The City of Dreaming Books (32 page)

‘You’re from Lindworm Castle?’

‘Yes, it’s my home.’

A second eye squinted through a crack between two fat tomes on a shelf.

‘Ask him something about Lindwormian literature,’ said the owner of the second eye.

‘Give me the name of a medieval novel by Doylan Cone,’ said the one behind the stack of books.

‘
Sir Ginel
,’ I said, sighing.

The gnomes glunked their teeth.
⁸

‘And what’s the funniest passage in it?’

‘Pfff . . . Hard to say,’ I replied. ‘Either the bit where Sir Ginel’s monocle falls into his breastplate or the lipogrammatical chapter where Doylan Cone dispenses entirely with the letter E.’ I gave thanks to providence for my meeting with Kibitzer - and to my own effrontery for the ease with which that lie tripped off my tongue.

The third gnome, whose eye rose from behind a stack of paper like a fast-growing flower, proceeded to recite:

I quickly completed the stanza:

‘He
must
be a Lindworm,’ said one of the gnomes.

‘You’re right,’ cried another. ‘Nobody else would read that boring old book. Apart from us, of course.’

‘
Sir Ginel
isn’t bad at all. Once you’ve ploughed your way through that chapter on the care and maintenance of the medieval lance, it really takes off,’ the third gnome objected.

‘My name is Optimus Yarnspinner,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t ring a bell.’

‘Nor with me.’

‘Never heard of you.’

‘That’s not surprising,’ I said sheepishly. ‘I haven’t published anything yet.’

‘What are you doing down here in the catacombs if you aren’t hunting for books?’

‘I was brought here against my will, then I lost my way. All I’m hunting for is the way out.’

‘It’s been the same old story for a thousand years,’ said the gnome behind the bookcase. ‘The catacombs are full of skeletons. The folk up above make a habit of dumping their trash in our habitat.’

I studiously overlooked his allusion to trash.

‘You’re the first inhabitant of Lindworm Castle I’ve seen in the flesh,’ said the gnome behind the stack of books. ‘I’ve read everything that’s ever been written there, but I’ve never actually set eyes on a Lindworm before.’

I tried to do justice to this historic moment by smoothing my cloak down.

‘We’re great admirers of Lindwormian literature,’ said the gnome behind the stack of paper.

‘I’m honoured. Now that you know something about me, may I ask who
you
are?’

The fat gnome emerged a few inches from his refuge and declaimed,

I tried to interpret his meaning. Was he still frightened of me? Was he appealing to my better nature?

‘What are you getting at?’ I asked. ‘Why not simply tell me who you are?’ He ventured still further out of his lair.

Why did those lines sound so familiar to me? One moment! They were a quotation! A quotation from . . . from . . .

‘You were quoting from Wimpersleake!’ I cried. Of course! Aleisha Wimpersleake, the undisputed colossus of Zamonian literature. Much beloved by adults but the scourge of schoolchildren ever since his day. Of course! Those lines came from one of his most famous plays. Dancelot had drummed them into me for decades.

The fat gnome now emerged completely. His skin was the colour of a ripe green olive.

‘You’ve got it. That’s my name.’

‘
Your
name?
You’re
Aleisha Wimpersleake?’

‘I most certainly am. You may call me Al, everyone else does.’

I felt bewildered. Wimpersleake had been dead for centuries.

The gnome behind the bookcase left his refuge too. His complexion was pale blue. ‘And I’m Wamilli Swordthrow,’ he said. ‘Wami to my friends.’

Wamilli Swordthrow was one of my favourite poets. He had written ‘Imitations of Informality’, which was enough by itself to render him immortal in my eyes.

‘I see,’ I said, humouring him. ‘So you’re Wamilli Swordthrow.’

‘You bet I am!’ cried the slender gnome. Clasping his hands together, he declaimed dramatically,

That was indeed by Swordthrow. It came from one of his most famous poems, though not his best. Dancelot had made me learn it by heart. Who
were
these strange little creatures?

‘And what’s your name?’ I asked the third and smallest of them, who was pale pink in colour. ‘Are you also called after an eminent literary figure?’

‘Not as eminent as all that,’ he said shyly, coming out from behind his stack of paper. ‘My name is Dancelot Wordwright.’

I winced as if he’d slapped me in the face. The name of my authorial godfather went echoing along the passage like the voice of a disembodied spirit.

‘All of us are products of the soil,’ the little gnome quoted. ‘Dust we were, and to dust we shall return. We wend our way along in an endless festive procession, a funeral cortège of impermanence.’

I was dumbfounded. ‘Dancelot . . . ?’ I said, as if he himself were standing there in front of me. It was a passage from his book recited word for word.

‘. . .Wordwright,’ the little gnome amplified. ‘A writer from Lindworm Castle. You may well have heard of him, if you—’

‘I knew him personally,’ I cut in. ‘But how do you come to bear his name?’

‘We all bear the names of distinguished writers,’ Al said proudly.

‘I don’t quite understand,’ I said.

The three of them looked at each other.

‘Shall we?’ said Al.

The other two nodded. Then they turned to me and chanted in unison,

I took an involuntarily step backwards. The Fearsome Booklings! The all-devouring cyclopean monsters of the catacombs! Their most dangerous life form apart from the Shadow King! Of course! These creatures had only one eye! They were Cyclopses! The three one-eyed gnomes slowly advanced on me.

‘Don’t be frightened!’ Al cried. ‘We won’t hurt you.’

That was easy to say! They were pretty small for omnivorous Cyclopses, but scorpions could also be small.

‘That’s just a scary rhyme we made up for the Bookhunters’ benefit,’ said Wami. ‘Down here you have to cultivate an evil reputation or you’d be done for in no time at all.’

‘All right,’ I said, retreating slowly, ‘so you’re the Fearsome Booklings. What has that to do with writers’ names?’

‘I think we’d better begin at the beginning, folks,’ said Al. ‘He’s a bit slow on the uptake.’ The others nodded. Then all three came to a halt.

‘It’s like this . . .’ said Wami. ‘Every Bookling has to learn the entire work of some great writer by heart. That’s our purpose in life and
raison d’être.
Me, I’m currently memorising every last poem in Wamilli Swordthrow’s oeuvre.’

‘And I’, said Al, ‘am doing the same with Aleisha Wimpersleake - no mean task, given that he wrote some forty plays and innumerable sonnets. I have to keep refreshing my memory.’ He uttered a sigh that would have melted the hardest heart.

‘And I can recite the entire works of Dancelot Wordwright, word for word,’ Dancelot said timidly.

‘Big deal!’ Wami scoffed. ‘Just one measly book.’

‘He may write some more,’ Dancelot protested.

I had also come to a halt. ‘No,’ I said sadly, ‘I’m afraid he won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He died quite recently. He was my authorial godfather.’

The three Booklings stared at each other in dismay and Dancelot burst into tears. His friends did their best to console him.

‘There, there,’ Al said in a low, soothing voice. ‘How do you think
I
feel? My writer’s been dead for centuries - he’ll never produce anything more either.’

‘Everyone has to enter the Great Mystery sooner or later,’ Wami whispered. ‘We’re all equal before the Orm.’

Dancelot was sobbing uncontrollably. ‘One book!’ he whimpered. ‘Only
one
!’

Al and Wami looked at me and shook their heads, patting Dancelot tenderly on the back. Their outsize eyes went moist and I myself was just as unable to hold my tears in check. We all broke down and wept with a will.

O
nce we had all calmed down the Booklings stepped aside and conferred in whispers. Then they came over to me.

‘We’ve decided to take you to see the rest of our community,’ said Al. ‘But only, of course, if you agree.’

How could I object? What difference would it make if I were devoured by three Fearsome Booklings or a hundred? Besides, I was beginning to have my doubts about their fearsomeness.

‘I’m game,’ I said. ‘Is it far?’

Instead of answering, the trio opened their eyes as wide as they could and subjected me to a piercing stare. The yellow light in their pupils began to pulsate gently. Then they started humming.

Yes, my good and faithful readers, that’s all I have to report in this chapter. I can only tell you that - whoosh! - an instant later we found ourselves somewhere entirely different. I’ve no idea how the one-eyed gnomes performed this trick, but from one moment to the next we were standing outside a huge stone portal that formed the entrance to a cave.

W
hat happened?’ I asked. I was feeling drowsy and a trifle unsteady on my legs. ‘Where are we?’

‘That was a sample of our gift for, er, teleportation,’ said Al.

‘Teleportation, tee-hee!’ Wami tittered. ‘Exactly.’

‘From the stars we come, to the stars we go. Life is merely one long journey,’ quoted Dancelot.

‘You mean you can transport yourselves - and me - from one place to another by the power of thought?’

‘You wouldn’t be lying if you put it that way,’ Al replied with a grin and the other two giggled inanely. ‘Come on! We’re about to enter the realm of the Fearsome Booklings.’

Al, Wami and Dancelot strode ahead of me through the huge gateway, which was flanked on either side by two enormous stone statues. They represented Booklings, but Booklings of greatly exaggerated size. Awesome-looking monsters with gaping jaws, cyclopean orbs and sharp claws menacingly raised, they were a sight calculated to make any intruder turn tail and run.