THE ACADEMY OF Sure Things was a living, organic thing. A great nourishing bowl of knowledge one might dip into to seek answers to every possible question, even league tables of the most corrupt politicians in various lands. It was fed by countless contributors, many of the anonymous kind, obviously.
Yet the bedrock of its merit lay in the fundamentals, those non-changing truths that some foolishly called laws of nature. Standard works of reference were just that, the standards by which everyone found themselves governed, whether they liked it or not. Custard has to be yellow. It says so in the
Standard Food For Thought Manual
, first put together two hundred years ago by a great gathering of unknown chefs and cookwives in a fierce battle of the mixing bowls. One could read the entire thing for a small fee on the Sure Things on-grid info site. Never changing. Always available.
Such also were the works of the legendary Damnation Mole. He had been a physicist of high regard and completely mad outside his known discipline if the cucumber incident was anything to go by. Yet in the field of gravimetrics and gridology he had no equal.
Every figure he calculated became a standard and every table generated by his algorithms was a reference work of great significance. Bridges were built using them, buildings too. Ships navigated from port to port and the very motions of Serenity high in the sky were guided as it seemed by the Mole Tables.
There they were, clusters of seemingly meaningless digits, available for all to see on the Sure Things on-grid info site. Always ready to be printed off in almanacs and guide books by various sponsored publishers across the Face of the World.
The existence of a single printing error in a recent copy of an almanac in Poldorama meant little, even if that almanac was in the hands of an inspired maniac determined to find misery where there should be none. Thankfully that particular individual was soon to find consolation in a favourable marriage and preach blessings instead. The discovery of that same error in the Academy of Sure Things on-grid info site was a matter of a much greater magnitude.
If the spring source is tainted, so too will be the river from which it comes, and all those who imbibe it along its winding course.
That particular spring was in Frangea inevitably, that land of bright teeth and even brighter ideas. Tinker Blomp knew he had to get there and have a look at source code, knowledge paths and shadow Tinkering if such might be the origin of such a fundamental anomaly.
It was a scary thought, and as he travelled on the canal boat to Pulverin in search of a nexus point that would allow him to transit instantly to the distant land, he could not help feeling a little nervous of what he might find there.
'You know, my friend,' he said to his fellow passenger. 'Perhaps I might try a bit of that green wedge stuff after all.'
He was a little lightheaded just then and felt he needed a dose of irritable reality to balance things within. Summer was passing into autumn and matters were maturing like a pungent cheese on a mission.