‘We’re wasting Time,’ Luka interrupted Nobodaddy angrily. ‘Instead of singing that stupid hymn, how about suggesting a way for us to travel up into the Fog of the Past and find what
we’re here to find … i.e. the Dawn of Time, the Lake of Wisdom, the Mountain of Knowledge, and the –’
‘Shh,’ said Bear the dog and Dog the bear together. ‘Don’t say it aloud.’ Luka flushed a deep red at his near-mistake. ‘You know what I mean,’ he finished, much less commandingly than he had intended.
‘Hmm,’ said Nobodaddy thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t we use, for example, that incredibly powerful-looking, off-the-road-worthy, river-worthy, strong-as-a-tank, and possibly even jet-propelled, eight-wheeled-slash-flat-bottomed amphibian vehicle moored to that little pier over there?’
‘That wasn’t there a minute ago,’ said Dog the bear.
‘I don’t know how he did it,’ said Bear the dog, ‘but I don’t like the look of it.’
Luka knew that he couldn’t afford to pay attention to his friends’ worries, and marched down to the enormous craft, whose name, written in bold letters on the stern, was the
Argo
. His father was fading as Nobodaddy solidified, and as a result the quest had become even more urgent than before. Luka’s head was full of questions to which he did not know the answers, difficult questions about the nature of Time itself. If Time was a River, eternally flowing – and here it was, here was the River of Time! – did that mean that the Past would always be there and the Future, too, already existed? True, he couldn’t see them, because they were wreathed in mists – which could also be clouds, or fog, or smoke – but surely they had to be there, otherwise how could the River exist? But on the other hand, if Time flowed like a River, then surely the Past would have flowed away already, in which case how could he go back into
it to find the Fire of Life which burned in the Mountain of Knowledge which stood by the Lake of Wisdom which was illumined by the Dawn of Days? And if the Past had flowed away, then what was back there at the River’s source? And if the Future already existed, then perhaps it didn’t matter what he, Luka, did next, because no matter how hard he was trying to save his father’s life, maybe Rashid Khalifa’s fate had already been decided. But if the Future could be shaped, in part, by his own actions, then would the River change its course depending on what he did? What would happen to the story streams it contained? Would they start telling different stories? And which was true: (a) that people made history, and the River of Time in the World of Magic recorded their achievements, or (b) that the River made history, and people in the Real World were pawns in its eternal game? Which World was more real? Who was finally in charge? Oh, and one more question, maybe the most pressing one of all:
how was he going to control the
Argo
?
He was a twelve-year-old boy who had never driven a car or stood at the helm of a motorboat; and Dog and Bear were no use, and Nobodaddy had stretched out on the deck, put his panama hat over his face, and closed his eyes.
‘Okay,’ thought Luka grimly, ‘how hard can it be?’ He stared at the instruments on the bridge. There was this switch, which probably put the wheels down for driving on when the
Argo
was on land, or up when the
Argo
hit the water; and this button, which was pretty obviously green for ‘go’, and this one next to it, which was just as self-evidently red for ‘stop’; and this lever, which he should probably push forward to go forward, and maybe push further forward to go faster; and this wheel, which
would do the steering; and all those dials and counters and needles and gauges, which he could probably just ignore.
‘Hold on, everybody,’ he announced. ‘Here goes.’
Something then happened so rapidly that Luka was not entirely sure how or what it was, but an instant later the jet-propelled amphibian craft was flipping over and over in the middle of the great waterway and then they were all in the water and a whirlpool was sucking them down and Luka just had time to wonder whether he was about to be eaten by a Sickfish or other watery beast when he lost consciousness, and woke up a moment later back at the little pier, climbing into the
Argo
, thinking ‘How hard can it be?’ – and the only sign that something had happened was that the counter in the top left-hand corner of his field of vision had gone down by one life: 998. Nobodaddy was snoozing on the deck of the
Argo
again, and Luka called out, ‘A little help?’ But Nobodaddy didn’t move, and Luka understood this was something he would have to work out for himself. Perhaps those dials and gauges were more important than he had thought.
On the second try he managed not to turn the
Argo
over, but he didn’t get far before the whirlpool started up and whirled the craft around and around. ‘What’s happening?’ Luka yelled, and Nobodaddy lifted his panama hat and replied, ‘It’s probably the Eddies.’ But what were the Eddies? The
Argo
was spinning faster and faster, and in a minute it would be sucked down again. Nobodaddy sat up. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Yes. The Eddies are definitely in the neighbourhood.’ He looked down into the water, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, ‘Nelson! Duane! Fisher! Stop playing now! Go torment somebody else!’ But then the
Argo
was pulled underwater, and there was the
blackout again, and they were back at the pier with the counter at 997. ‘Fish,’ said Nobodaddy briefly. ‘Eddyfish. Small, speedy rogues. Causing whirlpools is their favourite sport.’ ‘And what’s to be done about them?’ Luka wanted to know. ‘You have to work out how it is,’ Nobodaddy said, ‘that people manage to reach back into the Past.’
‘I guess … by remembering it?’ Luka offered. ‘By not forgetting it?’
‘Very good,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘And who is it that never forgets?’
‘An elephant,’ said Luka, and that’s when his eye fell upon a pair of absurd creatures with duck-like bodies and large elephant heads who were bobbing about in the water not far from the
Argo
’s mooring. ‘And,’ he said slowly, remembering, ‘here in the World of Magic, an Elephant Bird as well.’
‘Full marks,’ Nobodaddy replied. ‘The Elephant Birds spend their lives drinking from the River of Time; nobody’s memories are longer than theirs. And if you want to travel up the River, Memory is the fuel you need. Jet propulsion will do you no good at all.’
‘Can they take us as far as the Fire of Life?’ Luka asked.
‘No,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘Memory will only get you so far, and no further. But a long Memory will get you a long way.’
It would be difficult, Luka realised, to ride on the Elephant Birds the way his brother Haroun had once ridden on a big, telepathic, mechanical hoopoe; for one thing, he wasn’t sure that Bear and Dog would be able to hold on. ‘Excuse me, Elephant Birds,’ he called out, ‘would you be so good as to help us, please?’
‘Excellent manners,’ said the larger of the two Elephant Birds. ‘That always makes such a difference.’ He had a deep, majestic voice; obviously an Elephant Drake, Luka thought. ‘We can’t fly, you know,’ said the Drake’s companion in ladylike tones. ‘Don’t ask us to fly you anywhere. Our heads are too heavy.’
‘That must be because you remember so much,’ Luka said, and the Elephant Duck preened her feathers with the tip of her trunk. ‘He’s a flatterer, too,’ she said. ‘Quite the little charmer.’
‘You’ll be wanting us to tow you upriver, no doubt,’ said the Elephant Drake.
‘You needn’t look so surprised,’ said the Elephant Duck. ‘We do follow the news, you know. We do try to keep up.’
‘It’s probably a good thing they don’t bother with the Present where you’re going,’ added the Elephant Drake. ‘Up there they only interest themselves in Eternity. This may give you a helpful element of surprise.’
‘And if I may say so,’ said the Elephant Duck, ‘you’re going to need all the help you can get.’
A short while later the two Elephant Birds had been harnessed to the
Argo
and began pulling it smoothly upstream. ‘What about the Eddies?’ Luka wondered. ‘Oh,’ said the Elephant Drake, ‘no Eddyfish would dare trifle with us. It would be against the natural order of things. There is a natural order of things, you know.’ His companion giggled. ‘What he means,’ she explained to Luka, ‘is that we eat Eddyfish for breakfast.’ ‘And lunch and dinner,’ said the Elephant Drake. ‘So they give us a wide berth. Now then: where was it you wanted to go? – No, no, don’t remind me! – Ah, yes, now I recall.’
The Mists of Time were getting closer when the
Argo
passed a strange, sad land on the River’s right bank. Its territory was barred to River travellers by high barbed-wire fences, and when Luka did finally see a scary-looking border post, with its floodlights on high pylons and its tall reconnaissance towers containing lookout guards wearing mirrored sunglasses and carrying powerful military binoculars and automatic weapons, he was struck by a large sign reading
YOU ARE AT THE FRONTIER OF THE RESPECTORATE OF I. MIND YOUR MANNERS
. ‘What kind of a place is this?’ he asked Nobodaddy. ‘It doesn’t look very Magical to me.’
Nobodaddy’s expression contained a familiar mixture of amusement and scorn. ‘I’m sorry to say that the World of Magic is not immune to Infestations,’ he said. ‘And this part of it has been overrun, in recent times, by Rats.’
‘Rats?’ Luka cried in alarm, and now he realised what was wrong with those lookouts and border guards. They weren’t people at all, but giant rodents! Dog the bear growled angrily, but Bear the dog, who was a gentle-hearted soul, looked upset. ‘Let’s move
on,’ he suggested quietly, but Luka shook his head. ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Rats or no Rats, we have to go ashore, because we all need something to eat. Well, all of us except you,’ he added to Nobodaddy in an aside. Nobodaddy shrugged Rashid Khalifa’s familiar shrug and smiled Rashid Khalifa’s familiar smile and said, ‘Very well, if we must, we must. It’s been a while since I passed through the O-Fence.’ He saw Luka’s frown and explained, ‘This barbed-wire contraption. The O-Fence goes all around the Respectorate of I – it gives the place, you could say, its I-dentity – and, as the sign warns you, many of its present occupants take Offence very sharply indeed.’
‘We don’t plan to be rude,’ Luka said. ‘We just want lunch.’
The four travellers entered the border post, leaving the
Argo
in the care of the Elephant Drake and Elephant Duck, who passed the time diving for Eddyfish and other morsels. Inside the border post, standing at a counter behind a locked metal grille, was a large grey Rat in uniform: a Border Rat. ‘Papers,’ it said in a squeaky, Ratty voice. ‘We don’t have any papers,’ Luka honestly replied. The Border Rat went into a frenzy of screeches and squawks. ‘Absurd!’ it finally yelled. ‘Everybody has papers of some sort. Turn out your pockets.’ And so Luka emptied his pockets and found there, among the usual clutter of marbles, swap cards, elastic bands and game chips, three sweets still in their wrappers and two small, folded paper airplanes. ‘I never heard anything so rude,’ the Border Rat cried. ‘First he says he has no papers. Then it turns out he has papers. You’re lucky I’m the understanding kind. Hand over your papers and be grateful I’m in such a good mood.’ Nobodaddy nudged Luka, who regretfully handed over the swap cards, the airplanes and
the orange sweets in their transparent wrapping. ‘Will that do?’ he asked.’ ‘Only because I’m the forgiving type,’ the Border Rat replied, pocketing the objects carefully. He unlocked the grille and allowed the travellers to pass through to the other side. ‘A word of warning,’ he said. ‘Here in the Respectorate we expect visitors to behave. We’re very thin-skinned. If you prick us, we bleed, and then we make you bleed double: is that clear?’
‘Absolutely clear,’ said Luka politely.
‘Absolutely clear what?’ the Border Rat screeched.
‘Absolutely clear,
sir
,’ Nobodaddy answered. ‘Don’t worry, sir. We will most definitely mind our p’s and q’s. Sir.’
‘What about the other twenty-four letters of the alphabet?’ asked the Border Rat. ‘You can do a lot of damage with those, and never use a q or a p.’
‘We’ll mind the other letters also,’ said Luka, adding, quickly, ‘sir.’
‘Are any of you female?’ the Border Rat abruptly demanded. ‘That dog, is she a bitch? That bear, is she a … bearess? A bearina? A bearette?’
‘Bearina indeed,’ said Dog the bear. ‘Now I’m the one that’s offended.’
‘And I,’ said Bear the dog. ‘Not that I have anything against bitches.’
‘The nerve!’ squeaked the Border Rat. ‘That you say you are offended, insults me mortally. And if you insult one Rat mortally, you offend all Rats gravely. And a grave offence to all Rats is a funeral crime, a crime punishable by –’
‘We apologise, sir,’ said Nobodaddy hurriedly. ‘May we go now?’
‘Oh, very well,’ said the Border Rat, subsiding. ‘But mind your manners. I don’t want to have to send for the Respecto- Rats.’ Luka didn’t like the sound of those.
They came through the border post and found themselves in a grey street: the houses, the curtains at the windows, the clothing worn by Rats and people alike (yes, there were people here, Luka was relieved to see), all grey. The Rats were grey too and the people had acquired a greyish pallor. Overhead, grey clouds allowed a neutral sunlight to filter through. ‘They developed a Colour Problem here a little while ago,’ Nobodaddy said. ‘The Rats who hated the colour yellow because of its, well, cheesiness were confronted by the Rats who disliked the colour red because of its similarity to blood. In the end all colours, being offensive to someone or other, were banned by the Rathouse – that’s the parliament, by the way, although nobody votes for it, it votes for itself, and it basically does what the Over-Rat says.’
‘And who chooses the Over-Rat?’ Luka asked.
‘He chooses himself,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘Actually he chooses himself over and over again, he does it more or less every day, because he likes doing it so much. It’s known as being Over- Rat-ed.’
‘Overrated sounds about right,’ said Dog the bear with a snort, and a number of passing Rats looked round sharply. ‘Be careful,’ Nobodaddy warned. ‘Everyone’s looking for trouble around here.’