Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  "Heh, felt that one." The takenyman sucked in a cautionary breath and dragged back on his horse to stop. "Wo-ho! Wo-ho!"

  Darter Brown took to wing and disappeared into the dark.

  Peering again through the rear window of the cab, Rossamund could not see any trailing coach.

  "Out with ye!" The takenyman had reached down with his blunt hookpole and opened the cabin door. "Runnin' from usual folks is a reasonable kind o' trot, but not a wit, my good son. Out!"

  Rossamund peered behind again, expecting pursuit at any beat. "I'll pay you four times!" Hands shaking, he withdrew a whole golden sou from the folds of his pockets. "More even! Up front!"

  The sending pulsed for a second time, stronger now, enough indeed to cause the takeny horse to stumble slightly and spoil the glittering promise of Rossamund's plea.

  The takenyman cooed to his faithful cob, then glared down at his young passenger. "OUT!" he yelled.With a cunning flick of reins he made his horse step forward a single jaunty step, causing the cab to lurch.

  Rossamund was thrown to the floor, half rolling out of the doorway.

  "OUT, YE ILL-BRINGIN' SNIPE!" the takenyman cried again, an edge of panic in his voice, prodding at Rossamund with his hook.

  With the dandy wit getting closer, Rossamund had little choice. He sprang clumsily from the takeny, alighting on hands and haunches amid the mucky debris of the lane.

  His customer barely exited, the driver whipped wildly at his nag, omitting to collect the fare in his hurry, and quit the scene as fast as horse legs and cartwheels could take him.

  Left on foot in the alley, Rossamund ran, chasing the trail of the takeny, watching its swiftly receding splasher lamp disappear about a corner. Pushing harder on legs that seemed too slow, he skidded on moist cobbles, leaping back and forth over the dribbling gutter. Finally reaching the end of the lane, he found a proper street once more, a broad road of faded half-houses and, across the way, trees kept behind a wall of railing and stone.

  Another subtle sending swept over and exposed him; then, like a blow, the full weight of proper scathing frission.

  Rossamund saw stars and stumbled, to sit in the gutter of the laneway. Through the haze of the scathing, he heard to his horror the distant clatter of hoof and wheel: the pursuing takeny was drawing swiftly near. Working his jaw like yawning and shaking his head to clarity, Rossamund peered about the wall to see a carriage dashing toward him from the far end of the South Arm.

  Cry for help?

  But who would hear? Who would care?

  Hide?

  But how do you hide from a wit?

  Stand to fight?

  Even if he achieved the same feats of strength he had used to defeat the pig-eared gudgeon or the nickers of Wormstool, what use was this or a few potives against a neuroticrith who could tell wherever he was and crush him from afar?

  Thirty strides away across the street stood a tiny high-roofed cottage built into the wall that hemmed the trees. Beside it was an ironbound gate with a bright-limn glowing yellow above it.

  Flee!

  Springing forward, he sprinted the exposed span of flagstone footpath, head back, eyes wide and fixed on the goal of the light, running across the path of the swiftly advancing coach. Rather than stopping, the carriage kept clattering by, the driver flailing in distraction, swiping at the air as something small and feisty flapped and harried about his head.

  Darter Brown!

  Rossamund did not slow to ponder, but dashed to the cast-iron gate. Locked! Of course it was at this time of night-public locksmen living in the cottage next door would have seen to that.

  A frightened, whinnying shriek well down the street spoke of the driver finally pulling hard on the reins.

  Abandoning soft notions of asking for the gate to be opened, Rossamund seized two vertical bars of the gate and hauled, the metalwork in its hinges making a loud, startling clash as he bodily threw himself over the top. He dropped squarely on both feet and leaped forward, dashing down what little he could see of a raked path curving into the occult park.

  Shouts came from behind, quickly followed by a wit's sending-invisible, airborne flexing, shuddering forth then back.

  Rossamund ducked as if avoiding a strike and changed direction sharply, off the wan hint of the path and into the pitch murk of the trees, hoping to foil the wit's preternatural senses. Sure enough, the frission came, yet though it drove the young factotum to his knees, skidding in the dew-damp clover, it was vague, unfocused.

  Slithering on muddied hands and boot-toes, he got back to his feet, glancing at where he had come. He could just make out the distinctive figure of the wit and three rougher men standing in the dim lamplight on the opposite side of the gate, apparently thwarted and staring in through its bars. It seemed to Rossamund that despite the impenetrable dark the richly dressed fellow was peering straight at him. With a sault of fright in his gizzards, Rossamund sped among the trees on a wild zig-then-zagging course, blundering over roots and rocks, seeking to put as much reach between his pursuers and himself as he could.

  A piercing, iron ringing told him that the gate had in some way been forced, that the dandidawdling wit was through, and free to hunt him down. A powerful sending washed through the woodland park-detection and attack as one, its febrile fringe arresting Rossamund enough to trip him again and send him flailing face-first into the fresh wet turf in a spray of chance-won coins. The wit must have possessed perverse determination to be employing his antics with such frequent potency.

  What can I do against such a foe?

  A little blur above him and Rossamund caught the soft cheep! of Darter Brown alighting momentarily on a low perch in the dark. He could barely make out the little fellow eyeing him, turning its head to then fro. A tight thrum of wings and the sparrow was gone. After a moment a determined piping echoed out of the dark only a short span ahead. Rossamund sprinted to the noise and Darter Brown dashed on yet farther to tweet again from the night. They kept at this until Rossamund's breath began to rasp in his windpipes and he longed to drop and vomit. He slowed to a hurried, hip-arching walk, realizing that it had been some little time since he had felt the wit's frission.

  He became still-just for a breath-to listen.

  No footfall sounded in the soft sprays of clover and soursobs, just the creak of gentle shifting in the trees, of branches softly clacking against one another up in the dark, squeaking at their knotty joints. With it hummed the drone of the city in its small-hour motions, already so muffled from within the park that it seemed far off, and not just a bend in the path away. In the ringing quiet, he became aware of threwdishness about him, a quiet yet intent wakefulness. I'm in the Moldwood, he realized with a start.

  There comes a point in concealing darkness that, even when one is desperate not to be seen, the need to see is far greater, and so possessed, Rossamund hurriedly dug Mister Numps' limulight from the pocket of his frock coat and slid back the lid. Its gentle, blanched-blue effulgence picked out trunks and leaves and round-fronded grass. It took but a moment to get sight of a clear path, and, snapping the lid closed, the young factotum ran again, hampered by the increasingly uneven ground. In the meager light reflected off low clouds he could just make out a mass before him and felt the earth tilt and rise up the flank of a small hill.

  Pulling on roots and weeds, even thick nettles-whatever he might to help his climb-he scaled the modest mound and upon achieving its summit was struck with the most profoundly piercing scathing he had yet felt. So strong was this witting attack that lights burst in his vision, joined by an inner blaze of woe and torment. The world truly did tilt now; Rossamund toppled down the lee side of the hillock, only vaguely aware of the heavy fall as he came to a jarring stop at what he could only presume was the bottom. He lay, senses tumbling, vision popping with disorienting flickers, and felt a gentler sending from the wit. The previous had been pure violence, but now, supine and struggling, he was being pointedly sought. With a savage growl he forced clarity
into his head, got to his knees and, leaning on a sapling, stood.

  A clear footfall.

  His innards froze. Breath held in dread, his ears keened with a pulsating, shimmering whine.

  Coney in their covets,

  Bunnies in their holes,

  But who shall ferret my meal?

  … came a doggerel song, a tuneful taunt from the shadows above.The dandidawdling wit appeared at the crown of the hillock, his skin soft-lit by luminous fungi sprouting in nook and bole, a revealing pallor in the bosky black. He slid down the bank with easy grace; with such power the pernicious servant of the rousing-pit had nothing to fear-he was the supreme monster here.

  Rossamund quickly pressed out a caste from his digital and flung it, the blue fire of loomblaze flaring as it ruptured against the pastel trunk of a sycamore where, but a blink before, the wit had been.

  "O-ho, little rabbit, with your ledgermain tricks!" came a voice in the flickering dark. His relentless attacker seized Rossamund in another unseen inward grip. "I do not know what pox-riddled alehouse you thought you had found tonight, little rabbit, but ours is not a place to fling stinks. Nor are we so easily swindled by a fast pair of legs.There shall be no getting away as easy as you please; my masters will have your soft coney flesh…"

  The young factotum fell again, retching into the dripping grass and faintly luminescent toadstools, heartily exasperated with so much groveling. Cringing and trapped on his wet mud-mucked knees, he suddenly felt a great threwd approaching, pressing through the frission. It brought with it a glimpse of clarity, and Rossamund was master of himself enough to look up. Something was coming from deeper in the park, something ineffably old and potent stepping from the darkling trees.

  Surely just a desperate phantom…

  Yet the dandily dressed wit must have seen this tall and horned beast too, for he touched hand to temple and reached a hand toward it as it loomed on the other side of the dell.

  Even where he knelt crumpled, Rossamund caught the nauseating peripheries of strong, focused witting. Expecting the great bestial thing to stumble and fall, he croaked in awe as it simply came on, bounding on all fours right over him.

  The wit scathed again-a careless demonstration of puissance that caught Rossamund too-but in a half-dozen awkwardly loping steps the horned thing was upon him. The witting reached its excruciating climax and the nicker-far taller than any man-reared, seizing the wit by his face and lifting him high. Before the fellow could do anything to extricate himself, he was shaken brutally like nothing more than a doll throttled by a tantrumming child.The wit's limbs flailed as he was swung violently back and forth by his neck. Loud meaty cracking broke the strange, shocked silence, a dreadfully flat sound among the bending trees. The wit's voluminous neckerchief unraveled and slipped to the mold, and the spangled silver wig fell from the telltale calvous head. With one last, ruinous snap! the monster flung the utterly broken wit aside, the body crashing lifelessly into a low olive bush.

  There came a peculiar clicking noise from the horned thing's mouth. "Souls should choose better than to sing of ferreting conies and bunnies in my wood," it declared extravagantly with rasping yet resonant voice.

  In the weak blue fungal glow Rossamund could see it turn, head lowered, back arched, glaring directly at him through its steeply arching brows. Brain-bruised and sorely used, the young factotum scooted backward on his rapidly saturating end, boot-heels slipping unhelpfully on slick lawn. With a mere handful of wide-stepping strides the creature sprang toward him, halting abruptly to bend and peer right into the young factotum's eyes.

  "Why have you disturbed me, manikin?" it demanded, its blunt mouth terrible with curved, overlong rabbitlike incisors. Threwd seeped from every follicle, every fiber, a mighty and terrible threwd that was masterfully and powerfully restrained. The air became heavy with a sickly sweet fragrance, a merging of animal-stink and spring-blossom perfume. "Why have you brought our foes to my serene courts and made my night so busy?"

  "I–I," Rossamund tried, astonished by the creature now clear before him. What he thought were horns were in fact ears-elongated rabbitlike ears; its blunt bestial snout ended in a soft, twitching rabbit's nose. "You-you are a rabbit…!" the young factotum breathed reflexively.

  The rabbit-beast stood back and straightened, looming high over him. "That I am, ouranin." It drew close again. "Haraman, the wild Piltmen called me; out in the parishes where I seldom visit any more I am Rabbit o'Blighty; in the east they speak of me in dread as the Kaminchin; and in writings of the quidnuncs I am regularly named Cunobillin, or at times the Great Lagornis. Many more names everymen have given me through history, but in these current times I am the Lapinduce-the Duke of Rabbits, true master of this festering city!"

  Rossamund was struck mum.

  Here, regally upright before him, was an urchin, a monster-lord, an ancient ruler of the nickers and bogles.

  Before Rossamund could say or think or do any more, the Lapinduce reached down and gripped the young factotum by the back of his collars, hoisting him from the soggy ground.The front of his weskit, frock coat, solitaire and undershirt all rucked to cut into his gourmand's cork. Kicking and twisting in the irresistible grip of this lord of monsters, Rossamund clutched his strangling collars away from his windpipe, yet his own well of strength did not avail him.

  The Lapinduce, Duke of Rabbits, held him fast.

  Giddiness surged through his intellectuals, the inner wounds of the dead wit's onslaught setting his eyes aching. The young factotum ceased his flailing and swung in dizzy dismay, each rocking stride of this mighty urchin carrying him farther into haunted sanctums of the threwdish park.

  "Now for dreams," the Lapinduce proclaimed softly.

  Bundling Rossamund under arm like some package of new-fullered clothes, it stooped to pluck something from the ground-a small fungus weakly glowing yellow green. It held this before the young factotum's face and crushed it. With an unexpected pop! a cloying gust of pollen and damp filled the young factotum's nostrils and coated his mouth.

  He gagged and spat and writhed again in the prison of the monster's grip as he fought to clear his senses.

  Stay awake! a sensible inward cry demanded. At the very depths of himself he wanted to stay, to obey; yet at the top of himself, in his head, in his throat, he was succumbing, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His eyes drooped heavy; he lost the idea of his legs, then his arms, even his trunk, until only the tiny impotent spin of his determination remained.

  Then nothing.

  9

  THE COURTS OF THE RABBIT

  Petchinin(s) monster-lords most concerned in their own immediate needs and their own schemes, neither attacking nor defending everymen except as circumstances might dictate or if said everymen are encroaching upon a petchinin's patch or plans. As such they are scorned-or at the very least, mistrusted-by both urchins and wretchins.

  Rossamund roused ears-first to the sound of wild spinet music resonating as if down a tunnel, the notes clear-almost close-astringent at one turn, melancholy the next. It was a version of the melody he was sure he had encountered before but could not summon where… Huh, he said to himself with sluggish complaisance, wrapped in a cozying peace, I did not know Miss Europe played the spinet… He sighed sleepily. Rouse out, sleepyhead, time to make treacle.

  Creeping eyes open against the drowsy crust congealed in their corners, Rossamund was puzzled to find the ceiling a spotted roof of roots and compacted brown earth. In the soft light of glowing slimes and many thin, sunny beams of morning emitted through ingenious gaps in wood and soil, Rossamund could see that some openings were windowed with alabaster marble so fine as to be translucent, the delicate effulgence carved into figures of hopping, dancing hares.

  This was not Cloche Arde at all!

  Recollection crashed like the dropping of a full-laden barrel. He had been taken by the Lapinduce and kept the night on a downy bed of moss in the den of that murderous monster-lord, trapped alone
with no notion of any path or method of escape in some sunken warren. For a breath, terrible stories of weak souls carried away to a nicker's den to be feasted on slowly came unhelpfully to mind.Yet wherever here was, in the threwd that waxed and waned with the pulse of the music, there was no threat, no lurking promise of violence. All Rossamund could collect was calm and self-sufficiency and the merest notion of more subdued affections.

  He sat up, clouting his head upon the curve of the earthen wall into which his mossy cot was cut. A pile of what he first disgustedly thought was forest sweepings fell off him. He quickly realized it was a jumble of leaves in autumn shades, still supple, cunningly woven together to make a remarkably soft coverlet.

  Curling fingers, flexing toes, Rossamund felt no pains but the fresh bump upon his head. By all evidence the Lapinduce had not harmed him. Quite the contrary; even the dandi-dressed wit's dastardly work seemed cured. Rossamund felt as hale and clear-headed as he ever had.

  He looked about, blinking. At his left an entrance gaped in the white-daubed wall, a tall misshapen oval opening through roots. He sat listening; no movement beyond the opening, just the spinet-song and beneath it the strangely compressed quiet of the underground… and tingling, self-possessed threwd.

  Untwisting himself from the rucked constriction of his sleep-knotted frock coat, the young factotum stood slowly to discover that his feet were bootless and-after a needless pat on his crown-that his head was hatless.

  He rolled his eyes and cast about for these items. A lingering, subterranean mist hung thinly mere inches above the smooth cold ground-tiled in a fine mosaic fashioned in the image of frolicking rabbits in fields of lush grasses and bending trees-but no boots and no thrice-high.

  Even through his harness he could feel a gnawing cold, a marrow chill of buried places. Wrapping the leafy blanket about him, he stepped gingerly from the cell to find a high arching tunnel heeling away on either hand. Lit by effulgent fungus, its walls were densely entwined with every girth of root, permitting no sight of the dirt behind. Little drifts of blossom and old leaves gathered in nooks between burrow wall and tessellated floor.