“So, Nephril, what do you reckon we’ve got from it so far?”
He again traced his finger beneath the text but this time recited, “‘On no account permit dokdis of the’, ah, yes, ‘of the sprouting-cask until the incumbent maatrix is still-made to below visible levels – face-between eyncaegadis annihilation will result’,” and he sat back, frowning into space.
“Sprouting-cask,” Stella said. “That must be the cask dad brought back with him, but...”
“Enough. Enough,” Nephril said and turned her a twinkling eye. “I am afraid I am brought to the conclusion, Stella, that we now have only one recourse left us.”
“Recourse?” and Stella’s heart sank.
“We need to consult the only man who will know the meaning of these unfathomable words.”
“Dad.”
Nephril raised his eyebrows and smiled, apologetically.
“That’s reminded me, Nephril. I did mean to ask at some point, and now seems as good a time as any. I know Falmeard’s my dad, but ... but who exactly is he, really?”
29 Of Two Like Worlds
Slipping out onto the landing, Nephril called downstairs, “Whinny?” to which the squeak of boots on varnished floorboards soon answered back. “Would thou mind airing the guest room, mine lovely one? Mistress Stella will be staying the night.”
“Oh aye?” echoed up the stairwell, as though words had been left unsaid. “Suppose I can.”
“Thank thee. Much obliged, Whinny.”
“I can’t put you out like this, Nephril,” Stella said as he sat back down beside her. “It’s too much of an imposition.”
He took her hand and patted it. “’Tis almost too late for thee to reach lodgings from here, Stella. The nearest be The Chancery Gourd at Ruffingdon, and anyway, I have already asked Whinny to set an extra place at dinner.”
Stella tried to object but Nephril closed the matter by saying, “If I am to tell thee fully about thy father, it will be too dark to travel once I have finished.”
From somewhere hidden amongst the clutter, he found two crystal glasses and a flask of wine, and set them carefully on the table, but caught a glimpse of Stella’s look. “For what I am about to impart, I am afraid mine mouth will truly need oiling,” at which he grinned.
The leaden lustre of each glass gave way to a deep ruby red as Nephril poured the wine, his own charge quickly quaffed. Stella sipped at hers as he replenished his own.
Over the top of his second refill, Nephril softly began, “Thy father is an unusual ... well, why not, an unusual man, Stella. Wrought unlike any other in Dica, he was meant to live out eternity in a time wholly before our own, a time well before Dica was even a glint in an enger’s eye.”
Stella’s own eyes now stood out as though on stalks and she’d put her glass down, her mouth slowly dropping lower.
“He was meant to remain there, in somewhere called England, until, in the highly unlikely event of Leiyatel drawing near to death, he was to be called back to carry out his duties.”
“Unlikely or not, it did happen, though, didn’t it, Nephril? And not that long ago from what I gather.”
Nephril solemnly nodded, his eyes now dark and hollow.
Stella quietly said “But that duty only achieved one thing, didn’t it? Just my own unfortunate birth.”
Nephril squeezed her hand. “Mine dearest Stella, on this thou are quite wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Thou are not a product of his duty at all, for he knew nothing of his purpose then. Thou were born of his true love for thy mother, Geran; as plain and simple as that. Thou art a child of love, mine pretty one – and a rare love at that.”
He lowered his eyes, let slip Stella’s hand and cleared his throat. “I owe thee an apology, Stella,” he at first directed at his knees, but then lifted his eyes to behold her own. “‘Twas indeed I who advised them both to keep their love from thee, for thine own...”
“I know, Nephril, for my own good,” and she smiled. “Maybe you did right. After all, I got to my thirtieth year before Leiyatel finally found me. Although,” and she raised an eyebrow, “you might have chosen a better place than the Star Tower to hide me away.”
Nephril had to agree.
“I have to say, though, Nephril, dad’s reserve has long made me wary of him, even more so now at the thought of him finding out I took his papers.”
Nephril remained silent for a while, clearly deep in thought, until finally saying, “I have known thy father a long time, Stella. Not just in this life, no ... but also ... also in another.”
When Stella just stared at him, blankly, he settled himself in his seat and began to explain.
Both he and Falmeard, he told her, had agreed many years ago that they had in fact been close friends for hundreds of years, but not in this thread of time but another, one that somehow ran alongside. “Like the warp threads of a woven cloth,” he said before continuing.
“We each have memories of the other, thou see, common memories, but from within a Dica removed from this one, one where a vibrant and powerful Nouwelm sent an army against us,” and he stared out through the window at the gathering dusk, as though watching for ghosts.
“Thou see, Stella, Leiyatel is but an engine – a machine as thy father calls her – although one that manipulates things beneath the very dust of material matter, where she deftly weaves together energy and ... and time.”
“Time?”
“The very thing through which she brought thy father from the safety of his ancient refuge, from England, and how...” but he now appeared uncertain.
“How what, Nephril?”
He searched her eyes, as though looking for doubt. “Mine immortal life, young Stella, began more than two thousand years ago, in this Dica, but ... but I have lived it out once before, and for almost as long in ... in another.”
Stella blinked, staring at her wine glass.
“Nephril?”
“Yes, mine dear?”
“How strong’s this wine?”
Nephril ran his fingers through his hair until they got tangled and had to be tugged free. “I had a nephew, Auldus, who, in that first Dica, came into possession of a ring made from a cutting of Leiyatel. Somehow it became threatened and so Leiyatel did the only thing she could to save it – she sent it and mine nephew far back into thy father’s time in England.
“Somehow and at some time, Auldus managed to trick Leiyatel into returning him, but by doing so, brought thy father back too. Mine nephew, though, found himself returned into Nouwelm, and had to wait hundreds of years before he could get back here, over the Gray Mountains. When he did, he came with an army and a plan. He had cleverly devised a way of undoing the immortality with which the ring had for too long blighted him.”
Nephril looked pained. “He ... he had devised a way to ... to put things right by forcing Leiyatel to turn back time, to cast him to before that fateful threat to the ring that first took them both away.”
“You’re saying he undid two thousand years of history?”
Nephril blinked. “Well, I suppose thou could put it that way.”
“Which you then lived out all over again?”
He nodded.
Stella stared at him, lost for words until she quietly said, “I think I’m going mad.”
“The point is, Stella, in that first Dica, I came to know thy father over the course of many centuries, to know him as well as I know mine self.”
“It sounds just too fanciful, Nephril, and anyway, I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this.”
“Thy father first met thy mother near the end of that time, but was always too shy to declare his love for her. That love, though, lasted all the time he spent once more back in England, back in Dica’s distant past, until Leiyatel finally called him to his duty. She drew him back some forty years ago, back into this Dica – the one that carried on and in which we now both live.”
“Where he ... where he finally...”
“Where he finally bared his heart to thy mother. Yes, Stella, indeed so. Geran had grown a love in thy father that had weathered more than two thousand years. Of all people, thy father is the one to know most intimately what true love really is – a simple, true and everlasting love.”
Stella lowered her head and began softly crying into her hands, tears soon tracing past her fingers, dropping like silver beads to her lap. Nephril placed an arm around her and gently soothed, “So, mine sweetest one, dost thou now see what it was I needed thee to know?”
She swallowed and sniffed. “That ... that over the past thirty years,” she almost sobbed, “despite his reserve, he’s felt that very same true love for me too,” and again her tears got the better of her. “Oh, Dad, Dad, I’m so ashamed. What torture have I put you through?” and she fell against Nephril’s chest, his hands gently stroking her back.
Nephril gave her time, but then whispered into her hair, “Shush, mine dear sweet child, and listen. Thy father is largely weft and weave, and why he be such a simple soul. But – and this be the very important thing, Stella – it means that of all people he is most at risk of giving thee away to Leiyatel. When we go to see him, we must take utmost care not to give him cause to worry about thee. Dost thou understand, Stella?”
She nodded, drew away from his chest, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to smile. “I will, Nephril. I will,” and sniffed before taking his hand.
Stella found herself once more swimming in Nephril’s clear grey eyes, her heart rising at last.
“I hope,” she said, a tremor still in her voice, “we really can replace Leiyatel, for I don’t think I could bear dad’s hurt for much longer, not now I know how truly deep is his love for me.”
Nephril summoned a smile and gently and very softly drew her into his arms. “I hope so too, Stella, mine dear,” he breathed across her dampened hair, “hope with every ounce of mine own rekindled heart.”
30 Into a Maelstrom of Minds
“Remember, Stella, take care to raise no suspicions in thy father. In fact, I would keep out of his way as much as thou can if I were thee,” Nephril said as he stood with her at the front door. Behind her, the overnight rain trailed away into the distance through the dawn light now filling the sky beyond the yew hedge.”
“I will, Nephril. I’ll also try to put everything I’ve learnt to the back of my mind,” and she wrapped her coat closer about her as a fitful gust of wind rattled the first of the autumn fall of leaves around their feet.
“And mark mine words about Mistress Mirabel when thou see her. Although thou were careful not to say much about her...”
“But, Nephril, I...”
“...do not be deceived by her apparent innocence, hmm? Thou may think thou know her, but I do truly doubt it.” He raised a hand to stave off argument, but then smiled. “Take care, mine dear one, but make haste. Thy journey home will tax the shortening days now drawing in upon us.”
The warm light of the hall behind him tempted her enough, but his parting hug made her leaving all the harder. She was just thankful she didn’t have the whole of the long walk home before her.
“I know you can’t, Nephril, but I really do wish you could get to Blisteraising before Mirabel comes to stay.”
“I cannot, not so soon, but her being there may help. When I do arrive, take thy selves off on a jaunt or something, anything that will leave thy father and mine self some privacy. I need talk with him alone at first. I also need time to study his papers more closely before then.”
His tone filled her with foreboding until he smiled again, his eyes like the newly risen sun the garden still lacked. She pecked him on the cheek, returned his smile then hurried down the steps and onto the path.
She stopped by the gate and turned to wave, but the front door already stood dark against the cold dawn light. A quick check of the windows and she was soon at the barn door, quietly lifting its latch, quickly engulfed in darkness as she closed the door behind her.
Trusting to memory, Stella shuffled further into the darkness, her hands outstretched before her until they felt the warmth of the metal wall. She slid her hand along it and retraced her previous day’s steps, hoping she’d somehow blunder into the lemgang’s opening. She needn’t have worried for its legends soon glowed surprisingly brightly in the pitch dark before her.
Stella had already decided the Star Tower was out of the question. Given her early start, Elmond and his new acolyth could well be up and about still by the time she got there. More onerous, though, was the thought of passing so close again to Leiyatel’s exposed limb.
She shuddered. “I now know how foolish I was,” she quietly chided. “If I’d only known before that it stopped at the Towers of the Four Seasons,” which legend she now firmly stabbed.
Her stomach went light as the walls flickered and glowed, and as she consoled herself that the lemgang would at least save her legs half the effort of her journey home – and keep her well away from Leiyatel.
She lowered the seat and settled herself in for the tedious ride ahead. It didn’t help that her early morning start still lent weight to her eyelids, and soon they drooped ever lower.
Stella found herself tumbling to the floor, rudely jolted awake. Disoriented and feeling heavy, she eventually realised the cubicle was rising.
When her normal weight began to return, she stood, flipped up the seat and stared at the top of the wall as, not for the first time, she held her breath.
The panel soon slid down, now locked to the surface above, exposing more and more of a bright blue sky. A vast and empty expanse of flagged terrace appeared at her feet as the cubicle finally came to a rest.
Stella stared out to a distant line of treetops, peeping above a low perimeter wall. She leant her head out, peered down the side of the cubicle and gasped.
Some indeterminate distance away, four incomprehensibly huge towers reached high into the heavens. Although she’d never been so near, she recognised the southernmost Spring Tower’s grimy ochre tiles, and alongside it the faded jade of the Summer Tower. Next came the dirty brown of Autumn with Winter’s still virgin white glory shining out at the northernmost end.
She would never have believed their size, not from the distant views she’d become so accustomed to seeing. Somehow, though, so near, they seemed to blur her vision, to waver and shimmer before her eyes, like the twittering buzz she now realised filled her ears.
When Stella stepped out for a better look, her insides immediately tightened and her legs went leaden. Sweat chilled her back, her mind froze and bile rose in her throat as her bowels loosened. Untethered fear, raw and immediate, sharp and stinging, sent its white-hot needles through her limbs and felled her as her stomach knotted, rolling her into a ball.
Around her, the air hissed and simmered and sang, babbled and bemoaned, fair groaned and growled. Through it all, Stella heard a singular voice sweep about the towers, seeming to pass through their very bulk.
Startling her, a woman’s voice blew loudly past, like a storm tearing through a forest’s canopy.
“Ha. At last,” it boomed, rattling the leaves of Stella’s nerve. “At last, I canst see thy void amongst mine maelstrom of minds. Show thyself, O aberration,” but the words quickly thinned to the distance, howling now beyond the towers, their rumble wavering faintly to Stella’s ears.
She regained some feeling in her legs and needed no further urging. Pushing herself to her feet, she turned unsteadily from the towers and ran – ran as fast as her feeble legs would carry her.
“I wilt find and destroy thee, mark mine words,” the voice howled past once more, this time frighteningly close. “Whoever thou art, that be mine promise to thee. Take heed, mine misfit, heed of the certain promise of a Certain Power,” and it careened away, weakening but still echoing clearly in Stella’s fleeing mind. “The promise of the one Certain Power, of I, of Leiyfiantel,” it finally stabbed into the air.
Silence now fell, except for Stella’s
laboured breathing as she staggered towards an arched, black gap in the terrace wall. She raced through only to find thin air beneath her feet, and then she screamed.
31 Nemesis
A familiar voice – insistent, assured, somehow hollow – streamed through Stella’s thoughts. “I wilt find thee. I wilt destroy thee,” poured from the back of her mind, tipping coldly down her neck; sharp, intimate, raising the hairs on her arms.
“...find thee ... destroy thee ... find thee...” and there they frosted her heart before crawling beneath her cold-pressed back.
“...destroy thee ... find thee ... destroy thee...”
They had their fragrance, though, those words: the cold, mineral tang of a placid peace disturbed, an insistence made as to a tune amidst the rippling fragments of a reflected sky.
Little did she see of that sky, though, through the blur of half opened eyes; scattered blue shards laced amidst a tracery of bark-brown veins, each fragment waved away above a canopy of sunlit autumn leaves.
A lone russet hand-of-a-leaf descended, drawing Stella’s gaze. Her head followed and so soon teased out pain once more; the throb of bruises, the burn of grazes, sharp stings of recent wounds. She closed her eyes, let her head rest back and softly moaned.
A rustle, close by, stilled her, lifted an ear as she raised her lids and forced her eyes at least to roam, her pain momentarily forgotten.
To one side, Leiyatel’s repeated threats disclosed but a glittering cascade, an incessant fall of diamond chatter from a sheer rock face. The words fell as water between a tangle of bushes and boughs, down into a woodland lake upon whose opposite bank Stella once more lay back amidst resurgent pain.
The rustle came again, from beyond her feet – beyond where that pain refused her a view. Her gaze easily fell to her side, though, away from the lake, to where she came eye to eye with – a rabbit.
Not one, her startled stare now saw, but two, and a third, then a fox and some sparrows. Beyond them, atop a nearby rock, a line of crows stood wing-to-wing. They all, beast and bird alike, stared fixedly at Stella.
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 13
