Cold Angel Days (Dica Series Book 4)

by Clive S. Johnson

  As best she could, Penolith continued her attempts at soothing - compassion never coming easily to those of Galgaverre. She’d clearly learnt something, though - since coming to full term - for Geran eventually allowed herself to be embraced, even feeling some comfort by it.

  “But why can’t we stay with him?” she asked through her sobs.

  “They’re just taking him to the gatehouse, Geran, so he can be safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “I’ve only just learnt that Falmeard can’t stay here, not in Galgaverre. I’m sorry, but we had to act quickly and remove him from being so near Leiyatel.”

  Prescinda could hold back no longer and hissed at Nephril, “But why?” which made him turn to her, as though she’d been forgotten, “what harm can any man do the might of Leiyatel?”

  “No man can!” Nephril said, bringing shivers to her spine. “No man, certainly, but then Falmeard be nothing so simple.” He held her stonily in his bright, grey gaze, as though searching her face for answers.

  “What ... what do you mean?”

  She came free as Drax released his grip - at Nephril’s signal - and stepped towards him a pace or two as he nodded at Penolith. She in her turn gathered Geran into an arm and ushered her to somewhere more comfortable, but also somewhere well out of hearing.

  When the two women were on the sofas nearest the fire, Nephril brusquely took Prescinda’s arm, surprising her as he drew her away. He led her along the chamber to where the library’s gaping mouth above devoured their words.

  Despite it, Nephril lowered his voice. “Thy Falmeard be not, nor has he ever been what thou hast thought him to be.”

  “Is that why you tried to kill him?”

  Nephril stared at her for a while, but she only waited, accusingly.

  “I think I need to take thee into mine own close-confidence.”

  “Why should I believe anything you tell me, Nephril?”

  “Because there be so much at stake ... and I am a poor teller of untruths.” He grinned, but the sparkle in his eye spoke more convincingly. “Falmeard be not of this world, mine dear. He be from a time long, long ago, ancient even when Leiyatel was but a glint in an enger’s mechanicking eye.”

  Intrigue now got the better of Prescinda, so much so she held her tongue.

  “Thou wilt remember well enough the real threat our land suffered but a decade ago.” He could see the memory in her eyes.

  “Of course I do,” she trembled. “When we all thought we were about to die.”

  “Indeed. When Dica seemed set to have no future at all.” Even Nephril now looked terrified. “During those fateful few days,” he forced himself to recall, “Leiyatel had such great need of me, but I failed her for I had been sorely broken. Leiyatel therefore sought aid herself, Prescinda, aid of another, one with like protection of weft and weave.”

  “And I take it that was Falmeard? Of course, and that’s also what Geran felt he’d had stolen from him at the Star Tower - his weft and weave as you call it? The thing she somehow knew made him seem so different from all others.”

  “Aye, thou speak true. With the last of her strength, Leiyatel drew to herself a final chance. She drew Falmeard across the ages, and he it was who managed to rescue her, to make anew what had become so broken.”

  “I remember the relief, Nephril, the unbelievable relief we all felt when that cloud passed from the realm.”

  “Our land is again threatened, Prescinda, and just as direly.” His face had become the colour of freshly washed sheets.

  For just a few moments they both fell silent, renewed fear flitting across their eyes until Nephril carefully explained the Cold Angel’s threat, and what it now meant for them all. Prescinda had to sit down, heavily, Nephril settling at her side.

  “Oh shit,” was all she could manage, although oft repeated.

  “The Cold Angel, however, is not only damaging to Leiyatel herself but also to anything possessed of her weft and weave, like mine self. Penolith also, for all Galgaverrans have some infusion due their long and close proximity.”

  “So none of you can go near him then. What’s more, none of you dare go near enough to kill him ... but you did, Nephril, didn’t you? Why?”

  “In mine haste I was fool enough to do so, aye, thou art right. A rash move in the heat of a moment’s revelation. Did thou not wonder why I did retreat so hastily, failed pipe still aburning in thy grate?”

  Her eyes slowly filled with horror, but a horror mingled with cold knowing, a knowing as cold as the Cold Angel Falmeard had unwittingly become. “You ... you want me ... you want me to kill Falmeard for you. Is that it, Nephril?”

  He smiled. “Nay, fear thee not, Prescinda, for no weft and weave can truly be harmed, his no less than any. That I should have realised mine self, and why thou returned to Blisteraising when thou did. Leiyatel would not countenance such a thing. Were even a Galgaverran to be destroyed, it would leave the Certain Power wanting, Leiyatel unbalanced and so eventually bound to topple. Only the threat of death need be brought to bear, Prescinda, but enough to make Leiyatel protect her own in the only way she can.”

  Prescinda’s eyes lit up. “By saving them to another time! That’s it, isn’t it, Nephril? That’s why Falmeard could be brought back from such a long time ago, because he’d already been cast there from here in the first place?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, thou art near enough the truth.”

  “So you want Leiyatel to be made to snatch Falmeard from the jaws of death, and so fling him to sometime long before she even existed, to somewhere his cold hand can no longer be a threat to anything.”

  They were silent for a while, Prescinda deep in thought, Nephril giving her time. Geran somehow, from across the chamber, seemed aware of the weight of the moment, dried her eyes and stared at them.

  “Nephril?” Prescinda finally asked. “Where do you want me to take Falmeard, and what do you want me to do to him once we get there, but how, how on earth,” she caught sight of her sister’s innocent eyes, “how on earth am I going to tell Geran?”

  32 Time Yet to Tell

  Their escort the following morning had been Drax alone - sufficient for two distraught and now uncertain women - for some genuine doubt hung over their possibly sullied fibres. “Nothing can be known with any certainty,” Nephril had warned before they’d left, “so all we can really do is assume the worst.” The worst seemed to be to consider them both infected, carriers of the Cold Angel’s blight.

  What little they could now see through the clearing dawn mist put them quite alone. Even Drax eventually took his leave, well before they’d reached the wall, passing them a sheet of paper as a parting gift.

  “It’s instructions!” Prescinda had marvelled, not quite believing it.

  Geran drew in nearer yet kept her eyes on Drax as he steadily vanished into the unearthly clutter the lifting mist was revealing. “They really do see Falmeard as dangerous, don’t they, Presci?”

  “We just stay on this path apparently, at least until we reach the wall.” Prescinda looked up from the paper, along the curve of the metal lattice upon which they now stood.

  “Path?” Geran sneered, looking down before having to rush to catch up with Prescinda. “Do you trust any of ‘em, Sis?” she called. “I mean, you know, really trust them?”

  Trust? Prescinda thought. What place trust against Geran’s happiness? She couldn’t bring herself to meet her sister’s eyes when she caught her up.

  “Are they really going to let us go, Presci? All of us? Just like that?”

  “We’ve agreed to do them a service don’t forget. A journey they can’t make themselves - not taking Falmeard with them anyway.”

  “What is the Foundering Wall, Sis?”

  “Err, well, where they reckon a cure can be found for Falmeard.” Prescinda hated herself but still couldn’t think of a way to explain. Time yet, she thought, suspecting she only fooled herself.

  “I know that’s what they said, but
what is it? You know, what’s there?”

  “Oh, look. Isn’t that the wall not far ahead? What’s it say we do there, I wonder?” Prescinda bent to the paper, the words fortunately written in pencil and therefore immune to the smudge of tears.

  Impressively precise, the instructions took them through an open doorway into one of the wall’s dimly lit passages. Lack of any further choice carried them unerringly far into the body of the wall until their written guide turned them down some steps and into the depths.

  It was a while before they came to the bottom and there found a short passage that led to a closed door. Large, shiny and - they were soon to find out - extremely thick, it silently opened at their approach.

  “Hello,” Falmeard called without much conviction, but enough life for Geran to fly to him. The dim red light hid much but Prescinda could still see the emptiness that had taken up home in his eyes. Her sister didn’t hug him for long, soon falling back at his unresponsive stand, hiding her eyes from them both.

  “Are you ready to leave, Falmeard?” Prescinda gently asked, but he only blinked back absently. Geran took his hand and carefully drew him from the room, in behind Prescinda who herself again followed on behind their written guide.

  Somehow the close press of solid walls kept them to their own counsel, which suited Prescinda. The long opportunity to think, though, failed to lend any better way of broaching their true purpose to Geran.

  It had seemed longer than the hour they’d taken before daylight could again be seen, but it now lay temptingly ahead. It turned out to be the reception room of the gatehouse, itself as empty as everywhere else, its unattended door already thrown open.

  They swept past its counter, over the lip of its doorway and out into the gate’s deep cut. Barred by a massive inner gate to their left, the only way now lay to the right, through the outer gateway and onto the drawbridge where Prescinda came to a halt.

  At the other side, Weyswal Way teemed with people, Bazarral’s citizens already hectically about their daily chores. The contrast shocked the three of them, held like startled rabbits, steadily drawing more interest from the passers-by.

  “Come on,” Prescinda chivvied, pulling herself together. “Time we slipped back into the real world,” and so she led them out into the crowd, Galgaverre’s unobtrusive wall soon falling from sight behind.

  They kept close for fear of being split up, the throng particularly heavy in the avenue that led away from Galgaverre. In the middle of it, close alabaster columns held aloft a verdigris dome around which ran an ancient Bazarran script. She, like all there, couldn’t read it, although it mattered little. Guildhalls always looked like guildhalls, irrespective of any inscription, and so Prescinda had no problem recognising where they needed to be.

  As they drew near, they saw the reason for the crowds; market stalls already teemed with the local field’s fare, holders, buyers and traders all milling about between ranks of canopied spreads. Whereas Geran’s eyes sparkled, Prescinda’s now grew wide in dismay.

  “We’re supposed to be meeting our carriage here!”

  “What carriage?”

  “One sorted out by Drax. Damn! He obviously didn’t remember it was market day.”

  As Prescinda began to search amongst the crowd, a voice assailed her.

  “You Mistress Prescinda by any chance?” A rather dapper, slightly built man now stood at her elbow.

  “I am. Are you Master Drainspoiler?”

  “At yer service, ma’am.” He bowed surprisingly low then sprang to attention before twisting his long moustache between a finger and thumb. “Tha’s in need of a carriage I believe, according to t’Sentinar. Favour to ‘is Lordship I understand,” and before they knew it, they were following him through the crush towards the guildhall.

  Instead of pushing their way into the pillared space beneath, Master Drainspoiler skirted its steps to the far side where the press diminished to the avenue’s broader expanse. Amongst the few carts and wagons left against its kerb, they saw a rather sprightly looking contraption sporting bright red paint, its long and tapered engine chest punctuated by six elongated vents.

  “Going to be a tight squeeze by the look of it,” Prescinda noted as she surveyed the rather cramped seating.

  Drainspoiler grinned rather worryingly, Prescinda thought, but then reached down and flipped a catch at the rear whereupon two more seats swung into view. “Jump aboard then,” he told them, sweeping an arm towards his pride and joy, an even bigger grin now filling his face. “Foundering Wall, t’Sentinar said, and without sparing t’horses I think he added.”

  With that, they crammed themselves in as Drainspoiler cranked the beast to life and then leapt in behind its new-fangled steering wheel, the centre of which he thumped a few times to sound their departure.

  “Hold tight!” he enthused as metal ground against metal and before they lurched forward, scaring a passing pig. Its squeals soon faded behind them as they roared up the avenue. At its end, they turned left into Weyswal Way, thereafter speeding north towards the silhouette of the Scarra Face, now so sharp against the morning sky.

  33 Waylaid

  The two occasional-seats in Drainspoiler’s alarmingly fast contraption did not lend themselves to comfort. Cramped and placed above the rear axle, they seemed to take every jar and bump, the road north over Scarra to the Eastern Gate seemingly full of them. Prescinda had chosen there in preference to staring out at the fast approaching view ahead along the engine chest from the front seat. The very thought unnerved her.

  Not so Geran who had soon hogged the place beside Drainspoiler, trying to sit forward and tall so she could see over the raucous expanse of metal in front of her.

  On her own part, Prescinda would have preferred a coachbank for its relative peace, quiet, and stately progress. She could then have thought more about the events ahead, particularly how best to broach Falmeard’s cure with Geran. The man himself sat in the seat beside Prescinda’s own, although his mind still seemed wholly elsewhere.

  Trapped between a seemingly intractable problem and her sister’s distracting elation, Prescinda opted for an easier choice.

  “So, Master Drainspoiler?” she shouted above the engine noise and against the rush of air. “Did you make this beast yourself?”

  “Ha!” he shouted back. “If only I knew how. Nah.” He slowed a little so he could be better heard. “Put together by undergraduates at t’college.” He slowed yet further - the steering wheel jerking less in his hands. “I do a lot o’ work for Yuhlm College tha knows, on and off. Mainly for Steward Melkin, its Chancellor, which gives me a few advantages.”

  “Advantages?” Geran asked, her voice trembling a little with excitement.

  “They’re big on mechanicking at the College. Lot of competition amongst the final year students. All keen to impress. They think it’ll help their prospects doing stuff for me, given how I’m seen about a lot wi’ t’Chancellor.”

  “Does it?” Prescinda asked.

  “Does it what?”

  “Help.”

  “Happen, then happen not.”

  Drainspoiler pushed a lever and they leapt forward at speed again towards the Scarra Face, up the long incline recently cut through the Southern Balconies. The engine’s reinstated roar and the brisker blast of air said they’d finished their conversation. Drainspoiler returned to his driving thrills much to Geran’s joy but Prescinda’s growing alarm.

  The Esnadales rapidly fell away behind, soon lost to the rising bulk of Mount Esnadac. What had once been tier upon tier of vertical and long abandoned balconies had now been savagely cut back, making room for their current section of newly laid road.

  Still only wide enough for a single carriage, numerous passing places had been ruthlessly cut yet further back into the sheer cliff face behind. The drop to their right looked to be some few hundred feet, the Eyeswin River curving its glinting way across the Vale below until cutting a great gorge at the foot of the Scarra Face, still a few miles ah
ead.

  It had seemed to promise a fair day when they’d set out, but now, as midday approached, a cold, grey distance watered everything down. Only a hint could be seen of the forest’s green to the north, but nothing of Wetwold and The Plain of the New Sun to the east.

  By the time they came onto the Aerie Way low cloud gave no view at all, the damp air speckling the carriage’s red paint like early morning dew, long streaks of it drawn back in glossy lines, pulsing like veins. Before they knew it, they were descending, slithering around sharper bends, the parapet wall oft sweeping past all too perilously close.

  Unlike the south side, the Northern Balconies still fought off the road’s incursion, keeping the way deviously unpredictable. Drainspoiler had had to reduce their speed, quite fortuitously as it happened for they eventually met a southbound stoom-wagon on a tight bend. The two vehicles came to a rapid halt but feet apart.

  It sobered Drainspoiler, kept him thereafter to more sensible speeds, allowing Prescinda to draw her breath and calm her nerves. Her thoughts soon wandered back to Foundering Wall, making her steal a look at Falmeard - the theft unnecessary.

  The road began to drop below the dismal cloud, soon returning the view and so allowing Prescinda to spot the Old Wall some way off and still a few hundred feet below. She even thought she saw workman busy along some of its length.

  Drainspoiler heaved the wheel and they turned sharply left onto a steep but bumpy back street where they slowed yet further still as they climbed. Terraced houses - stepped up both sides - replaced the balconies, washing lines hung between marking their new but still sparse habitation.

  They approached the top of the street at a crawl but soon picked up speed along the level road onto which they turned. Broad and clearly once a major thoroughfare, it was now strewn with debris, enough to keep Drainspoiler well occupied at the wheel.

  Falmeard suddenly said, quite confidently but out of the blue, “This is the road, back the other way, that takes you to the southern side of the Upper Reaches.”