by Jack
The following morning the sleuth sent a note by footman to his physician, Doctor Ganymede, then ignoring the growing qualms of knee and lower back, stepped out alone. On Green Lady’s Walk he hired a takeny coach to Foursdike athenaeum where fledgling concometrists learnt how to record, to fight and to measure the world. Entering the grand institution with its high sombre walls and paved, tree-shaded quadrangles, he called on his old, age-ed friend, Grimwood, Undermarshal-Archivist at Foursdike’s great library. With the aid of the librarian, he hunted for most of the day amongst the numerous documents — ancient and new — on this mysterious den of fictlers, Case Nigrise. In a dusty shelf of obscure facsimiles of historied records he finally found the tiny glimpse he needed. Scribed by Imperial asseyors — the forefathers of the concometrists — in their multiple assessment surveys of the then newly-conquered lands, each held great tallies of the figured worth of ever-increasing territories, the Brandendowns included. For all their fine high-flown Tutin they were basically the ledgers of a man counting his coffers. Yet in these tedious lists was a single mention of an unconquered fortalice made by the native Pilts. Built from swarthy stone, it was named rather derisively by the invaders as the ‘Black Hut’ or — as recorded by the learned Tutin-speaking asseyors — Casa Nigrum ...
‘Or Case Nigrise!’ Sprawle declared brightly and with no small measure of self-satisfaction when Wells had returned in the waning of the hour to explain his find.
‘Perversely,’ Wells elaborated, sitting heavily on a favourite turkoman squatting by the green-grey hearth of his cluttered yet properly ordered file, ‘as a purely numerical record of estimated value, the facsimile contained no map, so the location of this Case Nigrise was little more than vagaries; somewhere northeast beyond Coddlingtine Dell.’
‘Put me on the proper heading,’ Sprawle proclaimed, without any false showing away, ‘and I will smell our way to our despairing damsel!’
‘Well, I hope you can smell quick, Petulcus,’ the sleuth returned seriously. He passed a marked book Grimwood had allowed him to take away. ‘I have been able to clarify Brother Scritch’s dark hints on the nature of her ultimate abductors ... and I fear that the wedge is getting perilously thin for Miss Grey.’
Sprawle took the small yet hefty duodecimo bound in a humble red cloth and peered at its hard-to-read title:
A Continuing Survey of Marginal Cults in the Grumid States, with Especial Attention on those deemed Dangerous to the Continuing Harmony of our Most Pacific Empire.
He turned to the marked pages and found the following lightly indicated with the even silvery pale lines of a stylus:
* * * *
Septs are the many and various obfusc collections of people whose membership name themselves helots, but universally are named fictlers or fantaisist (for they believe in fantasies). On either hand, these helots are the willing thralls of those reputed yet barely encountered ‘beings’, the falsegods. Mentioned often in rare and dubious text, these falsegods are supposed to lurk in the deepest parts of the oceans, imprisoned there by some unknown force and desiring above all things the rule of dry land and all the creatures dwelling on it; yet they are so seldom seen that ascertaining their true nature, or more fundamentally, verifying their proper existence has proved impossible (and, in the reckoning of this pen, supremely unlikely).
Regardless of my opinion or that of sensible rational society, the septs believe the falsegods (or alosudne as is their supposed proper appellation) real enough to attempt summonings at certain propitious junctures in the seasons (times understood only to the higher members of each sept), employing many peculiar and loathsome techniques to draw their chosen ‘god’ from the lightless pits of the oceans where they are legended to be interned (if such stories are to be countenanced). Among the more benign customs is a quaint practice known variously as grammar, cantrics or cater legite (there are meant to be distinctions between each, but these are lost on this pen) whereby the helots sing through some manner of amplifying device into the water, hoping to wake their trammelled and slumbering ‘god’ and excite them enough to throw off their fetters and rise to take their place as lords. In the grip of such luxuriant fancies they use these ‘songs’ to call on the supposed servants of their chosen ‘god’, famuli they called them, (or pseudotheons in some learned manuscripts), beslimed, often massive things who become the ‘mouth-pieces’ for the helots to commune with their ‘god’ and if some Phlegmish texts are to be believed, the ‘god’ communicates with its thralls in return (what a reportedly slumbering idiot beast might have to say this pen cannot pretend to conjure) ...
* * * *
Sprawle’s eyes skipped impatiently over continuing verbose elaborations of one baffling practice to another until his gaze was arrested by sentences darkly and double lined ...
* * * *
... Of all these exercises the most extreme is the ‘sacrifice’ of life to their master. Typically this will be an animal, something to give the ‘god’ a taste of vitality they are said to crave but cannot get for themselves. At its worst expression the life will be that of a person, for the falsegods and their famuli are said to crave everyman meat above all else and most of all the delectable flesh of the very young. As the adherents of the falsegod Sucoth (so named the Devourer), the Seven Brothers of the Seven-Mouthed Lord or simply the Seven-Seven (also the Sucathene), are among the more malign and degenerate of all the septs, and it is this final wretched practice that they to their unmitigated shame, employ most often ...
* * * *
There was more — of course — but the underlining ceased here and so did Sprawle. He did not need to read anymore had he even desired to. The cause for his friend’s solemn urgency was clear enough: scant as it was, the evidence they possessed told that Viola was in the clutches of the Seven-Seven and that — if not already — she would soon be slain in the worship of a crude and fabulous notion.
‘I see ...’ was all he said in pointed conclusion. ‘Do we know much of this Sucoth — this Devourer character, other than this and what Brother Scritch uttered?’
‘No, not really ...’ Wells answered, distractedly kneading his often paining shins.
The lurksman peered through the tall windows out on the great grey city spreading out low under the leaden mantle of louring waterlogged sky. It was all so quiet and usual. He could not quite conceive that somewhere out under the milky waters might dwell such powerful embodiments of enmity and horrific all-devouring ambition.
‘Anything of your own to report?’ Wells inquired.
‘The Pail sisters called by in person to accept your Singular,’ Sprawle replied. ‘They could not remain, though; needed to pack so as to be ready to depart on the morrow.’
‘Most excellent!’ said Wells, brightening some. ‘I am sorry to have missed them,’ he added, a little too lightly.
‘Indeed,’ Sprawle returned, cocking a brow. Despite clear apprehension of the futility of such an action, his chief had spent the better half of a decade trying to foster a deeper association with these noble sisters — especially the elder Cilestine. To little avail. They were certainly amicably acquainted, as best as one could be with taciturn women who rarely ceased motion as they pursued the Perpetual Dance.
‘And the packing?’ Wells asked through a heavy sigh, rising to pour himself a double draught of watered obtorpes for the pain. Moving to a tandem, he sat and stretched out his crooked panging excuses for legs.
‘Door and Thickney are doing splendidly.’
‘Excellent ...’ Wells returned muzzily, head lolling, eyes drooping under the rapid influence of the draught. ‘Will ... will you be returning for a final night of conjugal bliss with your wife?’
‘Not tonight, good sir, I have said my goodbyes to my dear Flymmsia and shall stay here with you tonight so that we might be off a promptly as possible the morrow morn ...’
... But snoring ever so slightly, Wells was no longer listening.
Perceiving more of his friend’s struggl
e than he knew Wells would find comfortable, Sprawle smiled to himself a little sadly and went carefully from the room to help in the final preparations.
* * * *
Soon after, Doctor Ganymede made his call, prescribing the usual rubbing ointment — salve varante — to apply before the start of each new day, and slake of subvenire, one of a new strain of restorative scripts called alleviants, said to dull pain without the drowse. After so many quackery salves, Wells was gratified to find subvenire seemed actually efficacious, bringing his various algias down to a blunt throb.
‘I am sorry I cannot do more for you, my friend,’ the physician apologised in parting. ‘Short of you climbing back into the womb to re-emerge more properly knit,’ he added with his usual gallows humour, ‘I do not fathom what is to be done.’
Wells knew this all too well. He strove to keep self-pity bayed, yet there was always the lingering wish to walk fast and free like others did and without this constant pain. He had heard unsubstantiated whispers that the surgeons of Sinster, who make people into lahzars, could help him into a better pair of limbs. Such was their dark reputation, however, Atticus did not want to go upon the shanks of some poor dead man or worse, those of a mule or other brute beast.
For the thousandth time, he dismissed the notion, ignored the lingering pain and returned his attention to immediate need.
* * * *
In the grey and brilliant pink-shot dawn of the following day — barely four days since Monsiere Pardolot’s first approach — the quest to extricate Viola Grey set out aboard a pair of privately hired lentums, a profound sense of the rightness and urgency of their cause beating in each bosom. In the chilly hush of the waking city they clattered through clear streets, sending many loping shadows of mangy rabbits retreating in to the fog, a mere glimpse of the great multitude of rabbits reputed to inexplicably haunt this city more plaguingly than its rats, dogs or cats. Wells smiled at the flash of their retreating tails. These were creatures just like he, thriving where they ought not and despite himself, he regarded them as a good portent.
Through the Moon Gate, the last bastion port in the northern arc of the city’s outermost curtain wall, the five were taken as rapidly as six-horse carriages might through dew drenched upland pastures. While Door and Sprawle travelled in the first fit, the necessary day-bags and linen packets beside them, Wells went aboard the second lentum accompanied by the Pail sisters, ‘To explain details,’ he had said to Sprawle before boarding.
The lurksman was not convinced. ‘If only I had your eyes,’ he had muttered mordantly.
As it was, they changed seating after a change of horses and middens meal at the Plum & Apple wayhouse nestled at the leafy feet of the Brandenfells proper. Mister Door — all blushes and mumbles — joined the laconic dames, while Atticus and Petulcus sat together to continue their own discussions of their next action.
‘Wonderful sincere damsels,’ Wells elaborated when teams were changed and they were on their way again, ‘but one can only compass so much ponderous silence, meaningful half-avoided glances and slow, endless sagarine restlessness.’
Well acquainted with the peculiar cross-legged poses and measured elegant contortions of the limb that marked a seated sagaar committed to the Perpetual Dance, Sprawle knew well enough that this was not the problem. ‘Indeed ...’ was, however, all he said.
By the time cold twinkling evening descended and Phoebe lifted her august lunar face early over the rim of the world to shine it full upon all the scurrying souls below, all plans had been discussed, all conversation exhausted. It was silent, travel-weary souls that clambered tail-sore and hunched from the lentum cabins, across the coach yard and into the cheery welcome of the Green Mile, finest wayhouse in Coddlingtine Dell.
* * * *
Since before the first peep of sun, Sprawle had been up on the wooded slopes about the town, sthenicon strapped to face, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, while the wagtails warbled to each other in the shrinking dark and the branches cracked and snapped with frost.
Yet he found nothing.
None of the goodly locals nor the boniface of the Green Mile asked the next day knew of any such place as Case Nigrise, Casa Nigrum, or Black Hut; neither were the clerks or officials of the town willing to spare their time.
‘If it is an account of property yer after,’ one friendly clerk offered as Atticus made inquiry in the town’s small but fine civic hall of lofty pillars and glowing coppered dome, ‘then I’d recommend ye seek the temporal registers kept at the Fallenthaw in Pour Claire.’
With a rare genuine smile, Wells said that he most certainly would and hurried as fast as cane and crooked leg would allow to tell his comrades of this lead. Soon enough they were back aboard their lentum-and-sixes rumbling through increasingly steep woodlands that rang with the chock of axe and rasp of saw, making good time to reach to the remote city of Pour Claire by nightfall. Slowly they trundled across its long, heavily fortified bridge, Wells staring almost hungrily at the high white walls before him, white towers and dark spine-like chimneys climbing behind, all built upon the summit of an utterly enormous pinnacle of rock that split the flow of a ravine-running river. The trail had better go on from here, because time was running short and he was running thin of clever notions ...
Above the clatter of the carriage he could hear the roar of tumbling waters far far below.
* * * *
At the beginning of a fresh day — while Sprawle and company made inquest of their own in other parts of the city — Wells made his way by planquin-chair to the administrative focus of the Fallenthaw. Standing in the small space granted common folk in the expanse of the main file, he asked gracefully for access to the temporal registers. At the first, thinking he was come in answer to a singular their civic masters had sent to the city seeking to be rid of the monstrous night-prowling horror named the Gutterfear, the clerks had greeted him most cordially. Yet, upon discovering he was not there to rescue them, they became stiff and aloof. No, he was told, only to be informed that such a thing was only granted to proper representatives of state or empire or high-placed mercantile league, or someone bearing a proper Notation of Release from the Inland Ordinance Board back in Brandenbrass would induce them to change their mind. Neither a sincere recounting of Viola’s terrible abduction nor the dropping of Monsiere Pardolot’s name moved these stony-faced adjuncts.
These were not stupid men before him, in their powder bagwigs and sleek clerical soutanes, but they were what the sleuth liked to call over-efficient. However much Wells might usually enjoy the chase of paper and a good clerical stouche, ever mindful of slipping time and the girl’s life, he was growing swiftly impatient of this delay.
A tight bow and Wells bid them good day; yet he was not to be thwarted. Returning to the common hall of dark beams and wide stretches of white walls hung with portraits of generations of the city’s lords, he took out the spedigraph of Viola folded, blank side outermost, and clutched it like it was a document of import. One can do anything in a file as long as you have a piece of paper in hand, he reflected wryly, and began to stroll about the attached passages as if he was meant to be there. At the end of an extended passage hung with the likenesses of the hall’s long line of bureaucratic masters, he found what he was looking for, a plain door helpfully signed:
Catalogues, Registers & Annals
This door was locked.
Without hesitation or any suspicious casting about to see who saw — thereby drawing attention to himself, Wells produced his faithful tumblerpicks from the small padded case he ever carried on him, quickly had the lock released and was through. Down a cold stone stair he descended to a wide cellar chamber filled to the broadly arched ceiling with filecase upon filecase of swarthy wood. Here he sought among the chilly rows for items sharing the vintage of the clue gained at Foursdike library, and following the clearly dated labels on each long filerow found himself in a seldom visited part of the archive. Supping on a paltry cache of wayfoods he had bro
ught in a satchel with him — ox charcut, nine cheese and an apple — he quietly, carefully rifled the efficiently filed papers gathered in the great avenues of vertically slotted shelves. Often he was forced to struggle up stepscales that slid conveniently on runners, nearly tumbling as his rebellious legs failed to lift high enough. Finally, perched high on a scale, he found the one scrimp of knowledge needed to unlock the next step. In the loose-sheeted record of one of the many ancient mining ventures out in the darksome hills, the Emperor’s faithful long-passed registrars had dutifully reported of a hidden fortress. Calling this place the Widdenhold, it was from here that the wild Piltmen of old — the Widden, they named them — did launch their frightening ambushes upon the mining surveys. All rather standard stuff, but there in the margin notes Wells barely discerned a time-faded scrawling ...
