Eventually, Benjamin asked if the clown - Leopold - had been brought into life the same way as any other atulphi. “Because it seems weird,” he said, “having an imaginary friend like that. I mean, was it some sort of sick kid who dreamed him up? Or was he okay at the start, but turned bad later?”
“I was looking forward to that question,” said Lilac. “Because it’s simple to answer, and makes me look good. Leopold, and all his like, are dreamed into being through fear, not friendship. They begin as shady presences under the bed, or in half-open wardrobes; in old draughty fireplaces and creaking attics. They are wicked, callous creatures; as ugly in mind as they are in form. It’s true that they and we are alike in essence, but there the similarity ends. We leave our dreamers in genuine remorse; they leave with but one regret: that they cannot spite further those who they blame for having wrought such a dismal existence upon them. Afterwards, they go to Id Carnifor; though as you have seen, some do occasionally return to impart further miseries upon the human world.”
“How do they do that?” asked Benjamin. “If dreamshaders are the only people who can see them? Or -” he halted, then resumed in a more muted tone “- or is it only us dreamshaders who dream them up?”
“Ask yourself, boy,” responded the lady. “Did you ever fear the space beneath your bed? Or the empty wardrobe?”
Benjamin reflected for a second. “No,” he said.
“Exactly. Those of the dreamshade cannot bring atulphi into the world. We don't know why, but there you go. No, the phragodols -”
“The what?”
Lilac, as was her wont when shrugging off an unwanted interruption, flicked a hand at him. “Our name for Leopold and his like. Phragodols. It’s what we call them, okay?”
“Okay,” said Benjamin meekly.
“Okay. Now, as I was saying - the phragodols continue to cause misery in your world because they can. For some reason, your people - human people - find it much easier to sense Leopold’s kind than mine. Don’t ask, as I don't know why. Maybe it’s because you humans are more willing to take note of an adversary over a friend, or some melodramatic bushwah like that; I don't know. The only time you people ever really get the chance to see my kind - unless you’re a dreamshader, of course - is at the beginning, and sometimes the end.”
“The end?”
“The end. When you become old. Sometimes, if the chance arises, we come back to say our goodbyes to those brought us into life. Sometimes we stay with them, as company. And when our dreamer dies...we die as well.”
“Oh,” said Benjamin.
Lilac cleared her throat. “It’s as if we need to be believed in, I suppose. There was only one atulphi who didn’t die. And that was the first.”
“The first?” said the boy - a little overeagerly, perhaps. The conversation had turned morose, and it ill-suited the lady. He was glad, therefore, to see the moment pass.
“The Ruadahann” said Lilac, gesturing for the telescope. Benjamin returned it to her. “Dreamed into life by children when humanity itself was young,” she continued. “Dreamed of yet still, and so he survives.”
Benjamin repeated the name - Roo-ad-a-han - but felt nothing familiar about it.
“To some he is a gift giver; a jolly creature. To others, a mischief maker, an imp,” said Lilac, as she brought the scope to an eye. “To early humans, he was a messenger, providing them with the wisdom of the gods. Later generations saw him as a raider, a trickster of the wilds. Feared by those he was said to have stolen from, loved by those who told of his generosity. Nowadays, most love him ... though plenty remain who aren’t so sure.”
“Who is he?” Benjamin asked.
“He’s been given many names over the years,” said Lilac. “By your people and mine. Odin, Loki, Robin the Hood, Pan. But most of you prefer to think of him as a jolly fat man who brings presents once a year.”
“You mean Father Christmas? Santa Claus?”
Lilac smiled, and the smile spoke volumes.
Benjamin was incredulous. It made no sense - or did it? When he thought a little deeper upon the subject, and began to consider the connections, then he had to confess that there was a kind of sense to it. Both the gift-giver of Yuletide and Robin Hood bestowed prizes upon the poor; both, at one time or another, had dressed largely in green. And though the boy knew little about the old Norse gods, he was sure that they had some association with mistletoe, the relevance of which needed no explaining. Even so, links do not make a chain; you also need something solid there, and Benjamin was all too aware that the connections were tenuous. Despite this, however, he had no good cause to doubt Lilac. Only a day ago, he had known that both the imaginary friends and fiends of childhood were not real. One what basis, therefore, could he presume that this Ruadahann character was not real, either?
“Being neither phragodol or one of us,” Lilac went on, peering intently through the scope, “but having certain qualities of both, you won’t find him in Id Carnifor or Niamago. He has his own place. An island. It usually lies between those two countries, but -” she lowered the scope and squinted “- I can’t see it now.”
“Are we off course?” asked Benjamin.
“No. What you have to remember, child, is that the Amar Imaga is changeable. Things aren’t set. Between all the lands that bejewel her, distance is...well, erratic. Sometimes a place is close, sometimes far; it’s a terror to map, but we usually get to where we want in the end. Speaking of which -” she handed the telescope back to the boy “- take a look ahead of you. See what you can see.”
Benjamin did so. And, after a while, he saw of what Lilac was speaking; a faint crest of rises and dips, stark against the brightening sky. “Is that-” he said, turning to her. He did not need to finish the question.
“Niamago? Oh yes,” replied the lady, beaming. And, for a while afterwards, there was no requirement to say anything more.
7
A few years ago, Pete had taken Benjamin and his family on a drive to the town of Arundel. It was part of a week’s stay in the south of England, residing with Pete’s mother in Portsmouth, and the fine, warm weather had seen to it that barely a day went by without some excursion or other. They went to Southsea first, and then the New Forest; afterwards, there was Arundel, and of all these outings this was the one that impressed him the most.
Approaching from the west, Benjamin had been struck breathless by what the view presented once the place was finally in sight. Here, ahead, was a hill dressed in all the finery of a medieval fortress, and crowned by the kind of ornate splendour that only such a renowned cathedral could provide; a fairytale metropolis of ramparts, keeps, battlements, spires and steeples; a hill that seemed not so much a hill, but rather a vast Byzantine citadel; a wonder that he’d only ever wondered at in stories.
Niamago, he thought, was much the same; but vaster, even more ornate, and more wonderful than he could have ever possibly supposed.
Stretching from one end of the horizon to the other, it appeared as a land composed entirely of architectural marvels; a vista of gilded peaks and tiered columns, gothic arches and traceried towers. If the centre point of Arundel had been but one such majestic hill, then this was a city of thousands. Upon every summit, a hundred cathedrals; at every mist-shrouded valley beneath, hundreds more. But the idea that this was a place filled solely with churches only went so far. As he closed in on the shoreline, and saw, with each passing moment, ever greater detail, it was soon apparent that this was a sprawl as cosmopolitan as it was luxuriant. Structures which had first seemed as gothic as any other when seen at a distance were eventually revealed as being oriental in design, or middle-eastern, or classical; some, such as the peculiar egg-shaped construction that was only just coming into view, were of a style all of their own. Many, he was surprised to see, were actually quite modern; here, a neon-gilded skyscraper, there a foundry-type edifice complete with smoking chimney stacks. In all, it was a place unbound by any unifying sense of era or fashion, where every single building was as removed
from its neighbour as it was from time, and it was beautiful.
“It’s amazing,” Benjamin had said, as the rays of some rising sun (for he could not be sure if it was his own) gently glazed the city with morning gold.
“Isn’t it,” said Lilac, as if from afar. “I love it here. I think you will, too.”
Benjamin nodded, his eyes still set upon the city. Then, suddenly, he squinted, as though something unexpected had taken his gaze. “What are those?” he said, pointing vaguely at some portion of the landscape ahead. “Are they birds?”
He’d seen tiny shapes flitting between the towers and spires - shapes that, despite his question, were not at all birdlike.
“Use the scope,” said the lady. “But you’d be better off looking to your left, if you really want to know what they are.” Just in case he’d forgotten where his left was, Lilac indicated the way for him. “Go on,” she continued, when she saw that he’d finally caught notice of what it was she wanted him to see.
Numerous small specks, similar to those he’d espied just moments ago, were swooping about the sky above the Amar Imaga. In general direction, most seemed to be heading towards the city, though some were quite obviously venturing away from it. Curious, Benjamin brought the scope to his face, watched for a second, then abruptly took it away. “They’re-” he began, before returning the spyglass to his eye.
“Atulphi,” said Lilac.
And she was right. Magnified, it was as plain as day that beings with such outlandish methods of transport as these - and here he had Lilac Zhenrei as a touchstone - couldn’t be anything else. Firstly, there was the figure who appeared to be riding the sky on a pair of skis: he was being led, chariot-style, by two huge eagles in reins. Then there was the proud individual who stood, arms crossed and motionless, upon a spinning cone which belched out brightly coloured swirls of smoke from beneath; how he managed to not only keep his balance, but remain completely still upon the device, was impossible to say. Then there was the small, thin creature who looked to be clutching the tail of a huge, paisley-patterned flying tadpole; then the man, running for dear life, within what could only be an overlarge hamster wheel - a wheel which, when the boy scanned a little way upwards, turned out to be suspended from some sort of rotund, chugging engine. Most remarkable of all was the fat fellow who didn’t seem to have any means of propulsion at all, apart from that afforded by the series of regular, sparkling explosions which appeared to emanate from his feet. The man was obviously not in pain (he seemed rather gleeful, in fact) and when he wasn’t in free-fall, he was being catapulted in an upward arc by yet another burst. Benjamin could only watch, agape, as marvel after marvel sailed by his gaze. It was only by dint of already having some acquaintance with spectacles of this kind that he finally allowed the scope to leave his eye. Otherwise, he felt, it was likely that he might never be able to stop himself watching.
He looked back at Lilac, in the hope of making some astonished remark, but she had turned away, and was now beckoning to a starboard-side atulphi who was gliding quite close to them. “Ichabod!” she called, as she took to her feet and gestured to the stranger with greater intensity. “Ichabod! How do, sir?”
The atulphi responded with a nod, then stood also, a large, good-natured grin on his dark face. He was a tall, barrel-chested black man who wore a light, stripy robe that put Benjamin in mind of a desert nomad, and he was travelling by method of a lengthy gondola, Italian in style, which was endowed with an array of large, undulating fins or fans on the underside. Brandishing, in one hand, a fishing-rod type device that was similar to Lilac’s, and twirling a long, metallic-blue strip of material with the other, he bellowed: “Hi-yo, my intransigent finny! Have you a fine catch today?” He triumphantly held the metallic material aloft - which, Benjamin saw, was actually another silf - and shook it a little. “Can you match this, eh? A splendid azure, a stew of serenity to be. What have you now, my girl?”
Lilac snatched a glance at the boy. “It’s Ichabod Dome,” she said, grinning. “He’s a sweet, but beware: his florid talk is contagious, and you must watch always for the hidden insults.” She returned her attention to the man. “I have a song in argent, sir. And more!” she called, matching him, note for note, in haughtiness.
“Hm,” came the reply, though the mouth that shaped it lost nothing in its smile. “So disclose to me the whereabouts of your emberquick. You’ve lost it again, yes?”
“Only because of that Gogmagog atrocity Leopold -”
“You mean old Rot?” The smile wavered, but held. “What was he doing there?”
“Ask Nitso Flange,” said Lilac. “Ask Balbal Bean. They’ve all had run-ins with the phraggoes lately.”
“Indeed. I know. I trust Mr. Personality remained persuasive?”
Lilac briefly looked down, at the blunderbuss lying on the deck. “Persuasive enough,” she said.
“I’m enlightened to hear it,” the tall, dark man said. He then brought his gaze to bear upon Benjamin. “And what is this you have with you here? Has some unremarkable piece of phenomena pupped?”
The lady threw back her head and laughed. “Ichabod,” she said. “Look at his eyes.”
Benjamin, suddenly self-conscious, blinked. The atulphi opposite leaned forward, scrutinising, and the smile dropped. “By the ghost of ageless God,” the man muttered. “Are you saying he has the dreamshade?”
“I need not say anything,” cried the lady. “You can see it for yourself, yes?”
The man raised the fishing rod a little, so that the small item on the end of the line - which Benjamin presumed to be another emberquick - was level with his eyes. He studied the small crystal for a moment or so, then looked back at the boy. Finally, he broke the brief silence with a shout of “Ha- haaa!”, and the broad, beaming smile returned. “Lilac,” he said, as heartily as before. “Tis rare that you catch much, and a rarity beyond treasure that you should catch such a catch as this. And you, boy -” he turned to Benjamin “- how does it feel, in having the honour of being caught by so hapless a hunter as she? Is it not as if all of everything itself seems now arranged for your benefit? That the stars of the sky might align as much to the shape of your favourite portrait? Or that the winds should scatter leaves to the design of your pimples? What say you?”
Benjamin opened his mouth, but found himself stuck for what to say. It was challenge enough deciphering Lilac’s words; with this particular atulphi, it was nothing short of impossible. He stared up at the lady, and was glad to see that she was already spoiling to supply a riposte on his behalf.
“As with your sailing,” she called gleefully, “you go overboard far too often. You are as a steady ship on an unsteady sea; much hot air blowing in your sails, yet you get nowhere. All bombast, no ballast; your broadsides are doomed forever to go over our heads. So begone from us, Ichabod Dome.” She flapped a hand at him. “Begone!”
The man rocked with laughter. “As you wish, my darling finny,” he said. He lowered himself into a sitting position, set his rod and emberquick down, and with his eyes and smile still upon Lilac and the boy, began to crank at a handle that was positioned roughly at the centre of his vessel. Immediately, the fins beneath the gondola rippled faster, and he started to overtake them. “I fear I shall not see you at the dock,” he called back, chuckling. “The fair Jaliset ever calls me. But I will let it be known that you and your prize are near, Lilac Zhenrei; gossip such as this cannot remain guarded for long, least of all by someone as I.”
As soon as Ichabod Dome seemed safely out of earshot, Lilac turned to Benjamin. “Now, don't you think that was good?” she said, her face puffed with self-satisfaction. “What I said, I mean; all that stuff about broadsides and sails and going overboard. Sure, yeah, okay, so most of it wasn’t off the hip; I thought it up a few weeks ago, after he’d again castigated me for losing my emberquick, and I’ve been aching to get even with him since. Still, rehearsed or not, it’s nice to have a comeback ready before the event rather than after it, agreed??
??
“Don’t you like him, then?” asked Benjamin, watching as Lilac’s sometime tormentor diminished into the distance, and wondering what would happen if he were to issue a call to that metallic-blue silf. The thought of Ichabod Dome, bellowing and stumbling about his boat as his prize escaped him, seemed not merely amusing, but just; his due reward, in other words, for all that highfalutin talk and cocksure posturing. But the lady curtailed him.
“He’s great,” she said, smiling - and not a little winsomely. “So good with the banter. And such a charmer.”
It was then that Benjamin understood that the atulphi were probably not quite as magical as he’d first thought. Just as it was in his world, those who appeared as enemies had turned out to be friends. Therefore, there was every reason to suspect that - again, just as it was in his world - there were plenty of atulphi here who were just as likely to be enemies masquerading as friends. The idea, he had to confess, saddened him a little; it was as if he’d learned something nasty about someone he liked.
***
They coasted on, the voyage uneventful - serene, even - until the cage suddenly rocked and sent its passengers sprawling even though both were sitting down at the time. Looking up, past the squawking birds, they discovered that another craft had just narrowly missed them. It was faintly blimpish in shape, a combination of fish and submarine, and though the pilot could not yet be discerned, the raucous, mocking cackle that the vehicle trailed in its wake appeared to leave Lilac in little doubt as to the identity of the miscreant.
“Wolfgang!” she shouted, springing back to her feet and waving a fist through the bars. “This is the last time, you fleg! I’ll remember this!”
Now that the craft was in front, Benjamin could see that it was being controlled by a small, midget-like man who was pedalling furiously at a bicycle-like contraption that was itself attached to the top of his vessel. It was then that the boy noticed how crowded the area had recently become; numerous atulphi, and all their attendant vehicles, were now jostling for space in the air immediately to the fore. And the reason, he soon discovered, was clear: just ahead, and perhaps no further away than a good walk, there stood a pier so huge and grandiose that it wouldn't have been out of place at a Victorian seaside resort. Upon the deck, amid pavilions of all shapes, style and size, umpteen craft were either taking-off, landing, or bumping each other for space. It looked chaotic, and Benjamin was quick in warning Lilac of the danger.