Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  “It might well have been. The basket was well knit and required a little more—push, shall we say. I never found out where it came from, though. Tell me,” she said, changing the subject, “are you happily established in this tottering fortlet?”

  “Aye, happily enough,” Rossamünd answered. He wondered how he might fare trying to persuade Europe to hunt only rever-men. Probably not well, he concluded, and asked conversationally, “Have you been to the Ichormeer yet?”

  “No.” Europe frowned quizzically. “There is no call to go picking fights one does not need.”

  Threnody had come down to the mess but caught one glimpse of the fulgar, and with a polite grimace and a forced “How-do-you-do” went straight back up to wherever she had come from.

  “How is our new-carved miss finding the full-fledged lighting life?” Europe asked amusedly.

  Rossamünd watched Threnody’s petulant retreat. “I think she might be sorry for leaving Herbroulesse.”

  Europe clucked her tongue. “The appeal of an adventurous life seldom lasts in the bosom of a peer’s pampered daughter.”

  Rossamünd was not sure if the fulgar was talking about Threnody or herself.

  “Tell me, Rossamünd, have you received any replies to your letters?”

  It took a beat or two for the young lighter to realize she was talking of his controversial missives to Sebastipole and the good doctor. All the worry for Winstermill and Numps returned in a flood. “No,” he answered simply. What else to say?

  Europe’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm.”

  “What can it mean?” Rossamünd was suddenly afraid that he had done the wrong thing in sending them.

  “Nothing,” Europe offered, her voice distant. “Everything. It probably simply indicates that your correspondents are too busy with their own affairs and, more so, that there is little they can do and little to be said as a result.”

  “Oh.” His soul sank then lifted angrily. “There are times in the small hours I want to board a po’lent and hurry back to face Swill myself. I beat his rever-man and I can beat him too!”

  “I am sure you can, little man,” Europe chuckled, “should you get that close . . . Keep at your work here, Rossamünd. Let the rope run out—they will eventually choke on deeds of their own invention. Such are the bitter turnings of Imperial politics: you have to endure much ill before you prevail. Pugnating the nicker is a much simpler life . . . and you live longer too,” she finished with a smirk.

  After an exchange of respectful greetings with House-Major Grystle, Europe was soon on her way again, hired lamplighter lurksman in tow.

  “I go to Haltmire now, to solve problems for the Warden-General,” she declared in farewell, adding quietly to Rossamünd, “It should prove to be an intriguing venture—I hear some distant grief has quite soured the Warden’s intellectuals. So wish me well.”

  “Do well,” Rossamünd answered anxiously.

  Her departure left a hint of bosmath and something for the lighters to talk about on the boring watches long after.

  As for Threnody, the lamplighters of Wormstool themselves had scant clue how to live with a female in their number. Regardless they proved proud of her all the same. “Our little wit-girl” they called her, and would “ma’am” her wherever she went in the cothouse. They would grow shy when she descended to the well in the cellars to do her toilet, and some even doted a little, going to some lengths to make sure she had ample supply of parts for her plaudamentum and other treacles. At every change of watch, when the Haltmire lighters would arrive, the Stoolers would boast that they were better than their Limper chums, “ ’cause we have a wit!” That there were no others amazed Rossamünd. He had assumed lahzars would be standard issue on this leg of the Wormway, yet there were only two skolds at Haltmire and nothing better than a dispensurist at the four cothouses.

  Clearly enjoying it, Threnody quickly grew comfortable with the attention. She took to wearing a pair of fine-looking doglocks in equally fine holsters at her hips, bearing them everywhere and playing the part of pistoleer at last.

  “Where did you get those?” Rossamünd inquired one middens.

  “Beautiful pieces, aren’t they?” The girl beamed.

  He had to agree: they were indeed attractive, made of black wood and silver, every metal part engraved with the most delicate floral filigree, elegant weapons despite their heavy bore.

  “Do you remember the prolonged stop we made at Hinkerseigh?”

  “Aye.” He recalled most of all that she made them wait.

  “These were why I was gone. I purchased them from Messrs. Lard & Wratch of Chortle Lane, finest gunsmiths in the Placidine.” Her beam widened. “I have longed for them for so long, looking in on them any time we made an excursion to that town.”

  “How much did they cost?” he whispered. “How did you afford them?”

  Threnody’s smile vanished. “Don’t you know that you never ever ask a woman how much anything costs!” she declaimed.

  Rossamünd was sure that any regrets she might have had for coming to Wormstool were cured.

  A common practice of a dousing lantern-watch was to leave the first two great-lamps on their route still undoused.These morning-lights were left glowing to provide a little light to the surrounds of the cothouse while the sun still tarried on the lip of the world. Part of this practice involved members of the day- or house-watch then going out and dousing them when the day-shine was brighter.

  On Gallowsnight Eve, with every vertical protrusion in Wormstool hung with toy nooses of string and slight rope and neckerchiefs to herald this ghoulish festivity, Rossamünd and Threnody were sent to douse the morning-lights. They did this under the eagerly watching eye of Theudas—eagerly watching, that is, of Threnody. He was only slightly less recently joined to Wormstool than they and could not be happier for it, now that this dark-haired peerlet had arrived. At the base of East Worm 1 West Halt 52 Threnody and Theudas swapped a little chatter while they let Rossamünd struggle to douse the lamp.

  “So how is old Grind-yer-bones?” Theudas inquired. “Still grinding away on all the poor prentices?”

  “I can tell you,” answered Threnody, “that he was none too happy about us being sent out so soon. Went into apoplexies arguing with the Master-of-Clerks.”

  “Ahh, dear old Grind-yer-bones, he’s an awkward basket.” Theudas shook his head. “The kind ye want on yer side in a fight. We always reckoned he ate spent musket balls for his breakfast as the only things that might satisfy his stomach of a morning.”

  Clang! Rossamünd took another swing at the ratchet and missed.The other two seemed more than content to simply watch as he flailed.

  “Here, let me help you, Rossamünd,” Threnody piped, going over to him. “He has never been much good at crook work,” she said motheringly over her shoulder. “I’ve had to help him with the winding before.”

  “Is that the truth, Master Haroldus?” asked Theudas with an incredulous laugh.

  “Just the once,” Rossamünd muttered angrily.

  “Little wonder then ol’ Grind-yer-bones was so reluctant to ever let you out,” marveled Theudas. “Whoever heard of a lighter who couldn’t light?”

  Threnody gave a short braying laugh but saw Rossamünd’s face and became serious. “He can throw a good potive though,” she offered.

  “All I need is a proper length crook!” Rossamünd growled as he tried again.With a belated clink he got the crank-hook home in the ratchet slot and with angry jerks began to wind in the bloom.

  25

  THICKETS AND THRUMCOPS

  thrumcop also called a bog-button and related to a larger, tasty and oddly threwdish fungus known as austerpill, thrumcops are a funguslike mushroom with a deep brown pileus spotted with swollen off-white circular patches. The essence of thrumcops can be used in rudimentary repellents, giving rise to the idea that eating them on their own will cause this essence to seep through your pores and make you less appetizing to a monster.

  T
HE restless airs of the Frugelle were rarely still, winds ever blowing from the lower cardinals. If they came from the west they smelled of parched rock and hinted too of fennel and loam; if from the south they brought with them a tang of the ocean deeps; but from the east the winds’ cold breathing carried the sick stink of rot and fire-damp—the portentous, threwdish reek of the Ichormeer. It was on one of these putrid easterly days, with the sky lowering and threatening gales, that Rossamünd and Threnody were set the task of joining Sequecious the Sebastian cook to find more thrumcops to store for more breakfasts. House-Major Grystle showed great concern for their safety, handing over a portable timepiece to Rossamünd. “Take this hack-watch, Lampsman,” the man added, “and be gone no more than three quarters of one hour. Just a brief search and back here again. Someone will be watching from the roof, and if you are in distress, send up a flare.”

  “Aye, sir.” Rossamünd cradled the remarkable device for an awed moment then hid it as safely as he could on his person. He was given charge too of a tubelike flammagon—a flintlock flare-thrower, which he hung from his shoulder along with his salumanticum.

  Still in his kitchen apron and wearing a broad-brimmed catillium to cover his bald pate from the pale glare of the clouds, Sequecious the cook carried with him a large cauldron. This pot was of such girth that another man might have struggled to carry it in both arms, yet the fellow dangled it in the crook of one powerful, flabby arm. In the other, Sequecious bore a boltarde with pistol-length wheel locks extending from the pole on either side of the axlike blades. The blade edges were patterned with a distinctive spatter of congealed black; the telltale spackle of a weapon smeared with aspis, one of the more effective venificants or distinct monster poisons.

  Like so many of the firelocks and hand arms of the Wormstool lighters, it was not prescribed issue.These fellows may have behaved in an exemplary manner and kept their harness to a higher-than-drill-book standard, yet their personal weapons were as diverse as the personalities who wielded them. Perhaps Rossamünd’s favorite was an ax-carabin belonging to Aubergene, with its wooden butt thinned to a handle—the stock and barrel not much longer than that of a pistol—and the muzzle fixed with a thin, sliver-crescent ax-head counterbalanced by a war-hammer fluke. It was an elegant piece, and Lampsman Aubergene was clearly proud of it.

  With many grins and some wordless gestures Sequecious got the two young lighters to follow him;Threnody regarding every request with scorn but obedient nevertheless.

  Standing on the edge of the highroad facing north, the cook pointed to a thick stand of regal swamp oaks away to the northeast, about two hundred yards into the flatland. “Thrumcops are being best found in there, tank yee,” he said with a happy nod. The tallest and largest of the few copses and thickets that dotted the otherwise unrelieved flatness of this land, it was as close as the Frugelle came to a forest. Despite all the warnings and suspicions of threwd, Rossamünd was eager to explore the somber wood.

  In a spray of dust and stones, they slid down the short, steep side of the road, the cook almost upending himself in his career. He laughed the near-miss away and led them off into the weird world of the Paucitine flats. Semidried stands of mustard weed and thistles thrice Rossamünd’s height made lanes through the small, tough grasses. These lanes would run for seven or eight yards before another lane would cross it and block the way, making a weedy maze that was hard to contradict. Sequecious waddled confidently along a stubbly, stony route that would have had Rossamünd disoriented but for the glimpses he caught of Wormstool. The fortalice was a conspicuous landmark in this vast, remote cosmos. The Imperial Spandarion flicked and cracked on high from the rooftop, as the lampsmen’s washing strung out beneath whipped in unison.

  SEQUECIOUS

  There must have been water about, despite the arid soil and thirsty plants, for as they walked the young lighter could hear frogs croaking, creaking and ponging at every hand; it might have been a friendly chorus, but the uneasy threwd, amplified by the fetid eastern breeze, turned the amphibious music sinister. Sometimes they would stop, leaving an eerie hush that set Rossamünd anxiously searching for a lurker.

  Untroubled, Sequecious pushed effortlessly through a thicket and the young lighters followed in the wake the great man’s girth made, unhindered by stem or twig. They were in the stand of swamp oaks at last, a dim grove that soughed uneasily in the wind.

  Clearly pooped by the effort of the short walk, the cook puffed, “Yee find out yonder, boyo,” pointing to the farthest end of the modest wood. “An’ yee, girly, go between.” He indicated the middle ground to an unhappy-looking Threnody. “I am being right hereabouts. Look in between th’ roots an’ under tha leaves an’ be putting thrumcops in these an’ I bring them back to pot when full, tank yee,” he concluded, giving the two an old post-bag each.

  Barely comprehending the cook’s odd talk but following his intention, Rossamünd went to his designated end of the trees, his footfalls gritty on the dry, spongy mat of needles that kept the thicket floor clear of weeds and other choking grasses. Threnody walked a little ahead of him. He could hear her muttering, “I’ve been in the hands of the best sectifactors in the land and they have me out here looking for toadstools.” Without another word she turned aside at an arbitrary place and began looking about the ground with little conviction, toeing here and there among roots.

  Rossamünd moved deeper into the grove.

  Wings whirring, a sparrow alighted suddenly on an over-arching branch.With a sharp turn in his innards, Rossamünd had the odd, almost threwdish sense that this was the same bird that had flown up to the doorsill of the carriage when the post-lentum was waiting at Cothallow. He stopped, hands on hips, and stared at the remarkable, persistent bird, which swiveled its head, observing him cannily in return.

  “Hallo,” Rossamünd said softly, “has the Sparrowling sent you?”

  The sparrow chirruped loudly.

  Was that a reply?

  The tiny bird chirped again and shot away, Rossamünd losing sight of it in the thick foliage. Cautiously he followed its path until he came to a small dell whose entire opposite flank was overrun by a large boxthorn crowding the roots of several tall swamp oaks. A loud chattering sparrow-song sang from within.

  Rossamünd froze, looking left, looking right, but nothing untoward appeared. He glanced behind and could just make out the massive white bulk of Sequecious clambering about the farther end of the woods. Threnody was not visible, though Rossamünd thought he could hear her foraging a short way off. Keeping an eye out, he crouched on his haunches and began to carefully poke and rake among the needles and dry soil along the lip of the dell, prospecting for the round fungus with distinct white spots. Somewhere in the treetops, doves softly cooed . . . cuh-coo-hoo-oo, cuh-coo-hoo-oo . . . in the hissing quiet. Becoming engrossed in the search, Rossamünd worked his way from tree to tree, half filling his bag in quick time. It was only very gradually that he became alert to creeping movements nearby, a sound different from the constant susurrus of the needle-leaves, a sly stepping on needly ground. He first thought it was Threnody, but the subtle sounds were from the entirely opposite direction. Without putting down the sack, the young lighter eased his free hand into his salumanticum.

  A dark shape sneaked into view, creeping around the side of the boxthorn, a small figure, mottled and unexpectedly familiar . . . Was it? Surely not! It couldn’t be . . . Yet it was! Shuffling on the opposite side of the small dell was Freckle. There before him was the glamgorn who had comforted him in the hold of the Hogshead, one hundred and fifty miles and over two months away. For a shocked breath they simply looked at each other.

  “Freckle?” Rossamünd hissed, remembering himself and looking quickly about, too startled to fuss with greetings. “You can’t be here! There’s half a platoon of lighters in that cothouse back there.” He pointed over his shoulder at the shadowy tower. “Many of them, watching us!”

  “No, no, no, little once-weepy Rossamünd, it is you that ca
nnot stay, and stay you can’t,” the little fellow said musically, hopping from one foot to the other, deep yellow eyes catching the meager, dappled light brilliantly. These eyes were limpid and anxious-wide, and Freckle’s cheeky, once-happy face was now drawn with worry and fatigue. “Not here. Not with these people who don’t know yet what they ought never to know. I have come and you must get away with me.”

  “What do . . . ? But how . . . ?” Rossamünd wanted to dash over and hug Freckle, but this would be the action of an outramorine—the worst kind of sedorner. Indeed, Freckle himself proved keen to keep a little space between them.

  “I kept a good long look and I saw you and I followed you and I waited,” the little barky-skinned bogle said quick and low, “and sometimes Cinnamon would do the following and the waiting for this one while I went on other ways.”

  Cinnamon has been watching too? Rossamünd could not quite fathom what he was hearing.

  “I have watched you learning all the dividing, conquering ways with your friends who would not be friends if they knew. Come along now, now come along,” Freckle said, waving with his hand. “You saved me so I save you.The Sparrowling will have you and keep you, just as he ought.You belong nowhere, but it is safer for you to be with him. He—”

  “Rossamünd?” came a soft, too-familiar voice. “Wh—what are you doing with that—that thing?”

  Threnody! “Ah—I—” He looked back. There she was, picking through the underbrush, looking deeply anxious. She was staring with stark intensity at Freckle, and even as she came, the girl put her hand to her forehead.

  “Threnody, NO!” Rossamünd cried and was instantly overwhelmed with her ill-practiced scathing, which drove him to his hands and knees. “Threnody . . . no . . .” Gritting teeth, Rossamünd forced himself to clarity, growling under his breath as he struggled to sit and reach into his salumanticum for something to—to stop Threnody from hurting Freckle!—but it did not matter, for the clever little glamgorn was already clean away.Threnody sprang after it, sending again, running wildly past the boxthorn and into the net of low branches through which Freckle had first come. Her hat was sent flying as she crashed through the growth, falling at Rossamünd’s feet. He heard her flailing about fruitlessly, feeling the frequent edges of her scantly managed witting.