The City of Dreaming Books (72 page)

D
ancelot Two’s quotation from Dancelot One was the last straw from my point of view. I sobbed unrestrainedly, and Homuncolossus had to support me for a while after we’d left the library and set off for Smyke’s house.

The overconfident Bookhunters had neglected to secure the door with the incantatory lock, which was open. As we passed through the Smykes’ ancestral portrait gallery, Hagob Salbandian’s likeness glared insanely after us as if urging us on and cursing us at the same time.

We could already hear Smyke’s voice when we reached the damp little cellar, even though he was speaking in a confidential undertone. That was how close we were!

‘Rongkong Koma is next in line,’ he was saying. ‘As soon as he’s cleared the deck down there I’ll convert him into ink. Then I’ll use it to write a sequel to
The Bloody Book.
It’ll make a sensational addition to the Golden List.’

Someone gave an idiotic laugh. ‘Good idea! And I’ll get fifteen per cent!’ It was the Hoggling, Claudio Harpstick.

The trapdoor to the typographical laboratory was open, so we only had to sneak up the ramp. It had creaked under my weight the last time. This time it didn’t make a sound.

Here, too, everything was just as it had been: the spacious hexagonal room with the conical ceiling; the big window obscured by red velvet curtains adorned with the Zamonian alphabet (impossible to tell whether it was day or night outside); the shelves laden with alembics and flasks; the papers, quills and inks of every colour; the rubber stamps and sticks of sealing wax; the ubiquitous flickering candles; the lengths of knot-writing suspended from the ceiling; the druidical runes on the marble floor; the absurd Bookemistic contraptions; the novel-writing machine.

Pfistomel Smyke and Claudio Harpstick were standing beside an antiquated printing press, turning out handbills in the old-fashioned way - invitations to a trombophone concert, I’d have staked my life on it. They were so preoccupied, we’d reached the middle of the laboratory before Smyke swung round.

Harpstick uttered a shrill squeal like a stuck pig, but Smyke didn’t lose his composure for an instant. He flung out all fourteen of his little arms and cried, ‘My son! You’ve come home at last!’

It was only in these relatively cramped surroundings that Homuncolossus’s size became truly apparent - in fact, I almost felt scared of him all over again. I noticed that he had positioned himself so that he could easily intercept the pair if either of them attempted to open the curtains.

‘Yes, here I am at last,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s incredible how much resistance one has to overcome in order to get to you -
father.
’

Smyke clasped his numerous hands together with a look of dismay. ‘I trust you didn’t run into any Bookhunters on the way?’ he said. ‘Those criminal individuals stop at nothing these days - they’ve even invaded my library! I don’t dare go down there any more. I hope nothing untoward happened to you?’

‘Oh, that problem has been dealt with,’ I said. ‘They’re all dead.’

Smyke looked genuinely impressed.

‘All of them?’ he asked. ‘Really? Did
you
. . . ?’

‘No,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘They disposed of themselves - very thoroughly, too.’

‘Phew,’ said Smyke, ‘that’s a weight off my mind! They were a regular pest. Now we can breathe freely again. Did you hear that, Claudio? The Bookhunters are dead.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Harpstick said hoarsely. I noticed that he was slowly edging towards a candelabrum with six lighted candles in it.

‘Listen to me,
father
!’ Homuncolossus said in a thunderous voice that made the glass retorts rattle. ‘I’m not here to play games with you. I’ve brought you something. A souvenir from the catacombs.’

He raised his right hand, keeping the thumb and forefinger pinched together. Surprise reigned for a moment. Even I felt puzzled. Then I remembered: the eyelash.

‘I, er, can’t see anything,’ Smyke said, smiling. His eyelids quivered.

‘It’s the smallest last will and testament in the world,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘You’d need a microscope to read it.’

‘This is a joke, isn’t it?’ said Smyke. ‘If you’ll only tell me when, I’ll laugh in the right place.’

Harpstick took another little step towards the candles.

‘No, it’s no joke,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘Unless you consider it funny that Hagob Salbandian Smyke left a will.’

Smyke gave an almost imperceptible start. ‘Hagob left a will, did he? Well, well.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You may have more skeletons in your cupboard than you suspect.’

Homuncolossus held his hand under Smyke’s nose. ‘You’re aware of your great-uncle’s artistic talents. This will bequeaths me his entire estate. Your estate, in fact. He engraved it on a hair.’

‘I can vouch for that,’ I chimed in. ‘I’ll testify that Homuncolossus was the first to read this will. That makes him the legitimate heir to all your family possessions.’

Smyke winced - perceptibly this time.

‘There’s more,’ Homuncolossus went on. ‘This hair - just imagine, Smyke, it’s only an eyelash! - also bears a statement to the effect that you killed your great-uncle.’

‘That’s absurd,’ said Smyke. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow.

‘You need only fetch one of your microscopes,’ I put in.

Smyke had started to perspire profusely. ‘For simplicity’s sake, perhaps you’d tell me what you really want, the two of you.’ His spuriously urbane manner was slipping.

‘Very well,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘The civilised world offers a host of opportunities, fortunately, so I’ll list the possible alternatives.’

Harpstick was now only a yard away from the candelabrum.

‘The simplest thing, of course, would be for you to disappear,’ Homuncolossus went on. ‘Together with that fat pig of a crony of yours. You would simply leave the city like an evil spirit, never to return. That would be the simplest way out. Neat, painless and straightforward.’

‘That’s one alternative,’ Smyke said with a smile.

‘But only one!’ Homuncolossus held up the invisible will. ‘Alternative number two: we make this public. You would probably be banished from the city and sent to the lead mines with your accomplice. Your estate would pass to me in that event too. That alternative would be the one most in keeping with Zamonian law.’

‘Probably,’ said Smyke. His face had turned to stone by now.

‘The third alternative would be simply to make the will disappear.’

Smyke laughed woodenly. ‘Oh, that would suit me best of all!’

‘I’m aware of that -
father.
And so, being a loyal son, I’m now going to do you a favour.’

The Shadow King spread his fingertips and blew on them. I gave a start, although I still wasn’t sure he’d really been holding the eyelash. No, of course not - he was only toying with our reluctant host.

‘Very amusing,’ said Smyke, ‘but let’s stop fooling around, shall we? I couldn’t see, but I’m certain there wasn’t any eyelash there - if such a thing as a will engraved on an eyelash ever existed. You’re simply tormenting me for everything I’ve done to you, right? And shall I tell you what I think? Very well, I will: I deserve it.’

‘Ah,’ said Homuncolossus, ‘everything in life is rather more complicated than one would wish. In the first place, Hagob’s will exists whether you believe it or not. And it doesn’t matter whether or not I’ve blown it away. Thanks to the new eyes with which you, father, in your inestimable goodness, have equipped me, it would be child’s play for me to rediscover that hair among the millions of grains of dust on your floor.’

‘Would you kindly get to the point?’ Smyke snapped, clearly losing patience. He was bathed in sweat now.

‘The fact is’, said Homuncolossus, ‘I really did have that will at one time, but I threw it away days ago, somewhere down in the catacombs. Not even I could find it again. Even if I wanted to.’

‘That’s not true!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is.’

‘You really did that?’ asked Smyke. He was smiling again. ‘Why?’

‘Because I share the opinion of your great-uncle, Hagob Salbandian,’ Homuncolossus replied. ‘Because I believe that your family library should belong to no one at all. Because I believe that it should be wiped off the face of Zamonia - together with you. Because I’m going to kill you -
father.
’

Smyke gave Claudio Harpstick a signal. I can’t think why I noticed - it was only a twitch of one of his many little fingers - but I was instantly on the alert.

I was going to warn the Shadow King, but he had also spotted the movement and forestalled me. With remarkable agility for someone so fat, Harpstick seized the candelabrum and raised it above his head. Before he could hurl it at Homuncolossus, however, his intended target pounced on him with a bestial snarl. It all happened as quickly as a door being slammed by an unexpected gust of wind. Homuncolossus dodged behind the Hoggling and, like a barber shaving a customer, slit his throat with one neat blow of his razor-sharp paper hand. Harpstick stood there for a few seconds, gargling with the blood in his gullet, and then collapsed. The candelabrum went rolling across the floor, the candles went out. The Shadow King had already returned to his former place and was thoughtfully inspecting his fingertips, from which Harpstick’s blood was dripping.

‘Well done, my boy!’ cried Smyke, clapping his numerous hands. ‘Did you see? He meant to set you on fire! He must have lost his wits! What incredible reflexes you possess! How strong I made you!’

Homuncolossus ignored him.

‘Where you and I are concerned,’ he said, turning to me, ‘I’ve never pretended to you, never lied to you about my intentions. I once aroused your hopes unfairly by suggesting that I might exchange one prison for another, but that was only to get you away from Shadowhall Castle.’

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

‘But I won’t return to the darkness,’ he said. ‘Never again, whatever the circumstances.’

He turned and stared at the red velvet curtains.

‘There’s one more thing you should know about the Orm. If you wish to experience its power you must be able to see the sky, the sun and the moon. Down there I was dead because that power could flow through me no longer, and once you’ve experienced it you can’t live without it.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Smyke demanded. ‘The Orm? Where does the Orm come into this?’

‘Don’t do it,’ I implored, my eyes filling with tears.

‘
What
mustn’t he do?’ Smyke asked helplessly. ‘Listen, friends, we need to talk! There’s nothing that can’t be talked about. Whatever you have in mind, let me in on it! Just think: Homuncolossus with his unique genius, Optimus with his youthful dynamism and me with my connections. Together we could rewrite the history of Zamonian literature!’

‘I told you once’, Homuncolossus said to me, ‘that it all depends how brightly you burn, remember? Till now I’ve been no more than an aimlessly roaming agglomeration of paper, but now I’m going to inscribe that paper with a message the city of Bookholm won’t forget in a hurry. My spirit will blaze more brightly than it has ever done; it will exert an influence no intellect, no writer or book has ever had.’ He walked towards the window.

There was no way of dissuading him, I knew. I could only stand watching through my tears.

‘What’s he up to?’ cried Smyke. ‘What are you doing, my son?’

‘I want to feel the sun once more,’ Homuncolossus said quietly. ‘Just once more.’

He was now standing in front of the curtains.

‘Don’t do it!’ I cried.

Smyke had grasped the truth at last. His face transformed itself into a malign, twisted mask. ‘Yes!’ he hissed. ‘Go on! Do it!’

Homuncolossus wrenched the curtains apart, and brilliant sunlight came streaming in. It surged over him like a wave and flooded the whole room, so bright that it hurt my eyes and made me cry out.

‘No!’ I shouted.

But the Shadow King welcomed the midday sun with head erect and arms outstretched.

‘Yes!’ he said.

‘Yes!’ Smyke whispered, wringing half a dozen of his hands in delight. ‘I never thought you’d bring yourself to do it. That’s true strength, true greatness!’

My dazzled, tear-filled eyes perceived Homuncolossus only as a dark figure silhouetted against a glaring expanse of light, just as I had seen him for the first time when he danced alone amid the fires in Shadowhall Castle. Thin grey threads of smoke were rising from his body. I could hear crackling, hissing sounds, and all at once the air was filled with an acrid smell. Homuncolossus turned round. His face, chest and arms were a mass of scorched, incandescent paper. Sparks leapt from the cracks in the ancient parchment and black smoke streamed up his body like rivulets of ink flowing upwards in defiance of every law of nature. Then, very slowly, he advanced on Pfistomel Smyke.