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- Under the Veil
- Lanterns at Noon
- The Foot of the Stair
Veilmere
Veilmere sits on a green headland at the bottom of the valley, where the river that drops from Briarbrook's highlands comes down the Veil, the great falls, and runs out into the lake. The falls never stop and neither does their spray. A fine white mist hangs over the north end of town all year, so every roof is slate gone green with moss, every street is a boardwalk on stone posts, and every doorway has a lantern lit at noon. Visitors find it gloomy for about a day. After that they find it soft, quiet and strangely kind, the way rain is kind when you are already wet.
The town lives on the water and on the climb. Flat-bottomed lake boats tie up at the quays below the market with timber, slate, wool and barrels of salt fish from the far shores, and leave with cheese, cider and rosewater brought down from Briarbrook. Between the two stands the Stair, the long switchback path cut into the cliff beside the Veil, and the porters who carry everything up and down it. The porters' yard at the foot of the falls is the busiest ground in Veilmere: loads are weighed and roped there, the guild hall keeps the tally, and beside it stands the foot station of the Waterweight, the water-ballast lift that hauls riders up the cliff for sixty copper bits. A loaded porter takes most of a morning to reach Briarbrook. Most of them say it builds character. None of them say it twice in a row.
At the south end, where the headland narrows to a point, the mist changes. The falls' white spray thins out, and across the water the grey fog of the Forgotten Reach begins, low and still and very patient. The Mistline Inn stands right there on the point, the last lantern of the town and the last door before the fog. A bronze bell hangs on the south quay, and when the Reach fog starts to drift in over the water, somebody rings it until every boat is home.
People in Veilmere are friendly in a damp, unhurried way. They will tell a stranger the price of a room, the time of the next boat and how many silver marks it costs to have a trunk carried up the Stair. They will not tell anyone what lies past the fog, mostly because they do not know, and partly because the innkeeper on the point has asked them not to guess.
The town lives on the water and on the climb. Flat-bottomed lake boats tie up at the quays below the market with timber, slate, wool and barrels of salt fish from the far shores, and leave with cheese, cider and rosewater brought down from Briarbrook. Between the two stands the Stair, the long switchback path cut into the cliff beside the Veil, and the porters who carry everything up and down it. The porters' yard at the foot of the falls is the busiest ground in Veilmere: loads are weighed and roped there, the guild hall keeps the tally, and beside it stands the foot station of the Waterweight, the water-ballast lift that hauls riders up the cliff for sixty copper bits. A loaded porter takes most of a morning to reach Briarbrook. Most of them say it builds character. None of them say it twice in a row.
At the south end, where the headland narrows to a point, the mist changes. The falls' white spray thins out, and across the water the grey fog of the Forgotten Reach begins, low and still and very patient. The Mistline Inn stands right there on the point, the last lantern of the town and the last door before the fog. A bronze bell hangs on the south quay, and when the Reach fog starts to drift in over the water, somebody rings it until every boat is home.
People in Veilmere are friendly in a damp, unhurried way. They will tell a stranger the price of a room, the time of the next boat and how many silver marks it costs to have a trunk carried up the Stair. They will not tell anyone what lies past the fog, mostly because they do not know, and partly because the innkeeper on the point has asked them not to guess.