off. You’d better collect some more before he returns, and you’d better work out what to do about him, too. He’s a bad-tempered old man, but there are ways round him. You know how this goes.’
And Luka found that he did know. He looked around him. Dog the bear and Bear the dog had already started work. Bear was digging up the whole neighbourhood, and sure enough there were bones to be found everywhere, little crunchy bones, worth one life, that Bear could grind up and swallow in a trice, and bigger bones that took some hauling out of the earth and quite a lot of crunching up, that were worth between ten and one hundred lives apiece. Meanwhile, Dog the bear was off in the trees lining the Bund, looking for the hundred-life beehives hidden among the branches, and, on the way, swatting down and gobbling up any number of golden, single-life bees. Lives were everywhere, in everything, disguised as stones, vegetables, bushes, insects, flowers, or abandoned candy bars or bottles of pop; a rabbit scurrying in front of you could be a life and so might a feather blowing in the breeze right in front of yournose. Easily found, easily gathered, lives were the small change of this world, and if you lost a few, it didn’t matter; there were always more.
Luka began to hunt. He used his favourite tricks. Kicking tree stumps and rustling bushes were always good. Jumping into the air and landing hard on both feet shook lives down from the trees, and even made them tumble, like rain, out of the empty air. Best of all, Luka discovered, was punching the peculiar, round-bottomed, ninepin-like creatures who were hopping idly around the high Strand, the elegant, tree-shaded walkway on top of the Bund. These creatures did not fall over when you kicked them, but wobbled violently from side to side instead, giggling and shrieking with pleasure, and crying out in a kind of ecstasy, ‘More! More!’ while the lives Luka was looking for scurried out of them like shiny bugs. (When the Punchbottoms had run out of life-bugs, they said mournfully, ‘No more, no more,’ hung their little heads, and bounced shamefacedly away.)
When the lives Luka found landed on the Bund, they took the form of little golden wheels and immediately began to race away, and Luka had to chase them down, taking care not to fall off the Strand into the Waters of Time. He grabbed lives in great handfuls and stuffed them into his pockets, whereupon, with a little
ting
, they dissolved, and became a part of himself; and this was when he noticed the change in his eyesight. A little three-digit counter had somehow become lodged in the top left-hand corner of his field of vision; it was there, in the same place, no matter where he looked or how hard he rubbed his eyes; and the numbers kept going up as he swallowed, orabsorbed, his many lives, making, he was sure, a low whirring noise as they did so. He found that he could accept this new phenomenon easily enough. He would need to be able to keep score, because if he ran out of lives, well, the game would be over, and maybe also that other kind of life, the real one, the one he would need as and when he got back to the real world, where his real father lay asleep, desperately needing his help.
He had collected 315 lives (because of the three-digit counter in the top left of his personal screen, he guessed that the maximum number he could collect was probably 999) when the Old Man of the River came up on to the Strand again, with his Terminator in his hand. Luka looked around panicked for somewhere to hide, and at the same time tried desperately to remember what his father had told him about the Old Man, who, it seemed, was not just one of Rashid Khalifa’s inventions after all – or else he was here in the World of Magic
because
Rashid Khalifa had made him up. Luka remembered the way his father told the tale:
‘The Old Man of the River has a beard like a river,
It flows right down to his feet.
He stands on the Strand with a
And Luka found that he did know. He looked around him. Dog the bear and Bear the dog had already started work. Bear was digging up the whole neighbourhood, and sure enough there were bones to be found everywhere, little crunchy bones, worth one life, that Bear could grind up and swallow in a trice, and bigger bones that took some hauling out of the earth and quite a lot of crunching up, that were worth between ten and one hundred lives apiece. Meanwhile, Dog the bear was off in the trees lining the Bund, looking for the hundred-life beehives hidden among the branches, and, on the way, swatting down and gobbling up any number of golden, single-life bees. Lives were everywhere, in everything, disguised as stones, vegetables, bushes, insects, flowers, or abandoned candy bars or bottles of pop; a rabbit scurrying in front of you could be a life and so might a feather blowing in the breeze right in front of yournose. Easily found, easily gathered, lives were the small change of this world, and if you lost a few, it didn’t matter; there were always more.
Luka began to hunt. He used his favourite tricks. Kicking tree stumps and rustling bushes were always good. Jumping into the air and landing hard on both feet shook lives down from the trees, and even made them tumble, like rain, out of the empty air. Best of all, Luka discovered, was punching the peculiar, round-bottomed, ninepin-like creatures who were hopping idly around the high Strand, the elegant, tree-shaded walkway on top of the Bund. These creatures did not fall over when you kicked them, but wobbled violently from side to side instead, giggling and shrieking with pleasure, and crying out in a kind of ecstasy, ‘More! More!’ while the lives Luka was looking for scurried out of them like shiny bugs. (When the Punchbottoms had run out of life-bugs, they said mournfully, ‘No more, no more,’ hung their little heads, and bounced shamefacedly away.)
When the lives Luka found landed on the Bund, they took the form of little golden wheels and immediately began to race away, and Luka had to chase them down, taking care not to fall off the Strand into the Waters of Time. He grabbed lives in great handfuls and stuffed them into his pockets, whereupon, with a little
ting
, they dissolved, and became a part of himself; and this was when he noticed the change in his eyesight. A little three-digit counter had somehow become lodged in the top left-hand corner of his field of vision; it was there, in the same place, no matter where he looked or how hard he rubbed his eyes; and the numbers kept going up as he swallowed, orabsorbed, his many lives, making, he was sure, a low whirring noise as they did so. He found that he could accept this new phenomenon easily enough. He would need to be able to keep score, because if he ran out of lives, well, the game would be over, and maybe also that other kind of life, the real one, the one he would need as and when he got back to the real world, where his real father lay asleep, desperately needing his help.
He had collected 315 lives (because of the three-digit counter in the top left of his personal screen, he guessed that the maximum number he could collect was probably 999) when the Old Man of the River came up on to the Strand again, with his Terminator in his hand. Luka looked around panicked for somewhere to hide, and at the same time tried desperately to remember what his father had told him about the Old Man, who, it seemed, was not just one of Rashid Khalifa’s inventions after all – or else he was here in the World of Magic
because
Rashid Khalifa had made him up. Luka remembered the way his father told the tale:
‘The Old Man of the River has a beard like a river,
It flows right down to his feet.
He stands on the Strand with a
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