What he actually said aloud was this: ‘And if you lose, Old Man, then you will have to Terminate yourself, not just temporarily, but once and for all.’
How the Old Man laughed! He guffawed until he wept, not only from his eyes but through his nose as well. He held his sides and leapt from side to side, and his long white beard cracked in the air like a whip. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said finally, panting for breath. ‘
If I lose
. That’s priceless. Let’s begin.’ But Luka wasn’t going to be fooled that easily. Riddlers are tricksters, he knew that much, and you had to nail down the deal before you began the battle, or they would try to wriggle out of it later on. ‘And if you lose, you will do as I have said,’ he insisted. The Old Man of the River made a peevish face. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he replied. ‘If I lose I will Self-Terminate. Auto- Terminate. Termination of Me by Me will Occur. Hee, hee, hee. I’ll blast myself to bits.’ ‘Permanently,’ Luka said firmly. ‘Once and for all.’ The Old Man grew serious and his face coloured unpleasantly. ‘Very well,’ he barked. ‘Yes. Permanent Termination if I lose; in a word,
Permination
! But as you are about to discover, child, I’m not the one who is about to lose all his lives.’
Bear and Dog were in a state of high agitation, but now Luka and the Old Man were circling each other, staring each other down, and it was the Old Man who spoke first, in a hard greedy voice pushing roughly through teeth that seemed hungry to eat up little Luka’s life.
‘What goes round and round the wood but never goes into it?’
‘The bark of the tree,’ said Luka at once, and shot back, ‘It stands on one leg with its heart in its head.’
‘Cabbage,’ snapped the Old Man. ‘What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?’
‘Your word. I have a little house and I live in it alone. It has no doors or windows, and to go out I must break through the wall.’
‘Egg. What do you call a fish without an eye?’
‘A fsh. What do sea monsters eat?’
‘Fish and ships. Why was six afraid of seven?’
‘Because seven eight nine. What has been there for millions of years but is never more than a month old?’
‘The moon. When you don’t know what it is then it’s something, but when you know what it is then it’s nothing.’
‘That’s easy,’ Luka said, badly out of breath. ‘A riddle.’
They had been circling faster and faster, and the riddles had been coming at greater and greater speed. This was just the beginning, Luka knew; soon the number riddles would start, and the story riddles. The difficult stuff still lay ahead. He wasn’t sure if he could last the course, so the thing was not to let the Old Man dictate the pace and manner of the contest. It was time to play the joker in the pack.
He stopped circling and put on his grimmest expression. ‘What,’ he asked, ‘goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?’
The Old Man of the River stopped circling, too, and for the first time there was a weakness in his voice and a tremble in
his limbs. ‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded feebly. ‘That’s the most famous riddle in the world.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Luka, ‘but you’re stalling for time. Answer me.’
‘Four legs, two legs, three legs,’ said the Old Man of the River. ‘Everyone knows this one. Ha! It’s the Oldest One in the Book.’
(‘The she-monster known as the Sphinx,’ Rashid Khalifa used to tell Luka, ‘sat outside the city of Thebes and challenged all the travellers who passed by to solve her riddle. When they failed, she killed them. Then one day a hero came by and knew the answer.’ ‘And what did the Sphinx do then?’ Luka asked his father. ‘She destroyed herself,’ Rashid replied.
‘And what was the answer to the riddle?’ Luka asked. But Rashid Khalifa had to admit that, no matter how many times he learned the blasted story, he could never remember the solution to the riddle. ‘So that old Sphinx,’ he said, not very sadly, ‘she’d have eaten me up for sure.’)
‘Come on,’ Luka said to the Old Man of the River. ‘Your time’s up.’
The Old Man of the River looked around in panic. ‘I could just blast you anyway,’ he said.
Luka shook his head. ‘You know you can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Not now. Not any more.’ Then Luka allowed his expression to become a little dreamy. ‘My father could never remember the answer, either,’ he said. ‘And this is my father’s World of Magic, and you are his Riddle Man. So you can’t know what he couldn’t recall. And now you and the Sphinx must share the same fate.’
‘Permination,’ the Old Man of the River said softly. ‘Yes. That is just.’ And without more ado, and quite unsentimentally, he lifted his Terminator, set the dial on maximum, pointed the weapon at himself, and fired.
‘The answer is a man,’ Luka said to the empty air, as the tiny, shining smithereens of the Old Man blew away into nothingness, ‘who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks upright as a grown-up, and uses a stick when he’s old. That’s the answer: a man. Everyone knows that.’
The departure of the Gatekeeper at once unveiled the Gate. A trellised stone archway wreathed in bougainvillea flowers magically appeared on the edge of the Bund, and beyond it Luka could see an elegant flight of stairs leading down to the river’s edge. There was a golden button set in the archway’s left pillar. ‘I’d push that if I were you,’ suggested Nobodaddy. ‘Why?’ Luka asked. ‘Is it like ringing a doorbell to be invited in?’ Nobodaddy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘It’s like saving your progress so that the next time you lose a life you don’t have to come back here and fight the Old Man of the River all over again. He may not fall for your little trick next time, either.’ Feeling a little stupid, Luka pushed the button, and there was a little answering piece of music, the flowers around the archway grew larger and more colourful, and a new counter appeared in Luka’s field of vision, this time in the top right-hand corner, a single-digit counter, reading ‘1’. He wondered how many levels he would have to surmount, but after his foolishness about the Save button, he decided this was not the moment to ask.
Nobodaddy led the boy, the dog and the bear down the Bund to the left bank of the River of Time. Punchbottoms bounced up towards the travellers, hoping to be kicked – ‘Ooch! Ouch! Ooch!’ they squeaked in happy anticipation – but everyone’s
attention was elsewhere. Bear and Dog were both talking at once at the tops of their new voices, half excited, half terrified by Luka’s battle against, and victory over, the Old Man of the River, and there were so many
how
s and
what
s and
wow
s and
eek
s in their chatter that Luka couldn’t begin to reply. And anyway, he was exhausted. ‘I need to sit down,’ he said, and his legs gave way beneath him. He landed with a thump in the riverside dust, and it rose up around him in a little golden cloud, which quickly formed itself into a creature, like a tiny living flame with wings. ‘Feed me and I live,’ it said hotly. ‘Give me water and I die.’
The answer was obvious. ‘Fire,’ Luka said quietly, and the Fire Bug grew agitated. ‘Don’t say that!’ it buzzed. ‘If you go shouting
fire
at the top of your voice somebody will probably come running with a hose. Too much water around here for my liking anyway. Time to be off.’ ‘But wait a minute,’ Luka said, excited in spite of being so tired. ‘Maybe you’re what I’ve been looking for. Your light is so beautiful,’ he added, thinking that a little flattery might not hurt. ‘Are you … is this … could you be part of … a bearer of … the Fire of Life?’
‘Don’t mention that,’ said Nobodaddy quickly, but it was too late.
‘How do you know about the Fire of Life?’ the Fire Bug wanted to know, becoming cross. Then it turned its displeasure upon Nobodaddy. ‘And you, sir, as far as I can see you should be somewhere else entirely, with something else entirely to do.’
‘As you see,’ Nobodaddy said to Luka, ‘Fire Bugs’ temperament is, well, a little heated. Nevertheless, they do perform a minor, useful function, spreading warmth wherever they go.’
The Fire Bug flared up at that. ‘You want to know what bugs me?’ it said indignantly. ‘Nobody’s friendly about fire. Oh, it’s fine in its place, people say, it makes a nice glow in a room, but keep an eye on it in case it gets out of control, and always put it out before you leave. Never mind how much it’s needed; a few forests burned by wildfires, the occasional volcanic eruption, and there goes our reputation. Water, on the other hand! – hah! – there’s no limit to the praise Water gets. Floods, rains, burst pipes, they make no difference. Water is everyone’s favourite. And when they call it the Fountain of Life! – bah! – well, that just bugs me to bits.’ The Fire Bug dissolved briefly into a little cloud of angry, buzzing sparks, then came together again. ‘Fountain of Life, indeed,’ it hissed. ‘What an idea. Life is not a drip. Life is a flame. What do you imagine the
sun
is made of?
Raindrops?
I don’t think so. Life is not wet, young man. Life
burns
.’
‘We must be going now,’ Nobodaddy interjected, ushering Luka, Bear and Dog along the riverbank. To the Fire Bug he said, politely, ‘Farewell, bright spirit.’
‘Not so fast,’ the Fire Bug blazed. ‘I sense something smouldering here, under the surface. Somebody here, namely that individual there –’ and it pointed a little finger of flame at Luka – ‘said something about a certain Fire whose very existence is supposed to be a Secret, and somebody else here, namely myself, wants to know how this other Somebody found out about it, and what this Somebody’s plans might be.’
Nobodaddy placed himself between Luka and the Bug. ‘That will do, you Insignificant Inflammation,’ he said in an altogether sterner voice. ‘Be off with you! Sizzle till you fizzle!’ He took
off his panama hat and waved it in the incandescent insect’s direction. The Fire Bug flared up, offended. ‘Don’t trifle with me,’ it cried. ‘Don’t you know you’re playing with Fire?’ Then it burst into a bright cloud, singed Luka’s eyebrows slightly, and vanished.
‘Well, that hasn’t made things any easier,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘All we need is for that dratted Bug to raise the Fire Alarm.’
‘The Fire Alarm?’ asked Luka. Nobodaddy shook his head. ‘If they know you’re coming, your goose is cooked, that’s all.’
‘That’s not good,’ said Luka, looking so dejected that Nobodaddy actually put an arm around his shoulder. ‘The better news is that Fire Bugs don’t last long,’ he consoled the young fellow. ‘They blaze brightly, but they burn out young. Also, they blow with the wind. This way, that way; it’s in their nature. No constancy of purpose. So it isn’t very likely that he’d make it all the way to warn,’ and here Nobodaddy’s voice trailed off into silence.
‘To warn whom?’ Luka insisted.
‘The forces that must not be warned,’ Nobodaddy replied. ‘The flame-breathing monsters and fire-starter maniacs who wait upriver. The ones you have to get past, or be destroyed.’
‘Oh,’ said Luka bitterly. ‘Is that all? I thought you meant there might be a serious problem.’
The River of Time, which had been flowing silently along when Luka first set eyes on it, was now bustling with activity. All manner of strange creatures seemed to be afloat upon it and bobbing up from below the surface – strange, but familiar to Luka from his father’s stories: long, fat, blind, whitish Worms who, as Nobodaddy reminded him, were capable of making
Holes in the very fabric of Time itself, diving below the surface of the Present to re-emerge at an impossibly distant point in the Past or Future, those mist-shrouded zones which Luka’s gaze could not penetrate; and pale, deadly Sickfish, who fed upon the lifelines of the diseased.
Running along the bank was a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and looking worriedly at a clock. Appearing and disappearing at various points on both banks was a dark blue British police telephone booth, out of which a perplexed-looking man holding a screwdriver would periodically emerge. A group of dwarf bandits could be seen disappearing into a hole in the sky. ‘Time travellers,’ said Nobodaddy in a voice of gentle disgust. ‘They’re everywhere these days.’
In the middle of the river all sorts of bizarre contraptions – some with bat-like wings that didn’t seem to fly, others with giant metal machineries aboard like the innards of an old Swiss watch – were circling uselessly, to the rage of the men and women aboard them. ‘Time machines are not as easily built as people seem to think,’ Nobodaddy explained. ‘As a result many of those would-be intrepid explorers just get stuck in Time. Also, on account of the odd relationship between Time and Space, the people who do manage to time-jump sometimes space-jump at the same time and end up’ – and here his voice grew darkly disapproving – ‘in places where they simply don’t belong. Over there, for example,’ he said as a raucous DeLorean sports car roared into view from nowhere, ‘is that crazy American professor who can’t seem to stay put in one time, and, I must say, there is an absolute plague of killer robots from the Future being sent to change the Past. Sleeping there under that banyan
tree’ – he jerked a thumb to indicate which tree he meant – ‘is a certain Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, who was accidentally transported one day back to King Arthur’s Court, and stayed there until the wizard Merlin put him to sleep for thirteen hundred years. He was supposed to wake up back in his own time, but look at the lazy fellow! He’s still snoring away, and has missed his Slot. Goodness knows how he will get home now.’
Luka noticed that Nobodaddy was not as transparent as he had been a while earlier, and also that he was sounding and acting more and more like the over-talkative Rashid Khalifa, whose head was always full of all sorts of nonsense. ‘
Time,
’ he was singing under his breath, ‘
like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away …
’ That did it. That was all Luka was prepared to hear. As if it wasn’t bad enough that this, this creature from the Nether World was slowly filling up with more and more of his beloved father, which meant, of course, that Rashid Khalifa, Asleep in his bed at home, was getting emptier and emptier; and that as Nobodaddy’s Rashid-ness increased Luka was confusingly filled with emotions of fondness for him, even of love; but now the strange entity in his father’s vermilion bush shirt and panama hat had actually started singing in Rashid’s unbearable singing voice, the second-worst singing voice in the known world, second only to the fabled tuneless tones of Princess Batcheat of Gup. And what a song to choose! ‘
They fly forgotten, as a dream
–’