Cold Angel Days (Dica Series Book 4) Read online

  “A theory I have at last been able to test mine self,” Nephril grinned.

  “You said you were the recent cause of the ... the ... the stars, or whatever they are, you know, the mirage about the tower’s base.”

  “I did, and indeed I am. Have been these past few months.”

  “Months?”

  “Yea. Since solstice or thereabouts. Why?”

  “Can whatever it is you’re doing here affect someone’s nature? You know, who they are, what they remember?”

  Nephril just looked perplexed.

  “Were you doing it last Weysget market day, the Wednesday before last?”

  “Err, let me see. Yes, yes, that would hath been the day I tried drawing the greatest heat, I am fairly certain of that. Why dost thou ask?”

  Prescinda’s jaw set a little firmer. “Because I think there’s someone else to add to your list of damaged people, maybe not physically dead this time - not like your Steermaster Sconner - but in his own way just as good as. But more importantly, you’re the likely cause of what’s brought about a great sadness to the best big sister a woman can have.”

  15 An Allegation Countenanced

  Nephril had listened attentively, but when Prescinda explained what had happened and how it had led her to the Star Tower, she never once felt he’d any real sympathy. He’d nodded, feigned interest, but wouldn’t meet her eyes nor ask her anything. It was therefore no surprise when his denial came, but little did she know that it arose from the impatience of a deep seated fixation.

  Sometimes a man’s fascination can prove a most effective gaoler. Needing no stout stone walls or gaunt guarding grilles, it can bind him to a place and servitude he’d otherwise never countenance. He’ll happily forgo the prisoner’s one true escape, that of a freely roaming mind, and by it leave himself as but an island. Nephril had been that unwitting prisoner for nigh on four years now, a sentence whose prospect only seemed to lengthen with each day, not that he rued it in any way, but then that was of course the very nature of his imprisonment.

  “It’s just that it seems so odd don’t you think, Nephril, that my sister’s happiness stopped here, at the base of this damned tower?”

  “Circumstantial, mine dear, purely circumstantial ... oh no!” Lights had begun flashing angrily across a number of cupboards, Nephril’s hands becoming a blur of activity. “Damn, damn, damn! Missed it now!”

  He stared at Prescinda, as though he’d tasted something bitter.

  “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve not even moved.”

  Nephril ran his fingers through his thin hair, brushing it back, away from a pale and prominent forehead. She noticed how sinuous blue veins stood out at his temples, as though he were thinking hard.

  “No, no, I should not have returned for thee. ‘Twas mine own error. Too late now, the moment has been lost.”

  “Does that mean I now don’t get to make that star then?”

  “Hmm? Ah, no, I am afraid not. Another time perhaps.” He stared at her, or maybe through her, as though trying to reach past to grab an elusive answer. In the meantime she sipped her mug of wine.

  “Quite pleasant this, Nephril. You’ve a good palate.” He didn’t answer. “I think it would taste better from a goblet, though.”

  Nephril put a finger to his mouth and absently chewed at its nail. When Prescinda lifted the mug and took another sip, he asked, “Thou say thy sister were here too? When it happened? When thou suggest it may have occurred!”

  “Yes, they both spent a while...”

  “And thy sister be well in herself now ... still?”

  Prescinda paused, her eyes narrowing.

  “Yes, but that’s...”

  “So.” Nephril steepled his hands before his face and placed the point against his mouth. “This supposed influence somehow knows man from woman!”

  “Maybe it’s because Geran’s not quite as ... well, as fey as Falmeard.”

  Nephril choked, spluttered and snatched the mug from Prescinda’s hands. He gulped at the wine until he’d drowned his coughing.

  “Sorry.”

  “Granted,” she allowed, a little suspicious.

  “I think, mine dear, it would only be fair to dig a little deeper into thine allegation, in case there be any truth to it, and mine work here doth indeed prove deleterious to some.”

  “So you think there may be a connection?”

  “Let us wait and see, eh? ‘Tis only fair upon both sides.” He looked down at the mug he still held. “Oh, please forgive me,” and handed it back. “Err, and where perchance would thy sister and ... and her friend live?”

  “At the family farm, at Blisteraising. Do you know it?”

  “Hmm, perhaps the name does ring a bell, a distant one. Mine good lady deals with such domestic affairs, but I do believe I have heard the name afore. It seems somehow familiar.”

  When the time came that they could leave, although not spared the unnerving descent, Prescinda was spared the walk back to Blisteraising. Nephril had the use of a carriage, a thrijhil of all things, but fortunately without its trailer. Only really designed for one, its wicker chair was luckily just wide enough to accommodate them both, although it made the carriage a little unsteady on its three narrow wheels.

  When they eventually got to it, the stepped path down to the farm was just too steep and uneven for the thrijhil, so they made this last stretch on foot. Nephril relished the rare chance for a walk, the absence of engine noise leaving the air still enough to hear dogs barking at the approaching dusk. It turned out they belonged to Blisteraising Farm itself.

  The dogs gave their attention to them both as their footfalls escaped the path’s deep cut, before they spilled onto the short lane that led to the farmyard. By the time they’d walked beneath the old defunct clock, the dogs were pining at Prescinda’s scent. A growl or two rumbled across the yard at Nephril’s own, but either a rope or a wall kept the threat at bay.

  The gable doorway was open, and through which soft lamplight spilled into the velvet shadows of the fast-gathering dusk, the light falling onto a stack of wooden crates. The light began swaggering, dimming entirely as Grog swept from the house, two more crates in his arms.

  He dropped them onto the stack, straightened, turned and shouted at Prescinda and Nephril, “Will you damned bitches shut up,” then grunted, turned away and walked back indoors.

  “Meet Grog, my much younger brother,” Prescinda said to Nephril. “Not the most observant of men.”

  The smell of stew and dumplings, of paraffin lamps and candles, and the sharp tang of a coal fire all drew them through the fusty jostle of coats and boots in the passageway. It eased them through into the kitchen’s warm and thronged embrace.

  At its centre stood a solid pine table, its dark oak chairs filled with family and friends, a chestnut settle tight against the wainscoting along the far wall behind. Porcelain plates, earthenware jugs, blanched and brittle corn dollies, packets of candles, bobbins of cotton and countless other forgotten everyday objects all crammed themselves along a narrow shelf above.

  Prescinda and Nephril were welcomed in, hands thrust out to shake his before they urged, cajoled and helped him to a seat, then pressed him to a drink, to warm himself by the fire, and of course, to stay for supper.

  Whereas Prescinda easily feel to the simple joys and pleasures of home life, Nephril seemed a little guarded, somehow on edge. As soon as he noticed Falmeard, though, a distracted look took hold of him, distraction enough not to notice Geran draw near. She smiled down at him, as though amused, as easy in her manner as if she’d known him since the day she was born.

  16 Time’s Short Shrift

  Supper turned out to be a rather lavish affair, the funerary provisions having been too much even for the Sodbuster family so soon to despatch. Plenty of ham and chicken still filled the larder, along with a side of beef, pots of Aunt Alicia’s pickles and great slabs of donated cake. Bottles of pale ale a
nd strong dark stout jostled near the oven, in the fair hope the fire’s hot poker wouldn’t be needed, as the night had again turned cold.

  Uncle Gazeby had valiantly tried his best to whittle down the bottles, despite his wife Alicia’s protestations, and even Grog had kept him company. They were still outnumbered, though, the bottles likely to win the day.

  The table’s leaves had been extended, more than enough room for all their settings, although it pushed Prescinda's Cousin Cremyll’s now sweating back too close to the fire. He seemed to bear it well, being the youngest. It had soon set his eyes swimming with childhood memories of long hot summer days on the farm.

  His father, Prescinda’s Uncle Gazeby - when not three sheets to the wind - was a fine maker of nets. Despite the extra money brought in by Aunt Alicia’s dressing of crab-pots, it had been the bottle that had now left them so few pennies to rub together. In the early years, Cousin Cremyll had eased his family’s plight by - like now - eating at his uncle’s table, quickly becoming a regular and able farmhand.

  He and Kirsten, the middle Sodbuster sister, were to help tide the farm over until Grub’s affairs could be put in order, and proper assign, let and easement made. It had been hoped that Falmeard would have played a fuller part, but lately he’d somehow seemed a little less than capable.

  The only person present not adding volubly to the occasion was the widower Stanwell Ditchwater, Grub’s life-long friend and a neighbouring farmer. Seemingly lost to his own fond memories, he’d quietly stuffed himself with plenty of food and strong dark stout. It had given him a face that appeared to look blindly in many different ways at once.

  Nephril had made polite but uneasy conversation with all and sundry, excepting Falmeard who, as had lately become his habit, showed no interest at all. Prescinda couldn’t even be sure they’d been properly introduced, but let the matter rest.

  Prescinda was most intrigued by Geran’s reaction. She’d sat beside Nephril and quietly hung on his every word. She also had a look in her eyes that Prescinda had last seen only when Falmeard had been his old self.

  Geran half closed her eyes and smiled when Nephril was drawn to answer Gazeby’s slightly slurred question. “Thought we were supposed to be getting back to us old times, you know, since it all went wrong like, and since we got this new Leiyatel. So, why’s me brother Grub been taken off so early then?”

  Nephril seemed reticent, but Uncle Gazeby held him surprisingly steadily in his wavering gaze, until the embarrassing moment had to be pricked and Nephril answered, “Although people choose to see it otherwise, the Certain Power be nothing more than an engine, its purpose driven only by the accumulation of folk’s wishes, built up through long practice. Ten years be not enough at all within which to bring such focus to Leiyatel’s mechanical largess.”

  “Leiyatel hasn’t had long enough,” Geran explained to the blank faces, “to get her feet back under the table, you know, for us to be at all confident in her yet. Isn’t that what you mean ... Nephril?” Prescinda found Geran’s dreamy look worrying, but Nephril only seemed flattered.

  “Thou put it far better than I, mine pretty one.” He seemed to see something deep within Geran’s eyes. “A fourscore or so years I believe thou said. A long life now, but in times gone by it would hath been a paltry span, although such times will again return.”

  “So, what actually happened then, when we all thought Leiyatel had died?” Kirsten asked, seeing in Nephril a rare chance to interrogate one who should rightly know, given the clear education in his voice. “How did they end up keeping her alive?”

  Nephril cast an eye Falmeard’s way which didn’t go unnoticed by Prescinda, nor the undercurrent in Nephril’s reply that made it seem so pointed.

  “All things only come about by let of time, or by time’s short shrift to a long dead past, otherwise Nature takes to her own all that be hers.” Prescinda watched Nephril’s eyes seek Falmeard’s more closely, but they seemed to leave Nephril disappointed.

  A thump, a clatter and a series of crashes rang out, making them all jump. Old farmer Ditchwater had slipped beneath the table, taking with him a selection of cutlery and tankards, one of which had a glass rim that broke against the floor’s stone slabs. Fragments of glass tinkled their way in all directions, crunching underfoot.

  Grog and Cremyll carefully moved the table, so Ditchwater could be extricated and propped up on the settle. Kirsten sat by his side with her arm across his chest, dribble slowly falling to her bangle-stacked arm from the old man’s now flaccid mouth. He hiccupped, opened a bleary eye at her and winked.

  “You daft old sot, best we get you home,” she confided - amiably enough but loudly.

  “Hey ... tha’s want a reet grand time abed then ... does thee, eh lass?” She caught him before he fell sideways along the settle.

  “I’ll get Dreyfuss saddled,” Grog said, and lifted his boot shod foot to the settle’s arm, tying its laces before venturing out. “I think he’s seen Dad off well enough by now. A last token Saturday night, eh, Master Stanwell?” and he smiled at him.

  They all mucked in getting Stanwell’s things together and stuffed into his roll, and the man himself upright enough to be half-carried from the room. By the time they’d aimed him between the passageway’s walls and out through the gable door, Dreyfuss already stood awaiting his master. The horse turned him a large, doleful, brown eye and rattled its grey-flecked lips with a long and knowing breath.

  In due time, Grog only had to pull the straps tight that now held Stanwell and stand back for Dreyfuss to turn about and step off into the night, along a well-trodden path home. His master, as many a time before, lay contentedly snoring across his back.

  Grog’s smile slipped as Dreyfuss’s stilted quarters vanished into the night. “Cremyll?” he called. “Give us a hand, Cuz. Need to get those crates into the barn loft.” The two men traipsed off across the yard, Grog picking up a lantern from where he’d left it beside the door.

  For Prescinda, the whole charade brought back so many fond memories; a house cheered by the warmth of laughter, Dad’s drink- and merriment-flushed face glowing across the kitchen table, risqué jokes bartered back and forth between the two old friends.

  So strong a memory was it that when she came back into the kitchen, that still place palled beside it. The kitchen now seemed quite sad despite all the light and cheer it had soaked up during the evening.

  Auntie and Uncle were already making their way to bed, her quietly aiming him towards the passageway and the stairs. She had a grin that hid the prospect of a poor night’s sleep ahead. “We’ve an early start,” she was saying to no one in particular, “and still some packing to do in the morning. Don’t want to miss the coachbank, given there’s only two a day to Utter Shevling.”

  By now they were both but shadows on the landing wall, disembodied footfalls as she called back to everyone, “Good night.” Her words only thinned as they turned to admonishments of her husband’s clumsy feet. A door quietly closed and the house fell silent. Prescinda shivered, the chill of a time now passed squeezing behind her as it left the house for good.

  Nephril still stood before the fireplace, where he’d kept out of the way, Falmeard nowhere to be seen. Kirsten bustled in, rubbing her bangle-jangling arms against the cold she’d brought in with her, and soon grabbed the kettle. The pipes above knocked noisily as she filled it at the tap over the sink in the corner, bringing an absently whistled refrain slipping from her unnaturally crimson lips.

  From where she sat at the table, Geran seemed enrapt by Nephril’s discomforted eyes, then out of the blue she asked, “Have you stolen Falmeard’s light, Nephril? Have you? Is that what you were doing up there on top of your tower, eh? Stealing souls?”

  “Souls?” Kirsten said, from where she now stood at the stove, the kettle already hissing above the coals. “What are souls, Sis?”

  “Sawool,” Nephril corrected as he caught sight of Falmeard hovering just beyond the doorway behind Prescinda, “and
no, I stole nothing, certainly not the soul of Falmeard.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Nephril watched Falmeard’s half-hidden face as he added, “Such a rare and strange word to be found in Dica, so one I must see as having been brought to thee from long ago, through time’s short shrift from someone’s long dead past.”

  17 Loggerheads

  “By Leiyatel’s grace, Geran, what were you thinking, calling a guest like that?”

  Prescinda arched over her sister who sat on the edge of her own neatly made bed, eyes cast down. Prescinda thawed a little, enough to squat before Geran and look up into her eyes.

  “I know you’re feeling wretched, but you can’t go...”

  “In that Nephril there’s some of what made Falmeard what he was. That’s all I can say ... all that now fills my mind and pushes everything else aside.”

  “What do you mean...”

  “He must have stolen it. How else...”

  “You’re going to have to make more sense, Big Sis.”

  Geran breathed deeply and tried to collect her thoughts. “There was something about him from when you first brought him here. I don’t know what it was, but it’s what Falmeard once had in heaps and what’s now deserted him.” She was near to tears. “He must’ve taken it ... somehow. How else could it be in that man now instead?”

  As soon as Prescinda wrapped her arms about her sister, tears broke free, wetting the shoulder of Prescinda’s own blouse. She hugged Geran for a while but then pushed away a little, enough to tidy a few loose strands of Geran’s hair back behind an ear.

  “Will you be alright on your own,” Prescinda gently asked, “if I go find Nephril?”

  Geran nodded, but only just.

  “I don’t know what I’ll say,” Prescinda worried, not at all sure she should leave Geran alone, “but it has to be sorted. I’ll think of something.” She smiled and gave her sister a peck on her tear-dampened cheek, at which Geran sniffed and looked more resolute.