The well of lost plots (33 page)

We exchanged anxious glances. Being declared a PageRunner was serious — few were captured alive.

“Item four,” continued the Bellman. “The Minotaur. We’ve got an APB out on him at present, but until he turns up or does something stupid, we won’t know where he is. There was a report he had crossed over into nonfiction, which I would love to believe. Until we know otherwise, everyone should keep a good lookout.”

He consulted his clipboard again.

“Item five. The 923rd Annual BookWorld Awards. Because we are launching UltraWord™ at the same time, all serving members of the BookWorld have been invited. Obviously we can’t leave books unmanned, so skeleton staff will be left in charge. The venue will be the Starlight Room again, although with a displacement field technology we’ve borrowed from the SF boys so everyone can attend. This will mean extra security and I have allocated Falstaff to look after it. Any questions?”

There weren’t, so he moved on.

“Item six. Thursday Next has been made a probationary Jurisfiction member. Where are you?”

I put up my hand.

“Good. Let me be the first to welcome you to the service — and not before time; we need all the extra hands we can get. Ladies and gentlemen, Thursday Next!”

I smiled modestly as there was a round of applause; the people nearest me patted me on the arm.

“Well done!” said Tweed, who was close by, grinning.

“Miss Next will be afforded full rights and privileges, although she will remain under Miss Havisham’s watchful eye for twenty chapters or a year, whichever be the longer. Will you take her up to the Council of Genres and have her sworn in?”

“Happily,” replied Miss Havisham.

“Good. Item seven. The
had had
and
that that
problem. Lady Cavendish, weren’t you working on this?”

Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. “Indeed. The uses of
had had
and
that that
have to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the imaginotransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.”

“Go on.”

“It’s mostly an unlicensed-usage problem. At the last count
David Copperfield
alone had had
had had
sixty-three times, all but ten unapproved.
Pilgrim’s Progress
may also be a problem due to its
had had/that that
ratio.”

“So what’s the problem in
Progress
?”

“That that had
that that
ten times but had had
had had
only thrice. Increased
had had
usage had had to be overlooked, but not if the number exceeds that
that that
usage.”

“Hmm,” said the Bellman, “I thought
had had
had had TGC’s approval for use in Dickens? What’s the problem?”

“Take the first
had had
and
that that
in the book by way of example,” explained Lady Cavendish. “You would have thought that that first
had had
had had good occasion to be seen as
had
, had you not?
Had
had had approval but
had had
had not; equally it is true to say that that
that that
had had approval but that that other
that that
had not.”

“So the problem with that other
that that
was that . . . ?”

“That that other-other
that that
had had approval.”

“Okay,” said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, “let me get this straight:
David Copperfield
, unlike
Pilgrim’s Progress
, had had
had
, had had
had had
.
Had had
had had TGC’s approval?”

There was a very long pause.

“Right,” said the Bellman with a sigh, “that’s it for the moment. I’ll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session’s over — and let’s be careful out there.”

“Never would have thought it of Vernham, by George!” exclaimed Bradshaw as he walked up. “He was like a son to me!”

“I didn’t know you had a son.”

“I don’t. But if I did, he would be just like Vern.”

“His character in
Potternews
wasn’t that pleasant,” I observed.

“We usually try and keep our book personalities separate from our Jurisfiction ones,” said Havisham. “Think yourself lucky I don’t carry over any of my personality from
Great Expectations
— if I did, I’d be pretty intolerable!”

“Yes,” I said diplomatically, “I’m very grateful for it.”

“Ah!” said the Bellman as he joined us. “Miss Havisham. You’re to go and swear in Agent Next at the C of G, then get yourself to the Well and see if you can find any clues inside
The Squire of High Potternews
. If possible, I want him alive. But — take no risks.”

“Understood,” replied Miss Havisham.

“Good!” The Bellman clapped his hands together and departed to talk to the Red Queen.

Havisham beckoned me over to her desk and indicated for me to sit.

“Firstly, congratulations on becoming a full Jurisfiction agent.”

“I’m not ready for this!” I hissed. “I’m probably going to fall flat on my face!”

“
Probably
has nothing to do with it; you shall. Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”

I started to thank her for her faint praise, but she interrupted, “This is for you.”

From the bottom drawer of her desk she had withdrawn a small, green leather box of the sort that might contain a wedding ring. She passed it over and I opened it. As I did, I felt a flash of inspiration move through me. I knew what it was. No bigger than a grain of rice, it had value far in excess of its size.

“From the Last Original Idea,” murmured Havisham, “a small shard from when the whole was cleaved in 1884, but a part nonetheless. Use it wisely.”

“I can’t accept this,” I said, shutting the case.

“Rubbish. Accept with good grace that which is given with good grace.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Havisham.”

“Don’t mention it. Why do you have
Landen
written on your hand?”

I looked at my hand but had no idea why. Gran had put it there — she must have been having one of her fuzzy moments.

“I’m not sure, Miss Havisham.”

“Then wash it off — it looks so vulgar. Come, let us adjourn to the Council of Genres — you are to sign the pledge!”

Bookhound/Booktracker:
Name given to a breed of bloodhound peculiar to the Well. With a keen sense of smell and boundless energy, a bookhound can track a PageRunner not only from page to page but from book to book. The finest bookhounds, diligently trained, have also been known to track transgenre PageRunners and, on occasion, to the Outland. They drool and slobber a lot. Not recommended as pets.

CAT FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHESHIRE,
Guide to the Great Library

WE TOOK THE elevator. Miss Havisham told me that it was considered the height of poor breeding and vulgarity to jump all the way to the lobby at the Council of Genres — and it was impossible to jump straight into the Council chambers for security purposes. The chambers were situated on the twenty-sixth floor of the Great Library. Like the seventeenth floor it was almost deserted; authors whose names begin with
Q
and
Z
are not that abundant. The doors opened and we stepped out. But it wasn’t like the previous library floors I had visited, all somber dark wood, molded plaster ceilings and busts of long-dead writers — the twenty-sixth floor had a glazed roof. Curved spans of wrought iron arched high above our heads supporting the glass, through which we could see clouds and a blue sky beyond. I had always thought that the library was created
conceptually
to contain the books and had no use or existence outside that. Miss Havisham noticed me staring up at the sky and drew me towards a large window. Although it was the twenty-sixth floor, it seemed a lot higher — and the library, inwardly shaped like a fine cross many miles in length, was far squatter when seen from the outside. I looked down the rain-streaked exterior and beyond the stone gargoyles to a tropical forest far below us, where wispy clouds flecked the tops of the lush foliage.

“Anything is possible in the BookWorld,” murmured Miss Havisham. “The only barriers are those of the human imagination. See the other libraries?”

Not more than five miles distant, just visible in the aerial haze, was another tower like ours, and beyond that, another — and over to my right, six more. We were just one towering library of hundreds — or perhaps thousands.

“The nearest one to us is German,” said Miss Havisham, “beyond that French and Spanish. Arabic is just beyond them — and that one over there is Welsh.”

“What are they standing on?” I asked, looking at the jungle far below. “Where
exactly
are we?”

“Getting all philosophical, are we?” murmured Miss Havisham. “The long and short answer is we really don’t know. Some people claim we are just part of a bigger story that we can’t see. Others maintain that we were created by the Great Panjandrum, and still others that we are merely in the
mind
of the Great Panjandrum.”

“Who,” I asked, my curiosity finally getting the better of me, “is the Great Panjandrum?”

“Come and see the statue.”

We turned from the window and walked along the corridor to where a large lump of marble rested on a plinth in the middle of the lobby. The marble was roped off, and below it was a large and highly polished plaque proclaiming
Our Glorious Leader
.

“That’s the Great Panjandrum?” I asked, looking at the crude block of stone.

“No, that’s only the statue of the Great P — or at least it will be when we figure out what he or she looks like. Good afternoon, Mr. Price.”

Mr. Price was a stonemason but he wasn’t doing anything; in fact, I don’t think he had
ever
done anything — his tools were brightly polished, unmarked, and lying in a neat row next to where he was sitting, reading a copy of
The Word
.

“Good afternoon, Miss Havisham,” he said, politely raising his hat.

Havisham indicated the surroundings. “The Great Panjandrum is meant to be the architect of all this and controls everything we do. I’m a little skeptical myself; no one controls
my
movements.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” I whispered.

“What did you say?”

“I said,
they couldn’t care
. Not a great deal, given the violence in books.”

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps. Come along and see the Council at work.”

She steered me down the corridor to a door that opened into a viewing gallery above the vast Council chamber with desks arranged in concentric circles.

“The main genres are seated at the front,” whispered Miss Havisham. “The subgenres are seated behind and make up a voting group that can be carried forward to the elected head of each genre, although they do have a veto. Behind the subgenres are elected representatives from the Congress of Derivatives, who bring information forward to the subgenres inspectorate — and behind them are the subcommittees who decide on day-to-day issues such as the Book Inspectorate, new words, letter supply and licensing the reworkings of old ideas. The Book Inspectorate also license plot devices, Jurisfiction agents and the supply and training schedules for Generics.”

“Who’s that talking now?” I asked.

“The Thriller delegate. She’s arguing against Detective having a genre all of its own — at present Detective is under Crime, but if they break away, the genres at Thriller will want to split themselves three ways into Adventure, Spy and Thriller.”

“Is it always this boring?” I asked, watching the Thriller delegate drone on.

“Always. We try to avoid any entanglements and let Text Grand Central take all the flak. This way.”

We left the viewing gallery and padded down the corridor to a door that led into the smallest room I had ever seen. It seemed to be mostly filing cabinet and desk. An equally small man was eating biscuits — and most of them were falling down his front.

“Thursday Next to take the pledge,” announced Miss Havisham. “I have the documents all signed and sealed by the Bellman.”

“Work, work, work,” said the small man, taking a swig of tea and looking up at me with small yet oddly intense eyes. “I rarely get any peace — you’re the second pledge this year.” He sighed and wiped his mouth on his tie. “Who seconds the application?”

“Commander Bradshaw.”

“And who vouches for Miss Next?”

“I do.”

“Good. Stand up and repeat the oath of the BookWorld.”

I stood up and, primed by Miss Havisham, repeated:

“I swear by the Great Panjandrum that I shall uphold the rules of Jurisfiction, protect the BookWorld and defend every fictioneer, no matter how poorly written, against oppression. I shall not shirk from my duty, nor use my knowledge or position for personal gain. Secrets entrusted to me by the Council of Genres or Text Grand Central must remain secret within the service, and I will do all I can to maintain the power of storytelling within the minds and hearts of the readers.”

“That’ll do,” said the small man, after another bite of his biscuit. “Sign here, here, and, er,
here
. And you have to witness it, Miss Havisham.”

I signed where he indicated in the large ledger, noting as I did so that the last Jurisfiction agent to have signed was Beatrice. He snapped the book shut after Miss Havisham had witnessed my signature.

“Good. Here’s your badge.”

He handed over a shiny Jurisfiction badge with my name and number engraved below the colorful logo. It could get me into any book I wanted without question — even Poe if I so chose, although it wasn’t recommended.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” said the bureaucrat, looking at his watch, “I’m very busy. These forms have to be processed in under a month.”