The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls (18 page)

Vincent was groggy. His head felt as if it was full of the thick wet mud on the banks of the Flumen. He was intensely cold, right down to the bone, and a breeze was whirling
around his head and numbing his ears. Every so often a bright light flashed and hurt his eyes and then it was gone and the darkness returned.

He lay quietly – he was curled up on his side – in the gloom for a short while before trying to sit up, but the world swayed violently so he stopped moving. His hands were tied and
his feet were bound. He sighed heavily. This was not a feeling unknown to him.

He was perplexed by the intermittent light, but perceived in its fleeting illumination that he was in a small metal cage suspended by a chain. Every time he moved the cage lurched sickeningly
and there was the sound of clanking links.

‘Spletivus,’ he muttered, ‘this is far from good.’

He peered out between the bars and strained to see around the space in which he was incarcerated. The chain was looped over what looked like a broad beam and he was hanging in a room with curved
stone walls. A staircase round one side led up to the floor above. There were three glassless windows in the wall, which explained why it was so cold, and when the flashing light faded it was still
dark but there was a subtle tinge to the darkness that made him think Lux was approaching.

Vincent stared at the ceiling and was not encouraged by the huge crack that ran diagonally across it. Doubtless caused by the earthquake. There was a strong smell of tar and burning. He listened
for footsteps, but all he could hear was a constant clicking noise above him. He frowned. This was a puzzle indeed.

How long had he been here? He thought hard and willed himself to remember. The last thing he recalled was the sight of Leucer d’Avidus standing behind him in the study. Wait! The Blivet.
Where was it?

Vincent groaned and would have put his head in his hands if he had been able. It was all coming back now, fast and furious and frustratingly brief. Now he knew why his head hurt, from the blow
Leucer had dealt him after wrenching the Blivet from his hand. And the narkos. He could still smell it faintly on his nostrils. Felled by his own weapon! And that was it. He had passed out and now
he was here, wherever that was, waiting presumably for Leucer or Kamptulicon. But surely this place was not the Governor’s Residence?

Carefully, more slowly this time, he began to sit up. This caused more swaying, but eventually he managed to lean his back against the bars with his legs drawn up in front of him. His feet were
pushing against a dark mass. He gave it a tentative shove. It groaned and moved.

There was someone else in the cage with him.

‘Hey!’ hissed Vincent. ‘Who are you?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ came the groggy reply.

‘Citrine!’ exclaimed Vincent in amazement. ‘What in Aether are you doing here?’ Indeed, the dark mass was Citrine. The cage swung jerkily as she manoeuvred herself into a
sitting position opposite him. There was barely enough room for the two of them. When the light flashed again, Vincent whistled softly.

‘You’re a sight,’ he said bluntly. ‘You look like a Lurid.’

He wasn’t wrong. Citrine’s thick make-up was peeling from her face and dried blood stained her collar. She yawned. ‘Where are we? And Leucer and Edgar! Where are
they?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Domna! I’m tied up.’

‘Me too. Hold out your hands.’ Vincent reached across, careful not to upset the cage too much, and began to untie Citrine’s hands. She untied his and then they untied their
legs, all the time talking.

‘The Blivet! Did you get it?’

‘Yes, but Leucer caught me.’ Vincent heard Citrine make a strange noise, as if a sob had caught in her throat. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve just remembered – at the playhouse, Edgar had a body. He said it was my father.’ In a strained voice she recounted the horror of the night. ‘The Urgs took me
and Edgar drugged me, again.’

‘It’s becoming a habit,’ said Vincent drily, and in turn explained as fully as he could how he had ended up in the cage.

‘Leucer left before the end of the show. He must have known you were going up to the house.’

‘It’s my own fault,’ began Vincent, but Citrine interrupted.

‘Why!’ she declared. ‘I think I know where we are. We’re in the lighthouse. That’s why the room is round.’

‘And that explains the light and the clicking. But what a strange place to leave us.’

Moments later they were both unbound, but still swinging in the trap. Outside the sky had taken on the very beginning of a glow.

‘I think the sun is coming up,’ said Citrine, and the atmosphere lightened at the thought. ‘At least we will be able to see properly.’

At that moment there was a huge groan and the building seemed to lurch sideways. Citrine clung to the bars until the lighthouse settled again, albeit at a more acute angle. She looked anxiously
at Vincent. ‘The whole tower is about to collapse. We’ve got to move fast.’

‘I know, I know,’ he muttered. He was examining the cage and chain, looking for some clue to how they might escape their pendulous prison. His cloak pockets had been rifled and
nothing of any use had been left behind. He still had his metal hand though. It was gloved and he wondered if perhaps that was why it hadn’t been taken.

‘No point panicking. Let’s just stay calm and work out what we can do. Now, as far as I can see, we’re hanging from a beam that is attached, in the shape of a cross, to another
beam.’

‘Hmm,’ murmured Citrine. ‘I’m not so sure it’s attached. I think it’s balanced. Look.’

Vincent looked where she was pointing and saw exactly what she meant. Sitting on top of the other end of the beam from which their cage was hanging was a large wooden barrel.

‘That barrel must be full of something, something heavy enough balance our weight,’ said Vincent. ‘It’s as if we’re a set of weighing scales.’

A sudden scrabbling noise caught his attention.

‘It’s only a gull,’ said Citrine.

The gull, one of the flocks of large speckled birds that lived around the lighthouse, stood at the window. It eyed the incarcerated pair for some moments before flying up and standing on the
beam right beside the barrel. Then it flapped up and landed in the barrel itself, its body and head still visible.

Vincent and Citrine watched the gull peck into the barrel and then lift its head and swallow something. Another gull flew in, screeching harshly, and joined the first bird. It too pecked and
swallowed.

‘It’s fish,’ said Citrine in confusion. ‘The barrel is full of fish.’

‘Just what sort of trap is this?’ said Vincent.

Now a score of gulls wheeled and cried outside the window and others were jostling on the ledge. Inside the barrel ten quarrelled noisily over the unexpected banquet. Five flew off at once, each
holding their glistening prize. At the same time the chain began to slide jerkily down the beam as it started to upend, and the cage dropped slowly, albeit ominously, by several inches. Vincent and
Citrine grabbed at the bars.

‘Domne! It’s the gulls,’ said Vincent. ‘When they take a fish, the barrel lightens, upsetting the balance.’

‘If the fish are eaten, won’t we just be lowered to the ground?’ asked Citrine, her knuckles white from gripping the bars so tightly.

‘No,’ said Vincent. ‘Look down.’

The growing morning light was casting a clearer picture of their predicament. What they had taken to be a solid floor below them now showed itself to be a gaping hole that ran right through the
centre of the lighthouse. At the bottom, a hundred feet down, there was only craggy rock.

‘I see,’ said Citrine slowly, trying to hide the terror creeping into her voice. ‘The gulls take fish, the barrel side of the beam rises, our side lowers. Eventually the chain
will just slide off completely and our cage will fall into the hole. We can’t survive that.’

‘Eventually? Surely just one fish will tip the balance. It could be the next one.’

‘The straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ whispered Citrine.

‘If I ever get my hands on Leucer or Leopold, they’ll be sorry they tangled with me,’ muttered Vincent. He looked all around him in futile desperation. For the first time in a
long time, he could see no way out of the peril.

Another fish was taken.

The barrel end of the beam rose slightly.

The chain slid a few more inches, hastening their dreadful fate.

Vincent looked across at Citrine’s pale face. She was saying something, but he could hardly hear it above the noise of the gulls.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ she shouted. ‘But once we start there’s no going back.’

On the shore of the Flumen, lit up intermittently by the lighthouse beam, Jonah and Folly were debating what to do. It was not easy to make themselves heard above the noise of
the water and the wind and the screaming of the gulls.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ asked Folly. ‘They’re making a Hades of a racket.’

They both looked at the lighthouse and the flock of birds circling the listing tower.

‘That won’t be standing much longer,’ said Jonah. ‘It’s getting too dangerous to stay here.’

As if on cue, the lighthouse chose that moment to shudder and shift even further sideways. Jonah jumped to Folly’s protection. She was staring at the tower, listening intently.

‘Was that a human cry?’

‘It can’t be. No one’s allowed up there. It must be the gulls,’ said Jonah. ‘We need to go to find the other two. They could be in danger. The sooner we get to
Wincheap’s the better.’ He began to climb over the rocks, but Folly held back.

‘I’m not sure they’re going to be there.’

Jonah turned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your cards, they said you would be in danger in a high place. Well, the lighthouse is high. And something Axel said, about when he was being tortured by Kamptulicon and Leucer –
“light coming and going”. Maybe it was the lighthouse beam.’

Jonah frowned. ‘What exactly are you saying?’

‘I’m sure I heard a scream. Maybe this is where Leucer takes his prisoners. There could be someone up there. What if it’s Citrine’s father? Give me the
glasses.’

Jonah handed them over and Folly trained them on the top of the lighthouse. As she watched, the towering edifice lurched again and part of the roof crashed into the Flumen with a tremendous
splash, showering them with water.

‘Flapping flatfish!’ exclaimed Jonah, pulling at Folly’s arm. ‘We’ve got to go.’

But she shook him off. ‘There
is
someone up there,’ she said. ‘At the window, I saw an arm. I’m sure of it.’

Jonah took the glasses and looked up to see the figures of Citrine and Vincent clambering on to the window’s edge and standing hand in hand.’

‘Domna,’ breathed Folly. ‘I think they’re going to jump.’

Only moments earlier in the lighthouse the gulls had taken so many fish that, as Citrine had rightly predicted, the beam was at such an acute angle that the chain was fast
approaching the end. But, by then, she and Vincent had set the cage in motion, swinging back and forth across the hole, so when the moment of truth finally came and the chain slid right off,
instead of plunging the pair to certain death down the centre of the lighthouse, the cage flew off the end of the beam, overshot the hole and smashed against the lighthouse wall. The cage shattered
and Vincent and Citrine lay stunned in the wreckage.

It took quite a few moments before the two of them were able to crawl from the twisted bars and take stock.

‘We’re alive,’ whispered Citrine. ‘I can’t believe it.’

Vincent, who had dragged himself to a sitting position against the wall beside her, shook his head in disbelief. ‘It worked – your idea worked,’ he said.

Citrine opened her clenched palm and held it out to him. ‘Maybe it was something to do with this.’ She was holding his silver acorn.

More than a little overcome by emotion, Vincent and Citrine hugged and laughed for a few seconds, but they knew their ordeal was not yet over.

‘Let’s go,’ said Vincent, helping Citrine to her feet. ‘We might still be able to make our way out using the stairs.’

No sooner had he uttered the words than the lighthouse shifted again, even more violently than before, and they were thrown back against the wall. The tower was leaning like a severely listing
ship; the curved wall had become the floor, and the floor had become a precipice. Outside, parts of the lighthouse masonry were breaking away and crashing into the water.

‘Crawl around to the window,’ said Vincent. ‘Maybe we can jump.’

Together they made their painful way to the window, which was now at such an angle that it had effectively become a hole in the floor. In trepidation they looked out and their exhausted hearts
sank. Through the flock of circling seagulls all they could see below them were the churning dark waters of the Flumen crashing on the jagged, black rocks.

‘We can’t jump,’ said Citrine softly. ‘It’s certain death.’

The lighthouse groaned.

‘We can’t stay,’ said Vincent simply.

‘Then at least let’s go together.’

They hauled themselves on to the window’s edge and, hand in hand, stood there bloodied but unbowed.

‘After three?’ said Vincent.

Citrine started to count. ‘One . . . two . . . th—’

Just as her tongue touched her lower lip to form the ‘three’, something whizzed by her head so closely that it actually took out a hair.

‘Domna,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve felt that before!’

And indeed she had! For the whizzing sound was made by Jonah’s whale spear. The last time she had heard it fly past, Citrine’s head was in the Carnifex’s noose and she was on
the verge of being hanged.

‘Spletivus! It’s Folly and Jonah,’ cried Vincent, still teetering on the edge. ‘They’re down there on the shore.’

He looked behind him. The whale spear had shot through the window and embedded itself in the beam. It had a thick rope tied to its end with a sturdy whaler’s knot.

‘We can escape down the rope,’ said Vincent urgently. ‘Jonah’s holding the other end. I’ll hook my metal hand over it and we can slide down.’