The City of Dreaming Books (37 page)

‘Elo Slootty?’ I said. ‘The one who wrote that gargantuan novel everyone claims to have read and no one has ever finished?’

‘It’s a magnificent piece of work,’ said Al, ‘but it does require staying power. The Bookling who chose to be Elo Slootty definitely overestimated his mental stamina. We have to prevent him from committing suicide at regular intervals.’ He broke off again. ‘See who’s waddling towards us? That’s Charvongo.’

‘That fat little creature? Navi Charvongo?’

‘Yes indeed. See how sluggishly he moves.’

I couldn’t help laughing. Charvongo had written a brilliant novel about the Movolob, a primitive creature notorious for its inertia. The fat Bookling ahead of us was lumbering along like an advertisement for indolence.

We passed through a sizeable cave in which thousands of candles were burning. In the centre stood a huge iron cauldron simmering over a coal fire. A number of Booklings had climbed up ladders to the rim of the cauldron and were emptying bucketfuls of maggots into it, others were skimming off the whitish fat with big ladles, and still others were busy moulding the insectile wax into candles in big wooden presses.

‘This is our candle factory,’ said Al. ‘Anyone who wants to read needs light, especially if he lives below ground like us - we abhor jellyfish lamps, as you know.’ He sighed. ‘How dearly I’d love to read a book by sunlight, seated on a grassy bank in springtime - “
the only pretty ring time
,” as Wimpersleake puts it.’

‘Why don’t you simply go up there and do so?’

‘We can’t, our little lungs would collapse. We have to live in the stuffiest atmosphere possible.’

‘Really? Have you ever tried fresh air?’

‘Of course. The higher we went, the harder it was to breathe. Too much oxygen would kill us.’

Beyond the candle factory we made our way along a narrow passage in which only one Bookling was coming towards us. I could tell at a glance that the book beneath his arm was a first edition of
Immoral Tales of Old Florinth
, a work so often banned and burnt that its rare original editions were right at the top of the Golden List.

‘What sort of risqué stuff are you reading now?’ Al asked as we passed him, wagging his finger in feigned reproach.

‘
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written, that’s all.
’

So saying, the Bookling disappeared round a bend.

Al grinned. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this because he hasn’t Ormed you yet, but since we’re by ourselves. . .’ He peered round furtively. ‘That was—’

‘Rasco Elwid!’ I cut in. ‘Am I right?’

‘Spot on!’ Al said admiringly. ‘Only Rasco Elwid could be so relentlessly cynical. You’ve got a really good memory, my friend. You could easily be a Bookling - if you didn’t have one eye too many.’

The passages became bigger and bigger, and before long their bare stone walls were no longer lined with book covers. Leading off them and hewn out of the rock were some small chambers in which Booklings were busy operating printing presses, gluing books together by hand or stirring paper pulp in big vats. I also saw some casting lead type.

‘This is our book hospital,’ Al explained. ‘It’s where we restore worm-eaten or damaged books. We reconstruct texts and reprint them or repair the bindings. Books can be damaged in many different ways. Some get burnt, torn or eaten away by acid, others are transfixed by arrows or spears. We’ve even performed cosmetic surgery on some Animatomes before now.’

‘Where’s that reconstruction of the last chapter of
Knots in a Swan’s Neck
?’ a little Bookling called down the passage. ‘The glue will set if the pages aren’t inserted soon.’

‘Coming, coming!’ called another Bookling, hurrying down the passage with a sheaf of freshly printed pages in his hand.

We passed a pallid, corpulent Bookling who had covered his eye with his hand and was reciting a monotonous list of names and book titles: ‘Tarquo Ironbeard -
Pitcher without a Handle.
Albus Karaway -
The Giant’s Funny Bone.
Citronia Unkisst -
The Princess with Three Lips . . .
’

These were fictional characters from novels and the relevant titles, all by the same author. What was his name? It was on the tip of my tongue.

This time Al beat me to it. ‘Hornac de Bloaze,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘He was definitely too prolific. The poor fellow who has to remember all his novels keeps getting the principal characters mixed up - and no wonder, considering that de Bloaze wrote seven hundred books populated by umpteen thousand characters. That’s why he keeps reciting the names and titles.’

‘Februsio Argostine -
Mahogany Soup.
Captain Bloodblister -
Bats in the Campanile.
Erkul Gangwolf -
Death of an Editor . . . ’
The Bookling continued his unceasing recitation of names and titles as we tiptoed out of earshot.

‘Hornac de Bloaze was so thoroughly permeated by the Orm that it compelled him to write almost twenty-four hours a day,’ said Al. ‘He’s said to have drunk vast quantities of strong coffee.’

‘You honestly believe in the Orm?’ I asked with a faint smile. ‘In that ancient hocus-pocus?’

Al came to a halt and gave me a long look. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Seventy-seven,’ I replied.

‘Seventy-seven?’ He laughed. ‘Ah, what it is to be young! All right, poke fun at the Orm while you can - that’s a tyro’s prerogative - but one day it will overwhelm you, and then you’ll comprehend its power and beauty. How I envy you! I’m no writer, I’m only a Bookling. I didn’t write Aleisha Wimpersleake’s works, I only committed them to memory and I’m far from being an admirer of everything that came from his pen. He could write absolute rubbish on occasion and his sense of humour often leaves a modern reader cold. But there are some passages, some lines of verse . . .’

Al’s expression became transfigured.

I recognised those lovely lines as coming from one of Wimpersleake’s sonnets. Al grabbed my cloak and tugged at it wildly. ‘That’s the Orm for you, understand? You can’t write stuff like that unless you’re absolutely awash with it! Verse of that quality doesn’t just pop into your head - it’s
a gift
!’

He let go of me.

‘So what exactly do you think the Orm is?’ I asked, smoothing my cloak down. His emotional outburst had left me feeling somewhat bemused.

Al looked up at the roof of the passage as if he could see stars there.

‘There’s a place in the universe where all great artistic concepts accumulate, bouncing off each other and generating new ones,’ he said, more quietly now. ‘Its creative density must be immense. An invisible planet with seas of music, rivers of pure inspiration and volcanoes that spew out ideas with brainstorms flickering in the sky around them. That’s the Orm, a field of force that dispenses its energy in abundance. But not to everyone. Only the elect can receive its emanations.’

Yes, yes, but why was it invisible, like everything you had to take on trust? Because it didn’t exist at all? Most older writers believed in the Orm. I decided to refrain from making any more critical remarks for courtesy’s sake.

We entered a cave whose dimensions almost equalled those of the Leather Grotto, except that the roof was much lower and displayed no stalactites. Hewn out of the walls were little niches containing all manner of objects - books, letters, writing utensils, cardboard boxes, bones - but I was too far away to identify them all.

‘Our archives,’ said Al. ‘We also call this place
The Chamber of Marvels.
Not because there are any marvels to be seen here, but because we can’t stop marvelling at all the stuff we’ve amassed.’ He chuckled. ‘This is where we keep any memorabilia we can lay hands on: letters, contemporary documents, devotional objects, manuscripts, contracts bearing authors’ signatures, personal ex-libris, hair or toenail clippings, glass eyes, wooden legs - you wouldn’t believe the things collectors hoard! We possess numerous authorial skulls and bones, even whole skeletons - even a poet mummified
in toto.
Other items include worn garments and used writing implements, spectacles, magnifying glasses, sheets of blotting paper, any number of empty wine bottles, drawings, sketches, diaries, notebooks, folders containing collected reviews, fan mail - in short, anything that can be proved to have been in the possession of the authors whose works we learn by heart.’

‘How does it all get down here?’

‘Oh, we have certain contacts that extend as far as the surface of Bookholm - friendly tribes of dwarfs resident in the upper reaches of the catacombs, for instance. Besides, many of these objects used to be stored below ground in the same way as old and valuable books. Then again, there are the Bookhunters, with whom we . . .’ Al gave a sudden exclamation and clapped a hand over his mouth as if he’d startled himself.

I looked at him. ‘
What
do you do with the Bookhunters?’

Al walked on quickly. ‘Nothing, nothing. Hic! Pardon my hiccups. I was only going to say that one of Aleisha Wimpersleake’s wisdom teeth is worth at least as much as a First Folio in excellent condition.’ He cleared his throat noisily.

I refrained from pressing him further. We were now walking in a circle past the niches, in which the writers’ memorabilia were arranged in alphabetical order. I saw quills and inkwells, rubber stamps and ink pads, coins, pocket watches, memo slips, letter scales, paperweights, a single glove.

‘Do you buy these things with the proceeds of your Diamond List?’ I asked.

‘No, no, we don’t trade in books. We have other sources of income.’

Other sources of income, eh? These Booklings were mysterious little creatures. What did they want with all this junk? A stuffed Gargyll with a glass eye. A bundle of foxed letters held together by a blue ribbon. A pewter urn. Some dried flowers. The sole of a shoe. Some blotting paper. Marvels they certainly weren’t.

‘Are you interested in any particular author?’ asked Al.

I wasn’t, to be honest. I’d never been one for personality cults. Did I really want to see one of Melvin Hermalle’s toenail clippings? The pen with which Gramerta Climelth wrote
Gone with the Tornado
? A hair from the nose of Asdrel Chickens? Daurdry Pilgink’s sun helmet? No thanks, their works were all that mattered. However, courtesy prompted me to cite a name.

‘Dancelot Wordwright,’ I said.

‘Ah, Wordwright, I understand,’ said Al. ‘Then we’ll have to look under W.’

Could one of Dancelot’s personal possessions really have found its way so deep into the catacombs? It was unlikely, but I didn’t want to rob Al of the pleasure of showing me round his less than marvellous Chamber of Marvels. It was a long way to the letter W and the objects in the niches we passed soon became repetitious: pens, inkwells, pencils, paper, more pens, a letter, two letters, an inkwell - and more pens. I gave an involuntary yawn. Could anything be less fascinating than the personal possessions of an author? Even Atlantean tax inspectors surrounded themselves with objects of greater interest. A toothless comb, a tired old sponge . . . I hoped we would soon get there.

‘Trebor Snurb . . . Carmel Stroup . . . Esphalon Teduda . . .’ Al muttered the authors’ names to himself as he passed their niches. ‘Ah, here we are: Wordwright! I
knew
there was something of his.’ He took a small cardboard box from the shelf.

I was amazed. ‘Is there really?’

‘See for yourself,’ he said, handing me the little box.