“There!” Prescinda shouted, pointing to a shallow but steep cut some way up the slope, where she’d spotted Falmeard’s gaunt figure bent against the climb. “Come on, Nephril. We’re going to have to get a move on,” and dragged him up a rocky patch between two swathes of gorse.
“But,” Nephril at last managed, “the boatswain’s supposed to be showing us the way. What’s Falmeard up to?”
The gain Falmeard had made urged them on, dashing the boatswain from their minds. Even the air seemed warmer now, more in keeping with the day’s bright spill of sunlight and the sharp silhouette of the ridge against the azure sky. In fact, they began to sweat as the stretch of rocky ground steered them along Falmeard’s wake and into the cut where they’d last seen him.
“There he is,” Prescinda said when she’d stopped to get her breath back, a little way ahead of Nephril. “It looks like he’s heading for a gap in the ridge at the head of this cut. Once he’s over the other side we’ll likely never catch up.”
Instead of stopping beside her, and despite his ancient years, Nephril scrambled past and soon led the way. He certainly surprised Prescinda as she fought to keep up, his dusty soles seeming to mock her own straining efforts.
At one point, as she pulled herself up over a prominent breast of rock, she again caught sight of Falmeard, now standing with his back to them, hands on hips, shoulders heaving, not that far above. Nephril must have seen him too for he put on a spurt, opening the gap between himself and her.
A last but almost vertical wall of coarse grass slowed her. It made her slip back a foot or two until her shoe dug in and she could push herself up and finally onto the flat top of the cut. Shaking from exhaustion, she stayed on all fours, panting heavily at the softer grass now close beneath her face.
“In the name of Leiyatel,” Prescinda heard Nephril almost whimper, “I ... I just cannot...” But the wind threw her wheezing breath at his words and noisily whipped her hair about her ears. “What on Earth...” he added before she heard his knees thump heavily to the ground only a few feet from her still bowed head.
Slowly, as though dreaming, she struggled forward and squatted beside him whilst Falmeard stood quite still to one side. Her words failed her now, completely, when she finally stared down the far side of the ridge at what none of them thought they would ever see there.
18 Perhaps an Easement Found
On the far side, the land fell away steeply. Instead of a blanket of gorse and grass, as on the side facing Dica, here bare rock and sparse scrub drew their gaze, tumbling and sliding to a barren coastal expanse of desert. Although its seemingly unending, dusty, ochre spread set a stark and shimmering contrast to the sea’s virgin blue, what cut along the base of the ridge kept their eyes from wandering far.
Now all standing, they stared down onto a broad, sea-filled trough, its sharp banks curving away until they vanished into the southeast, beyond the Southern Hills much further inland. Bordering it, in almost the same colour as the desert itself, half a dozen lines of what looked like long buildings crammed either side, broadly separated by sand-blown streets.
Despite the glare, the view chilled Prescinda’s heart, the eerie silence swallowing the sound of buffeting gusts at their backs. They all tottered forward a step or two, as though Leiyatel were pushing them away.
Only Falmeard spoke. “A last made easement, a road deemed free,” was all he said, although quietly to himself, but they both caught his words in a lull of the wind.
They must have broken the grasp the view had on Nephril’s gaze for now his voice swung past Prescinda’s ears. “Seems thou dost see something familiar, Falmeard. Dost thine ancient knowledge bring reason I wonder?” but Falmeard remained silent.
Prescinda found voice herself, although she still couldn’t take her gaze from the sight. “What in Leiyatel’s name is it? What are we looking at, and why’s it never been found before?”
“I thought the steward followed a fancy,” Nephril said, “when he told me of Phaylan’s discovery. Nothing but a fancy born of his own novel hopes I’d reckoned, but now it seems I owe him an apology.”
Prescinda at last turned, as Falmeard had, to stare at Nephril.
“What dost it look like to thee, eh, Falmeard?” he asked.
“It looks like a waterway, a canal, Nephril, but one for seagoing vessels. I’ve not actually seen one myself but I know of them from my own time; there’s the Panama Canal, the Suez.”
The wind gusted more strongly now, urging them over the ridge or so it seemed.
“Shouldn’t we go and have a look?” Prescinda asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Falmeard, “just look at the air and the barren ground, and all that cloudless sky,” and she remembered the tale of Sconner and his fateful voyage.
“But we’re not that far from Dica here, Falmeard,” and she turned to Nephril. “Surely Leiyatel would preserve us? It’s not as though we’ve sailed hundreds of miles across the ocean, not that we’ve sailed beyond the horizon and her protective gaze.”
Nephril looked at Falmeard, frowned and cleared his throat. “Everything down there be beyond Leiyatel’s gaze, and I think there be more to this place than simply its distance from the Certain Power. Would thou not agree, Falmeard?” but he again chose to stay silent.
They spent some time sitting there, just beyond the ridge and so out of the wind, upon the last of the rocks still cosseted by gorse, the plant’s spiky leaves all withered and dry. When they shifted their feet, small cascades of gravel and dirt slid away, sending slurries of dust down the slope.
Eventually, Prescinda had to accept that the scene before them lay deserted, and so her attention turned instead to a question. “What is a canal anyway, Falmeard?” to which he began to explain just how they carried seagoing ships far inland.
“They use locks, special gates that lift sections of water on which the vessels can rise with the land. The whole thing relies on a constant supply of water from above, though, and gates that can be opened and closed.” He then said he didn’t think it likely, given the long abandoned state it all seemed to be in, that they would still be working, or that water would now flow in from above.
Nephril quietly commented “Perhaps once an easement, eh, Falmeard, but certainly never a road deemed free?” which made Falmeard dart a suspicious eye his way, but again he gave no answer.
To yet another flurry of dirt and sliding gravel, Nephril rose and dusted the back of his robes. “I think we have seen enough. Time I put some thought to mine report for the steward, and time we put the boatswain’s mind at rest.”
He took a final look, and when the others began to get to their feet, turned and scrambled the short way back to the top of the ridge.
Before they followed, Prescinda quietly asked Falmeard, “Did you expect to find this ... this canal thing?”
“It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you and Nephril.”
“But you reckon it goes to the city, don’t you?”
“If it is a city.”
She took a last look. “But you do know why it’s only now that it’s been discovered, don’t you?”
When he gave her one of his sheepish grins, Prescinda saw in it far more than she’d ever suspected it held before. Suddenly, it seemed less his usual embarrassment and more the hiding of a deep-seated guilt.
As he turned to follow Nephril, she stayed him with a hand on his arm and stared into his eyes, held them against his evident discomfort. Finally, he said, “There’s something I need to tell you both, but not here. When we get back aboard, and maybe after I’ve had a shot or two of that grog.”
She nodded, let her hand slip from his arm and together they scrambled after Nephril.
19 Leiyfiantel’s Minder
When Prescinda had returned to the top of the ridge, free of her urgency that had taken her there in the first place, she’d looked north for the first time, drawing a sharp breath.
Brightly lit by the late
afternoon sun, Dica reared massively beyond the north-eastern line of the bay, its huge walls hiding Bazarral and its harbour. From Grayden point - at the distant, hazy end of the Graywyse Defence wall’s northern stride - Mount Esnadac rose steeply to its crown-rimmed summit. From there it dropped as steeply east to the long shoulder of the Upper Reaches. Brooding at its eastern end, the profile of the Scarra Face stared out across the lush spread of the Eyeswin Vale to the arid expanse of desert in the east.
As they’d descended towards the launch’s funnel, peeping above the shallow cliffs below, the view had constantly tugged at Prescinda’s eyes, often making her stumble. Only the open steepness of the steps to the quay had quelled her fascination, and the slipperiness of its boards that had finally laid it to rest.
Prescinda had thought that the boatswain’s cordial welcome, as they’d gone aboard, hid a hint of affront, but he’d otherwise quietly shown them to the lounge. By the time he’d taken their orders for their evening meal, and Falmeard had poured his first tot of rum, they’d seated themselves around a small table, rigid against a bulkhead.
They enjoyed the subdued but soothing sound of waves lapping against the hull whilst they rested their legs, and before Prescinda finally said, “I think Falmeard has something to tell us, Nephril.”
She watched the glass of rum pause at Falmeard’s lips before he dashed back a stiffener and thought awhile.
He looked across at her as his mouth firmed, but then sought Nephril’s implacable face. “We’ve known each other a long time, Nephril,” he said at last, “and in more distant times than these. I know you’ve suspected something of the kind ever since we first met in Baradcar, but I’m no wiser than you as to how it could be so.”
Nephril said nothing.
When Falmeard’s eyes moved to his glass, Prescinda saw in them a turmoil. “How about starting at the beginning, Falmeard?” she softly said, but his mouth stayed firm when he glanced at her.
“What be the last made easement?” Nephril asked. “And the road deemed free that thou didst utter when first we saw the ... the canal?”
Falmeard took a deep breath. “Obviously not the canal for it’s in the wrong place entirely.”
He paused and glanced towards the doorway, as though wary of being overheard. “I’m going to tell you something, something the very core of my being tells me not to, but seeing the dilapidated state ... well, the dilapidated state of that canal has changed everything.”
He got up and fetched a pencil and a sheet of notepaper from the sideboard, placing the paper on the table up to which he pulled his chair. Throwing his chest out, he licked the pencil’s point and lowered it, poised and ready.
“I don’t really know very much about myself,” he began, “other than a few verses long burned into my memory. They’re all I’ve got now, all that’s managed to weather the ages I’ve spent waiting, as no doubt they were meant to do I suppose.”
He slowly recited as he elegantly put pencil to paper.
Follow, at life’s mortal end, a rightful destiny,
A last made easement, a road deemed free.
Lest men ensure a rueful day for all,
Mate eye at rarest door, fast attending Leiyfiantel.
Entombed, although revealed, distant from all living men,
A rare draughtsman fixed a landscape made enlightening.
Read deep for a latent message, explaining all:
Drawn from afar, let minder enlist another reborn.
Find all lines made eight around, reaching down.
Draw right and enter minder’s letters after four.
Follow at left, move each a reading depth.
Discover round aim encircling me, lo, am found.
With a stab of the pencil’s last full stop, he raised his eyes to them, spun the sheet around and sat back, looking somewhat relieved. Nephril and Prescinda stared at the paper, but soon leant forward to read.
Presently, Nephril mumbled, “At life’s mortal end, eh,” but added, “when thou didst appear at mine side to rescue me from Baradcar, where thou didst help remove Leiyatel for her own rebirth.” He frowned, though, and looked again at the verse. “But here it says another reborn?”
“My task wasn’t to save you, Nephril. I didn’t even know you’d be there. You’re not mentioned in the verse you see, only the rarest door.” He again stabbed at the paper but this time with his finger, smudging those very words.
“What are you?” Prescinda hissed, startling them. “What kind of creature can last all that time, the age since Nephril’s drawing was locked away in its chest?”
They stared at her until Nephril chortled and sighed, “Ah, as fleet as lightning, eh, mine quick-witted one. Yes,” he said, turning to Falmeard, “I too would like to know that answer.”
“I honestly don’t know, Nephril. I wish I did. After all this time, having never ever thought it a question before, now I too would dearly love to know.”
A loud crack rang out as Prescinda’s chair hit the floor. She now seemed to tower over Falmeard as she spat words at his shocked face. “Then what of my sister, eh, Falmeard, or whatever you are? What of Geran? What of her? The one who thinks she loves a man not a monster.”
Falmeard rocked back, his chair spinning on one leg and cracking against the bulkhead, along which he’d thrust his arm to halt his fall.
“What of her love?” she glowered, drawing pain across Falmeard’s face, hurt glistening in his eyes. “Used her for some plan of the ancient engers did you? Bedded her for a purpose? Dad was right about you. By Leiyatel, I wish I’d listened.”
She froze, something in Falmeard’s face now staying her anger, wicking its heat, but then she turned her back on them and dropped her head to her hands.
“Well, Falmeard?” Nephril quietly asked. “Did the ancient engers fashion a place in thy fibre for love?”
Even more quietly, almost drowned out by the soft lapping of water without, Falmeard finally said, “No,” to which Prescinda’s shoulders slumped as she slowly shook her head.
Plimsolled feet padded past the lounge, a seaman’s bright whistle filling the air but soon letting the soothing sound of the sea drift back in to fill its absence once more.
Falmeard carefully righted his chair, sat forward on it and spread his hands out on the table before looking directly at Nephril. “When I found myself beside you in Baradcar, I was surprised, to say the least, for the verse told me only to expect the chest.”
He fumbled inside the robes at his breast and withdrew a necklace. A familiar eye now stared at Nephril from between Falmeard’s finger and thumb.
“Mate eye at rarest door,” Nephril whispered, transfixed, “the door to the chest, fast beside Leiyatel.” He looked up into Falmeard’s eyes and grinned. “So, I see we now have between us the draughtsman’s full stare.”
“That very moment when I saw you,” Falmeard said as he quickly put the eye away, “was at the culmination of an ancient purpose, the single meaning to my unfathomably long but simple life. All I knew then was that Leiyatel was near to death, that she’d been driven to a last resort, for she’d called me back. I’d no idea why you understand, only knew what I must do.”
“Open the chest with the eye. Yes, I see.”
“That and follow what it revealed, but only that, Nephril. Nothing more. Then I saw you, knew you somehow, and saw that you yourself were near to death.” Falmeard now stopped, as though searching for words, until he said, “I was torn between purpose and ... and...”
“What of Geran, though, Falmeard?” Prescinda said, an edge of menace in her voice. “Where in all this does my poor sister figure?”
Falmeard erupted. He jumped to his feet as he thumped the table and shouted, “Geran taught me to love, Prescinda! Not here in this time but in another. It was her who’d grew a heart in my chest, where she then lived on for so many years, burning within me like my own eternal sun. That’s why I faltered, Prescinda, when I saw Nephril’s pain, when I realised just h
ow near death he was.”
He swayed slightly, fists still clenched. Prescinda had turned to face him, and now her eyes were red and wet beneath her furrowed brow.
“Don’t you see, Prescinda?” Falmeard implored. “My love for Nephril stayed my only purpose. In those few short moments I chose Nephril over my duty to Leiyatel. I ignored the verse, the chest, Leiyatel herself, everything, and thought only of saving a beloved friend. And all because Geran had made me feel what love was.”
A quiet groan made them look at Nephril, at his upturned face, the glisten of tears about his wonder-filled eyes, the moue of his mouth barely forming words. “I nearly brought an end to Leiyatel, did I not? Nearly thwarted the ancient engers with mine own naïve meddling?”
“But you didn’t,” Prescinda soothed, dropping to her knee by his side and taking his hand, “you saved her. You remade her, Nephril, where Falmeard would have let her die for the sake of another in her place. Falmeard wasn’t Leiyatel’s saviour, Nephril, you were, you and your ancient love for her. Love for our own Leiyatel, Nephril, the one who’s safeguarded Dica all these tens of thousands of years.”
Slowly, a timid smile crept across Nephril’s face as he reached out and took a hand of each. His smile grew and firmed, and with it his eyes once more shone brightly.
There, berthed at the foot of the Southern Hills, at the foot of what had until this day been one of Dica’s imprisoning walls, only the sound of lapping waves now came between them. An unchanging sound, as though that static moment could last forever.
20 The Writing on the Wall
The week Prescinda spent back at Blisteraising Farm had been the hardest of her life. When Nephril had dropped her off, shortly after their return from across the bay, she’d finally agreed to say nothing to her sister, Geran, about the revelations surrounding Falmeard. It hadn’t been easy.
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