Wyntertide

by Caldecott, Andrew

  ‘Welcome, Mr Finch, to our humble “digs”. It’s Richter One for the convalescent and Richter Five for the hardworking miner. All in one go for best results.’

  The moleman hurled back his glass like a Cossack, Finch following suit without the flamboyance. The liquid warmed from the inside out and the ill-effects of his incarceration receded.

  ‘Come on in.’

  The large rectangular chamber, illuminated by gas-lamps, held eating, living and sleeping quarters. Marquetry decorated the walls, but whether artwork or geological maps, Finch found it hard to tell. He took in a workbench, a sink and a cooking range, as well as Jacobean chairs of dark oak with barley-sugar twist legs.

  One of the ten children from London had resisted Wynter, Finch recalled, a boy with a precocious talent for stargazing and optics. ‘My other half,’ the tope had said. Like Ferensen and the spiderwoman . . . ?

  ‘Fortemain?’ stammered Finch.

  The moleman’s voice changed, up an octave from the tope’s bass to a half-familiar singsong tenor. ‘I am he and he is me – for richer, for poorer; for better, for worse.’

  Finch’s cosy first impressions shifted as he imagined agoraphobia warring against claustrophobia in the moleman’s divided being: tunnels winding this way and that set against starfields spilling into deep space.

  They sat down at a circular table, and Fortemain turned serious. ‘The mixing-point is versatile. She makes grotesques, but also “doubles” like us, where the human form rules until exposed to a particular element. Drown Ferensen in water or immerse me in earth, and hey presto!’ He paused, then said softly, ‘We got what we deserved.’

  ‘Really?’ queried Finch gallantly.

  ‘Really – Wynter seduced us, promising us an indelible mark on human history. Once in Lost Acre, we quite forgot Sir Henry’s murder. It was the ultimate playground: real, dangerous and utterly mesmerising. His decisive trick was the mayfly, which should live for a day but instead, week after week, it buzzed in its box. He said he would make us immortal, if we dared.’

  Finch pointed out that he, Fortemain, had led the opposition; three shields in The Dark Devices had remained empty, Oxenbridge had been called back and the Eleusians had failed.

  ‘They suffered a setback, no more – it may even have been a planned setback; later, I felt Wynter had manipulated everyone, including even Oxenbridge. Anyway, I had to live on to resist him if there were a second time round, and to achieve that I had to disappear. I used the mixing-point and went to earth. The tope is a most charming companion, but he borders on the garrulous.’

  Valourhand had recounted a similar conversation between the two halves of the spiderwoman; for the time being the tope appeared to have left the stage.

  Fortemain refilled the glasses. ‘How was my memorial service?’

  Finch gulped. How was my memorial service? What was he talking about?

  Fortemain clacked his claws impatiently on the side of the decanter. ‘Did the costumes work? How about the stellarium? Did Rhombus speak well?’

  Finch felt a fool – here he was, surrounded by unconventional cocktails and optical equipment, precise fits for Professor Bolitho’s interests. Bolitho was Fortemain and Fortemain was Bolitho – and half the moleman too.

  He gathered his wits and described the scene from the roof of Escutcheon Place: the dance of the atoms, Oblong hurtling into space, the otherworldly music. ‘It was a riot, Professor,’ he concluded.

  Fortemain changed tack. ‘Your kidnapper is from Lost Acre, one of their creatures. I have a telescope trained on the marsh – one night I saw her leave. I came as quickly as I could – I’d never seen the like of it before.’

  Nor had Fortemain seen Finch’s cell before. The rock steps high in the ceiling troubled him; Man had built them long ago, a lot of work to create access to such an inhospitable place – why? And his enhanced hearing had detected another sealed chamber beyond. Like Morval in the spider’s body, he was able to keep these inconclusive fragments to himself, so avoiding a barrage of questions from the tope.

  ‘It dropped through my skylight, seized a book called Straighten the Rope from my shelves and then rejected it.’

  Fortemain chuckled. ‘How droll – take it from me, your copy is worthless.’

  The moleman’s voice deepened as the tope butted in, indiscreet as always. ‘The Professor’s work-in-progress is full of forceful meanderings,’ said the gravelly bass.

  Finch was bewildered. How could Fortemain’s work assist Bole? He tried a different question. ‘But this Fury can’t be Bole’s creature – she had no idea who Bole was.’

  The moleman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who Bole was – what do you mean?’

  ‘Bole is a shapeshifter. He acquires his victim’s appearance – that’s how he duped Slickstone – he was playing Ferox.’

  The moleman thrust his face into Finch’s. ‘You mean he could be you?’

  ‘Trust your senses,’ Finch pointed out. ‘You’ve been in the mixing-point. I haven’t.’

  Fortemain, not sounding wholly convinced, said, ‘So you assure me you’re Mr Finch through and through.’

  A strange tinging sound halted the exchange as a young woman wearing a simple woollen shift entered the chamber and placed a bag and Finch’s pocket watch on the table. She kissed the moleman on the brow of his head.

  She had beauty’s conventional attributes – rich copper-gold hair, high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, an unlined brow tapering to a delicate chin and a graceful neck. She was the tall side of average in height, and lissom – and yet her non-physical presence commanded more attention, being a melding of opposites. She was strong but frail, remote but direct, disengaged but alert, gentle, yet feral too. You did not need to know of her harrowing past to sense it.

  The tope did the introductions. ‘Morval, this is Mr Marmion Finch, Rotherweird’s Herald. He’s on the right side, and he knows about Lost Acre. He was abducted by one of Wynter’s creatures and brought to the marsh – it was after Straighten the Rope, but it got the wrong copy. Finch, this is Morval Seer. She has a gift that Wynter craved, the art of pictorial record. She protected us until the pages ran out. The gift lives on.’

  Apprehension coloured these closing words: if Wynter returned, would he not come for her again, to illustrate another chronicle of horror? Morval anxiously flicked her fingers, in, out, in, out. Paper, ink and a nibbed pen lay on the table. As if in response, the moleman pushed them towards her.

  She drew a man of dwarf-like appearance lying dead upon a slab, but instead of a hand, he had a lobster’s claw. Finch had no idea who he was, but the moleman recognised him.

  ‘Vibes?’ cried Fortemain. ‘Not Vibes?’

  Morval nodded, and a terrible truth struck Finch. Morval Seer had not spoken because she could not – no doubt the result of her unwinding. She added strangulation marks to the neck, then drew a bookshelf with an empty space among the volumes with fancy bindings.

  The moleman shook his head, violently this time. ‘Not the book? Not my book!’

  The pen danced across the page, ever faster: a face, feral and long, with the eyes of a killer. Finch needed no introduction; it was Ferox; he had seen the skull beneath the skin at Ferensen’s Midsummer party.

  Fortemain lost his composure. He struck the table. ‘What did you say, Finch? Bole assumed Ferox’s shape to kill Slickstone? Well, now he’s killed Vibes and he has the book – the real book, my copy.’

  ‘Who’s Vibes?’ Finch asked.

  ‘Who’s Vibes? Vibes is the best – Vibes is their carer. Without Vibes . . .’

  Despondency settled on the chamber. Finch fumbled for a change of subject. He turned to Morval. ‘Your brother would send his love, I know he would.’

  Physically he placed her in the twenties, her age when transformed by the vengeful Slickstone. Her eyes narrowed and glazed; the pen flick
ed out flawless concentric circles, the first little more than a dot, then growing wider and wider. Her face acquired a pinched, twisted look, which horrified Finch, and he noticed the moleman watching him: Observe this lesson.

  She added lines, radiating out through the circles, equidistant from each other.

  She stopped, eying the diagrams as if they were the work of a stranger.

  Webs! She had been drawing webs, and in her head, spinning them.

  ‘Well done, well done,’ said Fortemain. ‘The grip weakens by the day.’ He placed a blank sheet in front of her. ‘Let’s do another circle,’ he said gently, ‘and let’s make it a wheel this time.’ She did so, with effort.

  Finch felt privileged to watch: repair through patience and kindness.

  A cart grew from the wheel, then horses, a pile of luggage and the front porch of Rotherweird Manor. Finch recognised the scene from the tapestry at Ferensen’s party: the child prodigies arriving in the valley, and the beginning of the end of the Seers’ idyllic upbringing.

  The watch chimed again, bringing an end to the exercise, and Finch rediscovered his affection for the old timepiece. She must have cleaned and polished it herself, not a pleasant task. He thanked her, and won a smile.

  From her bag Morval produced ham, eggs, potatoes, mushrooms and more. Valourhand had spoken of the spiderwoman’s love of haute cuisine; the mixologist and the cook, a perfect match.

  The moleman lit a fire before showing Finch the outlying chambers – bedrooms and another workroom. The tope provided the commentary. ‘The changelings stay, just a few at a time – they’re a right handful and it can be a job to get them here. Vibes will be a terrible loss.’

  ‘Who’ll care for them now?’

  ‘I hope you meet Tyke. He’s a pure, Mr Finch: he went in and he came out, untouched.’ The tope spoke with a respect bordering on reverence. ‘I apologise for not forewarning you about Morval. She can’t write words any more than speak them. The pen is her voice-box.’

  The decanters of Richter were exchanged for water, which tasted fresh and delicious to Finch’s straitened palate. Morval conjured a remarkable meal from such simple ingredients, the flavours all in perfect balance.

  The tope’s warm bass held the table. ‘I expect, Mr Finch, you’d like to know about the art of tunnelling. Well, you start by scraping the earth from in front of the snout and pushing back past the body. It saps the energy, Mr Finch, and gives you an outrageous appetite.’

  ‘How do you two divide the day?’ asked Finch, gently broaching a delicate subject.

  The tope did not answer directly, but said instead, ‘We moles live a solitary life, with procreation the brief, loveless exception. My other half has brought a capacity to reflect and the ability to socialise.’

  The table cleared, Fortemain’s tenor resumed. ‘I need a recruit.’

  Finch buckled slightly. The real world was knocking at the door.

  Fortemain quickly reassured him. ‘Not you, Mr Finch, you’re too prominent.’ Fortemain produced four pieces of coloured stone from a drawer and explained, ‘They make a sphere.’

  With impressive dexterity Morval twisted and turned the pieces until they fitted perfectly. Fortemain placed the sphere in Finch’s coat pocket.

  ‘And once assembled?’

  ‘Our recruit throws it in the mixing-point at dusk on the Winter Solstice. No other moment will do.’

  Fortemain’s tenor turned bass. ‘What does it do?’ asked the tope.

  ‘It furthers a modest ambition of mine,’ replied Fortemain to his other half.

  ‘That’s the day of the Mayoral election,’ observed Finch. ‘I don’t like it,’ he added. ‘Too many event lines are converging at the same moment. It doesn’t feel like coincidence.’

  ‘It isn’t coincidence: the whole town will be on the Island Field and therefore safe from any side effects,’ said Fortemain. ‘It’s all to the good.’

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind for this mission?’ asked Finch.

  ‘We need a bumbling innocent with hidden resolve.’

  Finch thought of Jones and Oblong, until Fortemain added, ‘And a brain of sorts.’

  ‘Oblong, perhaps?’

  ‘An excellent choice.’

  Finch, still acclimatising to this fractured three-way conversation between two physical beings, glanced at Morval and saw another more elusive quality. Despite her extravagant gifts and her suffering, she remained unspoiled.

  Fortemain turned to her and smiled. ‘Morval and I have another errand, if you would be so kind.’ He left the room and returned with a long slim package wrapped in brown paper. The attached label read Apocalypse (Last Chord).

  ‘Keep away from heat,’ he warned Finch. ‘It took weeks to construct.’

  The shape and the warning were as good as a description. ‘I deliver this to the Fireworkers? Be a pleasure.’

  ‘By tomorrow’s deadline, if you’d be so kind.’

  A day and date at last, thought Finch, who knew the form. Every family could submit anonymously one named firework to the Guild in the hope of selection for the Vulcan’s Dance festivities. They had to be named and deposited in a large metal bin beside the Guild Hall’s front door. Submissions were assessed for safety, impact and reliability before two, known as the First and Last Chords, were chosen, one to open Vulcan’s Dance and the other to close it.

  ‘Be a pleasure,’ Finch repeated.

  ‘Another thing,’ said Fortemain. ‘If Miss Valourhand has been to the other place, she may have some answers – I fear the enemy knows something we do not.’

  The moleman’s paw covered Morval’s hand and Finch glimpsed the tragedy of a doomed relationship. Kept apart in Wynter’s time to save themselves and Ferensen, then by her hideous transformation, now they were sundered again by his dual nature and the practical impossibility of her returning to town.

  The conversation ended abruptly. ‘Time to go, Mr Finch. You should sleep in your own bed tonight,’ said Fortemain.

  Hand shook paw, and the tope regained control, refitting the crown-like contraption to his forehead and relighting the candle as Finch said his farewells to Morval.

  ‘On, on,’ cried the tope impatiently.

  At the intersection they took a downward tunnel, this time through smooth grey rock streaked with lichen where water gathered like perspiration on glass. At the end a wheeled platform rested on a narrow wooden rail. The tope tied Morval’s package to a cradle at the front.

  ‘Relax and drink in the view. Nature’s forces will do the work.’

  Finch tottered onto the platform. The tope embraced him like a Russian and released the brake. The trolley lurched and moved slowly off. The dark was not absolute; a glow from contrasting rock strata illuminated the way. Belatedly he understood the dampness: the rail was taking him under the Rother.

  The cart veered into a slow, spiralling ascent before levelling off into a dead end. He untied Morval’s package, stepped off and ascended the iron rungs on the wall in front of him.

  The cart shivered and returned the way it had come. Finch glanced at his restored pocket watch: five past eleven. The outer gates would already be closed. He lifted a hinged metal lid marked Rotherweird Drainage Department No 1472 and clambered out.

  *

  Back in the moleman’s lair, Fortemain reflected on the disturbing news about Bole’s shapeshifting gifts and his repossession of Straighten the Rope. He thought of Flask, and of other, older figures in Rotherweird’s history after Oxenbridge’s final departure. Unsettling possibilities occurred to him and he worried that Oblong’s mission might not be so straightforward. At least his underwater investigations had revealed a failsafe provided by Nature. If Bole tried to use the technology behind his modest ambition for anything extravagant, the seismic reaction would destroy Rotherweird, an outcome Bole would never risk. Perhaps it
was no bad thing that Bole had acquired his copy of Straighten the Rope, for his calculations addressed the dangers in detail.

  But he was still apprehensive: Never underestimate Wynter or his acolytes.

  ‘We need to amend our display, Morval, and for that we’ll need Tyke’s help.’

  Morval’s pen dipped again, drawing the stars and streamers of a magnificent firework.

  4

  Back to Earth

  It was a dry night and a chill, boisterous breeze slapped Finch's cheeks. Walls without windows reared into the night sky to a roofline with a sweeping curve. He was standing in the lee of the South Tower, Professor Bolitho’s observatory and Rotherweird home.

  He walked to the Golden Mean, returning a perfunctory wave from two young teachers rolling home from The Journeyman’s Gist, easy as you like.

  As he retrieved his spare keys from behind a brick in a flanking wall by Escutcheon Place, two men emerged from the shadows.

  ‘We’re glad to have found you,’ said one.

  ‘Welcome home,’ said the other.

  Finch recognised Snorkel’s cronies: the insincere greeting was shorn of any enquiry about the whys or wherefores of his disappearance. They turned on their heels and trotted off into the dark.

  A single gaslight on its lowest setting hissed in the hall of Escutcheon Place; otherwise it was silence and darkness. The pleasure of homecoming shifted to unease.

  Red wax sealed the note to the staircase banister.

  Blink, scratch. Lost mannerisms returned as he read Mrs Finch’s square, humourless script and its brutal message:

  Dear Finch,

  A man of your age disappears for only one reason. Be good enough to thank your grubby consort, whoever she is, for rescuing me from Pokey Place and Mr Gloom.

  Cindy has arranged rooms appropriate to our station on the right side of Market Square (rent deductible from your salary). Divorce papers will be filed next week. Look in the mirror and you will know the grounds. When Master Finch reaches majority, I shall press for his immediate succession. You are not fit for purpose.