Many of these buildings were governed by the strangest natural laws. Water flowed uphill in them, and they were allegedly haunted on a vast scale. The furniture – insofar as the outlandish objects jutting from their walls, floors and ceilings could be described as such – was said to hold nocturnal conversations. Not even the most hard-boiled citizens of Atlantis ventured to occupy these buildings, even though all their doors stood open. It was whispered that the Invisibles had lived there before they retreated to the sewers.
Pagodas a hundred storeys high were a Chinese legacy. The Chinese had also, for some unknown reason, tried to bisect the city with a great wall but had lost interest at some stage, so all that remained of it was a low mound eighteen inches high, twenty miles long, and breached in numerous places. The Vikings had left behind hundreds of elongated timber buildings now used by Smorgard Dwarfs, who tended the cauldrons of water that steamed on eternal fires inside them. Atlanteans liked to meet there on cold days to sweat and pay the dwarfs to thrash them with bundles of reeds – in their opinion, an aid to good health. In accordance with the proverb that a greenhouse arises wherever two Dutchmen meet, the Dutch had glassed-over whole city districts. These were now used for growing their giant tomatoes by Corn Demons of Celtic stock.
Modes of transport
The Venetian Midgets had nostalgically criss-crossed the entire city with canals on which they liked to spend their leisure hours rowing colourful gondolas and belting out sentimental arias. You could get almost anywhere by way of these canals provided you had a boat and knew your way around. Other forms of transportation included the underground tramway system, the aforesaid Rickshaw Demons, some domesticated Midgard Serpents, Giant Snail coaches (romantic but slow), a large number of captive balloons, and a Zamonian version of the streetcar powered by Nightingalian ant-motors.
The tramway
The underground tramway was a complex network of tracks operated by dwarf miners and propelled by gravity. You entered an underground station somewhere in the city and were loaded aboard one of the tramcars, which were usually coupled together in tens. Then, having blown his horn, a dwarf miner in the leading car would release the brakes and off you went, hell for leather, through tunnels illuminated by blazing torches.
Travelling by tramway was not for the faint-hearted. You went downhill all the way from A to B, the sole motive power deriving from the gradient and the weight of the cars and their occupants. At many points the cars reached a speed of 100 m.p.h. or more. On bends the showers of sparks were very impressive, and there were derailments from time to time.
At Point B you alighted with trembling knees and regained the daylight by way of a long spiral staircase. The tramcars were hoisted by means of ropes and tackle on to different tracks that led in many other directions. If your nerves were strong enough, you could reach almost every part of Atlantis by changing several times.
Tethered balloons
Suspended above the city from pylons were cables along which captive balloons travelled. This guaranteed that the balloons, most of them equipped with spacious gondolas, were not too dependent on the winds. If the air currents were unfavourable, passengers could lend a hand and drive the airship along with the aid of a large propeller. Provided for this purpose was a long crankshaft running the length of the gondola within easy reach of every seat. The streetcar network was a municipal, tax-funded system on which citizens could travel free of charge. It was manned by a permanent staff of Ant People, who were, logically enough, experts at maintaining ant-motors.
Ilstatna Boulevard
Cutting right across Atlantis was a broad boulevard known as the Ilstatna, an exclusively commercial thoroughfare offering every known commodity and service in the contemporary world, including restaurants to suit every nationality and outlandish dietary requirement.
Zamonian Wolpertingers, who were good chess players, had taken advantage of this to establish a chain of Wolpertinger Chess Cafés. Here, while eating snacks and drinking strong beer, customers could lose to a Zamonian Wolpertinger at chess. (Nobody had ever defeated a Zamonian Wolpertinger, perhaps because nobody dared to.)
The furdressing salons were mainly patronized, of course, by furry creatures. They were run by Melusines, a hairless type of dwarf with a penchant for gossip and a positively artistic way of wielding brush, comb, and scissors. I went there at least once a week, passing garlic bakeries, Twerpp tailoring establishments, Chinese laundries, tooth-pulling clinics (run by Bluddums), fortune-tellers’ tents in which Italian Doombirds made dire predictions, betting shops, footcare studios, herbal tearooms, malediction bureaux (where you could pay shamans to curse your enemies), dance halls, cryptic bookstores (containing books found exclusively in Atlantis and written in still undeciphered languages), spitting taverns, (where, for a small charge, you could spit to your heart’s content on sawdust-covered floors), briquette boutiques, fried ham stalls, cafés, boxing booths, beer gardens, and other products of Atlantean business acumen.
Other life forms, other customs
The inhabitants of Atlantis had requirements that far transcended those of human beings. Gnomes, for example, no matter where they hailed from, found it hard to resist footwear made of reeds, with the result that there were countless shoe shops selling grotesque shoes woven from that material. Although non-gnomes would pass such establishments shaking their heads, they would be thronged with gnomes avidly trying on one reed shoe after another. Irish Druids, for their part, had a love of austerity that manifested itself in their businesses as well. Druid shops were the bleakest places imaginable. All that most of them contained were some rickety shelves on which lay a few mossy stones, misshapen twigs, and pieces of damp driftwood, yet in business hours the Druids fought to get at these wares as if they were the Ornian crown jewels. Atlantis also had its so-called rumour cookshops. Run by Ornian Dune Toads, these were small establishments in which you could partake of rumours. The ‘cooking’ was done at large, circular wooden tables round which the toads sat busily smoking cigarettes and whispering together. Little by little, their whispers, slanders and unverifiable allegations combined to produce an interesting rumour that could be picked up, taken home, and passed on – for instance, that the mayor of Atlantis secretly dined on the contents of trash cans at night.
Hide thrasheries were gloomy little establishments, most of them situated in basements, where Yhôllian Dervishes thrashed uncured hides with heavy iron carpet beaters, singing melancholy songs in Yhôllian the while. Only those who brought their hides to be beaten knew the purpose of this procedure (but they preserved a stubborn silence on the subject).
And that was probably the whole secret of Atlantean society. Few minded what their fellow citizens got up to as long as they themselves were left in peace.
Atlantean politics
Politics had really been a dead letter since the Zamonian war of succession. In very early times the various urban districts had been ruled by kings. Then, by employing a series of diplomatic stratagems, the Norselanders had taken over the reins of government while the kings confined themselves to ceremonial duties. The latter did little more than attend the opening of new supermarkets, run marathons for charity, deliver graveside addresses at the funerals of prominent citizens, or turn up on major sporting occasions. (One exception was King Snalitat XXIII of Tatilans, who had lost his reason at some stage during the Zamonian war of succession and ran naked through the streets making unintelligible government announcements. His last edict was that all Norselanders over the age of thirteen be painted yellow and lined up in a row to have their feet tickled.) The people of Atlantis really governed themselves, a system that worked well at times, less well at others, and sometimes not at all. Total chaos broke out about once a month. Either one of the dwarf communities would draw attention to some form of discrimination by clogging the sewers with toilet paper, or the Rickshaw Demons and the Venetian Midgets would call a solidarity strike, thereby paralysing the entire transport system and cutting o
ff supplies of fuel. Absolute chaos in such a confined space very soon became intolerable, however, so everything calmed down after two days at most and before any sensible strike demands could be put, let alone met. Then everything returned to normal.
Atlantis really functioned like an anthill. Although at first glance it looked completely chaotic and conformed to no discernible system, it held together and served a single common purpose: the survival and functional efficiency of a gigantic and alarming, wonderful and incomprehensible city.
A culture shock
To someone who had spent most of his previous life at sea, in the desert, on small islands, or in enclosed labyrinths, such a massive concentration of different life forms and cultures was like a blow with an invisible club. I must have resembled someone who had just been hit on the head as I tottered through the streets of Atlantis open-mouthed, continually turning on the spot to marvel at some unfamiliar sight. Several hours went by before I paused at an intersection, each corner of which was guarded by a black marble lion at least three hundred feet high.
It was late afternoon by now. Atlanteans were strolling, jostling and shoving each other around me, my feet were beginning to ache, and I hadn’t the slightest idea exactly where I was, where I wanted to go, or what there was for supper.
I had hitherto been used to being given my food or finding it in my natural surroundings. Nightingale’s lessons had taught me that different laws prevailed in big cities, which meant, among other things, that you paid for your meals – with money, to be precise.
I had already noticed that Atlantean money consisted mainly of gold, silver and copper pyramids of various sizes. In a Pooph-run pizzeria, for example, you could buy a delicious maize pancake smothered in just about everything a person could eat.
During the last hour a Pooph pizza had become, for me, the most desirable object in the universe. Pizzas were obtainable on almost every street corner, and wherever you walked or stood you could see chins draped in skeins of cheese from one of those pancakes with the alluring aroma.
‘Pretty impressive, gah?’ said a voice beside me.
A Tobacco Dwarf named Chemluth Havanna
It was a Tobacco Elf, a Southern Jungle Dwarf of the Rain Forest family, creatures who normally liked to pursue their nefarious activities on tobacco plantations and had more or less normal dwarfish habits – that much I knew from Nightingale’s classes. They were recognizable by their tastelessly garish home-knitted caps, olive complexions, absurdly curly moustaches, and the gargling sound they made whenever they said an R. They also tacked a ‘gah’ on to every remark they made. Depending on the context, this could mean all manner of things.
(Incidental note: Zamonian was spoken in Atlantis by common consent, fortunately, but every little ethnic group had smuggled its own dialect into the language. Many interspersed all they said with saliva-rich sibilants, others with hoarse bellows, and others prefaced every word with an ‘Eh?’. The easiest to understand were educated Druids, who spoke academically precise High Zamonian. Least comprehensible were the Horned Imbicels, who communicated in a croaking sing-song – they sounded like an opera singer with a moth in his throat. But nobody conversed with the Horned Imbicels in any case, so that problem – like so many others in Atlantis – resolved itself.)
‘Yes indeed,’ I said absently, being engrossed in the sight of a Bluddum who was disposing of a Pooph pizza in three quick gulps. ‘The lions, I mean.’
I awakened from my Pooph pizza trance. ‘Oh, the lions … Yes, they’re very fine. Beautifully carved. Lovely and smooth.’
‘Gah, they weren’t carved,’ the dwarf replied almost lovingly. ‘They were hand-polished – with paper handkerchiefs! Can you imagine how long it takes, gah, to polish a sculpture like that out of marble – with tissues?’
I tried to express my admiration.
‘An amazing feat,’ I said, and meant it.
‘They’re inhabited, gah. Four thousand apartments in each lion. Running hot and cold water, gah. No balconies, of course, but a mechanical elevator with music!’
He began to hum a Zamonian pop song.
‘I don’t see any windows.’
‘You can only see through the windows from inside. Clever, gah?’
‘Brilliant!’
‘They belong to me.’
‘What?’
‘Gah. The lions. I own them.’
‘That’s, er, very impressive. Many congratulations.’
‘Like to buy one?’
‘What?’
‘Like to buy a lion? Gah? They’re going very cheap.’
‘The trouble is, I don’t –’
‘Now listen to me!’ The dwarf lowered his voice and glanced anxiously in all directions. ‘I’ve taken to you, gah. That’s why I’m going to quote you a crazy price, gah: ten pyras.’
He proceeded to slap his own face to punish himself for making such an altruistic proposition.
‘Gah, gah!’ he cried at every slap. ‘What an idiot I am! I’ll never make a good businessman.’
I gave him a lingering stare. In Atlantis, ten pyras would just about buy you a pizza.
I felt offended. I must have looked an utter nincompoop for him to have tried to bamboozle me with the oldest tourist trick in the world.
‘Okay, gah!’ he said, and improved his offer. ‘Call it five pyras.’
And that was how I got to know Chemluth Havanna, who became my best friend in Atlantis.
Once I had made it clear to Chemluth, first that I hadn’t escaped from a funny farm and secondly that I didn’t have a pyra to my name, he promptly changed his tactics. He was determined to make money out of me somehow – quite how, he didn’t yet know, but he stuck to me like glue.
‘You’re something special, gah? You’re blue! You’re a bear! You’re a rarity! Gah?’
So he trotted along behind me, doing his best to talk me into all kinds of deals.
‘Just stand on a street corner. You sing, I’ll go round with the hat.’
‘I can’t sing.’
‘We’ll sell you to the zoo. At night I’ll come with the pass key and let you out.’
‘I’ve no wish to go into a zoo.’
Chemluth Havanna knew of a safe place to sleep, at least. We walked for all of two hours, and the further we went the stranger the neighbourhood became.
We began by trudging for miles along narrow, roughly cobbled alleys spanned by washing lines. Then the houses became sparser and gave way to ruined palaces, colonnaded temples thickly overgrown with brushwood and creeper, and stone monuments of which many were threaded with cracks and had largely collapsed. It was evident that no one lived here apart from some feral cats that insisted on rubbing against our legs.
A blue flash darted from the cobblestones, described a big electric arc, and disappeared down a crack. The alleyway was momentarily bathed in pale blue light.
I gave a start and jumped back at least my own length. Chemluth made a dismissive gesture.
‘Greased lightning,’ he said. ‘It’s harmless.’
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Greased Lightning. Natural phenomenon observed exclusively in the city of Atlantis for the past several hundred years. Generally bow-shaped and blue in colour, electrical discharges come shooting out of the ground, usually at night. Although no adequate scientific explanation of them has yet been found, it has at least been ascertained that these shafts of lightning pose no health hazard other than the possibility of death by mental trauma.
We crossed a broad, open square in the midst of which a black obelisk fully sixty feet high projected skywards from a dried-up fountain. Several dozen cats lay in the basin, purring and licking their paws. Beyond the obelisk stood the biggest cathedral I’d so far seen in Atlantis. It was built of white marble and surmounted by a green cupola, a good third of which had fallen in.
‘Our sleeping quarters,’ Chemluth said with a grin.
In the cathedral
A flight of steps as wide as one of the city’s thoroughfares led up to the entrance, which was guarded by two stone Cyclopses the height of a house. The door – or rather, gates – stood open. As big as the stern of a three-master, one of the gates had come off its hinges and crashed to the floor of the nave a long time ago, to judge by the tufts of grass, thistles, nettles and small trees sprouting from its joints. A swarm of pigeons fluttered into the air as we stepped over it into the ruined cathedral. Some lean brown shapes scurried off into the shadows at our approach.
We climbed another big flight of steps to a gallery. The interior of the cathedral looked absurdly ill-constructed, probably because of its dilapidation. Steps led nowhere, half-demolished arches jutted pointlessly into space, fallen columns and shattered fragments of the cupola barred our path, overgrown with weeds.
The sun’s dying rays slanted down through the dilapidated roof, dramatically illuminating the headless, armless statues in the cathedral’s niches. At one point a huge half-relief carved into a red marble wall portrayed a robed Grim Reaper wielding his scythe.
I didn’t care for the place, but it would soon be nightfall and I couldn’t afford to be choosy.
‘At least there aren’t any Kackertratts here, gah?’ Chemluth remarked while we were collecting some big wads of moss to sleep on.
‘Kackertratts? What are they?’
‘What are Kackertratts? Hard to say, gah. Who knows?’
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’