‘What has happened here?’ I asked.
‘What do you think happened?’ replied Trebunculus angrily. ‘You must have suspected. The kingdom has followed its line of least resistance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Sultan was deposed. The city was taken over by General Bassa’s men, and they brought in a consortium of merchants. There is an old saying: “Take a Turk from the saddle and he becomes a bureaucrat”. They had such grand plans, new inventions—’
‘Wait a minute, why was the Sultan deposed? You told me he had ruled here for countless generations.’
Trebunculus looked sadly at the others. His anger seemed to dissipate in a single breath. ‘You set it all in motion, didn’t you? Lying with the Princess. Once you had served your purpose and delivered your scientific advancement to General Bassa, the Lord Chancellor could reveal the truth about your secret trysts. Major Maximus no longer wanted his bride. He beat her soundly, and exposed her as a whore and a deceiver. She had brought shame to the royal family and was expelled at once, to be sold into harlotry. Leaving the General, with his troops under the command of his son, to cleanse the land and place it under military rule.’
‘But how could everything suddenly change overnight? Surely there had been uprisings before.’
‘Do you still not understand the purpose of our kingdom? Correct me if I am wrong, but your biggest problem with the existence of Calabash stems from your inability to tell if we are real or if this is all a part of your—forgive me—adolescent imagination?’
‘It’s why I left,’ I replied, seating myself beside him. ‘I knew it couldn’t be real, and yet here I felt more alive than in my own world. I feared I was going mad.’
‘Then,’ he said wearily, ‘perhaps we are partly to blame. How can I best explain this? We are men of science, yes? The man from Vienna. You have read Freud? You understand a little of the id and the ego?’
‘A little. The first is instinct and the second is individuality. The ego has to control the id and stop it from being destructive.’
‘In a nutshell. Do you believe in the so-called collective subconscious?’
‘I suppose so. There are certain shared ideals, hopes—’
‘And dreams?’
‘Yes. Are you telling me that this is all a dream?’
‘No, Kay, it is not a dream. Oh, it is something far greater.’ He looked down at the dusty fires dotting the landscape. ‘It is—if you like—the subconscious life of mankind. A separate reality from yours.’ He picked up a broken stick and drew a circle in the dust on the floor. ‘Here is your world. A great diverse civilisation, heated in calamity, tempered in suffering, scalded in pain and sorrow. But it survives natural disasters and the man-made horrors of religions and wars. A great kingdom that somehow abides. How can it do so? Why should it? Because there is something more to a man than bone and muscle. Man aspires. He seeks to know the unknowable, to grasp the impossible, to measure the infinite. Man dreams. His lifespan is nothing, and yet he fights, and dies trying to know more. What is he trying to reach?’
The doctor drew a second circle overlapping the first. ‘Many people never come into contact with us at all. They pass their entire lives asleep. And there are those who only awake for a brief period, often in early adolescence, before they are told that such things are impossible. Once in a while, though, someone has a deeper need. Then we cease to appear as a passing phase, and our reality grows. Our worlds touch.’ He marked the points where the circles overlapped. ‘But this combining of spheres brings its own dangers. It can make those who reach us forget their own lives completely, locking them out of their own world.’
‘You mean it can drive people mad.’
‘Yes. Think of the Indian legends, the Greek myths, the Arabian Nights, Grimm’s fairy tales, the lands of Oz, Middle Earth, Wonderland, Xanadu, Lilliput, Narnia, and how they share the same attributes. Your people choose to see us in different ways, but since time began, they have delved deep into our lands for inspiration. Calabash is a dream city, passed on among its dreamers, from one to the next. And everybody dreams of Calabash, in one form or another, even if they fail to realise it. It has survived under a million different names; it is the restlessness you feel in youth, the longing of missed opportunities in middle life, and the wistful memories of old age. Calabash is inside you all.’
The doctor looked away at the red sky, saddened. He drew breath, then continued.
‘But as is so often in the natural way of things, there is a terrible paradox at its heart. The kingdom needs new minds to renew it, but it eventually destroys minds. Every hour spent in Calabash damages the dreamer’s real life. In your world, aren’t you told not to daydream? Aren’t you constantly warned about the dangers of failing to face reality?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘When you are away, Calabash grows weak and susceptible to harm. Once there were hundreds of great visionaries in your world, dreamers who enriched and strengthened us into mighty lands. Until your twentieth century. Ah, what a dreadful time that has been! The visionaries died out, or had no need of us, and slowly the language of dreaming was lost. By the time the middle of the century was reached, only a handful of visitors managed to make the journey across. Before you arrived, we were in the most desperate straits. Our final visitor had died suddenly—’
‘Simon Jonathan Saunders.’
‘You know of him?’ Trebunculus’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘A prodigious mind; he filled the city with wonders. We had great hopes for him. He drew all of his inspiration from us. His death threw us into disarray. And we liked the boy. Some of the people who have been here—well, you can imagine. We were more the Greek ideal then; gods and temples. Of course, the best people are very hard to come by. We needed to make contact with a strong new mind, and luckily we managed to locate you before it was too late.’
‘You made contact with me?’
‘Most certainly. Our world is not accessible from many places. When you first arrived here, you doubtless wondered why there were no muezzins. So long as one person believes in Calabash, it needs no other faith. It is a kingdom kept alive by fantasies, and each dreamer remakes it in his own style. We provide all the raw material people like you need to survive. That is how it has always worked. But you changed us, and then abandoned us.’
‘You were killing me, Trebunculus. Using me.’
‘And you would not abide by our rules. Those who dream of Calabash must be strong. The process is one of—how you say—symbiosis.’
I thought of my real father. Had he, too, been crushed beneath the weight of his dreams? ‘But I thought I was free to do whatever I liked here, all the things I couldn’t do at home.’
‘Within the limits of our society. Only you didn’t do them,’ said Trebunculus sadly. ‘You could have had daring adventures, you could have improved our kingdom and become a great leader, but instead you did nothing except sow the seeds of our destruction.’
‘There’s enough uncertainty and anxiety at home—I just wanted to be somewhere where I could feel happiness. Where I could be at peace with myself. Without having to prove anything to anyone.’
‘Then I suppose you achieved your aim. But you chose to leave just when the city was laid bare to predatory evil. You knew the Sultan had grown weak and lazy. The kingdom was sinking into a reverie which could only endanger our way of life. After you left, Calabash was like a rudderless ship. We drifted on a collective tide of half-thoughts, tuning into the selfish desires of whoever passed nearest. As the dream began to break up it became spoiled. In the absence of an effective ruler, it fell prey to its own weaknesses, and the Lord Chancellor assumed control.’
‘You told me you trusted him.’
‘I told you he always kept the welfare of the state at heart. What I failed to foresee was his determination to preserve it at any cost. Once you solved the mystery of Eliya’s death, the Chancellor’s ambitions were revealed to me. How many years had he wai
ted for this moment! It was his responsibility to keep the kingdom strong. He saw the deepening lassitude in the royal family and sided with the militia. He saw it as his duty. He hastened the process, removing the Sultan’s wife to prevent further heirs, waiting for your arrival, bargaining with you to supply a scientific discovery for General Bassa, and then taking action once you had removed yourself—as he knew you would. He saw your weaknesses long ago, Kay.’
I suddenly felt very ashamed.
‘Our Lord Chancellor merged the Sultan’s army with the nation’s businessmen, and installed his bureaucrats as the new heads of government. The land was quickly carved into lots and sold off. The Sultan was too weak to fight back, even when he saw that everything was so badly run that the economy was collapsing. Most of the former courtiers are in prison. The royal family is rumoured to be alive deep inside the palace, but the Lord Chancellor has built a yilditz filled with windows coated in chainmail, and standing upon a floor of lethal booby traps.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But who knows what is true anymore? The Sultan does not need to cut the heads from the songbirds now. They have all been killed and eaten.’ He looked around at the hopeless faces of the others. ‘And just when all resolve has gone, and the last hope has utterly faded, you reappear! Well, it’s too late to undo the harm you caused, so don’t even think about it.’
‘I caused!’ I shouted indignantly. ‘It might have helped if you’d explained all of this at the beginning.’
‘Well, I’m sorry your subconscious doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but it can’t be helped. Now that you’re here, I must warn you—there is no way back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How are you going to get home? Tell yourself it’s all still in your imagination? That won’t work. Now that you know the truth, you’re stuck here with us.’
‘I don’t see why—’
Trebunculus raised his hands to the sky. ‘How can the boy be so slow-witted?’ he asked the passing clouds.
Suddenly my predicament began to clarify itself. ‘I’m no longer in charge of my own dream,’ I said quietly.
‘Well done. It has passed far beyond your control. It is following its own chaotic decline, a mirror image to your own world.’ He studied my puzzled face. ‘You must have known that. The two, you see, are one. They always have been.’
‘You say the Lord Chancellor used me to pass science on to the General, but I didn’t. The device I gave him was made of a substance called plastic. It was correct in principle only, he couldn’t have created electricity from it. He would have needed a practical working model of something electrical to copy its principles.’
‘You must have given him something. Bassa has constructed a great electric war machine called the Belligeratron, in which he plans to lead his invasion. It is said to be a great advancement on our meagre weapons. He boasts that you helped him to invent it.’
‘But I gave him nothing!’ I insisted.
‘Then perhaps you did so without knowing.’
‘You say he plans to lead an invasion? Who is he invading?’
The doctor grimaced in pain as he shifted his knees. ‘Why, I would have thought it was obvious. He has subjugated Calabash, and has decided the time has come to wage war with a more worthy opponent. His mighty army is going to invade your world.’
Chapter 37
For Two Worlds
The land was aglow with distant fires. A smoke-haze drifted across the dying sun, bloodying the clouded horizon. Trebunculus sat back on his haunches; his pale kneecaps showed through the holes in his velvet trousers. He snapped his stick in half and threw the pieces aside. ‘The Lord Chancellor wanted to know everything about you. Incredible as it might seem, he once feared you. Poor Parizade refused to tell him anything and was put to death. It is told that she professed her love for you even as her final breath left her body.’
‘All right, Doctor. I feel bad enough as it is.’
‘The Princess Rosamunde was allowed to escape with her life out of respect for the honour of her father. Maximus Peason hunts her, but so far he has failed to discover her hiding place.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I’ll show you. Scammer!’ A small sooty boy appeared at the end of the roof. His blackened hair stuck up from his head as though he had recently received an electric shock. He seemed unable to stand upright, but ran hunched over to the doctor’s side. His eyes were large and bright blue. ‘Scammer switched loyalties after the Chancellor beat him once too often. Now he operates as our eyes and ears.’
‘Do you trust him?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you can trust me, sir,’ said the imp. ‘Beaten black and blue I was. No more, I said, no more. The doctor’s kind. He feeds poor Scammer, he does.’
‘If we can spy on the enemy, perhaps there is still a chance to put things right.’
‘Absolutely not. Calabash is adrift now. You had your chance.’
‘This is more horrible than Cole Bay.’
‘How would we know? None of us have been to your blighted world yet, although we will if the Lord Chancellor and General Bassa have their way.’
‘Do you really think they can?’
‘I don’t see why not. You managed to get here. Anyway, this kingdom as you knew it is dead. We have run out of time. Once Calabash is gone, no-one in your world will ever find it again. Your people will be without their dreams forever. Do you know what happens to a civilisation that cannot imagine anything better for itself?’
‘Perhaps I can change the way things are.’
‘Perhaps I’ll pass stools in the shape of starfish.’ Trebunculus shook his head. ‘Remember, the longer you are here, the weaker your corporeal form grows. And the General’s army grows stronger with each passing hour.’
‘Tell me something, Doctor. How long am I away from my physical self when I cross over?’
‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Remember I once told you about the relativity of time? How a second on one plane might last hours on another?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Every hour you spend here in Calabash is but a brief moment in your world.’
‘But this time it’s different. In the past, the worst that’s happened is I’ve caught a cold. This time—I’m not safe.’
‘What do you mean? Where is your physical self?’
‘It’s balancing on an iron platform that’s sinking into the English Channel.’
‘God’s teeth, how on earth— What’s the temperature?’
‘I don’t know—I guess around zero.’
‘You guess! How long do you think you’ll be able to survive?’
‘I hadn’t planned it out. I mean, I’m not wearing a wetsuit.’
‘What is a wetsuit?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can’t swim. It means there’s not much time. What can we do to restore this world?’
The doctor snorted derisively. ‘The Lord Chancellor would have to be deposed. General Bassa’s army would have to be halted before it attempts to cross over in the Belligeratron.’
‘Couldn’t we try to storm the palace?’
‘What with? An army of flying monkeys? This is not your world to make any more, remember?’
‘But what would I have to do?’ I pleaded.
‘Let’s see. First it sounds as though you would have to go back and save yourself. Then you would somehow have to find a way to return here. Challenge the Lord Chancellor and his men. Vanquish the General and his army before they set off for your world. And safely reach home after restoring the Sultan to power.’
‘So, nothing too complicated then.’
‘No, it really is extremely complicated, you see—’
‘I was being sarcastic, Doctor. It’s a popular English conversational form. What should I do first?’
‘Go back and save yourself, Kay. Then you must find a way to return here before it is too late. It is said that in the final moments of our lives, as the city faces its apocalypse
, it will become visible to your world. That is when General Bassa and his army will make their crossing. If that time comes, you will see us. You must be vigilant for the signs.’
‘Then I must go now. We can’t wait until nightfall to escape.’
‘I don’t see how we can escape at all. They locked us up in here weeks ago. We draw straws to see who slips out when the doors open to admit soldiers, and scavenge the ruins for food, but only a few of us have successfully returned. You hear that distant hammering?’ Trebunculus cupped his hand around his ear. ‘The General has ordered all the roads from the city to be taken up. He’s sealing us off.’
‘There must be another way out.’
‘Only the entry door. It can only be triggered by Bassa’s men, who are free to come and go as they please. You are one of the few outsiders to effect admittance since we arrived.’
‘Can’t we lure someone in and—I don’t know, hold them hostage or something?’ I was not, by nature, an adventurer. I couldn’t begin to see how I might help Trebunculus and his band of hopelessly ill-prepared rebels.
‘There is no way of making contact with anyone below, not without giving ourselves away. There are no windows on the lower levels.’
‘Then perhaps we could go down the outside from the top of the roof where the window is broken. Do you have any rope or fishing nets we could unravel?’
‘In here? Of course not.’
I looked down at the electrical cables traversing the auditorium. ‘Then we’ll have to make our own,’ I said.
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