They returned to their drinks but never took their eyes off me. I could imagine how a mouse felt. After ten minutes I decided that I was not going to be intimidated by outsize house pets and got up to leave, taking Snell's head with me. The cats got up and followed me out, down the dingy corridor. Here the shops sold weapons, dastardly plans for world domination and fresh ideas for murder, revenge, extortion and other general mayhem. Generics, I noticed, could just as easily be trained in the dark art of being an accomplished evildoer. The cats yowled excitedly and I quickened my step, only to stumble into a clearing among the shanty town of wooden buildings. The reason for the clearing was obvious. Sitting atop an old packing case was another cat. But this one was different. No oversized house cat, this beast was four times the size of a tiger, and it stared at me with ill-disguised malevolence. Its claws were extended and fangs at the ready, glistening slightly with hungry anticipation. I stopped and looked behind me to where the four other cats had lined up and were staring at me expectantly, tails gently lashing the air. A quick glance around the corridor revealed that there was no one near who might offer me any assistance; indeed, most of the bystanders seemed to be getting ready for something of a show. I pulled out my automatic as one of the cats bounded up to the newcomer and said:
'Can we eat her now, please?'
The large cat placed one of its claws in the packing case and drew it through the wood like a razor-sharp chisel cutting through soft clay; it stared at me with huge green eyes and said in a deep rumbling voice:
'Shouldn't we wait until Big Martin gets here?'
'Yes,' sighed the smaller cat with a strong air of disappointment, 'perhaps we should.'
Suddenly, the big cat pricked up his ears and jumped from his box into the shadows; I pointed my gun but it wasn't attacking – the overgrown tiger was departing in a panic. The other cats quickly left the scene and pretty soon the bystanders had gone, too. Within a few moments I was completely alone in the corridor, with nothing to keep me company but the rapid thumping of my own heart, and a head in a bag.
6
Night of the grammasites
* * *
'Grammasite: Generic term for a parasitic life form that lives inside books and feeds on grammar. Technically known as Gerunds or Ingers, they were an early attempt to transform nouns (which were plentiful) into verbs (which at the time were not) by simply attaching an 'ing'. A dismal failure at verb resource management, they escaped from captivity and now roam freely in the sub-basements. Although thankfully quite rare in the Library itself, isolated pockets of grammasites are still found from time to time and dealt with mercilessly.'
UA OF W CAT – The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library (glossary)
I turned, and walked quickly towards the elevators, a strong feeling of impending oddness raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I pressed the 'call' button but nothing happened; I quickly dashed across the corridor and tried the second bank of elevators but with no more success. I was just thinking of running to the stairwell when I heard a noise. It was a distant low moan that was quite unlike any other sort of low moan that I had ever heard, nor would ever want to hear again. I put down the head-in-a-bag as my palms grew sweaty, and although I told myself I was calm, I pressed the call button several more times and reached for my automatic as a shape hove into view from the depths of the corridor. It was flying close to the bookshelves and was something like a bat, something like a lizard and something like a vulture. Covered in patchy grey fur, it was wearing stripy socks and a brightly coloured waistcoat of questionable taste. I had seen this sort of thing before; it was a grammasite, and although dissimilar to the adjectivore I had seen in Great Expectations, I imagined it could do just as much harm – it was little wonder that the residents of the Well had locked themselves away. The grammasite swept past in a flash without noticing me and was soon gone with a rumble like distant artillery. I relaxed slightly, expecting to see the Well spring back into life, but nothing stirred. Far away in the distance, beyond the Slaughtered Lamb, an excited burble reached my straining ears. I pressed the call button again as the noise grew louder and a slight breeze draughted against my face, like the oily zephyr that precedes an underground train. I shuddered. Where I came from a Browning automatic spoke volumes, but how it would work on a grammar-sucking parasite I had no idea – and I didn't think this would be a good time to find out. I was preparing myself to run when there was a melodious 'bing', the call button light came on and one of the elevator pointers started to move slowly towards my floor. I ran across and leaned with my back against the doors, releasing the safety catch on my automatic as the wind and noise increased. By the time the elevator was four floors away the first grammasites had arrived. They looked around the corridor as they flew, sniffing at books with their long snouts and giving off excited squeaks. This was the advance guard. A few seconds later the main flock arrived with a deafening roar. One or two of them poked at books until they fell off the shelves, while other grammasites fell upon the unfinished manuscripts with an excited cry. There was a scuffle as a character burst from a page, only to be impaled by a grammasite who reduced the unfortunate wretch to a few explanatory phrases which were then eaten by scavengers waiting on the sidelines. I had seen enough. I opened fire and straight away got three of them who were devoured in turn by the same scavengers – clearly there was little honour or sense of loss among grammasites; their compatriots merely shuffled into the gaps left by their fallen comrades. I picked off two who were scrabbling at the bookcases attempting to dislodge more books and then turned away to reload. As I did so, another eerie silence filled the corridor. I released the slide on my automatic and looked up. About a hundred or so grammasites were staring at me with their small black eyes, and it wasn't a look that I'd describe as anywhere near friendly. I sighed. What a way to go. I could see my headstone now:
THURSDAY NEXT
1950-1986
SpecOps agent & beloved wife
to someone who doesn't exist
Killed for no adequately explained reason
in an abstract place by an abstract foe
I raised my gun and the grammasites shuffled slightly, as though deciding among themselves who would be sacrificed in order for them to overpower me. I pointed the gun at whichever one started to move, hoping to postpone the inevitable. The one who seemed to be the leader – he had the brightest-coloured waistcoat, I noted – took a step forward and I pointed my gun at him as another grammasite seized the opportunity and made a sudden leap towards me, its sharpened beak heading straight for my chest. I whirled around in time to see its small black eyes twinkle with a thousand well-digested verbs as a hand on my shoulder pulled me roughly backwards into the elevator. The grammasite, carried on by its own momentum, buried its beak into the wood surround. I reached to thump the close button but my wrist was deftly caught by my as yet unseen saviour.
'We never run from grammasites.'
It was a scolding tone of voice that I knew only too well. Miss Havisham. Dressed in her rotting wedding dress and veil, she stared at me with despair. I think I was one of the worst apprentices she had ever trained – or that was the way she made me feel, at any rate.
'We have nothing to fear except fear itself,' she intoned, whipping out her pocket derringer and dispatching two grammasites who made a rush at the elevator's open door. 'I seem to spend my waking hours extricating you from the soup, my girl!'
The grammasites were slowly advancing on us; they were now at least three hundred strong and others were joining them. We were heavily outnumbered.
'I'm sorry,' I replied quickly, curtsying just in case as I loosed off another shot, 'but don't you think we should be departing?'
'I fear only the Questing Beast,' announced Havisham imperiously. 'The Questing beast, Big Martin … and semolina.'
She shot another grammasite with a particularly fruity waistcoat and carried on talking. 'If you had troubled to do some homework you would know that thes
e are Verbisoids and probably the easiest grammasite to vanquish of them all.'
And almost without pausing for breath, Miss Havisham launched into a very croaky and out-of-tune rendition of 'Jerusalem'. The grammasites stopped abruptly and stared at one another. By the time I had joined her at the holy lamb of God line they had begun to back away in fright. We sang louder, Miss Havisham and I, and by dark satanic mills they had started to take flight; by the time we had got to bring me my chariot of fire they had departed completely.
'Quick!' said Miss Havisham. 'Grab the waistcoats – there's a bounty on each one.'
We gathered up the waistcoats from the fallen grammasites; it was not a pleasant job – the corpses smelt so strongly of ink that it made me cough. The carcasses would be taken away by a verminator who would boil down the bodies and distil off any verbs he could. In the Well, nothing is wasted.
'What were the smaller ones?'
'I forget,' replied Havisham, tying the waistcoats into a bundle. 'Here, you're going to need this. Study it well if you want to pass your exams.'
She handed me my TravelBook, the one that Goliath had taken; within its pages were almost all the tips and equipment I needed for travel within the BookWorld.
'How did you manage that?'
Miss Havisham didn't answer. She snorted and pulled me towards the elevator again. It was clear that the twenty-second sub-basement wasn't a place she liked to be. I couldn't say I blamed her.
Miss Havisham relaxed visibly as we rose from the sub-basements and into the more ordered nature of the Library itself.
'Why do grammasites wear stripy socks?' I asked, looking at the bundle of garments on the floor.
'Probably because spotted ones are out of fashion,' she replied with a shrug, reloading her pistol. 'What's in the bag?'
'Oh, some – er – shopping of Snell's.'
Miss Havisham was a bit like a strict parent, your worst teacher and a newly appointed South American dictator all rolled into one. Which wasn't to say I didn't like her or respect her – it was just that I felt I was still nine whenever she spoke to me.
'So why did we sing "Jerusalem" to get rid of them?'
'As I said, those grammasites were Verbisoids,' she replied without looking up, 'and a Verbisoid, in common with many language students, hates and fears irregular verbs — they much prefer consuming regular verbs with the "ed" word endings. Strong irregulars such as "to sing" with their internal vowel changes – we will sing, we sang, we have sung — tend to scramble their tiny minds.'
'Any irregular verb frightens them off?' I asked with interest.
'Pretty much; but some irregulars are more easy to demonstrate than others – we could cut, I suppose, or even be, but then the proceedings change into something akin to a desperate game of charades – far easier to just sing and have done with it.'
'What about if we were to go? I ventured, thinking practically for once. 'There can't be anything more irregular than go, went, gone, can there?'
'Because,' replied Miss Havisham, her patience eroding by the second, 'they might misconstrue it as walked — note the "ed" ending?'
'Not if we ran," I added, not wanting to let this go, 'that's irregular, too.'
Miss Havisham stared at me icily.
'Of course we could. But ran might be seen in the eyes of a hungry Verbisoid to be either trotted, galloped, raced, rushed, hurried, hastened, sprinted or even departed.'
'Ah,' I said, realising that catching Miss Havisham out was about as likely as nailing Banquo's ghost to a coffee table, 'yes, it might, mightn't it?'
'Look,' said Miss Havisham, softening slightly, 'if running away killed grammasites there wouldn't be a single one left. Stick to "Jerusalem" and you won't go far wrong – just don't try it with adjectivores or the parataxis; they'd probably join in – and then eat you.'
The elevator stopped on the eleventh sub-basement, the doors opened and a large Painted Jaguar got in with her son, who had a paddy-paw full of prickles and was complaining bitterly that he had been tricked by a hedgehog and a tortoise, who had both escaped. The Mother Jaguar shook her head sadly, looked to heaven in exasperation and then turned to her son.
'Son, son,' she said, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, 'what have you been doing that you shouldn't have?'
'So,' said Miss Havisham as the elevator moved off again, 'how are you getting along in that frightful Caversham Heights book?'
'Well, thank you, Miss Havisham,' I muttered, 'the people in it are worried that their book will be demolished from under their feet.'
'With good reason,' replied Havisham. 'I've read it. Hundreds of books like Heights are demolished every day. If you stopped to waste any sympathy, you'd go nuts – so don't. It's man eat man in the Well. I'd keep yourself to yourself and don't make too many friends – they have a habit of dying just when you get to like them. It always happens that way. It's a narrative thing.'
'Heights isn't a bad place to live,' I ventured, hoping to elicit a bit of compassion.
'Doubtless,' she murmured, staring off into the middle distance. 'I remember when I was in the Well, when they were building Great Expectations. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when they told me I would be working with Charles Dickens. Top of my class at Generic College and, without wanting to seem immodest, something of a beauty. I thought I would make an admirable young Estella – both refined and beautiful, haughty and proud, yet ultimately overcoming the overbearing crabbiness of her cantankerous benefactor to find true love.'
'So … what happened?'
'I wasn't tall enough.'
'Tall enough? For a book? Isn't that like having the wrong hair colour for the wireless?'
'They gave the part to a little strumpet who was on salvage from a demolished Thackeray. Little cow. It's no wonder I treat her so rotten – the part should have been mine!'
She fell into silence.
'Let me get this straight,' said the Painted Jaguar, who was having a bit of trouble telling the difference between a hedgehog and a tortoise, 'if it's slow-and-solid I drop him in the water and then scoop him out of his shell—'
'Son, son!' said his mother, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, 'now attend to me and remember what I say. A hedgehog curls himself up into a ball and his prickles stick out every way—'
'Did you get the Jurisfiction exam papers I sent you?' asked Miss Havisham. 'I've got your practical booked for the day after tomorrow.'
'Oh!' I said.
'Problems?' she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
'No, ma'am, I just feel a bit unprepared – I think I might make a pig's ear of it.'
'I disagree,' she replied, staring at the floor indicator. 'I know you'll make a pig's ear of it. But wheels within wheels. All I ask is you don't make a fool of yourself or lose your life – now that would be awkward.'
'So,' said the Painted Jaguar, rubbing his head, 'if it can roll itself into a ball it must be a tortoise and—'
'AHHH!' cried the Mother Jaguar, lashing her tail angrily. 'Completely wrong. Miss Havisham, what am I to do with this boy?'
'I have no idea,' she replied. 'All men are dolts, from where I'm standing.'
The Painted Jaguar looked crestfallen and stared at the floor.
'Can I make a suggestion?' I asked.
'Anything!' replied the Mother Jaguar.
'If you make a rhyme out of it he might be able to remember.'
The Mother Jaguar sighed.
'It won't help. Yesterday he forgot he was a Painted Jaguar. He makes my spots ache, really he does.'
'How about this?' I said, making up a rhyme on the spot:
'Can't curl, but can swim –
Slow-Solid, that's him!
Curls up, but can't swim –
Stickly-Prickly, that's him!'
The Mother Jaguar stopped lashing her tail and asked me to write it down. She was still trying to get her son to remember it when the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor and
we got out.
'I thought we were going to the Jurisfiction offices?' I said as we walked along the corridors of the Great Library, the wooden shelves groaning under the weight of the collected imaginative outpourings of nearly two millennia.
'The next roll-call is tomorrow,' she replied, stopping at a shelf and dropping the grammasites' waistcoats into a heap before picking out a roughly bound manuscript, 'and I told Perkins you'd help him feed the minotaur.'
'You did?' I asked, slightly apprehensively.
'Of course. Fictionalzoology is a fascinating subject and, believe me, it's an area about which you should know more.'
She handed me the book which, I noticed, was hand-written.
'It's codeword protected,' announced Havisham, 'mumble Sapphire before you read yourself in.'
She gathered up the waistcoats again.
'I'll pick you up in about an hour. Perkins will be waiting for you on the other side. Please pay attention and don't let him talk you into looking after any rabbits. Don't forget the password – you'll not get in or out without it.'
'Sapphire,' I repeated.
'Very good,' she said, and vanished.
I placed the book on one of the reading desks and sat down. The marble busts of writers that dotted the Library seemed to glare at me and I was just about to start reading when I noticed, high up on the shelf opposite, an ethereal form that was coalescing, wraith-like, in front of my eyes. At home this might be considered a matter of great pith and moment, but here it was merely the Cheshire Cat making one of his celebrated appearances.
'Hello!' he said as soon as his mouth had appeared. 'How are you getting along?'
The Cheshire Cat was the librarian and the first person I had met in the BookWorld. With a penchant for non sequiturs and obtuse comments, it was hard not to like him.
'I'm not sure,' I replied. 'I was attacked by grammasites, threatened by Big Martin's friends and a Thraal. I've got two Generics billeted with me, the characters in Caversham Heights think I can save their book and right now I have to give the minotaur his breakfast.'