Wyntertide

by Caldecott, Andrew

  Winter comes. Wynter comes.

  ‘How did Strimmer wangle that?’ snarled Snorkel from the balcony of the Mayoral Suite. ‘This is Lazarus Night, not a canvassing spectacular.’

  To any neutral observer, Snorkel the vampire bat looked repulsive – but not to Mrs Finch, an imp with a daring décolletage.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ she cooed, as Mrs Snorkel, an elegant gorgon, scowled.

  She loathed Mrs Finch and her pushiness in all its aspects, but found compensation in the clock’s human pendulum – if only he were not a mere gym teacher. Still, window-shopping was better than nothing.

  Snorkel’s ire moved onto Scry. ‘How dare that woman summon Strimmer like an anointed king! She wangled her way onto the Steering Committee – and the chairmanship, I’ll have you know.’

  By ‘wangled’, Snorkel meant that he had eased her way.

  ‘Her shop sells the most frightful tat,’ simpered Mrs Finch.

  Why now? he fumed, ignoring his guest. He knew better than most that endorsement mattered – every handshake, every cheer, every baby tendered for appreciation – but subliminal endorsement mattered more. Her performance was a betrayal.

  Oblong threaded his way through the Apothecaries to the empty eastern quarter, the music receding in the twists and turns of Hamelin Way. Houses stooped lower here, as if weighed down by the harshness of their inhabitants’ lives. Stars glittered in the slivers of night sky between opposing roofs, symbols of unattainable wealth.

  A familiar refrain floated by.

  ‘By the pricking of my thumbs . . .

  The graves are open,

  Winter comes . . .’

  But who was singing? Nearing the end of Hamelin Way, he peered into the side alleys. Nobody – but the uncanny refrain came again. Oblong lengthened his stride into a wider space. He had stumbled on the Fireworkers’ Hall. The feminine voice closed, but still nobody was visible.

  Oblong the schoolmaster took control. ‘Hey! Show yourselves! That’s quite enough tomfoolery.’

  A shove from behind sent him sprawling forward. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs . . .’ whispered the voice.

  Oblong felt a jab in his left arm, and clasping his sleeve, his fingers reddened: blood was seeping through. A dagger point appeared and Oblong kicked out, but too slowly. A second blade flicked down the cobbles, raising a trail of sparks. Panic-stricken, Oblong went berserk, swinging in all directions with his papier-mâché axe.

  ‘He wants to play,’ hissed the same female voice with another thrust, this time at Oblong’s right leg, as a kick from his invisible assailant dislodged the axe from his hand. The unseen attacker chuckled and hissed, ‘The eyes have it!’

  Oblong looked about frantically for a loose cobblestone, a dustbin lid, any makeshift weapon or shield, but to no avail. With a cry for help, he started spinning round, arms outstretched – and he made contact, too solid for any ghost.

  Touché!

  But he could not sustain momentum; already breathless, he adopted a boxer’s pose, flicking out his feet, but with decreasing frequency and power. In the heat of this one-sided battle, Oblong registered how absurd he must look, a lumbering bull goaded by an invisible picador. The steel tips grew slowly, one circling to the left, one to the right, level with his face, poking closer and closer.

  ‘Eeeny . . . meeny . . . miney . . . mo . . .’

  Oblong wanted to cover his eyes, but that would leave him defenceless.

  ‘En garde!’

  A second female cry announced the arrival of a dark purple moth, body painted and eyes goggled, swinging crazily down the plant wires trained between the houses and walkways; some held, some snapped, but the creature landed gracefully, shrugged off its wings and cartwheeled towards the blades.

  The insect ducked a scything sweep by the second blade, smearing the owner with grime as it passed. Fragments of an attacker’s body appeared: a bare shoulder and a lower wrist. Oblong followed suit, scouring his fingers along the lip of the pavement and hurling the accumulated dirt.

  ‘Go for the face!’ cried the demented insect, pirouetting while kicking like a can-can dancer.

  The threat had an instant effect: the knives and disembodied limbs fled down an alleyway – fear of recognition had won the day.

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ said his rescuer. ‘There was just one, a slim “her” with not a stitch on – have you been insulting your class?’ The voice and its tone were as distinctive as Jones’ physique. To his acute disappointment, he had been rescued by Valourhand.

  ‘I thought Hallowe’en opened November—’ he stuttered.

  ‘This is not Hallowe’en, this is Rotherweird. We have our own festivals on our own dates – and you owe me a pair of wings.’ Valourhand pushed up her goggles.

  Oblong rubbed his leg, adrenalin having ousted the pain until now. More blood stained his fingers.

  ‘Shirt up, trouser legs up,’ she added. He dithered, so she did it for him.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘They’re flesh wounds – grow up!’ She tore strips off her discarded wings and bound the deeper cuts, including, lastly, one on her own arm. ‘So, someone thinks you’re a threat – how weird is that?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I’m Rotherweird’s only historian – I am the threat.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Valourhand, ‘as a pompous abstract proposition – but, pray, do tell me what you know about our past that I don’t. And remove that absurd mask before I finish the job.’

  ‘The only other person in town with historical lowdown has been kidnapped. The opposition clearly don’t agree.’

  ‘I repeat: what do you know that I do not?’

  Oblong floundered. ‘You’re lucky I’m not a lepidopterist,’ he countered feebly, before gracefully conceding, ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You saved my life.’

  She grinned. ‘So I did.’

  *

  ‘I’ll put a sign up,’ whispered Ferdy as Valourhand redressed their wounds, ‘No Invisibles.’

  His remark galvanised Valourhand. ‘Somebody had the skill to rework Boris’ invisibility film as paint – let’s hope it’s all used up. He never bothers with where his inventions might lead.’

  Rather rich, coming from the North Tower, thought Oblong.

  ‘Question is, how did she get it?’ continued Valourhand.

  Front-of-house remained quiet, poised for a late surge from Market Square. Pumpkins glowed on tables and the bar; swathes of garlic hung over the lintels. Ferdy’s assistants ministered to a sprinkling of the Summoned, among them Everthorne, sketching in a corner, and an attractive young woman, also with a pad on her knee.

  ‘You are?’ Valourhand asked her bluntly.

  ‘Pomeny Tighe. And you?’

  Valourhand, distracted for some reason, did not reply, so Oblong thrust his hand between them. ‘Hi, name’s Oblong. I’m the School historian.’

  She dipped her eyelashes and Oblong, ever vulnerable to feminine interest, wobbled on his wounded legs.

  ‘I have a historian on my staircase in Germany. Aren’t you rather on the young side?’

  ‘That’s Euler’s equation,’ interrupted Valourhand, staring at her pad, which contained a simple equation, V – E + F = 2, above a tangle of figures.

  Oblong felt out of his depth, but Tighe smiled. ‘Let’s help our historian, shall we? V equals vertices, E equals edges and F equals faces.’

  ‘And below?’ asked Valourhand.

  ‘Musings,’ replied Tighe. ‘I do like to muse.’ She turned back to Oblong. ‘It talks of the beauty of spheres.’

  An urge to change the subject seized Oblong, so unexpected was the answer. Spheres. Did anyone study anything else in this godforsaken town? ‘Who’s Mr Euler?’
he asked.

  ‘Herr Euler could recite the Aeneid by heart and pinpoint the first and last line on every page. Isn’t that something, Mr Historian?’

  ‘I trust he’s not pre-1800,’ said Oblong primly.

  ‘He may well be, but his equation is eternal.’

  Valourhand remained silent.

  Oblong glimpsed an unexpected object in Tighe’s bag. ‘Oh, that looks fun.’

  She dipped in and placed a toy mechanical on the table, a fisherman on a riverbank. ‘Third Time Lucky, it’s called. Press the button, lift the tiny lever – and hey presto!’ She demonstrated: the waves moved to and fro; the fisherman dipped his rod, and on the third cast a metal fish emerged hooked to the line. ‘Eventually the magnet goes low enough to draw,’ she explained.

  Oblong thought it odd that a woman with such exceptional geometrical understanding should be mesmerised by a toy.

  ‘I shall change it so the fish is bigger and the angler falls in,’ added Tighe, with girlish enthusiasm.

  ‘Where do you work out there?’ asked Valourhand, indicating the great beyond with a flick of the wrist.

  ‘Heidelberg University.’

  Oblong restarted the mechanical, only to find his hand jabbed by Tighe’s index finger. ‘Mine!’ she said firmly, returning the toy to her bag.

  Valourhand and Oblong exchanged glances, a rare flash of agreement. There was something amiss with Pomeney Tighe.

  9

  Dance Moves

  Vulcan’s Dance and the Great Equinox Race shared with Lazarus Night themed costumes – but with more restraint. All wore black, enhanced by only one decorative motif, but with a wide variety in shape and movement. Rosettes, fixed to the coat like badges, changed colour as they rotated; cloth Catherine wheels spun; hats opened to release multi-coloured stars; rockets climbed from heel to shoulder before sinking and rising again, all powered by tiny clockwork mechanisms fashioned by the Metalworkers. Those who could not afford such luxuries wove fantastical patterns in luminous beads.

  When Aggs enlightened Oblong about his latest sartorial duties, he protested, ‘I’m not paying to dress up as a firework.’ His humiliation as a self-propelled rocket at Bolitho’s funeral still rankled. ‘And, Aggs, you might have tipped me off about Lazarus Night! I bet you warned Flask.’

  ‘’e didn’t need telling, did ’e? Anyway, next year you’ll know.’

  ‘If there is one,’ he retorted grumpily.

  Aggs stood, one hand on hip, the other grasping a feather duster. She spoke like a travel guide, ramming home the essential facts. ‘If you’re after lowdown on the Dance: bakers have programmes, free with any purchase. Town gates open at seven; they fires the Hag at seven-thirty; fireflies before the main course at eight, and every south-facing window – including those what belongs to outsiders – gotta be covered over from two in the afternoon. Get it?’

  ‘I get it: no peeping in daylight – but where’s the show?’

  ‘The Island Field, Mr Oblong – where else in a town made of wood? High time I gave whatever lurks between them lug-holes a right old scrub and polish.’

  ‘What’s the Hag?’

  ‘She’s a beauty like me, only with wings!’ She lunged at him with a hideous grin, top teeth clenched over her bottom lip, flapping her arms. Oblong had a fleeting vision of the Fury swooping on Aether’s Way.

  Aggs was now in full flow. ‘All right, droopy drawers – save yer guineas for women and song. I’ll find you a hand-me-down.’

  A dark herringbone coat arrived the following morning. It had seen better days – the clockwork mechanism had rusted through, leaving the woollen rocket stranded halfway up his back – but Oblong made no complaint; he had no wish to stand out.

  After perusing the programme and the list of innocuous display titles, he relaxed, a little.

  *

  That same evening Tyke addressed the inhabitants of The Agonies with understated eloquence. His audience, a miscellany of half-human creatures, sat at their benches in the main workroom. Morval Seer stood at the back, a reassuring presence after Vibes’ murder.

  ‘Tomorrow night, Morval and I must leave for a few hours,’ he told them. ‘We’ll be back by midnight.’ He offered no reason for their absence. The changelings made their own clothes and grew their own food, but in most the human part of their make-up had been frozen at the age of their abduction, hence the need for supervision. The changelings feared the prophesied return of their torturer, Geryon Wynter, and he had no wish to discomfort them further.

  *

  3 p.m. Boris’ convoy rolled onto Hamelin Way. The fading sky glowed deep blue, but the Guild’s instruments had shown fast tightening millibars from late evening. Forecasting in the valley was a fallible science, but the odds favoured an undisturbed display.

  Gregorius Jones sauntered alongside. ‘All set, Master Polk?’

  Boris waved a hand. ‘All set-ish.’

  *

  4 p.m. The Fireworkers had unpacked the carts in the Island Field and spread out the contents. Every firework, iron peg, wire and helium balloon had a number, the latter being tethered to a heavy millstone anchor. The chosen ground looked like a rock-face patterned with pitons. Between the pegs ran horizontal wires with rings attached for the vertical wires to which the balloons would attach. A heavy windlass, anchored to the ground, would hold Vulcan and his forge in place. Jones, honorary member for the day, eyed the small crow’s nest, his station for the night, with mild apprehension: it would be a tight fit, and the vertical wires were dauntingly long.

  *

  5.30 p.m. The Forge had been set out ready for launch, with fireworks fixed in their allotted places, each set to draw the eye away from its dying predecessor. Boris placed the First Chord, Fatherly Wonder, nearest the audience, and the Last Chord, Apocalypse, furthest away.

  On a raft on the Rother stood a towering pyre of crisscrossed branches and planks above a brushwood core. Attached to the raft was a tall gibbet embedded in the riverbed, where in time the Hag would be raised, by tradition the responsibility of the Apothecaries.

  *

  6.30 p.m. The most perilous moment had passed without upset: twelve helium balloons, their skins coated in Polk-patented fire-resistant paint, had raised the model forge with its fireworks high into the sky.

  *

  6.50 p.m. Gregorius Jones clambered into his basket, where he stood, back ramrod-straight like a guardsman, brass lighter-stick held perpendicular. Boris explained the primitive rudder, only for use if – a most unlikely if – the balloon should escape its moorings. The Fireworkers fixed a large balloon, fashioned for safety with three separate chambers, to the basket and launched.

  Jones fastened the chinstrap of his aviator’s cap and said not a word. Orders are orders. He peered at the constellation of Orion: no sign of any comet, no ill omens to trouble him. On Rotherweird Island the portcullis remained closed. To the south and west, the dark shadow of the great woods lined the valley rim. He looked across to the marsh.

  A thought came, half-observation and half-insight, as extravagant as it was horrifying . . . surely that could not be Wynter’s secret?

  ‘Gregorius!’ The voice broke the spell and Jones snapped back into military mode. ‘We’re moving you left.’

  Boris looked miniscule waving his loudhailer. Wheels careened along the wires, sliding Jones within reach of the black and yellow master fuse by the fire god’s right ankle. He sat on the retractable stool and emptied his mind – eyes shut, limbs still, only the ears active, tuned for the faintest sound – as if waiting in ambush.

  *

  7.00 p.m. The procession emerged from the South Gate. The Apothecaries led, bearing the Hag, bound by her wings to a gallows-like structure. The rest of the town milled behind in no particular order. The pyrotechnically minded – of whom there were many – assuaged the disappointment
of rejection for the First or Last Chords by constructing miniature fireworks known as fireflies. The Firework Regulations dictated the quantity of gunpowder and the size, and the method of launch (metal runnels fixed to the eastern shore of the Island Field). There were five permitted classes: dragons for distance (sub-divided into red for height and green for horizontal travel), damsels (colours), bottles (sound), swallowtails (acrobatics) and bees (multiple displays).

  Families declared for one school and usually stayed there. Competition flourished, judged by senior members of the Fireworkers’ Guild – and with what prizes! The Woodcarvers, dealers in permanence, supplied tiny carvings of the class emblem endorsed with the year in gold – trophies exempted from destruction under the Inheritance Regulations.

  10

  Rockets and More

  Countrysiders clasping homemade optical aids of varying sophistication gathered on the prominence behind Ferensen’s tower to watch another town ceremonial from which they were excluded.

  A whisper took root and spread, that Ferensen was back – and there he was, emerging from the woodland in a long travelling coat. Like sheep to their shepherd, they flocked around him.

  He opened with a subject on which he never erred. ‘Weather is coming, exceptional weather, and danger with it. Take advantage: if we treasure home and livelihood, it’s our collective duty to keep Snorkel and Strimmer from power. Be generous, and use your ingenuity. You won’t see me for some time, but rest assured, I shall be watching with your interests at heart.’

  They dispersed, no longer interested in the town’s frivolities.

  Nature would be their ally.

  *

  7.10 p.m. Bert Polk tried to explain the next act to his distracted fourth child, Imo. ‘The Apothecaries walk down the Island Field to the pontoon bridge they built this morning. They cross it, hoist the Hag and light the pyre—’

  ‘That looks like Uncle Boris!’

  ‘It’s the Master of the Fireworkers, and you’re not listening.’