The Phenomenals: A Tangle of Traitors

by F. E. Higgins

  Festival of the Lurids? It was not a festival Vincent knew. He toyed with the idea of leaving, but Suma was back before he had decided one way or the other.

  ‘Still here?’ she asked, as if she knew what he had been thinking. She handed down a linen bag.

  Vincent looked inside and his face creased up with disgust. ‘A wax hand?’

  Suma laughed. ‘Make sure to look after it. I’ll be asking all about it next time. You never know, even a non-believer like yourself might find use for a Supermundane artefact.’ She stepped back into the wagon and pulled the louvred doors closed.

  Vincent was rarely at a loss for words, but for a few seconds he stood with his mouth agape. ‘Next time? I suppose a card-spreader should know.’ Tentatively he reached into the bag and gingerly took out the hand. Modelled on a man’s hand, by the look of it, it smelled strongly of herbs, and was so well sculpted that Vincent had almost thought it was real. A short piece of wick projected from the middle finger.

  Oh, it’s a candle, he realized with a certain amount of relief. Thinking now that it might be useful, or saleable, he dropped it back in the bag and tied it to his belt. Then he took stock of his surroundings: the shining clock tower, the grinning gargoyles, the eccentric architecture, the fluttering black flags.

  This has to be the queerest place I’ve ever been, he decided. But there were rich pickings and the possibility of a Trikuklos to boot! First things first, he had to think business. He patted his pockets; it was time to offload his spoils. There was bound to be a pawnshop or suchlike somewhere.

  As luck would have it, across the square, halfway down Hawkers Road, he saw a familiar sign – a spinning gold coin. Vincent smiled broadly; a caveat emptorium. Every city had one of these shops, even as odd a place as Degringolade.

  So off he went, whistling a tune that owed more to enthusiasm than skill.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SECOND GIFT

  ‘Hello,’ called out Vincent, pushing open the door. There was no answer. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the light and he saw that the place was crammed with an uninspiring collection of secondhand odds and ends, including a deep wicker basket of rather worn-looking gas masks. He picked up a rusty metal artificial arm. It was hollow, designed to fit up to the elbow and attach with straps and buckles to the shoulder. Vincent attempted to put it on, but it proved to be trickier than it looked.

  ‘Fully functioning model,’ said an arenaceous voice from behind him. Vincent jumped and tried to disentangle himself from the prosthesis. ‘It’s ingenious,’ continued the voice. ‘Even the finger joints work – they can lock into place, around a cup or perhaps a dagger. And you can detach the fingers if you don’t need them. But you got your two hands, I see.’

  Vincent finally freed himself from the tangle of straps. The speaker came into view and it was hardly a pleasant sight: a carneous man holding a manuslantern which revealed in chiaroscuro his fleshy, florid face, his cauliflower nose, treble chin and small piggy eyes.

  ‘Welcome, young sir, to my Caveat Emptorium. Wenceslas Wincheap at your service. Sumthin’ for ever’one, that’s what I say.’

  To those who knew him well, and they were few, Wenceslas Wincheap was living proof of the unreliability of judgements based on first appearances. He was a man of many talents, but it suited him to keep them well hidden. He continued talking, all the time rubbing his thumb and middle finger together as if trying to get rid of something tacky. ‘I sez to meself when I sees yer, there’s a boy knows wot’s wot. New in town? Have you had your cards spread yet? You’re in Degringolade now – nanyone leaves without having his cards spread. Suma Dartson, she’s the best, they say.’

  ‘She offered but I declined,’ interjected Vincent when the man took a breath.

  ‘You turned down an offer from Suma Dartson? Well, well! Let’s hope you don’t live to regret it. See over the door there?’ Wenceslas pointed to the top right corner of the door frame.

  ‘You mean that ceramic creature with the missing leg?’

  ‘Not ceramic,’ corrected Wenceslas. ‘Adderstone. It’s a three-legged frog, for luck. Be wary of any house that don’t have one. Or any place that don’t cover the mirrors at night.’

  ‘Cover the mirrors?’

  ‘You know, to keep the Lurids from stealing your soul.’

  Vincent tried not to laugh. These people were slaves to superstition, innocents ripe for the picking. ‘I must confess, Mr Wincheap, I don’t know what a Lurid is.’

  Wenceslas leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘The restless dead, my lad. The shades of murderers wot won’t settle. There’s hunnereds of the filthy creatures in the Tar Pit, down on the old Degringolade estate. Vile place, the tar bubbles like a pot of overdone porridge day and night, and spews out poisonous gas, like stinking belches.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s the smell!’

  Wenceslas nodded. ‘But ever’ cloud has a silver lining. The tar lights the city, and powers the Manufactory. Why, it keeps the Kronometer going in Mercator Square. The governor, Leucer d’Avidus, owns the pit. He has pumps working night and day, sucking up the tar, filtering it and stirring it and who knows what else. One day it’ll run out and then he won’t be so smug.’

  ‘And that’s where the, er . . . Lurids are?’ said Vincent, bringing him back to the point.

  ‘Oh yes, and they ain’t happy! They floats about the pit with evil still in their rotten, murderous hearts. But they’re trapped, surrounded by the salt marsh. Salt burns ’em like fire.’

  ‘The purses of salt,’ murmured Vincent. It was all starting to make sense now.

  ‘You mean Brinepurses. They’re full of brine crystals, ’vaporated from the Turbid Sea, for protection from the filthy beggars.’

  ‘But they’re trapped.’

  ‘But it’s the lunar apogee soon.’ Wenceslas saw Vincent’s blank expression and explained. ‘When the moon is furthest away in its orbit from the earth. You see, the pull of the moon also makes sure the Lurids stay put, but when it’s far away its influence is weakened and it’s possible a dark-hearted person could set the Lurids free.’

  ‘And how would a person do that?’ asked Vincent, deciding to play along.

  Wenceslas shrugged. ‘Nanyone knows. It’s one of ’em secrets lost down the centuries. Anyhoos, at the end of the Festival of the Lurids we all dresses up and goes to the Tar Pit and tosses in offerings – chickens and sheep, a sort of ’pology for keeping them there – then we goes home and feasts.’

  Vincent laughed. ‘Sounds like an excuse for a shindig.’

  Wenceslas looked down at Vincent’s belt. ‘You mock, but I see you’ve got yerself a Brinepurse.’

  Vincent quickly pulled his cloak together. ‘I . . .’ he began, but suddenly the door was thrown open and there was an angry shout.

  ‘Wincheap! Where are you, you cheating swine?’

  A tall man in a fur-collared cloak was standing in the shop doorway. Instinct – or the glint of silver around the newcomer’s neck and wrist – inclinated Vincent to stay out of sight. He shrank back into the shadows and was rendered almost invisible. The man’s cloak flapped about his lower legs, revealing intermittently a shimmering green lining. The hood, also trimmed with fur, fell in soft folds upon his narrow shoulders. Rather well-dressed for this establishment, thought Vincent from his hiding place.

  Wenceslas, having moved surprisingly quickly, was now at the door. His bulk prevented the man from coming in any further. ‘An’ a good evenin’ to you too, Mr Kamptulicon,’ he said coolly. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Here’s the problem.’ Kamptulicon threw a gas mask at Wenceslas’s feet. ‘It’s a dud. I want another.’

  Wenceslas stroked one of his chins, causing all three to wobble, and took another mask from the basket. He dusted it off and handed it over.

  ‘This had better work,’ said Kamptulicon, ‘or I’ll be back.’ He turned on his heel and strode away.

  Vincent stepped out into the light as Wenceslas shut the doo
r. ‘Who was that?’

  Wenceslas chewed thoughtfully on his lip, all talk of Lurids and festivals forgotten for the moment. ‘His name is Leopold Kamptulicon. He has a lamp shop on Chicanery Lane, not far from here, but if that man’s a lamp merchant then –’ here he looked slyly at Vincent – ‘I’ll climb the Kronometer and clean the clock!’ He sighed. ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could drag his skinny rump. Anyhoos, lad, it’s near closing time. Are you here to sell or buy?’

  ‘To sell.’ Vincent rummaged through his pockets and produced a considerable haul (which would have greatly upset Constable Weed) and laid on the counter rings, necklaces, some silver spoons, five silk handkerchiefs and the crystal glass. Wenceslas hummed and hawed and eventually handed over a fistful of coins. They were not like any Vincent had seen before. Wenceslas answered his question before he asked it. ‘Sequins, sequarts and sequenturies,’ he said. ‘The currency of Degringolade. Take ’em or leave ’em.’

  Vincent took them and as he added them to his own purse he remembered Suma’s present. He showed it to Wenceslas, who didn’t seem at all surprised. ‘A Mangledore.’

  Sounds like some sort of vegetable, thought Vincent. ‘Suma Dartson just gave it to me for no reason.’

  Wenceslas raised a bushy brow. ‘Suma never gives nanyone nanything for no reason. Take my advice: keep it.’ He sniffed it before handing it back. ‘Quite fresh too.’

  ‘Fresh? You mean it’s real?’ Vincent dropped it quickly into the bag.

  ‘Oh yes, the severed hand of a hanged man. A lighted Mangledore strikes the sleeping with the afflictions of the dead – they can’t see, hear or move as long it stays alight. And it can only be quenched in cow’s milk drawn that day. The holder is immune.’ He looked at Vincent slyly. ‘Very useful if you’re in the business of thieving, at night.’

  ‘I think it’s time I went,’ said Vincent.

  ‘Here, I got something for you too, a sort of welcome to the city.’ Wenceslas held out his hand, upon which rested a small polished metal acorn.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Vincent. ‘For luck?’

  ‘See?’ said Wenceslas with a grin. ‘I knew you knew wot’s wot!

  CHAPTER 6

  THE DARK HEART

  ‘My word,’ breathed Folly. ‘I had almost forgotten. It really is a different world down here.’

  She was standing at the top of a steep slope; behind her was the salt marsh, and stretching before her into the darkness was the treacherous Tar Pit of Degringolade. It resembled a vast dark lake, but it was no serene watery surface she gazed upon, far from it. This was a lake of tar: sticky, noxious, black tar, oozing up from deep below the earth. The tar never set, merely thickened and thinned with the passing seasons, and its depth was unknown. In winter it was at its most dense, on account of the cold, and its heaving surface was like a rash of plague boils, each pustule swelling into a fat bubble that strained to its limit before exploding and releasing toxic gases. Mothers warned their children to stay away on pain of death. They knew that once in the tar’s agglutinant hold, the chances of escape were virtually nil.

  Folly adjusted her gas mask, tightening the straps, but even with the mask filtering the miasma, the acrid air stung her nostrils and caught in the back of her throat. She descended the worn trail and stood on the narrow shore. All about, blackened tapering pillars of salt rose from the ground, like a charred forest, and the shore was strewn with animal skeletons, innocent victims of the gas or the tar. But there were also the bones of the guilty, for this dark slick was the last resting place of scores of convicted criminals, hanged by the neck and then thrown unceremoniously into the pit. The churning tar disgorged its grisly contents on a regular basis, the fleshless remains of those who met their end by the noose carried ashore by the undulations of the viscous soup.

  Poor devils, thought Folly, and curled her lip in revulsion. She thought of the body on the gallows. Whether criminals deserved their fate or not – for justice was not an exact science – there was no satisfaction to be had from the sight of their exposed and blackened remains. This place truly was the dark heart of Degringolade.

  Folly listened to another noise, not the sucking and popping tar but a low hum and a rhythmical swooshing. She looked across the seething surface towards the far shore, the origin of the noise, and saw a number of large grey pipes rising like metal tentacles from the tar. They stood a foot or so above the lake and then bent at a right angle and travelled parallel to the surface towards the shore, where they entered the side of a pump house. The pump house was attached by the same exiting pipes to a much larger windowless building. Signs on the walls of the building and treen notices hammered into the ground along the shore warned in letters big enough to read even from this side of the pit:

  LDTC

  LEUCER D’AVIDUS TAR COMPANY

  REFINERY AND FILTRATION

  NO ENTRY

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  But Folly wasn’t interested in Governor d’Avidus’s tar business. She turned her attention back to the pit. A thick mist hung just above the febrile surface some distance from the shore. Folly fixed her gaze on it.

  ‘Well, hello again,’ she murmured, and her heart gave a little jump as the swirling haze seemed to separate and they came into view. Now she could see that the mist was actually a horde of luminous shadows hovering above the tarry broth. The shadows were flitting from side to side in obvious agitation. The wind brought to her ears their incessant moaning and wailing.

  ‘The Lurids of Degringolade,’ she breathed. ‘Desperate as ever to be set free!’

  As she watched the nebulous Lurids something changed in their behaviour. They stopped their aimless meanderings and all turned to face the same direction – Folly’s direction. As one, the group advanced slowly across the pit. Closer and closer came the ephemeral shades, murderers and violent criminals in life, no different in death. Folly felt rising fear but she stood her ground. They came to the very edge of the pit, but no footprints marked their presence, and they reached out with their pale skeletal arms, moaning and wailing like keening at a wake, held back by an invisible force.

  Close up, the Lurids of Degringolade were a most terrible sight to behold, with their crooked necks and lifeless eyes, and their earthly crimes reflected in their wretched expressions. There was not a man alive who would not feel repulsed. Folly shivered violently. She could feel their cold touch; she could hear their desperate breaths and smell their stench. It was the stench of vile hearts.

  ‘Free us!’ they entreated. ‘Free us!’

  Folly willed herself to stay calm. She knew the Lurids couldn’t harm her; they were trapped in the pit, unable to cross the burning salt marsh, but still her heart beat faster. She steadied her breathing and tried to hold the gaze of the vile faces that lined up before her, clamouring with their gurning mouths. But in the presence of such a ghoulish horde she couldn’t help herself and her hand went to her belt and she drew out a curious short-handled three-pronged weapon. She thrust it forward at the hissing, imploring crowd and instantly the Lurids froze. Then, with screams of unexpurgated rage, they turned and fled in distress back to the centre of the boiling liquid. Folly breathed a sigh of relief and replaced the weapon.

  There was a sudden movement to her left and automatically she crouched down and scrambled behind one of the salt pillars. Her first thought was that a Lurid had broken free and her hand went again to her weapon, but, no, it was a mere mortal who approached, a tall cloaked man.

  The newcomer was making his way awkwardly down the slope, muttering from behind his gas mask. He went straight to the edge of the tar and stared out at the mass of Lurids. Once again they rushed forward, and the man reached into his cloak, revealing a shimmering green lining, and pulled out what looked like a long stick.

  Not a stick, a bone, realized Folly. Intrigued and fearful, she waited to see what he would do next. She could not have anticipated the sequence of events that followed.

  Th
e man remained at the edge of the tar, leaning forward slightly. The Lurids were distinctly aggravated, and their moans and howls took on a new strained pitch. Unperturbed by his ghostly audience, the man put his hand to his neck and pulled out a pendant on a silver chain. Where Folly would have expected to see a jewel, there was instead a simple grey stone, irregular in shape. He placed one hand over the stone and threw the bone out into the tar. Like starving street curs the Lurids rushed towards it, reaching wildly, but it fell through their fingers and landed softly and began to sink. They hovered menacingly where it had fallen. Folly felt a little shiver run up her spine. No ordinary man, certainly no Degringoladian, would deliberately antagonize the Lurids.

  The man was speaking now and Folly strained to hear what he was saying. His voice was rising and falling with deep emotion. A feeling of cold dread came over Folly.

  ‘Ades Luride, confestim, ere ossis,’ he called out with finality.

  Suddenly from the centre of the writhing horde of fiends a single Lurid emerged. It moved quickly towards the shore and as it approached it changed, becoming less nebulous and increasingly opaque, like cooling fat. It reached the edge of the pit and hesitated. Then, to Folly’s horror and disbelief, it actually stepped off the tar and stood on the shore directly in front of the man. Quickly she pulled her head in and pressed up against the pillar, her mouth dry with fear.

  ‘Sequere,’ said the man clearly. And the Lurid followed.

  Folly held her breath as the pair, one alive, one mostly dead, passed within feet of her hiding place. She covered her mask filters with her hands because they weren’t sufficient to stop the stench. Nauseated, she watched as they climbed the bank, the man ungracefully, the Lurid stepping lightly behind him with eerie ease. It was no longer ghostly in appearance, being more solid now than transparent and dressed in filthy rags. As soon as they were out of sight Folly dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out a Depiction. She unfolded the stiff paper and looked closely at the faded brown image. Despite the creases, there was no doubting that this was the man she had just seen; it was Leopold Kamptulicon.