The City of Dreaming Books

by Moers, Walter

  I opened it eagerly. The cover creaked open like the lid of an ancient sarcophagus. The pages were as thick as my thumb and composed of some leathery grey material that bore little or no resemblance to paper. They were covered with the same little pyramidal knobs that adorned most of the books’ spines - the giants’ alphabet, probably. They afforded no clue to what the book was about.

  I was proud of myself for all that. I had to be one of the very few people who had ever leafed through a Gigantotome. I was a pioneer in the field of gigantological research!

  Suddenly I pricked up my ears - I thought I’d heard something. Was that me trembling with curiosity, or was the ground vibrating? Yes, the ground was definitely vibrating and so was the book. The tremor became more and more pronounced.

  Rather uneasy now, I peered around anxiously in search of Homuncolossus. Perhaps it was an earthquake. Or a subterranean volcanic eruption. Perhaps a huge mud slide was speeding through the catacombs towards me.

  The rumbling sound became more alarming still. Big grains of dust started to dance on the shelves. Pneumatic sounds like the squeal of a dozen bagpipes and the thunder of an organ were issuing from the darkness. The high-pitched, agitated trills were underlaid by a deep, persistent diapason.

  And then, out of the darkness and into the blue light of my torch, came . . . the giant!

  At first sight he looked like a mighty wave. Grey and tapering to a point, he was at least twenty or thirty times my height. Then I realised that the substance billowing towards me - and giving off an infernal stench - was living flesh. In some strange way, the giant’s conical shape reminded me of the hill on which my home, Lindworm Castle, was situated.

  He was covered all over with trunklike excrescences, many of which hung limp while others flailed the air in an agitated fashion. Between these trunks were membranes the size of windows. There must have been dozens of these perforated filters of flaccid grey flesh, which expanded and contracted like gills. I could discern no eyes, nor were there any arms or legs to be seen. The gigantic, animate mass seemed to propel itself along like a snail.

  The giant came to a halt. His trunks sniffed the air in all directions, his membranes pulsated with a steady rhythm. I wondered why he didn’t come straight for me and the torch, the only light source in the cave. Surely he had seen me?

  And then I understood: he was blind! Like so many creatures in the catacombs, he found his way around by touch, hearing and smell, hence all those trunks and membranes. He had a hundred noses but no eyes at all. The noise of the book hitting the ground had attracted his attention. For the moment, however, I didn’t exist for him because I wasn’t making a sound.

  So why all the books, I wondered. What did a blind creature want with them? Could he see after all, possibly with those curious membranes or an eye concealed in one of his trunks? Should I simply run off in the opposite direction? If he really was blind, that might be a bad idea. He might hear my footsteps, my cloak flapping, my laboured breathing.

  Better to stay put, then? Better not to make a sound, to hold my breath and wait till the danger passed? That seemed the wisest course of action. Perhaps he had only paused to listen and would soon retire again. Yes, I would stay put and keep quite still, that was the best idea. Wasn’t that the thing to do when confronted by any large and dangerous creature?

  Suddenly, I broke out in a sweat. I had always found it odd that I hardly perspired at all while engaged in physical exertion, whereas the sweat streamed down me as soon as I stopped. That was what happened now: I was bathed in sweat within seconds.

  And believe me, dear readers, dinosaur sweat has a very special aroma. It smells considerably stronger than the sweat of any other life form because its original function was to signal our presence. This property of dinosaur sweat dates back to primeval times, when we were the most dangerous, most feared creatures far and wide. Our body odour was designed to paralyse our prey with fright. Other life forms camouflage themselves or assume a deterrent appearance, whereas we dinosaurs give off a stench like a compost heap in August. I might just as well have operated a fire alarm or struck a gong to attract the giant’s attention.

  The colossal creature gave a contented whistle and pointed all its mobile trunks in my direction. It had discovered me! Its membranes began to throb violently and emitted a series of frightful slurping sounds. Then the mountain of flesh got under way again, heading straight for me.

  I did what I would probably have done had a tidal wave been bearing down on me: nothing at all. There was no point in running away from such an elemental force, quite apart from the fact that my legs wouldn’t have obeyed me. The monster performed two or three huge, squelching undulations and came to a halt just in front of me with its numerous trunks trumpeting simultaneously. I was seized by several of these yards-long excrescences and passed from one to another until I was almost at the summit of the conical monster, where one of its pulsating membranes was situated. Still paralysed with fear, I was convulsively gripping the jellyfish torch, which bathed the giant’s upper extremity in a ghostly blue glow. Two of its trunks supported me under the arms and held me just in front of the membrane, which now expelled a blast of warm air through its numerous perforations. The smell was so appalling, dear readers, that my sole recourse was to lapse into profound unconsciousness.

  The Giant’s Zoo

  I came round to find myself at the bottom of a glass jar as tall as a house complete with chimney. The sides were so smooth, I could never have scaled them and climbed out. I saw through the glass that the jar was standing on a shelf quite high up in a rectangular room whose walls were lined with more shelves. These were laden with gigantic books and at least a hundred more glass jars. I also saw some bizarre metal instruments whose function eluded me.

  My jellyfish torch, which was lying on a shelf opposite, bathed the room in dim blue luminescence. The giant appeared to have taken it from me for further examination.

  What alarmed me most about my predicament was not just the fact of my captivity but the contents of the other jars. Living creatures of the most repulsive kind, they were all denizens of the catacombs known to me either from descriptions or from personal experience. One jar contained a Spinxxxx, another a huge gold millipede with massive pincers. A white-haired spider the size of a horse was scuttling around in the jar immediately beside my own. On the shelf opposite, a captive Harpyr was clawing at the sides of its glass prison. I also saw a scaly green Tunnel Python of immense length, a plumed Catamorph, a black-eyed rat with red fur and chisel teeth as big as sabres, a Crystalloscorpion and a Wolfbat with a wingspan of at least ten feet.

  In short, the room seemed to contain one specimen of every dangerous species in the catacombs, the only reassuring circumstance being that each was a prisoner like me. Sporadic clicks could be heard whenever the creatures strove to escape from their glass containers and scrabbled at the smooth sides in vain. Many of the jars were open at the top, but others had grilles over them because their inmates possessed suckers or wings that would have enabled them to escape. It was a zoo of a very special kind. I now knew what Homuncolossus had meant when he told me the giant was a scientist.

  I could already hear him piping and trumpeting in the distance. My fellow prisoners became so agitated on hearing those noises that I could only fear the worst. He was coming to experiment on us.

  The pneumatic sounds grew rapidly louder. Moments later the giant appeared in the doorway, which was pyramidal in shape like his body. The overpowering stench emitted by his membranes assailed my nostrils, even inside the jar, and made me feel sick again. He greeted us on entering with a deep bass note that sounded like a tuba. Then, having undulated to the middle of the room, he turned on the spot several times with all his trunks extended and sniffing audibly - a blind creature’s method of surveying its surroundings. At length he emitted another contented blast on the tuba and went over to a shelf from which he removed a jar containing an insect.

  I’m not much of
an expert on entomology because most insects fill me with a revulsion proportionate to the number of legs they possess. Being regrettably ignorant of the precise scientific designation of the creature in question, therefore, I christened it the Flying Tailor.

  Its scorpionlike body was as big as that of a calf and its six long arms and legs terminated in pincers that gleamed metallically like scissors. It also had a long, thin tail - just as shiny and metallic - resembling an outsize bodkin. This ‘tailor’ could not only cut and sew, it could fly as well, because it was equipped with two pairs of big, whirring dragonfly’s wings.

  The giant thrust one of his trunks through the grille over the jar and blew into it briefly, whereupon the Flying Tailor collapsed. Having opened the jar, he removed the unconscious insect, replaced the jar on the shelf and came straight towards me, trumpeting happily.

  I shrank back against the glass in terror, but I wasn’t his intended destination. That privilege was reserved for the white-haired spider in the jar beside mine. He uncorked the jar and dropped the insect in. The white spider reacted promptly: it proceeded to cocoon its visitor in long, sticky threads of its own secretion. At that, the Flying Tailor woke up.

  I will spare you an overly detailed description of what happened in the neighbouring jar, dear readers, and confine myself to the bare essentials. The Flying Tailor, which was vastly superior to the white spider, eventually transfixed it with its bodkinlike tail, then systematically dissected it with its razor-sharp pincers.

  More revolting still, however, was the behaviour of the giant scientist. He listened delightedly to the gruesome noises issuing from the glass vessel and accompanied them with a veritable symphony of notes of varying pitch. From the relish and artistry with which he did this, he might almost have been improvising a musical accompaniment to the insects’ duel to the death.

  Once the white-haired spider had been completely dismembered and spitted on the Flying Tailor’s bodkin, the terrible giant lost interest and turned away. He propelled his enormous stone-grey bulk over to another shelf, took down one of the huge books and opened it. Then whistling to himself, he systematically ran several of his trunks over the pages.

  I was still so dismayed by recent developments that it took me a while to grasp the truth: the giant was reading. I should have been quicker on the uptake: the pyramidal studs on the pages were a form of Braille and he was deciphering it by touch. He was probably consulting some bizarre scientific manual for advice on which dangerous insects to pit against each other next.

  At length, having emitted another booming bass note that made every jar in the room vibrate, he replaced the book and went over to a mysterious apparatus mounted on the wall between two bookshelves. It was an intricate system of gold tubing fitted with numerous valves and controls.

  Using some of his trunks simultaneously, he manipulated several gold stopcocks and handwheels. There was a loud bubbling and gurgling from inside the pipes. Then, quite suddenly and to my utter amazement, the ghostly music of Shadowhall Castle rang out.

  It was only now that I noticed some inconspicuous triangular apertures in the walls just above the bookcases. They were the source not only of the music, but also of an audible current of air that quickly dispersed the giant’s stench and at last made breathing less unpleasant.

  Fresh air . . . So that was Shadowhall’s secret! The entire building was a ventilation system installed by a primeval race of huge scientists and designed to channel the air of the catacombs into the nether regions where they lived. The weird music was probably just a side effect of the controlled airflow, but the giant seemed to enjoy it, for he joined in with a series of high-pitched whistles and his monstrous body swayed in time to the melody.

  He went over to a shelf and removed a jar with an insect rampaging around inside it, then undulated over to me and deposited the jar beside my own. Inserting one of his trunks in our glass prisons, he sniffed us in turn, first the insect, then me. To judge by his ensuing fanfares, he found the scent of my dinosaur sweat delightful in the extreme. It wasn’t hard to guess what he had in mind: I and the creature in the adjacent jar had been selected to fight the next duel.

  That creature, dear readers, probably an outcast from the nethermost regions of the underworld, was without doubt the most repulsive and disgusting thing I had ever set eyes on. Imagine a full-grown pig from which the skin has just been flayed to reveal its raw flesh and sinews. Supporting this torso were five milk-white, unarticulated tubes equipped with suckers. Dozens of black, faceted eyes were distributed all over its body, together with the same number of beaklike feeding orifices. Most unreal of all, however, was the fact that its suckers enabled it to walk up the jar’s glass sides like a fly. What would this monster do to me? The white spider’s ghastly fate would doubtless seem positively merciful in comparison.

  All at once there was a distant sound that made even the giant stop short. It came from outside the room, and I was probably the only living creature present in whom it aroused hope instead of trepidation: it was the sigh of the Shadow King.

  The giant turned away, drew himself up to his full height and trumpeted with annoyance. At length, after seeming to deliberate for a moment, he started to whistle cheerfully and shut off the music and airflow by spinning the handwheels on his ventilation system. Then he swiftly undulated out of the laboratory. He had probably decided to capture the Shadow King for his menagerie before staging some more gladiatorial contests.

  Peculiar noises were issuing from the jars - all expressive of relief, no doubt, that the evil giant had gone. At least that granted me a brief respite in which to assess my chances of escaping.

  My assessment didn’t take long, however. I could see absolutely no possibility of escaping from my glass container unaided, dear readers. The repulsive creature in the adjacent jar was regarding me greedily with its numerous eyes as it squelched round the glass sides on sucker-equipped feet. Had it not been for the grille over the mouth of its jar, it would by now have climbed across into mine and set to work on me.

  ‘Hey!’ said a voice above me. ‘Up here.’

  I looked up. Homuncolossus was abseiling down from a shelf overhead. He straddled the mouth of my jar and peered in.

  ‘So there you are,’ he said reproachfully. ‘In trouble again, eh?’

  Before I could remonstrate with him, he lowered the rope.

  ‘Tie that round your waist,’ he whispered, ‘and leave the rest to me.’

  I did as I was bidden. Vigorously and with no sign of effort, Homuncolossus hauled me out as if I were no heavier than a sack of feathers. Then he lowered me down the outside of the jar, slid down after me and landed safely on both feet.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s tidy up in here.’

  Going to the jar containing the frightful insect, he threw his weight against it and pushed it off the shelf with surprising ease. It hit the floor with a loud crash and disintegrated. I hurried to the edge of the shelf and peered down. The horrific creature was climbing out of the shattered remains unscathed.

  ‘Are you mad?’ I cried. ‘Don’t you realise how dangerous these creatures are?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Homuncolossus, and proceeded to push the next jar off the shelf. It landed with a crash that sounded as if a whole glass factory had fallen from the sky and a huge, fat black snake came wriggling out of the debris.

  ‘The giant will hear you!’ I protested.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Homuncolossus, launching a third jar into space. Another crash, and a Crystalloscorpion was now at liberty. I could hear the giant whistling angrily in the distance.

  Homuncolossus had picked up a huge gold pin and was levering away at the next jar. Like a skittle, it toppled sideways on to its neighbour and knocked that over too. They rolled off the shelf together and shattered on the floor. I didn’t look to see what evil creatures had regained their freedom this time.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I hissed. ‘How are we ever going to get ou
t of here?’

  Homuncolossus paid no attention. He was looking at the shelves across the room from us, apparently well pleased with what was happening over there. Encouraged by his vandalism, the jars’ inmates had begun to racket around, leaping or flying at the glass sides in an attempt to knock their prisons over as Homuncolossus had done. A few of them succeeded, with the result that another three or four jars fell to the floor and smashed.

  The room was now filled with venomous hisses, menacing clatters and the whirring of wings. A red insect not unlike a monstrous grasshopper was zooming round the room, buzzing aggressively.

  The infuriated giant reappeared in the doorway, his many trunks sniffing in a feverish manner. Then his membranes began to pulsate violently, filling the air with his noxious, stupefying scent.

  ‘Now we’re done for!’ I cried. ‘We’ll pass out!’

  ‘Wait,’ said Homuncolossus. ‘This I must see.’

  The giant squelched to the middle of the room, whistling and trumpeting hysterically. As if in response to a secret word of command, the liberated creatures promptly fell on him. The frightful insect clambered up his body on sucker-feet and hacked away at him with its numerous beaks, the flying grasshopper transfixed him with its long sting, the Crystalloscorpion sank its pincers into his grey flesh.

  The giant defended himself as best he could. He gave vent to a long-drawn-out, ear-splitting bass note as his violently throbbing membranes diffused the stupefying vapour, but the frenzied creatures were undeterred; they continued to attack him from all sides and by all available means. The black snake seized one of his trunks in a stranglehold while a monstrous rat tugged at another with its sharp teeth. The giant staggered into a bookcase and clung to it for support, only to send more jars crashing to the floor. More flying insects of horrific appearance - iridescent wings and bright green stings - arose from the debris.