foreign cot in the cold foreign room and slept.
28
Heldin(s) mighty folk of ancient history who fought with the monsters, employing their infamous therimoirs to keep the eoned realms of humankind safe. Known by many collective titles, including beauts (common), haggedolim (Phlegmish), herragdars (Skyldic), heterai (Attic), orgulars (Tutin), sehgbhans (Turkic) and what we would call 'heroes'.The time of their supremacy, when they were relied upon to stand in the gap between everymen and untermen, is known as the Heldinsage. Said to have begun with the Phlegms-those most ancient forebears-and ended with the Attics, their heirs, it was the time of Idaho, the great queen of the Attics, and of Biarge the Beautiful, among many other glorious and infamous folk and their usually tragic stories. Not all of the weapons of the heldins were destroyed in the violent cataclysms that punctuated and finally concluded that time: many are said to remain, and are most highly prized by collectors and combatants.
The next morning, gray and misty and eerily still, Rossamund was already harnessed when the ritual call came-'A lamp! A lamp to light your path!' Without stopping for breakfast, Rossamund went straight down to the Low Gutter, through the labyrinthine Skillions. Kneeling over the deserted grate that led to Numps' desecrated bloom baths, the young lighter called and called Numps' name till he was hoarse, but no pallid, welcoming, twisted face loomed on the darkened steps below.
Rossamund pulled on the grate and found it was locked.
He gave one last cry, and ran to the lantern store, looking dusty and seldom used, but the glimner was not in there either. Rubbing his face, Rossamund tried to marshal his increasingly anxious conjectures.
Doctor Crispus will know! To the infirmary he went, and found the physician working as he always had, tending the few ill or wounded fellows there.
'Have you seen him?' Rossamund pressed intently. 'Is Mister Numps recovered from his grief?'
'Cuts and sutures! No, I have not had sight of Numps, young Master Bookchild,' the profoundly startled Crispus replied. 'And well betide you, young sir, all questions and no greetings!' he added. 'I had no notion you would ever be back with us!'
'Sorry, Doctor Crispus. Hallo, sir. I was just down in the Skillions looking for Mister Numps.'
The physician laughed, a tight nervous sound, and directed Rossamund into his study. 'All I can confirm,' the man said when the door was shut, 'is that the astute fellow has taken to living in the damp cellars under our very feet. I put out food in his lantern store at the start of every week, and each time I have returned to do it again, the previous parcels are gone. It seems a satisfactory arrangement, though it probably cannot last. Nevertheless, I shall keep at it till events dictate otherwise. And for you, my boy, why are you here? I heard of the terrible things done at Wormstool. It does me a great good to see you hale.'
'The clerk-master has called Threnody and me back,' he said, sitting upright and tense on the seat Crispus offered him. 'He says that the things that happened at Wormstool are too terrible to not inquire after properly. He also says he wants to investigate 'irregularities.' '
'I am sure he does,' Crispus exclaimed. 'Guilty minds are suspicious minds.'
'You received my letter, Doctor?'
'I did, my boy, I did.' The physician stared at his well-ordered desktop for a moment.
'I sent the same to Mister Sebastipole,' Rossamund added, fishing out the letter from Sebastipole and passing it over. 'This was his reply.'
Crispus took the missive and 'hmmed' a lot as he read. 'The gears of bureaucracy turn against us, Master Bookchild,' he said at last, waving the letter. 'The most difficult thing in all of this topsy-turvy hubble-bubble is proof.'
'Have you discovered any, Doctor?'
'Regrettably, no,' Doctor Crispus said flatly. 'Our not-so-temporary Marshal has reversed my position, and against all custom and decency that sawbones Swill is my superior: a surgeon over a physician! I am not certain that it is even legal. But that is the lay of things, and consequently my movements about the manse are severely restricted. So you and Mister Sebastipole and I can wonder and surmise all we like, but like the leer says, it is all useless without tangible proofs, and these none of us is in the position to obtain.'
'Miss Europe says the same.' Rossamund's shoulders sagged. Then a bright idea struck. 'I could find proof. I got into the cellars before, I can do it again.'
'Lah! The boy is a heldin reborn!' Crispus exclaimed. 'They cover their activity too well. If Mister Sebastipole could not find evidence or even traces of the same, what hope have you with your less cunning senses? No, no, no, Rossamund. You are in things deep enough, I think! Having said that, you should destroy this letter-their finding proof against us… against you… would be terribly counteractive.'
'How is it that we are not able to stop such clear wrongdoing?' Rossamund said in suppressed indignation.
'I am afraid, my boy, our foes are well ahead of us in the use and experience of cunning and shrewdery,' said Crispus resignedly.
'But it can't be that they are allowed to go on making rever-men and ruining lives!'
'No, it cannot,' the physician concluded softly. 'No, it cannot,' he repeated, and lapsed into introspective silence.
Flummoxed, Rossamund went silent too. Railing about the wretched situation did naught to solve it. 'The manse seems empty, Doctor,' Rossamund eventually observed.
'Joints and gristle, my boy,' Crispus exclaimed, 'this place has gone to blight after that sis edisserum caper. All the best folk are leaving as fast as schemes will let them. Whympre said something about Grindrod being overburdened by the rigors of learning prentices their trade. The poor fellow has been sent on half pay to some other fort-I never did catch where-some remote and difficult place. Benedict has taken his sweet little wife back to High Vesting.'
Rossamund could not believe his ears. Benedict gone? Grindrod disposed? The lamplighter-sergeant had seemed as permanent as the rock of Winstreslewe itself. 'But who is drilling prentices, then?'
'There are no more prentices,' returned Crispus. 'Master Whympre says that the road is in too great a disarray for prenticing to continue. He says that after he has brought things back in order and reformed the whole Wormway, the question of prentices shall be addressed again.'
'Who else has gone?' Rossamund asked, saucer-eyed.
'Let me see…' The physician began counting off fingers. 'As you know, that Mother Snooks woman evaporated without a glimpse some months ago; I have heard some dreadful rumor that she was declared mentally unsound and exiled to some terrible far-off place. Then there is that amiable young register, Inkwill. He set off last week to some sinecure-a sweet-and-easy station I believe the common roughs call it-in the bureaucracies of Brandenbrass, got for him through a cousin, or so he said. The lurksman-general is seeking a position elsewhere. Most of my epimelains have left; they said they would not work with that butcher at the lead-bless their eyes. I have precious few like-minded fellows to converse with now, and a sore trial it is too, I might say. If it were not for Numps, I might find a way to a new posting myself. Now let me look you over.' Crispus reached for a special monocle like Swill had worn when searching out the calendar Pandome's hurts. 'It might be near on a month since you were in your fight, but I do not trust Mister Trippletree'-by which he meant the dispenser at Bleakhall-'to have been thorough enough.'
While he was looked over, Rossamund explained the many events that had crowded his life since last he was in Winstermill, though he omitted any mention of Freckle. '… And all I hear,' he concluded after a long telling, 'is what a remarkable thing it was to have slain those nickers.'
