The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (21 page)

‘Quite,’ I said. ‘That’s probable.’

‘The second alternative was to cheat him. Pretend I had scant interest in the book. Fail to tell him it was as rare as it was and pay him a small sum for it. He would probably have been satisfied and gone on his way, believing that he had pulled off a nice little deal.’

‘And you would have swindled blind Belphegor,’ I said. ‘True.’ Inazia nodded. ‘But a third possibility occurred to me. I told him it was a very rare book about Uggliology – which wasn’t even
a
lie. Then I expressed great interest in it. Although a gross understatement, that was also true. Eventually, I suggested paying him a fair price for it. This, I freely admit, was a blatant lie. Only the Zaan of Florinth could have paid him a fair price for that book. But I went down to my secret Ugglian safe in the cellar, took out all my savings – no small sum! – and gave them to him.’

The Uggly looked relieved. The truth was out at last.

‘So you
did
cheat a blind huckster out of his book,’ I said coldly.

She gave me a pert stare. ‘One can’t say that. I gave him some money – a great deal of money by my standards. All I possessed.’

‘He could have got more elsewhere. Considerably more.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Inazia. ‘Why did it occur to him to offer
The Hammer of the Ugglies
to an Uggly, of all people? I might have flown into a fury and hurled the book into the fire, where it belonged. An Uggly would have had every right to do so.’

‘But he didn’t know it was
The Hammer of the Ugglies
,’ I said. ‘He was blind. Maybe he didn’t even know you were an Uggly.’

‘Don’t quibble!’ Inazia snapped. ‘I could have said nothing at all and let him go off with his book. What would have happened then? The next bookseller might have swindled him good and proper. To that extent, he could count himself lucky he bumped into me.’

Kibitzer interrupted our argument by tottering out of the darkness carrying a huge jar. He hefted it on to a table and unscrewed the lid, which was perforated in numerous places. Then he shook the jar and whispered, ‘Fly away! Fly away!’

With a buzzing sound, a grey cloud emerged from the mouth of the jar, rose to the ceiling and dispersed into hundreds of little specks that flew off in all directions.

‘Fly away!’ Kibitzer whispered. ‘Fly away! You’re free! Free!’

The little specks began to glow in a wide variety of colours. They were will-o’-the-wisps, which he had bred in a jar for reasons probably comprehensible to Nocturnomaths alone. Humming and whirring, they fanned out all over the shop, filling it with a vivid, multicoloured
glow
that lent the scene a look of dreamlike unreality. Dry-as-dust volumes lit by flickering, magical luminescence! Inazia Anazazi and her crazy story! Kibitzer and his irrational behaviour! Was I really here, or was I lying in my bed in Lindworm Castle and only dreaming this nonsense?

‘Go on, then!’ urged Kibitzer. ‘You can argue …’ – he inserted another curious pause – ‘… later.’

‘I presume you then came across the letter in the book,’ I said in an attempt to cut the story short. It was making me feel uneasy somehow, like the whole situation. I yearned to be back outside in the sunlit streets of Bookholm.

‘Not right away,’ said the Uggly. ‘Something else happened first. Something that’s bound to interest you.’

‘Yes,’ wheezed Kibitzer, who was once more rummaging in some papers. ‘This really ought to interest you.’

‘It had stopped raining by now,’ Inazia went on, ‘and Belphegor Bogaras prepared to leave, believing he’d done the best bit of business in his life. I escorted him to the door, but before I showed him out my nagging curiosity got the better of me. Unable to restrain myself, I tactlessly asked him how he’d lost his eyesight in the catacombs.

‘“Oh,” the Biblionaut replied casually, “that was down to the Shadow King.”’

At that moment, dear friends, I really did grow uneasy. My visit to that bookshop had already been full of surprises, but this turn in Inazia’s story was truly unexpected.

‘But the Shadow King is dead!’ I blurted out.

‘That’s what I told the Biblionaut myself,’ the Uggly replied. ‘But he paused in the doorway, turned to me with the last of the lightning flickering behind him and said words to the following effect: “With respect, madam, no one who has spent any length of time in the catacombs truly believes that the Shadow King is dead. Every Biblionaut has his own tale to tell of the Shadow King, every last one! Some have only heard him rustling, others whispering, yet others laughing. Some
claim
to have seen him with their own eyes and many allege that they actually felt him when he whispered in their ear in some dark tunnel. There are some whom he led so badly astray in the Labyrinth that they took weeks to find their way out. To the Biblionauts, the Shadow King has long ceased to be a myth and become a commonplace. It’s like the dangerous beasts of the wilderness: you can roam the Great Forest for years without ever encountering a werewolf, but werewolves are always on your mind. Always! Is one lurking behind the nearest tree? Or not? If you’re lucky you never meet one, but if you’re unlucky, one will cross your path some day. That’s what happened to me. The last thing my poor eyes saw before they were plucked from their sockets was the Shadow King! Believe me, madam, or believe me not!” So saying, Blind Belphegor doffed his hat, performed a courteous bow and went tapping off into the night.’ Inazia heaved a sigh of relief and resumed her seat.

‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘A catacomb fairy tale! Any number of things could have robbed him of his eyesight. There are creatures down there for which we don’t even have names. I know from personal experience that some of them rustle like paper and emit the strangest noises in the dark.’

Inazia shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m only telling you what the blind Biblionaut said. We thought it would interest you.’

‘What about the letter?’ I asked impatiently. I’d heard enough creepy stories. I wanted to get out into the daylight.

‘Well,’ said Inazia, ‘as soon as the Biblionaut had finally departed, I naturally leafed through
The Hammer of the Ugglies
, my new antiquarian treasure. And I suddenly came across the letter—’

‘The letter that’s now in your pocket,’ Kibitzer broke in. ‘A letter from the Leather Grotto. Addressed to you.’

‘I brought it here at once,’ said Inazia, ‘and Kibitzer thoroughly analysed it on the spot.’

‘The paper consists of fungal fibres,’ Kibitzer pontificated, ‘and this, because of their minimal saturation with carbonic acid, leads
one
to the almost inescapable conclusion that they hail from the lower reaches of the catacombs and were processed there. The paper isn’t even very old and the ink was obtained from the blood of Grotto Lice, which live only at very low levels. The letter came from the Labyrinth, that’s beyond doubt.’

‘But who wrote it?’ I asked. ‘Can you shed any light on that?’

‘Well,’ growled the Nocturnomath, ‘if the authorities requested me for an expert opinion and I had to testify in court under oath, I would then, having meticulously analysed the writer’s vocabulary and submitted his handwriting to the most thorough graphological research, submit that only one person can enter into consideration.’

‘And that would be …?’ I demanded in an agony of suspense.

‘You,’ Kibitzer replied tersely.

‘But that’s absurd!’ I cried. ‘I can’t have written the letter.’

‘I know,’ Kibitzer growled. ‘That’s the mystery. I like riddles, but I detest riddles I can’t solve. This is one such.’

‘Is that all?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you say anything more?’

‘Only that the writer – since it wasn’t you – can brilliantly imitate the style of your Ormless period.’ Kibitzer tittered. ‘I laughed so much, my hearing aid fell out.’

‘The sender’s address is given as the Leather Grotto. Could it have been written by a Bookling?’

‘Booklings don’t write, you should know that better than anyone. They’re notorious readers who devote their lives entirely to reading. They’re persistent consumers of literature, but they don’t produce it. A complex parody such as that letter represents can only have been produced by someone of long experience and great literary ability. And in that connection too, only a certain name comes to mind.’

‘Homuncolossus?’ I asked. ‘The Shadow King?’

‘Well, he’s the only person that occurred to me who possesses those qualifications and lives deep down in the Labyrinth. He’s also the only creature that knows you personally and might take it into his head to write you a letter – for whatever reason! Provided he’s still
alive
, of course. This is circumstantial evidence, not proof, but one can’t simply brush it aside.’

‘But I saw the Shadow King in flames,’ I cried. ‘He was absolutely ablaze, how often do I have to repeat that? No one could have survived that, not even he.’

‘I’m only weighing up the facts,’ said Kibitzer. ‘I’m not saying the letter actually came from the Shadow King.’

‘We spent a long time wondering whether or not to send you the letter,’ the Uggly put in. ‘In the end we agreed that there were no two ways about it, the answer went without saying. Kibitzer insisted on sending it without any explanation. I’m sure he was still angry with you.’

Kibitzer nodded. ‘I didn’t believe you would actually come to Bookholm. I didn’t even believe you would read the letter at all. I thought you’d become an incorrigibly arrogant twerp. Well, I was wrong. You have become an arrogant twerp, but you may still be curable. I apologise for the first of those assessments.’

Friends are quite something! They tell you to your face you’ve become fat and arrogant. They think you’re a twerp, they scare you with their horrific tales of diseases and catacombs, they send you hurrying halfway across Zamonia because of some mysterious letter, and then they beg your pardon and expect that to put everything right.

‘All right,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Let’s bury the hatchet.’

‘Excellent!’ Kibitzer exclaimed, rubbing his hands. His voice, which had hitherto sounded resigned and quavery, took on an almost energetic note. ‘Then we’ll now proceed to read the will at last!’

‘We’ll do what?’ I said.

‘Read the will,’ Inazia echoed sadly. She looked at me and rolled her eyes.

‘Why,’ I asked, ‘has someone died?’

‘Not yet,’ Kibitzer said cheerfully. ‘Not yet!’

The goings-on in this demented bookshop would not have been
out
of place in a loony bin for senior citizens. I’d really been hoping to make myself scarce and now I was expected to attend the reading of a will although no one had died! Probably the two oddest booksellers in the whole of Bookholm had become even more eccentric in their twilight years, and that was saying something! Could it be the effect of the dust from the crazy old tomes they dealt in? It was bound to get to their brains via their airways. (I instinctively started breathing a little shallower.) Or did their quirks stem from the curious works in which they specialised? Uggliology and Nightingalistics? How could those who devoted a lifetime to the writings of Professor Abdul Nightingale and militant Uggliologists be expected to preserve their sanity? Moreover, why was I their only customer? Had anyone apart from me ever strayed into their esoteric establishments? I could hardly wait to leave that gloomy hole at last and breathe some fresh air.

Kibitzer had stationed himself at a lectern constructed entirely of books with two candles burning on it. The scene was invested with a look of unreality by the multicoloured will-o’-the-wisps ecstatically whirring around his tremulous head. Was that music I could hear? Yes indeed! Kibitzer was humming a solemn melody in one of his brains and telepathically communicating it to my own. Was that … Goldwine? Yes, quite so. It was Evubeth van Goldwine’s last, unfinished symphony, the one he wrote shortly before his final brainstorm. Yes, I was absolutely right: nowhere else in this city could one come closer to insanity.

‘Last will and testament!’ Kibitzer cried dramatically. ‘I, Dr Ahmed ben Kibitzer, hereby bequeath—’

‘Just a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is this
your
will you’re reading?’

‘What did you think?’ Kibitzer demanded curtly. ‘Can you see anyone else here of testamentary age?’

‘But you aren’t dead yet,’ I protested.

‘And you can hardly wait, eh? Patience, my son, I’m doing my best.’

I fell silent. I’m extremely partial to black humour, but I couldn’t
bring
myself to find that funny. The old Nocturnomath had probably lost a good proportion of his wits. If a person’s cells die off, those of the brain are surely no exception – in fact, they may even be the first to leave the sinking ship of the intellect. Reading a will prior to death! What on earth had I got myself into?

‘I hereby bequeath’, Kibitzer declaimed solemnly, ‘my entire stock of antiquarian books, together with my shop premises and basement rooms, to Inazia Anazazi the Uggly. This bequest includes all my first editions of works by Professor Abdul Nightingale plus the relevant secondary literature and works on the same subject.’

I looked over at Inazia. A single tear was oozing from her eye. She had clearly been prepared for this bizarre occurrence and was accepting it without demur. I could expect no support from her. Until a few minutes ago I’d attributed the whole thing to a touch of senile dementia, but now it was becoming alarming.

‘My financial assets, which are held in a deposit account earning 5.5 per cent at Bookholm’s Antiquarian Bank, I likewise bequeath to Inazia Anazazi. They should suffice to offset her expenditure on The H ammer of the Ugglies and enable her to make new investments in the antiquarian field.’

The Uggly emitted a loud sob and I yearned to extricate myself from this situation by dissolving into thin air.

‘I leave the fruits of my research into Nightingalistics, which are stored in lightproof, waterproof, fireproof containers in the basement of my shop, to Bookholm University. These include various dissertations on a total of 147 subjects, all my working diaries, a Nightingalian logarithmic table with Kibitzerian additions, over 4,000 test tubes plus contents and all the Nightingalian devotional objects I was able to obtain during my lifetime, together with two of Professor Nightingale’s eyelashes preserved in amber, complete with a certificate of authenticity. All the Nightingalian scientific instruments in my possession are also to go to the University. The relevant instructions for use can be found in my working diaries.’