The City of Dreaming Books (36 page)

The Bookling grinned. ‘Yes, that was too easy. I knew you knew him; in fact, I’m sure you know more about Versewhetter than I do. Perhaps you can tell me why it’s been so long since he published anything. Is he engaged on a major work of some kind?’

The poor creature had devoted his life to Ovidios Versewhetter. Should I tell him to his face that all he could now expect from him was extemporised doggerel churned out for the benefit of tourists? I didn’t have the heart.

‘Yes indeed,’ I said. ‘He has, er, buried himself away and is working on something really big.’

‘I thought as much,’ said the Bookling. ‘He’ll be really big again himself before long.’ And he withdrew.

‘Next!’ Al said impatiently.

A gaunt Bookling with skin the colour of granite stepped forward.

This time I was stumped. It was a poem unfamiliar to me - obviously about the Shadow King, but I knew of no writer who had concerned himself with that figure apart from Colophonius Regenschein, and Regenschein had written no poetry.

It would be pointless to guess. There were hundreds of young poets whose works I didn’t know. I admitted defeat.

‘Not a clue,’ I said. ‘I don’t know your name. What is it?’

‘My name is Colophonius Regenschein,’ the Bookling replied.

‘That’s impossible. He only wrote one book,
The Catacombs of Bookholm.
I read it quite recently and there isn’t a single poem in it.’

‘Colophonius Regenschein has written another book,’ said the Bookling. ‘It’s called
The Shadow King
and it opens with that poem.’

The crowd was growing restive.

‘How can that be?’ I demanded. ‘Colophonius Regenschein has disappeared.’

The Bookling merely grinned.

‘Unfair!’ someone shouted.

‘Yes, Colo, give him a break!’ shouted someone else. ‘You can’t expect him to know that.’

‘Get lost!’

I felt bewildered. A hubbub arose, the crowd started milling around and the Bookling who called himself Colophonius Regenschein disappeared into its midst.

Al claimed the floor.

‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘Orming’s over for today! Our guest has acquitted himself well, he deserves a little rest.’

The Booklings murmured in assent.

‘We’ll go on Orming tomorrow. You’ll all get your turn. Dismiss!’

I went over to Al. ‘What was all that about just now?’ I asked. ‘Has Regenschein really written another book?’

‘Come on,’ he said hastily, ignoring the question. ‘I’ll show you our living quarters and the place where you’ll sleep. You must be tired out.’

A
l conducted me along one of the passages that led off the Leather Grotto. The Booklings scurrying round us seemed to be taking no more notice of me. I had successfully withstood the initiation ceremony even before it had been completed, apparently, but I still felt like a wasp in an ants’ nest. I was twice the height of the average Bookling and had to duck my head to avoid hitting it on the roof of the tunnel.

The passage was lined with book covers like the Leather Grotto. I tried to read some of the titles, but they were all in a script I couldn’t decipher.

‘Yes,’ said Al, who had been watching me, ‘it’s a shame about all the books that went inside those covers. In their own day they were probably just rubbish, but to us they would now be evidence of an unknown civilisation. Books are perishable.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ I said for want of any more intelligent rejoinder.

‘No, not us,’ said Al.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, I won’t claim that Booklings are immortal, but none of us has ever died a natural death. There have been a few fatal accidents, but disease and decay are unknown here.’

‘Really? Where do you come from? I mean, how . . .’

Al’s single eye blinked nervously. ‘I’m not at liberty to talk about that,’ he said. ‘Not at present, anyway.’

The passage was flanked by numerous little troglodytic dwellings, I noticed, and each of these miniature caves housed a Bookling. They, too, were lined with book covers, and each contained at least one bookcase as well as a couch thickly padded with furs. Everything was bathed in warm candlelight.

‘Jellyfish lamps are no good for reading by,’ Al said as if he had read my thoughts. ‘They create an unpleasant atmosphere - one that’s conducive at best to hunting or murdering things. We abhor jellyfish lamps. They multiply like vermin and one day they’ll take over the catacombs. We eject any that dare to crawl into the Leather Grotto. Candlelight is soothing. Did you know that boiled bookworms yield an excellent form of candle grease?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t.’ However, I certainly endorsed his belief in the soothing effect of candlelight. The permanent claustrophobia induced in me by the catacombs had disappeared since I entered the Booklings’ domain.

‘Every Bookling’s cave is individually furnished and appointed - mainly, of course, with books by the writer whose works he’s committing to memory.’

We paused and peered into one of the caves. A fat little Bookling was comfortably stretched out on his bed of furs, reading a book. Pinned to the walls were various manuscripts and illustrations. I immediately recognised the writer in question by his picture.

‘Hello, Ugor,’ said Al. ‘I don’t think you need take any further part in the Orming. Optimus has already got your number, I suspect.’

‘Your name is Ugor Vochti,’ I said. ‘You wrote
The Midgard Saga.
’

‘I wish I had,’ said Ugor. ‘I’m only learning it by heart. It’s a pity, though. I had a passage ready for you that was really hard to identify.’

We walked on. The alleyways here were almost deserted. It seemed that all the Booklings had holed up in their caves and were busy memorising.

‘Why do you do it?’ I blurted out.

‘What?’

‘Learn all this stuff by heart.’

Al stared at me uncomprehendingly. ‘That’s not the question. The question is, why doesn’t everyone else do it?’

That needed thinking about. I couldn’t come up with a snappy reply.

‘These are your quarters,’ Al told me, indicating a little cave. There were

no books in it, just a couch big enough for someone of my size.

‘You’re welcome to borrow any books you need from the Leather Grotto. Would you like a few bookworms for supper?’

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m thirsty, that’s all.’

‘I’ll get you some mountain spring water,’ said Al and walked off.

It wasn’t until he had gone that I noticed the hum, a pleasant, persistent sound like the purring of countless contented cats. I made up my bed for the night. The night? How could I tell whether it was night or day? No matter, I was dog-tired.

Al returned with a jug of water.

‘What’s that noise?’ I asked. ‘That humming sound?’

He grinned. ‘That’s Booklings learning things by heart. Just before we go to sleep we shut our eyes and run through our favourite passages. We start humming for some reason - and eventually drop off to sleep. You’ll get used to it.’

Al said goodnight. I drank some water, blew out the candles and lay down.

My eyelids and limbs were heavy. The humming didn’t disturb me; on the contrary, I found it reassuring. It was the Booklings’ music - the pleasant, dreamy sound of literature being memorised - that lulled me gently to sleep.

I
t was something of an effort to get my breakfast down when Al brought it to me in the morning - bookworms roasted over an open fire - but I was so overpoweringly hungry by that time, I could have devoured a raw Spinxxxx. Besides, the crisp larvae didn’t taste too bad at all.

‘Today I’m going to show you some more of our territory,’ Al announced as we emerged from my little cave. ‘It’s not confined to the Leather Grotto, my friend.’

The passages were already filled with Booklings going about their business once more. Books were being transported and candles replaced, voices raised in declamation, conversation or song. There seemed to be a collective aversion to silence - a pleasant change, I found, after the deathly hush prevailing elsewhere in the catacombs. I saw three vituperating Booklings bearing off a phosphorescent jellyfish that had invaded their domain. None of my hosts took any particular notice of me. I seemed to have become one of their number overnight.

‘We’ll go on with the Orming later,’ Al told me. ‘First I’ll show you our Chamber of Marvels - our archives, in other words. We don’t collect books alone, we also hoard anything with literary associations that finds its way down here. Literature is more than just paper, you know - it affects every aspect of existence.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘It pervades life far more thoroughly than people tend to realise. In the case of us Booklings, that’s doubly true.’

‘In what respect?’

‘In every respect. It’s like this: sooner or later, every Bookling takes on the character of the author whose work he’s memorising. That’s inevitable - it’s our destiny. By nature we’re blank pages crying out to be written on. Not having any personalities of our own, we gradually assume the characteristics of our authors until we become complex individuals. Our Bookling community includes firebrands and cowards, show-offs and manic depressives, sluggards and hotheads, comedians and cry-babies. I, for example, am an exceptionally complex individual - not surprisingly, since Aleisha Wimpersleake’s writings range from the thoroughly romantic to the utterly tragic.’ Al broke off. ‘Hey, look who’s coming. That’s Slootty.’

The single eye of the Bookling in question blazed with the cold flame of despair and his lower lip trembled as if he were about to burst into tears at any moment. He strode past us and disappeared into the darkness without a word, even though Al had bidden him a friendly good morning.