by Adam Roberts
‘We’re with the soddit on this one,’ said Mori. ‘Living in trees? I ask you.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t actually ask you, bach, you see, look you, it’s only a figure of speech, isn’t it?’
‘Tis true, life is hard,’ stated Elsqare. ‘There is only one thing worse than being an elf, and that is not being an elf.’
A dozen elves laughed, twittering like swallows. The laughter died away.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Bingo. He became uncomfortably aware of dozens of elvish eyes, each pair focusing a cut-glass look down upon him.
‘You don’t get it?’ said Elsqare, sounding, for the first time, peeved. ‘What d’ye mean?’ He fitted his cunningly worked elvish monocle back into his eye.
‘Well, I only mean to say,’ said Bingo cautiously, ‘that I don’t quite … I mean, when you say that. Don’t you like being an elf?’
‘’Course I do,’ snapped Elsqare. ‘Absurd question!’
‘Well,’ said Bingo. ‘It’s just that if you say “there’s only one thing worse than being an elf”, you’re implying that being an elf is a miserable thing, and that only “being anything else” is more miserable. In effect,’ he went on, warming to his theme, ‘you’re saying that any existence is appalling, and that the only salient characteristic of an elvish existence is that it is marginally less appalling than any other existence. I suppose I can understand somebody expressing a position of such nihilistic absolutism, but it’s difficult to construe it as a … as a joke, do you see? I don’t see why that’s funny. I mean, if existing is so terrible, wouldn’t tears and lamentations be more appropriate?’
There was silence amongst the trees for the portion of several minutes. Finally Elsqare spoke. ‘Anyway, you’d better come up and have some tea.’
They clambered into the trees up elegantly carved wooden ladders, and after much bouncing of boughs and unsteady steps, they were all arranged in a semicircle about Elsqare’s throne. Tea was brought. Everybody sipped, and nibbled at the scone-like Elvish weybread. Gandef smoked. Elsqare’s face assumed a pinched, rather pained expression as if he expected more from his guests. At one point he announced, ‘I have always felt that work is the curse of the tea-drinking classes,’ and smirked. But although a few of his followers hiccoughed briefly with laughter, the line was greeted with non-comprehension by the dwarfs and he fell silent again.
The tea was finished. The last crumbs of Elvish weybread consumed.
The silence grew longer, taller, and more oppressive.
‘At last,’ Elsqare said. ‘Here comes my partner, Olthfunov the Fair. He’ll liven proceedings up. Olthfunov! Coo-ee! Up here.’
A stouter elf in green, with a high forehead and a somewhat lumpish nose, was coming up the ladder. ‘Guests?’ he said. ‘How delightful. How wonderful. Is that Gandef I see, snoozing against the trunk back there? And dwarfs, how marvellous. We must have a party.’
Introductions were made.
‘So you’re a soddit, are you?’ Olthfunov enquired of Bingo. ‘Where are you from, little man?’
‘Soddlesex,’ said Bingo. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Indeed,’ the elf replied. ‘Very flat, Soddlesex.’
‘Oh,’ said Bingo. ‘Well, quite flat, I suppose. There are several hills, though, and—’
‘You’re off to the Minty Mountains?’
‘In that direction, yes.’
‘Very,’ said Olthfunov, with a catch of suppressed glee in his voice, ‘uppy-downy, the mountains. Don’t you think?’
Bingo could hear tittering behind him. ‘I suppose so,’ he said.
‘Ol,’ said Elsqare. ‘I’m sorry to say that our friends have lost four of their companions.’
‘Dear me,’ said Olthfunov, sipping his tea. ‘How so?’
‘Eaten by trollps, it seems.’
‘Ghastly creatures, trollps,’ murmured Olthfunov.
‘Indeed. And,’ Elsqare added, in an aside, ‘they’re somewhat touchy on the topic, so have a care.’
‘A care,’ said the Coward Elf. ‘Naturally. Sensitive area, I’m sure. But,’ he added, bursting into song, or – to be strictly accurate – if not quite bursting, then certainly sidling into a sort of half-song, half-recital:
Oh, don’t let’s be beastly to the trollps
When our Victory is finally won,
And when peace inevitably followps
We can give them a sugar-topped bun.
He concluded with a rapidly murmured, ‘Thank you, thank you, too kind,’ and sat back.
The wind shuffled through the higher leaves of the trees. Away below them a fox barked.
‘Lovely,’ said Elsqare acidly.
‘Followps?’ queried Bingo.
‘Obviously,’ announced Mori, ‘we’d love to stay, love to stay, look you, but we’ve a long journey ahead of us.’
The dwarfs stirred, as if rousing themselves to leave.
‘Of course,’ said Elsqare. ‘Off you go. Bon voyage. Please allow us to help you on your way with some supplies – salted goods and such. Where is it you’re off to?’
‘Over the mountains,’ said Mori. ‘Through the great forest.’
‘I say,’ Elsqare burbled. ‘How exciting.’
‘To the Only Mountain.’
‘Really? Isn’t that the estate of Smug the Dragon?’
The dwarfs nodded, looking grim.2
‘Well, best of luck, best of luck. Do call in again on your way home, if you’re passing.’
‘Oh!’ said Gandef, who was helping himself to a fifth scone as he noticed that everybody else was on their feet and climbing down from the trees. ‘Are we off then?’
1 As is well known, there is no love lost between elves and dwarfs. By no love lost I mean that they do not love one another. Now that I come to think of it, I suppose the phrase no love lost might be taken to mean that the two peoples loved one another so completely and with such zealous stewardship of their love that all of it was directed at the loved party, and none of it went astray, none of it was wasted on ants or milkmaids or fine clothes or things like that. But that wasn’t the sense I intended to convey. I meant the other sense. Perhaps I should have said something like dwarfs and elves hated one another. That would have been less ambiguous. But it’s too late now. Oh dear. Too late! Too late!
2 Mind you, it’s easy to look grim with a great big beard. The tricky thing, with a great big beard, is not to look grim.
Chapter Four
RIDDLES IN THE DA-DOO-DOO-DOO,
DA-DAH-DAH-DAH IDIOM
The following morning was a midsummer’s morning as bright and beautiful as could be imagined. The sun danced on the water.1 Gandef, Bingo and the dwarfs walked towards the Minty Mountains. They reared from the horizon.
‘Is that our destination?’ asked Bingo as he limped alongside Mori. He asked the question more in hope than in expectation of a positive answer.
‘No,’ said Mori. He added, in a singsong, ‘No no no no no no no no’, running down the notes of the musical scale. ‘No, boy, no, boyo, no. We’ve somehow to get past those Minty Mountains, and then cross the mighty River Misissiisiisisiissississippisipisipisipsofactoisisipisipi,2 then find our way through the scary and inhospitable Mykyurwood. Only then, my laddo, only then will we approach the Only Mountain.’
‘Only Mountain?’
‘Well – not the only mountain, of course. Strictly speaking, look you, there are plenty of other mountains. But it’s the Only Mountain Worth Mentioning if you’re a dwarf, see, la. It’s many days’ march from here. And thrice as many days’ stumble.’
Bingo limped on in silence for a while. Then he spoke.
‘Mori,’ he said. ‘I can’t quite shake the sense that the purpose of our quest—’
‘Gold,’ said Mori at once, without looking at him.
‘Sure, yes. Right. Gold. Yes. But I can’t quite shake the sense that our quest – although ostensibly undertaken for gold—’
‘—gold—’ agreed Mori.
The two marched on for several minutes.
‘So?’ Bingo prompted.
‘Eh?’ replied Mori.
‘Am I right?’
‘Right?’
‘About our quest?’
‘Gold,’ said Mori in a loud voice. ‘That’s what it’s about. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go talk to— to one of the others, you know.’
He scurried away.
The whole party slept under a large gooseberry bush that evening, and by noon the following day they had reached the feet of the Minty Mountains. This great chain of mighty snow-skullcapped peaks stretching from the frozen eminence of Mount Gungadin in the north all the long leagues down to the Gap of Next in the south. The steep sides of the myriad denticular mountains that made up this chain were, all of them, sparkling with clean, bright ice: gleaming and white with snow. To stand at the foot of this gigantic and impenetrable wall of towering rock is to be awed by the sublimity of the natural world; the mountain’s slumberous voice echoes through your very being. In the mountains you feel free; there you can read all through the night, if you fancy it, and go south in the winter. The air of the mountains is clean, fresh, sharp, inspiring.
‘Buggeration,’ said Bingo, as he collapsed on a boulder and started rubbing his sore toes. We got to go over those, now, have we?’
‘Mountains,’ said Mori, with a tear in his eye and a finger twisted into his beard. ‘Beautiful beautiful mountains, look you. Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful mountains.’
‘Dwarfs like mountains, then, do they?’ asked Bingo.
‘Well, not really, look you,’ said Mori. ‘We prefer the underneath of mountains. But just look at those lovely things! Look how smooth the sides are – how hairless and smooth and perfect! That mountain there, for instance, lovely, lovely, smooth as a baby mountain.’
‘And we need to get to the other side of them.’
‘Ah yes,’ said the dwarfs in unison.
Bingo looked at his swollen, ruddy, throbbing feet. ‘Do we have mountaineering equipment? Ropes, thick socks, that sort of thing?’
‘Ah no,’ said the dwarfs in unison.
‘Well I really don’t think we should go over those mountains. I don’t think my feet would stand it. They’re not good in snow. Gandef?’ Bingo appealed to the elderly wizard, although he had to raise his voice. ‘Gandef? Do you intend that we climb over those mountains?’
The question was repeated only eight or nine times before Gandef finally understood. He had been silently counting the mountain tops, pointing to each of them in turn and munching his lips as if fixing the number in his mind: a curious exercise, but something – Bingo assumed – wizardly. Perhaps the number of peaks visible had a mystic aspect. Perhaps Gandef couldn’t count anything without silently moving his lips and pointing.
When Bingo’s question was finally beaten into his skull, he snorted with derision. ‘Climb them?’ he snarled. ‘Do I look to you like a counting mimer?’
‘You what?’
Miro placed his right hand behind his right ear in dumb-show of say again.
‘Are you deaf?’ snapped Gandef. ‘I said, do I look like a mountain climber? No, no, no. We’ll not attempt to climb – we’d never make it. Luckily we can go under the mountains.’
‘Through the Coal Gate?’ asked Tori, in awe and terror.
‘Through the cavernous and echoey spaces under the mountain?’ added Fili.
‘And out via the Cavity through which plunges the icy River Floss?’ said Sili.
‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Gandef in annoyance. ‘I mean go through the Coal Gate – and out again through the cavemouth Cavity on the other side. It’s the only sensible way.’
‘But the Coal Gate is enchanted, Gandef,’ Sili pointed out.
‘Ah,’ said Gandef, settling himself down on a tree stump and getting out his pipe. ‘I’m glad you asked me that, young dwarf. Yes, that’s a good point. But I’ve carefully counted the mountain peaks, and there really don’t seem to be any more here than there were the last time I came.’
Dwarf looked to dwarf looked to soddit, but none had any idea what the wizard was talking about.
‘So I don’t think we need to worry about that,’ said Gandef with satisfaction. ‘On the other hand, the door of the Coal Gate is enchanted – I don’t know if any of you were aware of that. I’ll have to rack my brains to try and come up with the magic word. I’ll use some of my most powerful opening spells.’
After the wizard had finished smoking his pipe, and after the ten-minute phlegm-hawking episode that followed, the party made their way through the stumpy valleys and past an evil-looking pool to the Western Coal Gate. It was mid-afternoon. Shadows were lengthening. A roseate light lay like a red film over the land to the west: the fields, copses and forests, haystacks, the occasional cottage. Bingo stood looking at the land he was leaving behind, a tear in his eye. Behind lay everything he knew. Before him lay only darkness and mystery.
Gandef was having a spot of trouble with the Coal Gate. Carved from one gigantic piece of anthracite, forty foot tall and forty foot wide, this mighty entrance was sealed by a Great and Terrible Spell cast by Yale of Yore. Gandef sat smoking for a while, muttering. ‘There are two portions to the spell,’ he explained. ‘First we need to see where the door is exactly. No good me firing Opening Spells at a blank piece of coal!’
‘And how can we see where the door is?’ asked Bingo quaveringly, looking in awe at the perfectly sheer, black face that faced him. As faces, I suppose, are wont to do.
‘Oh no,’ said Gandef. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? First we need to find out where the door actually is. But the edges of it are only visible by moonlight. And tonight is a new moon, so no moonlight. And tomorrow I doubt if there’ll be enough moonlight to show it up. And it looks like cloud. All in all,’ he said, sucking his pipe between the sentences, ‘we could be here a fortnight at least. Perhaps we should give up?’
Bingo expected the dwarfs to complain noisily at this wizardly suggestion, but in fact they were lying on the floor in a state of some dejection. Perhaps, he thought to himself, the loss of their comrades had affected their morale.
‘Moonlight,’ said Bingo, ‘is only the light of the sun reflected off the moon, after all. Can’t we shine reflected sunlight on the door? How would the door know the difference?
Gandef acted as though he hadn’t heard the little soddit, as perhaps – indeed, as probably – he had not. But Mori was heartened by the idea. He roused himself from his despondency, and with Bingo’s help they unwrapped one of Thorri’s shields, leaning it against the rocks in such a way that sunlight bounced off the silvery inner surface and fell on the black cliff before them. At once the outline of a great door became visible, together with several lines of elegantly carved elvish.
‘What do the silvery letters say, Gandef?’ an awed Bingo whispered to the wizard.
‘Wassit?’ Gandef replied.
‘The elvish writing on the door,’ he said more loudly, pointing. ‘What does it say?’
‘What?’
‘What does the ELVISH mean in COMMON SPEECH?’ yelled Bingo, directly into the wizard’s ear. ‘There! There!’
‘What?’ said the wizard, following the line of Bingo’s arm. ‘Ah! Look at that! Some elvish characters! Will you look at that!’
‘What,’ three dwarfs hollered in unison, ‘do they mean?’
‘What’s that? What do they mean?’ said the wizard. He examined the writing for long minutes. ‘Squiggle, squiggle, squiggle,’ he concluded. ‘I don’t know. That one there looks a little like a p,’ he offered. ‘Poqqop? That mean anything to anybody?’
The dwarfs, standing in a line, did not look impressed. ‘You mean you don’t know?’ asked Mori in disgust. Gandef could read the dwarfish
expressions even if he didn’t hear Mori’s rebuke.
‘And how should I know?’ he asked, sulky. ‘I’m not an elf, I’m a wizard. You should watch out. Have more respect for wizards. Miserable dwarfs.’
‘Never mind interpreting the writing,’ said Mori, his beard twitching with annoyance. ‘Can you just open the door?’
‘I just told you,’ said the querulous wizard. ‘I can’t interpret the writing. But I’ll tell you what: why don’t I just open the door with a spell?’
The dwarfs nodded, an action – given the shortness of their necks, and indeed of their whole bodies – more evident in the waggling of their beards than in any other respect.
Gandef settled himself before the door and lit his pipe. ‘You watch this,’ he told nobody in particular. ‘It’s the most powerful opening spell I know.’ He breathed out, breathed in deeply, and intoned in a booming voice: ‘Quandog quandoggli.’
Nothing happened.
‘Quandog quandoggli,’ Gandef repeated.
Nothing happened.
Gandef sucked his pipe for a while. ‘Try a different opening spell,’ Bingo offered. The wizard looked at him, nodded his sage head sagely, and cleared his throat.
‘Quandog quandoggli,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure that spell is working terribly well,’ Bingo suggested.
‘Quandog quandoggli, quandog quandoggli, quandog quandoggli,’ Gandef said, with tremendous rapidity.
‘I don’t think—’
‘QuanDOG,’ Gandef tried. ‘QUANDoggli.’
‘I’m almost certain that neither of those words is the magic word,’ Bingo said, in as loud a voice as he could manage. The sunlight was starting to fade. Once it had gone, and with a moonless night in the offing, they would have to camp there until the morning: and Bingo didn’t like the look of the evil-looking pool. It looked evil. ‘Perhaps—’
‘Qua-aa-andoggli,’ said Gandef, putting the word through a strange musical contortion, starting warbling and high and dropping to a baritone for the final syllable.
‘Perhaps if you tried some other magic words—’