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E verything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
Something began when the Guild of Assassins enrolled Mister Teatime, who saw things differently from other people, and one of the ways that he saw things differently from other people was in seeing other people as things (later, Lord Downey of the Guild said, “We took pity on him because he’d lost both parents at an early age. I think that, on reflection, we should have wondered a bit more about that”).
The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as “Things just happen. What the hell.”
“Susan says don’t get afraid, get angry,” said Twyla.
Then, after what appeared to be some consideration, he said in a businesslike voice, “The doors are locked. The windows are barred. The dogs do not appear to have woken up. The squeaky floorboards haven’t. Other little arrangements which I will not specify seem to have been bypassed. That severely limits the possibilities. I really doubt that you are a ghost and gods generally do not announce themselves so politely. You could, of course, be Death, but I don’t believe he bothers with such niceties and, besides, I am feeling quite well. Hmm.”
It wasn’t magical. Magical money would look real, because its whole purpose was to deceive.
Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.
Hurting the harmless was worse than a transgression against the moral fabric of society, it was a breach of good manners. It was worse even than that. It was bad taste.
After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
What they generally did was move things around. Sometimes the things were on the wrong side of a steel door, say, or in the wrong house. Sometimes the things were in fact people who were far too unimportant to trouble the Assassins’ Guild with, but who were nevertheless inconveniently positioned where they were and could much better be located on, for example, a sea bed somewhere.*
Everyone—at least, everyone in “the business,” and everyone in “the business” knew what “the business” was, and if you didn’t know what “the business” was you weren’t a businessman—knew Mr. Brown.
It was a quiet, black nightmare world, but life lives everywhere that life can. Where life can’t, this takes a little longer.
The tube creatures didn’t notice him go. They hadn’t noticed him arrive. They never ever noticed anything.
It was the night before Hogswatch. All through the house . . . . . . one creature stirred. It was a mouse.
She hadn’t known then that her father had been Death’s apprentice for a while, and that her mother was Death’s adopted daughter.
After a second or two a ginger cat came through the flap, gave her an I’m-not-hungry-and-you’re-not-interesting look and padded off into the gardens.
“You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?” YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.
Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow’s Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Good-bye, Mr. Brain Cell.
“No sense in bein’ bashful about goin’ bald,” said Ridcully evenly. “Anyway, you know what they say about bald men, Dean.” “Yes, they say, ‘Look at him, he’s got no hair,’” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The Dean had been annoying him lately.
“Clever isn’t the same as sensible,” said Susan, “and they do say that if you wish to walk the path to wisdom then for your first step you must become as a small child.”
The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step. Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they’re probably all on first steps.
“Why would it turn up here?” whispered the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Point of reality instability,” said Ridcully, standing on tiptoe to look into a bleaching cauldron. “Every damn thing turns up here. You should know that by now.”
MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.
IT GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN, LIFE, said Death, stepping forward. SPEAKING METAPHORICALLY, OF COURSE. IT’S A HABIT THAT’S HARD TO GIVE UP. ONE PUFF OF BREATH IS NEVER ENOUGH. YOU’LL FIND YOU WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER.
FEAR, TOO, IS AN ANCHOR, said Death. ALL THOSE SENSES, WIDE OPEN TO EVERY FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD. THAT BEATING HEART. THAT RUSH OF BLOOD. CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT, DRAGGING YOU BACK?
AND NOW THERE REMAINS ONLY ONE FINAL QUESTION, he said. He raised his hands, and seemed to grow. Light flared in his eye sockets. When he spoke next, avalanches fell in the mountains. HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY . . . OR NICE? HO. HO. HO.
HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
THE WORLD WILL TEACH THEM ABOUT MONSTERS SOON ENOUGH. LET THEM REMEMBER THERE’S ALWAYS THE POKER.
