Family Heirloom Challenge: "The Red and the Wave" -- by Joseph Leskey (Part 1)

The Red and the Wave

by Joseph Leskey

The light of a small fire shone through the darkness to light two figures, one an old man, sitting slouched in an armchair, and the other a young girl, seated beside him with her head bowed. The man breathed shallowly, and the fire quivered with each weakening breath.

“Grandfather?” said the girl.

The old man stirred. “Jasinta. Some things go too far to – to bear it.” He closed his hand shakily. “The sea is calm today.”

The girl raised her head, and her eyes shimmered in the firelight. “Salva says the sea is sad for you.”

The old man laughed tiredly. “I would she was right, but only your mother was acquainted with the deep.”

“Will she come back first, or will you?”

“I cannot tell where our fate lies, if indeed it continues. Our power is diminished and decayed; we must be shattered so the mallet can survive. I can no longer keep this world even from bondage. Soon, this burden will be yours.”

“You said they must be punished.” The girl’s voice wavered.

“And so they must be. Match their glory with your obscurity, and bring them to shame. Their water is like sand to you, and thus it will parch their throats. The might of their hand rejoin with the frailty of all we have, and let them collapse. Oh, yes, Jasi, Keep this doom always against the house of the red and the wave.” A wind blew, gentle and brief. The fire flickered and grew stronger.

“Grandfather?” the girl wept. “It couldn’t…Salva? Salva!”

Footsteps pounded outside but faded and ceased. The room brightened, and rage and grief pierced every corner of the room in a multitude of beastly and ethereal voices that now only Jasinta could hear.

Fourteen years later. Star Garden, Thunderer Estate.

“No, no, no, no,” said Fernt Thunderer IX. “Oh, no, no, no.” He used a lace handkerchief to wipe an expensive crumb from his pedigreed mouth. “No, no. When I stand to inherit, I’m sure I’ll behave as I always have. A luncheon at noon, tea at four, dinner whenever. Some hunting, a rose or two in the garden. Yes—” He took a sip of wine, swallowed, and again wiped his mouth. “Yes, I’m sure there will be little change.”

His grandmother, Erstella, and his tutor exchanged a significant glance, but Fernt didn’t notice. He sliced half a biscuit into two smaller portions.

Syphir Fite, a great chum of considerably less means, popped a whole biscuit in his mouth and said, “As for me, I have little chance of inheriting even a small estate. I am remarkably well balanced in my tones and hues, and that is the only virtue to recommend me. Anyway, next week, was it, Ninth?”

“Was what?”

“The day you ‘stand to inherit.’” Syphir pushed aside his food, leaned back against a tree, and swung his feet around and up onto the table. The tutor and servants all kept a horrified silence.

“Here, preposterous fellow! You are joking, I vow.”

“No, I’ve never been more in earnest. I truly can’t place the date. Next month, perhaps it was.”

Fernt set his glass down. “My dear Fite, it is tomorrow.”

“Ha! There. I wonder what made the old boy give up his estate. Can’t be more than forty-seven at the most, I’d say. Wad of resin?”

“No, thank you. And father says he wants a quieter life. Nothing wrong with that.”

Fite shrugged and popped something into his mouth. “Nothing wrong about it for you, at any rate. I suppose you’ll forget the great chums of your youth?”

“I’d rather hope I shouldn’t. The idea of it.” Fernt ate a tender sliver of chicken. “Excellent fowl. Morris, notify the cook that this bird is truly marvelous.”

“Yes, my lord.” Morris straightened his aching back.

“You’re too kind, IX.” Syphir strained for his glass and, his endeavor sucessful, fell back with a huff. “You know, I really don’t believe it.”

“Don’t believe what?”

“Just a few miles away, a tidal wave has destroyed a whole village today, and here we are! Life in all its perfections. I’m glad I don’t have my money in the railway.”

“The railway? What of it?”

“Only that the blessed thing was uprooted and destroyed for miles, engines and cars too.”

“Impossible! You don’t say!”

“What’s this? Do you have an interest in the railway?”

“Father’s put an odd pound in it – I’m sure he has. I’m fluttered.”

The manor on the pond, Thunderer estate.

“I’ve been a poor parent, Lorry.” The honorable Geoffrey F. Thunderer XIV stared out an enormous window at the garden, where his son gesticulated foolishly.

The cat to whom he spoke yawned.

“I’m doing all this at your advice, you know. When he touches the great memorandum of his ancestors, then he will know where we stand, and it will not be foolishness backing his superiority.”

The cat licked a delicate curtain and then bit it. And bit it again.

“I, Lorry, must disappear. I know why my father took that ship. It was a voyage that was meant to be his last. Man ought not to trifle…in anything. Anything at all.”

The cat turned from the curtain, blinked, and mrrowed loudly.

“Exactly, Lorry, exactly.” The man stared at the windowsill for a few moments. “I hate Burnthede.”

The garden.

“I say, is it going to rain?” Syphir looked at the sky and laughed. “Look at the absolute speed of those clouds there.”

“Don’t be absurd. It couldn’t rain. Not in a hundred years, at least. Darling Gran, is something wrong?”

“Nothing, Frent.” She exchanged an exasperated look with his tutor. The tutor took a nonchalant bite of kidney as the clouds covered the sun.

Frent stared at them for a moment. “Say there, Morris, do your duty to king and country and have these utensils and edible things put wherever you types put them. There’s a fellow! Shall we retire early?”

“We might.” Syphir righted himself and stretched. “I don’t fancy getting too wet. A weak constitution can be ruined in a little rain. My sister could tell you that any time of the day.”

A torrential splash of rain fell on the scene, and with it came an equally powerful gust of wind. The table fell over and Frent with it. Syphir jumped to his feet. “We must stay calm! Are we all here? To the house, quickly.”

An unearthly glow sprang up some distance away, and soon after thunder cracked like an ominous whip. A second bolt of lightning exploded a nearer tree, sending it up in evident flames and smoke.

“Run! Run, I say! Flee!” Frent pounded his feet against the ground faster than he thought possible. Syphir was soon a short distance ahead of him. The tutor and grandmother strove along bravely at a measured gait. Then the earth shook with incredible vigor, and all around structures fractured. A chunk of the manor calmly broke right off and fell to the ground with a phenomenally unimpressive boom. Then the earth shook again and rented a small chasm directly before Frent. His momentum only allowed him a moment of terror before he was forced to leap over it, stumbling on the other side. Syphir had fallen, and moaned even louder than the wind.

“I’m done for,” he cried. “This is the end!”

A panicked Frent dived over him and went sprawling.

Suddenly, Syphir stopped moaning, and managed to say just as there was a lull in the wind, “Who for the sake of all the dragons in Burnthede are you?”

Frent turned around and beheld a young women in crisp brown attire reminiscent of a military uniform, which was complemented by a somewhat vigilant bearing. She stared at the both of them, water pouring off her very soggy hat.

The tutor and Frent’s grandmother, having navigated the trench, stopped, panting, beside her. The rain swirled into their faces.

“Why have we stopped running?!” yelled Frent with feeling. “Dear Gran, you must not catch your death!” A flash of lightning sent him flying forward with all speed again. The rain grew still more torrential, until it was an opaque flood of water whirling in the air. Frent and Syphir collided into a wall of the manor house at roughly the same time. As soon as they stopped running, their boots sank six inches into the mud.

“Help!” yelled Frent. “Somebody save me! Help, I say! I’m drowning – I can’t get out!”

“Don’t panic, dear, dear fellow! The quicksand is yet quite weak.” Syphir yanked a boot out and fell on his back. “Ah, I’ve been killed! Cause of death: natural.” He closed his eyes. Water flooded into his nose and open mouth.

“Syphir! Dear chum!” Frent struggled against the mud, successfully solidifying his trap and leaning against the wall in despair. But suddenly there was a shout and a legion of butlers crowded the scene, holding sturdy Burnthede umbrellas.

“There, there, young sir,” said Frent’s own particular butler. He was a very small man, but he had a firm hold on an unnervingly large umbrella.

“Ah, Drir!” And that was all Frent could say, as he become consumed with manfully containing his emotions.

Drir patted him firmly on the back and enlisted his fellow butler, a man named Hyke, more commonly known as “that absolute specimen of a fellow,” to fetch Frent from his doom, which the man did obligingly.

The eight other butlers extracted Syphir from the ground, his drenched head lolling in such a way as to flawlessly display his acute pallor. The butlers began a long procession back to the front door.

Entrance hall, the manor on the pond.

“I am as well as may be expected,” said Frent virtuously, with a small sniffle. “I beg you would tend to my dear friend, sir, for he is, I fear, quite faint.”

“Indeed?” said the physician with a chuckle, turning to the young man who lay on a table, his face like a muddy and soaked incarnation of death. “I prescribe rest, and I feel you both will be back on your chairs in hardly any time at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must examine the state of Lady Thunderer.”

“Bless my life,” cried Frent, rising onto one slightly plump elbow, “I had forgotten. Dear Gran has just survived a nasty head cold. Doctor, be certain to inspect her lungs. Quickly, man.”

“Yes, quite.” The physician backed out of the room. A loud snort of laughter sounded just as he closed the door and all went silent.

Frent looked surprised. “I say, did the man just laugh?”

The line of apparently impassive butlers against the opposite wall made no move to answer.

“Frent, old friend,” said Syphir weakly.

“Syphir, you live!” Frent rolled to a seated position on his couch.

Syphir coughed feebly. “For now, old friend. I think…” He breathed a shallow, urgent breath, and panted a little. “I think I’m growing stronger.” Tangible doubt was fixed on his words.

“No, no, no. Of course you are growing stronger.”

“Come closer, friend,” Syphir laughed quietly, “you are many miles away.”

The butlers appeared even more impassive as Frent stumbled from his couch and rushed anxiously to Syphir’s side.

“We were good comrades, eh?” Syphir’s eyes moved feverishly, half shut.

“The best, dear fellow. The very best.”

“Would you do me something, XI?”

“Anything, Syph, anything.”

Syphir breathed rapidly for a moment before taking a deep breath and settling. “Has – has she come in yet?”

“Who?”

Syphir’s eyes popped open for a brief second, before they closed and he became even more like death. “The one…in the rain.”

“Oh, quite. No. We’ve lost her, rather. An army of domestics out looking for her.”

“I must join them.” Syphir made to rise, but Frent, much alarmed, pressed him back down. Syphir gave a little cry and closed his eyes.

“Nonsense, Syphir. Of course they’ll find her.”

“Would you do something for me, Frent?” he replied dreamily.

“Of course, of course.”

“If—” Syphir swallowed. “When they find her, would you – would you…” his voice trailed off and he exhaled.

“Syphir! Quick, some—”

Syphir’s limp hand reached out and touched his arm. “Would you tell her that I was…heroic. How I almost saved you…how I…” His breathing became regular and his arm dropped.

“No! Syphir!” Frent reached out to shake him, but then stopped. “Oh, he’s sleeps.”

The butlers clamped their jaws grimly and tried discretely to not look at the scene.

At that precise moment, Frent heard the front door swing open and he heard a strange voice which he thought must belong to the young woman say, “Are you sure I may enter? I have no wish…”

“Of course,” replied the rather cross household tailor, “who gives a care to what happens around here? Get in and stay in. There’s my advice.” The door slammed shut and myriad footsteps approached the room. Syphir became utterly still. The door swung open and three dutiful members of the household escorted the woman inside. Frent rose grandly and bowed. “My lady. I welcome you to my father’s house of Thunderer. Pary, be seated next to the fire here. Terribly sorry about the weather. Usually mild this time of year. Please, think nothing of the fabric.”

The woman crossed the room and sat in the chair. “Who is that on the table, just there?” she asked after a moment’s awkward silence.

Frent was amazed at his fair fortune in this excellent opportunity. As was Sylphir, if the way his breathing altered was any accurate indicator. Frent cleared his throat richly. “This is the most excellent fellow in all the world and a very dear chap. Poor brave soul. I’m told he almost saved my life, but he was just recently brought down very ill in a veritable mudslide.”

The woman stared, before looking down at her hand and clenching it. “I am sorry for it.”

“Return that reticule!” cried Syphir with a sudden wildness. “I say, stop there, thief!” He swung a fist flimsily. “There, there, dear lady. All in…” His voice lapsed.

To Frent’s horror, a butler quickly drew out a handkerchief and hiccuped.

Frent glared at him. “Fie, for shame! One should never do so with a lady present. I crave your indulgence in this matter, madam. Poor Fite. In a delirium, I think.”

“A cough is really of no consequence.” The young woman in a preoccupied sort of way.

Frent was dumbfounded. Any decent young lady should have been shocked and disgusted by such a display from one little more than a manservant. He fell silent.

It took quite a long moment of silence before the housekeeper arrived. She looked doubtfully at the young woman.

“What would one call my lady?” she asked uncertainly.

The young woman spent several moments staring at her before she said, “My name is Jasinta.”

The housekeeper didn’t look gratified. “Well, you had better come with me.”

Jasinta rose, and the housekeeper showed her through the door, maintaining some distance between their respective persons.

When they were both gone, Frent turned back to Sylphir and was delighted to see that his eyes were open. “Ah, Syphir, you are better, I trust?”

“Did you note,” said Syphir, the strength of his voice much increased, “that this lady was a very handsome one?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Frent in mystified tones. “She wore a hat, you know.”

“Yes. Was her name mentioned in discourse, by chance?”

“Yes, of course it was.”

“Let’s hear it, then.” Syphir stopped breathing and inclined his ear.

“Well now. Jascintha, I think it was.”

“Jasinta,” breathed Syphir.

“That’s not – it does seem more like it, rather.”

“Why did they put me on a table, Ninth?”

Frent pondered this for a moment. “Do you know, I haven’t the foggiest. I’m quite worn; I think I’m for a restful night. I beg you to excuse me.”

“Of course, of course,” said Syphir absently.

11:40 at night. One of fourteen hallways, the manor on the pond.

The former and incognito Lady Nutberry, whose wealth and eminence had been brought low by her now imprisoned husband’s unfortunate tendency to speculate, shuffled up the Thunderer hallway, carrying an impressive stack of bedclothes. Her thoughts were on the main in some way related to the practical application of stoicism. Accordingly, she was much alarmed when she thought she heard a human sniffle.

“What’s this?” (For she had developed a strong habit of talking to herself in learning the ways of Zeno and his followers.) “I didn’t think anybody was sick.” She stopped walking and listened very hard indeed. And there! Another sniffle. From the door just ahead to the right, she thought. A guest room, and not the best of them. She crept forward, wondering how much sympathy was desirable in a stoic proper.

But there it was: an unmistakable sob – a frustrated one. Lady Nutberry widened her eyes at the violation of her dearly held philosophy. But then her eyes started to water a bit due to her great natural tenderness.

Lady Nutberry pondered for a few moments. A young lady in tears and not a young lady she had ever heard cry before. There was a sense of loss, it seemed, in the sound, but also something deeper that was beyond Lady Nutberry’s power to place.

“Poor dear,” she whispered. She watched in horror as her own compassionate hand reached towards the door. Yes, she had been brought up in a family of nine children, and five of their number melancholy in temperament, and all her cousins frequently in despair; her experience in these matters was very great, but should she knock? Her nature urged her to do it, but propriety and solid Burnthede sense prevailed against the notion. At long last, she thought seriously against it, and turned to leave, with a compassionate sniff of her own.

Inside the room, Jasinta turned back to the window, relieved and deep in thought. She shakily took the windowsill and looked out over the grounds. The storm ceased.

Late morning. The breakfast hall, the manor on the pond.

The honorable Geoffrey F. Thunderer XIV laid down his newspaper, in his haste nearly upsetting his ceremonial cup of tea.

“What?” he demanded.

A man framed in the doorway fingered the pair of gloves he held in his hand and pressed some papers more firmly into his side with his arm. “Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, sir, but the state of your accounts demands it.”

“The state of my – what are you babbling about, man?”

“Just this. I have received reports from the Northbound Railway Company and from the Tunless National Housing Company and from the Central Burn—well, in short, sir, from all your several financial interests.”

“Go on, sir.”

He pulled out a sheet of paper. “‘Dear sir…et cetera et cetera…We, the select committee of finance at the Northbound Railway Company, beg leave to inform you concerning certain unfortunate events that have unfolded, not of an unnatural nature or of those contrived by man, but as violent as they are common.’” He paused.

Geoffrey Thunderer paled. “Well?”

“I’m afraid this missive is of similar meaning to the others. It goes on to say that the company is bankrupt and all shares are lost indefinitely, with no pending reimbursement.”

“Impossible. How?”

“That is not the worst of it, sir. You had a considerable sum in all of these companies and they were yielding very lucratively. Unfortunately, any one of them failing would be a blow to your coffers, sir.”

“Bother them all,” growled Geoffrey.

“Compounded, the blow is tenfold. I have drawn some preliminary calculations and I fear the net loss to the estate numbers in the many thousands.”

“What—?”

“Possibly some millions.”

“Millions? That’s absurd.”

The other man swallowed.

“Well. Am I penniless and a pauper now, is that it?”

“Not quite a pauper, sir. With certain small economies, your finances may recover quite reasonably in five or six years.”

“Discharge my staff, you mean?”

“Not all of them, sir. I have taken the liberty of preparing myself and my various effects for immediate departure, for I constitute an annual expense of an exorbitant nature.”

“What? You are staying here, man. I’d rather have you around than exotic pears. Ah, yes, and on that topic, today I no longer have a say in exotic pears, for my son is inheriting and he very dearly loves exotic pears.” Geoffrey leaned back with thoughtful nobility.

“I had wondered when we might come to that subject, sir.”

“I had wholly and comprehensively forgotten until just now, I must admit.” Geoffrey continued looking thoughtful and waved the other man to a chair. The said other man sat and joined him in his thoughtfulness.

Afternoon. The breakfast hall, the manor on the pond.

Drir, particular butler to Frent Thunder IX, entered the room cheerfully, looking briefly at the two men sitting on opposite sides of the breakfast table, each with crossed legs and a thoughtful countenance gazing at the wall about the doorway.

“Sir,” said the butler.

Geoffrey spent quite a while focusing on him, before raising his eyebrows interrogatively.

“Shall I wake Master Frent for the ceremony?”

“Oh, quite. Ha ha ha.” Geoffrey coughed. “Yes, do. And have the domestics congregate.”

The chambers of Frent Thunderer, the manor.

“What utter bliss!” cried Frent as Drir grimly wrestled him into a cravet. “I, a great lord and possessor of a fair and goodly estate. What bliss!”

Drir roughly straightened Frent’s coat, and Frent finally fell silent, gazing at the effect he produced in the mirror.

“Do I look well?”

“Yes, sir, I think so.”

“Where is that excellent fellow Syphir?”

“His sisters came to fetch him by carriage this early morning.”

“Ah, what a pity. Still ill, then?”

“His sisters thought so.”

“I hope he’ll recover.”

“The doctor thought so.”

“Ah, good. I am ready; let us go down.” He departed the room with ceremony.

One of two Great Halls, the manor on the pond.

When Frent arrived downstairs at least two minutes later, it was to a room crowded with bowing and bobbing servants. His father stood at the other side of the room with Frent’s grandmother at his right and the tutor at his left. The sun shone through the stained glass windows behind them majestically. Frent stepped forward.

“My son,” said Geoffrey, “Frent Thunderer IX, last and only heir of my house, I do name you the master of this estate and the possessor thereof. Red is our house for the blood of our ancestors as it spilled for their own greed, and like a wave did those forefathers surge upon opposing forces with gluttonous strength and false bravery.” He thrust forward a lengthy roll of legal paper.

Frent took it and held it limply, looking puzzled. “Usually the red and the wave sounds a little more glorious than that.”

Geoffrey laughed. “I have no more to do with this house, and I will degrade it as I please.” He cleared his throat. “Leave us alone.” The servants, after the wisest among them deciphered that he was talking to them, dispersed rapidly into other rooms and vanished from sight and hearing.

“Was that the fullness of the ceremony?” said Frent, not a little disappointed. “Is there not to be a feast of olives and the finest meat of Kels? And several colonial dancers playing lutes and…”

“You can have all of that if you like. I am leaving instantly.”

“Perhaps that’s just as well,” said Frent as bitingly as he was able, “since you so ostensibly have no thought for your son.”

Something darkened in Geoffrey’s eyes, and he turned away. Immediately there was a terrible din and an enormous pendulum clock leaped toward him. Frent watched in fascinated disbelief and horror as his father turned and punched it, somehow splitting it into myriad bits that flew about the room. He then turned back at Frent and terrible was his face as he raised a hand at him.

“I say there, Pater!” said Frent.

A streak of gray tore across the room and solidly grasped Geoffrey’s leg in a tiny, ferocious maw. Geoffrey looked down in horror.

“Lorry,” he breathed, “I must go.” He turned and walked out the door toward a waiting carriage. His cat trotted after him.

“I am confused dreadfully,” said Frent.

“That is what happens to our family,” said his grandmother. “We hold a great power and makes slaves of ourselves through it.”

“What’s that?” inquired Syphir, popping in through a door Frent didn’t know existed. Frent jumped, tripped, and crashed his head against an umbrella stand.

Evening. The sun parlor, the manor on the pond.

When he came to some time later, it was to several indecipherable faces swimming in his vision and a harsh, annoying voice repeating, “Give the man some air! A little air, I say.”

“Yes, I beg,” agreed Frent before again falling into darkness.

His second revival went much better and occurred shortly thereafter. He had been placed on a table and the doctor was nearby laughing solidly.

“Ho ho ho, my boy,” he said. “Ho ho ho!”

“Kindly do not laugh, sir,” murmured Frent. “I am an injured man.”

“Now you see how it feels,” said Syphir cheerfully. “All charm departs, and remain only the bleakest and cruelest of images in the mind to represent this unhallowed world.”

“You survived, I take it,” said Frent as the doctor helped his limp body into a seated position.

“I did. Survived and recovered in a single lonely night. It put a little character into my heart. I vow it did.”

The doctor made his way to the opposite wall and started helping himself to small amounts of brandy between guffaws.

“I am now the lord of the estate,” said Frent when he remembered the fact.

“Oh, excellent! Top quality, old thing. Any money to spare yet?”

“Oh, absolute loads, I imagine.” Frent sprang up and began pacing, though his head throbbed more than he cared for. “Did you see the way Father raced off? Bit of a shock, really.”

“Yea, for all the world like a gentleman with bad debt, leaping clock and all.”

“Bad debt!” said Frent, paling. “’Tis false fancy, man, I’m rich! Say there, did you see the clock – not a trick of the light, then?”

“Far from, I should say! Upwards like a…great goblins, is that my Aunt Eldritch peeking in through that window?”

Frent looked. He saw no one. “I had no idea you had an Aunt Eldritch.”

“I don’t and I doubt if I ever did,” said Syphir. “However, the countenance of the apparition demanded such a nomenclature.”

“Did it so? What say you, doctor?”

The doctor had sunk against the wall in a solid snooze. Frent looked uneasily at the window and saw a glint of gold – no, of golden monocle. Beyond that he saw just the faintest outline of a wizened old man seeming to glare at him. No, definitely glaring, and definitely an old man. Frent’s jaw went slack in horror. He knew in that moment that he could have claimed on oath that the man was his perfectly nonexistent second cousin Ertle Pigheart.

“That’s disgusting,” he said as the vision faded, “my throat constricts at the thought.”

“What’s that, Ninth?”

“Pigheart! The horror of the association strikes me dumb and powerless. No civilized man should think of such a thing.”

“I beg, sir, that you would make yourself quite clear, for I fear you have called me pigheart and named me as such a person as might emphasize my own qualities as being those of a terrible or yet shocking associate.”

“Nay, sir. I spoke not of you, but of an apparition that I just – aaaaaaaaah!” Frent sprang towards where the door normally was, having seen something beyond any description of terror. The door had vanished, and the room filled with shadows. There was a soft tap at one of the windows.

“What is the meaning of this?” cried Syphir with all the affronted dignity he could muster.

“Drir!” yelled Frent.

Drir came, seeming to burst through the wall before standing tall and formal and saying, “You called, sir?”

“Look at this! Look out those windows! Quickly, man! Quick!”

Drir bent impressively and gazed out a window before remarking, “Ah, yes.”

“Well?”

“I saw my dear Uncle Jesse, sir.”

“And do you have any such relative?”

“No, sir, I cannot recall that I do.”

“So you see how it is.”

“Yes, sir, if I might make so bold, it is simply a side effect of an imbalance in magic. It will right itself shortly.”

A bony fist slammed against another window and slid painfully out of sight.

Suddenly, Frent’s tutor burst through the wall in a bit of a rage. “What’s all this?”

“Magic, sir,” said Drir.

“Nonsense,” said Frent. “What rubbish is this? If there was magic in our family, I think I would have known it. It is a joke, sirs, and poorly played.”

“Shut your mouth,” said the tutor, not unkindly.

Frent did not take it well. “What did you say, sir?”

“I need to listen.”

“Why, sir?”

“Because, sir, I am your instructor and therefore wise in these matters, sir.”

“Ah, yes. Beg your pardon, sir.”

“And it is freely granted, sir.” The tutor drew in a breath. “Now, there is most certainly magic in your family, and your father did not do the thing properly at all.” An enormously rugged and lordly knight twirled his fine mustachios outside before bursting in a cloud of wasps the color of blood. “For some reason, your father told me to explain things to you – because I am your family’s wizard, I suppose – here’s the explanation: Your ancestor gained a great power in 1236 during the Eastern War, purloined from peasants or some such nonsense, I’ve heard. End of story. Done.”

“A great power?” said Frent. “Astonishing. You’re the family wizard? I am astonished.”

A door opened and a little-known manservant bowed his way in. “Good evening, sir. There is a fairly pugnacious robber near the western entrance.”

 Frent sprang up indignantly. “Robbers, indeed!” he exclaimed. “I’ll see them settled.” He dived to a concealed cupboard behind a couch and drew forth several hunting rifles, passing each of them to Drir.

A better-known manservant burst into the room. “Murder!” he cried. “Murder of terrible degree. We’re all being slaughtered!” They all rushed back the way he had come, where faint cries and solid thumps could be heard and then a great riotous cheer.

The scene they came upon was an interesting one. There was a ring of servants about the room, with Frent’s grandmother at one end, hand stretched out like an orator from a bygone age. Still nearer the middle of the room was nothing visible at first, but further inspection and a better vantage point soon revealed a sturdy footman brawling with a strange and unkempt man who had a knife.

“Cease this at once!” said Frent richly. “Are these not my lands? Foot, cast off thy assailant. Come, man, with speed!”

Foot, with truly laudable effort, raised himself up and the second belligerent with him, and cast the latter off, and great was his fall.

The servants cheered in wild approval.

“Aw, easy does, cove,” the apparent burglar rubbed his leg gingerly. “You’ve done and given me a bruise and battering and all. What’s in it for you, I asks? And I don’t know! Here’s me, a respectable bur—”

“Bite thy tongue, fellow,” cried Frent with ardor, “or I’ll have my man strike it for thee!” He pointed to an ambulatory stack of enormous hunting rifles that was Drir. Drir at that moment accepted yet another rifle from the gardener, who passed it over to him with great enthusiasm and a wink.

Frent adjusted his lapels. “Well, sir, speak.”

The man looked puzzled. “I’d say you’ve spoke pretty harsh to me. But I lets it slide. I reckons that is how I survives this life. Slide and let slide. We’re all slidin’ the same way. ’Cept you get the burial and we all gets the Kesley.”

“He’s clearly mad,” stated Frent with classical authority. “Well, speak, man, what were you after? Fetch the constabulary, boots, see how he takes that.”

“I wasn’t after nothing in particular, and I ain’t no canny thief either. I’ve always hoped to pop in here’bouts, and with the old boy gone, I says, ‘Well, bless’d soul, better now than never,’ so in myself comes without a by-your-leave. Worked fair decent too, ’til I were jumped by savages and what do you like. And here’s me with news you might like to hear. I saw another thief, I reckon, better slicked than myself and all, and that clever dog fell from the roof in the form of an eagle if I was ter be boiled!”

“Where did he go?” Frent demanded.

“Ha! Weren’t no he.”

“All right, then. What did she go?”

“What’s the information worth, when we comes close by it? All the sames, since I’m a dootful citizen of her majesty the queen, may her eyebrows endure ’til she again plucks ’em, I’ll tell you where the reprobate headed after. Down the road, ’twas, as per the natural and right. By the by, she said you should follow her to a well.”

The tutor was off in no time, calling loudly for a cab. He turned around at the door and yelled, “Master Frent, you must come.”

Frent, a bit rumpled at being called ‘master’ at this time of life, nevertheless came with some pomp to the doorway. Syphir sprang to his side.

“I know in my heart it was Jasinta,” he said reverently.

“Well, so she said,” stated the intruder.

The tutor called loudly for a cab a second time, an effort that was incidentally rewarded as two horses yanked a golden carriage around the building with none other than Frent’s grandmother holding the reigns. Frent was so shocked and ashamed that he utterly forgot his presumed lordly manner and had to be forced, silent and witless, into the carriage, before the party started off with all speed and the tutor bellowing, “To the well!”

The end of the first avenue, Fanny’s Square upon the Bones, Branwyn suburbs.

Geoffrey F. Thunderer stood near a tall tree in the suburbs of the great city Branwyn, the bustling and busy center of Burnthede. Lorry had a firm paw splayed against his lapel and was upside down, gazing at the great Pillar of Burnthede in the distance. Geoffrey laughed and stroked the cat’s nose, and was immediately latched onto by unrelenting teeth. A hansom came into view and Geoffrey, having no hands left at his disposal, shouted, “Oi!”

The cab stopped and the driver looked most perturbed. “Sir?”

Geoffrey crossed over to him. “I—”

“Begging your pardon, not seeming to be rude, is that a cat?”

“Indeed, it is, sir. A fine little chap called Lorry.”

Lorry finally released his finger, which was surprisingly unmarked.

“And, craving your indulgence,” continued the driver, “did I hear some chappie over near your direction cry ‘oi’ or was…”

“I did so. But now, if you should direct your cab to the most desperate and lowly place in her majesty's Burnthede, I should be much obliged.” Geoffrey jumped lightly into the cab.

“It’s not a sight I would wish for your eyes, sir,” observed the cabby. “But I do as my passengers please. Walk on!” The horses obeyed and the man continued, “Aye, many’s the time I’ve juggled and walked tightropes and all.”

“Just drive, if you please, good fellow.”

“Just so, sir.”

The beginning of the third avenue, Fanny’s Square upon the Bones.

“Gran has a taken a wrong turn,” yelled Frent, jerking out of sleep and venturing a look outside a window. “This is the city.”

“The suburbs, dear fellow,” said Syphir, who was quite at his leisure and looking more comfortable every passing minute. “I have here several young cherries. Do you want one?”

“No, thank you,” said Frent gloomily. “I want to see that well.”

“I could handle a cherry, sir,” said the tutor. “Cherries are ever my greatest temptation and affliction, and I don’t like to be deficit for long.”

“I imagine I could spare one.” Syphir passed him seven.

The coach went nearer the town, and the streets became narrower, the buildings taller and drearier, and everything darker.

“Oh, deplorable part of town!” cried Frent, putting a handkerchief to his nose.

“These are the merest outskirts,” declared Syphir. “I live near here.”

“What!” cried Frent. “Impossible!”

“Not at all! I was bred in the gloom, yet I bring sunshine wherever I walk, anytime I wish to bring it.”

Just then, the carriage stopped. The tutor took possession of Frent’s window and used it with great pallor of face. “This is not desirable,” he stated, stumbling toward door. “An ambush, I think. Get to the floor.” He came crashing down, slipping on Syphir’s shoe.

“We must save grandmother!” whimpered Frent. “She has a quarter inch always., but it only has two bullets. Why are we being ambushed, anyway?”

“Give ’em a bloody salt, lads,” cried a nearby voice. “Halt! Who’s that old lady up there, a-sleeping on her conker? She has a b’eautful pea-blaster, ’pon my several oaths.” There was an ear-splitting blast and the immediate smell of smoke. Frent paled.

“Here—!” cried somebody else, just as something crashed into the roof. There were several shots and a horrible metallic scraping, followed by the cries of men and a roar like thunder. All went silent and the carriage jiggled. Suddenly, there was another shot, and something thudded heavily against the side of the carriage. There was no more sound. The three men looked at each other with ashen faces.

“So much for Burnthede courage,” said Syphir weakly. “Look at us. Will you look at the sopping lot of us?”

The tutor pushed past them, rather red in the face, and tried the handle of the door. “It won’t open. Frent, try the other.” Frent did and it opened right in the face of a police inspector. Frent closed it again. “The law’s out there.”

“Of course—” began the others. “Oh,” they finished.

Somebody knocked on the door. Frent opened it again.

“Well,” said the inspector, “my humble gratitude. A spot of trouble here?” Behind him, two heavily cloaked figures were sprawled against a house, smoke rising from around them.

“Rather,” said the tutor, pushing past Frent. “We were ambushed!”

The inspector smiled. “Fine day for it. Why don’t the lot of you step down and introduce yourselves properly. Interesting blighters, I can tell. My name is Inspector Rigglesford, and you’re not like to meet a more understanding and kindly soul in all the third. Sector, that is, if you take my meaning.”

They all dismounted and introduced themselves formally, looking around. It was a blackened and shocking scene. A third person was lying on the road a little ways ahead at the end of a trail of soot.

The inspector began walking around the carriage. “Let’s have a look back here. All in a day’s work.” He went around the carriage with the tutor, Frent, and Syphir all following him. Many more members of the assailing party were revealed as they rounded the corner.

“Well, this is flustering,” Rigglesford announced. Syphir danced around Rigglesford and gasped, falling to his knees and looking quite ill. They rest of the group followed. Sitting against the carriage was the woman they had met in the sudden rainstorm, quite pale and apparently passed out. Nearby, a small fire was burning, apparently fueled by her erstwhile hat.

“I say!” said Frent. “It’s her. I think she’s been shot. Look, blood!” His head felt a bit queer.

Syphir fell further to the ground in acute distress. The inspector produced a small case. “Who was she?” He said gravely.

“I don’t know – did you say…?”

The inspector walked forward and knelt by her, retrieving a quantity of bandages from his case and a bottle of some sparkling green liquid. By the time he had finished, the street had grown quite a bit darker.

“Well,” he said, “she has a chance, anyway. Not like to bleed out. Now, I wonder…”

Jasinta suddenly awoke. “I am perfectly well,” she said, and she tried to rise.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I have many years of experience in these matters, and in my professional opinion, you are not perfectly well, ma’am.” The inspector tugged at his collar. “In fact, you can count yourself rather lucky.” He stood up. “Now, I was just saying, you should be taken to a great doctor I know who practices here.”

Jasinta breathed carefully and winced. “I don’t require any doctors.” She tried to rise again but only set off several weak coughs, and she fell back.

“Careful there, miss,” said the inspector, “don’t go a-banging your head if it can be helped. If you won’t see any doctors, than what shall we do? Do you have family nearby, yes?”

Jasinta again tried to rise, and this time, as the inspector grimaced and gesticulated (and finally offered his hand to help), she managed to push herself up against the carriage.

“Whyyyyyy—?” moaned the inspector. “You might start bleeding again.”

Jasinta pressed herself closer to the carriage dizzily. “I might.”

The tutor stepped forward with many a bow. “I have some small skill in the art of healing. As the case is, I have on my person two beneficial healing potions.”

The police inspector looked chagrined. “I like to think you could have mentioned that earlier.”

“Well, what can one do?” said the tutor philosophically, drawing forth two vials. He gave them to Jasinta. She looked at them blankly, before she smiled at the tutor and drank them both. At that moment, Syphir sprang up and Frent’s grandmother, jerking awake, sprang down.

“Well, what is all—?” the latter began. “Oh. I thought I saw somebody falling from the sky. Good evening – Jasinta, I think?”

“Yes. Good evening.”

Syphir glided toward Jasinta. “Ah, madam!” He had adopted the most atrocious accent. “If you were to assure me of your well-being and comfort?”

“I am well and moderately comfortable.”

“Joy springs like a river from my heart.”

“That’s a medical malady, that is,” said the inspector, shaking a pencil. He looked around at the scattered hooded folks. “Now, what’s all this? Oh, never mind, don’t tell me. I see it all clearly. You are on some sort of quest – expedition of sorts – you are riding in your carriage; the carriage is ambushed. Supernatural aid comes falling from the sky – that’s you, miss. Ah, yes, quite clear now. All in a day’s…I have in my mind that I haven’t heard the end of this. Well, you’d better get on with your expedition.”

Frent finally found his self-possession and voice. “How did you know we were on one?”

“Heh. Move along.” He snapped his fingers in what was possibly the best and loudest snap ever heard in that quarter of the suburbs and the fallen ambush party became individually bound in red glows. Their arms snapped behind them.

“Good day, madam, madam, sir, sir, and sir.” Inspector Rigglesford tipped his hat and vanished, his apparent prisoners with him.

“Hm,” pouted Frent immediately, letting out a great breath of relief.

Jasinta fell into Erstella, who quickly caught her and helped her to the carriage, but Jasinta recovered and slipped away from it. “We can’t ride to the well.” She was breathing heavily.

“What is this nonsense?” asked Frent. “Whoever heard of not being able to ride? And why are you here, anyway?”

“I had to come and save you,” groaned Jasinta. “It’s generally not wise to attack me, as you can see. But I only meant to be shot once.”

“You really ought to sit down,” said Frent’s grandmother.

Jasinta shook her head. “We need to move along.”

“What shall we do with the carriage if…” began Frent.

The horses whinnied and turned around, and they trotted back homewards with the carriage in tow.

“Now,” said Jasinta, “we can walk.” She began and the others quickly followed her. Frent’s face grew long.

“I never walk,” he said.

Syphir yawned airily. “I could walk miles any day. I perceive you are an enchantress of unmatched strength, miss.”

 Jasinta nodded. “Yes.”

“Yet, you are not, I think, from Burnthede.”

“True, I am not.”

“You also dislike the practice of the noble sport of shooting, I perceive.”

“Very much.”

“As do I. The more I think about it, the less I can suffer the horrible art.”

Frent blinked. “My dear fellow, you are ever eager to rifle at the—”

“Sir, pray realize that I may gradually and wisely change my mind.”

Evening. Gills Boulevard, Park Circa Sum, Branwyn.

The deep parts of Branwyn were horribly dark. A thick fog rolled swirled about on the ground, and Lorry hissed at it. People pushed past energetically, as if hoping to escape as soon as possible. Lorry hissed at them too.

“I feel quite the same, old fellow,” murmured Geoffrey Thunderer. “There’s a nasty stale magic about here, or I’m a rodent.” Lorry looked at him with new interest. “How do people see in this?” He pressed on and turned a corner into a narrow street. There was an orange, flickering ambiance here, and shifty-looking folks slipped along in the shadows. There were several beggars huddled behind this traffic. One man held up a hand as Geoffrey walked slowly along.

“I say there, gov. Stop a moment, will yer?”

“Gladly, good sir.” Geoffrey turned aside.

The fellow looked up. He was an old fellow, and he possessed quite a kind smile. “To business, sir. You observe here two hats – fine hats once upon a time, but now average or dilapidated hats. This one is my hat. This one is also my hat. But this latter hat I keep for my sister. Sometimes, gentlemen such as yourself walk down here and cast a copper or a little Sally in one or two of these hats, and then I thank them with graces and airs and continue living.” He blinked expectantly and coughed with many a gasp and much wheezing.

Geoffrey drew forth copious monies and split them somewhat evenly between the two hats. The other man appeared to be delighted. “There a pretty thing to shine in your eye! I could set up as a pawnbroker with this and to spare, if I live cheap.”

Geoffrey raised his eyebrows. “Can you really?”

“Oh, yes, of course, if I’m shrewd. I am shrewd, but you, I perceive, sir, if you don’t mind me saying, are not shrewd. Gents like you don’t belong down here, I’m thinking. And now, since you’ve been so kind, I’ll inform you to sommat. I ain’t got a sister, and I never has one that I know of which, and at the end of the day, which is coming here quite shortly, I take her hat and I take to mingling until all that is in her hat is in my hat and then I take that hat and there’s my bread and flagon.”

“I see,” said Geoffrey.

“Thought you might likes to know, but you’d best not linger about here. A sight and a half past sundown. I suggest you go up there and see a bit of sunshine again. Cheer your spirits. I thank ye, sir.” He looked down and seemed to merge with the shadows behind him.

Geoffrey petted Lorry, who looked at him pensively. “We have a deal of work ahead of us, L.” The cat mewed.