The Infernals (34 page)
Authors: John Connolly
33.
When we see colors, what we’re really seeing is a certain frequency and wavelength of light hitting our eyes. Photons, which are units of light, have to leave an object in order for us to pick up on pink, or blue, or that strange brown color only found in damp earth and school uniforms. Black is the absence of photons, an absence that we choose to describe as a color. There is a school of philosophy known as Existentialism, which takes the view that life is
all
a lot of nothing, really, and as a consequence we are all in a state of great sadness. Unsurprisingly, Existentialists don’t get invited to many birthday parties.
In mythology the basilisk was known as the “King of Serpents” because of its crown-shaped crest. To it were variously ascribed the capacity to kill with its gaze, its breath, or the sound of its cry. It was even said that if a soldier pierced its skin with a spear, the poison in the basilisk’s blood would flow up the weapon and kill its assailant. It was rumored to be hatched by a rooster from the egg of a toad or serpent, thus providing an interesting variation on the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Actually, scientists believe that they have now proved that some form of chicken came first, as a particular protein in eggshells can only be produced inside a chicken. Mind you, it was probably a very surprised chicken that pushed out the first egg: “
Cluck!
Mavis, dear—
cluck, cluck
—you won’t believe what’s just fallen out of my bottom …”
Tricky business, infinity, and a lot harder to explain than one might think. One of the more interesting theoretical manifestations of infinity, and the problems and paradoxes associated with it, was proposed by David Hilbert, and takes the form of Hilbert’s Hotel. Hilbert’s Hotel is always full, but whenever a new guest arrives the hotel can always find room for him, because it’s an infinite hotel with an infinite number of rooms. So, if a new guest arrives, he gets put in Room 1, the person in Room 1 moves to Room 2, and so on. Then an infinite coach, full of an infinite number of people, arrives, but the hotel can still fit them in. The manager moves all of the current guests into a room with a number twice as large as their current room—so Room 1 moves into Room 2, 2 to 4, 3 to 6, and so on. This means that an infinite number of odd-numbered rooms are now available for the infinite coach filled with an infinite number of guests. Unfortunately, Hilbert’s Hotel can’t exist in the real world because there are only 10
80
atoms in the universe, so there isn’t enough matter to create an infinite-sized hotel. You wouldn’t want to stay in it anyway: if you ordered room service, the food would take a long time to arrive and it would always be cold, and if you forgot your key you’d have a terribly long walk back to reception.
And what a lovely collective noun that is, a
shiver
of sharks, because it’s so apt. Similarly, you have to love a
smack
of jellyfish, which is exactly the sound a load of jellyfish make if you drop them; a
lounge
of lizards—hence the name “lounge lizard” for a chap who hangs around in bars trying to look sophisticated; a
parliament
of owls, although this one is a little troublesome because owls actually look a lot smarter than most politicians, and therefore might find the use of “parliament” a bit offensive as a description; an
unkindness
of ravens, who are clever but talk about other birds behind their backs; a
scold
of jays, who are always complaining to ravens for being unkind; and a
sleuth
of bears, as bears make very good detectives due to their foraging skills. Except for the Three Bears, obviously, because they took ages to work out who had burgled their house.
And in case you think the idea of adding wee to beer is disgusting, there is actually a verb,
to lant,
which means to add wee to beer in order to flavor ale and improve its taste. And not just any old wee, but
aged
wee, which is known as “lant.” Oddly, in olden days lant was also used in wool processing, for cleaning floors, as a glaze on pastry (“This bun tastes a bit funny.” “Too much wee?” “No, too little! Is there a shortage? If so, I can help …”), and, oddest of all, as a means of keeping one’s breath fresh, which raises the question: how bad must people’s breath have smelled already if adding wee to it made it smell better? Frankly, you really don’t want to know.
For the most part, subjects just have to put up with them until someone kills the king in question. For example, the Roman emperor Caligula (AD 12–41), who is said to have tried to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul of Rome, was stabbed thirty times. Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–1577) was poisoned by pea soup laced with arsenic. Actually, madness is something of a perennial problem when it comes to royalty, as a considerable number of kings have been distinctly suspect on the sanity front. Lesser-known royal lunatics include Charles VI of France (1368–1422), also known as Charles the Mad—but not to his face—who believed himself to be made of glass and had iron rods placed in his clothing to prevent him from breaking, and once refused to bathe or change his clothes for five months. Meanwhile, Robert of Clermont (1256–1318), younger son of Louis IX of France, went mad after being hit on the head several times with a sledgehammer in the course of a joust, but then being hit on the head with a sledgehammer will do that to a person.
The people who say that sarcasm is low wit are usually the ones who keep getting caught out by other people being sarcastic at their expense. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit? Oh, you don’t say …
Like a great many organisms straining for sophistication, the rocks had also created their own basic form of music. Please insert your own joke here.
Somewhere in the depths of Hell, a massive invisible floating demon named Fred had just arrived home to his invisible wife, Felicity, and invisible child, Little Fred. “Where have you been, then?” asked his invisible wife. “I don’t know what you think you are, sauntering about like you haven’t a care in Hell, leaving me all alone to keep Little Fred amused. Most of the time, it’s like you’re never here at all.” Fred, being invisible, was tempted to point out that, even when he was there, it was like he was never there at all, but he didn’t think this was the time, as, although he was invisible, and therefore should have presented a hard target for his beloved missus, she seemed to have an uncanny ability to score direct hits upon him with various household objects. Instead he put a police car and a van beside Little Fred, or where he thought Little Fred might roughly be. In the manner of kids everywhere, Little Fred immediately picked up the vehicles and banged them together, before running their wheels across the dirt while making
brrrmmmm-brrrmmmm
noises.
