The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (50 page)

With a groan, the Druid climbed up on the box beside the Biblionaut and did something to him, not that I could see what it was. All I heard was some metallic creaking and grating, clicking and clanking sounds. Then the Biblionaut suddenly moved his head, laid his whip aside and climbed down from the box followed by the Druid. Ignoring me completely, he proceeded to tether the horses to a charred beam.

‘What did you do to the Biblionaut?’ I asked the Druid suspiciously.

‘Oh,’ he said in an amiable tone, ‘the poor fellow had a problem with his armour. I loosened the hinges a bit and lubricated his joints.’

‘What’s it to you, Fatso?’ said the dwarf. ‘You ask a lot of silly questions. I think I’ve remembered where I know you from.’

‘Really?’ I said. It was a matter of some indifference to me if he’d finally recalled that I’d trampled on him once. He could accuse me of cruelty to dwarfs in front of everyone, for all I cared. I wasn’t going to forge any lifelong friendships in present company, that was for sure.

‘You were at that performance of
The City of Dreaming Books
,’ he spat at me. ‘At the Puppetocircus Maximus. You were sitting in a box with that crazy Uggly, right? I saw you! Got a permanent box, eh, Fatso? I suppose you think that makes you a cut above the rest of us in the stalls, who have to crane our necks?’

‘Guilty as charged,’ I admitted.

I had no wish to argue with a dwarf under present circumstances. Perhaps he would leave me in peace now.

‘I knew it!’ the little creature cried triumphantly. ‘I know you, Fatso.’

‘Well,’ the Murkholmer exclaimed in a genial voice, ‘we’re here. Let’s go down into the Invisible Theatre.’

‘Down?’ I gasped. ‘What do you mean,
down
?’

‘Why, into the catacombs,’ he said casually.

‘What? You mean to go down into the catacombs? From here?’ I hoped I’d misheard.

‘Over there is a flight of steps leading down into the shaft,’ our guide explained. ‘It’s a bit makeshift because so few interested parties come here, but it’s quite safe, the Biblionauts constructed it. It’s only a few steps down, we won’t be going very deep.’

No, I hadn’t misheard. He was in earnest.

‘Out of the question!’ I cried. My voice had taken on a note of hysteria.

The Murkholmer sighed. He came over to me and lowered his voice.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’ve long experience of visitors who suffer from panic attacks. Every Invisible Theatre performance takes place in an unusual location, that’s inevitable, but I can assure you it’ll be perfectly safe. We’ve spared no expense – we’ve even hired an experienced Biblionaut to protect us. He’s really quite redundant, though, because there’s no danger where we’re going, Maestro Corodiak stakes his reputation on that.’

‘I don’t care,’ I said stubbornly. ‘I’m not entering the Labyrinth, not in a million years. It’s out of the question. If you won’t drive me back I’ll stay here beside the carriage and wait until the performance is over.’

‘I can’t permit that,’ said the Murkholmer. ‘I couldn’t take the responsibility. If we leave you alone up here, you’ll have no protection from the animals.’

‘The animals?’ I said. ‘What about them?’

‘It won’t take long for the animals in the Toxic Zone to pick up your scent and converge on this spot. Why do you think the horses are wearing full body armour?’

‘What’s up?’ the dwarf called impatiently. ‘Is Fatso making difficulties? When are we getting going?’

The Murkholmer came still closer. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I know a bit more about your fears than you think. Inazia the Uggly told us you were terribly scared of the catacombs.’

I was surprised ‘You know Inazia? You spoke with her?’

He smiled. ‘Who do you think got you this invitation? Attending an Invisible Theatre performance is an honour. Even established Puppetists would give their eye-teeth for an invitation. The Druid has worked for the Puppetocircus Maximus for many years and this is his very first chance to attend although he’s been on the waiting list for ages. You’ve been in Bookholm for only a few days, yet you’re privileged to be here. You don’t seem to realise what a rare opportunity you’d be missing. I know people who would pay a fortune to be in your shoes, but the Invisible Theatre can’t be bought.’

‘I don’t care,’ I repeated mulishly. ‘I’m not going down into the catacombs.’

‘I’ll tell you something else,’ the Murkholmer whispered. ‘You can kill two birds with one stone: not only watch an Invisible Theatre production but conquer one of your direst fears. I know about your nightmares. Free yourself from them for ever! Enter the catacombs, but do so in the safest and most innocuous way imaginable: under professional guidance and the personal protection of an experienced Biblionaut. I’ll wager you’ll feel reborn afterwards. I feel sure the Uggly had an ulterior motive when she wangled this invitation for you. Don’t be a spoilsport!’

‘What is it now?’ called the dwarf. ‘We’re waiting!’

Dear friends, I was definitely suffering from an acute attack of
excitrepidation
– if you recall the term I coined at the beginning of my journey for a state of suppressed adventurousness. The old, spent, risk-averse, safety- and comfort-loving side of my brain urgently advised me to dig my heels in. But the other, artistic side, revitalised by my love of travel and my studies, urged me to comply with the Murkholmer’s suggestion. For how could I write a book about Puppetism – how could I rediscover the artist in myself – if I passed up
such
a pioneering artistic innovation because of some irrational phobia? How could I explain that to Inazia, who had probably moved heaven and earth to obtain me this unique opportunity?

‘Very well,’ I said resolutely. ‘I’ll come.’

The Murkholmer looked relieved. ‘Let’s go!’ he called to the others and we made for the edge of the shaft.

The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books

IT MAY SOUND
odd, but the Pfistomel Shaft reminded me of Ojahnn Golgo van Fontheweg’s birthplace. On one of my travels, when I set out to visit that historic place of pilgrimage dear to lovers of classical Zamonian literature, it turned out to have burned down a short while before, with the result that all I found there was a deserted, blackened site, a few crumbling walls and a bronze plaque. I then spent an interesting hour conjuring the house out of thin air and imagining what it might have looked like when little Golgo ran up and down the stairs or wrote his earliest poems. I regarded it as a lesson on the meaning of transience. How can any writer speculate on eternal fame if even the birthplaces of our greatest classical writers aren’t fireproof?

Now, as I stared into the yawning pit, the biggest shaft in Bookholm, down which our bizarre little party would descend into the catacombs and the Invisible Theatre, I cudgelled my powers of imagination once more. I tried to picture how I had once on this very spot, where now there was only an enormous hole, accompanied Pfistomel Smyke down his cellar steps and into the Labyrinth; and how, many days and adventures later, I had found my way out again with the Shadow King, whose friendship I had sadly lost when he set fire to himself in Smyke’s laboratory. But I found it impossible. Instead, I started to weep like a little child! Big tears trickled down my ageing cheeks. I tried to convince myself it was just nerves, but it wasn’t: I was mourning the passage of time, which runs away from us all, leaving nothing behind but fading mental images.

Yet I had every reason to be clear-headed and dry-eyed! To describe the rickety wooden steps leading down the side of the shaft as ‘makeshift’ was a disgraceful understatement of their condition. As for ‘safe’, only the Biblionauts who had constructed them could have thought them that, but then
they
were used to fighting beetles the size of cats and venomous albino rats, and they described their medieval armour as ‘working clothes’. The Biblionaut who preceded us down the timber framework didn’t have to steel himself to progress from step to step, whereas for me every step was an effort of the will! Nor did the fact that it was a sunlit morning, when everything was clearly visible, help to mitigate my acrophobia. I would probably have preferred to go down there by night, when I would have been unable to see every detail of the abyss below us as clearly as I could in daylight. The shaft, which was inversely conical in shape, tapered sharply towards the bottom and was at least 300 feet deep. Its walls, being jet-black all over, effectively heightened the feeling that I was looking down into an all-consuming void, a rotating maelstrom. Smaller shafts branched off it here and there, and the ash-grey scrub sprouting from their entrances was a measure of how little work had been done over the years to this shaft in the midst of a contaminated no-man’s-land. There were no wooden platforms or reinforcements, no hand rails or stable ironwork steps, and no giggling tourists descending with miner’s lamps, picnic baskets and safety ropes. There was nothing here but the Biblionauts’ hastily constructed steps, which certainly weren’t up to tourist standards. The alarming thing about this crude wooden structure was not so much its lack of stability as the fact that, when looking down, one could see between the steps as if through the ribcage of a skeleton. Birds flew past us, screeching derisively. I made several attempts to ask how many steps there were, but the gusts of wind that swirled around the shaft like playful dust devils tore the question from my lips every time and hurled it into the air. They also kept shaking our flight of steps, which creaked and groaned like an old, timber-framed roof in a storm.

For all these reasons, I was positively delighted when we finally – I myself could hardly believe it – entered the catacombs through a disappointingly small entrance in the wall. Perhaps I was simply relieved to be back on terra firma, but I had also, more or less willingly, set foot in the
Labyrinth of Dreaming Books
! My exhilaration was undiminished even when the loathsome dwarf, who was walking ahead of me, turned round with a grin and said mockingly, ‘Well, Fatso, still wetting your knickers?’

Reluctant though I was to admit it to myself, the Murkholmer had actually been right: I did feel proud of my own courage. My mood was almost euphoric. I had looked a long-standing fear in the face. I had returned to the catacombs and survived, by heaven! I had neither had a heart attack nor lost my reason. Whether or not this meant that I had genuinely overcome my fear was another matter, but at least I had taken the plunge!

But it was only a fire-blackened tunnel we had traversed so far, dark and deserted as a chimney flue. There were no ancient libraries here, no worm-eaten shelves or disintegrating books, nor was there anything else that might have reminded me of my former journey into Netherworld. There was nothing here at all. The interior of a blast furnace would probably have looked much the same.

The Biblionaut beckoned to us without a word and we followed him into the next tunnel that branched off. Here we left the last of the daylight behind us, which rather dampened my initial euphoria, but our Murkholmian tourist guide lit his oil lamp and spoke a few soothing words that were doubtless directed mainly at me. ‘We’re now in what is probably the safest part of the catacombs,’ he said. ‘The exit is only a few yards off and these tunnels were completely decontaminated by the ferocious fires that raged through them. There are neither plants nor animals here – not even any microscopic life forms. It’s almost like walking through the cannula of a sterilised hypodermic syringe. The walls are composed of rock-hard coal yards thick and completely stable. Not even the entrances to the most-frequented
Bookholm
Shafts meet this safety standard. Please follow me, we’ll soon be there.’

So saying, he took over the lead and shepherded us along some more low, narrow passages that displayed no noticeable difference from their predecessors. At last he came to a halt halfway along one of these dark tunnels and said, ‘We’ve come here because we need to prevent any daylight from reaching us. That is the Invisible Theatre’s most important prerequisite. And now, we should like you all to gain an impression of what it’s like to be in the catacombs without any form of artificial lighting.’

Before I had really grasped his meaning, he extinguished his oil lamp and plunged us in darkness.

Utter darkness, dear friends!

It was darkness such as I hadn’t experienced since my first sojourn in the catacombs. Even when you go to bed and blow out the candle, you’re accustomed to seeing at least a hint of reflected light from somewhere, aren’t you? The glow of a street light or moonlight coming through a crack in the curtains. A sliver of light from under a door. Something you can
see
.

But there was nothing here but absolute darkness.

‘Hee-hee!’ the dwarf cackled inanely, but there was a hint of fear even in that little laugh. Everyone is afraid of the dark. Why? Because it’s a reminder of death.

The Murkholmer’s voice rang out in the gloom, this time with greater solemnity. ‘Esteemed members of the audience, I bid you welcome to the Invisible Theatre on behalf of Maestro Corodiak. We wish you all an entertaining time.’