As he stepped through the circular door into the beautiful glowing interior, Nate realized instantly that something was very wrong.
Barkscale the healer was standing over Eudoxia’s bed beside the high arched window, his cantilevered medical trunk open and its contents spread out before him. On either side of him stood Gilmora and Gomber, their eyestalks swaying from side to side in distress, silently wringing their hands.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nate blurted out, conscious that his voice sounded loud and raw in the hushed atrium of the lamphouse. ‘I’ve got the water, and fresh nightoil and woodaloes …’
‘Eudoxia’s taken a turn for the worse, my dear,’ said Gilmora, rushing up to Nate and hugging him. ‘Healer Barkscale has done everything he can for her …’
‘Everything?’ Nate said, his voice cracking.
Barkscale turned from Eudoxia’s bedside, and his black eyes scanned Nate’s face.
‘I have looked deep into her mind,’ Barkscale’s gentle voice sounded inside Nate’s head.
Unlike the thoughts of the other waifs, Nate usually found those of the healer calm and soothing. Now, though, as he listened to the soft words, he became aware of a tight knot of fear building in the pit of his stomach.
‘She has begun the journey away from the terrible pain that afflicts her,’ he said, ‘and is travelling towards the light … I fear she is leaving us, Nate.’
‘Is there nothing you can do?’ Nate murmured, tears filling his eyes. ‘I … I have water from the aqueduct,’ he added desperately.
On the sumpwood stretcher, Eudoxia lay still. Although her skin was as pale and translucent as the clearwood window arch, she looked strangely peaceful. Nate knelt down slowly beside her.
‘Are you really leaving me, Eudoxia?’ he whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it softly.
Behind him, Gomber cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, Barkscale, for all you’ve done,’ he mumbled. ‘Gilmora will show you out.’
Nate’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t go, Eudoxia,’ he begged. ‘Hang on, just a little while longer …’
He felt the gabtroll’s hand on his shoulder. ‘There is perhaps one last thing we could try,’ Gomber whispered softly. ‘But, no … it’s too dangerous.’
Nate looked up at him. The gabtroll’s eyestalks had shrunk back into his head, and he was visibly trembling.
‘Anything, Gomber,’ said Nate, climbing to his feet.
‘You could take water direct from the Riverrise spring – from the shore of the lake in the Garden of Life …’
‘The Riverrise spring?’ said Nate. ‘But how would I get up there? The keep bars the way, and Golderayce’s custodians stand constant guard. Everybody in Riverrise knows it is certain death to trespass in the Garden of Life.’
‘Nobody has ever succeeded before, I grant you,’ said Gilmora, returning from the door and wiping her hands agitatedly on her apron. ‘But we have no other choice,’ she said. ‘And besides, you’re forgetting one thing in our favour …’
‘What’s that?’ asked Nate, wiping his eyes.
The two gabtrolls exchanged furtive glances with one another, their eyestalks quivering.
‘We work for Golderayce,’ they whispered together.
• CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR •
The closer they came to the keep, the more imposing it appeared. Its huge globelamp glowed like a dazzling beacon high above the other lamps of Riverrise below, while above it was the inky blackness of the permanent night. Nate glanced up at the keep from below the hood of the black cape he was wearing and swapped the lampstaff from one hand to the other.
Light, he thought. Lamplight, glowing …
Beside him, Gilmora and Gomber wheezed and gasped.
‘Oh, it’s a dreadful climb,’ said Gilmora, the laden basket heavy on her arm. ‘And it … slurp … doesn’t get any shorter. And what with these old legs of mine, slurp slurp … it’s more of a struggle every time. Isn’t that right, Gomber?’ she said, her eyestalks peering round at her husband.
‘Certainly is, Gilmora,’ the gabtroll on Nate’s other side wheezed. The pointed end of his lampstaff crunched irregularly in the gravel as he lurched unsteadily forward. ‘And we’re neither of us … slurp … getting any younger.’
‘Unlike some I could mention,’ Gilmora said cheerfully. ‘Forty-five … slurp … years we’ve been tending to the Custodian General’s needs, and while we’ve been busy ageing, Golderayce One-Eye seems … slurp … more sprightly than ever – may Sky and Earth preserve our generous master!’
She gathered her skirts about her so that she could watch where she was treading as the three of them picked their way up a particularly rock-strewn stretch of path, their lampstaffs tilted forward to light the way. The flickering orbs of light cast strange confusing shadows from the jagged rocks that made the going difficult and, with the sheer drop to their side, increasingly hazardous.
‘May Sky and Earth preserve him indeed!’ Gomber agreed loudly. ‘Tending to the Custodian General’s needs gives our poor worthless lives a meaning. Isn’t that right, Gilmora, dear?’
‘You speak the truth, Gomber dearest,’ Gilmora replied, pausing to regain her breath. ‘Indeed you do!’
The keep loomed up in front of them. It was comprised of two buildings; a vast fortress with curved walls and high tiny windows at the front and, adjoining it behind, a squat tower. A huge globelamp was mounted at the top of the fortress, bathing the air in dazzling light and making the keep stand out against the pitch black of the eternal night all round it.
Look at the light.
That was what Healer Barkscale had told Nate, his voice at once patient and persuasive.
‘Think of the lamp,’ he’d said. ‘Fill your thoughts with light, just light … Only light …’
Eudoxia had a raging fever, and the healer was at her bedside tending to her far below in the lamphouse on Kobold’s Mount.
‘Of course, a fourthling like you could never learn to underthink,’ Barkscale had told Nate a few hours earlier, the voice in his head soft and understanding. ‘Not properly. Proper underthinking is something only waifs can do … But don’t despair, Nate Quarter,’ he’d continued, his large fan-like ears trembling as they detected the feelings of hopelessness that had overwhelmed the young lamplighter. ‘There is something you can do that will work almost as well …’
Behind him, the two old gabtrolls had nodded.
‘It’s something we do … slurp … the whole time,’ Gilmora had said, ‘when we’re up looking after old … slurp … Golderayce.’
‘It’s called overthinking,’ Barkscale had told him. ‘You have to think of one thing, and hold on to that thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts.’
‘One thought,’ Nate had said. ‘You mean like this?’
He’d closed his eyes and concentrated.
‘Oh, no, no, no. That’ll never do,’ the waterwaif had said at once, shaking his head.
‘But … it’s one thought,’ Nate had said, disappointed as the memory of his father’s smiling face faded away again, ‘just like you said.’
‘Yes, Nate, and if you were walking through the amphitheatre trying to mask your thoughts, it would be fine. But you won’t be in the amphitheatre or Kobold’s Mount, or up at the aqueduct – you’ll be at the keep, and there such a thought would give you away in an instant.’
‘I … I don’t understand,’ Nate had said, confused.
‘It isn’t easy to grasp,’ Gilmora had told him kindly. ‘Not at first.’ She’d paused. ‘You need to blend in, Nate. Slurp slurp. To become invisible.’
‘Imagine your thoughts are a voice,’ Gomber had said. ‘Imagine you’re in the forest hunting, and want to remain hidden, but all the time you’re shouting out, “My father!”, “My father!”. Do you see? No, to conceal yourself, you need to mask your own sounds – your footsteps, your breathing and the like – with the sound of, I don’t know, birdsong …’
‘Or rainfall,’
Gilmora had suggested.
‘Or the wind … slurp … whistling through the leaves.’
‘Do you understand now?’ Barkscale’s voice sounded inside Nate’s head once more. ‘It can’t be a person. Or a place. Not up at the keep. It has to be something … yes, that’s right,’ he said as Nate imagined himself staring down at the glistening surface of a clear lake. ‘Yes, that’s much better.’
Nate had held on to the thought of the water, splashing against a muddy bank and sparkling in the low sunlight. It was cool. It was swirling. It had the power to revive his ailing friend, Eudoxia, and …
‘No, Nate,’ Healer Barkscale’s voice had sounded gently and Nate knew at once that he’d let his thoughts stray. ‘It was the right idea,’ said the waterwaif, his green scales glinting in the lamplight, ‘but …’ He’d paused, and a moment later Nate heard a voice in his head. ‘You’re a lamplighter,’ Barkscale had said simply.
‘I used to be,’ Nate had replied. ‘In the phraxmines of the Eastern Woods, and the phraxchamber works of Copperwood …’
‘Then that’s it,’ Barkscale had told him. ‘That’s the thought you must hold on to. Not water, but light. Bright light. Enveloping light. Can you do that, Nate?’
And even as the waterwaif had spoken, Nate could see a lamp shining brightly inside his head.
‘Think of the lamp,’ Barkscale’s voice said softly. ‘Fill your thoughts with the light … Just light. Only light …’
Up ahead, the bright light of the huge globelamp mounted at the top of the keep filled Nate’s vision and, when he blinked, he could still see it. The light filled his head, warm and honey-like, filling every crack and crevice of his mind, leaving no corner for other thoughts to form.
Just light … Only light …
‘Here we are, Gomber dearest,’ Gilmora was saying, her eyestalks looking round her nervously. ‘Back at the keep that guards the path to the Garden of Life. None shall pass but our generous master, for the keep is strong, the keep is high!’
‘So it is, Gilmora dear,’ wheezed her husband. ‘Earth and Sky be praised!’
He pointed to a rock by the cliffside, then up to a tiny window directly above it, high up near the top of the keep. Nate nodded, dispelling the slight tremor of unease which came into his mind and replacing it with lamplight. A set of steps led directly up from the path to a broad-arched leadwood door in the fortress. Far above it, four small upper windows studded the great curving frontage.
Nate crouched down behind the jagged rock, his body wreathed in shadow, while inside his head the light continued to glow steadily. From the top of the steps, he heard Gomber raise his lampstaff and strike it against the hard wood, the sound echoing through the cavernous hallway beyond. He heard bolts grinding as they were slid across and a low creak of unoiled hinges as the heavy door swung open, followed by the low murmur and slurp of the gabtrolls’ voices.
‘Ah, it’s you,’ he heard, and peered round the rock to see a waif custodian standing in the doorway, his white robes shimmering and a long blowpipe in his hand. ‘At last. The master has missed you.’
There was more murmuring, low and apologetic, and a loud clang as the door slammed shut behind them. Nate sank back on his heels, and waited. The air was silent but for the soft whispering of the wind blowing round the curved sides of the keep. It was all Nate could do to prevent himself thinking about what might lie ahead – but he knew he must not. Second guesses and suppositions were not allowed in his head. Not now. Only the light. The warm, golden light that masked his presence in this strange, eerie fastness, halfway up the steep mountainside.
‘Psst!’
The faint hissing sound broke through the light. Nate acknowledged it, then pushed it aside, filling his head with the light once more as he emerged from his hiding place and looked up.
Far above his head, he saw that the latticed shutters on the tiny window closest to the sheer mountain behind were open. Gilmora’s head was sticking out. Then, as Nate stepped forward, a rope came tumbling out of the window, one end fixed at the top, the other dangling down at Nate’s side. He seized it and began to climb.
The light, he thought inside his head. Fill your head with the light. Just light. Only light …
Hand over hand, with his feet tightly gripping the rope, Nate pulled himself up the rough surface of the building. It was a long climb, an exhausting climb. Once, he glanced round to see how far he’d already gone, and a tremor of fear rippled through his head as he was shocked to see how far above the rocky ground he was.
The light, he told himself, resuming the climb. Only the light …
Just then, Nate felt a flapping close to his ear. He froze, his feet and hands gripping hold of the rope and heart pounding. The next moment, it was gone.
Only the light …
‘Just opening the window,’ Gilmora said to herself cheerfully, ‘to let the cool night air into this stuffy old storeroom.’
Down in Golderayce’s chamber, the Custodian General was sitting at his dining table, the lampstaff propped up against his chair. He looked up from his meal and eyed Gomber suspiciously. Superficially, there was nothing different about the old gabtroll. He was pottering around the room just as he always did; tending the lamps, dusting the shelves and tidying the disorder that had resulted from the old waif being left untended for a whole month. And yet …
‘It’s so good to have you and Gilmora back with me once more,’ he said. ‘That gnokgoblin you left me with was a poor substitute. Nowhere near as attentive to my needs.’ His eyes narrowed. What are you hiding? What is it lurking there, furtive and hesitant, beneath your cheerfulness?
‘It’s good to be back,’ Gomber told him, pulling the cork from the opened bottle of sapwine and refilling Golderayce’s glass with the sweet ruby-coloured liquid. ‘I hope you like the sapwine, sir. Gilmora brought it all the way from the Deepwoods, especially for you.’
‘The sapwine is excellent,’ said Golderayce, his barbels quivering as what passed for a smile stretched his thin lips. He took another sip. ‘Where is Gilmora? I should like to thank her myself.’
‘She’s fetching fresh candles for you from the upper store,’ said Gomber.
‘Very thoughtful of her,’ said Golderayce, staring at Gomber intently as he detected that slight furtiveness in his thoughts once again. She’s been gone ages. Where is she?
He listened to the sounds of the keep – the scuttling of rock beetles, the idle musings of the custodian guards at the front entrance …
Ah, yes, there she was. The old gabtroll’s thoughts were as tedious as they were unmistakeable. She was in the storeroom, and her head was indeed full of thoughts of the candles clutched in her hand, and how she would set them in Golderayce’s silver candlesticks and fill his chamber with light … Just light … Only light …
Up in the storeroom, Gilmora flinched as she felt the Custodian General probe her thoughts. She pushed the candles down inside the woven bag that hung from her shoulder.
‘Soon have that lovely chamber glowing bright and lovely for the master,’ she muttered to herself as she helped Nate over the windowsill, pulled the rope up and closed the shutters.
Nate found himself in a dusty ill-lit room, the walls lined with huge vats, familiar to him from the aqueduct but far, far larger. They were old and covered in a fine lace of nightspider webs and dated from a time when the waters of Riverrise had flowed uninterrupted from the lake in the Garden of Life down to the city below.
Just light … Only light …
Gilmora beckoned.
They crossed the floor, leaving footprints in the thick dust, and went out of the low leadwood door on the other side. Gilmora stepped through, pulled it shut behind them and, selecting one of the large iron keys that hung in a cluster from her belt, turned it in the lock. She beckoned a second time.
The light glowed brightly in Nate’s thoughts as he followed the old gabtroll along a lamp-lined corridor.
They hurried over the ti
led floor to the far end, and down some steps. Then, taking a second, narrower corridor, Nate peered out through one of the thin unglazed slits in the wall to find that they were crossing over a bridge that joined the curved fortress to the squat tower behind. On the far side, a brightly lit staircase zigzagged down, which they started to descend. After two flights, Gilmora raised a hand agitatedly and the two of them slipped into the shadows.
‘Who goes there?’ The thoughts of the custodian guard standing on the landing below sounded in Nate and Gilmora’s heads.
‘It’s just the gabtroll … fetching candles,’ his fellow guard’s thoughts sounded in reply.
Light, just light … Only light …
The guards chuckled. ‘For our master …’
They shouldered their blowpipes and continued their rounds. Gilmora waited for the shuffling footsteps of the custodians to recede, before turning to Nate and nodding.
They continued down the stairs, passing low doors – some open, some closed – which led off into the sleeping chambers of the resident guard. At the bottom of the tower, while Gilmora was fumbling with the keys a second time, Nate looked around him. The hall they were in was low-ceilinged, with an uneven stone floor and roughcast walls lined with hooks and racks that were filled with glistening waif overrobes and lines of blowpipes. Above them, on shelves, were bunches of the deadly darts they fired …
The lamp, Nate told himself. Just light … Only light, filling every crevice of my mind with its glow.
‘Must get these candles to my master, Sky and Earth bless him!’ said Gilmora, turning the key in the lock and easing the heavy leadwood door open.
Nate stepped outside and held his lampstaff up. The light streamed out along the path before him – the path that would take him directly to the Garden of Life. He patted the glass vial nestling in the pocket of his tilderleather jacket. To the precious lake water that would make Eudoxia well again …
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 44
