The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

  I couldn’t restrain my eagerness to read what Phonzotar had written. I uncorked one of the bottles and removed the message. It read:

  1 Honour the muggroom.

  2 Thou shalt not address a white cockerel by name.

  3 Thou shalt eat no wood.

  3 If thou seest two sticks lying one on top of the other, thou shalt walk backwards over them with thy left foot first, not forwards with thy right. Moreover, thou shalt not devour them.

  5 Should a vulture’s shadow fall across a fire that has gone out, thou shalt rekindle it three times or a great misfortune will ensue.

  6 If thou cross the path of a white cockerel seated on two superimposed sticks, thou shalt not strike it, nor shalt thou address it by name nor partake of the said sticks.

  7 Thou shalt bear a name unlike any other in the entire universe. On encountering one of thy brethren thou shalt address him by his full name without a single slip of the tongue.

  8 Should a vulture’s shadow fall across a white cockerel seated on two charred sticks in the ashes of a dead fire, thou art in a deplorable predicament. Notwithstanding this, thou shalt neither lose courage nor address the cockerel by name, nor devour the sticks, nor strike the vulture, nor greet thy brother in an inadequate fashion.

  9 Thou shalt not finkle backwards.

  10 Thou shalt not finkle forwards.

  11 Thou shalt not sleep on a dune that drifts in the direction of noon. Should it drift towards evening, thy time has come.

  12 Thou shalt betake thyself to the city named Anagrom Ataf and, when thou hast found it, trap it and make it thy home for evermore.

  I went all weak at the knees. I had to sit down on one of the stairs before I took in what I was holding in my hands. I opened the second bottle and read what was on the slip of paper.

  1 Honour the muggroom.

  2 Thou shalt not address a white cockerel by name.

  3 Thou shalt eat no wood.

  3 If thou seest two sticks lying one on top of the other, thou shalt walk backwards over them with thy left foot first …

  The third bottle contained the same message. I felt sick. Two old men walked past and saw me sitting there with the bottles beside me. ‘Well, anything important?’ one of them inquired jocularly.

  The other tapped his head. ‘He’s been sending these important messages for … let me think … two hundred years? Three hundred? What’s the date today?’

  And they walked on, laughing to themselves.

  ‘Thou shalt not finkle backwards!’ chortled one.

  ‘Thou shalt not finkle forwards!’ said the other. They had to prop each other up to prevent themselves from tumbling down the stairs.

  So the Muggs had been traipsing through the desert for centuries because of that demented old man. It was on his account that I’d trapped a Fata Morgana, on his account that we’d put the fear of God into the Fatoms. Strictly speaking, it was his fault that I was imprisoned in this tornado, for if the Muggs hadn’t obeyed his message-in-a-bottle we should never have found Anagrom Ataf and I should never have ended up in Tornado City.

  I was absolutely shattered. Old Phonzotar had not only got me into the tornado; he had robbed me of any hopes of being able to leave it again. I hurled the bottles down the shaft to join the rest of the rubbish at its foot.

  I resolved to turn over a new leaf entirely. It was futile to dream of escaping from the tornado; no route to freedom existed. I would have to resign myself to my fate like all the rest.

  I knew that most of them consoled themselves against their imprisonment by engaging in some form of activity, either a definite occupation like tidying the central storage depot or a hobby – collecting things, mainly. One had a large collection of roof tiles and others hoarded chair legs or coffee beans, each according to his particular interest. I spent a long time debating what to collect. Chastened by my humiliating experience with the treasures I’d amassed, I opted for something that possessed intrinsic rather than financial value and was of general interest.

  The chronicler of Tornado City

  I collected stories. It was my intention to become the chronicler of Tornado City and record the biographies of all its inhabitants. I went to the storage depot, where I procured a thick block of paper, several pencils, and an eraser.

  Then I proceeded to question the old men about their life stories.

  I was greeted with suspicion at first. None of them was willing to speak freely because it seemed they all had something to hide. In the end, however, they started to enjoy themselves. They felt flattered to be taken seriously, eagerly dredged their memories for forgotten incidents, and became thoroughly communicative.

  Where most of the old men were concerned, a blot on their past emerged: all of them had lied about the true reason for their presence in Tornado City. The vast majority began by repeating the story of the caravan overtaken by the whirlwind, but eventually, in response to my probing, most of them came clean. The real reason why they had ended up in the tornado was identical in almost every case: prompted by youthful exuberance or a spirit of adventure, they had obediently waited at a tornado stop until they were whirled away. And one of the reasons for this natural stupidity was that all the inhabitants of Tornado City (except me) were human beings.

  From the

  ‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’

  by Professor Abdullah Nightingale

  Human Being, The. A life form belonging to the mammalian family and endowed with speech, this is an erect, ten-fingered creature of moderate intelligence (only one brain). The human being has two arms, two legs, and one head. It does not, however, possess any magical, Nocturnomathic or telepathic faculties, which in Zamonia puts it beyond the pale.

  In consequence of the Zamonian war of succession, all human beings were banished from →Atlantis. Elsewhere in Zamonia they are found only in small groups and village communities or as lone individuals. The rest have retreated to other continents such as Africa, Australia, or Yhôll.

  The few human beings who still lived in Zamonia were hard-bitten adventurers, because it required nerves of steel to live on a continent inhabited for the most part by hobgoblins, trolls, yetis, Wolperting Whelps, and evil spirits of various kinds.

  And it was this willingness to take a risk that had brought most of them to Tornado City.

  Their true stories were considerably more interesting and bristled with adventures. These decrepit old men had once been the biggest daredevils in Zamonia. The tales they told were filled with hair-raising deeds of daring. I would gladly pass them on for the reader’s benefit, but they would make a book on their own. I shall therefore confine myself, so as to convey at least some idea of them, to the three that impressed me most.

  1 Yson Bor, the man Death rejected.

  One day, Yson Bor decided that he wanted to die. He wasn’t suicidal, ill, or in any kind of trouble – on the contrary, he was thoroughly optimistic by nature, young, fit, and full of plans for the future. It was simply that he considered dying the most unpleasant aspect of human existence and wanted to put it behind him as soon as possible, so that he could get on with his life without always being confronted by the prospect of death. He was convinced that, once having died, he would somehow contrive to find his way back to the land of the living.

  Yson lived in one of the villages in the Muchwater Marshes, so it seemed logical to pick a quarrel with the Peat Witches that inhabited them, whose songs caused people to lose their way and die a painful death by drowning in the waters of the morass. Yson allowed himself to be bewitched by their singing, marched into the swamp, and duly sank below the surface.

  But he didn’t drown.

  Hard as he tried and eagerly as he drew the brackish water into his lungs, he simply couldn’t drown. His lungs breathed the water like fresh sea air. The Peat Witches, who were beside themselves with rage, pelted him with clods of earth and chased him back to his village.

  Next, Yso
n tried to burn himself to death. He had heard of the Hellfires of Midgard, great pools of liquid fire that bubbled up from the bowels of the earth, hot enough to melt rocks and ingots of iron. Unhesitatingly, he hurled himself into the biggest of those pools of fire.

  But he didn’t burn to death.

  On the contrary, he found the fire freezing cold and shivered like someone in an icy bath. Instead of sustaining fatal burns he caught a bad cold.

  Having recovered from his cold, Yson went to Baysville, where the biggest millstones in Zamonia ground the wheat from Harvest Home Plain into flour. Each of these stones was as big as a medium-sized village, and each time it turned it pulverized the grain from five whole fields. Yson lay down beneath one, hoping to be crushed to death.

  But the millstone didn’t crush him.

  Instead, it broke into a thousand pieces and buried him. But not even that could kill Yson. He crawled out of the debris a few minutes later, whereupon the angry local farmers drove him out of town.

  His other attempts to kill himself, though quite comparable with Baldwyn’s suicidal exploits, were equally unsuccessful.

  No Reptilian Rescuers came to Yson’s assistance – in his case they were superfluous. He merely discovered, on numerous occasions and in a wide variety of ways, that he was invulnerable. But he didn’t give up hope. He persisted in trying to kill himself by the most multifarious means.

  But he didn’t die.

  One day there came a knock at Yson’s door. He opened it to find Death standing outside. ‘Listen to me, Yson,’ said Death. ‘You can tie yourself in knots for all I care, but I still decide when someone dies. I’ve nothing against you personally, and it’s all the same to me if you’d sooner die today than in fifty years’ time. But if I turn a blind eye once, everyone will want the same privilege, and I might as well hang up my scythe. Just remember this: I’ll always be where you’re least expecting me, never where you’re looking for me – so give up!’

  But Yson didn’t give up, not even on Death’s personal recommendation. He passed through sandstorms and showers of meteorites unscathed, scaled the highest peaks, defied the thunderbolts of a Gloomberg Tempest, and jumped off Demon Rocks no less than three times.

  But still he didn’t die.

  One day there came another knock at his door. A masked man was standing outside. ‘Do you want to die?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ said Yson. ‘Can you help me?’

  Then the man told him about the Eternal Tornado. No one who tangled with it had ever been seen again.

  Yson trudged across the Demerara Desert without any water but didn’t die of thirst, was flattened by the Sharach-il-Allah but escaped without a scratch. At long last he was confronted by the Eternal Tornado. Unhesitatingly, he threw himself into the whirlwind, but even that failed to kill him.

  ‘Know what I think?’ Yson asked me at this point in his story.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The masked man – that was Death. He sent me into the tornado because he knew it was the place where I would remain alive longer than anywhere else.’

  And that was how Yson ended up in Tornado City.

  2 Slagoud Morvan Jr., the Bollogg-hunter.

  Slagoud Morvan was the least respectful person I have ever met. Compared to him, Knio the Barbaric Hog was a creature of the utmost sensitivity and refinement. Even before he could walk, his father, Slagoud Morvan Sr., made him wrestle with some Ornian Strangleworms – not an educational method I myself would recommend for universal adoption, but one that led him to despise any living creature except himself, be it never so big, strong, dangerous, cunning, poisonous, or good at wrestling.

  When the time came, his father asked him what profession he would like to pursue. Slagoud thought it over. He thought it over for a day, two days, a whole week. Slagoud’s forte was wrestling, not thinking. He pondered the matter for a month, trying to decide which was the biggest, most fearsome and invincible creature in Zamonia. After a month and two days it came to him: ‘I’d like to become a Bollogg-hunter,’ he announced.

  For the first time, his father began to have doubts, not only about Slagoud’s sanity but about the wisdom of using Strangleworms as a teaching aid. But Slagoud was now almost twice as big as his father and a far better wrestler, so he simply said ‘An excellent idea, my son’ and let him go.

  Slagoud travelled throughout Zamonia, defeating the numerous Yetis, Mountain Demons and Strangleworms that barred his path, but not a single Bollogg because he never encountered one. So he settled down at the foot of the Humongous Mountains, which were reputed to be a favourite Bollogg stamping ground. Wait long enough, it was said, and one was sure to come along.

  Slagoud waited a year, two years, three years. After ten years had passed he began to wonder whether he ought to change professions. Bollogg-hunting hadn’t earned him a penny so far, and he was just debating how to provide for his old age when he suddenly heard a distant commotion:

  CRASH!

  It was a Bollogg – a belated Bollogg, but still.

  CRRASH!

  Slagoud went hot and cold by turns. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t the faintest notion of how to slay a Bollogg.

  CRRRASH!

  The Bollogg had almost reached Slagoud’s hut. Slagoud was running to and fro, racking his brains as to how he could kill the gigantic creature, when he heard a distant sound.

  VROOM!

  Another Bollogg?

  VROOOM!

  No. Bolloggs go CRASH!

  VROOOOM!

  It was the Eternal Tornado.

  More than that, it was racing towards Slagoud’s hut from the opposite direction.

  So the tornado and the Bollogg were about to collide exactly over Slagoud’s hut. This would have made anyone else run off, screaming, but it gave Slagoud an idea: he would defeat the Bollogg by allowing the tornado to pick him up and whisk him high into the air. Then he could jump off the whirlwind and throttle the giant into submission.

  Slagoud sprang boldly into the tornado and was swiftly hoisted into the air. Once up there, however, he discovered that the Bollogg had no head at all and, consequently, no throat he could squeeze. Having come to that final realization, he was sucked into the whirlwind.

  And that was how Slagoud came to be inside the tornado.

  3 Olsen Olsen of Oslo, the gentleman adventurer.

  Olsen of Oslo was the most striking individual in Tornado City. He was the only one without a beard and white hair, and could not have been more than thirty-five. As unlike Slagoud as could be, Olsen of Oslo had the most perfect manners in the tornado. A blue-blooded adventurer whose ancestors came from Northern Europe, he was susceptible to bets of all kinds. He simply couldn’t resist a wager, no matter how high the stake or how slender his chances of winning. If someone said, ‘I bet a million Atlantean pyras you wouldn’t walk through a forest full of sharp-eared werewolves with a bell round your neck,’ you could be sure that Olsen would hotfoot it to the nearest bell foundry.

  Olsen won every bet he accepted, almost as if Lady Luck had personally selected him to demonstrate her existence. His only problem was, he had so many daredevil wagers running simultaneously, he hardly had time to draw breath.

  One night he really did walk through a smallish wood in South Zamonia notorious not only for its omnivorous werewolves but also for their extreme sensitivity to sounds. They had devoured many an innocent wayfarer from the feet upwards, just for disturbing the hush that prevailed in their little wood by inadvertently treading on a rotten branch. Olsen, I need hardly add, had a massive, three-clappered dinner bell suspended from his neck.

  When the first four werewolves pounced on him, Olsen tried to take advantage of the occasion to win another wager. He had bet someone (with whom he already had two more wagers outstanding) that he could simultaneously, and in the course of a single night, lift the curse on three werewolves by faultlessly reciting the Dullsgardian Spells backwards.

  The moon was full, ther
e were enough werewolves available, and Olsen had wisely taken the precaution of learning the Dullsgardian Spells by heart – backwards, of course. So he recited them aloud in the darkness.

  To his amazement, three of the werewolves turned back into what they had been before, namely, a peat-cutter, a troll-hunter, and a journeyman baker. The fourth werewolf had a hearing problem, however, so it didn’t resume its original form. It continued to do what werewolves do best: it bared its teeth and flew at Olsen’s throat. Just then, Olsen was whisked into the air by a Reptilian Rescuer that had heard his bell clanging on an inspection flight over South Zamonia and waited until the last, dramatic moment. The Reptilian Rescuer gave Olsen a thorough talking-to and offered to fly him home before he could indulge in any more stupidities. Olsen gratefully accepted. They were overflying the Demerara Desert when he suddenly spotted the Eternal Tornado from above. ‘What’s that?’ he asked the Reptilian Rescuer.

  ‘That’s the Eternal Tornado,’ he was told, ‘the only natural phenomenon whose victims not even we can rescue. It’s too dangerous. I bet you wouldn’t dare jump into it yourself.’

  Naturally, Olsen jumped.

  And that was how Olsen entered the tornado, the only person to have done so from above and not through the wall – hence his uniquely youthful appearance.

  Well, such was the cloth from which Zamonia’s last human beings were cut. They weren’t all great luminaries, but you certainly couldn’t accuse them of lacking guts.

  One day the tornado changed its rotational direction.

  There was a sudden hush. The roaring and creaking died away. The others merely looked up for a moment and then went on with their daily routine, but I, who was experiencing this phenomenon for the first time, took careful note of what happened. Nothing happened, strictly speaking, until the roaring and creaking began again. Roughly a minute’s absolute silence had elapsed in the interim.

  Eternal Tornado, The [cont.]. It is assumed that the tornado comes to a complete standstill for the few moments it takes to change its rotational direction [during which the temporal vacuum briefly fills up with time]. This would be the only juncture at which anyone situated inside the tornado [and that, as already mentioned in passing, would mean that he possessed the IQ of a lugworm] could leave it in relative safety. He would have precisely one minute in which to burrow through the tornado wall and make good his escape. During that minute the focal mass of the time inside the tornado’s wall changes, flowing backwards at twice the normal speed for sixty seconds. This signifies that, if the wall were penetrated during that period, the ageing process to which those entering the tornado are subjected would be reversed. This is only a hypothesis, however, and has yet to be confirmed by practical experimentation.