The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

'Didn't the other students complain?'

'Of course! Napoleon was expelled.'

'Was it the smell?'

'No – the cheating. This way. I keep the minotaur in the dungeons. You are fully conversant with the legend?'

'Of course,' I replied. 'It's the half-man, half-bull offspring of King Minos' wife, Pasiphaë.'

'Spot on.' He chuckled. 'The tabloids had a field day: "Cretan Queen in Bull Love-child Shock." We built a copy of the Labyrinth to hold it but the Monsters' Humane Society insisted two officials inspect it first.'

'And?'

'That was over twelve years ago; I think they're still in it. I keep the minotaur in here.'

He opened a door that led into a vaulted room below the old hall. It was dark and smelt of rotten bones and sweat.

'Er, you do keep it locked up?' I asked as my eyes struggled to see in the semi-dark.

'Of course!' he replied, nodding towards a large key hanging from a hook. 'What do you think I am, an idiot?'

As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I could see that the back half of the vault was caged off with rusty iron bars. There was a door in the centre which was secured with a ridiculously large padlock.

'Don't get too near,' warned Perkins as he took a steel bowl down from a shelf. 'I've been feeding him on yogurt for almost five years, and to be truthful he's getting a bit bored.'

'Yogurt?'

'With some bran mixed in. Feeding him on Grecian virgins was too expensive.'

'Wasn't he slain by Theseus?' I asked, as a dark shape started moving at the back of the vault accompanied by a low growling noise. Even with the bars I really wasn't happy to be there.

'Usually,' replied Perkins, ladling out some yogurt, 'but mischievous Generics took him out of a copy of Graves' The Greek Myths in 1944 and dropped him in Tsaritsyn. A sharp-eyed Jurisfiction agent figured out what was going on and we took him out – he's been here ever since.'

Perkins filled the steel bowl with yogurt, mixed up some bran from a large dustbin and then placed the bowl on the floor a good five feet from the bars. He pushed the dish the remainder of the way with the handle of a floor mop.

As we watched, the minotaur appeared from the dark recesses of the cage and I felt the hairs bristle on the back of my neck. His large and muscular body was streaked with dirt and sharpened horns sprouted from his bull-like head. He moved with the low gait of an ape, using his forelegs to steady himself. As I watched he put out two clawed hands to retrieve the bowl, then slunk off to a dark corner. I caught a glimpse of his fangs in the dim light, and a pair of deep yellow eyes which glared at me with hungry malevolence.

'I'm thinking of calling him Norman,' murmured Perkins. 'Come on, I want to show you something.'

We left the dark and fetid area beneath the old hall and walked back into the laboratory, where Perkins opened a large leather-bound book that was sitting on the table.

'This is the Jurisfiction Bestiary,' he explained, turning the page to reveal a picture of the grammasite we had encountered in Great Expectations.

'An adjectivore,' I murmured.

'Very good,' replied Perkins. 'Fairly common in the Well but under control in fiction generally.'

He turned a page to reveal a sort of angler fish, but instead of a light dangling on a wand sticking out of its head it had the indefinite article.

'Nounfish,' explained Perkins. 'They swim the outer banks of the Text Sea, hoping to attract and devour stray nouns eager to start an embryonic sentence.'

He turned the page to reveal a picture of a small maggot.

'A bookworm?' I suggested, having seen these before at my Uncle Mycroft's workshop.

'Indeed,' replied Perkins. 'Not strictly a pest and actually quite necessary to the existence of the BookWorld. They take words and expel alternative meanings like a hot radiator. I think earthworms are the nearest equivalent in the Outland. They aerate the soil, yes?'

I nodded.