The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls Read Online Free

frenzied knot, slime oozing out from between their sinuated bodies.
    ‘Nothing is behaving as it should,’ said Suma. ‘The Lurids are almost silent, the corvids on the Kronometer are very unsetded and the leeches have been knotting like that all
day.’
    Citrine shuddered and averted her eyes from the glistening entanglement. ‘It’s giving me nerves just looking at them,’ she muttered. ‘Can we spread the cards
now?’
    Jonah had succumbed to the soporific warmth of the wagon and drifted off into oceanic reveries. Suma lit a carved candle in the middle of the card table and Citrine pulled up a stool. She placed
a green bag in front of her, but Suma stopped her.
    ‘I have some new cards I would like to try. Wenceslas found them in the Caveat Emptorium. They’d been there so long he couldn’t remember where they came from. But we’ll
use your maerl dice.’
    Citrine took four small stone-like objects from her bag, each with a different number of sides, and rolled three across the table. She totalled the vertical lines on show, five in all, then she
threw the remaining thirteen-sided piece of maerl. It tumbled to a standstill with the symbol of a spider uppermost. ‘Arachnoid spread,’ she said, and arranged ten of the faded
purple-backed cards in a pattern on the table.
    Citrine was hopeful that for once the cards would hold some good news. She picked five from the spread, turned them over one at a time and laid them in a straight line. On the turn of the fifth
she uttered a little sound of surprise. ‘It’s some sort of beast! That card’s not in my deck.’
    Suma sucked noisily through the gaps in her teeth. It was not unusual to come across new cards. All packs included a set of standard characters, but the rest differed from region to region.
    ‘It’s certainly an ugly thing,’ she began, but was immediately interrupted by a loud squawk and a scrabbling noise from the roof. Suddenly the wagon wobbled dangerously and
threatened to go right over.
    Citrine reeled and grabbed at the table. Suma gripped the armrests of her chair in alarm. Jonah awoke, wide-eyed and staring, and jumped to his feet crying, ‘Batten down the hatches! Rope
her, lads, rope her!’ before realizing that he was not in a storm at sea but in Suma’s wagon.
    A deep rolling roar filled their ears and the wagon shook violently for a full thirty seconds. Citrine recovered her balance just in time to prevent the leech barometer from smashing to the
floor.
    And then it was all over.
    Citrine straightened cautiously. ‘Domna, was that an earthquake?’
    Jonah, a little embarrassed by his performance, scooped up a set of scattered Cachelot teeth and replaced them on the shelf.
    ‘This
is
Degringolade,’ said Suma, as if that was all the explanation needed.
    Badly unsettled by the quake, the cards forgotten for now, Jonah and Citrine were anxious to leave.
    ‘Come back whenever you can,’ said Suma, bustling them down the steps. ‘And don’t forget Wenceslas Wincheap at the Caveat Emptorium. He will gladly help you with anything
you need. A fellow in his trade knows more ’n most folk about the doings in this city. Just mention my name.’
    People were coming out of their houses and shops. A small crowd had gathered under the Kronometer, pointing and gabbling excitedly. The luminous hands were just approaching Mid-Nox, but the
black pendulum that usually hissed softly from left to right was still. For now, time in Degringolade was no longer measured by the Kronometer; it had stopped.
    ‘Go,’ urged Suma, ‘before you’re seen.’
    The old woman stood on the steps and watched the pair pedalate away. She looked again at the beast card in her hand.
    ‘Katatherion,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘depicted in slumber, a great danger waiting to be woken.’

C HAPTER 4
O NLY IN D EGRINGOLADE . . .
    Leopold Kamptulicon stood on the charred and desolate edge of the Tar Pit of Degringolade and looked out across the oily black