To settle our nerves we strolled up and down Ilstatna Boulevard for a while.
‘Never mind, gah,’ said Chemluth. ‘We can still go busking. I’ll sing, you can dance.’
Money was no immediate problem because we had a little put by. The rent was paid, our store cupboard was full, and, as I have already said, jobs were always to be had in Atlantis. What irked me far more was that there were still four days to go to the next Duel of Lies. I could hardly wait.
For the next two months we found temporary work as messenger boys, sandwich-men, gherkin sorters, fish descalers down at the harbour, and vinegar stirrers at the mustard factory, but I never missed a Duel of Lies. Mutra Singh – I was now one of his greatest fans – turned in some of his finest performances.
But then, having held the title for eight months, he lost it.
We were back in the Megathon one Wednesday evening, nibbling our corn cobs and waiting for the main event. Mutra Singh seemed to have become a fixture. Nobody ever went more than eight or ten rounds with him, and it was a pleasure to attend his sportsmanlike and tactically adroit duels. Chemluth was wearing a shirt on which he had painted Mutra’s congladiatorial emblem, and we joined the Bluddums in chanting his fan club’s refrain: ‘Singh, Singh, Mutra Singh! Singh, Singh, Mutra Singh!’
It was catchy, albeit not very original.
Tonight’s challenger was an unknown. All we knew was that he styled himself Lord Olgort, presumably a nom de guerre. We were so confident of Singh’s ability to see him off that we’d staked a few modest pyras on him.
Betting had lately become a small but steady source of income. Our improving knowledge of form had enabled us to forecast the winner of many a main and supporting bout.
I made notes during every Duel of Lies, ran through the bouts at home, devised mendacious strategies, and committed the names of all the previous Kings of Lies to memory.
Ambrosiac Nassatram, Crontep Cran, Nussram Fhakir, Brutan Cholltecker, Chulem Chertz, Salguod Smaddada Jr., Colporto Poltorky, Gnooty Valtrosa the Implacable, Yongyong Tumper, Husker Pothingay, Elija Moju, Barimbel Cornelis, and the rest – I knew the intermediate phases, duration and result of every Duel of Lies that had ever been held in Atlantis.
Chemluth sometimes poked fun at my fanaticism, but he never missed a contest either.
We hurled our gnawed corn cobs at the stage because the congladiators were keeping us waiting yet again. Mutra Singh finally appeared and ascended his throne. We sang a few more songs in his honour, then silence fell. The gong sounded, and his challenger mounted the platform.
It was the Troglotroll.
A surprise
I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d seen myself walk out on to the stage. Of all the creatures I’d encountered in my previous lives, he was definitely the one I least wanted to meet again. How could such a degenerate individual have managed to become a congladiator while I spent my time rinsing out vinegar buckets in a mustard factory?
Highly indignant, I told Chemluth about my acquaintanceship with the Troglotroll.
‘Gah!’ said Chemluth. ‘So he’s a scoundrel, but no matter. As long as he’s a good liar …’
He was certainly that, as I knew from experience.
As challenger, the Troglotroll had to open the contest. He presented a pathetic description of his childhood, the way everyone trampled him underfoot, and so on – all the nauseating nonsense familiar to me from our previous encounter. But a surprising rapport grew up between him and the audience. He interwove his life story with a tissue of lies about the labyrinthine tunnels inside the Gloomberg Mountains and his self-sacrificing efforts to extricate those who had lost their way in them. Although it turned my stomach to hear him, he contrived to lie his way into his listeners’ hearts and move them to tears. Their rapturous applause registered a colossal 8.0.
Mutra Singh could only manage 6.5.
I’m bound to admit that the Troglotroll really had what it took to be a congladiator. His stories were original and told in a lively manner. He was also a surprisingly gifted actor. He could mimic voices brilliantly and had a range of expressive gestures that rendered his delivery convincing in the extreme. Above all, he could lie with a lack of scruple exceptional even in a congladiator. He was as flexible as a plasticine figure, had exceedingly elastic face muscles, and displayed a sense of humour, albeit a very peculiar one.
Mutra Singh, the courteous gentleman gladiator, seemed rather stiff by comparison. He had now been in office for quite a while, so the spectators were well acquainted with his technique. The Troglotroll gave promise of something new. When even Chemluth suddenly started applauding the crazy gnome, I realized that Mutra Singh was in trouble.
Much to my indignation, the Troglotroll won the next four rounds. I found Singh’s stories far better and clapped and whistled when the meter was registering his score, but the spectators definitely favoured the Troglotroll. They even let him get away with many a feeble pun and ill-constructed tale as long as he pulled enough funny faces. It was part of the beauty, but also the tragedy, of this sport that the spectators were the ultimate judges of who sat on the throne.
Singh won only three out of fifteen rounds. In Round 16, after the Troglotroll had registered 9.5 on the applause meter, he threw off his cloak. He was close to tears.
The Troglotroll, or Lord Olgort, as he now styled himself, was Atlantis’s new King of Lies.
My ambition is aroused
Far from dampening my enthusiasm for the sport of lying, the Troglotroll’s accession to the royal throne fanned it into a blaze. Mutra Singh had prompted me to enjoy the sport as a spectator; the Troglotroll kindled a desire to participate in person. I secretly dreamed of deposing him with all Atlantis looking on.
We continued to attend every Duel of Lies. Lord Olgort stoutly defended his title against all comers and assembled a steadily growing crowd of supporters. I alone remained sceptical of his methods.
I disliked his whole style, his self-ingratiating tricks, his nauseating tendency to please an audience at all costs. Like a tree swaying at the whim of the wind, he bent in any direction that seemed most likely to garner applause. He took no risks, purely intent on appealing to the lowest common denominator. And appeal he certainly did, with an unerring precision that surprised me. Even Chemluth thought him good.
‘Gah. He’s funny,’ he said whenever I started to find fault with Lord Olgort.
One night, as we were leaving the Megathon, I caught sight of a poster.
* * *
Hey, You!
Yes, you! Ever get the feeling life is passing you by?
Do you resent being a face in the crowd? Does it bug you to lead a humble, low-paid, anonymous existence?
Would you like to wow huge audiences, earn a fortune in pyras, become a popular celebrity, and wallow in applause?
WHY NOT BECOME A CONGLADIATOR?
It’s child’s play! Anyone can learn!
For details inquire at the FILTHY FLEECE,
No. 20,567 Ilstatna Boulevard
* * *
I didn’t breathe a word about my plan to Chemluth, not at first, or he would have called me a megalomaniac.
Not until the next day, when I was on my way to the ‘Filthy Fleece’, did misgivings first assail me. Was I capable of performing in front of a sizeable audience? I had displayed some talent as an entertainer on Hobgoblin Island, but this was quite another kettle of fish. I was shaking like a leaf with stage fright when I entered the taproom of the ‘Filthy Fleece’.
At the ‘Filthy Fleece’
The tavern was a gloomy dive, and far seedier than I’d expected. Although it was still early in the day, a few boozers, most of them Bluddums, were seated at the tables wreathed in acrid cigar smoke. Could this really be the reception centre for congladiators? Perhaps I’d misread the address or fallen for a stupid practical joke. I was just turning to go when a voice awakened some unpleasant memories.
‘By Wotan’s tonsils, la
ndlord, where’s my beer?’
‘Exactly!’ bleated someone else. ‘By Wotan’s tonsils!’
I slowly advanced on the voices through a dense pall of tobacco smoke. I was now near enough to make out the dim figures of three drinkers. ‘By the Megabollogg!’ one of them bellowed. ‘Do I have to get unpleasant?’
I vigorously flapped a paw. The haze parted to reveal an inebriated Bluddum and two old acquaintances.
Two old friends and a new eyeglass
They were Knio and Weeny, neither of whom had changed much. They had both grown a bit, especially Knio, and short-sighted Weeny was wearing a monocle which I immediately recognized as Professor Nightingale’s cyclopean lens from the Unperfected Patents Chamber. I went up to the table.
‘Hello, Knio! Hello, Weeny!’
They gave a start and instinctively groped under the table, perhaps for concealed weapons. Weeny leant forwards, adjusted his monocle, and peered at me.
‘Bluebear?’
‘Bluebear?’ Knio echoed.
They sent the Bluddum away and invited me to have a beer with them. Although I declined the beer, pointing out how early it was (whereupon they both laughed heartily and clinked mugs), I sat down and we chatted awhile about the old days and how we came to be in Atlantis.
‘Man, was I glad when my time with the old fart was up at last,’ Knio roared at the top of his voice as usual. He was evidently referring to Professor Nightingale.
‘I never understood a word of what he was spouting. A complete waste of time. The university of life, that’s what counts.’
Knio waved his beer mug at the tavern’s occupants, and a couple of Bluddums returned the toast. He and Weeny seemed to be regulars. Nightingale’s transmission of knowledge by means of intelligence bacteria did not work with everyone, that much was clear.
‘I was a hopeless case, the old man didn’t take long to hoist that in.’
Knio rapped his head with his knuckles, producing a sound like a hammer hitting an empty safe. The intelligence bacteria had probably bounced off his skull.
‘It worked with me!’ Weeny broke in. ‘But I’ve forgotten it all again, tee-hee!’ He likewise raised his mug of Yeti Beer and brandished it as if to demonstrate the reason for his loss of memory.
‘I’m suffering from a disease. There’s a name for it, but I’ve forgotten that too, tee-hee!’
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Gnomic Cretinism. This is a very rare syndrome occurring only among Gnomelets. The constant use of a Gnomelet’s brain for trifling purposes makes the items of knowledge stored there feel unwell. They commit mass suicide by diving into the so-called Lake of Oblivion, a cerebral area found in Bolloggs’ brains as well as in those of Gnomelets. The resulting gaps in a Gnomelet’s education steadily increase until its brain becomes a complete intellectual vacuum.
Knio and Weeny were still the same ignorant knuckleheads they’d been during our schooldays together. I chalked up a few more minus points to be set against Nightingale’s educational system.
‘Then he sent us off into that tunnel, that labyrinth of caves. Man, that was some ordeal, I can tell you! It took us two hours to find the exit, but we made it in the end, by all the Gryphons!’
Two hours! They had found the exit after two measly hours, whereas I had taken half a lifetime – yet another indication that fortune doesn’t always favour the righteous.
Knio gave a hoarse laugh. ‘I grabbed one of those creatures that scurry around the passages – a Troglotroll, know what I mean? Like the fellow who’s King of Lies these days. He tried to fool us and get us lost, but I grabbed him and hit him on the head until he showed us the way out.’
Weeny took up the story. ‘Then we made our way through a forest. A creepy place, that, huge cobwebs everywhere, brrr! We actually found a spider at one point – a colossal specimen, but dead, luckily for us. It had probably starved to death – all shrivelled up, it looked.’
‘I’d have dealt with it,’ grunted Knio, and took a swig of beer.
So I really had killed the Spiderwitch! I was glad to have met the pair of them, if only because of that information.
‘Yes, and then we went to sea,’ Weeny went on. ‘We built ourselves a raft out of tree trunks and launched it in Bear Bay, beyond the Great Forest. Unfortunately, we forgot the rudder.’ Knio guffawed. ‘No idea how long we bobbed around out there without a bite to eat. We were completely at the mercy of the waves – we almost went mad. I even imagined I could hear the waves chattering together. Things got so bad, Knio tried to eat me.’
‘That’s not true!’ Knio growled, blushing.
‘It certainly is! You sank your teeth in my leg!’
‘Only in fun …’
‘Come off it! Anyway, luckily we sighted land at that very moment. It was Atlantis harbour. We bummed around for a while and then took this job. We’re congladiator scouts. Tell us, though: What brings you here?’
I refrained from giving them a detailed account of my arduous journey to Atlantis and came straight to the point. ‘I saw that poster, and I thought …’
‘You want to become a congladiator?’ Knio and Weeny glanced at each other.
‘Well, I’d seen a Duel of Lies, and I thought I could do just as well.’
Knio grinned. ‘So do lots of folk. Still, why not? You never know till you’ve tried. Come on, we’ll introduce you to the boss.’
We made our way across the taproom to a wooden door, I in the lead, Knio and Weeny whispering and giggling at my heels like a couple of schoolboys. They obviously felt sure I would make a fool of myself. I cursed myself for having ventured into this shady dive. Knio pushed the door open and thrust me into a back room.
It was even murkier than the taproom. The air was filled, not with white cigar smoke, but with dense black phogar smoke, which made it almost as dark as Nightingale’s darkroom.
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Phogar. Strictly speaking, a recreational drug extracted from the Phorinth flower, which is related to the tobacco plant and found only on Thumb Promontory, Paw Island. The cigar-shaped umbels of the Phorinth flower contain equal parts of nicotine, tar, and black pollen. Their nicotine and tar content is approximately a hundred times that of a traditional cigar, and the smoke is as black and acrid as that given off by burning pitch. Only creatures without lungs or hearts [e.g. Shark Grubs, Iron Maggots, Kackertratts] are physically capable of smoking a phogar without expiring on the spot.
Seated at a table strewn with playing cards and pyras of every size was a Shark Grub. I had never seen one before. Very rarely found in Atlantis, Shark Grubs were said to be very secretive. I could see little more at first than a dark, corpulent figure with a mouthful of shark’s teeth.
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Shark Grub, The. A crawling maggot of the gill-breathing, semi-insect family, distantly related to the world of fish. Shark Grubs, which are seldom seen, prefer to live in opaque conditions and shroud themselves in phogar smoke [→Phogar]. They are highly intelligent [except when compared to Nocturnomaths] and notorious for their ability to accumulate money in swift and mysterious ways. Often charming and affable in demeanour, the Shark Grub has a special aptitude for imposing its authority on groups of weak-willed individuals.
The Shark Grub scrutinized me for a while, chewing on his phogar. Standing in the corner of the room, arms folded and eyeing me suspiciously – I’d mistaken him at first for a statue – was a full-grown Zamonian Wolpertinger. He wore the traditional uniform of a Wolpertinger bodyguard, a troll-hide waistcoat and trousers and a steel helmet adorned with two
short horns. Only Atlantean VIPs could afford to employ a Wolpertinger bodyguard.
Volzotan Smyke
‘What do you want, youngster?’ the Shark Grub inquired in a resonant, surprisingly amiable voice. ‘You’ve got blue fur, a great rarity in Atlantis. My name is Volzotan Smyke, but you may call me Smyke.’ I was immediately won over. For a maggot, the Shark Grub had good manners.
‘He wants to become a congladiator,’ Knio and Weeny blurted out simultaneously.
‘Shut up!’
Knio and Weeny fell silent. Smyke seemed to wield a certain amount of authority.
‘If he wants to become a congladiator, he can surely speak for himself. What’s your name?’
‘Bluebear,’ I replied, trying to sound calm and self-assured.
‘Hm … Bluebear … An excellent name, for once. We can do without a pseudonym. That’s good, because effective pseudonyms are hard to devise. Where do you come from?’
‘Nowhere. I wasn’t even born, I was found in a nutshell.’
‘So you weren’t even born … That’s good, too – very good. One of the most barefaced lies I’ve ever heard. And who found you?’
‘Some Minipirates. Nobody knows they exist because they’re so small. I myself was equally small in those days – I could fit into a nutshell, as I said, but I grew so big on plankton they had to put me ashore.’
‘Minipirates!’ bellowed Smyke. ‘I like that! You’ve got imagination!’ I was beginning to like him despite myself.
‘Where did they put you ashore?’ He leant across the table. For some reason, I seemed to be arousing his interest.
‘On Hobgoblin Island. That’s where the Hobgoblins live. They feed on negative emotions, so I had to weep for them – in fact I became something of a star on Hobgoblin Island. I’ve got plenty of experience as an entertainer. On many nights the forest graveyard was sold out when I wept. I –’
Smyke’s uproarious laughter stopped me in my tracks. His rolls of fat were wobbling like a blancmange. ‘The forest graveyard was sold out when he wept! That’s a good one! Stop it, please … No! Go on!’ Tears of laughter were rolling down his cheeks. Was he poking fun at me? Maybe I ought to say something more weighty, I thought – something that would demonstrate my seriousness and intelligence.