Yours formerly,
Fennel
Finch gasped.
Take two measures of guilt. He delved into his bruised ego. Mrs Finch had, he had once believed, married for love – and so she had: love of the pride of place that his hereditary office would bestow on her. The small words ‘appropriate to our station’ and ‘the right side of Market Square’ testified to her values. He had not fought hard enough to change them.
Add one measure of relief. Life had been joyless for years, relieved only by the brief adventure with Slickstone. He had been gifted a chance to rebuild.
He retreated to the archivoire, where the scene of his abduction had been restored to normality, books returned, including The Dark Devices to its secret alcove, and the skylight windowpane resealed.
He sank to his knees, overcome by the onslaught of events, until his watch chimed. Gathering his wits and Morval’s package, he returned to the open air.
*
The two men reported to Bendigo Sly, ‘Finchy’s back.’
‘In one piece?’
‘Bit beardy.’
Sly handed over a pre-prepared press release. ‘Straight to the Chronicle editor.’
‘Suppose he asks where Finchy-boy’s been?’
‘That’s for Finch to divulge if he wishes – and he won’t, ’cause if he does, Mr Snorkel will let his ghastly missus loose.’
The two men glanced at the headline: Snorkel Foundation Rescues Herald.
‘Nice one, Mr Sly, nice one.’
*
Valourhand perched on Orelia’s desk at the back of the shop and tucked one leg under the other.
‘More coffee?’
Valourhand did not look up. Two hours’ study of Straighten the Rope had generated chains of calculations mushrooming across Baubles & Relics notepaper.
‘More brandy?’
Valourhand uncoiled and accepted the refill with a cursory thank-you before delivering a verdict of sorts. ‘Right, we’ve got force, celestial calendars, barometric pressure, spheres, the geology of Rotherweird Island, the physics of dark matter, seismology, cloud studies – and they’re all over the place. You get a scribbled note in the 1650s, then add-ons centuries later. But I can tell you this: something will happen – or could happen – on Election Day.’
‘Strimmer or Snorkel will win.’
Valourhand ignored the levity and continued, ‘One event he wants, the other he fears – but he considers the second one impossible. The feared event concerns the river somehow.’
‘The moon draws a tide,’ Orelia commented, ‘so what might a dark matter comet do?’
Valourhand did not answer; towards the front of the shop a tall stooped figure was pressing his face against the glass.
‘Finch!’ she exclaimed, snatching up Orelia’s keys and skipping to the door. She admitted Finch with a kiss on both cheeks.
Orelia blinked, both eyes, Finch-like: a first, Valourhand entranced by the sight of a fellow human being!
‘Hail the Herald, back from the dead!’ Valourhand cried.
Finch replied with a wan grin. Orelia pulled up an armchair, settled him in, poured everyone a brandy and rebuilt the fire.
Finch took a sip and summarised his adventures. ‘I’ve been imprisoned, interrogated, rescued, entertained – oh, yes, and Mrs Finch has buggered off.’
His cheeks had hollowed, his natural gauntness now haggard; tiny bursts of red scarred the whites of his eyes and grey flecked his hair: a tawny owl turning snowy.
Orelia imagined his return to an empty Escutcheon Place, abandoned by wife and son after such an ordeal.
Without warning, Finch turned violently on his companions as he seized Straighten the Rope. ‘You can’t have this! Not unless you’re in league—’
‘Calm down, Finchy,’ said Valourhand.
‘I was given it,’ Orelia explained, ‘by a diminutive bookbinder called Vibes.’
Finch steadied himself. ‘Vibes is dead.’
‘I know, I’ve seen the body – lobster hand and all,’ Orelia said.
The detail reassured Finch, and he crumpled back into the chair. ‘Please do forgive me – I’ve been away, completely out of touch. Bole killed Vibes, masquerading as Ferox. He must have been after the book – it’s Fortemain’s – but somehow Vibes got it to you in time. I wish I’d known earlier. The moleman would have been most reassured. The Escutcheon Place copy just had the diagrams. This is the one that matters.’
Orelia felt a need for order. ‘I think Finch’s news will be better informed and more informing if he hears ours first. I’ll start with Vibes.’ In deference to his fragile state, she took her time, recounting the mission to the Hoy Book Fair, the visit to Wynter’s ruined house, their attempt to reconstruct Finch’s abduction, the attack on Aether’s Way, the desecrated copy of Straighten the Rope, the corpse of Bole’s cat, the grandiose plans of the Apothecaries, and their conclusion that Fortemain was Bolitho. She shared for the first time her visit to The Agonies, having extracted a concession that neither of them would attempt a visit themselves. She also raised their suspicions about Estella Scry.
‘That old fraud?’ commented Finch. He had once ordered Scry to desist from selling heraldic mottos as guardians against the evil eye; her look of disdain had unsettled him. ‘The eyes have it . . .’
Valourhand followed, describing the subterranean road to Lost Acre, the quarry and the ambush by the ice-dragon.
Finch’s narrative came in fragments – his cell, his interrogation and the moment of rescue. Thereafter, his thespian gifts shone through. He brought the moleman’s divided being and his subterranean realm to vivid life before turning to Morval Seer. Affectingly, he conveyed her voiceless, drawing her thoughts, achingly beautiful.
Valourhand, uncharacteristically, asked first about Bolitho’s welfare. Finch preferred to treat him as Fortemain, being who he really was.
‘The moleman is not like the spiderwoman,’ Finch assured her. ‘They make cocktails and chat in different voices – but Fortemain is paranoid about Bole.’
Valourhand filled a gap in Orelia’s summary. ‘Straighten the Rope is an anagram of The Rotating Sphere. In Bolitho’s calculations, the comet and various spheres interact.’
Finch decided not to mention the sphere in his coat pocket; Oblong should be the first to know.
Valourhand continued, ‘So, I have a question. Our comet last appeared in 1017 – so how could Bolitho possibly know about it?’
Finch, the archivist, whispered Rotherweird’s worst blasphemy: ‘Someone recorded what happened. A history – the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, maybe?’
‘Oblong spoke to the expert on the Chronicle and he said nothing about comets.’
‘Hardly surprising if it’s invisible,’ mumbled Finch.
‘It’s not invisible in Lost Acre,’ Valourhand pointed out, before exploding in righteous indignation as she saw the answer. ‘Bloody Fanguin! What did he say Bolitho left him? A natural history by an eleventh-century monk—’
‘De Observatione Naturae,’ chipped in Orelia.
Valourhand drummed her feet against the floor in frustration. ‘So that is where the truth is, if only that dypso had read it properly. We’re surrounded by morons!’
Finch did not hear; his head had dipped and he looked hollow, a shell of a man, spent adrenalin demanding repayment. ‘Mr Gloom of Pokey Place she called me,’ he muttered, getting up and shuffling towards the door. ‘Thank you for the kind words and warmth. I’ll mend – I’m used to my own company.’
The Herald let himself out, prompting a litany of male failure from Valourhand. ‘Finch broken, Ferensen fled, Fanguin perennially pissed, Oblong hapless, Bolitho in hiding . . . Anyone I’ve missed?’
‘Jones?’
‘Juvenile.’
‘Boris?’
‘
Busy.’
‘Everthorne?’
‘Enigmatic.’
‘It’s up to us then.’
5
An Unexpected Gift
Pomeny Tighe liked her rooms for being high up. Her ordeal had started earthbound, crawling on all fours with a ditch for a bed until the almshouse in Hoy had taken her in. The following years had not diminished the horror of that opening decade or the fate she now faced.
Tonight, after a grinding day indulging Snorkel, she planned her next moves. Her handicap was worsening, her memory and libido fading fast.
As she cantered up the stairs, pointing her toes in the dust, she noticed another’s clumsier prints. This had happened once before, when Bendigo Sly’s distinctive feet had paid a visit, but this tread was heavier. She found no marks on the handle: so, a careful visitor.
She sensed the object before she saw it: a large multicoloured sphere, sitting dead centre on her single table, spinning unaided and unprovoked. A note beside it declared in neutral capitals:
TAKE ME WHENCE YOU CAME,
SUN SINKING ON THE SOLSTICE,
AND TIME WILL TURN AGAIN.
Caution deserted her: she had a cure, and instructions for its administration – why and from whom did not matter; that they knew her condition was enough. She had no wish to return to that accursed place, but then, vaccines are fashioned at the seat of infection.
She reached for her skipping rope.
6
Glass to Order
In the Glassmakers’ shop on Aether’s Way, the Master completed the last transaction of the day. ‘Thirty, as ordered.’ He awarded the customer a smile instead of a Madam or Miss, unsure which fitted best.
She counted them; women nearly always did, in his experience, while men rarely bothered. Nature or nurture? The ampoules had an unusual shape: long in the body with a weak neck sealed with a glass screw-top.
‘The books praise the resistances of glass,’ she said softly.
‘Nothing can beat it – alkali, almost all acids, water, gases, electricity,’ replied the Master, reassured that she was the mildest of customers.
She paid exactly, picked up the package and left.
Once home, she filled each ampoule, resealed the top and slid one into the readymade cavity in every shaft. She used razor blades for fletching to minimise air resistance, and broad heads to maximise bleeding. Impact would drive the spindle down the shaft into the ampoule’s neck.
All she needed now was the town to empty in the hours of darkness, and an impending Rotherweird ritual would see to that.
7
A Selection Committee
The unrelieved dressed stone, small windows set in iron frames and studded steel door gave the Fireworkers’ Hall the air of a prison. However, life within belied the morose outer shell: Fireworkers were enthusiasts, united by their love of harmless special effects.
The ground floor held both citizens’ submissions and the Guild’s own creations. Mounted on a huge wooden frame, a muscled figure with hammer in hand, moveable joints and fittings for various devices occupied an entire wall: Vulcan at his forge.
The basement held the Powder Room and the Ignition Chamber while the upper floors housed a warren of small rooms, each devoted to a particular expertise, loosely in order of assembly.
This year’s better submissions stood in two Ferdy beer barrels beside the Master’s desk; the current favourites, Argent Sparkle and Borealis, were lying on top. In truth, they were not the spectacular show-stoppers (or starters) their exotic names suggested.
‘Where’s the devil gone? They’re nothing more than wee bangs and sparks!’ Boris protested.
‘Try these, boss,’ brayed a bumptious apprentice, placing the weekend’s closing submissions on the table. Two stood out for size and ambition, and also as polar opposites. Apocalypse, a double-sticked rocket over waist-high in elegant black paper, had been submitted for the Last Chord; the white-paper Fatherly Wonder, a squat, ugly aerial shell, for the First Chord.
Argent Sparkle and Borealis were returned to the barrels. Boris took out his patented instruments for probing without disturbance: the ocle, the swab-poke and the decrimper. Word spread as he summoned his Senior Technician, luring fuse-fitters, designers, powder monkeys, chamber-makers, packers and other esoteric specialists downstairs to the Master’s study, mugs of morning coffee still in hand.
Each new finding raised a cheer.
‘Multiple chambers . . .’
‘Slow fuses, fast fuses . . .’
‘Spolets . . .’
‘Hummers . . .’
‘Parachutes . . .’
‘Strontium, barium, sodium, calcium . . .’
The ocle gave way to the swab-poke, which burrowed into the bowels of Fatherly Wonder.
‘There’s one colouring agent I don’t recognise, but, boy, is she ambitious!’
On to Apocalypse and another running commentary:
‘Different binders: dextrin and paron . . .’
‘What artwork . . .’ added an envious decorator.
The black paper boasted an array of motifs in gold paint – dragonflies, volcanoes, tiny insects identified by the Senior Technician as glow-worms. Never had any of them encountered such exquisite draughtsmanship on a firework casing.
‘All in favour?’ asked Boris.
A forest of hands went up: no dissenters.
‘To print!’ he declared, tossing the programme onto the table. Argent Sparkle and Borealis were erased in favour of Fatherly Wonder and Apocalypse, each inscribed in a flourish of crimson ink. Applause broke out. Their spectacle would neither start nor finish with a whimper.
The Fireworkers kept their membership secret and only one name adorned the credits at the foot of the programme, a promise kept: Gregorius Jones, Aerial Scout.
8
Old Haunts and New
Observing gas-lamps dimming at eight o’clock precisely, when they usually brightened, Oblong left his lodgings for the Golden Mean to find a Marie Celeste of a town. A deathly silence hung over the empty streets; every window was closed and shuttered.
A low whistle rose to an ululating crescendo before dying away. The shutters swung open and spectral, disembodied faces appeared – Hallowe’en pumpkins at the end of November? Why did nobody warn me?
His anxiety eased. Rotherweird’s take on the Feast of Lost Souls would surely be entertaining. He anticipated children in outlandish costumes, toffee apples, candyfloss, trick or treat . . .
None of these happened. Instead, a floating gourd with spinning rotors, candlelit mouth agape, flitted down a side street.
‘Welcome to Lazarus Night, Mr Historian. Your time has come.’ The unknown voice had a grating quality.
Oblong spun round to face the devil himself, with cloven feet and a leathery tail, which twitched like a cat’s. A tray of masks hung around his neck.
‘This is yours: the outsider brings justice and death.’ The devil handed over a crimson headsman’s mask and a long-handled axe made of papier mâché.
The fabric of the mask had an unpleasant clinging quality.
The devil shook his head in exasperation. ‘Hold it like Mr Flask: have style!’
How to carry an axe stylishly? he wondered. Over my shoulder, head down by my side or across the chest on outstretched arms? He opted for waist-level with the head pointing forwards.
The gas-lamps sputtered and went out; he checked his watch. Eight-thirty precisely. A prearranged programme must be playing out. By the time Oblong had matched his eyes to the mask’s slits, the devil had vanished.
At the approach to Market Square, grey-ribbed sacs hung from the lamp posts. Oblong prodded one with the axe-handle. The skin twitched as a claw cut through the material, to be followed by feelers, then spindly legs. The emerging creature, a skull-faced
purple butterfly, climbed to the top of the lamp post, freed its wings and skimmed up a wire to alight on a chimney stack. Others followed and in short order the roofscape was teeming with grotesques.
Was he not playing Oxenbridge, summoned from wider England to bring the Eleusians and their grotesque creations to heel? Oblong recalled the nursery rhymes of his childhood, their lyrics rooted in dark historical fact.
At eight forty-five a skeleton band marched into the north end of Market Square playing a stately chaconne. Behind them, bearers carried a life-sized clock, its pendulum a suspended man swinging a scythe. The physique and rictus grin were uniquely Gregorius Jones.
A second band marched in from the south in perfect time and tune with the first.
The Apothecaries joined from Hamelin Way, in pitch-black tunics and stovepipe hats, torchlight flickering on expressionless faces: judges to his executioner.
Street doors disgorged the remaining citizenry, a mix of witches, warlocks, werewolves and vampires, costumed to convince, all processing to Market Square and chanting:
‘By the pricking of my thumbs . . .
The graves are open,
Winter comes . . .’
The press herded Oblong into the centre of Market Square, where an Apothecary placed a lifelike block at his feet while two more spread-eagled a straw guy on the block.
Estella Scry strode forward. ‘Strike, you fool,’ she hissed.
He did so, and with a conjuror’s flourish, Scry held up the head to the crowd.
The two bands struck up a livelier dance as a coffin appeared. Scry commanded it to open as if calling Lazarus to life and a spectral prince – none other than Hengest Strimmer, crowned in a golden wreath – rose into view. As he did so, carnival erupted: a frenzied dance of the dead. From the highest towers machines belched man-made snow across Market Square and the aerial walkways of Aether’s Way.
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