worn-out lead type, and walked along Editorial Lane , which rang with the groans and curses of the copy-editors at work there, many of whom were clearly being driven to despair by lapses of style and punctuation. From one first-floor window issued a bellow of rage followed by a stack of handwritten sheets, which came fluttering down on my head.
I left the tourist quarter behind at last and proceeded ever deeper into the heart of Bookholm. According to Regenschein’s book, this was where the oldest antiquarian bookshops were situated. Half-timbered and steeply gabled, the ancient buildings resembled elderly sorcerers huddled together for mutual support as they gazed down at me through their dark window embrasures.
Picturesque though the neighbourhood was, very few tourists frequented it. There were no street traders or loudly declaiming poets, no Live Newspapers or vendors of melted cheese, just age-old buildings whose windows were coated on the inside with soot to keep out harmful rays of sunlight. Shop signs were few and far between, so I could only guess which the bookshops were. Antiquarianism of the highest order was carried on here. Seated behind those blackened window-panes, for all I knew, might be wealthy collectors and celebrated dealers engaged in negotiating the sale of books worth as much as a whole row of houses. In this part of Bookholm one instinctively walked on tiptoe.
It wasn’t midday yet and Pfistomel Smyke’s establishment would still be shut, so I paused at an intersection and debated whether to kill time in some bookshop or other. On the door of one establishment, which had some gruesome faces carved on the half-timbering above its blackened window, I noticed the Triadic Circle I had first seen displayed on the door of Kibitzer’s shop. The minuscule sign below it read:
INAZIA ANAZAZI
Ugglian Literature • Curses • Spells
Wow! An Ugglian bookshop, probably run by a genuine Uggly! It had been a long-standing childhood wish of mine to encounter a real live Uggly. The creatures abounded in the children’s books and old fairy tales Dancelot had read me at bedtime - and, of course, in my subsequent nightmares. I now had an opportunity to see one in the flesh and was old enough not to run off screaming at the sight, so why wait? With a pleasurable shudder, I turned the door handle.
My presence was announced by the metallic screech of hinges left unoiled for an eternity. The interior of the shop was dimly illuminated by one or two little oil lamps. The book dust stirred up by my abrupt entrance danced round me and infiltrated my nostrils. I sneezed despite myself.
A tall, thin figure attired in black shot up from behind a stack of books like a jack-in-the-box. ‘What do you want?’ it shrieked.
‘Er, I don’t want anything in particular,’ I said haltingly. ‘I’d simply like to browse a bit.’
‘You’d simply like to browse a bit?’ the Uggly repeated as loudly as before.
‘Er, yes. May I?’
The gaunt creature tottered towards me, nervously interlacing her spindly fingers.
‘This is a specialised antiquarian bookshop,’ she croaked malevolently. ‘I doubt if you’ll find what you’re looking for.’
‘Really?’ I retorted. ‘What do you specialise in?’
‘Ugglian literature!’ the hideous bookseller crowed triumphantly, as if those words alone would drive me out of the shop.
Looking deliberately unimpressed, I scanned the backs of the books nearest me. Soothsayers’ prophecies, wart-curers’ incantations, maledictions - nothing suitable for an enlightened Lindworm like me. I really wanted nothing more to do with this psychic scarecrow, but her unfriendly manner had provoked me. Instead of leaving the shop at once I lingered there and made my way along the shelves.
‘Oh, Ugglian literature!’ I crooned. ‘How exciting! I’m passionately interested in predictions based on toads’ entrails. I must root around in your treasures a while longer.’
I had
Bryan Cohen
William H. Weber
The Destined Queen
Harper James
David Poulter
Kasey Michaels
Jaye Wells
Clair de Lune
Rachel Caine
Griff Rhys Jones