Mirrors in the Deluge Read online

  “I will have to cancel the exploit,” he muttered. “For my friends will think I am feeble and unworthy of aspiring to be a hero.”

  This thought pained him and all night he lay awake on his bed.

  The sun rose and peeped through his window.

  He blinked at it and abruptly he jumped out of bed and began dressing – but not in the green cardigan. Nor did he comb his hair.

  “Why should I give up so easily?”

  New determination spread through his veins. “Yes indeed! Why should I humbly submit to the judgment of my peers on this particular topic? Why can’t a man with a smooth face be a proper adventurer too?”

  He left his house with his face set in a frown of power and he met his friends at the harbour and he dared them to meet his gaze.

  “Yes, my cheeks and chin have no hairs upon them! So what? My biceps, triceps and other muscles are the equal of what they were! I can still reef a sail or pull an oar or bash a sea serpent on the noggin with a marlinspike! Judge me not by the lack of friction of my visage but by my actions!”

  So overwhelmed and impressed were his comrades by this speech that they didn’t attempt to argue with him. He was accepted as a member of the crew; and off they scudded over the briny deeps, and he stood in the prow and kept a look for the rocks and sandbanks that would make the voyage hazardous; and spray washed his clean face and made it cleaner, but he didn’t flinch.

  The sun set and twilight turned to dusk and dusk turned to night but still at his post he stood. He insisted on this because he wanted to prove that a clean shaven man can still be a hero. The rest of the crew retired to their hammocks below deck and he was left alone with the sea and the darkness.

  He did his best to remain awake but he must have fallen asleep while standing at the rail for his eyes closed and when they opened he realised that something had crawled out of the sea and onto the ship; and it was a something that was slithering towards him, a presence that was more shadowy than the shadows themselves but that made a noise like the rustle of a magic carpet when it lands and slides along the polished marble terrace of an eastern palace. Not that David had seen a magic carpet do such a thing, but details like that don’t count.

  He gulped but then he steadied his nerves. “Who is it?”

  Expecting to discover that his friends were playing a joke on him, or else that a giant octopus had clambered aboard the ship, he prepared for laughter, or a fight, but in fact he was confronted with a greeting.

  “Hello David. We’ve come back early. This was possible because we are able to take a short cut now you are out here.”

  David frowned into the blackness. “My beard?”

  “Yes, it’s us. Your beard!”

  “You refer to yourself in the plural but I only have one beard. I have only ever had one beard. It is my beard, mine.”

  “Of course. And we are that one beard. Why do you assume that one thing can’t exist many times? If you see a particular shade of the colour red in one location, and then see the same shade in another location, it doesn’t mean there are two reds but still only one. They are the same red, one red. And so it is with your beard. You have only one, which is yours, but it can exist many different times; and so it has, for you keep removing it and sending it away.”

  “I send it down the plughole,” answered David.

  “That’s correct and where does the plughole lead? To the sea!”

  “And I am on that sea now.”

  “Indeed you are. So why should we return to your face the slow way, by growth from inside you, when we are also here?”

  “But you are much longer than the beard I had. If you return to my face I insist on only wearing one of you. That’s fair!”

  The voice was faintly bewildered. “There is only one of us. One of us but many times. The same number of times that you shaved us off. We have floated here back and forth on the currents and slowly we met and amalgamated into a mass of tangled hair, a Sargasso-sized net of hirsuteness. And we have climbed up on this ship to be reunited with you, for you to wear us again.”

  David was unable to move as the beard mounted his leg and undulated over his torso and surged up to cover his face, attaching itself by splicing its hairs with the tiny specks of emerging stubble. The splicing was done expertly and it is well known among those who frequent the sea that a knot will reduce the strength of connected ropes by one third but that a proper splicing preserves the strength entire. There was no way David could yank it free now.

  Nor did he want to, especially, for it was warm on a chilly night, and drowsiness overcame him at last and he curled up and slept out in the open, his duties forgotten but unnecessary anyway, for the ship had long since passed the region of rocks. Stars glittered down on the cocoon that encased him.

  That cocoon was made of hair. For ten years he had been shaving his beard off every six weeks, which totals no fewer than eighty-six shaves and, therefore, the same number of beards, although, as we have already acknowledged, it is still really the same beard and the plural is always singular.

  His comrades found the curious cocoon at dawn and they unwrapped it and the man inside stretched and yawned. Then he stood and his beard spread out around him, covering his upper body like an apron and flowing down to the ground and carpeting much of the deck near the prow.

  Those who stood close to David at that instant couldn’t help themselves. They threw themselves flat and began to worship him and they did this with maximum sincerity and only minimal irony. The others followed, until at last the entire crew was prostrate and kissing the beard.

  David remained unmoving, like a carved figurehead that has turned itself around and decided to become the captain of the vessel and has draped itself in masses of seaweed for the purpose of intimidation.

  “Prodigious!” they cried.

  “Prodigal,” corrected David. “But rise and celebrate with me, for this, my beard, was shaved and now is found again.”

  The Bungle Duke

  The Bungle Duke is going forth to inspect his territories. He rides a steed made from many clothes-horses, the wire frames bent and twisted into the shape of a stallion and covered with papier-mâché. It is hollow and filled with men who make it move by running. The name of the mount is Chester but the Bungle Duke often forgets this and calls it “Harry” or “Buster” or “Mister Rumpus” or anything else that might occur to him.

  The territories he has decided to inspect are large and no one guessed a time would come when he, the Bungle Duke, would wish to take a look at them for himself. It was such an abrupt decision that it left everyone shocked and agape. The Bungle Duke is only supposed to be a nominal ruler. The idea is to keep him out of sight and trouble, confined in the most comfortable palace that money, or a certain amount of it, can buy.

  That is the way it has always been. Until now.

  This Bungle Duke is a bad fool.

  To be a bad fool is much worse than to be a good one. A good one does all the things that a fool should do and he does them in the correct order too. He is predictable and his foolishness is never a threat to anything, not even the fool himself. But a bad fool – he is so bad at being a fool that sometimes he does the things that only a hero should attempt.

  His ministers want to grumble and make faces.

  But it wouldn’t be wise for them to deny him what he wishes, for he is still the Bungle Duke, one-hundred-and-ninth personage to hold that title, and keeping him calm is the priority of court etiquette. So his ministers are forced to grin and pretend to be delighted at the prospect of his tour of inspection, the first to be made by anyone for more than a century. Even they have no idea of what might be found out there, near the borders.

  The realm is wide and long and insubstantial, as if a small principality had been inflated with air from a pump, and it is porous and riddled with caves and underground passages. The mountain ranges and forests are always misty and chill, the coastline is bleak and dangerous, the swamps are more than nat
urally slurpy. It is not a pleasant place.

  And that’s why no Bungle Duke has ever ventured more than a few miles from the palace and why all the real work of the state is done by slaves, robots, and trained apes. The Bungle Duke is, or ought to be, only a ceremonial ruler; a toy of tradition, a figurehead or decoration.

  But this one is different. He is proving to be unsafe.

  The horse he rides, Chester, is not really a horse but a unicorn with a horn that isn’t really a horn but the flaring bell of a long straight trumpet. One of the men inside the hollow body is a trumpeter and he will blow a sequence of notes whenever the Bungle Duke asks him to do so. This trumpeter is also able, when the appropriate command is given, to convert the instrument into a blunderbuss by adding powder and shot and lighting a fuse.

  Not once in recorded history has this been necessary.

  Surrounding Chester and the Bungle Duke are the royal bodyguards, as many of them as the age of the Bungle Duke, another quaint custom that must be preserved for the sake of the picturesque. So there are forty-seven fellows encased in brass armour and carrying rectangular shields that can lock together into a shield wall. They were born and bred to be bodyguards and know exactly how to behave, to serve and protect.

  They run alongside the horse and say nothing.

  The only member of the Bungle Duke’s retinue who is allowed to speak to him is the trumpeter, who is entitled to place his lips on the mouthpiece and say words that emerge from the bell of the horn and make it seem that it is Chester who is talking. The trumpeter therefore is a most talented man, for he is a musician, soldier and advisor all in one.

  His name is Tony Shine. This is an odd name at that time in that place, for most men have names like “Gimpmusk” or “Pofflenut” and surnames are so rare they are nearly extinct. Nonetheless that is what he is called and nobody dares mock him for it, or even feels desire to do so.

  The path now winds into a dense wood of prickly trees and the trunks and branches of these trees are bandaged in a mist so thick it is like foam rather than fog, and it seems as if the trees have injured each other with their thorns so that they need first aid. An illusion, of course, but one that should be sinister enough to warn the Bungle Duke to keep away.

  “Full speed ahead!” he cries as he enters the wood.

  Visibility here is very poor indeed.

  And so Chester and the bodyguards who surround the horse almost have the unpleasant experience of trampling over a wizened old woman that squats around a fire in the very centre of the thin trail. The Bungle Duke gives the order to halt just in time and then glares at the woman from under the brim of his outdoors crown, which is floppy and made of felt but just as imposing as the real crown, at least in theory. “Whoa!”

  The old woman is stirring a pot on the fire.

  “Aren’t you going to make way for your lord?” the Bungle Duke asks her in amazement. The trumpeter inside Chester calls “Move aside!” through the horn of the artificial beast but the old woman shakes her head slowly, the bones in her neck cricking and cracking, and says:

  “I’m making a potion, not a ‘way’, and prefer it like this.”

  “You are blocking my progress!”

  “I am a witch and don’t have to budge an inch.”

  “A witch, are you?”

  “Yes, I am,” she confirms.

  “Which witch?”

  “Why, I’m the Witch of Why and never was there a wiser, or whyser, one in all the land. Which witch indeed!”

  “I just felt I needed to know,” says the Bungle Duke.

  “Tell you what, I’ll do something wise for you,” replies the witch, as she returns to stirring the pot with a twig.

  “Wise?” uneasily blinks the Bungle Duke.

  “Wise not?” replies the witch.

  “I’m confused,” admits the Bungle Duke, which the trumpeter again takes as a prompt and seizing the initiative makes Chester snort, “Quit confusing him! That’s against the law, you know.”

  The witch ignores these words and says in a low voice, “I will give you a few wise words. I will tell you something you couldn’t previously know. On this journey of yours, which is ultimately a pointless expedition, you will have three strange encounters, and only three.”

  “What will happen after the third?”

  “There will be no fourth, that’s what. This is my gift to you: a prediction of what’s going to happen in the future.”

  “Not much of a gift. There’s no wrapping paper!”

  The witch gestures at the solid scarves of mist that drape themselves on his shoulders and curl around his horse. “There is. When you leave the forest and the mist is no longer there, you’ll see the gift for what it is. Now take a detour because I don’t want to disturb my pot.”

  And to the unspoken anxiety of his bodyguards, the Bungle Duke spurs his horse off the trail and gives the witch a wide berth, returning to the path beyond her. He is lucky not to lose his way, for even such a brief detour has its perils in a forest so thick, foggy and remote.

  “I can’t wait to get out of this wood,” the Bungle Duke says.

  “He can’t wait!” blares the horn.

  A few hours later, just as the sun is starting to set, they finally emerge from the tangle onto a meadow that stretches to the horizon; and standing in the middle of this meadow is a purple giant.

  The Bungle Duke hurries towards him without fear because he believes the giant to be a normal-sized man who is close, rather than a distant colossus. Only gradually does the truth dawn on him and then it’s too late to turn around. So he keeps going and hails the vast figure.

  “Good evening, my fine monstrosity. I am your lord.”

  The giant blinks down in derision.

  “And you are the first of my three strange encounters,” adds the Bungle Duke with a regal wave and friendly smile.

  “I trust you as far as I can throw you,” says the giant.

  “Oh really? And how far is that?”

  The giant does the calculations in his massive head. “About sixty miles. I therefore trust you rather a lot, it seems!”

  “In that case, you’ll be willing to answer this question to the best of your ability. Where might I find my next strange encounter? I’m looking for three of them because after I’ve had three there won’t be any more and then I’ll know I won’t be missing anything if I go home.”

  The giant points without hesitation. “Tourists.”

  “Tourists, you say?”

  “In that direction. They’re a curious pair and originally their ancestors came from this realm, which is why they are visiting it now. Just an hour ago I spoke to them and they said they were moving on to the next country. You will have to hurry if you want to catch them!”

  The Bungle Duke thanks the giant and spurs on Chester.

  The men inside the horse puff.

  Across the meadow they run and the sun goes down and it is twilight, and the stars come out, and then the moon rises and floods the meadow with a soft light that is like butter spread on a slice of cliché and... but the cliché is a burnt one! Who wasn’t watching the grill?

  The meadow ends in a fast river and the tourists are building a bridge to cross it. The Bungle Duke is surprised by their appearance for, in genetic terms, they are one third slave, one third robot, and one third ape; descendants of escapees from an earlier era. They must have come to his land to see the place where their ancestors had been captives.

  But a desire to work, and to do so efficiently, still remains with them as an instinct for they are constructing the bridge with skill and determination so the Bungle Duke watches them in fascination.

  “Hello down there!” he calls, and the trumpeter roars, “Bow down before the Bungle Duke, you funny foreigners!”

  The tourists look around and shrug theatrically.

  “Harry – I mean Buster – didn’t mean that. He often gets carried away, as if he’s riding a horse of his own. Isn’t that right, Mister R
umpus? I don’t really desire that anyone bows before me.”

  “What is it that you do want?” the tourists ask.

  “You are my second strange encounter. I want to tick you off the list. I hope to get through all three before morning. To be honest this trip isn’t quite as uplifting as I’d imagined it would be.”

  “Tick us off your list then. We are busy. To finish this bridge we first have to carry this load of stones over there, but it’s dark now and so we need to make a fire. Do you understand this?”

  “Load,” repeats the Bungle Duke. “Fire.”

  And the trumpeter within Chester is within his rights to assume these idle words uttered by his master are an order.

  He pushes a number of ball bearings into the mouthpiece of the trumpet, pours in gunpowder, adds a fuse and lights it with a match. But he has put in too much powder.

  There is a violent explosion and red hot particles are ejected at high speed from the bell of the trumpet. At the same time, the blowback stuns the men inside the horse and the recoil shatters the papier-mâché covering and loosens the connections between the wires of the frame, allowing the sulphurous fumes to escape and coil around each other.

  Chester has come apart like a dropped antique clock.

  Something else also happens...

  The jolt as the saddle plummets from the height of a horse’s back to the ground, or rather onto the backs of the prone men beneath, turns out to be more than adequate to break his head open.

  The Bungle Duke’s head, that is.

  It literally cracks and falls apart and inside is—

  A man no larger than a finger who is holding a miniature trumpet and is furious to be exposed in this abrupt manner, and who jumps up and down on the leathery tongue that covers the floor of the jaw.

  “Why didn’t you protect me?”

  And for the first time the bodyguards answer back. “We are bodyguards, sire, not guards of the head, and it was your head that broke, not your body. So we did what we were supposed to. We kept your body safe from harm. Bodies are our speciality. They are what we do.”

  The little man is crimson with rage. “But I have a body! I have a body as well as a head! You didn’t do your job!”