“Might I inquire where madam has been?” asked Sprockett once I had returned to The League of Cogmen. “ Vanity can be a dangerous place for those published. Brigands, scoundrels, verb artists and the Unread lurk in doorways, ready to steal the Essence of Read from the unwary.”
“I was in Fan Fiction.”
Sprockett’s eyebrow shot to “Worried” in alarm.
“How did you get back across the causeway?”
“Quite easily. They shoot anyone trying to escape, and they check the causeway every half minute to make sure. You can’t possibly run the distance in less than four minutes, so the answer seemed quite obvious.”
He diverted his mainspring to his thought cogs and whirred and clicked noisily for a full minute before giving up, and I had to tell him.
“That’s quite clever.”
“Elementary, my dear Sprockett. Julian Sparkle was a bit annoyed. He said that he’d have to change the puzzle. I won these steak knives. Perhaps Mrs. Winterhope would like them?”
“I think she should be delighted. May I ask a question, ma’am?”
“Of course.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“I’m going to accept Senator Jobsworth’s invitation to go to the peace talks tomorrow masquerading as the real Thursday Next. The paddle steamer leaves at seven A.M. Everything that has happened is to do with Racy Novel and Speedy Muffler, and unless I start getting to the heart of the problem, I’m not going to get anywhere. The Men in Plaid will think twice before doing anything while I’m in plain view, and Landen told me that this was the way to find Thursday: ‘The circumstances of your confusion will be your path to enlightenment.’ I don’t understand that, but I can become more confused—going upriver with Jobsworth will definitely provide the extra confusion I need.”
Sprockett stared at me for a moment, and I could tell by the way his eyebrow was quivering between “Thinking” and “Worried” that he knew something was up.
“Don’t you mean ‘we,’ ma’am?”
I pulled a letter from my pocket that I’d prepared while seated at a You for Coffee? franchise just off Sargasso Plaza.
“These are glowing references, Sprockett. They should allow you to find a position in Fiction without any problem. You have been a steadfast and loyal companion whom I am happy to have known as a friend. Thank you.”
I blinked as my eyes started to mist, and Sprockett stared back at me with his blank porcelain features. His eyebrow pointed in turn at all the possible emotions engraved on his forehead. There was nothing for “Sad,” so it sprang backwards and forwards between “Doubtful” and “Worried.”
“I must protest, ma’am. I do not—”
“My mind is made up, Sprockett. I have nothing to offer. You have a bright future. It will please me greatly if you find onward employment that I can be proud of.”
Sprockett buzzed quietly to himself for a moment. “This is compassion, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I can recognize it,” he said, “but I am at odds to understand it. Shall we go indoors?”
We had boiled cabbage for dinner, which might have been improved had there been any cabbage to go in it. But the Winterhopes were more than friendly, and after several rounds of bezique that might have been more enjoyable had there been cards, Sprockett played the piano accordion without actually having a piano accordion, and the empty unread book didn’t ring to the tune of the “Beer Barrel Polka” until the small hours.
34.
The Metaphoric Queen
Journeys up the Metaphoric River are hugely enjoyable and highly recommended. Since every genre is nourished by its heady waters, a paddle steamer can take even the most walk-shy tourists to their chosen destination. As a bonus there is traditionally at least one murder on board each trip—a “consideration” to the head steward will ensure that it is not you.
The steamer was called the Metaphoric Queen, and when I arrived, it was lying at the dockside just above the lock gates that separated the river from the Text Sea. The Queen was built of a wooden superstructure on a steel hull, measured almost three hundred feet from stem to stern and was the very latest in luxury river travel. A covered walkway ran around the upper deck, and behind the wheelhouse on the top deck was a single central stack that breathed out small puffs of smoke. As I approached, I could see the crew making ready. They loaded and unloaded freight, polished the brasswork, checked the paddle for broken vanes and oiled the traction arm that turned the massive sternwheel.
The Queen had docked only an hour before, and the cargo was being offloaded when I arrived: crude metaphor, sealed into twenty-gallon wooden casks, each stenciled PRODUCT OF RACY NOVEL. I watched as the casks were taken under guard and moved towards the Great Library, where they would be distilled into their component parts for onward trade.
“Welcome aboard!” said the captain as I walked up the gangplank. “The senator will be joining us shortly. The staterooms are the first door on the left—tea will be served in ten minutes.”
I thanked him and moved aft to the rear deck, which afforded a good view of the docks and the river. The other passengers were already on board and were exactly the sort of people one would expect to see on a voyage of this type. There was a missionary, a businessman, a family of settlers eager to make a new home for themselves, two ladies of negotiable affection and, strangely enough, several odd foreigners who wore rumpled linen suits and looked a bit mad.
“I think someone made a mistake on the manifest,” came a voice close at hand.
I turned to find an adventurer standing next to me. He looked as though he had argued with a rake at some point as a teenager and come off worse; three deep scars showed livid on his cheek and jaw. He was quite handsome in an understated sort of way, with a plain shirt, grubby chinos and a revolver on his belt. He was wearing a battered trilby with a dark sweat stain on the band, and he looked as though he hadn’t shaved—or slept—for days.
“A mistake on the manifest?”
“Three eccentric foreigners on a trip like this rather than the mandatory one. Mind you, it could be worse. I was on a similar jaunt last year, and instead of a single insultingly stereotypical Italian, all fast talking and gesticulating—we had six. Hell on earth, it was.”
As if in answer to this, the three eccentric foreigners started to jostle one another in an infantile manner.
“It’s Thursday Next, isn’t it?”
I looked at him, trying to remember where I’d seen him before. I stared for a little too long at the scars on his face, and he touched the pink marks thoughtfully.
“I don’t know how I got them,” he confessed, “but they’re supposed to make me look like I’m a man with an adventurous past.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m really not sure. I was given the scars but no backstory to go with them. Perhaps it will be revealed to me later. It’s an honor to meet you, I must say. My name’s Foden. Drake Foden.”
We shook hands. I didn’t want to deny I was Thursday, given my reason for being here, so I decided to hit him with some pseudo-erudition I had picked up in HumDram.
“You’re kind,” I replied, “but last Thursday and next Thursday are still a week apart.”
“Deep,” he said with a smile. “Where are you headed?”
“Upriver a bit,” I said, giving little away. “You?”
“Beyond Racy Novel,” he said, “and into the Dismal Woods.”
“Hoping to find the source of the Metaphoric?”
“Is there one?” He laughed.
Most people these days agreed that the river couldn’t actually have a source, since it flowed in several directions at once. Instead of starting in one place and ending in another using the traditionally mundane “downhill” plan, it would pretty much go as the mood took it. Indeed, the Metaphoric had been known to bunch up in Horror while Thriller suffered a drought, and then, when all was considered lost, the river would suddenly release and cause a flood throughout Comedy and HumDram. Not quite so devastating as one might imagine, for the Metaphoric brought with it the rhetorical nutrients necessary for good prose—the river was the lifeblood of Fiction, and nothing could exist without it.