A preliminary smattering of laughter and a cry of ‘Bravo!’, followed by some solid applause. Four points.
Nussram was too much of a pro to be overly impressed. Delving deep into his box of tricks, he concocted quite an ingenious double lie out of two classic fictions on which congladiators had been ringing the changes for centuries. The knowledgeable audience saw through this stratagem, however, and punished him with one measly point.
Round 93
Then came my escape by sea. My description of the Babbling Billows aroused general amusement. I imitated their voices in the thick of an argument, slopping around on my throne as I did so. I told of my vocal training and presented a few samples of my vast vocabulary. The appearance of the Tyrannomobyus Rex provided the requisite suspense, followed by a happy ending, and my account of Gourmet Island whetted the spectators’ appetite for a sequel. Back in the swing once more, they laughed uproariously and ordered hot beers. Five points.
Nussram preserved his icy calm. As nonchalant and relaxed as he had been in the first round, he spun an elegant yarn about a balloon flight to the moon. I was nonetheless struck by his incipient signs of uncertainty. Although an outsider would never have noticed such an infinitesimal hint of nerves, I detected a very slight but recurrent tremor – the top joint twitched no more than a millimetre, perhaps – in the third finger of his left hand.
Despite its neat construction, Nussram’s story was a hackneyed piece of work cobbled together out of some well-known Zamonian fairy tales. The audience graciously awarded him three points.
Round 94
My appetizing accounts of Gourmet Island led to increased corn-cob consumption, my description of the Gourmetica insularis to cries of horror, my last-minute rescue by Mac to sighs of relief. Six points.
Nussram countered, but he countered badly. I knew the story – a brilliant one, admittedly – from his autobiography. It described how he had driven Cagliostro the master charlatan off the stage and into the sewers. He had changed a few names and put the end at the beginning. That didn’t fool me, but it did fool one or two inexperienced spectators, because he notched up five points. His finger stopped twitching.
Round 95
My time with Mac the Reptilian Rescuer was made of the cloth from which all good congladiatorial stories were cut: last-minute rescues – any number of them! I told of Baldwyn’s leap from the Demon Rocks, of the Wolperting Whelps, of the headless Bollogg’s crushing of the dog farm. Frenzied applause. 7.5 points.
This visibly disconcerted Nussram Fhakir, though his discomfiture was apparent only to me and a few genuine experts in the audience, one of them being Volzotan Smyke, who shuffled around on his seat in agitation.
Nussram maintained his wooden mask of self-confidence for the audience’s benefit, but I could quite clearly see how, for a tenth of a second, the pupil of his right eye contracted by a fraction of a millimetre. The story he told was not only stolen, but stolen from me. However, he had refurbished it so skilfully that I was the only one to notice. Such was the increasing climate of enthusiasm that he scored an unmerited six points.
Round 96
My time at the Nocturnal Academy provided me with scope for extravagant boasts about my state of knowledge. I quoted at great length from the encyclopedia in my head and described the physical attributes of Professor Nightingale, Qwerty, and Fredda. Knio and Weeny slapped their thighs at this but said nothing. I edited them out of my reminiscences and proceeded straight to the maze of tunnels in the Gloomberg Mountains. I also forbore to mention the Troglotroll, preferring instead to give a detailed account of my dramatic, metamorphotic plunge into Great Forest Lake.
Eight points.
Nussram now did something that cost him a lot of good will: he rehashed my own story, substituting the Wotansgard Falls for the Gloomberg Falls and himself for me. Even my punchline was only scantily disguised.
Two points. It served him right, in my opinion.
Round 97
The Great Forest, my illusory love affair, the spider’s web, my marathon escape from the Spiderwitch … This was unbeatable stuff, and Nussram knew it.
During my performance there appeared on his brow, barely discernible with the naked eye, a tiny bead of sweat. If there were weight categories for beads of sweat, this one would undoubtedly have been classed as a flyweight. It was smaller than a bisected speck of dust, smaller perhaps than a single molecule of water. It may even have been the smallest bead of sweat in the entire history of perspiration, but I could see it, and I was sure it felt to Nussram as if it were as big and heavy as a full-grown Chimera.
As a result, his next story was not only weak in content but presented, for the very first time, with a slight tremor of uncertainty in his voice. This made itself felt on the applause meter: nine points for me, four for my opponent.
Round 98
My account of falling through the dimensions evoked gasps of astonishment at the brazen presumption of my mendacity, yet it was all true. By normal congladiatorial standards, this story was almost experimental and abstract, revolutionary and avant-garde. I mimed the state of Carefree Catalepsy and gave an impressive description of the vastness of the universe, the beauty of the Horsehead Nebula, the bizarre carpetways of the 2364th Dimension, and my return to earth by way of the dimensional hiatus from which I had left it – an impossibility in the truest sense of the word. The sheer audacity of this last assertion was an unprecedented gamble from the strategic point of view, but my quick-witted audience rewarded it with 9.5 points.
The small army of beads of sweat that now adorned Nussram’s brow were now visible to the spectators in the ringside seats. He launched into his next story, but at the very first sentence one of them trickled down his forehead and clung to his left eyebrow like a tiny, stranded mountaineer. When he tried to continue, he dislodged a whole avalanche of salty droplets. They stung his eyes, but he dared not brush them away for fear of exposing his weakness.
He faltered for the first time in his long professional career, started again from the beginning, lost his thread once more, and finally dried up in mid story. His cloak was sodden with the sweat streaming down him.
The spectators were absolutely dumbfounded. No congladiator, not even the most inexperienced apprentice, had ever failed like this before. For the first time in the annals of the Duel of Lies, there was no reaction at all, just a deathly hush. No score.
Round 99
My laborious trek through the Demerara Desert brought the audience out in a lather of sweat as well as Nussram. My vivid account of the paroxysms of mirth induced by muggrooms infected the spectators, who roared with laughter. They were equally carried away by my description of the Sharach-il-Allah, the taming of Anagrom Ataf, and life in a semi-stable mirage. I concluded with Tornado City, its population of old men, and the successful outcome of our escape attempt.
Thunderous applause. Ten points, my highest score for some time. That was it: I’d exhausted my repertoire at last. I couldn’t recount my interlude inside the Bollogg’s head. People could have seen the Bollogg retrieve his head from Atlantis, after all, so I’d have given myself away. I have never come closer to draining the dregs of my imagination.
If Nussram had even the ghost of an idea, he would triumph. The feeblest, most desiccated idea, the lowest possible score, would be enough to defeat me.
He rose and made a dramatic, sweeping gesture of a kind he’d often made in the course of the duel when soaring to new heights after a lapse of form.
‘I’ve a very unusual announcement to make,’ he said solemnly. ‘Something quite unprecedented – something no audience has ever heard from me before.’
The old fox. The Unique. He’d dropped me in it again. I had no idea what he was going to produce from the depths of his box of tricks. Whatever it was, I would submit with good grace. He’d done it: he really was the champion.
He removed his congladiatorial cloak and, with another sweeping gesture, dropped it at my feet.
‘I resign. Well done, my boy.’
Then, head erect, he proudly strode from the stage.
The duel was over.
Pandemonium
An incredible commotion broke out. Many of the audience jumped up at once and hurried to the betting counters to collect their winnings, the rest swarmed on to the stage to carry me around the Megathon. I just caught a glimpse of Volzotan Smyke yelling at his entourage and pointing in my direction. Chemluth waved his cap excitedly. Then I was seized by the crowd.
I bobbed like a cork on a sea of hands, was tossed to and fro. This being an old congladiatorial tradition, it had to be endured. I’d experienced it often enough, but not in such a violent form. They tugged at my paws, shook me like a rag doll. The spectators were beside themselves – I was genuinely afraid of being torn limb from limb.
Four Bluddums were wrenching at my forelegs and four at my hind legs. I was on the point of being quartered when the earth began to shake.
No one took any notice at first. Tremors were an everyday occurrence in Atlantis, and this one wasn’t unduly powerful, just a rumble overlaid by the general din. Then the rumble became a low, menacing roar. The Bluddums let go of me, and I fell to the ground.
I had never known the ground to vibrate so violently. Everyone was shouting at once, and the Megathon had started to disintegrate. We could count ourselves lucky that the building had no roof, or there would probably have been some fatalities. As it was, a few columns fell over and smashed a corn-cob vendor’s stall. A few Yetis were splattered with hot fat, but Yetis were durable creatures.
The Norselanders and the Big-Footed Bertts were shouting loudest. A huge crack transected the steps and the base of the arena, engulfing dozens of seat cushions and part of the stage, complete with applause meter. A big shaft of greased lightning darted out of the fissure and disappeared into the night sky.
Then the earthquake abruptly ceased.
Someone gripped me by the shoulder.
‘Come on, we’d better get out of here, gah!’
It was Chemluth. He told me, while we were hurrying to my cubicle to collect our belongings, that Volzotan Smyke was more than a little incensed by my behaviour.
‘We must get out of Atlantis, gah. It seems you’ve lost him a whole heap of pyras.’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Yes. I’ll explain later. We’ll collect our stuff and push off, but I must change first, at least. I can’t go wandering around in my duelling outfit.’
We dashed through the gloomy catacombs under the Megathon. All the torches had gone out, probably extinguished by falling plaster or the blasts of air that issued from the ground during Atlantean earthquakes.
I pushed the door open. Chemluth lit a match and dimly illuminated the cubicle. Hastily divesting myself of my congladiator’s cloak, I pulled my clothes on.
‘What now, gah?’ asked Chemluth.
‘Search me.’
‘We don’t have any money, gah, and Smyke’s spies are everywhere. We won’t get far.’
‘Let’s take to the sewers.’
‘Join the Invisibles, you mean?’
‘Or whoever lives down there. It’s our only chance.’
Someone knocked three times. We both jumped.
Volzotan Smyke put his head round the door. ‘May we come in?’
The cubicle filled up with Yetis and Bluddums. Rumo the Wolpertinger stationed himself in the doorway and lit the room with a blazing torch.
‘Glad we caught you, my boy. We must celebrate your victory.’ Smyke’s tone was as suave as ever. ‘However, you’ll have to foot the bill for your victory party. I’m flat broke.’
I tried to explain things. ‘Listen, Smyke, it’s like this. Nussram provoked me and –’
‘I’m not only broke, oh no!’ sighed Smyke. ‘I didn’t just stake all my money on Nussram. No, no, I staked everything I owned.
Buildings, businesses, stocks and shares – I’ve lost everything. And all because you refused to do me a measly little favour.’
‘Listen, Smyke, I’ll earn it all back. I’ll work for nothing …’
‘You still haven’t caught on, have you? As a congladiator, you’re all washed up. No one will challenge you after that duel tonight. You’ve defeated Nussram Fhakir. Who would take you on now? Who would bet on your opponent? Your duels have become totally uninteresting.’
I hadn’t looked at it that way.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. I’ve got something far more subtle in mind. You’re going to experience hell on earth. I’m sending you to the Infurno.’
The Infurno?
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Infurno, The. Popular term for the mechanical innards of the SS Moloch, the gigantic ship that cruises the Zamonian Sea. It is surmised that the engine room of this legendary ocean giant is equipped with thousands of furnaces that have to be stoked incessantly to keep the vessel under way. Saunalike temperatures are reputed to prevail in the Infurno. The working environment, too, is extremely unfavourable. There is no trade union participation, for instance, and the pay is extremely employee-unfriendly. Zamonians use the term Infurno as a synonym for Hell or unpleasant living conditions (‘It was sheer Infurno!’), and unqualified persons responsible for bringing up children often threaten them with the Infurno as a way of calling them to order (‘Be good, or you’ll end up in the Infurno’).
There is no scientific proof of the Infurno’s existence because no reputable scientist has ever dared to examine the SS Moloch at close quarters.
Smyke made a dismissive gesture. ‘Put him aboard the Moloch – him and that dwarf sidekick of his!’
One of the Yetis spoke up. ‘We’re worried about our families, Smyke. The earthquake … We’d like to find out if our homes are still standing. Can’t we finish them off here and now?’
Rumo the Wolpertinger stepped forward. ‘I’ll take them to the Moloch.’
‘Good,’ said Smyke, ‘you do that. But make sure they really go aboard. I know you can’t stand Bluebear, so no little “accident” on the way, is that clear?’
‘Understood.’
Rumo the Wolpertinger
Rumo seized Chemluth and me by the scruff of the neck and hustled us along the underground passages ahead of him. He was about five feet taller than me, and his fist alone was twice the size of my head. Wolpertingers are said to be more than a match even for Werewolves, so I tried to be polite.
‘Where are you taking us?’
‘To the harbour.’
‘Are you really putting us aboard the Moloch?’
‘Shut up!’
He shoved us down a gloomy side passage – the start of the sewers. Taking an algae torch from the wall, he thrust us along in front of him.
After we had stumbled along the tunnel for a mile or two, he came to a halt.
‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s far enough.’
Far enough? Far enough for what? He’s going to kill us, I thought. He simply can’t be bothered to escort us all the way to the harbour. Chemluth adopted a flamencação stance.
For the first time ever, Rumo removed his helmet in my presence. There was a big red fleck on his forehead.
‘Know who I am?’ he asked.
‘Harvest Home Plain,’ I thought. ‘The dog farm, the Wolperting Whelps …’ I remembered the tiny puppy with the red fleck, the one we’d rescued from the Bollogg.
‘Wolpertingers never forget,’ he said. ‘You saved my life once. Now I’m saving yours.’
He extended a mighty paw. I shook his index finger.
‘Why didn’t you reveal your identity before?’
‘I knew you’d get into trouble sooner or later, I knew it the first time I saw you. It happens to everyone who gets mixed up with Smyke. Besides, you wouldn’t have believed me. It was wis
er to wait.’
He peered in all directions.
‘Listen: things are happening in Atlantis – really big things. They’ve been going on for thousands of years … It won’t be long before they come to a head. Er …’
He groped for words.
‘It’s the Invisibles, they … er … how can I put it?’
He scratched his massive canine skull. Wolpertingers were handy with their fists and good at chess, but eloquence wasn’t their forte.
‘Well, I can’t really explain it, but, er … Fredda …’
‘Fredda?’ How did the Wolpertinger know Fredda?
‘Well, er … It’s all to do with the greased lightning and the earthquakes … Another planet … We’re flying and Zamonia is sinking – no, it’s the other way round. Heavens, how can I put it?’
I didn’t know either.
‘Listen, someone else will explain it to you – someone you know. You’re expected down below, in the bowels of Atlantis. I can’t take you there, I must go back and get ready for the great moment. My family … I’ve sent for someone who’ll show you the way. He should be here any minute.’
Rumo was speaking in riddles. Either he was slightly cracked, or he was deliberately trying to confuse me.
‘Gah!’ Chemluth exclaimed. ‘Someone’s coming.’
Footsteps were approaching.
‘Ah, there he is,’ said Rumo. ‘You can trust him.’
A figure emerged from the gloom. It was the Troglotroll.
‘Don’t let my resemblance to a Troglotroll mislead you into doing something rash,’ said the Troglotroll. ‘These days I’m only a Troglotroll on the outside, so to speak. Inside, I’ve been completely decontaminated, ak-ak-ak! From now on I’m your saviour.’
I tried to convey my dislike of Troglotrolls to Rumo.
‘I understand your misgivings,’ he said, ‘but I’ve personally taken steps to guarantee this troll’s change of heart.’