Last True World (Dica Series Book 3)

by Clive S. Johnson

  The great and the good, the influential, important and the industrious, had all had their invitations, as had mere kith and kin. The college had dug deep into its archives, had scoured commentaries, diaries and accounts - the detritus of an ancient past. They’d eventually found a most right and proper way to celebrate, and in good enough time for the day itself which was almost upon them.

  For Mirabel Mudark, though, her twenty first birthday celebration seemed to have sneaked up on her. Although she’d already chosen everything she had need to choose, from her own menu to who sat where and with whom, it still amazed her that the day itself was only upon the morrow.

  So much seeming to rest on just this one day, she mused as she leant back in her chair. Through the window next to her desk, she caught sight of the college choir assembling in the yard below. It was their first time in costume and Mirabel was impressed, even more so when the leader’s lone voice soon lofted high into the still evening air.

  It drew her eyes upwards, as though she could see the chorister’s notes fly away, as though they drew her eyes like startled starlings to the low cloud’s darkening stain. She frowned and bit her lip as she reached out for a hairbrush, her fingers, though, finding something else.

  Amidst the jars of powder, the bottles of cream and perfume, in-between hairbands hung from the back of the desk and a pile of old curling-papers, a clockwork toy bear forlornly stood mute. His tattered, lopsided grin peeked out between a pair of tarnished cymbals, long held before him in a last unfulfilled crash.

  The bear’s key still protruded from his side, darkened with the patina of age. Mirabel’s finger had caught it, had felt its cooler edge, and it dragged her mind from thoughts of suitors and courting to her own innocent childhood. The choir now joined their leader, following his ayre, filling the encroaching cool dusk air with its warmly rounded voice.

  Mirabel’s own voice was therefore safely hidden when she said to herself, “I hope you’re right, Mother dear. I hope Bazarran blood tastes just as sweet as this choir’s song, their seed as salty still as Dican seed. If not ... if not, then I will truly be lost, and with me all else.”

  The cloud’s dark stain became lost to the encroaching night as her mind turned to her other deed - the one she dreaded most. “Will I succeed with you, though, Uncle? Can your heart be bent to our needs? Can it?”

  Mirabel watched the faces of the choir slowly colour from grey cloudy light to the rich golden hues of the candles they held. She watched the chorister’s mouths form shapes through which their notes so smoothly slid, spilling out across the darkening yard’s fast dimming reach.

  A faint flicker of crimson shot through the cloud above and made her hesitate as she went to light her lamp. Before she could look more keenly, though, a childhood memory surged through her.

  As invisible nails raked her back, poignant recollection stung her eyes, eyes that now shot a frightened stare at the old toy bear. She clearly saw, in the vanishing light, his cymbals jar thinly together, trembling out a long defunct sound.

  15 To a Storm-Tossed Canvas Sea

  Between ancient, cloistered buildings facing one another distantly across a broad avenue, Mirabel Mudark was led purposefully towards the harbour’s lone lighthouse tower. Along both sides of the avenue, worn unrecognisable, lines of statues towered high towards a persistent grey cover of mid-morning cloud.

  Walking on her right, Lady Lambsplitter held her daughter’s hand. Less gainly yet just as proudly, Melkin Mudark strode at her left, his hand also in hers but clammy and cold. Together, at the head of their small familial procession, Mirabel was led on, a chaperoned figure ceremoniously swathed in virgin-white linen.

  Her parents, though, were in their finest, their best attire; spick and span, elegantly arrayed, sequins and jewels and stark coloured threads all shining out. However gay they looked they could never have matched their daughter had her beauty not been so completely encased.

  A plain headscarf - a wresting wrap and fold of finest pearlescent white - hid Mirabel’s normally thick, dark and freely flowing hair. A gossamer silver veil hung from the headscarf and about her face, gently swinging in time to her soft but stately tread. A hint perhaps of the womanly form made modest below. It was a hiding veil, as veils are wont to be, saving the imperfect any sight of the immaculate.

  A plain chemise hid all but a hint of her ample thridgaer swell, above which flowed a silken cape of swan-down weave. A high waistband marked the start of a skirt’s long trailing train, the hem still lifting dust from the well-swept way. Yards of goose-white crepe enclosed her fecund fruit, kept demure and unsullied ‘twixt woollen-clad legs.

  Only the occasional sight of a silver slipper gave any hint that here strode something more than childish form. Yet no one did know it for all were behind, all bar her glad parents there by her side, but they too did not see.

  The avenue brought their procession to an arch, like some great whale’s jawbone, beneath whose fretwork-fill they passed onto the Graywyse Defence Wall. Directly ahead and some way below lay the harbour, at the foot of a great staircase, its open side giving ample view across the wharves as they soon switched back and forth on their leisurely descent.

  Mirabel had forgotten how long it had been since she was last here. She must have been very young, young enough for little of the memory to have held, for what she now saw took her breath away.

  Bazarral’s harbour was a vast affair, a truly enormous granite structure. Its outer wall, despite being over a hundred feet tall, still rose well short of the Graywyse Defence itself.

  Not far to their left, the harbour wall began its two mile stretch out into Foundling Bay, out to where it turned sharply but at an angle towards the north. Two more miles brought it to its terminal tower, supporting one of two harbour mouth lights, enormous even at their distance. Its partner stood on the Graywyse Defence Wall itself, its own squat tower setting the two lights at the same height.

  Many great jutting arms of granite ran out into the harbour’s sheltered waters, each with their own smaller spurs. They turned nearly five square miles of safe anchorage into hundreds of berths for all manner of beam and draught.

  Mirabel’s vague childhood memory had been of those quays, like vast combs spread out upon the water. What she couldn’t recall was if vessels had been there then, whether the quays had been as packed as they clearly were now.

  What had definitely not been here before was a large expanse of roof directly below. It had only recently appeared, hiding a close stretch of water before the quay onto which they were soon to step. The Passing Pool - where passengers had long ago passed through - had now been given over to Mirabel Mudark’s impatiently awaited Grand Maturity Ball.

  Their procession cork-screwed down the stairs, each turn bringing fresh sight of the harbour, each sight that bit lower, that bit more obscured by the rise of mast and funnel and quayside storehouse. Whereas Mirabel was awed by the press of ships themselves - the barques, the ketches, schooners and brigs - Melkin saw only the nearing canvas roof.

  Dica had steadily gained a glut of canvas, the rapid adoption of steam fast displacing sail to mouldering mounds in disused stores. It made an ideal cover for the Passing Pool Pavilion - as it had already become known - down to which they were already drawing near.

  When they drew level with its roof, Lady Lambsplitter was reminded of their dash from Grayden Point, out across the estuary all that time ago - their unplanned escape to the Vale of Plenty. The way the canvas rose steeply to points at each supporting mast made her think of a storm-tossed sea.

  She glanced at Melkin, at Melkin Mudark the Steward-Come-Lately as Storbanther had called him. How often back then had she heard his name whispered across Dica, or spoken of with assurance by such as the pilot.

  Ah, yes! Steermaster Sconner! she thought as she glanced towards the harbour mouth. Such a mine of gossip he’d been.

  The last flight of steps set them upon the quay where they stopped at the base of a makeshif
t ramp. It led up to and beneath the canvas sea. At the top was an arch, a small wooden token of the whalebone gate above - of the ancient entrance to Bazarral.

  It was certainly impressive but somehow seemed rather vulgar and sentimental - a sentiment itself only so recently made possible. More importantly, their welcoming party was already arranged beneath it.

  Its central figure coughed from within his garishly ceremonial garb, and solemnly announced, “Good welcome to thee, O bearers of future’s promise, deliverers of innocence from which new seed new innocence be born.” His silk embroidered gown mesmerised Mirabel, its spread of strident shard-patterned colours and gold and silver stitching glowing sumptuously in the mellow lamplight spilling from the Pavilion.

  “We, your tomorrows, do welcome thee, our own true flesh, our begotten blood. We call thee to thy last day of innocence, a last of guileless knowing. We, the Bazarran Guilds, do invite thee in to be born again from a bygone innocence.”

  He solemnly swept aside, parting the dignitaries about him and so giving passage into the enclosing pavilion, to that womb beneath its storm-tossed canvas sea.

  16 Symbolism’s Scant Sense

  “Seems daft to me, but then that’s men for you.” Lambsplitter patted her daughter’s hand. “Dredge up some idiom or other and then simply apply it literally, without any real thought to the consequences.” Looking resigned, she smiled wanly at Mirabel and sat up straighter. “Can’t be helped I suppose.”

  A tasty morsel caught her eye, easily within reach on the table. She plucked it from its plate and popped it into her mouth, the titbit’s tart taste making her pout her rose-petal lips.

  “It will certainly make your task harder,” she mumbled past the food, “but not impossible, eh, daughter dear? Not impossible.”

  Mirabel only frowned through her veil.

  Her mother’s discomfort was plainly evident. “Well!” she announced with mock enthusiasm. “It’s not that bad a place, now is it?”

  She cast her gaze about the roughly partitioned space but with scant regard for its scant appeal. “Your father’s still not said whether you have to stay in this room or not, although I don’t see why you can’t move about within the pavilion at least.” She bit her lip, though careful not to smudge its gloss.

  “Mother?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “How in Leiyatel’s name am I supposed to find a suitor in this stupid garb? Hmm? How? How can I be expected to judge and assay?”

  “It’s only until midnight, Mirabel. Once...”

  “That’s hours off, and by then I’ll be knackered, well and truly, and most of the men in their cups, unable to rise!”

  Her veil hid her distress far too well and so she let it fill her voice instead. “What damned fool texts have brought all this about then, eh? All this idiocy!” She plucked at her chemise and then dismissively flicked her cape aside.

  “Virginal vestments,” Lady Lambsplitter supplied, as though it answered everything.

  “Virginal vestments!” Mirabel sneered. “Child’s swaddling more like.” She exhaled sharply as she folded her arms across her imprisoned chest and fell silent.

  When her daughter did again speak, it brought a shiver to Lambsplitter’s spine. “Midnight will be far too late, you know that don’t you, mother, far, far too late. Once it’s passed and I’m reborn,” she choked back a guffaw, “everyone will be making tracks for bed, the evening done and our chance lost,” she almost hissed.

  Above them, the underside of the canvas roof occasionally dripped, persistent rain now seeping through to fall to circular stains on the fresh wooden floor.

  Mirabel’s supposedly private suite held the food-laden table, a sofa, two chairs and what could only be described as a camp-bed. It was certainly visually private, but the unrestrained din of final preparations couldn’t be kept out.

  A strong smell of new wood permeated everything, a mix of sap, sawdust and freshly cut timber, their palms and finger tips forever coming away from things covered in its dust. Another of Nature’s seemingly endless bounties - Belforas Forest timber - usurper of a maritime fleet’s once costless winds.

  Trade in kindling, to supply the growing number of stoom engine boilers, had quickly brought with it other goods. Cold, rush-strewn stone floors were fast being hidden beneath newly installed wooden ones, their timber boards bringing unaccustomed warmth and comfort. As with canvass, there was now a glut of timber, more than enough for the pavilion’s complex design.

  Perhaps after all this time Lambsplitter was finally getting the hang of her husband. She’d always found his Bazarran nature a hurdle, its determined focus disturbingly at odds with reasoning that could so suddenly leap sideways. Her blood had never been mixed for such as he.

  Fortunately, as the day wore on, she’d brought him around to her way of thinking and had won Mirabel her freedom from swaddling. Lambsplitter had applied her best reasoning, more than enough for coercing Dican minds but only just adequate for Bazarran ones.

  If Mirabel was ensconced in a symbolic womb then what need for her bodily modesty? She should really, as Lambsplitter had pointed out, walk around naked, an image that had soon brought victory in the wake of Melkin’s curt dismissal.

  “I even got your father to agree that your rather un-foetal attributes could be better seen as maternal promise, you know, the ripe blood of the mother in waiting.” Lambsplitter grinned. “So, you can now show off your allure this evening, safely within the prescriptions of ancient text.” This time Mirabel grinned as well.

  The banging, hammering and sawing steadily diminished until the pavilion dropped to a soft murmur sometime towards late afternoon. To Lambsplitter it felt like the storm-boding promise you sometimes got on a heavy summer’s eve, when the thunderheads climb threateningly into an unnaturally clear sky.

  Unlike the threat of summer rain, however, the pavilion just got on with mundanely gathering to itself a hubbub of activity, but now the kind intent on pleasure not labour. Bursts of exaggerated talk occasionally broke through to their room, like a gentle tide washing across shingle.

  They’d found an adjoining room equipped with a bath, a sumptuous affair that Mirabel soon took advantage of for a pleasant hour. Her mother sat at its side and polished some final lessons, to reassure herself that the years of rote would once again come to the good.

  “The line must perpetuate,” she repeated for the umpteen-thousandth time. “The Sisterhood of Cuckoos always find its nest. Always!”

  She stared into her daughter’s eyes, as her own mother had stared into hers when saying the words, “Blood and nurture have both brought you here, best equipped; at your ripest, keenest sighted, sharpest nosed, finest tongued for spit-quenched kiss and salt-born cypher.

  Mirabel licked her lips at the thought, the tutored-taste taking her mind ahead, beyond the shapes of matching but hidden patterns to an ultimate knowing, a milky mix of saline certainty. But who would it be? Who could carry the line forward now they were no longer in Dican precincts? Who?

  17 Mirabel’s Maturity Ball

  The ballroom was vast, disconcertingly so. Around it, on many tiered balconies and squat folly towers, dining tables jostled for space, their chairs making the gaps between just as cluttered, just as unruly. The attendants astonished all those gathered there as they threaded through, servers held aloft, eyes bent only on empty board or vessel.

  Maybe ten revellers to a table, some hundred such therefore brought a thousand rosy-red faces to close embrace, all pressed as a boisterous company amidst the ale and wine. Candlelight shone from glassy pates and sweaty brows alike, from vainly powdered cleavages and uproariously tear-filled eyes. It shone from the crystal of goblet and bowl no less so than from each wonder-filled face.

  Gossip and humour and boastful disdain, snide remarks and lecherous laughs all spilled into the breath-soaked air, mingled with the heady scents of bouquet and rich repast. Across the sheen of bald heads and sparkling diademed bands, past curled ambe
r locks and flowing black tresses, past a bright boast of necklace and bracelet, a dense fill of tinsel stayed aloft in the air like the trails of fireflies.

  Here and there one would flare to an abrupt end, caught by a lit taper intended for a bowl’s tobacco, adding its own ghostly smoke to that already layered against the canvas above. It would all bring an occasional glassy eye to fill with wonder before yet another flagon enticed it away.

  At the centre of the ballroom, in the space kept clear for the dancing to come, troupes of acrobats, magicians and fire-eaters all entertained. Each somersault, each trick or flaming quaff brought with it both applause and sighs, all rippling out across the tables. It was so busy, so distracting, so demanding and magical that the persisting drips from the rain-soaked canvas at last went unnoticed.

  Mirabel and her mother, however, both certainly noticed Nephril’s entry, both detached themselves from their disparate discourse and watched him being helped to his place. Considerate of his great age, they’d placed him near the entrance but far enough from any draughts.

  He was clearly uncomfortable, as though in pain. Mirabel felt guilty. She imagined the trial and tribulation he’d suffered just to be here never mind facing the evening ahead.

  As though reading her mind, Lambsplitter spoke close to her daughter’s ear, against the din. “Better approach him earlier rather than later. I doubt he’ll last it out ‘til then.”

  Mirabel nodded but was plainly disturbed, making her mother assure, “He’s a kind old soul, but you know that already. So, no need to worry. He won’t bite, but he’s no fool, remember that.”