The City of Dreaming Books (24 page)

I
had been poisoned, dear readers - poisoned by contact with the envenomed pages of an ancient tome. Now you’ll understand what I meant when I said that books are capable of harming and even killing people. I had fallen prey to one of the so-called Hazardous Books.

The poison acted quickly, very quickly. Scarcely had my fingertips touched the pages when an icy sensation surged through my body, a wave of cold that permeated my bloodstream, invading every nerve and freezing every cell until I went numb all over and even my eyesight failed.

Those words were all that remained. In utter darkness, I was bereft of everything save that interminably repeated thought:

Do you know those frightful dreams in which you’re imprisoned in an endless cycle that compels you to dream the same thing over and over again? That’s how it was with me.

Was this death? Was it death when the last thing you’ve seen, heard or thought is endlessly repeated until your body finally decomposes?

All at once I saw light again, so suddenly and unexpectedly that I would, if capable of doing so, have uttered a startled cry. What was happening to me?

Then I saw Pfistomel Smyke. All I could make out at first was his vague silhouette, but the image became more and more distinct. He was bending over me and beside him stood . . . Yes, believe it or not, it was Claudio Harpstick, the friendly Hoggling and literary agent! They were regarding me with curiosity.

‘He’s coming round,’ said Harpstick.

‘This is the active phase,’ said Smyke. ‘Amazing how well the poison still works after all these years.’

I tried to say something, but my lips appeared to be sealed. My eyesight was steadily improving, however - indeed, it had never seemed as keen or clear before. The two figures emitted an unnatural radiance. I could make out every hair and pore as distinctly as if I were looking at them through a magnifying glass.

‘I’m sure you’d like to give me a piece of your mind,’ said Smyke, ‘but the poison paralyses the tongue as effectively as it stimulates the eyes and ears. You’re temporarily endowed with the eyesight of a Gloomberg eagle and the hearing of a bat, but please don’t be alarmed. Your body will remain entirely paralysed and soon you’ll relapse into profound unconsciousness. That’s all the poison will do to you, however. You won’t die of it, you’ll simply go to sleep and wake up again. Do you understand?’

I tried to nod but couldn’t move a muscle.

‘Oh dear, how tactless of me!’ Smyke exclaimed and Harpstick gave an asinine laugh.

‘How
could
you have answered? Well, I may lack manners but I don’t murder people - that I leave to others. Plenty of merciless creatures down here are only too happy to relieve me of that dirty work.’

‘Quite,’ Harpstick said impatiently, glancing around with an anxious expression. ‘Let’s get out of here, Pfisto.’

Smyke ignored him. It was incredible how clearly I could see them both. They seemed to glow from within in cold, unreal colours. My pupils must have expanded to an extraordinary extent and my heart was pumping three times as fast as usual, yet my body was as stiff as a board. I was a living corpse.

‘Yes, my friend,’ said Smyke, and his voice sounded painfully loud and harsh, ‘you scratched at the surface of Bookholm a trifle too hard. We’ve taken you deep into the catacombs beneath the city - so deep that we had to lay a very, very long string to guide us back. Look on this as a form of exile. I could have killed you, but this is far more romantic. Console yourself with the thought that you’re going to meet the same end as Colophonius Regenschein. He made the same mistake as you. He confided in the wrong person. Me, in other words.’

Harpstick emitted a nervous laugh. ‘We ought to get going now,’ he said.

Smyke gave me a friendly smile. ‘And please regard it as part of your punishment that I can’t explain about the manuscript. It’s a long story and I really don’t have the time.’

‘Come on,’ urged Harpstick.

‘Look,’ said Smyke, ‘the passive phase is starting, you can tell by his shrinking pupils.’

I was overcome by profound weariness.

‘Pupils . . . pupils . . . pupils . . . pupils . . .’ Smyke’s voice steadily faded in a series of dwindling echoes. I was being snuffed out like a candle flame in the wind. It went dark again.

‘Goodnight, my friend,’ said Smyke. ‘And give my regards to the Shadow King when you see him.’

I heard Harpstick utter another mirthless laugh. Then I lost consciousness.

M
y first thought on coming to was that I was hallucinating, and that another trombophone concert had deluded me into believing myself in the catacombs of Bookholm. I was looking down an endless passage lined on either side with bookcases and lit by jellyfish lamps.

However, it dawned on me as my anaesthetised body gradually lost its rigidity that I really was in the labyrinth beneath the city. I was half lying, half sitting with my back propped against a bookcase. I felt the warmth seeping back into my feet, legs, torso and head in turn. At length I rose with a groan and patted the dust from my cloak.

I wasn’t overcome with panic, strangely enough, perhaps because my nerves were still too benumbed by the poison. What also served to calm me was the venerable company of so many old books. Yes, dear readers, despite this unpleasant and surprising turn of events I felt thoroughly optimistic. I was alive. I had lost my way in one of Bookholm’s subterranean bookshops, that was all. This was no dark and savage underworld: it contained passages, lights, bookcases and books. The books themselves were the clearest indication that people had found their way down here and returned to the surface. There were hundreds of exits somewhere overhead. I need only look for long enough - even if it took days - and I would be bound to find one. Smyke and Harpstick couldn’t have dragged me very far, the fat slobs. They looked much too unathletic for that.

So I set off, trying to analyse my predicament as I went. Yes, there was no doubt about it: Pfistomel Smyke and Claudio Harpstick, my supposed friends, were really my most dangerous enemies in Bookholm. Years of seclusion in Lindworm Castle seemed to have done little to educate me in the ways of the world. I was far too trusting.

Precisely what they had against me remained a mystery, however. Or was I just a random victim of theirs? Were they something in the nature of book pirates, an experienced team that preyed on unsuspecting visitors? Harpstick had deliberately lured me into the spider’s web at 333 Darkman Street, that much was certain. They were doubtless selling my manuscript to some wealthy collector at this minute. It was probably lost for ever, which meant that my search for its mysterious author was at an end. Reflecting on that sad circumstance, I instinctively felt for the vanished manuscript - and promptly found it in one of the pockets of my cloak!

I came to a halt, took it out and stared at it in disbelief. Smyke must have stuffed it into my pocket - he had banished it to the catacombs in my company. But that didn’t make sense; it only made everything more mysterious still!

He was afraid of the manuscript, that must be his motive - afraid it might become public knowledge. He considered it dangerous for some reason, so dangerous that he wasn’t content to hide it in his underground library and wanted to get rid of it altogether - it and me both. What perturbed him about it? And why had it thrown such a scare into Kibitzer and the Uggly? Were they in league with Smyke and Harpstick? Had I missed something - had I failed to detect some hidden message decipherable only by experienced antiquarians and literary scholars? No matter how hard I stared at the manuscript, it refused to disclose its secret. I replaced it in my pocket and walked on.

Books, nothing but books. I was careful not to touch any. The more the poison’s effect on my system waned, the more suspiciously I eyed them. I would never again open a book without hesitating first. Printed matter had lost its innocence for me. The Hazardous Books! How urgently Regenschein’s memoirs had warned me against them! He had devoted a whole chapter to Toxicotomes. It all came back to me now - now that it was too late.

The story of the Hazardous Books had probably originated when one book pirate stove in another’s skull with a weighty tome. It had become clear at that historic juncture that books were potentially lethal, and from then on the ways in which they could wreak havoc multiplied and underwent refinement over the centuries.

The Bookhunters’
book traps
were only one variant. Mainly for the purpose of eliminating competitors, they fabricated imitations of especially valuable and sought-after works, which resembled the originals perfectly on the outside but were equipped inside with lethal devices. The hollowed-out interiors contained poisoned darts and firing mechanisms, needle-sharp slivers of glass propelled by tiny catapults, caustic acids in hypodermic syringes or toxic gases in airtight cylinders. One had only to open such a book to be blinded, badly injured or killed. Bookhunters armed themselves against these contrivances with masks, helmets, chain-mail shirts, iron gauntlets and other protective garments - in fact, book traps were the main reason for their fanciful martial attire.