The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls (15 page)

Next she pulled up the trapdoor in a billowing cloud of flour and held her light over the hole, only to be met with another, different cloud of dust, that of the rocky heap directly below.

‘Jonah!’ she called, sticking her head as far into the space as she could.

There was a scrambling sound. A rock came loose from the top of the heap and Jonah’s dirty face was just visible on the other side. ‘Ahoy there!’ he called, remarkably
cheerful. ‘I tried to clear it, but more fell,’ he said. ‘Maybe if I go slowly.’

‘I’m not sure you have the time,’ said Folly. ‘Kamptulicon was just here. He’s taken my book so he knows this is our hideout. He’s probably gone for the Urgs.
He could be back very soon.’

Jonah frowned. ‘Fish-guts, then I’ll have to go on to the manor and find a way back to Degringolade through the woods.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Each knew what the other was picturing: the horde of Pluriba guarding the manor house.

‘Maybe we should come to you,’ suggested Folly. ‘Wait in the tunnel under the larder. The Pluriba won’t go below ground. I’ll cover up the trapdoor here so when
Kamptulicon comes back – which I’m sure he will – he won’t see it. You fill the gap between the roof and the rocks, so that even if he does open it, it will look
impassable.’

She gathered up some black beans, some stunners and Natron and passed them all down to Jonah. Then she closed the trapdoor and concealed it with the original broken flagstone. Hurriedly she
packed her rucksack with anything she thought might be useful and then left the Kryptos, not even looking over her shoulder.

Folly pressed down hard on the Trikuklos pedalators, desperate to get back to Degringolade as quickly as she could to warn Citrine and Vincent about Kamptulicon. They had
agreed to meet at the Caveat Emptorium later that evening; Citrine was to go there after the kekrimpari demonstration. She and Vincent were to make their way there when they had stolen the Blivet.
She felt uncomfortable about leaving Jonah, but time was against her, and the chances were he would be perfectly safe in the tunnel. At least as long as no other marauding Superents turned up. The
problem now was that Kamptulicon had a head start. He could gallop across the salt marsh faster than she could pedalate. He was more than likely going for the Urgs, and the last thing she wanted
was to meet him coming back.

She grunted with the effort of piloting the vehicle. The return journey was proving to be harder. Not only was it sleeting, but also the narrow path away from the Komaterion sloped upward,
making it more difficult to get the machine going.
Tsk
ing in frustration, she pushed harder on the pedalators, managing to get a little momentum, but the next minute the Trikuklos jerked
violently, turned from the path, then travelled across the marsh for a second or two before keeling over to land on its side in the salty, slushy sludge.

Folly lay quite dazed in a heap inside the vehicle. The Trikuklos was flat on its side. Dizzy, she got to her feet and stood on the door that now served as the floor. She felt for and found her
manuslantern, but could tell from the smell that it had spilt its tarry fuel. Using the steering handlebars as a step, she managed to push open the door above her and clamber out on to the side of
the vehicle. A blast of icy air caused her to breathe in sharply. The sky was full of snow clouds, and it was impossible to see which way she was facing – towards the path or away out on to
the treacherous marsh.

‘Oh, spletivus!’

Somehow Vincent’s favourite expletive seemed eminently suitable for the occasion. Wishing for a smitelight, she sniffed the air and listened intently for any sound that might guide her
back to the path. She couldn’t be that far away from it. The Trikuklos had only rolled a little before tipping over. She climbed back into the vehicle and flicked the switch for the front
lights, hoping that they had enough power stored up in the energy cell from her furious pedalating to last until she got back to the path. They came on, albeit weakly – affected no doubt by
the cold – and with a silent thank-you to Citrine’s father for buying the very best Trikuklos that was available, she lowered herself on to the icy but reasonably solid ground. She took
a tentative step forward – the light was behind her so she was walking in her own shadow – then another and another.

The lights flickered inauspiciously and Folly was grateful to see that she was almost at the path. Elated she hastened and took three quick steps forward, but with the fourth step her foot
landed heavily. What she had thought was solid ground gave way to slushy water and she found herself plunging into a deep wet hole of freezing slime. Helplessly she flailed her arms about, her
thrashing feet seeking purchase in the thick mud, but she kept on sinking. And then the lights went out and the last thing she remembered thinking before her head went under was how the slime
tasted salty.

Jonah sat alone in the underground chamber, engaged in ponderous thought. He wasn’t sure how long it had been now since Folly had left, but it felt like an age. He
considered his position. Was it really only a week or two ago that he had been happily – perhaps that was an exaggeration – working at the Degringolade Penitentiary, living a quiet life
away from the public eye? How much had changed! Now he was sleeping underground, afraid to show his face for fear of being arrested and thrown into the very jail where he had so recently been
employed. Was that, as Citrine might have said, irony?

‘And I regret none of it,’ he avowed to the emptiness. He had done what he had to do. He could not have left Citrine to such an unjust fate, facing death by hanging, betrayed by her
own cousin whom she had treated as a brother.

That didn’t change the fact that he was now in a quandary. It was worrying in the extreme to know that Kamptulicon had found their hideout. Folly had said to wait at the trapdoor in the
northern tunnel. So, he supposed, he should do that. But she seemed to have been gone an awfully long time.

What about the other tunnels? The south led back to the Kryptos and that was blocked, but there was still east and west. He tried to envisage the landscape above him and concluded that
Degringolade itself must be to the east. Surely it would not do any harm to look down that tunnel. He had his spear and a manuslantern and his courage. What more could he need?

Folly opened her eyes, but the blackness around her was so complete that she had to blink to make sure they really were open. Her head was aching and her mouth was dry. She
licked her lips and tasted salt and remembered what had happened.

Was she dead? She had certainly thought she would drown in the slime. She felt her leather coat. It was heavy with damp and caked in mud. Her feet and fingers were cold, but she was definitely
alive. She breathed warm air on to her hands and rubbed them together. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had the feeling that something was missing. Her hand went to her belt; her
Blivet was gone.

‘Hello!’ she called out softly, sitting up. ‘Is anyone there?’

Her echoing voice confirmed that she was under the shelter of a roof, in some sort of cave perhaps. She stood and made painful contact with a low ceiling.

‘Ow!’ She dropped to the floor again, rubbing her head. She began to crawl on all fours and reached a rocky wall. She made her way along it slowly, but she could not feel a door and
for all she knew she was going round in circles so she sat against the wall again, wondering what to do.

It was then the whispering began, at first very soft, but quickly becoming louder and louder. Folly tried to quell the fear that was rising inside her. She was certain that she could hear
footsteps too. But she could see nothing and, strain her ears as she might, she could not make out a word of what the voices were saying.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, her steady voice belying how she really felt. ‘Show yourselves, please.’

The whispering stopped abruptly and a second later the darkness was lit up with a score of dancing blue lights, like candle flames. There came the sound of laughter, the lightest laughter she
had ever heard, and behind the lights, for the very first time, she could see what she had always suspected was there: a host of delicate long-legged small-headed dancing figures.

‘Oh my,’ she breathed. ‘You’re the Puca.’ And she started to laugh too.

Having tramped for some time along the eastern tunnel, Jonah was reaching the point where he had to decide whether to go on into the unknown, or to return and make his way to
the manor as agreed. This tunnel showed no sign of going upward to the surface. It was long and straight and by the weak light of his manuslantern he couldn’t see an end to it. He had no idea
if he was any nearer to Degringolade, or if he was even going in the right direction.

Then, to his dismay, he came to a fork and this time there were no helpful markings to indicate direction. He stopped and stood with his hands on his hips.

‘Looks like the decision has been made for me,’ he said.

He adjusted the whale spear on his shoulder and was about to retreat when his hand brushed against a lump in his coat. Wenceslas’s glasses. He had forgotten he had them.

‘I wonder,’ he mused, and put them on. They balanced quite well on the bridge of his nose, but the arms were tight on the side of his head. They were not designed for a skull the
size of his.

‘Now, what was it Wenceslas said?’ he murmured. ‘Twist the screws and they act like a telescope.’

He felt for the screws at the sides of the lenses and began to turn them simultaneously, no easy task with his huge fingers. He went to one branch of the fork, placed the lantern on the ground
in the entrance and stared straight ahead. With each twist he could see that the darkness beyond seemed a little brighter. He kept on turning the screws and was surprised when shapes began to
appear in the darkness. Blurry, moving shapes.

‘John Dory McCrory,’ he muttered. ‘Now what’s this all about?’

He turned the screws another one hundred and eighty degrees. The edges of the shapes became more sharply defined. Now they had limbs, arms and legs and heads. They were still some distance away,
but Jonah knew already that they weren’t human. He could smell them. That ain’t Lurid stink neither, he thought.

He was right. This wasn’t the smell of decaying flesh, it was more like a lady’s perfume, but it was in no way pleasant or alluring. It was nauseatingly sweet. Involuntarily he
curled his lip and spat, trying to get the taste of it out of his mouth. He pulled up his collar and shielded his mouth and nose, but the choking perfume permeated the thick wool.

Jonah began to back away as the figures advanced. He remembered the black beans in his pocket and threw a handful down the tunnel, peppering the ground at the creatures’ feet. With a
sinking heart he sensed that the beans had annoyed rather than deterred them. They were coming more quickly so he sprayed a long burst of Natron at them. Again, it had no effect other than to
obviously infuriate them.

The riled creatures were now so close that Jonah could see into their open mouths. Rows and rows of needle-like teeth were set in red gums that dripped with sticky mucus. The atmosphere was
heavy with an almost tangible malevolence that increased as they came closer and closer.

Jonah reached over his shoulder for his whale spear. Slowly, deliberately, he brought it round and raised his arm and prepared to throw. In his heart he knew that his trusted weapon would be of
no use against these Superents, whatever they were. He almost wished they were Lurids or a Pluribus. At least then he would die knowing what had killed him. But to be felled by a nameless monster?
It didn’t seem right.

The freakish fiends were well within range now and Jonah realized that, for all their menace, they had made not a sound between them.

‘Poseidon!’ he cried, and hurled the spear into their midst. And then they were upon him.

When the merriment died down, Folly leaned forward to see the Puca closer. They shied away and their flames dimmed, but she could feel that they were giving off heat. Makes a
change, she thought. Most Superents were freezing.

‘Can you help me?’ she asked gently. She was wary and a little fearful. They were known, after all, for their deceitful guidance. ‘How did I get here? Did you save me from the
marsh?’

The flames brightened again and the oval-shaped heads nodded vigorously. One of the figures came closer and she perceived that it was wearing a short close-fitting tunic of some sort. It
gesticulated with its slim pale arms and hands and spoke in a whispery voice, exactly the way, Folly realized, she had always imagined they would sound.

‘We saved you,’ it said. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘But I have to get back to Degringolade,’ said Folly quickly. ‘To tell the others that Kamptulicon—’

At the mention of Kamptulicon’s name all the Puca began to hiss and their flames became very bright, almost white. ‘Leopold Kamptulicon is no friend of ours,’ said the one that
had spoken. It seemed to be in charge.

‘Domna, nor mine,’ said Folly hastily. ‘I have to warn my friends. They are in danger from him.’ Then she remembered. ‘Do you have my Blivet? I will need
it.’

There was silence and the blue lights dimmed almost to extinction. Another Puca stepped forward. ‘We took your Blivet – it is a nasty weapon.’

‘I would not use it on you!’ declared Folly. ‘But on Pluriba and Lurids and other Superents.’

‘We have seen the Pluriba,’ said the first Puca.

‘I know,’ said Folly. And you didn’t help me then, she thought.

‘And the beast,’ said another, but Folly wasn’t interested in beasts, only escape. She persisted. ‘Please let me go,’ she persisted.

‘Let you go? Of course we will let you go.’