by Adam Roberts
‘So you want an answer?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Sollum.
‘An answer to your riddle?’
‘Yes.’
‘The riddle that you just asked me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Well, I’d say that the answer to that one is,’ said the young soddit, pulling at his left ear lobe with his right hand. ‘Is,’ he repeated, drawing the syllable out, ‘I-i-i-i-i-is’. He sniffed, rubbed his eyes. Then he said, The answer to that one,’ very slowly, lingering over each word. Then he said, ‘I-i-i-i-i-is’ again. Then he sat in silence for two minutes.
Eventually Sollum prompted him. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes what?’
‘Your answer?’
‘I thought I’d finished,’ said Bingo.
‘Oh,’ said Sollum lugubriously. He pondered for a while. Then he said: ‘I don’t understand.’
Bingo, with only a momentary hesitation, lighted on the opportunity. ‘Oh you don’t understand?’ he said, with a sarcastic inflection to his words. ‘My answer too complex for you? I am sorry. I do apologise. It’s a shame I didn’t put it in simpler terms. Would you like me to try and phrase my answer in simpler terms for you?’
‘No, no,’ said Sollum hurriedly. ‘I wasn’t saying that. Your answer is, um, is. Is that right?’
‘You’re the one who says so,’ retorted Bingo.
‘No, no,’ said Sollum again. ‘I think I see. The present participle of the verb to be, is that what you mean?’
‘Ah,’ said Bingo knowingly. ‘Is it, though?’
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ said Sollum in a small voice. ‘Any act of questioning can only take place within a semantic framework that assumes one or other tense, one or other relationship to the contextual temporal configuration. Perhaps by foregrounding the is-ness of is, the continual process of existing that is necessarily embodied in the process of time itself, you do answer my riddle.’
‘Well,’ said Bingo, trying to colour his voice with suggestions of mysteriousness and veiled wisdom. If you say so, I shan’t contradict. I shan’t,’ he added, as if he couldn’t rule out the possibility that somebody else in the vicinity might.
A fish twanged at the surface of the still pond from beneath, and sank again. This was a different fish from the one before mentioned.
Bingo, who was inwardly congratulating himself for getting out of that tricky position, was startled by Sollum’s moist and mournful hand on his knee.
‘Your turn,’ said the creature.
‘You what who’s-it, what?’ returned Bingo.
‘You can ask your riddle now,’ Sollum explained with quiet and doleful patience, ‘and if I can’t answer it then you win.’
‘I win,’ Bingo repeated. ‘Very well. My riddle.’
So Bingo asked his riddle:
When is a door not a door when it’s ajar?
Sollum contemplated for a while, and then sighed softly. ‘I wonder,’ he said gravely, ‘whether you have inadvertently included the solution to your riddle in the question?’
‘Aha!’ said Bingo. ‘But do you know the answer?’
‘I was only suggesting,’ Sollum repeated, ‘that perhaps you meant to ask only the first part of your question, and perhaps intended to retain the second portion as the answer?’
‘Don’t try and weasel out of it.’
‘You could ask another one if you liked …’
‘Answer!’
‘But you’ve already—’
‘Answer!’ chanted Bingo. ‘Answer! Answer! Answer!’
‘When,’ said Sollum, through tight teeth. ‘It’s. A. Jar.’
Bingo rubbed his chin. ‘So you knew that one, did you?’
‘It’s my turn,’ said Sollum. ‘It’s my riddle. And if you can’t answer this one, then I win.’
‘Sure,’ said Bingo jauntily. He felt he had done rather well with the previous riddle, and his confidence was building.
Sollum asked:
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
‘Goes around it I’d say,’ replied Bingo quickly. ‘Like the wind and a fencepost. My turn! Now then, let me see, let me see. Riddle-riddle-riddle.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Sollum. ‘I’m not sure your answer addresses the point of the riddle …’
‘’Course it does.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Does.’
‘No,’ said Sollum. ‘It doesn’t.’
‘Does.’ Contradiction was a game much more in the soddit’s taste than this abstruse riddling business. Bingo was getting his contradiction to Sollum’s denial more and more rapidly.
‘Does not.’
‘— Does!’
‘No, Mr Soddit, it really—’
‘—Does!’
‘But if the force alters in some way, then it is surely a resistible force, and that’s denied by the terms of the riddle—’
‘Isn’t,’ said Bingo.
‘It is,’ said Sollum.
‘Isn’t,’ said Bingo.
‘It is,’ said Sollum.
‘Isn’t,’ said Bingo.
‘It is,’ said Sollum.
‘My turn! My riddle now! Don’t be sour-grapes. You have to answer my riddle or I’ll win.’
Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, rellery yellery, red yellory?
‘Now,’ said Sollum, his serious manner starting to fray at the edges a little, ‘that’s not actually a riddle at all, is it? Be honest with me, little soddit. That’s a tongue-twister, isn’t it, and not, in fact, a riddle at all? I mean – isn’t it?’
‘Definitely not,’ said Bingo, looking to one side. ‘Where I come from that’s quite a famous riddle. Down my way. That’s definitely a riddle. You could ask any of my people and they’d all say, oh yes, riddle, that’s a riddle. So, yes, now the question is, can you answer it?’
‘Answer it? You haven’t phrased it in the form of a question,’ said Sollum, his voice starting to warp with hints of frustration and annoyance. ‘Be honest, play fair, and admit that it’s a tongue-twister.’
‘It sounded like a question to me,’ said Bingo piously.
‘Naturally, since you inflected the line with a rising tone at the end to mimic a questioning delivery. But that’s not actually phrasing a riddle in the form of a question. That’s just putting a question mark at the end of it. You could put a question mark at the end of any sentence whatsoever, but that wouldn’t necessarily make the sentence a question.’
Bingo whistled a tune he had just invented, which consisted of four randomly chosen musical notes. Then he said, ‘Is that the answer you’re giving me? Because I have to say you’re not even close with that answer. Not even close.’
‘No of course,’ snapped Sollum, ‘that’s not my answer. That was me pointing out that the so-called riddle you pretended to ask me was no such thing.’
‘So is that your answer?’
‘No, no, no,’ said Sollum, becoming quite agitated. By the faint blue light of the phosphorescent lichen, Bingo could just about see Sollum’s dark froggish hands flapping in front of him. ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’
‘I’m going to have to press you for an answer,’ said Bingo.
‘But you haven’t asked me a proper riddle!’
‘Time’s running out – you need to give me an answer now.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘Red lorry?’ said Bingo, leaning forward. ‘Yellow lorry? Your choice!’
‘I insist—’
‘Ga-ah,’ said Bingo in a warning tone. ‘Answer!’
‘But—’
‘Answer! Come on, come on!’
‘I just—’
‘Time’s running out, seconds ticking away.’
‘Red lorry!’ shrieked Sollum.
‘Ha-hah!’ crowed Bingo. ‘Wrong! Wrong! The answer was yellow lorry. It’s obvious when it’s pointed out to you, isn’t it? I win! Hurrah for
me!’
‘That doesn’t make any kind of sense at all,’ steam-whistled Sollum. His earlier serious and grave manner seemed to have been evaporated by his annoyance. ‘You picked one at random.’
‘Now don’t be a bad loser. Nobody likes a bad loser.’
‘If I’d have said “yellow lorry” you’d simply have told me that the answer was red lorry.’
‘Oh really?’ said Bingo in a reasonable tone. ‘That wouldn’t work at all, now, would it? Red lorry – that wouldn’t fit.’
‘You,’ said Sollum, his voice dropping almost an octave and acquiring a gravelly undertone. But he didn’t finish the sentence.9
‘So,’ said Bingo, hopping to his feet and hugging himself in the near darkness in glee at his victory. ‘I win. Incidentally, what do I win?’
Sollum sulked for a minute. ‘You get to eat me,’ he said shortly.
‘To eat you?’ repeated Bingo.
‘That’s what we were playing for. If I’d have won, I’d have certainly eaten you. Since you won you have to eat me. To tell you the truth,’ the creature added, his tone becoming self-pitying, ‘I’m almost glad. I’m more than sick of living down here in the dark. Go on, eat me. Start with my legs.’
‘I don’t want to eat you,’ said Bingo, alarmed at the thought.
‘Oh,’ said Sollum. ‘You must. It is a function of inevitability, the doctrine of necessity. And besides, you won.’
‘Can’t I just get you to show me the way out of here?’
‘Ooh,’ said the creature. ‘No, that wouldn’t be right.’
‘We could have another riddling contest,’ suggested Bingo. ‘If I win, then you have to show me the way out of here. And if you win, than I have to show you the way out of here.’
‘But I don’t want to be shown the way out of here,’ said Sollum.
‘And I don’t want to have to eat you,’ snapped Bingo. ‘Come along now. Be fair. I did win the riddling contest, after all.’
‘Are you,’ asked Sollum morosely, ‘surrendering your rights to me qua meal, and freely giving up the opportunity to eat me?’
‘Yep,’ said Bingo.
Sollum sighed. It was a deeply sorrowful noise. Had Sollum’s pool been a pool of tears he had himself cried at the inherent sorrow of things, his sigh could not have been more sorrowful.
‘You wound my honour, sir,’ he said. ‘And my honour is the only value I have remaining in my life. My life must end, sir, or I must dedicate myself – carefully, cunningly, inexorably – to wreaking my revenge upon you. In fact, apart from my honour, I have only one Thing® in the world of any value. It is a Thing® of great antiquity, a Thing® of great value and many uses. With it I find the only consolation my miserable life affords me.’
‘Now there’s a turn up for the books,’ said Bingo. ‘Wouldn’t you know it, but I found a Thing® in the tunnel as I was coming down here. It’s in my pocket now.’
There was silence. In the dim blue light Sollum opened his mouth, a downward-crescent scowl. His teeth, Bingo noticed, were sharpened to points, like golf tees.
‘Really?’ he said, his voice a little strained.
‘I daresay it’s the one you were just talking about,’ Bingo continued. ‘Finders keepers of course, but isn’t that a wonderful coincidence? First I win the riddling business fair and square, then it turns out I’ve got your Thing®! Funny old world.’
‘Perhaps you’d care to return it to me?’ asked Sollum. His whole manner bespoke a pessimistic anticipation of an answer in the negative. Bingo, accordingly, provided one.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I say, could you show me the way to—’
His soddit instincts saved him. Sollum, incapable of simply abandoning himself to his rage, was advancing upon Bingo with a steady, determined, serious gait, fully intending to tear out his throat and feed on his quivering corpse in a steadily determined and serious manner. He made a clawing sweep at Bingo’s head, and only a sort of half-duck, half trip saved the soddit’s life. After that Bingo was running, as fast as his little soddit feet could bear him, upwards this time, away from the silent pool and the enraged philosopher.
‘Give me back my Thing®!’ howled Sollum, a little way behind.
‘Not likely,’ Bingo whispered under his breath. His hand went to his pocket and there his fingers apprehended the Thing®. Its myriad magical properties, amongst which were included a form of compass-orientation device, a means of seeing in the darkness, and a means of adding speed to running heels, propelled Bingo at tremendous speed along the corridors underneath the mountain. He ran up, along ledges, mounted spiral stone stairways, ran through cavernous hallways, and at last – panting severely – emerged blinking at a precipice high in the sunshine.
He had reached the easternmost extent of the mountains. To his right a mighty and ice-cold river – the Great Floss – tumbled and gushed out of this cavemouth in the eastern flank of the Minty Mountains. The sunlight glassed his eyes momentarily, but, blinking, he could see that he was almost free. Only a forty-foot drop into the bubbling icy whirlpool that the Floss made as it tumbled out of the mountain was between himself and escape.
‘Good grief,’ somebody below yelled. The voice was only barely audible above the grinding chomping clatter of the waterfall.
Bingo squinted. Below him, a long way below, a group of eight dwarfs and a stooping old wizard stood next to the water’s edge. One of the dwarfs, Bingo couldn’t see which from this distance, was pointing up at him.
‘It’s Bingo,’ he heard. ‘He’s not dead after all!’
Behind him, Bingo heard a hiss. He glanced back, and saw Sollum slinking up the ledge towards him, keeping his left hand on the rockwall at his side, and making menacing shaking and swiping gestures with the right. ‘First,’ the philosopher said in a bitter tone, ‘you refused to eat me. Then you stole my Thing®. A painful death is too good for you. On the other hand, since it is the most I can inflict, it’ll have to do.’
Several of the dwarfs below were now waving and shouting. Bingo looked at the rapidly approaching figure of Sollum. He looked at the mighty flowing torrent to his right, as solid-looking as stone though it foamed and flexed in its fall. He looked at the drop beneath him. There was nothing for it. He clasped the Thing® in his pocket, hoping devoutly that one of its magical properties was to enable a person to fly, or at least float, and he jumped.
For a moment it seemed as if his prayers had been answered. The world seemed to freeze, and he had a wonderfully clear view of foothills leading down to open pasture and the fertile fields surrounding the Great River M. But then, with a stabbing sense of panic, he realised in the pit of his stomach that he was falling. The view slid upwards, and with a sensation of sharp pain tangible on every single inch of the outside of his body he was immersed in the churning outflow of the Floss.
His world was now white, bubbling, rotating, and utterly disorienting. There was no breath in his lungs. Had a firm dwarfish hand not grabbed his ankle as it snorkelled its way momentarily above the surface and hauled Bingo out he would certainly have drowned. But there he was, gasping and shivering on the grass under the clear blue sky of morning. Away in the sky, seemingly very far, he heard a wavery voice cry out in its frustration and malice: ‘Grabbings! You have incurred the wrath of a philosopher! And a philosopher, once he hates somebody, hates for ever! For ever!’
1 Not literally, obviously. This sentence is meant metaphorically – which is to say that sunlight waltzed and pogoed from wavelet to wavelet like little parcels of photons on amphetamines. Dear me, imagine if the sun were literally dancing on the waters! My! That would mean the agonising and fiery death not only of our heroes, but of the whole world, a global apocalypse and ultimate disaster! Dear me!
2 For convenience sake this river in future will be referred to as the River M.
3 See? I told you so. Oh, but nobody listens to me, I know.
4 Obviously, when I say ‘enormous’ here I don’t mean it in an absolute sense. G
iven that we’ve already established that Bingo the soddit is a fellow of diminutive size, it would be pretty stupid to suggest that a creature half his size is ‘enormous’ in any objective sense of the word. ‘Minuscule’ would be the better word, if I were framing this in objective terms. But I meant ‘enormous’ in comparison with other Gobblins. That, and the fact that ‘tiny, miniature, hardly-there-at-all Gobblins swarmed into the hall …’ lacked the necessary smack of the alarming. Or so it seemed to me.
5 The Thing® Bingo found is a Registered Trade Mark and may not be used, invoked or quoted without permission of the Estate.
6 That’s it. There’s nothing else to say about it at the moment. But it is, believe me, a really really imortant development.
7 His original name was Seagul, although it was a name he had not heard for many years. Now, if he ever thought of it, it only brought to his mournful mind the memory of mockery and jibes, of his neighbours and relations pouring scorn upon his dedication to philosophy with cries of ‘Jonathin Leadenstone Seagul! We shall chase you from our community with mockery and jibes, for we are happy to be blind to your wisdom and relish our own idiocy, oh yes.’ Such speeches had left Sollum no choice but to flee far, far underground.
8 Indeed, the fish in quesiton was called Plop by his friends for this reason. His proper name was Smeagoldfish, but the other fish tended to call him Plop as it was easier to pronounce. On formal occasions he might be addressed as Smeagoldfish-Plop, but for most occasions it was just Plop. But I’m getting off the point. The fish isn’t important to the onward movement of the story. Not at all, in fact. You won’t encounter the fish again. Stop reading this note right now, and go back to the main body of the text. Do as I say! No argument – or you can go straight to bed, and I won’t finish writing the book for you.
9 My guess, for what it’s worth, is that Sollum was either going to say, ‘You are right, you’re the winner fair and square,’ or else ‘You want to share a fish and gluten fondue?’ But I could be wrong.