The puzzle, therefore, was how the river replenished itself. It had long been known that the river flowed up into the Dismal Woods a tired and stagnant backwater and emerged four hundred miles to the west reinvigorated and fizzing with a heady broth of creative alternatives. Quite what mechanism existed to make this happen was a matter of some conjecture. Many adventurers had been lost trying to find out. Some said the secret was guarded by a Mysteriously Vanished subplot that would devour all comers, while others maintained there existed a Fountain of Bestsellerdom that could grant eternal life, and no one troubled to expend a further word in consequence.
“No,” said the adventurer, “better men than me have been lost searching for the source of the Metaphoric. That’s next year. This year I’m in training: I’m going to attempt to uncover the legendary Euphemasauri graveyard.”
“Good luck,” I said, knowing full well that he would doubtless be dead in a week—the Euphemasaurus was a fearsome beast and not conducive to being tracked. It would perhaps be a safer, easier and more productive quest to look for his own refrigerator.
“Who is that?” I asked as a man with his face obscured by a large pair of dark glasses hurried past and went belowdecks, followed by a porter carrying his suitcases.
“He’s the mandatory MP-C12: Mysterious Passenger in Cabin Twelve. All sweaty journeys upriver have to carry the full complement of odd characters. It’s a union thing.”
“Hence the foreigners?”
“Hence the foreigners. Mark my words, there’ll be a mixedrace cook with a violent streak who speaks only Creole, a cardsharp and a man from the company.”
“Which company?”
“A company with commercial interests upriver. It doesn’t really matter what.”
“You must have done this many times.”
“Actually, it’s my first. I graduated from St. Tabularasa’s only this morning.”
“You must be nervous.”
The adventurer smiled confidently. “I’m running around inside screaming.”
I excused myself, as Red Herring, Colonel Barksdale and Senator Jobsworth had just arrived. They were accompanied by an entourage of perhaps a dozen staff, most of whom were simply faceless bureaucrats: D-grade Generics who did nothing but add background and tone to the general proceedings. Try to engage them in conversation and they would just blink stupidly and then stare at their feet.
“Good morning, Miss Next,” said Herring affably. “A moment of your time, if you would?”
He was dressed in a light cotton suit and was overseeing the arrival of a riveted steel box that had been placed on the foredeck by four burly rivermen and was now being lashed in place.
“Gifts for Speedy Muffler?”
“Two dozen plot lines and some A-grade characterization to show willingness,” replied Herring, tipping the rivermen and checking the cords. “Racy Novel doesn’t have much of either, so it should go down well.”
I thought of saying that this was because of Council of Genres sanctions but thought better of it.
“So,” he said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, “good to see you could make it.”
“All BookWorldians have a duty to avert war whenever it presents itself,” I said pointedly.
“Goes without saying. Your series is in good health, I trust?”
“Nothing a reissue in the Outland wouldn’t fix.”
He steered me to the rail and lowered his voice.
“Have the Men in Plaid been bothering you?”
“Why do you ask, sir?”
“Speedy Muffler has . . . friends within government. Some people are sympathetic to his cause. They feel that he has been unfairly treated and may try to work against the peace.”
I didn’t know whom to trust on this boat, so I decided to trust no one.
“I have seen a few Roadmasters following me over the past few days,” I replied cagily.
“Not that unusual,” said Herring. “Fantasy is a hotbed of Imaginative Fundamentalism; if we didn’t keep a Plaid presence on the streets to rein in Fantasy’s worst excesses, we’d be in cross-genre anarchy before we knew it. We’d regulate it more than we do if it weren’t so damn readable.”
Herring was nothing if not conservative in his opinions, but that only reflected the dominant politics of Fiction. The opposition called for more deregulation and even the banning of genres themselves, dubbing them “an affront to experimentation” and “the measles of the BookWorld,” while others called for greater formulaicism—if for nothing better than to appease publishers. A noise made me turn.
“Miss Next,” said Senator Jobsworth. “I am most grateful for your attendance. Will you join me in the captain’s cabin in twenty minutes?”
I told him I would, and he disappeared off towards his private rooms with his entourage. Red Herring looked at his watch nervously.
“Are we late leaving?” I asked.
“We’re waiting for the official Jurisfiction delegate.”
We were kept waiting another ten minutes until a sleek spaceship that seemed to have been carved from a single block of obsidian approached from the south, circled twice, lowered its landing gear and, with a rolling blast from its swiveling thrusters, landed on the dockside. The entrance ramp descended, and two imperial guards hurried down it while one blue-skinned valet spread rose petals on the ground and two more played a brief alarum on trumpets. After a dramatic pause, a tall figure swathed in a high-collared black cloak strode menacingly down the ramp. He had a pale complexion, high cheekbones and a small and very precise goatee. This was His Mercilessness the Emperor Zhark, tyrannical ruler of a thousand solar systems and undisputed star of the Emperor Zhark novels. He was also a senior Jurisfiction agent and by all accounts quite a sweetie—if you didn’t consider his habit for enslaving entire planets to be worked to death in his spice mines.
“Good morning, Your Mercilessness,” said Red Herring, stepping forward to greet him. “No entourage today?”
“Hello, Herring old chap. Where’s my cabin? I’ve a splitting headache. I was up all night dealing with Star Corps—bloody nuisance, they are. What am I doing here again?”
“You’re the Jurisfiction delegate to the Racy Novel peace talks.”
“Who are we fighting?”
“No one yet—that’s why we call them ‘peace talks.’”
“Couldn’t we just lay waste to the entire region and put everyone to the sword? It would save a lot of boring chat, and I can go back to bed.”
“I’m afraid not, Your Mercilessness.”
“Very well,” he said with a sigh, “just don’t expect me to bunk in with the cook again. He frightens me.”
“You have your own cabin this time, Emperor. We are already behind schedule. Steward?”
A steward stepped forward to take the emperor’s bag, which I noticed was made out of the skin of the uncle he had murdered in order to seize the Zharkian throne. Despite appearances, Zhark was a skilled negotiator; it was he and he alone who had brought Forensic Procedural to the table and averted a potential fracturing of the Crime genre.
“Good Lord,” said Zhark when he saw me. “Thursday?”
“The written one, Your Mercilessness,” I said, bowing low. “We last met six months ago at the Paragon Tea Rooms.”
He stared at me for a moment. Sometimes he was slow on the uptake. “You’re the written one?”
“Yes, sir.”
He moved closer, looked to left and right and lowered his voice.