Starmaker Stella
Book 6 of The Dica Series
Clive S. Johnson
Daisy Bank
This eBook edition first published in 2015
All rights reserved
© Clive S. Johnson, 2015
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The right of Clive S. Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the author, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
All artwork; cover, maps and illustrations by the author. Copyright applicable.
Also by Clive S. Johnson
The Dica Series:
Leiyatel’s Embrace (Book 1)
Of Weft and Weave (Book 2)
Last True World (Book 3)
Cold Angel Days (Book 4)
An Artist’s Eye (Book 5)
I finally dedicate this volume to Clive S. Johnson for allowing me to use him as a conduit through which to reveal a true world even he thinks is fictional.
i Maps
Table of Contents
Also by Clive S. Johnson
i Maps
1 A Mind’s Own Doubt
2 A Seminal Moment
3 Making a Pig’s Ear of It
4 A Father’s Concern
5 Up Against the Wall
6 Back to School
7 An Unexpected Find
8 An Unexpected Taste
9 About Upping Sticks
10 A Cuckoo Learns of Loneliness
11 Of Skeletons in Cupboards
12 To Find Another
13 The Seed of a Fevered Brow
14 A Parting Thought
15 Marginalia
16 Stimulating Company
17 An Idea Comes Together
18 The Eternal Lure of Secrets
19 Mortar and Pestle
20 A Confession
21 The Climb Back to Daylight
22 The Say-So of a Bobby-Dazzler
23 Foolhardy Again
24 A Wish Upon a Falling Star
25 The Fall and Rise of Fortune
26 To See a Ghost
27 About Sacrifice
28 Jargon’s Obfuscation
29 Of Two Like Worlds
30 Into a Maelstrom of Minds
31 Nemesis
32 A Last Bequest
33 Hue and Cry
34 Two Promises at Odds
35 Eternal Grief
36 Purpose is but the Slave
37 Hope Against Hope
38 An Enforced Fast Broken
39 A Secret for a Secret
40 Man to Man
41 Torn of a Heart’s Fulfilment
42 And Mirabel Makes Three
43 Of Black and White
44 A Fear Allayed
45 From a Pig to a Poke
46 Out of the Blue
47 In the Light of Day
48 Hanging in the Balance
49 A Mystery and a Half
50 One Too Many
51 A Family Likeness
52 Nocturnal Noises
53 Of Dunager and Seawater
54 Like Bubbles in Ale
55 A Dark Russet Smear
56 From Beneath her Petticoats
57 Leigarre Perfinn
58 Love’s not Time’s Fool
59 In the Last, a True World
About the Author
1 A Mind’s Own Doubt
The image at which Stella stared slowly gained the expected speckle of pinprick points of light before a column of green writing appeared down one side. She waited, her mind wandering, her gaze now far beyond this display of the night’s final peppering of stars. A faint line grew along an arc through the clusters of white specks but went unnoticed.
The night had been a long one. Stella had wanted to get all her tasks done so there’d be no cataloguing to hand on, and had therefore foregone her bed. Her tired eyes made it hard to see the result when a soft chime drew them back to the image.
“Damn,” she muttered and rubbed them before looking again to see what shape the line had made. “Seems the same.”
She reached over and pressed a panel beside the image, closed one eye and peered again. “Yep, definitely no change. Another one,” and she smiled. “Well, that’s it then. All done, thank Leiyatel.” She stretched her arms above her head and groaned as the joints in her back cracked, then tidied her things together on the desk top.
When she got to the end of the corridor that led from the Star Chamber, and stood on its curved outer balcony, even the mellow dawn light was enough to hurt her eyes. She pushed a stray length of black hair behind her ear, squinted through the crystal dome that kept out the cold morning air, and let her gaze wander across a familiar sight.
The sea looked leaden, spread beneath the lingering star-speckled arc of the retiring nighttime sky. Far away to the northwest, a serried line of peaks ushered in the march of a mountain range, their highest points just catching the sun’s early rays, burnishing them orange and red. Their snow-capped summits paled as they strode east, turning to pinks and yellows as they filled the eye more. Where they passed across the northern horizon, they’d become white, like the teeth of a huge shark’s jaw. The Star Chamber’s gentle curve behind Stella obscured their further reach, hid their aim at a vast desert in the east.
Before Stella’s gaze could be drawn nearer, down over brown hills and a dark green forest to a rolling vale, a voice behind startled her.
“Morning, Stella. I didn’t expect you to be up and about so early. Not been able to sleep?”
“Oh, Elmond, I didn’t hear you.”
He put his pack down and stood beside her. “It looks like you’ll have a dry walk home this month,” and he leaned nearer the crystal, to peer down onto the flanks of Mount Esnadac, more than a thousand feet below. Its still-dark shroud slipped greyly away towards the Great Wall, some twelve miles to the north.
His precipitous stare drew Stella’s own, away from the river’s brightening silver slash, where it cut a gay gash along the nearest edge of the vale. She briefly looked down at the featureless mass of roofs directly below the Star Tower, but soon looked out beyond the river again. The vale’s infrequent, partly green-hidden flecks of white finally steeled her to pluck up courage.
“I’ve often wondered what they are?” she said, nodding towards the north. “Those white things, dotted about over there?”
Elmond looked at her then followed her gaze. “They’re the old halls and mansions of the Lords Demesne,” and his brow puckered. “But you know that already...”
“No, not there, beyond the wall, on the other side of the river,” and this time she pointed.
“Beyond ... beyond the wall?”
“I’m sure they’re buildings,” and she watched him from the corner of her eye. “They must be old halls, like those in the Demesne. You know, big ones. They must be big to be seen at this distance.”
His eyes had narrowed and his mouth slackened, then he shook his head slightly and asked, “Have you got many observations to hand over?”
“Observations?” and now she was even more convinced. “Oh, no, last night’s were all null so I’ve managed to clear them off. Thought I’d give you an easier start.”
�
�Oh. Thanks.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes which remained a few moments too long on hers. “Better get my stuff sorted then,” he said, breezily, picking up his pack and making his way towards his rooms.
“There’s a new packet of that peppermint and dandelion you like,” Stella said. “I put it in the pantry.”
“Lovely,” he called back as he strode off around the balcony. “That’s good of you. Do you want a brew before you go?”
“No thanks, I’ve already had one,” and she watched him walk around the curve of the Star Chamber, a brief look back before he vanished from sight.
It seems it is just me, she thought, but turned and this time stared at the wide estuary mouth. The morning’s growing light now clearly lit the river’s mighty push into the sea.
“But it seems so real, and those do look like halls out there on the vale. It doesn’t feel like it’s just my imagination,” but she remembered Elmond’s look when he’d glanced back at her. “Or,” she dared voice, “am I really not right in the head?”
2 A Seminal Moment
The world always seemed strange to Stella after each month-long duty in the Star Tower, the seclusion and remove from everyday life hard to shrug off. It made the mundane feel somehow special, her thirst for variety adding a freshness to everything.
The walk through the deserted Upper Reaches, back to Blisteraising Farm, would invariably bring home to her how sedentary her position as an acolyth starmaker had turned out to be. She was sure it was culpable for how increasingly unfit she’d become since graduating from Yuhlm College the year before.
She’d only reached the end of the long avenue that led away from the tower before needing a rest, although she pushed on anyway. When she got to her usual place for a breather, she slumped down on its low wall and stared absently across the yard it enclosed.
She’d begun wondering what all her years of training had been for - given that all she now did was make routine observations and fill out endless catalogue entries - when a familiar pile of rust in the far corner of the yard stirred her interest anew. She clambered down and stood before it.
Here had once been a substantial metal tube, joined to a driver’s platform, both carried on four stout, leather-clad wheels. These, though, now angled inwards like a cricket’s legs, the body of the thing resting heavily on the yard flags it had long since stained rust-red. She wandered around it, poking at its bones.
“Something else nobody ever makes mention of,” she said to herself as she thought of all the others she knew of around Dica. “Another unseen ghost. I wonder what they were for?” She ran her hand along the rough and flaking curve of the tube, feeling its hoard of the morning sun’s strengthening heat.
When, much later on, she reached the bottom of Blisteraising’s lane, that sun had now gained its midday strength. She exchanged Cambray Road’s newly levelled ease for the farm’s own rutted access. Over its wall, she saw Dasher drawing a harrow in the far corner of Bottom Off field. Uncle Grog walked behind, guiding the mare on long-reins. Stella didn’t call, knowing full well her uncle would be in a world of his own.
Her feet ached and slipped damply within her boots as she climbed the lane’s last steep rise to the farmyard. She was pulling her jersey away to fan air into its close-held heat when the farmhouse door she was now nearing swung open and Geran bustled out, a basket of washing under one arm.
“Oh. Hello, Stella. You’re early,” she said. “Nothing wrong I hope?”
“No, Mum. Just thought I’d get back without having to race against the setting sun for a change.”
“You look tired. Have you slept?”
“No, but I’ll be alright. Here, I’ll give you a hand with the washing.”
“No you won’t, but what you can do is go make us both a nice hot mug of tea. Strong mind,” and she placed the basket down beneath the line.
“Is dad around?”
“He’s up cutting back the hedgerows around Down Barrow field, so it’s just the two of us,” and Geran began hanging the washing.
“I passed Uncle Grog in Bottom Off, but what about Aunt Prescinda?”
“She’s avisiting old man Ditchwater. He hasn’t been too good of late. Too much ale if you ask me.”
Having taken her coat off and hung it in the entrance passageway, Stella felt relieved to be home when she came into the kitchen, refreshingly cool and still, the stove down to its embers. She opened the flue and stoked the coals with a poker until they began to draw red. Once filled with water, she plonked an old black kettle down on the range.
By the time she’d spooned nettle from a caddy into a brown earthenware teapot, her mother stood beside her, sniffing. “You ought to have a nice soak in a hot bath. You go on up and I’ll bring your tea up to you.”
Stella sniffed inside her jersey but could smell nothing.
“Believe me, you need freshening up a bit, and it’ll ease your legs after your long walk. There should be plenty of hot water.”
In the closeness of the bathroom, now down to her bloomers and vest, her nose twitched at what had concerned her mother. She shook some salts into the filling bath and stirred them in, their floral scent soon overpowering her own.
The glaze on the earthenware chilled Stella’s back when she finally got in and leaned against the end of the bath. She slipped back and forth to swill water up to warm it before finally settling and closing her eyes.
She must have begun to nod off for her mother’s knock at the door startled her. “Eh? Oh. Come in, Mum.”
“Here you are, Stella,” Geran said as she swung the door open. “Don’t burn your mouth, it’s piping hot,” and she placed a mug on the edge of the bath.
She was about to leave when Stella said, “Can I ask you something, Mum?” but her mother’s mouth drew to a line.
“If it’s not going to take too long. I’ve still got lots more washing to do,” and she delicately picked up her daughter’s discarded underwear.
Stella began lathering her arms, unsure how best to phrase her question. Only when her mother began to look impatient did she blurt out, “Do you ever get the feeling you’re looking in on life from the outside?”
She noticed her mother’s eyes grow large as she turned away and looked out through the small window’s misted panes, at the close cliff behind the house. “You know, you sometimes say the oddest things, Stella,” and her mother absently twisted Stella’s garments in her hands.
When her mother turned back, she avoided Stella’s eyes. “Maybe when your dad gets in, and he’s had his tea, you might ask him about what’s worrying you,” and at that she bundled the rest of Stella’s clothes together in her arms and hurried out.
Stella’s heart sank as she slipped down into the water. Above her, whitewashed joists and floorboards reminded her of a familiar sight, of white clouds spilling over the snow-clad mountains she alone seemed to see. It brought to mind the childhood memory of a long discarded event.
She’d been maybe eight or nine at the time, playing along the lane down to the pig sties, picking glistening baubles of sun-melted tar from between the setts and rolling it into a steadily growing sticky ball. After a while, she’d come across her mother’s much younger cousin, Cremyll, hearing his groans coming from beyond the back of the chicken coop.
Pushing her way through the long grass beside it, she’d clambered up the wall at the back of the old midden behind and peered over the top. Her uncle Cremyll lay against a tussock below, muffled giggles and laughter coming from old man Ditchwater’s pretty niece, her face buried in Cremyll’s lap.
“What you doing, Uncle?” Stella had asked, startled by the sudden flurry of movement and the settling of clothes. Ditchwater’s niece had gone red and refused to look up at Stella. Whilst Cremyll, had, with a barely suppressed grin, explained they were mushrooming, Stella remembered being captivated by the niece’s studied but averted gaze.
How long had that memory lain hidden? Stella wondered, her realisation now of w
hat had really been going on making her grin. A little over twenty years, she thought. Twenty years in which she’d never seen anyone else hold their gaze like that embarrassed young woman had, out beyond the walls. Had that experience somehow confirmed her own infant fancy that she indeed could see beyond those walls. Had it somehow made it linger as a feebleness of her adult mind?
Of course, she now realised the niece had been staring unseeingly, not through any fixation on a distant view. Stella remembered how the family had humoured her early childish notion until its persistence over the years had ultimately brought gentle yet firm censure.
They must have believed she’d grown out of it, but all she’d done was hide it away. Maybe her mum was right. Maybe she ought to broach it all with her dad, sort it out once and for all. Would she have the courage, though, the courage to reveal anything of what she was so afraid of admitting to herself?
3 Making a Pig’s Ear of It
Stella had finally fallen asleep in the bath but her shivering eventually woke her, the water by then stone cold. She’d leapt out, quickly dried, wrapped herself in a towel and dashed to her room to dress.
The house had felt empty, and so it had been when she went down to the kitchen, fastening her damp hair in a long ponytail. The stove had been damped and the sink looked dry, the teapot cold. She glanced through the window at the rake of sunlight now slanting across the cliff and realised how short the afternoon had become. A shiver clawed at her back, urging her from the shade of the kitchen, down the passageway and out into the warm sunshine.
The washing hung limply on three lines strung between the gable wall and the potting shed opposite, the faint smell of carbolic drifting down from the lofted pennants. House martins darted above, crisscrossing the clear blue sky, feeding on insects lured by the white expanse of shirts and sheets.
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 1
