The City of Dreaming Books (6 page)

My way was repeatedly barred by uncouth Bluddums who thrust flyers into my hand announcing which poet would be honouring which bookshop with his presence and reading from his works at ‘timber-time’ that evening. It was a while before I learnt to ignore this form of ambush.

Tottering around everywhere were small life forms dressed up as books on legs and advertising works such as
Mermaid in a Teacup
or
The Beetle’s Funeral.
The book costumes tended to restrict their vision, so they sometimes bumped into each other, toppled over with a crash and strove to regain their feet amid roars of laughter.

I paused to marvel at the dexterity of a street entertainer juggling with twelve fat volumes at once. Anyone who has thrown a book into the air and tried to catch it will know how difficult that is - though I should add that this particular juggler possessed four arms. Other strolling entertainers, who were disguised as popular characters from classical Zamonian novels, would recite passages from the relevant works by heart if tossed a coin or two. On one street corner I spotted Janggli Patosh from
Men in Checked Jackets
, Oku Okra from
The Weeping Stones
and Zanilla Sputum, the tuberculosis-racked protagonist of Mantho Snam’s masterly novel
Sorcery in the Alps.

‘I am but an Alpine Imp,’ the Zanilla impersonator cried dramatically, ‘whereas you, my beloved, are a Troglotroll. We can never be united in matrimony. Let us end it all by jumping into Demon’s Gulch!’

Those few words sufficed to bring tears to my eyes. Mantho Snam was an absolute genius! It was all I could do to drag myself away.

Move on, I told myself. Notices in shop windows, which I studied attentively, carried advertisements for poetry readings, literary salons, book launches and rhyming competitions. Itinerant dealers continually tugged at my sleeve and tried to foist dog-eared volumes on me, loudly quoting from their rubbishy wares as they followed me for streets on end.

While escaping from one of these importunate creatures I came to a black building with a wooden sign over the entrance stating that it was the
Chamber of Hazardous Books.
Slinking up and down outside was a Vulphead who addressed passers-by in a low growl, baring his fearsome teeth. ‘You enter the Chamber of Hazardous Books at your own peril!’ he rasped. ‘No children or senior citizens admitted! Be prepared for the worst! We have books in here that can bite! Books with designs on your life! Toxicotomes, poisonous books that can strangle and fly! Genuine, every last one! This is no ghost train, ladies and gentlemen, this is for real! Make your wills and kiss your nearest and dearest goodbye before you enter the Chamber of Hazardous Books!’

Stretchers laden with bodies draped in sheets were being carried out of a side entrance at regular intervals. Despite this and the muffled screams that issued from the boarded-up windows, however, crowds of spectators were streaming inside.

‘It’s only a tourist trap,’ I was informed by a flamboyantly dressed Demidwarf. ‘No one would be crazy enough to make genuine Toxicotomes accessible to the public. How about something really authentic? Interested in an Orm trip?’

‘Eh?’ I said, mystified.

The Demidwarf opened his cloak to reveal a dozen little flasks inserted in the lining. He glanced around nervously and closed it again. ‘That’s the blood of genuine authors with the Orm circulating inside them,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘One drop of it in a glass of wine and you hallucinate whole novels! Only five pyras
²
a flask!’

‘No thanks,’ I said dismissively. ‘I’m an author myself.’

‘You Lindworm Castle snobs think you’re something special!’ the dwarf called after me as I hurried off. ‘Ink is all you write with, not blood! As for the Orm, very few of you ever acquire it!’

I was evidently in one of Bookholm’s seamier districts. It was only now that I noticed how many Bookhunters were hanging around, engaged in shady business transactions with disreputable-looking characters. Jewel-studded volumes were produced from sacks and handed over in exchange for thick wads of pyras. I must have strayed into a kind of black market.

‘Interested in books from the
Golden List
?’ I was asked by a Bookhunter dressed from head to foot in black leather. He wore a mosaic mask depicting a death’s-head, a belt with a dozen knives in it and two axes in his boots. ‘Come down that dark alley with me and I’ll show you some books you’ve never even dreamt of.’

‘Many thanks!’ I cried, beating a hasty retreat. ‘Not interested!’

The Bookhunter uttered a demonic laugh. ‘I don’t have any books anyway!’ he yelled at my retreating figure. ‘I only wanted to wring your neck and cut off your paws, then pickle them in vinegar and flog them. Lindworm Castle relics are much in demand here!’

I left that nefarious neighbourhood as fast as I could. A few streets away all was normal again - no one to be seen but harmless tourists and buskers staging popular plays with puppets. I breathed a sigh of relief. Although the Bookhunter had probably been joking, I shuddered at the thought that mummified portions of a Lindworm’s anatomy possessed a certain market value in Bookholm.

I plunged once more into the stream of passers-by. Some cute little Hackonian dwarfs on a school outing were toddling shyly along hand in hand, big saucer eyes on the lookout for their favourite poets.

‘There! That’s Mostyn Rapido!’ they would cry, excitedly pointing someone out with their tiny fingers, or: ‘Look! That’s Namby the Sensitive having a coffee!’ - whereupon at least one of the party would faint.

On and on I roamed, and I’m bound to confess that my powers of recall are overtaxed by all the marvels that met my eyes. I felt as if I were walking through the pages of a lavishly illustrated book in which each flash of artistic inspiration was surpassed by the next: walking letters advertising modern printing presses; murals portraying characters from popular novels; antiquarian bookshops whose old tomes literally overflowed into the street; multifarious life forms rummaging in bookcases and vying for their contents; huge Midgard Serpents hauling wagons full of second-hand rubbish driven by uncouth Turnipheads who pelted the crowd with trashy old volumes. In this city one was forever having to duck to avoid being hit on the head by a book. The hubbub was such that I caught only snatches of what was being said, but every conversation seemed to revolve around books in one way or another:

I
discovered a small hotel called the
Golden Quill
, an inviting and agreeably old-fashioned name suggestive of sound literary craftsmanship and a restful night’s sleep in a feather bed.

I made my optimistic way into the gloomy lobby and across a strip of musty carpet to the reception desk, where, when no one appeared, I rang a copper bell. It was cracked and its discordant clangour filled the air. I turned, hoping to see some member of the staff hurrying towards me along one of the shadowy corridors that led off the lobby, but nobody came. Turning back to the counter, I was startled to find that the receptionist had materialised behind it like magic. He was a Murkholmer, I could tell from his pallid complexion. My knowledge of Murkholmers had been acquired from Sebag Seriosa’s excellent novella on the subject,
The Damp Denizens
, and I had already encountered several of these rather weird Zamonian life forms in the streets.

‘Yes?’ he said, sounding as if he was at his last gasp.

‘I’m, er . . . looking for a room,’ I replied in a tremulous voice.

Five minutes later I was bitterly regretting not having taken to my heels on the spot. My room, for which I had paid in advance at the receptionist’s insistence, turned out to be a lumber room of the most appalling kind. With unerring misjudgement, I had settled on what was probably the worst overnight accommodation in Bookholm. Not a sign of a feather bed, just a coarse, prickly blanket on a mildewed mattress with something rustling inside it. To judge by the noise coming from the room next door, which was occupied by a family of Bluddums, their children were using the furniture as xylophones. The paper was peeling off the walls and some creature was scampering around beneath the floorboards with a series of high-pitched squeaks. Dangling from the ceiling in an inaccessible corner, a white, one-eyed vampire bat seemed to be waiting for me to go to sleep so that it could begin its gruesome meal. Then I noticed that there were no curtains over the windows. The sun’s merciless rays would be bound to shine in at five in the morning and prevent me from getting another wink, because the smallest glimmer of light prevents me from sleeping. (I’ve eschewed ‘slumber masks’ ever since I tried one out and forgot the next morning that I was wearing it. Panic-stricken in the belief that I’d gone blind overnight, I blundered around like a headless chicken, then tripped over a stool and landed so heavily that I dislocated my shoulder.)

I had no intention of spending the night at the hotel in any case. I was able to lay down my bundle at last and sluice off some of the dust from my travels with the brackish water in the washbasin - that would do for the time being. Bookholm’s antiquarian bookshops were open twenty-four hours a day. Hungry, thirsty and itching to root around in their wares, I bade the bat and the Bluddums goodnight and hurried out into the bustling streets once more.

Only a small proportion of Bookholm - barely ten per cent, perhaps - is situated on the surface. By far the greater part of the city lies underground. Like some monstrous termite’s nest, it consists of a system of subterranean tunnels that extends for many miles in the form of shafts, chasms, passages and caverns entwined into one gigantic, unravellable knot.

No one can say when or how this cave system came into being. Many authorities claim that it was indeed created by a race of prehistoric termites - huge primeval insects that constructed it as a nest in which to hide their gigantic eggs. The city’s antiquarians, on the other hand, swear that the system of tunnels was excavated over thousands of years by many generations of booksellers as a place in which to store old stock. This is certainly true of some parts of the labyrinth, especially those situated close to the surface.