The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

  The floor of the tunnel gave a sudden lurch. 1600H and I staggered to and fro.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I exclaimed. I, too, was becoming nervous.

  ‘Search me.’

  Another, more violent lurch.

  By now the reflexes and thought patterns were racing along the passages in an even more hectic and erratic manner, humming and muttering in extreme agitation. 1600H detained a dark grey cube as it flitted past. Their conversation was incomprehensible to me, unfortunately, being telepathic. They hummed at each other for a while, then 1600H let the cube whizz off again.

  ‘Well?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The brain is waking up,’ said 1600H.

  CRRRASH!

  Time presses

  It seemed egotistical of me to quit the Bollogg’s brain at such an historic moment, but we had now reached the lake of earwax on the far side.

  ‘You must go,’ said 1600H. ‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll manage, even if the brain really has woken up. The old place could do with a bit of a shake-up.’

  We plucked out a few thick hairs and tied them together (it’s far from easy to tie knots in hair, but I hadn’t lost the skills I’d acquired during my time with the Minipirates). Then, having made a noose in one end, I lassoed a fat wart on the other side of the pool. 1600H pulled the hair rope taut and held it tight while I went across it, paw over paw, and gained the far bank without difficulty. I doubt if I’d have made it without his help.

  We exchanged a farewell wave. Then 1600H went back into the ear with the brain map under his arm.

  He was the best bad idea I ever had.

  CRRRASH!

  I made my way out of the ear. It was around noon, and the sun was shining down on Zamonia. Not a Bollogg Flea in sight. In the distance I could see Atlantis, an endless expanse of buildings bathed in sunlight. At last! All I had to do was climb down the Bollogg’s head.

  CRRRASH!!

  Why did I find the sound so familiar?

  CRRRASH!!!

  I caught a familiar scent. It was the smell of danger.

  CRRRASH!!!!

  Every crash made the Bollogg’s head vibrate. The last one sent me reeling. I fell over and landed on my backside.

  CRRRASH!!!!!

  I now knew the answer: only a Bollogg’s footsteps sounded like that. The primeval giant had come back to retrieve his head.

  The worst thing that could happen now was that the Bollogg should replace his head before I managed to get off it.

  To judge by the vibrations, he was already very near. I scrambled quickly out of the ear and set off for the valley below.

  Feverishly, I slid down a strand of hair. The vibrations had ceased – an ominous sign, because it denoted that the Bollogg had reached his destination.

  Then the sky went dark and I saw a primeval Megabollogg for the first time. He must have been a hundred miles in height. The upper half of his body was obscured by cloud, but his shoulders were probably in space. The colossus crouched down. The largest life form on earth was bending over the head he’d removed so many aeons ago: he was about to replace it on his neck.

  I clambered down as fast as I could. Sometimes I simply let go and clutched at tufts of hair as I fell. I could do that because the slope wasn’t vertical, more like a steep slide, but it was dangerous even so. If I once missed a handhold I would hurtle down out of control, and I still had several miles to go.

  Then the heavens parted and two hands appeared among the clouds. As big as medium-sized islands, they were black and covered with primeval calluses. The giant gave off a revolting smell. Many square miles of Bollogg hide, unwashed for thousands of years – the reader can have no idea of the stench, nor do I propose to describe it in detail here. Suffice it to say that I almost passed out – only for a moment, but long enough to make me miss the next tuft of hair. At breakneck speed, I tobogganned into the valley on the seat of my pants.

  The descent

  The Bollogg had now grasped his head. The desert sand was still about a mile away. Although the slope was becoming less steep and correspondingly less dangerous, it slowed my rate of descent. The Bollogg picked up his head. The hairy track beneath me gave a lurch. I pitched forwards, turned several somersaults, and continued to slide down it on my belly. The track drew taut. Only a few yards to the ground.

  On this occasion, too, it was the giant’s sluggish movements that largely contributed to my escape. A Bollogg was slow, but a Megabollogg was monstrously slow. I was able to stand up and run the remaining few yards. At long last, I sank to the hard ground.

  I crawled a bit further on all fours, then scrambled to my feet. A very rare spectacle was unfolding high above me: the replacement of a Megabollogg’s head.

  The gigantic Cyclops twisted his skull to and fro with an unpleasant, crunching sound. Then came a click that rang out far across Zamonia: the head had snapped into place. For the first time for many thousands of years, the Bollogg was surveying his surroundings through his single, cyclopean eye. I prayed he wouldn’t decide to make for Atlantis. Eventually he turned and headed south towards the Zamonian Gulf. Perhaps he felt like taking a dip in the sea.

  So did I, as a matter of fact.

  I COULD HEAR it from far away, that sound which only very big cities can produce: a sound consisting of all sounds rolled into one: the hum of voices and the cries of animals, bells ringing and the chink of coins, children’s laughter and hammers beating metal, knives and forks clattering and a thousand doors slamming – the grandiose sound of life, of birth and death, itself.

  I made for the city like a dog hauled along on a leash, slowly and rather fearfully at first, then faster and faster until I broke into a loping run. Atlantis seemed to exert a magnetic attraction. The louder the hum of the city became, the more I itched to find out who or what was making all those sounds.

  At last I stood panting outside the gate (only one of many, but that I didn’t discover until later). Looming over me were two black marble columns at least sixty feet high. They bore a plaque engraved with the following words:

  Between the columns stood an impressive individual three times my size and three times as hairy, with glassy red eyes and twice as many teeth in his mouth. In his hand was an implement that would have lent itself to innumerable uses, on his head a military-style peaked cap of blown glass. Although I didn’t know it at the time, he was a trooper in the municipal guard, a unit traditionally recruited from Yetis alone. The Yeti looked down at me sternly and tapped his cap with the implement. The glass gave out a high-pitched ‘Ping!’.

  ‘Hello there! Are you a human being, or directly related to, or on close terms with, or related by marriage to, or financially dependent upon, or romantically involved with, any member of the human race?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m a bluebear.’

  ‘Of course you are, I’m not a halfwit. I have to ask, it’s my job. Welcome to Atlantis, the city with a future! You see that Gryphon up there?’

  He levelled his tool at the summit of a minaret jutting into the sky behind him. Seated on the topmost parapet was a huge Gryphon.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s a genuine Gryphon. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘It means it’s a genuine Gryphon.’

  He gave me a long, enigmatic look, then waved me on. Just as I was slinking past him with my head down, the ground suddenly shook. It was only a slight tremor. The Yeti and I swayed a little, then it stopped.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  ‘An earthquake. It’s harmless, we get lots of them. Welcome to Atlantis.’

  From the

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

  by Professor Abdullah Nightingale

  Atlantis. Capital and seat of government of the continent of Zamonia. Classified as a megalopolis, Atlantis is divided into five administrative districts, each of which really
constitutes a kingdom in its own right: Naltatis, Sitnalta, Titalans, Tatilans, and …

  Thanks, but we already know that. At the time of my arrival, Atlantis was by way of being the world centre for non-or half-human life forms. Human beings were simply not admitted in consequence of the Zamonian war of succession. It happened like this:

  Human beings used to make up one-third of the population of Atlantis until they and the Norselanders became embroiled in a dispute over who should be mayor of the city, which in practice meant governor of all Zamonia. City Hall had been controlled by the Norselanders for several generations, and the mayoral office continued to be handed down from father to son until, one day, the inhabitants condemned this as nepotism and demanded free elections. Some heated arguments ensued, at first of a verbal nature only, but the opposing camps ended by resorting to violence.

  The Zamonian war of succession

  In the course of the wholesale free-for-all that broke out during a debate in the municipal senate between human and Norselander politicians, a Norselander was pushed out of the window in the general confusion and broke his ear (the structure of a Norselander’s ear is very complex, with a fragile osseous system.) With considerable diplomatic skill, the Norselanders took advantage of this incident to form an alliance with almost all the city’s other non-or semi-human life forms, thereby imposing what amounted to a strict local ban on humans. The latter resentfully emigrated to other continents, where – in a spirit of defiance, so to speak – they founded metropolises such as Rome, Constantinople, and London, from which semi- or non-human life forms, and Norselanders in particular, were debarred in their turn.

  The ban on human beings

  What resulted was the breach between humans, semi-humans and non-humans that persists to this day. That is why dwarfs, demons, Troglotrolls, witches, and other non-human manifestations hide themselves away from human eyes. A similar fate attended the few humans remaining in Zamonia, who either steered clear of Atlantis or went off into the desert like the ones I got to know in Tornado City.

  The Antlerites

  So Atlantis was ruled by Norselanders. These rather disagreeable creatures allegedly hailed from Norway, or possibly from Iceland. They were reputed to have reached Atlantis by clinging to Viking ships – a myth, perhaps, but one that does at least say much for their stamina.

  Norselanders were elks with human bodies (they walked erect) and extremely long, sensitive, protruding ears. It’s hard to say what made them, in particular, such good politicians; perhaps it was their ultrasensitive hearing. According to one Atlantean proverb, a Norselander could hear the wind change before the wind itself became aware of it.

  Klodds, Hazelwitches, Glacier gophers, and other Atlanteans

  Other denizens of Atlantis included Florinthian Klodds, a very sociable species of large dogbat with wings and dark fur; Melanosprites; Grailsundian Hazelwitches; North Zamonian Zombies; Harvest Home Hamsters; Glacier Gophers, whose ancestors came from Greenland; Shivering Sound Shrews; and scampering hordes of Muchwater Mannikins.

  Most of the inhabitants of Zamonia originated on other continents. Among them were the Italian Doombirds. These strange hybrids, a cross between a human and a chicken, resembled normal farmyard fowl in outward appearance but spoke in deep bass voices, generally of impending disaster.

  Beneath Atlantis’s numerous bridges resided the Bobkins, a timid race of likeable, helpful little gnomes who voluntarily collected the city’s refuse at night. Also living on the waterfront in corrugated iron shacks were the Wildlings, a fascinating bunch of hybrids, at times half human, half fish, at other times half goat, half insect. Much to everyone’s relief, they kept themselves to themselves.

  Bufadistas and Bluddums

  At the street corners sat Bufadistas, toadlike creatures from Portugal who sang melancholy ditties about unrequited love and other injustices. Passers-by were rudely pestered for coins by fearsome-looking Bluddums (from the waist up, shaggy black bears with huge projecting teeth; below that, bony humans with blood-red skin and preternaturally large feet). Bluddums were always to be found where uncouth behaviour was called for.

  Zamonian Wolpertingers

  Zamonian Wolpertingers were universally respected but ever so slightly feared because of the mock battles they staged with much clashing of antlers. Their ancestors came from Lapland. Antlers apart, they looked almost like normal canines, except that they were ten feet tall and walked on their hind legs. Most Wolpertingers hired themselves out as bodyguards or bouncers.

  Kukbuks

  Kukbuks baked little yeast cakes on open grass fires and sold them so cheaply that they had, to all intents and purposes, become a staple food. Very small, spherical in shape, and entirely covered with fur, Kukbuks were of pure Zamonian stock. Legend had it that they grew in the Graveyard Marshes of Dull.

  Rickshaw Demons

  Responsible for transportation were Chinese Rickshaw Demons, unutterably hideous creatures with huge calf muscles. They simply perched you on their humpbacks, however much you weighed, and raced off like the wind.

  Sedge Gnomes

  The African Tangawangas were Sedge Gnomes not much bigger than children of three but immensely quick, strong, and pugnacious. The Irish Druids, by contrast, were peaceable but not wholly innocuous. They were said to be able to turn you into a harp or a lump of peat if you insulted their native island.

  Trifakirs

  Noontide Ghouls

  The Central Indian Trifakirs, though something of a pest, were quite harmless. They always appeared in threes, of course, and made a practice of handing out muddle-headed philosophical tracts. The Noontide Ghouls, who hailed from Asia and preferred to get up to their tricks in the middle of the day, looked like paper cut-outs. Nobody knew what to make of them. Ghosts that appear during the day are not very impressive, after all, because they forfeit their spooky appearance. Having a disembodied spirit in your home in broad daylight is merely a nuisance, nothing more. The Noontide Ghouls were undeterred, however, and would continue their monkey business even when you ignored them and got on with your lunch.

  Draks

  The Draks, amusing little minidragons belonging to the goblin family, were good-natured, well-meaning house spirits. They had nothing in common with big, fire-breathing dragons apart from their physical resemblance. Just as a dolphin isn’t a fish but a mammal, so Draks weren’t dragons but – well, something else. They even brought you good luck if you treated them with respect, and by respect the Draks meant mainly first-class board and lodging. But keeping them was rather like going in for the lottery. You could pamper them for years and get nothing in return, whereas someone else could invite a Drak to a meal just once, and the next day he would find a bucketful of gold on his doorstep. Draks also had a curious knack of transforming themselves into wet dogs for brief periods, something they particularly liked to do on high days and holidays.

  Toothworms

  Toothworms occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Originally natives of the Swiss Alps, they were somehow out of place in a big city. Persons of stable temperament were repelled by their subservient, grovelling manner, but Bluddums liked to keep them as salaried domestic pets and used them to fetch their newspapers for them.

  Gryphons

  Gryphons, which were breathtakingly beautiful lion-eagle cross-breeds, had huge black wings like angels of death. They were Atlantis’s unofficial police force and primarily responsible for the fact that conditions in such a vast, chaotic city were so relatively peaceful. Everyone respected the Gryphons, not only because of their physical superiority but, above all, for their Solomonic integrity and sportsmanlike fairness. Like symbols of justice carved in granite, they perched almost motionless on the tops of the city’s skyscrapers, minarets, and pyramids, their keen eyes scanning the busy streets below. You had to have witnessed the arrival of a Gryphon to know how authority should be personified. Its wings created more noise and turbulence than a tornado, and when it dug its talons into
the ground and opened its mighty beak to emit a roar worthy of a whole pride of lions, you stopped whatever you happened to be doing.

  Gargylls

  The Gryphons were assisted by Gargylls, a winged species of gnome whose appearance varied greatly. This was because the Gargylls of Atlantis came from a wide variety of continents and had interbred over the millennia.

  Some specimens had the bodies of humpbacked dwarfs and semi-human faces, others reptilian tails and dragons’ heads, and others webbed feet and gnomelike features, but all had small, leathery wings. They took care of any minor misdemeanours – traffic offences, cases of shoplifting, nocturnal breaches of the peace, et cetera – that would not have warranted the intervention of a Gryphon. It was the Gargylls’ rather sinister appearance and somewhat brusque manner that accounted for the remarkably low crime rate in Atlantis. The stone figures of these creatures still to be seen on churches or old buildings in many modern cities were carved by sculptors who at one time lived in Atlantis.

  Hoopoes

  The Hoopoes also had wings but enjoyed considerably less respect. Indeed, nearly everyone pursued them because of the rumour that their feathers brought good luck in matters of the heart. This meant that only the proximity of a Gryphon could make a Hoopoe feel reasonably secure. Not only were seated Gryphons encircled by the usual fluttering Gargylls; a big flock of Hoopoes would also be jostling for position on some nearby gutter.

  Big-Footed Bertts

  Big-Footed Bertts were half duck, half Bush Witch; more precisely, women with ducks’ bills up top and ducks with very big women’s feet below. They were entirely harmless, even though they cursed everything and anyone that crossed their path. Quacking and vituperating, they restlessly roamed the streets of Atlantis on their own, and it must be accounted a blessing that no one understood their language except the Bertts themselves. Their profanities became truly dramatic when two of them happened to bump into each other. If this occurred at night, sleep was out of the question within a radius of three miles.