The Versatiles

by Alex Duncan

  ‘Yes, light is what I wish for.’

  ‘Then light you shall have. It pleases me to serve you.’

  Brash disappeared behind the door and for a fleeting moment Rosie worried that it had all been a trick and Brash was in no way under her command and had brought her down there for some more sinister purpose, but the sounds of jangling chains and scrapping rock soon announced that he was doing as instructed. A great spark flashed out around her and her vision blurred as a hundred pyres illuminated in a wide circle far above.

  ‘Now there’s a sight!’ she exclaimed, seeing that she stood but inches from the edge of an apparently bottomless drop, a waterless moat of emptiness around the fringes of the cave.

  ‘Is it not fine Miss Simply?’ asked Brash. ‘Be careful there,’ he pointed down to the moat. ‘Don’t fall down or you’ll not likely come back up again.’

  Stepping away from the edge she looked up and around. Her first impression hadn’t been far from wrong. Indeed, the space was like some gigantic air pocket in the earth, a hundred feet high and wider still. It was formed into an enormous dome shaped chamber, stalactites hanging far above them like frozen spears of black ice. The walls and floor were well polished, though the thought of anyone actually staying down there to polish them was an impossible one, and at five points around the wall were doors, similar to those they had entered from, with small, rickety bridges leading to them.

  ‘Why did you bring me here Brash? I thought I told you to take me to see Apollo and Olkys.’

  ‘Apollo is here already Miss Simply,’ he said, coolly. ‘And Olkys should be here soon enough. I’d not lie to you, I promise. It pleases me to serve you.’

  ‘But I don’t see Apollo, there’s no one here but us. If you’ve brought me here…’

  She didn’t get to finish as the sound of a door bursting open across the way cut her off and the sight of forty or more black and red uniformed guards spilling through the door silenced her quite abruptly.

  She made to flee but then saw at the front of the line of guards a sight that froze her to the spot and forced a vice around her heart. They had Zanga and (dare she use the word) her father.

  ‘Oh no, you devilish firebrand Brash, why did you bring me here? Is this all some trap?’

  The man fell to his knees, his silk gown falling around him and shaking with some grotesque rage then, wobbling like a drunkard, dazed and groggy, he rose slowly to his feet and looked about him, utterly confused.

  Rosie knew that the drug had worn off.

  ‘What…what happened my dear?’ he said, rubbing his temples. ‘What are we doing down here and, egad, why does my head feel like horse trod on it?’

  The line of guards moved into the cave, pulling Zanga and Henry along with them and at their head was the curdle-skinned Mr Monk, glaring from Rosie to Brash and back again.

  ‘Apollo!’ shouted Monk. ‘This is not the place to woo a…’ And then, his brow creasing, he realized who Rosie was. ‘You! I knew it was you! Guards, take her! Boy or girl or whatever you are, you’ll not get away from me this time. Well done Apollo, you’ve brought the one who has the stone.’

  Rosie and Brash stared at each other in horror.

  ‘You’re the one we’ve been chasing?!’ gasped Brash.

  ‘You’re Apollo?!’ yelled Rosie. ‘But in the theatre…I saw you.’

  ‘No my dear, you saw someone in a mask passing for me. I was actually on the stage giving the finest performance of my career. Of all the people to understand a simple little diversion like that it should be you, you little minx! Then your name is not Miss Lizzie Simply I presume?’

  ‘My name is Rosie Versatile,’ she spat. ‘But why didn’t you tell me any of this before? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’

  ‘You never asked,’ shrugged Brash. ‘And here was I trying to woo you all along. What a waste. Ha ha!’

  Two guards rushed towards Rosie and took her wrists, yanking them behind her back and holding her firmly in their grip. Rosie didn’t resist them she only stared at Apollo.

  ‘Sam was right about you,’ she hissed. ‘You are a slippery bugger. I hope that you and I shall have words before sunrise.’

  ◆◆◆

  Rosie didn’t look across as her father and Zanga were pulled over and dropped down next to her. She stared straight ahead and tried not to flinch as a guard pushed his knee into her back, forcing her down onto the cave floor. The delicate dress ripped all the way up her leg and she turned away as the men hooted their approval.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ murmured Henry as he fell down next to her.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘And don’t talk to me for that matter. You don’t get to talk to me anymore. You gave that up when you decided to lie to me ever since I was a child…’

  ‘I think we may have interrupted some sort of family argument here Mr Monk,’ laughed Apollo. ‘Would you like us to leave you two to fight things over for yourselves. Ha ha!’

  They both turned and growled at Apollo who scuttled over to his ally, Monk, further into the middle of the cave floor. Rosie bent her head to listen to their whispers but the gentle roar of the pyres above them drowned out all other sounds in the cave. She looked around, desperately, but all she could see were lines of those infernal guards, their hands firmly on the hilts of their swords, glaring down at the three of them.

  ‘I knew you’d come back,’ Henry groaned. ‘I knew you would, the same as you knew I would return no doubt, but still, I wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Be quiet would you, I’m trying to see if there’s…’

  ‘I’m sorry Rosie,’ he said, softly, nudging her and forcing her to look over at him. He looked tired, his fiery hazel eyes were blood-shot and his grey hair was limp and spread down over his face. He looked pathetic. ‘I’m sorry, for so many things…’

  ‘It’s a little late for that now,’ she said, struggling on the grip of the two guards holding her from behind. ‘My word, we are in a pickle. Perhaps if you stopped winging and feeling sorry for yourself you could use that big old mind of yours to figure out a way of getting us out of this fix.’

  ‘I…I…don’t know,’ he fumbled, letting his head fall down to his chest.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Spare us the noise please!’ shouted Apollo across at them. ‘Lor’, it’s like a common man’s drinking hole in here. You two,’ he pointed at the two guards restraining her. ‘Bring her over here.’

  Rosie grunted through gritted teeth as the two men pulled her up, bending her arms so far up her back that she was afraid they might break, and dragging her, quite forcibly, over to the handsome Apollo, now proudly strutting about in his silk gown, and Monk, stooping and grotesque in the undulating light of the pyres. As she was thrown down in front of them she didn’t have time to thrust her hands down ahead of her to break her fall and her face landed with a crack on the hard, polished floor. Her head span with the impact and she shook the dizziness away as she forced herself up onto her haunches to stare at their faces. She wasn’t going to be found grovelling before these monsters.

  ‘So, what is this,’ she said, ‘one of those we-want-to-rule-the-country-and-then-the-world situations? Because if it is, then I think I should warn you that we’ve faced a few of those in the past and they’ve always ended up the same way.’

  Monk glowered down at her, his dry, cracked lips curling into an unpleasant grimace.

  ‘Rule the country? Rule the world?’ he said, his mouth hardly moving. ‘No, no, no, that’s Apollo’s business, not mine. He’s the tyrant.’

  ‘It’s true I am,’ Apollo smiled next to him.

  ‘I simply want to…upset the balance a little, you know, ruffle a few feathers that sort of thing. I’m here for the japes and giggles really.’

  ‘You mean you’re not in this together? I’m sorry, I’m not following you. Who are you?’

  Monk turned his back and walked slowly away from the group, his steps echoing around them.

 
‘Have you yet to figure that out pretty girl? Are you sure you don’t know who I am, hmm?’ came a high, throaty voice from nearby.

  Henry thrashed out next to Zanga, struggling under the grip of the guards who pinned him down, one with his knees on his back and one squashing his face down into the stone floor.

  ‘He’s here Rosie, I told you!’ he shrieked. ‘I don’t know how you’re doing this Olkys,’ he called out into the cave, ‘but you leave her alone, she’s nothing to you. Don’t you touch her, you only have business with me!’

  ‘That is true,’ said Apollo, striding over to Henry in his usual laconic manner. ‘Olkys told me all about your past, quite a bedtime story if I do say so myself. And knowing Olkys I believe that you would save yourself a whole sack full of trouble if you would hand over that tiny little stone ring that you’ve been asked for and stop gawping like a dead fish.’

  ‘I told you all before,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t have it.’

  Apollo raised an eyebrow and turned towards Rosie.

  ‘Well don’t look at me,’ she said. ‘I don’t have it either.’

  ‘Egad, you try a man’s patience to the limit, Mr Monk, knock some sense into them would you, there’s a good chap.’

  Monk strode back, clenching his fists and grabbed Henry by the hair, pulling him up off his knees until he was nose to nose with him. Henry stared into the ugly man’s face and coughed as he caught a whiff of his fetid breath, but Monk just pulled him in closer and growled.

  ‘We need the stone old man, and we’ll have it I tell you. Look around you, don’t you see, there is nothing we can’t do, nothing we can’t get and nothing we can’t achieve.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘We brought you back here didn’t we? I bet you were running as far away as you could but I made sure you came back, straight into our hands didn’t I?’

  ‘What? We chose to come back, we chose of our own free will.’

  ‘Nonsense. I made you come back to this very spot without so much as clicking my fingers.’

  Henry’s face fell.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ laughed Monk. ‘Did you think you came back here of your own accord? I’m afraid not. I brought you back here and I didn’t even need to move a muscle.’

  ‘What…what are you talking about?’

  ‘I simply mean that I placed something amongst you that would insure that would come back to me if ever you tried to escape.’ He released his grip on Henry’s hair and let him fall to the floor and circled the two of them with all the menace of a snake.

  ‘I placed something amongst you that would convince you time and time again that you had to finish the job, something that would bring you to your knees in front of me. I didn’t tell anyone about it, of course, that would never do, it was my own little secret.’

  ‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about Monk, what thing? What did you place amongst us?’

  Monk stopped and slowly and deliberately turned towards Zanga.

  Henry felt his face drain of colour.

  ‘No, Zanga, not you too?’

  Zanga began to thrash out, but even he wasn’t strong enough to release himself from the grip of several men.

  ‘It is a lie Henry Versatile!’ he bellowed. ‘Do not believe them. I would never deceive you. I promise you…’

  ‘Of course you would, you fool!’ accused Monk, staring down at him with his pitiless, beady eyes. ‘Do you not think that your shackles were loose for a reason? I knew that if one of your kind escaped from here you would come across Henry Versatile; the man is a magnet for mischief, always has been. And I knew that you would bring him back here, over and over until he finished the job and sent you home. I knew you wouldn’t let him leave. It’s not too difficult for you to understand is it?’

  Zanga was panting, speechless.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ said Henry. ‘There are too many coincidences, too many opportunities for things to go wrong.’

  ‘It was all quite well thought out, I assure you.’

  ‘But Zanga brought back…’ Rosie began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She quickly stopped herself. They didn’t know that Zanga had returned her ring that night he had been set free. Their whole scheme had worked like clockwork but they hadn’t noticed that they actually had the ring in the first place and then given it back to her. She doubted they would be very pleased to hear that bit of news.

  By now Zanga, Henry and Rosie were all three circled by the guards, their swords drawn, the steel glinting orange and red in the flickering firelight. In the wildness of the scene Rosie found her mind wandering. She realized how hungry she was and hoped that no one would hear her stomach growling, she thought of that dreadful picture of Sam’s, she thought of Sam stabbing her but couldn’t imagine it ever really happening. Maybe she had been too hasty with him.

  ‘This really is the last time we’ll ask you my dears,’ said Apollo. ‘Will you give us what we want or not?’

  Henry shook his head.

  ‘We cannot give you what we don’t have.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Monk, breaking the circle of guards. ‘I may have to introduce you to some good friends of mine. They’ve come from very far away so do make them feel welcome. They’ve been ever so popular in the town. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to make their acquaintance.’

  The ugly man brought out a small but beautifully made tinderbox and lit a fleck of wood from inside it. He walked with the splinter to the edge of the plateau and lightly tossed it into the bottomless moat of darkness that encircled all of them.

  Zanga, Rosie and Henry looked on as an ominous glow ascended from the pit and lit the walls, a bone white, cold glow that pulsed like the beating of a man’s heart.

  And then they heard it.

  The sound that they had feared since they had first stepped foot in the town only days before, echoing around them in the cave, the cry that could chill the blood of the most brave, the ghastly howling of they knew not what.

  ‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a!’ it came ‘How-la-la how-la-la!’

  Rosie’s breath caught in her throat and, despite herself, she wanted nothing more than to hold her father’s hand.

  ‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a!’ it came again, now almost deafening. ‘How-la-la how-la-la!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Shapeless streams of pale smoke drifted up from the depths of the empty moat like living things crawling up from some unspeakable place, illuminated with that cold glow and pulsing with an incessant rhythm. Rosie looked on agog as the same unpleasant chill ran up her spine, the same feeling she had when she saw the contorted corpse of Mr Smith in his bedroom, the same feeling she had at the Hop Inn when hearing the news of the Winterton’s deaths in their beds. It was all connected, she knew that now, and images of the dead bodies seared across her mind’s eye, the jaws stretched so wide in a silent scream that they had broken, the hands held up in terror and pitiful defence, the life pulled out of them.

  She blinked and shook her head but couldn’t rid herself of the faces, the hopeless, screaming faces, stiff and unnatural and terrified in their last moments of life. No quiet bed for them as they drifted off to the undiscovered country.

  The wisps of smoke took on the undulating forms of faceless, bodiless figures, moving up the curved wall of the cavernous space with all the smoothness of fine silk in a breeze and the cacophony of cries went on, piercing every ear in the room.

  ‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a!’ they continued. ‘How-la-la how-la-la!’

  The guards shifted uneasily from foot to foot, slowly but surely moving into the centre of the cave and away from the walls and Rosie could see many a hard and grim expression begin to crack and tremble at the sight of the unknown.

  ‘That’s it!’ Henry piped up beside her, shouting over the din. ‘That’s it!’

  ‘That’s what?’ cried Rosie, still struggling under the grip of her captors.

  ‘The description you gave me of the faces, dead with
fright, Zanga’s marks up and down his chest and his ankles, the screams...it all fits together. I know…I know what killed those people. I know what they are.’ He nodded his head towards the shapes, spreading up and around them, turning the polished cave wall into a moving carpet of glowing white smog.

  ‘I’m not going to like this am I,’ Rosie groaned.

  ‘They’re your worst nightmares,’ said Henry.

  ‘I can see that!’ she shouted, finally breaking free of the guards hold, as they too backed away into the centre of the room, drawing their swords as if they might be of some defence against theses apparitions. ‘But you still haven’t told me what they are,’ she bellowed.

  ‘That’s because you’re not listening to me girl.’

  Rosie gave him a hard look.

  ‘Sorry, I mean Rosie,’ he said. ‘They are your worst nightmares. Somehow or other Olkys and Apollo must have brought them over from the other side of the door and be controlling them. They are your most dreadful dreams come to life. That’s how those people died; it didn’t look like they died of fright, they did die of fright. If one of those nightmares passes through you, well, you wont be having a good night’s rest, that’s for certain.’

  Leaving her feminine dignity aside, Rosie hawked and spat a mouthful of blood out onto the ground.

  ‘This is not the night I had planned.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Henry Versatile,’ Zanga interrupted. ‘We cannot let one of those…nightmares…get out into the open, who knows what damage it could do.’

  All the guards were suddenly looking particularly uncomfortable and had let go of all three of their prisoners and were bunching together, wide-eyed and whispering. Henry rubbed his cut wrists and pushed himself up with his cane. He turned around on the spot, taking in the scene of mounting panic and finally his eyes settled on Justice Brash, the man who had anointed himself the new Apollo. The handsome man had lost some of his usual ease and flair and was now also looking around him with all the anxiety of a fox hearing the bloodhounds on his tail. He wrapped his black and gold gown tightly around him and, even in the cold, Henry was certain he could see a glistening sheen of sweat covering his face.