The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls

by F. E. Higgins

  ‘He threatened all sorts if I didn’t help him. He knew about you – I don’t know how. I didn’t want to do any of it, but he drugged me and tortured me and blinded me with this bright light, coming and going, coming and going. Then, when he had no more use for me, he gave me over to the DUG. I was hanged and found myself here, but he came back and used the ambergris I stole to control me.’

  He seemed to calm down a little and began to whine again. ‘Dear Folly, can you not bring yourself to find some ragamuffin on the street, some good-for-nothing little thief whose body I can assume? At least let me have a taste again of what it is like to be alive. There are strange things going on these days – I could help you.’

  Folly could feel Axel’s cold breath on her cheeks and the smell of him was beginning to make her feel quite ill. He interpreted her silence as a refusal. ‘I see then you haven’t changed. Always thinking you’re better than me, our father’s favourite. Well, it ain’t good to spurn your own. He taught you all the tricks – now it’s time to do what is right.’ He opened his mouth and screeched, ‘Free me!’

  Behind him the host of Lurids took up the cry. ‘Free meeee! Freeee meeee!’

  ‘No,’ muttered Folly. ‘I cannot. I must not.’

  Without warning, Axel lurched forward and stretched out his arms to their full extent. His fingertips just managed to touch her on the face. Folly yelped at the burning sting and jumped backwards. Then, drawing her Natron disperser from her coat, she aimed it straight at the furious Lurid. Axel put his hands up, and it was disarming to see such a vile creature make a gesture of submission.

  ‘No!’ he cried.

  Folly lowered her weapon. ‘Where is your Blivet?’

  Axel was now flitting about the shore’s edge as if in a state of indecision. ‘My Blivet? So that’s what you want. And to kill me. Again.’

  ‘I didn’t kill you,’ said Folly. ‘You were already dead.’ She repeated the question.

  Axel came back to the edge of the lake, the limit of his world, and snarled, his face a mask of rage. ‘And why should I give it to you? If I even knew where it was.’

  ‘I need it.’

  A sly look came over the Lurid’s face. ‘Kamptulicon will help me if you don’t. And then you will have no control over me.’

  She remained expressionless. ‘Kamptulicon? What do you know of his business?’

  Axel danced away, teasingly, but he hadn’t gone far before Folly barked out a word in Quodlatin and he came back, compelled by its utterance. Calmly she spoke. ‘Very well, I agree. If you tell me where your Blivet is, I will do my best to find a way to free you. But not for long. You are a murderer after all.’

  Axel released a long sigh. ‘I’ll tell you, but you won’t like it. And how can I trust you to keep your promise?’

  Folly brought her hand up to her heart. ‘On our father’s soul, I will keep my word.’

  ‘Very well. Kamptulicon took my Blivet when he set me up for the murder.’

  ‘So he has it?’

  Axel darted about a bit before answering, sulkily, ‘No, Leucer d’Avidus has it now; he keeps it in the Governor’s Residence.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Because I was there, after the torture, waiting for the Urgs to take me. Kamptulicon gave it to Leucer and I saw him put it in the safe. Now, when will you do it, sister? When will you keep your promise?’

  ‘Soon, brother,’ said Folly softly. ‘Soon. It’s not easy, once you’ve been expelled from a body. I thought you would know—’

  Axel made another grab at Folly and this time he was too quick for her. His hands encircled her neck and he began to haul her towards the tar’s edge. With a roar Vincent rushed forward and hurled fistfuls of black beans at the Lurid and, with a wail, Axel released Folly and tried to rake up the beans even as they sank. Then he began to sob and wring his scabby hands before finally fleeing to join those whom he so despised.

  Vincent helped Folly to her feet.

  ‘Kew,’ she managed to croak. ‘He nearly had me!’

  ‘We can get the Blivet now,’ said Vincent excitedly. ‘I can steal it from Leucer’s safe.’ He had a sudden vision of himself wielding the triple-tined platinum weapon. He imagined how it would feel to bliv a Pluribus next time he saw one. And if he got the chance maybe he would stick it in Kamptulicon too. What effect would it have on a human? Was Kamptulicon even human? He looked at his metal hand and wondered.

  Folly just stared at him blankly, rubbing her neck where the imprint of Axel’s hands had been burned into the skin. He realized that perhaps he was being too presumptuous. Maybe Axel was telling the truth and had been set up. Domne! What a place to spend eternity if you were innocent.

  ‘I’m sorry. What Axel said – is he really innocent?’

  Folly’s laugh had an edge of sadness to it. ‘So he fooled you, did he? I’ll admit he is very plausible. But he is a Lurid, Vincent, and there’s not a one in the Tar Pit would admit to its crime, whatever the evidence. I have little doubt my brother deserves to be in that Tar Pit, no matter how much he protests his innocence.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Vincent quietly. ‘Surely then you did not mean it, that you would free him?’

  ‘I made a promise,’ she said, and Vincent thought he detected the hint of a tremor in Folly’s normally cool tones. ‘I don’t break promises, but I was telling the truth. He has already assumed a body. That makes it a hundred times harder to release him again. But maybe Kamptulicon knows a way. He is a Cunningman; I am not. So much has changed I can’t tell any more what is possible and what is not.’

  With Lux fast approaching, the two made their way silently back to the Komaterion and the safety of the Kryptos. On the threshold Folly turned to Vincent and smiled briefly.

  ‘So, my burglar friend, how do you propose to get the Blivet? The Governor’s Residence is at the top of Collis Hill, reached only by the funicular railway. It’s well guarded. You haven’t broken in there yet.’

  Vincent set his mouth in a firm line. ‘Yet,’ came the laconic reply.

  CHAPTER 17

  PAINT YOUR WAGON

  ‘Cockles!’ exclaimed Jonah. ‘What in Poseidon is that?’

  Citrine, pedalating cautiously round the perimeter of Mercator Square on the way to the Caveat Emptorium, shot a fleeting glance at the thirteen pillars of the Kronometer and saw what Jonah meant. Each pillar was a-flutter and a-jingle with a multitude of tokens tied on by the superstitious residents of the city. There were all manner of offerings ranging from simple dolls fashioned from straw (the sort of thing a child might make) to silver pendants and bottles of rare oil and even coins punched and tied together like a necklace. And the value of the offerings also ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other; the donors knew that no one would dare to steal them for fear of dreadful Supermundane repercussions.

  ‘Gifts to the Supermundane, to appease the entities. Everyone is upset. The business down at the Tar Pit was bad enough, then the earthquake and now the Kronometer stopping. This is the Degringoladian way of coping,’ explained Citrine.

  ‘I ain’t never seen nanything like that before.’

  Citrine resisted the urge to point out the multiple negatives in Jonah’s declaration and concentrated on passing through the marketplace as quickly as possible. It was Prax, and she had thought that by now Mercator Square would be deserted, but in actuality it was quite alive with people and, more alarmingly, Urgs. They stood in groups, easily identified by their headgear, eyeing the passers-by and watching the traffic.

  ‘You know,’ said Jonah thoughtfully, trying to make himself as small as possible inside the vehicle. ‘I’m not sure how long we can keep using this Trikuklos. The Urgs know we have one, and yours does stick out like a swordfish in a school of sardines.’

  Citrine knew he was right. Generally people rode about on horseback or in carriages, and although Trikukloi were becoming more and more common, they were still an object of curiosity and attracted unwanted atten
tion. And, given the fact that the other Trikukloi were single-seaters, Citrine’s, being double and longer and wider, stood out even more.

  Jonah continued. ‘Vincent said that the Urgs have been ordered to stop and search all Trikuklos drivers, hoping to find us.’

  Citrine pressed harder on the pedals, turned out of the square and shortly afterwards stopped down the dead-end alley beside Claude Caballoux’s horsemeat shop. Together she and Jonah hurried across the road and Citrine pushed open the door of the Caveat Emptorium to the tuneless accompaniment of the shop bell. When Jonah stepped inside, his huge bulk blocked almost completely the dull early-evening light.

  ‘Would it surprise you to know,’ Citrine whispered, ‘I have never been in this shop?’

  Jonah was not surprised. Wenceslas Wincheap’s Caveat Emptorium, indeed any such establishment of barter, was not the typical haunt of a family such as the Capodels.

  Citrine couldn’t help but feel excited at this new experience. The last year in the Capodel Townhouse with Edgar had been very difficult. He had kept her on a short lead, isolated her from her friends and saddled her with a strict governess. She would never have thought that it would take a charge of murder to escape him. Of course, the prospect of the noose still hung over her head like the sword of Damocles, and she felt wretched about poor Florian, but there was no denying she was enjoying her new-found freedom, despite the complications that came with it.

  ‘I’ve been here once or twice,’ said Jonah. ‘There’s good fishing down near the lighthouse – but you must watch out for those gulls, vicious they are – and Wenceslas always has a supply of fish hooks and bait buckets.’

  Their eyes had barely adjusted to the poor light when a voice boomed out from somewhere further back in the shop. ‘Well, well! I believes I could get meself a few hundred sequenturies if I turned youse in!’

  The rotund figure of Wenceslas Wincheap manifested itself from the shadows and stepped into the light of his own manuslantern, which he helpfully held above his head. Citrine and Jonah stood aside as he squeezed past them and locked the door.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Citrine, who had paled at the sound of the turning key. ‘It ain’t to keep you in, more to keep unwelcome visitors out. Now I can give you me full attention. Suma said I was to look out fer youse.’

  He beckoned to them to follow him, and they did, down a short corridor and into a small back room. It was wonderfully warm and cosy and quite different from the dusty neglected shop. Wenceslas gestured to them both to sit down on the fireside chairs. The fire was stacked high with logs and was giving out powerful heat. The shopkeeper stood between them, staring from one to the other with his tiny eyes.

  ‘I remembers you,’ he said to Jonah. ‘I still has that Cachelot tooth you etched, very skilful.’ Jonah reddened; he was not proud of his whaling past.

  ‘And I believes you to be Citrine Capodel.’ Wenceslas shook out a rolled-up bill that had been propped against the fireplace. It was one of Chief Guardsman Fessup’s ‘At Large and Dangerous’ posters. It showed the four of them, the so-called ‘Phenomenals’, drawn in bold black ink, with the words ‘Murderers’ and ‘Thieves’ screaming out from above their heads. But it wasn’t the words that were the most prominent aspect of the poster. Unusually for such ‘wanted’ bills, Fessup had instructed the printers to use colour, specifically for Citrine’s russet hair. The facial likeness was certainly reasonable, but her hair was unmistakable.

  Citrine managed a laugh and pushed back her hood to display a head of rather odd-looking hair, still a strange and tangled mixture of black and her natural red from the recent dyeing disaster. Wenceslas raised a wiry eyebrow, but said nothing.

  ‘We don’t want to cause you any trouble with Fessup or his Urgs,’ said Citrine, ‘but Suma said you might be able to help us.’

  Wenceslas laughed. ‘Urgs? Pah! Not a brain cell between them. I ain’t worried ‘bout Fessup’s claptrapulation and his bungling pantaloons. Suma told me to help you anyhoos I can, and that’s what I’ll do.’ He pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small paper packet. ‘For you.’

  Citrine read the label. ‘Hair dye?’

  ‘Won’t run in the rain, this one, Suma says.’ Wenceslas went out into the shop and the two exchanged a quizzical glance as they listened to his rummaging about. He returned carrying a large can.

  ‘Now, you’ll be needing something for that Trikuklos of yours – stands out like a sore thumb, it does. Your father always did like quality; only the biggest and best for Hubert.’

  ‘You knew my father?’

  ‘Oh yes. He came in all the time, looking for bits and pieces. You know what I say – sumthin’ for ever’one in here. Now, I set aside a tin of this for you. Try it.’

  ‘Paint?’ queried Jonah.

  ‘The Trikuklos is black already.’ Citrine was rather taken aback at the revelation that her father was a customer of the Caveat Emptorium. ‘How will this help?

  ‘Not paint, varnish, and no ornerary varnish neither,’ said Wenceslas. ‘It dries to a special sheen that reflects what’s around it.’

  ‘Like a mirror?’ Jonah sounded uncharacteristically sceptical.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Wenceslas. ‘But it makes things much harder to see. It ain’t perfect – it’s no invisible paint, if that’s what you’re thinking – but on a dark night it does a good job of foxing any nosy Urgs.’

  ‘Kew very much,’ said Jonah, and graciously accepted the tin along with a couple of paintbrushes. Wenceslas, declaring dramatically that he had forgotten his manners, left to make a brew and soon returned with a tray carrying three steaming mugs and a plate of hard cakes. Citrine and Jonah realized then how hungry they were. If they had been in the Kryptos, by now they would have been eating slumgullion. Citrine was also taking a little pleasure from the relatively soft furniture and the simple act of drinking tea. Folly’s tisane was wonderful, but its flavour took a little getting used to. This tea reminded her of the good things about her old life. Wenceslas did not keep coffins and bones in his sitting room.

  ‘So, how else can I help youse?’ asked Wenceslas.

  ‘Well, Mr Wincheap . . .’ began Citrine.

  ‘Wenceslas, please,’ insisted the Caveat’s owner.

  ‘Well, Wenceslas, I wondered if you had some chemicals for my Klepteffigium so I can finish the Depictions.’

  ‘Indeedy, I can certainly provide that,’ said Wenceslas, and went and returned in a matter of moments with two blue, ridged-glass, cork-stoppered bottles, which he handed over.

  ‘Anything else?’

  I don’t suppose you can shed any light on what Governor d’Avidus and Leopold Kamptulicon are up to?’ asked Jonah, not sounding too hopeful.

  Wenceslas sat and steepled his fingers and drummed out a little rhythm, the chubby tips undulating quickly, rather as a caterpillar moves. ‘I know that Leucer d’Avidus, for all his pretence at being a man for the people, is a sly fellow not to be trusted. He has ’em fooled if they think he has their interests at heart. But I ain’t fooled. You don’t have to go far back to see that the d’Avidus family are a bunch of troublemakers. Used to be in cahoots with Lord and Lady Degringolade, and we all know what an odd end they came to, a very odd end! Holed up in that big old manor, never seen or heard of again. I never thought I’d see the day a d’Avidus would be elected to run the city. I cannot say how he got elected, though it helps when you have the money he has. Money buys votes.’

  ‘We know that Leopold Kamptulicon—’

  ‘The “lamp seller”,’ scoffed Wenceslas.

  ‘. . . and my cousin, Edgar, are colluding.’

  ‘Colluding? Call it what it is, lass – hatching trouble. From what I know, it looks as if their plan, whatever it was, has been held up by all the ruckus at the Tar Pit.’

  ‘I thought Kamptulicon just wanted a Lurid,’ said Jonah, wiping crumbs from his mouth. He had devoured three cakes with gusto. Dipped in tea, they softened to a wonderful swee
t mush.

  Wenceslas looked thoughtful. ‘Suma reckons that was a test, to see if it was even possible to embody a Lurid. Leucer has taken advantage of the fact that the citizens think your friend Folly is responsible for all the trouble at the pit. Ever’one saw that sulfrus smoke pouring out of her. All Leucer has to do to throw them off his scent is to keep up this witch hunt against you lot. It’s no coincidence they’ve named you the Phenomenals, after the worst Superents around. It’s scared the people and stirred up their superstitious nature like a porridge spurtle. You’ve seen how ever’one still carries a Brinepurse even though the Ritual is past. And they wear their browpins and talismans and all sorts of whatnots.’

  ‘We’ve seen the tokens on the Kronometer,’ added Citrine.

  ‘Strange things ahead, according to my cards. The quake really shook this city up. The lighthouse is on the verge of collapse. In my ’pinion, it’s just another sign that something’s afoot in the world of the Supermundane.’

  ‘Did you suffer much damage?’

  The big man shook his head. ‘Oh, lost a few bits and bobs. It’s the other stuff you should be worried about. The Kronometer and the prophecy. If you were a black-bean merchant right now, you’d make a fortune.’ Wenceslas paused a moment, as if considering a change of career. ‘If our governor can persuade the people that he is helping them through this dangerous time, then he has them in the palm of his hand for whatever he wants to do in the future.’

  ‘Which is what?’ asked Jonah.

  Wenceslas shrugged. ‘Whatever it is, it will help that he has Chief Constable Fessup and the DUG in his pocket.’

  Citrine spoke up, unusually gloomily for her. ‘I know what’s in my future. I’m still wanted for Florian’s murder. If I can’t prove my innocence, I’m for the noose.’

  Wenceslas made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘There’s no denying you’re between a rock and a hard place. Who do you think killed him?’

  Citrine found herself unable to speak. ‘We think it was Edgar,’ said Jonah quietly.

  ‘Family, eh – you can’t choose ’em.’