Lamplighter

by Law, Lincoln

  “The Vindicators are quite often gone from their towers,” Faulkner explained. “They regularly leave on important duties. The Architect contacts them almost continually. From memory, I think someone said once that the towers being put there, as if the Vindicators actually lived there, was simply to…what’s the word.”

  “Perpetuate the superstition,” Ophelia finished for him.

  “Yes! Play upon the minds of the citizens. It’s almost a bit cruel.”

  “Then it should not come as a surprise,” Ophelia said, somewhat coldly. She meant to be blunt—she was normally quite carefree and calm—but in this situation, she had to hold her own and keep her strength of character, else Faulkner might wrap her tightly around his finger. If she became too emotionally invested, her own fears might come through and her caring for this man might, too, and in the situation they were in now, where it was life or death, she could not risk it. She had to be cold and calculating.

  For Nataniel and Faulkner, this was hardly a departure from character. When she had last met him, she had been secretive and rushed, and blunt then, too. He might’ve thought that a side-effect of being a LampLighter, but at that stage it was a matter of life or death, just as it was now. Both of them only knew her harder side. Perhaps when all of this was over, she could settle down once more, but until then, this was how it was.

  What am I thinking? Ophelia thought. ‘When things settle down’? Once things have calmed, I’ll go back to how things were, and Nataniel and Faulkner can too, considering we do succeed in saving Faulkner’s wife. She shook everything from her thoughts as Faulkner spoke.

  “So once night falls, we’ll head out. Surrounding the towers are gardens, all very full of lamps and trees, but especially guards. We’re lucky that there’s not as many guards there as there would be, say, guarding the Well. But I can assure you that there will be some. We will have to be very stealthy and keep to the shadows. As dangerous as that sounds, with a LampLighter at our disposal, everything should run smoothly.

  *

  The plan was a simple one, as far as Nataniel could see. It was nothing more than sneak in, scale the tower and leave with wife in hands. Faulkner had his rifle in case of any mishaps, and Ophelia was apparently quite capable with her cane. Nataniel had other plans, however.

  The dream that had caused his sickness had meant something. The woman imprisoned in the flames needed rescuing, and with the opportunity here, he could go through with it. It had been the voice of Elenor again, guiding him, and she had told him to rescue him. It would be a very difficult task, but it had to be done. And he would do it, for her. He would not be scaling the tower with them, so once they knew of the window, he would leave them to it. From there, he would break into the tower, too, and go beneath the ground into the prison wreathed in flame.

  That man had something Nataniel needed, and he had to go and get it.

  And tonight I shall get it…whatever it is,he mused, as Ophelia dumped her LampLighter uniform and gas bags onto the table from the pack she had been carrying. Tonight.

  At The Architect’s Tower

  The Architect they called me. Their Saviour, their Lord. What does this title mean? Even I am not certain. But I embraced it, and so now I remain their Architect, their God King, Lord of the City of Castore and Lord of the only world my People know.

  The tower seemed to burn at its tip with the faces of the fiends that climbed it, the flames unaffected by the rain that came down in thick sheets. As the tall stone wall that encircled the five towers of the Vindicators came into view, Ophelia, Faulkner and Nataniel moved into the shadows, protected for now by the light of the gas-stick. They did not speak, or even whisper. The only sounds they made were their breaths, and even that was suppressed.

  They arrived at the wall, its surface shiny and slippery. It would not be an easy climb.

  “Perhaps we can get onto that rooftop there somehow,” Nataniel suggested, pointing to a nearby house. The rooftop was only slightly taller than the wall, and the gap was no more than ten feet. It was possible—difficult, yes, but possible.

  They grabbed onto the vine lattice, their weight causing it to creak loudly, and one-by-one scaled it up onto the roof. There were no sounds from within the house, suggesting that it was probably empty, the only sign of its inhabitancy being the candles sitting in the windowsill.

  They tiptoed across the roof, to the edge, Faulkner at the fore of the group.

  “I’ll go first,” he said, as he began to rock back and forth, preparing to leap. Ophelia waited back a little, appearing disinterested, but terrified deep down. Yes, the wall was only three metres away; yes, it would be an easy leap; but what would she do to get down? She couldn’t just jump!

  As she waited for Faulkner, she looked about the city, across the peaked rooftops, on some of which stood massive fiends, skulking about as if they owned the canopy of Castore. Ophelia’s only protection for now was the residual light from the streets below and the light from her fire stick. In the distance, a cold, slow-rolling mist moved in, tumbling over rooftops and into the streets, carried on the wind. Lightning flashed above them, cracking the sky open like white, liquid knives, slashing and cutting through the blackness of the overcast night. The flashes backlit the mist, casting monstrous faces and shadows into the swirls. Ophelia shivered a rush of cold running down her back. Perhaps it was the rain, though.

  “One…two…three,” said Faulkner, rocking on his heels. He leapt with a grunt, pushing hard with the balls of his feet towards the wall. There was a small cry from him and a loud huff as he thumped against the wall, clutching onto it.

  “Are you okay?” asked Nataniel.

  “I hit my chin,” he replied, his legs flailing about as it tried to find a foothold. “But otherwise, fine.”

  He scrambled up onto the wall, the bayonet on his rifle coming frightfully close to his legs. But he managed to get a footing, and eventually stood, balancing, atop the wall.

  “I’ll help you,” he called to Nataniel, who was next. The boy was hesitant, rocking back and forth for some time, counting down from three five times over, before finally taking the leap. He hit the wall with a loud thump, and a groan of pain, but with some help from Faulkner, managed to climb onto the top of the wall.

  “Ophelia,” Faulkner called.

  She took a moment to get her footing—the roof was, after all, quite slippery from the rain. She extinguished her gas stick, a rather dangerous move in itself. She slung it about her, checking one more time that the gas bags about her belt were properly secured, and leapt. There was a second, while hanging in the air, where she thought she may not make it. She thumped against the wall, though, wrapping her arms about it, clutching onto the other side for dear life. In that moment, she also noticed what Faulkner meant by hitting his chin, the bang rumbling through her head. A painful headache surfaced as Faulkner helped her up onto her feet, Ophelia using the cracks in the bricks as gripping. Once all three were safely atop the wall, they made their way towards a nearby tree, down which they could climb. Once on firm ground, hiding amongst the bushes, Ophelia ignited her fire stick, keeping it away from the tree’s bark and leaves. It happened more out of habit than an actual fear of igniting a sopping wet tree.

  Using the hedges for protection, they gradually made their way towards the God King’s tower, weaving between bushes and trees quickly to avoid being sighted by the guards. The six towers around them pierced the sky, their tall, ominous shapes like guards themselves. It was as if every moment spent in their shadow was a moment they were being watched. It was unsettling to say the least.

  They ran between two of the Vindicator towers, protected from the rain for a time by the sheer size of them. While there, they all caught sight of some Blue Guards, but managed to sneak through the gardens unnoticed. Keeping to the shadows and the bushes seemed sufficient.

  It appeared that almost the entire tower was empty, except, of course, for the fiends that scaled to its peak, and stalked abo
ut at its foot, along paths unlit by lamps. Ophelia checked the gas bag at her waist; she was sure it would last for a little while to come.

  They looked the tower up and down, realising how frightfully tall it actually was, the flames at its peak like light from a distant, hidden sun. From where they stood, they could only guess how astonishingly towering the God King’s abode was. But guessing would only reduce their willingness to climb and their thoughts would end up either as a massive hyperbole or a terrible understatement.

  Set into the walls around the tower were bricks that stuck out, almost like the steps of a ladder, leading up until they faded from sight. It was like a cliff face, with niches to sit one’s foot in and rocks to cling on to—only hundreds of metres high and slippery from the rain. Where fiends had clawed, cracks lay in the rocks, some almost unnoticeable, others missing massive chunks of rock.

  “It is that window there,” Nataniel pointed. “About twenty-five floors up. The small one, with the curtains drawn.”

  Faulkner saw it almost the moment after Nataniel had pointed, the windowsill sitting next to one of the brick steps. Clambering about outside, though, were fiends, drawn upwards like moths to the flame. Ophelia wondered what they were drawn to, though the musing did not last long, for Faulkner began to explain the plan.

  “I’ll climb first, and Ophelia can follow behind me with the torch. If I say anything to you, I need you to aim the fire stick above me and flare the gas. I’m hoping you will have enough.”

  “I will,” she assured him, patting her belt.

  “Nataniel, thank you for your help. To keep you safe, we’ll come back for you. Go into the light of that lamp…” he pointed at one nearly fifty metres away, nearer to one of the Vindicator towers, “…and wait there. Do not move. And if, God forbid, we fall, take Ophelia’s fire stick and gas bags and run. Get away from here. A boy like you,” Ophelia noticed him look to the boy’s Tyndibar markings, “doesn’t need to get caught by the guards.”

  Nataniel nodded and rushed off bravely through the darkness and sat alone, in the rain, beneath the light of the lamp. He would be safe there for a time.

  “Now to climb this thing,” he said as he pulled himself up onto the first brick step, Ophelia following closely behind.

  The first few steps were the most difficult. First, Ophelia had to adjust to the slipperiness of the rock. The almost continual fall of rain left some cracks in the rock filled with a green slime or moss. Thankfully, though, the higher she climbed, the sparser the moss became. Secondly, the brick steps were spaced just that little bit too far apart for Ophelia’s comfort. Each step stretched her leg more than she wanted to, and every one had a moment, before her foot touched the rock, where she worried that there would be no brick to take her weight, and she would fall metres to her death. With the fire stick burning softly while strapped over her shoulder, the fiends about her gave a wide berth, allowing the pair to pass between the gathered beasts unharmed. That did not stop the fiends from scowling and growling at them though, their fur matted and their teeth dripping acidic saliva.

  Faulkner, meanwhile, appeared to have very little trouble scaling the tower. While he took each step slowly, it seemed to Ophelia that he was doing it more out of the desire to take the deathly climb carefully than to stay within the lit boundaries of the fire stick. She mistakenly took a moment to look behind her, and gasped. They were now probably one quarter of the way there and already high above Castore rooftops. The clock tower in the distance chimed eight, each booming gong beating into her chest like a mallet. She did not like the feeling of trusting her life to her fingers and toes, and the quaking toll did not help to calm her, not to mention the icy rain, which made her grips quite slippery.

  Just keep climbing, she thought, taking a moment to settle herself. It was strange, really. During the moment she had paused to look away, she had seen what she thought was a light on the horizon, shining just barely over the wall near the Tyndibar Well. For a second she considered that it could have been a very distant flash of lightning, far over the wall, or a mass of hearthflies. She had to paused and think about it though, as the lightning rippled across the heavens once more, bathing the world momentarily in its cold, blue-white light. The glow she had seen was orange and gold though and had not touched the clouds like the lightning did. Lightning was icy, while this light was warm, like fire.

  She shrugged the thought aside and continued to climb.

  “Ophelia,” Faulkner said. She sensed some panic in his voice, though it took a moment to realise it. She instinctively grabbed at the gas bag at her waist, her fingers lightly twisting the dial. “Ophelia!” She twisted it, metal threads shrieking beneath her touch, flames bursting in a sudden and brilliant explosion of golden light and heat.

  There was a high-pitched scream from above as the creature, its face melting, dropped from the tower into the yard below, splattering loudly.

  “We have to hurry,” Faulkner said, as Ophelia lessened the gas pressure. His movements became quicker and less careful. “I have no doubt the guards will have noticed that. I hope Nataniel has the brains to hide.”

  “He will,” Ophelia replied, the muscles in her arms growing weaker by the moment as she pulled herself up to the next step. She could fight the shivering no longer as water dripped down her back. With each moment that passed while she was in the rain, the chances of her survival dwindled. It would only take the ever-looming cramp in her right leg, or the stiffening of her fingers for her to drop to her death—she was too high up now to even consider only broken bones. As the adrenaline waned from the fiend attack, the sense continued to grow. The window they needed was only three more storeys up. She had to make it.

  She looked over her shoulder once more, and saw something in the distance. Something far over the wall where the Tyndibar well sat. There was another tower, and a few other spires scattered about it, but just like the Architect’s tower, that tower was peaked in flame.

  It can’t be, she thought, pausing to stare once more. Indeed it was another tower, miles from the wall, the cauldron at its peak almost a mirror image of the Architect’s.

  *

  Nataniel watched as the pair made their way higher and higher up the tower, the rotting, melting corpse of the fiend that had fallen from the tower resting in a thick pool before him. They were now too far out of sight to notice if he went anywhere. Checking the area, he stole from the safety of the light and into the shadows, running towards the foot of the tower. Some small light was spilling from the windows onto the grassed earth, so at least there he would find some protection.

  He sprinted about the tower, searching for an open window or a front door. Nearly all of the windows were stained glass, though, so didn’t open, and those that weren’t were closed. He eventually found a large door, though as he pushed against it he found it locked. He growled, and fought the desire to swear.

  “Excuse me?” said a deep, male voice from behind him. “Can I help you with anything?”

  Nataniel spun around, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the two Blue guards before him, rifles slung over their backs, arms crossed. The two men seemed to shrink slightly at the sight of Nataniel’s face markings, but they quickly adjusted their expression so that they looked less fearful.

  “No,” Nataniel replied. “I’m fine.”

  He then leapt from the short staircase onto the grass, bursting between the pair. He ran along the path, the guards catching up quickly. He checked behind him, noticing how much closer they were, and felt adrenaline burst through him. Each leaping step he took was suddenly longer, his endurance seemed strangely longevous. And yet the guards caught up quickly, knocking him to the ground.

  Any consciousness he had in the adrenaline-powerwed chase he held was quickly thumped out of him till he was too weak to move; too weak to act.

  They took him by surprise, grabbing his arms and carrying him away. He could not struggle, he could not fight. He could only watch as the front doors were opene
d, and then closed loudly behind him. He watched as he travelled down a flight of stairs, stopping momentarily as a man in a white coat approached him.

  “This will only pinch,” he whispered as a sharp needle was plunged into his arm. He fought the sudden desire to sleep, but the battle was lost before it had begun. He felt as each of his muscles went to sleep, followed closely by the closing of his eyes.

  There was heat, and then there was darkness.

  *

  Faulkner clambered in through the open window first, followed closely by Ophelia. Inside the room was a small bed, a cramped table and a beautiful woman. This, Ophelia thought, was surely Harriet. Her belly protruded, stretching the buttons of her shirt slightly, the baby coming ever closer to its birth.

  Harriet appeared surprised and shocked, and quickly embraced Faulkner, the two beginning to whisper apologies to each other. Ophelia turned away as they shared a kiss, and turned back when they were done. It was an awkward moment for her, but she was sure that for the pair it would have been tender and blissful.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too,” he replied.

  “We have to hurry,” Ophelia interrupted. “How do we get out?”

  “I can’t climb down,” Harriet said apologetically, touching her belly softly.

  “Then we’ll have to go out the normal way. Ophelia, your fire stick.”

  He pointed at the door, in particular, the wood of the wall.

  “If you can focus the flames close enough, we may be able to burn the wood coving the catch enough to pull it open.”

  She nodded and did as instructed, watching as the flames turned from a licking gold, to a focused, spear-like blue. She aimed it at the wood.

  Like a knife of light, it sliced through the wood quickly, leaving the catch exposed. The door creaked open.

  Ophelia extinguished her flame.

  “Thank you, young lady,” Harriet said to her, as Faulkner guided her out of the door.