The Well of Lost Plots

'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, which 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!'

'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 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,' he added, 'take no risks.'

'Understood,' replied Miss Havisham.

'Good!' enthused the Bellman, clapping his hands together and departing 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,' replied Havisham. '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From the bottom drawer of her desk she had withdrawn a small green leather box of the sort that might contain a wedding ring.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,' replied Havisham, '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!'

24 Pledges, the Council of Genres and searching for Deane

'Bookhound/booktracker: Name given to a breed of bloodhound peculiar to the Well. With a keen sense of smell (almost unheard of in the BookWorld) 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 trans-genre PageRunners — on occasion, to the Outland. They drool and slobber a lot. Not recommended as pets.'

UA OF W CAT — The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library (glossary)

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 sombre dark wood, moulded 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 among 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,' she said.

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,' replied Miss Havisham, '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 Movable Type.

'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 control everything we do. I'm a little sceptical 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 a vast council chamber with desks arranged in concentric circles.

'The main genres are seated at the front,' whispered Miss Havisham. 'The sub-genres 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 sub-genres are elected representatives from the Congress of Derivatives who bring information forward to the Sub-genres 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.'