Her aunt’s mouth dropped open, her eyes seeming to weigh Stella’s words. She drew her legs up against her chest, around which she wrapped her arms. “Yes, I remember it now,” Prescinda whispered.
“You remember it? How?”
“I’m over eighty, Stella, creeping on towards middle life, and so have done much which I only now remember, seen much I should never have seen. I even once reasoned out how this tower keeps so rock-still and upright, like the spinning top I had as a child. But why should I remember that now?”
Stella peered up beyond the narrow gap. “Because above us is where Leiyatel sharpens her stare, out and far away into the heavens. So intense a stare she can’t see behind her, not down here, can’t fill the space about us with her insidious control.”
“Insidious control?”
“It’s Leiyatel who’s robbed you of your memories, Aunt Prescinda, and much more beside I suspect. Robbed all but a few of the glints that should have lived on in their eyes.” She took Prescinda’s hand in her own. “So, my dearest aunt, now we’re hidden from Leiyatel, what, from all your newfound memories, can you remember of me?”
Prescinda searched Stella’s face, unable to close her mouth until she’d whispered, “Nothing. Nothing at all, Stella,” and slowly shook her head as she lowered her eyes.
Before the ghosts could glide in and whistle yet more laments, Prescinda lifted her gaze, her eyes narrowed to slits. “But I do remember Nephril once telling me something.”
“Lord Nephril? I didn’t know you knew him.”
Prescinda looked towards the centre of the chamber. “When we were crossing Foundling Bay together, not long before you were born, he explained peripheral spillage to me.”
“I don’t understand, Aunty, and what were you doing with Lord Nephril, and out on the bay?”
“Leiyatel’s beam goes straight out through the crystal dome at the top of this tower, doesn’t it? Right at its centre?”
“You sound like you’ve seen it.”
“I have, Stella, I have, but more importantly, I know it’s not directly above here at all. It’s above there,” and she pointed to the centre of the chamber, where the ceiling hung to only a couple of feet from the floor. She clutched Stella’s hand close to her chest and smiled. “It seems my memories of you are well hidden, which only makes me wonder why.”
“I don’t like the look in your eyes, Aunt Prescinda.”
“Come on, dear, I need your help getting me completely behind Leiyatel’s gaze.” She slid her bag to the floor and rolled forward onto her hands and knees. “Watch my head,” and she padded out on her way towards the centre of the chamber.
“Aunty? You can’t. Stop there, right now. It’s too dangerous,” but Prescinda kept on crawling. “Damn, shit and blast,” and Stella grimaced, then pushed herself onto all fours and followed, a wary eye to the diminishing distance between the lethal pestle and her aunt’s approaching scalp.
When Stella saw her aunt’s hair catch in the drag of air from the spinning chain, she warned her to get lower, and Prescinda dropped to her stomach.
“You stay where you are and watch out for me,” Prescinda shouted back, then pushed herself forward, inch by agonising inch.
Stella’s heart sank as Prescinda’s receding figure lent scale to the pestle, a fragile smudge between its oppressive grey expanse and the pristine white floor. Scant inches, reduced to hair’s breadths at each squirm forward, eventually separated her shoulder blades from being ground through to her heart.
“Stop,” Stella called, her voice almost breaking. “You’re nearly touching it when you move.”
Her aunt’s voice seemed hard won. “How ... how far ... am I ... from the middle?”
“As near as damn it there,” and more inches immediately crept in above Prescinda’s now stilled body.
The ghosts returned, their icy whistling steadily filling Stella’s ears, the thump of her heart building a dull rhythm beneath. Only Prescinda’s hair moved, flicking up like flames in the pestle’s draw.
In the minutes she waited, Stella cursed herself, cursed her need to know who she was, and what world they all really lived in. What if her aunt were to die here? How could she bear living with the remorse, knowing she’d killed her?
“Damn,” she muttered to herself. “Why couldn’t I just have accepted things the way they were?” and then Prescinda yelped.
Stella stared at the absent space now between her aunt’s shoulder and the pestle, a small red ring scribed on the ceiling. She darted forward but hesitated.
“Aunt Prescinda?” she shouted, about to drop to her stomach when her aunt’s call stopped her.
“I’m alright,” she moaned into the floor. “I’m ... I’m coming back.”
Her return proved painfully slow, torture for Stella seeing the red smear her aunt trailed behind her. She rested often, her forehead pressed to the floor, but eventually Stella felt certain she could safely rise to all fours.
Before long, Stella had her arm about her, half dragging her aunt back to the wall where they both slumped down.
Prescinda grimaced and turned her back to Stella. “How bad is it?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Stella said, the smell of blood filling her nose. “You’ll have to strip off,” then noticed her aunt’s face, all smeared with the stuff.
“Shit,” Prescinda spat as she eased her jacket off, Stella wincing at what she could now see through the hole in her aunt’s blouse.
Stella soon used it to swab around the wound, but almost wept when the blood just kept oozing out.
“Well?” Prescinda said.
“It’s not good, Aunty. Not good at all.”
“Describe it.”
“Well, about the size of my palm, but I can’t tell how deep.”
“Pack my blouse into it. Plug it the best you can.”
Stella did just that, then Prescinda turned her jacket inside out and carefully put it back on, buttoning it up tightly to hold the blouse in place. “It’ll have to do ‘til we get back,” she said.
“We’ll go up to the Star Chamber, Aunty. We can sort it out there. There’ll be someone on duty, even if they’re asleep now.”
Prescinda shook her head. “We can’t. We shouldn’t be down here in the first place. I don’t want you getting into trouble.”
“But...”
“But nothing. I’m well enough, and if we can keep it from bleeding, I’ll be able to get back home soon enough. First, though, I’ve something I have to tell you, something that can’t wait.”
“But we need to get you back quickly.”
“We can’t, Stella. As soon as I leave here, I’ll start forgetting, you know I will, so you need to hear right now what we’ve been keeping from you all these years.”
20 A Confession
“Does the term ‘weft and weave’ mean anything to you, Stella?” Prescinda said.
“I know mine’s different from everyone else’s.”
“But ... how do you know that?”
Stella felt her heart skip a beat. “Oh, err, well, Mirabel told me.”
“Mirabel?” Prescinda frowned, then her eyes lit up. “Of course, Melkin Mudark. She’s his daughter, and now I remember her from Grayden. Married to that sea pilot, err, what was his name?”
“Phaylan.”
“That’s right. Clever lad. A bit cold, though.”
“My weft and weave, Aunty?”
“Ah,” and Prescinda’s face clouded. “Yes, you’re right, it is different, unique in fact.”
“I know it’s not of Leiyatel.”
“But do you know what that means?”
“Means?”
Prescinda snuggled up close to Stella, wincing at the pain in her shoulder as she took Stella’s hand. “I think I’d better start at the beginning.”
As concisely as she could, Prescinda revealed how Leiyatel had been declining over the millennia, her power diminished by the demands of a burgeoning population. She told Stel
la that when Leiyatel finally drew near to her death – a decade or so before Stella was born – she put an ancient plan in motion, and that Stella’s own father, Falmeard, had played an instrumental part.
“He brought another Certain Power to Dica from somewhere far away, Stella, to replace Leiyatel. The idea was to return the realm to how it should always have been, to ensure its survival.” The image of the hidden cask popped into Stella’s mind.
“So why do we still have Leiyatel?”
“Ah, well, this is where we have to thank Nephril I’m afraid, although he meant well. He managed to save Leiyatel by re-growing her, like a ... like a graft of a tree. The trouble was, before your father’s new Certain Power could be used, Leiyatel’s cutting had long been planted.”
“So her replacement was no longer needed.”
“Exactly.”
“So what’s this got to do with my weft and weave?”
Prescinda bit her lip. “Well, your dad had a further task, one he’d inadvertently started before he knew anything at all about it.” She paused, clearly gathering her thoughts. “In order for the new Certain Power to be able to protect all future Dicans, an altered generation had to be born, one with an appropriate weft and weave.”
Protect? Stella thought, more like control, then it dawned on her what her aunt was trying to tell her. “You mean dad was supposed to father children who’d have a new weft and weave, to match the replacement Certain Power?”
Prescinda’s eyes softened. “You were the only one, though, Stella. You’d been conceived before he knew the purpose of his unusual seed.”
Stella slumped against the wall. “So, I am in the wrong world then,” and somehow she felt relieved.
“The right world, Stella, just with the wrong Certain Power,” and Prescinda patted Stella’s hand.
Eventually, Stella turned to face her, the life seemingly knocked from her words. “Well ... I suppose we’d better get you back then. You’re still losing blood, and I don’t...”
“There’s something else, Stella,” and Prescinda’s mouth firmed to a hard line.
“What ... what else, Aunty?”
Prescinda lowered her gaze. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I wish we’d handled it better.”
Stella stiffened. “Handled what?”
“Your weft and weave, my dear, not only denies you Leiyatel’s protection, but it’s...” Prescinda squeezed Stella’s hand and swallowed.
“But it’s what, Aunty?”
“Well, it’s ... it’s more than just that. Your weft and weave is, well, it’s alien to Leiyatel.”
“Alien?”
“If she were to become aware of you, she would ... she would do all within her power to ... to destroy you.”
Stella watched the muscles twitch around her aunt’s mouth and across her cheeks, her eyes quickly moistening. A tear broke free, coursed to her chin and quivered there a moment before falling.
“Destroy me?” was all Stella could say.
Her aunt sniffed back her tears. “We had to agree as a family – your mum, your dad and me – that we’d try not to show you too much affection, try our hardest not to worry about you. It was our only way of keeping you safe you see. If we’d fretted all your life about losing you, then Leiyatel would have been alerted to your presence. Our own wefts and weaves would have given you away.”
“But I’ve always felt you cared, although dad’s always seemed a bit ... well, cold towards me.”
“He still loves you, Stella. We all do. You must believe that. It’s how we bore the pain of trying to be so reserved with you at first, although, as your mum and I lost our memories of the need, it’s been your dad who’s kept truest to our promise. It’s he who’s borne the pain the most. I can see now how frustrated he must have been, and how he’s striven over the years to curb our own show of affection.”
Stella felt her heart go cold. Was it only her alien weft and weave that had set her so apart, or her own father’s attempts to deny their love for her? Her heart, though, now froze solid. “Oh, no. My fever!” Had she already been discovered? Had Leiyatel made a first attempt on her life?
“Come on, Aunty, I think I’ve heard enough.” She stood up and offered her hand. “I’m getting you back before I have to end up carrying you.”
As Prescinda pulled herself up on Stella’s hand, her aunt reached for her bag, reminding Stella. “Before we go, I need to give you this,” and she drew a small piece of card from her pocket.
Her aunt held it up to the light and read, “DO NOT LOSE ME! If someone says ‘Anasci’ to you, do as they bid – without question.”
“Keep it safe in your bag, Aunty. I know it never leaves your side. Maybe we’ll meet here again one day – the real you and I.”
Prescinda nodded, carefully slipped it into a pocket in her bag which she hoisted to her shoulder. “I hate the thought of going back to what I’ve become, Stella, though I don’t suppose the real me will know by then,” and a hollow smile strained Prescinda’s lips.
Stella drew her close and hugged her. “I’ll think of something, Aunty. Trust me. We’ll meet again, I promise, and maybe then we’ll have a simpler love between us.”
21 The Climb Back to Daylight
Not long after they’d begun the climb, Stella realised how much better she felt, her energy somehow returned, her occasional dizziness no longer plaguing her. She wondered if she’d slipped free of Leiyatel’s grasp whilst being behind her gaze, hoped so and that it would last.
As she placed an arm around her aunt’s waist, carefully helping her up the steps, she noticed there seemed less blood soaking through her jacket. The patch still glistened, although now brown in the strange blue light. Her initial shock must have worn off for Prescinda clearly suffered more pain and rarely spoke.
Naturally, Stella couldn’t get the threat from Leiyatel out of her mind. “Aunty?”
“Yes?” Prescinda grimaced.
“Just say if you’d prefer not to talk, but do you know what dad did with the Certain Power he brought back?”
“He hid it somewhere,” and she grunted up the next step. “But where, I’ve no idea. He never said. I don’t think any of us wanted to know really.”
“But he’d still remember?”
“He should.” Prescinda stopped and breathed heavily for a moment. “Your father’s quite unlike anyone else in Dica, Stella. He’s ... he’s not made like the rest of us, even you.” A brief smile lit her face. “And if you’re thinking of broaching any of this with him then I’d think again.”
She held her palm against Stella’s cheek. “Your father’s a simple soul, my dear. He may remember everything, but I doubt he understands much of it. He never really did.”
“Then who was it who decided I should be treated the way I have”
“That was...” but she frowned. “That was, oh, that fellow I returned with, you know, across Foundling Bay.”
“Lord Nephril?”
“That’s the one.”
“But why him?”
“Why who, Stella?”
Stella could think of nothing to say and so urged her aunt on, trying hard to think of anything she ought to ask before Prescinda forgot everything. Now, though, it dawned on her that that was fast becoming the one thing she shouldn’t do. Leiyatel couldn’t sense Stella directly, but she could clearly infer her presence through the wefts and weaves of others – like her aunt.
In which case, she thought, there now appears to be only two people I can safely approach. Mirabel was one, having no weft and weave at all, but the other might possibly be Lord Nephril. Mirabel had said as much when she’d told her that he still saw beyond the walls, which would suggest he was somehow immune to Leiyatel himself. But where was it Mirabel had said he lived?
It seemed an age before the air became fresher, and sure enough, the door at the head of the steps eventually came into view. Prescinda must have noticed for she pushed herself up the last few steps, although wave
s of pain now etched her face the more.
The swirling stars tempted Stella to bundle her up to the Star Chamber, but her aunt seemed to sense it. “Let’s get back home, eh, Stella? It’s mainly downhill, and the fresher air should do me good.”
Stella wasn’t convinced but helped Prescinda onto the platform anyway, where they swung back up to the chamber above, soon down the passage and out into the afternoon sun. Prescinda breathed in deeply but then had to sit down against the wall of the alcove.
“Just a few moments, my dear, then we can get off.”
She closed her eyes and rolled her shoulder but winced, tensing at the pain. Stella squatted close before her.
When her aunt finally opened her eyes, they narrowed at Stella, their stare unusually beady. It reminded her of her old friend Mr. Crow. Despite Prescinda’s evident pain, she leant nearer and peered deeper into Stella’s eyes.
“Now we’re in a proper light, there’s something about you that reminds me of someone,” she whispered. “Someone I had cause to throw from a balcony.”
“Throw? From a balcony?”
“At the Royal College. I’m sure it was there.”
“It must be the pain, Aunty. You rest awhile and...”
“Yes, Steward Melkin. That’s who it was.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Chancellor... Just a minute. You threw the chancellor off a balcony?”
“Did I? That doesn’t sound like me. Who told you that?”
“Please, Aunty, try to...” but Stella now remembered her father’s scrawled note, the one against the text which had mentioned Anasci. Something about Prescinda being the only one who could see the black silhouette.
“What did you see in him, Aunt Prescinda? What did you see in Melkin Mudark?” but for a moment, Prescinda only closed her eyes again and rested against the wall.
“It was scared out of him, Stella,” she eventually murmured, “so there’s no need to worry about him anymore, and anyway, Leiyatel saved him from his fall.”
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 9
