“Nay, I’m only ‘ere to keep folks alive. No one tells me owt.”
There was something of Storbanther about the man, Nephril realised. An acerbic manner, yet with a certain naivety that made him appear crass, as Nephril had found out with Storbanther - only the hard way. That in mind, Nephril cautiously lowered his guard.
“I think it fair to say that I was not taken in by the steward’s subterfuge, Master Dialwatcher. I never really believed his interest to be that of an expanding market. Why dost thou ask?”
“Well, we’ll not likely get another chance of a private chat like this, Lord Nephril, and we ‘aven’t got long now as it is. I, like thee, don’t know what t’steward’s up to, but it does worry me ‘cos he’s a wily old bugger, and he thinks big.”
“Big?”
“Aye, too big for my liking. As tha knows, I’m from Nouwelm, so I know well enough t’virtue o’ stability. Small size and stability. It’s what makes for a long life. Permanence, like.”
“So, Master Dialwatcher, if thou dost not know then I assume Phaylan hast been keeping things close to his chest.”
“Phaylan? Ha. Nay, not Phaylan. It’s Breadgrinder who’s in charge on this trip.”
“Breadgrinder?”
“Aye, t’Master Exchanger himsen.”
“And no one but he knows the steward’s true purpose?”
“Only ‘im. I reckon they’ve got a deal going,” and he winked.
“A deal?”
“Him an’ Pettar are in t’trading line, ain’t thee? They’ll need one of them there new licences to keep on wi’ it. To take best advantage o’ fast growing profit coming from Ufflancoss.”
“Ah,” Nephril said, and it made sense. “So, where is it that Master Breadgrinder is trying to get thee to?”
“I reckon t’steward wants ‘im to take a peek at what’s at t’centre of them towers,” and he cocked a thumb that way just as they heard the crunch of feet on the roadway’s gravel outside the door. The door itself banged open and Breadgrinder’s large head appeared in the doorway.
“The steermaster thought you might need a hand, seein’ how you’re taking so long,” and he peered around, a distinct look of disdain curling the edges of his mouth, as though he’d found a blot on his otherwise immaculate ledgers.
“You’ve come all this way in this?” He looked genuinely shocked, but then added, “Which is something else the steermaster wouldn’t mind asking you about, when you’re quite ready.”
He glanced about one last time, sniffed, caught both their eyes for a brief moment, but then left. “I’ll let ‘im know you won’t be long,” he called as his feet crunched back down the hill.
“If thee ask me,” Dialwatcher quietly continued, “t’steward had an inkling of what we’d end up finding ‘ere.”
“He did?”
“Seemed odd to me that Breadgrinder made a bee-line for them towers,” and he crooked a thumb through the now only partly open doorway. As he looked that same way, Nephril caught sight of Phaylan, squinting at them both through the craulena’s windows. “I’d better take summat down, allay their suspicions, like,” Dialwatcher said.
Nephril passed him the bag he’d now finished filling. “This be Mistress Prescinda’s. If thou would ask her to check that I have packed everything? It may gain us some time. I wilt get on with mine own packing in the meantime.”
Dialwatcher nodded, took the bag and squeezed out through the doorway, his own feet leisurely crunching their way to the craulena. It wasn’t that long before he was back.
“Yon missy says thee’ve forgotten ‘er hairbrushes.”
“I am sure I packed them ... Ah, of course. I do keep forgetting Prescinda’s ... err, well, mine assistant’s quick wit.” Nephril squinted at Dialwatcher. “But why art though telling me all this anyway, Master Dialwatcher? What gain dost thou see in it?”
Quite simply, the Nouwelmer had recognised the kind of reserve in Nephril that he too fervently shared, or as he’d succinctly put it, “Thee’s well understands t’importance o’ keeping unrestrained blood well restrained.”
“If thee ask me,” Dialwatcher quickly added as he took the second bag handed him, “Steward’s done a lot o’ digging and putting two an’ two together.”
When Nephril only looked uncertain, Dialwatcher grasped his arm. “Long derelict canal, eh? What looked like a distant ring o’ Baradcar-like towers, hmm? No records ever found in Dica of how t’place were built, and more than owt else, your own reticence about helping ‘im get a party ‘ere in t’first place.”
“Mine reticence?”
“Aye. If it hadn’t been for our need of Leiyatel’s altered gaze then I reckon he’d ‘ave just overruled thee. Thee sure did piss ‘im off some.” Dialwatcher laughed, mirthlessly, and Nephril couldn’t help but grin.
“Just t’food and water left then?” Nephril was asked, to which he only nodded. “I’ll be back soon,” Dialwatcher assured him, and again Nephril found himself alone and pondering.
It would have been far better had Prescinda been there beside him, he thought. She always seemed to have quicker insights, ones that only ever came slowly to himself. In fact - he pulled himself up short to think - she wasn’t at all unlike the steward himself in that respect.
“I wonder,” he asked the camper van. “I wonder if there be more to his and Lady Lambsplitter’s apparent but surprising ease of issue?”
“Ease o’ what?” Dialwatcher asked as he slipped back in.
“Oh, err, nothing, not for now anyway,” but it struck him how unusual the name Mudark in fact was, certainly for a Bazarran.
Nephril thought back to when they’d first met, when Melkin, as a youth, had tracked him down. That youth, nay, but that burgeoning young man had plagued him to reveal all he knew about the ancient language - the ancient Bazarran language, the one that seemed to embody such timeless mechanicking prowess.
The creation of the first Bazarran library; the founding, on the back of it, of Bazarral’s only college; the industry and fervour it had inexorably led to; was it all simply nothing more than the inheritance of a practical people’s legacy, or was it more? Was it indeed but a means to a grander, far bigger and much more worrying end? And if so then what and why?
“Thee’s alright?” Dialwatcher asked, genuine concern filling his face, but Nephril could only stare at him until for some reason he remembered the vat of stew.
“Best get it moved over there, then,” he absently muttered. “It is perhaps a reassuring anchor of comfort in a world otherwise seemingly gone quite adrift.”
41 Not All Alike
Nearly a dozen unwashed men had, during the time they’d spent crammed into the craulena, developed a stench that seriously competed with the smell the poor old camper van had produced during its death throes. Prescinda hadn’t exactly gagged, but it had made breathing difficult, never mind speaking.
She’d felt the men’s eyes upon her as soon as she’d got in - another penalty of their exclusively male preserve. Prescinda had therefore tried to shrink into a corner behind Dialwatcher’s still vacant seat. It was true, enough room could be found to accommodate herself and Nephril, but only just.
She also now understood why Falmeard had painted the camper van white. The craulena’s smart, blue bodywork clearly did little to fend off the sun’s thin but persistent heat.
Its door had been slammed shut and Nephril’s stew securely stowed, but the camper van’s water couldn’t be drained and so was left behind. “Slightly shorter rations,” Phaylan had told everyone as Breadgrinder eased the craulena slowly back down to the bottom of the hill. Swinging a large arc off the road, they soon rejoined it but this time heading east towards the end of Eastern Walk.
Phaylan’s interrogation of Nephril now began, albeit a gentle affair. His explanation of why they were here, and in particular before the steward’s own party had arrived, must have seemed plausible enough. Phaylan did, however, show some interest in what clues Prescinda had f
ound amidst the college mural’s complex design.
“So,” he asked her, “the frieze depicts things around Dica does it? And from it you reasoned Eastern Walk likely came directly here?”
“There was a strong suggestion, yes,” she said. “The depiction of Eastern Walk was clear enough,” but then the thought of Falmeard returning on foot made her steal a look at Nephril, sitting on the floor opposite behind Breadgrinder’s seat. “And ... and it does lead towards the east after all, as its name implies, so it seemed reasonable. Worth a try anyway.”
“But you only noticed it after we’d left the college for Bazarral?”
Nephril answered for her. “We thought we would just explore the possibility first, Steermaster Phaylan, but the way turned out to be much easier than we had feared. It was a pity we had not thought to carry more naphtha, though, so we could have stayed longer.”
He glanced at Prescinda before adding, somewhat pointedly, “Had we known that thou wert intending departing so soon then we might have sent thee word beforehand.”
“Indeed, I suppose you might,” Phaylan allowed as he scrutinised his nails, but then looked up and through the window. “So, you only got as far as the ridge we’re now coming to, where Eastern Walk I see does indeed clearly end.”
He turned and looked across the back of his seat at Prescinda. “And so, what will we find here then, eh?”
“Nothing,” Prescinda quickly replied. “Nothing but a dead-end. A cut into the rock that goes nowhere.”
“I imagine it must’ve been a bit of a disappointment to you then? All this way for nothing?”
“Whatever was here is long gone,” she insisted, “and we could go no further, given how low we were on naphtha.”
“Shame. Well, perhaps Master Breadgrinder might offer you an unforeseen chance to put that right. But first, we’ll just have a little look here for ourselves shall we,” he said as the craulena lurched to a halt.
Breadgrinder was soon out of his seat, through the craulena’s door and into the cut, pushing and pressing against the wall at its end. Prescinda held her breath but Breadgrinder’s persistence outstripped it. She hoped Falmeard had been right when he’d said how completely the door had vanished.
“Well, I can’t find owt,” was all Breadgrinder said when he eventually got back in, but the way the road stopped so abruptly at the entrance to the cut clearly kept him intrigued. He looked up at the steep slope of the ridge. “Maybe there were a lift here once, or something like that. No sign of owt of the sort now, though.”
He finally grunted, stoked the engine and drove them off the road and onto the bare dirt of the plain, north along the base of the ridge.
From behind Dialwatcher, sitting low down on the floor and with her back against the wall, Prescinda could see little of the view outside; an emerald sky, the sun’s slanting shadows down the upper reaches of the ridge to their right, the occasional drift of dust thrown up from the wheels. Little changed despite the sun’s steady passage across the sky behind them for the craulena followed the ridge’s equally steady curve east.
She had more opportunity of a view when they stopped to eat, sometime after noon, but apart from the absence of Eastern Walk’s starkly-scribed line, nothing appeared to have changed. The plain remained as dusty, just as wide, still bounded by the adjacent ridge and its distant counterpart, some five miles away. As much as the craulena had now swung almost due east, so too had both ridges - clearly each concentric with the other.
“How far do you reckon we’ve come since Eastern Walk?” Breadgrinder asked as he dabbed a handkerchief at his mouth.
Phaylan consulted his pocket watch and thought for a moment. “Probably about twenty five miles or thereabouts. Why?”
“We’re heading almost due east now,” Breadgrinder said as he tapped the craulena’s compass, “which means we’ve done about a quarter arc.” His eyes widened. “That’d make this ridge ... err, well, as near as damn it a hundred miles all round.”
“We’d better get a move on then,” Phaylan said, “and hope we find something before we lose the light.”
They didn’t, though, not until the ridge’s dark olive shadow had stretched out across the plain, engulfing their side of the ridge and themselves. It might very well have let the small, plain, grey building that nestled against the foot of the ridge pass by unnoticed had they not driven so close.
Again, Breadgrinder brought them to a halt and was soon outside. On this occasion, access was plain to see - a darkly open doorway set centrally in an otherwise blank frontage. They watched him carefully enter and vanish from sight.
“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Phaylan said as he stared at the empty opening. “Not a word of what he’s up to. It’d be nice to know how long we should give him before we need to start worrying.”
“It does seem, however,” Nephril said, “that he hath little regard for his own health,” to which Phaylan turned him a frown, although barely discernible in the gloom.
“But he’s a Nouwelmer,” Phaylan protested.
“In which case alike to any other Bazarran, and no more.”
Phaylan shook his head. “But I thought all Nouwelmers had some weft and weave, of Grunstaan of course, but akin enough to Leiyatel.”
“Nay,” Dialwatcher answered, “I’ve certainly got some, that’s true. A bit that’s rubbed off from t’ring I wore for so long, but not t’Master Exchanger, nay, not ‘im. As far as I know, Master Breadgrinder’s untouched by any alteration.”
“So how the heck can he expect to survive being out there?” said Phaylan, nodding towards the window.
“Search me,” Dialwatcher shrugged. “I don’t get told nowt.”
Just then the man himself reappeared, hurried to the craulena’s door, yanked it open and called in, “Think I need your help, Lord Nephril, if you wouldn’t mind?” and then stood back, waiting.
“Best not have the door open too long,” Nephril cautioned as he prised himself from the floor and out to join Breadgrinder. The door soon slammed shut behind him.
Prescinda watched the two men tread their way to the entrance, a little darker now the sun had sunk further behind the ridge. Breadgrinder led on, but Nephril briefly glanced back at the craulena before he too vanished from sight.
42 A Fair Exchange
A faint glow glimmered at the end of the room, barely lighting Breadgrinder’s stooping body and the wall behind. Nephril had hung back, just inside the doorway, and watched Breadgrinder pump something below the dim source of light, a few inches from the floor. A quiet hiss preceded a subdued pop, and the far wall now glowed brightly.
Another of the steward’s mechanicking wonders, Nephril thought and frowned until his eyes adjusted. What he then saw made them widen as he gasped.
Engraved upon the light grey wall, away from which Breadgrinder had now stepped, a familiar pale blue circle seemed to beckon. An unmistakable blue and a telling size, it immediately drew Nephril near.
“I’m pretty sure I know what this is,” Breadgrinder said, but Nephril hardly heard. “Looks to me like the one at the entrance to Baradcar.”
That got Nephril’s attention. “How dost thou know that, Master Exchanger Breadgrinder?”
“Come on, Lord Nephril. Things have moved on apace despite your best endeavours. I’m no longer Nouwelm’s master exchanger for one thing. You can’t stem the tide of progress however hard you try. It’s unstoppable.” They stared at each other but the lamp then dimmed.
When Breadgrinder had pumped it bright again and straightened, he faced Nephril. “This is the same kind of entrance, isn’t it? Despite it being on a wall and not the floor.”
“What be the steward after here, Breadgrinder? What aim be thee pursuing on his behalf?”
“I tell you what, Nephril. If you open this door then I’ll tell you.”
Nephril stared again at the pale blue circle. He knew already that all that lay beyond was dead. He’d seen Ulbracar’s blind eye from above, seen t
he crater’s white expanse where red should have been. He’d seen the empty island from where Ceosana had once long ago spread her branches wide.
So, what had the steward hoped to find? What was Breadgrinder in so much earnest to discover?
When Nephril looked into the man’s eyes, he found it hard to see anything. Guarded and cold, they refused him an answer.
The wall itself felt just as cold to Nephril’s fingertips when he placed them within the circle, unlike at Baradcar. Would the same pattern work here, he wondered, and even if it did, would the door still have an urge of its own?
Unaware he’d made a decision, Nephril’s finger traced an habitual pattern against the circle.
A faint grating sound marked the appearance of a crack about it, the inner part of which slipped away into the wall an inch or so but then stopped. Breadgrinder stepped beside Nephril, his eyes now bright and keen, and pushed at the shallow recess, but nothing happened.
“Well,” he said, “how do we get it open?”
“I do not know,” Nephril said and frowned, running his hand across it. “This place hast clearly been dead for so long. ‘Tis a wonder it hast opened this far.”
Breadgrinder squeezed Nephril out of the way and brought his considerable weight and strength to bear. At first nothing happened, other than the veins in his neck standing proud. Eventually, after much teeth-gritting and oath-groaning, the circle grated another inch, then two, and finally and abruptly gave way.
Breadgrinder fell against the edge of the resultant hole, cursing as he huffed and puffed, beaded sweat glistening on his brow. “Bugger me,” he gasped before the lamp once more dimmed.
This time, however, despite much pumping, Breadgrinder couldn’t get the lamp to glow brighter, and then it went out. “I’ll have to get some more naphtha. I’ll be back in a minute,” and he carefully crossed the room to the doorway.
By the time he’d slipped through and his footsteps had gone beyond hearing, Nephril’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom. He could just make out a ghostly blue light through the hole, but some considerable way beyond. Without a second thought, he climbed in and dropped to a clean, hard floor - almost certainly of a familiar leaden metal.
An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5) Page 18