‘But you said you knew where the entrance was.’
‘I have a very clear mental impression. I believe I could find it without difficulty.’
‘Praise the Goddess.’ Maxwell clapped his hands together. ‘Then you will take me to it?’
‘Take you to it?’ William laughed uproariously. ‘Leave it out, mister, I’m not even supposed to speak to strange men.’
18
The clout William took to the head increased the sum of his knowledge, only by teaching him that Maxwell was not a man to be dealt with in a flippant manner.
Maxwell spoke at length to William, telling him of his misadventures, of MacGuffin and the stolen soul and the flying chair and the rat ogres of Kakkarta. And of the Governor and of the grid.
William listened with great interest, asking questions here and there. He made it clear to Maxwell that in his opinion it was impossible for one man to take another’s soul. Yet he conceded that his knowledge of magic was scant and that ‘weird shit happens’. He did ask Maxwell why he had lost his faith in the existence of the city, when the Governor of Kakkarta had told him that he was a personal friend of the Sultan.
Maxwell asked William whether he had ever heard of such a thing as a continuity error. William said he had not.
The talk of Ewavett and Aodhamm inspired much wonder in the lad, who explained that recently some knowledge had been knocked into him regarding cyborgs and artificial intelligence, but that he had been at a loss to make any sense of it at the time.
When Maxwell had done with the telling of his tale, William mulled it all over and then agreed without reservation to direct Maxwell at once to the City of Rameer.
‘But you must understand’, he stressed, ‘that technically you lay yourself open to the charge of kidnap. Should the men of my village catch up with us, they will not deal leniently. Your pleas that you seek the City of Rameer will hold less water than a bucket with no bottom.’
‘That is a rubbish metaphor,’ said Maxwell, ‘but I take your point.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s a simile,’ said William, ‘but I’m glad you do.’
‘So shall we be off?’
‘Let’s go.’
‘Which way?’ Maxwell asked.
William pointed. ‘Over yonder hill,’ he said.
The day passed on to afternoon, to evening, then to night. William proved himself to be a boy of considerable resource. Skilled not only in the arts of scrumping fruit, stealing cow’s milk, snaring, killing, skinning and cooking rabbits, but also in woodcraft.
Having no sleeping-bag or cloak, Maxwell was grateful for the shelter of the bush-branch bender he constructed. Also for the meal. They talked not long into the night as they agreed it best to douse the fire and make an early start in the morning.
Maxwell lay awhile gazing up through the canopy of leaves towards the star-strung sky. What was it all about, eh? What did it all mean? Maxwell shrugged, Black Bess farted and that was the end of the day.
The night passed without incident. No villagers with flaming torches. No wolves, nor snakes, nor creeping things. Neither William nor Maxwell were abducted by aliens. There was no earthquake.
At dawn, a tall grey-haired man with iron-framed spectacles came to enquire why Maxwell and William were camped in his front garden, and could Maxwell do something about his horse, because it was eating the flowers in the man’s window-box.
Maxwell apologized profusely. The man said he thought it, ‘A diabolical liberty.’ Maxwell said he was sorry once again. The man claimed that the world was going to the Devil and such things shouldn’t be allowed. Maxwell punched the man’s lights out.
And off they rode once more.
It was really boring.
There is always that bit when nothing very much happens. Sometimes it’s relieved by a little humorous anecdote, or a descriptive passage that’s part of a running gag, or some conversation with a lot of long words in it that implies there’s a lot more depth than there actually is. But sometimes — rarely! — but sometimes . . .
There’s nothing!
‘What is that?’ William asked, pointing excitedly.
Maxwell stared off into the distance. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said.
And it was.
So they rode on.
‘I’m getting bored with this riding,’ said William. ‘Don’t you know some humorous anecdote you could tell me?’
‘No,’ said Maxwell.
‘How would you describe this countryside?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Maxwell.
‘Isn’t that a parsnip over there?’
‘No,’ said Maxwell.
‘Did I tell you my thoughts on quantum theory?’
‘Yes,’ said Maxwell.
And so they rode on.
‘I once saw a man who was only one inch tall,’ said William.
‘Did you?’
‘No, not really. He turned out to be just very far away. Ouch!’
They rode on.
After more of the same for several hours, William suddenly said, ‘Look up ahead.’
Maxwell looked. ‘Ah!’ said he. ‘Splendid.’
A knight rode before them. He wore golden armour, a child clung on behind him.
‘Look back,’ said William. ‘There’s another one coming after us.’
‘Simply splendid.’
‘What do you plan to do when we reach the entrance to the city, Maxwell?’
‘I plan to go inside, of course.’
‘What about me?’
‘I plan to take you in too.’
‘Oh no,’ said William. ‘Oh no. Not me.’
‘Listen,’ Maxwell gave the lad an encouraging pat on the shoulder. ‘I have a magic pouch in my pocket. It contains a suit of golden armour. I will put the armour on and we will enter the city with the other knights. It will appear that I am delivering you for your examination.’
‘I suspected you had something like that in mind.’
‘I’ll see you come to no harm. I promise.’
‘Promises are easier made than kept.’
‘You have all the makings of a fine innkeeper, William. Perhaps we will acquire some of the Sultan’s wealth. You could buy your own inn. Conduct affairs of state from there, once you’re elected Prime Minister.’
‘That statement might carry a bit more weight were it not prefixed by the word perhaps.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ Maxwell drew Black Bess to a halt. ‘I may be a soul-less, angry, violent bastard with only eighteen more days to live, but I won’t be instrumental in letting any harm come to a child. Get down from the horse. You can either wait here until I return, as I surely will, or go your way. Not that I think it a good idea for a boy of your age to be wandering about on his own.’
William remained in the saddle. ‘Just testing,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘You’ll trust me, then?’
‘Don’t you think I want to know what’s inside the city?’
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ said Maxwell. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll.’
‘You’ll have to explain to me just what that means,’ said William.
The landscape had begun to change. Rocky outcrops showed through the grassy meadows. The trees were autumn-leafed. The setting sun saw Maxwell, once more in the golden armour, but it didn’t see the worried face he wore beneath the visor.
‘The track’s going down, isn’t it?’ William said.
‘It has been for some time. Are we nearly there, do you think?’
‘Oh yes. I feel as if I know this place. We’re very close now.’
The path grew steeper and as the moon rose up it cast its light upon a scene of such surpassing strangeness that Maxwell had to pull up the horse short and just stare at it in disbelief.
It appeared that they had entered the crater of some vast extinct volcano. The track spiralled down the inner rim, down and down into a great black void. Knights rode slowly on before, diminishing away to tiny golden dots
on the track below.
‘You don’t suppose’, said Maxwell, ‘that the term, The City of Rameer, is in fact a euphemism for Hell?’
‘I knew this is what it looked like,’ said William. ‘I just didn’t want to put you off by mentioning it.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
And as it had been the order of the day . . .
They rode on.
Down and down and down. And down. And down and down. And down.
And down.
‘I see light,’ said William.
‘Me too,’ said Maxwell.
And they did see light. Ahead. Like a thin line of dawn.
‘Do you get the feeling that we’re not going down any more?’ William asked.
‘I get the feeling that we’re going up. But I don’t see how we can be.’
But they were. After a fashion.
The light grew before them. And then rose above them.
‘The sun’s coming up,’ said William.
‘That’s impossible,’ said Maxwell.
And then they rode out. Upon grass.
Maxwell stared.
And William stared.
‘William,’ said Maxwell, ‘do you realize what we’re doing?’
William nodded. ‘We would appear to be riding upside down on the inner skin of the planet’s outer shell. Clearly in defiance of at least one law of physics.’
‘Then that sun we see above us…’
‘Would appear to be the molten core of the planet.’
‘I’m very impressed,’ said Maxwell. ‘I don’t believe it, but I’m very impressed, none the less.’
‘An entire world, upside down. Look, you can see, there’s no horizon, it curves up and out and away. We’re like flies walking on a ceiling.’
‘I feel dizzy,’ said Maxwell. ‘The blood must be rushing to my head.’
‘Don’t be silly. If it was doing that, we’d fall, well, up I suppose, into the heart of the molten core.’
‘It’s just like the world above. Grass and flowers and trees. And look, way ahead. What is that?’
‘Do you mean over yonder hill?’
‘I do.’
‘The City of Rameer,’ said William. ‘Definitely.’ And this time it really was.
‘Let me tell you’, said Maxwell, ‘what I mean by Rock ‘n’ Roll.’
19
Maxwell was not really sure just how he’d imagined the City of Rameer might look. Naturally he’d thought that a city ruled over by a Sultan would probably have an Arabian Nights flavour to it: a bit of old Baghdad, with plenty of domes and cupolas and minarets; a high city wall with tall Moorish gates, manned by fierce-looking guards with turbans and scimitars. Things of that nature.
He had not expected it to look like Milton Keynes.
So he wasn’t surprised when it didn’t.
He was quite surprised by what it did look like, though. And it really didn’t look like a city. It was big, which is to say there was a lot of it about. Tall buildings, elegant, in pale brick.
Neo-Gothic, Palladian style. Horizontal skylines broken at intervals by triangular pediments atop Doric colonnades. Heavy on classical influences. A great many of these. Graeco-Roman, Spanish, high baroque, Renaissance, reflected through Wren and Hawksmoor, Adam and Inigo Jones.
To Maxwell, who knew sweet damn all about Hawksmoor and Inigo Jones, and who might have guessed that a Doric colonnade was a kind of Morris dance, it was none the less pretty impressive, if something of a jumble. Here was an architectural folly on a scale to dwarf the work of the now legendary, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis himself.
Surrounding all were beautiful gardens, tended lawns, rose arbors, marble statuary.
‘We’re going the wrong way,’ said William. ‘The knights are turning off, see they’re going towards those buildings over there.’
‘I think it’s time for us to drop out of the procession,’ said Maxwell. ‘Come on.’ He steered the horse to the shelter of a spreading chestnut tree, removed the golden armour, slipped it into the magic pouch and returned the pouch to his trouser pocket.
‘It’s clever how it does that, isn’t it?’ said William. ‘I suppose a state must exist within the pouch where the quotient of fundamental physical properties possessed by the object placed inside no longer conforms to the accepted three-dimensional paradigm on which much of quantum theory depends for its veracity. You forgot to take your substantial boots out, by the way.’
‘Thank you, William,’ said Maxwell.
‘What do we do now?’
‘First we try and blend,’ said Maxwell, ‘check out what the locals are wearing and nick some clothes. As you possess a natural flair for petty thievery, this will be your job.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, I’ve got this far so I don’t mean to blow it all by doing something rash. I intend to find out everything I can about the Sultan before I put my grand scheme into operation.’
‘You haven’t explained to me about your grand scheme.’
‘You’re right there,’ said Maxwell. ‘I haven’t.’
They crept from the cover of the spreading chestnut tree, skulked from bush to bush, sidled down hedge-bounded avenues and finally approached a grand-looking archway, beyond which lay all the main buildings that composed the City of Rameer.
Maxwell stared up. The arch was wrought in cast iron, an intricate tracery of metal rose and briar. Across its top ran an arc of gilded lettering. Maxwell read the words aloud.
‘The University of Life,’ he read.
‘What does that mean?’ William asked.
Maxwell scratched his head. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s like the School of Hard Knocks. It’s just a saying.’
‘Like, the City of Rameer lies—’
‘City,’ said Maxwell. ‘Yes. University. It’s not the City of Rameer, it’s the University.’
‘It says, the University of Life, not Rameer. We’ve come to the—wrong place.’
‘No,’ Maxwell shook the head he had previously scratched. ‘Think about it. A University used to be a place where the young came to be educated. A place of learning. In this arse-about-face world, it’s a place where the young come to be de-educated. To have their learning removed.’
‘But, why?’
‘Well, if I knew that then— Sssh, what was that sound?’
‘I didn’t—’
A cheer went up and much applause.
‘It’s over yonder hedge,’ said William. ‘Shall we take a look?’
‘Indeed.’ They scuttled over to the hedge and Maxwell took a peep over. He blinked. And blinked.
Then blinked again and then ducked down beside William.
‘What is it?’ the lad asked.
‘It’s … a … a . . .’ Maxwell gave his head another shake, then rose once more to take another look. ‘It’s a cricket match,’ he whispered.
And it was.
But not like any cricket match he’d ever seen before. No, siree.
Upon a lawn, so pure and flat as if it were of velvet, two teams were in play. With the batsmen and their fellows, who looked on from the pavilion end, Maxwell found no fault. Elegant young chaps were these in dapper cricket whites, striped ties knotted through trouser-belt loops, club caps, rolled sleeves. In every inch they looked the part, decked out for the summer game.
The fault lay with the bowler and the fielders of the opposing team.
And the fault was this: none of these was human.
They were animals.
Now, Maxwell knew, as every Englishman knows, that his national team has always had problems with ‘animals’: Jamaican fast bowlers, Australian body-liners, Pakistani ball-tamperers. The British touring side never ever lost abroad due to lack of skill. Oh no, after all, the British had invented the game, hadn’t they? It was always down to the dirty doings of the opposition. Animals they were.
Bloody animals.
But here, howe
ver, the ‘animals’ weren’t men. They really were animals.
The bowler was an elephant, big and glossy black, though togged up in cricket whites. He walked upon his hind legs and though slow upon the run up, bowled the ball with an awesome force.
The batsman took a mighty swing, but crack went the centre wicket.
The crowd in the stand, consisting of numerous small boys in grey uniforms, clapped politely. The elephant raised his trunk in triumph and his team-mates surrounded him, congratulating heartily.
Maxwell spied out a tiger, a wolf, a panther, all walking upon two legs and clad in cricketer’s kit.
Maxwell looked on with his jaw hanging slack.
A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder.
‘What are you skulking about there for, boy?’ asked the owner of the hand. ‘Why aren’t you padded up?’
Maxwell jerked around and found himself staring into the face of a tall distinguished-looking gent. Maxwell took in a magnificent handlebar moustache, a mortar board perched upon the head, a gown draped about the shoulders.
‘Ah,’ said Maxwell.
‘Ah, what, lad?’
‘Ah, sir?’ Maxwell suggested.
‘Ah sir, yes, sir. Where are your pads?’
‘My pads?’ Maxwell looked down at himself. He was still wearing the Governor’s white shirt and matching strides. Though these were now somewhat grubby, there was no doubt that they did allow him to pass for a cricketer. ‘My pads, I’ve—’
‘Left them in your locker, I’ll be bound.’
‘That’s probably it,’ said Maxwell.
‘Are you in the first team? I don’t recognize your face.’
‘I’m a reserve,’ said Maxwell.
‘What’s your name?’
Maxwell was about to say, Ian Botham, but felt he could do better than that. ‘Flashman, sir,’ he said. ‘Harry Flashman, and this is my fag, Tom Brown.’
‘Your kit’s in an appalling state, Flashman, and it looks as if your fag’s been up a chimney.’
‘I locked him in the boot hole’, said Maxwell, ‘for not cleaning my kit.’
‘That’s the ticket. Well, get over to the pavilion and get padded up. Jennings took a ball to the left eye in the first over. Cleaved his skull open. The umpire gave him not out and the captain’s been barking for a reserve for half an hour.’