The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (46 page)

Number one: its
most surprising
feature was that I knew the person currently turning in my direction. I knew who he was, I knew his name and I’d encountered him more than once.

Number two: the
most dismaying
feature was not only that the person in question had been dead for over two hundred years, but that I’d actually seen his skeleton and touched it.

Number three: the
most shocking
feature was that he was a member of the Smyke family, for he was Hagob Salbandian, Pfistomel Smyke’s uncle, an artist by profession and the lamentable victim of a perfidious murder plot. Yes, I had actually seen his desiccated cadaver
twice
in the
Labyrinth
and I knew what he had looked like during his lifetime from a large oil painting in Pfistomel’s possession. All that differed from the Hagob Salbandian in that portrait was that the creature turning to look at me possessed no eyes, just two dark, empty eye sockets. You can be sure of one thing, dear brothers and sisters in spirit: if there had ever been a moment in my life at which I genuinely lost faith in everything including my own sanity, it was then.

Family Ties

MIGHT THIS SINISTER
apparition be a puppet after all and was Corodiak’s workshop just a stage set? After all, I was in that part of the Puppetocircus Maximus devoted to backstage technology. There were strings suspended everywhere whose purpose had so far eluded me. Another potential explanation was that I had overslept from sheer exhaustion and was really still lying in my hotel bed, entangled in the sheets in the throes of a confused dream from which I would soon wake up. In view of my recent exertions and sleepless nights, that was entirely possible. Alternatively, all my current experiences might be a belated hangover from my visit to the Fumoir. Why not? I had heard that the hallucinations induced by certain herbal drugs could periodically recur without warning, days or even weeks after the event. The research into Puppetism I had undertaken with such excessive zeal was certainly not conducive to good health. So was I merely ill? Drugged? Could it all be a feverish dream?

‘Oh, so sorry, I must have nodded off,’ the eyeless creature suddenly said politely in a high-pitched, almost sing-song voice. ‘It keeps on happening to me lately. We’re soon premiering a new play, so I’ve been working night and day.’ Puppet or not, it was undoubtedly an example of that rare species of so-called Shark Grubs to which the Smyke family also belonged. This was apparent mainly from the fourteen little arms it was now extending in all directions. It briefly contracted its vermiform body, then stretched and gave a hearty yawn.

‘I assume, since you seem to have collided with my web, that you aren’t a member of staff,’ it went on. ‘My name is Corodiak Smyke, I’m the manager of this theatre. Did we have an appointment?’

This
was Maestro Corodiak? I was still in shock. Had he really just admitted, without being asked, to membership of the Smyke family? Why would he have done so if he were really Hagob Salbandian – which, according to all the findings of science and the prevailing laws of Zamonian physics and biology, was totally impossible? No, this was no feverish dream or drug-induced delirium. I had quite simply gone mad.

‘Oh,’ I said. Then, after a few moments’ desperate cogitation that seemed to me to last for years, I finally remembered the pseudonym which the Uggly and I had concocted for me.

‘My name is, er … Septimus Syllabub. Inazia the Uggly was kind enough to arrange this appointment – I mean, audience. I’m by way of being a student of Puppetism. That’s to say, I’m planning to write a book about it.’ Never had I felt so relieved at having uttered two or three coherent sentences without stumbling.

‘An
audience
?’ Corodiak sounded amused. ‘Is that what people are calling an appointment with me these days?’ He chuckled almost inaudibly. ‘I’m embarrassed. This personality cult of mine has been getting out of hand lately. Let’s call it an appointment and leave it at that.’ He groped in the air with several of his rudimentary arms, then fastened on one of the cords and clung to it. For a moment he remained like that, breathing heavily and obviously mustering his strength. At last he proceeded to haul his larval body along it in my direction, one little hand over another. I noticed only now that he was wearing a richly embroidered cloak and a guild cap such as I had often seen in Puppetist circles.

That was the whole secret! The web was his system of orientation, his only mainstay in a sightless world. It was neither a vicious megaspider’s death trap nor the demented work of a lunatic; it was
merely
an ingenious form of guidance for the blind. I now grasped why the strings and cords were of very different gauges and knotted in numerous places: it was to enable him to distinguish them easily and know at once where he was. The web instantly lost its sinister effect on me. I had as much need to be afraid of it as of a crutch, a wheelchair or an ear trumpet; it was just a disabled person’s aid. What an idiot! I suddenly felt guilty for having been so suspicious and paranoid.

‘I’m sure you’ve been wondering about this peculiar web of mine,’ Corodiak said as he crawled on. ‘No, it isn’t for hanging up washing, nor is it a form of knot writing. It simply enables me to find my way around the workshop. I like to work on several projects at the same time. I construct a puppet here, repair another there and tinker with an eye mechanism between times. Or do the accounts at my desk, deal with my correspondence, and make notes. Then I go back to moulding, polishing or screwing. I simply have to be doing something all the time, and my attention span is roughly on a par with that of a nervous child. I’m always in such a rush, I devised this primitive guidance system in order to locate my various workplaces, tools or drawers.’ His little hands having reached a knot in the web, he switched to another string with practised ease. Gradually, hand over hand, he continued to move in my direction.

‘You’ve no idea how much easier it makes my life,’ he went on. ‘I’d like to criss-cross the whole world with strings like these, but I can’t do that, of course, so I spend most of my time in this workshop.’ He waved several little hands in the air. ‘Not that I’m complaining. Most of the world’s misfortunes stem from the fact that people can’t stay where they belong and I belong here. This room is the head of the Puppetocircus Maximus and I’m the brain.’

If this was a feverish dream after all, it was as detailed and convincing as any dream could be. I could more and more clearly see Corodiak’s face and the dark eye sockets in it. No, this was no puppet!
Although
high-pitched, his voice had a pleasant timbre. I was filled with the sort of fear and ecstasy a mouse might feel when cornered by a snake. Could I move my legs if I wanted to? I didn’t know. I was simply rooted to the spot.

‘Of course,’ Corodiak went on, ‘this room is also a kind of prison, but without such captivity I couldn’t have made the theatre what it is today. The cage of strings helps me to concentrate on essentials. It may sound a bit incongruous for a blind person to say so, but I can oversee things best from here.’

Although the Maestro seemed to be very talkative, even without any encouragement from me, I thought it appropriate to embark on my interview if I didn’t want simply to stand around like a fool, gawping at him. I still felt I was in a trance.

‘You, er, make all these puppets yourself?’ I asked.

He paused for a moment, then took a little crocodile glove puppet from a workbench, dusted it off and fitted it over one of his hands. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘that would be impossible, but I think I may claim to have designed most of them. I always make the important prototypes myself. That much self-praise is permissible!’ He laughed and worked the crocodile’s jaws up and down a few times. ‘I don’t hide my light under a bushel, but without my many talented assistants I’d be as helpless as they would without me. I strike the sparks, but fetching the kindling and getting the fire going is up to those with better eyes and stronger arms than mine. The theatre functions like a beehive. Nothing would work without the queen, but she would be completely helpless without her industrious courtiers – she would inevitably starve to death. The Puppetocircus Maximus is a collective enterprise. I could have called it the Circus Corodiak, but I preferred an all-embracing name.’

Having trickled some linseed oil into the crocodile’s wooden jaws, he clattered them together in an amusing way that betrayed his skill as a puppeteer, then laid it aside and recommenced his laborious progress. He reminded me of a gorgeously plumaged parrot in a
gilded
cage that keeps sidling from one end of his perch to the other and chattering because it has nothing else to do. Ought I to fear him or pity him? I still didn’t know. He took hold of one of the knotted strings and headed purposefully in my direction, feeling his way along the workbenches and chests of drawers. I got out my notebook so as to convey a professional impression, then remembered that he couldn’t see.

‘Perhaps we should simply begin at the beginning,’ I said in the self-important tones of a journalist. ‘How did you get into Puppetism? What brought you to Bookholm?’

Corodiak straightened a few tools on a workbench as he shuffled past it, swept some wood shavings to the floor and deposited a lead weight on top of a stack of papers. His restless hands seemed to have a life of their own. Their perpetual quest for employment captured my attention. That was all right with me; it meant I didn’t have to stare into his empty eye sockets.

‘Well,’ he began, ‘I don’t know how well-informed you are about the history of Bookholm. And about the Smyke family’s involvement with it.’

‘I, er, know very little about the latter,’ I lied brazenly.

As he shuffled onwards, Corodiak picked up a small lump of modelling clay and used four deft little hands to knead it into a small head that vaguely resembled his own. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you may possibly have heard about my evil nephew Pfistomel. The black sheep of the family. Every child in Bookholm knows his name and his story.’ He carefully put the little modelled head down.

‘Of course,’ I replied. Had he called Pfistomel his
nephew
? This confirmed that he really was Hagob Salbandian. But that was quite impossible, damn it, even though he did bear a purely outward resemblance to popular notions of a zombie. And why did he call himself ‘Corodiak’? None of it made any sense. I strove to seem unimpressed and look calm, but I was becoming more and more
bewildered
. I felt like shouting, ‘I’m Optimus Yarnspinner, and I saw your confounded corpse in the catacombs! How do you explain
that
, Maestro?’ Instead, just for something to do, I scrawled some meaningless doodles in my notebook.

‘So you’ve heard of Pfistomel,’ he muttered as his nimble little hands switched to another string and he made a minor change of course in my direction. ‘But you probably don’t know the name Hagob Salbandian.’

I thought it best not to reply, nor did he wait for my response in any case.

‘Well, it’s a rather complicated aspect of the Smyke family history – one that few people care about today. Very few people are interested in anything that happened earlier than yesterday – it’s just how things are. To cut a very long story short, it’s like this: Hagob was my brother, whom Pfistomel murdered in a cruel and underhanded manner from the basest of motives: avaricious legacy-hunting. That’s all I wish to say on the subject. Read more about it in the municipal records if you wish! It was a disgusting business – it sullied the name Smyke for ever, and I’d prefer not to dwell on it. It doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with Puppetism, or with me either. Hagob Salbandian Smyke was my twin brother, to be precise. We were as alike as two peas in a pod, to employ a hackneyed old simile. Even our talents were similar. We were both endowed with manual dexterity.’ He raised a few of his hands and waggled them.

Twins! Well I never! A simple biological defect, a harmless genetic curiosity, and I’d once more leapt to the conclusion that I was going mad! My hypochondria was assuming such alarming proportions, I told myself I ought to consult a psychiatrist some time. Well, well! Although I wasn’t exactly ecstatic – the shock of meeting a Smyke in the flesh after all those years was still too traumatic – I did feel rather relieved under the circumstances. So Hagob and Corodiak were identical twins! That naturally explained a lot of things.

‘When I heard from our family lawyers – I was living in Florinth at the time – that my brother Hagob and Pfistomel were both missing, presumed dead, I couldn’t have cared less. The members of my family had gone their separate ways at an early stage – the Smykes always do, being devoid of sentimentality. Our family ties are very loose: the birthday cake was not invented for the Smykes, if I may put it that way. Our family feelings become aroused only when there’s something to inherit. Which wasn’t so in this case. Hagob’s property in Bookholm had been reduced to ashes and any of it that might have survived would be claimed by the Zamonian authorities, so I continued to keep my distance from the city as before. Many years went by, enabling a veil to be gradually drawn over those unpleasant events. That I ultimately went to Bookholm after all had nothing whatever to do with my family ties, only the desire cherished by nearly all educated Zamonians to pay at least one visit to this fascinating city during their lifetime. For I was, when I still had my eyes, a positively fanatical reader, a bookworm of the worst sort. My own family history had hitherto deterred me from exploring Bookholm because I feared that a Smyke would be promptly tarred and feathered if he ever showed his face here. But time is a great healer, isn’t it?’