by Walter Moers
The general inspected each of the cells in turn, and what he saw in them surprised and overjoyed him beyond measure. Even the first three prisoners, who were still anaesthetised, struck him as a hundred times worthier of the Metal Maiden than all the inhabitants of Hel put together. What were these noble creatures? They resembled dogs of various breeds, but they could walk on their hind legs and they also possessed horns. All were muscular and in peak condition. Ticktock had some more cells opened and his delight intensified. These were genuine warriors, not paid mercenaries who would have drowned their own mothers for a bowl of broth. They were real fighters, intelligent beings endowed with the instincts of a dangerous predator. General Ticktock could well imagine what a death-defying fight they would put up inside the Metal Maiden! His excitement grew by leaps and bounds.
A soul for the Metal Maiden
What a shame to waste such noble creatures on the stupid fun and games in the Theatre of Death! He would have to act quickly to obtain the finest specimens before they lay dead on the sand in the arena. He need only pronounce them a threat to the king’s safety and he could do as he pleased with them. But which ones to take? They all looked so splendid. Irresolutely, he went from cell to cell. At least he could dispense with his expedition to Overworld. The warder opened the door of the next cell and he looked inside.
The general had seen few things in his life that had really impressed him and etched themselves deep into his memory: the Nurn Forest battlefield on which he had opened his eyes after being reborn; the avalanche of boulders descending on the Copper Killers from Lindworm Castle; the sight of Hel in the distance; and, of course, the Metal Maiden. What he saw in this latest cell undoubtedly belonged on the list. But for the presence of a witness, he would have gone down on his knees before the spectacle that met his eyes.
It was Rala. Still drugged and in chains, with her limbs unnaturally contorted, she lay stretched out on the flagstones. The general stiffened.
What a supreme stroke of good fortune! Electric frissons traversed his metal skull and the alchemical batteries inside him crackled. Had he tried to speak at this moment, he would only have ticked. He had to summon up all his self-control, or he would have torn off the warder’s head in sheer ecstasy.
Her proportions were absolutely perfect – the Metal Maiden might have been made for her – and her beauty was overpowering. General Ticktock had a unique ability to scent courage and fear. In the case of this girl Wolperting, he detected an immense determination to survive and as little fear of death as a corpse would have had. There was no doubt about it: before him lay the soul of his Metal Maiden. With her he would at last be able to perform the lethal symphony of which he had dreamt for so long.
Biteworms and Spiderfloods
Rumo awoke feeling refreshed and ready for anything. The little creatures that had served him as a live fur coat were scurrying around nearby. He got up and inspected the cave entrances.
‘Which one shall I take?’ he wondered.
‘Hard to say,’ said Dandelion.
‘Take the first one you come to,’ Krindle advised.
Rumo made slow progress. The ground was stony and uneven, the tunnels became narrower from one intersection to the next, and his path was barred by rockfalls of ever more menacing size. Sometimes he had to squeeze through narrow passages, sometimes he had to crawl. The furry creatures had disappeared. He only hoped his route wouldn’t end in a wall of rock.
‘Look where you’re going,’ Dandelion warned. ‘Some of these holes are a mile deep.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I was a miner, remember? If there’s anything I know about, it’s caves. I’m a Troglotroll! There’s tectonic movement here, you can tell from the rock formations. Those sharp ridges were created by earthquakes. One little geological hiccup and we’ll be cooped up in here for evermore, ha ha!’
‘You think that’s funny?’
‘It wouldn’t be a new experience, not for me,’ said Dandelion. ‘Ever heard of a miner’s sense of humour? At work we used to take it in turns to visualise the most appalling disasters. It’s an antidote to fear.’
Some slimy liquid dripped on to Rumo’s neck. Dangling from the roof of the tunnel were insects the length of his arm, colourless and eyeless but equipped with long antennae.
‘Don’t worry, they only eat carrion,’ said Dandelion. ‘They don’t eat your eyes until you’re dead. They’re partial to eyes, probably because they don’t have any themselves.’
Indignantly, Rumo brushed away the antennae of an insect that was trying to explore his face.
‘It’s always the same in poor lighting,’ Dandelion complained. ‘Nature has a field day when it thinks no one’s looking.’
‘Too true,’ Krindle chimed in. ‘I served in the Midgardian Cave Wars. Three years fighting underground. I saw creatures that should really be banned.’
‘You can say that again. Life assumes strange forms when there’s no sunlight. Chalk Worms, Soilspiders, Tunnel Rats, Roof Crawlers, Fridgimoths, Lava Worms, polypodous limpets, transparent leeches, phosphorescent snails – you name it. It’s almost as if ugliness really goes to town when there’s no one around to see it.’
Rumo ascended a natural stairway of tilted granite blocks. A yard-long millipede came towards him. He politely stepped aside and watched it march past, scything the air with its pincerlike jaws. It too appeared to be blind.
‘Yes, Biteworms are best avoided,’ said Dandelion. ‘They’re harmless, actually – provided you’re awake and can elude them, but heaven help you if you’re asleep. They’ll go right through you. They creep into your ear, nibble their way through your brain and down your neck, and come out by your feet. Biteworms don’t make detours.’
‘You’re right,’ said Krindle. ‘I knew a Demonic Warrior who had a Biteworm go through both legs while he was asleep – twice. In through the upper thigh going one way and out through the lower thigh on the way back. He had to walk on his hands after that.’
‘Did you know there are subterranean mushrooms with the characteristics of carnivorous plants? And a species of octopus that can get by without water and lives in mounds of scree? The creatures have arms two hundred yards long. You could set up house in their suckers.’
‘I know,’ said Krindle. ‘Ever heard of the Minerameleon? Up to forty feet long, and it can take on the shape and colour of any kind of rock. You could stand on one and never know it.’
‘That’s nothing,’ said Dandelion. ‘Did you know there are subterranean mosquitoes so small they can fly straight up your nostrils and into your brain – and lay eggs there that grow to the size of watermelons? It happened to one of my fellow miners. We were walking along a tunnel together and suddenly his head swelled up like a pumpkin. And then – bang! – it exploded before my very eyes and out flew millions of baby—’
‘Spiderfloods!’ Krindle broke in darkly.
‘Oh man, Spiderfloods are something else! Whole tunnels are suddenly inundated with Woolspiders the size of your fist. You can try to breathe without getting any of the hairy creatures in your mouth, but it’s quite impossible, take it from me.’
Rumo groaned. He was finding the route arduous enough without having to listen to Krindle and Dandelion blathering. For some time now he had been compelled to proceed at a crouch to avoid the jagged rocks protruding from the roof of the tunnel. Innumerable plump slugs were crawling around on them, leaving trails of luminous violet slime in their wake.
It struck him that the composition of the tunnel floor was changing. More and more often he trod on yielding soil or sand and pebbles.
‘Very few rocks here,’ he said.
‘That means we’ve gained height,’ Dandelion replied. ‘We’re reaching the upper layers, they’re looser.’
Rumo could now detect familiar smells again: soil, leaf mould, resin. Strangely enough, he felt he’d been here before. But that was impossible, of course.
‘It smells of forest,’ he said
.
The ground became steadily moister and softer. It squelched at every step as if he were walking on waterlogged moss. Thousands of slugs were burrowing through the soil or clinging to the tunnel’s walls and roof and daubing them with phosphorescent violet slime. Where everything had been hard, cold and jagged, it was now soft, warm and yielding.
Rumo trod in a puddle. He crouched down, dipped a paw in it and sniffed his fingers. The liquid was viscous and sticky, and had a smell he knew.
‘Well?’ asked Dandelion. ‘Is it drinkable?’
‘No,’ said Rumo. ‘It’s blood.’
The siege
The Metal Maiden was ready. The world’s most sophisticated killing machine had at last been equipped with a soul. It fitted the beautiful female Wolperting as perfectly as if it had been made for her alone.
As soon as he left Rala’s cell General Ticktock had instructed his guards to keep the prisoner under strict surveillance and allow no one else near her. Then he hurried to his tower to prepare the Metal Maiden. He topped up the external hoppers, polished the machine and its pipework with a cloth, and ordered his servants to light the room with candles. Finally he sent for the prisoner.
Her name, he had since discovered, was Rala and she was still anaesthetised. This delighted Ticktock, because he could insert her in the machine and plunge the needles into her body without her being aware of it.
The time came at last. He began by infusing Rala with a solution of caffeine and belladonna. A little sugar for the brain, dissolved in distilled water? Why not? He wanted her to awake refreshed, with her senses alert and her blood thin. The fluids gurgled cheerfully along the tubes, the Metal Maiden glinted in the candlelight. Never had General Ticktock experienced such a sense of anticipation, a preliminary reward for a feat as yet unaccomplished.
Muffled by distance, sounds drifted into the torture chamber from the Theatre of Death. The first Wolpertings to do battle would soon be led into the arena. The inhabitants of Hel were going wild. Word of the sensational crop of prisoners had spread swiftly, and they were all eager to see the Wolpertings fight.
But General Ticktock wasn’t interested. Not in the slightest. Those ridiculous contests in the theatre had bored him from the very first. What would he be missing, after all? A few silly fights, a few bodies twitching in their death throes, some blood on the sand, drunken spectators. No, he had something more important to do. He was making ready for a wedding of a special special kind: the siege, conquest and destruction of Rala’s body. It would be the longest, most agonising and beautiful death that had ever been bestowed on any living creature.
Ushan versus Roboglob
Ushan DeLucca entered the arena by the northern gate. Pandemonium reigned on the spectators’ benches. The Hellings were shouting, laughing, chucking bread and fruit around, and paying little attention to the new arrival in the Theatre of Death.
Ushan was in the best of spirits. He walked with a spring in his step, smiling and waving to the audience. He had been captured and taken to a city full of bloodthirsty Netherworlders, he and all his friends had been enslaved and he was about to be slaughtered in combat before an audience. Apart from that, he couldn’t have felt better. Why? Because there wasn’t any weather in Netherworld.
Gone were the rain, sunshine and areas of low pressure – and, with them, his headaches, his bouts of melancholia and the buzzing in his ears. On regaining consciousness in Hel, Ushan had felt as if a ton weight had been removed from his shoulders – as if he’d at last been divested of a lifetime’s suit of leaden armour. Down here, as a prisoner in this nightmare world, he felt truly free for the first time ever.
He came to a halt, turned on the spot and blew the audience a few kisses. What a glorious day!
A gong sounded and the spectators fell silent.
The ground in the centre of the arena opened up and a long, narrow pit appeared in the sand.
‘Roboglob, Roboglob,’ the spectators chanted softly. ‘Roboglob!’
Surprised, Ushan stopped blowing kisses. This seemed to be a familiar ritual.
The gong sounded again and a boat rose slowly from the pit. It was a skiff with a sharp prow, and in it stood a gigantic red-skinned warrior half as tall again as Ushan, wearing armour composed of different materials: a leather gorget, a breastplate of bronze, silver knee pieces, a golden helmet shaped like a death’s head with a silver blade for a crest, and a skirt of human thigh bones. He stood there with both hands resting on a massive executioner’s sword. The upwards motion ceased, the boat came to rest and the warrior got out.
The applause rose to fever pitch. ‘Roboglob the Ferryman! Roboglob the Ferryman!’ chanted the audience, louder and louder.
The warrior raised his sword in both hands and saluted the audience. The boat sank into the ground and the aperture closed again.
The spectators stamped their feet.
This Roboglob, Ushan was impressed to note, seemed to be a pretty big cheese down here.
The story of Roboglob the Ferryman
Roboglob was an Osirian, one of the last descendants of a tribe of warlike giants from the north of Zamonia. He was known as Roboglob the Ferryman because he could be relied on to convey all his opponents to the Realm of Death on streams of blood. He enjoyed the applause as much as the fighting, and he’d made it a rule always to win in a spectacular manner. He never made short work of his opponents, but deliberately toyed with them for a considerable time, inflicting minor wounds and a painful, lingering death. Roboglob could afford to indulge in these tactical ploys because, being an established Theatre of Death artiste, he was never matched with an opponent of his own calibre.
Roboglob couldn’t lose, even the audience knew that. What mattered in a Roboglob fight was the ritual, not the suspense; not who won, but the spectacular way in which Roboglob would this time dispatch his opponent. When he eventually did so, he never left it at a single sword stroke. He had to deliver three, four, five or ten, and with the last one he sent his opponent’s head rolling across the sand. Roboglob didn’t fight, he tortured; he didn’t kill his victims, he butchered them.
Ushan had been chosen out of all the prisoners by Roboglob himself. He didn’t make a very robust impression, this Wolperting with the big bags under his eyes, nor – from the look of him – was speed his long suit. The fact that he proposed to fight Roboglob armed with a slender rapier was greeted with derisive remarks and guffaws. Why not a stick of celery, while he was about it?
‘Another passenger for you, Roboglob!’ called someone in the audience. More guffaws.
Roboglob, who was still holding his huge sword aloft in both hands, swung round. The rows of seats trembled beneath the spectators’ pounding feet.
Ushan was wearing no armour, only his usual buckskin waistcoat and trousers. He walked slowly towards Roboglob, paused just in front of him and performed a few erratic movements that might have been a nonchalant salute.
‘Ssst, ssst, ssst!’ went Ushan, but no one heard him in the universal uproar. He bowed, blew a few more kisses and sauntered back towards the northern gate as serenely as he had entered. Behind him the red-skinned giant sank to his knees with a gasp of surprise, blood spurting from several wounds in the gaps between his armour. No one had seen a thing. Had the Wolperting even drawn his rapier? Absolute silence descended on the Theatre of Death.
With a clatter Roboglob fell face down on the sand and lay quite still.
Ushan paused once more, bowed deeply – though no one was applauding – and disappeared through the gateway.
Ushan becomes a favourite
The king had stopped jumping around on his throne.
‘Wath was tath?’ he asked his adviser. ‘Did you see, Tarfrif?’
‘It was the quickest fight I ever saw,’ Friftar replied. He was as thunderstruck as everyone else in the theatre. ‘To be honest, Majesty, I saw almost nothing.’
Gornab stared down at the gigantic corpse. The sand around it was turning red.
> ‘Blogorob is dead,’ he whispered dully. ‘Blogorob the Merryfan is dead.’
‘Yes,’ Friftar translated mechanically, ‘Roboglob the Ferryman is dead. It seems these Wolpertings really are as good at fighting as they’re rumoured to be. Perhaps they shouldn’t be judged by their outward appearance. I shall find out his name and put him down on the list of favourites.’
‘Yes,’ said Gornab, ‘tup him down on the slit of rafourites.’
Friftar bowed to conceal his surreptitious smile. The spectators were completely taken aback. Everyone was talking excitedly. It was just as he had hoped! These Wolpertings might prove to be the finest crop Hel’s first Urban Flytrap had ever yielded.
Nurn blood
‘Blood?’ Krindle asked incredulously. ‘The real thing, you mean?’
Rumo was still kneeling beside one of the many red puddles on the tunnel floor. The sample he’d just taken was sticking to his fingers. He had difficulty in wiping it off on his clothes.
‘It smells of blood,’ he said. ‘And resin. Where have I smelt that combination before?’
‘Blood and resin …’ said Dandelion. ‘That puts me in mind of Nurn Forest. The Nurn’s blood was full of resin.’
‘We’d better get out of here,’ said Rumo. ‘I don’t like the smell of this place.’
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a tentacle darted from the puddle. It was blood-red and shaped like a muscular arm. Five fingerlike offshoots reached for Rumo’s wrist, closed round it and started to drag him down into the puddle.
‘What is it?’ shouted Dandelion. ‘What’s the matter?’
Rumo tried to pull his arm away, but the tentacle was immensely strong.
‘Draw me!’ Krindle commanded.
