Haroun and the Sea of Stories (12 page)

‘It’s too bad,’ he said. ‘Really, why people can’t speak properly, it beats me.’

The Shadow Warrior, ignoring the Prince, made further rapid hand gestures at Rashid, and managed to croak out a few words. ‘Murder,’ it said. ‘Spocok Obi New Year.’

‘So it’s murder he plans,’ cried Bolo, putting his hand upon the hilt of his sword. ‘Well, he won’t have it all his own way, I promise him
that
.’

‘Bolo,’ said General Kitab, ‘Dash it all, will you be quiet? Spots and fogs! This Warrior is trying to tell us something.’

The Shadow Warrior’s hand movements became agitated and a little desperate: he twiddled his fingers into different positions, held his hands at different angles, pointed at different parts of his body, and repeated, hoarsely: ‘Murder. Murder. Spock Obi New Year.’

Rashid Khalifa smacked his forehead. ‘I’ve got it,’ he exclaimed. ‘What a fool I am. He’s been talking to us fluently all the time.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Prince Bolo put in. ‘You call those grunts
fluency
?’

‘It’s the hand movements,’ Rashid answered, showing considerable restraint at Bolo’s burblings. ‘He has been using the Language of Gesture. As for what he said, it wasn’t “murder”, but
Mudra
. That’s his name. He’s been trying to introduce himself!
Mudra
.
Speak Abhinaya
. That’s what he’s been saying. “Abhinaya” is the name of the most ancient Gesture Language of all, which it just so happens I know.’

Mudra and his Shadow instantly began nodding furiously. Now the Shadow sheathed its sword, too, and began to use Gesture Language as rapidly as Mudra himself, so that Rashid was obliged to plead, ‘Hang on. One at a time, please. And slowly; I haven’t done this for a long time, and you’re going too fast for me.’

After a few moments of ‘listening’ to the hands of Mudra and his Shadow, Rashid turned to General Kitab and Prince Bolo with a smile. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said. ‘Mudra is a friend. Also, this is a lucky meeting—for we have here none other than the Champion Warrior of Chup, considered by most Chupwalas to be second in authority only to Cultmaster Khattam-Shud himself.’

‘If he’s Khattam-Shud’s number two man,’ Prince Bolo exclaimed, ‘then we really are in luck. Let’s seize him and put him in chains and tell the Cultmaster we’ll only release him if we get Batcheat back safe and sound.’

‘And how do you propose to capture him?’ General Kitab mildly asked. ‘I do not think he wishes to be captured, you know. Harrumph.’

‘Please listen,’ Rashid urged. ‘Mudra is no longer an ally of the Cultmaster’s. He has become disgusted with the growing cruelty and fanaticism of the Cult of the tongueless ice-idol Bezaban, and has broken off relations with Khattam-Shud. He came here, to this twilit wilderness, to think out what he should do next. If you wish, I can interpret his Abhinaya for you.’

General Kitab nodded, and Mudra began to ‘speak’. Haroun noticed that the Language of Gesture involved more than just the hands. The position of the feet was important, too, and eye movements as well. In addition, Mudra possessed a phenomenal degree of control over each and every muscle in his green-painted face. He could make bits of his face twitch and ripple in the most remarkable way; and this, too, was a part of his ‘speaking’, his Abhinaya.

‘Don’t think all Chupwalas follow Khattam-Shud or worship his Bezaban,’ Mudra
said
in his silent, dancing way (and Rashid translated his ‘words’ into ordinary speech). ‘Mostly they are simply terrified of the Cultmaster’s great powers of sorcery. But if he were defeated, most people in Chup would turn to me; and though my Shadow and I are warriors, we are both in favour of Peace.’

Now it was the Shadow’s turn to ‘speak’. ‘You must understand that in the Land of Chup, Shadows are considered the equals of the people to whom they are joined,’ it began (with Rashid translating again). ‘Chupwalas live in the dark, you know, and in the dark a Shadow doesn’t have to be one single shape all the time. Some Shadows—such as my goodself—learn how to change ourselves, simply by wishing to do so. Imagine the advantages! If a Shadow doesn’t care for the clothes sense or hairstyle of the person to whom it’s attached, it can simply choose a style for itself! A Chupwala’s Shadow can be graceful as a dancer even if its owner is clumsy as an oaf. You comprehend? What’s more: in the Land of Chup, a Shadow very often has a stronger personality than the Person, or Self, or Substance to whom or to which it is joined! So often the Shadow leads, and it is the Person or Self or Substance that follows. And of course there can be quarrels between the Shadow and the Substance or Self or Person; they can pull in opposite directions—how often have I witnessed that!—but just as often there is a true partnership, and mutual respect. —So Peace with the Chupwalas means Peace with their Shadows, too. —And among the Shadows, also, Cultmaster Khattam-Shud has made terrible trouble.’

Mudra the Shadow Warrior resumed the narrative. Quicker and quicker moved his hands; and his facial muscles rippled and twitched in a most excited way; and his legs danced nimbly and fast. Rashid had to work very hard to keep up with him. ‘Khattam-Shud’s black magic has had fearsome results,’ Mudra revealed. ‘He has plunged so deeply into the Dark Art of sorcery that he has become Shadowy himself—changeable, dark, more like a Shadow than a Person. And as he has become more Shadowy, so his Shadow has come to be more like a Person. And the point has come at which it’s no longer possible to tell which is Khattam-Shud’s Shadow and which his substantial Self—because he has done what no other Chupwala has ever dreamt of—that is, he has separated himself from his Shadow! He goes about in the darkness, entirely Shadowless, and his Shadow goes wherever it wishes.
The Cultmaster Khattam-Shud can be in two places at once!
’

At this point Blabbermouth, who had been gazing at the Shadow Warrior with something very like adoration or devotion, burst out, ‘But that’s the
worst news
in the
world
! It was going to be almost
impossible
to defeat him
once
—and now you tell us we’ll have to beat him
twice
?’

‘Precisely so,’ said the grim gestures of Mudra’s Shadow. ‘Furthermore, this new, doubled Khattam-Shud, this man-shadow and shadow-man, has had a very harmful effect on the friendships between Chupwalas and their Shadows. Now many Shadows are resentful of being joined to Chupwalas at the feet; and there are many quarrels.’

‘It is a sad time,’ Mudra’s gestures concluded, ‘when a Chupwala cannot even trust his own Shadow.’

A silence fell, as General Kitab and Prince Bolo mulled over everything that Mudra and his Shadow had ‘said’. Then Prince Bolo burst out, ‘Why should we believe this creature? Hasn’t he admitted he’s a traitor to his own leader? Must we do business with traitors now? How do we know this isn’t more of his treason—some deep-laid plan, some sort of trap?’

Now General Kitab, as Haroun had observed, was as a rule the mildest of men, who liked nothing so much as a good argument; but on this occasion he went pink in the face and seemed to swell up slightly. ‘Hang it all, your highness,’ he finally said, ‘I am in command here. Hold your tongue or you’ll be on your way back to Gup City, and someone else will have to rescue your Batcheat on your behalf; and you wouldn’t like that, I’d guess, spots and fogs, you wouldn’t.’ Blabbermouth looked delighted at this reprimand; Bolo looked murderous, but held his tongue.

Which was just as well, because Mudra’s Shadow had responded to Bolo’s outburst by going into a positive frenzy of changes, growing enormous, scratching itself all over, turning into the silhouette of a flame-breathing dragon, and then into other creatures: a gryphon, a basilisk, a manticore, a troll. And while the Shadow behaved in this agitated fashion, Mudra himself retreated a few steps, leant on a tree-stump and pretended to have grown very bored indeed, examining his fingernails, yawning, twiddling his thumbs. ‘This Warrior and his Shadow are a fine team,’ Haroun thought. ‘They put on opposite acts, so nobody knows what they really feel; which may of course be a third thing completely.’

General Kitab approached Mudra with great, even exaggerated respect. ‘Blow it all, Mudra, will you help us? It isn’t going to be easy in the Darkness of Chup. We could do with a fellow like you. Mighty Warrior and all that. What do you say?’

Prince Bolo sulked at the edge of the clearing while Mudra paced and thought. Then he began to gesture once again. Rashid translated his ‘words’.

‘Yes, I will help,’ the Shadow Warrior said. ‘For the Cultmaster must surely be defeated. But there is a decision you must make.’

‘I bet I know what it is,’ Blabbermouth hissed at Haroun. ‘It’s the
same one
that should have been made before we even
set out
: what do we save first? Batcheat or the Ocean? —By the way,’ she added, blushing slightly, ‘isn’t he
something
? Isn’t he
wicked, awesome, sharp
? —Mudra, I
mean
.’

‘I know who you mean,’ said Haroun, with a pang of what might have been jealousy. ‘He’s okay, I suppose.’

‘
Okay?
’ hissed Blabbermouth. ‘Only
okay
? How can you even
say
…’

But here she broke off, because Mudra’s ‘words’ were being translated by Rashid. ‘As I told you, there are now two Khattam-Shuds. One of them, at this very moment, has Princess Batcheat captive in the Citadel of Chup, and is planning to sew up her lips on the Feast of Bezaban. The other, as you should know, is in the Old Zone, where he is plotting the ruination of the Ocean of the Streams of Story.’

An immense stubbornness came over Prince Bolo of Gup. ‘Say what you will, General,’ he cried, ‘but a Person must come before an Ocean, no matter how great the peril to both! It must be Batcheat first; Batcheat, my love, my only girl. Her cherry lips must be saved from the Cultmaster’s needle, and without further delay! What are you people? Have you not blood in your veins? General, and you, too, Sir Mudra: are you men or … or … Shadows?’

‘There is no need to insult Shadows any further,’ Mudra’s Shadow gestured with quiet dignity. (Bolo ignored it.)

‘Very well,’ General Kitab agreed. ‘Rot it all, very well. But we must send someone to investigate the Old Zone situation. But whom? —Now let me see … Harrumph …’

It was at this instant that Haroun cleared his throat.

‘I’ll go,’ he volunteered.

All eyes turned to stare at him as he stood there in his red nightshirt with the purple patches, feeling fairly ridiculous. ‘Hmm? What’s that you say?’ Prince Bolo irritably demanded.

‘Once you thought my father was spying for Khattam-Shud against you,’ Haroun said. ‘Now, if you and the General wish, I’ll spy for you upon Khattam-Shud, or his Shadow, whichever of them is down there in the Old Zone, poisoning the Ocean.’

‘And why—stap and blast me!—d’you volunteer for this dangerous job?’ General Kitab wanted to know.
Good question
, Haroun thought.
I must be a very great fool
. But what he said aloud was this:

‘Well, sir, it’s like this. All my life I’ve heard about the wonderful Sea of Stories, and Water Genies, and everything; but I started believing only when I saw Iff in my bathroom the other night. And now that I’ve actually come to Kahani and seen with my own eyes how beautiful the Ocean is, with its Story Streams in colours whose names I don’t even know, and its Floating Gardeners and Plentimaw Fishes and all, well, it turns out I may be too late, because the whole Ocean’s going to be dead any minute if we don’t do something. And it turns out that I don’t like the idea of that, sir, not one bit. I don’t like the idea that all the good stories in the world will go wrong for ever and ever, or just die. As I say, I only just started believing in the Ocean, but maybe it isn’t too late for me to do my bit.’

There,
he thought,
you’ve really done it now: made yourself look a complete idiot
. But Blabbermouth was looking at him in much the same way as she’d been staring at Mudra for some time, and that was pleasant, it couldn’t be denied. And then he caught sight of his father’s expression, and
oh no
, he thought,
I know exactly what he’s going to say …

‘There’s more to you, young Haroun Khalifa, than meets the blinking eye,’ said Rashid.

‘Forget it,’ mumbled Haroun furiously. ‘Forget I even
spoke
.’

Prince Bolo strode over and thumped Haroun on the back, leaving him winded. ‘Out of the question!’ Bolo was shouting. ‘Forget you spoke? Young man, it will never be forgotten! General, I ask you: is this not the perfect fellow for the job? For he is, like me, a slave to Love.’ Here Haroun avoided looking at Blabbermouth, and blushed.

‘Yes, indeed!’ Prince Bolo continued, striding about and waving his arms in a dashing (and somewhat foolish) way. ‘Just as my great passion, my
Amour
, leads me to Batcheat, always towards Batcheat, so this boy’s destiny is to rescue what
he
loves: that is, the Ocean of Stories.’

‘Very well,’ General Kitab gave in. ‘Young master Haroun, you will be our spy. Drat it all! You deserve it. Take your pick of companions, and begone.’ His voice sounded gruff, as if he were hiding his worries beneath a façade of sternness. ‘That’s finished it,’ Haroun thought. ‘Too late to back out now.’

‘Keep a sharp look out! Skulk in the shadows! See without being seen!’ cried Bolo, dramatically. ‘In a way, you’ll be a Shadow Warrior, too.’

~ ~ ~

To reach the Old Zone of Kahani it was necessary to travel south through the Twilight Strip, hugging the shoreline of the Land of Chup, until that dark and silent continent was left behind, and the Southern Polar Ocean of Kahani stretched in every direction. Haroun and Iff the Water Genie set off on this route within an hour of Haroun’s volunteering. Their chosen companions were the Plentimaw Fishes, Goopy and Bagha, who bubbled along in their wake, and the gnarled old Floating Gardener, Mali, with his lilac lips and hat of roots. Mali walked on the water at their side. (Haroun had wanted to take Blabbermouth, but a shyness overcame him, and besides, she seemed to want to stay with Mudra the Shadow Warrior. And Rashid had been needed to translate Mudra’s Gesture Language to the General and the Prince.)