Somewhat distracted, Nephril only distantly answered, “‘Tis mainly knowledge we bring back, mainly a weighty knowing, but yes, in our Master Dialwatcher there be a rare artefact as well.”
Phaylan realised he could just see Lord Nephril’s face, not enough to recognise his expression but enough to see uncertainty. Nephril then hastily whispered, “Master Dialwatcher hast attended where no man should be able to attend, hast walked close to a Certain Power, within Grunstaan’s corrosive fragrance.”
When the wind blew again, it surrounded them both with yet more faint, white flecks, ones that chivvied Nephril. “No man but one can attend,” he said a little too loudly, but certainly obscurely, and more quietly added, “To survive being so close must hath meant he too had a guard, something akin mine own weft and weave.”
Dawn light was rapidly growing, revealing the air between them to be dusty. “The Bazarran of Nouwelm had crafted protection, Phaylan, had wrought a crude slip with which to firm their Dialwatchers’ fibres.”
“Slip?”
Nephril’s eyes peered hard into the new day’s wan light. “Aye, slip, cutting thereof. They fashioned the form of Grunstaan into a ring, a thing to protect their long line of Dialwatchers. Something our own Master Dialwatcher wears now upon his finger, the very thing I have tricked from Grunstaan unto our own Leiyatel.” At last, Phaylan could see the glint in Nephril’s eyes, but it signalled alarm.
Nephril’s hands were now firmly on Phaylan’s arms, gripping tightly as he hurriedly explained, “I failed to deliver Leiyatel’s slip to their care so very long ago, but their subsequent need to fashion their own of Grunstaan hast made mine dereliction of no great matter. The lore and knowing for renewing Leiyatel no longer exists, but that slip gives us a head start in overtaking such loss. Dialwatcher carries the very seed for Leiyatel’s rebirth, and…”
He turned from Phaylan and looked out upon the white landscape now being revealed by the dawn light. “…and if we are not in great haste then it too will be lost, along with us all.”
The morning wasn’t bringing blue sky, as had always been the case for the past ninety years, but a flat, white expanse from which the fitful wind drew down yet larger flakes of snow. What had been habitually the greens and browns of gorse and heather and coarse grass had now become a patchwork of black and white, the latter fast becoming prevalent under the driving snow. Their shivers also affirmed how much colder it had become.
Nephril urged Phaylan to strike camp before racing amongst them, stirring all awake. It wasn’t long before the shelters had been packed and shouldered and they were crunching their way south along the Northern Way, a scouring wind at their backs. When they weren’t guarding against the steadily more treacherous slabs beneath their feet, their eyes were pulled in awe and fear towards the rapidly whitening trough of the pass.
For the first time in nearly a century, its ridges were fast becoming obscured beneath pristine snow mantles, the air between stolen to muslin by the thickening flakes. They’d stopped to don coarse woollen socks and warmer wraps, but Nephril otherwise kept them hurrying south. It wasn’t long before the road itself vanished beneath a white carpet, only its smooth, high camber marking its course.
Had they not laboured hard and with a pressing pace they’d almost certainly have succumbed, frozen and soon buried for all time. They’d certainly slipped and slithered, occasionally fallen, but almost against the odds had made surprisingly good headway. The wind at their backs had helped, relentlessly pushing them forward, occasionally giving Nephril the chance to peer ahead for the reassuring rise of the castle. The snow-laden air, though, had continued to thwart him.
Although they still pressed through deepening drifts, it was the pass’s steady descent that eventually began to reveal the blizzard’s low ceiling above, and the view onto Dica below. Set amidst a distant spread of sunlight, the castle rose impressively from within the vales and dales, between the slate grey sea and the verdant wolds.
All hearts rose but for Dialwatcher and Breadgrinder’s. Everyone else was so preoccupied that the sudden appearance of Dica even caught Nephril by surprise, made him forget its likely impact on their guests.
Breadgrinder froze, quietly sobbing, but Dialwatcher turned tail and ran. He didn’t get far, though, before fatigue and the icy footing curtailed his flight, and Pettar grabbed hold of him.
It took some time to quieten them, to convince them both that what they were now so plainly seeing was far from a threat but something benign and welcoming. It wasn’t an easy task.
Breadgrinder calmed first and surprisingly quickly took a keener interest, asking how far away the castle really was. “Nearly a week of foot-toil!” he groaned, disbelievingly, when told.
He didn’t seem in any way relieved to hear Lambsplitter suggest perhaps less, given how much of it would be downhill. “Most likely four more nights at camp before we’re up against Dica’s walls.”
“So far! So far yet still so huge. How can it be possible?”
He renewed his gaze, even coaxing Dialwatcher to do the same, but it was Nephril who first noticed the castle’s western outline marred by a strangely thin and yellow haze. When he looked more closely, and in so doing alerted Phaylan, Nephril was sure he saw darker, fan-like ribs within.
Phaylan said as much which fired interest in the others. The one thing they could all agree on, though, was that it was most definitely smoke of some kind, but of which no one was sure.
Nephril remembered the plumes that had lofted into their departing sky, that had marked carnage and destruction across the Lords Demesne. He wondered if the unrest had finally found its way to Galgaverre for the smoke seemed to be coming from thereabouts. Did it betoken a reason for the pass to have closed so quickly behind them? Had Galgaverre somehow fallen and brought with it Baradcar?
By the time they’d dropped lower, to the end of the pass and where the Northern Way began its zigzagging descent, the air had at last lost much of its chill. They found a small, old quarry set back from the road and there, within its welcome shelter, finally made camp.
Their escape from the pass had taken its toll of them all, and so there was little in the way of talk. Nephril, though, had wandered back out to the road, where he’d then sat with his back to them, on a low, tumbled-down wall. He looked out at the darkening silhouette the late afternoon sun was now making of the castle.
Penolith and Phaylan both, unknown to each other, had been thoughtfully staring at Nephril. They must have reached a resolve at the same time for they both pushed themselves up and were about to join him when they cautiously eyed one another.
Penolith managed to see the humour in it and so smiled encouragingly. He for his own part looked embarrassed and shifted uneasily under her gentle gaze. “Fear not,” she assured him, “I’ve no intention of drawing indiscretion from your confidence, but I know you’ve had discourse with Lord Nephril, although I’ve no wish to pry.”
Her eyes belied her words, however, and despite his tender years Phaylan saw it well enough. He cocked his head towards Nephril and whispered, “I can’t repeat any of it, mi Lady. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of asking.”
“But,” he quickly interrupted, “it strikes me Lord Nephril would welcome your own comforting discourse. Much of what he’s said has simply passed over my head, so I don’t think my counsel was of much use.”
He sat down, giving way, and Penolith smiled as she turned from him. Before she’d gone more than a step or two Phaylan softly said, “However, my Lady, it strikes me his Lordship sees some worth in that Master Dialwatcher. There might be some aid you can give him there.” Phaylan had looked away by then and so missed her brows briefly knitting, and her hesitation.
Phaylan found solace for a while in the fire’s embers, but when he eventually stole a glance at the Lord and Lady, he saw how close they’d become, how she leant in, her gaze held in his and her lips slightly parted. They were talking
, earnestly yet privately. He could see occasional shock and surprise on the Guardian’s face, which Lord Nephril allayed with a hand on her arm or at an errant lock. Whatever he said plainly soothed, invariably easing her furrows to softly smiling creases.
By now the others were enjoying the warmth the enclosed quarry had gathered, settling back against rocks or stones, shuffling themselves comfortable against their unyielding rest. Eventually, though, only Phaylan’s eyes remained attentive, only his receptive to the subtle variation in the hue of the exposed rock, the fraying spill of cloud now tumbling from the mountains, and the quickly stolen kiss. He looked again, uncertain, only to find Lord Nephril and the Lady Guardian gazing intently into each other’s eyes, their words seemingly the only things now stolen.
They remained privy long after Phaylan had become bored, not only bored but tired, tired enough for the thought of sleep to displace his intrigue. When Phaylan finally retreated to the shelter, he left only Nephril and Penolith to witness the sombre sunset, the hint of pasture and meadow now floating up on the evening air, suggesting a heaviness it really didn’t possess. To be honest, though, neither of them really seemed to notice.
Within the shelter, weariness lending each its leaden eyes, they’d each found the best cushioned way into an easy sleep. Out there on the wall where Penolith and Nephril still sat, light enough remained for their own needs, for Nephril’s smooth brow to shine crimson in the dying sun’s glow, and so set Penolith to wondering at his regained youth.
His voice had been like warm honey in Penolith’s ear, soft and fragrant, slipping smoothly into her mind. He’d revealed so much, too much really, more than enough to capture her trust and so hold her heart close to his. There were stirrings within it that scared her, though,, things that her wrought blood would always be want to know.
She was already finding it hard to remember Nephril as he’d so recently been, the ancient shadow now lost in the glare of renewal. No longer uncertain, no longer confused, Nephril now embodied a certainty that shone out like a beacon across her own withdrawing night. He’d regained a confidence untarnished by the millennia, and with it firm purpose, one that even now steeled her own.
46 The Castle Gained
Their journey down from the pass, back and forth on the steep descent of the switchbacks, brought little of note. Dialwatcher’s stamina benefitted at the expense of his feet, but more importantly he and Breadgrinder both steadily grew more accustomed to the imponderable mass of Dica, so far away yet seemingly so threateningly near.
It took most of the day to get down to the great bowl of the cove, around which the Northern Way clung, and on into the tunnel, where painful memories were stirred. Nephril, however, seemed not to remember.
In truth, he held but a few fevered fragments from that time, scant slivers of sparse recollection. He’d forgotten the despair and despondency, the disabling thoughts that had coursed through his waning body and mind. Now so girded by Grunstaan’s infusion, he failed to notice Leiyatel’s absence here, and little noticed her distant presence even beyond the tunnel’s carr sceld.
At length, they passed from the cove and found a sheltered bank against which to make their camp. They were still quite high, still too exposed to the inclement clime and its snow-chilled air. By now, though, their Nouwelm charges were simply too exhausted to carry on, and besides, the day was fast reclaiming its lent light.
It gave Nephril a last chance to return to the gap into the cove, and from there to stare up at the withdrawing pass. He could just remember how it looked on the way up, how it cut a grey slash in the mountains’ white march, the missing tooth to the shark’s menacing grin. Gone now, all gone. Fast returned ice and snow had already sealed it, had drawn a suture across the wound, healed it forevermore as though it had never been.
“Why?” he shouted into the wind. “Why hast Leiyatel averted her gaze, and why now?” What has unpicked Storbanther’s mend and for what reason? he thought as Phaylan drew near, a question on his own lips.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd, my Lord, how the pass closed just as we were coming through it?”
It had struck Nephril, indeed so, but great age had long taught him the equal worth of common chance. But then, he thought, Leiyatel’s own function was to winnow such chance, to use living wishes as the arbiter of her choices. So, maybe, maybe there was actually more to it than the simple roll of a dice
Phaylan was too young to understand Nephril’s long silences, to appreciate the vast stretches of experience his thoughts had to trespass before reaching a conclusion. Phaylan was therefore impatient. “Why would Leiyatel want to thwart our return, Lord Nephril? What does she fear from us?”
“Fear? Fear? Nay, she will feel no such thing for she be ill equipped to…”
Nephril’s eyes began to water, so wide had they now become in the face of the wind. “The Certain Power has no knowing of fear, certainly not, but Storbanther does. Aye, he has enough of the man in him to give them both semblance of such, enough to feel alarm at least … but at what?”
When Nephril fell silent again, Phaylan tired of waiting and so left him to his thoughts. Nephril once again stared up at the absent pass as Phaylan traipsed back to their camp.
Nephril soon saw speculation scrawled across the blank, white pages of the snow-sealed pass. If Storbanther had slammed that door shut - too late as it turned out - then why, and why not much earlier, when he could have been sure of delivering them unto eternal exile? Nephril, though, knew that when speculation appeared to overwhelm fact then it invariably brought wise counsel of wary patience.
When he returned to their camp, he noticed the Steward in conversation with Dialwatcher. There was something in the way Melkin held himself that made Nephril mindful of Phaylan’s words, ones he’d muttered at the Steward’s evident despair when told they’d have to return to Dica in haste.
Eyes of a limmer, a library limmer, Phaylan had said, obscurely, obscure enough for Nephril only now to understand. Nephril’s hand absently grasped at the folds of his robe only to be reminded of a lamented loss.
Thankfully, his own returned memories still preserved the story he’d carried against his chest, the one he’d somehow lost along the way. He could remember it well enough to know that he now denied it. He no longer yearned for its story’s hero, for Naningemynd, but neither did Grunstaan’s reinvigoration lend his returned life much in the way of its promised seduction.
Nephril had at last found himself free, alleinne af Naningemynd – lone of annihilation, ever between lair and stream. He now lay ‘twixt the tread of man and the spring of waters, in the land of all things, but with neither fear nor joy as his close companion.
~o~
The following morning’s dawn saw Nephril hasten them from the mountain. It took most of the day to get down onto the Strawbac Hills, but Dialwatcher had surprised them all with his growing stamina. They therefore got much further than even Nephril had dared hope.
Dusk found them setting camp once again part way across the heave of the moors, taking advantage of the lee of a gentle hollow. By now the castle just couldn’t be ignored, refusing to hide behind the hollow’s shallow rim.
To Nephril’s relief, the castle’s constant presence seemed to habituate their Nouwelm guests, although more so Breadgrinder than Dialwatcher. Their rapt stares had steadily grown fewer and far less protracted.
By the middle of the following day they were rapidly dropping to the forest’s green spread, the castle now in full view. The yellow-stained air still wavered above its western board, seeming no less persistent, a miasma now unarguably seeping from Bazarral itself.
Melkin just happened to Nephril’s side when he’d been gazing that way, and remarked, “Bit of an odd colour don’t you think, Lord Nephril?”
“What I too had been thinking awhile now, mine Steward. It looks not at all like the skies above the Lords Demesne, when they were so heavy with smoke at our leaving.”
“We’ll just have to
wait to find out I suppose. A night in the forest and another someway across the Vale of Plenty and I reckon we should be up against the Eastern Gate. We should know more by then.”
Nephril had anticipated an uneventful descent through the Forest of Belforas, something the arboreal press had at first granted. However, as the day wore on, the Lost Northern Way became surprisingly busy. They’d slowly been overtaken by ponderously rumbling wagons, their stacked-timber loads bringing down branches and twigs from the overhanging canopy.
Unlike the last time they’d encountered such wagons, these were drawn purely by oxen, their only attendant a driver, sitting on his box at the front of the tray. As before, each was stacked high with timber, massive trunks securely chained between high-sided holding-posts.
They met the first one as it lumbered through the wide turn from a side road onto the Lost Northern Way. Its driver had been so involved in calling commands to his oxen that they’d hardly met eyes, never mind spoken.
It was perhaps no more than an hour before they heard the next one steadily coming up behind them. This time they readily fell to conversation with its driver, passing the time of day with mundane pleasantries as it slowly passed and drew ahead.
It was Phaylan who thought to enquire, “There wouldn’t happen be enough room up there for us to join you would there? We’ve a couple at least who’d benefit from the rest.”
Nephril smiled at the lad’s initiative, and smiled yet broader still when the driver called his animals to a halt and the wagon slowly settled, its timbers complaining creakily as the oxen lowered their heads. There was enough room to steal a ride about the driver’s box, and so they all clambered aboard. The oxen once more drew the colossal burden on, quite fortuitously set on travelling all the way to Dica’s still distant Eastern Gate.
After a while Nephril asked the driver, “Who be the customer for thy load may I ask?”
“‘Aven’t the foggiest I’m afraid, mi Lord. Me orders are simply to get it to the Eastern Gate, but where it’s going to from there I can’t say for I don’t know.”
Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Page 40