The 13 12 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers

Author:Walter Moers [MOERS, WALTER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC009000, FIC002000
ISBN: 9781468307191
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2013-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Yson lived in one of the villages in the Muchwater Marshes, so it seemed logical to pick a quarrel with the Peat Witches that inhabited them, whose songs caused people to lose their way and die a painful death by drowning in the waters of the morass. Yson allowed himself to be bewitched by their singing, marched into the swamp, and duly sank below the surface.

But he didn’t drown.

Hard as he tried and eagerly as he drew the brackish water into his lungs, he simply couldn’t drown. His lungs breathed the water like fresh sea air. The Peat Witches, who were beside themselves with rage, pelted him with clods of earth and chased him back to his village.

Next, Yson tried to burn himself to death. He had heard of the Hellfires of Midgard, great pools of liquid fire that bubbled up from the bowels of the earth, hot enough to melt rocks and ingots of iron. Unhesitatingly, he hurled himself into the biggest of those pools of fire.

But he didn’t burn to death.

On the contrary, he found the fire freezing cold and shivered like someone in an icy bath. Instead of sustaining fatal burns he caught a bad cold.

Having recovered from his cold, Yson went to Baysville, where the biggest millstones in Zamonia ground the wheat from Harvest Home Plain into flour. Each of these stones was as big as a medium-sized village, and each time it turned it pulverized the grain from five whole fields. Yson lay down beneath one, hoping to be crushed to death.

But the millstone didn’t crush him.

Instead, it broke into a thousand pieces and buried him. But not even that could kill Yson. He crawled out of the debris a few minutes later, whereupon the angry local farmers drove him out of town.

His other attempts to kill himself, though quite comparable with Baldwyn’s suicidal exploits, were equally unsuccessful.

No Reptilian Rescuers came to Yson’s assistance – in his case they were superfluous. He merely discovered, on numerous occasions and in a wide variety of ways, that he was invulnerable. But he didn’t give up hope. He persisted in trying to kill himself by the most multifarious means.

But he didn’t die.

One day there came a knock at Yson’s door. He opened it to find Death standing outside. ‘Listen to me, Yson,’ said Death. ‘You can tie yourself in knots for all I care, but I still decide when someone dies. I’ve nothing against you personally, and it’s all the same to me if you’d sooner die today than in fifty years’ time. But if I turn a blind eye once, everyone will want the same privilege, and I might as well hang up my scythe. Just remember this: I’ll always be where you’re least expecting me, never where you’re looking for me – so give up!’

But Yson didn’t give up, not even on Death’s personal recommendation. He passed through sandstorms and showers of meteorites unscathed, scaled the highest peaks, defied the thunderbolts of a Gloomberg Tempest, and jumped off Demon Rocks no less than three times.

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