Episode XLIV - Fever/Pitch

            Gulliver was still reeling from Ellis’ account long after Miss Barkcastle had returned with the young man’s breakfast; after Ellis had eaten and slid into Gulliver’s erstwhile bed; after he had drifted off into another fitful sleep and after Franck had visited to see how ‘young Ibsen’ was doing.  He did his best not to show it, indeed had been preparing for it when he had asked Ellis to talk, but the knowledge of Siren and Ellis sharing a kiss was a little more than his fragile heart could take that morning.

Once Franck had declared that Ellis was indeed ill, probably as a result of the stresses of the past week and a half and a lack of general immunity to the ‘many and varied animalcules of Shadow’, Gulliver excused himself and made his way out into the hall.  He wanted somewhere private to console himself, to take stock of all that he had learnt and to begin to readjust his view of the world, although he knew it would take more than a few moments silence to achieve such a feat.

The door to Franck’s museum lay ajar a few feet away.  Gulliver had heard about it from Ellis, but had never entered it.  He took a few steps towards it, listening to the sounds of the ersatz chateau around him.  He could hear Franck muttering to himself at Ellis’ bedside, Siren snoring softly a few doors away and Miss Barkcastle pottering about in the kitchen downstairs.  Sounds from outside filtered in through an open window somewhere.  Gulliver took another few steps, pushed the door open and, faced with the terrifying visage of a stuffed, mounted Grinder, calmly stepped inside and pulled the door to.

            Ellis was dreaming.  In his fevered state the dreams which came were not welcome ones, but he could not avoid them.  No amount of tossing, or turning, could throw them off.  He dreamed of Larksborough and of Sarah and of the Slatewings roaring through the streets.  He dreamed of Shadow and of Blackfeather and of armies of Stoneskins hunting him through the night.  He dreamed of Siren and of the look she gave him before she turned away.  Sometimes Siren was Sarah and sometimes the other way around.  Their faces melted into each other and their words became the same.  Their words burned.  He was scorched by them, set alight.

            The skies were melting; raining cogs which became molten brass.  A tide of glowing metal flowed through the streets, chasing him towards the harbour where all the ships were like charcoal adrift in a sea of flame.  There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  The whole world was becoming a furnace.

            And then there was a calm, cooling breeze and Ellis turned around to see Siren/Sarah/Siren again.  She was smiling at him, but the corners of her mouth turned up further into a wicked grin.

            You’re just a soulless doll, Ellis.  How can you ever mean anything to me?

            And Ellis fled into streets become a conflagration once more.

            Gulliver decided to emerge from the museum only when he heard the sounds of people arriving downstairs.  Very carefully he checked his appearance in a shard of iceglass from the slopes of Mirrormount and then he stepped onto the landing leaving the museum door as he had found it, and descended to the hall where Rockspark stood waiting, his eyes deep, volcanic fires.

            Gulliver had always found the lithe Stoneskin to be rather intimidating; a towering figure, who dominated any room he was in with his stony silences.  They stood, slightly apart, in the downstairs hall, Rockspark gazing upon the pirate with a typically unreadable expression and Gulliver wondered if he was being called upon to speak.  He cleared his throat.

            “Ah, Rockspark, my dear fellow,” came Franck’s voice from the top of the stairs and Gulliver found himself inwardly deflating, “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.  We have something of a domestic crisis, or so it seems.  Poor Islington has come down with something of a fever and so we have been distracted from the morning’s duties so far.”

            “I have only just arrived,” the Spiketail replied in a voice like snakes slithering over falling scree, “but Gulliver came to greet me.”

            “Ah, good lad, good lad.  If you head down to the basement, I’ll be with you shortly.  I just want to take that boy’s temperature one more time before I call a Doctor.”

            “Actually I wanted to take you to the harbour.  I have secured us a place to begin construction.”

            “Oh,” Franck replied, beaming, “how excellent!  Well, if you’ll give me a moment then I shall join you.”  He disappeared along the landing, only to reappear a moment later to add, “Felicity is in the kitchen.  Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?  See you shortly.”  And then he was gone again and Gulliver was left in the silence of the hallway with the Spiketail staring at him impassively.

            “So, uh,” Gulliver began, “would you like that cup of tea?”

            Franck confirmed that Ellis’ temperature was still well above the norm and, dashing into his bedroom/study made a ‘quick’ telephone call using the only such device in the house.  If Ellis had noticed it before he would have had trouble not commenting on how ancient it looked and ungainly it looked compared to his (now totally defunct) mobile phone, standing upright as it did with its earpiece hanging on its cord at the top of the stand.

Franck lifted up the device, dialled the number as quickly as his spindly fingers were able and waited for a response from the operator.  It took a few minutes to connect the call as the telephone network in shadow was very basic.  Franck rarely used it, in fact, except for emergencies.  Elli’s fever, he thought, might just be one such instance.

            “Hello?  …  Yes, is that Doctor Gristfinkel?  …  Yes, it’s Franck Von Spektr here.  …  Yes, the Former Baron, indeed.  …  No the rash has not returned, thank the gods.  …  No, nor do I require any leeches for my experiments.  …  To be honest the last batch you sent me were rather unsatisfactory.  …  No, they did not!  In fact I had a hell of a job cleaning up their remains after the explosions.  …  Well indeed, and so you should be!  They stain quite badly, you know.  …  Yes, well, I’m calling about something altogether different.  …  Yes, yes.  …  Yes, I understand that. …  Yes, but to return to my point, I have a young man in my charge who appears to have come down with a fever and I do not have the medical expertise to be sure of treating him as effectively as he perhaps needs.  …  Yes.  …  Well, I’m not too sure about that.  …  His temperature is well above normal, but no, no tentacles so far.  …  Well, yes, I understand your need for more research specimens, but really, I think you should take a look at this lad.  He is from the other world, you know.  ….  Yes, I thought you might.  We’ll expect you in ten minutes then?   …  Five? Excellent.”

            He hung the earpiece on its stand once more and then dashed out of the room.  Only moments later he had roused Rockspark from his tea, given instructions to Miss Barkcastle about the imminent arrival of the Doctor and then had rushed out the front door with Gulliver and the Spiketail in tow, to hail a cab at the end of Tentacle Lane.

            “To the harbour, my good man,” he said to the cab driver who was still gazing warily at the Stoneskin and the pirate who now occupied his back seat.  It’s possible he had already been warned about picking up fares from the end of Tentacle Lane by his colleagues, but even if he had not it was clear the street was gaining an ever worse reputation.  “To the harbour, I said.” Franck added a little louder and the cab driver obliged.

            Felicity Barkcastle found herself rather suited to the role of housekeeper.  She had lived most of her life alone in her house on Mouldthicket Avenue and, servantless as she was these days, spent much of her free time ensuring that everything was clean and tidy and all things were in their place, although she tended to avoid work on the exterior of her grand property.  You would think that with such a life, looking after the domestic details of someone else’s house, especially someone as untidy and disorganised as the Former Baron, would be the last thing she would want, but she took a great deal of pride in all such activity and the repeated actions of cleaning and dusting were, in some ways, therapeutic.  They kept at bay thoughts of earlier days when life was not so simple.

            So it was, then, that whilst she awaited the arrival of the Doctor and the return of the Former Baron and Rockspark, so that they might return to their engineering projects, she was content to clean the kitchen and then the dining room, dusting bookshelves as she went.  Despite her age and slight stature, she was both fast and efficient and by the time Doctor Gristfinkel turned up on the doorstep she had made considerable inroads into the dust and cobwebs of the ramshackle old property.

            “Where is my patient,” Doctor Gristfinkel demanded as Miss Barkcastle opened the door, in lieu of a civilised greeting.  He was a rather tall, but stout man with a balding head and a thick, bushy moustache beneath straining, beady eyes.  His aspect was every bit as severe as his tone.

            “Why, good morning Doctor.  Ellis is just upstairs.”

            “Take me to him,” he commanded and brushed past her into the hallway.

            “Of course,” Felicity replied patiently, “just follow me.”

            Upstairs, in Ellis’ room, the ‘good’ Doctor cleared the top of a chest of drawers of various items of Gulliver’s clothing, sweeping them off onto the floor with little regard for where they might land, and, continuing to ignore the patient, carefully opened his medical bag and withdrew all manner of medical equipment.  Miss Barkcastle watched with mild interest as each new item was taken out: a jar of leeches; a cruel-looking glister; several thermometers of various sizes; some wrought iron implements, obscure of purpose and acute of angle; a metal syringe; four beakers of mysterious fluids, each a different colour and consistency; a bag of black sand and then many more items besides, daring anyone watching to question just how they fit in the medical bag in the first place.  Lastly he removed two anatomical charts, one, Felicity recognised as being representative of the flow of hypostatick energy around the body, the other, she surmised, depicted the optimum distribution of the four humours.

It occurred to her that whilst Domestic Science and Hypostatick Engineering were highly placed upon that list of disciplines she would willingly partake in, Medicine was conspicuously absent.

            “Can I get you some tea?”  She asked.

            “Strong, black, four sugars,” Gristfinkel replied without looking away from his charts.

            “I’ll be back in a few minutes, then,” she replied and set off for the kitchen once more.

            Gulliver stared up at the nameless warehouse with a slight sense of vertigo.  It was enormous.  Behind him some of the largest vessels to be berthed in Shalereef Harbour were slowly riding the jet black waves, jostling each other with mighty forest creaks and metallic groans, but it was the neo-gothic monstrosity before him that drew the eye and cast a gloom over the wharf.  It was very old, its stonework was crumbling and decayed, covered in lichen where it was not stained by salt and it was clear that the roof had fallen in in a number of places.  A family of Gutterjacks could be seen playing along the facade, using their long, hooked tails to swing from  gargoyle to gargoyle.  Nevertheless it seemed sound and the great oaken doors which topped the slipway were in surprisingly good condition.

            “Are you sure no one else is usin’ it,” he asked, turning back to Rockspark.

            “We are already using it,” the Spiketail replied as he stepped forwards and swung open one side of the heavy doors as if it was a paper screen.

            Gulliver’s jaw dropped as he saw the makeshift workshop which had been set up inside.  There were forges and billows and pumps, vices and hammers and anvils.  Hypostatick fluid flowed throughout the space in pipes of assorted sizes, powering machines which glowed and hummed and whirred.  More startling, however, were the silhouettes of figures tending to each of the myriad process which appeared to be taking place before them.  Stocky and small, they did not resemble any creature Gulliver was familiar with.  Only the group nearest them, applying pitch to the hull of an almost complete vessel in the pale green daylight dripping through a hole in the roof, were well-lit enough to be identified.

            “Are they…?”

            “Mosskind!” the Former Baron exclaimed, “Oh, Rockspark, how wonderful!”

            “I thought they was a myth!”  Gulliver said, scratching  his head and staring at the diminutive workers in wonder.

            They were about a third the height of an average human and quite rounded in their build, but they had muscular arms and legs and large heads with eyes the size of Sandrunner eggs.  Their skin was rocklike, similar to that of a Stoneskin, to whom they were a distant cousin, but was covered on their head, chest and back with a thick layer of deep green moss.

            “How did you find you them?”  Franck asked, “And when did you find the time to set this up?”

            “There’s a colony living beneath the fringes of  Ashvault.  My clan has always had an association with them and they have a great deal of respect for shamans.  It didn’t take much effort to summon them here and we’ve been working on the workshop for the past three nights.”

            “And already you’ve begun making the vessels to our specifications!”

            “These are prototypes, and just of the hulls, really, but we should be able to test them very soon.”

            “Splendid, splendid!”

            “In fact,” he pointed to the vessel being waterproofed nearby, “this one is probably ready now.”

            “Excellent.  Shall we see it in the water, then?”


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