Emperor of Gondwanaland Read online

  Fascinated, Mutt continued to scan the introductory text on the main page, before beginning to bop around the site. What he discovered on these dependent pages were numerous intriguing photos of exotic scenes—cities, people, buildings, landscapes, artworks—and many more descriptive and explanatory passages that amounted to a self-consistent and utterly convincing portrait of an alien world.

  “The Defeat of the Last ’Warg”; a recipe for bluebunny with groundnut sauce; The Adventures of Calinok Cannikin, by Ahleucha Mamarosa; Jibril III’s tornado-struck coronation; the deadly glacier apes; the first landing on the Outermost Moon; the Immaculate Epidemic; the Street of Lanternmoths in Scordatura; the voices of children singing the songs of Mourners Day; the Teetering Needle in the Broken Desert; sunlight on the slate roofs of Saurelle; the latest fashion photographs of Yardley Legg—

  Mutt’s head was spinning and the clock icon on his screen read noon. Man, people thought Tolkien was an obsessive perfectionist dreamer! Whoever had put this site together was a goddamn fantasy genius! The backstory to Gondwanaland possessed the kind of organic cohesiveness that admitted of the random and contradictory. Why hadn’t the citizens of Balamuth ever realized that they were sitting on a vein of pure allurium until a sheepherder named Thunn Pumpelly fell into that sinkhole? They just hadn’t! A hundred other circumstantial incidents and anecdotes contributed to the warp and woof of Gondwanaland, until in Mutt’s mind the whole invention assumed the heft and sheen of a length of richly embroidered silk.

  Mutt wondered momentarily whether the whole elaborate hoax was the work of a single creator, or a group effort. Perhaps the name or names of the perps was hidden in some kind of Easter egg—

  The one link Mutt hadn’t yet explored led to the forums. Now he went there.

  He faced a choice of dozens of boards on different topics, all listing thousands of archived posts. He arbitrarily chose one—imperial news—and read a few recent posts in chronological order.

  Anybody heard any reports since Restday from the Liminal Palace on G4’s health?

  —IceApell3

  The last update from the Remediator General said G4 was still in serious condition. Something about not responding to the infusion of nurse-hemomites.

  —LenaFromBamford

  Looks like we could be having an Imperial Search soon then. I hope the Cabal of Assessors has their equipment in good working order. When was the last IS? 9950, right?

  —Gillyflower87

  Aren’t we all being a little premature? Golusty IV isn’t dead yet!

  —IlonaG

  Mutt was baffled, even somehow a little pissed off, by the intensity of the role-playing on display here. These people—assuming the posts indeed originated from disparate individuals—were really into this micronation game, more like Renaissance Faire head-cases and Civil War reenactors than the art-student goofballs Mutt had envisioned as the people responsible for the Gondwanaland site. Still, their fervent loyalty to their fantasy world offered Mutt a wistful, appealing alternative to his own anomie.

  Impulsively, Mutt launched his own post.

  From everything I’ve seen, Golusty IV seems like a very fine emperor and a good person. I hope he gets better.

  —MuttsterPrime

  He quit his browser and brought up his word processor.

  Then he resumed trying to fit his life into ten-minute boxes.

  Kicklighter returned from the Boston trip looking as if he had spent the entire time wrestling rabid tigers. Evidently, his cure had not been totally effective. His vaunted invulnerability to the seductions of Native American-sponsored games of chance plainly featured chinks. An office pool was immediately begun centered on his probable date of firing by the publisher, Henry Huntsman. Ironically, Kicklighter himself placed a wager.

  But all these waves of office scandal washed over Mutt without leaving any impression at all. Likewise, his dealings with his former friends and rivals had no impact on his abstracted equilibrium. Gifford’s unceasing invitations to get wasted, Cody’s sneers and jibes, Melba’s purring attempts at seduction—none of these registered. Oh, Mutt continued to perform his job in a semicompetent, offhanded way. But most of the time his head was in Gondwanaland.

  With his new best IM buddy, Ilona Grobes.

  Ilona Grobes—IlonaG—had posted the well-mannered, respectful comment about not hastening Golusty IV into his grave. Upon reading Mutt’s similarly themed post, she had contacted him directtly.

  MuttsterPrime, that was a sensitive and compassionate sentiment. I’m glad you’re not so thrilled by the prospect of an IS like most of these vark-heads that you forget the human dimension of this drama. I don’t recognize your name from any of the boards. What clade do you belong to?

  —IlonaG

  That question left Mutt scratching his head. He debated telling Ilona to cut the fantasy crap and just talk straight to him. But in the end he decided to go along with the play-acting.

  Ilona, is my clade really so important? I’d like to think that we can relate to each other on an interpersonal level without such official designations coming between us.

  —MuttsterPrime

  When Ilona’s reply came, Mutt was relieved to see that his strategy of conforming to her game-playing had paid off.

  How true! I never thought to hear from another Sloatist on this board! I only asked because I didn’t want to give offense if you were an ultra-Yersinian. But it’s so refreshing to dispense with such outdated formalities. Tell me some more about yourself.

  —IlonaG

  Not much to tell really. I’m an assistant editor at a magazine, and it sucks.

  —MuttsterPrime

  I’m afraid you’ve lost me there, Muttster. Why would a repository for excess grain need even one professional scurrilator, much less an assistant? And how can a condition or inanimate object “suck”? Where do you live? It must be someplace rather isolated, with its own dialect. Perhaps the Ludovici Flats?

  —IlonaG

  Mutt stood up a moment and looked toward the distant window in the far-off wall of the cube farm, seeing a slice of the towers of Manhattan and thereby confirming the reality of his surroundings. This woman was playing some serious games with his head. He sat back down.

  Oh, my home town is no place you’ve ever heard of. Just a dreary backwater. But enough about my boring life. Tell me about yours!

  —MuttsterPrime

  Ilona was happy to comply. Over the next several weeks, she spilled her life story, along with a freight of fascinating details about life in Gondwanaland.

  Ilona had been born on a farm in the Ragovoy Swales district. Her parents raised moas. She grew up loving the books of Idanell Swonk and the antic-tableaus (were these movies?) featuring Roseway Partridge. She broke her arm when she was eleven, competing in the annual running of the aurochs. After finishing her schooling, earning an advanced instrumentality in cognitive combinatorics, she had moved to the big city of Tlun, where she had gotten a job with the Cabal of Higher Heuristics. (Best as Mutt could figure, her job had something to do with writing the software for artificial mineral-harvesting deep-sea fish.) Every Breathday Ilona and a bunch of girlfriends—fellow geeks, Mutt conjectured—would participate in zymurgy, a kind of public chess match where the pieces were represented by living people and the action took place in a three-dimensional labyrinth. She liked to relax with a glass of cloudberry wine and the music of Clay Zelta. (She sent Mutt a sample when he said he wasn’t familiar with that artist. It sounded like punk polkas with a dash of tango.)

  The more Mutt learned about Ilona, the more he liked her. She might be crazy, living in this fantasy world of hers, but it was an attractive neurosis. The world she and her fellow hoaxers had built was so much saner and exotic than the one Mutt inhabited. Why wouldn’t anyone want to pretend they lived in such a place?

  As for the larger outlines of Gondwanalandian society and its finer details, Mutt learned much that appealed to him. For instance, the role of empe
ror or empress was not an inherited one, nor was it restricted to any particular class of citizen. Upon the death of the reigning monarch—whose powers were limited yet essential in the day-to-day functioning of the plurocracy—the Cabal of Assessors began a continentwide search for a psychic heir. At death, the holy spirit of the ruler—not exactly that individual’s unique soul, but something like free-floating semidivine mojo—was believed to detach and descend on a destined individual, whose altered status could be confirmed by subde detection apparatus. And then there was that eminently sensible business about every citizen receiving a lifetime stipend that rendered work not a necessity but a dedicated choice. Not to mention such attractions as the regular state-sanctioned orgies in such cities as Swannack, Harsh Deep, and Camp Collard that apparently made Mardi Gras look like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

  As for the crisis of Golusty IV’s impending death, the boards remained full of speculation and chatter. The remediators were trying all sorts of new treatments, and the emperor’s health chart resembled Earth’s stock market’s gyrations, one minute up and the next way down.

  “Earth’s stock market”? Mutt was shocked to find himself so convinced of Gondwanaland’s reality that he needed to distinguish between the two worlds.

  With some judicious self-censorship and the liberal use of generalities, Mutt was able to convey something of his life and character to Ilona as well, without baffling her further. He made up a lot of stuff, too, incidents and anecdotes that dovetailed with Gondwanalandian parameters. Her messages began to assume an intimate tone. As did Mutt’s.

  By the time Ilona sent him her picture, Mutt realized he was in love. The photograph clinched it. (It was too painful for Mutt even to dare to think the image might be a fake, the Photoshop ruse of some thirteen-year-old male dweeb.) Ilona Grobes was a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with a charming mole above quirked lips. If all cognitive combinatorics experts looked like this, Gondwanaland had proved itself superior in the geek department as well. With the photo was a message:

  Dear Mutt, don’t you think it’s time we met in the flesh? The emperor can’t live much longer, and of course all nonessential work and other activities will be suspended during the moratorium of the Imperial Search, for however long that may take. We could use those leisurely days to really get to know each other better.

  —IlonaG

  Finally, here was the moment when all charades would collapse, for good or ill. After some deliberation, Mutt attached his own photo and wrote back:

  Getting together would be really great, Ilona. Just tell me where you live, and I’ll be right there!

  —MuttsterPrime

  You’re such a joker, Mutt! You know perfectly well that I live at Number 39 Badgerway in the Funes district of Tlun! When can you get here? The aerial tramway service to Tlun is extensive, no matter where you live. Here’s a pointer to the online schedules. Try not to keep me waiting too long! And I think your auroch-lick hairstyle is charming!

  —IlonaG

  Mutt felt his spirits slump. He was in love with a clinically insane person, one so mired in her delusions that she could not break out even when offered genuine human contact. Should he cut things off right here and now? No, he couldn’t bring himself to.

  Let me check those schedules and tidy up some loose ends here, Ilona. Then I’ll get right back to you.

  —MuttsterPrime

  Mutt was still sitting in a motionless, uninspired funk half an hour later when Kicklighter called him into his office.

  All the editor’s photos were off the walls and in cardboard boxes, along with his other personal possessions. The hairy, rumpled man looked relieved.

  “I’m outta here as of this minute, kid. Security’s coming to escort me to the front door. But I wanted to let you know that I put in a good word for you to take over my job. Huntsman might not like my extracurricular activities too much, but he’s a good publisher and realizes I know my stuff when it comes to getting a magazine out. He trusts me on matters of personnel. So you’ve got a lock on the job, if you want it. And who wouldn’t? But you’ve got to get your head out of your ass. I don’t know where you’ve been the past few weeks, but it hasn’t been here.”

  All Mutt could do was stare at Kicklighter without responding. Scurrilator, he thought. Why would I want to be head scurrilator?

  After another awkward minute, Mutt managed to mumble some thanks and good-luck wishes, then left.

  He dropped in to Gifford’s cubicle. Maybe his friend could offer some advice.

  Gifford looked like shit. His tie was askew, his face pale and bedewed with sweat. There was a white crust around his nostrils like the rim of Old Faithful. He smiled wanly when he saw Mutt.

  “Hey, pal, I’d love to talk to you right now, but I don’t feel so good. Little touch of stomach trouble. In fact, I gotta hit the john pronto.”

  Gifford bulled past Mutt. He smelled like spoiled yogurt.

  Mutt wandered purposelessly through the cube farm. He found himself at Cody’s box. She glared at him and said, “If you’re here like the rest of them to gloat, you can just get in line.”

  “Gloat? About what?”

  “Oh, come on, don’t pretend you haven’t heard about the layoffs.”

  “No—no, I haven’t, really. I’m—I’m sorry, Cody.”

  Cody just snorted and turned away.

  Melba wasn’t in her cube. Mutt learned why from an official notice on the bulletin board near the coffee maker.

  If any employee is contacted by any member of the media regarding the sexual discrimination suit lodged by Ms. Melba Keefe, who is on extended leave until litigation is settled, he or she will refrain from commenting, upon penalty of dismissal.

  Back in his cubicle, Mutt brought up the Gondwanaland web page. The coastline of Gondwanaland bore unmistakable resemblance to the geography Mutt knew, the way an assembled jigsaw puzzle recalled the individual lonely pieces. As far as he could make out, Tlun was located where Buenos Aires was on Earth.

  Ilona, I’m going to try to reach you somehow. I’m setting out today. Wish me luck.

  —MuttsterPrime

  Mutt left his cheap hotel—roaches the size of bite-sized Snickers bars, obese hookers smoking unfiltered cigarettes and trolling the corridors 24/7—for the fifth time that day. He carried a twofold map. Before he had left the United States, he had printed off a detailed street map of Tlun. He had found a similar map for Buenos Aires and transferred it to a transparent sheet. Using certain unvarying physical features that appeared on both maps, such as rivers and the shape of the bay, he had aligned the two. This cartographic construction was what he was using to search for Number 39 Badgerway.

  Of course, Buenos Aires featured no such street in its official atlas. And the neighborhood that Ilona supposedly lived in was of such a rough nature as to preclude much questioning of the shifty-eyed residents—even if Mutt’s Spanish had been better than the “Qué pasa, amigo” variety. Watched suspiciously by glue-huffing, gutter-crawling juveniles and their felonious elders hanging out at nameless bars, Mutt could only risk a cursory inspection of the Badgerway environs.

  After checking out the most relevant district, Mutt was reduced to wandering the city’s boulevards and alleys, parks and promenades, looking for any other traces of a hidden, subterranean, alternative city that plainly didn’t exist anywhere outside the fevered imagination of a handful of online losers, as he prayed for a glimpse of an unforgotten female face graced by a small mole. Maybe Ilona was some Argentinian hacker girl who had been subliminally trying to overcome her own reluctance to divulge her real whereabouts by giving him all these clues.

  But even if that were the case, Mutt met with no success.

  He had now been in Argentina for ten days. All the trip’s costs, from expensively impromptu airline tickets to meals and lodging, had been put on plastic. He had turned his last paycheck into local currency for small purchases, but Mutt’s loan payments had left him no nest egg. And
the upper limits on his lone credit card weren’t infinite. Pretty soon he’d have to admit defeat, return the New York, and try to pick up the shambles of his life.

  But for the next few days, anyhow, he would continue to look for Tlun and Ilona.

  Returning today to the neighborhood labeled Funes on the Tlun map, Mutt entered a small café he had come to patronize only because it was marginally less filthy than any other. He ordered a coffee and a pastry. Spreading his map on the scarred countertop he scratched his stubble and pondered the arrangement of streets. Had he explored every possible niche—?

  A finger tapped Mutt’s shoulder. He turned to confront a weasly individual whose insincere yet broad smile revealed more gaps than teeth. The fellow wore a ratty Von Dutch T-shirt that proclaimed: I kiss better than you.

  “Señor, what is it you look for? Perhaps I can help. I know this district like the breast of my own mother.”

  Mutt realized that this guy must be some kind of con artist. But even so, he represented the best local informant Mutt had yet encountered, the only person who had deigned to speak with him.