The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls (6 page)

Vincent, like a bee to honey (like a flesh-fly to rotting meat, thought Jonah), presented himself before a gilded, flaking mirror hanging over a table against the wall. He rubbed it clean, but
when he caught sight of the arch-browed expression on Folly’s face behind him he quickly moved away. ‘What exactly happened here?’ he asked. ‘Why is nobody living in this
place?’

Citrine, the only true native of Degringolade, told them what she knew: how the sea had slowly flooded the Degringolade estate and created the salt marsh; how the ancient Degringolade family had
had a run of bad luck and died, one after the other, until fifty years ago only Lord Cornelius Degringolade was left. Without even a distant cousin left to marry, he had struggled to find a bride.
The Degringolades were rich, but were now believed to be cursed. Cornelius was rumoured to be a hunchback, and to the city folk this was simply further proof of the blight upon them. Finally,
against all previous tradition, he had settled on a woman from a noble yet unknown family somewhere in Antithica province. From the start, things had not augured well for the union. Within a year,
with no heirs, the couple had become reclusive and were rarely seen again. Servants’ jobs were short-lived, and they returned to the city with elaborate tales of the eccentricities of the
lord and lady of the manor, especially Lady Scarletta.

‘My father told me,’ said Citrine, lowering her voice, ‘that she used to throw servants who displeased her into the Tar Pit. The last servant to work there was so frightened at
what he saw that he lost the power of speech, so he wrote it all down in a journal, but it was lost. Apparently there are secret rooms all over the manor and the servants used to hear screams, but
couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Eventually no one would work there any more and the Degringolades stopped coming into the city and were never seen again. The only person who dared
go to the manor was their solicitor, and he came back one day and said they were both dead. No one really cared. Some people think Lady Degringolade murdered her husband and then gave herself up to
the Supermundane.’

‘Presumably that’s when the d’Avidus family gained control of the Tar Pit,’ suggested Folly.

Vincent looked thoughtful. ‘If those are Lady Degringolade’s bones in the Kryptos, then why isn’t Lord Degringolade in there too? And who owns the manor now?’

Citrine shrugged. ‘I only know what I told you, and that is what my father told me. I think eventually the house will pass to the city, a promise made by the first Degringolades. But with
all the weird stories about Lady Scarletta, people stayed away because they were afraid and it was left to rot. Degringoladians don’t like to tempt fate. They observe the rituals without
question.’

‘It’s a wonder this place survived the earthquake,’ said Jonah.

Citrine pulled on one of the curtains that were drawn over the window beside the solid wooden front door. The material ripped to shreds instantly and both the curtain and its heavy pole came
crashing down. The noise was all the more shocking because of the contrasting silence of the manor. A huge cloud of smutty particles seemed to explode from the rotting, moth-eaten material, as
indeed did a fluttering of moths. Citrine dissolved in a fit of coughing.

Vincent wiped a small patch of grubby windowpane and looked out. It was dark outside, as much because nature had encroached so wholly upon the surroundings as from the depths of Nox itself. What
had once been a broad, gravelled drive wide enough for a coach and four to turn in a graceful arc, was now a jungle of broad-leaved bushes. He thought he saw something move and pressed his nose
against the cold glass, his hands shielding his face to avoid the reflection of the lights behind him. But whatever it was, or wasn’t, had gone. He felt something hard underfoot and found he
was standing on a three-legged frog made from finely sculpted adderstone. It must have been knocked from its perch on the door frame (placed there for luck in the Degringolade tradition) when the
curtain came down. He pocketed it, naturally, and turned his attention to the rest of the house. He was not concerned with the decay that surrounded him, more with the things that might have
survived the ravages of time and neglect, namely jewellery, gold, silver. Surely there was a chance they would still be here.

Together the four went from room to room and it was the same story in each one: Degringolade Manor was a study in magnificent decay and they were almost spellbound at the vestigial beauty of the
huge rooms, each of them imagining what it must have been like when there was life within the walls, when fires burned brightly in the deep wide fireplaces and servants scurried along the
corridors. There was little for Vincent to salvage; everything was rotting away in the damp salty air.

‘Maybe we could stay in the manor,’ suggested Jonah to Citrine in the dining room. The table was still laid, as if at any moment someone was going to come in and sit down.

‘Maybe,’ murmured Citrine doubtfully, taking another Depiction. Every flash of the Klepteffigium was followed by the sounds of small creatures running away.

Vincent left them to their musings and followed Folly back to the hall. Together they climbed the marble staircase, a wide central installation with broad handrails and elaborate spindles. Ivy
was carved decoratively into the wood, but if you looked closely enough you could see little impish creatures brazenly staring right back out at you. The carpet that ran up the middle of the stairs
– originally a deep green – was held in place by similarly carved stair rods. It disintegrated beneath their feet.

Vincent examined the portraits that accompanied him as he ascended. By the looks of them, the Degringolade family were a dour lot, with deep-furrowed brows and a supercilious expression that had
been passed down through the centuries. He brushed his hand across one canvas to remove the dust but drew it back sharply when a splinter from the frame lodged in his palm. He pulled it out and a
droplet of blood swelled from the wound. He tied his handkerchief round his hand and stood back to look at the portrait. Two leonine golden eyes stared out at him from a pale face, and the hint of
a smile played on the woman’s narrow lips. But there was cruelty in the smile. Vincent knew this had to be Lady Degringolade herself, the outsider in the family. She was sitting on a
high-backed throne-like chair and looked for all the world like a regent. She was wearing a necklace and a browpin and her fingers were adorned with large rings. He thought of her dry bones in the
Kryptos and could imagine quite vividly how she might have stalked with haughty pride these once sumptuous halls.

Folly had already reached the galleried landing and had walked away out of sight. He toyed with the idea of going after her, but he had his reasons not to, so decided to leave her to her own
devices.

Having burgled plenty of large houses in his time, Vincent was familiar with the layout and reckoned that the main bedrooms and dressing rooms would be a good place to start. At the far end of
the gallery there was a grand set of panelled double doors. With a degree of caution – his thieving instincts already to the fore – Vincent opened one door, tearing a large cobweb as he
did so, and closed it softly behind him. He could tell immediately that the air in this room had not been disturbed for many years.

He pointed his light inside and illuminated an eerie sight.

He was in a bedroom furnished with a large four-poster bed, the dark curtains of which were drawn all around it. In the fireplace a fire was laid but unlit, the logs covered in thick smuts that
had fallen down the chimney over the years. Upon closer inspection the rampant decay was evident here too. Moths fluttered up from beneath his feet at every step and jagged holes in the skirting
revealed pairs of tiny glistening eyes.

Above the fire was a large painting. At first glance it looked like a still life, complete with fruit and flowers, but as Vincent stared he saw that it was not a representation of life, more of
decline and death. The fruit was rotting and crawling with flies, the flowers wilting, the candles burned down and the snuffer lying on the table. Half hidden under a dead leaf was a broken
timepiece, and staring out from behind the vase was a leering skull on a plate. This was a vanitas painting, a reminder to the viewer of the transience of life.

Grimacing, Vincent turned away and his smitelight’s beam fell upon a dark archway in the other wall.

‘Aha!’ he exclaimed. ‘The dressing room.’ He passed beneath the arch through a short hallway into an ante-room where the air was so heavy he felt it pressing down on his
chest. His practised burglar’s eye took in a large dressing table with a central mirror between two smaller ones. The black cloth across the mirrors had rotted away.

Laid out on the dresser top was a set of ivory-handled hairbrushes and an array of perfume bottles and pots. At the edge a pair of slim china hands for holding jewellery stood side by side, but
the fingers were ringless and no chains hung from the necklace tree.

He picked up, examined and discarded most of the objects. The perfume bottles were empty, their contents having evaporated over the years, except for one, a brown bottle in the shape of a pear,
which still had liquid in it so he took it. He also took an oval silver compact. It could be worth something. He flicked open the lid, releasing a cloud of powder, and a soft sponge fell out and
disintegrated. He was surprised to find that the interior of the compact glowed, as if it had its own source of light. He saw his reflection in the mirrored lid, just his eyes and the bridge of his
nose, but it was blurry so he snapped the lid shut and dropped it into a pocket.

He took, for the Kryptos, a hand-held mirror to replace the one which had broken. Despite Folly’s apparent disdain for such things, he had seen her glance in the mirror more than once and
he knew Citrine liked to adjust her hair. Jonah, with his livid scars, was the only one who was not interested in seeing his reflection

Next Vincent started on the drawers, which one by one crumbled away in his hand. He came across some rectangular velvet-lidded boxes and was delighted to find inside pearls and brooches. In
another he found a set of earrings and a matching necklace, and in the third he scooped up a selection of rings.

Satisfied with his haul, though it was relatively meagre for a place such as this, Vincent made ready to go. The disturbed air was becoming unpleasantly gritty in his throat.

With one final sweep of the smitelight he caught sight of an embroidered three-panelled screen. He peeked behind it and was faced with a black cloth on the wall.

‘Another mirror,’ he mused, and pulled away the fragile cloth. The looking glass behind it was large with candle-holders incorporated into either side of the gilded frame. Where he
might have expected to see fat-cheeked cherubs (he had come across plenty of ornate mirrors in his career) there were instead more of the impish creatures he had glimpsed on the stairs.

His smitelight was shining directly on the glass, but there was something odd about his reflection. It was as if he wasn’t properly there. He went closer, and tapped across the mirror from
one edge to the other.

‘Domne!’ he breathed. ‘I think there is something on the other side.’ He fumbled around the frame for a latch or a button – snapping one of the candle-holders in
the process – anything that might prove his theory correct, but it was only when he pressed on one of the hands of a beckoning imp that there was an almost imperceptible click and the mirror
opened outwards like a door. Making sure to wedge it open – Vincent knew better than to take the chance that it might close behind him – he pointed his smitelight into the space and
stepped through.

His heart stuttered. ‘Spletivus,’ he whispered. His mouth went suddenly dry and an overwhelming sense of déjà-vu swamped him. ‘What in Aether is this?’

For a split second Vincent was transported back to Leopold Kamptulicon’s hideous Ergastirion, the secret cellar where he had been trapped and tortured and had ultimately
lost the fingers of his right hand. Quickly he pulled himself together, though the shock of the memory had sent an unpleasant thrill through his veins. He breathed deeply and took stock of his
surroundings.

He was in a small cavern-like room, unnervingly similar to the Cunningman’s. He recognized with horror the wicked paraphernalia picked out by the beam of his smitelight – the goat
skulls, the leathery wings, the peacock feathers, the pickled shapes in the jars – only this time there was more of it. The passage of years had not detracted from its hideous presentation,
but made it even more ghastly, and he was not inured to it, not by a long chalk.

He directed his light away from the apothecary bottles, the contents of which were
not
for healing, and focused instead on the circular table to his right. The rotting folds of the
cover hung limply from the edge. In the middle there was a half-burnt candle and next to it a deck of cards, like Citrine’s. Someone had been card-spreading.

Vincent went closer, his nerves jangling, picked up the deck and shuffled the cards. They were a different design to Citrine’s, and the flavour of the deck was unpleasant; the character
cards wore expressions of loathing and malice, and some of the more grotesque images were difficult to stomach. Also on the table were the four accompanying pieces of maerl. Vincent jiggled three
in the palm of his hand, then decisively tumbled them across the table as he had seen Citrine do. But he did not know what came next so he just gathered everything up, cards and maerl, and dropped
it into a well-preserved leather bag that was lying on a nearby stool.

Vincent began to walk slowly round the curved perimeter of the room. He thought he must be in a tower, for there were no corners. Then something crunched under his foot. It looked as if someone
had sprinkled Natron across the floor. The room was cool, but Vincent was sweating. Slowly he lifted his smitelight and shone it into the dark centre. He saw sturdy treen legs, the claw-and-ball
feet, the metal plates that bolted them to the floor. The light moved upward, revealing now the ornately carved rigid back and the two round ears on either side.