“
WELCOME TO K; but somebody had daubed it with crude, irregular letters, so that it now said WELCOME TO KOSH-MAR.
'What's Kosh-Mar?' Haroun wanted to know.
'It's the work of some miscreant,' shrugged Mr Butt. 'Not every person in the valley is happy, as you may find.'
'It's a word from the ancient tongue of Franj, which is no longer spoken in these parts,' Rashid explained. 'In those long-gone days the valley, which is now called simply K, had other names. One, if I remember correctly, was "Kache-Mer". Another was this "Kosh-Mar". '
'Do those names mean anything?' Haroun asked.
'All names mean something,' Rashid replied. 'Let me think. Yes, that was it. "Kache-Mer" can be translated as "the place that hides a Sea". But "Kosh-Mar" is a ruder name.'
'Come on,' urged Haroun. 'You can't stop there.'
'In the old tongue,' Rashid admitted, 'it was the word for "nightmare".
”
”