“So we’re going to look for a book then?” asked Rose.
“Yes,” said Terry, “but not just any book.”
“A book that involves some form of creek in its title,” finished
Harry. Terry nodded in agreement.
“But there has to be more than one of those,” said Rose.
“That is possibly where the whole ‘by the king of the bleak’
comes in. That sounds very much like some form of clue regarding the author.
“And the part about happiness must also be relevant somehow,”
said Harry, “the first line is clearly just telling us it’s something to do
with books but this other one has to be connected to this somehow too.”
“I suggest we just start by picking up as many books about
creeks as we can and then trying to narrow things down from there. I think once
we have the books in hand, that clue will probably be a whole lot easier to
deduce,” said Terry.
“Wait, wait, wait, we’re being insanely stupid here,” said Harry.
“What?” asked Terry.
“It can’t be any book from this century,” said Harry, “I mean
think of how old this map is. This library was around back then, but the books here must have changed. There's no way they would not update things in that long.”
“Oh wow, that didn’t occur to me, but you’re right of,”
said Terry, “whoever made this riddle was clearly expecting this map to have
been found way earlier than it actually was.”
“No but that wouldn’t make sense right?” said Harry, “who on
Earth would make a map like this to be obsolete so fast? The kind of protections this is hiding behind are meant to last a long time. A temporary wouldn't have been built to last this long.”
“A stupid person,” suggested Rose, with a small laugh,"but yeah, no I don't think this was a map meant to be useless after a couple of decades. It
doesn’t sound likely at all.”
“Then it’s got to be referring to something a bit more
permanent,” said Terry, “a book just seems like the perfect option, but there's gotta be another thing that the riddle is true for.”
“Wait a minute, could be some sort of self-updating spell?”
asked Harry.
“No,” said Rose, immediately, “in that case it wouldn’t have
been able to transfer to the photograph. Spells like that only work on the
object it was cast on. The magic that reshapes it will not transfer through to
a camera. So we'd have just a blank spot.”
“Right,” said Harry, nodding, “that makes sense."
“The riddle unfortunately, does not,” said Terry, “unless you
know of any books that lie here preserved or something.”
“Well it is an old library, maybe there are some ancient book
here,” said Harry, "there's a chance it was maybe a famous book of some sort that lies preserved here from before the time of the map.”
“Hm…that’s true,” said Terry, “the thing that worries me is the
fact that according to what your commander said this map dates back at least a
hundred years. That's a long time for a book to hang out in a library. It would probably be sold to a museum by now.”
“Wait, I think I know,” said Rose, suddenly, “it’s so easy
it’s ridiculous, it’s almost like someone wants this to be easily found.”
“Okay, tell us mere mortals what you have managed to deduce,”
said Harry.
She smiled. “See, it’s all in the capitalization. Don’t you
think that it’s weird that King is capitalized.?”
“Could be a typo?” said Harry, “with the kind of spell it was
hidden under you don’t exactly want to have recast because of something as
inconsequential as an accidental capital.”
“Or it’s a clue,” said Terry, “The word king on its own would only be capitalized if
it was part of a name. Maybe this book is by some famous person named King.”
“Stephan King?” said Harry, only half serious “okay probably not. I don't think he's from that long ago.”
“Nope, there’s a better one,” said Rose, smiling, “Gerfig King,
a writer that was famous for his extreme use of bleak weather in a bestselling
series of novels about, you guessed it, a creek.”
Sorry it's taking me a while to get through! I aim to be up to date by the end of the month!!
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