An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5)

by Clive S. Johnson

  Confidently, despite the near blackness, Nephril strode towards the distant light. Other than the scuff of his sandals, closely echoing about him, nothing else could be heard. No tell-tale hum in the air spoke of a Certain Power’s presence, nor a twittering flutter against his sharpened mind, no hint in fact of any breath of Ceosana.

  The place felt as dead and cold as ice, like the sheets of it he’d once seen upon the Gray Mountain peaks. Even the spread of light ahead looked to have come through the walls of a glacial tomb.

  Clearly a larger space lay beyond the end of the passage, but only when Nephril eventually came to it did the poor light there reveal something of its immense size. He now stood on a small balcony, staring out across an indistinct abyss, a huge cavern vanishing into an unfathomable distance.

  He gripped the balcony’s parapet and looked up. A vast, dark-grey latticework laced the cavern’s roof, perhaps a hundred feet above, like the roots of a gigantic tree. The higher limbs blurred into what truly did appear to be ice, thickly encrusted on top although eerily opalescent.

  Nephril stared in wonder, remembering the broiling, seething, crimson storm that ever-raged beneath Baradcar’s own crater. There, it was always hot, its oozing lakes and spumes of molten rock throwing up great breaths of singeing air from its unutterable depths.

  Beneath Nephril now, however, swam only darkness, far, far below, too deep for such thin light to reach. It also felt damp, and Nephril shivered.

  Where was the bridge, he wondered, to reach across to Ceosana’s lair, far away at the centre of this vast chamber? Perhaps a span too far, he thought, and muttered, “Sixteen miles too far.”

  “What is?” Breadgrinder asked.

  “By Leiyatel, thou didst startle me.”

  “Obviously lost in thought, eh?”

  Nephril didn’t answer, only turned back to the dim view. It saddened him. What power there must have been here, he thought, such enormous surety, yet men had still bled it dry.

  “What,” he again asked Breadgrinder, “what was it the steward hoped to profit by from this place?”

  Breadgrinder didn’t answer, but he did grin.

  “I have held to mine own side of the bargain, Master Breadgrinder, so now thou dost owe me an...”

  Breadgrinder lunged at him, swept him up in an unbreakable grip and swung him onto the rail of the parapet, under which Nephril’s leg somehow got caught. He yelped in pain which momentarily loosened Breadgrinder’s hold, letting Nephril’s arm come free.

  Blindly, he rammed his freed hand hard into Breadgrinder’s face, a finger fortuitously finding an eye. A clench of the fist was enough to loosen Breadgrinder’s hold, enough for Nephril to slip clear, although he fell when his injured leg gave way.

  “You bastard,” Breadgrinder howled as he held the side of his face. He now towered over Nephril, peering down malevolently through his usable eye.

  “Hast thou gone mad?” Nephril shouted. “What wickedness courses through thy blood?”

  Breadgrinder’s face now flushed bright red with the stuff, rage clearly boiling beneath. Before Nephril could scramble away, he felt a sharp pain in his hip and glimpsed Breadgrinder’s large boot swinging back for another kick.

  When it came, Nephril rolled with it, but up against the parapet, trapped. Before he knew it, he’d been swept off the floor and away from the parapet, where Breadgrinder clearly made ready to swing Nephril clear over its rail.

  Nephril felt immense strength ripple down Breadgrinder’s arms as they began to throw him forward, high enough to clear the rail. He seemed to glide towards it as though through syrup, Breadgrinder’s grip slowly loosening for the push.

  “STOP IT NOW!” dissolved the syrup and hastened the world as it brought hesitation jarring through Breadgrinder’s propelling arms. “DO YOU HEAR ME? Prescinda now bellowed, then screamed, “STOP IT, THIS INSTANT!” before the rail struck Nephril across his stomach.

  Winded, he fell back but noticed a one-eyed Master Exchanger stumble past, surprise on his face and limbs now devoid of all motive force. The ancient parapet stood no chance, not against such a big man’s moving weight. It merely groaned as it broke, giving way to Master Breadgrinder’s long but silent descent.

  43 A Shared View

  “By ‘eck, I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” Dialwatcher gasped and cautiously peered through the gap in the parapet, down into blackness. “It were as though he’d been poleaxed,” he marvelled at Prescinda, “and what were he attacking thee for anyway, Lord Nephril?”

  Prescinda had dropped down beside Nephril, where he still lay on the ground, she too fraught to hear Dialwatcher’s question. Nephril, though, soon assured her he was all right.

  “How did thee do that?” Dialwatcher asked her, but she didn’t really know.

  “What have I done?” was all she could say, but Nephril placed a hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

  “Thou hath saved mine life, mine cherished one. Dost thou not realise that?”

  “Can thee walk?” Dialwatcher asked. “We shouldn’t leave this unusual lass exposed to this air for much longer. She should be back in t’craulena.”

  When they helped Nephril up, they found he could still walk, although with some pain. Supporting him on each side, they helped him back along the dark passage.

  After only a few steps, though, he drew them to a halt and turned to Prescinda. “Breathe deeply of mine own breath,” he said before finding her face and pressing his lips to hers.

  At first startled, she froze but then relaxed and slowly drew on Nephril’s exhaled breath.

  “When thou needst take another,” he instructed, “do it again from mine own lungs,” to which she patted his arm in the darkness before they moved on.

  Not wishing to leave those in the craulena without protection, Dialwatcher had delayed in chasing after Prescinda’s sudden flight. He’d only arrived near the end of the tussle and so again asked Nephril what had started it all.

  “I had only been seeking the steward’s purpose in coming here,” Nephril told him, “but then Master Breadgrinder turned on me, out of the blue, like a madman.”

  “I wouldn’t ‘ave thought it of Breadgrinder, not in a million years, not until of late.”

  “Of late?”

  “Aye. He weren’t t’same as t’last time I saw ‘im a couple o’ years back. He were always a bit uppity thee know - thought a lot of himsen - but this time it were somehow different.”

  “Different?”

  “As though he ‘ad a purpose or summat. Dead odd it were. Not like ‘im at all, although he were always one for being serious.”

  Prescinda needed another breath, but they weren’t long in moving on again, the circular entrance now visible in the distance, if only dimly. Clearly evening was drawing in and so they tried to hasten Nephril.

  “So,” he said, wincing in pain, “what do we tell Phaylan?”

  “I don’t think it’ll matter much,” Dialwatcher said. “I reckon there’s not much love lost there. Maybe make out he accidentally fell, like. You know; leant against t’parapet not knowing how weak it were. Summat simple like that.”

  Prescinda felt wretched. She’d not intended Breadgrinder any harm but felt guilty all the same. It had happened so quickly. One minute they’d been talking, too quietly for her to hear properly as she’d drawn near, the next he’d leapt on poor old Nephril.

  “What do we say about your injuries, though, Nephril,” she asked, trying to forget the memory, but had to take another breath from his mouth before he’d answer.

  “Just say I fell trying to pull him back. I am ancient after all, and so easily hurt. It will not seem strange.”

  She was sure she’d heard a smile in his voice.

  He clearly felt well enough now to send Dialwatcher ahead, to refresh the craulena’s air for its occupants. Prescinda noticed how Nephril had begun to put less weight against her, carrying himself more easily. It wasn’t long before they too scrambled back through the h
ole, across the room and out into the deepening dusk.

  “Why do you think he turned on you?” Prescinda asked, feeling freer to talk now they were almost back at the craulena. The verdant half-light made his eyes seem like fathomless pools, but a glint soon rose from their depths.

  “I truly do not know, Prescinda, but clearly he no longer had need of me.”

  “Need?”

  “I reckon Master Breadgrinder had seen enough by then, that he had found what the steward so dearly sought.”

  “Well, whatever it was, the steward will never get to know now, not unless,” and a smile at last found its way to her lips, “not unless you can work out what he saw. After all, Nephril, you were there too.”

  Nephril didn’t reply, more preoccupied now with getting Prescinda back into the craulena, but she’d known him long enough to recognise that silence. Behind it would almost certainly be an ineluctable weight of thought, one destined in its own good time to arrive at an answer.

  More immediately, though, she noticed Phaylan waiting for them. She thought she saw only surprise on his face, but it was after all now getting far too dark to be sure.

  44 A Truly Bounded Plain

  The steermaster seemed largely unconcerned. Curious about the circumstances certainly, but otherwise showing little more interest than would have been expected of any Galgaverran. Prescinda wondered if his reaction was simply studied, the blood of his own kind conveniently used as a foil.

  At first the succession of leadership proved indeterminate. Phaylan had sought a decision from Dialwatcher - as the remaining Nouwelmer - but he’d quickly declined, sourly reminding them he was only here to provide clean air.

  When Phaylan looked to Nephril, he just shrugged. “Prescinda and I are not officially here,” he said with a grin, “so, it would appear to leave only thyself, Steermaster Phaylan.”

  “Very well,” he said, letting loose his pilot’s resolve and so bringing with it a decisive course.

  Phaylan felt fresh enough to press on through the night given that Breadgrinder had driven all day. “I’m keen to get us out of this foul air as soon as possible. I’ll need a second pair of eyes, though, on two hour watches.”

  Prescinda volunteered but was denied the first stint. Nephril pressed her to rest awhile and elected himself to the role despite the nagging pain in his leg.

  Although they didn’t take long before setting off, by now only stars lit the dry and dusty plain, the hem of the sun’s satin skirt having slid well down beyond the hidden horizon. Nephril tried to think when the moon would rise and how full it would be but felt too wearied to work it out.

  The craulena’s growl pushed the problem to the back of his mind but the naphtha lamps’ sullen glow soon displaced it entirely. Nephril’s attention fell to the close, mesmeric world of passing dust and rocks, and the slowly growing number of phantoms that tiredness invariably brings to the eyes.

  Most of the credit for their safe southern passage fell to Phaylan’s dogged determination, more so than Nephril’s at times snoring assistance. Dialwatcher’s following watch proved more effective although the craulena’s compass helped Phaylan the most.

  He used it to peel them away from their adjacent ridge’s receding but now unseen curve to the west. He steered them progressively and at a slant across the plain and in due course to the sharp rise of a darkness-hidden ridge. It came abruptly into the wan lamplight, Phaylan quickly bringing the craulena to a halt.

  “Somewhere above here,” he quietly told Dialwatcher, “should be our way out. But I’m darned if I can see it in this light.”

  Dialwatcher squeezed from his seat and stepped carefully past Prescinda and stared out from one of the portholes along the craulena’s side. “The sky looks to be lightening,” he whispered, a nearby seaman snuffling as he turned in his sleep.

  “Get some shut-eye then,” Phaylan whispered back. “An hour’s kip will do me well enough,” and he slipped down in his seat. By the time Dialwatcher had done the same, soft snores already seeped from Phaylan’s slackened mouth.

  ***

  Bright morning sunshine greeted Prescinda’s eyes when sleep slowly slid its blinds from their groggy gaze. She rubbed them, yawned and stretched - as best she could in the cramped confines.

  It seemed a wall rose before the window, and so she squeezed her head between the lolling ones of Nephril and Dialwatcher to have a closer look.

  Not a wall as it turned out but a steep slope, one awash with rocks and scree and loose grey earth. In craning forward, she disturbed Nephril who grunted and smacked his lips together. One of his eyes opened and fixed hers with a milky stare.

  “Good morn to thee, Prescinda,” he said, and the one eye glanced the way it had seen her looking - out through the window. At first Nephril clearly saw only the brightness. “I take it we have overslept?” he groaned as he stretched his stiff and aching leg.

  Before long the craulena stirred with waking bodies, their yawns and grumbles gently filling the stale air. By now Prescinda had had a proper look at the slope.

  Yet another ridge, it proved a little less steep than the one that had defeated the poor old camper van. It was, however, just as high.

  “Ah,” Phaylan groggily said as he too stirred, “my aim wasn’t that far out then.”

  He gazed up to the right. Prescinda did the same and saw a ragged line of large slabs of what looked like pale stone, running all the way down from the top of the ridge.

  “A quick breakfast,” Phaylan said, “and we’ll be on our way. At least I hope we will,” but then remembered Nephril and Prescinda. “We had a bit of a hairy descent down there,” he said as he nodded towards the slabs.

  “What are they?” Prescinda asked.

  “What was it,” Dialwatcher corrected.

  “You can’t see from here,” Phaylan said, “but a lot more of those slabs follow a drunken stagger right the way across the plain. They’re why I wanted another pair of eyes in the dark. Woe betide us if we’d run into any of those during the night. We’d likely have crippled the craulena.”

  “It were once a bridge,” Dialwatcher said. “It clearly ran from t’top o’ ridge on this side right the way across to t’ridge on t’other.”

  “So, at one time there’d never have been a need to come down onto the plain at all,” Prescinda marvelled. “But five miles, that’s an awfully long bridge.”

  “Aye, plainly too long to last the ages.”

  “Master Breadgrinder,” Phaylan seemed to take delight in recounting, “took us right off the edge of the stump up there,” and again looked up at the top of the ridge.

  “Going too fast,” Dialwatcher said.

  “Braked at the last minute,” Phaylan added, “but lost the front wheels over the edge. Bit of a frightening drop really. Thought our end had come. Luckily, the craulena’s legs are well sprung. Anyway, we ought to get our stomachs filled before we try getting back up there.”

  While he issued orders to the first mate, Prescinda peered at the line of higgledy-piggledy slabs, their size hard to judge at the uncertain distance. Then she realised just what it was that Phaylan had said.

  “You mean we’re going to get the craulena up there?” and her mouth dropped open.

  “The only other way out of here that we know,” Dialwatcher said, “is t’way thee came in thesen, but t’steermaster don’t want to leave his vessel behind,” he tapped a glass tube, mounted below the window, “and we don’t ‘ave enough naphtha to get us back to Dica in this.”

  “So,” Prescinda said, in a very thin voice, “if we can’t get up there then we’re stuck down here ... until we ... until we starve I suppose.”

  “Just about t’long an’ t’short of it, aye,” Dialwatcher said. “Which means thee’s best keep thee’s fingers well and truly crossed. It be too far for all but me and Lord Nephril to walk to t’ketch. And anyway, we’d never sail it back on us own.”

  Prescinda swallowed.

  “So, thee see, fai
r maid, we’re all in t’same boat as it were. And one as needs to climb out o’ here, otherwise we’ll all be ... well, you might say, well and truly sunk.”

  45 As on Sea, Now on Land

  The last of Nephril’s stew had soon been polished off and everything in the craulena made shipshape for the attempted climb. Phaylan brought them around to a standoff, so he could survey the ridge.

  The others sat quietly beside him, the crew pressed close-in behind. Everyone’s hearts were in their mouths at the sight of the challenge ahead.

  The path of the blocks lay a short way off to the right, the largest perhaps a few feet thick and a good fifteen yards across, maybe three times that in length. Those on the slope had slid down, most likely when they first fell, and so a hard-packed gap extended from the topmost to the projecting stub of road above.

  While Phaylan weighed the odds, Dialwatcher whispered to Nephril and Prescinda that the craulena had come down on the far side of the blocks. “Pure fluke,” he told them. “If we’d slid this side then in all likelihood we’d never have come across your stricken carriage.”

  “Right,” the steermaster announced, “I think I’ve found a route,” and he pointed. “This side’s not as steep but it looks looser, although I reckon - with a bit of a run up - I can get the craulena beyond the top of the highest block.”

  His eyes narrowed and his mouth drew to a line.

  “If I can get us across onto that firmer stretch above it, despite the slope being steeper we should be able to reach the stub of road. The trouble is,” and he paused, drawing his lips back before sucking air through his teeth. “The trouble is, I’ll have to slew this thing over to the left. It’s not as steep there, and the edge of the road is lower than on the other side.”

  “I’m not sure I really want to know this,” Prescinda said. “For Shewtin’s sake, Steermaster, just do it will you? Tell us about it afterwards, eh? If we manage to survive.”