The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘My lady,’ said Lüthwoman, ‘can you give uth your aid?’

  ‘We have travelled far and are hungry,’ said Belend. ‘We are sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘Young lovers,’ said Witch?, ‘you are welcome. I know you, Belend, and you also Lüthwoman, most beautiful of the daughters of Elves. And I know all about your quest.’

  Belend and Lüthwoman were amazed; and Belend asked: ‘Are you a witch?’

  ‘I am Witch?’

  ‘That’s what I asked.’

  ‘No,’ said Witch? ‘That is my name. Witch? – with a question mark at the end like that.’

  ‘What – Witch??’

  ‘Witch?’

  ‘That’s what I was asking you.’

  ‘I was confirming what you said.’

  ‘Dame Witch?’ said Belend. ‘I am confused. I have never before heard that names might have question marks at the end of them.’

  And Witch? cackled at this.21 ‘Punctuation is my being, children. For in the beginning of things, the world was made as a beautiful though formless thing, because it derived from the affecting but insufficiently descriptive song of Emu. And the four great Dragons of Making did fly through the unformed world and did speak the world we see into existence – the sky and sea, the mountains and the rivers; and later Emu’s angels came and spoke other words, speaking the fields and birds, the forests and animals into being. The world around us is a sentence, named into being. But a sentence must end with a punctuation point, or it will unravel; and so I was spoken into being: and so it is that I am the oldest of this world’s created beings. And my function is crucial, for without me the sentence as a whole would not make sense.’

  Belend was amazed to hear this. ‘And so,’ he asked, ‘great mother, what manner of punctuation point are you?’

  And Witch? did smile. ‘To know that,’ she said, mysteriously, ‘is to understand the nature of existence. Such knowledge comes only with great effort, my children, and cannot be simply given away to all who pass and think to frame the question.’

  ‘Well,’ said Belend, pondering for a moment. ‘It’s either going to be a full stop, or a question mark, isn’t it?’

  ‘Or a colon?’ essayed Lüthwoman.

  ‘Well, a colon doesn’t really end a sentence, does it?’ countered Belend. ‘No, I think it has to be a question mark or a full stop. Or perhaps an exclamation mark. Unless the sentence of the world ends with a dash like an experimental poem – and I don’t think that sounds right.’

  ‘You are wiser than first impressions might suggest,’ said Witch?.

  ‘Does the fact that you are known as Witch? mean that your nature is that of a question mark?’ Belend asked the old woman.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘For I am also known as Aunt Dot, to some.’

  Belend thought about it. ‘It seems to me, great mother, that you are a question mark for all that; because I would prefer to believe that the world finishes in an open-ended manner, and that when it does end it will be answered in some way. If it ends only with a full point, then it is a closed thing and a limited thing; and I would prefer to believe that it is open.’

  ‘Sir Belend,’ said Witch?, ‘you speak well, and what you say may be true or it may be not. Although there is a danger for anyone in shaping your understanding of the world around your preferences – for the world is not necessarily what you wish it to be. But I will say this: because of who and what I am, I live at the end of things, looking back. And so it is I know many things: I know your natures and your hopes, and I know the powers that oppose you – and they are mighty and terrible.’

  ‘Can you help uth?’ asked Lüthwoman, in a quavery voice, which is to say, crisply.

  In reply Witch? smiled, and invited them inside her house for some tea.

  Inside was dark, close and smoky; and yet a bright fire burnt in a flagstone grate, and there were treestump stools and a low table. And Aunt Dot the Witch? fed her guests with honeyed bread and freshbrewed tea.

  ‘So, my children,’ she said, when they had supped their fill. ‘You are hoping to cross the great river?’

  ‘We must make our way to Moider! to confront the evil Sharon and regain the Sellmi of Emu which was stolen. For only by doing so can we marry.’

  ‘And it is marriage you wish?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Sharon is very old and powerful, and full of evil,’ said Aunt Dot, gazing into her turf fire. ‘His magic is a strong magic. But I am older, and my magic is stronger still.’

  ‘Will you help us, great mother?’ asked Belend in an agony of hope.

  ‘Sir Belend,’ said the crone, smiling. And the ridges and grooves of her aged face glistened in the firelight. ‘All things are written into the great sentence of the world, all things for good or evil. I can change neither the letters nor their order.’

  ‘It mutht,’ said Lüthwoman, ‘be a pretty long and complicated thententhe, all in all.’

  ‘Oh, it is, Princess Lüthwoman,’ said the crone. ‘And few understand it. Even Sharon does not – at least not entirely, although he thinks he does.’

  ‘But you understand it?’ asked Belend.

  To this Dame Dot only smiled.

  ‘Great mother,’ said Belend, humbly. ‘I do not understand. Since you are so great and so powerful, why do you not claim this world as your own, and rule it in great majesty and state? – instead of living here as you do, in this small hut of wood thatched with fir-sprigs?’

  ‘Don’t you like my house?’ asked Dame Dot.

  ‘Oh no-no-no,’ said Belend, hastily, for he had enough wit to know that it does not do to offend a witch. ‘It’s lovely, really lovely. Very nice. Rustic. Very rustic. Compact and bijou. It has,’ he added, searching hurriedly for the right words ‘um, tremendous charm and simplicity.’

  ‘I actually prefer the dark, window-free look, mythelf,’ said Lüthwoman, nodding along energetically with what her lover was saying.

  Dame Dot seemed amused at this, and poked the fire with a charred lump of wood. ‘To answer your question, Sir Belend,’ she said. ‘There are those who have wisdom, and there are those who have power. And then there are those who have power and wisdom, and having both means being wise enough to know that power is a poisoned sweetmeat. You ask me if I will help you reach Sharon and recover the Sellmi. I can help you. But only if you know the magic charm that will compel my help.’

  She looked inscrutably at them, and then inscrutably at the fire. And the fire looked back inscrutably at her, although Belend and Lüthwoman looked not inscrutable but alive with hope and anxiety.

  And Belend did rack his brains for all the magic words and charms he had ever heard, and all the stories of witches his wetnurse had ever told him, to try and think what form of words might compel so magical a creature to help them. And the longer he thought the more confused his thoughts became, for he had no magic in him, and was not wise in magic lore.

  But Lüthwoman spoke. ‘Aunt Dot will you help uth,’ she said, ‘pleathe?’

  And this was indeed the magic word. ‘Yeah, alright,’ said the witch.

  The crone got to her feet and shuffled across her rush-strewn floor to a rude wooden box in the corner of her hovel. This she opened, whereupon its rusty hinges made a rude noise, for it was a rude box. She took out something wrapped in cloth, and brought it over to Belend and Lüthwoman.

  ‘You have many perils before you, and even if you achieve your end your perils will not be over,’ she said. ‘Take this,’ and she handed Belend a small square of stiff parchment. And upon the parchment was written: ‘Get ye Gone fro Gaol’.

  ‘What does this do?’ Belend asked.

  ‘I’d have thought it was obvious,’ returned the crone, a little crossly, as if Belend’s slowness of mind annoyed her. ‘Just you stick that in your pocket or pouch for now. And you, my lady, take these.’

  And from the cloth she took three small things, each no larger than a knucklebone. These she gave to Lüthwo
man. And looking closely at them, Lüthwoman thought them the dried husks of insect bodies, or the fossilised cocoons of some locust or cricket-type thing.

  ‘These,’ said Witch?, ‘before you start nagging me with questions, are Bugs of Truth. Very useful creatures. They are inert in the presence of truth, wrapped into their shells as you see; but they feed upon untruths – and in the presence of an untruth, they will come to life and flight, and devour the lie as it flies. But pay attention: each will only eat one untruth – after that they fly away, burrow into the ground, digest the lie, and produce an egg, a process which takes twelve years. So it is that they are precious, and rare, and I’d recommend you not to waste them. Carry them with you – but I warn you, if either of you utters a lie, they will burst to fluttering life in your pockets and you will lose them.’

  ‘What happens when they devour the lie?’ asked Belend, who was far from clear on the point of these strange beasts.

  ‘The speaker’s words are turned from untruth to truth of course!’ snapped the witch. ‘You’re not very with it, are you? Now, off you go, off you go, get on with your quest thingie and leave an old woman to her bingo and Battenberg.’

  Belend and Lüthwoman thanked the crone long and sincerely. ‘But,’ said Belend, tentatively, for he was aware of the risk of outstaying their welcome, ‘we cannot cross the mighty River Raver, so how can we come to Moider!?’

  The crone went ‘tch!’ and shook her head, but she spoke kindly. ‘Alright, alright. Come outside.’

  And they came out of the hovel into the glade, and the roaring of the river was loud in their ears again, and gnats swirled in the air like pollen, and the air smelt of pine and turf and woodsmoke. Behind the hut was a woodpile upon which were two leather saddles; they were slim saddles, without stirrups, but they were beautiful, for they were decorated with elegant swirled patterns. ‘Take these,’ said the crone, and even though she spoke quietly Belend and Lüthwoman could understand her perfectly despite the roar of the river.

  ‘What shall we do with them?’

  ‘Take them to the river’s edge,’ said the crone, turning away from them to go back inside her hut. ‘Saddle the horses you find there, and you will be able to ride across the river.’

  They thanked the crone with all their hearts, and left her glade carrying the gifts she had given them, and made their way down to the riverside.

  The Third Part of the Tale of Belend and Lüthwoman

  So Belend and Lüthwoman returned to the River Raver. But at the river’s edge they found no horses, and though Belend searched all the fields and copses about they found none, nor any trace that horse ever came so far south.

  And they thought they would return to the crone’s hut and ask her advice; but although they retraced their steps through the dewy grass, and though they found the glade again, yet they could find within it no trace of the crone’s hut, or the crone herself. And by searching fruitlessly they wasted many hours, until finally Belend said: ‘I think she is only to be found when she chooses to be found; for she is a creature of great and tricksy magic. We will not find her hut, howsoever long we look, unless she herself wishes it.’

  So they went back down to the river’s margin, and sat there. It began to rain, gently at first, and then with more force. Belend and Lüthwoman huddled together under a riverside tree, even though it gave them but poor shelter; and they watched the rain making stubble on the river’s rapid surface, and they listened to the grass hissing under the rain.

  Away to the west were the dragon-sculpted peaks of the Ered Loonpants, enormous, overstriding the horizon. The two lovers stared at the distant mountains through the drizzly air, and could see that a mighty storm was playing amid the purple-white peaks. Clouds black as night-sky were snagged on the summits like billowing robes in the strong wind. They blurred the mountains with torrents of rain, and stitched peak to peak with threads of lightning.

  ‘If that storm moves from the mountains west,’ said Belend, speaking the thought that was in both their hearts, ‘then we will be drenched.’

  ‘Or worthe,’ said Lüthwoman, looking at the spate; for the river was swollen with rain and rode high against its banks. ‘If it floodth . . .’

  And Belend and Lüthwoman held one another more tightly, and wondered what to do.

  The storm seemed to grow less, and after a little while the rain lifted and sunshine fell instead of water. Belend and Lüthwoman stood and looked about them, feeling their hearts lighter. And in the tree above them a bird chirruped over and over, like a squeaky wheel.

  Belend shielded his eyes with his hands and looked to the mountains on the horizon; and his heart grew heavy again. For the storm was still playing hugely about the peaks of the Ered Loonpants. Grape-coloured clouds were piling higher and higher upon them, throwing strands of lightning at the mountains, and washing them with heavy rains. And as Belend looked, he saw avalanches; and though they were so distant they looked like shards falling from chalk, yet he knew they were truly vast quantities of snow tumbling down the mountain, to fall into the cold lakes at the base of the mounts from which the River Raver flowed.

  And as he watched, he saw a bulge of water move, seemingly slowly in the great distance, down the higher reaches of the river. And he knew the mighty river was breaking its banks in a vast spate. ‘Lüthwoman,’ he said, taking hold of her. ‘The river is flooding, as you feared. The floodwaters will reach us in a short while; and the time is too short for us to escape. Even if we were to climb this tree, it would be swallowed by the angry waters, torn roots and all from the ground and broken in the fury of the flood.’

  ‘Mutht we, then, die?’ asked Lüthwoman.

  ‘If we must,’ said Belend, ‘then I am glad to die with you. For in death we shall not be divided, and my dearest wish is to remain with you, unsundered, forever. For your mother swore that she could never consent to our marriage; and I swore regardless that we would always be together. And now it seems to me that Fate has found a way for our two oaths to hold, neither being broken, and neither conflicting with the other. For although no ceremony has joined us, yet death will join us; and although your mother has still not consented to our marriage yet shall we always be together.’

  And he wept, and Lüthwoman drew him closer to her. They could both hear, above the noise of the rushing waters, a deeper thrum, as the front of the spate drew closer to them.

  ‘We must clutch one another tightly,’ said Belend, ‘so that even when we drown our bodies are joined.’

  ‘And mutht we then drown?’ asked Lüthwoman in fear.

  Belend replied: ‘We cannot escape.’

  But as he spoke the words a Bug of Truth came to life in Lüthwoman’s pocket, and struggled against the cloth. It flew out into the air and devoured Belend’s words as he spoke them, such that – as much to his surprise as to hers – he found himself saying ‘We shall never drown, you and I, for such is not our fate.’

  And the Bug flew into the high air and was carried on the winds to the west.

  ‘I don’t underthtand,’ said Lüthwoman. ‘You thaid the flood was inethcapable. Tho why do you now thay that it ith not our fate to drown?’

  Belend looked at her with a wild surmise, his eyes bright. ‘I thought to say that we must drown,’ he said. ‘But a Bug of Truth took my words from the air! I must, inadvertently, have spoken an untruth when I said we must drown. Can it be that we will survive? But how?’

  And at that moment, with a roar that shook the trees, the floodwaters raced round the river’s bend. Belend saw the foaming whitecaps at the wave front, and he suddenly understood. ‘Quick!’ he cried. ‘Take up the witch’s saddles – for there,’ he pointed, ‘are the horses we must ride across the river!’

  Lüthwoman’s hands had only just grasped her saddle, holding it before her, when the wall of water struck. She cried in fear, and Belend did so too: but the flood flung them high in the air, clear of the water, and as they came down their saddles fastened to the surgin
g backbones of foam of the river. Lüthwoman, agile and elven, pulled herself round and settled gracefully into her saddle even as it twisted and shook on the river’s back; and although Belend was clumsier and tumbled back into the water, yet his arms were strong and he did not let go of the magic leather. And he was able to haul himself upwards and pull himself onto the saddle, such that he too was sitting astride the river’s spate. And in this fashion they clung to the pommels, and rode the bucking waters.

  The Fourth Part of the Tale of Belend and Lüthwoman

  And so Belend and Lüthwoman rode the flooding River Raver, flying gloriously past the landscapes of lower Blearyland. And sunlight smashed a thousand rainbows from the foaming spray all around them; and joy lifted their hearts.

  For some time they rode the river west; and Belend began to worry that they would be swept out to sea before the flood abated. But shortly the river widened, and turned to the south, and here the flood burst its banks completely, and Belend and Lüthwoman were carried swiftly over the fields of the South.

  And fast as eagles they came to the low hills that mark the beginnings of Moider! Here there was a bend in the hills upon which Sharon had encamped a great army of Orks, and it was called ‘Ork-knee’ because it somewhat resembled a knee, and because Orks lived there. These Orks were placed there by Sharon to guard the northern approaches of his kingdom.

  When they saw the approaching floodwaters they abandoned their posts and fled; but the fastest legs cannot match the speed of floodwater, and they were caught and drowned, trampled (as it seemed to Belend and Lüthwoman) under the very hooves of their watery steeds.

  It was against these hills that the floodwaters spent themselves, ebbing and dissipating into numerous pools and marshy land. And Belend and Lüthwoman were lowered to the ground, until they had been deposited on the splashy turf. They found each other and embraced, and then sploshed through the knee-high water until they had moved upland and into a drier area.