Nephril had timed the entry just right, but the dragon’s inhalation had also drawn with it all light from the void. He could see nothing, which at the speed they were travelling worried him.
His hand, the one that was all fingers and thumbs, began nervously toying with the lever, fast rising panic adding sweat to its grasp. He’d nearly convinced himself they’d reached the central column - and was about to push the lever - when he noticed the golden glow of its honeycombed rise spilling from its doorway still some way ahead. With nothing more than guesswork, he judged the best moment and finally pushed the lever.
Excruciating pain shot through Nephril’s body, his eyes seeming to be plucked from his face while his arms flailed forward, as though pulled by demons. Blood spattered from his nose and sprayed along an arm. Worst of all was the sharp snap of a bone, his fracture shearing and bringing agony to his arm.
A close pain swam through that agony - a salty, nose frothing, teeth grating, eye watering rasp of raw nerves - before all just as quickly sank beneath the oily swell of a viscous sea, but a bright, fiery, burning tumult of breakers that steadily rose higher to engulf him.
29 A Moment Embraced
A millennium or two without appreciable corporeal pain can bring a degree of academic interest to bear on the sufferance of mortal agony. Such suffering can then be so intense and immediate, such a surprise and so alien, that it’s pushed out entirely - totally disowned.
The problem then becomes one of disjunction. Being removed from the immediate tends to rob everything of weight, to deny consequence or impact, to make of an experience little more than a waking dream. Everything and anything is then possible, and more than believable.
Nephril knew all this, and so in some manner his current dream was pushed more towards nightmare. Not so much a nightmare born of disagreeable food, but more the kind delivered of a fever, where high temperature moulds and distorts reality and truth.
So, perhaps Leiyatel’s voice sounding weak and infirm shouldn’t really have surprised him. “Meowyh Caegheorda?” she’d quietly crooned in the still, dark void. “Meowyh dwellen tar err!”
What did she mean, my fool? Keeper yes, but why fool? Nephril felt decidedly uneasy.
There was a hint of returning light, but only a hint.
“Thou must dearly be near, mine own foolish Keeper, close by enough for thy weft and weave to impinge upon me thus.” Nephril’s heart threatened to break at the sound of her.
“’Tis good,” she mused, “to feel beyond mine self once more - to have sense of touch and some of sight.” Nephril felt her breath at his neck. “Why so close again, though, mine own true grit? Why hast the fluttering moth at last drawn near mine own lingering glow?”
The unchanging faint red light somehow stilled Nephril’s tongue - made him fearful. Leiyatel therefore coaxed, “I see not well, but behold past tidings far too plain. I remember the threat of a usurper, remember her seed borne over the Gray Mountains with thee, made as if to strut brazenly against mine gaze.”
Drax’s telling of Storbanther’s fate quickly came back to Nephril, made him imagine the stick of a man’s last hobbling march, the one that had taken him to oblivion through the Farewell Gap.
“I could fain countenance such a threat,” Leiyatel pined. “Had to thwart thee at all cost.”
Nephril felt compelled to answer, “So, thou didst unpick the mend that was Storbanther, eh, did thereby cast off the alteration that had fashioned thee to gaze so keenly upon the mountain pass?”
“Aye, that I did. Plucked mine own eyes out. Tore mine ears free as well, and severed mine own limb. Such a savage sacrifice!”
The red light seemed no brighter, the void just as quiet - maybe more so. Time! Nephril thought, but Leiyatel heard.
“Time? Time? What of time, foolish Keeper?”
“It seems to have slowed, Leiyfiantel, is what I meant.”
“Slowed? Nature’s devilment, that be all. Her only weapon!”
The unmoving moment lengthened, became eaten by the silence of the void - in the silence that lacked all time. “Weapon, Leiyfiantel? Weapon? What need Nature of a weapon, eh?”
“The greatest of needs, Nephhryl, an ultimate need.”
Her own Master of Ceremonies plainly saw in her no more than a churlish, spoilt brat. It mattered little. She’d failed to keep him out, he and the threat he bore, and so that was all there was to it.
She seemed to become oblivious to Nephril, lost in her own thoughts, as much as any engine has such things, and those thoughts then mused, “The upper hand, the one Nature has no doubt found best way to wield. Storbanther always said we had been tricked. Oh, how I miss his mind.”
It seemed a little brighter, a little redder.
Nephril’s surroundings were beginning to appear from the blackness, but only ever so slowly. What the meagre red light first lit was an even redder droplet, one that hung but a few inches beneath his face. It was plainly falling, although it remained suspended in the air.
The droplet of blood glistened, rippled as though the movement was drawn upon its surface, as though painted there by the best of artists. His own blood, the blood of his nose.
Like that droplet, his failure also hung before him, almost as tangible, just as ungraspable. He knew that when time restarted he’d feel the pain of a broken arm, of strap-bruised skin, torn muscles - when Nature eventually relinquished her hold.
“Why avisiting thine old lover, eh, Nephhryl? Hast thou brought cuckold to our bed?”
A path now appeared redly before Nephril, one to cut through his failure like a sharp knife through a side of beef.
“I was sent to give thee rebirth, Leiyfiantel. ‘Tis why I am here.”
“Rebirth?”
“Aye, new prospect for thy quiescent future.”
Her voice now rang more resonantly in Nephril’s head, as though her heart had been quickened. “New prospect?”
He tried not to smile. “Thine own rebirth, truly, but not here, not now. Elsewhere and soon, or ... or it would hath been.”
“Would? Why only would?” Leiyatel had lost much with Storbanther’s passing, much wily knowing of the minds and ways of men.
“I came to carry thee to thy founding womb, to thy forging crucible in Leigarre Perfinn, but fate hath conspired against us.” He’d noticed the void lightening as he spoke, far faster now, Nature seeming to let slip.
Through him, Leiyatel now saw how broken he was; blood smeared down his arm, pooled on the floor, the arm dangling at a strange angle, black bruising where now-broken straps had pressed, the wealds and swellings of a brutally jarred body.
She saw the impossibility of Nephril now doing anything at all, never mind carrying her across Dica. “Leigarre Perfinn!” she marvelled, the name almost a magical talisman, one Storbanther must have long cemented in her feeble knowing.
Nephril sensed the slow rise of Mount Esnadac’s consuming fire, there at his back, unseen although expected. He saw its strengthening light, felt time begin to stir once more. Would Leiyatel still have influence enough, he wondered.
“So, what of Grunstaan’s seed then, Nephhryl, what of that? I sensed thy return, sensed mine own failure, felt her hateful seed draw near but only to vanish. Did thou hide or destroy her?”
“Destroyed, Leiyfiantel. ‘Twas cast to the Garden of the Forgotten.”
“Ah, I see, so it was Nature who won that battle. I did wonder.”
There was a slight buzz in the air now, faint but pervading.
Leiyatel again marvelled, “Reborn anew and afresh, eh? But then, thou art so broken, Nephhryl. Thou couldst ne’er do it alone.”
Nephril saw the drop of blood suddenly descend towards the stain on the floor, but before splashing to its blackened patch, they both turned vivid green. It was an unearthly colour, one too bright to be of Nature, too tinged with glittering facets for earthly guise.
All about soon suffused with that same iridescent hue; vibrant waves of verdant snakes, sk
ins brightly flecked with jade, eyes glittering like emeralds. The very air itself sang of those colours.
Then, pure and simple and piercing, a great rush of its blinding light fell from above - as though crashing from the stars - before Falmeard gently caught Nephril by his good arm, and saved him his fall.
30 A Plain or Purled Path?
The short journey from the harbour, along the top of the Graywyse Defence Wall and to Hlaederstac’s dramatic rise, didn’t take Phaylan and Mirabel long. The Harbourmaster’s staff had restocked her stoom carriage with naphtha immediately she’d arrived that morning and had obligingly topped-up the boiler. So, their means of travel at least was ready for the long day ahead.
Phaylan, on the other hand, was considerably less prepared, yet resolute still in his own decision. He’d certainly half-expected something of the kind, but the day’s course had only really become clear as he’d questioned Mirabel more closely.
She, however, was still completely at odds. Her dash from Leigarre Perfinn had been in expectation of furthering herself with Phaylan, so the abrupt about-turn had left her nothing if not flustered. It hadn’t helped that she’d seen no real reason for his earnest enquiries this morning.
Mirabel was still trying to square events in her own mind when Hlaederstac finally drew into view, to the east of the great Graywyse Defence wall and only a few hundred yards from it. Hlaederstac was a narrow cut set at the point of a shallow cove, one the enclosing wall had long made into a lake.
The cut rose more than a thousand feet up the sheer western flank of the castle. Some hundred feet across, Hlaederstac was crisscrossed by numerous elegantly arched bridges, like the laces of a corset. Mariners of old had known it as such - as the Castle’s Corset - for its betokened promise of pleasure at the drawing end of sea voyages.
Although the day wasn’t cold they were both wrapped against the chill they knew the height would bring as they climbed Hlaederstac’s cut. Phaylan looked up as they approached - squinting against the press of air - and peered at the vanishing stack of bridges. The cold, damp air hung mistily above them, watering-down the castle’s bleak rise, obscuring most of it before the low cloud had a chance.
The road around the cove took them past the ancient and disused harbour, long cut off from the sea by the Defence wall. A sharp turn to their left led them immediately from the watery, grey light into the dank darkness of close-companioned buildings.
They rose steeply between properties huddled together in shadowy gossip. It seemed their hurried whispers could be heard but it was in fact the stoom engine’s panting breath, its little engine labouring manfully against the climb.
Just when the way was at its darkest - the air fusty and still - a sharp bend or junction would confront them, their carriage each time juddering as Phaylan swung it about, soon crossing the next bridge above. And so they carried on with the same tedium, steadily rising higher as the morning grew older.
By now they were cold, despite being muffled, excuse enough for Mirabel to snuggle in close to Phaylan. He didn’t notice, intent only on keeping to the road.
The uppermost span - the Brow of Baradcar - marked the start of a long, steady climb to the northeast, away from the coast and towards the Upper Reaches where they would come alongside its ragged wall. It was still some twelve miles away, but along a road that stretched out as straight as a die before them.
This stretch proved at least easier for Phaylan, and so Mirabel found she could no longer hold back her impatience. “Phaylan? What’s so important about Uncle Nephril’s task today? Why the sudden interest?”
He knew there were still things Mirabel held back, things he needed to know, and so realised he’d have to give ground at some point, some at least - but how much? When he didn’t immediately answer, she asked, “Anyway, how did you know he was going to be in Baradcar today?”
“Cresmol told me a few days ago, just after your ball.”
“Cresmol?” She sat back against the unyielding chair and stared ahead. “Why would he tell you?”
Phaylan risked a look at her, but quickly turned back to the road. “Me and Cresmol go back a long way, Mirabel ... long before you were born.”
“But he’s in service to my Uncle, how could he?”
“It was his love for Lord Nephril that brought him to me in the first place ... and to his ... his indiscretion.”
Phaylan snatched another look at her, but all it did was make him feel he was in no man’s land. For once, the oppressively dark clouds now hanging so close above seemed like allies, hiding his face.
The road’s steep slope gave little in the way of views. To their left was only a bright, grey sliver slash of light between the distant, crusted stonework and the charcoal sky. The right gave only a rough spread of half-seen tussocks - spiky teal islands set amidst bog-black patches vanishing away into the darkened drop of the mountain.
The sky above was grey, but more a granulated, granite grey of deeply shadowed sun, as though daylight fought bitterly to break through. The south, however, held no relief at all, no splash of brightness to lift the promise of its eternal gloom.
The road ahead glowed slightly, or so it seemed, its wet peppering of pebbles concentrating what little light there was. Only the occasional spattering of white lent any life to the scene - the ghostly amble of sheep.
Phaylan finally found resolve. “I asked you earlier but you didn’t answer.” Unseen, Mirabel bit her lip. “Is Lord Nephril bringing something out of Baradcar?”
Her head slowly turned, her eyes then watching his as they nervously flicked about the dimly lit road ahead. A slash of reflected sky cut sharply across his unblinking eye, his tongue nudging between tight lips, a tongue that soon became displaced. “Well?”
It was his direct look, only a brief flick but seeming to burn deep into her, that soon melted the ice about the thoughts she preserved. “It was ... it was the forest that convinced him...”
“The forest? The Forest of Belforas?”
“The growing destruction, you know, to feed the engines.”
“Feed the... The wood, ah, yes, now I see, but...”
She hated herself but it somehow felt right, somehow Phaylan seemed right, right enough that she then let flood, “It’s a new power you see, one to replace most of the stoom engines, but it needs Baradcar.”
“Needs Baradcar? What does?”
“The new engine, silly, the one my father wants to build, the one to save so much wasted wood.”
Mirabel almost grinned, as though she’d done nothing more than reveal the answer to a childish riddle. “My father’s old friend, Uncle Nephril, is removing what’s left of the Certain Power to Leigarre Perfinn, so Father can build in Baradcar.”
Phaylan had heard of Leigarre Perfinn but almost thirty years ago, and all he could now remember was Nephril’s quiet surprise at Lady Lambsplitter, how she’d seemingly known of it all along.
Phaylan then recalled how Lord Nephril’s attitude to the Lady had thereafter changed, how he’d withdrawn more from her. Why, Phaylan wondered, and should he also be as wary of her daughter?
“There!” she shouted, shattering his thoughts and pointing across the swell of the sheep-littered scarp. “He’s out of Baradcar now, do you see, and on his way.”
Phaylan’s distracted gaze threatened to take them from the road, so he brought the carriage to a burbling halt and peered where she pointed. Apart from a sheep or two he could see nothing, not until he let his attention drift to the barely lit sky.
Away to the east, drawn from distant Baradcar, a garishly green pencil line rose straight into the air. It was as though it caught the flicker of green flames beyond some near horizon, or lofted sparkling fragments of verdantly silvered paper. It was odd, odd and once noticed, most distinctive. It looked like an aerial warning to stay away.
Phaylan released the brake and eased a lever forward, the stoom carriage fair leaping at the hill. “We need to push on, Mirabel. We need to be past Leigarr
e Perfinn and off this road well before Nephril gets there.”
“Gets where, Phaylan?”
Remembering Nephril’s reaction to Lambsplitter, Phaylan held his tongue.
31 A Phantom Visitation
“I haven’t the foggiest, Nephril, not the faintest idea.”
“Well, thou must hath done something, young Falmeard, some clumsy, dim-witted...” Nephril then looked shamefaced and turned back to the plume. “Well, something must hath happened. Why else should it be doing this now?”
He gestured with his free arm towards the back of the wealcan, to where dense green smoke billowed from a nozzle before being drawn quickly into a spinning column that shot it skywards at a prodigious rate. Falmeard gazed after it, tipping his head back.
“It’s glistening further up!”
“Glistening?”
“Yeah, flickering with green lights.” Nephril couldn’t look up himself, the makeshift splint Falmeard had bound around his arm causing too much pain when he tried.
“A signal,” Nephril finally guessed. “It must be a warning to those ahead.”
Falmeard looked completely lost. “A warning? Of what, Nephril?”
“Err, well, certain death I suppose.”
“What’s going on, Nephril? Why am I here, and where exactly is here?” He nudged the cask with the toe of his trainer. “And what’s in this damned heavy thing?”
Nephril eased himself onto a cloister step, sat with difficulty and breathed heavily. His face was blooded and he was wracked with pain, and not just from his broken arm. It was the shooting pain across his chest that worried him most.
“Thou art at the entrance to Baradcar,” Nephril finally brought himself to say. “As to why ... well ... I suppose I am to blame.” His shoulders slumped, bringing yet more pain, yet more yearning for popig.
There was little to see here, little other than the grey wall hiding Baradcar’s crater. The building Falmeard had helped Nephril from - at the same time as struggling under the cask’s heavy burden - was inconspicuous enough; its cloisters plain, un-noteworthy, utilitarian. Falmeard’s eyes therefore quite naturally drifted back to the green plume, and stayed there until Nephril spoke again.
Last True World (Dica Series Book 3) Page 12