Lamplighter (53 page)

Poesides, who had been staring out to the south with a perspective glass, suddenly scuttled across the narrow walk between the tiles and the wall, crouched behind a rain-butt and waved the two others to do the same. “Stay out o’ sight,” he hissed excitedly. “There’s some li’l bogle-thingy creeping down by the runnet there, not much more than one part of a mile yonder. If it don’t spot us we might get a chance to take a few shots at the pot and spare ourselves a nasty end when we’re out lighting.”

Grinning grimly, Theudas peeked over the battlement. “I see it! The movement by them dwarfish willow-myrtles, aye?”

“Aye!” On his haunches, Poesides edged forward, easing up his firelock, creeping its muzzle on to the rim of the fortification.

Straining his neck, Rossamünd could not see what they saw among the low twine of dry long-grass and tangled thickets of parched trees all across broad moorlands. Then he did: something small and furtive not more than two hundred yards away, making quick scutters from root clump to root clump along the shallow bed of a barely running creek, one of the many that curled east then north past the cothouse, to eventually drain into the sluggish river Frugal. In one horrid breath Rossamünd realized he was looking at Freckle. The midget glamgorn obviously thought it was being rather cunning, coming at the fortlet from behind, and seemed unaware that it was observed.

“Come on, Master Haroldus, get yer firelock up,” Poesides chided. “Ye cain’t hit naught with it slack at yer side.”

“But what would Mama Lieger say?” Rossamünd cried.

The under-sergeant hesitated for a mere beat. He gave the young lighter a look as if to say “Who has a care for what Mama Lieger might say!” and lifted the butt of his own long-rifle, leveled it and, nice-and-easy, squeezed the trigger.

The shot cracked out across the flats. Water hens burst from some covet away to the right and quit the scene in fright; teals hurried away, their wings whistling loudly; little wrens scattered to all points, their angry chirrups and the hurry of their flight filling the air.

Miss—miss—miss . . .
Rossamünd panicked, on the verge of a scream.

Poesides cursed under his breath as he realized he had missed his mark.

Rossamünd could have burst with relief.

“Cunning little skink,” the under-sergeant growled. “I reckon he ducked that!”

“Let me have a pull,” said Theudas. “Where is it?”

“Leftmost of the three thickets, down by that huge thistle-bush,” answered Poesides, sitting back down on the angle of the roof, rapidly reloading his long-rifle.

“Ah, I see it . . . ,” the younger man muttered, “I think.” Making a show of presenting his fusil, a cold sweat of guilty horror clinging in the small of his back, Rossamünd had gratefully lost sight of the glamgorn again. For the first time he was glad for his lack of skill with a fusil.The chance of him actually scoring a hit was remote at best at this range. “Shouldn’t we just send someone out to grab it or fright it off?” he asked in a hoarse croak, wanting to buy the little fellow some time to escape.

“What!” Poesides exclaimed huskily. “And chance some bigger basket springing at us from some nell? I have seen little blighters cooperatin’ with some great gnasher, lure ye along thinking ye’re in for an easy marking to add to yer skin and
boo!
Out of no place: something thrice as big, and ye’re the mug being chased right back the way ye came.” He primed the pan. “Our li’l mite out there is probably in cahoots with that nasty skulker we almost met out in the fog the other morn,” the under-sergeant added as he rammed the wadding home.

“No! I heard that handsome Branden Rose dig got that one,” Theudas corrected.

“Well, either way, ye can’t let a bogle go free—it just ain’t moral.”

Rossamünd just wished Freckle would get away and save himself. He winced as Theudas took aim.

A misfire!

Theudas had taken a shot, yet all he got was a flash in the pan, no burst from the breech, nor ball hurtling from the muzzle. “Not again!” he cried. “I don’t care what Shudder-crank says, there
is
something a-foul with the touchhole!” Amid a flurry of uncouth words Theudas wrestled with his weapon to find the fault.

“It’s fossicking about in the thicket over yonder . . . Do you think it suspects it’s been found out?” Poesides chuckled, and humming “Stand While You Can” to himself, paused between the third and fourth stanza to let go another shot. “Ah, blight it! It’s surely a crafty li’l bugaboo!”

The musket fire brought the other lampsmen, poking their heads through the trap in the roof or out of the unshuttered windows a floor below, to catch sight of the spectacle. Aubergene arrived on the Fighting Top bearing his own long-rifle, but he and the onlookers were to be disappointed.

The glamgorn was gone.

Rossamünd sat blank-faced, frazzled nerves tingling in strange and anxious relief.

“Well, either we hit it, or it found some way to scurry off,” the under-sergeant said, chewing his bottom lip, “ ’cause there ain’t been a movement down in the creek for a little while now.” Poesides searched through his perspective glass till it was too dark to see, and prevailed on Crescens Hugh the lurksman to aid him.Yet, to Rossamünd’s secret delight, not a trace of the diminutive creature could be discovered.

He lay his head to sleep that night with the barred, misty light of the waxing moon shining on his face through a high window, feeling keenly the huge difference between him and his fellow lighters. After their visit with Mama Lieger, Rossamünd had nurtured the notion that these men were of a more subtle cast.Yet after that afternoon’s shooting, they had confirmed themselves to him as unthinking monsterhaters. What they called moral, he called mindlessness; what he would call right knowing, they would call treachery most foul. He lay and watched the moon a long time, understanding full well Phoebë’s cold isolation.

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.

 

 

T
HOUGH 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.