Sagaria

by John Dahlgren

  He turned to a posse of chimpanzees who’d materialized behind him. They were like those at the gate, but they had different colored hair.

  “This is …”

  “Wonderville!” they chorused.

  “Louder. I can’t hear you.”

  “WONDERVILLE!”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with my ears, because …”

  “WONDERVILLE!”

  “Ah, that’s better.” Lamarod swiveled back to face Perima and Sagandran. “We don’t do anything by halves here, you see. Since my stewards here are only halves to begin with, they have to speak doubly loud to me. Mathematics, that is.”

  He flicked his handkerchief, and a big turnip watch flew out of it. Catching it nimbly, he twisted it around to look at the time.

  “Oh, my. Oh, dearie, dearie me.” His face assumed a look of pompous solemnity and his voice dropped an octave. “I see I am late for an important meeting.” Then his grin was back. “An important meeting with a merry-go-round, that is.”

  He reached above him for the hand stirrup that dangled from the pulley wheel. “Don’t forget to have fun, young lovers. Mind what I said about the Tunnel of Love. One couple went in there strangers and came out with three children, ha ha!”

  The pulley chugged and then spun, and in moments, the still-gesticulating figure of Mayor Lamarod was retreating toward the top of the peppermint tower.

  “How does he do that?” pondered Sagandran. “I mean, I understand how it brings him downhill, but uphill?”

  “’Scuse me,” said one of the stewards, mercifully not at the same volume they’d been using in front of the mayor.

  “Er, yes?”

  “That’s not uphill.”

  “But—”

  “It’s downhill. Only downhill in the opposite direction.”

  That seemed to make perfect sense to Sagandran – at least, why should he worry if it didn’t?

  The chimp who’d addressed him was pink-haired. She was joined by another, who was blue-haired like the guards had been. The rest of the stewards vanished back to wherever they’d come from.

  “Let us show you around,” said the first one who’d spoken. “We’ll show you all sorts of funny things. By the way, my name is Chortlette and my blue-haired friend here is called Sniggeroo. You’re really going to enjoy yourself in Wonderville, you are.”

  Then why, thought Sagandran, does your voice sound so dismal?

  Sniggeroo led Snowmane off to stables near the gate; Sagandran felt rather guilty letting the horse be separated from them like that, but he reasoned that Snowmane would probably be happier relaxing with some oats than trailing along obediently behind the two humans.

  Sagandran and Perima allowed themselves to be led around the city by the two chimps. Wonderville wasn’t as big as it had seemed from a distance, but it was so packed with diversions that it felt endless. The streets were lined with cafes and ale houses, while shops, which were squashed in between into all sorts of improbable shapes, displayed bizarre goods in their crazily angled windows. Everything was colored in the same violent primary hues; there wasn’t a pastel shade, a gray or a black to be seen anywhere. For a moment, Sagandran wondered if the blazingly clashing colors were giving him a headache, but then he decided not to worry about it. There was far too much fun on offer for him to occupy his mind with something so dampening as worry …

  Sniggeroo was speaking to him. “If you want to buy anything, you use jokes for money.”

  “What?” said Perima, turning away from a shop window filled with every conceivable size, shape and color of whoopee cushion.

  “If you see something you like, tell the shopkeeper a joke. If the shopkeeper laughs, the thing is yours.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

  She looked abashed. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t implying that.”

  “No one ever is,” said Chortlette glumly.

  Something had been puzzling Sagandran and, despite all the distractions, the puzzlement simply wouldn’t go away.

  “Who is Mayor Lamarod?”

  “You just met him.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that. But who is he? Where did he come from? Why did he build a city like Wonderville?”

  “You don’t like Wonderville?”

  “Well, yes, of course I do. Very much.”

  Sagandran thought Snigeroo was going to burst into tears. Chortlette was apparently made of sterner stuff because she answered him.

  “So why are you asking so many questions?” The chimp shook her head sadly.

  “Because I want to know the answers.”

  “That’s a pretty stupid reason to ask questions, don’t you think?”

  “I, ah …”

  Perima came to his rescue.

  “I think he’d like you to tell him the story of how Lamarod came to create Wonderville,” she said reassuringly to Chortlette. “Telling stories is fun, isn’t it?”

  “S’pose so.” Sagandran had never seen a chimpanzee pout before.

  “Do try it,” Perima cajoled.

  “Oh, all right. As long as it’s going to be fun, I reckon I’m allowed to.” Chortlette drew a breath.

  “That’s the trouble with working here,” interposed Sniggeroo. “We’re not supposed to do anything that isn’t fun. It’s all right for the first month or two, but after that,” he stifled a sob, “you begin to ache for the fun of doing something that’s not fun at all.”

  “I was trying to tell these people a story,” said Chortlette. “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not. I was just trying to explain how I’d like to, oh, I don’t know, hit my thumb with a hammer or something. Just once.”

  “You finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. Now, what happened to Lamarod was that—”

  “Wouldn’t mind getting my hand caught in a mangle every now and then, either.”

  “I thought you said you’d—”

  “Yes, yes. Sorry to interrupt your fun with my profoundly important personal problems, I’m sure.”

  “Good. When our dearly beloved Mayor Lamarod was little, he was the son of the man, also called Lamarod, who was the mayor of this town before him, and—”

  “I did try to drop a brick on my foot once.”

  “Will you shut up?”

  “But I missed. What a washout.”

  “Look, help me tell the story, will you?”

  Sniggeroo sniffed ominously, but nodded.

  Chortlette watched her fellow steward for a long moment before resuming her story. “You see, there was nothing wrong with Lamarod’s father. He was the nicest of men you could hope to find, except that he had far too much work to do and he took it all far too seriously.”

  “Long, long face old man Lamarod always wore.”

  “He didn’t have any time to play with his little boy so that they could have fun together.”

  “Face like a constipated thunderstorm, he had.”

  “The one thing in the world little Lamarod wanted to do more than anything other was to go with his dad to a carnival, an amusement park, a funfair. Every time he asked, his dad said, ‘Yes, sure, we can do that. Only not right now. Maybe next week, when I’m a little bit less busy.’”

  “You know what you see when you’ve put too much toilet paper in the lavatory and you’re desperately trying to flush and flush but there’s not enough water left in the tank? The things that slowly come up again? Well, that’s what old man Lamarod’s face looked like all the time, it did.”

  Chortlette put her fists on her hips. “I don’t care what old man Lamarod’s face looked like.”

  Sniggeroo looked even sulkier than before. “I was just trying to help, is all,” he grumped. “Give the story a bit of atmosphere and color, that sort of thing. You said I should help.”

  “Well, you’re not helping, do you hear?”

  “Can’t help but hear, you shouting
like that.”

  “Men!” said Chortlette to Perima.

  “Couldn’t agree with you more,” Perima replied. “One moment they say they’re going to take you through the Tunnel of Love and then, when you’re looking forward to it, they cancel. Just like that.”

  “I—–” said Sagandran.

  “Who’s talking to you?” demanded Chortlette.

  “Um, you are, for one. And—”

  “Never heard anything so ridiculous in all my born days,” Chortlette told Perima.

  “Me neither.”

  “Hasn’t got a lick of sense, this oaf of yours.”

  “Not one lick. Not even a licklet.”

  “Fatwit.”

  “Dumbcluck.”

  “Boneskull.”

  “And he breaks perfectly good dates he makes.”

  Suddenly Sagandran caught on. They’re having fun. “Depends on who the date’s with,” he said pointedly.

  “Ooh, you!”

  “Now, about how Lamarod came to build Wonderville?” he said to Chortlette.

  “I’d have finished telling you about it by now if you hadn’t kept interrupting me.”

  Sagandran held his tongue. With difficulty. Sniggeroo darted him a sympathetic look.

  “So the years went by and the years went by,” continued Chortlette, spitting out the words one by one, “and never once did Lamarod’s dad take Lamarod to the fun fair, no matter how often he promised. By the time Lamarod the younger was a growed-up man, his father still hadn’t taken him to the fun fair. Oh, Lamarod could have got his mommy to do it, but that wouldn’t have been the same. And then one day, one day …”

  “Get on with it,” said Sniggeroo impatiently.

  “I am getting on with it. One day, the thing they had all … you know, I’ve lost my flow.”

  “One day,” Perima prompted.

  “Oh, yes. One day the thing they had all been dreading the most came to pass. Lamarod’s dad just keeled over and dropped dead.”

  “They say it was the end-of-year cost-benefit analysis that did it,” said Sniggeroo meaningfully.

  “And still – still, I tell you – he’d not taken his boy to the fun fair. Not much use taking your son to the fun fair when you’re dead, is it? I mean, some of the other passengers on the rides might complain about having to sit beside you, sort of thing.”

  “’Ticularly in the hot weather,” added Sniggeroo.

  “He didn’t wish to know that. Did you?”

  Two pairs of earnest eyes looked into Sagandran’s face. He knew that, whatever he answered, it was going to be the wrong thing, so all he said was a vacuous, “I can imagine how he felt.”

  “Anyway, if I might continue,” said Chortlette, dropping her gaze, her voice loaded with sarcasm, “no sooner had they got the old man planted—”

  “Interred,” amended Sniggeroo. “That’s politer than planted.”

  “It was in the ground, if you really want to know,” said Chortlette with the airy assumption of superior knowledge. “No sooner was old man Lamarod safely buried, than Lamarod the younger was appointed mayor of the city, and the very first thing he did was name it Wonderville.”

  “Used to be called Slugsbreath, it did,” supplied Sniggeroo. “Did we say that before?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Because you forgot.”

  “I did not forget. I was just saving it ’til last, is all, because it’s one of the best bits.”

  “Liar.”

  “So the first thing Lamarod did,” said Perima, “was to change the city’s name to Wonderville. What was the second thing he did?”

  “Well, surely it’s obvious,” snapped Chortlette, looking up after giving her fellow steward a vicious dose of “the stare.” “He took the boring old city of Slugsbreath, where all everyone did was work every hour of the day and the night until they sickened and died, and he turned it into this glorious, marvelous, spectacular entertainment paradise of Wonderville.”

  “And everyone’s been really, really happy ever after,” said Sniggeroo, turning away and leaning his forehead against the shop window.

  “That’s right,” said Chortlette. “Because of all the ceaseless fun, like.”

  After a period of silence, Sagandran and Perima came to the conclusion that the two stewards weren’t going to tell them anything more. In fact, the chimps didn’t seem in any condition to even walk. Sniggeroo started to slowly and rhythmically thump his head on the wall. Chortlette was slumped down, staring morosely into the infinite distance and obviously not seeing the merrymakers who were jostling by in either direction on the busy street.

  Perima and Sagandran, hand in hand, tiptoed away. Almost at once, they saw a big neon sign that made Perima tighten her grip.

  “That’s where we’re going,” she said in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

  So Sagandran told the purple-haired chimp at the booth the joke about the aardvark, the anchovies and the pair of wellington boots, and the chimp laughed uproariously, and Sagandran and Perima were admitted into the Tunnel of Love.

  Evening came even to Wonderville, though perhaps it arrived a little later than for the rest of the world. Flushed and exhausted, Sagandran and Perima found themselves in front of a big building shaped like a lollipop and colored to match. It bore the words:

  on its awning. Buffeted by the music and laughter that filled the street in front of the hotel, the two of them struggled in through the entrance. The handles on the big glass doors, Sagandran noticed, were shaped like clowns’ lips, and blew raspberries when you put your hand on them. The yellow-haired chimp at the desk didn’t think the one about the aardvark, the anchovies and the pair of wellington boots was particularly funny (in fact, he thought he might have heard it before), so Perima told him the one about the marmoset and the bathtub filled with warm ravioli. The yellow-haired chimp found it uproarious enough to book them a luxury suite of rooms, but it scandalized Sagandran.

  “Where did you hear that?” he hissed as a bellchimp led them toward the elevator bank.

  “Told you I hung out with the stable boys a lot, didn’t I?” replied Perima with a smirk.

  The suite the clerk had allocated to them had two bedrooms with a sitting room between. Sagandran lounged in a soft armchair while Perima fiddled around in the mini bar, eventually settling for a bottle of pineapple juice apiece. Dinner was out of the question after all the goodies they’d stuffed themselves on during the day. She tossed his bottle to him and went to stand by the window, straining to unscrew the cap of her own bottle.

  “Look,” she said. “Fireworks.”

  He gazed past her to see the night sky ablaze with fire of every imaginable color.

  “Yes,” he said. “Fireworks.”

  “I’ve had too much fun today,” Perima said dully.

  “Me too.”

  She summoned up a smile. “The Tunnel of Love was okay though.”

  Sagandran blushed. It hadn’t been at all like when his mother kissed him. At one point he’d thought he was going to pass out for lack of oxygen.

  “More than okay,” he said manfully, concentrating on his bottle of pineapple juice.

  “But we mustn’t stay here.” She tapped her fingernails on the window. “Fireworks or no fireworks.”

  “No, we mustn’t. Wonderville’s addictive, and if we remain here too long we’ll never be able to tear ourselves away.”

  “Having so much pleasure and fun that we can’t enjoy any of it but can’t stop nevertheless.” She turned to look at him, the glare of the sky framing her head and shoulders. “I know now what Sniggeroo was trying to tell us.”

  Sagandran sank further into his armchair. Wonderville was as much a trap as the “Pull HERE!” net had been and, beneath its allures and blandishments, far more dangerous. In the morning, they were going to have to use every ounce of their strength to break free of its temptations. They would have to accept the return of all the worries that had burdened them when th
ey’d come here but Sagandran, perversely, found himself looking forward to that. The complete abandonment of responsibility was a burden in itself.

  If they didn’t leave, the days would fly past – those precious few days left until Arkanamon’s war troops began laying the lands of Sagaria to waste. It would be so easy to forget the mission they were on, so easy to forget that Grandpa Melwin had to be rescued from the cruel clutches of the Shadow Master, that they must find their way to the Shadow World and steal the crystals from that world’s malevolent tyrant. So easy just to lie back and let the joys of the fun fair wash over them.

  He heard the snick of Perima’s bedroom door as it closed behind her.

  Sagandran sat up a little longer, his fingers wrapped around the Rainbow Crystal, reminding himself of all the things he and Perima had still to do, even though his mind refused to let him worry about them. Then at last he went to his room, undressed with the clumsily automatic movements of a robot, and threw himself across the broad bed just as the shutters of sleep came down.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GREATEST INVENTION

  lip was feeling seasick. He felt like he had been bouncing up and down in the old wizard’s pocket for months now, if not years. He knew it couldn’t really be that long, but it certainly felt like it. Every time Samzing had pleaded with Sir Tombin to stop running so that the wizard could get his breath back, Sir Tombin had responded with a stern, “No! The greater the distance between us and that pack of brutes the better.” Though the dignity of Sir Tombin’s pronouncements had been rather marred by the fact that he, too, was panting for breath.

  Samzing was muttering as he ran. “My own silly fault, I suppose. I said I wanted a change of scenery, and a change of scenery is what I’m getting, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. More like the beach, and lots of pretty girls, and…”

  After what felt like another decade or so filled with stumbling over roots, loud imprecations, slamming into tree trunks face first, and falling headlong into a stream, Sir Tombin at last called a halt.