Leiyatel's Embrace (Dica Series Book 1)

by Clive S. Johnson

  Pettar’s repugnance began to waver as something far less certain started to stalk at the back of his mind. “Instinct tells me to snuff your flame now, once and for all, but then … well … some of us have more than instinct. Although reason argues it a fateful decision, it’s my conscience that must answer for it, and with which I must live.”

  He quietly bent down, grasped Laixac’s jerkin and hoisted him off the ground. He placed him on one of the disused wall brackets where he became securely snagged. Brushing past Namweed, now busily thrusting fingers into his mouth and making gurgling noises, Pettar hurried along the passage towards the distant throne room.

  Behind, and slowly diminishing, Pettar could hear Laixac’s grating voice screaming at the king to cut him down. He screamed with language certainly unfit for such company and continued to scream, hopelessly, as his voice steadily receded.

  8 Cat from the Bag

  “You snivelling dimwit, you heap of gibbering boil’s pus, get me down d’ya hear, cut me loose!” For the past twenty minutes Laixac had hung helplessly on the torch bracket. He was not someone who took kindly to being thwarted, even less so to being humiliated, and it showed in his rising temper and the hint of colour now suffusing his normally pallid cheeks.

  Had he been stronger, he may have stood some chance of lifting himself down but his demonstrable feebleness only added fire to his rage. It wasn’t enough that his anger was already at boiling point but King Namweed would insist on stoking it further with his abject uselessness. The king had squatted in the dust and grime of the floor, playing happily with an imaginary bird. He’d been as oblivious to Laixac’s imploring cries as he had been to the stream of abuse and invective subsequently hurled at him.

  All of a sudden, Laixac ceased his thrashing, and the torrent of abuse, and hung there, motionless. His face actually began to gain some proper colour and his eyes became less fixed on the king. Namweed, though, continued to scrabble around on the floor below.

  Resigned, Laixac listened to his strange noises, the gurgles and little laughs of childish glee. He’d seen the futility of his position and, besides which, his throat ached no end.

  Eventually, even the king fell silent, seemingly captivated by a spider’s web. Sometime into their shared calm, a sharp and sudden crack echoed around them. It made the hairs on the back of Laixac’s neck stand up. He tried to see along the passage but his view was obscured by his displaced collar. Instead, he cocked an ear but, just when he thought he’d heard something, Namweed would again start his maddening one-sided discourse.

  After a while, everything again fell silent, including the king, but the back of Laixac’s head turned icy-cold as a rivulet of water dribbled onto it. He felt miserable! Again, another crack resounded along the passageway but then Laixac felt a sudden jolt. Below him, a rat scurried along the edge of the wall, sniffed at Namweed and then skipped past, leaving only silence behind, quite a lot in fact.

  Even the king seemed to have exhausted his mad resource and finally sat contentedly looking up at Laixac. What could have passed between them was anybody’s guess. Laixac then found space, in what passed for his compassion, to regard Namweed with some detachment.

  He remembered the king as he’d been when first he’d joined his service, when Namweed had, not very many years ago, been vigorous and keen minded. Indeed, the king could then have been described as happy, or at least content. His wife, the Lady Queen, had been in good health and still of child-bearing age, with unfulfilled hopes of an heir. Around them there’d thronged a busy and thriving court. How it had dwindled! Yes, dwindled after the queen’s sudden and unexpected death.

  Her Ladies-in-Waiting had all returned to their distant families, scattered throughout the castle and some to the lands about. There’d then been the Chancellor’s death at hunting and thereafter, in such short time, the exodus had gathered speed until only a handful were left. A meagre few to tend torches, sweep courtrooms, make the beds, cook, wash – all menial tasks attended to more through habit of duty than anything else.

  Laixac was almost experiencing some real compassion for the king when a final crack burst from the bracket and he was deposited on the floor. He rolled across the passageway and, yet again, came up heavily against the wall. Considering how bony he was, it was no small wonder nothing was broken. Before he could gather his wits, though, King Namweed was stooping over him.

  “My poor Laixac, I do hope you’re not hurt. Come, let me lend you a hand.” Laixac looked at him inquisitively, searched the king’s features but was surprised to find a steady and keen look holding genuine concern. When the king pulled him to his feet, he felt a returned vigour there.

  “What are you doing down there, my faithful servant, eh, did thee trip?” It seemed very prosaic coming from the king so Laixac stared blankly back. “Come on, man! Check for broken bones. Can’t have you hurt, now can we?” Laixac found no real hurt, a graze or two but nothing serious.

  Namweed shot a glance both ways along the passage and then turned bright eyes to Laixac. “Err, excuse my forgetfulness, but, what are we doing here, Laixac?”

  “Sire, you remember your realm’s recently been invaded … by an army … don’t you?” The king looked uncertain. “We saw them, not two hours ago, your majesty, marching towards the Eastern Gate … you remember?”

  Namweed looked a little alarmed, so Laixac took him by the arm as he encouraged him on their way. The king, however, started, pulled away and then asked him to repeat what he’d just said, which Laixac dutifully did whilst still trying to hurry him along.

  “You mean to say my kingdom’s under attack?”

  Laixac sighed. “Yes, my lord, it appears they’ve already slaughtered the Ambecs and have now marched upon your gate.” Namweed simmered with a mixture of indignation and insult, combined with a growing disquiet.

  The latter had gained the upper hand by the time they’d issued from the passageway and out into the largest of the Outer Courts, the Court of the Barristers. There, he came to an abrupt halt. “But we’ve no army these days, none at all! What do we do? How can we defend ourselves, eh, defend Dica? We’re defenceless! After all this time, through centuries of decline and torpor, the force of my realm has withered through disuse and … and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s far too late.” He wrung his hands and lifted his head to the cloud-flecked sky, but then slowly turned back to Laixac, who was surprised to see the king’s face set with steely resolve. “We may be so few in numbers now, so devoid of military might, but we still have the body politic, our minds and wits about us.”

  Laixac inwardly cringed.

  Namweed was now aware of nothing but his own racing thoughts. “There must be a way, somehow a way! Come! Without haste! To the gate! In the meantime, I’ll have to put much thought to a plan or such.” By then he was striding across the courtyard and on into the rest of the Outer Courts, his stunned aide scurrying behind.

  9 A Rescue

  Velvet blackness within a lightless void, a faint scent of powdered bone, the oppressive presence of a myriad weightless motes of lampblack and the cloying search of fluid filth; it all brokered stillness born of suffocation, a muted silence of airlessness that choked the lungs and filled the mouth with a cloying intimacy. If another place were conceivable, then it would have to have been from there that the distant and dull echo of a footfall could have come, a small reverberation quickly eaten by the enveloping mire of soot.

  Falmeard felt sick, hollow and eaten from within. His face lay half submerged in a dark lake of lampblack that gently curved away to the lip of the crater his falling body had made. He’d have marvelled at that terrain, had he been able to see it, would have felt like frozen flotsam on a storm-tossed midnight sea. As it was, all he felt was its acrid burn, wedged deep in his nose, the itch of it between skin and robes and its soft clawing caress along his outstretched limbs.

  Slowly, he began to remember, but only as far as the sight of the throne room shrinking away within its
black frame. Where he now was, and how he’d got there, were still something of a mystery. As he tried to remember he felt yet another thin vibration, so reminiscent of a footfall.

  He wasn’t in pain, just overpowering discomfort. Slowly, he pushed himself to sit up, his legs bent to one side with his weight on one arm, and spat into the blackness before cocking his head. He felt dust trickle from an ear and down through the hairs on his arm. Although he could hear little there was definitely a different feel to the place in each ear. It was plain that one was still full of that accursed dust. He shook it and then cocked it again.

  A short distance away there was the rasp of breathing, light and irregular. He hoped it was Nephril. There was another sound, though, the clear thudding of a pair of feet, stomping about the floor above, from where a voice suddenly called down. It drew his eyes to where he could drink in the joyous sight of the throne room vault making silhouette of Pettar’s stout frame.

  “Falmeard? Are you down there?” Falmeard only choked on the soot. “Who’s that down there? By all that’s merciful I can see nowt! Speak up! Call your name, whoever you are.”

  At last, Falmeard managed to clear his throat enough to wheeze out, “’Tis Falmeard, Pettar, and I believe Nephril’s here too.”

  “At least you’re alive, thank the Certain Power. We just need to get you out of there. Are either of you hurt?”

  “I’m remarkably unscathed, my friend, but I can’t speak for Nephril. I’ve only as yet heard his breathing. Can’t you see him from where you are?”

  Pettar peered into the blackness but shook his head. “I can see naught, not even you, Falmeard, and I know where you are from your voice.” He thought quickly and then encouraged Falmeard to find Nephril whilst he went to get some rope, and was then gone.

  Although the soot was only a foot or so deep where Falmeard sat, out to the crater’s lip it was much deeper, almost above chest height. It was hard pushing through, the more so when it got into his mouth and choked him afresh. He stopped quite a few times, to calm himself and listen for Nephril, each time hearing him that bit nearer.

  Where the soot was very deep, Falmeard had to fight back a real fear of drowning, but his concern for Nephril kept him going. He couldn’t stop wishing he’d stayed at Geran’s table, there in the warmth of her kitchen, and not stupidly followed his feet.

  Eventually, as Nephril’s breathing grew quite loud and the soot sank lower, Falmeard lurched forward and stumbled over him. The sight, in the trapdoor’s feeble light, was alarming. His face was black with ingrained soot, great lumps of it hanging from his flaccid mouth.

  He’d started wiping Nephril’s face when Pettar’s voice boomed down, “Are you still there, Falmeard?”

  “Yes, and I’ve found Nephril, but I’m worried. He doesn’t seem at all well.”

  “Then the best place for him’s up here, where we can tend to his needs. It’s a good job I found a long enough rope. Here, I’ll lower it to you.”

  It was fortunate Nephril’s fall had ended directly beneath the trapdoor for the end of the rope fell almost into Falmeard’s grasp. “I’ll tie it about his chest. Just wait for my word.” When he’d done that, he called up to Pettar.

  Falmeard watched Nephril’s feet vanish through the opening and then heard him being gently laid on the throne room floor. Pettar returned to the opening and the rope came down once more. Before long, he too was drawn free and was blinking in the brilliance of the throne room.

  Nephril had been laid with his head carefully propped on the dais steps, now liberally strewn with soot. It had got everywhere, coating all, streaking their faces. Even the once pristine floor was now heaped and trailed with yet more.

  Falmeard finally found breath. “Welcome, Pettar, well come indeed. Never have I been so overjoyed. Your face at that opening was the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

  Pettar patted him affectionately on the back, lifting great clouds of soot, before taking a flask from his belt and offering it. “Rest awhile, Falmeard. This should clear your throat while I attend to Nephril.”

  “You know, Pettar, although hideous stuff, that soot’s probably saved our lives. To fall so far and without serious harm’s testament to how cushioning it is.” Pettar absently acknowledged, his attention largely on Nephril. Falmeard leant over the opening and peered in. “We’re no longer saplings, you know, neither of us, but Nephril’s a lot older than me, by a long chalk. How is he?”

  “I believe him to be concussed but little more. There’re certainly no breaks, nothing serious, not that I’ve found.”

  Pettar sat back and peered at Nephril. “He’s made of stern stuff, for certain, or has a flame within that’s alien to my knowledge.” Pettar cautioned that Nephril could very well stay unconscious for some time and should really be somewhere better, where he could be looked after properly. He suggested they assume him a burden, like goods or chattels, and bear him away. “I know where it’d be best to take him,” Pettar offered, “but he needs to be much stronger for such a long journey. No, first of all we’ll have to get him to his own chambers, at least for tonight.”

  “But where will we find a cart to get him that far?”

  “Ha! You forget, Falmeard, the advantages of youth, and have probably never been stout and strong of frame, not like me. He can’t weigh more than a wet Wednesday. You’ll have to lead the way, though, for I don’t know exactly where he lives these days.”

  “I’ve only been the once, Pettar, just a few hours ago, I know, but the way he took me was so convoluted, I’m afraid I couldn’t remember it.” When Pettar asked if there was anything of note nearby, Falmeard mentioned the white pillars and that was more than enough. Pettar smiled broadly as he clapped him on the back, restocking the air with yet more soot.

  “I know them well enough. They’re pretty unique.”

  Having dusted off as much of the foul soot as they could, Pettar carefully scooped Nephril into his arms and led them from the throne room. He knew the way to the Terraces of the Sunsets well enough and chose the most direct route, through the castle’s open ways. Falmeard recognised the chambers and passages from earlier, until Pettar turned them up some steps and they finally came out into the late afternoon air.

  While Pettar unerringly aimed them west, they each learnt of the other’s findings. Occasionally, Nephril would mumble or jerk an arm but otherwise remained still. The castle’s endless features steadily passed by as they pushed on across the northern flanks of Mount Esnadac and down towards the coast.

  By the time they’d come from the yards and alleys and onto a narrow road, they were facing the dying embers of the day. The road ran west for only a short way before vanishing into the Terraces of the Sunsets, above which the setting sun now hung, so blood red and huge.

  Below it, the sea shimmered purple and the few clouds across the western sky burned orange and scarlet. It wouldn’t be long before the night turned pitch and their way became far harder. Nephril missed it all, though, missed the splendour of the sunset and the chill of the keen wind that now swept steadily from the northeast, pushing them on their way.

  The chamber with the seven white pillars was still some way below, a good few hundred feet. It was within the lower reaches, but the way there was through a craze of terraces, running back and forth, and so was still quite some distance off. Although, even in the press of the terraces’ extravagance, the pillars were unique, unfortunately they couldn’t be seen from above.

  The paths and alleys there had purposely been kept torturous and convoluted. They’d once been the prize dwellings of the rich and successful, those not of noble birth but who’d had wealth aplenty to offset it. They’d bolstered their sense of exclusivity – despite the vast number eventually built – by keeping the ways there indirect and obscure, like a labyrinth.

  Pettar did well to keep their back-tracks so few, although their progress was still pitifully slow. It was, therefore, through near total darkness that they descended the last
hundred feet, switching to and fro along the gently sloping and enchantingly narrow ways.

  Eventually Pettar was sure the pillars were nearby. “Down that alleyway there, some hundred yards or so, you come to the head of a broad and well-worn stairway. If I remember rightly, the white pillars are above it somewhere, to our left. Does anything look familiar, Falmeard?” Falmeard peered into the gloom but recognised nothing. “Hmm! I think we might be a bit stuck then,” Pettar said. “It’s quite a while off the moon’s rise and even then we’d not easily see our way.”

  Suddenly, Nephril stirred. He grunted a few times but then shouted, “By all that be precious, where am I, and who be holding me aloft?”

  “Tis I, Pettar, your old lump of a friend. Fear not for you’re in safe hands. Ay, but it’s a joy to hear your voice again, to have you back with us.”

  “What? Pettar? Well, I be blowed, how long be it since we have crossed paths, eh? And why am I thy babe in arms?”

  Pettar laughed. “All will be made clear presently, ancient one, but just now we’ve a bit of a problem. You see, we aren’t at all sure how to get to your chambers. We know we’re near, though.”

  Nephril looked startled and glanced about. “Ha! But thou art now standing below mine own terrace, not far from its entrance, off this alleyway in fact.”

  He pointed. “Look! There! Further down the slope, there be a ginnel on the left. Mine own ginnel. So, if thou wouldst be so kind as to put me down, I wilt lead thee there.”

  “Ha! Not so quick. You’ve had a bad knock to the head. Although you seem surprisingly well all of a sudden, I’m not taking the risk. You direct us, and I’ll have no argument, do you hear?”

  Still a bit dazed, Nephril showed them the way, as Falmeard drew alongside, adding his own welcome. Before long they were in the passage behind Nephril’s chambers and from where they entered in as Falmeard had done earlier. This time Nephril had little compunction about revealing the entrance.