The Best Book in the History of the World Ever
by Yasar Saleem

Chapter One

Jamie Owens took the battered coupon out of his pocket and peered at it. It was a voucher for a free can of soup that he had been saving for a rainy day. A quick dust down with his finger revealed as much, alongside a block of small print which declared it had a cash value of ‘0.001’ pence. Jamie half considered attempting to cash it in, just for the sake of finally knowing what a thousandth of a penny looked like, but a quick rumble of protest from his stomach soon put that thought to rest.

Jamie had been homeless for two months now. He was a freelance writer who no one wanted to hire; rent was hard to come by, and he’d been kicked out of his apartment and onto the rain soaked alleys of Panarika.

He was in the gutter, his only friends the slime around him.

Overall though, he’d thought he’d coped quite well, by anyone’s standards. A failed writer was pretty pathetic, but when you considered some of the other flops he had seen recently…well, let me tell you. Wizards who couldn’t cast the simplest of spells, warriors barely able to raise battle cries without a stammer, there was even a troll who had failed to graduate from his university*!

Yeah, Jamie was pretty low, but as he skipped into the supermarket, glimmers of a grin on the corners of his lips, eyeing the coupon hand-in desk, he got the feeling that things could be a whole lot worse.
--------------------------
*Something made infinitely worse due to the fact that the ability to raise your club and grunt in a reasonably scary manner was enough to see you get damn close to full marks in a troll’s place of learning.
--------------------------

~~~

The pigeon, tired from what had been a pretty rough day picking up scraps from the town square, hovered over some battered rooftops, before coming to rest on a nearby tree, devoid of leaves in this early winter’s night.

The pigeon cooed a little, head bobbing in jerks, taking in the world around him. He saw abandoned nests, a sad metaphor of something that used to flourish with energy, yet was now so devoid of it. He saw the moon glimmering in the eastern sky, its beauty tarnished by the clouds which dulled its shine. It was similar to life, he mused. You can do everything in your power, yet if fate wanted to cover your potential with its mist, there was nothing you could do about it.

It occurred to the pigeon that perhaps he thought just a little too much.

He was about to take to the air when the presence of man caught its eye. Thankfully, he wasn’t at ground level, pecking at crumbs of bread, and the stated man wasn’t being a bastard in unnecessarily chasing him away from his meal. No, from here, the pigeon could relax, watching what he would do.

The man was dressed rather scruffily, he thought, but the way in which he carried himself suggested better times before. His mousey brown hair lay in a tangled mess, and his face was unshaven, though not in a state that could account it as a beard. He had rather piercing eyes, a light shade of blue which shone brightly. He seemed to be holding a piece of paper too, but as he entered the supermarket, it was obscured by the security guards who stood at the door.

His interest lost, the pigeon rose to the skies again, unceremonially doing what all pigeons were born to do. He crapped on a nearby statue.

~~~

“What do you mean, you can’t take that?”

“Sir, this coupon is three weeks out of date.” The woman at the counter kept a fully teeth bared grin with her reply, but in her eyes, Jamie saw the look of someone who had been at work an hour too long, and had had to deal with one estranged customer too many.

“Look, lady,” Jamie began, “I’m cold, I’m wet, and I’m dirty. I’ve got no job, and I’m probably going to end up sharing a blanket with a werewolf tonight. Do you have any idea how bad a werewolf’s breath smells? It’s no blast of damn Wrigley’s Extra, I’ll give you that. All I’m asking is that you give me a can of soup. Please.”

“Sir, as much as I’d love to help you, I’m afraid it goes against staff protocols. Now if you don’t have any other business with me here, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” There was a twinge of anger in the young woman’s voice, but Jamie found that he didn’t care.

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me. You have got to be. Fucking. Shitting me. Look at this stomach. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten? You sit there all high and mighty in your stupid office chair with those stupid wheels on, with a glass screen in between that’s the only thing preventing me from smashing your stupid freakin’ head in and-”

“SECURITY!

“Oh yeah, you do that. You call your damn security. See if I give a shit! I’m not leaving this damn spot until I get some damn soup. That’s right. You heard me. There’s nowhere else in the damn world I’d rather be than waiting here for some soup. You know that thing that really pisses me off about you people is that ohbollocks...” Jamie, finding himself face to face with two pretty large trolls (both of whom, incidentally had managed to graduate from their respective universities), decided that there were actually a lot of places he’d much rather be than his current location and would you mind not stepping on my foot oh pretty please Mr. Troll sir.

Sighing, dejectedly, he made for the door.
The trolls didn’t even bother to follow him.

~~~

Jamie stepped out into the cold wintry streets of Panarika. In the short space of time he’d been in the Supermarket, the light drizzle that had been falling so persistently all day had turned into speckles of snow. Purple snow. The mages had a thing for messing around with weather.

Jamie let his feet carry him round backstreets and passage ways, each one a different experience in terms of sounds and smell. Feet are quite intelligent devices if left to their own means, and they carried him quicker than usual through some of the more foreboding paths.

Finally, Jamie found himself on one of Panarika’s larger roads. It lead to the city’s warrior training academies, or if you took it the other way, the local dump. The road was lit at either side by glowing lumps of metal; an ingenious invention by the local Wizard’s which allowed for areas to be brightened without use of primitive gas-lighting.

As Jamie walked past them, they cast light upon his tired face. The two months on the street’s had brought with them many scars, and the bags under his eye’s indicated the lack of sleep he had suffered for fear of gaining even more.

The dump itself was fairly large, as most inner city dumps are, around five hundred yards by five hundred yards in diameter. It was littered with all kinds of the usual junk, and part of Jamie’s regular day was spent scrounging around the muck for items of moderate value, which could be sold off at the bazaar.

His face stretched as he entered his residence, nose taking in the scent of blood and filth he had grown so accustomed to. Indeed, they say home is where the heart is, and the dump certainly had it’s fair share of those; in recent times it had become a casting ground for the local warrior trainers, with falling students’ corpses being carted in by the carriage full. Warriors never had much respect for the dead, or, come to think of it, the living.

The latest of those carriages had arrived, and the figure driving it stepped out, a dwarf, covered in what Jamie could only suspect was what passed as clothes around the Dwarven District. He was young, something not deduced from any lack of wrinkles or greying hair, but rather, an absence of facial styling. It had become quite trendy amongst the dwarves’ youth to shave off their beards, so much so in fact, that quite a significant number of the race’s females had taken to doing it too.

The driver (who’s nametag revealed him as “Eddie son of Teddy”) clambered into the back of the carriage and begun the monotonous task of shovelling the latest batch of bodies out. Each corpse lay lifeless, some trailing out various body organs, others merely a plethora of reds and browns. Eddie didn’t seem to have a problem dealing with the dead, each flick of his shovel tossing them far away. Jamie had to admit, he didn’t really find them all that much of a nuisance anymore either.

He had at first though. Definitely. Jamie had adjusted pretty well to street-life, but your first face to face experience with a carcass was something that was just a little more shocking than, say, your initial alleyway-brawl. He still remembered how ill he had felt the day he awoke with a lifeless body on his chest. Body too lacking in food to risk puking any away, he had merely dribbled out a trail of bile. Now though, corpses had become pretty much customary to his way of life. They had to be, if you lived at the dump. Here, there were as many disembodied heads as there were discarded biscuit wrappings.

Eddie had finished his job of shovelling for the night and was all set to drive back of into his cart. Jamie too, spotting some of his fellow hobo’s, was about to make a move, when a sudden movement caught the corner of his eye. The driver had dropped something, a quick squint of the eye revealing it to be a wallet. Jamie went over to hand it back, but then hesitated, caught in two minds. There could be money in that wallet. An actual, crisp, twenty pound note. Hell, even a mere quid or two would be good. Fingers in his mouth, he watched on as the driver set himself up to whip the horses into gear, before crying out a word of halt. Eddie, a little startled, clambered out in typical dwarf like fashion, sticking his backside in the air. He grunted a tone of questioning at the sight of Jamie, but his eyes lit up at the sight of the object in his hand.

“Cor’, blimey, me wallet! I can’t believe I dropped that! Me wife woulda’ had me arse off for it, got me weeks wages in it, that has,” Jamie grimaced as he handed it over, before the dwarf continued, “you deserve a reward!”

“Oh no, I couldn’t…” replied Jamie, in the tone of voice one uses when politely refusing a gift from an Auntie, full in the knowledge that she will insist on you taking it.

“Don’t be silly,” said Eddie, on cue. “Let’s just have a lookie here…”

Jamie’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the dwarf scrambling around his wallet with his hands, but they quickly narrowed as they revealed a something that was very obviously not money. Or even chocolate.

Thrusting it into his hands, Eddie ushered him closer, “You, you live in this dump don’t you?” Jamie nodded, “I know this place. I know only failures ever wind up here. I don’t know what you failed at, but, I suppose everyone deserves more than one chance to be a success at the things they love. That thing you hold in your hand. It could be your ticket out of this place. Don’t lose it, and if it ever comes in handy, think of me.”

With that, he lumbered back into his saddle, raising his arm in farewell, before speeding off into the distance.

Jamie, half heartedly, raised his own arm in return, before looking at the object he bore in his hand. It was a key; fairly small, made out of brass. He had no idea where to use it, nor how it could possibly go any way to giving him ‘one more chance’. He groaned at the sight of it now, with Eddie long gone.

He should’ve just taken the damn wallet…

~~~

Jamie walked over to his regular spot, a small fireplace surrounded by several rags acting as blankets, with the people he had come to know as friends. Well, he said people, but in truth, there were a few oddities amongst them. Harry, for starters, was the werewolf he had so rudely mentioned at the supermarket before. If he was being honest, his breath wasn’t as bad as he made it out to be, unless of course you weren’t a hundred miles away with a gasmask on. Goblar, sitting nearest to the fire, claimed he was man, but it was difficult to tell under the many layers of grime and collected spider webs he had gathered over the years. Slouched in the corner was Norman, an ex-accountant who had made the most fatal of mistakes anyone his profession could: he had lost his calculator. They still said he wandered at night, his soul endlessly searching for the one he had so carelessly misplaced a millennia ago. On the other hand, they did contain the aforementioned Harry and Goblar. Who delighted in the occasional practical joke.

Jamie sat down on what accounted for a chair around these parts: large empty crates taken from the nearby docks, and settled down to what was almost a ritual now. Each of them took it in turns telling the other what they had been up to during the day. It was a way of passing the time, and was what passed as entertainment around these parts**.

--------------------------
**They had tried playing cards at one point, but that idea soon fell flat on their faces as they realised the only thing they had to gamble with was mud. Not once did it cross their minds that they could play without the need of betting, but as unorthodox as their lives may be, they were still males after all.
--------------------------

Harry, being the oldest, and therefore wisest, began his tale, “I explored the sewers to see if there was anything I could scrounge today. I wasn’t having much luck, so after about five hours or so, I decided to pack it in and head back up, when I heard a noise that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the kind of growl that would reduce you men to tears, but me being the brave beast I am, I decided to go check it out. It wasn’t long before I found the source. It was a twelve foot brute of a creature, and it had really sharp claws and a face like this!” Harry screwed up his own face and started frantically shaking his own half chewed claws in the air. Jamie, despite himself, had to suppress a laugh. “Well, the creature wasn’t too happy to see me, I can tell you. But behind its back lay a one of the greatest treasures I had ever laid my eyes on, so I begun to fight it. The battle was hard, and there was many a moment where I thought I would never live to tell the story. We were evenly matched and it seemed every time I had victory in my grasp, he would rise again with the roar of a thousand lions and apes and those weird little furry things you see in trees sometimes. At the end of it though, he lay dead on the floor, and the brawl was mine. I picked up the treasure, a beautiful golden sceptre, and returned here to my abode.”

“A golden sceptre?!” cried Goblar. “Let’s see it then.”

“Er, well, it’s more of a spoon than anything else really...” said Harry, handing it over.

Goblar frowned, “This isn’t gold! It’s wooden! You’ve just dipped it in your own pansy coloured shit! That’s disgusting. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Harry,” said Norman, “There wasn’t really a monster at all, was there?”

“Eh, well, it was more of a cabbage than anything else. But it was the biggest cabbage you’d have ever seen! Honest!”

Goblar rolled his eyes, raising his arm at the same time, signalling that he was about to tell his own tale. “My day was a whole lot more believable. I went to the centre of town, where all the city criers are. They were crying all sorts of things- where to get the best medicine, where to get the best fruit, where to get the best illegal medicine -well, he wasn’t as much crying that as whispering it in your ear as you walked past- where to get the best cloth- quite a colourful place all in all. One man caught my attention above most, though. He was stout, not a Halfling as such, but probably just a pretty short man. He was advertising an expedition of sorts, and I brought the leaflet back here. Take a lookie here Jamie; they’ve got a position going for a writer!”

Jamie, not really paying all that much attention (Goblar’s stories were commonly long winded and full of meticulous detail), suddenly brought his head up at the sound of the word ‘writer’. Was Goblar pulling his leg? He’d been looking for a break for so long…he’d break the scallywag’s head open if he found him to be lying. He snatched the leaflet from his hands, and his jaw dropped at the words:

‘Art thou brave? Dost thou possess valour? Strength? Spirit? Clean Teeth? Then look no further! The Official Panarika Association of Adventures™ is recruiting for the following: wizards, warriors, navigators, captains and writers! The Smokepot Inn, Friday 15th April, no later than 9PM.’

Jamie’s grip tightened as he read the date. Friday 15th April? That was today!

“Norman, what’s the time?” he cried, anxiously.

“Just about to hit ten to nine, lad.” replied Norman.

Jamie turned on his heel and ran. It would be a squeeze, and he may just have to take some of the rougher alleyways, but with a little luck he could make it.

Back at the fire, Harry sat perplexed. “Where do you think he’s going?”

Goblar hit him over the head.

~~~

Jamie ran down Gothworth road, taking a right onto Johnson Lane, then a left onto Kingsage Street and running down its cobbled ground until he reached the Stockson complex of alleys. It was here where you had to be deadly careful. One wrong turn could lead to death, something epitomised with the sign hanging overhead which read: “BE REALLY CAREFUL. ONE WRONG TURN COULD LEAD TO DEATH.” Jamie gulped, before moving inside, trying to keep up pace. Even though he came from the outer reaches of the city, he had ventured through Stockson often as a boy. He knew the area well, but somehow, that fact wasn’t too comforting with a darkening sky and lengthening shadows. He had crept around here, sure, but never ran.

Still, he had to try to keep on sprinting. This job could be his ticket out of the low-life. He couldn’t afford to miss it. He just couldn’t!

Jamie narrowed his eyes in concentration. A left here, then a right…keep going until you see the house with the painting of a cat on, then right, then left again, then over the mini-bridge and through the tunnel…another right and you should find yourself on the main road again.

Except Jamie didn’t find himself face to face with the hustle and bustle of a main road, but rather, a dead end. He cursed under his breath, and went to retrace his steps, eyes closed in remembrance.

It was rather unlucky that Jamie closed his eyes, because perhaps if he didn’t, he might have been able to avoid the man he bumped into. As it were, Jamie found himself face to face with Rodrigo, the leader of the Slummer’s, the most feared of all the Stockson gangs.

Rodrigo sneered, toothpick in mouth, and looked down at what he’d bumped into. He grinned at what he saw, but it didn’t make Jamie feel any better. On the contrary, Jamie didn’t see it as a welcoming smile at all. It was the sort that doesn’t quite reach the eyes, the kind that teachers use, as if to say, ‘hey, I might be being nice to you right now, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you might find yourself in detention if you fuck about with me’. In this case, detention was a death in cold blood, and the teacher wasn’t going to bother to phone your parents.

Rodrigo threw his toothpick to one side. It hit the side of a house; the alley’s extremely tight around here. He began to circle his prey, vulture style, and Jamie, frozen on the spot, could see the extravagance of his walk. The man reeked of arrogance, his very posture declaring him as a man of great power. His garb too was expensively clad.  A gold and red tunic, arms and neck covered with chains, fingers littered with diamond rings. He stopped his little stride, as though he had sized Jamie up, and walked up towards him.

“Do you have any idea where you are?”

Jamie gulped, unsure of whether to shake his head or nod it. He chose the latter.

“And do you have any idea who I am?”

He nodded again, sweat beads appearing on his forehead.

“Then you must be aware that this area is strictly Slummer property. I’m afraid you’re trespassing dear boy. I’m sure you’re aware what we do to trespassers around these parts, hmm?”

Jamie’s Adam’s apple shook up and down feverishly.

Rodrigo let out a laugh, a short bark of sorts, before pulling out a silver blade. He ran his finger across its broad side, and chuckled to himself at the expression on Jamie’s face. Quick as a flash, it was pointed at his neck, but before the inevitable thrust that would follow, Rodrigo seemed to hesitate. A sound was coming from his trouser pocket, and as he rummaged into it, he revealed a ‘mobile stone’, an invention of the wizards which allowed for people to transmit sound from two set objects, and effectively talk to each other from any point around the globe.

Rodrigo’s face turned into a frown and he looked anxious to answer the call. He turned his attention briefly to Jamie and said, “Alas, much blood has been spilt on my behalf today. Run along now, but remember that on this day, Rodrigo cast mercy on your soul. Pray to your Lord that you never see me in these parts to tempt fate again.” With that, the leader of the Slummer’s span around, began a brisk trot and disappeared into the shadows, leaving Jamie whimpering in a corner, the echoes of Rodrigo’s half of the conversation fading to nothingness in his ears. He was frozen to the spot, rigid. God only knew how he had escaped death, and it was that very thought that was encompassing his mind, leaving his legs unable to move.

It was the sound of bells which re awoke his legs. Temple chimes, signalling that it was nine o’clock. The Smokepot Inn! He was late! Didn’t they lock the door around this time? It dawned upon Jamie that he’d been pondering thoughts for far too long, and subconsciously once more, his feet began to run him to the main road upon which it lay.

He got to it at ten past, standing outside, panting heavily. The windows were lit, and there was quite a noise coming from within, but Jamie’s earlier suspicion was right, and they had indeed locked out extra customers for the night. He banged his fist on the floor. Dammit! Ye Gods, why did life insist on screwing him over! There were tears in his eyes now, and he lay hunched on the floor. Ever since he was born nothing had gone right for him. The death of his parent’s, the fire which robbed him of his best friend, his failure as a writer…and now this.
He was sobbing uncontrollably on the floor, rolling from side to side, a jingle on the floor breaking his hypnosis of grief. Eyes bleary and puffed red, he struggled to see what it was, and groped out at it. A quick rub and his vision cleared up a little, revealing nothing more than the key he had found earlier. Biting his lip, he glanced at the door. Could this be what the dwarf was talking about? Surely not. But yet…it couldn’t hurt to try, could it?

Jamie arose, slowly, creeping towards the door. Hands shaking, he inserted his key into the lock.
It opened up to the rest of his life.



©Coypright 2005 Yasar Saleem