Lamplighter

by Law, Lincoln

  “Yes, sir,” the barman replied as he pulled a mug from the racks above him, filling it with the golden, honeyed liquid, the surface of it blanketed in a perfect layer of smooth froth, the glass collecting condensation about the rim from the warmed liquid within.

  I’ve done the right thing,he thought smugly, as he took the drink away, laying a few bronze coins on the counter, and a silver one beside.

  “What’s this one for?” the barman asked. “It’s three bronzes for the ale.”

  “For saving me a phone call,” he replied, followed by a deep drink from his mug.

  *

  Nataniel had fallen to sleep early, expecting to dream once more of Elenor in all her ethereal splendour as he had for the past couple of nights.

  Tonight’s dream was vastly different, though.

  Tonight he was floating above the ground in the rain, the flame-topped tower of Castore before him, surrounded by the five smaller towers of the Vindicators. Covering the stone, Nataniel could see, even from this distance, strange, nocturnal beasts, both hairy and mutated, clambering up the tower. They appeared to be avoiding the candle-lit windows, but still they clambered further up the tower, reaching a certain height before the light forced them away. Nataniel had seen this many times before, when looking out of his window at night. This evening it was strange, though—stranger than usual, at least.

  Tonight the fiends climbed with some kind of determination, as though they were reaching for something. Perhaps they were trying to attack the immortal God King on his silver throne? Whatever it was, there was determination in their massive strides, and a large number to their group that suggested a raid. But they could not attack, of course, not so long as the Beacon of Castore burned.

  Nataniel took one step forward towards the tower, and within moments was stranding before the vast doors, which opened slowly before him.

  “Hello?” he called out. The reply came in the form of a vast and deep darkness.

  There was a tunnel, with a light at its end.

  “Am I dead?” he asked himself, but then he noticed that the light was actually a doorway. He tried to make his way to it slowly, carefully, for fear of what could hide in this darkness. But each step pushed him forward three more, until he was through the door, and surrounded by light, blinding him from everywhere. He spun around to retreat back through the door into the welcoming and terrifying darkness, but it was no longer there. Everything surrounding him shone a brilliant white. For some reason, Nataniel felt he should be burning now, sizzled away to a crisp by the light…but he wasn’t. He remained, caught in whatever place this was.

  Gradually, the light faded, replaced by burning flames. The inferno blazed around him, through him, inside of him, and yet it did not burn. As he looked about himself in amazement, he could see shadows through the flames, beckoning to him, calling him.

  “What do you want?!” he cried, but the crackle of the flames was far too loud. “What?!” he called, flinging his arms out. As he did so, the ocean of scarlet and gold parted, revealing a single woman, behind a barred opening, rolled on her side. It looked like a prison cell.

  “Save her,” echoed a voice. Elenor’s voice.

  “Hello?” Nataniel asked, but there was no response. Suddenly, the flame converged once more and consumed everything once more, blistering its tongues upwards. Once again there was light, and then everything was gone.

  Nataniel stirred from his sleep, the morning sunlight a welcome surprise.

  He breathed in deeply, heaving, the sudden need for air akin to that he would have felt had he been drowning. He groaned against the burning in his chest as air rushed into him, but the sigh of relief afterwards was much louder. He was sweating all over, so he threw back the covers, which were soaked with sweat, like someone had thrown a bucket of hot water over the sheets.

  What was that?Nataniel thought, as he stumbled slowly, over to the basin on his dresser, splashing water onto his face. On his skin, the water heated and dropped back into the basin from his chin, making him feel as if he had not wet his face at all.

  He splashed his face again, the water warming once more before dropping away or soaking in. He sighed loudly, splashing his face again and again, but it had no effect. The water simply heated up before dropping away, splashing softly. He felt the heat spread from his face, through his entire body. He stripped down to his undergarments, and stood, staring in the mirror, as his temperature rose and rose.

  “Delilah!” he cried. “Delilah!”

  The woman came bursting in on him moments after he had called out.

  “What is it?” she asked, “what’s wrong?”

  “Help!” he called, splashing his face in desperation. Water dribbled down his face and over his chest, but it did nothing. In fact, it felt as if he was just splashing hot water over himself, causing his temperature to rise and rise.

  He felt Delilah’s freezing hand stroke his forehead and she gasped. “You’re burning up, you must have a fever. Get into bed!”

  She carried him quickly over to the bed, lying him down, pulling the blankets all the way back so that he remained uncovered. She drew together the curtains, cutting away the light of the burning sun, and soaked a rag in the cold water, resting it on his forehead. Nataniel heard himself mutter, but he did not know what he was saying. Everything became a blur to him as he lay in bed, exhausted and sick.

  Midnight Happenings

  I did dream once, long ago. When I was caught in the deserted plains, the Barrenlands as they are called now, expelled from the Gardens of Heaven. I dreamt of a well filled with water so pure I felt I was drinking a physical manifestation of life. That morning, I collapsed upon the marble Well—now called Tyndibar—and drank till I could drink no more.

  Faulkner twisted about beneath the bed sheets that night. Something was troubling him, only he could not think of what it could have been. Harriet remained still and silent, her soft breathing the only sound coming from her. Their room in the Key and Coin was small, with a bed to one side, a dresser and water basin at the other end and a tall wardrobe to the other. Faulkner had not bothered to unpack their suitcase into the wardrobe—he did not expect their stay to be for very long. Probably two days at most. If they wanted to remain alive with some semblance of safety, the pair would have to keep on the move.

  His time spent in the city guard had taught him that the more a target moved about from place to place, the more frustrating it was for their trackers to follow them. So long as they continued to change their names and feigned unfamiliarity, they ought to remain out of the Vindicator’s clutches. He would have to fix his uniform soon, though. He would get Harriet to help him tomorrow to alter it.

  Below were the sounds of the barman closing up the pub—locking up, sitting chairs atop the tables—rising through the thin flooring. Outside, the rain had slowed, but not ceased, and the cold continued to bite at the windows and radiate through the walls.

  His own predicament suddenly reminded him somehow of an assignment he had once been given. He had been told to find a man on the run from the law. Apparently he had been a visitor and was fighting his way out in an attempt to escape the inescapable city. It was only when he became aware of the fiends stalking the street that he had found an inn and checked in under a fake name that he had been found. The law apparently stated that any new citizen to Castore had to be told by the Vindicators themselves that they were never to reveal truths about the outside world to anyone, or risk imprisonment.

  Faulkner rocketed upright in bed, the sheets falling away. “Harriet,” he said quickly as a knock sounded at the door.

  “Harriet,” he repeated as his wife finally stirred into wakefulness.

  “Yes?” she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

  “Do you think you have enough energy to run?” he asked, praying silently that only one Vindicator had been sent for them. Seeing one portentous figure on one’s doorstep was surely enough, let alone all five of the Architect’s greatest g
uards.

  “Hmm?” Harriet mumbled in confusion. He shook her lightly into full awareness, and to her confused stares, pointed to the doorway and muttered, “Vindicator.”

  She held her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp, and then burst out of bed. Both of them changed quickly out of their pyjamas.

  “Be there in a moment,” Faulkner said, as he fixed up his coat, buttoning it faster than he ever had before, helping his wife find her skirt. He took the suitcase in a firm grasp and nodded silently to his wife. He made his way to the door, and with a second nod opened the door. As the pair had expected, standing before them, its pointed hat crooked at its end and a collection of charms dangling from its neck, was a Vindicator.

  For a moment, Faulkner wondered whether the Vindicator would recognise him and Harriet as the ones hunted earlier, and for another moment thought that perhaps it had not. But it whispered, in its breath like liquid fire, “You!”

  Faulkner swung the suitcase around in a wide arc, striking at the Vindicator. It struck the creature in the side of the head, causing it to tumble over into the hallway, confounded and sore.

  Throwing his suitcase onto the Vindicator, Faulkner then took his wife’s hand and burst from the room, into the hallway and down the stairs.

  “You will not have to run for long,” he said to her quickly as they reached the foot of the stairs. The barman noticed them, looking up from his polishing. “Hey!” he called, but Faulkner ignored him, slamming open the front door and quickly making their way down the street.

  In hindsight, Faulkner could never work out how he managed it, but while running he picked up Harriet in his arms and continued down the quiet, empty, lamplit street. From above, rain continued to pour lightly, but Faulkner did not notice this. He was too busy running for his and his wife’s lives.

  He looked about, noticing as the Vindicator shot through the glass window of the Key and Coin, as the city clock tower above the bank chimed midnight in its deep, booming fashion. The high-pitched sound of shattering glass echoed through the street, but Faulkner could only hear the sounds of his own breath and the beating of his legs as they carried him and Harriet to safety. There was a shrill call from the Vindicator as it hovered inches above the ground, walking on a firm cushion of air, but Faulkner did not notice. He could only feel his own heart beat as adrenaline sent it racing.

  Is this what I am doomed to do forever? Faulkner asked himself. Run until my legs cannot carry me? Is this my fate?

  He pushed on further and further up the street, the Vindicator moving in irrevocably closer, unburdened by the weight of another two humans, and the emotional baggage that came with carrying life in one’s hands.

  “Thank you,” said Harriet, “for protecting us.”

  “I love you,” he replied through heavy breaths. “That is what I am here for.”

  They passed a bridge over one of the many fiend-infested canals and into another street lit by lamps. It seemed that every light in every house—except of course for the candles—had been switched off. On this street they would find no safety, no sanctuary.

  “I don’t know how long I can run for,” Faulkner said quietly into Harriet’s ears, as if it were a secret. He felt as his legs became sore, the muscles turning to jelly beneath him. It must’ve been showing on his face, for Harriet appeared to lose the spark of hope her own face had held only moments before.

  “You have tried,” she said. “That is all I need from you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and felt a sudden burst of strength as he noticed the Vindicator mere feet away from him, its thickly-gloved arm outstretched and its eyes maddened with determination.

  “Why does it want us so?” Harriet thought aloud. Faulkner had only enough strength left in him to shrug. Finally, as his last ounce of strength left him, his felt his toe catch on an upraised cobble. He stumbled over his own feet, but managed to correct himself just in time before he toppled over, keeping Harriet in his arms. He came to a sudden stop, realising that his only option now was to face the Vindicator. He would not give up, thought. He would fight with whatever strength he had left. He let his wife down, and turned to face the Vindicator, his gaze intense. To either side were the handrails of the bridge they now stood on, the canal running down into a dark tunnel, where fiends surely lurked. Before him was the Vindicator, stoic and cold, and all around the lamps were Hearthflies, gathered like an audience to whatever event was about to occur.

  “Do you give up?” it asked, waving one hand before Faulkner.

  There was silence, during which the rain pattered, the heavens flashed and the bridge shook with the force of the firmament’s drums. The light from the Heartflies pulsed about them in a strangely timed rhytm, as if they all shared a single mind, or a heart. He had no other option now.

  “Do you?” the Vindicator yelled.

  “Not without a fight,” he replied, and flung with all his might at the Vindicator.

  In one move, the Vindicator drew a staff from behind itself, its smooth, wooden shaft gripped tightly in his hands, and swung it. The metallic ends struck Faulkner in the chest and sent him hurtling backward, towards the handrail. With another move, the Vindicator grabbed the staff in both hands and lunged it, point first into Faulkner’s stomach, sending him upwards and backwards with a loud oomph! Hurtling over the edge of the stone handrail, he watched the Vindicator take a hold of Harriet and drag her away as she fought against him.

  “Faulkner!” she cried out, but her mouth was covered by the Vindicator’s sleeve. No one would hear another cry through the creatures strong, muffling grasp. There was no one to help them now. Even the hearthflies seemed to give up hope, breaking from their swarms around the lamps.

  “Harriet,” he murmured, almost silently, as he fell into the water, pulled away by the sudden and powerful current.

  *

  The morning sky was clear and sunny—unusual for a city like Castore. That meant, however, that tonight, Ophelia would be working as a LampLighter. Thank goodness, she thought. Being sunny meant that when she began work, towards five o’clock, the sunlight would still be around to keep the monsters at bay. She would be working in relative safety until night finally fell.

  Normally, Ophelia would not care what hour she had to work at, but after the previous nights’ incidents with the fiends and the Blessed boy named Nataniel, it was a small comfort knowing that sunlight would linger for a little longer than on most days.

  After the previous incidents, however, Ophelia found herself questioning the worth of her job. As she always weighed into the equation, her occupation paid well and it was one of the few jobs that could allow her to support her mother, as her condition was permanent. Is it really worth it, though? she thought as she sat in the sitting room, her legs raised on a pouffe. It was the middle of the day, and she was bored, and when she was bored, her mind tended to wander about. She had the newspaper before her, and she was reading the words, though nothing registered as her eyes skimmed across the black and white pages of The Morning Pundit.

  There was a story about gas lamps being put in some streets, and the news of a death of a visitor who had gone diving in the waters of the slums, though none of this seemed to matter now.

  Every night when she went out in the dark to ignite the lamps that lined nearly every street in Castore, she was putting her life in very real, mortal danger. There was a chance every night that she would not return whole, if return at all, and though she was compensated for this with a rather welcome and generous pay check, it still did not make up for the fact that if she died, her mother would be forced to live out her days off what meagre amount she had managed to save, or on the streets, where she would surely die.

  But I need this job, she reminded herself, with some difficulty. Without it my world would fall to ruin.

  Suddenly fidgety, she rose out of the lounge chair and left the house, calling out to her mother beforehand. “I’m just going for a walk,” she said, closing the door behind he
r.

  Today, being particularly warm and sunny, the streets were busy with people bustling about. She made her way down the street, turning right at the end into one of the eight roads that radiated from the centre of the city. At the end of this street, she could see where it opened out into a large courtyard, at the centre of which stood a proud statue of their Architect. The statue had his hands cupped before him, flames rising from them in a fountainous jet.

  Almost exactly halfway between where Opehelia’s street and the courtyard was a small, stone bridge that passed over the canals that had once been a part of the slums until the Great Flood. She came to the handrail and looked over into the water, the sunlight sparkling on the surface of the dark, murky waters, but no deeper.

  Ophelia paused as she looked over the rushing waters of the canal, rubbing her eyes in surprise. Floating in the water, caught for dear like on a stuck tree branch was a Blue Guard, unconscious and bloodied. Ophelia let out a soft gasp of surprise as the first deluge of thoughts struck her. Who was this man? Why was he here? And more importanty, with so many deep, bleeding gashes over his body, would he live?

  Reacting quickly, she cried, “There’s a man in the water! Look!” She pointed at the Blue.

  People gathered about, curious, excited and concerned.

  But no one left the safety of the bridge, for in the water anything could hide, even though logic would say it was a perfectly sunny day, so nothing of the sort would be hidden. Peoples’ superstition kept them away though, muttering, murmuring and gossiping about the man in the water.

  “Isn’t anyone going to help him?” she asked, with no reply.

  She sighed loudly and pushed her way through the gathering crowd, looking up to the sky for only a moment to see that the sun was still high up and that no clouds were about to obscure the light, putting Ophelia into very sudden and very real danger.

  Along the sides of the canal were inclined walls made from stone, with a step-like shape to them. Leaping over the handrail, Ophelia landed on the incline and made her way carefully towards the water, as people continued to watch on. Is our entire city made up of superstitious idiots? she thought as she arrived at the water’s edge. She looked up to the people watching with aghast expressions and fear in their eyes, she decided upon an answer.