Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  26

  A SHOW OF STRENGTH

  Scale of Might, the ~ originally an anecdotal reckoning of the number of everymen it takes to best an ünterman, it has since been extensively codified by Imperial Statisticians, but simply put it is deemed possible for three ordinary men armed in the ordinary manner to see off one garden-variety bogle, and about five to handle your more common nicker. Add potives or teratologists to the group and this number fluctuates significantly—depending on the quality of potive or skill and type of monster-slayer.

  THOUGH they had served at Wormstool for well over a month, House-Major Grystle still did not send Rossamünd or Threnody out on lantern-watch, but left them on permanent day-watch. This arrangement allowed two other better experienced lampsmen to go out lantern-lighting who might otherwise be held back. At full strength, the lamp-watch of Wormstool and her sister cots along the Pendant Wig had once been nine or even ten strong for every outing. This number was reckoned sufficient to see off most threats, and if not, there were always the half-buried fortifications Rossamünd had been so curious about along the roadside.

  Called basements or stone-harbors, these cramped fort-lets were just big enough to fit a quarto of lighters and their accoutrements, preserved foods and a firkin or two of stale water. Every other lampsman had a key to their stout doors and the lantern-watch could seek refuge in them for well over a week: more than long enough, it was thought, for the monsters to lose interest and move on, or for a rescue to liberate the trapped.

  To give them time to better accommodate to a lampsman’s life the house-major decided to put Threnody and Rossamünd under the charge of Splinteazle, Seltzerman 2nd Class. They would accompany him on many tasks, replacing bloom, refitting lantern-lights, cleaning panes—a task that always made Rossamünd glum as he brooded on the plight of poor Numps. Whenever they went out a run-down flat cart went with them, its sagging planks laden with the necessary stocks of tools and parts.This cart was kept in a solid stone outbuilding attached to the back of the cothouse and was drawn by a he-donkey with incredibly large ears, which earned the poor creature the name Cuniculus—or “Rabbit.” This stolid beast was kept in the cellar and brought carefully down the cothouse steps whenever he was needed. Rossamünd greatly enjoyed the work, but Threnody did not and would stand by restlessly while they labored.

  One cold, misty morning Splinteazle and his two aides set out to restock the basement found at the bottom of the lamp at East Bleak 36 West Stool 10. Haggard and blotched from a life spent at sea, his skull wrapped in a tight black kerchief—vinegaroon fashion—under his cocked thricehigh—Splinteazle whistled to the rising sun. Today he was in particularly good spirits, for today was Dirgetide, the last day of winter, which, apart from a great slap-up meal for mains, meant a season of fewer theroscades.

  The delicate mist softened the arid land with its opalescent sheen, filling dells and hollows and runnel-beds with cloudy film. Gray birds with black hoods dipped and rose from perch to perch among the stunted swamp oaks, calling on the wing, giving their maudlin, churring songs to the hazy morning.

  “Ahh,” muttered Splinteazle, staring at them, “the sthtorm-birdsth are out: it’ll be rain today, and our butts’th filled again with fresh water.” Missing his two front teeth, the seltzerman had a naval burr that was marred with a lisp.

  For all the condensation, it was still a thirsty walk.Wearing his new hat and pallmain and wrapped in Europe’s warm scarf, Rossamünd had come laden with fodicar, his knife in its scabbard attached to his baldric, salumanticum and his own satchel holding a day’s ration. He took a drink from a water skin.

  “Here’sth a mite o’ wisthdom for ye,” Splinteazle said, stooping to the roadside. “I’ve stheen yee both take a sthecond and even a third gulp of ye water. At that rate ye’ll have drunk it out and be wanting. A better way isth to avastht yer drinking and pick a pebble like I’ve got here and plop it into yer mouth to sthuck.” He did as he explained, putting a small, pale stone between his thin lips. “Keepsth yer mouth watering and thirstht at bay.”

  Obeying, Rossamünd was amazed to find the advice was sound. On the verge as they walked, he noticed scattered many smooth pebbles, and wondered if they were made this way in the mouths of so many vanished generations of thirsty lighters working interminably up and down the road. With faint repulsion, he thought of how many maws the very rock he sucked on might have previously inhabited, and mastered the urge to spit it out.

  They crossed the path of Squarmis plodding east on some cryptic errand. The costerman paid the young lighters no mind but engaged in insults with the seltzerman as they passed.

  “Slubberdymouth!” Squarmis drawled in abusive greeting.

  “Fartgullet!” Splinteazle returned without hesitation.

  Only Rabbit was pleased to see the costerman, or rather the fellow’s mean old she-ass, who nipped at Rossamünd walking by. Braying and bellowing, the seltzerman’s donkey tried to turn and follow the retreating object of its passion. Splinteazle fought to keep the brute beast’s head pointed in the correct direction and stop Rabbit running off after his sweetheart.

  “Lamplassth!” the seltzerman grunted as he wrestled his donkey. “Help me hold the Rabbit. Nothing will turn him now, daft basthket! Bookchild! Go down to that sthwamp oak yonder and get me a branch. It’sth the only thing to move him.”

  Rossamünd spotted the appropriate tree not more than a dozen yards north off the highroad. With a dash he descended the side of the road and ran a lane through the thistles to the small swamp oak. He grasped a branch and tore it off with ease and saw yellow eyes watching from a gorse patch not more than five yards away. Pebble or not, Rossamünd’s mouth went dry.

  “Freckle?” he called softly. The little fellow had survived. What is more, he was still watching out for him.

  “Hurry there, lad!” came Splinteazle’s urgent call.

  The eyes disappeared with a rustle, and feeling both disappointment and elation, the young lighter hustled back to the road.

  The seltzerman had spoken true: Rabbit adored the taste of swamp-oak needles more than even the she-mule. With Rossamünd going ahead using the branch as a lure, the creature was induced to walk on.

  “Poor old Rabbit,” Splinteazle chuckled tenderly, once the donkey was walking freely again. “He’sth hopelessthly sthmitten on Assthanina—that’sth that filthy Sthquarmis fellow’sth lady mule, don’t ye know—Rabbit goesth braying after her every time we’re in town. Poor deluded fool of a donkey don’t realizthe that Assthanina is not in the amorousth way.”

  For Rossamünd’s part he wanted to keep looking out to the north into the scrub and try to spy Freckle.Yet he feared giving the persistent glamgorn away and forced his eyes to stay to his front.

  When they arrived at the basement, the seltzerman took out a large cast-brass key and descended to unlock the heavy, narrow entrance to the stone-harbor. The lock and hinges whinged rustily and proved of little use. The inside of the basement was stuffy, cavelike and typically cramped. Though he could stand tall, Rossamünd saw that Splinteazle was forced to move about in a ducking hunch. The young lighter examined the view from the tight slit of a loophole. The mist was coming in thicker, and he could not see more than a small arc of the road and flatland to the north.

  They slowly unloaded the flat cart, which creaked in a kind of inanimate gratitude for the relief of the burden on its aged timbers and axles.

  “Ye’re sthtrong and quick for a wee lighter, lad, and that’sth the truth. Young Master Haroldus’th indeed!” To Threnody’s sluggish unwillingness the seltzerman warned, “Take up the sthlack, young hearty, and clap on sthome sthpeed; that’sth no way to stherve yer Emperor!”

  “I might wear your colors, sir,” she hissed, snatching some small box, “but I do not serve your besotted, bedizzled Emperor.”

  “Besthotted, eh? Bedizzthled?” he said as she turned. “Isth that what they taught thee in thy sthequethtury? What doesth ye think taking the Emperor’sth B
illion meansth?”

  The stores were kept under a trapdoor in a rough-cut pit in the back corner of the outwork. For each new puncheon or cask or crate they carried in, an old one had to be removed and taken up and put on the cart. Even with Threnody reluctant to do the task, restocking was completed quickly and the three were soon strolling home. Along the return, a shrill cry, brief and birdlike, pierced the gauzy stillness four times, tangible alarm in its echoes.

  The three workers became very still.

  Rossamünd stared about, trying to see everywhere at once.

  “It’sth a water hen,” Splinteazle stated in ominous whisper. “They only cry when the worstht of blight’sth basthketsth are about. Sthomething wicked-foul musth surely be out there. We mustht hurry!”

  Not much farther on, they found that East Bleak 41 West Stool 5 had been smashed: bent over like nothing more than a broken grass-blade, the lamp’s still dizzing seltzer already soaking into the hard surface of the road.

  The smell of monsters—the telltale stink of pungent musk and almost animal filth found them, floating on the quickening breeze.

  “Hi,” Splinteazle exclaimed in the barest of whispers, “catch a nosthe full o’ that reek! They’re sthurely sthome of the wortht bugerboosth ye’re ever likely to hide from.”

  The next lamp they discovered missing altogether, ripped footing and all from the verge.

  “Desthtroying me lovely lampsth!” cried Splinteazle. “Killin’ me bloom!”

  Rossamünd became aware of a threwdishly unpleasant, impelling sensation buzzing behind his eyes. It grew with each step, spreading to the base of his head, to the core of his innards; an external, ambient yet powerful compulsion to act, to do something or else suffer displeasure. From who? Is Mama Lieger doing this?What am I supposed to do? Rossamünd had no notion, but the dread of this sensation waxed terribly. Oddly, Threnody and Splinteazle did not appear to heed it.

  And the closer they drew to Wormstool the stronger the bestial smell became.

  Though the cothouse was a mile away and part hidden by the mists, Rossamünd could make out swamp harriers gliding the clearer air above in hungry expectation.The mad baying of the dogs came faintly. Even from this distance they could make out something large, perhaps an ettin pounding against the cothouse. Rossamünd instinctively checked his salumanticum. There was nothing in it that would affect something so enormous.

  “The cothousth is attacked!” Splinteazle wailed and set off down the road at a run, pulling the contrary Rabbit with him, the young lamplighters following his lead. A lantern-span closer, they saw more than just an ettin attacking their home. On the road before the tower and in the scrub about its foundations a crowd of monsters prowled, an entire menagerie of them, numbering a score or more of myriad kinds and sizes. They seemed to work in concert, hooting and hissing and yowling up at the besieged lighters within, drawing and dodging shots fired from loophole and roof. This was a theroscade of a kind that Rossamünd had only read. The three rushed on in thoughtless, unspoken agreement, marching into this overwhelming danger regardless.

  The powerful ettin, much heftier than the Misbegotten Schrewd, flourished a lantern in its massive hands and with it smashed at the door of Wormstool. An old cart looking very much like Squarmis’ old bone-shaker was lashed to its head with rope and harness leather, providing some protection from musket fire above, the thills thrust out over its back like horns and the wheels looking like weird ears. Pops of smoke were puffing from the slits of every floor of the tower, and from the crenellations of the Fighting Top as well. Much of the fire was concentrated on the ettin, the beast swatting at the balls as a man might at flies. Many of the shots must have been true and deadly, for Rossamünd and his companions were not much farther up the road when the giant nicker tottered, righted itself and threw the lamp at the walls. The post hit the cothouse with a clarion ring, ricocheted and spun off madly to crash on to the road. Stumbling, the ettin staggered away north into the flatlands, clutching at its bloodied head and shoulders. With a dull crunch of splintering wood, the ettin ripped the cart away and hurled this heedlessly too as it fled.

  “Look at that belugig run! Come now, fellowsth!” Splinteazle cried to Rossamünd and Threnody. “We mustht join the fight!”

  Once more Rossamünd felt the malignantly compelling threwd; felt it throb and saw the remaining monsters at the cothouse’s feet respond obediently. Smaller nickers and larger bogles began to scamper up the stairs: things with hunched bodies and long legs, bounding a dozen steps in one leap; gaunt, stilt-legged bugaboos that took each step with the mincing grace of a dancer; bloated bogle-beasties that lumbered after.

  “The door is breached!” wailed the seltzerman, abandoning Rabbit to run to the aid of the assaulted tower.

  Mind a whirl of useless garble, Rossamünd followed and Threnody with him, checking the priming of her two doglock pistols. The young lighter could scarce believe that he was willingly throwing himself into the fray. He reached into his salumanticum for a caste of loomblaze.

  The tower of Wormstool was close now, no more than a hundred yards away, the clamor of the desperate struggle within audible even down on the road. Not more than a hundred yards from the cothouse near the base of the first lantern, Rossamünd cried, “HI! HI! OVER HERE!” carried away by his desire to help. A pack of monsters still at the foot of the steps and circling about Wormstool’s foundations turned to Rossamünd’s shout. With hoots and howls, they swarmed at the three, loping and leaping down the road with appalling speed.

  Splinteazle was ahead of the two younger lighters, brandishing his fodicar in one hand and a salinumbus in the other. The monsters closed and he fired, sending one flailing, spurting to the road-dust. At the shot Rossamünd threw his vial of loomblaze high and wide, wanting to avoid the seltzerman, and it erupted over the heads of two stragglers, their shrieks clear in the general din. Threnody fired too, pistolas thrust forward in classic pistoleer pose, but the power of the doglocks must have thrown off her aim, and they had little effect on the beasts. The seltzerman swung his lantern-crook with all his might, hitting the foremost bogle hard but doing little harm. Was Splinteazle that old and infirm? He struck it again with all his force, and Rossamünd watched with a numb kind of horror as once more the blow hardly troubled the gnasher. Cackling and barely hurt, the beast tackled Splinteazle to the ground and, finding all the weak parts of his proofing, rapidly clawed the hollering seltzerman to shreds before Rossamünd knew to act. With a shriek of her own, Threnody flung her fine pistols down and scathed powerfully, stunning Rossamünd but driving the bogles back amazed. Yet it was too late for the old seltzerman.

  Numbness turned to terror and Rossamünd hesitated. The will-filled threwd resisted him, undermined his resolve. If the seltzerman could perish so easily, what hope had he?

  Undismayed, the gaggle of nickers pounced again, some outflanking them as the rest rushed headlong.The monsters were on them, the stink of the beasts surrounding the two young lighters. Threnody sent forth her frission, which this time left Rossamünd untouched but gave the pack of gnashers a smart jolt. They howled at her in rage. But she could not keep such a barrier up for long, and too soon something sleek and full of claws leaped at her. Shouting wordlessly, Rossamünd leaped to meet the beast. Dancing aside from its swiping talons, he brought the butt-end of his fodicar down with as much strength as he could muster. To his utter astonishment the monster’s back buckled and bent the wrong way under the blow and it fell, naked surprise on its bestial face. But he did not have time to wonder over its end, for Threnody’s fishing faltered and the other nickers sprang, sneering hungrily and more intent on the girl-wit. In the frightening, gnashing whirl of a fight where he was one of the players and life and death stood on his own deeds, Rossamünd did not fuss about where his feet were, what his hands were doing. He just hit. One with a great lump of warts and lard that pronked on two legs like a rabbit’s tried to leap about and get behind them. Threnody scathed again, a little w
eaker. Rossamünd stabbed at Rabbit-legs as it jumped. The pike-end of the fodicar went straight through its belly, the astounded beast expiring in midspring, collapsing on the road and skidding away. The Hundred Rules that had baffled Rossamünd so continually at Madam Opera’s were suddenly making sense. The young lighter swung his lantern-crook again with ease, giving another bloated monster second thoughts as he caught its lunge with crank-hook and pike-end then shoved the bogle clear away. It glared at him with an odd expression.

  At his back Threnody’s sometimes clumsy, sometimes competent striving continued. For all her inexperience, she was actually gaining him space and protecting them both from being overwhelmed.

  The monsters pulled away, dismayed at the ferocity of such tasty little morsels, rethinking their foe. Rossamünd and Threnody stood back to back and watched in turn. Of the eight or so bogles that had sought their lives, perhaps half had perished: one shot by Splinteazle, two struck down by Rossamünd, one or possibly two hurt by the loomblaze and another drooling and broken and sitting harmlessly by the highroad, a victim of Threnody’s successful witting.

  “Do you feel it?” she gasped.

  “Feel what?”

  “The threwd!” Threnody opened her eyes. “Working entirely on the destruction of this place. It snatches at me every time I wit!”

  Rossamünd nodded. “Aye, I feel it.”