He still gave her a surreptitious stare, though.
“And Nephril,” she laboured, ignoring him. “Make sure you have it set to go backwards, eh? I don’t want to be run over.”
When no great graunching of gears arose, but instead only a dull thunk that rocked the carriage, she thought for a moment he’d failed to join the engine to the wheels. Only his brief thumbs-up gave any warning before the grille snatched away from her hands, leaving her staggering forward. The carriage then stopped as its wheels quickly spun, bringing her sharply against its grille. Great arcs of earth and bracken now flew over their heads.
The ground had indeed been firm, and the bracken insubstantial, for she was almost left sprawled on her face when the carriage again found grip and finally shot out onto the lane. She kept her balance, if only just, but broke a fingernail.
“Damn!” she spat, to the accompaniment of squealing brakes. She was biting the nail’s rough edge by the time Nephril drew up beside her, an arm outstretched to offer her the seat beside him.
“You know something, Nephril?” she mumbled past her finger.
He looked guarded, but shook his head anyway.
“You can be a bloody pain in the arse sometimes, do you know that?” at which she picked up her bag, snatched open the only slightly-scuffed door and climbed in beside him.
3 A Halcyon Day
They nearly ended up back down the verge a couple of times as Nephril spent ages shuffling the carriage back and forth in his attempt to turn it away from Grayden. Eventually, though, he got it pointing towards Utter Shevling, following the way of the coachbank.
Although Nephril’s carriage made far less of a din than any Prescinda had heard before, the lane offered too fraught a passage for much conversation to arise. She spent most of the time tensing and staring fixedly ahead at approaching bends, or at the crumbling edge of the lane, or the worrying gaps in the hedges and walls that too quickly swept by.
Only when they’d descended through the late morning sunshine to Utter Shevling, passed by its gateway through the Great Wall, and then onto the long, steep climb away from the port, did Prescinda feel confident enough to speak.
“So, what do you want from me this time, Nephril?” However, when he turned to study her face, the carriage followed his gaze and slowly began veering towards the kerb.
“Watch out!” she yelled, only their lessening speed saving them from a torn wheel. “Keep your eyes to the road, please, Nephril.”
He feigned a diligent stare ahead, as if a lack of attention were a common occurrence. “I know thou hath heard talk of a distant city,” he then said.
“I have?”
“Aye. I know this from Falmeard, who was told it by Geran.”
“Falmeard? Geran? I don’t understand. What distant city?”
The hill had by now slowed the carriage enough that it threatened to stall. Nephril busied himself engaging its lowest gear, something he seemed incapable of doing whilst steering. Prescinda’s hand shot out and jerked the steering wheel, keeping them from scraping bright blue paint down the shabby side of a descending stoom-wagon.
Nephril didn’t appear to notice, too busy graunching the gears. Finally, as they’d almost stopped, the carriage lurched forward a few times before again steadily climbing. His concentration now back on keeping them between the kerbs, Nephril said nothing more until they’d reached a junction at the top of the hill.
“Past mine old home,” he said to himself, and instead of turning towards the sun and Blisteraising Farm, swung right, pointing them southwest towards the Graywyse Defence.
Now on a recently widened and straightened stretch of road, Prescinda again felt safe enough to speak. “What new city were you referring to, Nephril? I don’t remember any such talk.”
“On thy coachbank ride to Galgaverre? With Falmeard and Geran?”
Now she remembered. “The dirty old man. Of course, yes, the one who said he’d heard some talk or other about the mirage seen from the Scara, one the Bazarran engers suspected...”
“Be no mirage at all. Aye, the very same.”
Before Prescinda could say another word, they came out from the shallow cut they were in and onto the steep fall of the castle’s north-western flank. The clear view from here fair took her breath away.
Directly ahead, far off at the end of the engine chest’s long, bright blue aim, Foundling Bay glassily mirrored its southern headland. As though being exiled, the Stepney Isle rocks leant ahead of its pointing finger and slunk out onto the Sea of the Dead Sun’s ruffled spread. Far beyond them, a distant curved line drew Prescinda’s eye to the green horizon. Unfortunately, it brought with it too many poignant memories.
Most clearly, she remembered her first visit to the Star Tower, in the grip of her fear of heights against which Nephril had patiently calmed and soothed her. She recalled him distracting her with the tale of Steermaster Sconner’s fateful last voyage across that very sea.
“Why’s the horizon so green from up here, Nephril? I’ve noticed it before and always wondered.” Fortunately, Nephril only needed to lift his eyes above the road ahead to see what for him was a familiar sight.
“From here, mine inquisitive one, we see much further than thine own familiar view from Grayden’s harbour, even from the cliff tops above its village.”
“As far as Steermaster Sconner sailed that time?”
Nephril chanced a glance at her but soon averted his eyes, returning his gaze to the road ahead. “Nay, not even a fraction,” was all he quietly said.
Prescinda remembered the sadness she’d seen in Nephril when he’d first told her the tale, the look of regret, the distant stare. “I’m sorry, Nephril. I didn’t mean to remind you, it’s just...”
“Fret thee not, Prescinda. Fret thee not. And anyway, ‘tis now so long ago, and much good did truly come of it in the end. For both Dica and Sconner too, if not for his unfortunate crew. Their sacrifice was not in vain.”
She almost felt Nephril diminish beside her, as though the memory had yet again sucked him dry, and felt her own guilt the more.
“I was wondering, Nephril,” she started to ask with forced gusto, “where you got this fine beast from?”
“Hmm? Oh, this damned thing,” but his eyes stayed worryingly distant.
“I’ve not seen its like before,” she enthused, trying to draw him, “and certainly none as quiet.”
Nephril half smiled, more a grin really. “If I manage to keep us between the kerbs,” he finally said, his grin turning wry, “we will soon be brought safe and sound to its place of birth.”
“In Bazarral?”
“Aye, but more precisely in Yuhlm, and more precisely, its college.”
“Yet another Bazarran wonder, eh, Nephril? It’s a fine beast, although I must say I don’t know much about these things. I do like the blue, though. It really does glisten in this bright sunshine.”
Prescinda soon learned that the blue paint she so admired came at great cost, and that what she saw before her was its likely only use. She also learned that almost all the carriage was novel, experimental as Nephril had said.
“The whole thing was a gift, mine dear ... or more a bribe of sorts, between thee and me.”
“A bribe. For you? I can’t believe that.”
The road had steadily wound down Dica’s flank towards the coast, alongside an anonymous and unimposing wall to their left. Behind it ranked the ancient terraces that faced the dying sun’s descent, that gave aspect out across the sea that each day quenched its fire.
Nephril seemed not to heed the wall, not until they’d swept from the road’s lowest bend and out onto the Graywyse Defence Wall itself, its own road here as straight as a die. Quite by chance, its long-worn grooves neatly matched the width of the carriage’s axles, and so by their guiding track lent Nephril far greater ease.
“A bribe that soured mine urge to give this thing a name,” he said, after which his gaze drifted up to the Terraces of the Sunsets,
now stepping away above them. There, he searched for seven white marble pillars, ones - unbeknown to her - that would mark out his old chambers.
“A name? What? You mean like a pet name or something?”
“Perhaps, although I was thinking more a formal name, as given the thrijhils and coachbanks, but a familial one would do, like mine old wealcan,” but his voice had thinned and finally vanished as the carriage coasted to a halt, Nephril now clearly lost to old memories.
Prescinda gave him his privacy and turned to look out across the almost oily swell of the sea, more than two hundred feet below. From where she sat, she could only hear the slow, rolling crashes of breakers, adding their distant suggestion of salt spray to the midday heat.
Why it came to her now she couldn’t say, but the massive mural in the entrance hall to the Royal College sprang to mind. In the year she’d spent visiting, she’d tried to tease meaning from its rich depictions but now wondered what she’d really learned? Not much. An intrigue eventually forgotten, or so she’d thought, or perhaps secretly hoped.
She turned to Nephril. “I’ll give you a name,” she said, forcefully enough to draw him back from his thoughts. When he only blankly stared at her, she said, “I’ll give you a name in return for an answer.”
But he only continued to stare.
“You tell me what you’re up to and why you need me, and I’ll give you a pretty name for your carriage. One that’ll take away the taint of bribery, and so settle your wariness once and for all.”
The indirect sound of the breakers washed gently about their ears, evoking the sharp, gritty feel of dried salt on suntanned skin. She’d have shifted, to face Nephril more squarely had the backs of her bare legs not stuck so damply to the leather of the seat.
She could, though, still clearly see how grey he looked, despite the sun, despite his journey beneath its incessant glare to lure her from her flight from Grayden. Grey yet somehow suffused with life, but a life seemingly formed of dust. How old was Nephril, really? she wondered, but his voice forestalled her thoughts.
“’Twas Falmeard’s request that I ask thee.”
“Falmeard? So this wasn’t your idea?”
“Nay, but only by omission. I soon saw merit in the choice, it has to be said.”
“Merit? What merit?”
“I have need of Falmeard’s ancient memories, mine dear.”
“What? Memories more ancient than your own?”
“Far older yet than the place Steermaster Sconner saw on his quest beyond the horizon. Even older than the dry tales he managed to bring back with him upon his barquentine’s diminished deck. Even further back than those long-dead times. I have need, thou see, of Falmeard’s unique remembrance of a living time from long, long ago.”
“And he needs me in order to do this?” She looked incredulous.
Nephril smiled. “What did thou learn, there with thy sister at the Star Tower’s crystal pinnacle, eh, Prescinda? What cured thee, there, of thine own fear, thy fear of heights?”
Prescinda thought back as she often had, and easily found the answer. “I learned to trust my sister, Geran, to let her reborn confidence wash away my own unfounded fears, as though she took me like a swaddled infant into the cradle of her arms.
“And in like manner Falmeard, like manner he. He who hath seen a strength in thee that I too do value - so firm beneath thy pliant form. In this matter, thou art the only one he truly trusts, Prescinda. Only thou canst allay his fears and so bring forth his ancient knowledge.”
Nephril carefully rested a hand on hers. She couldn’t help but smile as she leaned in and placed her other hand on his. The sweat-dampened leather of the seat briefly sucked at her lifted thigh before, in hushed tones, she said, “Halcyon, Nephril. Call your swift and glittering blue bird your own true Halcyon.”
Before he could answer, and to yet more sounds of sucking leather, she reached across and planted a kiss of gratitude on his old grey lips.
“Thank you,” she said, softly, “although you’re partly to blame you know,” and she paused before sinking back into her seat. “I was quite looking forward to living at Blisteraising again, Nephril. Looking forward to the peace and quiet. I am, however, as Falmeard clearly knows, not really at all like my sister.”
Nephril said nothing, only tilted his head and stared.
“Don’t look so innocent. If it hadn’t been for you and Falmeard ... well, who knows where I’d have been by now.”
The glow on her face seemed to warm Nephril, certainly lifted a little of the grey from his face, the more so when her hand pressed more firmly on his.
“If Falmeard needs me,” she said, “well, how can I deny my own brother-in-common, eh? More to the point, how could I deny the apple of my sister’s eye?”
4 The Period of a Hanging Chain
Apart from a brief stop by an old rusty frame at the very edge of the Graywyse Defence Wall, Nephril drove them uneventfully south along its rutted road. Ahead, the sun struck a glare of shimmering silver from the waters of the bay.
Nephril squinted, as though driving with great care, but Prescinda suspected he was miles away. Something she remembered Falmeard once telling her came to mind, how the very ancient can often seem so far removed. He’d made it sound like a generalisation, but she suspected that in truth it rested only on the evidence of one.
Even Hlaederstac’s dramatic rise of bridges failed to draw Nephril back when the Halcyon eventually purred across the mouth of its cove. Only she turned to stare, to marvel as they left the Castle’s Corset well behind.
Weysget Arch certainly stirred him when they eventually drew near, the only feature now in an otherwise blank wall on the landward side. At sight of it, he was back with Prescinda.
“I can remember its carvings being so much sharper,” he said, somewhat dreamily, “the figures so proud and handsome.”
Prescinda could only see a scratched pattern in the soft stone of its arch.
“Sand-laden winds,” he muttered as he steered the Halcyon through, “and a great deal of time,” then echoed back from the dark depths of the colonnade within.
Hints of vibrant colours passed them by; a suggestion of russet red pillars, a promise of crimson and azure floor, a seeming fan-vaulted canopy of golden ribs.
Soon through, and quickly tucked in behind the noise and fumes of a coachbank ahead, they burst forth from the colonnade onto Weysget Street, following its hemmed-in march into the city of Bazarral.
Not being a market day meant they had the road almost to themselves, letting Nephril pass the coachbank without too much strain on Prescinda’s nerves. Weysget Street soon delivered them onto Nordgang Road, and by mid-afternoon they’d crossed the north of the city as far as the turn south for Yuhlm. There, by its junction, they were pleased to find an inn and a leisurely meal.
Prescinda had been to Bazarral a number of times, although the last was many years before. Her sister, Kirsten, had dragged her there, all that way just for a party. It had been a case of good intentions spoilt by ill-fate, though, something Prescinda preferred to forget.
At length, they came nearer what for her had only ever been a distant sight - the three great Hanging Chain Towers.
“They’re enormous, Nephril,” she found herself saying as the Halcyon drew to a halt beside them, “so utterly enormous. What on Earth are they for?” Her words were choked, strained by the stretch of her neck as she lifted her gaze.
Instead of looking that same way, Nephril studied Prescinda’s profile, only speaking when the hairs at the nape of her neck made her turn his way.
“They hath recently been returned to their original purpose. They make anchor chains once more for our growing merchant fleet,” and he now looked up the tower’s height himself, silent for a moment.
“And?” Prescinda quietly prompted, making Nephril smile somewhat resignedly. He lowered his gaze, although he didn’t yet look at her.
“The southernmost tower,” which now gave new direct
ion for his averted gaze, “was long ago refitted for a very specific purpose. For maybe no more than fifty years, huge links were forged there, ones to match the size of a good-sized house.”
“Whatever for?”
“They used a long-lost method to cast them, in one whole piece, with no weakening join, no point at which the chain they formed could thereby stretch.”
He now watched Prescinda’s eyes at last, as though awaiting a further question, but when none came, he finally said, “Thou hath already seen the place where that singular chain be used still in earnest.”
Her stare sharpened. “The Star Tower. It’s something to do with the Star Tower, isn’t it, Nephril?”
His grin threatened to split his ears until he began chuckling. “So?” he tried. “So,” and wiped his eyes, “why doth though reckon the Star Tower should need such a thing, eh, Prescinda? Why?”
She turned and looked down the wide descent of the road before them, where it gently fell away towards the centre of Yuhlm. Jagged shadows darkened the properties on its right, raising a grey mask about their faces. It made for a mystery of sorts, one to draw her gaze towards the distant Graywyse Defence Wall, away in the south. There, it swept its own dark shadow across Yuhlm’s once even darker heart.
A steamer cut a lonely wake across the bay beyond, its funnel drifting a brown stain towards the lowering sun. A novel sight, had Prescinda but known, its prow pointing north towards Bazarral’s harbour, its stern leaving behind a new settlement to the south - a nascent port beyond the mouth of the Suswin River.
Nephril suddenly realised the time, frowned and pressed the engine back to life. Uncharacteristically, he smoothly eased the Halcyon forward, quickly urging it to speed alongside the towers.
Beside him, Prescinda narrowed her eyes and drew her lip tight between her teeth. Slowly, purposely, as a twinkle gleamed in her eye, she swung her hand back and forth before her face, like the pendulum of a clock.
An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5) Page 2