Salman Rushdie - Luka and the Fire of Life

Far, far below them as they climbed – perhaps forty miles below them already – swirled the Inescapable Whirlpool, creating loops in Time, and above it the treacherous El Tiempo; but even though they were as far from danger as it was possible to be, they were still in double trouble, because far, far below them as they climbed – perhaps forty miles below them already – swirled the Inescapable Whirlpool, creating loops in Time, and above it the treacherous El Tiempo; but even though they were as far from danger as it was possible to be, they were still in double trouble, because far, far below them as they climbed – perhaps forty miles below them already – swirled the Inescapable Whirlpool, creating loops in Time, and above it the treacherous El Tiempo; but even though they were as far from danger as it was possible to be, they were still in double trouble, because far, far below them – perhaps forty miles below them already – swirled the Inescapable Whirlpool, creating loops in Time, and above it the treacherous El Tiempo; but even though they were as far from danger as it was possible to be, they were still in double trouble, because far, far below them as they climbed – and here the carpet broke out of the temporal whirlpool with a jerk that sent even Nobodaddy flying.

Only Soraya remained upright. ‘That’s one problem dealt with,’ she said, but she didn’t look seventeen any more, Luka realised, she looked maybe one hundred and seventeen, one thousand and seventeen years old, while he himself seemed to be getting younger by the minute, and Bear the dog was a puppy while Dog the bear looked rickety and frail. Even Nobodaddy had grown a white beard that reached down to his knees. If this went on much longer, Luka realised, they could forget about the Fire of Life, because El Tiempo would defeat them right here and now – whenever now was in this zone of messed-up years.

Once again, however, the Carpet of King Solomon proved equal to the task. Further and further it climbed, higher and higher, straining against the pull of the temporal traps below. And after a long, worrying time the moment came, the moment for which Luka had almost not dared to hope, when the Resham broke free of ElTiempo’s dark, invisible bonds. ‘We’re free,’ Soraya cried, and her face was her beautiful young face once again, and Bear was no longer a puppy, and Dog looked strong and fit. They were at the very zenith of their journey, just below the Kármán Line, and Luka stared with a kind of enchanted terror into the deeps of space, deciding that perhaps he preferred to keep his feet on the ground after all. And in a while the carpet began to descend, and ElTiempo and the Whirlpool were behind them. There had been no way to reach the saving point, wherever it might have been. So the risks were growing. If for any reason Luka failed to punch the golden button at the end of the next level he would be condemned to defeat this one all over again, and without the benefit of the carpet’s shields he would not stand a chance. But there was no time for such defeatist thinking. The Trillion and One Forking Paths lay ahead.

They were approaching the upper reaches of the River of Time. The wide, lazy lower River was far behind them, and so was the treacherous middle. As they got closer to the River’s source in the Lake of Wisdom, the River’s flow should have dwindled, making it an ever narrower stream. And no doubt it had; but now there were numberless other streams all around it, streams flowing in and out of one another, looking from above like the myriad strands of an intricate, liquid tapestry. Which one was the River of Life? ‘They all look the same to me,’ Luka confessed. And Soraya had a confession of her own. ‘This is the level I’m least certain about,’ she said, a little shamefacedly. ‘But don’t worry! I’ll get you there! That’s an Otter promise!’ Luka was horrified. ‘You mean, when you said you could help me skip four levels, you weren’t sure about the last one? And we haven’t even saved our progress, so if you get this wrong we’ll be done for, we’ll have to do the last two all over again…?’ The Insultana was not accustomed to criticism, and her face coloured brightly; and she and Luka might have had quite a quarrel right then and there, if there hadn’t been loud harrumphing noises to distract them. But harrumphing noises there were, and they turned crossly away from each other to see what was going on.

‘Excuse me,’ harrumphed the Elephant Duck, ‘but aren’t you ignoring something important?’

‘Or some one ,’ said the Elephant Drake. ‘Two someones, in fact.’

‘Us,’ the Elephant Duck clarified.

‘Who are we?’ the Elephant Drake wanted to know. ‘Are we living-room ornaments, or are we, perhaps, the famous Memory Birds of the World of Magic?’

‘Are we surf-and-turf menu items,’ the Elephant Duck went on, with a glare in Nobodaddy’s direction, ‘or have we perhaps spent our whole lives swimming in the River of Time, fishing for Eddies in the River of Time -’

‘- drinking the River of Time, reading the River of Time -’

‘- and, in sum, knowing the River of Time as intimately as if she were our Mother – which, in a way, she is, having nourished us all our lives – knowing it rather better, at any rate, than any Insultana of Ott, a place which isn’t even on the River?’

‘Meaning,’ concluded the Elephant Drake triumphantly, ‘that if we can’t tell the real River from these Trillion Fakes, then, my dears, nobody can.’

‘There you are, then,’ Soraya said to Luka, brazenly taking the credit. ‘I told you everything would be taken care of, and taken care of it is going to be.’

Luka decided not to answer her back. It was her flying carpet, after all.

An elephant’s trunk is an extraordinary organ. It can smell water from miles away. It can actually smell danger, being able to tell whether approaching strangers are friendly or hostile, and it can smell fear, too. And it can detect very particular scents from long distances: the odours of family members and friends, and of course the sweet smell of home. ‘Take us down,’ said the Elephant Drake, and the flying carpet, expanded again to a roomier size, flew down towards the labyrinth of waterways. The two Elephant Birds stood at the front with their trunks lifted high in the air, curving downwards at the tips. Luka watched the tips twitch in unison: left, right and left again. It looked like the trunks were dancing with each other, he thought. But could they really smell out the River of Time when they were surrounded by so many other, and no doubt confusing, watery perfumes?

While the Elephant Birds’ trunks were dancing, their ears, too, were hard at work, standing rigidly out from their heads and listening for the River’s whispers. Water is never silent when it moves. Brooks babble, streams burble, and a larger, slower river has deeper, more complicated things to say. Great rivers speak at low frequencies, too low for human ears to hear, too low even for dogs’ ears to pick up their words; and the River of Time told its tales at the lowest frequencies of all, and only elephants’ ears could listen to its songs. However, the Elephant Birds’ eyes were shut. Elephant eyes are small and dry and don’t see very far at all. Eyesight would be of no use in the search for the River of Time.

Time passed. The flying carpet flew across the Trillion and One Forking Paths in long, side-to-side sweeps. The sun sank in the western sky. Everyone felt hungry and thirsty, until Soraya’s magic oak chest produced an array of snacks and drinks. ‘We’re lucky that the Elephant Birds have bird appetites instead of elephant hungers,’ Luka thought, ‘because elephants eat all the time, and might empty out even that amazing chest.’ The shadows of the afternoon lengthened across the landscape. The Elephant Birds said nothing. Luka felt less and less hopeful as the light failed. Maybe this was how the adventure ended, with all his hopes lost in a maze of water. Maybe this – ‘That way!’ shouted the Elephant Duck, and the Elephant Drake confirmed, ‘Definitely, that way, about three miles away.’