Lamplighter

by Law, Lincoln

  *

  Faulkner arrived at the front door of number one, Undrul Street, and began knocking madly as he tried to catch his breath. “Hey!” he yelled as he slammed his fist against the door, waiting for it to open. After a minute, it was unlocked and a man in his thirtees opened it.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” he said angrily. His eyes were bleary and red, the bags underneath dark from being pulled so suddenly from his slumber.

  “I know, sir, I’m sorry, but it’s not safe to stay in the city. Go in the direction of the Tyndibar Well, and go through the opening that’s been made. There will be a girl there, who will tell you where to go. You can choose not to go if you wish, but you should know that if you don’t hurry, this whole city might explode with you in it.”

  “What? Are you drunk?”

  “No, sir. If you could, too, please wake up the other people in your street, tell them what to do. You’ll be helping me a lot.”

  The man looked at him cynically. “What proof do you have?” He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow.

  “Hear that sound? That rumbling?”

  “Yes, so? It’s thunder isn’t it?”

  “No, that’s water draining, and unless you leave now, the gas beneath the city is going to be forced through the lamps and explode. You have to hurry though. Get your family, tell them to leave, and inform your street.”

  Without another word, he stole into the lamplit night, praying that the man had listened and would obey. The fate of an entire street rested on one man’s judgement. It was a massive risk, but Faulkner didn’t have the time to go to every door. In the distance, the clock chimed a quarter past three. Less than an hour to go before the city would be consumed by fire.

  *

  She had extinguished ten lamps before the Vindicator turned up, swooping down upon her like a navy-coloured raven, its pointed hat so beak-like it was frightening. It landed in front of her, though its feet didn’t touch the ground. It hovered just a few inches above the water, staring down at Ophelia with its cold gaze.

  “What are you doing?” it asked in a voice of liquid fire. It rasped and burned through his throat, like the man had never felt the touch of water on his lips. It was deep, too, and rumbling, like the distant sound of the water draining.

  “I know Castoro’s plan. I’m trying to stop it.”

  The Vindicator laughed, but she ignored him, and pushed her way past, wading through the water in her sopping boots.

  “You can’t win,” he said. “My Lord may be dead, but he left us with a task to do should he die before completion.”

  “But you can’t win, either,” she said. “If I snuff out all the gas-lights then there will be no explosion. Those statues in all the squares will explode, but none will be close enough to do any fiery damage as intented.”

  The Vindicator laughed once more, like a nail scratching against steel. “Do you think Castoro would be so dull as to inform you of his entire plan? He knew all along that there was a chance people would try to stop him, so he had back-up. He had a secondary plan that could quickly be put into action, and not even you can stop it.”

  Ophelia felt as her expression betrayed her worry. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  But she got no response. The Vindicator eyes crinkled, and she knew that behind the tall collar, there was a smile. A cold, sardonic, evil smile.

  “LampLight once guided you,” he said. “Now it shall destroy you. I won’t stand in your way, but I don’t need to. You’re already doomed to fail.”

  His whipped his cloak about himself, his wiry frame showing through the fabric, and took off into the air, flying away in the direction of the tower.

  Don’t let him fool you,she attempted to remind herself. You can do this. You can save the city.

  She nodded, biting her lip. “He’s probably just bluffing,” she muttered, as she ran down the next street towards her eleventh lamp-post for the evening.

  As she extinguished it, she let her thoughts run free.

  It does seem strange that it was one fire that saved this city, and now it shall destroy it.She clambered down the pole, letting her boots splash through the water. If it woke anyone, it would only make Faulkner’s task that much easier. It might have been better for her to inform people, too, but she had to focus on the lamps. The sooner she extinguished them, the sooner she could help with the evacuation.

  We once shunned away shadows,she thought, and now we need them, more than ever.

  Around her, fiends began to gather, welcoming the darkness that came with extinguishing. These had once all been human, but had lost their souls, their spirits into the hearthflies. Now they were empty, monstrous shells, doomed to live only in shadow. She had to remind herself that they were no longer human, though, that part of their lives were now long-dead. Tonight, if they did burn in the fires of Castore, it was only bestial flesh and bone and blood melting away, and none of their humanity.

  But Nataniel will never have to face it,she thought, and it gave her hope.

  She closed the hatch on another lamp, catching sight of her own reflection. Across her face was a marking, similar to Nataniel’s, only lighter, softer. It was growing dull and dark, but for now it still held a slight shimmer about it, as the contract Castoro had bound into her grew aware of its brokenness. Eventually, she would become a monster, too, just like Nataniel. Perhaps she would be dead before the night was through?

  She pushed the thought aside, though, hurrying into the next street. She couldn’t stifle it entirely, though. It was still there at the back of her thoughts; niggling, worrying.

  But Castoro said there is a way to save a person if they haven’t rejected their hearthfly yet. Maybe I can still be saved, if I find out what that is!

  But what if that had been a secret that had died with Castoro, lost from ever being re-discovered.

  “There has to be a way,” she said to herself, as she pulled herself up the next lamp and extinguished it.

  *

  “Take your time, everyone,” said Elenor, standing atop the edge of the Tyndibar Well so that she could meet the people leaving Castoro at eye level. “Please don’t hurt anyone to get through! You’ll all get through in time, just do it carefully and safely and no one will get hurt in the process.”

  She took a moment to check on Castoro and Nataniel’s bodies. They still lay in the middle of the courtyard, but those coming through gave them a wide berth. Some stared, some looked away, and some just didn’t see the pair, but everyone walked around the bodies. Some of them seemed surprised to see the night sky, and others even more surprised at the sight of a second city joined onto theirs. Not only that, but it wasn’t raining, which was strange in itself.

  “What is this place?” asked a woman as she came through the opening created by the hearthflies.

  “It’s Pollror,” Elenor replied, “and your new home.”

  *

  Faulkner arrived in Arring Road, picking a door to knock upon. It seemed that the fellow he spoke to was far easier to convince than most, and had his family ready to leave at that moment. Faulkner left the man to wake up the remained of the street in order to take Ophelia’s mother to safety.

  He knocked on the door, surprised to see through a crack in the curtains that a light was still on in the kitchen. And it wasn’t candlelight either. It was electric light. Ophelia’s mother had been sitting at the table.

  The door opened, revealing a woman in her forties sitting in a wheelchair, looking up to Faulkner with a confused stare.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “The city is in trouble and your daughter Ophelia asked me to get you especially.”

  “Ophelia? She’s safe?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” he replied, “but for now you have to hurry.” In the distance, a clock chime half-past three.

  Amelia nodded. “I’m chairbound, though, and the chair won’t go through the door. It’s part of my punish…well…I can’t get out.”


  “That will be no problem,” Faulkner replied. He leant down, taking Ophelia’s mother in his arms and lifted her, crading her light body. She was only a thin woman, so she was everything but burdensome.

  He pulled out the chair, tilting it at an angle so that he could take it out one wheel at a time, adjusting its angle to let it move freely. Once it was out, he sat it down on the ground, and sat Ophelia’s mother into it.

  “Thank you,” she said, raising a hand to touch his face. She stroked it softly, warmly, and Faulkner smiled. A man then rushed past them.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Faulkner called out. The man turned around, his body faltering slightly as he slipped across the slick cobbles.

  “Hmm?”

  “Can you take this lady with you. I have to let the other half of the city know what’s about to happen.”

  “Of course,” he said, returning to Amelia to take her wheelchair’s handles. Faulkner watched the man for a moment, to ensure that he would take her all the way to the Tyndibar Well, and once he was sure, he continued onto the next street. He had half an hour left, and the second half of Castore to wake. He hoped, though, that Ophelia would run into him half way, assuring him that the half he had not reached yet had had all their lamps extinguished.

  She was nowhere to be seen though.

  He didn’t let the thought trouble him, though, as adrenaline pushed him into the next street to wake another group of citizens to the danger at hand.

  *

  Ophelia puffed as she ran, her throat dry, her chest burning, her legs begging for respite. She had to keep running, though. She was the only one that could extinguish the gas lamps. There were other LampLighters in the city, but she knew none of them. Their identities were as secret to her as hers was to them. She could hope that in the madness another LampLighter would reveal themselves and help by extinguishing the other gas lamps. But that was a distant hope; a fool’s dream. Just as no one had come to her aid when she had rescued Faulkner from the canal waters—except for one random, kind stranger—no one would come to her aid now. The city was too full of superstition fed by lies created by the Architect.

  An old dog couldn’t be caught new tricks, and an old city couldn’t put aside their beliefs, even if it meant saving their homes.

  How many of them actually understood the gravity of the situation? How many knew that there was a large chance that by the end of the night their homes would be destroyed, or that hundreds of lives were bound to end, or that all their fates rested on the shoulders of a twenty-year-old LampLighter, who, until a handful of days before, had just been a normal girl living a normal life.

  She didn’t have to do this. At any point she could turn away from the city she had grown up in. She could be a coward, like those running away instead of fighting. She could let the city be destroyed. But she had integrity and she had her task. She had failed one street, but she refused to fail the city. She knew she was brave, because she didn’t turn and run. She faced her task. Just like a LampLighter, I have to protect the city with bravery, guided only by the light of my gas-stick.

  At that moment, she arrived upon the street that she had not lit the lamps in. Luscombe Street was filled with rubble and fiends. Broken glass was shattered across the floor, glimmering softly in the light of a single gas lamp halfway down the street. Fiends stalked the street, their fur matted with blood from the people that had lived in these houses. They all looked up in her direction, at the gas stick’s flickering flame, which she held high. She stepped into the shadows, her shadow cast softly on the ground, the thinning water reflecting her towering shape, peaked by a single flame, just like the Architect’s Tower.

  She reached the lamp easily, clambering up, protected by the warding light of both the lantern and the gas-stick. She extinguished the flame, and watched as the fiends came in closer, drawn by the deepening shadows. She was safe, though, so long as her gas-bag was full. She checked it reflexively. The bag was still quite firm, the gas inside flowing evenly, but slowly. She let out a relieved sigh.

  She watched the fiends give her a wide berth, parting before her as subjects before a king. The growled and scratched at her, hissed and howled, but none acted.

  Just like the people of this city, she thought. Their leader has done wrongs, has kept secrets. We scratch and claw at him, hating and distrusting him as a leader, yet we do nothing. We stay in the shadows, submissive and weak.

  Perhaps these beasts still had some of their humanity left.

  She turned the corner into another street. She stopped though. The lonely gas lamp had been extinguished.

  Someone’s helping me!

  *

  The clock chimed a quarter to four, and Faulkner let out an aggravated sigh. He reached the last street, puffed and exhausted, but pleased that he had informed every street in Castore. He leant over for a moment of respite as he caught his breath, wondering how he had managed to get this far without passing out from exhaustion. The water about his feet looked clean and drinkable, but he resisted. If the canals were truly overflowing, there would be traces of sewage in these waters. Drinking it would only do him harm.

  He knocked frantically upon the door, yelling as he had done with every door.

  “What’s all this ruckus!” cried an old man as he pulled open a door.

  Faulkner quickly explained what was happening, convincing him rather quickly. It seemed like the less time the people thought they had, the easier it was to convince them of the urgent matter at hand.

  With that man informed, he turned away from the door. He had less than fifteen minutes to reach the Well before the city was meant to explode. He didn’t like his odds, or the odds of the people living in these streets, but he had to try.

  He began to jog through the flooded streets, his movements ragged and weak, like a rag doll.

  I have to do this,he thought, hoping it was enough to drive him. I have to be there when Ophelia gets back. I have to meet her, to know that she’s safe.

  *

  Ophelia looked to the tall gate standing between her and the Architect’s Tower. Every gas powered lamp in the city was now extinguished. If she had missed any, she didn’t know of them.

  She looked up to the clock tower.

  Ten minutes,she thought. I won’t be making it back to the Well in time.

  She managed to eventually scale the fence, using the strength in her arms to then help her back down. She looked at the tower, to its fiery peak, taking note of the unusually large number of fiends scaling it this evening.

  Perhaps it is the Well’s water that they are drawn to,she mused. Maybe they have a small hope that if they drink from it, they will become human once more.

  She let the thought go, though, and took the first few steps into the garden, alone. There were five gas-powered lamps in the Architect’s courtyard, but which ones specifically, she didn’t know. She approached the first one quickly, careless of the fiends’ presences so long as she had her flame. She noticed the bluish flame, and with a smile, climbed up the lamp-pole, and extinguished it. A wind picked up around her; a soft, hushed wind, like the type one felt just before a massive storm. The next lamp, which was nearly fifteen metres away, was clearly oil-powered. She clambered down, and moved alone to the one on the opposite side, noticing quickly that it too was oil powered. She looked upwards and eastward, towards the clock tower. There were five minutes to go.

  I have to keep trying,she thought, rather sadly, even if it means I die.

  If only I had my unknown helper now!

  *

  Faulker had to stop. He could go no further without a moment’s rest. He was too tired, too weak from running the entire city in an hour, surprised by his own endurance, but saddened that even he hadn’t been able to get some people out of their houses in time. There were bound to be people still running about, trying to escape before the expected explosion, and he still had a good ten minute run to reach the Well in time. He looked to the clock. There were less than five
minutes to go.

  There had, of course, been people who had refused to leave, believe him a prankster or a revolutionist attempting to incite anarchy. Others hadn’t been woken quickly enough, meaning that he’d been forced to leave them so that others could live.

  He hoped quietly, though, that Ophelia had done her job.

  He stood up straight once more, mentally preparing himself to run once more. He stopped himself, though, as a noise interrupted his thoughts. It sounded like wet fabric, flapping about in a blustering breeze. He turned around, just in time to see a tall, sinuous Vindicator sweep into the street, in a streak of navy fabric and shattered glass, as he smashed through a window nearby.

  As he did so, a wind picked up, blowing through the street, lifting some of the debris from the air, carrying it on the wind. But with that came a scent.

  Faulkner sniffed the air.

  Gas?

  His mind only took a matter of moments to realise what was happening. He turned away from the house and ran for his life, feeling sadness take him as he realised the handful of people standing near the building were surely doomed.

  His heart raced.

  His legs pumped madly.

  Lightning flashed high above the sky, illuminating a quiet, dark, peaceful city for a single moment.

  The clock tower chimed four times.

  And on the fourth chime he heard a pair of fingers click. An almighty explosion ripped through the air, lifting Faulkner off his feet. He tumbled wildly, confusedly as the hot, fiery air met his back and his face and then his feet. He swore loudly, waiting for the thump against the hard, uneven cobbles. Through the boiling, blustering wind, he could hear painful screams as people were consumed by fire, or ripped to shreds by flying bricks and glass.

  He struck the ground hard, landing on his backside, facing the direction of the explosion. The ground shook, trembling as if an earthquake was making it way through the city.