One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“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.

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.”