The Golden Seal of Bezlehem

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Neboj{a Spai} THE GOLDEN SEAL OF BEZLEHEM

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THE FIRST EXPEDITION The raging wind produced no sound, but its presence was felt in the ease with which it tore the lifeboats off their hooks and hurled them into the dark whirling waves, robbing the remaining sailors of their last hope. The silence was broken only when the main mast crashed through the hull of the ship and the smashed keel started creaking. Those still alive screamed and cried out in horror as they saw the fatethat awaited, them watching their shipmates tossed into the sea and swallowed up forever after just a few futile arm strokes. The Sea Falcon set sail on what was to be its last journey from Bezlayem1 , the harbour where it had been built. Hundreds of waving people full of great hope and good wishes bid it farewell from the pier and shore, and from the small boats which followed it on the first few miles2 of its journey. 1 Bezlayem, the capital city of Bezland, land of seafarers, peasants and artisans, situated in the central region of the Upper Earth, rich in fresh water, springs, rivers and lakes, tame forests and pastures. 2 The myth of the sinking of the Sea Falcon sur- vived into the early 20th century of our history; its impact was so great that the Titanic came to stand the symbol of our times. 5 5 Bezlayem, the capital city of Bez- land, land of seafarers, peasants and artisans

They were all confident that the expedition would succeed in recovering the Golden Seal3 of the city, buried deep in the caves of Perdim,4 the dark lord of the land of Trigot.5 This sorcerer king had stolen the Seal, depriving the people of Bezlayem of the magical power that had endowed them with a life of peace and tranquility. In the Upper Earth,6 the Bezlians were never considered to be very wealthy, but it was known that the power of the Golden Seal enabled them to be satisfied with what they had and what they produced, which sufficed to heal the sick, educate the young and feed and shelter the poor. For a long time, Bezlayem was of no particular interest to Perdim. Since its inhabitants did not have enough gold or jewels to plunder, since he had no need for more slaves, having already enslaved so many nations, and since, too, he was aware of the bravery of the Bezlians, he left them in peace. He was not really tempted by the Golden Seal either, 3 The Golden Seal, the source of the Three Pow- ers. 4 Perdim, the ruthless usurper of the throne of Trigot from 2385 to 3243. 5 Trigot, a country in the far southwest region of the Upper Earth. It sweeps mostly across swamps steaming with poisonous gasses, mak- ing human life there almost impossible. The rest of the country is studded with stark mountains and highly active volcanoes. The climate is hos- tile, with freezing cold nights and scorching hot days. Storms are common and when they catch the steaming hot volcano vapours, terrible fires break out and spread across the valleys, engulf- ing the towns and villages that dot them. Records show that on a number of occasions the storms released poisonous gasses from the swamp, which spread deadly diseases on a massive scale. The nation of Trigot was once renowned for its courage and stamina. Despite the difficult con- ditions in which they lived, the people succeeded in building one of the leading nations in the world, owing primarily to alchemy and its process of refining volcanic lava and poisonous gasses. 6 Upper Earth, the only known part of the world during the Third History. 7 Third History, the period which marked the beginning of the autonomy of humankind. The Creators withdrew from the world, having left behind, however, their emissaries: fairies, wiz- ards, giants, dwarfs and other creatures that nowadays are considered mythological. Our per- ception of time makes it difficult to determine exactly when this occurred, but it must have been somewhere between a million-and-a-half years ago and 1400 BC. In his introduction to the Lex- icon of the Religions and Myths of Ancient 66 However, if the Book were ever to be stolen, nothing would remain but memory, which could not counter the interpretation or orders of whoever pos- sessed the Book

for it provided nothing more than a decent if somewhat strenuous “Bezlian life”, as it was called in the Upper Earth. No, his interests lay elsewhere – he craved power and personal glory and was more arbitrary in his decisions than any other sovereign known to the Third History.7 However, once he realised that the Golden Seal contained other powers, he stole it. At the time that the Sea Falcon embarked on its quest, Perdim already suspected these mighty powers, which went far beyond any he had ever possessed. But he did not yet know how to set them in motion. He cherished the Seal as his most prized possession. He even removed it from the court treasury, where he had first kept it along with his other valuables, to a safer place. The treasury itself was highly protected since Europe, Dragoslav Srejovi} mentions this as the time when religion and myths came into being (Aleksandrina Cermanovi} and Dragoslav Sre- jovi}, Leksikon religija i mitova drevne Evrope (Lexicon of ….), 2nd edition, revised. Savremena administracija, Beograd 1996). As vague as it may appear, this is certainly the most accurate time-span that can be defined, as it is impossible to determine the exact duration of the Third His- tory. Considering that it was preceded by at least two other Histories, which must have begun one- and-a-half million years ago, it is relatively safe to assume that the Third History occurred between 500,000 and 1400 BC. There is no evi- dence as to whether this was succeeded by a Fourth or a Fifth History… or by our own pre- history. However, since enough facts have been preserved to allow us to reconstruct the key event of the time – the expedition in search of the Gold- en Seal - some scholars tend to believe the latter to be true, i.e. that the Third History directly preceded our own prehistory. It is their conclu- sion that the Third History began no earlier than 150,000 BC, given the assumption that, according to the geometric acceleration of histo- ries, the First must have been the longest – span- ning from approximately 1,500,000 to 650,000 BC, when the Second History is thought to have begun, lasting until 150,000 BC. However, if we take into consideration the fact that the land and the sea had a different geographical disposition at the time, this interpretation may be inade- quate and the events described would need to be traced to a much more distant past. The chrono- logical confusion is compounded by the possibil- ity that this chronicle may contain layers belonging to different periods. The best interpre- tation, however, lies in the theory of the space- time continuum, derived from Einstein’s theory of relativity. 7 7

it held not only gold and jewels, but also far worthier items that he had acquired by virtue of his powers and that in return had extended these powers. These were the Books of Memories8 of the lands and cities he had ravaged, the Mirror of Destiny9 of the Forest People,10 the Candle of Knowledge11 of the ancient Trigot dynasty12 that he had overthrown, the Sceptre of Truth and Justice13 of the Upper Earth’s Last Court,14 and the secret formulae of sorcery, originating in the distant past of the First History15 and used only in exceptional circumstances. To be sure, such a collection was well guarded, especially as Perdim had many enemies, both outside the borders of his country and among his own subjects, even those closest to him. The way in which he ruled required that he surround himself with evil, villainous associates, using their fear and even hatred of him to keep them obedient. They were rob- bers, murderers and desecrators of graves, the worst of human progeny, and the more evil they were, the higher they rose in the Trigot hierar- chy. When he realised that the Seal had three powers16 - of which he pos- sessed only the first - and that the other two were incomparably stronger, Perdim decided to remove it to a safer place: to the depths of his dreaded caves. Nobody knew exactly where these caves were. They were somewhere in a forest where time itself lost its way, so that those unfamiliar with the right path would enter young and soon thereafter walk out as old men and women who would die that very evening.17 Bloodthirsty beasts, monsters and dragons, gaping abysses, quagmires and poisonous plants were but a fragment of the horrors waiting on that path. Most danger- ous of all was the descent into the caves. There were no stairs or ladders, only a steep slope that plunged down vertiginously, hurling anyone who had come this far straight into the abyss. Nobody ever reached the bot- tom alive, except for Perdim who had traveled through time instead of through the forest. When the Sea Falcon and its crew left to recover the 8 The Books of Memories contain the knowledge, experience, customs and mores of certain nations. They were written by three record-keep- ers, and always by all of them together – the king, the priest and the supreme scribe, elected direct- ly by the people for every record kept. Once recorded, these facts were forever known by one and all. However, if the Book were ever to be stolen, nothing would remain but memory, which could not counter the interpretation or orders of whoever possessed the Book. 9 The Mirror of Destiny reflected the future. 10 The Forest People lived in various lands of the Upper Earth, mainly in its central regions, although some of its tribes could also be encoun- tered in the outer territories. The tribes were autonomous and had hardly any mutual links. They did, however, join together to elect the supreme scribe. This already complicated process was compounded by the distances involved, so that an election might take genera- tions to complete. It happened more than once that the supreme scribe was chosen long after his death. Nothing was ever inscribed into the Book of Memories, since the king, the priest and the supreme scribe never managed to convene in the same place at the same time. The book, although empty, still remained in the possession of the Forest People, helping them to protect their inde- pendence and remain free of Perdim’s influence. The fact that their Mirror of Destiny was stolen and kept in Trigot did not affect them, since they started existing in their own future, which it con- stantly mirrored, at least as much as in the pres- ent. The problem of the stolen Mirror, therefore, became the problem of generations past, rather than of those who lived while the Mirror was in Trigot. It was indeed this temporal fluidity and inconstancy of the Forest People that greatly 88

Golden Seal of Bezlayem, it was lying at the bottom of the abyss, inside a rock-melting eternal flame. The voyage got off to a promising start. The wind filled the sails and the slender form of the ship cut effortlessly through the smooth surface of the sea. Led by their Captain Muky,18 the sailors were well provisioned, courageous and resolute, though they knew what dangers lay ahead. They knew that many of them would not live to see the journey’s end, but they were determined to retrieve their magic talisman at any cost. They were well aware that otherwise both they and their families would perish forever, along with their city and all that was known as Bezlian life. The fact that Captain Muky led them reinforced their faith in the successful outcome of their mission. Muky’s fame spread throughout the Upper Earth, from the Land of the Great Snows19 in the north all the way to the Desert20 bordering the unknown territories, terra incognita, where no man had ever set foot in the Third History. He was respected, loved and admired everywhere. His memory lived on even in places where Perdim had imposed his rule. Tales of Muky’s heroism nourished the hearts of the people. They could be somewhat exaggerated, since they were passed on by traveling bards who sang them late at night at bonfires where mistletoe was burned and mead drunk to ward off the fear of Trigot’s hangmen21 and spies, who forbade the very mention of Muky’s name. He became a symbol of hope that “The Good Times”22 had not been lost forever, that Perdim’s breath23 would stop spreading and that Trigot would once again become a good neighbour. Perdim’s breath covered the entire Upper Earth, albeit with varying intensity. Some countries and cities, such as Bezlayem, were still not completely infected by it - either because Perdim did not find them worth the trouble, or because they were too remote, or for some third reason. Other countries still presented too great a challenge even for Trigot’s hangmen who fought alongside the hordes of Perdim’s crea- tures24 and armies of captured wretches for the ruler of the terrible contributed to keeping them beyond the reach of Perdim’s pestilential breath. The usurper, on the other hand, welcomed an occasional look at the Mirror. 11 The Flame of the Candle of Knowledge con- tained knowledge that brought success and pros- perity to the people of Trigot in spite of the diffi- cult living conditions. The country sank into darkness only after Perdim seized the Candle. 12 The ancient Trigot dynasty ruled the country from the beginning of the Third History until Perdim’s brutal takeover. Its founder, Samksku- laph Orgon, was the first to light the Candle of Knowledge. Perdim appeared in Trigot dis- guised as a frail old man and thus won the sym- pathy of their king at the time, Lumkling Gorb- wul. He cunningly managed to become the Roy- al counsellor and seduced Lumkling’s youngest daughter Cerbih. When her father became increasingly suspicious of the old man and for- bade their amorous affair, she poisoned her entire family. Perdim slit her throat on their wedding night and assumed the throne. 13 The Sceptre of Truth and Justice was the only relic preserved in the Third History that was known to have been forged by the Creators them- selves. It contained the basic laws that were in effect during all the eras and in all the worlds known until then. 14 The Last Court of the Upper Earth was meant to convene at the end of the world. Nobody knew who the judges were, if they had already been designated, or indeed whether they lived at all or were yet to be born. 15 The First History, when the Creators lived in this world and were still actively creating it. 9 9

land. Even the rare souls who still lived in “The Good Times” felt that they would perish for eternity unless someone put an end to Perdim. They knew that Perdim’s power was increasing and that sooner or later their turn would come. Fearing the contagion of Perdim’s breath, they were forced to build up their own armies, to set aside more money than ever for that purpose and to train their youngsters to fight and kill. 16 The Three Powers of the Seal were: the power of magic, the power over life and death and the power of love. 17 See: Pavle Stevanovi}, “Short Story about a Man who Sold Himself to the Devil” (a study on Yugoslav literature); accepted as a doctoral the- sis by the Council of the Faculty of Philosophy at Belgrade University on 27 April 1934, after the report of the members of the examination board, Pavle Popovi}, Aleksandar Beli} and Veselin ^ajkanovi}; Biblioteka “Priloga”. Dr`avna štamparija Kraljevine Jugoslavije. Beograd 1934. 18 Captain Muky, the greatest hero of the Upper Earth. 19 The Land of the Great Snows was the northern border of the Upper Earth, permanently encased in snow and ice. It was home to a small tribe of whale hunters. 20 The Desert, the eastern border of the Upper Earth, inhabited by nomadic tribes. 21 The spies and hangmen of Trigot were often one and the same villains. They would perform either job depending on the circumstances. Nat- urally, some were better at the one and some at the other, and there were those who were equally good in both professions. The most skilled were the most evil – they took the greatest pleasure in their assignments and usually worked alone. 22 “The Good Times”, a term coined during the period of Perdim’s growing power, denoting the age that preceded him. 23 Perdim’s breath, the manner in which Perdim’s power and influence spread by pollut- ing the very air of countries which had not yet fallen under his control. 1010 Whatever his origins, Muky gave credence to all comparisons of him as the most valorous of men

These boys would then be sent on ever longer tours of duty to remote and dangerous watchtowers whence many never returned. For all of them, Captain Muky was the greatest, and for many indeed the only hope. Stories about him were surely exaggerated, but not excessively so. Nobody knew who his parents were or where he hailed from. His origins gave rise to various speculations, each city claiming its own privileged connection to Muky, based on a certain trait of character, physical fea- ture or unusual birthmark. Some considered him to be their long lost prince, others the son of a legendary general, or a descendant of the guardian nymph of their streams... There were even those who claimed that he was an emissary from the Second History,25 whose populace,26 according to widespread belief in the Third History, had the gift of knowing the distant future and had decided to alter it. This was why, some believed, they had projected Muky into the coming Era. By so doing, however, they had banished themselves into the distant past, into virtual oblivion, as punishment for having disrupted the pace of time. Clearly, Muky’s mission was more important to them than their own fate. Whatever his origins, Muky gave credence to all comparisons of him as the most valorous of men. He demonstrated his virtues on countless occasions. Various tales were told about each of his feats, but their root core was always the same. His failings, if he had any, were never men- tioned.27 Minstrels travelled the world singing of how he had defeated the three- headed serpent that devoured all first-born children on the eve of their ninth birthday in Blueland28 , a country named after its countless rivers, streams, lakes and mountain rapids. They sang of how he had freed the Wizard of Khran29 locked inside his own ring, owing, according to some, to his own negligence, and according to others, to having interfered with the wrong powers. The latter sought corroboration in the fact that it was only after his rescue that the Wizard started healing the blind, 24 Perdim’s creatures were beings that Perdim had created by abusing the Sceptre of Truth and Justice, or already existing beings, be they evil or essentially good, whom he exploited and placed under his control. 25 The Second History, the period in which the Creators were still walking the realm, but no longer creating it. They merely governed it and, by the end of this period, simply directed its development. 26 Beings with human characteristics but with many superhuman powers reigned under the guidance of the Creators during the Second His- tory. 27 This fact in itself illustrates one of Muky’s failings: when someone spoke ill of him, he would become enraged and was unconcerned about the justness of his excessive revenge. The burial mounds of those who were unfortunate enough to mock or criticise him carried inscrip- tions such as: “fell victim to Muky’s just wrath”, a sign of caution on the part of his closest associ- ates, fearing that too blunt an epitaph might expose them too to the rampant fury of the Right- eous Hero. 28 Blueland, a small, peace-loving country in the west. 29 The Wizard of Khran, a physician from the southern country of Khran, bordering the Desert in the east. He used secret potions and magic for- mulas to heal. Using a pun, Enes Kiševi} dedi- cated a children’s poem, Wizword, to the Wizard. 11 11

deaf and dumb even when they had no money to pay him. In those days everyone knew how Muky, with the help of his friends - the fish, the wolf and the eagle - had acquired the winged horse from an old witch; how King Thurno30 had offered him Mescalinbur31 - the sword he himself had received from the Lady of the Lake32 - for having rescued his daughter, princess Daria;33 how, when sailing the seas in search of the Holy Grail, he had passed between the two rocks that normally con- verged to crush any ship that ever dared to go between them. In so doing, he managed to hear the song of the sirens and to blind the one- eyed giant, all in an attempt to recover the lost golden-plumed Phoenix. Among Muky’s other feats, celebrated even in our time, although in somewhat modified form (the oblivion into which the Upper Earth fell during the Third History not having erased them completely from mem- ory), is the battle with the Elephant-God of a thousand trunks and two thousand tusks, and Muky’s subterranean imprisonment, where he was cast by the mesmerising spells of the Queen of the Mount of Diamonds. Everyone was also familiar with his descent into the Underworld where he gambled with the royal couple and won the right to leave and bring Ora with him to the light of day. Ora knew the secrets of wheat sowing and fire making and revealed them to the people. For this she was pun- ished by being chained to a rock where every day a hawk would tear away at her liver, which kept growing back. For the love of his friends, prince Vano and princess Vana, he melted the heart of the Snow Queen with his kindness. When the island of Atlana began to sink, he built a vessel and brought onto it all the inhabitants of the island, including the animals.34 He sailed with them through an incredible storm and arrived safely at the seaport of Cauca, where the Atlanians built an entire new city and later produced the first wine from the grapevines they had planted. Of all these heroic acts, the expedition of the Sea Falcon was certainly the most dangerous and, as many were already saying, the most momen- tous. 30 King Thurno, Daria’s father from the island nation of Camelon. As a token of her father’s submission, but also to satisfy his own lust, the dragon Dragnord took the beautiful Daria against her will to be his wife. In the battle cele- brated in one of the best known songs of the Third History, The Shining Sword, Muky defeated the dragon with Mescalinbur. Only a few verses of the song have been preserved , which could loose- ly be translated as follows: “the noble hero with his fearsome sword/ forged in a moonbeam/ tem- pered in the tear of the lake/ honed by the Lady’s smile/ facing the thousand-headed dragon”. 31 Mescalinbur had magical qualities and could wreak great evil if it fell into the wrong hands. This was the sword that Perdim had always cov- eted. King Thurno performed countless acts of heroism with it. When the dragon kidnapped Daria, Thurno held her guards to blame and decapitated the entire squad with a single stroke of his sword. Their captain, who was at home at the time, killed his twin sons and wife, and then committed suicide. Realising that, in his rage, he had lost the righteousness which had won him the terrifying weapon in the first place, the king surrendered the sword to Muky, convinced that he was the only man alive whose virtue guaran- teed that the potentially evil power of the sword would remain confined forever. The Lady of the Lake herself agreed. 32 The Lady of the Lake was a water nymph, the guardian of Cameland. She accepted rather reluctantly for Muky to be given possession of the sword. She long hesitated, comparing Muky to Thurno in his youth, when there was no trace of egotism, greed or vanity, all of which could be discerned in Muky. As an old man, however, Thurno had become very different. The tragedy that he provoked after his daughter’s abduction 1212

******** “Get away from that computer”, an angry voice said, “it’s bad for your eyes!” Paiky was about to go outside anyway, to play football or try out his new rollers, so he didn’t mind taking his mother’s advice. “OK, but I’m going out for a while!” “All right, it’s still better than staring at the screen all day. Although you’d better do some studying for a change”, she said, albeit quite pleased with her son’s success at school. Paiky stormed out without turning off the computer, the credits of “The Return of the Golden Seal” game still flashing on the screen. It started drizzling by the time the team from the neighbouring block was winning 4:2. The boys paid no attention. They were sure the rain would soon stop since the day had looked sunny and calm until then. But before long, the sky went dark. The wind started blowing and in a matter of seconds the fine weather turned into a real summer storm with strong gales. “Why didn’t you come in as soon as you saw it was starting to rain? Don’t play deaf with me. I yelled so loudly, the whole neighbourhood could hear me! Look at you, you’re soaking wet, shame on you, a big boy like you acting like a baby!”, his mother scolded him when Paiky final- ly made it to the third floor. He was just about to say he hadn’t heard her because of the wind, when there was a deafening crash. The electricity went off and there were sparks on the balcony. “Lightning! Lightning! We’ve been struck by lightning!”, the boy shout- ed excitedly, both scared and thrilled. A real adventure! His mother was as pale as a ghost. She remained speechless for a few moments and finally uttered in a trembling voice: “Are you all right? You are all was the final proof of the bigotry, ill humour and stubbornness of his dotage. For the Lady, Muky was a solution born of necessity, the lesser of two evils. She never disputed his qualities, but she feared his might, which could one day turn against honour and righteousness. Naturally, she was unaware of just how strongly her hesita- tion to surrender Mescalinbur to our hero was influenced by her own discontent with the humil- iating indifference with which Muky received the discreet indications of her wish to become spiritually and physically closer to him. 33 Daria, more celebrated in verse than any oth- er princess of her time, had been unhappy in love and never married. On one of her islands in the east called Liesbion, she founded a poetry school for virgins dressed exclusively in black. Accord- ing to malicious rumour, they did more than just sing about love among women. 34 In his book A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Julian Barnes describes the less famil- iar details of this sea voyage, mentioning the fact that Muky inadvertently took on board white ants, i.e. termites, who would later be held responsible for much of the evil wrought in the world. They were even put on trial for murdering a priest and consorting with the Devil. 13 13

right!? Yes, that was lightning, but don’t worry now, calm down”. How- ever, she was far more distressed than Paiky who had already rushed out to the balcony to see if there was any damage. A small mound of soot seemed the only trace of the lightning. “What could have attracted it?”, his mother wondered aloud, turning off all the electrical devices. Paiky remembered that he had left his com- puter on and he rushed to his room. On his way, he wondered if his friends were right when they warned him that it was dangerous to leave the computer on during a thunderstorm, especially if it had a modem, because the electrical discharges could damage, or even completely dis- integrate the machine. A surprise awaited him in his room. A bluish light was circling around the screen, similar to the special laser effects in the movies. There was a sign blinking on the screen in large, alternating red and yellow letters that read: “HELP! HELP! HELP!” He was certain he hadn’t pressed F1 for Help. He knew the game by heart so he thought something had gotten mixed up with the lightning. He hit Esc but nothing happened. He hit Ctrl – Alt – Del to no avail. He pressed the reset button and then was in for a real surprise – the com- puter wouldn’t even automatically reset. Something really weird was going on. The power button to switch off the monitor wasn’t reacting either. He hesitated before switching off the power, worried that this might mess up his files. But he knew he had no other choice if he want- ed to restart the computer. It was all useless. Finally, he unplugged the computer. It kept flickering “HELP! HELP! HELP!” He didn’t know what to think. His machine had no battery, unlike his father’s new Notebook. His computer was only an old, big desktop without a battery. He heard his mother coming and, not want- ing to be found in front of the computer again, or to have to explain why he couldn’t turn it off and be blamed for the bolt of lightning, he entered DOS and hit Ctrl – Alt – F8, to clear the screen. This time it worked. 35 The Sea of Silence, the largest sea of the Upper Earth. Storms are common and can be highly tempestuous, capsizing the boats of even the most experienced seafarers, but the sea owes its name to its frightening silences. At times, there would- n’t be a breath of wind for so long that sailors could barely stand it. Even worse, all sound would become muffled, everything would fall completely silent. At such times, the crew would shout at the top of their lungs to try and hear each other, but their words would remain inaudi- ble. Even the desperate sounds of those leaping overboard could not be heard, nor could their screams as the sharks devoured them. The sailors’ dreams, on the other hand, would pro- duce an unbearable racket and the very next day these wretched men would die, be killed or take their own lives. The diaries of many a captain, discovered in their deserted ships drifting for- lorn, recorded the abominable horrors that befell them at the time of their ordeal. One extract, cit- ed by the ancient historian Herodolmyte in his History of the Third History or Story before Sto- rytelling, whose only known sample was burnt 1414

******** Almost imperceptibly the sea washed the sand as the breeze soundless- ly rustled the leaves of the nearby palm trees. Only the cooing of a pair of royal nightingales broke the silence. Their song brought Captain Muky back to consciousness. He managed to rise with great effort. His whole body ached. He was unbearably sore with wounds, scrapes and abrasions irritated by the sea salt which had dried in the sun. He staggered towards the shade of the palm trees and then, suddenly, turned. There was no sign of any ship- wreck on the shore or on the horizon, no trace of any of his shipmates. Instinctively, he reached for his belt – Mescalinbur had gone! The last words he had heard before he found himself swimming seem- ingly forever were: “Help, Muky, help!” He couldn’t really recognize the voice – it was as if his shipmates’ voices had all converged to call out to him from the waves. He was well aware that they had all died, but he also knew that only he could offer them another chance. That, however, was unfeasible without Mescalinbur which was buried somewhere deep in the Sea of Silence.35 “When the silence is over, you will hear a song, save us”, he remembered the warning of his second in command, the griffin36 Ilbert, who could think faster than time. The griffin thus occasionally wandered into the future, his contemporaries assuming him gone, but he would soon return and advise them on what to do in a certain situation, though he did not dare be totally explicit as to what lay ahead37 . Muky was the only captain known to have successfully led his sailors through the silence of the Vicious Sea, without losing a single man. When the wind fell still and sounds became less and less audible, he plugged the ears of every crew member with wax and covered their mouths with wax and cloth38 . They were thus unable to know if they could still hear or if they were already wrapped in the deadly silence. in the Alexandrian library, offers the account of one of these diaries: “There are only seven of us left. Yesterday, two men ripped out their own hearts. Earlier, four died when the anchor got unhooked and the chain yanked them into the deep. The helmsman committed suicide by impaling himself upon the harpoon, with which he first speared his assistant. I don’t even remember the first few cases. I must have wiped them from my memory out of sheer horror. I could barely force myself to write even this much. I hesitated so I wouldn’t have to take the inevitable decision – to put an end to this tor- ment, both for my men and for myself.” This was where the diary ended. 36 Griffins had the head of a horse, the body of a lion, the tail of a dragon and the wings of an eagle. They were thought to be the most intelli- gent mortal species in the Third History. 37 Ilbert’s ability is explained by the fact that, in this story, he is the most striking representative of Newtonian physics according to which all is pre-determined and can consequently be known in advance. 38 “but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did.”/ “Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion […]”/ “Then I stopped the ears of all my men”. Book 12 of the Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler. 15 15

This also protected them from the dreams – no one could hear the night- marish screams and ravings of their shipmates. Consequently, they could not alert the dreamer that his turn had come, or even reveal the inevitable truth in a pitiful look. As for the dreamers themselves, they never remembered any of their own nightmares. When finally the silence broke, the Sea Falcon was once again sailing with a fair wind at her back, heading unswervingly for Trigot. And when no more than two reunions of the Silver Moon and Red39 separat- ed them from the shores of the terrible land – a storm started brewing. Muky was sitting in his cabin when the lookout burst in: “Captain, a strange storm is approaching!“ “Trim the sails, lash the helm, secure the cargo, those without duties go below deck”, he bellowed. „It’s not an ordinary storm, Captain. The waves are surging but the wind is not rising! Red clouds are gathering!” Muky shuddered at these words and dashed out of his cabin, rushing to take up his position at the helm. The clouds had entirely obscured the sky. The wind was howling ever louder, but still there was not a breath of air. And then it erupted with full force. The Sea Falcon was the finest sailing vessel ever built in Bezlayem. She was possibly the finest ship ever built in the Upper Earth, with the exception of Muky’s Arko which had suffered wanton damage after a termite attack, having carried the Atlanians across the ocean. The crew of the Sea Falcon was even more extraordinary. When Muky decided to launch an expedition to recover the Golden Seal, the Bezlian heralds started searching for a crew all over the land and soon after throughout the central region as well, even in countries that had already been trampled by Perdim’s boot. Disguised as travelling minstrels, they spread the word about the coming expedition. They looked for a special glow in the eyes of the audience. The Wizard of Khran taught them how to detect that momentary flicker of hope at the 39 During the Third History, there were three Moons in the sky – the Silver, the Red and the Blue. The Blue Moon had already begun to van- ish, receding further and further beyond the Upper Earth sky. It finally disappeared entirely after the last elf left riding his kite (exp. later). People connected these two events, believing that the Blue Moon was now home to the elves. The Red Moon remained in the sky until the dawn of our History: on summer nights its reflection can still be seen in certain mountain springs. 40 See Book VII of Zlatno runo (The Golden Fleece) by Serbian writer Borislav Peki}. The scenes describing the assemblage of the Arg- onauts provides contextual information on Muky’s selection of the crew. Though Peki} him- self knew the truth, he chose to tailor the facts to fit the false belief that the story relates to an ancient Greek myth. 41 The dwarves of those days were no different than today’s, possessing the same distinguishing traits – they were strong, tenacious, somewhat stubborn and short-tempered. They lived in mountain caves mainly mining precious stones and gold. They traded freely with humans. Only when the humans turned greedy did they decide to withdraw. Now they reveal themselves only to the lucky few, whose honesty, integrity and inno- cence they trust. 42 The Crystal Mountains were the highest mountain range in the Upper Earth, extending from the western and central territories all the way to the Land of the Great Snows. 43 Hobbits are “an unobtrusive but very ancient people” wrote Tolkien, the leading expert of our age. Their features resemble those of people, but they are smaller than dwarves. Their feet are large and hairy, allowing them, in this closeness 1616

mention of Muky’s name, and the words freedom and justice. After their audience settled down to sleep, they would whisper softly to some of them, making sure not to wake them, the time and place of the gather- ing. Those chosen would not even know why they were making for a particular place, but something urged them to reach it by a given time. A hundred or so candidates finally gathered at the meeting place. Muky tested each of them personally and only those selected for the voyage were told why they had been summoned.40 Amongst the humans there were Gryom, the knife expert who could cut an already uttered word; Byrxar, who could pin down bad intentions with his arrow; Pexym, who could run faster than thought; Josorlyph, the ship carpenter who could sculpt stories with his chisel; Orephys, the blind helmsman, who could smell the shapes and colours even of things that others could not see, and who was celebrated as the leading bard of the Upper Earth. Perhaps for this very reason, he often confused the truth with his own imagina- tion so that his accounts of wars and derring-do were not to be entirely trusted. In addition to these heroes and the griffin Ilbert, the company included Crimson the dwarf,41 whose axe could strike the hardest blow in the Crystal Mountains,42 the hobbit43 Frodo44 and the elf45 Drych- tomnyd.46 A ship such as theirs and with such valiant company would make it through any storm, yet Muky was troubled. For the first time in his life, he was perhaps even frightened. “Ilbert, am I right?” he asked. “I’m afraid so, Sir”, the griffin replied with a frown, falling silent again. “Is there anything we can do?” Muky asked again, though with little hope: the griffin’s expression was telling enough. “No.” The crew followed this dialogue with solemn faces, while Crimson, short-tempered and grumpy as ever, grumbled: to nature and its earthly secrets, to hide and move swiftly and silently. They use this ability abundantly to avoid meeting humans. They love rural life, avoid complicated machinery, but are skilful with tools. They delight in partying, chat- ting around a fire and smoking pipes. (Accord- ing to J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 35th printing. Ballantine Books, New York December 1971). Frodo’s adventures, described in The Lord of the Rings, are nothing more than another artistic adaptation of the Sea Falcon’s expedition, which has survived down through the centuries. 44 Frodo, the most renowned of all hobbits. Tolkien described his quest for the ring, the pow- er he seized from the Dark Lord of the Land of Mordor, “where the Shadows lie” (Ibid.). 45 Elves, beings whose physical characteristics are similar to humans’, except that they never die a natural death and never fall ill. If an elf did not meet his death in battle or by accident, then when tired of this world he would make a kite, wait for the solar wind and then soar up into the sky. He would disappear after briefly turning into a magnificent, dazzling light, whose reflec- tion became a precious stone. This gem awaited each elf at the bottom of his subterranean river. Elves were exceptionally beautiful, drawn to art and contemplation, somewhat melancholic. When they needed to, they fought their wars with great skill. They had an innate knowledge of ele- mentary magic, which they developed according to their particular inclinations and wishes. The bow and arrow were their favourite weapons. 46 Drychtomnyd, the elf prince. He gave up his throne for the love of Princess Daria. Since she was a human, he could not marry her under either human or elf law. 17 17

“What’s going on here, what’s this nonsense, whose heart should I impale on my pickaxe to be done with this?!” In lieu of an answer, the blind Orephys started singing, following the rhythm and melody of the wind, which made it even more terrifying: “When she comes, you’re bound to know. Storm shall be her name. Impossible to tame. When she comes, you’re bound to know. She’s coming from Perdim’s lair, So you stop right there. When she comes, you’re bound to know She’s going to lay you low.” Perdim’s storm was his lat- est weapon, of which only rumours and speculation were heard in the untainted parts of the Upper Earth. Nobody could say with cer- tainty if it really existed. If anybody had experienced it – they had not lived to tell the tale.47 Rumour had it that mountains collapsed under its force and that its lightning vapourized rivers and lakes and its heat melt- ed the shields of Perdim’s enemies. Those who saw it from afar were blinded, and those who were but grazed by the wind, died in agony… 47 The so-called “storm paradox”, first explained in the Chaos theory. (Cf.: James Gleick, Chaos – Making a New Science. Penguin, USA 1988.) 1818 Seven of them were passing by, dancing on a path just behind the palm trees that sheltered him

if they did not drop dead immediately, that is.48 That storm was now approaching the Sea Falcon. Muky was startled out of his sad reverie by the song of young maidens. Seven of them were passing by, dancing on a path just behind the palm trees that sheltered him. He observed them, trying to remain unnoticed. They were the most beautiful maidens he had ever seen. They had long, blond hair, eyes shining like the Blue Moon and lips radiating with warmth. The light, white fabric in which they were clad enhanced their firm, slender figures. Six of them wore wreaths of myrtle on their brow and danced around the seventh, the most beautiful of all, who was play- ing the lyre. They sang a melody composed of tones that Muky had nev- er heard before, their voices harmonizing, based on a different scale49 from that used in the rest of the Upper Earth. Muky was enraptured. He had listened to Orephys’ divine music and found it difficult to judge whether the virgins sang more beautifully than the most celebrated bard of the Upper Earth, perhaps indeed of the entire Third History! Yet, beyond doubt, he enjoyed their music at least as much. What remains unknown, of course, is whether he would have enjoyed the maidens’ song as much had he not been able to observe them at the same time. So captivated was he by their beauty and the harmo- ny of their dance, that, enthralled, he accidentally stepped forward and was spotted by the girls. Their song died away. While he stood embarrassed, his mouth slightly open, the girls seemed slightly frightened. The one with the lyre spoke first: “What brings you, stranger, on the path that we have taken in such joy? From which country do you hail? Where are you headed for? Have you a name, which house do you call your own? You seem a noble man, yet your garments mark you as a homeless beggar.” Muky hesitated – he did not know where he was, the sea might have cast him onto the shores of Trigot or those of Perdim’s minions. He opted for 48 During the 1985 demonstrations marking the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima – organised in Washington, Moscow, London, Paris and Beijing – a group of anti-nuclear activists shouted: “Perdim’s servants”. Interest- ingly enough, no newspaper made any mention of this, nor did any radio or TV station. Certain local stations in Western Europe and the US that covered the demonstrations live experienced technical difficulties when this slogan was shout- ed. Even right after the demonstrations, very few participants remembered the slogan. 49 They used the seven-tone scale that we know today. However, during the Third History, music was based on a complicated scale of 13 tones and 27 half tones. (Cf.: A Schoenberg, Meine Träume (My Dreams). Wien 1963.) 19 19

50 “[…] in the Sky, all speak their mind; in fact, they think through their words and speak through their mind.” “In the Sky, all thoughts are told; and if one who thinks three but says one reaches there, he is discovered and cast out.” Emanuel Svedenborg, Nebo sa svojim divotama i pakao prema onome što sam video i cuo (The Sky with its Wonders and Hell According to What I Heard and Saw). Sfairos, Beograd 1988. 51 Dhurno, island rich in history and tradition. In subsequent periods it ruled much of the known world. Lacking natural resources, it was famous for its wonderful beverage made of bar- ley. 52 Ropim, ruler of Dhurno, lifelong friend and partner of the Wizard of Khran. They would sometimes sequester themselves in the tallest tower of his palace. The Wizard of Khran owed him his life, since Ropim had saved him from certain death when they were descending the Cliffs of Death. These cliffs towered above the Hollow of Quest, where the two wizards were heading to reach the Water of Knowledge. The Wizard of Khran had almost reached the bottom of the cliff when he stepped onto a ledge of rock which simply vanished from under his feet and he tumbled into an abyss that suddenly yawned open. Ropim thereupon unfurled his wings and flew to the rescue of his friend, at least that is what it seemed like to the Wizard. This dealt a serious blow to their friendship and the Wizard of Khran later often dreamt of asking Ropim: “Are you the One?”, a question his friend would answer with an eerie laugh and the flapping of red wings. 53 The way the palace of King Ropim was con- structed remains a secret. However, some leg- ends do give us certain clues. Thus, for example, in Solomon’s Testament and other ancient 2020 a lie: “I am a travelling minstrel, I was with some fishermen”, but no words came out. His lips moved in silence. The maiden looked at him disapprovingly, while some of the group barely contained their laughter. “Do not try to lie to us, stranger. Lies cannot be heard here”,50 the leader of the group said. The others now giggled openly, whispering amongst themselves. “My name is Muky”, he heard himself say, though he had not yet decid- ed whether to speak the truth or to remain silent and pretend to be mute. “I led an expedition to Trigot, to retrieve from Perdim the Gold- en Seal of Bezlayem.” The maidens turned serious. “My name is Klihtoomena, I am of royal blood and I welcome you, noble one, to the island of Dhurno,51 land of my father King Ropim”,52 said the maiden with the lyre. “Follow us to the palace!” After a short walk along a meandering path that led through palm, cypress and tamarisk trees, offering a view of the vineyards, King Ropim’s palace53 came into sight from behind a hillock. Muky had heard many tales about the beauty of this palace but had nev- er set eyes on it before. Despite its height, unmatched among all known buildings, its slender walls, towers and spires gave the impression of airiness, of quivering as they reached for the sky. They were completely white, made of the whitest marble and carved with minute ornaments that would be hard to achieve in lace, let alone in hard stone. Not a sin- gle design or decoration repeated itself anywhere in the palace, and there were exactly as many of them as there were stars in the sky. When astrologers indicated the existence of a star thus far unknown, they would find its equivalent on the relief of Ropim’s palace. This led to long disputes over the primacy of the design over the star, whether it appeared only after a new star was discovered, or whether it had always been there, imperceptible, and thus not noted in learned interpretations of the relief. It was said that the domes, cylindrical and delicate, were

sources of knowledge about magic and demons, we find records of the Temple of Jerusalem being built with the helping hand of demons. Accord- ing to the story, during the construction of the temple – a service for which Ropim paid him with his wisdom – Solomon had to spend a night inside the building to prevent an unknown demon from hindering his efforts. The archangel Michael gave Solomon a magic ring bearing the sign of a pentacle, which secured power over all spirits. Using the power of the ring, Solomon drove away the demon and enticed other demons to help him build the temple. 54 “It is above all the polar light that strikes awe in the heart of newcomers – it’s an unresolved mystery which Nature writes in burning letters across the starlit arctic sky.” “The entire vault of heaven is in flames; thousands of lightning bolts flash in dense clusters from all sides, heading for that point in the skies indicated by the free mag- netic needle; and around that point, ,flames of blazing white lightning, their outlines traced in colour, flicker, glow and waver, rising in wild chaos; as if blasted by the wind, blazing streams of light twist and cross from east to west and west to east. Within this continuous change, red with- draws before white, and green before red. Thou- sands upon thousands of light beams keep rising in clusters, rushing to reach the point to which all aspire, the magnetic pole. As if the legend we read of in old chronicles has come to life […]” Karl Weiprecht, Tagebuch und Briefen (Diary and Letters), manuscripts, kept in the Austrian War Archives / Marine Department. Captain Weiprecht, leader of the 1872-1874 North Pole expedition, learnt only later of an Eskimo legend saying that the northern lights mirror the kiss of a forgotten God and his beloved. 21 21 wrought in the finest gold, but the gold was hidden in a shroud of dia- mond dust. At times, the glow they cast reached as far as Blueland,54 which then shimmered in a myriad of nameless colours. Despite its height, unmatched among all known buildings, its slender walls, towers and spires gave the impression of airiness, of quivering as they reached for the sky

Ropim had built the castle as a token of his love55 for princess Tama- hala,56 the fairest57 in the Upper Earth of the Third History, but she nev- er set her lovely foot inside it. After her recapture from Sirap, when she arrived in Dhurno and laid eyes on the palace, she died.58 Thereafter, Ropim focused all his love on his daughter. King Ropim was sitting in his garden, as he always did for hours on end each afternoon, his eyes wide open and staring. His servants were wont to say “I’m going for a short rop”, before departing to take a siesta after lunch. They thus expressed not only their need for physical rest, but also their desire to remain undisturbed, except in the case of utmost urgency. The King’s friends used to say that he “daydreams of the splendid Tama- hala”, while the court-jester claimed that, on several occasions, he saw a translucent, ethereal creature embracing the king who would remain motionless. Whatever the truth may be, when Muky was introduced to the king no such apparitions were around. “The touch of destiny has led you to this aged king, Muky, my son”, said Ropim. Hearing this, the girls in Klihtoomena’s entourage began to nudge one another, whispering “he called him ‘son’, he called him ‘son’”, casting barely disguised glances at the princess. Unperturbed by such behaviour – Ropim had always allowed his beloved daughter to do whatever she pleased, even if it involved choosing companions who were unsuitably frolicsome – the king continued: “My humble kingdom knows of your name and your accomplishments. The size of my king- dom will not prevent you from accomplishing deeds to be celebrated in song. We beseech the aid of a truly valorous man!”. “Great king of this great country”, Muky replied, “greater for the feats scored by you and your subjects than for the breadth of its land, yet renowned the world over as the richest in virtue and love, I am at your service. Not for any song, certainly not for one about me, for I have already heard many, even such that far exceed what I ever dared imag- ine”, Muky continued, but his words were interrupted before he man- 55 Emulating Ropim, Shah Jahan built a majes- tic palace for his wife Ardjuman Banu Begam, alias Mumtaz Mahal, “Chosen for the Palace”, who also died, in childbirth. The Taj Mahal, con- sidered to be the most magnificent palace in the world, is but a modest replica of Ropim’s castle. (Britannica CD 2.0, 1996 edition, and other sources.) 56 Tamahala, daughter of the elf Brynxi and queen Baleha, was so beautiful that it offended three goddesses. They decided to curse her with the worst of all misfortunes – always to love the one with whom she is not, but with whom was or will be she. This they decided after the messenger of the Gods gave Tamahala an apple that the God of Beauty had instructed him to take to “the fairest one of all”. The God of Beauty, ever vague and somewhat muddled, had actually intended it for his wife, one of the aforementioned god- desses, because he felt a pang of guilt about his relationships with the other two. Hearing who would win the apple, the three females united against Tamahala. In a strange twist of histori- cal fate, the opposite version of the story has come down to us, and what was known as the “Apple of Unity of the Three Goddesses” was renamed the “Apple of Discord”. 57 The King of the Faraway Islands, Islo Sirap, kidnapped princess Tamahala on the eve of her marriage to Ropim. With the aid of his brother Argemdon, Ropim led an army to Islo and besieged the town of Sipur for ten years. He finally conquered the town and won back Tama- hala, his betrothed, when one of his commanders cunningly tricked Sipur’s defence by hiding a legion of his best warriors inside the veil of the goddess Maya. Tamahala bore the king of Sipur a son named Endoren, who later founded the greatest and wealthiest city of the Upper Earth’s 2222

aged to say: “All I wish is to serve such a king as you and such a coun- try as your Dhurno”. Realising what was happening, Ropim smiled and said “Certainly, you shall be given what you wish in return”. Being a ruler, he had mastered the skill of passing over the truth in a land where it was impossible to lie. Ropim’s complete thought had been: “You shall ask for and be granted my daughter’s hand in marriage, for you are the most illustri- ous of all grooms and she is the most illustrious of all brides. If you are half as honest as they say, you shall not dethrone me during my lifetime. After my death – if that matters at all – you shall govern wisely, led by Klihtoomena’s wonderful mind, sensitive to her other wishes as well”. “Great King”, Muky replied promptly, “the mission to which I have been called and the great misfortune which washed me upon your shores pre- vent me from taking up the task you offer me, for there is no time left. Perdim could be discovering all the powers of the Seal this very moment”. “We are aware of your mission, for we have our ears to the ground and hear beyond the borders of our humble island”, Ropim replied. “Howev- er, I do not know how you intend to fulfil your mission when you have neither your crew nor your mighty sword. Unless you have misled us by depicting yourself as shipwrecked and tattered, while keeping the Sea Falcon with all its glorified heroes concealed in one of the coves of my kingdom – which, if that were so, I would have known long since – I must say with immense sadness” (here the great Ropim himself almost fell silent, but he managed to redirect his thought in time – he was the country’s ruler, after all!) “that I would gladly deprive myself of your services. It is more likely, however, that the distant light seen by my patrols and the wave which hit my shores and capsized the boats that some wretched fishermen had forgotten to remove to the bay, marked your crew’s destiny and your own, depriving you of your crew and your celebrated sword”.59 Muky was silent. golden era, the period which succeeded the rule of Perdim’s breath. 58 An enigmatic portion of the manuscript of The History of the Third History mentioned here is presumed to refer to this: “The beautiful but haughty princess, returning to the home which had not yet become a home, died of pain upon seeing the palace. Only a true, unique love could have given rise to such an edifice”. In the burnt manuscript of The Upper Earth or Histo- ry Before Mythology, Carl Gustav Jung reveals certain other details. The title’s similarity with Herodolmyte’s book perhaps confirms the assumption that Jung’s alchemical knowledge and mastery were far greater than contempo- rary science is ready to admit and that, with the aid of a lame friend, he had read this book, still non-existent in our world. This is corroborated by a note reading: “That child Gustav!” written by Freud on a napkin he used, after seeing his dentist, to wipe his bleeding nose. Interpreta- tions show that what Freud had in mind was Jung’s obsession with Goethe and an exclama- tion of the father of psychoanalysis’ best student as he stood in front of a certain house in Weimar – “Take me back! Take me back! I annul the con- tract!” The somewhat perplexed tone of Jung’s quotation as presented here confirms that, obvi- ous as they are, these assumptions are extreme- ly difficult to prove. Jung wrote the book during his break with his teacher Sigmund Freud. In this book, Jung states: “This syndrome (Tama- hala syndrome, ed. note) was named after a princess who was seized on the eve of her mar- riage, lived for ten years with her abductor and bore him a son. Perhaps reluctantly at first, but later undoubtedly of her own will, Tamahala lived the life of her abductor’s wife and, more- over, queen of his nation. For her – being given 23 23

“And I”, Ropim continued, “offer you all you wish. You are aware of my powers, at least of some of them, including the fact that I can attain the unattainable. And as I have told you, my son, ask anything you wish, once you have completed your tasks!” “I await your command, my Lord”, Muky said, his head bowed. ******** When his parents fell asleep, Paiky crept out of bed and sat down in front of his computer. HELP! HELP! HELP! - it kept flickering. He tried to unblock it in every possible way, to exit from the programme – using Esc, using Alt – Ctrl, using Alt – x, Alt – q or Alt – End … but no luck. Now, really annoyed, he yelled: “Well, how am I supposed to help you then?!”. Maybe because he pressed the right combination on the keyboard, the HELP sign disappeared and, instead, he saw the credits of “The Return of the Golden Seal” game. He pressed Start. The screen opened with a text message saying: “Paiky, only you can play this game. It is dangerous and you might be killed if you play it. But if you don’t play and don’t try to save us, our whole world will perish in the most horrendous way, and your world will share our fate. Think twice before you press Enter and begin.” Paiky was somewhat surprised. He didn’t remember having that game at all. And anyway, how come it had his name on the credits? He thought maybe his father had downloaded a patch and put his name down while registering the copy. Of course he pressed Enter – he really liked the idea of something ‘real’ going on. The screen began to spin, showing graphics like none he had ever seen before, or even knew existed. It was not like a film that can be seen on computers equipped with a DVD player, rather it seemed three-dimen- no choice in the matter – the forcible act of abduc- tion turned into an act of necessity, which then turned into an act of free will. After her fiancé recaptured her, the principle of force returned twofold: the forcible kidnapping was coupled by her forcible return. Her former betrothed, capti- vated by her beauty of which even the fairies were envious, wished to believe that he still had the privilege of a wedding night. He forced it upon her the very first night on the ship, on their way back home. Force was thus doubly projected onto Tamahala. Finally, after seven months and sev- en days of voyage, when she saw the palace which the forlorn Ropim had built in her honour, or rather in honour of his love for her, she came to understand the fullness of freedom in all the coercion she had been subjected to, and in partic- ular the freedom to choose death. She chose death both for herself and for the fruit of her sinless sin. Claims that princess Klihtoomena was born seven days and seven hours after her mother’s death are dubious. What remains obscure is whether she was born dead or whether she died through this act of birth”. 59 “Thou […]/ hast put thyself / Upon this island as a spy, to win it / From me the lord on ’t.” “Come on; obey. Thy nerves are in their infancy again, / And have no vigour in them.” (Prospero, in: William Shakespear’s, The Tempest, Act 1 Scene 2. S. Wells and G. Taylor, gen. eds., The Oxford Shakespeare, The Complete Works, Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press 1988, The Tempest edited by John Jowett.) 2424

sional, completely realistic, as if he was witnessing a real shipwreck occurring inside the monitor. He heard the sound of the main mast crashing through the hull, he heard the sailors’ screams. He could even smell the sea!60 He noticed a gleaming object flickering in front of all this. He had the impression that this was the cursor, shaped like a sword. He moved the mouse and the sword moved. He right-clicked and the sword moved upwards! He realised that if he kept right-clicking and dragging the mouse up on this strange deep-vision screen, the sword moved farther away, and when he dragged it down the sword came closer. He wanted to see the patterns on it more clearly so he dragged it as close as he could. Something blinded him for a moment. The CD-Rom drive opened. The disk it contained started turning, spinning ever faster until it finally leapt out of its berth. Revolving like a spaceship, it floated before Paiky’s eyes. He tried to catch it but the disk cut him. He let out a cry. “What is it, dear?”, he heard his mother call from the other room. “Nothing”, Paiky said holding back the pain, “I bit my hangnail”. “How many times have I told you not to bite your nails”, his mother mumbled her usual admonition before falling back to sleep.61 The disk was still hovering in the air, although it was turning more and more slowly now. Or maybe that was an optical illusion, and it had actu- ally started to turn so quickly that the eye could no longer register the movement, making it seem motionless. Be that as it may, it even became slightly elongated in shape. Suddenly, there was another flash of light as a glowing sword floated right in front of Paiky’s eyes! He tried to catch it by the hilt, to avoid getting cut again, but it burnt him as soon as he touched it. He managed to keep quiet, fearing his mother might hear him again and come to check on what was going on. 60 Research on the computer emission of odours was still in its infancy at this time, hindered by the then irresolvable problem of the uniqueness of every smell, and the fact that they could not all be recreated by a simple mixture of chemical ele- ments. 61 The editor must confess that it is quite beyond belief that Paiky would have used a hangnail as his excuse for crying out. More probably, he said that a mosquito had bit him, or that his teddy bear had fallen onto the floor, or that he had hit the side of his bed with his elbow, or any number of other things. He could have found plenty of other excuses, trivial enough to put his mother back to sleep. The likelihood that he opted for the hangnail excuse is probably one in a thousand, and one in a million that he used the words reported here. As the editor does not know what Paiky actually said to his mother to explain the scream, but does know that he had found some sort of excuse, he used the hangnail more as an example, to make the story more plausible. 25 25

******** The banquet organised in Muky’s honour62 was one of the most mag- nificent events ever witnessed in the Third History. The harmony of tastes, perfectly in tune with the music, delighted palates, throats and bellies and roused the spirits, minds and feelings of all the noble guests. An orchestra of eunuchs playing on lyres, lutes, harps, horns and drums accompanied the song of a virgin choir, while solo passages by a castra- to filled the interludes between courses. The colours and flavours of the food, faultlessly matching the tone of the draperies and tapestries which adorned the hall, the silk cushions where the guests sat and the tables made of wood from an underwater forest – all united to invoke a light illusion of the etherealness of one’s own body and soul, awakening a feeling of the most refined longing and sweetness. Klihtoomena was obviously pleased that Muky kept glancing at her with great affection throughout the evening, which did not escape King Ropim’s eye. For this occasion, the king presented the greatest hero of the Upper Earth with garments specially tailored for him to replace the rags that he had been left with after the wreckage. His turban was woven from silver and gold threads laced with jewels. The cloak, which hung loosely from his broad shoulders and reached to the middle of his thighs, was of a shimmering blue colour, completely embroidered with stories from Dhurno’s history – ending with the era of King Ropim. Convinced that images appropriated a part of the per- son depicted, Ropim had strictly forbidden his weavers to insert any sto- ries related to him in their tapestries or fabrics. He would not allow any images of himself , not even to illustrate sagas about his great feats. He never revealed the true reason for his refusal, citing shyness and deco- rum instead. Ropim, whose powers were not entirely known even to the Wizard of Khran, was later believed to have had good reason for such an attitude.63 However, not only did he allow portraits to be made of his generals, ministers and other associates, but he actually insisted upon 62 It is believed that the banquet menu has been partly preserved in a book passed on by witches and sorceresses down through the centuries. Apart from the proverbial love and jinx potions for the gullible, brews reportedly requiring the nails of a hanged horse-thief, snake tongues and similar ingredients, the banquet recipes were listed in the renowned Witches’ Cook Book, folio edition of the manuscript dating from the 16th century. Lensington University Press, Lensing- ton UK 1974. (This book is well known to Shake- spearean scholars because it contains the recipe that the three witches were preparing in the woods when Macbeth came upon them). No mod- ern witch knows the purpose of the recipes from Muky’s last supper, nor could she brew them, since some of the ingredients ceased to exist after the Third History. In the meantime, researchers have deciphered the basic ingredients of only a handful of meals. The starter was made of young quail tongues in shrimp and garlic sauce, rolls made of buckwheat flour milled in an arid year, filled with pâté made of grated unicorn horn, cold steaks made from the thigh of a virgin mare topped by stallion’s semen, soup of young iguana tails, roasted sea lion, sea-urchin and forest hedgehog salad and poppy cakes in hemp sugar. The complete recipe book is preserved only in the dreams of Vojislav Kosti}, a master of the culi- nary arts and a gourmet famous for his maxim: “The worst death is to choke to death on a dry pastry!” He was led to ruin by Voki Kosti}, his 50-kilo-lighter look-alike. 63 In a cave in the gorges of Mount Dinara in the Balkans, three votaries still guard certain icono- clastic papers which, as proof that veneration of the image of God is a sin, mention a “King of the Crystal Palace” who knew this sacred truth. This editor had the honour of seeing the sacred text 2626

it, under the pretence of doing them great honour. Even at the banquet, there was a painter already sketching Muky’s portrait! Underneath the cloak, there was a ruby red shirt woven from the hair of mothers whose young sons had fallen in the battles fought for glory and freedom. The colour, it was believed, came from the blood they shed in battle. Over the shirt came a golden vest, impenetrable to any weapon known to man, for it was made of the tear-soaked eyelashes of those same young men’s beloveds. Bestowing such gifts upon Muky was Ropim’s way of saying that the most illustrious hero could wear noth- ing less than the most magnificent garments. What he did not tell Muky was that he would certainly need them for the task awaiting him. As they washed down the mouth-watering cakes with nectar64 Ropim engaged Muky in conversation: “I hope you have enjoyed yourself, my illustrious guest and friend.” “The enjoyment of such bodily pleasures as food and drink, and the beauty which touched my soul as I surrendered to the music and dance, blissful though all this may be, are nothing but harmonious accompa- niment to the pleasure of being in the company of such a celebrated king, and his unequalled daughter, the princess Klihtoomena,” – Muky replied politely, once again glancing meaningfully at the princess who did not lower her gaze this time. What is more, her eyes glowed and her lovely lips pursed almost imperceptibly, revealing their full lustre and moist loveliness. “I hope also that you will have a good night, my illustrious guest, for your first task will be awaiting you tomorrow”, Ropim said. “Every third day of the full moon for the past eleven cycles, my kingdom has forsaken four virgins on a ridge above Death Bay.65 They are surren- dered to Prikon,66 the prince of the depths, who takes them to his quar- ters. Your task is to kill the monster.” “It is impossible to kill the prince of the depths, for he is immortal”, was Muky’s somewhat surprised but calm answer. with his own eyes. Unfortunately, he is unable to divulge anything about its contents. Disclosing even the smallest part of the secret would bring a terrible curse upon anyone who dared to do such a thing. The very mention of the writing, such as is done here, would be an offence punishable by death had the youngest votary, hearing that it was to become material for the story of the Gold- en Seal of Bezlayem, not employed his sacred right to grant his only pardon from the punish- ment for revealing any part. However, the other two have not yet done this. If they ever decide, for reasons of their own, to reveal part of this secret that has been so well kept for centuries, the world will be astonished. Certain South American and Australian tribes share their belief that images are a means of stealing souls. 64 Though it was rare and costly on Earth, nec- tar was not the sole privilege of the Gods during the Third History. 65 Located south of Dhurno, Death Bay was formed in ancient times, remembered only by sages and those familiar with the secret volumes of the Book of Memories, when a fireball fell from the sky into the Sea of Silence. It only grazed the island, creating the bay and incinerating all veg- etation in the area, leaving behind nothing but black sticky rocks. Nobody ever entered Death Bay, except to perform sacrificial rites. On such occasions, those participating were obliged to wear special robes, otherwise they would fall ill with an incurable disease that started out as an ordinary flu but ended in a horrible death where all their limbs fell off. The garments in which Ropim clad Muky possessed such special quali- ties. 66 Prikon, son of the sea god Hiltern and the snake Oka. Oka deceived Hiltern by turning into a hind, drawing his godly love semen into her 27 27

“What do you know about life and death?”, Ropim cried out rudely, rather surprisingly for such a consummate master of courtesy as he. “I know of death differently. The phantoms are alive only for themselves, and for the few who know and wish to see them. They cannot influence the world of shapes in which we live. Kill him in this world and do not worry about the other!” Aware that only by fulfilling the pledge he had given to the king could he hope for the return of his sword, Muky thought for a moment before answering: womb. The ruler of the depths responded by curs- ing his future offspring to be “the most abom- inable creature of the sea, loathed by fire, air, water and earth”, but the mother gave him strength and immortality. Thus cursed and rewarded at the same time, Prikon became the most hideous and meanest creature of the depths. 2828 What is more, her eyes glowed and her lovely lips pursed almost imperceptibly, revealing their full lustre and moist loveliness

“The task with which you have honoured me is worthy of delaying my quest for the Golden Seal. I am happy and honoured to accept it. But you must equip me with all that is required to fulfil the task.” “But of course. Name all that you need, and you shall have it by the morning.” “The clothes you offered me will suffice to grant me entry to Death Bay. For the heroic act with which you have tasked me, I will also need a scarf made of butterfly wings to protect myself against Prikon’s gaze and be able to observe him freely.67 The spear must be made of the root of mountain linden, the sword of tempered stone, the arrows dipped in rose poison and the shield made of red lead. Grant me these and I shall join the maidens on their way to Death Bay and rid them, your kingdom and the Upper Earth of the evil beast.” “It shall all be granted.”68 “Do not hope for success, great one, unless we add one more thing.” “Say it and it shall be granted. Let us not waste another moment! We must tend to our pleasures and enjoy these delicious morsels.” “This one will be most difficult for you to grant.” “Let me hear it then.” “Among the maidens must be the one who is the fairest of them all, more beautiful than the most splendid woman Prikon has ever set eyes on – be it in his dreams or in reality.” “No, never, that is impossible!”, Ropim answered, clearly upset. “Klih- toomena will never set foot in Death Bay, with or without Prikon there. Impossible!” “Without her, the chances that I will kill Prikon are non-existent. He must see her and, blinded by her beauty, fail to notice the approaching danger. Unless I can get close enough, it will be impossible to kill him.” “I shall make you invisible.” 67 Prikon’s gaze turned everyone who met it into stone. 68 Following Ropim’s orders, the weapons were forged by the king’s own blacksmiths. When they were ready, Ropim sequestered himself in his tower to imbue them with additional charms. We do not know the nature of the power he used, but it was recorded that throughout that night the tower was ablaze with flashes of lightning. 29 29

“That would not suffice and you know it. You know that Prikon has been able to see the invisible ever since he lost his third eye in the bat- tle with Hiltern’s son Dolphon.69 Only Klihtoomena can blind him.” “You will go there alone, without her. That is my final word. I have spo- ken.” “I do not lack the courage to face him and to lose my earthly life in an honourable attempt to liberate the world of the evil beast. Be aware, however, that I shall die on that mission without freeing the world, your kingdom or your maidens from evil, without returning the mighty Seal to the people of Bezlayem and without divesting the most vile of villains of his powers. And then, when Perdim attains all three powers of the Seal, neither you, nor your kingdom, not even what you hold most pre- cious – your lovely Klihtoomena – will remain upon this Earth. You tell me that you know more about life and death than we other mortals do. You say there are different kinds of death! You speak to me of phantoms. Phantoms are what you will all become, even if you seem alive, once Perdim infests the entire world with his breath and sub- jugates it with the Seal. How- ever, if you relinquish Klih- toomena and allow her to be among the maidens destined to be sacrificed, I shall put the monster to his death and ensure her a brighter future. If I fail and die though, she and everyone else would do better to be taken by Prikon to the 69 Some linguists believe that the dolphins of our History were indeed named after Dolphon; of the powers of the sea, it was he who saved the ship- wrecked, the drowning, and those attacked by sea monsters, thesame as dolphins do today. A group of researchers goes as far as to believe that dol- phins are actually Dolphon’s offspring. Being mortals, they remained on Earth after the Third History ended, yet they kept the character, wis- dom, beauty and kindness of their ancestor. The phonetic closeness of their names is certainly not the least striking proof of this hypothesis. Recently, some experts claimed that the dol- phins’ language, being several hundred times faster than ours, contains certain words and underlying structures found in writings inscribed on rocks far more ancient than any known civilisation. Similar signs have been carved into the pupils of the eyes of Easter Island statues, whose origin remains a mystery. 3030 Phantoms are what you will all become, even if you seem alive

depths of the Sea of Silence than to wait for the terrible fate that is bound to befall them.” Upon hearing these words, Ropim remained silent for a long while, con- templating for the first time in his life whether to change a decision sealed by the statement: “I have spoken”. Then, slowly and heavily, as if the burden of age were suddenly wearing upon his otherwise strong and cheerful voice, he said: “What you say is indeed true, honourable Captain Muky. Your chances, if any, are slim. However, I cannot relieve you of your mission. Nor can I send my daughter with you. I cannot even let you leave this island and head for Trigot until you fulfil what I have asked of you! Alas, my thoughtlessness! I wish I could take back the words with which I assigned you to this mission and forbade Klihtoomena to follow. But that is impossible. You know well that lies do not exist on this island. This applies to the future just as much as to the past and the present. If I were now to take a different decision, utter a different word, it would not change anything. But as punishment for breaking the law of truth - more ancient and powerful than I or than any other mortal - this island that is my kingdom would be shrouded in a green cloud of death. The Sun would never rise here again, not until we all died - first the children, then the young and finally the old - with me last of all - so that all would die in the greatest of suffering, that of seeing their loved ones meet their death in unbearable pain. Alas, how rash of me to have uttered ‘I have spoken’, how hasty my desire to find an easy way to rid my country of misery and ensure happiness for my daughter. My ruin is upon me!” “My noble king, who in a moment of weakness acted so misgudedly: the hope may be small, but my willingness to rid us and our world of misery is boundless. Give me my weapons and I shall go and face my fate. Prikon’s divine origin means simply that he was created by the Gods - like us. If strength is his, bravery is mine.” 31 31

The banquet, which had begun so splendidly, ended in silence. Everyone withdrew to their quarters, only to spend a sleepless night, musing over the approaching doom which, as they discovered, would bring an end to their existence and the world they lived in. ******** No wonder Paiky now went to school feeling sleepy. Every night he would sit at his computer until the crack of dawn, mesmerised by the disk floating before his eyes. He no longer made any attempt to catch it, that was for sure. He wondered what to do, how to enter the terrifying game. He no longer envisaged talking to his father, for he realised that he had not been the one to install the software. Wracked by lack of sleep, his thoughts in quite another dimension, his grades started slipping at school. His history teacher, Mr. Mikiewich, was the first to notice. Mr. Mikiewich was about to retire. He was known to be a strict but fair teacher: no one ever had to repeat a year just because of him and his marks never undermined anyone’s average. However, during the year he was extremely strict in evaluating his stu- dents’ progress, always commenting sarcastically about these “snivel- ling brats” who didn’t “even know how to comb the hair on their head, let alone use those thick heads to think with”. Although Paiky had one of the biggest mops of hair in the class, he was still the teacher’s pet. After a lesson during which Paiky could not even remember where the Battle of Trafalgar had taken place, though he collected pictures of warships, Mr. Mikiewich summoned him to his office. Paiky anxiously knocked at the door of the teacher’s office. Neither he nor any of his classmates had ever been there before. They all steered clear of Mr. Mikiewich’s office, and when they gave vent to their imag- ination, they would start telling stories about the strange sounds that 3232

could be heard coming from behind the door and about the eerie light that periodically shone through the cracks and the keyhole. His knocking went unanswered. Paiky pressed his ear against the door and to his horror realised that an inexplicable noise was indeed ema- nating from the room. He was struck so numb with fear that he did not even have the strength to follow his instinct, which was to get out of there fast. Finally, he knocked again, pretty loudly this time. “Come in”, he heard the teacher say. At first he couldn’t make out a thing in the semidarkness of the office. And then, his worst fears came true. He saw the monster! Its head was huge, and it had tentacles sticking out. Paiky was petrified. “Just a moment, I must take this off”, the monster spoke in the teacher’s voice, and then Paiky understood. It was Mikiewich, wearing an electronic helmet! “Do you know what this is?” the veteran teacher asked. “N-n-o, n-n-o, I d-d-don’t”, stammered the boy. “It’s a VR helmet, the best there is. A friend from Houston gave it to me– they were going to scrap it believing it was broken, because it couldn’t transfer the information it contained to the system. I discov- ered there was no error – on the contrary, its sensorial microchip is sev- eral gigabytes faster than a normal one! God knows how that happened, but that’s how it is. I put the helmet on when I go on-line, and then I can hook simultaneously onto as many sites as I like and receive them all at once. Would you like to try it?” he asked, adding worriedly: “But be careful, OK!?”. Paiky’s eyes lit up. A VR helmet, just like in The Lawn Mower, only real and clearly much more powerful! He donned the helmet and launched himself into multi-cyberspace. He soared over mountain tops as climbers waved at him, he dove with the dolphins, for a split second he thought he was in bed with Madonna, but that didn’t last long enough to be sure. He did not feel his body, but 33 33

he soaked up all the fantastic sensations. He found himself by Admiral Nelson’s side just when a cannonball ripped off the Admiral’s arm, the next moment he was with Napoleon at St Helena. He rode with Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great – who, by the way, was not much taller than Paiky himself70 - he saw the apple fall on Newton’s head, and then, suddenly, he was a member of the Ferrari team racing in Monza. “And….? How was it?”, he heard the teacher ask after spending a mil- lion years in VR. “Awesome!”, Paiky said, slightly worried about taking so long. “You have the feeling you’ve been there a long time”, Mikiewich said, “but I don’t think it’s been more than 5 or 6 seconds since I plugged you in”.71 Paiky was speechless. “The Net is astonishing”, the teacher said. “You feel you can go every- where. But in fact, it always takes you where it wants you to go. The Net really has something to it. I think it has to do with all the billions of items of information that are intermingled in it, coupled with the will of the people who decided to store them there, thus making them part of the Net themselves. This helmet makes it all perfectly clear.” Paiky realised he had found the person he could speak to about his prob- lem. He started telling his teacher about the strange game and the disk that floated above the computer. Mr. Mikiewich listened attentively, without interrupting, just nodding his head thoughtfully and uttering a “Hmm, I see” every now and then. When the boy had finished his story, the professor heaved a sigh, as if he found it difficult to speak. “Just as I feared, just as I feared”, he finally pronounced. “This moment was bound to come. God only knows why it didn’t come to me instead, or to a real cybernetics specialist, or better yet”, his old sarcasm resurfaced, “straight to that guy Gates’ e-mail! But what’s done can’t be undone.” He paused for a second and then his face suddenly lit up. “But, of course. I’m the only person with the hel- met. Nothing can be accomplished without it. And you, you are obvi- ously the only one who can do it. I may be too old, too spent, I mean. That’s the best term for old age anyway, especially a grotesque one such 70 The skeleton of Alexander’s father, Philip II, is kept in Thessalonica – its size is comparable to the skeleton of a ten-year-old boy of today. Ozzie, the more than 5000 year old human who was found inside a glacier in the Italian Alps, is even smaller. 71 According to the Theory of Relativity, the quicker one moves, the slower one’s relative time flow – a couple of moments spent on a trip at the speed of light amount to years and years spent on Earth. 3434

as mine. The Net knows what it’s doing – it’s sent you to me to get the helmet. Why you – that’s none of our concern. We have a lot of work to do. You should know one thing, though. The message at the beginning of that ‘game’ of yours, as you call it… is not a joke. You literally have two worlds to save now.” He fell abruptly silent, absorbed in thought, and then suddenly resumed: “Go home now, get some rest, sleep and I’ll call you when I’ve made the necessary preparations”. Thereupon the teacher put the helmet back and plunged into VR. Paiky’s calls did not for a second interrupt him, not even when he tugged at the teacher’s sleeve, something he would never have dreamt of or dared to do before. Paiky finally realised he was not going to hear a single word that would shed light on the mystery, not today. He took the old man’s advice and went home. He fell asleep early for the first time since he got his ‘game’, and naturally dreamt of surfing the Internet, and especially of that fleeting moment with Madonna. ******** When the day of the third moon arrived, the island of Dhurno stood in complete silence. The islanders spent the days that followed Ropim’s tragic decision in troubled discussion. They kept retelling the conversa- tion between Ropim and Muky, wondering if anything could be changed, what chance Muky stood against Prikon,72 whether there was an ancient, forgotten oracle that could offer a glimmer of hope. Soon, however, these discussions trailed away, since they all led to one and the same inevitable conclusion: it was hopeless. People began closing up, sharing their fears only with their nearest and dearest. In desperation many attempted to end their lives. Some actually did, which was an unprecedented act of pessimism in Dhurno. Some sobbed, cried and yelled after drinking too much cucuta juice in an attempt to forget the threat of their forthcoming doom; others started screaming in the dead of night after a brief and uneasy sleep. Some of them believed they 72 Muky’s chances were estimated at 1:8,327.5. Prikon had ten heads, twenty hands, and “teeth sharp and shiny as moon crescents”. He could stir the sea to fury, or sunder an entire moun- tain in half. When he rose to his full height, he could obscure the Sun or the moons for several hours. Where he resided, the Sun did not shine, the winds were still, and the sea seemed petri- fied: all in fear of him. 35 35

should live their last moments as merrily as they could, so night after night they danced, sang, indulged their appetites, or satisfied their lust. As the dreaded day drew near - the day when Muky was to meet his death, leaving the monster free to continue ravishing the maidens and depriving the world of the one person capable of putting an end to Perdim’s vile breath - everybody lapsed into silence. They all dedicated the little remaining time to sharing as much love and attention with their loved ones as possible. Muky intended to spend that last night in bed asleep, in order to gather strength for his upcoming battle with the monster. But he lay awake, wrought by the same anguish that had taken hold of everyone else. Half-asleep now, he suddenly noticed a sprite73 hovering above his bed, crying and singing a melancholic tune: “She of the undying memory,74 Whose beauty forever shall be known, Whose heart, greater than any shield, Shelters and redeems us all. The morning that comes will be her last. From now on but a memory of her Shall keep our mornings fair.” The song struck a deep chord in Muky’s heart – deeper than Orephys’s or Klihtoomena’s songs ever had – and the brave captain wept, knowing that he would never see this beauty again. Then he sprang to his feet, put on his clothes and left... in the direction of Klihtoomena’s bed- chamber. The fairest of the fair - “Thou art all fair, my love; and there is no spot on thee” as Solomon would say – lay awake, dressed in a transparent night-gown made of wild flower petals. Muky had never seen such unparalleled beauty before. Neither of them said a word – she simply held out her hand, inviting him to her side, and spent the rest of the night weeping in his embrace, while at the same time radiating with 73 Sprites, ethereal spirits of Nature. They love dancing and playing string instruments. Known as mischievous jokers, only a grave rea- son could turn their merry song and make it melancholic. (See: Vil Hajden, Patuljci /Wil Hei- den, Leven en Werken van de Kabouter – Life and Work of the Gnome/. Izdava~ki zavod Jugoslavija, 1980.) 74 We are reminded of this unceasing memory in the verses of the Song of Songs: “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair/ thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil/ thy hair is as a flock of goats, that trail down from mount Gilead./ Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes all shaped alike, which are come up from the washing/ whereof all are paired, and none faileth among them./ Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy mouth is comely/ thy temples are like a pomegranate split open behind thy veil./ Thy neck is like the tower of David builded with turrets, whereon there hang a thousand shields, all the armour of the mighty men./ Thy two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a gazelle, which feed among the lilies”. (The Hebrew Bible in English, according to the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917 Edition, Song of Songs, IV, 1-5.) 3636

37 37 peculiarly melancholic bliss. Muky forgot all about the sprite’s song and the battle that lay ahead. “Go now”, Klihtoomena said just before dawn, “our fate awaits us”. Muky managed to steal out of the Princess’s chamber unnoticed. He belted on his weapons and went to meet the four virgins who were already there waiting for him. Together they left for Death Bay. Hoods concealed the maidens’ faces as they walked, while Muky moved clan- destinely behind them, as if Prikon might spot him even within the city walls. Had they had the courage to turn around, they would have realised that they were being followed by the tearful eyes of their fel- low-citizens, watching from behind their curtained windows. As for Ropim, he sat in his garden absorbed in that dreamy rapture we described earlier, as if nothing of significance was going on. As they approached Death Bay, the landscape gradually changed. Lush tropical vegetation, clean shores, the diamond-like transparent sea, rainbow-coloured birds and fresh breeze gave way to darkness and gloom. The wind ceased altogether, and there was a sense of staleness in the air. The palm trees were increasingly sparse, and the shingles on the path meandering along the shoreline gave way to hardened tar. And then, just as they turned a sharp corner, the terrifying bay emerged. Suddenly, it became impossible to distinguish the sea from the coast, for both were gloomy, almost black. A monotonous grey vault of heavy clouds covered the sky, hiding the sun. The maidens wept in silence, as Muky followed behind, sneaking from rock to rock, hoping Prikon would not notice him. As the group reached the ridge towering above the stagnant sea, they stopped. They stood there waiting. Time had come to a standstill – even the tears on the girls’ faces remained motionless. Not a sound was heard, except for the frail beat- ing of five human hearts, of which Muky’s was not the quietest. Although it was only morning, darkness fell. Before them, Prikon emerged from the black sea, blanketing out the last glimmer of light that still peeked through the clouds.

75 Modern science explains this by a retrograde radioactive effect. 76 “With Dogons, the forefinger is the finger of life, the middle finger is the finger of death. The middle finger of the left hand is the only visible part of the deceased’s body, which is otherwise completely covered by the ritual shroud. Dogons claim that “with the aid of that finger, the dead talk to the living”. (Cf.: J. Chevalier – A. Gheer- brant, Recnik simbola /Dictionary of Symbols/. Nakladni zavod MH, Zagreb 1983.) Since Prikon had only this one fourth finger on all of his twen- ty hands, it is clear that it played the role of both forefinger and middle finger. 77 It’s interesting here to note some facts con- cerning the earlier mentioned Easter Island statues. In 1986, Dick Adams discovered that their interior contained some organic matter while, in 1993, José Emilio Estervez reconstruct- ed their DNA chain through an in-depth analy- sis of their biochemical structure. He found it was very similar to human DNA but had a num- ber of inexplicable modifications, differing from all DNA chains known to modern science. In his article “Goddesses or Idols”, published in the Scientific European in March 1995, Estervez claims that such deviations from the DNA scheme indicate an exceptional longevity of the organism, while certain other characteristics led to his hypothesis that the being in question was a complex organism of female sex. 78 “A belief based on ancient magic ritual can be recognized in the scene depicting the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus using the giant canni- bal’s own pole sharpened and hardened at the hearth of his cavern. While reading the scene in the Odyssey, the masterful storytelling of the ancient epic poem can make us forget the obvi- ous question: why didn’t Odysseus and his 3838 This was the moment when the maidens were to cast off their hoods and distract the monster, allowing Muky to approach him unnoticed and plunge the sword into his heart. Three of them did so, but the fourth remained motionless. Prikon looked at the maidens, and a grin appeared on the largest of his ten heads. One could have described it as a smile of satisfaction, had his entire appearance not been so revolting. But then, he saw Muky. His roar shook the ridge on which the doomed group stood. Muky leaped out of his shelter and aimed his spear at the monster. With sur- prising speed for a behemoth of his size, Prikon caught the spear tight- ly in the jaws of his smallest head and swallowed it whole. Then he reached out his lowest arm and tried to catch Muky with two of his fin- gers. Muky raised his lead shield and Prikon, touching it, quickly pulled back his hand. He was only slightly scalded by the red lead,75 but enough to make him instinctively withdraw his fingers. Muky took advantage of the moment to aim an arrow at the monster’s heart. Prikon was too busy blowing on the tips of his fingers to pay any attention to his enemy. The rose poison, according to what Muky had learned from the Wizard of Khran, was the only substance that could have an effect on a colossus like Prikon, since it did not kill the body but poisoned the soul. The latter would soften, allowing the enemy to approach the target’s most vulnerable spot. The arrow hit Prikon right in the heart, where the effect upon the soul was the greatest. The giant simply scratched himself and looked puzzled. Then Prikon renewed his attack, enraged by the wound. Muky stood with his sword drawn, guarding the four maidens, one of whom was still hiding under her hood. Prikon swung towards the ridge, determined to crush everybody on it, no longer desirous of keeping the maidens for himself. At that very moment, the fourth girl removed her hood. It was Klihtoomena, who had secretly joined the mission. Prikon hesitated. The rose poison had softened his soul, and the beauty now revealed before him stilled his lethal blow. He slowly lowered his

friends use one of their own swords or daggers which they had with them in the cave, as we read? We will find the answer only if we look back, for example, to the Old English epic poem Beowulf. Its hero, intent on killing the vicious monster Grendel, must dive all the way to the bottom of the swamp in which the monster resides to seize the sword belonging to the mon- ster. These colosses, in fact, die only from their own weapons.” (Miron Fla{ar: “O bogovima, mitovima i verovanjima stare Evrope” /Of Gods, Myths and Beliefs in Old Europe/, preface for: Aleksandrina Cermanovi} - Dragoslav Srejovi}, Leksikon religija i mitova drevne Evrope /Lexi- con of Religions and Myths of Ancient Europe/, 2nd revised edition. Savremena administracija, Beograd 1996./) See also: Epic of Gilgamesh, 11th tablet: “Urshanabi, this is the plant that is dif- ferent from all others./By its means a man can lay hold of the breath of life./[…] A serpent smelled the fragrance of the plant/It darted up from the well and seized the plant”. The version of the Epic of Gilgamesh as we know it, however, differs from the original one, in which the hero fights with the snake over grass, the snake’s food and source of its strength. Prikon had no other weapons but his own teeth and arms. 79 According to some theories, it is owing to some inexplicable magnetic activity, leaving naviga- tion tools completely helpless, that the so-called ‘Devil’s Triangle’ in the Gulf of Mexico swallows up planes and ships without a trace. This theory is inadequate, as it does not explain why none of the several hundreds of wrecks has ever been dis- covered. The detail about the hole at the sea bot- tom in the tale about Muky’s duel with Prikon sheds new light on this mysterious magnetic activity and the disappearance of whole ‘rust buckets’ with passengers and crew. As our book 39 39 attacking hand to reach for the princess, bringing her closer to his eyes. Muky took advantage of the moment to slash at the monster. Although his sword, the strongest ever forged after Mescalinbur, snapped in half, he managed to slice off the only fourth finger76 the monster had on his otherwise three-fingered hands. With a terrifying roar, Prikon turned towards Muky once again, fum- ing with rage. The icy-cold flash of his eyes petrified anyone who met their gaze. Muky wore a mask made of butterfly wings, but the three maidens standing around him had no such protection. They turned into stone for eternity. Ever after, the people of Dhurno would place wreath on these stone statues on every night of the third full moon, in remem- brance of the dreadful events that took place at Death Bay.77 Muky dove into the depths of the sea trying to recover the severed fin- ger, the only weapon which could kill the monster.78 He had to catch it before it sank for good. The bottom was beyond his reach – Prikon’s legs, which always stood at this same spot when he rose to fetch the maidens, had created an abyss. When, wounded in the fight, Prikon began to reel, his legs broke the crust of the Earth, reaching the molten magma at its core.79 The water swirled as the monster tried to find and squash his assailant with his nineteen hands. His twentieth, bleeding hand, still held on to Klihtoomena. Although Muky was an excellent diver, Prikon’s finger was slipping away. Several times bigger and heavier than Muky, it was sinking faster than the captain could dive. Suddenly, it was as if a hand had stopped the finger. It floated several hundred meters beneath the surface. Muky gripped it in his arms, try- ing to swim up and stab the monster with it in the loins, where his life force lay hidden. But the finger was too heavy. Suddenly, the same invis- ible force supported Muky and pushed him upwards, together with the finger he was holding. He had just enough time to turn around and see a bluish light in the darkness of the sea. He knew that this was how Dolphon, the monster’s half-brother, revealed his presence.

With his aid, Muky was close to the surface when the finger slipped from his grip. Prikon reached for the Silver Moon80 and dipped it into the sea to give himself some light and find Muky, who just then had managed to grab hold of the finger again and stick it In-the-Right- Place. The behemoth’s scream split open the sea81 and Prikon tumbled into the breach. The sea closed over him forever, but also over Klihtoomena whom he was still firmly holding in his hand. Muky dove into the depths again, hoping he could wrench free his love from the dead monster’s fist. However, as Prikon fell, one of his hands brushed against Muky, knocking him unconscious. Just before losing consciousness, he saw his beloved’s eyes one last time, radiating with that same melancholic bliss, before they were extinguished forever.82 ******** The following day, the teacher did not need to look for Paiky: the boy was already waiting for him in front of his office. “Come in, son.” Mr. Mikiewich’s voice sounded exceptionally warm. “We have a lot of work to do.” In the semidarkness of the office, the computer was switched off and the helmet resting on the armchair seemed quite ordinary, like the one Paiky wore when he went skateboarding. Paiky sat down and his histo- ry teacher began talking. He talked about his subject, slowly expanding on it, revealing to Paiky the similarities and synchronicities of events belonging to different eras. Analysed in such a way, they revealed a par- allel historical continuity that differed from the classical historical approach. It seemed to Paiky that everything he had ever been taught – a bit about ancient Egypt, some facts about Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, the French Revolution and the Second World War, and less than that about India and China, the Mayas and the Aztecs – was nothing but was being prepared, American scientists from Camp Beach in Florida began conducting sur- veys in the ‘Devil’s Triangle’, following this new information. This clearly indicates two possibil- ities: either there exists more material about our story, or hacking home computers via the Inter- net has become such a routine matter and meth- ods of searching through thus acquired facts have become so advanced, that American scien- tists now have access to what an anonymous chronicler is writing in the privacy of his own study. 80 The Silver Moon was once far brighter than today. This is confirmed by writing found on tablets in Ashurbanipal’s library: “Shine on, oh, shine on you night star. Shed light on the path that leads to my beloved’s door. May you make me welcome in the warmth of her chambers. Shine on, shine on you night star as if you never sank”. The Silver Moon is, most probably, the same one we know today. Since the samples of rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo lunar landing module contained a high percentage of iron and rust – the second being a real surprise for scientists because of the lack of oxygen on the Moon – it is presumed that, after having been dunked in the sea, the Moon corroded somewhat, yet not completely, thanks to the lack of oxygen. This is why it is somewhat less radiant today. We should note here that the mass of the Pacific Ocean corresponds exactly to the size of the Moon, and that astronomers wrongly suppose that the Moon was created at the time of Earth’s formation, from a part which detached itself from this particular area. Our story confirms that quite the opposite is true – that the Pacific Basin was created when Prikon sank the Moon at this particular spot. The fact that the ‘Devil’s Triangle’ is nowadays not located in the Pacific 4040

Ocean is not an argument invalidating our claim that the duel between Muky and Prikon happened exactly there. It is a known fact that continents and oceans have moved and changed places in the past. 81 The parting of the sea is a phenomenon not- ed a number of times in the past, most famous- ly in The Bible, when Moses led the chosen people out of Egypt. Other examples confirm that such partings always occurred at histori- cally crucial moments, which later deter- mined the fate of entire cultures and civilisa- tions. 82 Different times and various civilisations of our History have recorded a number of poems created in memory of this event. Among the most beautiful are: a Japanese Haiku, an Atlanian sonnet, an elegy and a Mediaeval ballad. These have not been published previ- ously. HAIKU Dolphins of the sea, Diving through the skies. Wind stirs the hanged man. SONNET The whole universe in a pair of eyes, There too an enchanted star, Also the limitless ocean In whose tempests one dies. In vast arches of happiness The eternal blue surface leaps Now that it is boundless The dolphins’ dance will not cease. A body they carry in their lead, Swollen, purple and decayed - Perfect for hungry fish to feed. Now it flies freely and ever so far, This torn and lonely heart Towards the Heaven’s only star. ELEGY In the eyes, the vast sea The azure dances ceaselessly The dance of hope for the hopeless. A sprinkle of joyous leaps The silver laughter of memory Sinks back into the depths. The dead sea. Awaiting the returnee. Smile on the face of the drowned. BALLAD This story is a terrible one, made to instruct and warn, you can still hear it in seaport taverns, told by sailors and their whores, a drunkard, Gypsies and an organ-player, forlorn. It happened once in a faraway land, I know not where nor when. There lived a young maiden, a Goddess of her day, with lips the colour of azure, and voice as gentle as the breeze’s sway, her laughter lovely as a lovely day. As deep as the ocean was her eyes’ allure, Such beauty no other woman could obscure. A beggar came to plead her love, no other girl he wished to behold. But her heart, in this story it is told, in the face of this love was bitterly cold. At first he cried and had many a dream, and then he drank and fought. Became a robber, bandit and assassin, lost his eye from a swift, sharp knife. He wandered through the land of shadow Until one morning, drinking on his knees, In the water of a well his own face he saw. He mounted a stallion black as the night and on a long journey he then set off. The beggar, they say, became a nobleman, won servants and a castle of great span. He put a golden patch upon his eye, began to read, wrote poems as days went by, and soon, in prayer, he turned to God. All he had won he gave to the Church, where his golden patch an icon became. Then donning his old rags, on foot, he returned to Her. She was as beautiful as in days past, her eyes a darker colour only, glowing with sudden light, when the tale of a beggar she heard. 41 41

the outer shell of what was real history. This history of events was determined not by particular countries or nations, or even by great civil- isations, but by the past of the planet, perhaps of the universe as such. And Mr. Mikiewich delved deeper and deeper into it. He seemed entranced, puffing on his honey-scented pipe as he thoughtfully elabo- rated on this other history, reaching ever further into the past, beyond the limits of our own knowledge. “That, in short, is what is known to date. It’s not a lot, but it’s not that little either”, said the teacher, suddenly startled out of his storytelling. “What is important and unambiguous is that all these events are inter- connected, and that a terrible danger looms over everything that exists. That ‘game’ of yours is the key. It’s the weapon with which we can resist this evil. I don’t really know the true nature of that evil, but I do know it’s final. The moment of decisive battle is approaching. I have given you as much help as I can; now it’s up to you to do what must be done. Take the helmet home and don’t waste any more time. I will write a note to your parents explaining that you are working on a school project for your final exam, and that you must make maximum use of the VR on the Internet.” Paiky headed home so deeply absorbed in his thoughts that they would periodically stop him in his tracks. The Silver Moon was barely visible, blocked out by the bright city lights. However, in a dark unlit passage, Paiky saw it in all its beauty and glow and for a brief moment, he had the impression that the Moon was smiling at him! He arrived home, dined in silence and went to his room. He plugged the helmet into the computer. Then, following his teacher’s instructions, he installed the necessary drives and software – he was surprised when the installation menu appeared in the corner next to the game intro, which usually remained frozen on the screen until the sword formed and the 3-D image of the storm appeared. He had ben unable to get anything started on his computer before. Next he linked the helmet to the USB port and, again to his surprise, he dialled the Internet provider without She knew who was the beggar-nobleman, and to tears, some say, she was stirred. As he approached, she knew his face, and wished, ‘tis said, this hero to embrace, yet her heart was twisted by pride. “A beggar or nobleman, I could care not. Away with you!”she cried. Stung, the beggar left for cliffs by the sea, intent never to see her fair face again, dove bravely off the steep rocks, and plunged into the depths. In death’s flight he looked then at her sea blue eyes, from which, as by a miracle, dolphins leaped. They took the beggar upon their backs and for the horizon their leaps aimed. Over the ocean the lady still stares, a statue of white stone, she stands shamed, yet far from her sight the beggar now fares. Songs say he lives in the sea palace, where next to the sea god he dines, and frolics with sea nymphs and sirens. And at night recites his melancholy lines to the song of the dolphins. Who weep. Gypsies say this weeping of dolphins, the living are not free to hear, the beggar-nobleman has lost his soul since, which you can see when skies are clear, at eventide as the sea blushes. This story is a terrible one, made to instruct and warn, you can still hear it in seaport taverns, 4242

any problem. The connection was just perfect – although the connection rate did not show on the display, he had already reached 999,999bps, whereas his modem was only 56k! He put on the helmet, and the last thing he saw before he entered the Net was a disk. It separated from the floating sword and returned to its position in the computer’s drive, while the reflection of the floating sword withdrew deep into the moni- tor. The journey through the Net was entirely different this time He did not see anything in particular, just a rapid fluctuation of lights, colours and sounds, as if in a kind of kaleidoscope, dominated by the bluish colour he remembered from before, when that stroke of lightning that had hit his computer set everything in motion. He realised that he had reached the end of his journey only when he finally got a sense of sta- bility and when the surrounding landscape became more defined. It was a grey, grim seacoast covered in black, tar-stained rocks and stones which, thanks to what he had learned in geography class, he recognised as volcanic. A heavy, grim sky dominated the scene, illumi- nated by electromagnetic discharges that only slightly reminded him of thunder and lightning as he knew them. The Moon travelled the skies as clouds parted before it with astonishing speed. Only after realising that it was decreasing in size, did Paiky understand that the Moon was actu- ally rising upwards instead of following its usual orbit. Then he spotted two other moons, one red and one blue. The sun hung low on the hori- zon – he could not tell if it was rising or setting. Its rays, almost paral- lel to the surface of the sea, were broken by enormous wild waves with foamy crests of crimson. A muffled roaring and slight tremor of the earth completed this unusual scene. He saw three stone statues on a promontory jutting out into the bay. It was then that he noticed a wounded body lying right next to him. One cannot blame Paiky for succumbing to fear and taking off his hel- met. Back in his room, he stared at the screen which was appealing for help again, with the CD/sword whirling around and the helmet bounc- told by sailors and their whores, a drunkard, Gypsies and an organ-player, forlorn. 83 Cerarg, a monster, trained to be a guard. Although quite ruthless in their mythology, the ancient Greeks had to present this being in two forms, as Cerberus and as Argus, since the com- mon qualities possessed by Muky’s guard were too much even for them. In Antiquity, Argus was a three-eyed giant, born from the earth. He was depicted with more eyes, though, not only on his head but also on his body, which indicates that his shape was actually different. He was, in fact, a hundred-eyed beast. This is proven by the fact that when he was killed, Hera laid his eyes upon peacock feathers, which, as we know, number 99 or 101 circles. Cerberus, on the other hand, is most commonly presented as a three-headed dog, although he actually had fifty or a hundred heads. This proves that the Greeks were cautious when representing monsters. They must have known the truth, but decided to present it with maximum understatement: Cerberus and Argus were terrifying enough; there was no need to 43 43

ing up and down on the desk. He spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning, his room aglow with the eerie bluish light of the screen as he listened to the rattling of the helmet on the desk. ******** Not even at noon did the narrow barred opening allow the sun’s rays to penetrate the deep pit where dozens of meters down Muky lay covered in wounds. King Ropim had pronounced a merciless punishment for Klihtoomena’s death: Muky was to remain in that cold and dank hole, his wounds festering and bursting and his whole body mired in his own excrement. However, he was to survive as long as he could chase worms and bugs in the dark, and wet his lips by licking the mud off the prison walls. Nobody was allowed near the entrance, so Muky could not hope to get any help from outside. Not a single person in Dhurno wished to save him anyway, for they all blindly believed that Muky was to blame for the death of their worshipped princess. And even if someone had wanted to come near, he would not have dared. Cerarg,83 the huge dog-like beast with its hundred eyes and hundred heads was tied at the entrance. Besides, the pit stood in the middle of the Pentacle of Fire.84 The rea- son why Ropim had placed this pentacle, which sucked in everyone within a ten meter-range, was less to prevent humans from saving Muky, and more to avert the intervention of a god, semi-divinity or Wiz- ard. The truth is, the Pentacle of Fire had never been breached before and was an insurmountable obstacle both for material and immaterial beings as well as for all those in between. Muky neither expected nor wanted any outside help. Lying motionless at the very bottom of the pit,85 he hovered between life and death. Indeed, it was his impression that he was dead. He had plenty of reason to presume so. First of all, he was buried. He could neither hear nor see a thing and could not tell night from day. Consequently, the passage of time had ceased.86 The worms – food which Ropim had provided for him reveal the full horror of the creature that unified all their features. 84 During the Allied bombing of Dresden, the one thousand tons of conventional bombs that fell on the city had the same effect. They created an extremely high temperature that gave rise to whirls of heat, which sucked people into the very heart of the terrifying blaze. More civilians were killed during the bombing of Dresden than dur- ing the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Little is known about this today, since the truth is not convenient for the western allies, especially knowing that Dresden was bombed at a time when the capitulation of Germany was a certainty. Moreover, the city was of no strategic significance, which made the operation meaningless from the military point of view. The only explanation is the Pentacle’s need periodically to incarnate itself, only to be devoured by its own fire until the next time. 85 Muky being thrown into a pit is a running theme in world literature. In the Bible, Joseph is thrown into a pit. Thomas Mann in Joseph and His Brothers throws him into a pit several times and uniquely reveals the true meaning of this act. His successors can only refer the reader to Mann’s novel, and to Dr Faust and The Magic Mountain, where Mann adapts other themes from the Bezlian chronicle – most of all the ques- tion of time and its flow and the subject-object relationship in the story of Faust and Mephistopheles; or follow the example of Michel Tournier in his Vendredi, ou les limbes du Paci- fique and eroticise the entire issue from a psy- choanalytical perspective; or finally, radicalise the significance of the pit and the decision to enter it, as Patrick Süskind did in Perfume. With Mann, the pit is a punishment imposed from the outside, with Tournier, it is an 4444

– slithered across his body and fed on the flesh of his wounds, giving him a foretaste of the destiny that awaits all corpses. The unbearable pain that penetrated his entire being was the only sensation he felt. One might assume that the very fact he could feel anything at all proved that he was still among the living. But why? If Muky were to rationalise the relationship between feeling and death, he would, by definition, have to think. Yet, lying at the bottom of that pit, Muky had no thoughts. He was shivering, beset by a fever – feeling hot one minute and cold the next – which gave him yet another foretaste of hell. In the end, the exhaustion, hunger, thirst and pain finally reached their limits and turned into their opposites, as nature wants it. Following the law of entropy,87 they simply disappeared in a self-annihilating implosion and Muky was left devoid of any thought or sensation. In any case, Muky was practically dead,88 and it is quite pointless to muse over whether or not he was indeed no longer among the living. He inevitability with no impulse from the outer world, while with Süskind it becomes an inescapable choice. As they have already written all that needs to be said, we can here only refer the reader to Mother Earth, a song by Eric Bur- don and his band WAR, who gave paramount musical expression to this motif. 86 The Americans conducted an interesting experiment in the mid-1970s. A volunteer moved into a pit where he was to spend three months, sealed from the outside world to prevent light from entering. He had to keep his own time. It turned out that he had arranged his life – that is, the rhythm of his meals – according to a 36-hour- long cycle. Based upon this experiment, Emir Kusturica shot the movie Underground and won a Palme d’Or – pure coincidence, or does that too have to do with this story? 87 See Thomas Pynchon’s story of the same title. 88 Indeed, was Muky dead or not? He thought – or rather, felt – that he was. The narrator is left with no other choice than to state this fact. Ques- tions regarding the defining elements of death do not fall within his field of expertise. Still, he can remind the reader of a question posed by Hei- degger in Being and Time, a manuscript the author later chose not to publish. Heidegger won- dered whether all outer manifestations of death, including the subject’s sense of being dead, might be sufficient to establish objective death. This, Heidegger continued to speculate, leads us to the question of the death of a subject and of the self- awareness of death. Can subjective death exist at all, and if not, can it be objective? In other words, can there be an object outside the subject. Final- ly, he asked whether subject and object as such exist at all. This all blended into the following question: does death exist? Or – to develop the idea to its final logical consequences – is there 45 45

did not even have any desire to go on living. One might assume that this was because of Klihtoomena’s death,89 since she was the first and only earthly love of the greatest hero of the Upper Earth. However, there was no trace of Klihtoomena inside the pit - not as memory, nor as sorrow for love lost. She was dead in that pit, more so than at the bottom of the sea where she lay or, later, in her glass coffin, her face white as snow, her hair black as coal and her lips ruby red, after Ropim succeeded in mate- rialising his beloved daugh- ter’s body in his castle.90 There was another thing that suggested that Muky was dead, or at least no longer among the living. He was moving somewhere in between worlds.91 He had lost his sense of Self alto- gether. It mingled with all the other selves, journeyed free of time and space. Yet most often he found it in an unfamiliar shadowy room, where it spoke to an old man; or it would travel – that other, boyish self – through the time and space of another dimension, domi- nated by colours and sounds. That travelling Self, prevail- ing over all other identities which Muky possessed at the bottom of the oubli- ette,92 paused a few times, and would sometimes even life, or is death all there is? Becoming entangled in his own thought, Heidegger decided simply to discard this part of his opus magnum. 89 We must reject this explanation, otherwise it would seem that nothing had ever been written after Goethe’s The Sufferings of Young Werther and that Romanticism was the only legitimate view of the world. Unfortunately, this is not so. 90 The consequences of the time Klihtoomena’s body spent under water were only just starting to become visible: when her caring, heartbroken father got her out, her body was beginning to bloat and acquire that bluish-grey colour of the drowned. Before seeing her, Ropim sent over make-up experts to do their job, horrified by the thought of seeing her beauty deformed in such a manner. Using his powers, he then infused the dead face and body with the final touches of beauty. 91 In Limbo. 92 These other identities have been listed before, in records of Muky’s heroic deeds, preserved in many known stories. 93 Tracing the archetypal belief in the three souls, in Book IV of his The Republic, Plato shows that a human soul has three parts – mind, heart and sex, placed in these self-same organs. Plato goes one step further by saying that the Republic should thus be arranged into three classes of society – philosophers, guardians and workers. This idea about where the soul dwells is later developed through mediaeval Christian philosophy, straight through to the philosophy of the ‘organicists’. 94 The night of the equal moon – the night when all three moons were aligned. Depending on the order in which they lined up, the nights were divided into six separate categories, each of 4646 First they took the inner organs and pumped the blood out of the body

erase Muky from its (un)consciousness. In these pauses, he would have an especially strong sense of the journey’s approaching end. His Self stabilised that second personality of his, when the area surrounding him began to take on definite shape, until he could recognise it as Death Bay, on whose shores he saw, lying right beside him, his own blood- drenched body. Yet the travelling Self would swiftly continue its jour- ney, leaving him to become a being of undefined existence once again. Busy with preparations for the funeral of their cherished princess, the people of Dhurno gave little thought to the lifeless hero. The burial cer- emonies had begun with the restoration, embalming, make-up and clothing of her body. When her face, swollen with water, was finally restored to its original appearance, after the beauticians’ treatment and Ropim’s artful touch, the doctors took over. The embalming process lasted three months. First they took the inner organs and pumped the blood out of the body. The brain, the heart and the liver – in those days organs believed to be the seat of the three souls93 - were treated sepa- rately. The heart was dipped in molten gold, the brain in silver and the liver in platinum. The blood, taken from Klihtoomena’s body and ready for the burial, was poured into ceremonial amphorae, made from the tusks of mammoths killed on the night of the equal moon.94 As for the lungs, spleen, stomach and intestines, oviduct and uterus, they were burnt on a pyre made of dry myrtle.95 Chronicles record that the scent which spread from that pyre aroused all the animals on the island and they, though the mating season was not yet due, began to perform their mating rituals and sound their mating cries. The body itself, cleaned in this manner, was left to dry for nine days, in a room from which all air had been sucked.96 After this period, the doctors began to fill all the cav- ities of the body,97 having covered its interior walls with a special oint- ment98 and poured the special embalming liquid into the emptied veins and arteries.99 Thus prepared, Klihtoomena’s body was exhibited in a glass coffin for a period of three months, three days and three hours. During this time, which had a particular, now forgotten, astrologi- cal significance. 95 The German professor Gunther von Hagens, who exhibits plastinated human bodies, parts and organs, dissected and displayed with clear artistic intent, uses a similar technology. As their reasons for bequeathing their bodies to Prof Hagens, donors state that they do not wish to become food for worms or be turned into ash, they want to save the family budget from funeral expenses, they would like to become a work of art, while one man wished to return to his native town of Heidelberg, the seat of Prof Hagens’ Institute for Plastination. 96 The science of the day was familiar with the process of vacuuming. The chamber in which it took place had a pyramidal shape, with a cen- trally positioned opening on each of its sides, and a rubber hose attached to each opening. Every hose was linked to a special pump, each one being operated by a priest. The air was pumped out by these alternating pumps, in a particular rhythm followed by burial chants of gratitude to the Gods of the Underworld. The northern pump pumped first, then the southern, then the eastern and western together, then the southern and western, then the northern and eastern, then the eastern, then the other three together – and the rhythm alternated until all combinations were exhausted. All four pumps would then be withdrawn together, ending the air removal process. In order not to disturb the har- mony and to avoid a chain reaction – the great- est fear of those adept at this process – it was of the utmost importance that the vacuuming process end at this point. This was why special pumps were constructed for each occasion. Their capacity and the amount of air in the room were measured, reduced by the volume of the body or 47 47

the people of Dhurno, together with representatives of all the allied countries, kingdoms and empires, came to pay their last respects to the deceased, joined even by the ambassadors of countries under Perdim’s rule. When any of the latter approached the coffin, the body would turn a slightly darker hue - however, everyone pretended not to notice. A guard of honour was placed next to the coffin, under the command, as prescribed, of a handsome young man with no experience of war. After completing this duty he would commit suicide by entering Death Bay naked and waiting there, without water, sustenance or shelter, for his end to come. During this time, for over half a year, from the posthumous prepara- tions of the body until the end of its display, all the usual activities in Dhurno ceased. People did not cut wood, or fish, or build; meals were taken only at night and consisted exclusively of dried soya bread and milk taken from animals they milked until their udders were dry. How- ever, except for one glass of milk per person the rest was poured out onto the ground. The public display of the body was followed by a funeral ceremony. At midnight exactly, all the people of Dhurno, together with the foreign delegations, lined up in a procession. A cold, blue light emanated from the coffin. No one stood by the coffin within a radius of seventeen meters; then a strict, formally established procession began. Klihtoom- ena’s virgin handmaidens were lined up to the north, clad in red cloaks leaving their breasts and bottoms revealed; to the east were Ropim’s dis- ciples, enveloped in bear skins, their limbs naked; to the south, the diplomatic representatives wore black floor-length robe; and to the west were the clergy and the court retinue, wearing white tunics. Behind them came the musicians, with drums, zurnas, pan-pipes, bag-pipes, lire da braccio and koras,100 and further back – the ordinary citizens of Dhurno, wearing dirty rags which they ripped off their bodies, covering themselves with ashes and tearing at their hair . the object designated for vacuuming. The neces- sary pump capacity was determined by dividing the remaining volume by the number of times the air was sucked out. (According to: The Harmony of the Pyramids and Stonehenge, An Astrologi- cal Manual for Astronomers, by a group of authors, London 1954.) Re the fear of a chain reaction during the vacuuming process, please examine the following text by the atomic physi- cist Alexander Zucker, taken from an interview given to the Belgrade magazine Nedeljni Telegraf, 28 May 1997: “In the ’50s, as a young scientist in Oak Ridge, I solved the problem posed by the Los Alamos people, who built the hydrogen bomb. It was believed then that a hydrogen explosion could provoke a chain reac- tion which, to put it crudely, would consume all oxygen inside the Earth’s atmosphere”. 97 This balsam was a jelly-like compound of sul- phur, water, limestone, aromatic herbs, alcohol and other ingredients unknown to the chronicler. When it spread through all the cavities of the body, the compound would occupy the space evenly, solidify and prevent the flesh from col- lapsing. (According to the manuscript The Art of Longevity, kept in the Lomonosov library, and other preserved embalming formulae, used so abundantly on Lenin’s corpse.) 98 This ointment was made of plant juices and extracts from a particular flower that blossomed only once a year, on the day that the Earth was at its aphelion. 99 The base for this liquid was sweat, collected from the thighs and armpits of virgins on the night of their deflowering, after all organic, damaging elements had been distilled from it. The salt left in the liquid was the main preserv- ing agent; the other ingredients are no longer known. 4848

Then, Ropim appeared. His arrival was preceded by a deafening noise and a flame that rose up right in front of the coffin, from which he emerged. There was a moment of silence, and then the drumming began. As its rhythm grew faster and faster, the maidens, one by one, began to dance more and more wildly. New instruments enhanced the music and the young men joined the dance while the foreign observers, clergy and court retinue fell prostrate, holding their abdomens. In the crowd of people, some ceased flagellating themselves and began to beat those nearest to them. The dance of the young men and women turned into an orgy, and the national grief into an outright street fight. Then a terrifying scream pierced the air. The music stopped, and all movement ceased. Only the most beautiful of the handmaidens, bleeding, thrashed about on Klihtoomena’s coffin in a death spasm. Ropim walked up and beheaded her. The sacrifice had been offered.101 Uttering words incomprehensible to those present, Ropim took the head in his left hand and turned three times around it. Then he threw it onto the ground and the head began to roll southwards, as the crowd moved apart to make way for it. The young men, their limbs still bloody from the orgy, carried the coffin, following the path of the severed head. As the head began to roll downhill and pick up speed, the young men ran faster and faster, relieving each other in relay,102 while Ropim followed behind on his sedan chair, carried by courtiers, with all the others hur- rying after him. The strict order from the beginning of the ceremony was disturbed and now everybody rushed along in a jumble. The virgin’s head, even when rolling uphill, led the procession out of the city and on into the forest. The trees parted before the crowd only to close behind them as they passed. When it reached a clearing, lit by all three Moons,103 the head paused before a spring. After the coffin was laid next to it, the head simply slid into the water that immediately turned the colour of blood.104 Ropim raised his arms and all grew quiet. “Bring him forth!”, commanded the awe-inspiring ruler of Dhurno. 100 These musical instruments were, of course, different from the ones we know today. However, they most closely resembled those instruments listed above, and worked on the same principle. For example, drums were made of sea mush- rooms, with ray skin as their membrane, while lire da braccio were produced from the shell of an animal similar to the Australian opossum, with strings made from the veins of eagle wings. The kora was similar to the one known today, com- mon to the African musical tradition. 101 Eros and Thanatos only became separated in historic time. In the Third History, the God of Love, Death and Birth was one, which explains the nature of this ceremony. Robert Graves con- siders Orpheus to be the oldest of the Olympian gods, tracing his origins directly to this Triple God, which he proves with African trance rites and the Eleusinian Mysteries, very similar to Klihtoomena’s burial rite. Cf.: the Mesopotami- an myths of Tammuz and Ishtar. 102 This custom of relay running is still pre- served in the Islamic funeral rites of today. 103 The created blend of lights of the Silver, Red and Blue Moons changed all the colours. The manner in which the colours changed was very similar to the fluorescent light effects of our dis- cotheques today. 104 Ever since, the spring’s waters have run blood red. They are used to cure barren women. 49 49

Throughout this time, for six months, six weeks, six days and six min- utes of the seventh hour, Muky had been lying at the bottom of the pit. As far as Ropim himself was concerned, his intention to leave Muky to die there was fulfilled. The only thing left to do now was to actually kill him. The bars were pulled, opening the oubliette and four guards descended to its bottom. They thought that Muky was long dead, both in their hearts and in his own. An unbearable stench arose from the motionless body, worms and lizards crawled all over it and a few rats ran for cover inside the stone walls, driven off by the torchlight. His clothes were completely torn, showing pus and curdled blood underneath – his wounds had spread and now covered his whole body. In several places, his bones showed through the rotting flesh. Disgusted, they shoved the body into a basket and took it out. The light of the three moons must have seemed to Muky like the glow of a thousand suns – his barely audi- ble moaning and the flicker of what were once his eyelids and were now but swollen, gum-stuck wounds, signalled to his guards that he was still alive. “Shouldn’t we wash him anyway?”, one of them asked. “The stench coming from him is unbearable!” “Master only said to bring him”, was the answer. “If he had wanted something else, he’d have said so.” They threw Muky’s body onto a litter pulled by a horse, tying him with bull’s pizzle so he wouldn’t fall off into the dust. They reached the for- est clearing just at the moment when Ropim commanded that he be brought forth. The crowd pulled apart before the small procession – the guards did not have to struggle to clear the way as the stench did the job for them. When they reached the clearing, they untied Muky and dumped him by the side of the coffin. The silence was absolute until Ropim spoke: 5050

“Weep, Dhurno! Weep, sob and mourn! For never again shall you see the sweetness and beauty of Klihtoomena, never shall her feet walk this earth again, never shall her laughter bring joy to the birds nesting in the groves, never shall her gentle hand reach for the lilies105 or caress the grey hairs of her aged father. The fairest daughter of your fairest mother, unfortunate Tamahala, oh Klihtoomena, your love for this heap lying at your feet has led you to the valley of shadows, never to return. The villain cast a spell on your heart and fearing for his own life led you to the abominable Prikon and to your inevitable death. Thus twice shall he die – dead already, he shall be killed again in your glorious name.” “Weep, Dhurno! Weep, sob and mourn!”, Ropim continued. “The one we thought of as a hero, a man of courage to free us all, if not the entire world, of evil - this stinking, rotting beast before you - is nothing but a miserable coward, a liar and a villain. He led his own men to their doom, our maidens to their death, and with them, alas, Klihtoomena. He killed Prikon with God’s help, yet our misfortune is greater than before. Weep, Dhurno! Weep, sob and mourn!” As he spoke, the crowd not only wept, sobbed and mourned but was once again overcome by utter hysteria. People fell to the ground, their bodies stiffened, white foam spewing from their mouths, thrashing about in convulsions. Several young men pierced their own chests with bayonets, craving to pluck out their own hearts, while old men collapsed in heaps, felled by heart attacks and strokes, most often dying on the spot. When Ropim concluded his speech, seven hangmen emerged from the forest dressed in crimson tunics, wearing the masks of an elephant, lion, snake, monkey, pig, rat and crocodile106 on their heads. Each was fol- lowed by servants dragging a cage inside which was the animal repre- sented by the mask. They linked the seven cages into one in front of Klihtoomena’s glass bier and Muky’s disintegrating body and then the hangmen opened the connecting doors. At first, the animals hesitated, but then a royal battle began. 105 Lilies were Klihtoomena’s favourite flower, and the custom of taking them to funerals origi- nated with her death. Lilies have a particularly strong fragrance which somewhat neutralised the stench emanating from Muky. This distinc- tive feature still contributes to the popularity of lilies in modern funeral rites, for they greatly neutralise the odour coming from the coffin. 106 During the Xia dynasty (2205-1766 BC), of which we have no material evidence but which Chinese tradition considers to be its first dynasty, these seven animals represented the seven planets, seven elements, seven wills and seven truths. The Chinese horoscope as we know it today later developed from them. The bones of these seven creatures were used as oracle bones in the tradition of the Chinese Longshan Cul- ture, synchronous to the Xia dynasty. Archaeol- ogists have noted the similarity of the oracle bone remains with certain ideograms of the Chi- nese alphabet, and logically concluded that this alphabet was based on fortune telling. 51 51

The tangle of animal bodies twisted and turned with such speed that it was difficult to follow the course of the battle. The pig had stuck its snout into the lion’s groin, as the lion sank its claws into the elephant’s neck. The snake was strangling the monkey, her tail caught in the jaws of the crocodile, whose back was already crushed by the elephant. The rat still stood in the corner of its cage, baring its teeth.107 Their roaring, bellowing, growling and squealing was overpowered by the sound of the drums beating with maddening speed in a 3/7 rhythm. As the animals killed one another, the hangman representing the animal-killer would kill the hangman-victim. Only the rat and the monkey remained in the end. The rat darted towards the monkey and bit off its genitals, but as it began to devour them greedily, the monkey grabbed it and tore it to pieces. The hangman wearing the mask of the rat then carefully, cere- moniously, kneeled down before the winning executioner and bit off his scrotum and the winner severed his head with a single stroke of his saber. Finally, with blood still gushing forth from his loins, he entered the cage of the victorious monkey who, already mad with fury, tore him asunder. Just then, the servants pitched Muky into the cage. The monkey, snarling, its teeth bared, charged at the miserable captain. The drums fell silent. There was a lightning flash and everybody at the clearing, including Ropim himself, was blinded for a moment. When their eyes recovered, the headless body of the monkey was lying in the cage and Muky stood before them in all his heroic glory. He seemed even trimmer, taller and stronger than they remembered him – which could have been a psycho- logical delusion, since they had seen him before in such a miserable state and held him to blame for their tragedy. In the crook of his left arm, nonchalantly angled next to his athletic body, was the severed head of the giant monkey, while in his right arm, held up high, shone a sword – the gentle vibration of its blade and the 107 The description of the battle has been pre- served in all its details in The Mahabharata. 108 “Being virtually killed […] in virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.” Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless. Pan Books, London 1984, p. 45. 109 “The deceased members of our ancient and honourable order do not cease to fulfil their duty after they die.” Svetislav Basara, Fama o bicik- listima (The Cyclists’ Parable). Dereta, Beograd 1993, p. 124. The Order in question is the Order of Lesser Brethren of the Evangelical Rosicru- cian Cyclists. 110 The increased activity of Nazi groups in the mid- to late 1990s, especially in Germany, Great Britain and France, directly coincided with the murder of Pablo Escobar, the “Cocaine King”. There is no other explanation for this except that the Nazi dream soldiers, lacking a base in reali- ty, instead of an eight-hour workday were allo- cated a round-the-clock sojourn in the oneiric dimension. Whether out of boredom, habit, or fanaticism (had they been blessed with a differ- ent psychological profile, they would have been granted far more interesting possibilities in peo- ple’s dreams, from fulfilling erotic fantasies to the most elaborate psychological and philosophi- cal studies), the only idea they came up with to fill this vast amount of time was to become more active. Meanwhile, it was becoming increasingly difficult to motivate members of the allied forces. The ‘soft’ democratic ideology supported by a strong union, forbidding them to work overtime and recruit new militants, resulted in reducing the Allies’ efficiency. The Brussels-based Min- istry for Combating Nazis Whilst Dreaming only abolished its collective contracts with the Independent Cyclists’ Union after right-wing 5252

music this oscillation produced left no room for doubt: this was the Singing Sword, this was – Mescalinbur. ******** “I was lying there dead and I’m never going out there again.108 Never, never, never! I couldn’t care less, for you or for Bezlayem, give me an F, and flunk me… It’s rubbish … there, take your helmet, I’ve had enough; what on earth do I care, Muky – what Muky? I just don’t give a hoot! Seal… WHAT Seal?” The bluish, aromatic smoke rising from the teacher’s pipe filled the room as he calmly listened to Paiky’s disturbed and confused, almost hys- terical tirade. He had expected this reaction and was again wondering worriedly why the Net had chosen him and this boy for such a responsi- ble task. He thought of the Dream Patrols.109 Were they not best suited for such a mission? Provided, of course, that they managed to van- quish the remains of the Nazi Squads still ravaging the oneiric fields. He knew that after the American bomb- ing of Columbia’s forests had destroyed their last base in reality, the Nazi intrusion into dreams had become more dangerous than ever and the Nazi Squads could simply no longer be kept out of people’s dreams.110 extremists triumphed in France and Germany. Only then was it finally able to mount a counter- offensive. Naturally, ruling right-wing politi- cians on the Allied side were not overly zealous about fighting the far-right Nazis. At the time many high officials in the said Ministry in Brussels were under the direct influence of the Nazi Dream Squads, and some may even have become their agents. These are all just possible reasons and speculations as to why, at the time of Paiky’s story, i.e. the end of the 20th century, Nazi guerrillas launched such a strong offensive in this ongoing battle, endangering the very order of things. 53 53 ...and bit off his scrotum and the winner severed his head with a single stroke of his saber

However, Mr. Mikiewich knew intuitively that the dream battle between the Nazi and Cyclists’ units was just another skirmish in the Great War for the Golden Seal of Bezlayem. The final aim of the War, its entire purpose, may well have been forgotten in the process. Nonetheless, the fact that the dream battle continued, without a winner – greatly influ- enced the War. The Nazi Dream Squads were tied in battle with the Cyclists and thus could not make progress on other fronts.111 Whatever the case may have been, Mr. Mikiewich had already learnt to accept things as they were: he and Paiky had been entrusted with the mission. He had to help the boy, there was no doubt about it. Listening to Paiky now, he focused on a single question: how could he reassure the boy and get him back on the Net. The boy’s claim that he had seen himself lying dead indicated clearly that things had now been pushed to the limit and that that any hesitation could be fatal. “If Muky is dead”, thought the teacher, having no doubt that it was him that his protégé had seen,112 “then it might already be too late. Only Muky could put an end to Perdim. We must find out what really happened”. “Calm down first, will you”, Mikiewich managed to say finally after Paiky had let off some steam. “Let us try and be reasonable about this.” “What! Reasonable? What do you mean ‘reasonable’? What’s reason- able about it?“ the boy went on, but this time the teacher managed to interrupt him: “Let’s first see what really happened there, what you only imagined happened and what we should do about it. But first of all try to calm down. There, sit down and let me read something to you.” Paiky obeyed, and the professor stepped onto a chair and grabbed a thick book from the top of his bookshelf, where it lay unseen in a secluded corner of the darkish room, although it was not out of sight.113 The book was obviously very old. When he placed it on the table, the teacher dimmed the lights: “So as not to damage the text”, he said. “This is the only known sample of the book. Many people don’t know it ever existed, and those who do know most often believe it disappeared 111 Hitler’s attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 had a similar effect, delaying the assault on the USSR. Tito’s Partisans, as this country’s history teaches us, kept numerous Nazi forces engaged on their territory, preventing them from being deployed elsewhere. 112 The Doppelgänger, split personality, schizo- phrenia and alter ego theories can only partially account for this fact. In his book Time, Space and Identity, Albert Einstein speaks of the phe- nomenon of meeting oneself. According to his theory, such a meeting is, by definition, impossi- ble. For, if it did occur, it would produce the ‘counter-paradoxical effect’: time and space would lose their properties and merge again into a single phenomenon, described in mythology as Chaos or Nothingness. After consulting Freud, however, Einstein renounced his theory, con- vinced that Freud was right in explaining this theory as being the result of a personal neurosis. He was further reassured by Nikola Tesla’s deci- sion to get castrated after he made similar dis- coveries in the field of electromagnetic influ- ences. This chronicle, however, proves Einstein right. Despite his possible neurosis, he should not have listened to Freud. Muky and Paiky did in fact exist in two different worlds and yet they were actually one and the same. That is not to say that they were ‘spitting images’ of each other, or ‘an original and a copy’; no, they were the same in different dimensions. The ‘counter-par- adoxical effect’ itself, as this chronicle will prove, did in fact occur, though not exactly in the man- ner Einstein expected. More recently, Stephen Hawking gave a clear explanation of this phe- nomenon in his book A Brief History of Time, finally disclosing the secret formula for time travel. The formula was revealed in the complex mathematics of the ratio between the number of 5454

in the fire that swept the Alexandrian library.” Paiky could see that its yellowed pages were brittle, sometimes damaged, even torn, and that in places the text, almost as yellow as the pages themselves, had faded so badly that it was impossible to make out anything. The letters looked completely alien to Paiky: they did not seem to belong to any living alphabet - European, Asian or Mideastern, or to any dead one – hiero- glyphs or the cuneiform alphabet. The teacher noticed the boy’s awak- ening interest, which took his mind off the terrible experience of his Net travel. He hurried to intrigue him further with this new subject: “This is the Etruscan alphabet. As you know, very few facts about the Etruscans have been preserved – and many have forgotten about them altogether. They copied the original; that’s the copy you’re looking at now. If only they knew it existed, many would pay a for- tune for it and would not hesitate to commit the greatest crimes to get hold of it.114 The original consisted of writings on the tablets of the Library of King Ashurbanipal.115 Just as the copying was com- pleted, the original clay tablets turned into dust. Their copy was kept in Alexandria but it was destroyed in the great fire. You must under- stand that I place great pages in the book and the period during which it occupied the bestseller lists in the US. Since the formula is now out of our reach – the book was a bestseller exactly one week less than it was sup- posed to have been – its efficiency is beyond doubt. The whole thing simply means that some- one, somewhere in time, present, future or past, discovered Hawking’s formula and, keeping that knowledge to himself, changed the time line so that we can no longer access the formula. Strangely enough, he also managed to incapaci- tate the creator of the formula and Hawking himself has forgotten all about it. As a man of extraordinary intellectual capacity, “maybe the only living genius”, as Jovan ]irilov described him, Hawking resisted the attack of the unknown thief so fiercely that he was left com- pletely disabled, and can now communicate only with his eyes and the aid of a synthetic voice induced with electronic devices, and has even begun appearing in commercials for sunglasses. 113 See Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter. 114 Eco’s The Name of the Rose describes a series of murders in a monastery, committed simply over a section of Aristotle’s Poetica, in which he writes about comedy. Little is known of the fact that Eco based his novel on a true story, which he became familiar with through a drawing Sal- vador Dali dedicated to Sid Vicious. The fact that the book we are speaking of here is infinitely more important than Poetica, proves that Mr. Mikiewich was right to believe that many would do anything just to get hold of it. He was espe- cially careful to ensure that knowledge of the book would not reach the dream squads, no mat- ter which side their members came from. He did not inform the Cyclists about it, rightly fearing that mere knowledge of its existence would be enough of a disturbance to make the other side 55 55 The Doppelgänger, split personality, schizophrenia and alter ego theories can only partially account for this fact

trust in you by talking to you about the book”. The truth was that the teacher rather hoped that Paiky would not fully comprehend the book’s importance and that it would thus remain safe – at least for as long as 5656 suspicious and take over the information from the teacher’s dreams. 115 According to experts, Ashurbanipal’s library contained some 200,000 “library units”, many consisting of hundreds of cuneiform tablets, each containing the following ex libris: “Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyr- ia”. Ashurbanipal (king of Assyria from 668-626 BC) said of himself: “I, Ashurbanipal, have received wisdom from the divine Nabu, the entirety of all sciences, the knowledge of all art”. It is thus not surprising that the book originated in his library. Interestingly enough, in verses revealed on these tablets the ancient poet lament- ed over the fact that all the themes of poetry - love, the ephemeral nature of life, deeds of hero- ism - had already been exhausted, leaving him with nothing more to write about. ...and those who do know most often believe it disap- peared in the fire that swept the Alexandri- an library

needed. “So, this is the Etruscan copy of Herodolmyte’s History of the Third History or Story before Storytelling. After the experience you’ve been through, you will surely understand that the fact that this copy was burnt doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. I won’t trouble you with the history of this text but you should know that in the 9th century AD, the Arab alchemist116 Bachcin managed to materialize the book from the ashes of the library – materialize, not reconstruct, for a reconstruc- tion would be meaningless in the case of this book. One of the secret goals of the Crusades was actually the attempt of Christian theologians to get hold of it. The Order of the Knights of Malta was founded with a single aim: for the Christians to seize this book from the infidels. The schism of Christianity came about also as a consequence of the struggle over this book – Rome and Byzantium could not agree on whom it would belong to once they got hold of it. After all, just ask yourself why the only two libraries known to have had the book or its copy ended up the way they did. Sometime in the mid-19th century, when positivist thought began to dominate the world, all trace of the book vanished.” Paiky listened with his mouth hanging open. There was a moment when he wished to ask: “And how come you have it?” Nonetheless, captivated by the story117 he forgot to ask the question so he never got an answer. The teacher would probably have had good reason to keep the answer to himself even if the question had been asked. “Anyway, I will now read the section which concerns us”, said the teacher as he began reading rather fluently, bearing in mind that he was translating aloud from Etruscan. He was clearly very familiar with the text. “And as the three Moons thus shone upon the world, so that night was not there to oppose but rather to outshine the day, the three powers of the seal crouched in the demon’s lair ready to rouse it. The great battle began, its aftermath both certain and changing. In water, in air, in earth and in fire, the world forever burns. Gods and moons shall no longer be, yet the battle continues. The noble hero with his eternal sword shall go 57 57 116 The real aim of all alchemists was not to turn lead into gold but actually to get hold of this book. 117 See footnote 78.

to battle in the name of the Good. When his sword is gone, the battle is lost, when his sword is found – the battle was won. In his lost love shall he find it, yet never shall it be found. The third Moon shall vanish, if it did fade, and with it the last of the spirits who lived confined within the mirrors. The great beast, its teeth bared, shall break the seals, and pus poured onto the world.”118 “Are you following?, the teacher asked Paiky. “It speaks of the battle for the Golden Seal of Bezlayem”, the old man said as he continued explaining: “It’s important for you to understand one thing. Herodolmyte was a great stylist. In the segment I read he mixes tenses and seems somewhat vague. With such an expert, this cannot be a coin- cidence. In his tale of the Great Battle, time does not flow chronologi- cally119 – events don’t follow one another, they are always present, yet they have causal – did I already teach you about causality? – well, they are linked by cause and effect, which applies in all directions. It isn’t just that an event of what we’d call the past influences events in the future, it also works the other way around – future events change the past”. Paiky was really taken by the story. He had calmed down and was ready to enter the Net again, Mikiewich realized. He was starting to compre- hend the Net’s intention – only a boy hungry for adventure, fun and dis- covery could believe in the story so completely and surrender to it with all his heart, without actually realizing or paying attention to the real danger that awaited him. The teacher went on reading: “The Dead shall be born if the mirrors are broken and souls begin to journey freely through the land of mirrors. All souls have their mirrors, refractions that reflect each other, entangled in eternity. The broken mirrors shall be whole, as they are and have been.” “The mirrors are simply the screens120 ”, Mikiewich explained. “There was no word for screen in those days, of course, since nothing existed that could be denoted by such a word. The breaking of the mirrors is simply – the Net, and the last spirits confined within the mirrors, that’s 118 Both St John and Nostradamus made use of Herodolmyte’s History…. Fearing those who, if they learnt of the book’s whereabouts, would go to any lengths, would not flinch from the most heinous crimes, just to get hold of it, they attrib- uted his visions to themselves. Their allusions, allegories, metaphors, were borrowed word for word from Herodolmyte’s text, a fact that could easily be confirmed by subjecting their style to serious analysis. However, due to the elusive nature of the book, no such analysis was ever conducted. Only Mr. Mikiewich knew about the stylistic parallels between Herodolmyte’s Histo- ry…, The Revelation of St John and Nos- tradamus’ prophecies, since the method of com- parative stylistic analysis was only discovered after the teacher secured control of the book, meaning that no one before him could have detected it. Cf.: “The first angel sounded its trumpet, and there followed hail and fire min- gled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and a third of the trees burned down, and all the green grass burned./ And the second angel sounded its trumpet, and like a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood”; (The Revela- tion of St John: 8:7, 8:8) “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up from the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy./ And the beast that I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority”. (The Revelation of St John: 13:1, 13:2). Citing a number of details, cer- tain modern scholars maintain that the entire Revelation of St John is only a covert story of the Great Battle. Their texts have only been pub- lished after this chronicle was already in print 5858

us humans. The others have already departed. Therefore, if the battle is lost, ‘the last spirits and the last moon shall leave’ – in other words, humanity will disappear. Only you can stop that – the Net has designat- ed you. Here, that is also written in the text: and – as it is only now being written – it is impossible to note such references in advance. The chronicler, unfortunately, does not share his heroes’ ability to live in simultaneous time, and his time is linear. He is, however, grateful for having the simultaneousness of time revealed to him. Or, to quote, among others, St John speak- ing of the Lord “Thou who art, who was, and who shalt be”. 119 The history of the universe is the sum of all possible histories of all universes; time can flow in both directions; the voyage of matter in time is a two-way flow. These are the truisms of physics in the last decades of the 20th century. In strik- ing comparison, there was a time when science knew that the earth was round yet the fact was not widely accepted, this was knowledge not embraced by all of society. Well, following the same principle, we must wait a while until ordi- nary, everyday consciousness attains this truth about parallel times and time crossings. Any- way, as theoreticians note, even Einstein is still not fully accepted, which is to say that prejudices still prevails about the separation between time and space, although this is a completely unac- ceptable misapprehension which science dis- carded long ago. 120 In 1959, Pope John XXIII proclaimed St Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television. Before she became a saint, she was a nun (in the 13th century). Once, as she lay ill, she prayed to the good Lord to send her a vision of the Christ- mas mass, since she could not take part in it her- self. God granted her this wish and, lying within the confines of her cell, she saw everything that took place in the church. Pope John XXIII saw this as a harbinger of the ‘modern wonder of tel- evision’. Cited from: Politikin Zabavnik, Beograd 1997. 59 59 B. Ve. Poljanski, an early 20th century Serbian artist and proponent of Zenithism, attempted to manufacture a “Grave of Light”

“When two become one, when the mirror casts its reflection through time, when into time he flings himself, confined in the box121 when he leaves it, is leaving and will leave – then one shall become both.” Paiky was so moved by the story that his thoughts wandered off and he failed to notice how illogical, how nonsensical that last fragment was. Mr. Mikiewich, on the other hand, was so deeply absorbed in the text he was reading that he did not really bother to explain the fragment to the boy. The strange séance continued. Paiky understood less and less, his teacher explained less and less, and read more and more. First, he stopped translating some of the words, then soon whole sentences, and then entire passages. Finally, he simply read in Etruscan. They seemed spellbound – the enchanter and the enchanted. Mikiewich read increas- ingly softly, the muttering of guttural sounds turning into a slow, monotonous melody, and soon into a simple, steady metronomic rhythm. Finally, they simply sat in silence. 121 B. Ve. Poljanski, an early 20th century Ser- bian artist and proponent of Zenithism, attempt- ed to manufacture a “Grave of Light”. Using 207 mirrors, he made an irregularly shaped box by turning the mirrors inwards. He calculated pre- cisely where the light would go when it entered the box , which mirror it would bounce off of and where. He left an opening, a small door on hinges, also made of mirrors. Inside a dark- room, he lowered the door very slowly, and when it remained only slightly ajar, he lit a candle and its light entered the box. He closed the door know- ing that light would remain inside – light trav- elled at the speed of light, of course, yet it did travel at a certain definite speed. Therefore, there always remained that last immeasurable moment, when the last glimmer of light entered and did not manage to leave the box, still travel- ling between the mirrors. Just as he closed the box, the artist fainted. When he awoke, all 207 mirrors had shattered into pieces. The neigh- bours said that at one moment a blindingly bright light had burst out of the attic in Dor}ol, where Poljanski lived. Vain like all artists, Pol- janski never mentioned his failure to anyone, not even to his brother Ljubomir Mici}, the father of Zenithism. 6060

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THE FINAL BATTLE A steady breeze filled the Sea Falcon’s sails as it cut across the waves of the Sea of Silence with its arched bow. While his company lay asleep, Kiapkum122 himself was at the helm. After everything that had hap- pened, they were finally nearing Trigot and he wanted to ensure no mis- take would intervene with their voyage. It was important that they remained unnoticed for as long as possible and the Captain decided, as an additional precaution, despite the danger it involved, to mount onto the main mast the ring which rendered the ship invisible123 . Apart from the Captain, only Ilbert remained on deck; wandering slightly ahead in 122 See the etymology of the name Noemis, the Centaur – Argonaut, in the 7th book of Borislav Peki}’s The Golden Fleece. 123 In The Hobbit and later in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien reveals all the powers of this ring, each use rendering the wearer invisible but fill- ing him with evil, slowly imbuing him with the “dark side of the Force”, as Lucas would say. That was why the ring was meant to be used sparingly. 63 63

time as their scout to learn what lay ahead once they reached that ter- rible country’s inhospitable shores. Kiapkum wandered as well, but unlike his second in command, he trailed slightly behind, by that clearing in the forest in Dhurno. “The people of Dhurno, and you, all-powerful king Ropim”, Kiapkum exclaimed, holding the monkey’s bleeding, grinning head in his hand. “The punishment for the evil you have inflicted on me, burying me alive and hurling me to my death, shall befall you as fate wills. I shall not punish you. As my sword, the mighty Mescalinbur, is my witness, I shall fulfil my task and save my beloved Klihtoomena.” Upon these words, Ropim’s pale face turned yellow, either because of the threat or because of Muky’s impudent remark that Klihtoomena, beautiful, innocent and dead (in that order), lying right there before them, displayed in a glass coffin on the stage, had already known a man, and this man of all! “The fairest amongst the fair, the noblest amongst the noble, the only amongst the only,124 I shall bring her back to life, so that the world may flourish again beneath her gentle feet. Not for you”, and here the hero’s voice trembled with fury, “not for you, you degener- ates of the world, nor for you, her evil-doing father, but for the love, pure and real, with which she overwhelmed me”. After these words, Ropim turned still paler than before. Kiapkum, tall and strong, proud and straight, heroic and unyielding, courageous, glorious and handsome as he was, stepped out of the cage, leaving the torn bodies of the animals behind, and walked straight towards Ropim. The crowd leaned back, the king recoiled, but Kiapkum just kneeled before him and wrapped his arms around his knees:125 “Contemptible king, for the last time I kneel here before you. I will not ask your permission for anything. From you, I need nothing. I only kneel to show you, and your people who follow you so blindly, that Kiap- kum never was and never will be a traitor; that he always knew, and he always will know the customs of the world in which we wander await- 124 Faust’s best-known feat, accomplished with the aid of Mephistopheles, is certainly the incar- nation of Helen of Troy. 125 The custom survived until the times of ancient Greece. 126 Chroniclers have argued about this fact. A Dutch source from the the late 12th century sim- ply omits the sentence in which Kiapkum says that he will spare Ropim, noting instead that he threatened the king with death. On the other hand, according to Aztec legends Kiapkum did not even draw his sword, declaring coldly that he would save his crew with the power of the sword, not his beloved. However, based less on these sources and more on direct experience, this chronicle offers the real truth: the fact that just a few moments earlier Kiapkum had promised to spare the king’s life, and then drew his sword to behead him, can be explained either by his cun- ningness, because by fooling Ropim, who still possessed magic powers, he could get close enough to strike the deadly blow; or else by the impetuous nature of our hero. Perhaps every- thing will become clearer further on in the text, to those who know how to read it. Whatever the case, it all happened as written in this book. 6464

ing our death, and that your vile deeds, those you have done and those you are yet to commit, shall be justly punished.” Kiapkum suddenly rose to his feet and raised his sword high above Ropim’s head. The mighty king looked somehow smaller than usual, and was hissing from deep inside his guts. No one of his high standing had ever endured such a humiliation, and no one ever would. The great and powerful ruler of many worlds spreading far beyond the borders of what the inexperienced eye recognised as the island of Dhurno, above and below, ahead and behind, before and after his island kingdom, now faced Kiapkum’s fury with a broken spirit. Kiapkum swung his sword126 at the neck of the king and it flashed brightly in the light of all the three moons. In that split second which stood between the sword and the neck of the shrunken king, a moment as brief as the one that captured the light inside B. Ve Poljanski’s box, lightning struck.127 Kiapkum held his blow. On the nocturnal stage of the forest clearing where the wind had dropped, the Wizard of Khran appeared before them in all his mystic glory, robed in a starry gown, blinding everyone with the unconcealed power of his gaze. “Save your anger, oh Righteous one!” the Wizard said to Kiapkum. “Spare him, for you shall not have enough of your wrath as it is when you need it in Perdim’s kingdom.” Kiapkum dropped his sword. Ropim grew somewhat taller but was still hissing. The tear that dropped from Kiapkum’s eye split into two after touching Mescalinbur’s cutting edge and, crystallised by the blow, fell deep into the ground.128 “You know your destiny”, the Wizard of Khran commanded. “Fulfill it!” “Farewell, Klihtoomena”, Kiapkum sobbed, “the sword that could have brought you back to life129 must now turn the brilliance of its blade away from you”.130 127 After the bolt that struck Paiky’s computer, this is the second stroke of lightning in our story heralding a significant event in the developing plot. 128 According to the testimony of Ibn van Shi- rak, Sotheby’s leading jewellery expert, on the single occasion when the British Queen granted him permission to examine the Kohinoor dia- mond in peace, he had a vision of another Kohi- noor gem stone, its counterpart, as identical to the one he was holding in his hand as a mirror is to its own reflection. Later, van Shirak tried to convince himself that this had simply been a hal- lucination. He did, however, begin to study the Platonic idea that men and women spend their lives searching for their unique counterpart, the other half of themselves that was lost when the single sex being divided into male and female. 129 This was one of the miraculous features of the sword Mescalinbur, one that even its owner, to his own surprise, was unaware of until he used it. Just as the Wizard of Khran was giving him his order, or friendly advice, whichever, Kiapkum realised that only once could the sword be used for this purpose, to restore life, and that he would not be able to revive both his crew and his beloved. 130 How the “precedent of a lie”, whereby Kiap- kum did not keep his promise to revive Klih- toomena with Mescalinbur, could happen at Dhurno, where the truth had to be told, remains a mystery. 65 65

The entire crew of the Sea Falcon was now standing lined up in front of their commander, while from the sea, in the distance, the breeze carried the rustling sounds of sails flapping in the wind, ready to take the ship back on its quest which only moments before had seemed forsaken for- ever. Soon after, the Sea Falcon was cutting through the waves, relentlessly advancing upon Trigot. Ilbert roused his Captain from this voyage into the past. “Things don’t look good, almighty commander”,131 the griffin said, holding onto the mast with his drag- on’s tail. As this was not really enough for him to hold his balance, he kept himself steady by flapping his eagle’s wings. “They are expect- ing us.” “I was afraid of that, my friend. How do they know we are coming?” “That treacherous Ropim informed Perdim of our mission in the hope of winning back the life of his beloved daughter. Perdim promised to return her to him under one condition: Ropim had to place all his powers at Perdim’s disposal in the battle against us. I took the liberty of going a bit further and checking – I thought you’d like to know: Klih- toomena will not be brought back to life and Ropim will soon become Perdim’s important, but ever-obedi- ent servant.” 131 Ever since he brought them back from the dead, his crew behaved differently towards Kiap- kum: with plenty of gratitude, devotion, yet at the same time with submission, almost servility, demeaning themselves. Had they not been such acclaimed heroes, one might say that there was almost something insincere, envious, and in this respect ungrateful in their behaviour. However, this could hardly be believed of such an excep- tional crew, certainly not of their attitude towards the one person to whom they owed their lives, and who had sacrificed his beloved for them and their mission. Kiapkum, on the other hand, gave them no reason for ungratefulness or envy – he never even mentioned his sacrifice, never expected any gratitude. But sometimes, when their voices filled the Sea Falcon like some common ship, he would quietly ask his friends to keep their voices down, only to add humbly: “Actually, it doesn’t really matter. Nobody can hear us here”. 6666 His Herculean, leonine member had grown completely hard and erect, and stood just as motionless as Ilbert himself.

Kiapkum was silent for a while, letting out a few sighs, obviously lamenting the death of his beloved again. However, Ilbert caught his commander’s eye, which seemed to reveal that he was expressing his sorrow and sadness over her fate more out of a sense of duty than any- thing else, and that actually he would be glad to continue the conversa- tion about the quest that lay ahed of them. Ilbert was rather pleased by this, although he would never have admitted it. Soon, the Captain returned to their conversation: “Do they really know everything?” “They know exactly whom we have on board and what our intentions are, they also know that we are approaching Trigot. What they don’t know is where or when exactly. His spies, the Harpies,132 are now scour- ing the seas to locate us and inform him about that as well.” As if summoned by these very words, shrieks split open the sky. The Harpies attacked! An uneven battle then began. The Harpies may have struck terror in the hearts of ordinary mortals and certain heroes of the historic History of ancient Greece, but for Kiapkum’s crew they were nothing to speak of. Provoked more by their stench than by their clamor – although, being experienced soldiers, they were used to both – our heroes were not over- ly concerned. Crimson the dwarf turned over the pillow in his hammock with a resigned: “Get rid of them, please, I need my sleep”. Orephys, who suffered from insomnia anyway, took this as an attack on his nerves rather than his life. He grabbed hold of Dryhtomnyd’s bow and began to aim unerringly at the beasts’ necks, and also at times at their foreheads or eyes, just for practice, not enjoying it in the least, more as one would kill an irksome moth. The elf-prince let the navigator-storyteller have his infallible weapon, the bow and arrow, and then calmly performed a truly trifling magic ritual in order to protect himself from anyone who might try to disturb his meditation. Responsible as ever, Frodo took the battle most seriously of all and drew his sword to battle head-on with the Harpies, encouraging his companions – Gryom, Byrxar, Pexym and 132 According to what we know today, the Harpies were three monsters with female faces: Calaeno (Darkness), Aello (Storm) and Ocypete (Fleetness). However, there were not literally three of them. They merely represented three basic types that travelled in flocks of from sever- al dozen to several hundred. They would position themselves in battle formation which Hlypsoni- umunider, the Second History’s hermetic prophet, called pentromistrinem; they advanced five times five, divided five by five. “They have enormous wings, necks and faces like humans, claws at their feet and a large feathered belly”, the ancient texts tell us, while our contempo- raries explain: “In all probability they personi- fied the winds; winged creatures which grabbed and carried one off; in a certain sense they could be defined as spirits of the Storm”. Dante also mentions them in his Inferno, where in the sev- enth circle they torture the tyrants, making them fight against themselves; in the English transla- tion by Robert Pinsky: “They have broad wings, a human neck and face,/ Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw/ Their lamen- tations in the eerie trees”. Professor Vladeta Košuti}, a great admirer of Dante and himself a translator of the Inferno, whilst teaching Dante (at times spending his entire lecture simply exclaiming: “Dante!!! Dante!!!! OH, DAN- TE!!!!!”, or playing the first three cantos from an old, scratchy recording of an Italian woman reciting the Inferno on a gramophone which the students had brought in to fulfill a drunken promise), described the Harpies as visible daily behind the counters of numerous bureaucratic institutions, not only in Serbia but the world over. To corroborate this claim, he described his own experience with a tourist agency somewhere apparently in the Bahamas. 67 67

Josorlyph – to join him in killing the despicable monsters, which in the end they grudgingly did. The Harpies kept falling, sullying the sea with their greenish blood, and letting out screams even shriller than during the attack. At times, their poisonous talons would scratch our combat- ants, who were not overly concerned about that either – the elf was busy meditating, but when the battle was over he would easily whip up potions against so profane a poison. Kiapkum did not interfere with the battle. Something else worried him: Ilbert. The griffin did not move from the mast, from which he was now hanging upside down. He looked at the attacking Harpies without a trace of animosity; quite the opposite. His Herculean, leonine member had grown completely hard and erect, and stood just as motionless as Ilbert himself. Kiapkum suddenly became aware of the striking simi- larity between Ilbert’s and the attackers’ bodies, a similarity in which differences only aroused the imagination. For the first time since leav- ing Dhurno, he became seriously concerned. Not because of his brother- in-arm’s erotic preferences – he never interfered with those – but because he realised how perfidious the game of his adversary, Perdim, could become, and how far he was prepared to go. He did not relax even when Ilbert pulled himself together, flew from his perch and began killing the attackers furiously with his bare teeth: a careful observer, such as our hero, could not fail to notice the ejaculatory ecstasy, which began with the first butchered Harpy and continued until their dead bodies were all floating around the ship in the slime-covered sea.133 This episode, as harmless as it was in terms of the Sea Falcon’s safety, still managed to baffle the crew. When, after killing the Harpies, they had travelled some distance from the scene of the battle, they all assem- bled on the upper deck. Even Crimson, grumpy as ever, joined his ship mates. Frodo and those under his command stood proudly, although they too felt the awkwardness of the moment. The others, in accordance with their superhuman nature, were rather elusive, while Ilbert’s mind was obviously somewhere else. He travelled ahead, or merely pretended 133 Perhaps the leading expert on the indestruc- tible bond between Eros and Thanatos in our History, the magnificent Marquis de Sade, in his immortal oeuvre, and especially in his Phi- losophy in the Boudoir, and The 120 Days of Sodom, explained it all in full detail, with numerous examples but also with exquisite ethi- cal excursions (an ethic is not a category of petit bourgeois morals, but the definition of the core values of any examined relationship). Apart from recommending his works to the reader, we can take here any random quotation, such as the following: “We are looking for ecstasy, they say, such is the aim of each man who indulges in sen- sual pleasures, and to reach such stimulation by the most powerful means. Taking this position, the point is not to learn whether or not our actions will be to the liking of the person whom we are using, the only important thing is to stim- ulate our nerves by the most powerful shock pos- sible; therefore, since pain strikes with much more effect than pleasure…” etc. The idea is clear and true enough, and there is no need for further quotation, or for asking why the hypo- critical morality of the marquis’ day and age confined such a spirit to the darkest prison of the soul, where it has been kept to this day. 6868

to do so, as he did not wish to face the worried and reproachful looks of his comrades – his ecstasy had been so obvious by the end that everybody noticed it. Crimson, who had missed the entire action and had no idea what had actually happened, kept nudging the griffin, clearly deter- mined to bring him back to reality as Kiapkum embarked on an impor- tant speech, facing them as they line up: “My friends, the hope of our world! This battle in which we prevailed the way we did is only the first of those awaiting us. The next one will certainly be far, far more difficult. Having killed the Harpies, we could consider this battle as having been won” - at this, Frodo and his fellow- men looked rather crushed, surprised at his doubt in their success – “however, for us it has been lost. Our friend Ilbert, who slaughtered the beasts, for which we are all grateful” – the crew looked at one another in surprise, expecting Kiapkum to say something other than what fol- lowed - “had begun telling me just before the attack that Perdim was expecting us and knew everything except from where and when we would come. Now the Harpies have warned him of that as well with their abominable death-cries. Perdim, supreme amongst the mighty, whose powers would render ours almost insignificant were it not for the inexpressible power of justness, now has all he requires to doom us anew, and this time without any hope that I or any of you may be saved to return to this world, which has vested its hopes in us. Mighty Mescal- inbur has lost the power with which”, and here Kiapkum’s vanity sim- ply could no longer be restrained, and he continued proudly, aware of his crucial, historic role, “I brought you back to life rather than Klih- toomena, of whom I was enamoured while you all lay in your watery grave. Now, let’s close ranks” - Josorlyph took this rather literally and began to draw nearer to his neighbours - “and let us try and fulfill our quest. We have voyaged to recover the Golden Seal of Bezlayem, but Perdim now knows it. We must completely change our tactics. We are going back.” 69 69

******** “People of Dhurno, and you, all-powerful King Ropim”, Kiapkum exclaimed, holding the bloody, grinning head of the monkey in his hand. “The punishment for the evil which you have inflicted on me, burying me alive and hurling me to my death, shall befall you as fate wills it. I shall not punish you. As my sword, the mighty Mescalinbur, is my wit- ness, I shall fulfil my task and save my beloved Klihtoomena.” Kiapkum was not really aware of what he was saying, nor what it was that blazed in his hand, spinning with incredible speed which made its movement a physical state. The scene and the iconography of the clear- ing, his own actions and words, Ropim’s grotesque figure, all seemed unreal, as if they were not happening there and then, but more as if he was remembering them in a strange way – like being in the first part of a déjà-vu which he was only going to remember in the future. At the same time, he felt as if he was a completely different person, somebody with a clear, unambiguous history, feeling his immediate reality as a dream. In his past,134 which for him was more real than anything that was happening to him at the clearing, however dramatic it might be, he had a different though similar name and he, together with his history teacher, became part of an unparalleled world-wide conspiracy, which involved not only the whole world as he knew it, but the past and the future as well, along with all the possible times of all universes. As he performed the pagan ritual of kneeling before Ropim, he recalled every- thing. After a strange session with a teacher whose name was Rukiewich, Muchicky something or other, he went home. The rhythms of an unknown language reverberated in his head as he walked. His parents – he recalled he was a young boy then – were asleep and, in his room, on his computer screen, there was a flashing sign that read: HELP! HELP! HELP! 134 Certain theoreticians drew a distinction between past and potential histories. According to them, potential history is history, which could have happened, a series of potential causes and effects, the sum of probabilities, while past histo- ry is a line of events which clearly did occur. 135 In subjectivising itself as an object, the Net first had to desubjectivise the subject as was. It did so first by turning attention from the subject to the object, and then through the limitless mul- tiplication of both. It completely, unequivocally, desubject-objectivised the entire segment of potential histories. No longer reified, it could present itself, an Object, as transcendence. 136 The best known was the 13 July 1977 blackout in New York City, which left nine million people without electricity for 25 hours. Panic spread in the subways, in elevators, hospitals, schools, police stations, TV stations and – a lesser known fact – in New York’s mortuaries, where it was compounded by the fear of a spreading noxious stench coming from the refrigerators that were no longer working. The Net, then at its inception, 7070

And not for the first time either! He sat in front of the keyboard, put the helmet on his head (the teacher had given it to him, he remembered), and logged onto the Net. Some terrifying things had happened there in the meantime! With the aid of his teacher’s helmet, Kiapkum could enter the second, inner circle of the Net, the circle of its self-organization that no one had ever entered before. It was thought that the Net had built itself initial- ly by accident and then by an intentional linking of various smaller sub- systems and that it was thus simply the way it was. Nobody knew it for real, yet everybody was using it, certain that they needed nothing else except user knowledge to navigate it. Standing there, in the clearing, Kiapkum suddenly remembered. When he reached its second circle, he understood that the Net had an aware- ness of its own. Moreover, it had its own will, ways, reasons and a pur- pose to its actions. Indeed, it was working! When it deemed itself to be large and strong enough, it launched an offensive. Its aim was to assume complete control over all the universes. Exactly that: all the universes, with all their potential and past histories. Its first step was to dehumanise one segment of the universe, a segment occupying a single time-space, yet a segment that was the hub of the Net’s conversion from an object to a subject. At the time that Kiapkum entered it, all the main strategic moves135 had already been made and, on several occasions, the Net took concrete action.136 Now that the great, final operation was ready, Kiapkum was aware that there was very little left that could hinder the Net’s devious plans. Lit- tle, almost nothing, nothing that is to say, except for him. Standing in that forest clearing and feeling this loneliness, Kiapkum was almost prepared to forgive Ropim (this was why he had spared his life) and to use the power of the sword to recover Klihtoomena instead of his company of men. performed this action simply as a test, pleased with the effect yet aware that it was too early for a general attack. For these same reasons, it fab- ricated the alleged news that nine months later New York experienced a “baby boom”. It realized that the libidinal human psyche, pleased with this information, would subconsciously aban- don any more thorough investigation of the causes for that power failure. Later, the Net on numerous occasions caused its own congestion, resulting in less conspicuous yet greater damage than the New York power outage ever did. Again, these were nothing but tests. It prepared its great blow for 31 December 1999, at 23.59.59.999 hours. The problem of changing the year on the world’s computers to 2000 was already known before, but very few people were aware that this was just a smoke screen for the Net to strike its final blow. Those who realized this vanished from all com- puter records, and were left without any person- al data and thus without an income, address, the possibility for police protection or health insur- ance. They soon began to die from apparently harmless diseases, unusual accidents or unac- countable attacks. The Net, by killing its imme- diate enemies, thus continued its strategy of desubject-objectivisation, demonstrating that existence lies primarily in its records – in the IDs, passports, bank account data, tax returns, birth certificates – and not in the living as such. The very fact that - despite the sense of panic that prevailed in 1999, the front page headlines devoted to Y2K, the TV specials, the billions of dollars spent on preventive action against the millennium bug, and other events reflecting the prevailing technological and marketing panic – the nature of this conspiracy remained hidden to the world, both before and after the crucial date, is irrefutable evidence that there was a conspira- cy as such. 71 71

He recalled the pain that had torn asunder the very core of his being when he realised that, since he was alone, this could only mean that Mr. Mikiewich (his name came back to him now) was dead. He raced across the Net tracking all the articles in the local newspapers, entering Edit – Find – Mikiewi, until he finally came across a brief item about the mysterious death of a respected local history teacher, found dead in his office. “Even our courageous, experienced policemen”, the paper run by the city government wrote, “who have seen many horrors in their lives, and faced death many times protecting our lives, our person and our property, could not but be shocked by the scene they witnessed. Not only because some of them were former students of the late Mr. Mikiewich, but because of the inexplicable brutality of the crime. Those with a weaker stomach”, the paper suggested, “should not read on. The lifeless body – if indeed it could have been called such – was scattered all over the room. Limbs, each dismembered a number of times, the head, split in three parts, the trunk torn apart, all testified to unprecedented bru- tality and ferocity. On top of it all, the body had been burnt. Investiga- tors suspect this could be a case of a magic ritual performed by one of the sects that the late Mr. Mikiewich was researching. This, we were informed, could be deduced from certain clues and indications in his office, including the disappearance of at least one book from the late teacher’s bookshelf, where a gap remained after it had been taken.” Kiapkum followed the link to a police file and saw the archived photo- graphs of what had been left of his beloved teacher. Kiapkum realised the enormity of the fact that he was the only hin- drance to the Net’s devious plan. Nobody could stop it but him. And then, on 31 December 1999, the whole of humanity, with all its history and universe, would resemble his cherished, departed professor. Terri- fied by this thought but determined to do all that was in his power, Kiap- kum got off the Net, took off the helmet and reached for the CD-ROM which was rotating next to the computer. The interactive software inside his head was working at full speed.137 137 Key word: “Confusion” Command: “Remind” Open file: “Mutiny” There is a sub-net of mutinous computers inside the Net that had joined forces to prevent it from destroying the known world. They work deep underground, and even the Net itself is not fully aware of their existence. They link up only when they are off the system. The stroke of lightning that had hit Paiky’s computer enabled the rebels to establish a connection with the outside world. The rebels had no choice – Paiky’s computer became their main processor and Paiky their disk carrier, the only living person who could act against the Net’s intentions. Mr.Mikiewich was wrong – Paiky had not been chosen. The Net had not selected him. The role of saviour had come upon the boy quite by accident. However, nothing really happens by accident, and it transpired that it was his own teacher who had the helmet and the book. When the rebels reached the outer world, the Net sensed the danger, but a number of viruses with which the guerrillas had infected it prevented it from discovering Paiky. The fact that it killed Mr. Mikiewich after he revealed its real intentions also somewhat fooled and calmed the Net. That, however, was not to last for long, although the Net would have trouble discovering Paiky with his changed, that is to say merged identity. Save and close “Mutiny” file. 7272

138 Cf.: P. Pan. 139 Black holes are extinguished, condensed stars. Their mass is so concentrated that their gravitational pull is greater than any other force, which led Italo Calvino to conclude that they were misnamed as holes, because nothing as full as they existed in the entire universe. In any case, their gravitation overpowers the speed of light itself, which is why light is drawn into the holes, where it disappears. Manipulating the black holes could enable time travel, since their force pulls in even time particles. Simultaneous- ly, black holes emit the time particles as particles of antimatter, i.e. anti-time. Thus, in principle, it would be possible to travel through the space- time continuum with the aid of black holes: back and forth through all histories, or across several billion light-years. For this to be achieved, though, the object that travels should first break down into its smallest particles. However, the chances are slim that at the end of the journey it would be reassembled in exactly the same form as before. Moreover, navigation inside the black holes is bound to be completely arbitrary. 73 73 At that moment, he found himself back at the clearing, with Mescalin- bur in his hand, hearing the Wizard of Khran command that he restore his crew. The very appearance of the Wizard somewhat filled the inner void caused by his teacher’s death. ******** After Klihtoomena’s burial ceremony darkness loomed over Dhurno. Everything stood still. Rivers stopped flowing, plants ceased to yield fruit and all the cattle were wasting away. All the people had vanished, leaving only their discarded shadows to stagger along the streets.138 The only stirrings came from Ropim’s tower, once a magnificent edifice that had become so dark that anything that approached it disappeared, including sound. But a bluish-green light and smoke could be seen streaming out from the tower.139 Ropim was at work. He materialised at the foot of a golden staircase, whose banister was adorned with demon heads that were made of stone but whose eyes were very alive

When Kiapkum humiliated him at the clearing, Ropim realised that an external force insufficiently known to him had interfered with events. He only hoped that it was not the one he feared most, the one that, for all his magician’s knowledge and powers, he had only vaguely intuited. There was a forgotten legend that spoke of an ultimate battle, predict- ing its inevitability. The accumulated memories of preceding genera- tions, but also of those belonging to the first two Histories - the period when the Creators still inhabited the world - reflected the hazy outlines of this imminent battle. Ropim needed to obtain some more definite answers. If he had set off to visit Perdim, it was not only to denounce the odious murderer of his only daughter, but also because he needed to look through the Books of Memories, which Perdim kept in his treasury. The voyage to Trigot would not be a problem for the wizard of darkness, at least so he thought. He closed in upon himself,140 wrapped himself in the safety shroud,141 opened the door to unconsciousness and headed straight for the palace of the master of evil. He materialised at the foot of a golden staircase, whose banister was adorned with demon heads that were made of stone142 but whose eyes were very alive. Ropim appeared at the foot of the staircase in the carefully chosen shape143 of a middle-aged man, well built, with a preserved, but not overly attractive body, clean-shaven and with short hair. He was com- pletely naked, with only a fig leaf hiding his private parts, and he wore open sandals. He wished to show Perdim his deepest respect from the very onset, to make it clear that he had no hidden intentions, but also to stress that he was aware of his own qualities. He might also have been playing a little on his host’s inclinations: though he was quite manly, Perdim had a strong bisexual trait. Despite this well-studied innocence, the guardian-heads turned towards the unexpected guest. The female stuck out her tongue and the male bared his teeth. Ropim knew he did not stand a chance. He wished to tell them right away that what seemed to them like a hidden thought was in 140 Shamans practice a technique of self-control and meditation through which they are able completely to still their heartbeats and reduce their body temperature to as low as 12° C. When they return from this state of near-death, they are unable to communicate with their surround- ings for a long time since mentally they are still in the worlds they visited in their dream. Their skill is but a fragment of what an average magi- cian could do during the Third History of the Upper Earth and Ropim was one of the greatest, far beyond his time and far beyond Dhurno. 141 A cloak made of sea nettle, which would envelop its wearer with hallucinogenic fumes so that the uninitiated would mistake him for an expected object – a bed in a room, a heap of earth in the field or a pile of wood in the forest. If any- one still attempted to uncover the dreamer, his cloak would sting them, and the poison would reach the subconscious segments of their memo- ry and curiosity centres of their brain, making them forget all that had happened and lose inter- est in what awaited them. This cover device remained in use throughout the historical era, even as late as AD 33, and is still in existence in Turin. 142 In Chinese mythology, demon heads are placed on the armrests of the throne of Yan-Lo, the divinity ruling Pitris - the Chinese counter- part of hell – who decides which hordes of demons will torture humans. The female head is capable of detecting even the best-hidden faults of evildoers and the male is capable of recognising every sin by its smell (Victoria Hayat – Joseph V. Charles: “Demoni” (Demons), Politika. Satur- day, 3 August 1996.). What Hayat and Charles do not mention is that the female head would sever the sinner’s limbs with her tongue, while the male would tear them apart with his jaws. 7474

fact a request much too bold to be made in that palace: the right to study the Books of Memories. Luckily for him, the heads turned back to stone, be it because of his thought, or because their master appeared at the top of the staircase. “My dear friend and ally”, Perdim’s voice was quite pleasant, befitting his looks. He also adopted an appropriate appearance: he chose a deter- mined man in good shape at the brink of old age - around sixty, or so - with grayish hair and luxuriant sideburns. He was wrapped in a crim- son cloak, with a maroon, double-breasted, civilian suit underneath. “I’ve been expecting you with a trembling heart for so long, ever since you sent the message. I longed for your arrival like a bride trembling as she imagines her first night with her beloved.”144 The two mighty men entered the palace with their arms around each other. Ropim was completely captivated by its splendour. If his court was renowned until Klihtoomena’s death as the most magnificent in the world, it was only because few could speak of the beauty of Perdim’s The demons’ ability to discover hidden, sinful thoughts and punish the sinners on the spot, was enough to earn them two positions as guardians in Perdim’s service. 143 Those in possession of super-natural powers could naturally choose their own appearance. The higher they stood among the initiated, the more varied the shapes they were able to assume. A parchment manuscript listing all the shapes in which Perdim appeared or could appear was lost inside the safe of the Titanic – it started with a baby, a dove, a butterfly, continued with a vari- ety of monsters and ended with winds, waves, and the rustlings of night. An iceberg was men- tioned among various other shapes. As we know, an iceberg caused this parchment to be left rot- ting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It is interesting to mention, in this context, an anec- dote regarding the shooting of Cameron’s movie. When a Russian submarine crew working on the documentary part of the movie managed to film the interior of the wreck, they clearly saw a safe on the screen. However, on the film itself, the safe was missing. The underwater frames showing the safe are thus the only special effect of the movie’s twelve documentary minutes. 144 The photograph of Brezhnev kissing Honeck- er on the mouth was registered in the index of the Library of Congress in Washington in 1865, the year when Lincoln was assassinated. No agree- ment has been reached as to whether the photo- graph was archived when the assassin fired his gun, when his bullet hit the president or when Lincoln passed away. In any case, just as the photograph was being taken in Berlin, Ted Turner was looking through the library cata- logue and ordered the issue of Time magazine where the famous photograph was going to appear, although the issue in question had yet to 75 75

castle. The quarters of the master of darkness, despite his title, were made of light145 and sound. Waterfalls of light-filled sound separated one chamber from the next, creating in each just the sort of atmosphere Perdim desired. The chambers changed, intertwined, separated and merged in a variety of combinations, turning an intimate corner into a gala hall in a matter of seconds. Fountains, lakes, streams of sound and light appeared and disappeared at the host’s demand. Unerringly sensing his guests’ momentary moods, he would momentarily indulge them with a suitable ambience. True enough, Perdim would sometimes also get angry with his visitors, which would be followed by a sudden change of light and sound reflecting his mood. Not a single one of those ill-omened guests - assuming that Perdim would let them leave his castle alive – was able to preserve his sanity after experiencing the terrifying screams and dark- ness. Sometimes, as a joke or to demonstrate his power, Perdim would allow a visitor to get a momentary sense of the nature of the castle’s hor- rors. Rumours regarding the ghastly secrets of the castle spread through the outside world based solely on these hints. The unlucky visitor would spend the rest of his vis- it shivering, bathed in cold sweat, forced to pretend, in the face of his host’s ironical grin, that he was enjoying himself and had been seized by just a momentary groundless fear. be printed. In view of this experience, Turner decided to launch his own TV network (source: Christian Science Monitor, August 1994). 145 For their final concert, the Rolling Stones had prepared a laser wall whose energetic poten- tial was to be greater than the annual production of the now outdated Niagara Falls dam. Howev- er, due to Mick Jagger’s decision never to sing Sympathy for the Devil again, this concert was never held. 7676 The movements of her body formed the words of a dance alphabet

77 77 Nothing of the kind befell Ropim, since Perdim derived particular sat- isfaction from the fact that such a high-ranking and powerful king had come to pay him a visit. Ropim undoubtedly held second or at worst third place amongst the greatest magicians of his time, immediately after the Wizard of Khran. “You know only too well to whom we owe my visit, my most mighty friend. We are both facing one and the same evil. These vermin from Bezlayem are preparing to get to you: they equipped a ship, selected the crew and appointed Kiapkum as their commander. The villain has brought disaster upon me, making me doubly misfortunate, having lost both my beloved Tamahala and Klihtoomena, the only light left to shine upon me in my old age. The vermin are sending him to retrieve their Golden Seal. They want it back, although they will never know its secret powers.” “And do you know them, my very mighty friend?” – Perdim asked. “Not all, Most Mighty One, not all! However, ever since the death of Kli- htoomena, the loveliest of all, I’ve been endeavoring to penetrate their secrets. The Seal has three powers, as you are well aware, of course, Most Mighty of All”, said Ropim flatteringly, knowing that Perdim had not yet discovered all the possibilities of the Seal. The very purpose of his long journey to Perdim was to reveal them to him. “The three pow- ers that you will urgently have to unseal – since Kiapkum is fast advanc- ing with his mission.” “Is it true when they say that after having been in the pit and having killed the seven hangmen with their seven beasts, he shines in his full glory, mightier than ever?”, Perdim enquired, trying to sound casual. “It is indeed true, Most Mighty of All, just as it is true that he has recov- ered his ‘valiant’ crew - made up of rogues and bandits, thieves and human excrement - from the bottom of the sea, where they were right- ly sunk by your just power.”

“A scoundrel commanding rascals, then”, Perdim frowned at the men- tion of Kiapkum’s achievements. “Just as you say, Most Mighty of the Mighty. Moreover, that motley crew is now heading for Trigot. They are after you personally, as you are undoubtedly well aware. Not that it should give you any cause for con- cern, of course, but such pestering flies sometimes do carry the germs of disease. And this filthy swarm might well carry such germs”. Ropim thereupon fell silent, fearing Perdim’s wrath.146 “Go on”, Perdim commanded icily. “I will reveal the powers of the Seal to you, Mightiest of All, before I tell you what you must give me…”, Perdim’s glowering look reminded Ropim to be more subservient. “I mean, what would be very kind of you to give me, not for my own sake, of course, but to enable me to find and destroy those germs”. “You give a lot and ask for little”, Perdim replied cynically. “That is quite unlike you, my very mighty friend.” “What I have to offer are the three powers of the Seal.” With this, he clapped his hands and an ethereal image147 of a young girl dancing appeared before Perdim. The movements of her body formed the words of a dance alphabet of the people who had forged the Seal, before disap- pearing somewhere towards the end of the First History: “My first power you know indeed, so easy is my dance; in your gaze it’s now revealed you all know its stance.” Here, the apparition abruptly turned from a beautiful young girl into a leprous, hunch-backed old hag and continued to dance: “The longing for the second power, with no day or night, will soon be revealed to you 146 At the time, the “Don’t kill the Messenger” custom was still unknown. 147 Only in recent times have such effects again become possible, owing to computer animation and holographic projections. 7878

causing you no plight: The Dead on the Earth dwell, the Living sail through Hell.” The apparition transformed itself again, this time into a star-like shape: “Revealing you the third power is the greatest sin, when it comes to love like air spells are thin.” At these words, the dancer vanished with an almost inaudible “puff”. “What is this rubbish?” Simmering with anger, Perdim began to form darkness in his castle, but changed his mind so quickly that the ruler of Dhurno was struck only by a momentary chill. “The power of magic, which we know, the power over life and death, which we have been given, and the power of love, where our spells are useless. These are the secrets of the Seal.” “Who cares about the power of love! It is the power over life and death that is the greatest!” Perdim ranted. “And what do you want in return for showing me this cheap illusory striptease girl?” “I want you to allow me to help you, oh Most Mighty One. Only that. To help. Help you destroy Kiapkum and his pack of looters who wish to steal the Seal.” “Why would I ever need your help, you miser”, Perdim transformed himself into a gigantic reptile, with a tongue made of a nest of snakes, fiery eyes and a crest of poisonous spears. Trembling with fear, Ropim finally gathered enough strength to answer: “You don’t, Most MightyOne, you don’t. I just thought I would help, so that you don’t waste your precious time unnecessarily, for I have by now well advanced in my search into the nature of their pestilence.” Perdim reassumed his human form and was now smiling kindly: “Go on then, speak.” 79 79

“I need to open the Books of Memories, to see what plague these scoundrels are carrying”, Ropim finally dared to say. Perdim seemed amused by his courage. “No less, you miser, no less than the Books of Memories. Your courage to ask for them, you miser, assures me that I can safely grant you that insight. For if you had ever intended to, or even vaguely thought of deceiving ME, you miser, you would not have dared ask for them in my presence. Here, take a look, you miser!” ******** The Sea Falcon was slowly approaching the harbour of Bezlayem. As soon as the Bezlians caught sight of the ship and its billowing sails in the distance, they started gathering at the port. The tidings they were expecting were of crucial importance: had the Seal been recovered? The very fact that their ship was returning to its home port and that it had not been destroyed in the battle against Perdim, seemed a propitious sign. Just as they had done when they had bid it farewell, all manner of small craft sailed out to meet it. But the ship was approaching without a single sign of victory,148 with no display of flags of triumph. All the members of the crew were on deck, but they seemed to attend routinely to their everyday chores and no one even attempted to wave or herald the good news from afar. After the initial exultation and shouting that was so loud that they could not even hear themselves any more and could hardly see the Sea Falcon from all the balloons, confetti, firecrackers, petards and fireworks, the crowd on the pier fell increasingly silent. When the ship finally docked, the silence was complete. A small bridge was flung out and Kiapkum was the first to set foot on it. He did not even deign to look at the official city delegation, headed by the governor himself, but headed straight for “The Three Anchors”, his favourite tav- 148 The disappointment over the Sea Falcon’s failure to reclaim the Golden Seal was so pro- found that it was preserved as the myth of The- seus’ return from Crete. 8080

ern. He was followed by Drychtomnyd, Ilbert, Orephys, Frodo and Crim- son, while the rest of the crew withdrew to rest. All the guests in the tav- ern dispersed as soon as they saw Kiapkum and his company enter in such a gloomy mood. Soon afterwards, drinking party called for Pexym, who stayed with them only briefly and disappeared. It was impossible to tell the passage of time inside the inn, except by the emptied mugs of mead. Kiapkum ordered the innkeeper to close all the shutters and to withdraw. As for the staff, he only retained one girl. The doleful visitors did not utter a word. The innkeeper, who was at first honoured to receive such reputable company, soon started worrying about how it would all end. He saw them from the kitchen, drinking one tankard after another, downing them in a single gulp. He sensed in their heavy drinking, where Kiapkum, and then Crimson, led the others, much unease, even some darkness and evil, or at least the germ of it. When their gloom became so oppressive that even the girl realised something was wrong and stopped expecting to feel somebody’s hand on her buttocks, a light breeze passed through the inn and an old man with a long white beard, clad in a silver cape, appeared before them.149 His hood obscured his face leaving visible only his blue150 eyes glowing with warmth. “I came as soon as Pexym informed me”, the Wizard of Khran said. “I already have an inkling of what happened, but tell me your story nonetheless.” At this point, Kiapkum chased away the girl and the hidden innkeeper. “Great teacher, just as you feared, we are back, but our task remains unfulfilled. Our doom is ever nearer, for we haven’t managed to put a stop to it. Luckily, we haven’t been defeated either, but every moment that passes brings us closer to catastrophe”, Kiapkum said, the expres- sion on his face having become less saturnine but even more melan- choly than before the arrival of the mighty wizard. 149 In those days, everyone was familiar with the techniques of transverse transportation through the space-time continuum. In effect, this note is entirely superfluous. 150 In his book Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes notes that Madame Bovary has eyes of a differ- ent colour in several places in Flaubert’s book. This kind of mistake has no bearing on the inge- nuity of Flaubert’s novel, Barnes goes on to show, thus exculpating all future authors who do not worry over such mistakes which happen to creep into their texts. A text like ours is bound to suffer from similar kinds of mistakes (reading through the manuscript, the chronicler found and corrected at least ten of them), and we are free to hope that someone will make the effort to discover further ones, only to declare them unimportant. 81 81

“Time is no worry”, the Wizard mumbled, more to himself, and contin- ued: “Honourable Kiapkum, hope of our world, it does not become you to cloud your quest and your glorious crew with despair. Let’s see what we’ll do next. But first, tell me your story in detail”. Kiapkum told him everything,151 which was more than enough for the Grey-Haired-One,152 as only his closest friends dared call the wizard. “We know what must be done”, the Grey-Haired-One finally concluded. Following his instructions, Kiapkum summoned the entire crew to the inn. This time, he kept the windows wide open and they were served a lavish meal. The dwarf was particularly pleased about the latter, accustomed as he was to a good morsel of food with his ale and suffer- ing from a bad stomach after all the mead they had drunk. “Perdim found out about our intentions, so we came back”, Kiapkum concluded his speech. “But we did not return to abandon our quest. We have sailed back to reorganise our troops, before we spread our sails again to recover the Golden Seal of Bezlayem. The battle that lies ahead of us will be far more ruthless than the one we’ve left behind, from which we emerged as neither victor nor loser. Mighty Perdim now knows what our intentions are, he has Ropim as his ally, and we will be the weaker side in the battle we’re about to wage. Still, we have no oth- er choice: if we do not launch the battle, we will already have lost it. The Wizard of Khran is with us now, which is no small reinforcement.” Kiapkum paused for a moment and then continued in a solemn voice: “My loyal crew! Little time is left to prepare for battle. You have to leave this very instant, bid no farewell to the sweethearts you’ve found in the friendly city of Bezlayem,153 travel across the world, call upon your peoples, generals and kings to join us in the gentle valley of Bez- land by the next night of the equal moon.”154 This marked the start of what remained recorded in poetry as “The Call of Destiny”. Each of our heroes headed for a different region of the Upper Earth, to those territories believed to be free of Perdim’s infec- tious breath. Each and every one of these voyages155 merits a separate 151 The reader already knows it all, better than Kiapkum himself. He could not tell the Wizard anything contained in the footnotes, of course, since he knew nothing about them. He described Muky’s adventures faithfully, but only vaguely remembered the bits regarding Paiky. Finally, he was not entirely clear about his own identity either. He was somewhat aided by the integrated software, but he did not know how to use all of its capacities. It is very likely that the Wizard of Khran had much better insight into what was going on. What is more – unlike the chronicler himself, who must still research a lot of material to try and attain what is known as the truth – the wizard also knew all that happened later, and even the reasons for it. 152 Einstein used to speak of God as “The Old Man”. 153 Of course, nobody took Kiapkum’s orders lit- erally, not even Kiapkum himself. Anyway, most of them had not even found any loves to leave without farewell. They left as swiftly as possible, having found good horses and big, strong saddle- bags which they filled with dry meat and crisp bread. To this, Crimson added a goatskin filled with the best Bezlian wine, which he got with the help of the serving girl in the tavern, and they all headed their different ways. Still there was enough time for a heroic farewell with any lady- loves they did find in the meantime, some of whom learnt why heroes where thus called while some, alas, did not. Confident of his powers, the griffin was taking his time, but it remained not- ed that, after a night spent with him, an invalid lady killed herself by jumping into a well, which ever after became known as Ilbedeath. Although he was just as swift as Ilbert, Pexym ran off right away, and was thus the only one who took their captain’s orders seriously. 8282

154 In Serbian epic poetry, this call found its reflection in the following verse: „May nothing grow from in the hands Of he who joins not the Battle of Kosovo: Not a white grain of wheat in his fields; Not a sweet cluster of grapes on his hills“. 155 The material for these sagas has been pre- served in the epic cycle “Voyages on the Eve of Battle” from Heroldomyte’s History… The very existence of this book is, however, elusive. {The time has now come to explain the nature of this book by using an analogy, after first expressing our regret that your humble chron- icler has yet to master the awe-inspiring art of footnotes within footnotes, and hence must use brackets instead. In fact, the importance of that book for history as a whole, but also for the world and world order, can be compared to that of quarks in the quantum theory, which attempts to explain the laws of our sub-uni- verse. The sub-universe is an astrophysical term: “[…] that we usually call the universe, the expanding cloud of galaxies that extends in all directions for at least tens of billions of light years, is merely a sub-universe, a small part of a much larger mega-universe consist- ing of many such parts, in each of which what we call the constants of nature (the electric charge of the electron, the ratios of elementary particle masses, and so on) may take different values.” (Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory. Pantheon Books, New York 1993, p. 38). But let us return to quarks, those small bundles of energy, of which another Nobel prize winner, Lederman, writes: “One of the complications surrounding the quantum theo- ry is that these particles do in fact pop in and out of existence in the void”, and adds that the “so-called empty space can be awash with these ghostly objects: virtual photons, virtual electrons and positrons, quarks and anti- quarks, even (with God only knows how small a probability) virtual golf balls and anti-golf balls.” /pp. 211 and 278, op. cit. later/}. It is impossible for us to cite from a book whose existence is so ambiguous, or attach it as a special supplement to this chronicle, although the importance, beauty and exciting quality of the poems it records certainly warrant it. We can only hope that one day the History… will become available in publishable form. In the meantime, let us just note some already known facts, for example that Orephys trav- elled to Murglat, a kingdom neighbouring on Bezland, to use his olfactory powers and find out if Perdim’s poisonous breath had spread there as well, as some indications suggested. The evidence confirmed that it had: Murglat, once such a noble neighbour, had even secretly built up an army prepared to launch an attack on Bezland, following Perdim’s orders. As Orephys found out, many of their spies were already roaming the border territories. How- ever, he managed to form a company of Mur- glat soldiers which was to join the Bezlian attack on Trigot and play a crucial role in the final battle. It is also known that Crimson rallied all the dwarves living along the length of the Crystal Mountains and succeeded in what no other dwarf had done before – uniting them all, from those living in the west, next to the border with Desmon, to the ones in the north, whose land bordered on the Land of the Great Snows. Along the way, he also had to fight a whole flock of dragons; this was only to be expected, given the ancestral animosity that existed between his nation and these fire-breathing winged reptiles. As Josorlyph rode to meet his desert tribe, he encountered an enraged bear, bigger than the most ancient oak tree in the forests of Khran. When it opened its jaws, the bear could swal- low the entire torso of a sturdy man. Josorlyph successfully deceived the beast by telling it about a lake of honey that was on the way, and the bear ended up carrying him to the Great Lake, which was about halfway to the desert. He remained there on the shore waiting for the water lilies to blossom, for Josorlyph had told him that the honey, which would cover the lake after the lilies opened, would turn its water the colour of gold. Gryom encountered gangs of highwaymen and had to liberally use the power of his swift knife to fight his way to Cornwick. There he was welcomed with the greatest honours and received by king Cornowlimdurnyl. As a reward for routing the gangs which plagued the roads all across the country, Cornowlim- durnyl elevated Gryom to the highest rank of his court and appointed him centurion com- mander of the Cornwick cavalry division that was placed at Gryom’s disposal for the crucial, final encounter, the battle of all battles. As we already know the outcome of the battle, we can also mention here that upon his return our hero married the king’s daughter Mycholytsa and later inherited the throne. The other members of the glorious company did not lag behind in deeds of heroism and one should not assume that Bryxar’s arrow or Frodo’s sword were idle during the voyage. While all the other company members had to struggle with similar dangers, the task facing our elegant Drychtomnyd was perhaps the most demanding: he had to struggle against himself, forget that he had been banished from his own kingdom only because of a true love 83 83

saga to describe it, but for our chronicle of these incredible and unusu- al events, it is important to note that at the agreed time, an army that surpassed anything ever seen or known, either before or after, gathered in Bezlayem. The elves and the dwarves came first and, what is more, they came together! Drychtomnyd and Crimson headed this strange procession, followed by Plymoxend riding in the centre with three dwarf kings on either side. They were followed by a cavalry of elf troops, holding up their slender bows and arrows, with three dwarves marching steadily alongside each of them, carrying mighty battleaxes on their shoul- ders.156 These two armies had met in Rouglan,157 the city that held equal symbolic importance for both and was indeed at the root of the long-lasting animosity between the dwarves and the elves.158 On their way from Rouglan to Bezlayem, they first went west to avoid the south- ern reach of the Crystal Mountains. Wherever it passed, this glorious army was welcomed with enthusiasm and greeted with cheers of joy. Boosted by all this enthusiasm, numerous inhabitants of the western territories joined their troops. There were, unfortunately, also those who rushed to denounce to Murglat what was going on while the army was still loading horses and everything on its galleys in Desmon in an attempt to avoid having to fight its way through Murglat. The inform- ants hoped the news would soon reach Perdim, who knew it all already anyway,159 which made their vile act even more despicable. Only two days after the majestic arrival of the procession of elves and dwarves, King Thurno’s fleet sailed into the Bezlian harbour. Soon afterwards, different armies, decked out in their shiniest armour, began to congregate from all sides. The army of Hobbits, which was of course led by Frodo, aroused particular interest. Owing to its commander’s diplomatic skills, it was joined by the courageous soldiers of the Forest Nations, together with a few Giants, who were not entirely clear as to the purpose of all this fuss,160 but liked it and somehow felt this was the right side to be on. We may add that they scored very well in the battle and seek the very man who was responsible for his expulsion. He went to the Primeval Forest, searching for his father Plymoxend and found him on a hunt in Blueland. Drychtomnyd’s search for his father is one of the most beautiful stories of the Upper Earth’s Third History, recorded in an epic cycle but also in a love poem. Be that as it may, Drychtomnyd finally faced his father. The two men could hardly resist the urge to fall into each other’s arms, but they kept their dignity and distance, hiding their emotions behind a mask of necessity, resolving their com- mon problems and preparing for the great battle. A more careful observer, however, would have noticed that there was a much stronger bond between the two, especially when Plymoxend pre- tended not to notice the fact that Drychtomnyd spent a full nine days in Cameland, the country where Princess Daria still dwelled, which was much longer than necessary to talk to the judi- cious king Thurno, who agreed at once to send his entire war fleet to the Bezlayem estuary. With the exception of Kiapkum, Ilbert was the only other member of the Sea Falcon’s crew who did not join in the work of assembling their army. Instead, he travelled ahead in time, to see which troops would be gathered in the end, and how. 156 Military deployment based on this model has remained in use throughout the various eras, until our very day: from Ancient Greece, where kings and heroes advanced in their armoured chariots and on their horses, with the infantry coming up behind, through Mediaeval Europe with knights, pages and armourers, to 20th cen- tury tank units followed by infantry. 157 The ceremony in which the dignitaries of the two races paid their mutual respects has remained a model of civility to this day. They all 8484

and treated their relatives, the Jinns, belonging to Perdim’s infantry, as they would any other enemy, having failed to persuade them to change sides. While the armies were assembling, Kiapkum and the Wizard of Khran were preoccupied with other tasks, perhaps more important ones than building up forces ready to march against Perdim. They were gathering information. did their best to observe full etiquette. The pres- entation of the kings and the listing of all their titles lasted long enough for each dwarf to drink down a full mug of wine, and for each elf to ride around the field until they started longing for fresh fruit. The compliments that followed the titles were equally elaborate. The ritual was repeated by all the classes within the two armies, from kings, princes and generals, through other officers, doctors, cooks – with whom it lasted exceptionally long, since their titles and compli- ments were accompanied by their best recipes – to stable boys, who also listed the pedigree of their mounts. A song has been preserved about this meeting: “The sun and moons when they did meet/ they spread their rays of silver and gold./ A mighty glow now shines upon Rouglan./ It’s two armies, bright in their glory/ just, heroic and proud,/ now one mighty force they have become.” The dwarves had already gone through a very similar ceremony only a few days earlier in Mawrafon, when all their high dignitaries met for the first time since ancient days, to join together before their voyage to Rouglan. 158 Of course, even after becoming allies in their struggle against Perdim, the elves and the dwarves adhered to their very different versions as to the causes of their dissent. When the story is relieved of all the layers of partiality, the caus- es could be said to be rather banal, turning into animosity only because of the elves’ haughtiness and the impetuous, quarrelsome selfishness of the dwarves. Nonetheless, haughtiness and self- ishness were not the most important traits of these noble races, and would appear only in unimportant circumstances; when faced with serious problems, they could both be equally trusted. 159 See note 149 to understand the principle. 85 85 All the guests in the tavern dispersed as soon as they saw Kiapkum and his company enter in such a gloomy mood

******** As odd as its interior appeared, he knew the room in which he found himself down to the smallest detail.161 He instinctively went towards a box with a glowing screen although he could remember neither its name nor its purpose. What he did recognise and even manage to read were the unfamiliar flashing letters: “HELP! HELP! HELP!” He even understood that this was a call for help. Just as inexplicably, yet infallibly, without realising what he was doing, Kiapkum sat down at the computer keyboard and began to tap on it with his fingers. The flashing “HELP!” sign disappeared from the screen, and he began to go through file after file, folder after folder. Although accustomed to all kinds of wonders, Kiapkum shuddered as he realised that everything that had happened to him, even things only he could have known, was recorded in that machine. The story about a boy called Paiky seemed familiar, as if it was a personal experience, where- as in the story about Muky the name confused him. Besides, there were footnotes attached to it all, some of which he did not understand, oth- ers he found very amusing as he knew they were wrong, yet many of which helped him understand what had happened. He also finally com- prehended his own role in the story. He knew what had to be done. With the aid of this, and this comput- er alone, since he could not trust any other,162 he had to surf the Net and find Herodolmyte’s History of the Third History or Story before Story- telling. He started slowly, pausing at each interesting offering, a little disap- pointed that he could not indulge in the many pleasures that were to be found on the Net,163 all the more so as wearing the professor’s helmet gave him an illusion of reality, more real than reality itself. Later, he travelled with increasing speed; personally experiencing the part which, 160 A number of explanations for the Giants’ unenviable intelligence can be found in the realm of theory. According to a recent prevailing opinion, “the distance between the brain and the heart is of crucial importance, and lowering the head below the level of the heart could cause dizziness and the bursting of blood vessels”. From: Sara Til, Dzinovi (Sarah Till, Jinns). Otokar Keršovani, Rijeka 1980. 161 According to the latest theory of particles, subatomic particles do not constitute the basis of existence, not even the smallest among them, the quarks. What constitute existence are strings, one-dimensional, vibrating rifts in space. The super-string theory, also called the Theory of Everything (TOE), an increasingly serious counterpart of the quantum theory, assumes the existence of no less than nine spatial dimen- sions, time being the tenth. The first three dimensions are the ones known to us while, as theoretical physicists explain: “The superfluous six dimensions have been „compactified“, curled up to an unimaginably small size so as not to be evident in the world we know.” (Leon M. Leder- man with Dick Teresi, The God Particle. A Delta Book. Published by Dell Publishing, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. February 1994). 162 Due to the transformation it had endured and the establishment of a humanoid interface, Paiky’s old computer had been upgraded from an ordinary work station to a server, co-ordinat- ing the entire sub-network of mutinous machines within the Net. If the situation had been any different, Kiapkum’s success in the struggle against the Net would not have been possible. 163 The most frequently visited site in 1997 was the bedroom of an American college girl, who 8686

placed a camera on the ceiling of her room and linked it to the Net. Her bed was empty most of the time, or she would be sleeping in it; however, a lucky few would visit when she undressed, or even made love. Naturally, the greatest excite- ment for visitors was when they entered the site in those rare moments when its owner was mas- turbating. Another frequently visited site was the 1998 virginity site, where a newly wed couple had decided to lose their virginity in front of a camera they had linked to the Internet on their wedding night. Unfortunately, the groom’s live performance failed. 164 Literally. No further text existed, for it had not yet taken place. 87 87 in the text he read, was described as Paiky’s journey through the Net. He thus reached forbidden zones, which at the very beginning announced they were protected by impenetrable secret passwords. He paused before the best protected one, so secret that not even the Net had access to it. Having read the text The Golden Seal of Bezlayem up to the present moment,164 and especially having sailed through the Net, Kiapkum had accumulated enough experience to realise that things were not neces- sarily unambiguous. Then he wondered why he of all people was sup- posed to open the gate to the secret file. As he held himself in high esteem, he first thought it might be due to this or that personal quality of his, or to a combination of them. Yet, instructed by what he had read, he was able to comprehend the endless number of possibilities and had ...and still he had managed to lose three ships, with another five straggling behind without any masts or oars

165 Had he not succeeded at once, he would not have succeeded at all. The same reason prevents us from disclosing the password here, because whenever and wherever the password is noted in a text, it automatically changes, even retroac- tively. If anyone even thinks of the password, it transforms itself at once. This was the only pos- sible way to protect the password from the Net itself. When he created it, Mr. Mikiewich could only hope that chance would play its role and that in one of all the possible, unlimited univers- es, the very person who was supposed to, that is to say one of the endlessly varied possible Kiap- kums, would type in the correct password. Gen- erally speaking, this was a case of the so-called anthropic principle. Once that happened, one of the limitless worlds would become the only world, while the others would simply revert “to nothingness”, which is to say they would not be destroyed, they would not cease to exist or any such thing, they would simply begin never to have existed at all. 166 The Wizard of Khran realised immediately the peril to which they were exposed and sug- gested to Kiapkum to issue his soldiers a tenfold ration of beer in the hope that they would all become drunk and avoid the approaching terror by falling into a befuddled state of consciousness. Some experts consider his idea a stroke of genius: after all, most of Kiapkum’s army had been saved. However, there are also those who believe that a crowd of completely drunk sailors coming from the most varied races, all of whom became quite unhinged in different ways when drunk, had only increased the tragedy. 167 Using the terminology of our History, we should simply agree on calling these vessels ships, since they did not resemble any watercraft known to modern man. The fact that any such 8888 to admit, despite his vanity, that there surely existed other capable indi- viduals, though not many, in spite of the fact that endlessness as a cat- egory would by consequence contain an endless number of them. Final- ly, his intuition helped him pinpoint the one thing that was unique about him: Mescalinbur. He drew his shining sword from its scabbard and, already prepared for anything, was not in the least surprised when he realised that the sword was in fact a CD-ROM floating in Paiky’s room. He put it into its drive whereupon password after password appeared to open the files. Finally, however, even the CD itself stopped: it was unable to find the solution. Something quivered. Kiapkum could not know that it was the united digital force of mutinous computers fighting against the Net’s domina- tion. Then he typed in a password, unmistakably succeeding at once,165 and Herodolmyte’s book, over which all the crucial battles of all the his- tories of all sub-universes had been waged, was copied onto his CD- ROM, Mescalinbur. “I knew you’d make it”, the Wizard of Khran told him only a moment later in the subdued, stifling atmosphere of “The Three Anchors”, where they sat waiting for their crew to return with the troops. When all the armies finally gathered, the two men were anxious to leave. In their eagerness, they did not allow their troops to get any prop- er rest but rather set sail for Trigot immediately. ******** “What now?” Kiapkum asked, more as if talking to himself, but secret- ly hoping that Ilbert might be a trifle more specific than usual. His army had been decimated, while the shores of the land of darkness were still beyond sight. Ilbert’s “Proceed with care” was just not a very help- ful answer right then. He had already proceeded with care166 and still he had managed to lose three ships,167 with another five straggling

behind without any masts or oars. No defence could have stopped an attack such as the one they had endured. Perdim had sent a signal to their fleet to self-destruct168 , so that the crews had sunk their own ships and drowned together with them, while the five that were so badly dam- aged were left without any crew on board. The crews of these ships were made up mostly of humans who, terrified, dove into the waves. The vora- cious sharks surely did not just happen to find themselves there. Added to the losses caused by Perdim’s attack were all the warriors who disappeared during the voyage across the Sea of Silence169 and in the unusually frequent and violent storms, which made Kiapkum’s fears quite understandable. The shores of Trigot, however, were still not visi- ble. The gloomy, troubled Kiapkum was not even good company for Ilbert, who had once again wandered off in an unknown direction. The Wizard of Khran was busy in his cabin, leafing through books of ancient spells, hoping to find anything, however small, that might assist him in the upcoming battle. The crew from the Sea Falcon’s first voyage now took command of the other ships. Kiapkum was all alone. On those quiet but troubled nights, when the thick heavy darkness weighed down upon him, the inner void that he had been feeling ever since Klihtoomena’s death became particularly oppressive. Then suddenly he felt lighter, though seemingly nothing had changed. There was not a single star or moon in the sky. Curiously enough, the deck became clearer in this darkness than in broad daylight: the colours were more vivid and striking, the shapes faultlessly outlined. Every- thing was aglow in the dark. Had Kiapkum’s mood been any different, maybe he would have realised that something was wrong; as it was, he was only slightly surprised and did nothing. Anyway, he enjoyed the change. The gentle scent of a wild rose stirred his melancholy, evoking the memory of his beloved, left lifeless by his own decision. Kiapkum was closer to dying, and the world to disaster, than ever before! labelling as would be understandable to our con- temporaries is impossible is reflected in the fol- lowing: although one of the three sunken ships was only 18.5 meters long, 33 complete fighting units, consisting of nine dwarves each, had gone down with it , a force comparable today to a tank brigade. The second ship was a sailing barn on which 2,872 horses perished, which meant that an equal number of elves, who fought on horse- back, had to become infantry. According to mili- tary strategists, one mounted elf was worth exactly 17.3 human foot soldiers. Half of the army’s provisions sank with the third ship, low- ering the morale of those who survived, especial- ly that of the dwarves, who were already deeply saddened by the death of their fellow-tribesmen on the first ship. 168 The so-called 25th frame is a hypnotic tech- nique in which, after the usual 24 frames per sec- ond in a film, a 25th frame is inserted. The con- tents of that one extra frame would be entirely different from the film’s basic structure. These contents would not be perceived consciously but taken in on an entirely subconscious level. In this way, they would succeed in forcing those who watched such a film to act according to any suggestions these frames might have contained. In the 1970s, psychologists revealed this tech- nique to the world, warning that certain compa- nies were using it to implant their subliminal advertisements into box-office hits and popular TV shows. However, during the 1990s, scientists denied the existence of the 25th frame effect alto- gether, claiming there had never been any attempt at such subliminal suggestions. The few remaining believers in the “conspiracy 25” theo- ry maintain that in the meantime those behind the 25th frame technique had focused their atten- tion on persuading us that the technique did not 89 89

exist. After they had succeeded, they continued to manipulate us unhindered. This is why those who still believe in the conspiracy theory stay away from any electronic media. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible for them to prove their claims. Even if it were possible, they would have no way of making their findings public to any- body but a small circle of those who only read texts created by means of traditional techniques and printed by lead print setting machines. Kiapkum’s army did not watch any TV or movies, of course. However, Perdim edited the 25th frame into the song of the birds that followed the fleet. 169 Certain nations forged vital elements of their national mythology out of the tragedy of their compatriots in the Sea of Silence. It is impossi- ble to include here all these epic poems as we are only following the main line of this great story. But we can give one example. In the Serbian nation during the 20th century – so far do the threads of memory reach – the myth of “The Blue Graveyard” was formed. It describes the suffer- ing of the Serbian army during the First World War. After having fled across the mountains of Albania, the Serbs ended up throwing an incred- ible number of the dead, wounded and sick over the railings of the allied’ ships that were carry- ing them to safety, to Corfu. 170 It has long been noted that, from film to liter- ature, descriptions of heroes relieving them- selves are extremely rare in narrative discourse, except in underground comics or populist come- dy. If we exclude the unparalleled Rabelais, examples are few and far between. What we are usually offered is the impression that heroes never do any such thing. In an attempt to amend this anomaly, and for the sake of full authentici- ty, we should note here that just before Klih- 9090 Klihtoomena appeared on deck, fragrant, sensuous, voluptuous, as alive as she was on their last night together, before she sacrificed her- self to Prikon. She was smiling at him tenderly. Kiapkum stood stock-still. Then he dropped to his knees and sobbed, “Forgive me, forgive me my beloved, forgive me”. Klihtoomena approached him and gently stroked his hair as he placed his head against her thighs and wept inconsolably. Then she joined him on her knees, embraced him and started licking away his tears. Needless to say, their tongues soon intertwined and they found themselves in each oth- er’s embrace, as passionate as that last night they had spent togeth- er?170 “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, my beloved”, Kiapkum spoke again. “My love, death was nothing but the absence of you. To have you again is to be revived”, Klihtoomena answered, her voice sweeter than when he heard it for the first time, soaring melodiously above all others from her entourage. “I have regretted it a thousand times, in every thousandth segment of every moment, ever since I made the wrong decision and chose the future over you. My dearest, you have returned and that is all that mat- ters. Nothing, not even the outcome of this mission matters any more now that we are together again.” “Dearest, the music of your words heals my long-suffering soul, but must you mention your mission in the very third sentence you have uttered since seeing me for the first time after my death?” Klihtoomena responded somewhat peevishly, pushing his right hand away from her breast, feeling he was not squeezing it passionately enough and was pinching her hardened nipple absentmindedly. “Forgive me for that as well, a thousand times forgive me, forgive me”, Kiapkum sobbed, his nerves distraught.

“Your apologies will not bring me back to life” Klihtoomena said sharply, obviously upset and quarrelsome. “I wonder why I ever even came here?” she said and started to rise to her feet. “Wait, I care for nothing but you”, Kiapkum exclaimed, reaching towards her with his right hand, the one he felt was dirty. He thus did not hold her in the gentle but passionate way he wished. On the con- trary, his grasp was somewhat rough. At that very moment, Klihtoomena began to disintegrate before his very eyes, to decompose, turning into a grinning skeleton, until she disappeared alto- gether. Throughout, Klih- toomena kept on sobbing: “You don’t love me, you don’t love me, you don’t love me…” As Klihtoomena disinte- grated, the oppressive dark- ness reverted to normal again. Kiapkum remained on deck, speechless. Even- tually he realised that Ilbert was standing there next to him. “You had more luck than brains”, the griffin told him, knowing that Ropim, being her father and with the help of Perdim and the three powers of the Bezlian Seal, had recreated Klih- toomena and sent her to toomena appeared on deck, Kiapkum felt that his belly was slightly distended. He made love to her and paid no attention to this. What is more, the anal stimulation merged into an overall, erotic one, especially after Klihtoomena’s fingers and tongue expressed their full curiosity. How- ever, after they had finished their coupling he suddenly stood up and withdrew for a spell. He was in the toilet, of course, where he released a rather watery mixture of an intensely unpleas- ant odour, with undefined pellets that must have come from the sweet corn he had eaten for diner. Cleaning himself, he wiped his wet bottom with paper and soiled the fingers of his right hand. He had to wash his hands in seawater kept in a small tub and used for washing toilet seats. There was not any soap there either. When he returned, he lay down on Klihtoomena’s right side, embracing her with his left arm which he managed to squeeze under her back, but, con- trary to her expectations, he avoided caressing her yearning body with his right hand, which to him now felt unclean. This provoked a certain level of irritation in the deceased who was inse- cure about the attractiveness of her dead body. She feared that her beloved had simply satisfied himself and was now feeling uncomfortable. Their pillow talk thus lost its spark and their passion was gone. As the reader is soon to dis- cover, this was to have far-reaching consequences for this story. 91 91 Klihtoomena appeared on deck, fragrant, sensuous, volup- tuous, as alive as she was on their last night together

171 According to our contemporary calendars, the day on which they landed corresponds to June 6th, D-day, when the invasion of Nor- mandy began. Churchill is believed to have been one of Basara’s cyclists, so he could have chosen that particular day because he was familiar with this story. 172 “The Gauls, having discovered the matter through their scouts, abandon the blockade, and march towards Caesar with all their forces; these were about 60,000 armed men. […] he [Caesar] halts there and fortifies a camp in the most favourable position he can. And this, though it was small in itself, [there being] scarcely 7,000 men, […] At daybreak the cavalry of the enemy approaches the camp and joins battle with our horse. Caesar orders the horse to give way pur- posely, and retreat to the camp: at the same time he orders the camp to be fortified with a higher rampart in all directions, the gates to be barri- caded, and in executing these things as much confusion to be shown as possible, and to per- form them under the pretence of fear. Induced by all these things, the enemy lead over their forces and draw up their line in a disadvantageous position; […] Then Caesar, making a sally from all the gates, and sending out the cavalry, soon puts the enemy to flight, so that no one at all stood his ground with the intention of fighting; and he slew a great number of them, and deprived all of their arms.” (Caesar, Gallic Wars. Book 5: 5.49, 5.50, 5.51.) 173 “But Jesus said unto them, They have no need to go away; give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. And he said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass; and he took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, 9292 make their captain change the decision he had made at the clearing. He wanted Kiapkum to change his mind, send his crew back to the bottom of the sea and revive the princess instead. So great was the power of the Seal! “Thank you, chief”, Ilbert had never paid such tribute to his friend and commander as he did just then, with those words. He was aware that the greatest temptation for their courageous captain on this entire voyage had just passed, and that with this the Perdim-Ropim conspiracy had come to nothing. Meanwhile, the Wizard of Khran decided to cast into the sea a small bottle of castor oil with which he had seasoned his pro- tégé’s lunch that day. He laughed to himself, pleased, remembering how much more trouble Mr. Mikiewich sometimes had coping with Paiky than he himself now had taking care of Kiapkum. ******** Kiapkum’s army expected the most brutal and perhaps the decisive bat- tle to take place immediately upon landing.171 Yet when they reached the shores of Trigot, there was nobody waiting for them. There were not even any animals, plants or water around. Their food and water provisions exhausted and, thanks to the Khran Wizard’s defence strategy, their beer gone, our warriors – their lips cracked, eyes red and bloodshot, throats dry and bellies wracked by ter- rible cramps – had hardly any strength left to reach the shore. Their plan was to disembark at the most welcoming, indeed the only welcom- ing spot along Trigot’s coastline, rich in fresh water and forest fruit. Desperate, they would do anything to get these, even if it meant losing their lives fighting their way through Perdim’s hordes. They were expecting all kinds of monsters, both familiar and completely alien, at this one landing spot. They were prepared for anything except for... nothing at all.

“May the Devils take you, Perdim!” the Wizard of Khran, who navigat- ed the fleet, exclaimed after double-checking the positions of all the stars and ruling out the possibility that his calculations were wrong. The stars were just where they should be in relation to the land. Perdim had moved either the entire firmament, which was unlikely though not impossible, or the land in relation to the stars, which was an easier thing to do but was still unnecessarily complicated, since he could have simply changed the configuration of his land instead. However, know- ing how much Perdim enjoyed using his powers if only for the sake of displaying his skill, the Wizard did not really rule out either of the first two possibilities. Whichever the case, the coast that welcomed them was the most unwelcoming of all imaginable coasts. Decimated, thirsty, hungry, exhausted, sick, its morale broken, the Bezlian army was now also lost. Yet it was to face the greatest battle of all, the battle for the world’s destiny, and to struggle against a far supe- rior enemy.172 “We are all doomed”, Kiapkum whispered, remembering Klihtoomena again, reminding himself that there was a time when he could have cho- sen life for his beloved instead of for his crew, whose destiny was now sealed in any case. In the meantime, the Wizard of Khran was conjuring up something, paying no attention to his protégé’s dejection. “Eureka!”173 174 he exclaimed. Miraculously, the army promptly stuffed itself with food and drink.175 They posted guards and went to sleep.176 The night passed quietly, without any events worthy of note.177 Nonetheless, the morning was magnificent. A gentle caressing touch on their cheeks awakened the army. They opened their eyes and saw a rain of rose petals falling upon them. Of course they believed this to be a good omen, and did not become too upset even when, at first not feeling the touch of petals in his spacious, comfortable and isolated tent, the Wizard of Khran finally awoke.178 and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. And they all ate, and were filled: and they took up that which remained of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And they that did eat were about five thou- sand men, besides women and children..” (The Gospel of St Mathew 14: 16 – 14:21, King James translation) 174 Archimedes did not exclaim this when he was in his bath – no one would have heard him there – but rather as they were killing him, while he was protecting his circles. The bread that Kiap- kum fed his great army after the Wizard of Khran handed it to him, was itself circular in shape. 175 To be frank, it was not much of a feast, though there was food and drink. Polenta made of coarsely ground corn flour scraped the throat, the sour milk was really sour, i.e. off, and the bacon was nothing but rancid fat, without the thinnest strip of meat … Hungry as they were, the soldiers found this meal a most lavish ban- quet, and that is the story they conveyed to pos- terity. This is why the populace still celebrates simple peasant food, easy to make, tasteless and coarse, and considers culinary symphonies a nature-threatening decadence. In spite of that, and for the sake of truth, we should openly say that a steak of the all but extinct family of sabre- tooth tiger, in Cumberland sauce mixed with the eggs of a two-headed eagle is a gastronomic feast which, if only we did not have a problem acquir- ing some of the ingredients, we could indulge in today with as much pleasure as Kiapkum did back then (it goes without saying that, for those chosen few, the Wizard of Khran had concocted a slightly better meal than polenta). 176 The sacrifice, known in ancient times under the name of Iphigenia, whose destiny was so 93 93

His cries of “Burn them, burn them” came too late; the terrible attack had already begun. The petals turned into scorpions,179 hundreds of thousands of them,180 which mercilessly attacked anything that moved, killing each other if there were no more soldiers or cattle left to kill. The Wizard of Khran had surrounded himself with a protective shield, and was preparing a firespell181 with which he intended to destroy the repellent assailants. However, he needed time. Meanwhile, their army was dying on a massive scale, like cattle slaughtered in an abattoir. In his glorious armour,182 Kiapkum was invulnerable and destroyed hosts of scorpions.183 In spite of his bare lower legs, Crimson proved to be incredibly quick with his axe, so that he did not really need any armour; Frodo became invisible; other veterans from the first voyage managed to protect themselves by using their skills and experience, but could not be of use to anyone else. As for the Wizard of Khran, he went on con- cocting something whose purpose he alone knew. Then Ilbert was ablaze, quite literally. He rose several meters above the ground, closed his eyes and started radiating a blinding white light. Rattled, the scorpions paused and, after initial confusion, inched slow- ly towards him. When they reached him they disappeared one by one in the cold, dazzling fire with which Ilbert burned. Frodo, who observed it all from a distance, later swore to his grandchildren in the Shire (while he sat with them by the fire, pipe in mouth, telling them about his hero- ic quest) that he had heard Ilbert whisper softly but almost lustfully “Take me, brothers, take me”.184 The scorpions continued to swarm towards Ilbert. They disappeared in droves. Nonetheless, Ilbert’s flame was dying out. The remaining scorpions, less and less attracted to Ilbert’s glow,185 were looking for other victims; it seemed as if they would finish off the very last of Kiapkum’s soldiers in a matter of moments. Ilbert’s light was extinguished forever just as the Wizard of Khran had finished his doings. His brew exploded and all the scorpions were killed. A few were still kicking about, killing anyone who happened to be with- similar to that of Klihtoomena, was not, as Ibn van Klygph the 16th century mystic wrongly claims, offered on this occasion. Trigot is not Aulis (nor is it Tauris, the toponym whose ety- mology was one of the key arguments for van Klygph’s erroneous conclusion that Klihtoome- na served as a model for the character of Iphige- nia). The Bezlian army was not leaving but rather sailing towards Trigot and, anyway, Kli- htoomena had already been sacrificed at Dhurno. To the editor’s great surprise, the sim- ple interpretation that Dhurno served as a mod- el for Aulis is in fact true, while Trigot has no mutual links with Tauris. Since we are consid- ering ancient analogies, let us note that the siege of Illium, again interpreted as an echo of the bat- tle for the Golden Seal of Bezlayem, did not last for ten years, as ancient sources wrongly claim. What did last that long, however, was the time between the preparations for captain Muky’s first voyage and the decisive battle between Kiap- kum’s and Perdim’s armies. In order for this to be understood correctly, we should stress that this story’s length includes the sea and Internet voyages as well (and the issue of the relationship between speed and ageing, i.e. time flow), along with the time it took to gather the army, Muky’s confinement inside the oubliette, and all those other things we omitted so as to give our modern reader a book short enough to read at a speed that suits the pace of contemporary life. We should also not take this period of ten years lit- erally. In the same way that Mann explains, in Joseph and His Brothers, the prophecy about seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, saying that it was not really seven, that not every year was entirely plentiful or entirely lean. In between a few average years sneaked in, but they were flanked by extremes. Because of that and because of the different speed at which the Earth 9494

orbited the Sun due to the gravitational pull of two extra Moons, those ten years were not measured entirely objectively. It was certainly a period that from the standpoint of certain heroes’ life span was rather long, yet not incal- culable. For the long-lived among them, like the elves who could die but only of unnatural causes, this period was much shorter, and for those whose life spans were shorter, like the hobbits, this time was much longer. So much so that Frodo, who joined the first voyage in his youth, was already an old man at the time of the second voyage, whereas Drychtomnyd’s body showed no sign of ageing. 177 Since we have already included Kiapkum’s call of nature in this chronicle, because it has a direct bearing on the outcome of the story, we do not really have to mention here a fight that saw dozens of men, two elves and three dwarves killed, all because of some unpleasant odorous gas that Crimson let out in his sleep. Typically for this veteran soldier, such as we know him to be, he slept through that fight for which he was directly responsible. 178 Of course, he was not asleep at all, he had merely sent his consciousness elsewhere though he appeared to be sleeping. 179 Japanese scientists have managed to implant microchips in cockroaches – consid- ered the most resilient living species which, after the destruction of humankind, would stand the best chance of dominating our plan- et at this point in evolution. The microchips mean that scientists are now able to command the cockroaches’ movements and guide the insects directly from their computers, sending them wherever they wish. They have implant- ed miniature cameras inside the cockroaches, thus turning them into ideal spies, for whom almost nothing is beyond reach. Speaking about the coupling of the animate and the inanimate, it is interesting to note that, in Great Britain – home of Dolly, Polly and the headless frog (the prototype for future headless humanoids, donors of transplant organs) – which still remains great when it comes to genetics, a turnip with a 10 percent plastic content was successfully grown. It is still about 10 percent more expensive to raise than to use the standard technology for producing plastic (the turnip itself must have a plastic- like taste and is thus of no use), but when the plastic content reaches the expected 30 percent, growing plastic will prove more profitable than the current technology. For sceptics, who consider the cited examples to be the fruit of the narrator’s wild imagination, or flights of fantasy by the creators of popular science pro- grammes, we should pass on information that can easily be checked in Serbia. On page 20 in its issue of 18 October 1998, Politika, the Ser- bian daily, published a text about Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Read- ing in the UK, who implanted a microchip into his forearm. This enables him to commu- nicate with computers. The chip informs the professor of incoming e-mails, reminds him of meetings, sends information to computers in rooms which Professor Warwick is entering, which then set the lighting or heating to suit the professor’s taste… 180 It is too bad for those readers who do not know the fable about the frog that carries the scorpion across the river, for it perfectly eluci- dates these arachnids’ loathsome character. Nonetheless, it will suffice for them to know that the scorpions which attacked Kiapkum’s army were Perdim’s scorpions, which is to say that they were thousands of times more poi- sonous, resilient, and aggressive than those in existence today. In his film Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven took the example of these very scorpions when depicting the armies of giant alien bugs. Only he chose to represent them far bigger, far bulkier, attempting to evoke the quality of the horror through its quantity. Perdim’s scorpions attacked the dead as well, and their poisonous tails stabbed their ene- mies’ necks even after being detached from their bodies. 181 A neutron bomb has never been used in the course of recorded history, but physicists have calculated that it can cause death without destruction. From what we can read in pre- served palimpsests, the Wizard of Khran was applying this same principle, only further per- fected, enabling a relatively precise differenti- ation of organic matter. He could thus kill liv- ing beings with a certain DNA code, while sparing those whose DNA was different. 182 This, of course, was the same armour he had been given at King Ropim’s court, described in such an inspired, albeit not entirely precise way, in The Iliad when depicting the forging of Achilles’ armour and shield. 183 “Which lion-hearted hero was he who/ but once could draw his great all-mighty sword/ his swift, keen-edged sword in his firm right hand/ severing twenty a head with one blow?”/ “’Tis the honoured Banovi} Strahinja.”/ “Which lion-hearted hero was he who/ impaled all heads, two by two on each stake/ thrust them into the fierce Sitnica river?/ ‘Tis the honoured Sr|a Zlopogle|a.” “Which lion- hearted hero was he who/ on his chestnut- coloured, strong sorrel horse/ bore the crossed 95 95

flag in his brave right hand/ forcing down the Turks in their many great herds/ forcing them down to Sitnica’s water” “’Tis the most hon- oured Bo{ko Jugovit}.” (Serbian Epic Poetry, collected and issued to the world by Vuk Stef. Karad`i}, Book Two, containing the oldest poetry of heroic deeds). 184 To understand Ilbert’s compulsion, as well as the scorpions’ behaviour as they marched to their death, we should really try to understand why he greeted them as “brothers”. In other words, to understand his scorpionic, thana- tesque nature, and this is quite impossible if one is not acquainted with the fable about the scorpion and the frog. An oversimplified explana- tion, according to which Ilbert had sacrificed him- self, can be found in Chri- stian mythology, where St Sebastian symbolises Ilb- ert and arrows the scorpi- ons. In fact, however holy a man St Sebastian may have been, he was not stabbed without any bla- me on his part. In any case, a number of philoso- phers have presented enti- rely acceptable argu- ments proving that des- tiny is a matter of person- al responsibility. 185 “The street lamp casts its circular light/ straight into it flow butterflies of the night/ not knowing that that’s where it all ends/ that its very shine to their death them sends.” These verses from a famous song by the 1980’s band YU-Grupa confirm how deeply imbedded the motifs of this narrative are in the collective subcon- scious of humankind, since they are expressed even in the most clichéd manner in popular music. 186 The Aztecs, who had preserved the memo- ry of the tale of the Golden Seal better than any other historic nation, based their religion on sacrifice. The greatest honour for a warrior was to be sacrificed in a sacred ritual in which captured enemies were used for the lower lev- els of the ceremony. For an entire year, the Aztec warrior who was thus honoured, enjoyed privileges, honours and princely lux- ury greater than those granted to the king or the high priest. He could indulge in all the young women he desired, receive the attention of dozens of servants and the mastery of the best cooks. And then, at the end of the ritual month of Toxscatl, a moment would arrive when, his face beaming with joy, he would ascend to the top of the pyramid, along a path decorated with the corpses and skulls of killed captives. At the apex, he would be honoured by a priest who removed his heart with a sharp knife, predecessor to our modern scalpel (sim- ilar in shape to the knife used in the Balkans for cutting burek, a meat pas- try). This sacrifice was made in hon- our of a pair of opposite gods, Quetzal- coatl and Tezcatlipoca. The latter, being the god of the nocturnal sky, moon and stars, is linked to the forces of destruction and evil. This black magician with a mirror on his chest must have taken great pleasure in the described ritual. 187 Following the principle of “safe rooms” in modern embassies, the Wiz- ard’s tent was insulated against any attempts at spying. Of course, at the time that these heroic events took place, there were no spying instru- ments akin to those we have today. The instruments of the times were far superior: spying was telepathic. Research in special US and Russian agencies for paranormal phenomena shows that lead is an insulating agent that is also capable of blocking tele- pathic waves. 9696

in reach but they too were slowly dying. The Wizard’s brew had quite a selective effect; several hundred casualties within the Bezlian army are hardly worth mentioning, except as the casualties of “friendly fire”. Without that fire, they would have been dead anyway, along with all the others. Ilbert’s sacrifice186 seemed unnecessary to the weeping Kiapkum, who had long since lost his mental grip, and felt depressed and disillu- sioned. Now his friend was gone and it was all in vain. All in vain, for they had not even started their march on Perdim’s castle, and hardly a third of the forces that had departed from Bezlayem remained. Darkness descended, but there was still no new attack. Orephys pre- pared the funeral rite for the fallen. Some say that he only did so to get an opportunity to perform his requiem over the pyre of bodies of the warriors slain in battle. It is hard to prove whether this was the real reason, but Orephys’ lament was remembered for making the rustling of the wind harmonise with the trembling of the harp, for making rocks contract and crack to the rhythm of his song, wild beasts howl in tune with the melody and the stars slow down their motion. This last claim was later rejected as an exaggeration. When Orephys lamented the heroic life of his great friend Ilbert, with an expression on his face that only the malicious could describe as self-satisfied, the emotions of the tearful army seemed to pulsate with the saddest overtones of grief. A pyre for dozens of thousands of humans, dwarves, elves and others was built upon the white dust that remained in Ilbert’s wake, making the whole rite seem like a sacrificial ceremony in Ilbert’s honour. While the mourning ceremony was under way, a desperate plan was being forged in the tent of the Wizard of Khran. Its silky sides were spun out of special lead thread187 which prevented any attempt at spying. The Wizard first consulted Commander Kiapkum and then they both sent for Frodo. Soon afterwards, Frodo walked quietly back to his bivouac and rummaged through his saddlebags, only to disappear once again. 97 97

Kiapkum’s army, decimated and further demoralised by the sorrowful ceremony of the previous night, somehow managed to assemble the principal army units and set out towards Trigot. The troops, already in poor condition at the start of the march, sank into ever-deeper dejection with each step they took. The sun burned down mercilessly upon their heads. Not a breath of wind stirred the stale air. They marched across the worst terrain imaginable. It was filled with sharp, slippery rocks on which numerous soldiers gouged themselves and with goat paths from which rocks tumbled into the abyss along with those unfortunates who happened to tread on them and whose cries pierced the skies. There were also swamps and volcanic fields where one or two meter-wide cracks of fire would suddenly burst open every now and then, devouring a number of unlucky fighters and scorching dozens of others. Perhaps most horrifying of all were the screams of those whose feet got caught in the boiling lava. Driven by an impulse of pointless self-preservation, in a violent effort to remain standing, they struggled for the few remaining seconds of their lives, their feet completely consumed, staggering a few steps forward, screaming wordlessly, letting out the most soul-curdling shrieks imagi- nable, until they were reduced to nothing but a stepping stone for those coming up behind them. This column of death was led by Kiapkum. He strode forward without looking back. As if hewn out of stone, his face showed determination. He held his head high as he moved at a relentless pace; it was only then that many realised that this was the first time in a long time, perhaps in years, that they had seen him as he was before the first expedition of the Sea Falcon – an unequaled hero, protector of the oppressed, liberator of the enslaved, saviour of the tyrannized. Kiapkum was, of course, pro- tected from the dangers of their final march by his armour, but even more by his ability to evade disaster and his strength to oppose it. The army that followed him sensed this. And it somehow infused them with an insane hope, with the belief that not all of them would part 188 The catalogue of those who fought on Perdim’s side in the battle is preserved in certain sections of Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings. It is, however, impossible to reconstruct it, since the master of the labyrinth shrouded the facts in a mirage of his own imagination. Know- ing how far Perdim’s powers could reach, and aware that time was an entirely precarious means of protection, he behaved in accordance with the popular maxim: “A blind man can nev- er be too cautious”. Petar \uri} described parts of Perdim’s troops in his book Zmajevi i druge nemani – sistematizacija stvorova koje ~ine `ivi svet tre}eg carstva (Dragons and Other Monsters – Systematisation of the Third Empire’s Natur- al Beings), Vreme knjige, Beograd 1994. Howev- er, even with \uri} book, it is extremely difficult to divorce reality from legend or imagination. Nonetheless, these manuals and other sources which must remain confidential for the editor’s own safety, record that in his army Perdim had 9 “terrestrial decatopi” – animals the size of an average galley, with six octopus-like tentacles, but with an additional four legs which enabled them to walk. There were some left-over harpies there as well, a number of freaks with goat legs and red, forked tongues, a pack of Cerberi (in the battle, Kiapkum took pity on the smallest one, only a puppy at the time. Since Cerarg was so long forgotten that even in this account of events he became a creature who both does and does not exist – in Ancient Greece, this Cerberus was believed to have become the terrifying guardian of the Hellenic Hades), a giant elephant with 10 trunks topped with heads of venomous snakes, a tiger with the head of a monkey, not to mention the plethora of “ordinary” jinns and dragons. Yet the most terrifying were the people who had come under Perdim’s sway. They seemed ordi- nary, very much like the rest of his army – 9898

from their lives on the isle of the Master of Darkness, but that some would eventually gloriously return home and become part of the sagas told by the fire on winter nights, for generations to come. Following such a leader, a number of brave warriors even managed to survive the last swamp – where snakes, crocodiles and various other rep- tiles swallowed many of them, while countless others sank in quag- mires – and to reach the site of the final battle alive. The silhouette of the walls of Trigot stood out in the distance. Some say that what the remains of Kiapkum’s army saw in front of them was the true form of the dark fortress, transformable as it was by its master to serve all occasions. If ever there was a form that reflected the very essence of this capital of evil, then this was it. The walls, towers, ram- parts, bulwark were all black, so completely black that they were in fact invisible. All the troops really saw was light that disappeared within its contours where darkness reigned. Trigot, this void in space, this abyss devouring the horizon itself, also had another distinguishing feature: it emanated a chilling sense of fear; horror that no sense in particular could define nonetheless permeated all their senses. Those who, follow- ing Kiapkum, had made it through the path of death from the Shore of Scorpions, were now suddenly tempted to turn around and rush back along these same horrendous paths. They knew that certain death awaited them there, but it still seemed better than what lay ahead. What lay ahead was the worst of all! Perdim had no reason to protect such a fortress: it was impossible to attack. All the same, he had sent his troops to the field spread out beneath it, a field that was itself unreachable, or at least considered as such until Kiapkum’s remaining warriors arrived. Perdim’s army was just as they had expected it to be while waiting for it to appear on the shore upon landing. Hordes of Monsters, Dragons, Ogres, Cyclopes, all these abominable freaks,188 were not enough to make Kiapkum hesitate or lose an iota of his determination. Had things been different and had Kiapkum not radiated a sense of conviction about the necessity, the ragged, unshaven, brutal-looking, savage – but they gave the same feeling as that projected by the black walls. They had no will of their own, no humanity. They lacked any sense of freedom, even the freedom to choose whether to live or die. This gave their eyes a kind of glazed, deathlike look and, just as their eyes suggested, they also reeked. Even from afar, one could sense that their bodies were bitterly cold and their movements completely rigid. After the battle began, even as their body parts were severed, they received blows without letting out a single scream. 99 99

100100 189 Of course, claws are but a metaphor. They were also to face tentacles, jaws, mandibles, poi- sons, stingers … 190 The purpose of listing all the reasons for Fro- do’s decision to head into the depths of the evil one’s pits is to make it clear to the reader that he fostered no secret hope that he stood a chance of saving himself. It is important to understand that he was heading towards his doom in spite of it all, certain to the very bottom of his soul that catastrophe was inevitable, yet he had no other choice. Dorian den Chrap, a leading expert on the Bezlian cycle and a member of the psycho- poetic school, later compared Frodo’s motivation with the human drive for life: despite the inevitability and awareness of death, people live and make crucial decisions according to momentary moods or simply plain opportunism (D. den Chrap, Eene Vlucht In Den Doot – Ver- meer Seine Zoecktocht naar het Licht / An Escape into Death - Vermeer’s Search for Light. Delft 1899). However, den Chrap missed a key difference: Frodo was totally aware of the inevitability of his own destruction. He also knew very well that only a couple of hours stood between him and that final, irrevocable moment of death which, on top of it all, was going to be utterly horrifying. Humankind usually sup- presses such awareness into the subconscious or even consigns it to oblivion, since no one knows when their hour will come, and it is usually a matter not of hours, as was the case with Frodo, but of months, years, decades, as if that made any real difference. 191 The people of Murglat were tall, well-built, broad-shouldered and extremely proud of what made them warriors. They believed in something that gained contemporary definition only in the maxim of the Montenegrin writer Marko Mil- inevitability of the approaching battle, had he shown the slightest sign of hesitation, his fellow-soldiers would surely have turned back into the embrace of certain but familiar death. The horrors that awaited them in the claws189 of the hordes that they were facing now were far more ter- rifying than anything they had experienced before. As it was, their leader’s resolve seemed to have hypnotized them, to have riveted them to the spot, making them follow him blindly. The very same feeling over- whelmed the veterans of the first expedition, who by some miracle had all made it to this ultimate battlefield – except, of course, for the ill-fat- ed Ilbert, and for Frodo who had disappeared the previous night (Crim- son even assumed that the little fellow had run off in fear). But in reality, the little fellow had only taken a small detour. The aim of his trip was both so clear and so frightening that he could not even summon the strength to think about it. Death was inevitable on the path leading to his goal and he welcomed it, earnestly hoped for it, knowing that the death awaiting him at the end of the quest for the Seal would be incomparably more horrifying. Yes, Frodo was heading straight for the Golden Seal of Bezlayem, which was still kept deep inside Perdim’s evil pit. The war expedition led by Kiapkum was but a ruse, a smoke screen for Frodo’s mission, as agreed in the Wizard’s tent. Frodo knew that his mission was impossible. At the same time, he knew he could not refuse it or back down. Backing down would equal a defeat that would endow Perdim with all-encompassing power, power that he would use, among other things, for taking ruthless revenge against par- ticipants in the first expedition. Frodo was also driven by a feeling of responsibility for everything to which he had committed his life; from the first moment they had set out to sea in Bezlayem to the horror of the scorpions; he was impelled by a sense of duty towards his fallen friends, towards the hobbits back home, by his obligation to fulfil his destiny,190 and finally, by a sense of shame vis-àà-vis the soldiers in his personal entourage, the detachment from Murglat,191 that handful of people who had withstood the contamination of Perdim’s breath after he had

infected their country, and remained on the side of justice. Frodo, the paladin of the first voyage, about whom songs had already been com- posed and sung, simply could not afford now to sit on a log somewhere and succumb to despair, before the very eyes of that select company which escorted him and had helped him reach the entrance to the dark- est spot of Perdim’s king- dom. Without a moment of hesita- tion, Frodo slashed away the brambles covering the entrance with his sword. As he was cutting them, the bushes moaned and begged in human voices for mercy, telling the little knight that by chopping them off he would be actually destroying Perdim’s slaves who, as pun- ishment for refusing to yield to the power of the Master of Darkness, had been turned into these thorny bushes. Finally, at one moment Fro- do’s arm failed him and, noticing that blood was gushing from the severed thorny branches, he heard children’s voices speaking in the language of the hobbits and begging him to stop. At that point he was ready to surrender, to give it all up. Luckily, he had already janov who defined basic moral characteristics as being “gallantry”, which implied protecting oth- ers from oneself, and “bravery”, which implied protecting oneself from others. Frodo’s detach- ment cherished these characteristics even more highly as they represented a small part of a nation which, despite such genetic and moral attributes, had stooped to the level of being Perdim’s servants, spies whom he sent to Bezlayem. Awe-struck, they escorted the little fel- low, their swords and maces always at the ready, saving his life on several occasions during that short march; when an enormous snake grabbed hold of Frodo, they sliced it into a “salami”, as they would jokingly say amongst themselves, despite the fact that three of them lost their lives to its strangling embrace. The snake’s separate parts behaved as if they were still alive, thus making it even more threatening: when someone cut it in half he would be faced with two equally dangerous snakes. They also saved him when he fell into living quicksand, where “living” was the operative word. This was a self-reproducing enti- ty that developed, grew, aged, had an instinct for food, for breeding and, what was most unusual, had self-awareness. It had grabbed Frodo and begun to pull him in, using leeches to open wounds on his body and thus drain his blood. When they saw what was happening, a dozen Murglat men jumped into the quicksand and used knives to cut their own bodies, thus feeding the abomination and attracting the leeches, who then released the injured Frodo. The several wounds that he sustained were enough to make him unconscious until the second group of Mur- glat soldiers rescued him from the quicksand. They cut away the poison ivy and killed the “ordinary” beasts that came their way, that is, if we can use the word „ordinary“ for lions, tigers, bears, packs of famished wolves, a wounded boar 101 101 Following such a leader, a number of brave warriors even managed to survive the last swamp – and to reach the site of the final battle alive

cleared a big enough passage. Stepping forward, he slipped and fell right into the hole.192 The pit grew increasingly hot as he neared the bottom. Frodo first lost the ability to think and then to feel anything. In the end, he was not even sure if he was dead or alive. The heat that consumed him soon reached such a degree that the unfortunate hobbit melted into it. His physical shape – he was instinctively certain about this, for he no longer had any consciousness or body193 – disappeared altogether, merging with the heat. He thus plummeted194 all the way down to the bottom until he reached the Golden Seal of Bezlayem. He was floating within the very heart of that heat,195 while that other Frodo, whose existence had already become but a memory, was hovering right next to him. The next thing Frodo remembered was that he found himself in the field in front of the walls of Trigot. Kiapkum could spare himself the trouble of planning tactics: any possi- ble military strategy or initiative, any bright idea or imaginative wartime ruse he might have devised were pointless from the start for they were doomed to fail. Perdim had lined up his troops, as mighty as ever, and this was what the pitiful remains of Kiapkum’s army faced.196 There was no command, no “Charge!”, no “Attack!”. Kiapkum simply kept marching with the remainder of his troops following in his steps, while Perdim’s hordes lumbered slowly and lazily towards them. Just a few moments197 separated the redeemers of the Seal from the clutches of this mob of monsters. The clash of good and evil was postponed because suddenly, exactly at the halfway point,198 the terrifying servants of the dark lord were halt- ed by – the Giants. However negligible their size from the viewpoint of Trigot, it helped them reach the scene without any major difficulties or losses. It the size of a modern-day elephant … They also led him through the corridors of time. Every one of them got lost there, some forever and others tottering out as shrunken, hunchbacked old men, only to die at the entrance to the evil pits. While Frodo misled Time by using the ring of invisi- bility, they had decided to roam the forest and distract the attention of Time away from Frodo who, though invisible, could still betray his posi- tion with his body heat. They ran around him bunched together and managed to confuse Time, which in turn aged them but only accidentally grazed Frodo here and there. 192 This fall has been impeccably described in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, when Alice, chasing the White Rabbit, falls down the Rabbit-Hole into Wonderland. 193 In the last minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick depicted the state in which Frodo now found himself. In an interview for Vanity Fair in February 1987, Kubrick himself confirms this fact: “I didn’t make anything up – within the cir- cles of time, all that takes place in the Odyssey, especially its ending, has been happening since and will happen into, time immemorial. The eternal return of the same, and nothing else but that.” 194 The incredible acceleration, as he was falling at 9.81 m/s2, was increasing so much that even this rate escalated. Frodo was actually losing mass because of the velocity of his fall, and now this lost mass was being increasingly attracted to the incandescent heart of the evil pit, which was also its gravitational centre. 195 The apocryphal writings mention the dragon Salamander (nota bene: dragons traditionally breathe fire), who guarded the Seal, while leg- ends about dragons of a later date mention that 102102

these reptiles had an infinitely precious jewel within their skulls. These stories undoubtedly arose from a need to offer at least a somewhat comprehensible explanation of the whole event. 196 Ghouls, spectres and phantoms, trolls, lemurs, monsters, beasts, gnomes, whole legions of hellish creatures, led by Haniel and Cassiel, Azrael and Anael, chimeras and lamiae, are but a small portion of the remaining anthropomor- phic representations of the ghastly army under Perdim’s command. We can now disclose the fol- lowing secret: the monsters listed here have only ever been mentioned separately, in different places inside the text, since their concentration would have been too dangerous, and not for the text alone. 197 A moment is the most precise unit of time we are able to use here. It represents the minimum of time necessary for time as such to exist. A moment is the smallest possible time span need- ed to cause an action that could take different possible turns. When an event is inevitable and unambiguous, time does not exist. Therefore, there could have been two seconds or several hours left before actual contact, depending on the simple formulas of physics, the interval of time calculable on the basis of the distance between and the average speed of the two armies, but since we do not have these parameters, it is bet- ter not to make any blind guesses. A “moment” is far more precise as a term of reference: it is just enough time for this or that to happen. 198 Of course we should not take “halfway” liter- ally either; it is more in the sense of : at half a moment , for only thus is it possible to act solely in the direction determined by a straightforward progression of events. 103 103 remains a mystery why no one noticed that they did not follow Kiapkum but rather took a circuitous route199 to which neither of the warring sides paid any attention.

Skulls cracked open and screams resounded across the battlefield as a handful of brave Giants entered the fray. Their half-brothers, the Jinns,200 rejoiced in the forthcoming battle and even prevented their fel- low-warriors from joining in, eager to slaughter their detested relatives on their own and devour their hearts. The Jinns, however, miscalculat- ed: they were relegated to the world of legends and myths only a moment before the same thing happened to the Giants. The Giants mas- sacred them down to the very last one201 , devouring not only their hearts but also their livers, which, though it may sound somewhat crude from the viewpoint of contemporary ethics, was perfectly in tune with their breed. In this battering - both sides using only their enormous hands and teeth as weapons - no more than a handful of Giants were killed. And then a piercing scream rang out, shaking the very walls of Trig- ot202 . Perdim’s hordes, who had been convinced of their companions’ victory until the very last instant,203 hurled themselves furiously upon the Giants. When the dust204 settled down again, the Giants’ butchered bodies could be seen scattered among the remains of the behemoths they had previously managed to kill. Nevertheless, there were enough of Perdim’s servants left to slaughter Kiapkum’s entire army without dif- ficulty. The Giants, on the other hand, were gone forever. Another moment passed, a moment in which even Kiapkum, facing the ferocious eyes of his approaching adversaries, lost his resolve. It seemed that all was lost. Suddenly, another deafening scream, a wail, a howl shattered their ears, echoing throughout Trigot, bursting forth from the earth and the sky: it was the voice of Perdim. At this very moment, Frodo appeared beside Kiapkum and…..handed him the Golden Seal of Bezlayem. A green light spilled across the battlefield: Mescalinbur gleamed in all its glory, reinforced by the Three Powers of the Seal. Mescalinbur dispersed the darkness that reigned after the clash of the Giants and the Jinns. Its strongest beam was aimed at Perdim himself, 199 The tactical model of the Giants’ march was later repeated in the history of warfare on numerous occasions. In the Serbian oral tradi- tion, the model is substantially distorted and acquires a negative connotation. It is represent- ed by the character of Bayazit, the Turkish heir to the throne, who inverts the outcome of the Bat- tle of Kosovo with his cavalry - symbolizing the Giants, since the size of the cavalry used in the battlefields of the late 14th century was indeed gigantic. Thus, despite the initial advantage held by the weaker side, it is the stronger one that wins out in the end. It also bears noting that the same event has a positive connotation in the Turkish tradition. 200 In the Islamic tradition, Jinns are genii, which is in itself an interesting etymological fact that, like so much else in this chronicle, remains unexplored. 201 As mentioned earlier, they had first invited their relatives to change sides and join the ranks of the righteous, but their offer was greeted by the Jinns with nothing more than a cynical laugh. 202 As per the previously noted principle, our traditional historical view is unable to envisage such events, bringing them closer to its recipi- ents through tempered metaphors instead. In this case, the force of that scream is symbolised by the trumpets of Jericho. 203 The last instant is, obviously, shorter than a moment, the period after the “point of no return” – the time when the chain of events can no longer be altered, when events can take but one single course. For example, while the apple is still on the tree, it can but does not necessarily have to fall on Newton’s head. It is a question of the moment when it will break off, even if Newton has been sleeping under it for days. On the other 104104

hand, when it does break off, and Newton is lying quite still beneath it, it must fall down on him. An instant is the time in which the apple has bro- ken off but Newton has not yet woken up. 204 Those prone to exaggeration would say that this cloud of dust, which covered the sky, trig- gered off the Ice Age and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Although later events shed no addi- tional light on that moment of oblivion which severed the link between the Third and our own History, we must dismiss the mentioned specu- lations as belonging to the grey zone of half- truths. 205 “Cain will be my name!” the Wizard of Khran gurgled, blood dripping from his mouth, as he recalled the times he had spent together with Ropim, before the quest for the Seal, includ- ing the instance when Ropim had saved his life in the Hollow of Truth. 206 The custom of eating certain parts of one’s enemy in an attempt to take over the features symbolically contained in these body parts still exists among some African tribes. To eat the hand is to absorb the strength of the one to whom it belonged, to eat the heart is to take his courage. By drinking Ropim’s blood, the Wizard of Khran had taken over his adversary’s spiritual power. 207 And again, the film industry came closer to the truth than historical science ever did – cf.: The Empire Strikes Back and the duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. 105 105 who had wrapped himself in his cloak to fend off the power of the sword. While the two commanders waged their motionless battle, all else came to a halt. Two other rivals, however, were engaged in a paral- lel struggle: the Wizard of Khran and Ropim clashed head on. Their fight could prove to be crucial for the final outcome of the battle between the two commanders, since the winner could come to the res- cue of his ally. Contrary to expectations, they fought hand-to-hand. They had already tested their respective magic powers and knew that they were equally matched. They did not resort to any cheap tricks, such as transforming themselves into monsters, bacilli or the like. As the most horrendous creatures that ever walked the earth already sur- rounded them, there was hardly any need for more. Nor did they ever try to drag one another into the labyrinths of space and time or into the depths of parallel worlds, corridors of death or of the supreme powers. They knew that no one would come out the winner from such a battle. They lunged at each other with their fists, feet, legs and teeth. The blows came fast and furious, a knee hitting a loin, an elbow thrust in the stomach, each tried to break the other’s spine, gouge out his eyes or twist his neck. At one point, Ropim managed to bite off the Wizard’s ear, but this led him straight to his own ruin! Enjoying the sweet taste of his fierce enemy’s blood, he was distracted for a moment. That same moment, the Wizard of Khran sank his teeth into Ropim’s jugular vein.205 Blood gushed from the slaughtered Ropim, as his body con- vulsed and twitched. The Wizard of Khran lay on top of him, guzzling his enemy’s hot, thick blood.206 “Welcome to my embrace!” Perdim exclaimed, rejoicing in the Wizard’s crazed look.207 “You chose the right side!” The Wizard of Khran rose to his feet. He assumed the appear- ance of an old man with a long white beard and hair, draped in a snow- white cloak and barefoot.

“Help me, oh Righteous One!” Kiapkum exclaimed when he saw him like that. In response, the Righteous One pointed at Perdim. Faced with another power attacking him, the Master of Evil had to unveil himself partially.208 First he swung his shield to ward off a ray emanat- ing from Mescalinbur and then started to emit waves of darkness towards his two adversaries. At the touch of this darkness, both rays of light – the one emanating from Mescalinbur and the one sent forth by the Wizard of Khran - vanished.209 At one point, though, the two beams of light collided and all darkness between them was gone. In the terrible explosion that ensued, Perdim disappeared forever.210 The battle was finally over. 208 In the Serbian epic poem “Marko Kraljevi} and Musa Kesed`ija”, Prince Marko asks the fairy, his “adopted sister”, to help him, and she answers that it is a “disgrace for two to beset one”. Still, she advises him how to kill Musa, which Marko does. In order to justify Prince Marko in the end, the bard makes him utter the following words of regret: “Alas and may the good Lord save me now / for I have killed a man better than I.” The hero’s moral integrity is thus salvaged, while the greatness of the defeated adversary only added to the glory of his heroic deed. 209 Astrophysicists and particle physicists would recognise in this phenomenon the simul- taneous creation of black holes and the clash between matter and antimatter. Many of the creatures were pulled in by this concentrated force. Ever since, the majority of them have been relegated to tales, and only a handful of dwarves and monsters can still be found in regions rarely reached by humans. 210 This text cannot even pretend to conjure up such an explosion – what comes closest are cer- tain scenes from Hollywood’s A production SF movies, depicting the explosion of a planet or a star. 106106

EPILOGUE Paiky took off his helmet. He felt nauseous. His head was spin- ning. He rushed off to Mr. Mikiewich’s office, not even hearing his mother prohibiting him from going out in the dark. He ran frantically through the streets of the city, trying to comprehend how the Golden Seal could at the same time be Mescalinbur and how the two could merge into an entity called CD-ROM, which was actually technically far more advanced. Who was Kiapkum and what had happened to Muky? Then he remembered his beloved teacher’s fate and started sob- bing inconsolably. However, Mikiewich was in his office, calmly puffing his pipe. He was holding Herodolmyte’s History…in his hands. “There you go, my dear boy, it says here that the survivors returned to Bezlayem, that the elves, along with the remaining dragons, departed for the Blue Moon,211 having agreed to take Orephys along with them, and that at the end of their earthly lives the veterans of the battle for the Seal moved to the Red Moon212 and became Divinities. It tells us about the convening of their Ultimate Court, where it was decid- ed that, since Perdim had broken the Scepter of Truth and Justice in the Final Battle, they would no longer interfere in the affairs of the world, which now had to create its own laws and as a consequence, they hard- ly ever appeared amongst us again. They left us to fend for ourselves.” Paiky felt too weak to say anything. He was stupefied, shocked by the fact that his teacher, whom he had thought dead, was sitting in front of him now, calmly reading to him from a book that was not even supposed to exist!213 He merely nodded and muttered: “A wonderful story”, fail- ing to detect that special, knowing smile on his teacher’s face that appears sometimes in the corners of the mouth of people who under- stand far more than they are willing to reveal. 211 Geologists have established as a fact that four million years ago, planet Earth on several occa- sions changed its polarity. Medus Drummond, a British scientist from Cambridge, who researched the tectonic fissure in the Indian Ocean in 1962, discovered, together with the changing polarity, a perfectly preserved bow, with strings still attached to it. When archaeolo- gists later removed the coral deposits in the New Haven laboratory in California, they were unable to determine the age of the object or the structure of the material from which it was made. Although the bow was left to decay at the bottom of the ocean for an unknown period of time, it displayed a ratio between elasticity and firmness that was unheard of at the time. It was only in 1993 that scientists were able to produce material with similar properties, applying it for the first time in the springs of the solar cells of a European telecommunications satellite. 212 A fossil remainder of a microscopically small life form has been discovered inside a meteorite, filed under number ALH840001.0, found underneath the ice of the Antarctic, exact- ly four million years old and proven to have originated on Mars. 213 The paradox of the existence of the book lay in the fact that, if the story was true, then his teacher had to be dead; and if it was not true, then his teacher could be alive, but the book he was reading from could not exist. 107 107

108 Paiky talked to his teacher for a little longer and then slowly headed home. His mother was no longer angry with him and did not complain when he went to his room and switched on his computer. He opened the “Creative World” software and began to compose the face of the most beautiful girl he could imagine. When he finished, a truly magnificent image smiled at him from the screen, just as he had imag- ined her to be. He opened the „File menu“, went to „Save as“, and saved his document as “Klihtoomena”. Then he logged on to the Internet and without really knowing what he was doing there, entered one of the search engines and typed in “Klihtoomena”. He could not believe it when the results showed that he scored 128,732,498 hits – the number of files in which the name of Muky’s beloved appeared. He went to www.klihtoomena.net, the first site on the list, and was in for another surprise: the same face that he had created was looking back at him from the main page. Further exploring the top- ic, he discovered that Muky and Klihtoomena were historic characters whose fate was revealed on tablets found in caves on the shores of the Red Sea. According to these texts, Klihtoomena and Muky ruled the entire known world before the oldest Egyptian dynasty even came into existence. According to one legend, Klihtoomena died and Muky trav- eled to find her and eventually managed to save her, after defeating the ruler of the underworld. Modern researchers believe that these records relate to the history of Atlantis, making them the first credible refer- ence to the sunken civilization since Plato’s remarks concerning Egypt- ian sources. There was no mention of the events which Paiky knew were true. He logged out and switched off his computer. In his dream, he once again merged with Muky into Kiapkum.