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tunnels was excavated by some form of prehistoric insect and then, over the millennia, enlarged by increasingly civilised creatures. The only certainty is that this subterranean world exists, that it has never been fully explored to this day, and that many parts of it are crammed with books that grow steadily older and more valuable the deeper into the catacombs one descends.
    There was nothing to remind me, as I strolled through the streets, of the labyrinth beneath the cobblestones. I was delighted to note that I would not have to go hungry in Bookholm. In addition to the coffee houses and taverns there were many stalls selling inexpensive fare of all kinds: grilled sausages and stuffed poussins, bookworms baked in clay, fried mouse bladders, mulled ale, flying pancakes, roasted peanuts, cold lemonade. Every few steps I came to stalls where, for a small charge, you could dip a piece of bread in a cast-iron cauldron of melted cheese bubbling over a small brazier.
    I bought myself a sizeable hunk of bread, dunked it liberally in melted cheese, wolfed it greedily and washed it down with two mugs of lemonade. After many days of deprivation on the road, this massive intake of food and drink assuaged my hunger and thirst as I’d hoped but also occasioned an unwholesome feeling of repletion. This rather worried me for a while. I was afraid it might portend some incurable disease - until, after walking off my meal for an hour or so, it vented itself in several ferocious expulsions of wind.
    What didn’t I see on my walk! I continued to repress the urge to enter a bookshop rather than stagger along laden with a huge pile of volumes, but the most incredible treasures could be had for the most ridiculous prices. Where the Sea Wall Ends by Ektro Backwater - an autographed copy for five pyras! The Catacombs of Bookholm , a critically acclaimed account of conditions in the Bookholmian labyrinth by Colophonius Regenschein, the legendary Bookhunter: three pyras! A Bed of Nettles , the memoirs of Glumphrey Murk, the melancholy superpessimist: six measly pyras!
    I was in a bibliophile’s Elysium, there was no doubt about it. Even with the small sum Dancelot had left me I could in no time have acquired a whole library that would have been the envy of everyone in Lindworm Castle. For the time being, however, I simply drifted along.

Kibitzer’s Warning
    O nce my wonderment at the bustle of activity in the streets had subsided a little, I began to resent being jostled by Bluddums and pestered by itinerant hucksters. It was also growing steadily colder with the advent of darkness, so I resolved to start exploring the second-hand bookshops. But which? A large one with a varied stock? A small, specialised establishment? If the latter, what should its speciality be? Poetry? Thrillers? Ugglian horror stories? Grailsundian philosophy? Florinthian Baroque? With their candlelit windows full of literary titbits, all the shops looked equally tempting. For simplicity’s sake I plumped for the one I happened to be standing outside. Engraved on the door was a peculiar symbol: a circle divided into three by three curving lines inside it.

    The lighting was so subdued that I couldn’t decipher the titles of the books displayed in the window, but that only made it seem the most mysterious and alluring establishment in the street. In I went!
    The discreet jangle of a bell announced my presence, the familiar scent of desiccated old tomes filled my nostrils and for a moment I thought I was alone in the shop. My eyes took a while to become accustomed to the gloom, but then I saw a humpbacked figure with enormous goggle-eyes emerge from the shadows cast by the bookcases. I heard a series of muffled, rhythmical clicks.
    ‘Can I help you?’ the gnome enquired in a thin, reedy voice. He sounded as if his tongue was made of parchment. ‘Are you interested in the writings of Professor Abdul Nightingale?’
    Good heavens, I’d wound up in a shop specialising in