Bear and Dog were in a state of high agitation, but now Luka and the Old Man were circling each other, staring each other down, and it was the Old Man who spoke first, in a hard greedy voice pushing roughly through teeth that seemed hungry to eat up little Luka’s life.
‘What goes round and round the wood but never goes into it?’
‘The bark of the tree,’ said Luka at once, and shot back, ‘It stands on one leg with its heart in its head.’
‘Cabbage,’ snapped the Old Man. ‘What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?’
‘Your word. I have a little house and I live in it alone. It has no doors or windows, and to go out I must break through the wall.’
‘Egg. What do you call a fish without an eye?’
‘A fsh. What do sea monsters eat?’
‘Fish and ships. Why was six afraid of seven?’
‘Because seven eight nine. What has been there for millions of years but is never more than a month old?’
‘The moon. When you don’t know what it is then it’s something, but when you know what it is then it’s nothing.’
‘That’s easy,’ Luka said, badly out of breath. ‘A riddle.’
They had been circling faster and faster, and the riddles had been coming at greater and greater speed. This was just the beginning, Luka knew; soon the number riddles would start, and the story riddles. The difficult stuff still lay ahead. He wasn’t sure if he could last the course, so the thing was not to let the Old Man dictate the pace and manner of the contest. It was time to play the joker in the pack.
He stopped circling and put on his grimmest expression. ‘What,’ he asked, ‘goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?’
The Old Man of the River stopped circling, too, and for the first time there was a weakness in his voice and a tremble in his limbs. ‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded feebly. ‘That’s the most famous riddle in the world.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Luka, ‘but you’re stalling for time. Answer me.’
‘Four legs, two legs, three legs,’ said the Old Man of the River. ‘Everyone knows this one. Ha! It’s the Oldest One in the Book.’
(‘The she-monster known as the Sphinx,’ Rashid Khalifa used to tell Luka, ‘sat outside the city of Thebes and challenged all the travellers who passed by to solve her riddle. When they failed, she killed them. Then one day a hero came by and knew the answer.’ ‘And what did the Sphinx do then?’ Luka asked his father. ‘She destroyed herself,’ Rashid replied.
‘And what was the answer to the riddle?’ Luka asked. But Rashid Khalifa had to admit that, no matter how many times he learned the blasted story, he could never remember the solution to the riddle. ‘So that old Sphinx,’ he said, not very sadly, ‘she’d have eaten me up for sure.’)
‘Come on,’ Luka said to the Old Man of the River. ‘Your time’s up.’
The Old Man of the River looked around in panic. ‘I could just blast you anyway,’ he said.
Luka shook his head. ‘You know you can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Not now. Not any more.’ Then Luka allowed his expression to become a little dreamy. ‘My father could never remember the answer, either,’ he said. ‘And this is my father’s World of Magic, and you are his Riddle Man. So you can’t know what he couldn’t recall. And now you and the Sphinx must share the same fate.’
‘Permination,’ the Old Man of the River said softly. ‘Yes. That is just.’ And without more ado, and quite unsentimentally, he lifted his Terminator, set the dial on maximum, pointed the weapon at himself, and fired.
‘The answer is a man,’ Luka said to the empty air, as the tiny, shining smithereens of the Old Man blew away into nothingness, ‘who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks upright as a grown-up, and uses a stick when he’s old. That’s the answer: a man. Everyone knows that.’
The departure of the Gatekeeper at once unveiled the Gate. A trellised stone archway wreathed in bougainvillea flowers magically appeared on the edge of the Bund, and beyond it Luka could see an elegant flight of stairs leading down to the river’s edge. There was a golden button set in the archway’s left pillar. ‘I’d push that if I were you,’ suggested Nobodaddy. ‘Why?’ Luka asked. ‘Is it like ringing a doorbell to be invited in?’ Nobodaddy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘It’s like saving your progress so that the next time you lose a life you don’t have to come back here and fight the Old Man of the River all over again. He may not fall for your little trick next time, either.’ Feeling a little stupid, Luka pushed the button, and there was a little answering piece of music, the flowers around the archway grew larger and more colourful, and a new counter appeared in Luka’s field of vision, this time in the top right-hand corner, a single-digit counter, reading ‘1’. He wondered how many levels he would have to surmount, but after his foolishness about the Save button, he decided this was not the moment to ask.
Nobodaddy led the boy, the dog and the bear down the Bund to the left bank of the River of Time. Punchbottoms bounced up towards the travellers, hoping to be kicked – ‘Ooch! Ouch! Ooch!’ they squeaked in happy anticipation – but everyone’s attention was elsewhere. Bear and Dog were both talking at once at the tops of their new voices, half excited, half terrified by Luka’s battle against, and victory over, the Old Man of the River, and there were so many hows and whats and wows and eeks in their chatter that Luka couldn’t begin to reply. And anyway, he was exhausted. ‘I need to sit down,’ he said, and his legs gave way beneath him. He landed with a thump in the riverside dust, and it rose up around him in a little golden cloud, which quickly formed itself into a creature, like a tiny living flame with wings. ‘Feed me and I live,’ it said hotly. ‘Give me water and I die.’
The answer was obvious. ‘Fire,’ Luka said quietly, and the Fire Bug grew agitated. ‘Don’t say that!’ it buzzed. ‘If you go shouting fire at the top of your voice somebody will probably come running with a hose. Too much water around here for my liking anyway. Time to be off.’ ‘But wait a minute,’ Luka said, excited in spite of being so tired. ‘Maybe you’re what I’ve been looking for. Your light is so beautiful,’ he added, thinking that a little flattery might not hurt. ‘Are you … is this … could you be part of … a bearer of … the Fire of Life?’
‘Don’t mention that,’ said Nobodaddy quickly, but it was too late.
‘How do you know about the Fire of Life?’ the Fire Bug wanted to know, becoming cross. Then it turned its displeasure upon Nobodaddy. ‘And you, sir, as far as I can see you should be somewhere else entirely, with something else entirely to do.’