Last True World (Dica Series Book 3) Read online

  Sconner looked down at the white spume thrown up by the bow and felt his empty stomach sink. He recalled the unnerving depths the ocean had offered, water so clear they could see its bed pass slowly by beneath, as though they were eagles looking down upon the land. That same depth passed below them now but that the night did hide it, a depth still devoid of life.

  Another cruel jest from ancient verse; did grow adept at drawing fish with net. Would that they could have done so, would that the sea still offered such bounty, and by it had spared eight of his crew.

  Eight good men and true, good sailors all. Their remains would never find rest within any denizens of the deep, but would forever look up through the crystal clear ocean at the laughing stars above.

  For more than two weeks Sconner and his crew had marvelled at the weather, at the clear, blue depths of the ocean, as they’d tacked their way west upon the surface of the Crystal Plain. It was fortunate Steermaster Sconner had insisted they take short rations and break out yet another of the College’s ingenious wonders.

  Most of the device was made of glass, a jar of sorts, partly painted matt black with an inner vessel meant for seawater. Placed so that the sun could warm its black expanse, a steady drip of fresh water would soon fall into a barrel from its upturned rim. In this way they conserved much of their precious provision of palatable water.

  Food had been a different matter entirely, and one not so easily addressed. The hold had been stocked with barrels of heavily salted fish, air-cured meats - largely bacon - and crates of apples and pears, these latter soon rotting in the heat. The intention had been to live largely on caught fish, but the Sea of the Dead Sun was as far as shoals wandered, only its shallower waters still murky with life.

  They had at long last found land, more or less at the same latitude as Dica’s own - as the scripts had foretold - but it brought little in the way of relief.

  The ocean had lapped onto sandy shores below shallow, bare cliffs, glinting in the bright sunshine. The sand had been yellow, the cliffs brown and orange, but nowhere was there the promise of green.

  The crossing had been bad enough; short rations, brackish water, no fruit or greens, all bringing sickness to most of the crew. When those well enough to land had finally pulled themselves up the cliffs, though, and stood and shielded their eyes with their hands, they’d nearly buckled at the knees, so desolate and dispiriting the sight.

  A bright orange landscape stretched out across a low and shimmering plain, as far as their dry eyes could see. At first it appeared featureless, some vast desert, stark against the blue-green sky, but it wasn’t, not quite.

  It had taken some minutes for their minds to recognise what their eyes beheld, some silent minutes of dark despair. “Bricks!” one of them had finally gasped. “Millions of bloody bricks!”

  He’d been right. The desert wasn’t of sand or rock or dusty soil, but of bricks, a whole patchwork terrain of ancient, eroded walls.

  Despite the shock, the unworldly shock, they began to see the remains of foundations, of weathered and worn steps, fractured and eroded kerbs, stumps of stone pillars and bare patches of road - but mainly bricks. So long had they lain there that most were rounded, smoothed as like pebbles or wind-blown worn to red gravel waste.

  There was little in the chaos to grant much meaning, however hard they stared, but the half buried remains of a fallen pediment eventually caught Sconner’s eye. A stagger and a stumble and he was kneeling before it, unsteadily on a layer of rocking bricks, his busy hands soon stained red with dust and graze-bled blood.

  Before long he’d uncovered a faint inscription, a long line of large, ornate letters, all intertwined with leaves and serpents. He stepped back, precariously, dizzy from his hot exertion, and steadied himself, licked his dry and cracked lips, and lifted the tip of a pencil to his tongue.

  Very carefully, he copied the inscription like a child at rote until the last character was safely ensconced in his notebook. As he closed it, he finally noticed something familiar, but something completely incongruous.

  Faded almost to white, jutting from beneath a nearby pile of bricks, the sleeve of a jerkin lay plain to see. It wasn’t so much that it was an item of clothing but more that it boasted a heavily faded shard-pattern, the kind even now well favoured by the Bazarran.

  7 A Journey Never Made

  The Treowlicas lay beside the bed, fallen from a loosened grip as sleep finally wrested despair from its hold on Nephril. He’d been sullen all afternoon, leaving Penolith to see off their visitor, alone at their front door as she waved Laytner goodbye.

  She knew better than to ask. Nephril could remain withdrawn for weeks, tetchy and irascible, and trying to pry only ever made it worse. At one time she could have waited, waited for him to get it straight in his own mind before telling her. At one time perhaps, but not now.

  She thought she knew why he hurt her so, the reasoning that fooled him. He believed he was protecting her, keeping further hurt from the door. He was simply a foolish old man, one who should have known better.

  None of that mattered now to Nephril for he no longer felt his own nagging aches and pains, didn’t have to plan his movements with a little more care, or worry it was all too much. Nephril slept soundly and dreamlessly into the night, if only for a short while at least.

  Outside the window a sundial stood timeless in the dark, not even a moon to give it a false reading. How long it had stood there no one knew, its face blackened with age, its gnomon unworn despite casting countless shadows. Tonight, though, it strangely ground its way insidiously into Nephril’s lonely dream.

  Before him stood a town hall, once imposing but now sadly derelict, its blank windows giving let only to a mass of timber and stone. Dry, dusty and saddened, its frontage still reared defiantly towards a grey sky lowering above that deserted southern precinct of Bazarral. Now roofless and with few floors intact, smears of green moss ran down pillars that had once held high an ornate cornice and wide-spanned ceiling.

  What had drawn him this way? What had singled out this one facade amongst many?

  Now there was the sound of stone grinding upon stone, rhythmically, in short scratching waves, like the ticking of a grandfather clock. There, at the now blunted apex of the town hall’s central gable, a large sundial rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  Falmeard’s voice touched Nephril’s ears. “Mellow stoned buildings’ lofty chimneys rise,” he was saying, “mellow stoned buildings,” but no more. That sound of grating stone now became a shriek and Nephril saw the sundial plummet, straight towards Falmeard.

  Pain - real waking hours’ pain - flooded Nephril’s body well before he realised he was staring at his bedroom window. Despite his poor hearing, he knew a sound had awoken him, something from without.

  He was half way out of bed before he remembered how poorly his limbs now served him. There was a worrying crack as he hit the floor, the cold stone shocking him fully awake, genuine pain scouring his body like a wild animal. Tears welled at his eyes, snot at his nose, but he failed to cry out.

  A small lamp, the new sort, the kind with un-flickering flames, dimly glowed on the chest by the window. It moved! The chest moved! They both moved, both rocked, or so it seemed, although now they appeared to have stopped.

  Nephril let his head lower, let the cold floor drain his cheek as Falmeard’s departing line drifted slowly across his mind. “In Bazarral, in Bazarral, its fair folk spill.” Softly, he now began to cry.

  8 A Collision of Thoughts

  The ride up the hill this fresh, bright morning - past the long disused mass of the three Hanging Chain Towers - was all the more pleasant for Mirabel now that the panniers were crammed full of new gowns, gloves, jewellery and shoes. It was all booty of a rather successful shopping trip into Yuhlm’s newly prestigious tailoring district of Roagbank.

  Although much of Dica was steadily sinking into dereliction, lives falling ruinously to famine and fear, such cauldrons of excess like Roagbank
seemed each day to grow from strength to strength. It was as though they were lenses, concentrating the realm’s diminishing wealth and focusing it on fripperies. The gap between full and empty bellies had never before been so wide.

  There was, though, a distinct feeling of fragility, as though it would take only a slight nudge to bring it all tumbling down. Perhaps that was why those who had the wealth to spend did so with such gusto.

  Mirabel was far from typical of such people, being Lambsplitter’s only child, but even she couldn’t deny the almost illicit frisson such an outing had brought. The two of them gossiped incessantly, lost to the joy of the moment, an intimacy Lambsplitter knew couldn’t last forever. After all, Mirabel was fast approaching her seventh thridgaer, her first of fecundity.

  “I’m glad you chose the blue, Mirabel, it suits you so. Brings out the rich blue of your eyes.”

  “I know. Doesn’t it just.” For a moment, mother and daughter locked eyes, one knowing and the other only just guessing at the separation to come.

  “You are the most beautiful child ... the most beautiful woman in the land, Mirabel, but then I know you knew that already.” Lambsplitter smiled at her daughter, smiled for her, somewhat distantly, before realising the stoom carriage had not only come to a halt but was gradually rolling back down the hill.

  “Damn,” she muttered as she yanked on the brake, the little carriage jerking slightly as it came to rest against the kerb. The steam puttered playfully from the vents, more like a fast clock now than a field full of crickets.

  “It’s a good job you’ll not be the wife of a Steward. A poor position for stealth, but who, Mirabel? Who is likely to take your eye?”

  Lambsplitter was fishing, teasing out any nascent interest. She didn’t expect an answer, it was too soon for that, but it wouldn’t be long, not long at all before Mirabel would know.

  Mirabel herself didn’t look shame-faced nor embarrassed. Thoughtful was perhaps the best description, almost studious as a small frown pleasingly puckered her nose.

  Yes, Lambsplitter thought, the mix has been good, perhaps too good.

  It was as though her daughter had read her mind for she smiled back and shook her head slightly. “You’re a fabulously beautiful woman yourself, mother, the fairest in the land.” She giggled so unselfconsciously that even Lambsplitter felt her loins stir, felt a warm welling where lust and longing have their lair.

  The mix has certainly worked, Lambsplitter observed, bringing a smile that fell short of her eyes. Worked even better than ever before, far better than with I.

  She found her hand had wandered from the brake to her daughter’s face, found it had already cupped Mirabel’s faultlessly fresh cheek, and so felt the sensuously soft smoothness of its cool allure.

  Lambsplitter couldn’t help but think, “If only Nephril had been young enough, young enough to have been swamped by such virgin beauty, and in his bewitched supplication, would willingly retrieve the last of Leiyatel.”

  It was a wish born of her daughter’s close and newly blossoming sensual power. Lambsplitter saw that, coldly knew it, but couldn’t avoid its embrace. Perhaps the mix had indeed worked too well, resurgent Bazarran blood just too rich by half.

  “Come on! We’ve chores to do,” Lambsplitter reminded Mirabel. “Places to go and things to do.” For a fleeting moment her laugh seemed quite natural, as though that long suppressed joy of motherhood had somehow threatened to break free.

  Her hand - now thrilled to ecstasy by the brief contact - reluctantly returned to and released the brake. Her other eased forth more steam, so the stoom carriage could jerkily leap forward as her feet wrested the wheels.

  Soon they were continuing their climb, the Hanging Chain Towers dropping away behind whilst the wide way steadily narrowed ahead towards Nordgang Road.

  As the junction began to appear, Mirabel started to feel uneasy. It seemed to be approaching just a little too fast.

  She shot a nervous glance at her mother, but found her eyes glazed, staring into an unfathomable distance. “MOTHER!” she screamed.

  Lambsplitter looked startled, was about to turn to her daughter when she realised just how near Nordgang Road had become, only yards from the prow of the boiler. The brake locked the one wheel upon which it acted, slewing the carriage sideways and lifting the nearside wheels.

  Miraculously, their carriage came to a halt without toppling over, a yard into the junction. A lumber wagon then removed their brass horn as it scraped along their offside, its driver cursing loud enough to be heard above his own horn’s blast.

  Although Mirabel looked shocked, she and Lambsplitter were unhurt. They were, though, both stunned silent. The only noise now was the thin whistle of steam escaping from the horn’s severed pipe.

  By the time the sound of feet brought a crowd about their carriage - heads peering in in curiosity as much as concern - Lady Lambsplitter was gently saying, “Mirabel? How would you fancy asking your uncle Nephril for a favour?”

  9 Naningemynd Remembered

  “Well, how’s it got like that, Cresmol?”

  “I don’t know, Guardian. If I did, I wouldn’t have had to have mentioned it.”

  “It’s obviously too heavy for a fox to knock over, and badgers couldn’t get into the garden ... could they?”

  Penolith bent to inspect the sundial, where it lay in three pieces across the path and below Nephril’s bedroom window. It looked as though it had simply fallen there.

  Fortunately, the path was laid to cinders and so the dial’s three stone sections had each remained intact. There wasn’t a scratch or a chip to any one.

  There’d been a fairly hard dew that morning, enough to lay a silver veil over everything, except where Cresmol and the Lady had both walked. Everywhere else, however, plainly languished beneath a fine argent dusting.

  “Nothing’s been near it, my Lady. You can see how the grass is untrammelled, unless whatever it was kept to the path.” They both looked down at the prostrate instrument, as though inspiration lay hidden beneath, but there the answer stayed.

  “Better put it back then, I suppose?” Cresmol presently offered.

  “Don’t mention it to Lord Nephril, Cresmol. I’ll find an opportunity to tell him myself. He’s enough to worry about as it is.”

  It seemed Penolith worried the more, certainly far more so than Nephril. She now fretted, to be more precise, about the pain she was convinced meant he’d a broken bone, a break Nephril stoically dismissed. She hoped it was just a fracture, but somehow doubted it.

  The flat, grey overcast sky set Penolith’s face in its poorest light, made the lines there seem drawn in lamp-black. She wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, but Cresmol knew how demanding Nephril had become, far more so in the last few years.

  He knew the Guardian was in her sixties, once only middling years for a Dican, but she seemed to have been prematurely aged. It was hard to tell, though, for no Galgaverran had ever been let live so long. Cresmol suspected that the effect in her was more to do with labour than longevity.

  Not too long ago he would have been fast approaching his own term-age, now in his forty ninth year, his flesh and bone returned for reuse before the year would have been up.

  Leiyatel now no longer gave birth to her own, no longer fashioned flesh and blood to her own singular service. So, the current generation of Galgaverrans were the very last, no longer grist to Leiyatel’s regenerative mill.

  He and the Guardian had, without really being aware of it, come to a halt facing one another, absently staring into each other’s eyes. “Do you reckon we could comfortably get Lord Nephril to Yuhlm?” Penolith presently asked, rather obliquely.

  Her words seemed to jar Cresmol back from somewhere of his own, a place that held both chill air and cold blood. “To Yuhlm?”

  “Yes. Is he up to going to Mirabel’s Maturity?”

  Cresmol imagined the journey west; across Bazarral on the perfectly fine-going Nordgang Road, along the old cliff tops
on the new road to where Smiddles Lane finally snaked down to the college. It was only Smiddles Lane that set doubt in his mind, the thought of their stoom carriage negotiating its way down the bumpy and steeply torturous old road.

  Although he believed Lord Nephril was far stronger than Penolith would have him, Cresmol avoided answering by bending down to right the sundial. It let him hide his face from the Guardian as he grasped its base. It was heavy, far heavier than he’d imagined, as though set with lead.

  The remaining pieces were lighter, enough to manhandle with ease. He soon came to discover how each keyed to the other, so they locked together when standing straight once more.

  A nice piece of work, Cresmol thought, stepping back to admire it. How many times had he passed through this part of the garden and never once given the sundial a second thought? How many times had its clever design eluded him? He caressed its face, worn smooth by time, and almost felt the mason’s hour-marks strike seconds against its millennial span.

  Penolith had withdrawn and left Cresmol un-answering in his task, had set herself by the gate that led down to their stream. Behind her, she heard stone scrape against stone, feet crunch on cinders and Cresmol’s breath strain deep and guttural. She’d not expected him to answer, knew full well it was her decision alone.

  Beyond the gate, at the bottom of a short but steep bank, the small stream sang quietly to itself. It passed joyfully around smooth stones, gurgled beneath gnarled and darkly overarched roots, and giggled exuberantly as it frothed past the sharp edge of the lowest step of those dropping away below her.

  In that way that all Galgaverrans know, a stealthy shock of remembrance abruptly entered Penolith’s mind, stark in its surety. She remembered their discussion on the moors of the Strawbac Hills, her and Nephril, her and her new partner, but at that time, a partner in the strangest of crimes.

  Nephril had convinced her then of his need to escape, to get beyond Leiyatel’s far-reaching embrace, to drop behind the carr sceld of the Gray Mountains. He’d said he had sore need of his own granite shield.