The well of lost plots (8 page)

“That must have been very disappointing.”

“It was,” he sighed. “I am an artist, not a technician. But it didn’t matter. I sold it lock, stock and barrel a few years back to
The Wide Sargasso Sea
. Harry Flashman from
Tom Brown’s Schooldays
went the same way. I had Mr. Pickwick’s backstory for years but couldn’t make a sale — I donated it to the Jurisfiction museum.”

“What do you make a backstory out of, Mr. Grnksghty?”

“Treacle, mainly,” he replied, shaking the flask and watching the oily substance change to a gas, “and memories.
Lots
of memories. In fact, the treacle is really only there as a binding agent. Tell me, what do you think of this upgrade to Ultra Word™?”

“I have yet to hear about it properly,” I admitted.

“I particularly like the idea of ReadZip™,” mused the small man, adding a drop of red liquid and watching the result with great interest. “They say they will be able to crush
War and Peace
into eighty-six words and still retain the scope and grandeur of the original.”

“Seeing is believing.”

“Not down here,” Mr. Grnksghty corrected me. “Down here,
reading
is believing.”

There was a pause as I took this in.

“Mr. Grnksghty?”

“Yes?”

“How do you pronounce your name?”

At that moment Snell strolled back in.

“That was Miss Havisham,” he announced, retrieving his head. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Grnksghty — come on, we’re off.”

Snell led me down the corridor past more shops and traders until we arrived at the bronze-and-wood elevators. The doors opened and several small street urchins ran out holding cleft sticks with a small scrap of paper wedged in them.

“Ideas on their way to the books-in-progress,” explained Snell as we stepped into the elevator. “Trading must have just started. You’ll find the Idea Sales and Loan department on the seventeenth floor.”

The ornate elevator plunged rapidly downwards.

“Are you still being bothered by junkfootnoterphones?”

“A little.”
⁴

“You’ll get used to ignoring them.”

The bell sounded and the elevator doors slid open, bringing with it a chill wind. It was darker than the floor we had just visited and several disreputable-looking characters stared at us from the shadows. I moved to get out but Snell stopped me. He looked about and whispered, “This is the twenty-second subbasement. The roughest place in the Well. A haven for cutthroats, bounty hunters, murderers, thieves, cheats, shape-shifters, scene-stealers, brigands and plagiarists.”

“We don’t tolerate these sort of places back home,” I murmured.

“We
encourage
them here,” explained Snell. “Fiction wouldn’t be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.”

I could feel the menace as soon as we stepped from the elevator. Low mutters were exchanged amongst several hooded figures who stood close by, their faces obscured by the shadows, their hands bony and white. We walked past two large cats with eyes that seemed to dance with fire; they stared at us hungrily and licked their lips.

“Dinner,” said one, looking us both up and down. “Shall we eat them together or one by one?”

“One by one,” said the second cat, who was slightly bigger and a good deal more fearsome, “but we better wait until Big Martin gets here.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the first cat, retracting his claws quickly, “so we’d better.”

Snell had ignored the two cats completely; he glanced at his watch and said, “We’re going to the Slaughtered Lamb to visit a contact of mine. Someone has been cobbling together plot devices from half-damaged units that should have been condemned. It’s not only illegal — it’s dangerous. The last thing anyone needs is a ‘Do we cut the red wire or the blue wire?’ plot device going off an hour too early and ruining the suspense — how many stories have you read where the bomb is defused with an hour to go?”

“Not many, I suppose.”

“You suppose right. We’re here.”

The gloomy interior was shabby and smelt of beer. Three ceiling fans stirred the smoke-filled atmosphere, and a band was playing a melancholy tune in one corner. The dark walls were spaced with individual booths where somberness was an abundant commodity; the bar in the center seemed to be the lightest place in the room and gathered there, like moths to a light, were an odd collection of people and creatures, all chatting and talking in low voices. The atmosphere in the room was so thick with dramatic clichés you could have cut it with a knife.

“See over there?” said Snell, indicating two men who were deep in conversation.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Hyde talking to Blofeld. In the next booth are Von Stalhein and Wackford Squeers. The tall guy in the cloak is Emperor Zhark, tyrannical ruler of the known galaxy and star of the Zharkian Empire series of SF books. The one with the spines is Mrs. Tiggy-winkle — they’ll be on a training assignment, just like us.”

“Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is an apprentice?” I asked incredulously, staring at the large hedgehog who was holding a basket of laundry and sipping delicately at a sherry.

“No; Zhark is the apprentice — Tiggy’s a full agent. She deals with children’s fiction, runs the Hedgepigs Society — and does our washing.”

“Hedgepigs Society?” I echoed. “What does
that
do?”

“They advance hedgehogs in all branches of literature. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle was the first to get star billing and she’s used her position to further the lot of her species; she’s got references into Kipling, Carroll, Aesop and four mentions in Shakespeare. She’s also good with really stubborn stains — and never singes the cuffs.”

“
Tempest
,
Midsummer Night’s Dream
,
Macbeth
,” I muttered, counting them off on my fingers. “Where’s the fourth?”

“
Henry VI
, part one, act four, scene one: ‘Hedge-born Swaine.’ ”

“I always thought that was an insult, not a hedgehog.
Swaine
can be a
country lad
just as easily as a
pig —
perhaps more so.”

“Well,” sighed Snell, “we’ve given her the benefit of the doubt — it helps with the indignity of being used as a croquet ball in
Alice
. Don’t mention Tolstoy or Berlin when she’s about, either — conversation with Tiggy is easier when you avoid talk of theoretical sociological divisions and stick to the question of washing temperatures for woolens.”

“I’ll remember that,” I murmured. “The bar doesn’t look so bad with all those pot plants scattered around, does it?”

Snell sighed audibly. “They’re Triffids, Thursday. The big blobby thing practicing golf swings with the Jabberwock is a Krell, and that rhino over there is Rataxis. Arrest anyone who tries to sell you soma tablets, don’t buy any Bottle Imps no matter how good the bargain and above all
don’t look at Medusa
. If Big Martin or the Questing Beast turn up, run like hell. Get me a drink and I’ll see you back here in five minutes.”

“Right.”

He departed into the gloom and I was left feeling a bit ill at ease. I made my way to the bar and ordered two drinks. On the other side of the bar a third cat had joined the two I had previously seen. The newcomer pointed to me but the others shook their heads and whispered something in his ear. I turned the other way and jumped in surprise as I came face-to-face with a curious creature that looked as though it had escaped from a bad science fiction novel — it was all tentacles and eyes. A smile may have flicked across my face because the creature said in a harsh tone:

“What’s the problem, never seen a Thraal before?”

I didn’t understand; it sounded like a form of
Courier bold,
but I wasn’t sure so said nothing, hoping to brazen it out.

“Hey!”
it said.
“I’m talking to you, two-eyes.”

The altercation had attracted another man, who looked like the product of some bizarre genetic experiment gone hopelessly wrong.

“He says he doesn’t like you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like you, either,” said the man in a threatening tone, adding, as if I needed proof, “I have the death sentence in seven genres.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I assured him, but this didn’t seem to work.

“You’re the one who’ll be sorry!”

“Come, come, Nigel,” said a voice I recognized. “Let me buy you a drink.”

This wasn’t to the genetic experiment’s liking for he moved quickly to his weapon; there was a sudden blur of movement and in an instant I had my automatic pressed hard against his head — Nigel’s gun was still in his shoulder holster. The bar went quiet.

“You’re quick, girlie,” said Nigel. “I respect that.”

“She’s with me,” said the newcomer. “Let’s all just calm down.”

I lowered my gun and replaced the safety. Nigel nodded respectfully and returned to his place at the bar with the odd-looking alien.

“Are you all right?”

It was Harris Tweed. He was a fellow Jurisfiction agent and Outlander, just like me. The last time I had seen him was three days ago in Lord Volescamper’s library, when we had flushed out the renegade fictioneer Yorrick Kaine after he had invoked the Questing Beast to destroy us. Tweed had been carried off by the exuberant bark of a bookhound and I had not seen him since.

“Thanks for that, Tweed,” I said. “What did the alien thing want?”

“He was a Thraal, Thursday — speaking in
Courier bold,
the traditional language of the Well. Thraals are not only all eyes and tentacles, but mostly mouth, too — he’d not have harmed you. Nigel, on the other hand, has been known to go a step too far on occasion — what are you doing alone in the twenty-second subbasement anyway?”

“I’m not alone. Havisham’s busy so Snell’s showing me around.”

“Ah,” replied Tweed, looking about, “does this mean you’re taking your entrance exams?”

“Third of the way through the written already. Did you track down Kaine?”

“No. We went all the way to London, where we lost the scent. Bookhounds don’t work so well in the Outland, and besides — we have to get special permission to pursue PageRunners into the real world.”

“What does the Bellman say about that?”

“He’s for it, of course,” replied Tweed, “but the launch of Ultra Word™ has dominated the Council of Genres’ discussion time. We’ll get round to Kaine in due course.”

I was glad of this; Kaine wasn’t only an escapee from fiction but a dangerous right-wing politician back home. I would be only too happy to see him back inside whatever book he’d escaped from — permanently.

At that moment Snell returned and nodded a greeting to Tweed, who returned it politely.

“Good morning, Mr. Tweed,” said Snell, “will you join us for a drink?”

“Sadly, I cannot,” replied Tweed. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at roll call, yes?”

“Odd sort of fellow,” remarked Snell as soon as Tweed had left. “What was he doing here?”

I handed Snell his drink and we sat down in an empty booth. It was near the three cats and they stared at us hungrily while consulting a large recipe book.

“I had a bit of trouble at the bar and Tweed stepped in to help.”

“Good thing, too. Ever see one of these?”

He rolled a small globe across the table and I picked it up. It was a little like a Christmas decoration but a lot more sturdy. A small legend complete with a bar code and ID number was printed on the side.

“ ‘Suddenly, a Shot Rang Out! FAD/167945,’ ” I read aloud. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a stolen freeze-dried plot device. Crack it open and
pow
! — the story goes off at a tangent.”

“How do we know it’s stolen?”

“It doesn’t have a Council of Genres seal of approval. Without one, these things are worthless. Log it as evidence when you get back to the office.”

He took a sip of his drink, coughed and stared into the glass. “W-what is this?”

“I’m not sure but mine is just as bad.”

“Not possible. Hello, Emperor, have you met Thursday Next? Thursday, this is Emperor Zhark.”

A tall man swathed in a high-collared cloak was standing next to our table. He had a pale complexion, high cheekbones and a small and precise goatee. He looked at me with cold, dark eyes and raised an eyebrow imperiously.

“Greetings,” he intoned indifferently. “You must send my regards to Miss Havisham. Snell, how is my defense looking?”

“Not too good, Your Mercilessness,” he replied. “Annihilating all the planets in the Cygnus cluster might not have been a very good move.”

“It’s those bloody Rambosians,” Zhark said angrily. “They threatened my empire. If I didn’t destroy entire star systems, no one would have any respect for me; it’s for the good of galactic peace, you know —
stability
, and anyway, what’s the point in possessing a devastatingly destructive death ray if you can’t use it?”

“Well, I should keep that to yourself. Can’t you claim you were cleaning it when it went off or something?”

“I suppose,” said Zhark grudgingly. “Is there a head in that bag?”

“Yes, do you want to have a look?”

“No, thanks. Special offer, yes?”

“What?”

“Special offer. You know, clearance sale. How much did you pay for it?”

“Only a . . . hundred,” Snell said, glancing at me. “Less than that, actually.”

“You were done.” Zhark laughed. “They’re forty a half dozen at CrimeScene, Inc. — with double stamps, too.”

Snell’s face flushed with anger and he jumped up.

“The little scumbag!” he spat. “I’ll have
him
in a bag when I see him again!” He turned to me. “Will you be all right getting out on your own?”

“Sure.”

“Good,” he replied through gritted teeth. “See you later!”

“Hold it!” I said, but it was too late. He had vanished.

“Problems?” asked Zhark.

“No,” I replied slowly, holding up the dirty pillowcase, “he just forgot his head — and careful, Emperor, there’s a Triffid creeping up behind you.”

Zhark turned to face the Triffid, who stopped, thought better of an attack and rejoined his friends, who were cooling their roots at the bar.