The City of Dreaming Books Read online

  ‘It was a business investment. Buy a budding author a meal and he may pave the rest of your journey through life with gold. That’s a literary agent’s motto. In my case, alas, it has yet to prove well-founded.’

  I hurriedly popped the last morsel of bee-bread into my mouth and was just about to get up and say goodbye when I felt a stab of pain in my gum.

  ‘Akk!’ I said.

  ‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Harpstick.

  I pointed to my mouth. ‘Akk!’ I said again.

  The Hoggling gave a start. ‘A bee sting? Don’t move! Open your mouth wide! Don’t panic! The bee is dead, so it can’t inject any more of its poison, but the slightest pressure on its body could be enough to force the toxin into your bloodstream and turn you into a blithering idiot! Let me take a look!’

  I opened my jaws to their fullest extent to enable Harpstick to reach inside. My face was streaming with sweat. Grunting, he fumbled around inside my mouth. I held my breath and didn’t move. Then I felt another brief stab of pain in my gum and the Hoggling sat back. He was holding up the dead bee and grinning again.

  ‘You won’t forget this bee-bread in a hurry,’ he said. ‘But I did warn you. The risk is part of the pleasure.’

  I mopped my face. ‘Many thanks,’ I gasped. ‘I don’t know how to—’

  ‘You must excuse me now,’ Harpstick said abruptly, flicking the bee onto the floor. ‘It’s been a long night, the poetry reading was execrable and I could use a wink or two of sleep. Perhaps we’ll meet again.’

  I shook him by the trotter. He gazed into space and muttered: ‘Hm, A Wink or Two of Sleep. A good title, don’t you think?’

  ‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘no. It sounds boring.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He laughed. ‘I really must be overtired.’

  I sat on for a while after he left, checking my pulse for palpitations in case some of the apian poison had found its way into my bloodstream after all, but my heart continued to beat with metronomic regularity.

  Out of the Frying Pan

  I walked back to my hotel. Although the hour was late, many of the bookshops were still open and a lively atmosphere prevailed in the streets. Knots of people were standing on every corner, reading aloud to each other, laughing, chatting and drinking wine, mulled beer or coffee. I looked at a few shop windows and could scarcely resist the temptation to go inside and start rummaging.

  It was quite an effort to leave this animated scene behind and return to my hotel room. The Bluddums next door seemed to have calmed down, because they were snoring and wheezing like congested bagpipes. I lay down on the bed, intending to put my feet up and grab a few minutes’ repose. I stared at the bat in the corner and it stared back. Then I fell asleep.

  In my dreams I was wandering along an endless tunnel whose walls were lined with shelves full of ancient tomes. Dancelot, a transparent phantom, was flitting restlessly along ahead of me. ‘Down!’ he kept calling. ‘Down into the depths!’

  We passed all kinds of characters from books I’d read: my boyhood hero Prince Sangfroid, who galloped past on his horse Blizzard; Prospopa Thonatas, the consumptive carpet dealer from The Rajah’s Ravioli; Koriolanus Korinth, the smuggler-philosopher from Pomegranates and Pumice Stone; the twelve brothers from The Twelve Brothers and many other figures from popular novels. ‘Back! Back! Go back!’ they all cried, but Dancelot floated straight through them and so did I, because I too had become a disembodied spirit. Out of the depths of the tunnel came a huge, white, screeching one-eyed bat accompanied by a swarm of angrily buzzing roasted bees. The bat opened its hideous jaws and prepared to devour me. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, you can’t possibly eat me, I’m a disembodied spirit!’ - but by that time it had.

  I awoke. The bat was still dangling motionless in its corner, staring at me. It was probably dead, having died with its single eye open and hung there like that for ages. The Bluddums in the room next door were making a rumpus again. They had just woken up and engaged in another noisy free-for-all, smashing furniture and dislodging a picture from my wall. I got up with a groan, drowsily repacked my bundle and left this house of horrors.

  The cool morning air cleared my head and refreshed me as I strolled through the streets. Feeling like a bite of breakfast, I betook myself to a café for a cappuccino and a bookling, a book-shaped pastry filled with apple purée and topped with almonds and pistachio nuts. Strangely enough, this local speciality bore the same name as the fearsome creatures rumoured to have established a reign of terror beneath the city. Before handing me the oven-warm pastry, the proprietor of the café deposited it on a page torn from some old book and thrust a long skewer into the side. The little ribbon of cinnamon-scented filling that oozed out resembled a liquid bookmark.

  Also sitting in the café was another inhabitant of Lindworm Castle, Pentametros Rhymefisher, a former classmate of mine. I informed him of Dancelot’s death and he expressed his sympathy. When I told him what a lousy dump my hotel was, he gave me the address of another, assuring me that it was well kept and inexpensive. We wished each other a good trip and went our separate ways.

  A little while later I found the recommended hotel in a narrow side street. Some Norselanders were just emerging from it. They looked well rested and in good spirits. If those fastidious, law-abiding and reputedly tight-fisted individuals favoured this establishment, I told myself, it really must be clean and cheap - quiet too, in all probability, because no Norselander would shrink from summoning the forces of law and order if someone disturbed his night’s rest.

  I asked to be shown a room. It proved to be completely bat-free, the water in the washbasin was clear as glass, the towels and bedlinen were clean, and no disturbing noises were issuing from the adjacent rooms, just the subdued voices of some civilised fellow guests. I booked the room for a week and had a really thorough wash for the first time since my arrival in the city. Then, refreshed and filled with curiosity, I set off on my next excursion.

  Books, books, books, books. Old books, new books, expensive books, cheap books, books in shop windows or bookcases, in sacks or on handcarts, in random heaps or neatly arrayed behind glass. Books in precarious, tottering piles, books parcelled up with string (‘Try your luck - buy our surprise package!’), books displayed on marble pillars or locked away behind grilles in dark wooden cabinets (‘Signed first editions - don’t touch!’). Books bound in leather or linen, hide or silk, books with clasps of copper or iron, silver or gold - even, in one or two shop windows, books studded all over with diamonds.

  There were adventure stories supplied with cloths for mopping your brow, thrillers containing pressed leaves of soothing valerian to be sniffed when the suspense became too great, and books with stout locks sealed by the Atlantean censorship authorities (‘Sale permitted, reading prohibited!’). One shop sold nothing but ‘half’ works that broke off in the middle because their authors had died while writing them; another specialised in novels whose protagonists were insects. I also saw a Wolperting shop that sold nothing but books on chess and another patronised exclusively by dwarfs with blond beards, all of whom wore eye-shades.

  The big bookstores did not specialise, however, and usually displayed their wares in no kind of order - a system clearly favoured by their customers, as one could tell from the gusto with which they rooted around in them. There were no bargains to be had at the specialist bookshops, so it was almost impossible to find a well-known author’s signed first edition at a reasonable price. The surprise packages on offer at the big antiquarian bookshops, on the other hand, might well contain a volume worth many times the rest of the package put together, and anyone who ventured downstairs into the basement of one of these huge establishments dramatically increased his chances of discovering some item of real value.

  An unwritten rule prevailed in Bookholm: ‘The price pencilled inside the cover is valid, and that’s that!’ In view of the vast numbers of old volumes transported into the city every day, it was inevitable that dealers an
d their assistants were often too pressed for time to assess the true value of items while sorting through them. Indeed, they were sometimes so harassed that they didn’t even look at them, just sold off whole crates and sacks at knockdown prices. The result was that valuable books, too, came on the market and were wrongly classified, then banished to dark cellars or buried under stacks of cheap trash. They fell behind bookcases, slumbered in boxes under faded publishers’ lists or languished on high, inaccessible shelves and were nibbled by rats and woodworms. These treasures were the main reason why Bookholm exerted such an attraction. The tourists who visited it were amateur Bookhunters, so to speak. Anyone could strike gold if only he looked for long enough.

  Most visitors were collared on arrival by tourist guides who steered them into huge bookstores displaying stacks of largely worthless rubbish. The staff made a practice of mingling a few little gems with the cheap stuff, however, so a lucky tourist could make the occasional discovery even there. When he brandished the book in triumph and loudly rejoiced at the ludicrous price inside the cover, that was the most effective advertisement of all. Word that someone had paid a few measly pyras for a first edition of Monken Maksud’s Beacon in the Gloaming would spread like wildfire and the shop would be besieged all night long by customers in search of similar lucky finds.

  The bookstores that catered for a mass clientele had either bricked up their entrances to the catacombs or concealed them behind bookcases to prevent their customers from straying inside. Only a few streets away from the big bookstores and cheap cafés, however, things became more interesting. The shops were smaller and more specialised, their shopfronts more artistic and individual, their wares older and more expensive. They also granted access to certain areas of the catacombs - certain areas, mark you, because they allowed their customers to descend only a few storeys, after which the entrances were bricked up or sealed off in some other way. It was quite possible to get lost in these subterranean passages for several hours, but everyone found their way out in the end.

  The further into the city you went, the older and more dilapidated the buildings, the smaller the shops and the fewer the tourists became. In order to enter some of these antiquarian bookshops you had to ring a bell or knock. From them you could really descend into the catacombs without restriction but at your own risk. If the customer was a new and unknown Bookhunter the staff would issue exhaustive warnings, informing him of the dangers and drawing attention to the fact that torches, oil lamps, provisions, maps and weapons were on sale in the shop, as well as balls of stout string for attaching to hooks on the premises - a device that enabled you to venture into the depths in relative safety. Other bookshops offered the services of trained apprentices who were well acquainted with certain parts of the catacombs and would take you on guided tours.

  I had learnt all these things from Regenschein’s book, so my knowledge of them made those inconspicuous little shops seem to me like doorways into a mysterious world. For the moment, however, I was uninterested in leaving the surface of the city. I was engaged on a very special mission: bound for Pfistomel Smyke’s antiquarian bookshop at 333 Darkman Street.

  I came to a spacious square - an unusual sight after all those narrow lanes and alleyways. What struck me as more unusual still was that it was unpaved and dotted with gaping holes among which tourists were strolling. It wasn’t until I saw that these pits were inhabited that the truth finally dawned: this was the celebrated or notorious Graveyard of Forgotten Writers!

  Such was the popular name for it, its official, more prosaic appellation being Pit Plaza. It was one of the city’s less agreeable sights and one of which Dancelot had always spoken in hushed tones. It wasn’t a genuine graveyard, of course. No one was buried there - or not, at least, in the conventional sense. The pits were occupied by writers too impoverished to afford a roof over their heads. They wrote to order for any tourist willing to toss them some small change.

  I shivered. The pits really did look like freshly dug graves, and vegetating in each of them was a failed writer. Their occupants wore grimy, tattered clothes or were swathed in old blankets, and they wrote on the backs of used envelopes. The pits were their dwellings, a few tarpaulins being their only makeshift protection at night or when it rained. They had reached the bottom of the professional ladder, the very lowest point to which any Zamonian author could sink and the nightmare that haunted every member of the literary fraternity.

  ‘My brother’s a blacksmith,’ a tourist called down into one of the pits. ‘Write me something about horseshoes.’

  ‘My wife’s name is Grella,’ called another. ‘A poem for Grella, please!’

  ‘Hey, poet!’ yelled a Bluddum. ‘Write me a rhyme!’

  I quickened my step and hurried across the square. Aware that many a writer with a brilliant past had been stranded there, I did my utmost not to look down, but it was almost impossible. I glanced to left and right. Smirking youngsters were scattering sand on the poor fellows’ heads. A tipsy tourist had tumbled into one of the holes and was being helped out by his friends, who were roaring with laughter. Meanwhile, a dog was cocking its leg on the edge of the pit. Its occupant, who took no notice of these goings-on, continued to jot down a poem on a scrap of cardboard.

  And then the worst happened: I recognised a member of my own kind! Languishing in one of the graves was Ovidios Versewhetter, a boyhood idol of mine. I had sat at his feet during his well-attended readings in Lindworm Castle. Later he had left to become a famous big-city writer, but little had been heard of him thereafter.

  Versewhetter had just composed a sonnet for some tourists and was now reciting it in a hoarse voice. They giggled and tossed him a few coppers, whereupon he thanked them effusively, baring his neglected teeth. Then, catching sight of me, he likewise recognised one of his own kind and his eyes filled with tears.

  I turned away and fled from the appalling place. How terrible to have sunk so low! In our profession we were always threatened with an uncertain future - success and failure were two sides of the same coin. I strode off - no, I broke into a run - and left the Graveyard of Forgotten Writers behind me as quickly as possible.

  When I finally came to a halt I was in a seedy little side street. I had evidently left the tourist quarter, because there wasn’t a single bookshop in sight, just a row of shabby, ramshackle buildings with the most noxious smells issuing from them and muffled figures lounging in the doorways.

  One of these hissed an invitation as I went by: ‘Hey, want someone panned?’

  Oh, my goodness, I’d strayed into Poison Alley! This was no tourist attraction; it was one of the places in Bookholm to be shunned on principle by anyone with a vestige of common sense and decency. Poison Alley, the notorious haunt of reviewers who plied for hire! Here dwelt the true dregs of Bookholm, the self-appointed literary critics who wrote vitriolic reviews for money. This was where anyone unscrupulous enough to employ such methods could hire venomous hacks and unleash them on fellow writers he disliked. They would then pursue his bêtes noires until their careers and reputations were utterly ruined.

  ‘Sure you don’t want a thorough hatchet job?’ the hack whispered.

  ‘No thanks!’ I retorted. I only just resisted the urge to fly at his throat, but I couldn’t refrain from passing a remark. I came to a halt.

  ‘You guttersnipe!’ I snarled. ‘How dare you drag the work of honest writers in the mire where you yourself belong?’

  The muffled figure blew a disgusting raspberry.

  ‘And who are you to insult me like that?’ he growled back.

  ‘I’m Optimus Yarnspinner,’ I replied proudly.

  ‘Yarnspinner, eh?’ he muttered. He produced a pad and pencil from his cloak and jotted something down. ‘You haven’t published anything yet or I’d know it - I keep a close check on contemporary Zamonian literature - but coming from Lindworm Castle you’re bound to sooner or later. You goddamned lizards can’t hold your ink.’

  I walked off. What had poss
essed me to bandy words with such scum!

  ‘I’m Laptantidel Latuda!’ he called after me. ‘No need to make a note of my name, you’ll be hearing from me in due course!’4

  Two Bookhunters were standing in a gloomy doorway, loudly haggling over some black market wares. Poison Alley was a dead end, of course, so I had to turn and walk all the way back past those ramshackle buildings and that muckraker, who bleated with laughter as I went by. I shook myself like a wet dog when I finally left him and his rat’s nest behind.

  I traversed the compositors’ quarter, where the buildings were faced with worn-out lead type, and walked along Editorial Lane, which rang with the groans and curses of the copy-editors at work there, many of whom were clearly being driven to despair by lapses of style and punctuation. From one first-floor window issued a bellow of rage followed by a stack of handwritten sheets, which came fluttering down on my head.

  I left the tourist quarter behind at last and proceeded ever deeper into the heart of Bookholm. According to Regenschein’s book, this was where the oldest antiquarian bookshops were situated. Half-timbered and steeply gabled, the ancient buildings resembled elderly sorcerers huddled together for mutual support as they gazed down at me through their dark window embrasures.

  Picturesque though the neighbourhood was, very few tourists frequented it. There were no street traders or loudly declaiming poets, no Live Newspapers or vendors of melted cheese, just age-old buildings whose windows were coated on the inside with soot to keep out harmful rays of sunlight. Shop signs were few and far between, so I could only guess which the bookshops were. Antiquarianism of the highest order was carried on here. Seated behind those blackened window-panes, for all I knew, might be wealthy collectors and celebrated dealers engaged in negotiating the sale of books worth as much as a whole row of houses. In this part of Bookholm one instinctively walked on tiptoe.