![]() ![]() It is the Cultmaster of Bezaban, Khattam-Shud. They are pushed to a set of double doors and when they open, a “skinny, scrawny, measly, weaselly, snivelling clerical type” comes forward. It is all impermanent, as if “there was something not quite fixed or certain about it all.” The whole scene looks “normal and dull” to Haroun. Everything on the deck looks like shadows. On the deck of the ship are rows of massive cauldrons, all containing the poison. It is a Bite-a-Lite, a small device that will emit two minutes of bright light. ![]() Haroun tries to open his mouth and describe it, but the only thing that comes out is, “ark, ark.” As they are led onto the ship, Butt the Hoopoe is left behind and several of the Chupwala guards unscrew his head and take out a black circuit box, the bird’s brain. He thinks that this must be the Perpetual Darkness, but it turns out that it is the hull of a colossal ship. They reach a clearing, and Haroun sees a wall of night in front of them. “We are the Guardians of the Ocean, and we didn’t guard it.The oldest stories ever made.We let them rot, we abandoned them.We lost touch with our beginnings.” Haroun wishes Mali were there and he is afraid that the poison has eaten the Gardner. There is thick acid-like poison in the Ocean now. Butt predicts nothing but doom for them up ahead and Haroun tries to keep an optimistic outlook. The Chupwalas pull Haroun, Iff, and Butt the Hoopoe forward in their nets. ![]()
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