Homuncolossus vaulted across the table and landed beside me. I was scared stiff - I prepared to get up and make a run for it, but he was too close. Seizing me by the cloak, he hauled me to my feet. Again I smelt his mildew-laden breath and this time I also detected a glint in his dark eye sockets. I had never seen him so angry.
‘I’m a king!’ he snarled. ‘A king with a castle of my own, and you propose to put me in a zoo?!’
‘It was just a suggestion,’ I mumbled. ‘I only wanted to help.’
Homuncolossus was breathing heavily. ‘Listen, there’s something we must straighten out once and for all.’ His voice was quieter now but no less menacing. ‘We must lay our cards on the table and settle matters. You know it and I know it.’
What did I know? What ‘matters’ did he mean? What was going on in his wine-fuddled head? I hadn’t the first idea what he was talking about. I only knew that I was cursing myself for being a blabbermouth. One incautious word would be enough to turn him into a wild, unpredictable beast.
Homuncolossus reached inside my cloak. I felt sure he was about to rip out my heart, but he merely removed the manuscript and held it under my nose.
‘You want to know how to write like this,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Am I right?’
I nodded.
‘You want to know how to acquire the Orm?’
I still didn’t believe in the Orm, but I nodded again.
‘Most of all, you want to know how to become the greatest writer in Zamonia?’
I nodded even harder.
‘Say them, then! Say the magic words!’
I was tongue-tied.
‘Say them this minute,’ he roared, ‘or I’ll tear you to shreds even smaller than the ones I’m composed of.’
‘Teach me!’ I whispered.
‘What? Louder! I can’t hear you!’
‘Teach . . . me . . . to . . . write!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Please, I beg of you! Teach me to write the way you can!’
Homuncolossus let go of me.
‘At last,’ he said, smiling for the very first time. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
The Alphabet of the Stars
That was the whole secret, dear readers: Homuncolossus’s immense self-esteem. That was why he had lured me into his castle, to pass on the secrets of his craft. That had been his aim ever since eavesdropping on my conversation with Hunk Hoggno and learning that I was Dancelot’s authorial godson. Only his grotesque vanity had prevented him from simply offering to help me. I had to be tested. I had to suffer. I had to beg and implore him to accept me as his pupil.
‘Show me your paws!’ he commanded.
He had conducted me to the Animatomes’ library, sat me down on the chair and stationed himself in front of me. The Animatomes were thronging the shelves like the audience in a rather bizarre theatre about to present a play entitled Optimus Yarnspinner’s first lesson in writing from Homuncolossus of Shadowhall. No inhabitant of the castle wanted to miss this première, it seemed. They kept changing places and clambering over each other, squeaking with excitement. A few were fluttering in the air.
Obediently, I showed Homuncolossus my paws. He took hold of them and gazed at the palms as if he could read the future in them.
‘Which paw do you write with?’ he asked.
‘The right.’
‘And you still haven’t produced anything you consider worth publishing?’
‘Not really.’
‘Then you’re writing with the wrong paw.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve been misrouting the flow of poetic inspiration from your brain. Your right paw isn’t your writing paw. You must write with the left.’
‘But I can’t. I learnt to write with my right paw.’
‘Then you must start again from scratch.’
‘Do I really have to?’
‘If you don’t write with the correct paw you’ll never amount to anything. It’s like writing with your feet.’
I sighed. Great! I had to learn to write before I could learn to write.
Homuncolossus released my paws and proceeded to circle the table.
‘Anyone can write,’ he said. ‘Some people can write a bit better than others; they’re called authors. Then there are some who can write better than authors; they’re called artists. Finally, there are some artists who can write better than other artists. No name has yet been devised for them. They’re the ones who have attained the Orm.’
Oh no, not the Orm again, perlease! Because I still hadn’t attained it, the Orm pursued me with infinite tenacity. It ran me to earth in the remotest places, even miles below ground in the Animatomes’ library.
‘The creative density of the Orm is immeasurable. It’s a source of inspiration that never runs dry - as long as you know how to get there.’ Homuncolossus was speaking of the Orm as if it were a place he regularly frequented as a matter of course.
‘But, even if you’re fortunate enough to attain the Orm,’ he went on, ‘you’ll be a stranger there unless you’ve mastered the Alphabet of the Stars.’
‘The Alphabet of the Stars? Is that a script?’
‘Yes and no. It’s an alphabet, but it’s also a rhythm. A form of music. An emotion.’
‘Can’t you be a bit vaguer?’ I sighed. ‘Are you sure it isn’t a plum pudding as well?’
Homuncolossus ignored this gibe.
‘Only a handful of true artists attain the Orm. That’s a great privilege in itself, but very few of them know the Alphabet of the Stars. They’re the élite. Master it, and you can, if you’ve attained the Orm, communicate there with all the artistic forces in the universe. You can learn things whose existence you would never have suspected in your wildest dreams.’
‘This Alphabet of the Stars - you yourself have mastered it, of course?’
‘Of course.’
Homuncolossus stared at me as if I were an imbecile. How could I have doubted it, even for a moment?
‘Will you teach me it?’ I asked boldly.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it isn’t transmissible. I can’t teach you how to attain the Orm, either. Either you’ll manage it some day or you won’t. Many do so once but never again. Some attain it repeatedly, but they don’t know the Alphabet of the Stars. Others attain the Orm with ease and communicate there by means of the Alphabet.’
‘For instance?’
Homuncolossus thought for a moment.
‘Hm . . . Aleisha Wimpersleake attained the Orm. Many times, in fact, but if he hadn’t known the Alphabet of the Stars as well he might have remained a humble thespian all his life.’ Homuncolossus chuckled.
I couldn’t help grinning at the memory of Al declaiming blank verse.
‘Then there’s Inka Almira Rierre. He was a regular visitor to the Orm, and no one could have written a poem like ‘Comet Wine’ unless he’d memorised the Alphabet of the Stars.’
Homuncolossus kneaded his brow.
‘Perla la Gadeon too, of course! He bathed daily in the Orm, and he was born with the Alphabet in his blood. He was so talented, he died of it.’
‘And how did you learn it?’ I asked.
He stared at the ceiling.
‘It was when I was a little child - I didn’t even know the Zamonian alphabet,’ he said quietly. ‘I could neither read nor write nor speak. One night when I was lying in my cradle, gazing up in wonder at the cloudless sky, I suddenly saw some thin threads of light appear among the stars and link them up into wonderful shapes. One symbol after another appeared until the whole sky was covered with them. I laughed and gurgled, being only a baby, because the symbols shimmered so beautifully and made such glorious music. That was the first and last time I saw the Alphabet of the Stars, but I never forgot it.’
Homuncolossus was being serious, it seemed - so serious that my scepticism wavered a little. Perhaps I could coax him out on to thin ice with a question or two.
‘So you believe that
- what did you call them? - “artistic forces” exist on other planets? Are you talking about extraterrestrial writers?’
‘I don’t just believe so, I know so.’
‘Yes, of course, you always know everything.’
‘Writers exist on billions of planets. You can’t imagine what they look like. I know of one who lives on a planet not so far removed from our own solar system. A microscopically small fish, he lives at the bottom of a dark sea, beside the crater of a continuously erupting submarine volcano, and composes magmatic poems of breathtaking beauty.’
‘How does he write them down?’
Homuncolossus gave me a pitying look.
‘You won’t believe it, but there are a few methods of recording ideas in this universe other than scratching them on paper with a goose quill.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘I know of a living sandstorm on Mars that engraves its ideas on stone while racing across the surface of the planet. The whole of Mars is covered with sandstone literature.’
I grinned and Homuncolossus grinned back.
‘I realise you don’t believe a word I say,’ he said. ‘I can only hope for your sake that the Orm sets you right some day, or you’ll remain a pathetic prisoner of your own limited imagination. You’ll probably wind up as a greetings-card poet employed by some Bookholmian printer.’
The Animatomes rustled their pages with a sound like applause. Was I imagining it, or did I really detect a malicious undertone in their chorus of squeaks? Surely not - or so I hoped.
‘But that’s enough theory,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘Let’s get down to some practice. You’re going to spend the night in this room.’
‘In here with the Animatomes? Why?’
‘As a punishment. You were going to eat one of them.’
‘But I was almost dying of hunger and thirst! It was your fault for leaving me alone.’
‘There’s no excuse for eating my loyal subjects, even in your imagination! You’re going to learn to live in peace with them. You’re to remain here. I’ll bring you some paper and writing things, then you can start to practise writing with your left paw.’
I groaned. ‘But what shall I write about?’
‘That’s quite immaterial,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘It’ll be unreadable in any case.’
The Dancing Lesson
Ihardly need emphasise, dear readers, that I didn’t sleep a wink that night. First I spent hours practising writing with my left paw - something that seemed a near impossibility to a person who had written with his right paw for upwards of seventy years.
Next, I tossed and turned on the hard floor for a considerable time, vainly trying to sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about my recent tutorial. What had I let myself in for? I had been told to learn to write from scratch like a youngster in nursery school and subjected to a load of drivel about the Orm, the Alphabet of the Stars, and literary fish and sandstorms on distant planets. Was that how to become the finest writer of all time? I would probably have received better tuition in the high security wing of a Zamonian lunatic asylum.
Then there were the Animatomes. I now felt certain that they had divined my evil designs on them in the dining hall and were taking their revenge by special permission of the Shadow King. They continued to whisper for hours after the candles had burnt down. Every time I was drifting off into merciful oblivion, something tugged at my cloak, which I had draped over myself, or I would hear the rustling wings of an airborne Animatome circling overhead. Or, worse still, an arachnoid Animatome would scuttle over my face like a spider.
The next day, as I was tottering wearily through the castle, wondering what bizarre place would be the venue for my next tutorial and what form it would take, I heard some Weeping Shadows sobbing.
I was walking along a gloomy passage when several of them, half a dozen or so, came towards me. I turned on my heel, anxious to rid myself of their depressing presence, but more of them were advancing on me from the opposite direction. I hurried off down a side passage, only to find that it, too, was teeming with the creatures. Turning round once more, I went back to the original passage, but it was now jam-packed with shadows in both directions. I ought to have walked straight through them, but the thought of doing so gave me the creeps.
Just then the floor gave way beneath my feet, conveying me and the shadows into the depths. Down and down we went, until the walls on either side of us receded and opened out. We were descending into the great ballroom, the amphitheatre in which I had watched the Weeping Shadows dancing. We landed on the enormous dance floor and came to rest.
The floor was thronged with hundreds more shadows. They advanced on me, sobbing. The melancholy music of Shadowhall Castle struck up and the grey silhouettes began to circle me slowly.
I caught sight of Homuncolossus’s motionless figure seated in one of the upper tiers. He was watching the strange scene intently, and I realised that his presence was not fortuitous: this was another tutorial. For whatever reason, he meant me to dance with the shadows.
They now proceeded to pass through me one by one. Images, words, voices, landscapes and sensations raced through my brain. I trembled as I strove to capture those impressions, but they glided through me too swiftly. Again and again the shadows traversed me. For brief instants they flooded my mind with billowing images and soaring choirs of voices, then they were gone. It was like being repeatedly dunked in a tub of ice-cold water filled with sights and sounds.
The dance became wilder still. I spun round and round as more and more shadows glided through me at one and the same time. I felt ever colder - felt that the onset of so many outlandish thoughts was driving me out of my mind.
Then, all at once, it was over: the shadows had disappeared. I collapsed in a heap, surprised that I didn’t disintegrate into a thousand little slivers of ice when I hit the ground.
I lay there for a while, panting and shivering. Then I saw that Homuncolossus was bending over me.
‘What was all that about?’ I asked, still completely drained of energy. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to kill me and get it over?’
‘You’ve just read the whole of the Weeping Shadows’ library,’ he said. ‘It was a dancing lesson of a very special kind.’
‘But what was the point?’ I demanded, sitting up with a groan. ‘I nearly went mad, I didn’t understand any of it, and I’ve as good as forgotten it all again.’
‘It’s always the same with demanding literature,’ Homuncolossus replied as he helped me to my feet.
The Vocabulary Chamber
One’s memory functions like a spider’s web. Unimportant things - the wind, for example - a web lets through, whereas captured flies become lodged in it and are stored there until the spider needs and devours them.
I’ve read and long forgotten many books in my life, but their important features have lodged in my mental net, ready to be rediscovered years or decades later. The incorporeal books of the Weeping Shadows were another matter. They had passed through me like water trickling through a sieve. I thought I’d forgotten them within seconds, but I noticed the next day that some of them had lodged in my mind after all.
I suddenly knew words I’d never heard or read before. I knew, for example, that plumose was an archaic synonym for feathered. Although this knowledge may at first sight seem useless, whenever I visualise a young chick the word plumose strikes me as far more appropriate, somehow, than the humdrum word feathered. To my amusement, whole hosts of cute and exceedingly plumose chicks had suddenly begun to strut and cheep in my mind’s eye.
What had happened? How did I suddenly know what spinking meant? Everyone is familiar with the penetrating mouth odour given off by a garlic eater, but few people know that there used to be a word, spinking, that combined the notions of speaking and stinking. Read the words ‘ “Oh, those lamb cutlets were absolutely delicious!” he spinked’ and you instantly know - without the word ‘garlic’ having been mentioned even once - that the character in question wil
l leave an olfactory trail behind him throughout the novel in question.
Bolmigant, grandiferous, disconstutive . . . Knowing those words gave me a feeling of superiosity - a hybrid term, now sadly obsolete, formed by the amalgamation of superiority and seriousness. I also knew the meaning of mesomorphic, leptogamic, ectogilic, yogudromic, spheralic and indigabluntic - all of them derogatory epithets with which one could insult a person to one’s total contentification (another word regrettably out of fashion).
It gradually dawned on me that the Weeping Shadows were in possession of a store of knowledge dating from a long forgotten epoch when language was considerably more precise and discriminating than it is today. When describing a person we are apt to content ourselves with such woolly adjectives as pretty or ugly, but my dance with the Shadows had taught me, for example, that a nasodiscrepant was a person with nostrils of markedly different sizes, a puncheonist someone with a figure like a barrel, and a neplusultra someone more than averagely good-looking. Those words were far more subtle.
The Weeping Shadows’ love of exactitude embraced every field. Instead of lumping noises together under such banal headings as bang, rustle or clatter, they assigned them onomatopoeic designations appropriate to their special characteristics. The gentle sound of a fluffy feather landing on the floor was a bfft. The noise that results when you involuntarily burst out laughing halfway through a glass of beer and squirt the liquid through your nose was known as a splurph. The appetising sound of a square of chocolate being broken off a candy bar was a thnukk. The terrible noise made by a stick of chalk grating on a blackboard was a skreek. As for the awe-inspiring sound of a volcanic eruption, that was aptly termed a rumbumblion.
That day, instead of wandering around Shadowhall Castle, I quickly roamed the convolutions of my own brain in search of all the words the Weeping Shadows had so generously deposited there.
The City of Dreaming Books Page 38
