Legends of Australian Fantasy

by Jack

  This final revelation seemed to appease the short man. He gave a brief, barely meant apology and the two left poor Mister Settlepond to call his maid to bring a draught of Dew of Imnot and calm his over-exercised humours.

  * * * *

  Returned to their carriage and well on the way back through bustling streets broad and narrow to Bankers Lane, Atticus pinched his brows, knuckles pushing into perpetually aching dents of his upper eye-sockets.

  For folk supposedly seeking creatures who dwelt in the vinegar-washed depths of the sea, fictlers did not do anything so predictable as live near oceans, where regular patrols of landsgarde rams might spot them. Amongst the most despised of all the idiot fringe, neither did they dare to meet or remain in numbers in the city for the Archduke’s constables to find and apprehend them. Rather — as rumour told it — they kept themselves hidden in the backwoods and far recesses of the Brandendowns, avoiding prosecution and though often small in number, thriving.

  Yet not all their adherents were so shrewd ...

  ‘Brother Scritch,’ Wells thought aloud.

  ‘The brother does what?’ Sprawle frowned quizzically.

  Sitting across from him, Door, as always, said nothing but waited with mute and steady intent.

  ‘The simple fellow with the wet eyes our Mister Settlepond spoke on,’ Wells returned. ‘Brother Scritch is the only name he answers to; we shall find him sitting atop the Veil where it runs through Oghbourne Sunt Gage. He is a confirmed adherent of Lobe and one of the few fictlers who dares remain in the city. Sits by the harbour all and every day, watching and waiting for his chosen god to emerge from the water. He will appear to you a wretched fellow — unmotivated and useless, but he is remarkably well connected amongst his category. He aided me once with some morsel of information regarding his fellow fantaisists. Oghbourne Sunt Gage, Mister Thickney,’ he cried through the fine grille at the head of the lentum cabin. ‘Take us to the sea!’

  * * * *

  Pulling easy beside the squat seawall of the Sunt Veil, Wells pointed from the lentum window at a lone figure perched atop the poked and corroded barrier.

  ‘There’s our man!’

  Avoiding the eel-vendors and tunymongers —’Five goose a brace o’ unsweetened tun!’ they called, ‘A cob, a coil of fresh-hiked maraine, saps sniggled straight fro’ the wine!’ — they drew to a halt and alighted.

  Peering at the precipitous climb offered by a scale of iron rungs, Wells knew there was no way up for him but on the ample back of Mister Door. The sleuth sighed long-sufferingly, called for his assistant and tried to ignore the shame and the quizzical watchers as he was bodily carried to the summit of the seawall. Finally set safe at the top of the Sunt Veil, Wells marvelled at the spreading vista of thousands of busy boats, self-important cargoes and prowling rams moving across every yard of Middle Ground, Brandenbrass’ main harbour, all its minor anchorages and the waters beyond.

  There on his left a mere handful of fathoms sat his intention, Brother Scritch, a gaunt, malnourished man cross-legged between the row of foot-tall thorns blackened with monster-slaying aspis that crowned the ponderous rampart. Muttering through scrawny beard, he stared longingly out to sea as if all his satisfaction might spring bodily from the milky waves. Drawing close, Wells could make out the blue spoors that marked the man’s jowl, like the rounded figure of a ‘3’ — the allegory of Lobe the Listening. Slowly the fellow became aware he had company, large limpid eyes blinking almost torpidly then narrowing in sharp comprehension. Half-standing, he turned clumsily to flee, completely untroubled by the precarious narrowness of the lofty perch in his intent to escape. Sprawle clambered into view from a scale on the further side, smiling ruefully as he blocked Scritch’s exit. The haggard fictler’s shoulders slumped in all too common defeat and he sat again, hugging bony knees now drawn up under his chin.

  While Door waited at the scale, Wells negotiated the slight and thorny path, feeling the breeze pick up and tug at him as if to throw him to the flags and the bustling mongers. ‘Who only seeks truly the overthrow of the interminable monstrous plague?’ he intoned sombrely.

  Brother Scritch brightened just a little. ‘The seekers and the knowers, the sons of the deeps,’ he returned with equal solemnity.

  ‘And bring the ruin and damnation of the domain of men with them!’ Sprawle murmured and looked out to sea, thereby avoiding Wells’ quick warning glower.

  ‘There is no damnation for the properly blest, sir, grant me ...’ Brother Scritch returned coldly.

  ‘Indeed,’ Wells nodded in a show of continued gravity. ‘Beluae nunquam superarum — may the monsters never get you,’ he added, mimicking a fictler’s cantric phrase.

  The wizened fellow stared at him searchingly. ‘I ain’t playing muttering mouse for ye, Mister Wheel. No matter what good turns ye have done fer me, grant me, I’ll not speak out ag’in a brother like you had me that other day ...’

  Wells could well see that nothing short of harm would make this simple searching fellow say what was needed and the sleuth already had a tally enough of regrets. ‘Fair is fair, Brother Scritch,’ he returned. ‘Is there some other help you might give us, nothing specific mind, just some broad advice.’

  ‘Well ...’

  ‘Come now, sir, you know I can see you avoiding an answer.’

  Scritch fidgeted, but kept his attention on the endless industry in the harbour. ‘I got me a silver counter, from one knowing brother to another, grant me, for me help,’ he said finally.

  ‘You are ever the obliging chap,’ Wells smiled. ‘They should call you Brother Help, I understand.’

  Scritch grinned blandly. ‘Master Jack said so, too ...’ he murmured.

  Ahah! Wells kept his voice even. ‘But Master Jack is brother to Sucoth,’ he let his words linger. He did not know much of the falsegods — or even believe them true — but what he did ought be enough to draw this fellow out. ‘I thought you were brother to Lobe. Sucoth never listens like Lobe ...’

  ‘Aye, Succoth does not listen, he only eats ... Only eats ...’

  ‘But ...’ Wells trod now with care. ‘But you helped a brother of Sucoth?’

  ‘I’m no follower of Sucoth, grant me! Vile destroyer.’ The simple fellow gnashed his teeth then muttered incoherent imprecations. ‘Now Lobe — he’s the Listener; he listens, see.’ Scritch tapped his forehead. ‘Everyday I talk with him and he listens to me. He’ll know I alone have held to him and he’ll keep me safe ...’

  ‘May I see this silver counter, sir?’ Wells asked in continuing amiability.

  After an agony of indecision, Scritch finally relented and produced the smudgy sequin coin from the little used fob of his equally smudgy weskit.

  ‘How about I swap this single dull silver for a shining one,’ the sleuth offered, pulling a new-minted sou from his own pocket.

  The larger coin glinted in the misty high-noon light.

  No small amount, it was probably enough for someone of such rudimentary needs to sustain him for a whole season. Yet Wells could easily compass it. He had been shrewd enough to make the modestly substantial inheritance left him by his loving, long-dead parents grow to one thousand sou a year; enough to keep him, his under-sleuths, clerk and housestaff in roof, board and wages. Nevertheless, a small, continuingly calculating part of his thinking ruefully acknowledged the wrestle of conscience he would later have over its inclusion in the bill of expense that would be passed to Monsiere Pardolot once Viola was restored.

  Scritch licked his lips.

  A mollyawk glided above, the midday sun casting the scavenging bird’s thin hovering shadow over the cripple and the simpleton. Realising there was no food to be had here, it gave voice to a churlish croak and glided away on the piquant airs.

  The simple fictler put out his hand, the dull sequin lying there.

  Wells duly passed the sou over.

  If falsegods were real then such a bribe was in support of a tiny but genuine menace; if not, then it was adding to
the corruption of a vulnerable soul. Ignoring this dilemma, the sleuth quickly took up the dirty sequin in an unscented kerchief and wrapped it in his fist. He took little joy from beguiling such a harmless man for his own ends — however noble — especially one who trusted him so completely; whose soiled face was so rarely distorted by the truly unsettling deformations of falsehood.

  ‘Where did he give this to you?

  ‘The Bird,’ Scritch nodded. ‘Outside The Bird where I put that girl, grant me, aboard a lenty-coach. They want to use her to sing the proper cantricles to Sucoth ...’

  Wells’ neck prickled. His innards griped cold. He shot the merest glance to Sprawle who watched on with hawkish expectation.

  ‘Them Seven-Sevens, they want to be Emperor of it all. They say their cantricles from Case Nigrise and reckon the Great Devourer will make them lords but he eats, he only eats...’

  ‘You would never ... sing with the Seven-Seven at Case Nigrise, would you, Brother?’ Wells asked in a manner most concerned.

  Scritch looked at the sleuth sharply and eventually shook his head. ‘No, grant me ... You sing up Sucoth and may bid goodbye to — to ...’ he cast about, his distant gaze beholding imagined scenes of horror, ‘to all this living and eating and sleeping and boats and fishermen.’ He took a deep breath and returned his attention to the milky waters of the harbour. ‘You’ll never get me out to the Witherfells neither, too far from the sea ... far too far ...’

  The fictler continued in his rant but Wells and his compatriots did not remain for it to play out; all that was needed Brother Scritch had divulged, whether he wanted to or not.

  ‘There you are, Mister Sprawle,’ Atticus declared without a mite of satisfaction as deposited back onto surer ground by Door, he passed the bundled kerchief to his aide, ‘another weargild to sniff out our quarry.’

  * * * *

  Three storeys of venerable grey stone and stone arched windows, The Bird by Madam Nutkin Cloth proved to be a fine little hostelry in Steepling Oak, a mere handful of streets from Viola’s own home.

  ‘This Mister Jack is a cultivated soul, it seems,’ Wells observed as he negotiated the three short white steps to the blue front door.

  ‘All this chasing over the city and we might have just jinked over here from Pardolot’s house and saved ourselves the trouble,’ Sprawle returned tartly.

  Madam Cloth, the proprietoress, met them in the clean, sky-blue vestibule, Sprawle — playing Wells — dazzling her with his handsome dash and air of natural authority. Having already determined with his chief that openness was most politic, he told the blank shocking truth upon the nature of their call. Astonished and patently aware of the great sleuth and his good repute, Madam Cloth burbled out her evidence.

  ‘He did have some young creature with him,’ she explained, her face wide with dismay, ‘said she was his niece. The little lass seemed very poorly. I offered to fetch him a physician or dispensurist but he said no, he was about to take her to the hills for some better air.’

  ‘And that was all?’ Sprawle-come-Wells pressed.

  ‘That was the all of it, sir. He was scrawled all over with markings like some teratologist but his coin was true and his manner even, so I asked no more of it.’ Eyeing the true Wells — playing quiet assistant — a little uneasily, Madam Cloth allowed them access to the room their quarry had occupied not two days ago, the proprietoress insisting upon accompanying them.

  ‘You’ve cleaned, I see,’ Sprawle-come-Wells declared flatly, peering about at the glaucous walls, brow arched unamusedly.

  ‘Of course I have, Mister Wells,’ the proprietoress bridled. ‘What common kind of bunk do you think I run?’

  Fixing his sthenicon over his face, the lurksman spent much time still in the middle of the room, the faint hollow sounds of snuffling coming from the round cavities upon either side of the dark wooden box fixed over his face. After a while he began to rove about, bending down to sniff at corners, behind the simple walnut commode, under the washstand, beneath the long narrow bed, then returning his attention to the coin nestled on its kerchief in his palm. Pressed by needs of present guests, Madam Cloth was forced to leave them, promising to presently return.

  With her gone, Sprawle straightened. ‘I thought she’d never go!’ he hissed as he slowly removed the sthenicon, eyes squeezed shut and only opening slowly, trying to avoid the disorientation that would sweep over him even after so short a stint in a sensory box. It did not work. Swooning for a moment, he sat upon the bed, creasing its perfect folds.

  The true Wells waited patiently.

  ‘There is definitely a scent of the same slot that is on dear Scritch’s coin,’ his companion soon recovered and confirmed. ‘It was nigh unperceptible on the coin but now I have found it a little stronger in here I can say they match. Even had they not,’ Sprawle added, ‘Viola has been here. Her slot is everywhere ...’ the lurksman trailed off severely.

  Madam Cloth returned, cheeks bustling rosy, and blinked at the two sleuths as if to say, Surely you are done ...?

  ‘How did he go?’ the true Wells asked — meaning by he of course, Mister Jack, and forgetting himself for a moment in the rapid preoccupations of his thoughts.

  The proprietoress gave him a look as if he was a most impertinent fellow, but after Sprawle-come-Wells did not rebuke this apparently overweening servant, answered, ‘He left by morning post departing the quarter of six from the Knave & Post for Coddlingtine Dell and Pour Claire.’

  Without another word, Atticus departed, leaving Sprawle to make a gallant goodbye.

  Wherever this Case Nigrise that Brother Scritch had spoken of might be, Coddlingtine Dell would be their next port.

  Now was the time for adventure well beyond the city’s many curtain walls.

  Now Wells would need help.

  * * * *

  When pressed with the need for some fighterly stripe of person, most folk choose the Letter and Coursing House — or the Knave & Post — found on the Spokes in the midst of the oldest innermost part of the city. Here in its cavernous hall you can charter from one of its many knaving-clerks an entire catalogue of bravos, from monster-battling teratologists to life-guarding spurns. Prices are fair, operation efficient, prizes and recompenses are paid promptly and in full, and its register includes many pugilists of high reputation, especially surgically-altered lahzars. Yet, for all their vaunted power, Atticus Wells did not trust the mind-bending wit or the lightning-throwing fulgar, reckoning them too clumsy — too apt to kill — for the fine work he typically required. Moreover, a bad incident between a scourge in his hire and a patron left him wary too of an exitumath’s extreme smokes. Unfortunately, the regulations and practice of the Knave & Post did not allow for one to easily choose who it was who answered your call for a fighter. Consequently, Atticus habitually sought a small agent knavery, Messrs Prighmy & Till on the Knot Street, in the shadow of the second curtain wall in Higher Brandt, faithful representatives of the more mundane pugilists he preferred.

  There were three enterprising sets of bravos he regularly engaged when such strength was needed, every one of them commonplace in regards to surgical improvement or employment of chemistry: the Double Irons, a brace of pistoleers and their holstermen for when dash and pith were the order; Mister Ptolemis, a franklock with impeccable aim for when accuracy from afar was necessary and Mister Door alone was not enough; and the battle-dancing sagaar sisters, Cilestine and Paraclesia Pail, subtle, fearless, patient. With each of these there was no chance of a misthrown potive bringing instant death or the ill-directed puissance of a lahzar, just flashing weapons and cool professional deference ... And of them, the Pail sisters were his foremost preference. Stocky and somewhat plain of face, both wore bird-masks as was the inclination of their particular school of dance — Cilestine the regal egret, Paraclesia the noble heron — and both fought like wild things. Wells had witnessed them singly subdue men twice their mass — ferocious men cornered and fixed on tearing their way free — with nothin
g more than their armoured hands and the sublime skill of their steps. What is more, Wells knew that the Pail sisters had contended with fictlers before and would be happy — even keen — to do so again.

  Happy fortune, Mister Prighmy, chief knaving clerk of the Knot Street, informed his valued client that the pair had returned only the week before from hunting nickers in the southern wilds of Chessers’ Gall. ‘In fact they have only just put themselves back up for hire this very day,’ Mister Prighmy declared with modest clerical cheer. ‘I am sure they shall be most delighted to know you are hiring again.’

  Filling a certificate of assignment and taking out a Singular contract, Wells returned to Banker’s Lane to continue the multiplicity of preparations required to venture forth: harness, weaponry, clothing, the necessary chemistry to ward off monsters — however rare they might be in the long-inhabited hills — wayfoods and water and other less necessary but more toothsome liquids, travelling papers, and all the rest. After so many years, Wells, Sprawle and Door knew just how little could be taken and a certain degree of comfort still maintained. Their plan — as always — was to remain in civilised regions for as long as practicable as they followed the indications of the evidence, eating wayhouse fare and sleeping in wayhouse bunks until they had no choice but to leave known or populated paths. Hoping to leave within the next day or two and including travel time, Wells reckoned on their return by a fortnight.