104. Given the magnitude of the loss, remarkably few survivors killed themselves. We must credit the industriousness of Irene and Aquelus—the example they set and the work they provided.
105. For, at the 100-year mark, the mushroom dwellers first began to integrate themselves with Ambergrisian society, albeit as garbage collectors.
106. As recently as 50 years ago, a few homes were found in this state: they had been boarded up and then built over, and were discovered by accident during a survey expedition to install street lamps. The surveyors found the atmosphere within these rooms (the dust over everything, the plates and kitchen implements corroded, the smell dry as death, the dried flowers set out as a memorial) so oppressive that after a brief reconnaissance, they not only boarded them back up, but filled them in, despite a vigorous protest from myself and various other old farts at the Ambergrisian Historical Society.
107. If so, then the Devil has saved it several times over.
108. At this point in the narrative I begin to make my formal farewells, for those of you who ever even noticed my marginal existence. By now the blind mechanism of the story has surpassed me, and I shall jump out of its way in order to let it roll on, unimpeded by my frantic gesticulations for attention. The time-bound history is done: there is only the matter of sweeping the floors, taking out the garbage, and turning off the lights. Meanwhile, I shall retire once more to the anonymity of my little apartment overlooking the Voss Bender Memorial Square. This is the fate of historians: to fade ever more into the fabric of their history, until they no longer exist outside of it. Remember this while you navigate the afternoon crowd in the Religious Quarter, your guidebook held limply in your pudgy left hand as your right hand struggles to balance a half-pint of bitter.
109. The library already housed a number of unique manuscripts, including the anonymous Dictionary of Foreplay, Stretcher Jones’ Memories, a few sheets of palm-pulp paper with mushroom dweller scrawls on them, and 69 texts on preserving flesh, stolen from the Kalif, that had been of great use to Manzikert II while conducting his body parts shopping spree among the saints.
110. As it is, when copies were made available 50 years later, it forced Cappan Manzikert VI to abdicate and join a monastery.
111. Alas, Abrasis never commented on the consistency of the handwriting!
112. With the exception of his entry describing the massacre and Manzikert I’s decision to go underground.
113. No less a skeptic than Sabon half-heartedly documents the folktale that the Manzikert I who reappeared in the library was actually a construct, a doppelganger, created out of fungus. Although ridiculous on the face of it, we must remember how often tales of doppelgangers intertwine with the history of the mushroom dwellers.
114. Another indication Manzikert was a little man.
115. Then as now, bastards were a sel-a-dozen amongst the clergy; how much more interesting to know where this mother and child resided—Nicea, perhaps?
116. Sabon dryly writes, “Tonsure was already the most finished man in the history of the world. How then could they improve upon perfection?”
117. Most of the scribbles are erotic in nature and superfluous. Of the writings, the following lines appear in no known religious text and are accompanied by the notation “d.t.,” meaning “dictated to.” Scholars believe that the lines are an example of mushroom dweller poetry translated by Tonsure.
We are old.
We have no teeth.
We swallow what we chew.
We chew up all the swallows.
Then we excrete the swallows.
Poor swallows—they do not fly once they are out of us.
If this is indeed mushroom dweller poetry, then we must conclude that either the translator—under stress and with insufficient light—did a less than superlative job, or that the mushroom dwellers had a spectacular lack of poetic talent.
118. They’re for it, by the way.
119. Lacond’s pet theory, sneered at by Sabon: the two shall continue to make war, history itself their battlefield, hands caressing each other’s necks, legs entwined for all eternity, and yet neither shall ever win in such a subjective area as theoretical history. (Although my pet theory is that Lacond and Sabon are the conflicting sides of the same hopelessly divided historian. If only they could reach some understanding?)
120. Sabon has suggested that the mushroom dwellers had a form of zoetrope or “magic lantern” that could project images on a wall. As for the reference to a “Keeper,” it appears nowhere else in the text and thus is frustratingly enigmatic. Many a historian has ended his career dashed to pieces on the rocks of Tonsure’s journal; I refuse to follow false beacons, myself.
121. I have a certain affection for Lacond’s theory that Tonsure’s journal is merely the introduction to a vast piece of fiction/nonfiction scrawled on the walls of the underground sewer system, and that this work, if revealed to the world above ground, would utterly change our conception of the universe. Myself, I believe such a work might, at best, change our conception of Lacond—for, if it existed, at least one of his theories might be accepted by mainstream historians.
122. The most recent, 30 years ago, resulting in the loss of the entire membership of the Ambergrisian Historical Society, and two of its dog mascots.
123. Until recently you could take an ostensible tour of the mushroom dwellers’ tunnels run by a certain Guido Zardoz. After tourists had imbibed refreshments laced with hallucinogens, Zardoz would lead them down into his basement, where several dwarfs in felt hats awaited the signal to leap out from hiding and say “Boo!” Reluctantly, the district councilor shut the establishment down after an old lady from Stockton had a heart attack.
124. And since discontinued—too runny.
125. A passage from his Midnight for Munfroe reads “It was in this cloying darkness, the lights from Krotch’s house stabbing at me from beyond the grave, that I could no longer hold onto the idea that I was going to be all right. I would have to kill the bastard. I would have to do it before he did it to me. Because if he did it to me, there would be no way for me to do it to him.”
126. Certainly possible—Glaring could have interviewed any number of Truffid monks or read any number of books, few now surviving, on the subject.
127. Sabon notes that Glaring kept copies of his forgeries. Further, that a letter Glaring wrote to a friend mentions “a rather unusual memoir of sorts I’ve been told to duplicate.” Sabon believes Glaring made a true copy of the original pages. If so, no one has found this true copy.
128. It is perhaps too cruel to think of Tonsure not only struggling to express himself, to communicate, underground, but also struggling above ground to be heard as Glaring tries equally hard to snuff him out.
129. Although Sabon, predictably, claims Nadal’s eyewitness account could also have been forged by Glaring.
130. I myself have journeyed to Zamilon to see the page, and am cagey enough at this stage of my bizarre career to decline comment on its authenticity or fakery.
131. Admittedly confined to the pages of obscure history journals and religious pamphlets.
132. Then called the Morrow Religious Institute.
133. Cadimon Signal was a friend of mine and so, to avoid a conflict of interest, I shall not expound upon his many virtues—his strength of character, his fine sense of humor, the pedigree of the wines hidden in his basement.
134. The Kalif had had golden page numbers added for his convenience.
135. Signal reports that the attendant “flipped through the pages at such incredible speed that we could hardly see them. When it came time for us to present the 10 page numbers, which we simply chose at random, a great ceremony was made of taking them to the attendant, who made an equally great show of finding the right page, during which we were made to wait outside, for fear we might see a forbidden page. By the time the first page was located and presented to us some 20 minutes had elapsed, and it turned out to be blank, except for the words ‘see ne
xt page.’”
136. Suitably tall, although the statue’s torso and legs (and the horse itself—Manzikert never saw a horse, let alone rode on one) are not of Manzikert I, but the remains of an equestrian statue dating from the period of the Kalif’s brief occupation of the city—onto which someone has rather crudely attached Manzikert’s head. The original statue of Manzikert I was of an unknown height and showed Manzikert I surrounded by his beloved rats, rendered in bronze. An enterprising but none too bright bureaucrat sold the statue, sans head, for scrap to the Arch Duke of Banfours a century before the Kalif’s invasion; the Arch Duke promptly recast the statue as a cannon affectionately christened “Old Manzikert” and bombarded the stuffing out of Ambergris with it. As for the rats, they now decorate a small altar near the aqueduct, and if they look more like cats than rats, this is because the sculptor’s models died half way through the commission and he had to use his tabby to complete it.
137. Surely, after all, it is more comforting to believe that the sources on which this account is based are truthful, that this has not all, in fact, been one huge, monstrous lie? And with that pleasant thought, O Tourist, I take my leave for good.
A NOTE ON FONTS
Caslon Old Face, used for the body text of “The Book of Ambergris” is artfully structured, with classic textures and aromas. Redolent of fine leather, sandalwood, and cinnamon, Caslon is dry yet velvety, its gossamer qualities offset by enough backbone to satisfy even aficionados of such terse fonts as Nicean Monk Face and Cinsorium Ironic. Elena Caslon created Caslon Old Face during the reign of Trillian the Great Banker, while working in Frankwrithe & Lewden’s Morrow print shop. Arguably, the most famous book ever set in Caslon is Slothian’s grotesque Gorngill Awakened.
“Times New Roman,” a font foreign to the Southern Cities, and not currently registered with the font guild, was used by X for his manuscript “The Release of Belacqua.” Although some printers feared that this blunt intruder might gain a fonthold in Ambergris, the rejection of “Belacqua” by more than forty of the city’s foremost editors is widely seen as a comment on this “pest font” as Sirin has dubbed it, rather than on the quality of X’s prose. “Times New Roman” combines the coarse ambiance of a tough steak with the structure of a potato, its flinty bouquet mixed with a moist texture.
Garamond and its constituents, used for “King Squid,” contain a hint of orange peel and white pepper, toast and sprinkled chocolate, with an aftertaste of trellised violets and orchids planted in minerals and black earth. Created in the Court of the Kalif by the master Font Vizer Kullart, Garamond has proliferated in the Southern Cities almost as rapidly as the telephones, guns, and cheese graters that are the most visible signs of the Kalif’s cultural imperialism.
Officina Sans, which is not a disease although it resembles one, has been used for “The Hoegbotton Family History.” Officina Sans has a bouquet of dry leaves and cold earth. The nice black pepper kick to its finish is best expressed by the dots that live inside its 0’s. Developed by committee courtesy of the Morrow Department of Naturalization, the font has since been perfected by the Ambergris Department of Broadsheet Licensing, which has added two variants: Officina Deluxe and Officina Tertiary. Officina Sans graces most of the bureaucratic documents produced in Ambergris.
Palatino, the preferred font of Hoegbotton & Sons for such fictions as Sirin’s Details of a Tyrant & Other Stories (including “The Cage”) has a rich, gamey quality that combines the essence of smoked cherry, pepper, and dark chocolate. Brooding and dusky, Palatino reflects the obsessions of its creator, the Truffidian monk Michael Palatino. Palatino spent 20 years in the silence of Zamilon, studying texts buried in basements and subterranean tunnels accessible only by air ducts or crawl spaces. Palatino eventually emerged from the darkness, trailing behind him enlightenment, several rare religious books, and a font he had developed while lost in a cave. Originally called “Palatino Lost,” the name was changed to “Palatino” by a font guild already reeling from such previous melodramatic attempts as Venturi’s Folly, Bosbane’s Glory, and Flounder’s God Send.
Bookman Old Style, used for “In the Hours After Death” and all other body text in the arts journal Burning Leaves, has a bouquet of dates, figs, herbs, yellow squash, plums, and blackberries. It can be pleasantly earthy, both rich and mellow, with a hint of entangling vines. Created by a printer during the waning days of the Saphant Empire, Bookman Old Style conjures up all the grace notes and subtle decay of that period and remains a reminder, primal yet profound, of that civilization’s continued grasp upon the collective imagination. (It is worth noting that this font was not the first choice for the body text of Burning Leaves. The first three issues of the magazine were set in Porfal Erogenous, a font developed by the eccentric inventor Porfal. The editors were at first ecstatic to have found a font as decadent as the material they planned to print. In Porfal Erogenous, tiny nude figures form the letters. Some letters, such as “H”, “M”, and “O” are pornographic, while others, like “t”, “r”, and “i” are merely erotic—until set in combination with one another, whereupon certain words create depictions of graphic sexual acts. As a result, the editors soon found that readers ignored the stories, instead fixating on individual letters or words, often with a magnifying glass and a handkerchief on hand [presumably to wipe the sweat from their brows]. Circulation swelled. Shaken by the reaction—and driven to action by protests from both their writers and the Truffidian Antechamber—the editorial board settled on Bookman Old Style as a replacement. Today, Porfal Erogenous is used for little other than posters that advertise squid clubs and houses of ill-repute. The font has a bouquet of honey poured over firm, fresh peaches, cucumbers, ripe melons, and asparagus tips, with a hint of creamy oak. What the font lacks in backbone it makes up for in flexibility.)
The font Dr. V uses for his correspondence is known as “Mother’s Typewriter” because it is indeed generated on his mother’s typewriter, which he has borrowed because the glacially-slow disbursement of funds from the monolithic Ambergris Psychiatric Studies Division (Dr. V has often wondered what ASPD is a division of; the thought of an even more monolithic institution behind ASPD makes him tremble) made it necessary to personally replace his Sophia 300 model when it finally died. Dr. V blames Dr. Simpkin, ten years his junior and three promotions his superior, but, really, what machine that requires the clacking together of metal parts will fare well in a city as fungus-riddled as Ambergris? In any event, “Mother’s Typewriter” is a cranky font with a lecturing, brittle ambiance and enough backbone for ten fonts. The briny aftertaste is particularly unpleasant, reminiscent of the frequent (and didactic) postscripts Dr. V’s mother added to the letters she sent him when he was a student at the Blythe Academy so many years ago.
ART CREDITS
Frontispiece – Eric Schaller
Book of Ambergris title page – John Coulthart
Dradin, In Love
Title page – Scott Eagle
Illuminated letter – Eric Schaller
The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris
Title page – Scott Eagle
Illuminated letter – Eric Schaller
Mushrooms illustration – Jeff VanderMeer
Gray cap symbol – Jeff VanderMeer
Broken gray cap symbol – Jeff VanderMeer
Haragck relief – Eric Schaller
The Transformation of Martin Lake
Title page – Scott Eagle
Illuminated letter – Eric Schaller
The Strange Case of X
Title page – Scott Eagle
Illuminated letter – Eric Schaller
“Disneyfied” gray caps – Eric Schaller
Appendix title page – John Coulthart
X’s notes
Voss Bender sketch – Mark Roberts
Martin Lake sketch – Mark Roberts
King Squid
Collages (and layout) – John Coulthart
Fig. 1. Communication ??
? Mark Roberts
The Exchange
All illustrations by Eric Schaller
Glossary
Burning Leaves cover (Exhibit 1) – Eric Schaller
View of Festival Fireworks (Exhibit 2) – Eric Schaller
Hellatose & Bauble cartoon (Exhibit 3) – Eric Schaller
Kodfan cartoon (Exhibit 4) – Eric Schaller
Morhaim Museum knife (Exhibit 5) – Dave Larsen
Rogers Torture Squid cover (Exhibit 6) – Mark Roberts
Safe House Letter (Exhibit 7) – Jeff VanderMeer, Eric Schaller
Spacklenest Nights Beyond Night cover (Exhibit 8) – Mark Roberts
Lackpole’s “Sporn Zetbrand 3” (Exhibit 9) – Mark Roberts
Deluxe Exchange photograph (Exhibit 10) – Eric Schaller
Zamilon gray cap artwork (Exhibit 11) – Hawk Alfredson
“Author” photo (author played by Simon Mills) – Mark Roberts
All layout not attributed to John Coulthart by Garry Nurrish, except for “The Early History of Ambergris,” by Robert Wexler
Note: Alas, due to generally poor Ambergris photographic technology, some images from the Morhaim Museum have a quality similar to Victorian-era stills.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks
Thanks to two patient, long-suffering individuals: my beautiful monosyllable (and first reader) Ann and designer Garry Nurrish. I have, in so many ways, stolen irreplaceable time from you with this project. My appreciation of Peter Lavery, my TOR UK editor, and the entire PanMac staff is boundless—thanks for your tireless efforts, for taking chances, and for bringing a new audience to this book. Thanks also to Eric Schaller (my long-time Ambergris conspirator, whose work sparked some of these stories), John Coulthart, Scott Eagle, Dave Larsen, Mark Roberts, Wayne Edwards, Stephen Jones, Jeffrey Thomas, Michael Moorcock (for your continued generosity and untiring energy), Brian Stableford, Richard & Mardelle Kunz, Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, Bill Babouris, Tamar Yellin, Dawn Andrews, China Miéville, Jeffrey Ford, Neil Williamson, Keith Johnston, Henry Hoegbotton, Tom Winstead, S. P. Somtow, Rhys Hughes, R. M. Berry, Scott Thomas, Robert Wexler, Forrest Aguirre, Andrew Breitenbach, and anyone I have inadvertently left out. Thanks for confirmation of encryption to Ann, Rudi Dornemann, Peggy Hailey, and Jason Erik Lundburg. Thanks to Erin Kennedy and Jason Kennedy. Thanks to my dad, Robert VanderMeer, his wife Laurence, my mom, Penelope Miller, my sister, Elizabeth, and my two brawling brothers, Francois and Nicholas. Thanks to Richard Peterson and Scott Stratton for being good sports (as well as the leaders of major cults). Finally, thanks to the Squidophiles who provided many of the entries in the King Squid bibliography and whose names, albeit in altered form, have thus become permanently embedded in the firmament of Ambergris. – J.V.