The meter registered 9.5 points.
Lord Olgort strove to save the situation, but it was past saving. It was as if, in the very first round, I’d given him a punch on the nose from which he simply couldn’t recover. In a quavering voice, he told a lousy story that was not improved by the fact that he lost the thread several times. He was close to tears. A smattering of sympathetic applause.
One point only.
My third effort combined everything: dramatic structure, congladiatorial technique, histrionic gestures. I played on my listeners’ emotions as I had on the dream organ in the Bollogg’s head. Cries of horror, tears of joy, whoops of laughter – my innate talents, for such they undoubtedly were, drew all these forth within the space of thirty seconds, because this time I wanted to make it really short. The tension in the Megathon released itself in a universal gasp of astonishment when I delivered my punchline. All that remained was deafening, protracted applause.
Ten points, the maximum possible.
Victory and defeat
It is shocking to see a Troglotroll become smaller than he already is. Lord Olgort ran from the stage, sobbing. In this sport, victory in the third round was unprecedented. I had not only dismissed the Troglotroll but become King of Lies in record time.
And that was only the beginning of a long run of good luck.
Volzotan Smyke was almost weeping when he came to my dressing room. He pressed me to his bloated stomach.
‘I could shed tears over all the money I stupidly bet on your opponent, my boy,’ he sobbed, ‘but these are tears of happiness. To think I’ve been privileged to see this day! For a long time I thought Nussram Fhakir the Unique would be the last born congladiator to quit the stage, but you – you’re his reincarnation! Let me give you a hug.’
He gave me a hug.
The champion
Only a week later I successfully defended my title for the first time against a Waterkin who made it as far as the fifth round, when the audience booed him off the stage.
In the following seven months I had twenty-eight fights and won them all, twenty-seven in seven rounds or less and one in the tenth against a stubborn Irish Druid who refused to be driven from the stage, even when the audience pelted him with corn cobs. Betweentimes I fought sparring matches with the best in the profession and won them all by a mile.
Smyke, who never budged from my side from then on, anticipated my every wish and showered me with gifts and tokens of appreciation. Chemluth and I were assigned our own Rickshaw Demons, who were at our beck and call day and night.
Chemluth took advantage of my popularity to make the acquaintance of sundry hirsute females. He always had a different one next him at the ringside as he grandly shouted instructions I scarcely needed. None of these affairs lasted, unfortunately, and I got the impression that Chemluth scarcely noticed the girls any more, as if he’d abandoned hope of ever finding the right one.
We had long ago moved out of the corkscrew tower, of course, and now lived in the green hills of North Naltatis, a luxurious Atlantean suburb where every house commanded a breathtaking view of the city’s sea of lights at night.
I owned a villa with fifty-two rooms, three swimming pools, and a personal duel-of-lies stage on which I could practise when at home. I never trained, however, because I was a spontaneous talent. Practising spoiled my style.
I had to give one performance a week, which meant that I could relax for six days out of seven – not a bad ratio of work to leisure. Smyke made every effort to keep me amused and create an environment devoted exclusively to my well-being. I had two chefs, one for cold buffets and another – my former employer Nabab Yeo, the Poophian master chef – for hot dishes. At my service twenty-four hours a day were a Cucumbrian masseur and a Witthog who, while I was being massaged, soothed my nerves by reading aloud from the works of Wilfred the Wordsmith.
I had become an important figure – if not the most important – in Atlantean public life. My desk was piled high with invitations to parties, soirées, dinners, galas, exhibitions, and charity functions. Smyke determined which ones I should accept. Three hours of every day were set aside for press conferences. It might be thought that no one can be interesting enough to produce printable copy for three solid hours a day, but the Atlanteans were so obsessed with their congladiators, and with the title holder in particular, that the press published every word I uttered, from scraps of Nocturnal Academy knowledge to recipes, weather forecasts, and detailed descriptions of my fur care. Sometimes I merely spouted trivialities, but even they were printed verbatim and lapped up by my fans.
The Atlantean Advertiser had a central section twice the size of the rest of the paper and devoted to me alone. I published cookery books (written by Nabab Yeo, but it was enough that I ate what he wrote about) and a book of tips for aspiring congladiators (every young Atlantean aspired to become a congladiator, so it was a sure-fire best-seller). I also published a work on the moral aspects of lying in which I extolled it in sport but condemned it in personal relationships. Stylistically I took my cue from Nussram Fhakir’s autobiography – in fact, to be quite honest, I copied many chapters from it word for word. All these publications sold like hot cakes, and many bookstores in Atlantis carried nothing but books by me.
My private circle was always the same. It included Chemluth, of course, but also Smyke and his hand-picked entourage: Rumo the Wolpertinger bodyguard, one or two Yetis, and – in recent weeks – Lord Olgort, who was now just the Troglotroll again. He had ingratiated himself with Smyke and would happily perform the most menial tasks for him. He made coffee and fetched beer, held doors open and umbrellas up, and was forever playing the court jester. In short, he was Smyke’s personal doormat. He even tried to make up to me, but he left me completely cold. I had lost my desire for revenge, in fact I sometimes felt a little sorry for him.
Our conversations and activities related solely to the Duel of Lies. We discussed my own bouts and the supporting programmes, we visited training camps and watched sparring matches, and I talked with probationers and gave advice. I discussed new tactics with Chemluth or listened to Smyke, who could describe great duels of the past like no one else.
I no longer found it possible to conceive of anything outside my profession.
I had reached the very top of the tree.
A year went by. I had fought nearly sixty major and over a hundred minor bouts without losing a single one.
The duels developed into such a routine that I no longer felt even slightly nervous before a Wednesday night performance. I had long ago ceased to brief myself on my opponents’ technique. I didn’t even want to know who they were; I simply went on stage and defeated them. It was as easy as washing my paws. Sometimes I deliberately performed below par to spin out the contests and render them more exciting, but as a congladiator I was simply unbeatable.
For several weeks now, the city had been imprisoned in a bell jar of sultry air, the heat and humidity made worse by a hot wind from the Humongous Mountains. The inhabitants of Atlantis, all of whom were suffering from headaches and rheumatism, seized every opportunity to relax or cool off. I had taken to giving my daily interviews while lolling on a cork mat in one of my garden swimming pools. From there I dictated my views on the weather for the reporters to take down in their notebooks:
‘In my estimation, it’s far too hot for this time of year. A spot of cool weather wouldn’t come amiss. The humidity is far too high as well. A little thunderstorm would be just the ticket at present. Our Norselander politicos ought to get that into their thick heads for once.’
I had no idea what politics had to do with the weather, but a few derogatory remarks about Norselanders and their intellectual capacity always went down well with the public. The reporters scribbled away busily.
Volzotan Smyke was transacting business from a deck chair, as he usually did. His assistants, who included Bluddums and other underlings such as the Troglotroll, were constantly scurrying to and fro with letters an
d newspapers and whispering to him. I didn’t object to this. It was a daily occurrence, and I had absolutely no wish to know what Smyke was up to – even thinking about it made me nervous, so I concentrated on my public relations work. The only time I sat up and took notice was when the sinister Wolpertinger came up and muttered something in Smyke’s ear. Rumo’s chilly gaze could still unnerve me. Smyke became very agitated and hurriedly took his leave, explaining that he had some urgent business to attend to. That wasn’t unusual because Smyke always had urgent business to attend to.
As if the Norselander politicians had taken my advice to heart, there really was a thunderstorm early that evening.
The storm
No ordinary storm, it seemed to come, not from above, as normal storms do, but from below – from the depths of the earth. Although the city was hemmed in and the sun obscured by dark rain clouds of quite normal appearance, the shafts of lightning came straight from the bowels of Atlantis. They were the familiar blue streaks of greased lightning, but bigger and more numerous than I had ever seen before.
We stood on the terrace of my villa and watched the fantastic spectacle. It was Wednesday, and my bout was due to start in two hours’ time. A cold wind sprang up, but instead of blowing out of the atmosphere it seemed to issue from the sewers. Manhole covers flew high into the air, followed by shafts of greased lightning as thick as tree trunks, which shot up as far as the clouds.
Whirlwinds were massing, thin, elongated vortexes that roared briefly before vanishing into the sewers. Volzotan Smyke told me that such thunderstorms occurred in Atlantis only once in a hundred years. This was the third he had witnessed, and I could count myself lucky to have seen even one.
‘The Invisibles are angry,’ declared one of the Bluddums, who was notoriously superstitious.
Smyke just laughed.
Then the clouds dispersed in places and a cool east wind blew the remains of the sultry heat away. The natural spectacle had refreshed the air. Perfect climatic conditions for a Duel of Lies. We set off for the Megathon.
An intimate conversation
Shortly before the contest, my fifty-ninth main event, Smyke entered my changing room without an escort and sent Chemluth out because he wanted a word with me in private. The Shark Grub seemed to have something important to say. He never found it hard to speak his mind as a rule, but on this occasion he squirmed like a snake.
‘Listen, I’d like you to do me a favour tonight. These last few months I’ve anticipated your every wish and granted it without being asked, as you know. This time, for a change, I’d like you to do something for me.’
‘Of course, Smyke.’
‘I want you to lose tonight.’
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d announced that Atlantis was about to sink beneath the waves.
‘It’s like this: you’ve become too good. Bets are the crucial part of any Duel of Lies, commercially speaking, but since everyone knows you always win, nobody ever places a bet on your opponents. That’s why we can’t make a profit any more. Listen, you need only lose once, just tonight. Next week everything will be back to normal. You’ll relinquish the title for one week only. I’ve bet a whole heap of pyras against you, my boy – every bean I possess, to be precise. If you win tonight I’m ruined, and you know how fond of money I am. So don’t disappoint me.’
And he waddled out without waiting for an answer.
The phogar smoke followed him like a faithful pet.
I made my way into the Megathon in a daze. I hadn’t dared to tell Chemluth, not wanting to involve him. For the first time in my reign, my knees were as weak as they had been when I ascended the challenger’s throne on the verge of my very first duel.
To the spectators’ annoyance, my opponent kept me waiting. Exasperated Bluddums started hurling corn cobs.
I had no idea of my opponent’s identity. I didn’t mind that in the ordinary way – I took on all comers. It didn’t really matter tonight, either, since I was destined to lose in any case. I had decided to grant Smyke’s request. What else could I do?
Then the gong sounded in the orchestra pit and my challenger was ushered in.
It was Nussram Fhakir the Unique.
I now realized why Smyke had chosen this particular night. The master of all congladiators was staging a comeback! Astronomical sums must have been wagered on both contestants. I was the Invincible, but he was the Unique. Even among congladiatorial grandmasters, Nussram was regarded as the undisputed champion, the greatest and most talented liar of all time.
Nussram Fhakir the Unique
We had all read his works and studied his duels. He had devised the Nussram Opening, a standard introduction which all congladiators had subsequently plagiarized in countless different ways, and the Fhakir Variant, a fraudulent ploy that enabled the contestant to go on lying in five hundred different directions. He was the inventor of the so-called White Lie, a subterfuge so delicate, so charming, and constructed with such subtlety, that you simultaneously fell for it and forgave it as if it had never happened. He introduced the Twin Untenability, a con trick roughly comparable to performing a double somersault without a net or looping the loop blindfolded. He also created the Self-Sustaining Fiction, a kind of verbal boomerang which only the finest liars could deliver. He inflicted fourteen successive defeats on Rasputin Zarathustra (a pseudonym), the Norselanders’ expert conman. He was the creator of the so-called Nussram Shuffle, a tactic that entailed marking time at a dizzy speed, or so it seemed. This exhausted his opponents and wore them down until the crucial moment, when he floored them with a well-aimed lie.
He also pioneered the Zebrascan Zigzag, an audacious move modelled on the wild hare’s escape technique and the ballerina’s pirouette. He had personally compiled a liegarithm table embodying thirty-six thousand falsehoods and duelled with twelve of the best congladiators of his generation simultaneously, defeating them all. Nussram Fhakir was a legend, a genius, the Nightingale of the sport of lying. It would not be hard to lose to him – I would do so one way or another. I should perhaps mention that he was a Vulphead, a creature with a human body and the head of a fox. Vulpheads were the offspring of rare matings between Wolperting Whelps and Werefoxes. A peculiar blend of human being, fox and Wolperting Whelp, they were tolerated in Zamonia but not particularly popular. Although they lacked the dangerously aggressive instincts of the Werefox and the physical strength of the Wolperting Whelp, they were sufficiently like both to engender instinctive respect.
The Vulpheads’ lack of animal strength was offset by their above-average intelligence. I should also add, perhaps, that they possessed a certain dangerous charm whose effect on the fair sex was particularly marked.
Generally speaking, Vulpheads had a hard time of it in Zamonia. Most of them led a solitary, nomadic existence. They travelled the continent alone, finding employment as skilled carpenters. Nussram Fhakir, as his autobiography recounts, was the only Vulphead ever to have risen from the status of peat-cutter and itinerant carpenter to that of congladiator. For this achievement he was idolized by other members of his race.
‘Pardon my belated arrival!’ he purred, favouring the audience with a courtly bow. ‘I had first to escape from the lead-lined chambers of Baysville, where I was imprisoned unjustly and against my express wish. I succeeded in doing so only by losing a hundred pounds in a single day, thereby enabling myself to slip through the bars of my cell. Unfortunately, it took me some time to put them on again rather than inflict the sight of my emaciated body on you, my esteemed audience. In order to gain the last few pounds I had to consume various cream gâteaux, an elk ham, and several yards of sausage, and that took me a few minutes longer than I’d allowed for.’
Although the applause meter had not yet been switched on, Nussram was already beginning to bombard the audience with charm and throw out ideas as if he had enough and to spare. Not even I dared to dispute his brazen assertions, and I was so entranced by my idol’s appearance that I joined in the
general acclamation.
I wondered why Smyke had made such a fuss. Against an opponent like Nussram I would lose as a matter of course, however hard I tried. What was more, I would do so with pleasure.
He mounted the challenger’s throne with easy grace, fastidiously brushing a few invisible crumbs off his cloak.
‘It’s ages since I sat here,’ he sighed wistfully. ‘The challenger’s throne, eh? Most uncomfortable. Getting used to it takes time.’
The spectators laughed and clapped at this allusion to his congladiatorial past.
‘Except that it’s hardly worth getting used to. We shall soon be changing places.’ Nussram gave me a piercing stare. I quailed.
The audience laughed still louder.
He levelled a finger at me, so accusingly that I retracted my head like a tortoise.
‘Is that my opponent?’ he demanded scornfully. ‘That blab-berer?’
‘Bluebear!’ I ventured to correct him.
‘Or Bluebeard, whatever,’ he retorted.
The audience smirked.
‘You know what they say about bears,’ he whispered to the audience, loudly enough for me to hear him quite well. ‘Never leave your larder open when there’s one around.’
Titters of amusement.
I already knew that Nussram tried to unnerve an opponent in advance by using tricks of this kind. His autobiography devoted a whole chapter to the subject. He regarded it as an art form in its own right to detect an adversary’s weak points and use them to demoralize him. Entitled ‘39 Ways to Humiliate’, the relevant chapter described thirty-nine methods of intimidating an opponent before the first round. It was the only chapter I didn’t care for, I must confess. Being in favour of a straight fight, I set no store by such tactical ploys. Every congladiator had his own methods, however, and Nussram Fhakir’s had enabled him to win many a contest before it actually began.