They caught a glimpse of a weed infested portico, now exposed to the sky, and beyond which lay the dark interior of a once noble and prestigious house. Its silent and dusty spaces were trodden only by ghosts, nothing more than a faded embellishment of a bygone age, but the two young priests just hurried on by.
It wasn’t long before they came onto broader ways and could see the distant outline of a dome, confirming their way to be true. They passed by an immense corn exchange, opposite a row of once bustling shops shaded beneath overhanging roofs, and then on through an arch and into a small square. The dome they’d been heading for, they could now see, was held aloft by a circle of broad pillars. Across its entablature was inscribed, in the old Dican script, the plain and simple word ‘Observatory’, with bracketing symbols of the sun and moon.
They sped past and down into a narrow lane that staggered between huge windowless walls, bounding great empty warehouses. The lane eventually brought them out onto a veranda, across the top of a high cliff. There, the precipitous drop was protected by a balustrade at whose centre a gap led them down a long flight of well-worn steps, falling through an overgrown park.
On they rushed against the slowly failing light, past yet more buildings, through more squares and parks, down lanes and alleys and roads until, at last, they came to the start of a slanting bridge. It arched high over a river-swollen gorge, and there they stopped.
The bridge started high on their side and sloped steeply away. The setts of its roadway were treacherously slippy after the recent rain, puddles congregating around a series of small decorative towers that sheltered stone seats. From where Phaylan and Cresmol were, they could see right across the gorge, to the press of higgledy-piggledy buildings on the far side, amongst which lay the regimented sconce, its chimney stack still innocently smoking.
What now held their astonished stares, however, was the mighty rise of the great outer wall, its massive gate monumentally astride. Although they’d seen it throughout their journey, its previous distance had belied its scale. There, so close to, its dwarfing presence numbed their very senses, filled their minds with its awesome mass and cowered them with its oppressive black reach.
They both tore their eyes from it only to stare in wonder at each other. It wasn’t long before their gazes were once more drawn to it, their heads thrown back as they peered up at its relentless battlements so far above. It wavered in and out, repeatedly, as they tried to deny it; one moment black night sky, the next a looming and far too solid black wall.
When it insisted on being a wall, everything before it paled to nothing. It was only when mimicking the midnight firmament that the sconce and its neighbours once more appeared real. Perhaps their minds had some natural wisdom or youthful blessing, but bit by bit, they were able to put the wall aside and make the town and its features once more real.
From where they hid behind the bridge’s parapet, they looked down into the sconce and saw figures moving there, although it was now too dark to see much detail. It quickly became clear that they needed to get much nearer, and with dusk fast encroaching it gave them a chance to use it as cover to cross the bridge.
The far side no longer gave view into the sconce itself, but did reveal movement before the great gate. In the deepening shadows of the steep street’s bordering buildings, they crept nearer, drawn on by the regular toing and froing before it.
They soon reached a point where they feared to go further, concerned at being seen, but Cresmol then noticed an opening. It was just ahead and cut through a wall strung between adjacent buildings. He tapped Phaylan on the arm and pointed. Phaylan nodded and they were soon slipping through onto a narrow path, beside a river that silently slid into a tunnel not far ahead. In the gathering gloom, they made their way carefully along the overgrown path until they came to the tunnel’s entrance, where a steep bank rose back to the road above.
They climbed slowly up its slippery slope, more by feel than sight, until they were at last crouching at the base of the road’s bounding wall. Beyond it, the sound of voices came easily to their ears.
Phaylan rose very cautiously from a crouch until his eyes came level with the top of the wall, where he froze. Immediately before him, no more than three or four yards away, Storbanther and a small group of armour-clad priests all stood in a huddle. Fortunately, they were deep in discussion and the light was now poor, so Phaylan remained unnoticed.
Storbanther was saying, “…in no way can it be so, I’d stake me life on’t.”
One of the priests seemed quite agitated. “But, sir, the windings clearly indicate that that’s the way they should go. I’ve studied it long and hard, and am sure of it now.”
“If it goes that way then I’m a pumpkin, and do I look like a pumpkin? Well? Do I?”
The priest looked unsure. “But, sir…”
“But nowt. If t’windings went as thee say then t’gates could never be drawn closed again. It’d be impossible. Ya must be able to see that?”
“Well, why don’t we just try it? If it doesn’t work then no harm should be done.”
Storbanther fell silent and considered. “Alright! If tha thinks tha can do it that way then yer at liberty to try. But! If owt gets broken I’ll ‘ave ya guts for garters. D’ya hear?” The priest nodded, feebly. “I want t’gates open before sunrise, AND,” he paused to make sure he’d got their full attention, “and able to be closed again, alright? Can’t ‘ave Nouwelm army creeping in through t’side door. What would they think of us, eh? Take bloody ages an’ all.”
The priest seemed relieved, but at the same time worried. “I assure you, we’ll get it working properly, sir, … and before dawn.”
Storbanther eyed him closely and then sniffed. “Very well. Get on wi’ it.” Then, without a second glance, he marched off towards the sconce, leaving them moaning and grumbling their way back to the gatehouse and in through its door.
When everything was once again silent, Phaylan sank to a crouch and tapped Cresmol on the arm. He nodded at the slope, down which they helped each other to the riverbank, and from where they hurriedly returned with their warning.
32 The Alarm is Raised
Pettar and Drax stared at each other in horror, unable to believe their ears, but Pettar found his voice first. “What in the name of the Certain Power is Storbanther up to, eh, what’s he thinking of?”
Drax had fallen into deep thought and only half heard. He’d spent much of the time on their journey north thinking through his many memories of Storbanther. He’d visited anew all the odd things that had happened when Storbanther had either been there, or his name had been on people’s lips or written on documents. He’d never trusted or liked the man but had always put it down to his acerbic and sometimes abrasive nature, or his brusque and officious manner. Now he wasn’t so sure. Drax was beginning to suspect far more sinister motives.
Pettar had already begun interrogating Phaylan and Cresmol in the hope of uncovering more. Maybe they’d forgotten something, but it seemed their recall was excellent.
“Why would Storbanther be planning to accept a foreign army into the very heart of the castle, eh Drax? What’s he up to?” The Sentinar started but only stared blankly back. “You alright, Drax? You look, well, strange.”
Drax shook his head. “No, no Pettar, I’m fine. I was just thinking back to what I’ve learnt about him over the years. You know, trying to pick out some thread from it all, but all I can come up with is a collection of seemingly unconnected but rather odd incidents. The only thing I can see with any certainty is that he’s been planning this for years.”
It was Pettar’s turn for silence, but into which Cresmol piped up, “Begging your pardon, sirs, but shouldn’t we send word of this back to Galgaverre?”
His simple question embarrassed them both, but Pettar was the first to admit it as he laughed and praised the lad. “We’re tutored by our own pupil, eh, are we not, Drax? Well and quite correctly so, for that’s our first duty after all, what we’ve been
sent here for.”
He looked across at the other priests sitting around the room and picked one he felt could be most trusted for a long and lonely journey. “Endran,” he called, “we’ve a task for you.”
Endran jumped to his feet, rushed over and stood attentively before him. “Yes, sir?”
Pettar had chosen him for a number of reasons. Firstly, for his middling years, for it seemed to Pettar it would promise a more level head and faithful service, but in one young enough to suffer the rigours of a rapid return. Secondly, Pettar felt his firmer Galgaverran nature would more precisely carry their message, but it had been his last reason that had been the surprise.
Endran was one of the recruits Pettar vaguely remembered from before, from when he’d lived in Galgaverre. He’d not known him himself, no, but he’d often seen him about, going to and fro from the Guardian’s residence. It had been when Penolith had not long taken up her role as Guardian, when his own relationship with her had been fast deteriorating.
It was the thought of Endran’s familiar face softening the delivery of his ill tidings that had finally decided Pettar. He made Endran commit the message to memory, asking him to repeat it back several times, and when finished, asked Drax if he had anything to add.
Drax pondered for quite some time before finally telling Endran to make sure the Guardian was told that Storbanther was not of Galgaverre, but as he believed, of Bazarral. Pettar stared at Drax, as though he’d gone mad.
Drax calmly dismissed Endran before taking Pettar aside and confiding, “I’ve been too close to the man for far too long, and it’s only now I’ve been able to stand back and see him for what he really is.”
“But how do you know, I mean, what do you base it all on?”
“It’s the only way to make sense of one of my remembered and seemingly meaningless threads. It’s the way he’s dealt with both priests and the Guardian alike, the unspoken obedience he’s always commanded when I can think of no authority he possesses. Certainly the way he’s been able to manipulate and mould those around him, but more importantly, it’s your reaction to him that’s convinced me the most.”
Pettar looked astonished but was quite lost for words. “I now see how he tried to mould you throughout your childhood, Pettar, but eventually failed. Whatever his aim was, he failed in it, and you went your own way. Why, I don’t know, but I suspect it’s because you’re not truly of Galgaverre yourself.”
Pettar began to object but Drax persisted. “Of course you were born and wrought there, yes, but somehow the fashioning failed in you, and it was that that thwarted him. That was why he encouraged you to leave.”
“But...”
“You were simply a risk to his plans, Pettar, plans he’d long been forging, and you of all people within Galgaverre, you it was who could have seen what he was up to and therefore have got in his way.”
Pettar’s mind swam, for he was finding it harder and harder to refute. Yes, it had been Storbanther who’d shown him the Gray Mountains and stirred his yearning for the outside world, who’d revealed the secret way from Galgaverre. He who’d encouraged Pettar’s calling in service to the Ambecs.
Despite growing anger for having been so fooled, he also had to admit it had served his own purpose well. He also saw, far better than Drax, how his own Galgaverran nature had been so effectively used, cleverly enlisted to remove his own threat.
Drax got him to sit down before saying, “There’s been little love lost between you and me over the years, Pettar, but now I regret it, and see in it yet more of Storbanther’s meddling. But our time together these last few days has shown me how poisoned my view of you has been. Please accept my apologies, Pettar. Take my hand now in friendship.”
Pettar at first just stared at the offered hand, but then looked into Drax’s eyes and asked, “Do you know why I picked you as my companion for this venture?”
Drax kept his hand outstretched. “I assumed you saw in me something of yourself perhaps, that we were alike in our mistrust of Storbanther.”
Pettar smiled. “Yes, that was probably a part of it, yet I also saw in you someone who would be his own man, someone who would add strength to our endeavour with counterpoint, doubt and mistrust. I need your antipathy to sharpen my own thinking and so you must see now why I’m so unsure about accepting your hand. Will it strengthen or weaken us?”
Drax couldn’t honestly answer, and slowly withdrew his hand. He seemed lost in his own thoughts now, distant and aloof until his eyes sparkled. “I commend your duty to our task, Pettar, that I do. Although you’ve rejected me, I understand your reasons and don’t hold it against you.”
Pettar did in fact feel much closer to him now. “When this is all over, Drax, and assuming our decision here turns out for the right and we survive to the end, then offer me your hand again. Will you promise me that?”
Before Drax could answer, Phaylan and Cresmol - their hunger getting the better of them - had become emboldened enough to interrupt. They even made Pettar and Drax realise how utterly famished they themselves had become, and so matters now turned to the prosaic. Drax brightened and set to ordering the means to their hunger’s end.
They soon found dry wood and a walkway below the wall top on which to light their fire, well out of sight of the sconce. Eating out in the open seemed much more attractive than in the tower, and so it wasn’t long before they were sitting about the embers with full stomachs as the evening steadily drew on towards night. Cresmol had already fallen asleep, with Phaylan not far behind, whilst the other two priests sat idly chatting at the walkway’s edge. It left Pettar and Drax awake enough to find their earlier problems resurfacing.
Drax asked, “So, what do we do now, Pettar?”
Pettar grunted and poked a stick into the embers, lifting a thin plume of sparks. “Hmm, well! All I know for certain is that we can do precious little right now, other than wait on the morning. What we do then, well, I really don’t know, not as yet.”
Drax stretched out on the warm stone, propped his head against the wall and grinned back at Pettar. “We could just confront Storbanther you know. There’d be little to stop us.”
“But what about his men? The two of us could easily force ourselves on Storbanther, but not his five hundred.”
Drax laughed. “His five hundred are no more than nothing, of that I’m sure. They’re here for nothing but show, after all they’re Galgaverrans to a man and thereby incapable of violence of any sort, least of all against their own.”
Pettar wasn’t so sure, and had a sneaking suspicion that Storbanther’s wiles could achieve a surprising amount given the need. Anyway, it seemed far too risky to his mind, and he said so, but Drax sniffed. “You may be right. We mustn’t forget what an unknown quantity he is, and I suppose that’s our weakness. We don’t really know what he’s truly capable of.”
“Maybe we should wait for the Guardian’s instructions, although we might have to wait three days, maybe two at a push.”
“That might be too long by far considering what Storbanther seems to be planning. That army could be entering in before we know it, well before we hear anything back from the Guardian.”
By then all the priests were fast asleep, curled into their robes with the odd snore punctuating the night. Pettar began to feel his own tiredness quietly steal up on him. It wasn’t long before he too succumbed to the long day and a full stomach, and found himself drifting unknowingly into a fitful sleep.
Although Drax’s eyes were still open, his mind was so deeply enmeshed in puzzles and conundrums that it took him a while to realise what he was now looking at. When he did, though, he became wide awake.
He didn’t move, not a muscle, but peered hard into the darkness as his hand slowly removed a knife from his bag. Some fifty yards along the walkway, a black figure crouched, seemingly naked, a dark shadow pressed tight against the wall, and it stealthily edged its way towards them.
Drax’s heart thumped loudly but he kept still, outwardly quie
t, as though asleep, watching the shadow draw ever nearer by the second. It was now just beyond one of the few bushes that grew on the wall top, but when the figure drew level with it, it vanished into the bush’s silhouette. Strangely, Drax heard no rustle of leaves.
The erratic snoring about him continued unabated, Pettar adding a great heaving sigh before turning over in his sleep, but Drax kept his vigil. Nothing seemed to stir by the bush for some minutes, making him suspect he’d only been dreaming. It had seemed real enough, though, with no sense of having been jarred awake, certainly real enough to demand investigation.
He grasped his knife and slowly pushed himself to a crouch, keeping his eyes firmly on the bush. When he quietly crept towards it, he thought he saw movement, something darkly hidden within its even darker stems. Then, only a few yards from it, knife in clammy hand, the moon-obscuring cloud drifted clear, letting moonlight shine starkly down on absolutely nothing at all, nothing but stem and leaf. Even when he leapt around the bush, knife thrust out, there was still nothing to confront but the solitary shrub.
His fear slowly ebbed and he began to realise how warm the air had become. However much he searched around, though, he could find no sign of anything. Even when he raced to the walkway’s edge and peered down into the shadows, he could still see nothing. If he had seen a figure then it must have literally vanished into thin air.
He heard a noise behind and spun about, knife again thrust out, only to find Pettar groggily making his way towards him. Pattar’s face showed growing concern, revealed as it was in the sharp light of the moon, the same sharp light that now glinted from the blade and into Pettar’s eyes. “What’s wrong, Drax, why are you here, and why the knife?”
Drax explained how he thought he’d seen somebody but quickly dismissed it, about to return to the fire when Pettar caught him by the arm. “Was the figure you saw like a naked and featureless shadow?”
Leiyatel's Embrace (Dica Series Book 1) Page 29