and vales could still be seen, mottled by the remnant clouds’ fleeing shadows, but the Strawbac Hills and the forest beyond were both swathed in morning mist. Only the distant desert bathed under the morning sun’s fresh glow, but with its northern spread still darkly shadowed by the mountains.

  When he peered hard at the Scarra, its dark rise starkly silhouetted against the Eyeswin Vale’s pastel green carpet, he thought he could just glimpse his old home world. He couldn’t be sure, but it did seem a low leaden wall peeped from behind the Scarra’s face. “I must ask Lord Nephril…” he began only to feel his heart tighten. He sighed, wiped his eyes and took his promised last look.

  It didn’t turn out to be lingering, though, for a shout from Melkin brought him about. When he saw their party straggling away, vanishing beyond the road’s brow, he suddenly felt alone and so rushed to catch up. By the time he’d thought to commit the view to memory it was already too late, only the castle’s pretentious crown now breaking the spread of the haze-thinned Southern Hills. Even they’d vanished when next he glanced back.

  Melkin and Lambsplitter had led as usual, Pettar, Penolith and Puschin walking beside Nephril’s bier, ably carried by Telson and Cathgar. Cresmol had held back, his face full of concern and care as he patiently awaited Phaylan.

  “Come on, Phaylan. Almost there,” he encouraged as Phaylan drew near, but his eyes cried out at Phaylan’s sorrow. “Seems we’re not far off the head, according to our illustrious Steward.” Cresmol grinned knowingly, which brought a smile to Phaylan’s lips.

  “Do you think we should’ve carried him earlier, Cresmol? Would it have kept him with us longer do you think?”

  “Perhaps, maybe, but then … he was keen not to make a fuss didn’t you think.”

  “Too proud? Is that what you mean?”

  “Well, not really, no, more … well … struck me it was something he had to do alone, you know, without involving others … more than he had to, if you get my drift.”

  Phaylan did. It made sense. He didn’t suppose taking your own life, however justified, was something you’d really want to burden others with. “We helped the best way we could I suppose. He told me how our nearness was enough, but it looks like he was wrong. Not quite enough as it turned out.”

  “Seems to me, from what everyone’s said, it was the tunnel that did for his Lordship.” Phaylan simply stared at him, unseeing, now lost in his own thoughts.

  It wasn’t long before the prospect ahead drew Phaylan back. He tried to put his thoughts to one side and concentrate on what might lie beyond the sharp ‘V’ of the valley. Other than the two black-rendered peaks and the trough of green between, there was nothing but an empty amber sky. The gentle rise of the valley, occasionally beside a small tumbling brook, brought with it no real change for the first couple of hours, other than the sky turning bluer.

  Anticipation had slowly become palpable, and with it a suspended silence. There was the slap-slap-slap of sandals of course, and the harder step of boots, but other than that, and the distant strain of birdsong, nothing filled the still valley air.

  Phaylan’s intrigue had pushed him ahead of Nephril’s bier, so he wasn’t that far behind Melkin and Lambsplitter, Cresmol just behind him, when he noticed a distinct ochre tinge above the point of the valley’s ‘V’. Cresmol must have seen it too for he came alongside, his own eyes keenly that way.

  It was taken out of their sight, though, when the road dropped into a shallow trough and turned slightly aside before crossing the brook on a small humped bridge. It kept them too low down to see much more, during which time what had been a sharp valley began to gain an ever widening floor.

  It was only when the road climbed away from the brook, out of its shallow course, that the tinge returned, but now as a hazy striation of wavering ochre hues. It even brought Melkin and Lambsplitter to a puzzled halt, everyone else soon catching them up. They all now stared at the strangely shimmering sky.

  The memory of Nephril’s words slowly floated into Phaylan’s mind as he tried to tease sense from what he saw. The unknown across this fairy-tale borderland looked like some shallow, ethereal sea, its rolling swell made of nothing more than mist and miasma. He saw its clay-coloured surge lift green and grey weed from a shoaling bed, its swell reflecting the palest of pale blue skies.

  So it remained for Phaylan, whilst they crossed the head of the pass, the valley floor flat across its broad saddle. For an hour or so nothing more appeared, although the strange spread got wider.

  They all seemed to see the same as he, but their holds were different. Of them all, Melkin had perhaps come closest, but that he knew it. He’d seen similar in the view from the Aerie Way, out from the Scarra Face through the distant haze to the desert.

  It was only when the pass started to open out more, and the road veer sharply off to the west, that revelation finally drew near. They’d stopped and were staring hard at the unfathomable view, framed now by the valley’s north-facing, bounding ridges. It was Lady Lambsplitter who realised why the road had turned so sharply, and from it found a path to their answer.

  She’d tramped some way from the road and now appeared to be pointing at their mystery view, although she was in fact looking much nearer. “Here!” she called back. “There’s an edge here, if I’m not mistaken.” What they’d at first taken to be the valley floor steeply dropping away from them was in fact a sheer cliff.

  They left Nephril at the side of the NorthernWay and stumbled over the rough tussocks to join her, their mystery view dramatically opening out below them. By the time they were standing at the very edge of the cliff, they were dumbstruck by what lay spread out beneath them.

  As far as the eye could see, a flat plain of scrub lay but a few thousand feet below
. From where it blurred into the distant wavering horizon, reflecting slivers of cloudless sky in its heat haze, it swept towards them as a dry, brown and ochre stain, right to the foot of the Gray Mountains below. Here and there, isolated patches of grey-green suggested thorn thickets or perhaps straggled brittlebush clumps. The only relief it held was a few bright yellow blisters that suggested sulphurous pools. All in all it was nothing more than a barren and featureless wasteland.

  It was therefore no wonder that their eyes were drawn to the slash of green meandering along the close edge of the mountains, almost directly below. It corralled a broad and muddy brown river that sluggishly flowed westwards. On either side were traces of ancient walls and buildings, mostly grey remnant imprints or earthy scars, the odd gable wall or chimney stack still standing.

  There had plainly once been lanes threading their ways between fields and along the banks of the river, as evidenced by the tell-tale troughs and folds of the ground, becoming denser and closer the further west they went. It looked as though there’d been a small town there, with market squares and ginnel ways. No doubt there’d been inns and taverns, blacksmiths, milliners and stores, and probably a council hall. But whatever there’d been, it had all long crumbled to dust, leaving little but coloured depressions in the dry and dusty earth.

  Lady Lambsplitter gasped. She stared this way and that, greatly agitated until Melkin grabbed her by the arms. “Are you alright, my dear? You look upset. What’s the matter?”

  She pushed him away, drawing nearer the edge and bemoaned, “It really did exist. It really did. It was here … it bloody well was … but no longer. Damn, damn, damn it! All decayed away and long gone.” She became distraught, unmindful of the treacherous edge as she scrambled yet nearer.

  Just as Melkin was about to grab her jacket, she cried out, “Ah! Yes, yes! But the legend does live on. Hah! It does … see.” She was by now squatting and pointing directly down from the edge, one hand clinging precariously to a coarse tussock.

  Pettar reached out in alarm and was just placing his hand on her arm when he too saw what had so excited her, and so leaned out further himself. Barely visible, between the river and the obscuring rim of a much lower hill, an arc of closely packed buildings could be seen.

  By now they’d all thrown caution to the wind and were each peering over the edge. Of them all, only Lambsplitter seemed to understand, or at least in part. “The Warmswin River!” she said in awe. “From ancient legend it flows into being before us, plainly before our eyes.” She looked exultant, excited, intoxicated, but her mood soon soured. “But Nouwelm isn’t as the texts would have it, nor the land as vibrant.”

  They eventually came to their senses and managed to pull her away, to a safer spot clear of the edge, where they all sat expectantly around her, Melkin holding her hand. She seemed a little calmer now but soon tried to pull away again to look, against their tightened grasps.

  “Please, my Lady, please calm yourself,” Melkin appealed. “Whatever have you seen that’s got you so worked up?”

  She slowly fixed him in her gaze and swallowed. “I’m sorry, Melkin, you’ll have to forgive me, but, you see, I’ve never seen myth and legend come alive before, not so stark before my very own eyes.”

  They rightly agreed it was too dangerous there and so retraced their steps, back to the Northern Way. Cathgar and Telson took up Lord Nephril’s body again and they all stepped out once more towards their own most ancient legend.

  The road led them quite steeply down the cliff’s shoulder to the base of the pass’s western ridge, where it then again turned north, just as steeply. Eventually, after much bone-jarring, they found themselves coming around the squat hill that had obscured their view from above. There, the road dropped more leisurely down the valley’s moraine and towards the plain.

  From along that lower hill’s shallower upper brow all below remained obscured, until they came to its sheer edge and found the start of yet another zigzagging descent. Once more they could look straight down some few hundred feet, but now onto clearer sight of a small, circular town.

  It nestled in an elbow of the Warmswin River, almost half its bounding wall forming the river bank, and was laid out in a strangely regular pattern. All its tight buildings looked bright and fresh, its few gardens and orchards vibrant, and here and there larger halls sat within meagre open spaces.

  By now they were all leaning out over the road’s parapet, each hoping to catch some sign of life. “It looks as though it were built yesterday,” Melkin marvelled.

  Sure enough, none of them could find the slightest mar to spoil its perfection, not that was apparent at the distance. Every roof had unweathered pantiles, regular and even, every road and avenue and lane unmarred, unworn, even the small green spaces a consistently vigorous green. In fact, an almost too perfect green. Even the trees looked identical, the same size, shape and colour.

  Phaylan was about to ask a question when Cresmol yelped, “There’s someone walking there, see? There by that large hall.” He was now vigorously pointing. “The one with the avenue leading from it. Do you see?”

  It wasn’t long before they could all see someone march steadily up to and then into the hall. Although a fleeting glimpse, it had seemed to be dressed in a vaguely familiar shard-pattern, although the yellow and green looked decidedly novel.

  They began to spot more figures, all dressed alike, and soon found the place to be quite busy. The inhabitants seemed to come and go at the same leisurely walk, rarely if ever communing, many with small burdens such as a basket or bag.

  “Bazarran,” Lambsplitter marvelled. “Pure Bazarran blood.”

  They were turning their questioning faces to her when Phaylan pressed on with his own interrupted question. “What’s that thing at its centre, though?” at which they all then peered down.

  At the very centre of the town was a small circular trough or well, or maybe a hollow of sorts, although it was difficult to tell from above. It was encircled by a dull leaden-looking wall within which a scarlet coloured ring enclosed a hazy, central mound. At regular intervals, just outside its wall, eight pairs of black towers rose at a slant, all arching in to the centre. The more they looked, the more uncertain they became, but Phaylan persisted. “Well? What is it then?”

  It was a familiar but completely unexpected voice that answered, one that came from behind them all. Although weak and cracked, it hinted at a resurging strength. “‘Tis Leiyfiantel’s own kin thou dost see there before thee, an smael Lifian Grunstaan Treow.” They wheeled about and stared in utter shock as Nephril slowly and ponderously intoned,

  “Within Baradcar layeth Crimson Lake,

  That doth drink to it its golden slake,

  Drawn from sun’s bright glow doth make,

  Of stem and bough sustaining vitellus partake,

  So Living Green Stone Tree doth tell,

  Fore’er of fortune’s bounteous Leiyfiantel,

  Bounteous Leiyfiantel.”

  He smiled as he added, somewhat apologetically, “Well, within a wholly unexpected Noubaradcar, to give truth its fair due.”

  38 Grunstaan

  They’d stared at him as though he were a ghost. When laid out on his makeshift bier, Nephril had been shrunken, grey and most definitely lifeless. The apparition before them now most certainly wasn’t. In fact, colour suffused his face even as he spoke. Pettar’s greatest joy was Nephril’s eyes, ones that not only now sparkled but shone back brightly. However, Lord Nephril himself seemed little more than amused.

  So far from Leiyatel’s succour, his weft and weave had somehow persisted of its own accord, had only slowly lost vigour as the mountain’s granite mass formed an impenetrable shield. The threads had drawn near stilled when a new vibrancy began to caress them.

  To Nephril’s own knowing he’d simply awoken from a long dream, from a place of cold grey, watery peace, and into a once more immediate and vital world. His narrowly missed meeting with Naningemynd had left him exposed to a st
range new dialogue, one that had kindled interest afresh.

  The utter shock, the disbelief and overwhelming joy delayed them for some considerable time, long enough that finding a place to camp suddenly became most urgent. Still disbelieving, they quickly descended the Northern Way through growing dusk until forced to find shelter against one of the road’s retaining walls. Here, at the last of the zigzag turns, they made their camp once more, rationed out their dwindling food and finally sat and watched the vast expanse of scrubland slowly dissolve into encroaching night.

  They’d not felt easy troubling Nephril about his miraculous recovery, especially as their short descent had greatly tired him, and so found diversion in spying down on the town. Not far below and maybe a league or so away, it had slowly glittered against the enveloping blackness.

  Only the bitter wind now blowing in off the star-vaulted wasteland put pay to their lingering and drove them to huddled beds. As Nouwelm became a glowing spider’s web, they folded themselves into close sleep against the night’s cold embrace.

  When dawn finally came, they were grateful for it, for the clear blue sky promised a fine day. From their nearer vantage they watched Nouwelm’s own awakening, saw the leisurely rise of activity within its narrow ways.

  They’d soon struck camp and were back on the road, expecting to meet with some of Nouwelm’s busy folk but none was seen. Even the town eventually vanished from sight when they dropped into sparse woodland, only returning when they rounded a gentle bend and found its wall barring the way.

  By Dican standards it was a small wall but still outstripped the tallest of the wood’s meagre trees. Seemingly of granite, it gracefully curved inwards between its stout base and an overhanging top. Its stones were so closely laid it seemed from a distance to be hewn from a single expanse of rock . Even stranger still was how the Northern Way ended so abruptly, right up against it, no gate affording entry.