by James Walley
Spying a cluster of rocks and foliage which had spilled out into this literary stream, Timbers decided it was time to disembark. "It's getting a little choppy out here, and I am really not comfortable with sailing on paper anyway. I think we should get back on dry land."
Marty decided to forego the obvious 'land lubber' quip, since he wasn't entirely sure what they were all currently lubbing at the moment, anyway.
Timbers peered over the side again and studied the current as it swirled and ebbed alongside. It looked like water, it sounded like water, and it acted like water. And yet fluttering pages drifted out of the torrent, tossing and rejoining the rest in a singular fluid motion like no waves he had ever seen before. Suitably confused, Marty nodded in agreement to the suggestion, trotting to the front of the cone to make a grab at the passing fauna.
The current grew stronger, and before long they had arrived at the rocks. Marty grabbed the branch of an overhanging tree, bringing the floating convoy to a lurching halt. The cabinet passengers needed no prompting, as first Kate, and then Whipstaff hopped across onto the rocks. Oaf lumbered after them, still holding a choc ice, which he had salvaged from the abandoned freezer. Timbers sprang to his feet, took a run up across the cone and landed deftly next to his companions. Bringing up the rear, Marty hoisted himself up, using the branch for balance, and swung the short distance across to safety. He landed in a scrambling heap, caught by Kate before he slipped back into the papery flume.
He regained his balance, meeting her gaze and smiling appreciatively. "You're making a habit of catching me aren't you?"
Kate smiled cheekily. "You should stop falling for me, then," she replied, winking.
Marty dearly wished he had something witty to reply with and was, for once relieved, when Timbers once again interrupted.
The little captain stood on the tallest rock, which jutted out over the river. "Erm, I think getting off the river here was a good call," he muttered, gazing out to a point obscured by the surrounding rocks. Marty scrambled up to join his miniature companion, standing beside him with his mouth agape at the sight beyond.
The river flowed a further forty or fifty feet, becoming faster and more violent before reaching a crescendo atop an enormous waterfall. Countless pages spilled out over the edge of what would more accurately be called a paper fall, crashing and tumbling into the unseen depths below.
Timbers sighed and turned towards Marty. "Well, what now? The Locust said to go this way, but I left my hang glider and suicidal tendencies at home."
Marty scratched his head, gazing at the turbulent paper maelstrom. "Maybe we can take a less plummetty route," he pondered out loud, pointing to the river bank to the right of the cascade.
Almost completely obscured behind a cluster of bushes, lay a roughhewn dirt track, which wound towards the edge of the paper fall and disappeared from view beside it. It was almost indistinguishable but clearly led somewhere, and since Marty had also left his hang glider at home, it seemed to be the only way forward.
Hopping off the outcrop, Marty motioned for his companions to follow and headed for the path. With Timbers close behind, and Kate already catching up to them both, Whipstaff turned to Oaf, who was wringing his hands worriedly.
"What's the matter, big lad?" the first mate enquired.
"I haven't brought a hang glider either," Oaf whimpered, pulling a small white handkerchief from his pocket. "I suppose I could use this as a parachute."
Whipstaff chuckled and patted his bumbling shipmate on the shoulder. "Don't fret, lad, I think we're taking the scenic route." He pointed to the dirt track Marty had nearly reached.
Oaf brightened, returning the handkerchief to his pocket. "Oh, that's much better," he boomed, relief ringing loudly in his voice. "I can eat my choc ice on the way down." Happily, he unwrapped his frozen treasure as the pair trotted over to the dirt track to join their friends.
Soon, the group was all present and accounted for, peering into what appeared to be a deep and lush fissure. Cascading into it, the paper fall plunged into unseen depths below, crashing against dense and vibrant foliage. The pathway on which they stood took a more leisurely descending route, wending its way in a twisting spiral around the plummeting paper to a point where it was almost undetectable in the distance.
Timbers hitched up his belt and turned to his companions. "Well, looks like we've got some walking to do. If anybody is interested, I will be doing requests." With that, he dove into a jolly sounding sea shanty that seemed to involve a lusty serving wench and a bucket of custard.
Marty turned to Kate and shrugged, before holding his hand out in a gentlemanly 'ladies first' gesture. Smiling, she fell in behind the inappropriately warbling captain, with Marty close behind on the narrow track. Whipstaff and Oaf brought up the rear, the former joining in the chorus with vigor while the latter merely giggled at the subject matter of the song.
So narrow was the path, in fact, single file was the only option as they made their descent, sheer cliff face on one side, sheer drop and the roaring paper fall on the other. Peering over the side nervously, Marty could see little past the dropping reams of paper and overgrown vegetation, but continued to keep pace with the bawdy tune that was bellowed from the front of the line. It had changed and seemed to mainly pertain to an unfortunate mariner who had lost his way in a multi-story car park. The tone was still energetic, however, and so the pace remained brisk.
Still marching in time with the ditty, Kate shot a glance over her shoulder. "So, what do you think we'll find at the bottom?" she asked over what appeared to be a new song about a drunken bar fight between a fisherman and an enraged dolphin.
Marty hadn't thought that far ahead, having already spent most of the day riding the crest of half-baked plans and hastily conceived ideas. "I'm not sure," he began, biting his thumbnail thoughtfully. "A lot of paper, that's for sure."
A flurry of pages swept by them as they passed closer to the edge to avoid a particularly uneven patch of thicket obscuring the path. Marty flung his hand out instinctively and caught a sheet as it fluttered past, plucking it from the air to give closer inspection. There was writing on it, and Marty stopped to bring the sheet close enough to read it.
At the front, Timbers simultaneously came to a halt as he sensed the pause in their progress. "Why have we stopped?" He trotted back to where Marty and Kate stood. "Does someone need to use the toilet?"
Marty was studying the paper in his hand, his brow furrowed as he struggled to comprehend what he was looking at. There was writing on the page. Writing that seemed to form a list.
—The names of the two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library are Patience and Fortitude. They were named by then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
—The king of hearts is the only king in the deck without a moustache.
—The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
—Ancient Greeks believed that ginger haired people would turn into vampires after their deaths.
The list continued to the bottom of the page, and looking back at the cascading deluge of pages, Marty could see that they were all similarly scribed. "It doesn't make sense. What is all this?" he murmured absently, almost to himself.
Timbers snatched the paper from his hands and scanned it. "Ha ha! Gingers," he chuckled upon reaching the bottom of the page. "You're right, it doesn't make much sense, but they're all heading one way." The little pirate pointed down into the depths of the fissure. "It's a safe bet that we'll find some answers down there." Timbers spun on his heels and swung a beckoning hand out behind him. "Come on. Last one to the bottom has to do Oaf's laundry." With that, he returned to singing and marching, striking up a rather heartfelt ditty about a mermaid who dreams of being a real girl and ends up in a can of tuna.
Thanks largely to Timbers' impressive repertoire, the single file line made significant progress into the belly of the fissure. The chamber seemed to open out and provide the group with a li
ttle more room as they hiked ever downwards. The paper fall, which fell incessantly beside them, seemed to expand and increase in ferocity as they descended, taking up more and more room as the gap around it widened. Conversely, the dense undergrowth, which had formed a carpet on the pathway, had subsided somewhat. Where it had earlier hampered the group's journey along the track, it now hung in intricate patterns and seemed to yield to them as they made their way down.
Passing a sinewy vine branch, Kate paused to push it out of the way. As she did so, a more regimented, almost manmade array of vines were revealed beneath. Furthermore, in amongst them hung what appeared to be a long row of books. Marty arrived at her side as she hauled the covering vines to one side to reveal a natural shelf, filled from one side to the other with books of various sizes and thicknesses. She raised an incredulous eyebrow and a disbelieving glance towards Marty, who returned fire with a confused expression of his own. With curiosity now pushing them onward, they quickened their pace, catching up with Timbers, who was now warbling about a mutiny that had broken out amongst a crew who had run out of sea shanties to sing.
Casting suspicious glances at the leafy walls as they descended, Marty and Kate spied more books housed within the shelf like fronds of the surrounding vegetation, which seemed to resemble mighty sweeping bookcases with every step they continued to take.
The sound sprang up from beneath them before they even saw the bottom of the fissure. Rather than the crashing roar of rushing water, the paper arrived at its terminus with a whooshing flurry that sounded more like a newspaper stand caught in a twister. The noise swelled to a crescendo as the pathway finally opened into a clearing, and what was presumably the bottom of the fissure.
The pathway snaked to a gradual stop at a stretch of lush but overgrown grassland. It spread out in a wide circle, itself encompassing a large pool into which the torrential paper fall flowed. Although they must have been a few hundred meters down, sunlight flooded the chamber, weaving in amongst the descending paper and casting dancing beams of light onto the ground like reflections from an enormous glitter ball.
Marty stepped into the clearing, taking in the ambience and tranquillity of his undeniably idyllic surroundings. It had all the hallmarks of a paper enthusiast's happy place but was clearly impressing the members of the group who thought paper was only okay.
The pirates trotted into the center of the field, chuckling and chasing each other in the flickering sunlight, while Marty looked on, happy, for once, shenanigans were taking precedence over immediate horrific peril. He sat down in the cool, dense grass and squinted into the breach from which they had just arrived. It looked a lot bigger from the bottom and an awful lot higher. It was easy to see how this place could be so untouched, and so unnoticed, by the world above. As he sat immersed in his daydreams, a hand dropped onto Marty's shoulder. Kate stood at his side and was now pulling at his arm, urging him to his feet.
Rising, Marty's brow creased as he noticed the expression on her face as she stared intently at a point somewhere behind him. "Kate, what is it?" He turned to see what had caught her attention.
Bordering the field, and stretching upwards on all sides, vines intertwined and contorted to form roughhewn walls. More vines and branches grew across these walls to form impossibly straight and structured shelves, upon which countless leather bound books sat in swirling rows that ran the full circle of the clearing. Soaring up until they merged with the natural growth from above, this resplendent library reached skywards towards the sunlight and housed more dusty volumes than it would be possible to count.
"Wow, look at that." Timbers gazed up at the perpetually ascending tomes. "There must be a thousand books up there. Ten thousand."
Oaf loped over to the nearest shelf and held out a finger. "One, two, three, four, five…" he began before Whipstaff appeared at his side, grabbing the scanning digit and shaking his head at the tiny giant. "Shhhh, Oaf. There's lots, so let's just leave it at that."
"Lots is an understatement," a voice interrupted. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, echoing off the walls, and stopping everyone in their tracks. "In fact, you might say that there are more books here that you could possibly read in a lifetime."
The ground appeared to shake as this new voice cannoned forth from nowhere, even though it was even, mellow, and soothing. Marty scanned the field for signs of another presence before the voice spoke again, this time seemingly from within the walls. "You're here to find a way out aren't you? The Locust sent you."
Timbers joined Marty, scanning the scene for signs of the mysterious new presence. "It's a ghost. Look, I'm no coward, but I think we should definitely run away screaming," he whispered, edging back towards the path.
Ignoring his pint-sized comrade, Marty stepped forward, addressing the ether in front of him. "Erm, yes. The Locust sent us here to find a way for me to get home." His voice carried a determined tone he was starting to like.
Something shifted in the corner of his eye, and Marty turned to scrutinize the flanking wall of books. Although nothing seemed to immediately present itself, the shelves appeared to ripple as the voice spoke again. "Interesting. Not that interesting, though." The disembodied voice emitted a long, drawn out yawn that sent a few books toppling from their lofty perches. "I tell you what," the voice continued. "Why don't we play a little game? If you win, I'll tell you what you want to know."
Marty threw up his hands in frustration. "Of course! Nothing as simple as a signpost with 'Way Out' written on it, now we have to play twenty questions!" Stopping mid-rant, he sighed, composing himself as Timbers appeared at his side.
"Pardon me. What if we lose?" the little captain asked.
The voice tutted. "If you lose, you get to go away, leave me in peace and find your own way home."
Turning to Kate and shrugging, Marty addressed the bookshelves once more. "All right then, I suppose we have no choice."
More books tumbled from their lofty housings as laughter whooshed down through the fissure like some kind of amused wind. "Excellent!" the voice exclaimed as the laughing subsided. "All you have to do is answer a simple question, and I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Timbers turned back towards Marty, a familiar grin had returned to his face. "We've got this." he winked. "One question? This'll be a walk on the plank."
Cutting the miniature swashbuckler off, the voice spoke again, sending soaring, swooping words rushing through the ether. Vines and trees rustled and bent as they blasted imposingly around the clearing. The question was short, direct, and contained only three words.
"Who. Am. I?"
#
As Marty exchanged glances with his comrades, he became aware that a good few moments had passed since the question had been delivered. These moments had been filled with an awkward and vacuous silence, which seemed to suck in the surrounding ambient noises and muffle them. Searching for something to say to allay this sound vortex, Marty managed only a vague and stalling, "Pardon?"
"Who am I?" The voice asked again. "It's a simple question, and in time honored tradition, I will give you three guesses. Unlike the great Sphinx however, if you get it wrong, I will not devour you. Probably." Again, whirling laughter spun stray pages in aerial pirouettes and rattled books on their shelves.
Marty turned to his companions, a smile spreading across his face. Surely it couldn’t be this easy? he thought. “The Locust already told us, you’re the Book Keeper.”
An irritated tch! echoed around the clearing, as the voice retorted. “No, no, no. That is the name I have been given. One is not defined by how he is viewed by others. A name is just a name.” The philosophical monologue relented slightly, “I’m sorry, maybe I should have been more specific. I want you to tell me who I am, not what names I am known by. You can have that guess as a practice. A do over.”
Although imposing, the tone seemed jovial and benevolent, and Marty decided it was most likely telling the truth; at least about not de
vouring them. The worrying part, however, was the actual logic, perception, deduction, or in this case, blind guesswork that would now have to be undertaken. He turned towards Kate, who was eyeing the bookcases quizzically. Next to her, Timbers was stroking his whiskery chin thoughtfully, while further past them, in the field, Whipstaff and Oaf bounced past, midway through an impromptu game of leapfrog.
Turning back towards the center of the clearing, and taking a few steps towards the fluttering paper fall, Marty searched deep within himself for something that resembled a decent answer. It was clear the denizen of the bookcases was unlike anything he had ever encountered before, but given how his day had panned out, that counted for very little. Taking the day's exploits into consideration, they might just as well be addressing a giant inflatable beaver who was also the chairman of the National Pro Celebrity Tiddlywinks Championship. Good sense fought back the urge to use that as his first proper guess, presenting him with a far less insane option.
Before he could give voice to it however, a smaller one spoke up from behind him. "It's clearly a public address system for some sort of massive jungle library tour, right?" Timbers chipped in confidently.
Before Marty could turn to face his tiny compadre, their unseen host bellowed out a gusty reply. "I'm sorry, but that is not correct." It sounded almost apologetic. Marty peered over his shoulder to where Timbers stood next to Kate. The little captain's eye had widened and both cloth hands were up to his mouth as he hopped from one foot to the next.
He whispered a sheepish, "Sorry," through his cupped hands as Marty nodded and held up a hand. With the other, he pressed a finger to his lips in an ‘It's ok, but shhh!’ gesture.
Trying to calm himself, and focus his thoughts, Marty returned his attention to the cascading paper fall, the swelling pool below it, and the towering bookshelves above. How could he possibly make sense of this? None of these things belonged together, and it made his head hurt just to think about it.