The City of Dreaming Books

  ‘Shelves sometimes vanish for days on end, but they always reappear sooner or later,’ said Dancelot. ‘The machine never loses a single book we entrust it with. Come on, we’ll show you.’

  We climbed a rusty staircase to the walkway on the lowest level.

  ‘Kindly note the artistic metalwork on the handrails,’ said Al.

  I took a closer look. What I’d mistaken in passing for a recurrent pattern was really a series of tiny carvings, all of them different.

  ‘If you study these handrails carefully,’ said Wami, ‘you’ll learn the whole history of the catacombs. Look, here’s the battle between the Crimson Book Pirates and Prince Elradodo. And here’s the great cave-in at the Glass Pit - four thousand dwarf miners were killed and each of them is shown with a sliver of glass in his head. And this is a representation of the Formic War allegedly waged by two races of ants of monstrous size - no idea if it has any basis in fact. And here are the first Bookhunters entering the catacombs.’

  Dancelot pointed to another section of handrail.

  ‘This shows the construction of the Bookway under the supervision of the Rusty Gnomes. It took a century to complete, apparently. And this stretch immortalises a Bookemists’ subterranean conference.’

  The engravings in the rust were really intricate. I never realised that corroded iron could be engraved so finely.

  ‘The Rusty Gnomes developed a process for preserving rust,’ said Wami. ‘We’re still trying to work out how they did it. Preserving rust is really a contradiction in terms.’

  ‘Is the Shadow King depicted anywhere?’ I blurted out, keen to ask a question that would highlight my knowledge of the catacombs.

  The three Booklings came to a halt and eyed me gravely.

  ‘No,’ Al said after a long pause. ‘Nobody knows what the Shadow King looks like, so there can’t be any likenesses of him.’

  ‘Are you convinced of his existence?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Al. ‘We hear him howling sometimes. Down here his howls are so loud they can keep you awake. They break in on our pleasantest dreams and turn them into nightmares.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s just an animal of some kind.’

  ‘Only someone who has never heard the Shadow King would say that,’ Dancelot said sympathetically. ‘No animal has a voice like his.’

  ‘What kind of creature do you think he is?’

  ‘Let’s change the subject!’ Al enjoined. ‘We’re here to show you the beauties of the Leather Grotto, not to speculate about the Shadow King. Look at our books instead.’

  The Shadow King obviously wasn’t one of the Booklings’ favourite topics. I obediently turned my attention to the books on the machine’s perambulating shelves. It was hard to say how many of them there were because they came and went, rose or fell or glided past us, disappeared into the interior of the machine or emerged from it. I could now see how sumptuous and valuable many of them were: covers of solid gold and silver, clasps set with diamonds, sapphires, pearls and rubies, volumes bound in crystal, jade and ivory.

  ‘Are these on the Golden List?’ I asked.

  ‘Forget about the stupid Golden List,’ Al said dismissively. ‘We’ve got a list of our own we call the Diamond List. There are books in the Leather Grotto that make the whole of the Golden List look second-rate.’

  ‘We’re Bookhunters too, in a way,’ said Wami, ‘although we naturally don’t employ the barbarous methods favoured by those professional killers. Our motive in hunting them is love, not greed. We hunt them with heart and mind, not axe and sword. We aspire to learn, not to enrich ourselves, and we hunt more effectively. Our finds are far more valuable!’

  ‘And the best of it is,’ Dancelot added with a grin, ‘the Bookhunters believe we eat books! Ha, ha, ha! What fools! They don’t have the least idea that we store them here. They think we feed on them when times are hard.’

  ‘Well, yes . . .’ said Al, staring at the ground with his single eye. The other two Booklings cleared their throats and for a few moments there was an awkward pause I couldn’t interpret. It struck me how smoothly the machine was running. All I could hear were some faint clicks like those made by a clockwork mechanism.

  ‘What books could be more valuable than those on the Golden List?’ I asked.

  Instead of replying, Wami went over to one of the perambulating shelves. He removed a book with both hands and brought it to me, screwing up his face and grunting as if it were terribly heavy. He was joking, apparently, because it was quite a small, slender volume.

  ‘Here . . . take . . . it,’ he gasped.

  I took it from him - and was almost flattened by its weight. It was the heaviest book my paws had ever held.

  Al and Dancelot grinned.

  ‘Better put it down before you rupture yourself,’ said Wami. ‘It’s the Tonnotome.’

  I deposited the weighty volume on the iron catwalk.

  ‘We’re still wondering how they managed to make it so heavy,’ said Wami. ‘Each page weighs as much as a complete edition of, say, Aleisha Wimpersleake’s plays. You can sprain your wrist just turning the pages. They must have impregnated the paper with some alchemical element with an immense atomic weight. No one has ever manufactured a book less easy to use. It’s not only hard to carry around, it’s extremely hard to read.’

  He opened it at the first page with considerable difficulty. Bending down, I read: ‘If one imagines an invisible world that exists within a visible one, but which becomes visible when the visible one becomes invisible, in other words, whenever the sight of the invisible or visible one is focused on it, the invisible one becomes visible and the visible one invisible, always provided that this process is observed by an invisible person situated within a visible world imagined by another invisible person whom a visible person cannot see because the light has gone out.’

  ‘Phew!’ I said. ‘That’s really hard. I don’t understand it.’

  ‘No one does,’ said Al. ‘That’s why it was written.’

  ‘I call that downright arrogant,’ I said. ‘Authors should write to be read.’

  Al shrugged. ‘I told you, we only collect books of genuine rarity.’

  With an effort, Wami and Dancelot picked up the Tonnotome between them and placed it on one of the shelves gliding past.

  ‘You didn’t put it back where it came from,’ I remarked.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Al. ‘It’ll find its way there in the end. The machine handles the sorting.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s what we’re still trying to work out,’ Al said mysteriously.

  ‘Look at the books on that shelf there!’ Wami exclaimed.

  We had to hurry to keep up with the shelf in question. All I saw at first glance were a few hundred books in different bindings composed of materials unfamiliar to me.

  ‘That’s the private collection formerly owned by a book tycoon named Yogur Yazella the Younger. He had all his favourite volumes bound in the skins of animals of which only one specimen existed - or none, of course, once the bookbinder had done his job. There, that’s Ubufant hide . . . And that cover’s made of Gogoskin . . . That’s Red-Haired Muffon fur . . . Those feathers were taken from a Blue Goldbeak and that’s Batcat hide.’

  ‘How barbaric!’ I cried indignantly.

  ‘Not only barbaric but decadent,’ said Al. ‘Especially when you consider that Yogur Yazella couldn’t even read. Just think how much these items would fetch in a Bookholm bookstore, allowing for the fact that the pages are made of compressed elfinjade!’

  My brain reeled. The books on the Golden List really did pale into insignificance by comparison. I walked past the perambulating shelves open-mouthed.

  ‘But that’s nothing,’ said Al. ‘Here, take a look at this.’ He had removed a small, unremarkable-looking book and was holding it out.

  ‘You must open it sideways on, it works better that way.’

  Wami and Dancelot cackled stupidly as I opened the book
in the desired manner.

  Then I dropped the confounded thing in horror. It had stared at me!

  Al retrieved it. Wami and Dancelot guffawed with childish glee.

  ‘Pardon my little joke,’ Al said with a grin. ‘This is an Animatome, a live book. All the books on this shelf are alive in their own way. Look closely!’

  This time the relevant shelf stopped just in front of us as if the machine knew we wanted to inspect its contents. I went closer.

  Just a minute - was I seeing things? These books really did seem to be alive! I blinked, rubbed my eyes and looked again. No, by thunder, it wasn’t an illusion, the books were moving! Not a great deal, but I could distinctly see their backs rising and falling as if they were breathing. Something inside me balked at touching them, any more than I would have touched an unfamiliar animal that might or might not be vicious.

  ‘You can safely stroke them,’ Al told me. ‘They won’t do anything to you.’

  Gingerly, I ran my paws over the backs. They felt warm and fleshy, and they quivered a little at my touch. Having had my fill of physical contact for the time being, I stepped back.

  ‘We’re always finding them in the catacombs,’ said Dancelot. ‘They must be hundreds of years old. We suspect they’re the product of unsuccessful experiments by the Bookemists - early attempts to bring books to life.’

  Al sighed. ‘We can’t understand why they were thrown away - straight on to the Unholm rubbish dump, probably. Perhaps the Bookemists hoped their experiments would have results of a different order.’

  Live books - incredible! The Booklings were right, the Golden List was nothing compared to their literary treasures.

  ‘They must be tough little creatures if they managed to extricate themselves from Unholm,’ I said.

  ‘You can say that again!’ Wami exclaimed. ‘It’s rumoured that they continued to develop in the catacombs. There are even supposed to be some dangerous specimens among them - ones that have mated with Hazardous Books and learnt to fly and bite.’

  ‘Shadowhall Castle is reputed to be overrun with them,’ said Dancelot. ‘It’s said that—’

  ‘That’s enough of your old wives’ tales!’ Al said sharply. ‘We’re supposed to be showing our guest round the library, not making his flesh crawl.’

  ‘What do they live on?’ I asked. ‘What do they eat, I mean?’

  ‘They like bookworms best of all,’ said Dancelot. ‘I feed them in my spare time.’

  As if the machine had decided that we’d devoted enough time to the Animatomes, the shelf moved first upwards and then backwards into the interior. Another shelf took its place and the Animatomes disappeared.

  ‘Well,’ said Al, ‘we mustn’t make you overdo it. You’re welcome to stay with us for a while, so there’ll be plenty of time to show you some more of our library. Let’s leave it at that for today.’

  He went over to the staircase and looked down into the Leather Grotto.

  ‘You already know a great deal about us,’ he went on, and his voice took on a solemn note. ‘It’s time for you to make the acquaintance of the rest of our community. This is only the second occasion in the history of the Booklings that a non-Bookling has been accorded such an honour. Wami, Dancelot, tell the others to assemble for Orming!’

  Orming

  Orming? It sounded like some old-fashioned custom. Was it somehow connected with the outmoded belief in the Orm, or did it perhaps mean ‘eating’ in the Booklings’ language, and were they now assembling for a communal meal of Lindworm? Pfistomel Smyke, Claudio Harpstick, Hunk Hoggno - I’d recently been subjected to too many nasty surprises to trust anyone at all.

  Dancelot and Wami were bustling around and transmitting the message from Bookling to Bookling. It spread through the Leather Grotto like wildfire, and within a few minutes the hubbub of voices and echoes combined to form a single cry: ‘Orming! Orming! Orming!’

  I plucked up all my remaining courage. ‘What exactly is it, this, er, Orming of yours?’ I asked Al.

  ‘A barbaric old ritual in which you’re flayed alive before we devour you,’ he replied. ‘We’re Cyclopses, remember?’

  I shrank back, legs trembling.

  ‘I was only joking,’ Al said with a grin. ‘Are you good at Zamonian literature?’

  I struggled to regain my composure. The Booklings’ sense of humour frayed my nerves. ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘I had a good authorial godfather.’

  ‘Then you’ll find this entertaining. The thing is, we could introduce you to all the Booklings by their chosen writers’ names, one by one, and that would be that. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said. I hadn’t a clue what he was getting at.

  ‘But that wouldn’t be any fun and you’d have forgotten the names by tomorrow, or got them all mixed up. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So we’re now going to introduce each Bookling in turn, and you must guess his name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll memorise the names far better that way, believe me. This is how it works. Every Bookling selects a passage from his writer’s works - one he believes him to have written when the Orm was flowing through him with particular intensity. He will then recite the said passage aloud. If you’re good at Zamonian literature you’ll identify it in most cases, but if you’re bad at Zamonian literature you’ll make a terrible ass of yourself. Although I said “he” in every case, I should add that our writers can be male or female. That’s what we mean by Orming.’

  I gulped involuntarily. How good was I really at Zamonian literary history? How high were the standards that applied here?

  ‘But I must warn you,’ Al whispered. ‘Many of our number select their passages according to very strange criteria. In some cases I suspect they deliberately choose atypical examples to make it harder to guess their names.’

  I gave another involuntary gulp. ‘Why don’t we simply introduce ourselves by name and leave it at that?’ I suggested. ‘I’m pretty good at remembering names.’

  But Al had already turned away. ‘Orming time! Orming time!’ he called in a thunderous voice. ‘Everyone gather round for Orming!’

  He led me down from the machine to the floor of the cavern, where the Booklings formed a big circle round me. Escape was impossible. They were now at liberty to stare at me without embarrassment, which they did, fixing me with their glowing, piercing cyclopean gaze. I felt simultaneously naked and like a specimen under a microscope. The hubbub had died away, to be replaced by an expectant hush.

  ‘This, my dear fellow Booklings,’ Al cried, puncturing the silence, ‘is Optimus Yarnspinner. He’s an inhabitant of Lindworm Castle and a budding author.’

  A murmur ran round the assembled company.

  ‘He was dumped in the catacombs against his will and lost his way. To save him from certain death, Wami, Dancelot and my humble self’ - Al inserted a brief pause, presumably to allow someone to dispute the description ‘humble’, which no one did - ‘and, er, I have decided to grant him temporary membership of our community.’

  Polite applause.

  ‘That being so, it will be our pleasure to have a genuine author in our midst for the next few days. He hasn’t published anything yet, but we all know that this is only a matter of time. He hails from Lindworm Castle, after all, so it’s his destiny to become an author. Indeed, we may even be able to make some small contribution to his literary career.’

  ‘You’ll make the grade!’ a Bookling yelled at me.

  ‘Sure,’ cried another. ‘Just write - the rest will come by itself!’

  ‘Practice makes perfect!’ shouted someone right at the back.

  I was becoming rather embarrassed by the whole situation. Couldn’t they at least get on with the confounded Orming?

  ‘Good,’ cried Al. ‘Now you know his name: Optimus Yarnspinner! May it one day be emblazoned on the backs of scores of books!’

  ‘Scores, scores, scores!’ chanted the Booklings.

  ‘But.
. .’ Al cried dramatically. ‘Does he know our names?’

  ‘No!’ cried his listeners.

  ‘So what shall we do about it?’

  ‘Orm him! Orm him! Orm him!’ they bellowed.

  Al made an imperious gesture and they all fell silent.

  ‘Let the first one step forward!’ Al commanded.

  Nervously, I gathered my cloak around me. A tiny, yellowish Bookling came and stood in front of me.

  He cleared his throat and, in a voice quivering with emotion, declaimed,

  ‘Hear the loud Bookholmian bells -

  brazen bells!

  What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

  In the startled ear of night

  how they screamed out their affright!

  Too much horrified to speak,

  they can only shriek, shriek . . .’

  Wait a minute, I knew that poem! Its rhythm was unmistakable - it was a unique and masterly example of Zamonian Gloomverse. It was, it was . . .

  ‘You’re Perla la Gadeon!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s “The Burning of Bookholm”! A poetic masterpiece!’

  ‘Damnation,’ growled the Bookling, ‘I should have chosen something less popular!’ But he beamed with pride at having his name guessed so quickly. The other Booklings broke into subdued applause.

  ‘That was easy,’ I said.

  ‘Next!’ called Al.

  A green-skinned Bookling stepped forward and gazed at me sadly with his red-rimmed eye. Then he spoke in a thin, brittle voice:‘Bid the last few grapes to fill and ripen;

  give them two more days of weather fine,

  force them to mature, thereby instilling

  all their sweetness in the heady wine.’

  Hm. A wine poem, but not just any old wine poem. One in particular. The wine poem to end all wine poems, which recounted the terrible fate of Ilfo Guzzard. And that had been written by . . . ‘Inka Almira Rierre!’ I cried. ‘It’s the second strophe from his “Comet Wine”!’

  Inka bowed and retired without a word. Deafening applause.

  ‘Next!’ I said before Al could do so. My self-confidence was growing. I was beginning to enjoy Orming.