Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“People disappear all the time, especially in Manhattan,” I said. “What makes you think it wasn’t some unregistered Sphynx strangling and eating him in an alleyway?”

“Well, for one, a member of the Dakeg royal family is always accompanied by a bodyguard,” Aria said. “They’ve disappeared too.”

“I read about that,” I said, pointing to the open encyclopedia on my desk. I usually keep it out of sight, as clients tend to get spooked if they suspect I’ve ever read anything longer than a Moxie label. “He’s supposed to be accompanied by a troop of the Galloping Hooves Heavy Cavalry at all times.”

“C’mon, Mitch,” Aria said. “You think a dozen minotaurs from the O’Downl tribe in full dress uniforms armed with ceremonial but fully functional musket-axes are the kind of subtlety you need to move about unnoticed in this town?”

I shrugged. “Ever been on the square at midnight on New Year’s?”

“Dammit, I don’t need you being flip about this! A Dakeg is missing along with six mujina bodyguards, and I’m letting you in on the ground floor.”

The men conferred. “Says her name is Sei Iwashi, but the prints match one Joanna Suzuki from the Bay Area.”

“An alias?”

“Makes sense considering the reports we had of illicit activity. Let’s give it a go.”

Reynolds and Melick entered the room again. Sei still nervously fingered the smoldering cigarette in her hand but seemed to have composed herself. “I heard what you were saying,” she muttered. “It’s a nickname, not an alias. It’s very funny if you speak both Norwegian and Japanese.”

Reynolds glanced at Melick. “I see,” he said. “Good to know. You feeling a bit more cooperative now?”

“It’s like I said when they brought me in,” said Sei, lighting a fresh coffin nail with the butt of another. “My team hired the boat out of San Francisco. We went out to test ultra-sensitive hydrophones and a custom-made deep-sea ROV we’d developed in association with the University of Baja California Sur and Pelagica Corporation. They underwrote it, but it was an entirely independent, private venture in international waters.”

Melick made a show of taking notes on his pad, even though Reynolds could see he was only tracing a series of loopy lines. “And how exactly were you going to test your headphones and robot slave?” he asked.

“Deficiencies in your terminology aside,” said Sei, “we were going to test them by searching for the source of the Bloop.”

Reynolds put on his bad-cop face. “Are you making fun of us, Ms. Iwashi-Suzuki-whatever? Because if you are, I strongly advise you to reconsider. You are here because we have universal jurisdiction in this matter, and we can hold you almost indefinitely as a pirate if we’ve a mind to.”

Sei glared at her interrogators. “It’s NOAA’s term, not mine. They detected an underwater sound in 1997, one so loud it could be heard clearly over 5000 klicks away, with hydrophones they installed to detect Soviet submarines. They traced it to about 50° S 100° W and took to calling it the Bloop, since that’s more or less what it sounds like. It’s been heard a few times since then, but NOAA and the Navy were never interested in investigating. It was an opportunity to test our equipment and maybe make the headlines, and we took it.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Reynolds said, still in bad-cop mode. “And you expect us to believe that poking around with a microphone and a robot led to the disappearance of your entire crew?”

“Our history is…complex,” said the Ethereal. “It tends to happen when your civilization exists in fifteen timelines and seventeen dimensions simultaneously.”

“Well, just give me a rundown of the last few…times. You know, get my feet wet.”

“Well, right now my people are experiencing the Cosmic Age, a time of prosperity and renewal in which we are seeking to contact other beings.”

“Fair enough.”

“Before that came the Withering Time, when all our accomplishments as beings were laid low and we were reduced to mindless physical husks restricted to only seven combined dimensions and timelines. It was brought about by the collapse of the previous epoch, the Age of Golden Vices.”

“What made that happen?”

“The groundwork was laid in the Wholesome Age of Moons, when we experimented with tying our essences to satellites. The Myconid Implosion showed the folly of that line of thinking. The Corrupted Age of the Heretics immediately preceding it was to blame, since they had spurned any and all physicality.”

“I…see. and before that?”

“The Aeon of the Device,” the Ethereal said, making a reverent gesture (or at least appearing to).

“What was the Device?”

“We do not speak of it with outsiders!”

Quatrain the First:
In order to become a true warrior, one must first learn what it is to be vulnerable and weak. Only by proving oneself in the face of a superior opponent may one then understand the minds of those who wage hopeless battles.

Quatrain the Second:
As strength grows, one must find ways to exploit the weaknesses of the enemy while concealing and overcoming one’s own. Strike from behind; attack unceasingly without mercy; close rapidly. A weapon is little use beyond a club once the enemy is grappled with.

Quatrain the Third:
Only when one has shown courage in hand to hand fighting may one begin to attack from a distance. To rely on this is cowardly; to employ it is noble. Use the same tactics from a distance, and concealment or surprise become all the easier.

Quatrain the Fourth:
The final step along the path sees you stronger than many of your adversaries. Do not neglect what you have learned, for overconfidence is the most deadly sort of foolishness. Strike from afar, strike with blazing speed, and your enemies will know pain.

Quatrain the Fifth:
Those that are truly Honored spurn the weapons and equipment of their brothers in arms, for they know that true strength, true victory, comes from will alone. They have the strength of will to face any adversary on their own terms; do you?

Frogfly
Avius Anuran

This strange creature appears to be at least semi-intelligent and is often mischievous, though rarely malicious. They have been known to steal small items from intruders, and to set simple snares designed to deter intrusion into their habitat in temperate forests. The frogfly fuses small leaves into small cups to collect dew, and lays its eggs in the ensuing tiny pools. The call of the frogfly is noteworthy for being far higher and slower than terrestrial frogs, and it has often been mistaken for human laughter…

Frog O’Lantern
Curcurbita Anuran

Found primarily in squash fields, the Frog O’Lantern has evolved a thick carapace to mimic natural gourds and feast on the bugs that inhabit them.

“The curcurbita anuran itself does not glow, but forms a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria that shine around its eyes and mouth during mating season, which is typically late October. Studies indicate that the relative brightness of the glow plays a part in courtship, though this is currently unverified.” – Dr. Phineas Phable

Volksphibian
Veedubyus Anuran

One of the major causes of swamp pollution. Some would have us beleive that this is a light truckphibian, but this is simply not the case. Be very wary; Volksphibian kidnappings are not unheard of. Once you get in, there’s no telling where you’ll end up.

Clockwork Frog
Beethovus Anuran

This normally-motionless amphibian springs to life when you wind it, gears spinning and churning on its back.

“Beware that it doesn’t unload a bit of the old ultrahopping on you.” – Anonymous

Frogcat
Felis Anuran

A rare breed of amphibimammal, the Frogcat inhabits extremely limited areas of western Michigan. Identifiable by its distinctive cry (“croew” or “meak”), it is a reclusive animal that shuns contact with all but selected homo sapiens, frogs, and felines. Extremely intelligent, but also quite shy. Sightings should be reported to your local DNR at once.

Hourglass Frog
Tempus Frogit Anuran

Refines naturally-occurring chroniton particles from its diet of swamp much and high-powered quantum neutrino fields. Approach with extreme caution.

“Near the edge of all things
In the Swamplands of Time
A curious creature sings
Without reason or rhyme

The Hourglass Frog
Bounds through the grass
Dimly through the fog
You’ll hear it pass

From it shy away
And do not disturb
For a high price you’ll pay
If it you perturb

The sands inside it
Reverse their fall
And within a moment
You were never born at all”
–Traditional

In time, the kingdom was forgotten and its people dispersed or driven off. Through it all, the Weeping King remained on his throne–unable to leave, unable to die.

The rich waters surrounding the kingdom became a vast and arid sea, littered with the hulks of sunken or abandoned ships preserved by the hot, dry air. No rain ever falls there, and the many leagues of sand lack even a single oasis. All who have sought to cross it have run out of water and been forced to turn back…or died among the dunes.

At the center of the sandsea lie the only water, deep carved moats that are the only remnants of the great city that once flourished on the island. These pools of sorrow are said to be fed from the Weeping King’s tears, and many hold that a wanderer who somehow crossed the arid sea would find themselves replenished thereby.

The pools ring a vast and ruined keep, long forgotten even by its builders. This forgotten keep was once the dwelling place of the Weeping King, and is as an oasis, overrun with life that has been stained by the dark sins of an entire people. It’s said one risks being torn to pieces by horrors only dimly reminiscent of the royal garden and menagerie from whence they sprung.

Beneath it all..the magnificent sepulcher prepared by the Weeping King himself, before death no longer held dominion over his mortal life. Scholars hold that he rests in his tomb to this day, ever living, and ever watchful for intruders.

Editing Omnipedia was, for me, a gateway into a much wider world: a world of pedantry, nitpickery, teapot tempests, molehill mountains, and vicious olog-hai trolls.

This was seldom noticeable at the surface level, aside from the occasional contradictions in spelling, form, and content that one would expect from an encyclopedia people made up out of whatever happened to be within arm’s reach of their computer. No, to get to the real juicy meat of the Omnipedia, you had to look at discussion pages, where people fought each other WWI-style over anything and everything.

Names and spellings were particular bones of contention, especially when there was a choice of American or British varieties. Being a former history geek, I would have been more apt to side with the British had their beloved spellings and words not been so hilariously quaint (subjectively, of course, but such was the case to the other people squabbling over it).

We’re all used to British spellings and their use of superfluous and supernumary letters, but it was the battles over vocabulary that were truly intense. Should it be called ping-pong or whiff-whaff, for instance? The sillier the words, the more passionate the argument:

“We should call them thumbtacks!”

“The accepted Commonwealth term is fidgy-divots!”

“I’m from Austrailia and we call them swopdobbers or swoppies!”

“In Canada we spell it theumbetacke!”

“Philistia, Light of the Navigators, the crown jewel of the Eastern Sea.” It was difficult to see the khan’s face from where Jel was crouched, but the tone of his voice was loving, even grandfatherly, as he recited from Ypsion’s poetry. “He who would master it must first master himself.”

The generals crowded around the map table exchanged uneasy glances.

“Poetry, my friends, from the great Philistian poet of this or any age. You would do well to read it.”

“Great khan, about our assault…” one of the generals stretched out his hand, indicating a point on the map. Probably the Gate of Thorns, where there had been rumors of heavy fighting.

The khan unsheathed a dagger and drove it into the map–through his general’s intervening hand. “You would do well to read it!” he snarled, his voice taking on the tenor one might expect from a ravisher of empires. “Philistia is the key to the Eastern Sea, and without it our campaign stops at the shore!”

Whimpering, the general made no reply. Jel had to restrain a shocked gasp.

“But the coordination of our attacks has faltered. We’ve fallen victim to sortie after sortie. Spies infiltrate our lines at every point and the countryside welcomes us not as liberators but as conquerors. Until we have overcome these problems–mastered ourselves–we will never take the city. We must, if our empire is to grow and our message is to spread.”

“We see this sort of thing all the time,” Mostow said. “Every time a new technology’s invented, it causes a boom of self-published pamphlets and newsletters. See these lines here, and the way they cut off some of the cells? This was made pre-Microsoft Office, probably using Lotus 1-2-3. Whoever made this designed the individual pieces on a computer, then cut and taped them to sheets for double-sided photocopying.”

Sandy nodded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s a complete run–see the little blurb in the first issue and the last issue?–and I bet there aren’t a lot around.”

“Just because something is rare doesn’t mean it’s valuable,” Mostow replied. “Ephemera like this…we collect it sometimes, and would certainly accept it as a donation, but in order for me to write a check, you’d have to find evidence that these poets are, well, noteworthy.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Sandy growled, glaring at the stack of faded and forlorn poetry newsletters .

“There’s a list of subscribers in the back, and the publisher–well, xeroxer–has his address on the front cover. Picayune stuff that no real publisher would do. But if one of those anonymous poets was noteworthy…I think we could make a deal on behalf of the archive.”

“We can’t make anything of it, and maybe you can.”

The note, handwritten, was composed on a page of the Gibson family bible–blank on one side with the family name in gold leaf on the other:

To all of my children,

Read this and remember: all will be well in the end. Those who are with us and those who have already left are all threads in the same tapestry. I know that someday you will read what I have written and rejoice.

“Seems like an ordinary enough note,” Dr. Amberton said. “What did his children say? And what about ‘what he has written?'”

“That’s just the thing. He had no children. Never married, never even left the city. And his writing? Close to eight thousand pages of jumbled manuscript pages. Not a single clue.”