Chapter 43

The Oakenshield Affair Part 4: War of the Words

"Literature is claimed to be a mirror of the world," I said, "but the Outlanders are fooling themselves. The BookWorld is as orderly as people in the RealWorld hope their own world to be—it isn't a mirror, it's an aspiration."

Jasper Fforde: One of Our Thursdays is Missing

The Outland was every bit as overwhelming and bewildering as Kate remembered it and this was a somewhat quieter street, by Outland standards. Her author lived in the building near the end of it.

Of course, she wasn't supposed to have that kind of information. Rumour had it that Zhark had once threatened his author into writing more books in his series when the author had wanted to end it, and ever since seeking out one's own author was forbidden. But Commander Bradshaw agreed with Kate that this was the kind of emergency that warranted an exception.

So here she was.

And she was nervous.

Yes, it was still the best plan she had, but she hadn't really thought about how to explain to her author that her characters were real outside of her head. For all Kate knew, her author might not believe her. She might think someone was playing a prank on her and slam the door in Kate's face.

And Thorin cannot afford that. So stop wool-gathering and get on with it, Andrews.

Luck was on her side. A young man, presumably returning from work, was just entering the building and unlocked the door, so Kate slipped into the hall after him, smiling and nodding and pretending that she had every right to be here. Better to show up right in front of her author's front door.

Consulting the board on the wall, she selected the right storey and climbed the stairs to reach it. The nerves twisted her stomach in knots and turned her legs into lead, but she wasn't doing this for herself and she was fresh out of better ideas, so she pushed on.

The lights were on inside, Kate could see through the windows above and next to the door. Encouraging. At least she hadn't come all this way for nothing.

She rang the doorbell.

For a moment nothing happened, but then noises indicated that someone was on the way. The door opened.

Kate knew really nothing of her author beyond her name and where she lived, both facts obtained from Commander Bradshaw, who declined to share his sources. Still, the woman in front of her was not quite what she expected.

Many a fanfiction author made original characters in their own image. Kate had wondered if she was about to be confronted with her twin. This turned out not to be the case. The woman on the doorstep was taller than Kate, with straight blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Puzzled eyes studied her through glasses.

'Good evening,' Kate said.

Her author blinked. She was probably somewhat surprised to be addressed in English. Well, that couldn't be helped; she had decided that Kate was English, so Kate couldn't speak Dutch. 'Good evening,' she replied. 'Can I help you?'

'I certainly hope so,' Kate said. She still didn't have a strategy on how to break the news that the fiction the author wrote was not exactly what she thought it was, so instead of beating around the bush, she came right out with it: 'My name is Kate Andrews. I am the character you write about.'

Her author's jaw made an unflattering sort of drop even as her eyebrows jumped up on her forehead.

'Please don't shut the door,' Kate pleaded. 'It's not a prank and I really, really need your help.' There literally wasn't anyone else who could.

The author closed her mouth and studied Kate intensely. She didn't like being subjected to such scrutiny, but she knew she must. If anything, she had her looks on her side. The author must know her features inside out to be able to write them and especially the scar across her face must be rare enough to ring some bells.

The silence lasted for some time, and since Kate was now in the Outland, she couldn't count it in number of words, which was strangely disconcerting.

Eventually, the author came to a conclusion. 'Are you telling me that Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels are not as fictional as I've always thought? Is the BookWorld real?'

Kate breathed a sigh of relief even as she nodded. 'Yes.'

The author grimaced. 'That's a bit of a surprise. Well, I suppose you had better come in.'

This is strange, Kate thought. Two worlds were touching in ways that she was not quite sure was ever meant to happen. And if she thought it was strange, then who knew what her author made of it all. So far she had taken it a lot calmer than Kate had anticipated, and a lot smoother and faster too. Normally she would have assumed that an author just didn't want to spend pages and pages on explanation and exposition, but she was in the real world now, where life was bewilderingly unscripted.

How do they not go mad not knowing every day what their life is going to be like? Kate wondered. She had done a day of that and every fibre of her being longed for the order and structure of narrative.

She must have asked that question out loud, because her author laughed in a startled sort of way. 'That's real life,' she said. 'We don't know any different. Do you want a cup of tea? I know I do.'

There was only one answer to that. 'Yes, please.'

The author indicated the living room. 'Make yourself at home. I'll bring it in.'

Kate made her job out of jumping in and out of other people's books, but walking into her author's living room was strange in a way bookjumping had never been. It was a nice room and it scored extra points for the row of bookcases against the wall. Small piles of books were stacked here and there before the neatly shelved ones. It seemed like the author was beginning to run out of space.

Two cats lounged on the couch: one small fluffy cat that looked like a dream to pet and a bigger black one who got up to sniff around her ankles.

'Don't mind them,' the author said as she came in. 'Although the smaller one, the girl, tends to bite people she doesn't know, so watch yourself around her.'

'I've been chased by bigger and scarier beasts that wanted to bite me.' She accepted a mug that in size was closer to a vase. Not that she complained.

The author barked out a startled laugh. 'Yes, I suppose you have. Sorry about that.'

Kate frowned. 'Why should you be? It makes for compelling storytelling and will draw readers to keep reading.'

'Right, different perspectives, I suppose,' the author said pensively. She sat down herself. 'Now, this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but I don't really believe in coincidences. I think somehow your visit has something to do with the fact that since this morning my computer opens every document except the The Journal, Duly Noted and The Book.'

Kate hadn't counted on her author already having some inkling of something going wrong, but now that she thought about it, this made sense. When a series was taken out of circulation like The Written Word was, not even their own authors could do something about it.

'Yes,' Kate said and she told the author everything that had happened since she woke up that morning to find Thorin inexplicably missing. Other than asking a few questions for clarification purposes, the author listened without interrupting.

At last Kate had talked herself out.

'Well, that's certainly something,' the author said. She very much looked and sounded like someone who was very much out of her depth. After today, Kate knew what that felt like. 'The one thing that isn't clear to me, is what you think I can do. I've never been to the BookWorld and I don't know any women with purple hair.'

'I need you to write this story,' Kate explained. 'From Thorin's perspective, if at all possible. Even if he has left the BookWorld, he is still of the BookWorld. And you are our author; I think you should still be able to write what's happening to him.'

'And then we'll know where he is,' the author nodded. 'And what his kidnappers are up to, if we're lucky.'

'If we're very lucky,' Kate echoed.

Her author studied her. 'And if we are not very lucky?' she asked. 'What happens then?'

My worst nightmare. 'If we can't retrieve Thorin and restore him to The Journal, they'll have very little choice but to break up the stories. Some characters can maybe be reused elsewhere, but those who can't will be reduced to text.' Her heart clenched at the thought of it.

Her author went a little pale. 'That's quite a lot of people.'

Kate was well aware.

The author stood up. 'Right. I guess I am not sleeping tonight. Give me five minutes to make myself a cup of coffee.'

Now it was Kate's turn to let her jaw drop. 'You're going to help me?'

She received a very firm nod in response. 'I started your story, didn't I? So that makes me responsible. And there are a lot of lives on the line.' She nodded again. 'Right, I'm going to go and get some work done.'

Which was exactly what Kate wanted, but it begged another question: 'Ehm, what can I do?'

The author shrugged. 'Make yourself at home? Read a book, grab a bite to eat, pet a cat…' She pondered that for a moment and smiled a bit sheepishly. 'And, ehm… would it be too much to ask if you could maybe do the hoovering?'

The frustrated scream reverberated off the walls and died off, leaving Thorin's ears with a bit of a ringing sensation. Whatever else could be said of the woman, she had strong vocal chords and a lot of lung capacity.

'Why is everything going wrong?' she demanded of no one in particular.

Thorin thought her lack of research and preparation may have something to do with that, but he held his tongue. If she was as intelligent as she had at first appeared, that realisation might dawn on her in due course, unless of course the panic got in the way. There wasn't going to be a lot of useful input from her accomplice; the man was already nearing a breakdown of some sort.

'But what can we do?' the man wailed.

'I don't know,' the woman admitted.

To make matters considerably worse for them, the lightbulb above their head flickered ominously.

'That's not possible!' the man exclaimed. 'Fiction doesn't have electrical failures.'

Not unless an author wrote it in, Thorin knew, and then he almost laughed out loud. There was a little tugging sensation that was wonderfully familiar, the sensation of being written, of narrative being imposed. And since he was the only BookWorld denizen in the room, that must mean that somehow Kate had got their author involved.

And if he wasn't sure from the flickering light, the wording would have given it away; the word denizen did not frequent often in his own vocabulary.

He kept this realisation to himself, choosing to keep an eye on his kidnappers instead. If his author was writing him, then he was her eyes and ears here. Perhaps there was something in his observations that could be used to track them down.

'It does now,' the woman snapped.

The man disagreed vehemently: 'No, it doesn't. I've read this book from cover to cover, twice. There's not one electrical failure in it.'

'But we are in the backstory, aren't we?' the woman retorted. 'Anything could happen here. It wouldn't have made it into the text of the book.'

So, they were in the backstory of a novel then. He had suspected as much already; if this had been in the main body of text, maintenance would have replaced the grammasite-tainted wall already. If only they did him the favour of mentioning a title…

Naturally, no such luck favoured him. Narratively speaking, that would probably have been too easy.

'There's nothing to worry about,' the woman said. 'Look, it was just one flicker. Calm down and help me figure out what to do.'

The light flickered again.

The woman jumped. 'Oh, for goodness sake!'

'Are we trapped here?' the man wondered in a high panicky voice.

The woman scoffed. 'Of course not. We can steal some food from the supermarket in chapter 3, so it's not like we'll starve. And we can go to other books. We'll sleep here tonight and then I'll go and seek out my contact again in the morning. I'm pretty sure he knows more than he's told me so far.'

'What about the guard?'

'Now that I know he's there, I'll find some way of sneaking past him,' the woman shrugged. She pulled a small device Thorin did not recognise from her bag. 'And I didn't have this on me today. I won't go anywhere without that again.'

'We still can't go back to the real world,' the man reminded her, probably convinced that not enough attention was being paid to this obstacle.

'My source might know how to get past that.' She straightened up confidently. 'And they can't keep this up forever, can they? We're still winning, you know. We have acquired our target and the people after us have no idea where we are. This is just a tiny, temporary hiccup.' She bestowed a winning smile of the man. 'And while I am out gaining information, you could have another go at changing his mind.'

Something to look forward to, Thorin thought with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

The man on the other hand perked up visibly. 'I won't fail again,' he promised eagerly, as though Thorin would have no choice in the matter. 'A night of sleep will help him reconsider his position. He may just need some time to let it sink in that he is actually free.'

Thorin did not in fact define "being free" as being tied to a chair and bestowed a withering glare on his unkempt captor on principle.

His kidnappers retreated to the other end of the room to set up a very basic camp. They spread out bedrolls, kicked off their shoes and crawled into the bedrolls with a subdued "goodnight".

At which point the author was kind enough to facilitate a good night's rest by turning off the light entirely. The ensuing panicking kept Thorin entertained for at least another hour.

Kate did in fact do the hoovering. And when she was done with that, she did the washing up. And because she was at it now anyway, she cleaned and reorganised the entire kitchen top to bottom. At that point it was past midnight and still her author was hard at work, so Kate figured she may as well clean the bathroom as well. At least it passed the time and it was something new; household chores did not usually get a description in the BookWorld.

Through it all she kept an eye on her author. Other than frequent trips to the loo and the kitchen to get herself something to drink or nibble, she was mostly lost to the world, typing and sometimes muttering to herself in what could be either Dutch or gibberish – hard to tell the difference – with the odd English word thrown in for variety.

The clock in the living room made it ten to three at night when at last the printer whirred to life and the author leaned back, yawned, and stretched her arms above her head to ease her muscles.

'Done?' Kate asked for good measure.

'For now at least,' the author agreed, gathering up the sheaf of papers. She passed them to Kate. 'There's good news and bad news. Which do you want first?'

She needed to hear it all, so she might as well get the bad stuff over with first and then be heartened with the good. 'The bad.'

The author took a deep breath. 'I have no names for the kidnappers or what they want, and I still have no idea where they are other than the backstory of a book with a supermarket in chapter 3 and no electrical failures in the entire novel. They're very careful in what they're saying to each other, maybe because Thorin is nearby and they don't want him to have access to that kind of information.'

'They are still in the BookWorld?'

The author nodded. 'The woman tried to leave, but couldn't. You might owe Vernham Deane a great big thank you.'

No need to tell Kate. 'Is there more bad news?'

'Not bad as such, and not that surprising either, just really frustrating.' The author stretched out again. 'I can't write from the point of view from either of the kidnappers. It's hard to get a… sense of them. It's different than writing characters. Can't really explain it.' She made a face. 'Anyway, Thorin is paying attention and I've got some good descriptions of them. You'll know them when you see them.' She gestured to the papers. 'It's all in there.'

Kate would look through that later. Right now she'd settle for the summary. 'And the good news?'

'Obviously they're still in the BookWorld, Thorin is unharmed, even if he is still tied to a chair, and I know where the woman is going to be in the morning.'

'Really?'

The author indicated the papers again. 'She's going to try and talk to Nori in The Hobbit again. She has some device – a taser of some sort maybe; it wasn't clear from the description – with which she thinks she can take out Benedick, so she's confident about her chances.' She picked up another paper with handwritten notes that Kate had not seen her make. 'And then I had some ideas about what to do next.'

Kate glanced at it. 'You're not going to spell it all out in the story yet?'

The author shook her head. 'To quote another author: it's good to have suspense. And, admittedly, I have not yet worked out all of the details.' She rubbed her temples. 'Which might be easier after a few hours of sleep. They are sleeping now and I need to get some rest too.' She gave Kate an apologetic look. 'I'm not good company when I'm sleep-deprived. I don't even like myself when I'm sleep-deprived. And the quality of my work will be nothing to write home about either.'

Kate nodded. She didn't like it. She didn't even entirely understand it. She didn't need sleep unless her author wrote it in. Even her exhaustion after long weeks of hunting grammasites was more of the kind where she wanted a break to one of her favourite chapters – maybe the dragon's death anniversary or the chapter where she danced with Thorin and he told her he loved her – than a desperate need for sleep.

But this was the Outland and things were very different here.

'Do you need sleep?' the author asked. 'You could take the couch if you need to?'

Kate shook her head. 'You didn't write it in, so I don't.'

So the author left her to it and went to bed with the instruction that if she wasn't up by half past seven, Kate should wake her. Kate installed herself on the couch and read through the story so far. It was useful. Even if she didn't have Thorin back yet, she was closer to that than she was yesterday. The author's list of suggestions was good too.

I did the right thing coming here, she knew. She had possibilities now, a way to keep an eye on Thorin and even a vague plan of action. I am going to get him back. Because that was the promise. Together or not at all. Kate now had a rather unwelcome taste of going it alone and she didn't like it in the slightest.

She waited out the night on that couch, reading, making a few calls and scribbling a few notes, both of the cats on her lap. It was encouraging that neither of them had tried to bite her, not even the small, fluffy one that the author had warned her about.

A little after seven noise from the bedroom indicated that the author had woken up. Five minutes later the shower switched on. Fifteen minutes after that – it would never not be strange to count time in minutes and not in words outside of her own narrative – the author walked back into the living room, eyes gleaming with the spark of a new idea.

'Good morning!' she said, sounding far more cheerful than Kate had heard her thus far. 'I think I've just had a Brilliant Idea.'

'What?' Kate asked.

'Can we contact them by footnoterphone? Given that they are in the BookWorld?' the author asked, still grinning.

Kate thought about it for a few words and then nodded. 'Yes, if we use mine to make contact.' But an idea like this needed some exposition, even if it was just for her own benefit, so she asked: 'But what would that achieve?'

The author strolled into the kitchen to feed her complaining cats. Kate trailed after her to hear the explanation.

'You may have noticed that the little trick with the light really messed with their heads a bit?'

Kate had indeed made that observation herself.

'Well, I don't think it will take much to have them slide all the way into paranoia. Add to that, they don't seem to be friends; he certainly does not trust her and she seems to have quite a bit of contempt for him. I suggest we stir the pot a bit and bring the whole thing to the boil.' She put the bowls down in front of the cats, who fell on them like they had not been fed for a month, and then filled the kettle with water for tea. 'I think the very idea that someone is watching their every move will get them nice and panicky. Well, more panicky than they already are. And then, hopefully, they will start to make mistakes.'

That was… not a bad idea at all. 'Should I make the call?'

The author gave her a hopeful look. 'If you don't mind, could I do it? They don't seem to think that highly of you.'

Another good point. Not one she liked, but if she was lucky she could apprehend the woman herself later today, and that would make her feel much better. She fully intended to do some high quality damage. And this would be the kind of damage that could not be fixed in a few lines.

The author made them both a cup of tea and then they moved to the laptop, so that the whole exchange could be recorded soon after. Kate handed over her footnoterphone and then sat back to watch and listen.

The author took a fortifying sip and then began: 'Wakey wakey, rise and shine and a very good morning to you!'

There was only a few seconds of silence and then panic erupted.1

It was exactly the kind of reaction the author had anticipated. 'This is the author speaking,' she politely introduced herself. 'It has come to my attention that you have abducted one of my characters, contrary to the Freedom of Fiction Act of 1985 as laid down by the Council of Genres and enforced by Jurisfiction.'

The initial silence took on a distinctly panicky quality. Unsurprisingly, it did not last long.2

'Freedom of Fiction Act?' Kate mouthed.

The author shrugged and grinned. Kate strongly suspected she had made it up on the spot, but she would bear this in mind. 'I am the author of The Journal. You have taken one of my characters captive. This is your one warning to give him back before further steps will be taken.'

From the reaction, it would seem that the author's plan was working as envisioned.3

'What a coincidence,' said the author sunnily. 'I don't particularly want to talk to you either. But as you are still unlawfully detaining my character, I will have to. So here is my proposal: you remove the textual sieve that you have put on your current book of residence, contrary to clause C of the Use of Plot Devices Act of 1854, and let my character depart at his leisure. When he has returned to The Journal we will remove the barrier preventing transfictional jumps to the RealWorld and you will be allowed to leave unmolested. This is of course on the understanding that you will never step foot in the BookWorld again.'

That actually sounded quite reasonable to Kate, although from the sound of it, the woman on the other side did not agree.4

'Your arrest, to be followed by a lengthy trial in a place of our choosing. I'm thinking Kafka's The Trial, although some are of the opinion we should have you up in front of the Queen of Hearts and let her lop your head off. Apparently you have to indulge her in that once in a while, or she gets testy. Well, testier than usual.'

Despite the circumstances, Kate had to bite back a laugh. She may look nothing like her author, but at least she didn't have to wonder where her streak of deviousness came from.5

'Miss, you appear to be labouring under the illusion that I am in the habit of negotiating with terrorists.' The author smiled a smile with a few too many teeth. 'You cannot kill a character and if you do some harm to him, I will be able to fix it with a few words. Your threats are empty. Now, if we could kindly skip the hysterics and get down to business…'6

The author made a face. 'Okay, so we are doing the hysterics. Listen, miss, you've decided to mess around on my territory now. You can either do as I say or take the consequences. And I'm warning you, I can get a whole lot more creative than just turning the lights off.'7

Kate had seen the list of suggestions and knew that she could and would get quite creative indeed.

'My suggestion to you is this: stop messing around, give me back my character and then bugger off somewhere we can never find you. You have one hour. Good day.'

The author switched off the phone and handed it back to Kate. 'What do you think? Are they panicking now?'

Kate was glad that she had made all the calls that she needed to make before the author had spooked the criminals, because an hour was not much time to get everything and everyone ready. But now, when she arrived in the Library, right in front of the shelf where Tolkien's works were stored, her companions were waiting for her.

Kate was no stranger to working in a team, but this was a strange company no matter which way you sliced it. She had, at her author's invitation, drawn a few friends from her own series to help. As the author had said: 'You might like some familiar faces with you. They have as much to lose as you do. Besides, it's not as if they are busy while the series is offline.'

They all wanted to help, but that would a) draw too much attention and b) would make it very difficult for the author to spin a coherent narrative, so Kate had narrowed it down to three: Elvaethor, Thráin and Dwalin, who had taken Thorin's abduction from right underneath his nose as a personal insult and who very much wanted a word with these people. Quite possibly a little more than a word too.

He would have to get in line behind Kate, though, but she resolved to leave him at least a few pieces to tear into.

Jurisfiction, of course, could not be left out. There was Commander Bradshaw, the current Bellman, with a gun the size of which suggested he was about to hunt an elephant rather than an Outlander. Vernham Deane was in attendance as well.

And then there was the third man. He was tall and dressed in jet-black high-collared robes which hung to the floor on one side and buttoned tightly up to his throat on the other. He had a pale complexion, high cheekbones and a small and very precise goatee. He stood with his arms crossed and a gun slung over his shoulder that made Bradshaw's look about as dangerous as a water pistol. Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But at least he had not brought the kind of space ship that could destroy entire planets, so Kate supposed that in his way, he was practising considerable restraint. This… was Emperor Zhark.

1 'Who is this? Who are you?'

2 'The what? Who are you? How are you talking to me? Get out of my head!'

3 'Get. Out. Of. My. Head! Leave me alone! I don't want to talk to you!'

4 'Or else?'

5 'You can't do anything to us. I have your character and if you don't give us free passage out of the BookWorld, we will kill him.'

6 'You are bluffing! You don't know where we are! There's nothing you can do. Now leave me alone.'

7 'You did that? How did you do that? Have you been spying on us?'

Next week: Kate and company catch up with the purple-haired kidnapper.

If anyone knows of a work of fiction which features a supermarket in chapter 3 and which has no electrical failures in the entire book, I would be curious to hear about it.

Reviews would be very welcome.

Until next week!