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July 6 - July 17, 2023
The place looked like the after-death destination for people who had committed small and rather dull sins.
if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster’n we can make it, which leads to a bit of what I can only call a conundrum—” “You mean that if you do overtime you have to do more overtime to pay for it?” said Moist, still pondering how illogical logical thinking can be if a big enough committee is doing it. “That’s right, sir,” said Shady. “And down that road madness lies.” “It’s a very short road,” said Moist, nodding. “But
“You know,” said Moist, “I think this conversation has somehow got away from me . . .” Bent waved vaguely at the ceiling. “I refer to the wonderful vaulting,” he said. “The word derives from fornix, meaning ‘arch.’” “Ah! Yes? Right!” said Moist. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if not many people knew that.”
“Igor?” said Moist. “You have an Igor?” “Oh, yes,” said Hubert. “That’s how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don’t let that worry you, Mr. Lipspick. Just because I’m employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn’t mean I am some sort of madman, ha ha ha!” “Ha ha,” agreed Moist.
“His Lordship Desired Me To Inform You That There Is Still No Rush.”
Obviously the more difficult trades are less well represented. No horse has yet held down a job as a carpenter, for example. But dog as chairman is relatively usual.”
How dare he try to bribe me, thought Moist. In fact, that was his second thought, that of the soon-to-be wearer of a goldish chain. His first thought, courtesy of the old Moist, was: How dare he try to bribe me so small.
“Why are you always in such a hurry, Mr. Lipwig?” “Because people don’t like change. But make the change happen fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.”
Mr. Bent sat down again. Life with Mrs. Cake’s premonitions could get a little intricate at times, especially now they were getting recursive, but it was part of the Elm Street ethos that you were charitable toward the foibles of others in the hope of a similar attitude to your own.
“And I shall be popping back shortly with a man. Er . . . a gentleman who is not anxious to meet civic authority.” “Quite, thur. Give them a pitchfork and they think they own the bloody plathe, thur.” “But he’s not a murderer or anything.” “I’m an Igor, thur. We don’t athk quethtionth.” “Really? Why not?” “I don’t know, thur. I didn’t athk.”
“Just as I thought,” he said, pocketing the tube. “You forgot to take the cap off. It’s the kind of mistake amateurs always make!” Owlswick hesitated, and then said: “You mean there’s people who commit suicide professionally?”
Can you make up a bed for him down here? And is there any chance you could change what he looks like?” “More than you could poththibly imagine, thur,” said Igor happily.
“Er . . . I’m sure it can wait until daylight,” he volunteered. “Oh, I alwayth thhop at night, thur,” said Igor, “when I’m after . . . bargainth.”
The bank note gleamed, in purple and gold. It gave off money in rays. It seemed to float above the paper like a small magic carpet. It said wealth and mystery and tradition—
“That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way,” said Ponder.
“Trying? Do you mean it’s alive?” “Aha! The right type of question!” “I bet you don’t know the answer, though.” “You are correct. But you must admit it’s an interesting question not to know the answer to.
“The usual way. One of our golems heard one singing. Imagine that. It’s been underground for sixty thousand years . . .” In the night under the world, in the pressure of the depth, in the crushing of the dark . . . a golem sang. There were no words. The song was older than words; it was older than tongues. It was the call of the common clay, and it carried for miles. It traveled along fault lines, made crystals sing in harmony in dark, unmeasured caverns, followed rivers that never saw the sun . . . . . . and out of the ground and up the legs of a golem from the Golem Trust, who was pulling a
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“We’re going to talk to the late Professor Flead,” said Hicks. “Who is dead, yes?” “Very much so. Extremely dead.” “Isn’t that just a tiny bit like necromancy?” “Ah, but, you see, for necromancy you require skulls and bones and a general necropolitan feel,”
Moist sensed the doom ahead. Something was wrong. It might not be even a particular thing, it was just a sheer platonic wrongness—and he did not like Mr. Clamp’s expression at all.
“I see,” said Moist. “But it would appear, regrettably, that by giving our friend the relaxed and hopeful attitude toward life of, not to put too fine a point on it, a turnip, you have also given him the artistic abilities of, and I have no hesitation in using the term again, a turnip.”
“Let us just accept the fact that he has, in every way, proved to be a model citizen,” said Vetinari. “The past is a dangerous country, is it not?” “There is no file on him, sir.”
“Every day a new ledger,” said Moist, nodding gravely, “and by night they drink beer, and happy, laughing accountants dance the Double-Entry Polka to the sound of accordions . . .”
“Most of your long-term guests are unde—” “—differently alive,” said Ludmilla sharply. “Yes, of course, so I’m wondering why . . .Mr. Bent would stay here.” “Mr. Lipwick, what are you suggesting?” said Miss Drapes. “You must admit it’s rather unexpected,” said Moist. And, because she was already distraught enough, he didn’t add: I don’t have to suggest anything. It suggests itself. Tall. Dark. Gets in before dawn, leaves after dark. Mr. Fusspot growls at him. Compulsive counter. Obsessive over detail. Gives you a gentle attack of the creeps which makes you feel mildly ashamed. Sleeps on a
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The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I’m not sure about the turnip.
But perhaps he didn’t see it that way. You measured common sense with a ruler, other people measured it with a potato.
“What shall I do, Igor?” said Hubert. “In the Old Country we have a thaying,” Igor volunteered. “A what?”
“A thaying. We thay, ‘If you don’t want the monthter you don’t pull the lever.’” “You don’t think I’ve gone mad, do you, Igor?” “Many great men have been conthidered mad, Mr. Hubert. Even Dr. Hanth Forvord wath called mad. But I put it to you: could a madman have created a revolutionary living-brain extractor?”
The sheep skull didn’t help Moist’s frame of mind at all. Peggy had arranged it as a centerpiece, with flowers around it, but the cool sunglasses were getting on his nerves.
WHEN HE WAS a child, Moist had prayed every night before going to bed. His family were very active in the Plain Potato Church, which shunned the excesses of the Ancient and Orthodox Potato Church. Its followers were retiring, industrious, and inventive, and their strict adherence to oil lamps and homemade furniture made them stand out in the region where most people used candles and sat on sheep.
Ah yes, Splot, thought Moist. It contained herbs and all natural ingredients. But belladonna was an herb, and arsenic was natural. There was no alcohol in it, people said, because alcohol couldn’t survive. But a cup of hot Splot got men out of bed and off to work when there was six feet of snow outside and the well was frozen. It left you clear-headed and quick-thinking. It was only a shame that the human tongue couldn’t keep up.
Surely a little bit of conquest would be in order?” “An empirette, perhaps?” said Vetinari sourly. “We use our slaves to create more slaves? But do we want to face the whole world in arms? For that is what we would do, at the finish. The best that we could hope for is that some of us would survive. The worst is that we would triumph. Triumph and rot. That is the lesson of history, Lord Downey. Are we not rich enough?”
“The department has really been allowed to go uphill since my day! Well, we shall see what we can do about that!”
“I wonder if we’d be doing the right thing, setting him loose in a pole-dancing establishment?” said Hicks doubtfully. “No one will see him. And he can’t touch. They are very big on not touching in that place. I’m told.” “Yes, I suppose all he can do is ogle the young ladies.” There was some sniggering from the students. “So? They’re paid to be ogled at,” said Moist. “They are professional oglees. It’s an ogling establishment. For oglers. And you heard what’s going on in the palace. We could be at war in a day. Do you trust that lot? Trust me.”
A lot of magic had been used here once. Plants grew twisty or not at all. The owls that haunted the ruins made sure their meals came from a distance away. It was the perfect site. No one wanted it. It was a wasteland, and a wasteland shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste.
“I think I understand you, sir. What we are doing here goes beyond mundane definitions of right and wrong, does it not? We serve a higher truth.” “Well done, Barnsforth, you will go a long way. Everyone got that? Higher truth. Good! Now let’s decant the old bugger and get out of here before anyone catches us!”
Pucci was someone he could talk to. She saw things from a softer, female perspective. “You should have Bent killed,” she said.
“They say he will be hangéd by the neck until dead. I think hangéd is worse than just being hanged.”
Mr. Slant did not, despite what had been said, have the respect of Ankh-Morpork’s legal profession. He commanded its fear. Death had not diminished his encyclopedic memory, his guile, his talent for corkscrew reasoning, and the vitriol of his stare. Do not cross me this day, it advised the lawyers. Do not cross me, for if you do I will have the flesh from your very bones and the marrow therein. You know those leather-bound tomes you have on the wall behind your desk to impress your clients? I have read them all, and I wrote half of them. Do not try me. I am not in a good mood.
“This is the Fools’ Guild,” he said. “Expect . . . fun.”
He was white all over—white hat, white boots, white costume, and white face—and on that face, delineated in thin lines of red greasepaint, was a smile belying the real face, which was as cold and proud as that of a prince of Hell.
left everything to the imagination, which is much more inflammatory than leaving nothing. Speculation is always more interesting than facts.
