The Phenomenals: A Tangle of Traitors

by F. E. Higgins

  ‘I know the rules,’ gasped Folly. ‘The Lurid is bound to Vincent, not to me.’

  ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’

  Folly’s stomach lurched. He knows something I don’t.

  Kamptulicon crowed on. ‘Did you skip that chapter? The one where it says, “A Lurid can assume the body of a blood relative, regardless of any other bond.” ’

  As the full meaning of Kamptulicon’s words became clear Folly felt as if her very soul was draining away.

  ‘Is this Lurid your father?’ teased Kamptulicon. He put his hand to his chin in a mocking gesture of consideration. ‘No, he’s too young. I can see that in its rotten face. Then who? Your brother?’

  Folly flinched, a movement so slight she hardly knew she had made it, but Kamptulicon felt it. His grin grew broader, causing his mask to shift on his face.

  ‘So, Axel here is your brother. How did I miss the resemblance! What an ignominious end he came to on the gallows. How embarrassing for you.’ He dragged her roughly to her feet, held her by her hair and twisted her round to face the slavering Lurid.

  ‘O Luride,’ he called out. ‘Assumate puella soror!’

  ‘No, Axel, no! It’s me, Folly. Don’t do this.’ But her appeal fell on very dead ears.

  Time chose then to slow its relentless passing, as if to allow Folly to savour her last moments. She became intensely aware of everything around her: the sound of the seething tar, the wailing of the Lurids and the sky.

  How strange, she thought. It’s too early for sunrise.

  And then the Lurid came forward with its cavernous mouth wide open. And behind them the sky was lit up in orange and red. A deep reverberating chanting grew in volume as the thousand-strong crowd of masked Degringoladians approached the Tar Pit for the Ritual of Appeasement.

  CHAPTER 27

  WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

  It felt like an age, but was in fact only minutes, before Vincent and Citrine finally dared to emerge from their hiding place.

  ‘Spletivus,’ said Vincent. ‘That was too close for my liking. I can still smell it.’

  ‘Are they – is it – definitely gone?’ asked Citrine.

  ‘Yes.’ The cabinet was empty so Vincent closed the door.

  ‘Then let’s get back to the Kryptos,’ said Citrine anxiously. ‘I can’t believe what Edgar has got himself mixed up in. We’ve got to tell Folly and Jonah what’s happened.’

  Vincent looked uncertain. ‘You know, I’m not so sure Folly is on our side.’

  ‘Aren’t you? She seems friendly enough to me.’

  ‘You heard what Kamptulicon said, that the paste he put on my head attracts the Lurid. But Folly wiped oil on my head to put the Lurid off my scent.’

  ‘She did that to protect you.’

  ‘That’s what she said, but if she knew all along that the Lurid could track me, then why didn’t she give me the oil before? Like when we were coming back from Kamptulicon’s shop? When it attacked she didn’t help me at first, just watched. When we were behind the cabinet I had this terrible thought that maybe she wanted the Lurid to find me. Maybe she’s using me as bait.’

  Citrine looked thoughtful. ‘But why would she want it to find you and then the next minute stop it from finding you?’

  Vincent shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. I’m just saying I’m not sure she can be trusted. What do we really know about her? She lives in a tomb and hunts rabbits and reads Quodlatin. And have you seen that weapon she carries?’

  ‘But she stitched your hand and gave you the arm.’

  ‘I know; none of it makes sense, but something is wrong,’ said Vincent, flexing his metal fingers.

  ‘That third man, I think I’ve heard his voice before, but I can’t recall where,’ said Citrine. ‘Maybe someone who came to see Father or Edgar.’

  ‘He left this behind,’ said Vincent, picking up a piece of paper. ‘It’s an article for the Degringolade Daily about the hanging. Look.’

  Daring Escape from the Gallows

  Reported by Hepatic Whitlock

  Last night an event that is unprecedented in living memory took place at Quadrivium Crossroads. A convicted murderer, the noose in actuality around her neck, effected a daring escape from the hands of the Carnifex. And the escapee? None other than the notorious murderess Citrine Capodel!

  As to the method of her absquatulation, one cannot but admire the outrageous audacity of its perpetrator. Among the crowd of witnesses to the event were Chief Guardsman Mayhew Fessup, Edgar Capodel (the accused’s cousin) and Dr Chilebreth Ruislip. CG Fessup reports that an accomplice arrived on the scene in a Trikuklos. He pedalated recklessly through the crowd of onlookers, endangering the lives of one and all, and at the very instant the trapdoor was released this marauding pilot fired what appeared to be a whaling spear at the hangman’s rope. The rope was severed, Citrine Capodel was free and the pair sped away in the Trikuklos.

  This is just one more chapter in the shocking story of murder and betrayal that dogs the Capodel family. Earlier yesterday evening the body of Hubert Capodel, the businessman missing since the night of the Ritual one year ago, was discovered on the shores of the Tar Pit. It was identified by an engraved silver timepiece that miraculously survived the destructive power of the tar. The emergence of the body has now fuelled speculation that Citrine Capodel might also have killed her father.

  Edgar Capodel released the following statement:

  ‘Very soon I hope to draw a veil over this time of wretchedness. I am relieved that Hubert’s body has finally been found. At Crex tomorrow he will be laid to rest in a private ceremony at the Capodel Kryptos in the grounds of the Capodel Townhouse. His will – which I believe to be the cause of my cousin Citrine’s malicious malfeasance – has been read. Dear, generous Hubert left me his entire estate and appointed me Chief Executive of the Capodel Chemical Company for life. I cannot say why he left my poor misguided cousin Citrine out of the will. One can only wonder if he had some inkling of her murderous nature. As to whether or not she killed my uncle, I will leave that to CG Fessup to investigate.

  ‘All Degringoladians know that Hubert Capodel was a great man. Nanyone could have imagined that he would come to such a dreadful end. I will endeavour to honour his memory by standing tall at the helm of Capodel Chemicals, steering the company through the rough and the smooth waters of the future.

  ‘Kew all for your good wishes during this most difficult time for my family. In particular, I am most grateful to Leucer d’Avidus, who has been unerring in his support. I cannot think of a man more deserving of the title “Governor of Degringolade” and I am confident that we, the denizens of Degringolade, will always be well looked after in his capable hands. I am certain too that Chief Guardsman Fessup and the members of the DUG will bring my wayward cousin and her accomplice to justice.’

  ‘So, your father’s been found,’ said Vincent. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  Citrine’s lip trembled. Her face was ashen, making her green eyes even more startling. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that it’s my father’s body. That will is a forgery and everything Edgar says is a lie. And this is just one more lie, to make me look even worse than I do already.’

  Vincent asked quietly. ‘But how do you know it’s not your father’s body?’

  ‘Because of this,’ said Citrine, and she reached into her bag and brought out a silver timepiece. ‘This is my father’s timepiece. He only had one. Edgar doesn’t know I have it. He must have thought Father was wearing it the night he disappeared, so whatever they have found is a fake.’

  ‘Domna,’ said Vincent. ‘Edgar really has it in for you.’

  CHAPTER 28

  PICK A CARD

  As Jonah’s sight returned he managed, by dint of rolling and shuffling, to reach his Cachelot spear where it rested almost out of sight against the side of the fireplace. Inwardly thanking Poseidon that Folly had not thought to take it with her, he manoeuvred himself into a position where he c
ould use the spear’s cuspidate head to saw at the cord that bound him.

  Jonah made rapid progress – although no longer at sea, out of habit he still kept the weapon sharp – and as soon as one hand was free he discarded the tool. Folly had overlooked one important thing about Jonah: as a sailor he was a master of knots, and had no trouble at all undoing the rather basic overhand loops that she had used to detain him. He stood up and relished the feeling of blood rushing back into his limbs.

  But he was still locked in the Kryptos. He tried to force the lock with the sharp point of the spear – a fruitless task. He even tried using one of the Cachelot teeth from his coat. He pulled with all his considerable might on the handle but to no avail. ‘Fish-guts!’ he burst out. ‘I have been in the belly of a Cachelot. Surely I can find my way out of a Kryptos!’

  It soon became apparent that the belly of a Cachelot was infinitely easier to escape than his present confinement. Jonah resigned himself to the fact that he might be trapped until Vincent and Citrine, or Folly, returned. He wasn’t sure which would be better. Citrine could do no wrong in Jonah’s eyes, but Vincent he considered slippery as a flatfish. Any fellow who paid that much attention to his hairstyle was suspicious in Jonah’s book. Not to mention how his eyes had lit up at the word ‘gold’. Folly was responsible for his current predicament – but, in her defence, she had apologized for trussing him up, and was only ‘borrowing’ his ambergris. She had said she would return and he wanted to believe her. The fact that she had left various belongings behind (he had found a purse of money in her trunk) suggested that she was telling the truth.

  Jonah paced the small room, feeling like one of the prisoners he had so recently guarded. Eventually he ladled the remains of the slumgullion into a bowl and sat at the table, fletcherizing each piece of meat to extract every last ounce of taste, and waited patiently. As a Cachelot hunter he was well used to waiting. He was just picking a stubborn remnant of rabbit from between his teeth with his fingernail when he was alerted by knocking at the door. Muffled voices on the other side called out, ‘Folly! Jonah! Let us in.’

  ‘Folly’s not here,’ he bellowed. ‘I’m locked in.’

  ‘Stand back,’ replied Citrine. ‘Vincent can open the door.’

  There was a light scratching sound and then the door swung inwards. Vincent and Citrine tumbled in breathlessly. Citrine closed the door immediately and bolted it.

  Jonah sniffed. ‘You smell like tar, and something else.’

  ‘Lurid,’ said Vincent grimly. ‘What happened to you?’ He had spotted the frayed rope on the floor.

  ‘Folly tied me up and took off.’

  Vincent looked the large seafarer up and down with a sly grin. ‘You’re saying that Folly, a girl half your size, tied you up?’

  ‘She blinded me first.’

  Vincent straight away remembered Folly taking something from Kamptulicon’s secret cellar: the liquid that had blinded him? ‘Kamptulicon did that to me,’ he said with a meaningful glance in Citrine’s direction.

  ‘Where did she go?’ asked Citrine.

  Jonah shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘She took some odd things with her – bandages and that black book, and my ambergris. And she said she knows what the drifting stones are, so my guess is she’s gone to find the Lurid.’

  ‘Kamptulicon’s looking for that stinker too,’ said Vincent slowly. ‘Maybe she’s going to do some sort of deal with him. You say ambergris is very valuable?’

  ‘My ambergris is.’ Jonah grinned and dangled a small bag in front of the pair of them. ‘Folly took a bag of stones. I . . . um . . . thought Vincent was likely to steal it, so I swapped it and hid it.’

  Citrine, who had been silent until now, spoke up. ‘I think it’s time I spread the cards. Maybe they will provide some answers.’

  ‘Now this I have to see,’ said Vincent, concealing his annoyance at Jonah’s deception and blatant slur on his character.

  ‘Then let’s do yours. I’m still too upset.’ She handed him the dice. ‘Throw these three first. Add together the number of scores and that’s how many cards you choose.’

  Vincent hesitated, regarding the oddly shaped dice with interest. ‘Are these made from bone?’

  ‘No, from maerl – calcified seaweed,’ said Citrine, ‘harvested from the riverbed where the Flumen meets the Turbid Sea. Suma gave me them as a gift.’

  ‘She likes to give things away,’ murmured Vincent, and rattled the pleasingly weighted maerl pieces in his hand and let them fall. They tumbled across the table and came to rest. All three onlookers stared down; each die showed a single vertical score across its uppermost surface.

  ‘That means you can pick three cards. Now, throw the other one for the spread.’

  Vincent rolled the fourth die, the thirteen-sided piece of maerl with the symbols, and it bounced scatter-fashion across the marble. It landed showing a lizard of sorts.

  ‘Salamander,’ said Citrine. Deftly she laid out ten cards in the shape of the creature. Vincent’s hand hovered over the shape. Only a matter of hours ago he would have scoffed at the merest mention of card-spreading; now here he was looking for answers from the very same.

  ‘Choose,’ prompted Citrine.

  Decisively he turned a card from the salamander’s head and one from each hind leg. ‘Oh my,’ he breathed as the pictures were revealed. ‘They’re moving!’

  ‘They’re lenticular,’ explained Citrine. ‘The images alter depending on the light and the angle you view them from.’

  ‘But what do they mean?’

  ‘The first is the Cunningman.’

  Vincent looked at the sinister figure of the old man staring up at him from the card. He had the oddest feeling that the man’s eyes were following him, and he was certain the sneer on his face was curling even as he stared. ‘Cunningman?’

  ‘Suma told me about this one,’ said Citrine. ‘Cunningmen practise the Furtivartes – Supermundane ceremonies and rituals.’

  ‘Like summoning a Lurid,’ said Jonah.

  Vincent made a small snorting sound. ‘Sounds like magic to me.’ A part of him still didn’t quite believe all this, but he couldn’t deny that Degringolade and all its peculiarities was starting to get under his skin.

  Citrine shook her head. ‘It’s not magic. Magic is sleight of hand, trickery. The Supermundane is very different.’

  ‘That book he’s holding, it’s just like the one Folly took,’ noted Jonah.

  Citrine started. ‘Goodness, Suma always says to look closely, but I’ve never seen that before. I think it’s an Omnia Intum.’ She explained quickly. ‘It means “all things within”. It contains recipes for Supermundane libations and potions.’

  ‘A sort of Cunningman’s handbook?’ suggested Vincent.

  ‘Folly’s not a Cunningman.’ Jonah snorted.

  ‘But the book belongs to Kamptulicon. I stole it from his workshop.’

  Citrine looked increasingly grave. ‘Domna! If Kamptulicon is a Cunningman, Folly could be in terrible danger.’ She clenched her fists and pressed them against the table. ‘I should have realized before. I just didn’t think. I was so caught up with my own problems.’

  ‘What about the Maiden?’ said Jonah, pointing to the second card. ‘This time it must be Folly.’

  But Citrine was poring over the last card, a stream of gold coins overflowing from a chest. She turned it this way and that in the light, and as it moved the gold coins lost their sheen and became dull. ‘I think it’s about deception, something that is pretending to be something else.’

  ‘Like my ambergris. It ain’t gold, but I can swap it for gold. Maybe those drifting stones Folly was talking about ain’t stones.’

  Citrine’s face suddenly lit up. ‘Domna! I’ve got it!’ She turned to Jonah and her eyes were shining with excitement. ‘Jonah, what if your pieces of ambergris are the drifting stones? They certainly look like stones, and, Vincent, you said that Kamptulicon’s pendant was dull, not a jewel. That’s why Folly took
the ambergris. She worked it out. She’s going after the Lurid. We have to help her.’

  Vincent looked unsure. ‘But she could be anywhere.’

  ‘She’s gone to the Tar Pit,’ said Jonah suddenly.

  Vincent raised an eyebrow. ‘You can tell that from the cards? That’s some trick.’

  Jonah pointed to the empty hook on the wall. ‘She’s taken a gas mask.’

  ‘That just leaves one,’ said Citrine. ‘But we need two more.’

  Vincent grinned and he pulled from under his capacious cloak two brand-new gas masks, each painted with the Capodel family crest.

  Citrine gasped. ‘You stole them from my house!’

  Vincent shrugged. ‘Lucky for you I did. But I’m not going anywhere without that stuff on my forehead and the real ambergris.’

  ‘Not just a pretty face then,’ said Jonah, and gave him a hefty pat on the back.

  CHAPTER 29

  ROAST DINNER

  The large black and white cow looked oddly out of place, tethered as it was to a salt pillar at the edge of the Tar Pit. It lowed softly to the remote moon and kept lifting its hoofs, as if trying to rid them of the sticky tar that now covered them. Behind the cow scores of black-gowned and gas-masked Degringoladians were streaming on to the shore, waving their three-pronged forks, flaming torches aloft, and chanting. In front of the confused beast the cankerous Lurids had amassed at the very edge of the lake, shrieking foully at the gathering denizens.

  ‘Even if Folly is here,’ said Vincent, scanning the anonymous throng as it descended to the shore, ‘we’ll never find her.’

  He was lying on his stomach on the brink of the Tar Pit, a short distance away from the main thoroughfare, flanked on either side by Citrine and Jonah. They were hidden by the marsh weed and their dark clothing. Before they set off Vincent had smeared his head – and everyone else’s for good measure – with Folly’s oil and put the bottle in his pocket. Jonah had the ambergris and they all carried whatever Lurid deterrents they had been able to find in the Kryptos. Citrine had suggested that Vincent take the Mangledore.