Chapter Nine

Bonfire

Slugger and Leadpipe - Gladys Pulls It Off- The Hour of the Dead -
Irrational Fear of Dental Spinach - ‘A proper brawl doesn’t just happen’
- How the Trunk Was Stolen - Stanley’s Little Moment - The etiquette
of knives - Face to Face – Fire

The mail coaches had survived the decline and fall of the Post Office because they had to. Horses needed to be fed. But in any case, the coaches had always carried passengers. The halls went silent, the chandeliers disappeared along with everything else, even things that were nailed down, but out back in the big yard the coach service flourished. The coaches weren’t exactly stolen, and weren’t exactly inherited . . . they just drifted into the possession of the coach people.
Then, according to Groat, who regarded himself as the custodian of all Post Office knowledge, the other coach drivers had been bought out by Big Jim ‘Still Standing’ Upwright with the money he’d won betting on himself in a bare knuckle contest against Harold ‘The Hog’ Boots, and the coach business was now run by his sons Harry ‘Slugger’ Upwright and Little Jim ‘Leadpipe’ Upwright.
Moist could see that a careful approach was going to be required.
The hub or nerve centre of the coach business was a big shed next to the stable. It smelled - no, it stank - no, it fugged of horses, leather, veterinary medicine, bad coal, brandy and cheap cigars. That’s what a fug was. You could have cut cubes out of the air and sold it for cheap building material.
When Moist entered, a huge man, made practically spherical by multiple layers of waistcoats and overcoats, was warming his backside in front of the roaring stove. Another man of very much the same shape was leaning over the shoulder of a clerk, both of them concentrating on some paper.
Some staffing debate had obviously been in progress, because the man by the fire was saying ‘. . . well, then, if he’s sick put young Alfred on the evening run and—’
He stopped when he saw Moist, and then said, ‘Yes, sir? What can we do for you?’
‘Carry my mailbags,’ said Moist.
They stared at him, and then the man who’d been toasting his bottom broke into a grin. Jim and Harry Upwright might have been twins. They were big men, who looked as though they’d been built out of pork and fat bacon.
‘Are you this shiny new postmaster we’ve been hearing about?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yeah, well, your man was already here,’ said the toaster. ‘Went on and on about how we should do this and do that, never said anything about the price!’
‘A price?’ said Moist, spreading out his hands and beaming. ‘Is that all this is about? Easily done. Easily done.’
He turned, opened the door and shouted: ‘Okay, Gladys!’
There was some shouting in the darkness of the yard, and then the creak of timber.
‘What the hell did you do?’ said the spherical man.
‘My price is this,’ said Moist. ‘You agree to carry my mail, and you won’t have another wheel dragged off that mail coach out there. I can’t say fairer than that, okay?’
The man lumbered forward, growling, but the other coachman grabbed his coat.
‘Steady there, Jim,’ he said. ‘He’s gov’ment and he’s got golems working for ‘im.’
On cue, Mr Pump stepped into the room, bending to get through the doorway. Jim scowled at him.
‘That don’t frighten me!’ said Jim. ‘They ain’t allowed to hurt folks!’
‘Wrong,’ said Moist. ‘Probably dead wrong.’
‘Then we’ll call the Watch on yer,’ said Harry Upwright, still holding back his brother. ‘All proper and official. How d’you like that?’
‘Good, call the Watch,’ said Moist. ‘And I shall tell them I’m recovering stolen property.’ He raised his voice. ‘Gladys!’
There was another crash from outside.
‘Stolen? Those coaches are ours!’ said Harry Upwright.
‘Wrong again, I’m afraid,’ said Moist. ‘Mr Pump?’
‘The Mail Coaches Were Never Sold Off,’ the golem rumbled. ‘They Are The Property Of The Post Office. No Rent Has Been Paid For The Use Of Post Office Property.’
‘Right, that’s it!’ Jim roared, shaking his brother away. Mr Pump’s fists rose, instantly.
The world paused.
‘Hold on, Jim, hold on just one minute,’ said Harry Upwright carefully. ‘What’s your game, Mr Postman? The coaches always used to carry passengers too, right? And then there was no mail to take but people still wanted to travel, and the coaches were just standing around and the horses were needing to be fed, so our dad paid for the fodder and the vet’s bills and no one—’
‘Just take my mail,’ said Moist. ‘That’s all. Every coach takes the mailbags and drops them off where I say. That’s all. Tell me where you’ll get a better deal tonight, eh? You could try your luck pleading finders keepers to Vetinari but that’d take a while to sort out and in the meantime you’d lose all that lovely revenue . . . No? Okay. Glady—’
‘No! No! Wait a minute,’ said Harry. ‘Just the mailbags? That’s all?’
‘What?’ said Jim. ‘You want to negotiate? Why? They say possession’s nine points of the law, right?’
‘And I possess a lot of golems, Mr Upwright,’ said Moist. ‘And you don’t possess any deeds, mortgages or bills of sale.’
‘Yeah? And you won’t possess any teeth, mister!’ said Jim, rolling forward.
‘Now, now,’ said Moist, stepping quickly in front of Mr Pump and raising a hand. ‘Don’t kill me again, Mr Upwright.’
Both the brothers looked puzzled.
‘I’ll swear Jim never laid a finger on you, and that’s the truth,’ said Harry. ‘What’s your game?’
‘Oh, he did, Harry,’ said Moist. ‘Lost his temper, took a swing, I went over, hit my head on that old bench there, got up not knowing where the hell I was, you tried to hold Jim back, he hit me with that chair, the one just there, and down I went for keeps. The golems got you, Harry, but Jim went on the run, only to be tracked down by the Watch in Sto Lat. Oh, what scenes, what chases, and you both ended up in the Tanty, the charge against the pair of you being murder—’
‘Here, I didn’t hit you with the chair!’ said Harry, eyes wide. ‘It was Ji— Here, hang on a minute . . .’
‘—and this morning Mr Trooper measured you up for the last necktie and there you were, standing in that room under the gallows, knowing that you’d lost your business, you’d lost your coaches, you’d lost your fine horses, and in two minutes—’
Moist let the sentence hang in the air.
‘And?’ said Harry. Both brothers were watching him with expressions of horrified confusion which would coalesce into violence inside five seconds if this didn’t work. Keeping them off balance was the ticket.
Moist counted to four in his head, while smiling beatifically. ‘And then an angel appeared,’ he said.

Ten minutes can change a lot. It was enough to brew two cups of tea thick enough to spread on bread.
The brothers Upwright probably didn’t believe in angels. But they believed in bullshit, and were the type to admire it when it was delivered with panache. There’s a kind of big, outdoor sort of man who’s got no patience at all with prevaricators and fibbers, but will applaud any man who can tell an outrageous whopper with a gleam in his eye.
‘Funny you should turn up tonight,’ said Harry.
‘Oh? Why?’
‘ ‘cos a man from the Grand Trunk came round this afternoon and offered us big money for the business. Too much money, you could say.’
Oh, thought Moist, something’s starting . . .
‘But you, Mr Lipwig, is giving us nothing but attitude and threats,’ said Jim. ‘Care to raise your offer?’
‘Okay. Bigger threats,’ said Moist. ‘But I’ll throw in a new paint job on every coach, gratis. Be sensible, gentlemen. You’ve had an easy ride, but now we’re back in business. All you have to do is what you’ve always done, but you’ll carry my mail. Come on, there’s a lady waiting for me and you know you shouldn’t keep a lady waiting. What do you say?’
‘Is she an angel?’ said Harry.
‘He probably hopes not, hur, hur.’ Jim had a laugh like a bull clearing its throat.
‘Hur, hur,’ said Moist solemnly. ‘Just carry the bags, gents. The Post Office is going places and you could be in the driving seat.’
The brothers exchanged a glance. Then they grinned. It was as if one grin spread across two glistening red faces.
‘Our dad would’ve liked you,’ said Jim.
‘He sure as hell wouldn’t like the Grand Trunk devils,’ said Harry. ‘They need cutting down to size, Mr Lipwig, and people are saying you’re the man to do it.’
‘People die on them towers,’ said Jim. ‘We see, you know. Damn right! The towers follows the coach roads. We used to have the contract to haul lads out to the towers and we heard ‘em talking. They used to have an hour a day when they shut the whole Trunk down for maint’nance.’
‘The Hour of the Dead, they called it,’ said Harry. ‘Just before dawn. That’s when people die.’

Across a continent, the line of light, beads on the pre-dawn darkness. And, then, the Hour of the Dead begins, at either end of the Grand Trunk, as the upline and downline shutters clear their messages and stop moving, one after the other.
The men of the towers had prided themselves on the speed with which they could switch their towers from black and white daylight transmission to the light and dark mode of the night. On a good day they could do it with barely a break in transmission, clinging to swaying ladders high above the ground while around them the shutters rattled and chattered. There were heroes who’d lit all sixteen lamps on a big tower in less than a minute, sliding down ladders, swinging on ropes, keeping their tower alive. ‘Alive’ was the word they used. No one wanted a dark tower, not even for a minute.
The Hour of the Dead was different. That was one hour for repairs, replacements, maybe even some paperwork. It was mostly replacements. It was fiddly to repair a shutter high up on the tower with the wind making it tremble and freezing the blood in your fingers, and always better to swing it out and down to the ground and slot another one in place. But when you were running out of time, it was tempting to brave the wind and try to free the bloody shutters by hand.
Sometimes the wind won. The Hour of the Dead was when men died.
And when a man died, they sent him home by clacks.

Moist’s mouth dropped open. ‘Huh?’
‘That’s what they call it,’ said Harry. ‘Not lit’rally, o’ course. But they send his name from one end of the Trunk to the other, ending up at the tower nearest his home.’
‘Yeah, but they say sometimes the person stays on in the towers, somehow,’ said Jim.’ “Living in the Overhead”, they call it.’
‘But they’re mostly pissed when they say that,’ said Harry.
‘Oh, yes, mostly pissed, I’ll grant you,’ said his brother. ‘They get worked too hard. There’s no Hour of the Dead now; they only get twenty minutes. They cut the staff, too. They used to run a slow service on Octedays; now it’s high speed all the time, except towers keep breaking down. We seen lads come down from them towers with their eyes spinning and their hands shaking and no idea if it’s bum or breakfast time. It drives ‘em mad. Eh? Damn right!’
‘Except that they’re already mad,’ said Harry. ‘You’d have to be mad to work up in them things.’
‘They get so mad even ordinary mad people think they’re mad.’
‘That’s right. But they still go back up there. The clacks drives them back. The clacks owns them, gets into their souls,’ said Harry. ‘They get paid practically nothing but I’ll swear they’d go up those towers for free.’
‘The Grand Trunk runs on blood now, since the new gang took over. It’s killin’ men for money,’ said Jim.
Harry drained his mug. ‘We won’t have none of it,’ he said. ‘We’ll run your mail for you, Mr Lipwig, for all that you wear a damn silly hat.’
‘Tell me,’ said Moist, ‘have you ever heard of something called the Smoking Gnu?’
‘Dunno much,’ said Jim. ‘A couple of the boys mentioned them once. Some kind of outlaw signallers, or something. Something to do with the Overhead.’
‘What is the Overhead? Er . . . dead people live in it?’
‘Look, Mr Lipwig, we just listen, okay,’ said Jim. ‘We chat to ‘em nice and easy, ‘cos when they come down from the towers they’re so dozy they’ll walk under your coach wheels—’
‘It’s the rocking in the wind,’ said Harry. ‘They walk like sailors.’
‘Right. The Overhead? Well, they say a lot of the messages the clacks carries is about the clacks, okay? Orders from the company, housekeeping messages, messages about messages—’
‘—dead men’s names—’ said Moist.
‘Yeah, them too. Well, the Smoking Gnu is in there somewhere,’ Jim went on. ‘That’s all I know. I drive coaches, Mr Lipwig. I ain’t a clever man like them up on the towers. Hah, I’m stupid enough to keep my feet on the ground!’
‘Tell Mr Lipwig about Tower 93, Jim,’ said Harry. ‘Make ‘is flesh creep!’
‘Yeah, heard about that one?’ said Jim, looking slyly at Moist.
‘No. What happened?’
‘Only two lads were up there, where there should’ve been three. One of them went out in a gale to budge a stuck shutter, which he shouldn’t’ve done, and fell off and got his safety rope tangled round his neck. So the other bloke rushed out to get him, without his safety rope - which he shouldn’t’ve done - and they reckon he got blown right off the tower.’
‘That’s horrible,’ said Moist. ‘Not creepy, though. As such.’
‘Oh, you want the creepy bit? Ten minutes after they was both dead the tower sent a message for help. Sent by a dead man’s hand.’ Jim stood up and put his tricorn hat on. ‘Got to take a coach out in twenty minutes. Nice to meet you, Mr Lipwig.’ He pulled open a drawer in the battered desk and pulled out a length of lead pipe. ‘That’s for highwaymen,’ he said, and then took out a big silver brandy flask. ‘And this is for me,’ he added with rather more satisfaction. ‘Eh? Damn right!’
And I thought the Post Office was full of crazy people, Moist thought.
‘Thank you,’ he said, standing. Then he remembered the strange letter in his pocket, for whatever use it was, and added: ‘Have you got a coach stopping at Pseudopolis tomorrow?’
‘Yeah, at ten o’clock,’ said Harry.
‘We’ll have a bag for it,’ said Moist.
‘Is is worth it?’ said Jim. ‘It’s more’n fifty miles, and I heard they’ve got the Trunk repaired. It’s a stoppin’ coach, won’t get there ‘til nearly dark.’
‘Got to make the effort, Jim,’ said Moist.
The coachman gave him a look with a little glint that indicated he thought Moist was up to something, but said: ‘Well, you’re game, I’ll say that for you. We’ll wait for your bag, Mr Lipwig, and the best of luck to you. Must rush, sir.’
‘What coach are you taking out?’ said Moist.
Til take the first two stages of the overnight flyer to Quirm, leaving at seven,’ said Jim. ‘If it’s still got all its wheels.’
‘It’s nearly seven?’
‘Twenty to, sir.’
‘I’ll be late!’
The coachmen watched him run back across the yard, with Mr Pump and Gladys trailing slowly behind.
Jim pulled on his thick leather gauntlets, thoughtfully, and then said to his brother: ‘You know how you get them funny feelings?’
‘I reckon I do, Jim.’
‘And would you reckon there’ll be a clacks failure between here and Pseudopolis tomorrow?’
‘Funny you should mention that. Mind you, it’d be a two to one bet anyway, the way things have been going. Maybe he’s just a betting man, Jim.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jim. ‘Yeah. Eh? Damn right!’

Moist struggled out of the golden suit. It was good advertising, no doubt about it, and when he wore it he felt he had style coming out of his ears, but wearing something like that to the Mended Drum meant that he wanted to be hit over the head with a stool and what would come out of his ears wouldn’t bear thinking about.
He threw the winged hat on the bed and struggled into his second golem-made suit. Sombre, he’d said. You had to hand it to golem tailoring. The suit was so black that if it had been sprinkled with stars the owls would have collided with it. He needed more time but Adora Belle Dearheart was not someone you felt you should keep waiting.
‘You look fine, sir,’ said Groat.
‘Thanks, thanks,’ said Moist, struggling with his tie. ‘You’re in charge, Mr Groat. Should all be quiet this evening. Remember, first thing tomorrow, all mail for Pseudopolis ten pence a go, okay?’
‘Right you are, sir. Can I wear the hat now?’ Groat pleaded.
‘What? What?’ said Moist, staring into the mirror. ‘Look, have I got spinach between my teeth?’
‘Have You Eaten Spinach Today, Sir?’ said Mr Pump.
‘I haven’t eaten spinach since I was old enough to spit,’ said Moist. ‘But people always worry about that at a time like this, don’t they? I thought it just turned up somehow. You know . . . like moss? What was it you asked me, Tolliver?’
‘Can I wear the hat, sir?’ said Groat patiently. ‘Bein’ as I’m your deputy and you’re going out, sir.’
‘But we’re closed, Groat.’
‘Yes, but . . . it’s . . . I’d just like to wear the hat. For a while, sir. Just for a while, sir. If it’s all right with you.’ Groat shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I mean, I will be in charge.’
Moist sighed. ‘Yes, of course, Mr Groat. You may wear the hat. Mr Pump?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘Mr Groat is in charge for the evening. You will not follow me, please.’
‘No, I Will Not. My Day Off Begins Now. For All Of Us. We Will Return At Sunset Tomorrow,’ said the golem.
‘Oh . . . yes.’ One day off every week, Miss Dearheart said. It was part of what distinguished golems from hammers. ‘I wish you’d given me more warning, you know? We’re going to be a bit short-staffed.’
‘You Were Told, Mr Lipvig.’
‘Yes, yes. It is a rule. It’s just that tomorrow is going to be—’
‘Don’t you worry about a thing, sir,’ said Groat. ‘Some of the lads I hired today, sir, they’re postmen’s sons, sir, and grandsons. No problem, sir. They’ll be out delivering tomorrow.’
‘Oh. Good. That’s fine, then.’ Moist adjusted the tie again. A black tie on a black shirt under a black jacket isn’t easy even to find. ‘All right, Mr Pump? Still no attack of spinach? I’m going to see a lady.’
‘Yes, Mr Lipvig. Miss Dearheart,’ said the golem calmly.
‘How did you know that?’ said Moist.
‘You Shouted It Out In Front Of Approximately A Hundred People, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump. ‘We - That Is To Say, Mr Lipvig, All The Golems - We Wish Miss Dearheart Was A Happier Lady. She Has Had Much Trouble. She Is Looking For Someone With—’
‘—a cigarette lighter?’ said Moist quickly. ‘Stop right there, Mr Pump, please! Cupids are these . . . little overweight kids in nappies, all right? Not big clay people.’
‘Anghammarad Said She Reminded Him Of Lela The Volcano Goddess, Who Smokes All The Time Because The God Of Rain Has Rained On Her Lava,’ the golem went on.
‘Yes, but women always complain about that sort of thing,’ said Moist. ‘I look all right, Mr Groat, do I?’
‘Oh, sir,’ said Groat, ‘I shouldn’t think Mr Moist von Lipwig ever has to worry when he’s off to meet a young lady, eh?’
Come to think of it, Moist came to think as he hurried through the crowded streets, he never has been off to meet a young lady. Not in all these years. Oh, Albert and all the rest of them had met hundreds, and had all kinds of fun, including once getting his jaw dislocated which was only fun in a no-fun-at-all kind of way. But Moist, never. He’d always been behind the false moustache or glasses or, really, just the false person. He had that naked feeling again, and began to wish he hadn’t left his golden suit behind.
When he reached the Mended Drum he remembered why he had.
People kept telling him that Ankh-Morpork was a lot more civilized these days, that between them the Watch and the Guilds had settled things down enough to ensure that actually being attacked while going about your lawful business in Ankh-Morpork was now merely a possibility instead of, as it once was, a matter of course. And the streets were so clean now that you could sometimes even see the street.
But the Mended Drum could be depended upon. If someone didn’t come out of the door backwards and fall down in the street just as you passed, then there was something wrong with the world.
And there was a fight going on. More or less. But in some ways at least time had moved on. You couldn’t just haul off and belt someone with an axe these days. People expected things of a bar brawl. As he went in Moist passed a large group of men of the broken-nosed, one-eared persuasion, bent in anxious conclave.
‘Look, Bob, what part of this don’t you understand, eh? It’s a matter of style, okay? A proper brawl doesn’t just happen. You don’t just pile in, not any more. Now, Oyster Dave here - put your helmet back on, Dave - will be the enemy in front and Basalt who, as we know, don’t need a helmet, he’ll be the enemy coming up behind you. Okay, it’s well past knuckles time, let’s say Gravy there has done his thing with the Bench Swipe, there’s a bit of knifeplay, we’ve done the whole Chandelier Swing number, blah blah blah, then Second Chair - that’s you, Bob - you step smartly between their Number Five man and a Bottler, swing the chair back over your head like this - sorry, Pointy -and then swing it right back on to Number Five, bang, crash, and there’s a cushy six points in your pocket. If they’re playing a dwarf at Number Five then a chair won’t even slow him down but don’t fret, hang on to the bits that stay in your hand, pause one moment as he comes at you and then belt him across both ears. They hate that, as Stronginthearm here will tell you. Another three points. It’s probably going to be freestyle after that but I want all of you, including Mucky Mick and Crispo, to try for a Double Andrew when it gets down to the fist-fighting again. Remember? You back into each other, turn round to give the other guy a thumping, cue moment of humorous recognition, then link left arms, swing round and see to the other fellow’s attacker, foot or fist, it’s your choice. Fifteen points right there if you get it to flow just right. Oh, and remember we’ll have an Igor standing by, so if your arm gets taken off do pick it up and hit the other bugger with it - it gets a laugh and twenty points. On that subject, do remember what I said about getting everything tattooed with your name, all right? Igors do their best, but you’ll be on your feet much quicker if you make life easier for him and, what’s more, it’s your feet you’ll be on. Okay, positions everyone, let’s run through it again . . .’
Moist sidled past the group and scanned the huge room. The important thing was not to slow down. Slowing down attracted people.
He saw a thin plume of blue smoke rise above the crowd, and forced his way through.
Miss Dearheart was sitting alone at a very small table with a very small drink in front of her. She couldn’t have been there long; the only other stool was unoccupied.
‘Do you come in here often?’ said Moist, slipping on to it quickly.
Miss Dearheart raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Yes. Why not?’
‘Well, I . . . I imagine it’s not very safe for a woman on her own.’
‘What, with all these big strong men here to protect me? Why don’t you go and get your drink?’
Moist got to the bar eventually, by dropping a handful of small change on the floor. That usually cleared the crush a little.
When he returned, his seat was occupied by a Currently Friendly Drunk. Moist recognized the type, and the operative word was ‘currently’. Miss Dearheart was leaning back to avoid his attentions and more probably his breath.
Moist heard the familiar cry of the generously sloshed.
‘What . . . right? What I’m saying is, right, what I’m saying, narhmean, why won’t you, right, gimme a kiss, right? All I’m saying is—’
Oh gods, I’m going to have to do something, Moist thought. He’s big and he’s got a sword like a butcher’s cleaver and the moment I say anything he’s going to go right into stage four, Violent Undirected Madman, and they can be surprisingly accurate before they fall over.
He put down his drink.
Miss Dearheart gave him a very brief look, and shook her head. There was movement under the table, a small fleshy kind of noise and the drunk suddenly bent forward, colour draining from his face. Probably only he and Moist heard Miss Dearheart purr: ‘What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy “Pretty Lucretia” four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it’s like being trodden on by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking, “Could she press it all the way through to the floor?” And, you know, I’m not sure about that myself. The sole of your boot might give me a bit of trouble, but nothing else will. But that’s not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, which means I can kick like a mule; you are sitting in front of me; and I have another shoe. Good, I can see you have worked that out. I’m going to withdraw the heel now.’
There was a small ‘pop’ from under the table. With great care the man stood up, turned and, without a backward glance, lurched unsteadily away.
‘Can I bother you?’ said Moist. Miss Dearheart nodded, and he sat down, with his legs crossed. ‘He was only a drunk,’ he ventured.
‘Yes, men say that sort of thing,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Anyway, tell me that if I hadn’t done that you wouldn’t now be trying to collect all your teeth in your hat. Which you are not wearing, I notice. This must be your secret identity. Sorry, was that the wrong thing to say? You spilled your drink.’
Moist wiped beer off his lapel. ‘No, this is me,’ he said. ‘Pure and unadorned.’
‘You hardly know me and yet you invited me out on a date,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Why?’
Because you called me a phoney, Moist thought. You saw through me straight away. Because you didn’t nail my head to the door with your crossbow. Because you have no small talk. Because I’d like to get to know you better, even though it would be like smooching an ashtray. Because I wonder if you could put into the rest of your life the passion you put into smoking a cigarette. In defiance of Miss Maccalariat I’d like to commit hanky-panky with you, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart . . . well, certainly hanky, and possibly panky when we get to know one another better. I’d like to know as much about your soul as you know about mine . . .
He said: ‘Because I hardly know you.’
‘If it comes to that, I hardly know you, either,’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘I’m rather banking on that,’ said Moist. This got a smile.
‘Smooth answer. Slick. Where are we really eating tonight?’
‘Le Foie Heureux, of course,’ said Moist.
She looked genuinely surprised. ‘You got a reservation?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘You’ve got a relative that works there, then? You’re blackmailing the maître d’?’
‘No. But I’ve got a table for tonight,’ said Moist.
‘Then it’s some sort of trick,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘I’m impressed. But I’d better warn you, enjoy the meal. It may be your last.’
‘What?’
‘The Grand Trunk Company kills people, Mr Lipwig. In all kinds of ways. You must be getting on Reacher Gilt’s nerves.’
‘Oh, come on! I’m barely a wasp at their picnic!’
‘And what do people do to wasps, do you think?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘The Trunk is in trouble, Mr Lipwig. The company has been running it as a machine for making money. They thought repair would be cheaper than maintenance. They’ve cut everything to the bone - to the bone. They’re people who can’t take a joke. Do you think Reacher Gilt will hesitate for one minute to swat you?’
‘But I’m being very—’ Moist tried.
‘Do you think you’re playing a game with them? Ringing doorbells and running away? Gilt’s aiming to become Patrician one day, everyone says so. And suddenly there’s this . . . this idiot in a big gold hat reminding everyone what a mess the clacks is, poking fun at it, getting the Post Office working again—’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Moist managed. ‘This is a city, not some cow town somewhere! People don’t kill business rivals just like that, do they?’
‘In Ankh-Morpork? You really think so? Oh, he won’t kill you. He won’t even bother with the formality of going through the Guild of Assassins. You’ll just die. Just like my brother. And he’ll be behind it.’
‘Your brother?’ said Moist. On the far side of the huge room, the evening’s fight began with a well-executed Looking-At-Me-In-A-Funny-Way, earning two points and a broken tooth.
‘He and some of the people who used to work on the Trunk before it was pirated - pirated, Mr Lipwig - were going to start up a new Trunk,’ said Miss Dearheart, leaning forward. ‘They’d scraped up funding somehow for a few demonstration towers. It was going to be more than four times as fast as the old system, they were going to do all kinds of clever things with the coding, it was going to be wonderful. A lot of people gave them their savings, people who’d worked for my father. Most of the good engineers left when my father lost the Trunk, you see. They couldn’t stand Gilt and his bunch of looters. My brother was going to get all our money back.’
‘You’ve lost me there,’ said Moist. An axe landed in the table, and juddered.
Miss Dearheart stared at Moist and blew a stream of smoke past his ear.
‘My father was Robert Dearheart,’ she said distantly. ‘He was chairman of the original Grand Trunk Company. The clacks was his vision. Hell, he designed half of the mechanisms in the towers. And he got together with a group of other engineers, all serious men with slide rules, and they borrowed money and mortgaged their houses and built a local system and poured the money back in and started building the Trunk. There was a lot of money coming in; every city wanted to be in on it, everyone was going to be rich. We had stables. I had a horse. Admittedly I didn’t like it much, but I used to feed it and watch it run about or whatever it is they do. Everything was going fine and suddenly he got this letter and there were meetings and they said he was lucky not to go to prison for, oh, I don’t know, something complicated and legal. But the clacks was still making huge amounts. Can you understand that? Reacher Gilt and his gang acted friendly, oh yes, but they were buying up the mortgages and controlling banks and moving numbers around and they pulled the Grand Trunk out from under us like thieves. All they want to do is make money. They don’t care about the Trunk. They’ll run it into the ground and make more money by selling it. When Dad was in charge people were proud of what they did. And because they were engineers they made sure that the towers worked properly, all the time. They even had what they called “walking towers”, prefabricated ones that packed on to a couple of big carts so that if a tower was having serious trouble they could set this one up alongside and start it up and take over the traffic without dropping a single code. They were proud of it, everyone was, they were proud to be a part of it!’
‘You should’ve been there. You should’ve seen it!’ Moist said to himself. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Across the room, a man hit another man with his own leg and picked up seven points.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘You should have. And three months ago my brother John raised enough to start a rival to the Trunk. That took some doing. Gilt has got tentacles everywhere. Well, John ended up dead in a field. They said he hadn’t clipped his safety rope on. He always did. And now my father just sits and stares at the wall. He even lost his workshop when everything got taken away. We lost our house, of course. Now we live with my aunt in Dolly Sisters. That’s what we’ve come to. When Reacher Gilt talks about freedom he means his, not anyone else’s. And now you pop up, Mr Moist von Lipwig, all shiny and new, running around doing everything at once. Why?’
‘Vetinari offered me the job, that’s all,’ said Moist.
‘Why did you take it?’
‘It was a job for life.’
She stared at Moist so hard that he began to feel uncomfortable. ‘Well, you’ve managed to get a table at Le Foie Heureux at a few hours’ notice,’ she conceded, as a knife struck a beam behind her. ‘Are you still going to lie if I ask you how?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good. Shall we go?’

A little pressure lamp burned in the stuffy snugness of the locker room, its glow a globe of unusual brilliance. In the centre of it, magnifying glass in hand, Stanley examined his stamps.
This was . . . heaven. Peas are known for their thoroughness, and Stanley was conscientious in the extreme. Mr Spools, slightly unnerved by his smile, had given him all the test sheets and faulty pages, and Stanley was carefully cataloguing them - how many of each, what the errors were, everything.
A little tendril of guilt was curling through his mind: this was better than pins, it really was. There could be no end to stamps. You could put anything on them. They were amazing. They could move letters around and then you could stick them in a book, all neat. You wouldn’t get ‘pinhead’s thumb’, either.
He’d read about this feeling in the pin magazines. They said you could come unpinned. Girls and marriage were sometimes mentioned in this context. Sometimes an ex-head would sell off his whole collection, just like that. Or at some pin-meet someone would suddenly throw all their pins in the air and run out shouting, ‘Aargh, they’re just pins!’ Up until now, such a thing had been unthinkable to Stanley.
He picked up his little sack of unsorted pins, and stared at it. A few days ago, the mere thought of an evening with his pins would have given him a lovely warm, comfortable feeling inside. But now it was time to put away childish pins.
Something screamed.
It was harsh, guttural, it was malice and hunger given a voice. Small huddling shrew-like creatures had once heard sounds like that, circling over the swamps.
After a moment of ancient terror had subsided, Stanley crept over and opened the door.
‘H-hello?’ he called, into the cavernous darkness of the hall. ‘Is there anyone there?’
There was fortunately no reply, but there was some scrabbling up near the roof.
‘We’re closed, you know,’ he quavered. ‘But we’re open again at seven in the morning for a range of stamps and a wonderful deal on mail to Pseudopolis.’ His voice slowed and his brow creased as he tried to remember everything Mr Lipwig had told them earlier. ‘Remember, we may not be the fastest but we always get there. Why not write to your old granny?’
‘I ate my grandmother,’ growled a voice from high in the darkness. ‘I gnawed her bones.’
Stanley coughed. He had not been trained in the art of salesmanship.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Er . . . perhaps an aunt, then?’
He wrinkled his nose. Why was there the stink of lamp oil in the air?
‘Hello?’ he said again.
Something dropped out of the dark, bounced off his shoulder and landed on the floor with a wet thud. Stanley reached down, felt around and found a pigeon. At least, he found about half a pigeon. It was still warm, and very sticky.

Mr Gryle sat on a beam high above the hall. His stomach was on fire. It was no good, old habits died too hard. They were bred in the bone. Something warm and feathery fluttered up in front of you and of course you snapped at it. Ankh-Morpork had pigeons roosting on every gutter, cornice and statue. Not even the resident gargoyles could keep them down. He’d had six before he sailed in through the broken dome, and then another huge warm feathery cloud had risen up and a red haze had simply dropped in front of his eyes.
They were so tasty. You couldn’t stop at one! And five minutes later you remembered why you should have done.
These were feral, urban birds, that lived on what they could find on the streets. Ankh-Morpork streets, at that. They were bobbing, cooing plague pits. You might as well eat a dog turd burger and wash it down with a jumbo cup of septic tank.
Mr Gryle groaned. Best to finish the job, get out of here and go and throw up over a busy street. He dropped his oil bottle into the dark and fumbled for his matches. His species had come to fire late, because nests burned too easily, but it did have its uses . . .

Flame blossomed, high up at the far end of the hall. It dropped from the beams and landed on the stacks of letters. There was a whoomph as the oil caught fire; blue runnels of flame began to climb the walls.
Stanley looked down. A few feet away, lit by the fire crawling across the letters, was a figure curled up on the floor. The golden hat with wings lay next to it.
Stanley looked up, eyes glowing red in the firelight, as a figure swooped from the rafters and sped towards him, mouth open.
And that’s when it all went wrong for Mr Gryle, because Stanley had one of his Little Moments.

Attitude was everything. Moist had studied attitude. Some of the old nobility had it. It was the total lack of any doubt that things would go the way they expected them to go.
The maitre d’ ushered them to their table without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Can you really afford this on a government salary, Mr Lipwig?’ said Miss Dearheart as they sat down. ‘Or are we going to exit via the kitchens?’
‘I believe I have adequate funds,’ said Moist.
He probably hadn’t, he knew. A restaurant that has a waiter even for the mustard stacks up the prices. But right now Moist wasn’t worrying about the bill. There were ways to deal with bills, and it was best to deal with them on a full stomach.
They ordered starters that probably cost more than the weekly food bill for an average man. There was no point in looking for the cheapest thing on the menu. The cheapest thing theoretically existed but somehow, no matter how hard you stared, didn’t quite manage to be there. On the other hand, there were a lot of most expensive things.
‘Are the boys settling in okay?’ said Miss Dearheart.
The boys, Moist thought. ‘Oh, yes. Anghammarad has really taken to it. A natural postman,’ he said.
‘Well, he’s had practice.’
‘What’s that box he’s got riveted to his arm?’
‘That? A message he’s got to deliver. Not the original baked clay tablet, I gather. He’s had to make copies two or three times and the bronze lasts hardly any time at all, to a golem. It’s a message to King Het of Thut from his astrologers on their holy mountain, telling him that the Goddess of the Sea was angry and what ceremonies he’d have to do to placate her.’
‘Didn’t Thut slide into the sea anyway? I thought he said—’
‘Yeah, yeah, Anghammarad got there too late and was swept away by the ferocious tidal wave and the island sank.’
‘So . . . ?’ said Moist.
‘So what?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘So . . . he doesn’t think that delivering it now might be a bit on the tardy side?’
‘No. He doesn’t. You’re not seeing it like a golem. They believe the universe is doughnut-shaped.’
‘Would that be a ring doughnut or a jam doughnut?’ said Moist.
‘Ring, definitely, but don’t push for further culinary details, because I can see you’ll try to make a joke of it. They think it has no start or finish. We just keep going round and round, but we don’t have to make the same decisions every time.’
‘Like getting an angel the hard way,’ said Moist.
‘What do you mean?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘Er . . . he’s waiting until the whole tidal wave business comes around again and this time he’ll get there earlier and do it right?’
‘Yes. Don’t point out all the flaws in the idea. It works for him.’
‘He’s going to wait for millions and millions of years?’ said Moist.
‘That’s not a flaw, not to a golem. That’s only a matter of time. They don’t get bored. They repair themselves and they’re very hard to shatter. They survive under the sea or in red-hot lava. He might be able to do it, who knows? In the meantime, he keeps himself busy. Just like you, Mr Lipwig. You’ve been very busy—’
She froze, staring over his shoulder. He saw her right hand scrabble frantically among the cutlery and grab a knife.
‘That bastard has just walked into the place!’ she hissed. ‘Readier Gilt! I’ll just kill him and join you for the pudding . . .’
‘You can’t do that!’ hissed Moist.
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘You’re using the wrong knife! That’s for the fish! You’ll get into trouble!’
She glared at him, but her hand relaxed and something like a smile appeared.
‘They don’t have a knife for stabbing rich murdering bastards?’ she said.
‘They bring it to the table when you order one,’ said Moist urgently. ‘Look, this isn’t the Drum, they don’t just throw the body on to the river! They’ll call the Watch! Get a grip. Not on the knife! And get ready to run.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I forged his signature on Grand Trunk notepaper to get us in here, that’s why.’
Moist turned round to look at the great man in the flesh for the first time. He was great, a bear-shaped man, in a frock coat big enough for two and a gold-braid waistcoat. And he had a cockatoo on his shoulder, although a waiter was hurrying forward with a shiny brass perch and, presumably, the seed-and-nut menu.
There was a party of well-dressed people with Gilt, and as they progressed across the room the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity all of its own. Waiters bustled and grovelled and did unimportant things with an air of great importance, and it was probably only a matter of minutes before one of them told Gilt that his other guests had been seated. But Moist was scanning the rest of the room for the— Ah, there they were, two of them. What was it about hired muscle that made it impossible to get a suit to fit?
One was watching the door, one was watching the room, and without a shadow of a doubt there was at least one in the kitchen.
—and, yes, the maitre d’ was earning his tip by assuring the great man that his friends had been duly looked after—
—the big head, with its leonine mane, turned to stare at Moist’s table—
—Miss Dearheart murmured, ‘Oh gods, he’s coming over!’—
—and Moist stood up. The hired fists had shifted position. They wouldn’t actually do anything in here, but nor would anyone else be worried if he was escorted out with speed and firmness for a little discussion in some alley somewhere. Gilt was advancing between the tables, leaving his puzzled guests behind.
This was a job for people skills, or diving through the window. But Gilt would have to be at least marginally polite. People were listening.
‘Mr Reacher Gilt?’ said Moist.
‘Indeed, sir,’ said Gilt, grinning without a trace of humour. ‘But you appear to have me at a disadvantage.’
T do hope not, sir,’ said Moist.
‘It appears that I asked the restaurant to retain a table for you, Mr . . . Lipwig?’
‘Did you, Mr Gilt?’ said Moist, with what he knew was remarkably persuasive innocence. ‘We arrived in the hope that there might be a spare table and were astonished to find there was!’
‘Then at least one of us has been made a fool of, Mr Lipwig,’ said Gilt. ‘But tell me . . . are you truly Mr Moist von Lipwig the postmaster?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Without your hat?’
Moist coughed. ‘It’s not actually compulsory,’ he said.
The big face observed him in silence, and then a hand like a steel-worker’s glove was thrust forward.
‘I am very pleased to meet you at last, Mr Lipwig. I trust your good luck will continue.’
Moist took the hand and, instead of the bone-crushing grip he was expecting, felt the firm handshake of an honourable man and looked into the steady, honest, one-eyed gaze of Reacher Gilt.
Moist had worked hard at his profession and considered himself pretty good at it but, if he had been wearing his hat, he would have taken it off right now. He was in the presence of a master. He could feel it in the hand, see it in that one commanding eye. Were things otherwise, he would have humbly begged to be taken on as an apprentice, scrub the man’s floors, cook his food, just to sit at the feet of greatness and learn how to do the three card trick using whole banks. If Moist was any judge, any judge at all, the man in front of him was the biggest fraud he’d ever met. And he advertised it. That was . . . style. The pirate curls, the eyepatch, even the damn parrot. Twelve and a half per cent, for heavens’ sake, didn’t anyone spot that? He told them what he was, and they laughed and loved him for it. It was breathtaking. If Moist von Lipwig had been a career killer, it would have been like meeting a man who’d devised a way to destroy civilizations.
All this came in an instant, in one bolt of understanding, in the glint of an eye. But something ran in front of it as fast as a little fish ahead of a shark.
Gilt was shocked, not surprised. That tiny moment was barely measurable on any clock but just for an instant the world had gone wrong for Reacher Gilt. That moment had been wiped out so competently that all that remained of it was Moist’s certainty that it had happened, but the certainty was rigid.
He was loath to let go of the hand in case there was a flash that might broil him alive. After all, he had recognized the nature of Gilt, so the man must certainly have spotted him.
‘Thank you, Mr Gilt,’ he said.
‘I gather you were kind enough to carry some of our messages today,’ Gilt rumbled.
‘It was a pleasure, sir. If ever you need our help, you only have to ask.’
‘Hmm,’ said Gilt. ‘But the least I can do is buy you dinner, Postmaster. The bill will come to my table. Choose whatever you wish. And now, if you will excuse me, I must attend to my . . . other guests.’
He bowed to the simmering Miss Dearheart and walked back.
‘The management would like to thank you for not killing the guests,’ said Moist, sitting down. ‘Now we should—’
He stopped, and stared.
Miss Dearheart, who had been saving up to hiss at him, took one look at his face and hesitated.
‘Are you ill?’ she said.
‘They’re . . . burning,’ said Moist, his eyes widening.
‘Ye gods, you’ve gone white!’
‘The writing . . . they’re screaming . . . I can smell burning!’
‘Someone over there is having crepes,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘It’s just—’ She stopped, and sniffed. ‘It smells like paper, though . . .’
People looked round as Moist’s chair crashed backwards.
‘The Post Office is on fire! I know it is!’ he shouted, and turned and ran.
Miss Dearheart caught up just as he was in the hall, where one of Gilt’s bodyguards had grabbed him. She tapped the man on the shoulder and, as he turned to push her away, stamped down heavily. While he screamed she dragged the bewildered Moist away.
‘Water . . . we’ve got to get water,’ he groaned. ‘They’re burning! They’re all burning!’

Chapter Ten

The Burning of Words

In which Stanley remains Calm - Moist the Hero - Searching for a Cat,
never a good idea - Something in the Dark - Mr Gryle is encountered -
Fire and Water - Mr Lipwig Helps the Watch - Dancing on the edge
— Mr Lipwig Gets Religion — Opportunity Time - Miss Maccalariat’s
hairgrip - The Miracle

The letters burned.
Part of the ceiling fell down, showering more letters on to the flames. The fire was already reaching for the upper floors. As Stanley dragged Mr Groat across the floor another slab of plaster smashed on the tiles and the old mail that poured down after it was already burning. Smoke, thick as soup, rolled across the distant ceiling.
Stanley pulled the old man into the locker room and laid him on his bed. He rescued the golden hat, too, because Mr Lipwig would be bound to be angry if he didn’t. Then he shut the door and took down, from the shelf over Groat’s desk, the Book of Regulations. He turned the pages methodically until he came to the bookmark he’d put in a minute ago, on the page What To Do In Case Of Fire.
Stanley always followed the rules. All sorts of things could go wrong if you didn’t.
So far he’d done 1: Upon Discovery of the Fire, Remain Calm.
Now he came to 2: Shout ‘Fire!’ in a Loud, Clear Voice.
‘Fire!’ he shouted, and then ticked off 2 with his pencil.
Next was: 3: Endeavour to Extinguish Fire If Possible.
Stanley went to the door and opened it. Flames and smoke billowed in. He stared at them for a moment, shook his head, and shut the door.
Paragraph 4 said: If Trapped by Fire, Endeavour to Escape. Do Not Open Doors If Warm. Do Not Use Stairs If Burning. If No Exit Presents Itself Remain Calm and Await a) Rescue or b) Death.
This seemed to cover it. The world of pins was simple and Stanley knew his way around it as a goldfish knows its tank, but everything else was very complicated and only worked if you followed the rules.
He glanced up at the grubby little windows. They were far too small to climb through and had been welded shut by many applications of official paint, so he broke one pane as neatly as possible to allow some fresh air in. He made a note of this in the breakages book.
Mr Groat was still breathing, although with an unpleasant bubbling sound. There was a First Aid kit in the locker room, because Regulations demanded it, but it contained only a small length of bandage, a bottle of something black and sticky, and Mr Groat’s spare teeth. Mr Groat had told him never to touch his home-made medicines, and since it was not unusual for bottles to explode during the night Stanley had always observed this rule very carefully.
It did not say in the Regulations: If Attacked by Huge Swooping Screaming Creature Hit Hard in the Mouth with Sack of Pins, and Stanley wondered if he should pencil this in. But that would be Defacing Post Office Property, and he could get into trouble for that.
All avenues of further activity being therefore closed, Stanley remained calm.

It was a gentle snow of letters. Some landed still burning, fountaining out of the column of crackling fire that had already broken through the Post Office roof. Some were blackened ashes on which sparks travelled in mockery of the dying ink. Some - many - had sailed up and over the city unscathed, zigzagging down gently like communications from an excessively formal sort of god.
Moist tore off his jacket as he pushed through the crowd.
‘The people probably got out,’ said Miss Dear heart, clattering along beside him.
‘Do you really think so?’ said Moist.
‘Really? No. Not if Gilt set this up. Sorry, I’m not very good at being comforting any more.’
Moist paused, and tried to think. The flames were coming out of the roof at one end of the building. The main door and the whole left side looked untouched. But fire was sneaky stuff, he knew. It sat there and smouldered until you opened the door to see how it was getting on, and then the fire caught its breath and your eyeballs got soldered to your skull.
‘I’d better go in,’ he said. ‘Er . . . you wouldn’t care to say “No, no, don’t do it, you’re being far too brave!” would you?’ he added. Some people were organizing a bucket chain from a nearby fountain; it would be as effective as spitting at the sun.
Miss Dearheart caught a burning letter, lit a cigarette with it, and took a drag. ‘No, no, don’t do it, you’re being far too brave!’ she said. ‘How was that for you? But if you do, the left side looks pretty clear. Watch out, though. There are rumours Gilt employs a vampire. One of the wild ones.’
‘Ah. Fire kills them, doesn’t it?’ said Moist, desperate to look on the bright side.
‘It kills everybody, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘It kills everybody.’ She grabbed him by the ears and gave him a big kiss on the mouth. It was like being kissed by an ashtray, but in a good way.
‘On the whole, I’d like you to come out of there,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you sure you won’t wait? The boys will be here in a minute—’
‘The golems? It’s their day off!’
‘They have to obey their chem, though. A fire means humans are in danger. They’ll smell it and be here in minutes, believe me.’
Moist hesitated, looking at her face. And people were watching him. He couldn’t not go in there, it wouldn’t fit in with the persona. Gods damn Vetinari!
He shook his head, turned, and ran towards the doors. Best not to think about it. Best not to think about being so dumb. Just feel the front door . . . quite cool. Open it gently . . . a rush of air, but no explosion. The big hall, lit with flame . . . but it was all above him, and if he weaved and dodged he could make it to the door that led down to the locker room.
He kicked it open.
Stanley looked up from his stamps.
‘Hello, Mr Lipwig,’ he said. ‘I kept calm. But I think Mr Groat is ill.’
The old man was lying on the bed, and ill was too jolly a word.
‘What happened to him?’ said Moist, lifting him gently. Mr Groat was no weight at all.
‘It was like a big bird, but I frightened it off,’ said Stanley. ‘I hit it in the mouth with a sack of pins. I . . . had a Little Moment, sir.’
‘Well, that ought to do it,’ said Moist. ‘Now, can you follow me?’
‘I’ve got all the stamps,’ said Stanley. ‘And the cashbox. Mr Groat keeps them under his bed for safety.’ The boy beamed. ‘And your hat, too. I kept calm.’
‘Well done, well done,’ said Moist. ‘Now, stick right behind me, okay?’
‘What about Mr Tiddles, Mr Lipwig?’ said Stanley, suddenly looking worried. Somewhere outside in the hall there was a crash, and the crackle of the fire grew distinctly louder.
‘Who? Mr Tidd— the cat? To hell with—’ Moist stopped, and readjusted his mouth. ‘He’ll be outside, you can bet on it, eating a toasted rat and grinning. Come on, will you?’
‘But he’s the Post Office cat!’ said Stanley. ‘He’s never been outside!’
I’ll bet he has now, thought Moist. But there was that edge in the boy’s voice again.
‘Let’s get Mr Groat out of here, okay,’ he said, easing his way through the door with the old man in his arms, ‘and then I’ll come back for Tidd—’
A burning beam dropped on to the floor halfway across the hall, and sent sparks and burning envelopes spiralling upwards into the main blaze. It roared, a wall of flame, a fiery waterfall in reverse, up through the other floors and out through the roof. It thundered. It was fire let loose and making the most of it.
Part of Moist von Lipwig was happy to let it happen. But a new and troublesome part was thinking: I was making it work. It was all moving forward. The stamps were really working. It was as good as being a criminal without the crime. It had been fun.
‘Come on, Stanley!’ Moist snapped, turning away from the horrible sight and the fascinating thought. The boy followed, reluctantly, calling for the damn cat all the way to the door.
The air outside struck like a knife, but there was a round of applause from the crowd and then a flash of light that Moist had come to associate with eventual trouble.
‘Good eefning, Mr Lipvig!’ said the cheery voice of Otto Chriek. ‘My vord, if ve vant news, all ve have to do is follow you!’
Moist ignored him and shouldered his way to Miss Dearheart who, he noticed, was not beside herself with worry.
‘Is there a hospice in this city?’ he said. ‘A decent doctor, even?’
‘There’s the Lady Sybil Free Hospital,’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘Is it any good?’
‘Some people don’t die.’
‘That good, eh? Get him there right now! I’ve got to go back in for the cat!’
‘You are going to go back in there for a cat?’
‘It’s Mr Tiddles,’ said Stanley primly. ‘He was born in the Post Office.’
‘Best not to argue,’ said Moist, turning to go. ‘See to Mr Groat, will you?’
Miss Dearheart looked down at the old man’s bloodstained shirt. ‘But it looks as though some creature tried to—’ she began.
‘Something fell on him,’ said Moist shortly.
‘That couldn’t cause—’
‘Something fell on him’, said Moist. ‘That’s what happened.’
She looked at his face. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Something fell on him. Something with big claws.’
‘No, a joist with lots of nails in it, something like that. Anyone can see that.’
‘That’s what happened, was it?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘That’s exactly what happened,’ said Moist, and strode away before there were any more questions.
No point in getting the Watch involved in this, he thought, hurrying towards the doors. They’ll clump around and there won’t be any answers for them and in my experience watchmen always like to arrest somebody. What makes you think it was Reacher Gilt, Mr . . . Lipwig, wasn’t it? Oh, you could tell, could you? That’s a skill of yours, is it? Funny thing, we can tell sometimes, too. You’ve got a very familiar face, Mr Lipwig. Where are you from?
No, there was no point in getting friendly with the Watch. They might get in the way.
An upper window exploded outwards, and flames licked along the edge of the roof; Moist ducked into the doorway as glass rained down. As for Tiddles . . . well, he had to find the damn cat. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be fun any more. If he didn’t risk at least a tiny bit of life and a smidgen of limb, he just wouldn’t be able to carry on being him.
Had he just thought that?
Oh, gods. He’d lost it. He’d never been sure how he’d got it, but it had gone. That’s what happened if you took wages. And hadn’t his grandfather warned him to keep away from women as neurotic as a shaved monkey? Actually he hadn’t, his interest lying mainly with dogs and beer, but he should have done.
The vision of Mr Groat’s chest kept bumping insistently against his imagination. It looked as though something with claws had taken a swipe at him, and only the thick uniform coat prevented him from being opened like a clam. But that didn’t sound like a vampire. They weren’t messy like that. It was a waste of good food. Nevertheless, he picked up a piece of smashed chair. It had splintered nicely. And the good thing about a stake through the heart was that it also worked on non-vampires.
More ceiling had come down in the hall, but he was able to dodge between the debris. The main staircase was at this end and completely untouched, although smoke lay on the floor like a carpet; at the other end of the hall, where the mountains of old mail had been, the blaze still roared.
He couldn’t hear the letters any more. Sorry, he thought. I did my best. It wasn’t my fault . . .
What now? At least he could get his box out of his office. He didn’t want that to burn. Some of those chemicals would be quite hard to replace.
The office was full of smoke but he dragged the box out from under his desk and then spotted the golden suit on its hanger. He had to take it, didn’t he? Something like that couldn’t be allowed to burn. He could come back for the box, right? But the suit . . . the suit was necessary. There was no sign of Tiddles. He must have got out, yes? Didn’t cats leave sinking ships? Or was it rats? Wouldn’t the cats follow the rats? Anyway, smoke was coming up between the floorboards and drifting down from the upper floors, and this wasn’t the time to hang around. He’d looked everywhere sensible; there was no sense in being where a ton of burning paper could drop on your head.
It was a good plan and it was only spoiled when he spotted the cat, down in the hall. It was watching him with interest.
‘Tiddles!’ bellowed Moist. He wished he hadn’t. It was such a stupid name to shout in a burning building.
The cat looked at him, and trotted away. Cursing, Moist hurried after it, and saw it disappear down into the cellars.
Cats were bright, weren’t they? There was probably another way out . . . bound to be . . .
Moist didn’t even look up when he heard the creaking of wood overhead, but ran forward and went down the steps five at a time. By the sound of it, a large amount of the entire building smashed on to the floor just behind him, and sparks roared down the cellar passage, burning his neck.
Well, there was no going back, at least. But cellars, now, they had trapdoors and coal shutes and things, didn’t they? And they were cool and safe and—
—just the place where you’d go to lick your wounds after being smashed in the mouth with a sackful of pins, right?
An imagination is a terrible thing to bring along.
A vampire, she’d said. And Stanley had hit ‘a big bird’ with a sackful of pins. Stanley the Vampire Slayer, with a bag of pins. You wouldn’t believe it, unless you’d seen him in one of what Mr Groat called his ‘little moments’.
You probably couldn’t kill a vampire with pins . . .
And after a thought like that is when you realize that however hard you try to look behind you, there’s a behind you, behind you, where you aren’t looking. Moist flung his back to the cold stone wall, and slithered along it until he ran out of wall and acquired a doorframe.
The faint blue glow of the Sorting Engine was just visible.
As Moist peered into the machine’s room, Tiddles was visible too. He was crouched under the engine.
‘That’s a very cat thing you’re doing there, Tiddles,’ said Moist, staring at the shadows. ‘Come to Uncle Moist. Please?’
He sighed, and hung the suit on an old letter rack, and crouched down. How were you supposed to pick up a cat? He’d never done it. Cats never figured in grandfather’s Lipwigzer kennels, except as an impromptu snack.
As his hand drew near Tiddles, the cat flattened its ears and hissed.
‘Do you want to cook down here?’ said Moist. ‘No claws, please.’
The cat began to growl, and Moist realized that it wasn’t looking directly at him.
‘Good Tiddles,’ he said, feeling the terror begin to rise. It was one of the prime rules of exploring in a hostile environment: do not bother about the cat. And, suddenly, the environment was a lot more hostile.
Another important rule was: don’t turn round slowly to look. It’s there all right. Not the cat. Damn the cat. It’s something else.
He stood upright and took a two-handed grip on the wooden stake. It’s right behind me, yes? he thought. Bloody well bloody right bloody behind me! Of course it is! How could things be otherwise?
The feeling of fear was almost the same as the feeling he got when, say, a mark was examining a glass diamond. Time slowed a little, every sense was heightened, and there was a taste of copper in his mouth.
Don’t turn round slowly. Turn round fast.
He spun, screamed and thrust. The stake met resistance, which yielded only slightly.
A long pale face grinned at him in the blue light. It showed rows of pointy teeth.
‘Missed both my hearts,’ said Mr Gryle, spitting blood.

Moist jumped back as a thin clawed hand sliced through the air, but kept the stake in front of him, jabbing with it, holding the thing off . . .
Banshee, he thought. Oh, hell . . .
Only when he moved did Gryle’s leathery black cape swing aside briefly to show the skeletal figure beneath; it helped if you knew that the black leather was wing. It helped if you thought of banshees as the only humanoid race that had evolved the ability to fly, in some lush jungle somewhere where they’d hunted flying squirrels. It didn’t help, much, if you knew why the story had grown up that hearing the scream of the banshee meant that you were going to die.
It meant that the banshee was tracking you. No good looking behind you. It was overhead.
There weren’t many of the feral ones, even in Uberwald, but Moist knew the advice passed on by people who’d survived them. Keep away from the mouth - those teeth are vicious. Don’t attack the chest; the flight muscles there are like armour. They’re not strong but they’ve got sinews like steel cables and the long reach of those arm bones’ll mean it can slap your silly head right off—
Tiddles yowled and backed further under the Sorting Engine. Gryle slashed at Moist again, and came after him as he backed away.
—but their necks snap easily if you can get inside their reach, and they have to shut their eyes when they scream.
Gryle came forward, head bobbing as he strutted. There was nowhere else for Moist to go, so he tossed aside the wood and held up his hands.
‘All right, I give in,’ he said. ‘Just make it quick, okay?’
The creature kept looking at the golden suit; they had a magpie’s eye for glitter.
‘I’m going somewhere afterwards,’ said Moist helpfully.
Gryle hesitated. He was hurt, disorientated and had eaten pigeons that were effluent on wings. He wanted to get out of here and up into the cool sky. Everything was too complicated here. There were too many targets, too many smells.
For a banshee, everything was in the pounce, when teeth, claws and bodyweight all bore down at once. Now, bewildered, he strutted back and forth, trying to deal with the situation. There was no room to fly, nowhere else to go, the prey was standing there . . . instinct, emotion and some attempt at rational thought all banged together in Gryle’s overheated head.
Instinct won. Leaping at things with your claws out had worked for a million years, so why stop now?
He threw his head back, screamed, and sprang.
So did Moist, ducking under the long arms. That wasn’t programmed into the banshee’s responses: the prey should be huddled, or running away. But Moist’s shoulder caught him in the chest.
The creature was as light as a child.
Moist felt a claw slash into his arm as he hurled the thing on to the Sorting Engine, and flung himself to the floor. For one horrible moment he thought it was going to get up, that he’d missed the wheel, but as the enraged Mr Gryle shifted there was a sound like . . .
 . . . gloop . . .
 . . . followed by silence.
Moist lay on the cool flagstones until his heart slowed down to the point where he could make out individual beats. He was aware, as he lay there, that something sticky was dripping down the side of the machine.
He arose slowly, on unsteady legs, and stared at what had become of the creature. If he’d been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, ‘That’s what I call sorted!’ Since he wasn’t a hero, he threw up. A body doesn’t work properly when significant bits are not sharing the same space-time frame as the rest of it, but it does look more colourful.
Then, clutching at his bleeding arm, Moist knelt down and looked under the engine for Tiddles.
He had to come back with the cat, he thought muzzily. It was just something that had to happen. A man who rushes into a burning building to rescue a stupid cat and comes out carrying the cat is seen as a hero, even if he is a rather dumb one. If he comes out sans cat he’s a twit.
A muffled thunder above them suggested that part of the building had fallen down. The air was roasting.
Tiddles backed away from Moist’s hand.
‘Listen,’ Moist growled. ‘The hero has to come out with the cat. The cat doesn’t have to be alive—’
He lunged, grabbed Tiddles and dragged the cat out.
‘Right,’ he said, and picked up the suit hanger in his other hand. There were a few blobs of banshee on it, but, he thought light-headedly, he could probably find something to remove them.
He lurched out into the corridor. There was a wall of fire at both ends, and Tiddles chose this moment to sink all four sets of claws into his arm.
‘Ah,’ said Moist. ‘Up until now it was going so well—’
‘Mr Lipvig! Are You All Right, Mr Lipvig?’

What golems removed from a fire was, in fact, the fire. They took out of a burning property everything that was burning. It was curiously surgical. They assembled at the edge of the fire and deprived it of anything to burn, herded it, cornered it, and stamped it to death.
Golems could wade through lava and pour molten iron. Even if they knew what fear was, they wouldn’t find it in a mere burning building.
Glowing rubble was hauled away from the steps by red-hot hands. Moist stared up into a landscape of flame but also, in front of it, Mr Pump. He was glowing orange. Specks of dust and dirt on his clay flashed and sparkled.
‘Good To See You, Mr Lipvig!’ he boomed cheerfully, tossing a crackling beam aside. ‘We Have Cleared A Path To The Door! Move With Speed!’
‘Er . . . thank you!’ shouted Moist, above the roar of the flames. There was a path, dragged clear of debris, with the open door beckoning calmly and coolly at the end of it. Away towards the far end of the hall other golems, oblivious of the pillars of flame, were calmly throwing burning floorboards out through a hole in the wall.
The heat was intense. Moist lowered his head, clutched the terrified cat to his chest, felt the back of his neck begin to roast and scampered forward.
From then on, it became all one memory. The crashing noise high above. The metallic boom. The golem Anghammarad looking up, with his message glowing yellow on his cherry-red arm. Ten thousand tons of rainwater pouring down in deceptive slow motion. The cold hitting the glowing golem . . .
 . . . the explosion . . .
Flames died. Sound died. Light died.

ANGHAMMARAD.
Anghammarad looked at his hands. There was nothing there except heat, furnace heat, blasting heat that nevertheless made the shapes of fingers.
ANGHAMMARAD , a hollow voice repeated.
‘I Have Lost My Clay,’ said the golem.
YES, said Death, THAT IS STANDARD. YOU ARE DEAD. SMASHED. EXPLODED INTO A MILLION PIECES.
‘Then Who Is This Doing The Listening?’
EVERYTHING THERE WAS ABOUT YOU THAT ISN’T CLAY.
‘Do You Have A Command For Me?’ said the remains of Anghammarad, standing up.
NOT NOW. YOU HAVE REACHED THE PLACE WHERE THERE ARE NO MORE ORDERS.
‘What Shall I Do?’
I BELIEVE YOU HAVE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND MY LAST COMMENT.
Anghammarad sat down again. Apart from the fact that there was sand rather than ooze underfoot, this place reminded him of the abyssal plain.
GENERALLY PEOPLE LIKE TO MOVE ON, Death hinted. THEY LOOK FORWARD TO AN AFTERLIFE.
‘I Will Stay Here, Please.’
HERE? THERE’S NOTHING TO DO HERE, said Death.
‘Yes, I Know,’ said the ghost of the golem. ‘It Is Perfect. I Am Free.’

At two in the morning it began to rain.
Things could have been worse. It could have rained snakes. It could have rained acid.
There was still some roof, and some walls. That meant there was still some building.
Moist and Miss Dearheart sat on some warm rubble outside the locker room, which was more or less the only room that could still be properly described as one. The golems had stamped out the last of the fire, shored things up and then, without a word, had gone back to not being a hammer until sunset.
Miss Dearheart held a half-melted bronze band in her hand, and turned it over and over.
‘Eighteen thousand years,’ she whispered.
‘It was the rainwater tank,’ mumbled Moist, staring at nothing.
‘Fire and water,’ muttered Miss Dearheart. ‘But not both!’
‘Can’t you . . . rebake him, or something?’ It sounded hopeless even as Moist said it. He’d seen the other golems scrabbling in the rubble.
‘Not enough left. Just dust, mixed up with everything else,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘All he wanted to do was be useful.’
Moist looked at the remains of the letters. The flood had washed the black slurry of their ashes into every corner.
All they wanted to do was be delivered, he thought. At a time like this, sitting on the sea bed for nine thousand years seemed quite attractive.
‘He was going to wait until the universe comes round again. Did you know that?’
‘You told me, yes,’ said Moist.
There’s no stink more sorrowful than the stink of wet, burnt paper, Moist thought. It means: the end.
‘Vetinari won’t rebuild this place, you know,’ Miss Dearheart went on. ‘Gilt will get people to make a fuss if he tries it. Waste of city funds. He’s got friends. People who owe him money and favours. He’s good at that sort of people.’
‘It was Gilt who had this place torched,’ said Moist. ‘He was shocked to see me back in the restaurant. He thought I’d be here.’
‘You’ll never be able to prove it.’
Probably not, Moist agreed, in the sour, smoke-addled hollow of his head. The Watch had turned up with more speed than Moist had found usual amongst city policemen. They had a werewolf with them. Oh, probably most people would have thought it was just a handsome dog, but grow up in Uberwald with a grandfather who bred dogs and you learned to spot the signs. This one had a collar, and snuffled around while the embers were still smoking, and found something extra to scent in the pall of steaming ashes.
They’d dug down, and there had been an awkward interview. Moist had handled it as well as he could manage, in the circumstances. The key point was never to tell the truth. Coppers never believed what people told them in any case, so there was no point in giving them extra work.
‘A winged skeleton?’ Moist had said, with what surely sounded like genuine surprise.
‘Yes, sir. About the size of a man, but very . . . damaged. I could even say mangled. I wonder if you know anything about it?’ This watchman was a captain. Moist hadn’t been able to make him out. His face gave nothing away that he didn’t want to let go of. Something about him suggested that he already knew the answers but was asking the questions for the look of the thing.
‘Perhaps it was an extra large pigeon? They’re real pests in this building,’ Moist had said.
‘I doubt it, sir. We believe it to have been a banshee, Mr Lipwig,’ said the captain patiently. ‘They’re very rare.’
‘I thought they just screamed on the rooftops of people who are going to die,’ said Moist.
‘The civilized ones do, sir. The wild ones cut out the middle man. Your young man said he hit something?’
‘Stanley did say something about, oh, something flying around,’ said Moist. ‘But I thought it was simply—’
‘—an extra large pigeon. I see. And you’ve no idea how the fire started? I know you use safety lamps in here.’
‘Probably spontaneous combustion in the letter piles, I’m afraid,’ said Moist, who’d had time to think about this one.
‘No one has been behaving oddly?’
‘In the Post Office, captain, it’s very hard to tell. Believe me.’
‘No threats made, sir? By anyone you may have upset, perhaps?’
‘None at all.’
The captain had sighed and put away his notebook.
‘I’ll have a couple of men watching the building overnight, nevertheless,’ he’d said. ‘Well done for saving the cat, sir. That was a big cheer you got when you came out. Just one thing, though, sir . . .’
‘Yes, captain?’
‘Why would a banshee - or possibly a giant pigeon - attack Mr Groat?’
And Moist thought: the hat . . .
‘I have no idea,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. I’m sure you haven’t,’ said the captain. ‘I’m sure you haven’t. I’m Captain Ironfoundersson, sir, although most people call me Captain Carrot. Don’t hesitate to contact me, sir, if anything occurs to you. We are here for your protection.’
And what would you have done against a banshee? Moist had thought. You suspect Gilt. Well done. But people like Gilt don’t bother with the law. They never break it, they just use people who do. And you’ll never find anything written down, anywhere.
Just before the captain had turned to go Moist was sure that the werewolf had winked at him.
Now, with the rain drifting in and hissing where the stones were still warm, Moist looked around at the fires. There were still plenty of them, where the golems had dumped the rubble. This being Ankh-Morpork, people of the night had risen like the mists and gathered around them for warmth.
This place would need a fortune spent on it. Well? He knew where to lay his hands on plenty of money, didn’t he? He didn’t have much use for it. It had only ever been a way of keeping score. But then this would all end, because it had belonged to Albert Spangler and the rest of them, not to an innocent postmaster.
He took off his golden hat and looked at it. An avatar, Pelc had said. The human embodiment of a god. But he wasn’t a god, he was just a conman in a golden suit, and the con was over. Where was the angel now? Where were the gods when you needed them?
The gods could help.
The hat glinted in the firelight, and parts of Moist’s brain sparkled. He didn’t breathe as the thought emerged, in case it took fright, but it was so simple. And something that no honest man would ever have thought of . . .
‘What we need,’ he said, ‘is . . .’
‘Is what?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘Is music!’ declared Moist. He stood up and cupped his hands. ‘Hey, you people! Any banjo players out there? A fiddle, maybe? I’ll give a one-dollar stamp, highly collectable, to anyone who can pick out a waltz tune. You know, one-two-three, one-two-three?’
‘Have you gone completely mad?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘You’re clearly—’
She stopped, because a shabbily dressed man had tapped Moist on the shoulder.
‘I can play the banjo,’ he said, ‘and my friend Humphrey here can blow the harmonica something cruel. The fee will be a dollar, sir. Coin, please, if it’s all the same to you, on account of how I can’t write and don’t know anyone who can read.’
‘My lovely Miss Dearheart,’ said Moist, smiling madly at her. ‘Do you have any other name? Some pet name or nickname, some delightful little diminutive you don’t mind being called?’
‘Are you drunk?’ she demanded.
‘Unfortunately, no,’ said Moist. ‘But I’d like to be. Well, Miss Dearheart? I even rescued my best suit!’
She was taken aback, but an answer escaped before natural cynicism could bar the door. ‘My brother used to call me . . . er . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Killer,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘But he meant it in a nice way. Don’t you even think about using it.’
‘How about Spike?’
‘Spike? We-ell, I could live with Spike,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘So you will, too. But this is not the time for dancing—’
‘On the contrary, Spike,’ said Moist, beaming in the firelight, ‘this is just the time. We’ll dance, and then we’ll get things cleaned up ready for opening time, get the mail delivery working again, order the rebuilding of the building and have everything back the way it was. Just watch me.’
‘You know, perhaps it is true that working for the Post Office drives people mad,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Just where will you get the money to have this place rebuilt?’
‘The gods will provide,’ said Moist. ‘Trust me on this.’
She peered at him. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Deadly,’ said Moist.
‘You’re going to pray for money?’
‘Not exactly, Spike. They get thousands of prayers every day. I have other plans. We’ll bring the Post Office back, Miss Dearheart. I don’t have to think like a policeman, or a postman, or a clerk. I just have to do things my way. And then I’ll bankrupt Reacher Gilt by the end of the week.’
Her mouth became a perfect O.
‘How exactly will you do that?’ she managed.
‘I’ve no idea, but anything is possible if I can dance with you and still have ten toes left. Shall we dance, Miss Dearheart?’
She was amazed and surprised and bewildered, and Moist von Lipwig liked that in a person. For some reason, he felt immensely happy. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know what he was going to do next, but it was going to be fun.
He could feel that old electric feeling, the one you got deep inside when you stood right there in front of a banker who was carefully examining an example of your very best work. The universe held its breath, and then the man would smile and say ‘Very good, Mr Assumed Name, I will have my clerk bring up the money right away.’ It was the thrill not of the chase but of the standing still, of remaining so calm, composed and genuine that, for just long enough, you could fool the world and spin it on your finger. They were the moments he lived for, when he was really alive and his thoughts flowed like quicksilver and the very air sparkled. Later, that feeling would present its bill. For now, he flew.
He was back in the game. But, for now, by the light of the burning yesterdays, he waltzed with Miss Dearheart while the scratch band scratched away.
Then she went home to bed, puzzled but smiling oddly, and he went up to his office, which was missing the whole of one wall, and got religion as it had never been got before.

The young priest of Offler the Crocodile God was somewhat off-balance at 4 a.m., but the man in the winged hat and golden suit seemed to know what should be happening and so the priest went along with it. He was not hugely bright, which was why he was on this shift.
‘You want to deliver this letter to Offler?’ he said, yawning. An envelope had been placed in his hand.
‘It’s addressed to him,’ said Moist. ‘And correctly stamped. A smartly written letter always gets attention. I’ve also brought a pound of sausages, which I believe is customary. Crocodiles love sausages.’
‘Strictly speaking, you see, it’s prayers that go up to the gods,’ said the priest doubtfully. The nave of the temple was deserted, except for a little old man in a grubby robe, dreamily sweeping the floor.
‘As I understand it,’ said Moist, ‘the gift of sausages reaches Offler by being fried, yes? And the spirit of the sausages ascends unto Offler by means of the smell? And then you eat the sausages?’
‘Ah, no. Not exactly. Not at all,’ said the young priest, who knew this one. ‘It might look like that to the uninitiated, but, as you say, the true sausagidity goes straight to Offler. He, of course, eats the spirit of the sausages. We eat the mere earthly shell, which believe me turns to dust and ashes in our mouths.’
‘That would explain why the smell of sausages is always better than the actual sausage, then?’ said Moist. ‘I’ve often noticed that.’
The priest was impressed. ‘Are you a theologian, sir?’ he said.
‘I’m in . . . a similar line of work,’ said Moist. ‘But what I’m getting at is this: if you were to read this letter it would be as though Offler himself was reading it, am I right? Through your eyeballs the spirit of the letter would ascend unto Offler? And then I could give you the sausages.’
The young priest looked desperately around the temple. It was too early in the morning. When your god, metaphorically, doesn’t do much until the sandbanks have got nice and warm, the senior priests tend to lie in.
‘I suppose so,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But would you rather wait until Deacon Jones gets—’
‘I’m in rather a hurry,’ said Moist. There was a pause. ‘I’ve brought some honey mustard,’ he added. ‘The perfect accompaniment to sausages.’
Suddenly, the priest was all attention. ‘What sort?’ he said.
‘Mrs Edith Leakall’s Premium Reserve,’ said Moist, holding up the jar.
The young man’s face lit up. He was low in the hierarchy and got barely more sausage than Offler.
‘God, that’s the expensive stuff!’ he breathed.
‘Yes, it’s the hint of wild garlic that does it,’ said Moist. ‘But perhaps I should wait until Deacon—’
The priest grabbed the letter and the jar. ‘No, no, I can see you are in a hurry,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it right away. It’s probably a request for help, yes?’
‘Yes. I’d like Offler to let the light of his eyes and the gleam of his teeth shine on my colleague Tolliver Groat, who is in the Lady Sybil Hospital,’ said Moist.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the acolyte, relieved, ‘we often do this sort of—’
‘And I would also like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,’ Moist went on. ‘Ankh-Morpork dollars preferred, of course, but other reasonably hard currencies would be acceptable.’

There was a certain spring in his step as Moist walked back to the ruin of the Post Office. He’d sent letters to Offler, Om and Blind Io, all important gods, and also to Anoia, a minor goddess of Things That Stick In Drawers.* She had no temple and was handled by a jobbing priestess in Cable Street, but Moist had a feeling that by the end of the day Anoia was destined for higher things. He only picked her because he liked the name.

* Often, but not uniquely, a ladle, but sometimes a metal spatula or, rarely, a mechanical egg-whisk that nobody in the house admits to ever buying. The desperate mad rattling and cries of ‘How can it close on the damn thing but not open with it? Who bought this? Do we ever use it?’ is as praise unto Anoia. She also eats corkscrews.

He’d leave it about an hour. Gods worked fast, didn’t they?
The Post Office was no better by grey daylight. About half of the building was still standing. Even with tarpaulins, the area under cover was small and dank. People were milling around, uncertain of what to do.
He’d tell them.
The first person he saw was George Aggy, heading for him at a high-speed hobble.
‘Terrible thing, sir, terrible thing. I came as soon as—’ he began.
‘Good to see you, George. How’s the leg?’
‘What? Oh, feels fine, sir. Glows in the dark, but on the other hand that’s a great saving in candles. What are we—’
‘You’re my deputy while Mr Groat’s in hospital,’ said Moist. ‘How many postmen can you muster?’
‘About a dozen, sir, but what shall we—’
‘Get the mail moving, Mr Aggy! That’s what we do. Tell everyone that today’s special is Pseudopolis for ten pence, guaranteed! Everyone else can get on with cleaning up. There’s still some roof left. We’re open as usual. More open than usual.’
‘But . . .’ Aggy’s words failed him, and he waved at the debris. ‘All this?’
 ‘Neither rain nor fire, Mr Aggy!’ said Moist sharply.
‘Doesn’t say that on the motto, sir,’ said Aggy.
‘It will by tomorrow. Ah, Jim . . .’
The coachman bore down on Moist, his enormous driving cape flapping.
‘It was bloody Gilt, wasn’t it!’ he growled. ‘Arson around! What can we do for you, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Can you still run a service to Pseudopolis today?’ said Moist.
‘Yes,’ said Jim. ‘Harry and the lads got all the horses out as soon as they smelled smoke, and only lost one coach. We’ll help you, damn right about that, but the Trunk is running okay. You’ll be wasting your time.’
‘You provide the wheels, Jim, and I’ll give them something to carry,’ said Moist. ‘We’ll have a bag for you at ten.’
‘You’re very certain, Mr Lipwig,’ said Jim, putting his head on one side.
‘An angel came and told me in my sleep,’ said Moist.
Jim grinned. ‘Ah, that’d be it, then. An angel, eh? A very present help in times of trouble, or so I’m given to understand.’
‘So I believe,’ said Moist, and went up to the draughty, smoke-blackened, three-walled cave that was the wreckage of his office. He brushed off the ash from the chair, reached into his pocket, and put the Smoking Gnu’s letter on his desk.
The only people who could know when a clacks tower would break down must work for the company, right? Or used to work for it, more likely. Hah. That’s how things happened. That bank in Sto Lat, for example - he’d never have been able to forge those bills if that bent clerk hadn’t sold him that old ledger with all the signatures in. That had been a good day.
The Grand Trunk mustn’t just make enemies, it must mass-produce them. And now this Smoking Gnu wanted to help him. Outlaw signallers. Think of all the secrets they’d know . . .
He’d kept an ear open for clock chimes, and it was gone a quarter to nine now. What would they do? Blow up a tower? But people worked in the towers. Surely not . . .
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
It is not often that a wailing woman rushes into a room and throws herself at a man. It had never happened to Moist before. Now it happened, and it seemed such a waste that the woman was Miss Maccalariat.
She tottered forward and clung to the startled Moist, tears streaming down her face.
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’ she wailed. ‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
Moist reeled under her weight. She was dragging at his collar so hard that he was likely to end up on the floor, and the thought of being found on the floor with Miss Maccalariat was— well, a thought that just couldn’t be thoughted. The head would explode before entertaining it.
She had a pink hairgrip in her grey hair. It had little hand-painted violets on it. The sight of it, a few inches from Moist’s eyes, was curiously disturbing.
‘Now, now, steady on, Miss Maccalariat, steady on,’ he muttered, trying to keep the balance for both of them.
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
‘Yes indeed, Miss Maccalariat,’ he said desperately. ‘What can I do for—’
‘Mr Aggy said the Post Office won’t ever be rebuilt! He says Lord Vetinari will never release the money! Oh, Mr Lipwig! I dreamed all my life of working on the counter here! My grandmother taught me everything, she even made me practise sucking lemons to get the expression right! I’ve passed it all on to my daughter, too. She’s got a voice that’d take the skin off paint! Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
Moist searched wildly for somewhere to pat the woman that wasn’t soaked or out of bounds. He settled for her shoulder. He really, really needed Mr Groat. Mr Groat knew how to deal with things like this.
‘It’s all going to be all right, Miss Maccalariat,’ he said soothingly.
‘And poor Mr Groat!’ the woman sobbed.
‘I understand he’s going to be fine, Miss Maccalariat. You know what they say about the Lady Sybil: some people come out alive.’ I really, really hope he does, he added to himself. I’m lost without him.
‘It’s all so dreadful, Mr Lipwig!’ said Miss Maccalariat, determined to drain the bitter cup of despair to the very dregs. ‘We’re all going to be walking the streets!’
Moist held her by her arms and pushed her gently away, while fighting against a mental picture of Miss Maccalariat walking the streets. ‘Now you listen to me, Miss Mac— What is your first name, by the way?’
‘It’s Iodine, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Maccalariat, snuffling into a handkerchief. ‘My father liked the sound.’
‘Well . . . Iodine, I firmly believe that I will have the money to rebuild by the end of the day,’ said Moist. She’s blown her nose on it and, yes, yes, aargh, she’s going to put it back up the sleeve of her cardigan, oh, gods . . .
‘Yes, Mr Aggy said that, and there’s talk, sir. They say you sent the gods letters asking for money! Oh, sir! It’s not my place to say so, sir, but gods don’t send you money!’
‘I have faith, Miss Maccalariat,’ said Moist, drawing himself up.
‘My family have been Anoians for five generations, sir,’ said Miss Maccalariat. ‘We rattle the drawers every day, and we’ve never got anything solid, as you might say, excepting my granny who got an egg beater she didn’t remember putting there and we’re sure that was an accident—’
‘Mr Lipwig! Mr Lipwig!’ someone yelled. ‘They say the clacks— Oh, I’m so sorry . . .’ The sentence ended in syrup.
Moist sighed, and turned to the grinning newcomer in the charcoal-rimmed doorway. ‘Yes, Mr Aggy?’
‘We’ve heard the clacks has gone down again, sir! To Pseudopolis!’ said Aggy.
‘How unfortunate,’ said Moist. ‘Come, Miss Maccalariat, come, Mr Aggy - let’s move the mail!’
There was a crowd in what remained of the hall. As Moist had remarked, the citizens had an enthusiasm for new things. The post was an old thing, of course, but it was so old that it had magically become new again.
A cheer greeted Moist when he came down the steps. Give them a show, always give them a show. Ankh-Morpork would applaud a show.
Moist commandeered a chair, stood on it and cupped his hands.
‘Special today, ladies and gentlemen!’ he shouted above the din. ‘Mail to Pseudopolis, reduced to three pence only. Three pence! Coach goes at ten! And if anyone has clacks messages lodged with our unfortunate colleagues in the Grand Trunk Company, and would care to get them back, we will deliver them for free!’
This caused an additional stir, and a number of people peeled away from the crowd and hurried off.
‘The Post Office, ladies and gentlemen!’ yelled Moist. ‘We deliver!’ There was a cheer.
‘Do you want to know something really interesting, Mr Lipwig?’ said Stanley, hurrying up.
‘And what’s that, Stanley?’ said Moist, climbing down off the chair.
‘We’re selling lots of the new one-dollar stamps this morning! And do you know what? People are sending letters to themselves!’
‘What?’ said Moist, mystified.
‘Just so the stamps have been through the post, sir. That makes them real, you see! It proves they’ve been used. They’re collecting, them, sir! And it gets better, sir!’
‘How could it get better than that, Stanley?’ said Moist. He looked down. Yes, the boy had a new shirt, showing a picture of the penny stamp and bearing the legend: Ask Me About Stamps.
‘Sto Lat want Teemer and Spools to do them their own set! And the other cities are asking about it, too!’
Moist made a mental note: we’ll change the stamps often. And offer stamp designs to every city and country we can think of. Everyone will want to have their own stamps rather than ‘lick Vetinari’s back side’ and we’ll honour them, too, if they’ll deliver our mail, and Mr Spools will express his gratitude to us in very definite ways, I’ll see to it.
‘Sorry about your pins, Stanley.’
‘Pins?’ said the boy. ‘Oh, pins. Pins are just pointy metal things, sir. Pins are dead!
And so we progress, thought Moist. Aways keep moving. There may be something behind you.
All we need now is for the gods to smile on us.
Hmm. I think they’ll smile a little broader outside.
Moist stepped out into the daylight. The difference between the inside and the outside of the Post Office was less marked than formerly, but there were still a lot of people. There were a couple of watchmen, too. They’d be useful. They were already watching him suspiciously.
Well, this was it. It was going to be a miracle. Actually, it bloody well was going to be a miracle!
Moist stared up into the sky, and listened to the voices of the gods.

Chapter Eleven

Mission Statement

In which Lord Vetinari Gives Advice - Mr Lipwig’s Bad Memory - Evil
Criminal Geniuses’ difficulty with finding property — Mr Groat’s Fear of
Bathing, and a Discussion on Explosive Underwear — Mr Pony and his
flimsies - The Board debates, Gilt decides - Moist von Lipwig Attempts
the Impossible

The clocks were chiming seven o’clock. ‘Ah, Mr Lipwig,’ said Lord Vetinari, looking up. ‘Thank you so much for dropping in. It has been such a busy day, has it not? Drumknott, do help Mr Lipwig to a chair. Prophecy can be very exhausting, I believe.’
Moist waved the clerk away and eased his aching body into a seat.
‘I didn’t exactly decide to drop in,’ he said. ‘A large troll watchman walked in and grabbed me by the arm.’
‘Ah, to steady you, I have no doubt,’ said Lord Vetinari, who was poring over the battle between the stone trolls and the stone dwarfs. ‘You accompanied him of your own free will, did you not?’
‘I’m very attached to my arm,’ said Moist. ‘I thought I’d better follow it. What can I do for you, my lord?’
Vetinari got up and went and sat in the chair behind his desk, where he regarded Moist with what almost looked like amusement.
‘Commander Vimes has given me some succinct reports of today’s events,’ he said, putting down the troll figure he was holding and turning over a few sheets of paper. ‘Beginning with the riot at the Grand Trunk offices this morning which, he says, you instigated . . . ?’
‘All I did was volunteer to deliver such clacks messages as had been held up by the unfortunate breakdown,’ said Moist. ‘I didn’t expect the idiots in their office to refuse to hand the messages back to their customers! People had paid in advance, after all. I was just helping everyone in a difficult time. And I certainly didn’t “instigate” anyone to hit a clerk with a chair!’
‘Of course not, of course not,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘I am sure you acted quite innocently and from the best of intentions. But I am agog to hear about the gold, Mr Lipwig. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I believe.’
‘Some of it I can’t quite remember,’ said Moist. ‘It’s all a bit unclear.’
‘Yes, yes, I imagine it was. Perhaps I can clarify a few details?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘Around mid-morning, Mr Lipwig, you were chatting to people outside your regrettably distressed building when’ - here the Patrician glanced at his notes - ‘you suddenly looked up, shielded your eyes, dropped to your knees and screamed, “Yes, yes, thank you, I am not worthy, glory be, may your teeth be picked clean by birds, halleluiah, rattle your drawers” and similar phrases, to the general concern of people nearby, and you then stood up with your hands outstretched and shouted “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars, buried in a field! Thank you, thank you, I shall fetch it immediately!” Whereupon you wrested a shovel from one of the men helping to clear the debris of the building and began to walk with some purpose out of the city.’
‘Really?’ said Moist. ‘It’s all a bit of a blank.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Vetinari happily. ‘You will probably be quite surprised to know that a number of people followed you, Mr Lipwig? Including Mr Pump and two members of the City Watch?’
‘Good heavens, did they?’
‘Quite. For several hours. You stopped to pray on a number of occasions. We must assume it was for the guidance which led your footsteps, at last, to a small wood among the cabbage fields.’
‘It did? I’m afraid it’s all rather a blur,’ said Moist.
‘I understand you dug like a demon, according to the Watch. And I note that a number of reputable witnesses were there when your shovel struck the lid of the chest. I understand the Times will be carrying a picture in the next edition.’
Moist said nothing. It was the only way to be sure.
‘Any comments, Mr Lipwig?’
‘No, my lord, not really.’
‘Hmm. About three hours ago I had the senior priests of three of the major religions in this office, along with a rather bewildered freelance priestess who I gather handles the worldly affairs of Anoia on an agency basis. They all claim that it was their god or goddess who told you where the gold was. You don’t happen to remember which one it was, do you?’
‘I sort of felt the voice rather than heard it,’ said Moist carefully.
‘Quite so,’ said Vetinari. ‘Incidentally, they all felt that their temples should get a tithe of the money,’ he added. ‘Each.’
‘Sixty thousand dollars?’ said Moist, sitting up. ‘That’s not right!’
‘I commend the speed of your mental arithmetic in your shaken state. No lack of clarity there, I’m glad to see,’ said Vetinari. ‘I would advise you to donate fifty thousand, split four ways. It is, after all, in a very public and very definite and incontrovertible way, a gift from the gods. Is this not a time for reverential gratitude?’
There was a lengthy pause, and then Moist raised a finger and managed, against all the odds, a cheerful smile. ‘Sound advice, my lord. Besides, a man never knows when he might need a prayer.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘It is less than they demanded but more than they expect, and I did point out to them that the remainder of the money was all going to be used for the civic good. It is going to be used for the civic good, isn’t it, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Oh, yes. Indeed!’
‘That is just as well, since currently it’s sitting in Commander Vimes’s cells.’ Vetinari looked down at Moist’s trousers. ‘I see you still have mud all over your lovely golden suit, Postmaster. Fancy all that money being buried in a field. And you can still remember nothing about how you got there?’
Vetinari’s expression was getting on Moist’s nerves. You know, he thought. I know you know. You know I know you know. But I know you can’t be certain, not certain. ‘Well . . . there was an angel,’ he said.
‘Indeed? Any particular kind?’
‘The kind you only get one of, I think,’ said Moist.
‘Ah, good. Well, then it all seems very clear to me,’ said Vetinari, sitting back. ‘It is not often a mortal man achieves such a moment of glorious epiphany, but I am assured by the priests that such a thing could happen, and who should know better than they? Anyone even suggesting that the money was in some way . . . obtained in some wrong fashion will have to argue with some very turbulent priests and also, I assume, find their kitchen drawers quite impossible to shut. Besides, you are donating money to the city—’ he held up his hand when Moist opened his mouth, and went on, ‘that is, the Post Office, so the notion of private gain does not arise. There appears to be no owner for the money, although so far, of course, nine hundred and thirty-eight people would like me to believe it belongs to them. Such is life in Ankh-Morpork. So, Mr Lipwig, you are instructed to rebuild the Post Office as soon as possible. The bills will be met and, since the money is effectively a gift from the gods, there will be no drain on our taxes. Well done, Mr Lipwig. Very well done. Don’t let me detain you.’
Moist actually had his hand on the door handle when the voice behind him said: ‘Just one minor thing, Mr Lipwig.’
He stopped. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘It occurs to me that the sum which the gods so generously have seen fit to bestow upon us does, by pure happenstance, approximate to the estimated haul of a notorious criminal, which as far as I know has never been recovered.’
Moist stared at the woodwork in front of him. Why is this man ruling just one city? he thought. Why isn’t he ruling the world? Is this how he treats other people? It’s like being a puppet. The difference is, he arranges for you to pull your own strings.
He turned, face carefully deadpan. Lord Vetinari had walked over to his game.
‘Really, sir? Who was that, then?’ he said.
‘One Albert Spangler, Mr Lipwig.’
‘He’s dead, sir,’ said Moist.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, sir. I was there when they hanged him.’
‘Well remembered, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, moving a dwarf all the way across the board.

Damn, damn, damn! Moist shouted, but only for internal consumption.
He’d worked hard for that mon— well, the banks and merchants had worked har— well, somewhere down the line someone had worked hard for that money, and now a third of it had been . . . well, stolen, that was the only word for it.
Moist experienced a certain amount of unrighteous indignation about this.
Of course he would have given most of it to the Post Office, that was the whole point, but you could construct a damn good building for a lot less than a hundred thousand dollars and Moist had been hoping for a little something for himself.
Still, he felt good. Perhaps this was that ‘wonderful warm feeling’ people talked about. And what would he have done with the money? He never had time to spend it in any case. After all, what could a master criminal buy? There was a shortage of seaside properties with real lava flows near a reliable source of piranhas, and the world sure as hell didn’t need another Dark Lord, not with Gilt doing so well. Gilt didn’t need a tower with ten thousand trolls camped outside. He just needed a ledger and a sharp mind. It worked better, was cheaper and he could go out and party at night.
Handing all that gold over to a copper had been a difficult thing to do, but there really was no choice. He’d got them by the short and curlies, anyway. No one was going to stand up and say the gods didn’t do this sort of thing. True, they’d never done it so far, but you could never tell, with gods. Certainly there were queues outside the three temples, once the Times had put out its afternoon edition.
This had presented a philosophical problem to the priesthoods. They were officially against people laying up treasures on earth but, they had to admit, it was always good to get bums on pews, feet in sacred groves, hands rattling drawers and fingers being trailed in the baby crocodile pool. They settled therefore for a kind of twinkle-eyed denial that it could happen again, while hinting that, well, you never know, ineffable are the ways of gods, eh? Besides, petitioners standing in line with their letter asking for a big bag of cash were open to the suggestion that those most likely to receiveth were the ones who had already givethed, and got the message once you’d tapped them on the head with the collecting plate a few times.
Even Miss Extremelia Mume, whose small multi-purpose temple over a bookmakers’ office in Cable Street handled the everyday affairs of several dozen minor gods, was doing good business among those prepared to back an outside chance. She’d hung a banner over the door. It read: It Could Be YOU.
It couldn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. But, you never knew . . . this time it might.
Moist recognized that hope. It was how he’d made his living. You knew that the man running the Find The Lady game was going to win, you knew that people in distress didn’t sell diamond rings for a fraction of their value, you knew that life generally handed you the sticky end of the stick, and you knew that the gods didn’t pick some everyday undeserving tit out of the population and hand them a fortune.
Except that, this time, you might be wrong, right? It might just happen, yes?
And this was known as that greatest of treasures, which is Hope. It was a good way of getting poorer really very quickly, and staying poor. It could be you. But it wouldn’t be.
Now Moist von Lipwig headed along Attic Bee Street, towards the Lady Sybil Free Hospital. Heads turned as he went past. He’d never been off the front page for days, after all. He just had to hope that the winged hat and golden suit were the ultimate in furniture; people saw the gold, not the face.
The hospital was still being built, as all hospitals are, but it had its own queue at the entrance. Moist dealt with that by ignoring it, and going straight in. There were, in the main hallway, people who looked like the kind of people whose job it is to say ‘oi, you!’ when other people just wander in, but Moist generated his personal ‘I’m too important to be stopped’ field and they never quite managed to frame the words.
And, of course, once you got past the doorway demons of any organization people just assumed you had a right to be there, and gave you directions.
Mr Groat was in a room by himself; a sign on the door said ‘Do Not Enter’, but Moist seldom bothered about that sort of thing.
The old man was sitting up in bed, looking gloomy, but he beamed as soon as he saw Moist.
‘Mr Lipwig! You’re a sight for sore eyes, sir! Can you find out where they’ve hid my trousers? I told them I was fit as a flea, sir, but they went and hid my trousers! Help me out of here before they carry me away to another bath, sir. A bath, sir!’
‘They have to carry you?’ said Moist. ‘Can’t you walk, Tolliver?’
‘Yessir, but I fights ‘em, fights ‘em, sir. A bath, sir? From wimmin? Oggling at my trumpet-and-skittles? I call that shameless! Everyone knows soap kills the natural effulgences, sir! Oh, sir! They’re holdin’ me pris’ner, sir! They gived me a trouserectomy, sir!’
‘Please calm down, Mr Groat,’ said Moist urgently. The old man had gone quite red in the face. ‘You’re all right, then?’
‘Just a scratch, sir, look . . .’ Groat unfastened the buttons of his nightshirt. ‘See?’ he said triumphantly.
Moist nearly fainted. The banshee had tried to make a noughts-and-crosses board out of the man’s chest. Someone else had stitched it neatly.
‘Nice job of work, I’ll give them that,’ Groat said grudgingly. ‘But I’ve got to be up and doing, sir, up and doing!’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ said Moist, staring at the mess of scabs.
‘Right as rain, sir. I told ‘em, sir, if a banshee can’t get at me through my chest protector, none of their damn invisible little biting demons are going to manage it. I bet it’s all going wrong, sir, with Aggy bossing people around? I bet it is! I bet you really need me, right, sir?’
‘Urn, yes,’ said Moist. ‘Are they giving you medicine?’
‘Hah, they call it medicine, sir. They gave me a lot of ol’ mumbo-pocus about it being wonderful stuff, but it’s got neither taste nor smell, if you want my opinion. They say it’ll do me good but I told ‘em it’s hard work that does me good, sir, not sitting in soapy water with young wimmin lookin’ at my rattle-and-flute. And they took my hair away! They called it unhygienic, sir! What a nerve! All right, it moves about a bit of its own accord, but that’s only natural. I’ve had my hair a long time, sir. I’m used to its funny little ways!’
‘Hwhat is going on here?’ said a voice full of offended ownership.
Moist turned.
If one of the rules that should be passed on to a young man is ‘don’t get mixed up with crazy girls who smoke like a bellows’, another one should be ‘run away from any woman who pronounces “what” with two Hs’.
This woman might have been two women. She certainly had the cubic capacity and, since she was dressed entirely in white, looked rather like an iceberg. But chillier. And with sails. And with a headdress starched to a cutting edge.
Two smaller women stood behind and on either side of her, in definite danger of being crushed if she stepped backwards.
‘I’ve come to see Mr Groat,’ said Moist weakly, while Groat gibbered and pulled the bedclothes over his head.
‘Quite impossible! I am the matron here, young man, and I must insist that you leave at once! Mr Groat is in an extremely unstable condition.’
‘He seems fine to me,’ said Moist.
He had to admire the look the matron gave him. It suggested that Moist had just been found adhering to the sole of her shoe. He returned it with a chilly one of his own.
‘Young man, his condition is extremely critical!’ she snapped. ‘I refuse to release him!’
‘Madam, illness is not a crime!’ said Moist. ‘People are not released from hospital, they are discharged!’
The matron drew herself up and out, and gave Moist a smile of triumph. ‘That, young man, is hwhat we are afraid of!’

Moist was sure doctors kept skeletons around to cow patients. Nyer, nyer, we know what you look like underneath . . . He quite approved, though. He had a certain fellow feeling. Places like the Lady Sybil were very rare these days, but Moist felt certain he could make a profitable career out of wearing a white robe, using long learned names for ailments like ‘runny nose’ and looking solemnly at things in bottles.
On the other side of the desk, a Dr Lawn - he had his name on a plate on his desk, because doctors are very busy and can’t remember everything - looked up from his notes on Tolliver Groat.
‘It was quite interesting, Mr Lipwig. It was the first time I’ve ever had to operate to remove the patient’s clothing,’ he said. ‘You don’t happen to know what the poultice was made of, do you? He wouldn’t tell us.’
‘I believe it’s layers of flannel, goose grease and bread pudding,’ said Moist, staring around at the office.
‘Bread pudding? Really bread pudding?’
‘Apparently so,’ said Moist.
‘Not something alive, then? It seemed leathery to us,’ said the doctor, leafing through the notes. ‘Ah, yes, here we are. Yes, his trousers were the subject of a controlled detonation after one of his socks exploded. We’re not sure why.’
‘He fills them with sulphur and charcoal to keep his feet fresh, and he soaks his trousers in saltpetre to prevent Gnats,’ said Moist. ‘He’s a great believer in natural medicine, you see. He doesn’t trust doctors.’
‘Really?’ said Dr Lawn. ‘He retains some vestige of sanity, then. Incidentally, it’s wisest not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the wisest course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted. Mr Groat thinks that every man is his own physician, I gather?’
‘He makes his own medicines,’ Moist explained. ‘He starts every day with a quarter of a pint of gin mixed with spirits of nitre, flour of sulphur, juniper and the juice of an onion. He says it clears the tubes.’
‘Good heavens, I’m sure it does. Does he smoke at all?’
Moist considered this. ‘No-o. It looks more like steam,’ he said.
‘And his background in basic alchemy is . . . ?’
‘Non-existent, as far as I know,’ said Moist. ‘He makes some interesting cough sweets, though. After you’ve sucked them for two minutes you can feel the wax running out of your ears. He paints his knees with some sort of compound of iodine and—’
‘Enough!’ said the doctor. ‘Mr Lipwig, there are times when we humble practitioners of the craft of medicine have to stand aside in astonishment. Quite a long way aside, in the case of Mr Groat, and preferably behind a tree. Take him away, please. I have to say that against all the odds I found him amazingly healthy. I can quite see why an attack by a banshee would be so easily shrugged off. In fact Mr Groat is probably unkillable by any normal means, although I advise you not to let him take up tap dancing. Oh, and do take his wig, will you? We tried putting it in a cupboard, but it got out. We’ll send the bill to the Post Office, shall we?’
‘I thought this said “Free Hospital” on the sign,’ said Moist.
‘Broadly, yes, broadly,’ said Dr Lawn. ‘But those on whom the gods have bestowed so many favours - one hundred and fifty thousand of them, I heard - probably have had all the charity they require, hmm?’
And it’s all sitting in the Watch’s cells, thought Moist. He reached into his jacket and produced a crumpled wad of green Ankh-Morpork one-dollar stamps.
‘Will you take these?’ he said.

The picture of Tiddles being carried out of the Post Office by Moist von Lipwig was, since it concerned an animal, considered to be full of human interest by the Times and was thus displayed prominently on the front page.
Reacher Gilt looked at it without displaying so much as a flicker of emotion. Then he reread the story next to it, under the headlines:

MAN SAVES CAT
‘We’ll Rebuild Bigger!’ Vow as Post Office Blazes
$150,000 Gift From Gods
Wave of stuck drawers hits city

‘It occurs to me that the editor of the Times must sometimes regret that he has only one front page,’ he observed drily.
There was a sound from the men sitting round the big table in Gilt’s office. It was the kind of sound you get when people are not really laughing.
‘Do you think he has got gods on his side?’ said Greenyham.
‘I hardly imagine so,’ said Gilt. ‘He must have known where the money was.’
‘You think so? If I knew where that much money was I wouldn’t leave it in the ground.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Gilt quietly, in such a way that Greenyham felt slightly uneasy.
‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!’ screamed Alphonse, bouncing up and down on his perch.
‘We’re made to look fools, Reacher!’ said Stowley. ‘He knew the line would go down yesterday! He might as well have divine guidance! We’re losing the local traffic already. Every time we have a shutdown you can bet he’ll run a coach out of sheer devilment. There’s nothing that damn man won’t stoop to. He’s turned the Post Office into a . . . a show!’
‘Sooner or later all circuses leave town,’ said Gilt.
‘But he’s laughing at us!’ Stowley persisted. ‘If the Trunk breaks down again I wouldn’t put it past him to run a coach to Genua!’
‘That would take weeks,’ said Gilt.
‘Yes, but it’s cheaper and it gets there. That’s what he’ll say. And he’ll say it loudly, too. We’ve got to do something, Reacher.’
‘And what do you suggest?’
‘Why don’t we just spend some money and get some proper maintenance done?’
‘You can’t,’ said a new voice. ‘You don’t have the men.’
All heads turned to the man at the far end of the table. He had a jacket on over his overalls and a very battered top hat on the table beside him. His name was Mr Pony, and he was the Trunk’s chief engineer. He’d come with the company, and had hung on because at the age of fifty-eight, with twinges in your knuckles, a sick wife and a bad back, you think twice about grand gestures such as storming out. He hadn’t seen a clacks until three years ago, when the first company was founded, but he was methodical and engineering was engineering.
Currently his greatest friend in the world was his collection of pink flimsies. He’d done his best, but he wasn’t going to carry the can when this lot finally fell over and his pink flimsies would see to it that he didn’t. White memo paper to the chairman, yellow flimsy to the file, pink flimsy you kept. No one could say he hadn’t warned them.
A two-inch stack of the latest flimsies was attached to his clipboard. Now, feeling like an elder god leaning down through the clouds of some Armageddon and booming: ‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I warn you? Did you listen? Too late to listen now!’, he put on a voice of strained patience.
‘I’ve got six maint’nance teams. I had eight last week. I sent you a memo about that, got the flimsies right here. We ought to have eighteen teams. Half the lads are needin’ to be taught as we go, and we ain’t got time for teachin’. In the oP days we’d set up walkin’ towers to take the load an’ we ain’t got men even to do that now—’
‘All right, it takes time, we understand,’ said Greenyham. ‘How long will it take if you . . . hire more men and get these walking towers working and—’
‘You made me sack a lot of the craftsmen,’ said Pony.
‘We didn’t sack them. We “let them go”,’ said Gilt.
‘We . . . downsized,’ said Greenyham.
‘Looks like you succeeded, sir,’ said Pony. He took a stub of pencil out of one pocket and a grubby notebook out of the other.
‘D’you want it fast or cheap or good, gentlemen?’ he said. ‘The way things have gone, I can only give you one out of three . . .’
‘How soon can we have the Grand Trunk running properly?’ said Greenyham, while Gilt leaned back and shut his eyes.
Pony’s lips moved as he ran his eyes over his figures. ‘Nine months,’ he said.
‘I suppose if we’re seen to be working hard nine months of erratic running won’t seem too—’ Mr Stowley began.
‘Nine months shut down,’ said Mr Pony.
‘Don’t be a fool, man!’
‘I ain’t a fool, sir, thank you,’ said Pony sharply. ‘I’ll have to find and train new craftsmen, ‘cos a lot of the old brigade won’t come back whatever I offer. If we shut the towers down I can use the signallers; at least they know their way around a tower. We can get more work done if we don’t have to drag walking towers and set them up. Make a clean start. The towers were never built that well to begin with. Dearheart never expected this sort of traffic. Nine months of dark towers, sirs.’
He wanted to say, oh, how he wanted to say: craftsmen. D’you know what that means? It means men with some pride, who get fed up and leave when they’re told to do skimpy work in a rush, no matter what you pay them. So I’m employing people as ‘craftsmen’ now who’re barely fit to sweep out a workshop. But you don’t care, because if they don’t polish a chair with their arse all day you think a man who’s done a seven-year apprenticeship is the same as some twerp who can’t be trusted to hold a hammer by the right end. He didn’t say this aloud, because although an elderly man probably has a lot less future than a man of twenty, he’s far more careful of it . . .
‘You can’t do better than that?’ said Stowley.
‘Mr Stowley, I’ll be doin’ well if it’s only nine months,’ said Pony, focusing again. ‘If you don’t want to shut down I can maybe get it done in a year and a half, if I can find enough men and you’re ready to spend enough money. But you’ll have shutdowns every day. It’ll be crippled runnin’, sir.’
‘This man von Lipwig will walk all over us in nine months!’ said Greenyham.
‘Sorry about that, sir.’
‘And how much will it cost?’ asked Gilt dreamily, without opening his eyes.
‘One way or the other, sir, I reckon maybe two hundred thousand,’ said Pony.
‘That’s ridiculous! We paid less than that for the Trunk!’ Greenyham burst out.
‘Yes, sir. But, you see, you got to run maint’nance all the time, sir. The towers have been run ragged. There was that big gale back in Sektober and all that trouble in Uberwald. I haven’t got the manpower. If you don’t do maint’nance a little fault soon becomes a big one. I sent you gentlemen lots of reports, sir. And you cut my budget twice. I may say my lads did wonders with—’
‘Mr Pony,’ said Gilt quietly, ‘I think what I can see here is a conflict of cultures. Would you mind strolling along to my study, please? Igor will make you a cup of tea. Thank you so much.’
When Pony had gone, Greenyham said: ‘Do you know what worries me right now?’
‘Do tell us,’ said Gilt, folding his hands across his expensive waistcoat.
‘Mr Slant is not here.’
‘He has apologized. He says he has important business,’ said Gilt.
‘We’re his biggest clients! What’s more important than us? No, he’s not here because he wants to be somewhere else! The damn old revenant senses trouble and he’s never there when it all goes bad. Slant always comes out smelling of roses!’
‘That is at least more fragrant than his usual formaldehyde,’ said Gilt. ‘Don’t panic, gentlemen.’
‘Somebody did,’ said Stowley. ‘Don’t tell me that fire was accidental! Was it? And what happened to poor old Fatty Horsefry, eh?’
‘Calm down, my friends, calm down,’ said Gilt. They’re just merchant bankers, he thought. They’re not hunters, they’re scavengers. They have no vision.
He waited until they had settled down and were regarding him with that strange and rather terrifying look that rich men wear when they think they may be in danger of becoming poor men.
‘I expected something like this,’ he said. ‘Vetinari wants to harry us, that is all.’
‘Readier, you know we’ll be in big trouble if the Trunk stops working,’ said Nutmeg. ‘Some of us have . . . debts to service. If the Trunk fails for good then people will . . . ask questions.’
Oh, those pauses, thought Gilt. Embezzlement is such a difficult word.
‘Many of us had to work very hard to raise the cash,’ said Stowley.
Yes, keeping a straight face in front of your clients must be tricky, Gilt thought. Aloud, he said, ‘I think we have to pay, gentlemen. I think we do.’
‘Two hundred thousand?’ said Greenyham. ‘Where do you think we can get that kind of money?’
‘You got it before,’ murmured Gilt.
‘And what is that supposed to mean, pray?’ said Greenyham, with just a little too much indignation.
‘Poor Crispin came to see me the night before he died,’ said Gilt, as calmly as six inches of snow. ‘Babbled about, oh, all sorts of wild things. They hardly bear repeating. I think he believed people were after him. He did however insist on pressing a small ledger on me. Needless to say, it is safely locked away.’
The room fell silent, its silence made deeper and hotter by a number of desperate men thinking hard and fast. They were, by their own standards, honest men, in that they only did what they knew or suspected that everyone else did and there was never any visible blood, but just now they were men far out on a frozen sea who’d just heard the ice creak.
‘I strongly suspect that it’ll be a bit less than two hundred thousand,’ said Gilt. ‘Pony would be a fool if he didn’t leave a margin.’
‘You didn’t warn us about this, Readier,’ said Stowley resentfully.
Gilt waved his hands. ‘We must speculate to accumulate!’ he said. ‘The Post Office? Trickery and sleight of hand. Oh, von Lipwig is an ideas man, but that’s all he is. He’s made a splash, but he’s not got the stamina for the long haul. Yet as it turns out he will do us a favour. Perhaps we have been . . . a little smug, a little lax, but we have learned our lesson! Spurred by the competition we are investing several hundred thousand dollars—’
‘Several hundred?’ said Greenyham.
Gilt waved him into silence, and continued: ‘—several hundred thousand dollars in a challenging, relevant and exciting systemic overhaul of our entire organization, focusing on our core competencies while maintaining full and listening co-operation with the communities we are proud to serve. We fully realize that our energetic attempts to mobilize the flawed infrastructure we inherited have been less than totally satisfactory, and hope and trust that our valued and loyal customers will bear with us in the coming months as we interact synergistically with change management in our striving for excellence. That is our mission.’
An awed silence followed.
‘And thus we bounce back,’ said Gilt.
‘But you said several hundr—’
Gilt sighed. ‘I said that,’ he said. ‘Trust me. It’s a game, gentlemen, and a good player is one who can turn a bad situation to their advantage. I have brought you this far, haven’t I? A little cash and the right attitude will take us the rest of the way. I’m sure you can find some more money,’ he added, ‘from somewhere it won’t be missed.’
This wasn’t silence. It went beyond silence.
‘What are you suggesting?’ said Nutmeg.
‘Embezzlement, theft, breach of trust, misappropriation of funds . . . people can be so harsh,’ said Gilt. He threw open his arms again and a big friendly smile emerged like the sun breaking through storm clouds. ‘Gentlemen! I understand! Money was made to work, to move, to grow, not to be locked up in some vault. Poor Mr Horsefry, I believe, did not really understand that. So much on his mind, poor fellow. But we . . . we are businessmen. We understand these things, my friends.’
He surveyed the faces of men who now knew that they were riding a tiger. It had been a good ride up until a week or so ago. It wasn’t a case of not being able to get off. They could get off. That was not the problem. The problem was that the tiger knew where they lived.
Poor Mr Horsefry . . . there had been rumours. In fact they were completely unsubstantiated rumours, because Mr Gryle had been excessively good at his job when pigeons weren’t involved, had moved like a shadow with claws and, while he’d left a faint scent, it had been masked by the blood. In the nose of a werewolf, blood trumps everything. But rumour rose in the streets of Ankh-Morpork like mist from a midden.
And then it occurred to one or two of the board that the jovial ‘my friends’ in the mouth of Reacher Gilt, so generous with his invitations, his little tips, his advice and his champagne, was beginning, in its harmonics and overtones, to sound just like the word ‘pal’ in the mouth of a man in an alley who was offering cosmetic surgery with a broken bottle in exchange for not being given any money. On the other hand, they’d been safe so far; maybe it was worth following the tiger to the kill. Better to follow at the beast’s heel than be its prey . . .
‘And now I realize that I am inexcusably keeping you from your beds,’ said Gilt. ‘Good night to you, gentlemen. You may safely leave everything to me. Igor!’
‘Yeth, marthter,’ said Igor, behind him.
‘Do see these gentlemen out, and ask Mr Pony to come in.’
Gilt watched them go with a smile of satisfaction, which became a bright and happy face when Pony was ushered in.
The interview with the engineer went like this:
‘Mr Pony,’ said Gilt, ‘I am very pleased to tell you that the Board, impressed by your dedication and the hard work you have been putting in, have voted unanimously to increase your salary by five hundred dollars a year.’
Pony brightened up. ‘Thank you very much, sir. That will certainly come in—’
‘However, Mr Pony, as part of the management of the Grand Trunk Company - and we do think of you as part of the team - we must ask you to bear in mind our cash flow. We cannot authorize more than twenty-five thousand dollars for repairs this year.’
‘That’s only about seventy dollars a tower, sir!’ the engineer protested.
‘Teh, is it really? I told them you wouldn’t accept that,’ said Gilt. ‘Mr Pony is an engineer of integrity, I said. He won’t accept a penny less than fifty thousand, I told them!’
Pony looked hunted. ‘Couldn’t really do much of a job, sir, even for that. I could get some walking tower teams out there, yes, but most of the mountain towers are living on borrowed time as it is—’
‘We’re counting on you, George,’ said Gilt.
‘Well, I suppose . . . Could we have the Hour of the Dead back, Mr Gilt?’
‘I really wish you wouldn’t use that fanciful term,’ said Gilt. ‘It really does not present the right image.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Pony. ‘But I still need it.’
Gilt drummed his fingers on the table. ‘You’re asking a lot, George, you really are. That’s revenue flow we’re talking about. The Board won’t be very pleased with me if I—’
‘I think I’ve got to insist, Mr Gilt,’ said Pony, looking at his feet.
‘And what could you deliver?’ said Gilt. ‘That’s what the Board will want to know. They’ll say to me: Reacher, we’re giving good old George everything he asks for; what will we be getting in return?’
Forgetting for the moment that it was a quarter of what he’d asked for, good old George said: ‘Well, we could patch up all round and get some of the really shaky towers back into some sort of order, especially 99 and 201 . . . Oh, there’s just so much to do—’
‘Would it, for example, give us a year of reasonable service?’
Mr Pony struggled manfully with the engineer’s permanent dread of having to commit himself to anything, and managed, ‘Well, if we don’t lose too many staff, and the winter isn’t too bad, but of course there’s always—’
Gilt snapped his fingers. ‘By damn, George, you’ve talked me into it! I’ll tell the Board that I’m backing you and to hell with them!’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you, sir, of course,’ said Pony, bewildered, but it’s only papering over the cracks, really. If we don’t have a major rebuild we’re only laying up even more trouble for the future—’
‘In a year or so, George, you can lay any plans you like in front of us!’ said Gilt jovially. ‘Your skill and ingenuity will be the saving of the company! Now I know you’re a busy man and I mustn’t keep you. Go and perform miracles of economy, Mr Pony!’
Mr Pony staggered out, proud and bemused and full of dread.
‘Silly old fool,’ said Gilt, and reached down and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulled out a beartrap, which he set, with some effort, and then stood in the middle of the floor with his back to it.
‘Igor!’ he called.
‘Yeth, thur,’ said Igor, behind him. There was a snap. ‘I think thith ith yourth, thur,’ Igor added, handing Gilt the sprung trap. Gilt looked down. The man’s legs appeared unscathed.
‘How did you—’ he began.
‘Oh, we Igorth are no thtranger to marthterth of an enquiring mind, thur,’ said Igor gloomily. ‘One of my gentlemen uthed to thtand with hith back to a pit lined with thpiketh, thur. Oh how we chuckled, thur.’
‘And what happened?’
‘One day he forgot and thtepped into it. Talk about laugh, thur.’
Gilt laughed, too, and went back to his desk. He liked that kind of joke.
‘Igor, would you say that I’m insane?’ he said.
Igors are not supposed to lie to an employer. It’s part of the Code of the Igors. Igor took refuge in strict linguistic honesty.
‘I wouldn’t find mythelf able to thay that, thur,’ he said.
‘I must be, Igor. Either that or everyone else is,’ said Gilt. ‘I mean, I show them what I do, I show them how the cards are marked, I tell them what I am . . . and they nudge one another and grin and each one of them thinks himself no end of a fine fellow to be doing business with me. They throw good money after bad. They believe themselves to be sharp operators, and yet they offer themselves like little lambs. How I love to see their expressions when they think they’re being astute.’
‘Indeed, thur,’ said Igor. He was wondering if that job at the new hospital was still open. His cousin Igor was already working there and had told him it was wonderful. Sometimes you had to work all night! And you got a white coat, all the rubber gloves you could eat and, best of all, you got rethpect.
‘It’s so . . . basic,’ said Gilt. ‘You make money as it runs down, you make money building it up again, you might even make a little money running it, then you sell it to yourself when it collapses. The leases alone are worth a fortune. Give Alphonse his nuts, will you?’
‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!’ said the cockatoo, sidling up and down the perch excitedly.
‘Thertainly, thur,’ said Igor, taking a bag out of his pocket and advancing cautiously. Alphonse had a beak like a pair of shears.
Or maybe try veterinary work like my other cousin Igor, Igor thought. That was a good traditional area, certainly. Pity about all that publicity when the hamster smashed its way out of its treadmill and ate that man’s leg before flying away, but that was Progrethth for you. The important thing was to get out before the mob arrived. And when your boss started telling thin air how good he was, that was the time.
‘Hope is the curse of humanity, Igor,’ said Gilt, putting his hands behind his head.
‘Could be, thur,’ said Igor, trying to avoid the horrible curved beak.
‘The tiger does not hope to catch its prey, nor does the gazelle hope to escape the claws. They run, Igor. Only the running matters. All they know is that they must run. And now I must run along to those nice people at the Times, to tell everyone about our bright new future. Get the coach out, will you?’
‘Thertainly, thur. If you will excuthe me, I will go and fetch another finger.’
I think I’ll head back to the mountains, he thought as he went down to the cellar. At least a monster there has the decency to look like one.

Flares around the ruins of the Post Office made the night brilliant. The golems didn’t need them, but the surveyors did. Moist had got a good deal there. The gods had spoken, after all. It’d do a firm no harm at all to be associated with this phoenix of a building.
In the bit that was still standing, shored up and tarpaulined, the Post Office - that is, the people who were the Post Office - worked through the night. In truth there wasn’t enough for everyone to do, but they turned up anyway, to do it. It was that kind of night. You had to be there, so that later you could say ‘. . . and I was there, that very night . . .’
Moist knew he ought to get some sleep, but he had to be there too, alive and sparkling. It was . . . amazing. They listened to him, they did things for him, they scuttled around as if he was a real leader and not some cheat and fraud.
And there were the letters. Oh, the letters hurt. More and more were coming in, and they were addressed to him. The news had got round the city. It had been in the paper! The gods listened to this man!
 . . . we will deliver to the gods themselves . . .
He was the man with the gold suit and the hat with wings. They’d made a crook the messenger of the gods, and piled on his charred desk the sum of all their hopes and fears . . . badly punctuated, true, and in smudged pencil or free Post Office ink, which had spluttered across the paper in the urgency of writing.
‘They think you’re an angel,’ said Miss Dearheart, who was sitting on the other side of his desk and helping him sort through the pathetic petitions. Every half-hour or so Mr Pump brought up some more.
‘Well, I’m not,’ snapped Moist.
‘You speak to the gods and the gods listen,’ said Miss Dearheart, grinning. ‘They told you where the treasure was. Now that’s what I call religion. Incidentally, how did you know the money was there?’
‘You don’t believe in any gods?’
‘No, of course not. Not while people like Reacher Gilt walk under the sky. All there is, is us. The money . . . ?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Moist.
‘Have you read some of these letters?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Sick children, dying wives—’
‘Some just want cash,’ said Moist hurriedly, as if that made it better.
‘Whose fault is that, Slick? You’re the man who can tap the gods for a wad of wonga!’
‘So what shall I do with all these . . . prayers?’ said Moist.
‘Deliver them, of course. You’ve got to. You are the messenger of the gods. And they’ve got stamps on. Some of them are covered in stamps! It’s your job. Take them to the temples. You promised to do that!’
‘I never promised to—’
‘You promised to when you sold them the stamps!’
Moist almost fell off his chair. She’d wielded the sentence like a fist.
‘And it’ll give them hope,’ she added, rather more quietly.
‘False hope,’ said Moist, struggling upright.
‘Maybe not this time,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘That’s the point of hope.’ She picked up the battered remains of Anghammarad’s armband. ‘He was taking a message across the whole of Time. You think you’ve got it tough?’
‘Mr Lipwig?’
The voice floated up from the hall, and at the same time the background noise subsided like a bad souffle.
Moist walked over to where a wall had once been. Now, with the scorched floorboards creaking underfoot, he looked right down into the hall. A small part of him thought: we’ll have to put a big picture window here when we rebuild. This is just too impressive for words.
There was a buzz of whispering and a few gasps. There were a lot of customers, too, even in the early foggy hours. It’s never too late for a prayer.
‘Is everything all right, Mr Groat?’ he called down.
Something white was waved in the air.
‘Early copy of the Times, sir!’ Groat shouted. ‘Just in! Gilt’s all over the front page, sir! Where you ought to be, sir! You won’t like it, sir!’

If Moist von Lipwig had been raised to be a clown, he’d have visited shows and circuses and watched the kings of fooldom. He’d have marvelled at the elegant trajectory of the custard pie, memorized the new business with the ladder and the bucket of whitewash and watched with care every carelessly juggled egg. While the rest of the audience watched the display with the appropriate feelings of terror, anger and exasperation, he’d make notes.
Now, like an apprentice staring at the work of a master, he read Reacher Gilt’s words on the still-damp newspaper.
It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh, yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although ‘synergistically’ had probably been a whore from the start. The Grand Trunk’s problems were clearly the result of some mysterious spasm in the universe and had nothing to do with greed, arrogance and wilful stupidity. Oh, the Grand Trunk management had made mistakes - oops, ‘well-intentioned judgements which, with the benefit of hindsight, might regrettably have been, in some respects, in error’ - but these had mostly occurred, it appeared, while correcting ‘fundamental systemic errors’ committed by the previous management. No one was sorry for anything because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometrical otherworld, and ‘were to be regretted’.*

* Another bastard phrase that’d sell itself to any weasel in a tight corner.

The Times reporter had made an effort but nothing short of a stampede could have stopped Reacher Gilt in his crazed assault on the meaning of meaning. The Grand Trunk was “about people” and the reporter had completely failed to ask what that meant, exactly? And then there was this piece called “Our Mission” . . .
Moist felt the acid rise in his throat until he could spit lacework in a sheet of steel. Meaningless stupid words, from people without wisdom or intelligence or any skill beyond the ability to water the currency of expression. Oh, the Grand Trunk was for everything, from life and liberty to Mum’s home-made Distressed Pudding. It was for everything, except anything.
Through a pink mist his eye caught the line: ‘safety is our foremost consideration’. Why hadn’t the lead type melted, why hadn’t the paper blazed rather than be part of this obscenity? The press should have buckled, the roller should have cleaved unto the platen . . .
That was bad. But then he saw Gilt’s reply to a hasty question about the Post Office.
Reacher Gilt loved the Post Office and blessed its little cotton socks. He was very grateful for its assistance during this difficult period and looked forward to future co-operation, although of course the Post Office, in the real modern world, would never be able to compete on anything other than a very local level. Mind you, someone has to deliver the bills, ho ho . . .
It was masterly . . . the bastard.
‘Er . . . are you okay? Could you stop shouting?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘What?’ The mists cleared.
Everyone in the hall was looking at him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. Watery ink dripped from Post Office pens, stamps began to dry on tongues.
‘You were shouting,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Swearing, in fact.’
Miss Maccalariat pushed her way through the throng, with an expression of determination.
‘Mr Lipwig, I hope never to hear such language in this building again!’ she said.
‘He was using it about the chairman of the Grand Trunk Company,’ said Miss Dearheart, in what was, for her, a conciliatory tone of voice.
‘Oh.’ Miss Maccalariat hesitated, and then remembered herself. ‘Er, in that case . . . perhaps a teensy bit quieter, then?’
‘Certainly, Miss Maccalariat,’ said Moist obediently.
‘And perhaps not the K-word?’
‘No, Miss Maccalariat.’
‘And also not the L-word, the T-word, both of the S-words, the V-word and the Y-word.’
‘Just as you say, Miss Maccalariat.’
‘“Murdering conniving bastard of a weasel” was acceptable, however.’
‘I shall remember that, Miss Maccalariat.’
‘Very good, Postmaster.’
Miss Maccalariat turned on her heel and went back to haranguing someone for not using blotting paper.
Moist handed the paper to Miss Dearheart. ‘He’s going to walk away with it,’ he said. ‘He’s just throwing words around. The Trunk’s too big to fail. Too many investors. He’ll get more money, keep the system going just this side of disaster, then let it collapse. Buy it up then via another company, maybe, at a knock-down price.’
‘I’d suspect him of anything,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘But you sound very certain.’
‘That’s what I’d do,’ said Moist, ‘er . . . if I was that kind of person. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You get the punt— you get others so deeply involved that they don’t dare fold. It’s the dream, you see? They think if they stay in it’ll all work out. They daren’t think it’s all a dream. You use big words to tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they hope. But they’ll never win. Part of them knows that, but the rest of them never listens to it. The house always wins.’
‘Why do people like Gilt get away with it?’
‘I just told you. It’s because people hope. They’ll believe that someone will sell them a real diamond for a dollar. Sorry.’
‘Do you know how I came to work for the Trust?’ said Miss Dearheart.
Because clay people are easier to deal with? Moist thought. They don’t cough when you talk to them? ‘No,’ he said.
‘I used to work in a bank in Sto Lat. The Cabbage Growers’ Co-operative—’
‘Oh, the one on the town square? With the carved cabbage over the door?’ said Moist, before he could stop himself.
‘You know it?’ she said.
‘Well, yes. I went past it, once . . .’ Oh no, he thought, as his mind ran ahead of the conversation, oh, please, no . . .
‘It wasn’t a bad job,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘In our office we had to inspect drafts and cheques. Looking for forgeries, you know? And one day I let four through. Four fakes! It cost the bank two thousand dollars. They were cash drafts, and the signatures were perfect. I got sacked for that. They said they had to do something, otherwise the customers would lose confidence. It’s not fun, having people think you might be a crook. And that’s what happens to people like us. People like Gilt always get away with it. Are you all right?’
‘Hmm?’ said Moist.
‘You look a bit . . . off colour.’
That had been a good day, Moist thought. At least, up until now it had been a good day. He’d been quite pleased with it at the time. You weren’t supposed ever to meet the people afterwards. Gods damn Mr Pump and his actuarial concept of murder!
He sighed. Oh well, it had come to this. He’d known it would. Him and Gilt, arm-wrestling to see who was the biggest bastard.
‘This is the country edition of the Times,’ he said. ‘They don’t go to press with the city edition for another ninety minutes, in case of late-breaking news. I think I can wipe the smile off his face, at least.’
‘What are you going to do?’ said Miss Dearheart.
Moist adjusted the winged hat. ‘Attempt the impossible,’ he said.

Chapter Twelve

The Woodpecker

The Challenge — Moving Mountains - The Many Uses of Cabbage — The
Board Debates - Mr Lipwig on his Knees - The Smoking Gnu -
The Way of the Woodpecker

It was the next morning.
Something prodded Moist.
He opened his eyes, and stared along the length of a shiny black cane, past the hand holding the silver Death’s head knob and into the face of Lord Vetinari. Behind him, the golem smouldered in the corner.
‘Pray, don’t get up,’ said the Patrician. ‘I expect you have had a busy night?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Moist, forcing himself upright. He’d fallen asleep at his desk again; his mouth tasted as though Tiddles had slept in it. Behind Vetinari’s head he could see Mr Groat and Stanley, peering anxiously round the door.
Lord Vetinari sat down opposite him, after dusting some ash off a chair.
‘You have read this morning’s Times,’ he said.
‘I was there when it was printed, sir.’ Moist’s neck seemed to have developed extra bones. He tried to twist his head straight.
‘Ah, yes. Ankh-Morpork to Genua is about two thousand miles, Mr Lipwig. And you say you can get a message there faster than the clacks. You have issued that as a challenge. Most intriguing!
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Even the fastest coach takes almost two months, Mr Lipwig, and I’m given to understand that if you travelled non-stop your kidneys would be jolted out of your ears.’
‘Yes, sir. I know that,’ said Moist, yawning.
 ‘It would be cheating, you know, to use magic’
Moist yawned again. ‘I know that too, sir.’
‘Did you ask the Archchancellor of Unseen University before you suggested that he should devise the message for this curious race?’ Lord Vetinari demanded, unfolding the newspaper. Moist caught sight of the headlines:

THE RACE IS ON!
‘Flying Postman’ vs. Grand Trunk

‘No, my lord. I said the message should be prepared by a well-respected citizen of great probity, such as the Archchancellor, sir.’
‘Well, he’s hardly likely to say no now, is he?’ said Vetinari.
‘I’d like to think so, sir. Gilt won’t be able to bribe him, at least.’
‘Hmm.’ Vetinari tapped the floor once or twice with his cane. ‘Would it surprise you to know that the feeling in the city this morning is that you’ll win? The Trunk has never been out of commission for longer than a week, a clacks message can get to Genua in a few hours and yet, Mr Lipwig, people think you can do this. Don’t you find that amazing?’
‘Er . . .’
‘But, of course, you are the man of the moment, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, suddenly jovial. ‘You are the golden messenger!’ His smile was reptilian. ‘I do hope you know what you are doing. You do know what you are doing, don’t you, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Faith moves mountains, my lord,’ said Moist.
‘There are a lot of them between here and Genua, indeed,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘You say in the paper that you’ll leave tomorrow night?’
‘That’s right. The weekly coach. But on this run we won’t take paying passengers, to save weight.’ Moist looked into Vetinari’s eyes.
‘You wouldn’t like to give me some little clue?’ said the Patrician.
‘Best all round if I don’t, sir,’ said Moist.
‘I suppose the gods haven’t left an extremely fast magical horse buried somewhere nearby, have they?’
‘Not that I’m aware, sir,’ said Moist earnestly. ‘Of course, you never know until you pray.’
‘No-o,’ said Vetinari. He’s trying the penetrating gaze, Moist thought. But we know how to deal with that, don’t we? We let it pass right through.
‘Gilt will have to accept the challenge, of course,’ said Vetinari. ‘But he is a man of . . . ingenious resource.’
That seemed to Moist to be a very careful way of saying ‘murderous bastard’. Once away, he let it pass.
His lordship stood up. ‘Until tomorrow night, then,’ he said. ‘No doubt there will be some little ceremony for the newspapers?’
‘I haven’t actually planned that, sir,’ said Moist.
‘No, of course you haven’t,’ said Lord Vetinari, and gave him what could only be called . . . a look.

Moist got very much the same look from Jim Upwright, before the man said: ‘Well, we can put out the word and call in some favours and we’ll get good horses at the post houses, Mr Lipwig, but we only go as far as Bonk, you know? Then you’ll have to change. The Genua Express is pretty good, though. We know the lads.’
‘You sure you want to hire the whole coach?’ said Harry, as he rubbed down a horse. ‘It’ll be expensive, ‘cos we’ll have to put on another for the passengers. It’s a popular run, that one.’
‘Just the mail in that coach,’ said Moist. ‘And some guards.’
‘Ah, you think you’ll be attacked?’ said Harry, squeezing the towel bone dry with barely an effort.
‘What do you think?’ said Moist.
The brothers looked at one another.
‘I’ll drive it, then,’ said Jim. ‘They don’t call me Leadpipe for nothing.’
‘Besides, I heard there were bandits up in the mountains,’ said Moist.
‘Used to be,’ said Jim. ‘Not as many now.’
‘That’s something less to worry about, then,’ said Moist.
‘Dunno,’ said Jim. ‘We never found out what wiped them out.’

Always remember that the crowd which applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.
People like a show . . .
 . . . and so mail was coming in for Genua, at a dollar a time. A lot of mail.
It was Stanley who explained. He explained several times, because Moist had a bit of a blind spot on this one.
‘People are sending envelopes with stamps inside envelopes to the coach office in Genua so that the first envelope can be sent back in the second envelope,’ was the shape of explanation that finally blew on some sparks in Moist’s brain.
‘They want the envelopes back?’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Because they’ve been used, sir.’
‘That makes them valuable?’
‘I’m not sure how, sir. It’s like I told you, sir. I think some people think that they’re not real stamps until they’ve done the job they were invented to do, sir. Remember the first printing of the one penny stamps that we had to cut out with scissors? An envelope with one of those on is worth two dollars to a collector.’
‘Two hundred times more than the stamp?’
‘That’s how it’s going sir,’ said Stanley, his eyes sparkling. ‘People post letters to themselves just to get the stamp, er, stamped, sir. So they’ve been used.’
‘Er . . . I’ve got a couple of rather crusty handkerchiefs in my pocket,’ said Moist, mystified. ‘Do you think people might want to buy them at two hundred times what they cost?’
‘No, sir!’ said Stanley.
‘Then why should—’
‘There’s a lot of interest, sir. I thought we could do a whole set of stamps for the big guilds, sir. All the collectors would want them. What do you think?’
‘That’s a very clever idea, Stanley,’ said Moist. ‘We’ll do that. The one for the Seamstresses’ Guild might have to go inside a plain brown envelope, eh? Haha!’
This time it was Stanley who looked perplexed. ‘Sorry, sir?’
Moist coughed. ‘Oh, nothing. Well, I can see you’re learning fast, Stanley.’ Some things, anyway.
‘Er . . . yes, sir. Er . . . I don’t want to push myself forward, sir—’
‘Push away, Stanley, push away,’ said Moist cheerfully.
Stanley pulled a small paper folder out of his pocket, opened it, and laid it reverentially in front of Moist.
‘Mr Spools helped me with some of it,’ he said. ‘But I did a lot.’
It was a stamp. It was a yellowy-green colour. It showed - Moist peered - a field of cabbages, with some buildings on the horizon.
He sniffed. It smelled of cabbages. Oh, yes.
‘Printed with cabbage ink and using gum made from broccoli, sir,’ said Stanley, full of pride. ‘A Salute to the Cabbage Industry of the Sto Plains, sir. I think it might do very well. Cabbages are so popular, sir. You can make so many things out of them!’
‘Well, I can see that—’
‘There’s cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage—’
‘Yes, Stanley, I think you—’
‘—pickled cabbage, cabbage jelly, cabbage salad, boiled cabbage, deep-fried cabbage—’
‘Yes, but now can—’
‘—fricassee of cabbage, cabbage chutney, Cabbage Surprise, sausages—’
‘Sausages?’
‘Filled with cabbage, sir. You can make practically anything with cabbage, sir. Then there’s—’
‘Cabbage stamps,’ said Moist, terminally. ‘At fifty pence, I note. You have hidden depths, Stanley.’
‘I owe it all to you, Mr Lipwig!’ Stanley burst out. ‘I have put the childish playground of pins right behind me, sir! The world of stamps, which can teach a young man much about history and geography as well as being a healthy, enjoyable, engrossing and thoroughly worthwhile hobby that will give him an interest that will last a lifetime, has opened up before me and—’
‘Yes, yes, thank you!’ said Moist.
‘—and I’m putting thirty dollars into the pot, sir. All my savings. Just to show we support you.’
Moist heard all the words, but had to wait for them to make sense.
‘Pot?’ he said at last. ‘You mean like a bet?’
‘Yes, sir. A big bet,’ said Stanley happily. ‘About you racing the clacks to Genua. People think that’s funny. A lot of the bookmakers are offering odds, sir, so Mr Groat is organizing it, sir! He said the odds aren’t good, though.’
‘I shouldn’t think they are,’ said Moist weakly. ‘No one in their right mind would—’
‘He said we’d only win one dollar for every eight we bet, sir, but we reckoned—’
Moist shot upright. ‘Eight to one odds on?’ he shouted. ‘The bookies think I’m going to win? How much are you all betting?’
‘Er . . . about one thousand two hundred dollars at the last count, sir. Is that—’
Pigeons rose from the roof at the sound of Moist von Lipwig’s scream.
‘Fetch Mr Groat right now!’

It was a terrible thing to see guile on the face of Mr Groat. The old man tapped the side of his nose.
‘You’re the man that got money out o’ a bunch of gods, sir!’ he said, grinning happily.
‘Yes,’ said Moist desperately. ‘But supposing I - I just did that with a trick . . .’
‘Damn good trick, sir,’ the old man cackled. ‘Damn good. A man who could trick money out of the gods’d be capable of anything, I should think!’
‘Mr Groat, there is no way a coach can get to Genua faster than a clacks message. It’s two thousand miles!’
‘Yes, I realize you’ve got to say that, sir. Walls have ears, sir. Mum’s the word. But we all had a talk, and we reckoned you’ve been very good to us, sir, you really believe in the Post Office, sir, so we thought: it’s time to put our money in our mouth, sir!’ said Groat, and now there was a touch of defiance.
Moist gaped once or twice. ‘You mean “where your mouth is”?’
‘You’re the man who knows a trick or three, sir! The way you just went into the newspaper office and said, we’ll race you! Reacher Gilt walked right into your trap, sir!’
Glass into diamond, thought Moist. He sighed. ‘All right, Mr Groat. Thank you. Eight to one on, eh?’
‘We were lucky to get it, sir. They went up to ten to one on, then they closed the books. All they’re accepting now is bets on how you’ll win, sir.’
Moist perked up a little. ‘Any good ideas?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got a one-dollar flutter on “by dropping fire from the sky”, sir. Er . . . you wouldn’t like to give me a hint, p’raps?’
‘Please go and get on with your work, Mr Groat,’ said Moist severely.
‘Yessir, of course, sir, sorry I asked, sir,’ said Groat, and crabbed off.
Moist put his head in his hands.
I wonder if it’s like this for mountain climbers, he thought. You climb bigger and bigger mountains and you know that one day one of them is going to be just that bit too steep. But you go on doing it, because it’s so-o good when you breathe the air up there. And you know you’ll die falling.
How could people be so stupid? They seemed to cling to ignorance because it smelled familiar. Reacher Gilt sighed.
He had an office in the Tump Tower. He didn’t like it much, because the whole place shook to the movement of the semaphore, but it was necessary for the look of the thing. It did have an unrivalled view of the city, though. And the site alone was worth what they’d paid for the Trunk.
‘It takes the best part of two months to get to Genua by coach,’ he said, staring across the rooftops to the Palace. ‘He might be able to shave something off that, I suppose. The clacks takes a few hours. What is there about this that frightens you?’
‘So what’s his game?’ said Greenyham. The rest of the board sat around the table, looking worried.
‘I don’t know,’ said Gilt. ‘I don’t care.’
‘But the gods are on his side, Readier,’ said Nutmeg.
‘Let’s talk about that, shall we?’ said Gilt. ‘Does that claim strike anyone else as odd? The gods are not generally known for no-frills gifts, are they? Especially not ones that you can bite. No, these days they restrict themselves to things like grace, patience, fortitude and inner strength. Things you can’t see. Things that have no value. Gods tend to be interested in prophets, not profits, haha.’
There were some blank looks from his fellow directors.
‘Didn’t quite get that one, old chap,’ said Stowley.
‘Prophets, I said, not profits,’ said Gilt. He waved a hand. ‘Don’t worry yourselves, it will look better written down. In short, Mr Lipwig’s gift from above was a big chest of coins, some of them in what look remarkably like bank sacks and all in modern denominations. You don’t find this strange?’
‘Yes, but even the high priests say he—’
‘Lipwig is a showman,’ snapped Gilt. ‘Do you think the gods will carry his mail coach for him? Do you? This is a stunt, do you understand? It got him on page one again, that’s all. This is not hard to follow. He has no plan, other than to fail heroically. No one expects him actually to win, do they?’
‘I heard that people are betting heavily on him.’
‘People enjoy the experience of being fooled, if it promises a certain amount of entertainment,’ said Gilt. ‘Do you know a good bookmaker? I shall have a little flutter. Five thousand dollars, perhaps?’
This got some nervous laughter, and he followed it up. ‘Gentlemen, be sensible. No gods will come to the aid of our Postmaster. No wizard, either. They’re not generous with magic and we’ll soon find out if he uses any. No, he’s looking for the publicity, that’s all. Which is not to say,’ he winked, ‘that we shouldn’t, how shall I put it, make certainty doubly sure.’
They perked up still more. This sounded like the kind of thing they wanted to hear.
‘After all, accidents can happen in the mountains,’ said Greenyham.
‘I believe that is the case,’ said Gilt. ‘However, I was referring to the Grand Trunk. Therefore I have asked Mr Pony to outline our procedure. Mr Pony?’
The engineer shifted uneasily. He’d had a bad night. T want it recorded, sir, that I have urged a six-hour shutdown before the event,’ he said.
‘Indeed, and the minutes will show that I have said that is quite impossible,’ said Gilt. ‘Firstly because it would be an unpardonable loss of revenue, and secondly because sending no messages would send quite the wrong message.’
‘We’ll shut down for an hour before the event, then, and clear down,’ said Mr Pony. ‘Every tower will send a statement of readiness to the Tump and then lock all doors and wait. No one will be allowed in or out. We’ll configure the towers to run duplex - that is,’ he translated for management, ‘we’ll turn the down-line into a second up-line, so the message will get to Genua twice as fast. We won’t have any other messages on the Trunk while the, er, race is on. No Overhead, nothing. And from now on, sir, from the moment I walk out of this room, we take no more messages from feeder towers. Not even from the one in the Palace, not even from the one in the University.’ He sniffed, and added with some satisfaction: ‘ ‘specially not them students. Someone’s been having a go at us, sir.’
‘That seems a bit drastic, Mr Pony?’ said Greenyham.
‘I hope it is, sir. I think someone’s found a way of sending messages that can damage a tower, sir.’
‘That’s impossi—’
Mr Pony’s hand slapped the table. ‘How come you know so much, sir? Did you sit up half the night trying to get to the bottom of it? Have you taken a differential drum apart with a tin opener? Did you spot how the swage armature can be made to jump off the elliptical bearing if you hit the letter K and then send it to a tower with an address higher than yours, but only if you hit the letter Q first and the drum spring is fully wound? Did you spot that the key levers wedge together and the spring forces the arm up and you’re looking at a gearbox full of teeth? Well, I did!’
‘Are you talking about sabotage here?’ said Gilt.
‘Call it what you like,’ said Pony, drunk with nervousness. ‘I went to the yard this morning and dug out the old drum we took out of Tower 14 last month. I’ll swear the same thing happened there. But mostly the breakdowns are in the upper tower, in the shutter boxes. That’s where—’
‘So our Mr Lipwig has been behind a campaign to sabotage us . . .’ Gilt mused.
‘I never said that!’ said Pony.
‘No name need be mentioned,’ said Gilt smoothly.
‘It’s just sloppy design,’ said Pony. ‘I dare say one of the lads found it by accident and tried it again to see what happened. They’re like that, the tower boys. Show ‘em a bit of cunning machinery and they’ll spend all day trying to make it fail. The whole Trunk’s a lash-up, it really is.’
‘Why do we employ people like this?’ said Stowley, looking bewildered.
‘Because they’re the only people mad enough to spend their life up a tower miles from anywhere pressing keys,’ said Pony. ‘They like it.’
‘But somebody in a tower must press the keys that do all these . . . terrible things,’ said Stowley.
Pony sighed. They never took an interest. It was just money. They didn’t know how anything worked. And then suddenly they needed to know, and you had to use baby talk.
‘The lads follow the signal, sir, as they say,’ he said. ‘They watch the next tower and repeat the message, as fast as they can. There’s no time to think about it. Anything for their tower comes out on the differential drum. They just pound keys and kick pedals and pull levers, as fast as they can. They take pride in it. They even do all kinds of tricks to speed things up. I don’t want any talk about sabotage, not right now. Let’s just get the message sent, as fast as possible. The lads will enjoy that.’
‘The image is attractive,’ said Gilt. ‘The dark of night, the waiting towers, and then, one by one, they come alive as a serpent of light speeds across the world, softly and silently carrying its . . . whatever. We must get some poet to write about it.’ He nodded at Mr Pony. ‘We’re in your hands, Mr Pony. You’re the man with the plan.’

‘I don’t have one,’ said Moist.
‘No plan?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Are you telling me you—’
‘Keep it down, keep it down!’ Moist hissed. ‘I don’t want everyone to know!’
They were in the little cafe near the Pin Exchange which, Moist had noticed, didn’t seem to be doing much business today. He’d had to get out of the Post Office, in case his head exploded.
‘You challenged the Grand Trunk! You mean you just talked big and hoped something would turn up?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘It’s always worked before! Where’s the sense in promising to achieve the achievable? What kind of success would that be?’ said Moist.
‘Haven’t you ever heard of learning to walk before you run?’
‘It’s a theory, yes.’
‘I just want to be absolutely clear,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Tomorrow night - that’s the day after today - you are going to send a coach -that’s a thing on wheels, pulled by horses, which might reach fourteen miles an hour on a good road - to race against the Grand Trunk -that’s all those semaphore towers, which can send messages at hundreds of miles an hour - all the way to Genua - that’s the town which is a very long way away indeed?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have no wonderful plan?’
‘No.’
‘And why are you telling me?’
‘Because, in this city, right now, you are the only person who would possibly believe I don’t have a plan!’ said Moist. ‘I told Mr Groat and he just tapped the side of his nose, which is something you wouldn’t want to watch, by the way, and said, “Of course you haven’t, sir. Not you! Hohoho!”‘
‘And you just hoped something would turn up? What made you think it would?’
‘It always has. The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.’
‘And I’m supposed to help you how?’
‘Your father built the Trunk!’
‘Yes, but I didn’t,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve never been up in the towers. I don’t know any big secrets, except that it’s always on the point of breaking down. And everyone knows that.’
‘People who can’t afford to lose are betting money on me! And the more I tell them they shouldn’t, the more they bet!’
‘Don’t you think that’s a bit silly of them?’ said Miss Dearheart sweetly.
Moist drummed his fingers on the edge of the table. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I can think of another good reason why you might help me. It’s a little complicated, so I can only tell you if you promise to sit still and not make any sudden movements.’
‘Why, do you believe I will?’
‘Yes. I think that in a few seconds you’ll try to kill me. I’d like you to promise not to.’
She shrugged. ‘This should be interesting.’
‘Promise?’ said Moist.
‘All right. I hope it’s going to be exciting.’ Miss Dearheart flicked some ash off her cigarette. ‘Go on.’
Moist took a couple of calm breaths. This was it. The End. If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.
‘I am the man who lost you that job at the bank. I forged those bills.’
Miss Dearheart’s expression didn’t change, apart from a certain narrowing of the eyes. Then she blew out a stream of smoke.
‘I did promise, did I?’ she said.
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Did I have my fingers crossed?’
‘No. I was watching.’
‘Hmm.’ She stared reflectively at the glowing end of her cigarette. ‘All right. You’d better tell me the rest of it.’
He told her the rest of it. All of it. She quite liked the bit where he was hanged, and made him repeat it. Around them, the city happened. Between them, the ashtray filled up with ash.
When he’d finished she stared at him for some time, through the smoke.
‘I don’t understand the bit where you give all your stolen money to the Post Office. Why did you do that?’
‘I’m a bit hazy on that myself.’
‘I mean, you’re clearly a self-centred bastard, with the moral fibre of a, a—’
‘—rat,’ Moist suggested.
‘—a rat, thank you . . . but suddenly you’re the darling of the big religions, the saviour of the Post Office, official snook-cocker to the rich and powerful, heroic horseman, all-round wonderful human being and, of course, you rescued a cat from a burning building. Two humans, too, but everyone knows the cat’s the most important bit. Who are you trying to fool, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Me, I think. I’ve fallen into good ways. I keep thinking I can give it up any time I like, but I don’t. But I know if I couldn’t give it up any time I liked, I wouldn’t go on doing it. Er . . . there is another reason, too.’
‘And that is—?’
‘I’m not Reacher Gilt. That’s sort of important. Some people might say there’s not a lot of difference, but I can see it from where I stand and it’s there. It’s like a golem not being a hammer. Please? How can I beat the Grand Trunk?’
Miss Dearheart stared through him until he felt very uncomfortable.
Then she said, in a faraway voice: ‘How well do you know the Post Office, Mr Lipwig? The building, I mean.’
‘I saw most of it before it burned down.’
‘But you never went on to the roof?’
‘No. I couldn’t find a way up. The upper floors were stuffed with letters when . . . I . . . tried . . .’ Moist’s voice trailed off.
Miss Dearheart stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Go up there tonight, Mr Lipwig. Get yourself a little bit closer to heaven. And then get down on your knees and pray. You know how to pray, don’t you? You just put your hands together - and hope.’

Moist got through the rest of the day somehow. There were postmastery things to do - Mr Spools to speak to, builders to shout at, the everlasting clearing up to oversee and new staff to hire. In the case of the staff, though, it was more ratifying the decisions of Mr Groat and Miss Maccalariat, but they seemed to know what they were doing. He just had to be there to make the occasional judgement, like:
‘Do we embrace divertingly?’ said Miss Maccalariat, appearing in front of his desk.
There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to a lot of little pauses, each one more deeply embarrassing than its parent.
‘Not as far as I know,’ was the best Moist could manage. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘A young lady wants to know. She said that’s what they do at the Grand Trunk.’
‘Ah. I suspect she means embrace diversity,’ said Moist, recalling Gilt’s speech to the Times. ‘But we don’t do that here because we don’t know what it means. We’ll employ anyone who can read and write and reach a letter box, Miss Maccalariat. I’ll hire vampires if they’re a member of the League of Temperance, trolls if they wipe their feet, and if there’re any werewolves out there I’d love to hire postmen who can bite back. Anyone who can do the job, Miss Maccalariat. Our job is moving the mail. Morning, noon and night, we deliver. Was there anything else?’
Now there was a glint in her eye. ‘I don’t have any difficulties with anyone who speaks up about what they are, Mr Lipwig, but I must protest about dwarfs. Mr Groat is hiring them.’
‘Fine workers, Miss Maccalariat. Keen on the written word. Hardworking, too,’ said Moist briskly.
‘But they do not tell you what their— what they— which— if they’re ladies or gentlemen dwarfs, Mr Lipwig.’
‘Ah. This is going to be about the privies again?’ said Moist, his heart sinking.
‘I feel I am responsible for the moral welfare of the young people in my charge,’ said Miss Maccalariat sternly. ‘You are smiling, Postmaster, but I will not be funned with.’
‘Your concern does you credit, Miss Maccalariat,’ said Moist. ‘Special attention will be paid to this in the design of the new building, and I will tell the architect that you are to be consulted at every stage.’ Miss Maccalariat’s well-covered bosom inflated noticeably at this sudden acquisition of power. ‘In the meantime, alas, we must make do with what the fire has left us. I do hope, as part of the management team, you will reassure people on this.’
The fires of dreadful pride gleamed off Miss Maccalariat’s spectacles. Management!
‘Of course, Postmaster,’ she said.
But, mostly, Moist’s job was just to . . . be. Half of the building was a blackened shell. People were squeezed into what was left; mail was even being sorted on the stairs. And things seemed to go better when he was around. He didn’t have to do anything, he just had to be there.
He couldn’t help thinking of the empty plinth, where the god had been taken away.
He was ready when dusk came. There were plenty of ladders around, and the golems had managed to shore up the floors even up here. Soot covered everything and some rooms opened on to blackness, but he climbed ever up.
He struggled through what remained of the attics, and clambered through a hatch and on to the roof.
There wasn’t much of it. The descent of the rainwater tank had brought down a lot of burning roof with it, and barely a third remained over the great hall. But the fire had hardly touched one of the legs of the U, and the roof there looked sound.
There was one of the old postal pigeon lofts there, and someone had been living in it. That wasn’t too surprising. Far more people wanted to live in Ankh-Morpork than there was Ankh-Morpork for them to live in. There was a whole sub-civilization at rooftop level, up here among the towers and ornamental domes and cupolas and chimneys and—
—clacks towers. That’s right. He’d seen the clacks tower, and someone up here, just before his life had taken a turn for the strange. Why would a loft built for carrier pigeons have a semaphore tower? Surely the pigeons didn’t use it?
Three gargoyles had colonized this one. They liked clacks towers anyway - being up high was what being a gargoyle was all about - and they’d fitted into the system easily. A creature that spent all its time watching and was bright enough to write down a message was a vital component. They didn’t even want paying, and they never got bored. What could possibly bore a creature that was prepared to stare at the same thing for years at a time?
Around the city, the clacks towers were lighting up. Only the University, the Palace, the Guilds and the seriously rich or very nervous ran their towers at night, but the big terminal tower on the Tump blazed like a Hogswatch tree. Patterns of yellow squares ran up and down the main tower. Silent at this distance, winking their signals above the rising mists, outlining their constellations against the evening sky, the towers were more magical than magic, more bewitching than witchcraft.
Moist stared.
What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the snap of a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled words and weird drawings in old books and in the wrong hands it was dangerous as hell, but not one half as dangerous as it could be in the right hands. The universe was full of the stuff; it made the stars stay up and the feet stay down.
But what was happening now . . . this was magical. Ordinary men had dreamed it up and put it together, building towers on rafts in swamps and across the frozen spines of mountains. They’d cursed and, worse, used logarithms. They’d waded through rivers and dabbled in trigonometry. They hadn’t dreamed, in the way people usually used the word, but they’d imagined a different world, and bent metal round it. And out of all the sweat and swearing and mathematics had come this . . . thing, dropping words across the world as softly as starlight.
The mist was tilling the streets now, leaving the buildings like islands in surf.
Pray, she’d said. And, in a way, the gods owed him a favour. Well, didn’t they? They’d got a handsome offering and a lot of celestial cred for not, in fact, doing anything at all.
Get down on your knees, she’d said. It hadn’t been a joke.
He knelt, pressed his hands together, and said, ‘I address this prayer to any god who—’
With a silence that was frightening, the clacks tower across the street lit up. The big squares glowed into life one after the other. For a moment, Moist saw the shape of the lamplighter in front of one of the shutters.
As he disappeared into the dark, the tower started to flicker. It was close enough to illuminate the roof of the Post Office.
There were three dark figures at the other end of the roof, watching Moist. Their shadows danced as the pattern of lights changed, twice every second. They revealed the figures were human, or at least humanoid. And they were walking towards him.
Gods, now, gods could be humanoid. And they didn’t like to be messed about.
Moist cleared his throat. ‘I’m certainly glad to see you—’ he croaked.
‘Are you Moist?’ said one of the figures.
‘Look, I—’
‘She said you’d be kneeling down,’ said another member of the celestial trio. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’
Moist got up slowly. This was not godly behaviour.
‘Who are you?’ he said. Emboldened by the lack of thunderbolts, he added: ‘And what are you doing on my building?’
‘We pay rent,’ said a figure. ‘To Mr Groat.’
‘He never told me about you!’
‘Can’t help you there,’ said the shadow in the centre. ‘Anyway, we’ve only come back to get the rest of our stuff. Sorry about your fire. It wasn’t us.’
‘You being—’ said Moist.
‘I’m Mad Al, he’s Sane Alex, and that’s Adrian, who says he’s not mad but can’t prove it.’
‘Why do you rent the roof?’
The trio looked at one another.
‘Pigeons?’ suggested Adrian.
‘That’s right, we’re pigeon fanciers,’ said the shadowy figure of Sane Alex.
‘But it’s dark,’ said Moist. This information was considered.
‘Bats,’ said Mad Al. ‘We’re trying to breed homing bats.’
‘I don’t believe bats have that kind of homing instinct,’ said Moist.
‘Yes, it’s tragic, isn’t it?’ said Alex.
‘I come up here at nights and see those empty little perches and it’s all I can do not to cry,’ said Undecided Adrian.
Moist looked up at the little tower. It was about five times the height of a man, with the control levers on a polished panel near the bottom. It looked . . . professional, and well used. And portable.
‘I don’t think you breed any kind of birds up here,’ he said.
‘Bats are mammals,’ said Sane Alex. Moist shook his head.
‘Lurking on rooftops, your own clacks . . . you’re the Smoking Gnu, aren’t you?’
‘Ah, with a mind like that I can see why you’re Mr Groat’s boss,’ said Sane Alex. ‘How about a cup of tea?’

Mad Al picked a pigeon feather out of his mug. The pigeon loft was full of the flat, choking smell of old guano.
‘You have to like birds to like it up here,’ he said, flicking the feather into Sane Alex’s beard.
‘Good job you do, eh?’ said Moist.
‘I didn’t say I did, did I? And we don’t live up here. It’s just that you’ve got a good rooftop.’
It was cramped in the pigeon loft, from which pigeons had, in fact, been barred. But there’s always one pigeon that can bite through wire netting. It watched them from the corner with mad little eyes, its genes remembering the time it had been a giant reptile that could have taken these sons of monkeys to the cleaners in one mouthful. Bits of dismantled mechanisms were everywhere.
‘Miss Dearheart told you about me, did she?’ said Moist.
‘She said you weren’t a complete arse,’ said Undecided Adrian.
‘Which is praise coming from her,’ said Sane Alex.
‘And she said you were so crooked you could walk through a corkscrew sideways,’ said Undecided Adrian. ‘She was smiling when she said it, though.’
‘That’s not necessarily a good thing,’ said Moist. ‘How do you know her?’
‘We used to work with her brother,’ said Mad Al. ‘On the Mark 2 tower.’
Moist listened. It was a whole new world.
Sane Alex and Mad Al were old men in the clacks business; they’d been in it for almost four years. Then the consortium had taken over, and they’d been fired from the Grand Trunk on the same day that Undecided Adrian had been fired from the Alchemists’ Guild chimney, in their case because they’d spoken their mind about the new management and in his case because he hadn’t moved fast enough when the beaker started to bubble.
They’d all ended up working on the Second Trunk. They’d even put money into it. So had others. It had all kinds of improvements, it would be cheaper to run, it was the bee’s knees, mutt’s nuts and various wonderful bits of half a dozen other creatures. And then John Dearheart, who always used a safety lanyard, landed in the cabbage field and that was the end of the Second Trunk.
Since then, the trio had done the kinds of jobs available to new square pegs in a world of old round holes, but every night, high above, the clacks flashed its messages. It was so close, so inviting, so . . . accessible. Everyone knew, in some vague, half-understood way, that the Grand Trunk had been stolen in all but name. It belonged to the enemy.
So they’d started an informal little company of their own, which used the Grand Trunk without the Grand Trunk’s knowing.
It was a little like stealing. It was exactly like stealing. It was, in fact, stealing. But there was no law against it because no one knew the crime existed, so is it really stealing if what’s stolen isn’t missed? And is it stealing if you’re stealing from thieves? Anyway, all property is theft, except mine.
‘So now you’re, what was it again . . . crackers?’ Moist said.
‘That’s right,’ said Mad Al. ‘Because we can crack the system.’
‘That sounds a bit over-dramatic when you’re just doing it with lamps, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but “flashers” was already taken,’ said Sane Alex.
‘All right, but why “Smoking Gnu”?’ said Moist.
‘That’s cracker slang for a very fast message sent throughout the system,’ said Sane Alex proudly.
Moist pondered this. ‘That makes sense,’ he said. ‘If I was a team of three people, who all had a first name beginning with the same letter, that’s just the kind of name I’d choose.’
They’d found a way into the semaphore system, and it was this: at night, all clacks towers were invisible. Only the lights showed. Unless you had a good sense of direction, the only way you could identify who the message was coming from was by its code. Engineers knew lots of codes. Ooh, lots.
‘You can send messages free?’ said Moist. ‘And nobody notices?’
There were three smug smiles. ‘It’s easy,’ said Mad Al, ‘when you know how.’
‘How did you know that tower was going to break down?’
‘We broke it,’ said Sane Alex. ‘Broke the differential drum. They take hours to sort out because the operators have to—’
Moist missed the rest of the sentence. Innocent words swirled in it like debris caught in a flood, occasionally bobbing to the surface and waving desperately before being pulled under again. He caught ‘the’ several times before it drowned, and even ‘disconnect’ and ‘gear chain’, but the roaring, technical polysyllables rose and engulfed them all.
‘—and that takes at least half a day,’ Sane Alex finished.
Moist looked helplessly at the other two. ‘And that means what, exactly?’ he said.
‘If you send the right kind of message you can bust the machinery,’ said Mad Al.
‘The whole Trunk?’
‘In theory,’ said Mad Al, ‘because an execute and terminate code—’
Moist relaxed as the tide came back in. He wasn’t interested in machinery; he thought of a spanner as something which had another person holding it. It was best just to smile and wait. That was the thing about artificers: they loved explaining. You just had to wait until they reached your level of understanding, even if it meant that they had to lie down.
‘—can’t do that any more in any case, because we’ve heard they’re changing the—’
Moist stared at the pigeon for a while, until silence came back. Ah. Mad Al had finished, and by the looks of things it hadn’t been on a high note.
‘You can’t do it, then,’ said Moist, his heart sinking.
‘Not now. Old Mr Pony might be a bit of an old woman but he sits and niggles at problems. He’s been changing all the codes all day! We’ve heard from one of our mates that every signaller will have to have a personal code now. They’re being very careful. I know Miss Adora Belle thought we could help you, but that bastard Gilt has locked things up tight. He’s worried you’re going to win.’
‘Hah!’ said Moist.
“We’ll come up with some other way in a week or two,’ said Undecided Adrian. ‘Can’t you put it off until then?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Sorry,’ said Undecided Adrian. He was playing idly with a small glass tube, full of red light. When he turned it over, it filled with yellow light.
‘What’s that?’ Moist asked.
‘A prototype,’ said Undecided Adrian. ‘It could have made the Trunk almost three times faster at night. It uses perpendicular molecules. But the Trunk’s just not open to new ideas.’
‘Probably because they explode when dropped?’ said Sane Alex.
‘Not always.’
‘I think I could do with some fresh air,’ said Moist.
They stepped out into the night. In the middle distance the terminal tower still winked, and towers were alight here and there in other parts of the city.
‘What’s that one?’ he said, like a man pointing to a constellation.
‘Thieves’ Guild,’ said Undecided Adrian. ‘General signals for the members. I can’t read ‘em.’
‘And that one? Isn’t that the first tower on the way to Sto Lat?’
‘No, it’s the Watch station on the Hubwards Gate. General signals to Pseudopolis Yard.’
‘It looks a long way off.’
‘They use small shutter boxes, that’s all. You can’t see Tower 2 from here - the University’s in the way.’
Moist stared, hypnotized, at the lights.
‘I wondered why that old stone tower on the way to Sto Lat wasn’t used when the Trunk was built? It’s in the right place.’
‘The old wizard tower? Robert Dearheart used it for his first experiments, but it’s a bit too far and the walls aren’t safe and if you stay in there for more than a day at a time you go mad. It’s all the old spells that got into the stones.’
There was silence and then they heard Moist say, in a slightly strangled voice: ‘If you could get on to the Grand Trunk tomorrow, is there anything you could do to slow it down?’
‘Yes, but we can’t,’ said Undecided Adrian.
‘Yes, but if you could?’
‘Well, there’s something we’ve been thinking about,’ said Mad Al. ‘It’s very crude.’
‘Will it knock out a tower?’ said Moist.
‘Should we be telling him about this?’ said Sane Alex.
‘Have you ever met anyone else that Killer had a good word for?’ said Mad Al. ‘In theory it could knock out every tower, Mr Lipwig.’
‘Are you insane as well as mad?’ said Sane Alex. ‘He’s government!’
‘Every tower on the Trunk?’ said Moist.
‘Yep. In one go,’ said Mad Al. ‘It’s pretty crude.’
‘Really every tower?’ said Moist again.
‘Maybe not every tower, if they catch on,’ Mad Al admitted, as if less than wholesale destruction was something to be mildly ashamed of. ‘But plenty. Even if they cheat and carry it to the next tower on horseback. We call it . . . the Woodpecker’.
‘The woodpecker?’
‘No, not like that. You need, sort of, more of a pause for effect, like . . . the Woodpecker!
‘. . . the Woodpecker,’ said Moist, more slowly.
‘You’ve got it. But we can’t get it on to the Trunk. They’re on to us’
‘Supposing I could get it on to the Trunk?’ said Moist, staring at the lights. The towers themselves were quite invisible now.
‘You? What do you know about clacks codes?’ said Undecided Adrian.
‘I treasure my ignorance,’ said Moist. ‘But I know about people. You think about being cunning with codes. I just think about what people see—’
They listened. They argued. They resorted to mathematics, while words sailed through the night above them.
And Sane Alex said: ‘All right, all right. Technically it could work, but the Trunk people would have to be stupid to let it happen.’
‘But they’ll be thinking about codes,’ said Moist. ‘And I’m good at making people stupid. It’s my job.’
‘I thought your job was postmaster,’ said Undecided Adrian.
‘Oh, yes. Then it’s my vocation.’
The Smoking Gnu looked at one another.
‘It’s a totally mad idea,’ said Mad Al, grinning.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ said Moist.

There are times when you just have to miss a night’s sleep. But Ankh-Morpork never slept; the city never did more than doze, and would wake up around 3 a.m. for a glass of water.
You could buy anything in the middle of the night. Timber? No problem. Moist wondered whether there were vampire carpenters, quietly making vampire chairs. Canvas? There was bound to be someone in the city who’d wake up in the wee small hours for a wee and think, ‘What I could really do with right now is one thousand square yards of medium grade canvas!’ and, down by the docks, there were chandlers open to deal with the rush.
There was a steady drizzle when they left for the tower. Moist drove the cart, with the others sitting on the load behind him and bickering over trigonometry. Moist tried not to listen; he got lost when maths started to get silly.
Killing the Grand Trunk . . . Oh, the towers would be left standing, but it would take months to repair them all. It’d bring the company down. No one would get hurt, the Gnu said. They meant the men in the towers.
The Trunk had become a monster, eating people. Bringing it down was a beguiling idea. The Gnu were full of ideas for what could replace it - faster, cheaper, easier, streamlined, using imps specially bred for the job . . .
But something irked Moist. Gilt had been right, damn him. If you wanted to get a message five hundred miles very, very fast, the Trunk was the way to do it. If you wanted to wrap it in a ribbon, you needed the Post Office.
He liked the Gnu. They thought in a refreshingly different way; whatever curse hung around the stones of the old tower surely couldn’t affect minds like theirs, because they were inoculated against madness by being a little bit crazy all the time. The clacks signallers, all along the Trunk, were . . . a different kind of people. They didn’t just do their job, they lived it.
But Moist kept thinking of all the bad things that could happen without the semaphore. Oh, they used to happen before the semaphore, of course, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.
He left them sawing and hammering in the stone tower, and headed back to the city, deep in thought.

Chapter Thirteen

The Edge of the Envelope

In which we learn the Theory of Baize-Space — Devious Collabone - The
Grand Trunk Burns — So Sharp You’ll Cut Yourself— Finding Miss
Dearheart - A Theory of Disguise - Igor Moveth On - ‘Let This
Moment Never End’ - A Brush with the Trunk - The big sail unfurls -
The Message is Received

Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, levelled his cue and took careful aim.
The white ball hit a red ball, which rolled gently into a pocket. This was harder than it looked because more than half of the snooker table served as the Archchancellor’s filing system,* and indeed to get to the hole the ball had to pass through several piles of paperwork, a tankard, a skull with a dribbly candle on it and a lot of pipe ash. It did so.

* Ridcully practised the First Available Surface method of filing.
 
‘Well done, Mr Stibbons,’ said Ridcully.
‘I call it baize-space,’ said Ponder Stibbons proudly.
Every organization needs at least one person who knows what’s going on and why it’s happening and who’s doing it, and at UU this role was filled by Stibbons, who often wished it wasn’t. Right now he was present in his position as Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, and his long-term purpose was to see that his department’s budget went through on the nod. To this end, therefore, a bundle of thick pipes led from under the heavy old billiard table, out through a hole in the wall and across the lawn into the High Energy Magic building, where - he sighed - this little trick was taking up 40 per cent of the rune-time of Hex, the University’s thinking engine.
‘Good name,’ said Ridcully, lining up another shot.
‘As in phase-space?’ said Ponder, hopefully. ‘When a ball is just about to encounter an obstacle that is not another ball, you see, Hex moves it into a theoretical parallel dimension where there is unoccupied flat surface and maintains speed and drag until it can be brought back to this one. It really is a most difficult and intricate piece of unreal-time spell casting—’
‘Yes, yes, very good,’ said Ridcully. ‘Was there something else, Mr Stibbons?’
Ponder looked at his clipboard. ‘There’s a polite letter from Lord Vetinari asking on behalf of the city whether the University might consider including in its intake, oh, twenty-five per cent of less able students, sir?’
Ridcully potted the black, through a heap of university directives.
‘Can’t have a bunch of grocers and butchers telling a university how to run itself, Stibbons!’ he said firmly, lining up on a red. ‘Thank them for their interest and tell them we’ll continue to take one hundred per cent of complete and utter dullards, as usual. Take ‘em in dull, turn ‘em out sparklin’, that’s always been the UU way! Anythin’ else?’
‘Just this message for the big race tonight, Archchancellor.’
‘Oh, yes, that thing. What should I do, Mr Stibbons? I hear there’s heavy betting on the Post Office.’
‘Yes, Archchancellor. People say the gods are on the side of Mr Lipwig.’
‘Are they betting?’ said Ridcully, watching with satisfaction as the ball rematerialized on the other side of a neglected ham sandwich.
‘I don’t think so, sir. He can’t possibly win.’
‘Was he the fella who rescued the cat?’
‘That was him, sir, yes,’ said Ponder.
‘Good chap. What do we think of the Grand Trunk? Bunch of bean-crushers, I heard. Been killin’ people on those towers of theirs. Man in the pub told me he’d heard the ghosts of dead signallers haunt the Trunk. I’ll try for the pink.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that, sir. I think it’s an urban myth,’ said Ponder.
‘They travel from one end of the Trunk to the other, he said. Not a bad way to spend eternity, mark you. There’s some splendid scenery up in the mountains.’ The Archchancellor paused, and his big face screwed up in thought. ‘Haruspex’s Big Directory of Varying Dimensions,’ he said at last.
‘Pardon, Archchancellor?’
‘That’s the message,’ said Ridcully. ‘No one said it had to be a letter, eh?’ He waved a hand over the tip of the cue, which grew a powdering of fresh chalk. ‘Give them a copy each of the new edition. Send ‘em to our man in Genua . . . what’s his name, thingummy, got a funny name . . . show him the old Alma Pater is thinkin’ of him.’
‘That’s Devious Collabone, sir. He’s out studying Oyster Communications in a Low Intensity Magical Field for his B.Thau.’
‘Good gods, can they communicate?’ said Ridcully.
‘Apparently, Archchancellor, although thus far they’re refusing to talk to him.’
‘Why’d we send him all the way out there?’
‘Devious H. Collabone, Archchancellor?’ Ponder prompted. ‘Remember? With the terrible halitosis?’
‘Oh, you mean Dragonbreath Collabone?’ said Ridcully, as realization dawned. ‘The one who could blow a hole in a silver plate?’
‘Yes, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder patiently. Mustrum Ridcully always liked to triangulate in on new information from several positions. ‘You said that out in the swamps no one would notice? If you remember, we allowed him to take a small omniscope.’
‘Did we? Far-thinking of us. Call him up right now and tell him what’s going on, will you?’
‘Yes, Archchancellor. In fact I’ll leave it a few hours because it’s still night time in Genua.’
‘That’s only their opinion,’ said Ridcully, sighting again. ‘Do it now, man.’

Fire from the sky . . .
Everyone knew that the top half of the towers rocked as the messages flew along the Trunk. One day, someone was going to do something about it. And all old signallers knew that if the connecting rod operating the shutters on the down-line was pushed up to open them on the same blink as the connecting rod on the up-line was pulled down to close the shutters on the other side of the tower, the tower lurched. It was being pushed from one side and pulled from the other, which would have roughly the same effect as a column of marching soldiers could have on an old bridge. That wasn’t too much of a problem, unless it occurred again and again so that the rocking built up to a dangerous level. But how often would that happen?
Every time the Woodpecker arrived at your tower, that was how often. And it was like an illness that could only attack the weak and sick. It wouldn’t have attacked the old Trunk, because the old Trunk was too full of tower captains who’d shut down instantly and strip the offending message out of the drum, secure in the knowledge that their actions would be judged by superiors who knew how a tower worked and would have done the same thing themselves.
It would work against the new Trunk, because there weren’t enough of those captains now. You did what you were told or you didn’t get paid and if things went wrong it wasn’t your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot had accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn’t your fault; no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care.
And today you’d been told to shift code as fast as possible, and you didn’t want to be the one accused of slowing the system down, so you watched the next tower in line until your eyes watered and you hit keys like a man tapdancing on hot rocks.
One after another, the towers failed. Some burned when the shutter boxes broke free and smashed on the cabin roofs, spilling blazing oil. There was no hope of fighting fire in a wooden box sixty feet up in the air; you slid down the suicide line and legged it to a safe distance to watch the show.
Fourteen towers were burning before someone took their hands off the keys. And then what? You’d been given orders. There were to be no, repeat no other messages on the Trunk while this message was being sent. What did you do next?
Moist awoke, the Grand Trunk burning in his head.
The Smoking Gnu wanted to break it down and pick up the pieces, and he could see why. But it wouldn’t work. Somewhere on the line there was going to be one inconvenient engineer who’d risk his job to send a message ahead saying: it’s a killer, shift it slowly. And that would be that. Oh, it might take a day or two to get the thing to Genua, but they had weeks to work with. And someone else, too, would be smart enough to compare the message with what had been sent by the first tower. Gilt would wriggle out of it - no, he’d storm out of it. The message had been tampered with, he’d say, and he’d be right. There had to be another solution.
The Gnu were on to something, though. Changing the message was the answer, if only he could do it in the right way.
Moist opened his eyes. He was at his desk, and someone had put a pillow under his head.
When was the last time he’d slept in a decent bed? Oh, yes, the night Mr Pump had caught him. He’d spent a couple of hours in a rented bed that had a mattress which didn’t actually move and wasn’t full of rocks. Bliss.
His immediate past life scampered before his eyes. He groaned.
‘Good Morning, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump from the corner. ‘Your Razor Is Sharp, The Kettle Is Hot And I Am Sure A Cup Of Tea Is On The Way.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Noon, Mr Lipvig. You Did Not Get In Until Dawn,’ the golem added reproachfully.
Moist groaned again. Six hours to the race. And then so many pigeons would come home to roost it’d be like an eclipse.
‘There Is Much Excitement,’ said the golem, as Moist shaved. ‘It Has Been Agreed That The Starting Line Will Be In Sator Square.’
Moist stared at his reflection, barely listening. He always raised the stakes, automatically. Never promise to do the possible. Anyone could do the possible. You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible.
But he’d gone too far this time. Oh, it’d be no great shame to admit that a coach and horses couldn’t travel at a thousand miles an hour, but Gilt would strut about it and the Post Office would remain just a little, old-fashioned thing, behind the times, small, unable to compete. Gilt would find some way to hold on to the Grand Trunk, cutting even more corners, killing people out of greed—
‘Are You All Right, Mr Lipvig?’ said the golem behind him.
Moist stared into his own eyes, and what flickered in the depths.
Oh, boy.
‘You Have Cut Yourself, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump. ‘Mr Lipvig?’
Shame I missed my throat, Moist thought. But that was a secondary thought, edging past the big dark one now unfolding in the mirror.
Look into the abyss and you’ll see something growing, reaching towards the light. It whispered: Do this. This will work. Trust me.
Oh, boy. It’s a plan that will work, Moist thought. It’s simple and deadly, like a razor. But it’d need an unprincipled man to even think about it.
No problem there, then.
I’ll kill you, Mr Gilt. I’ll kill you in our special way, the way of the weasel and cheat and liar. I’ll take away everything but your life. I’ll take away your money, your reputation and your friends. I’ll spin words around you until you’re cocooned in them. I’ll leave you nothing, not even hope . . .
He carefully finished shaving, and wiped the remnant of the foam off his chin. There was not, in truth, that much blood.
‘I think I could do with a hearty breakfast, Mr Pump,’ he said. ‘And then I have a few things to do. In the meantime, can you please find me a broomstick? A proper birch besom? And then paint some stars on the handle?’

The makeshift counters were crowded when Moist went down, but the bustle stopped when he entered the hall. Then a cheer went up. He nodded and waved cheerfully, and was immediately surrounded by people waving envelopes. He did his best to sign them all.
‘A lot o’ extra mail for Genua, sir!’ Mr Groat exulted, pushing his way through the crowd. ‘Never seen a day like it, never!’
‘Jolly good, well done,’ Moist murmured.
‘And the mail for the gods has gone right up, too!’ Groat continued.
‘Pleased to hear it, Mr Groat,’ said Moist.
‘We’ve got the first Sto Lat stamps, sir!’ said Stanley, waving a couple of sheets above his head. ‘The early sheets are covered in flaws, sir!’
‘I’m very happy for you,’ said Moist. ‘But I’ve got to go and prepare a few things.’
‘Aha, yes!’ said Mr Groat, winking.’ “A few things”, eh? Just as you say, sir. Stand aside, please, Postmaster coming through!’
Groat more or less pushed customers out of the way as Moist, trying to avoid the people who wanted him to kiss babies or were trying to grab a scrap of his suit for luck, made it out into the fresh air.
Then he kept to the back streets, and found a place that did a very reasonable Double Soss, Egg, Bacon and Fried Slice, in the hope that food could replace sleep.
It was all getting out of hand. People were putting out bunting and setting up stalls in Sator Square. The huge floating crowd that was the street population of Ankh-Morpork ebbed and flowed around the city, and tonight it would contract to form a mob in the square, and could be sold things.
Finally he plucked up his courage and headed for the Golem Trust. It was closed. A bit more graffiti had been added to the strata that now covered the boarded-up window. It was just above knee-level and said, in crayon: ‘Golms are Made of pOo.’ It was good to see the fine old traditions of idiot bigotry being handed down, in a no-good-at-all kind of way.
Dolly Sisters, he thought wildly, staying with an aunt. Did she ever mention the aunt’s name?
He ran in that direction.
Dolly Sisters had once been a village, before the sprawl had rolled over it; its residents still considered themselves apart from the rest of the city, with their own customs - Dog Turd Monday, Up Needles All - and almost their own language. Moist didn’t know it at all. He pushed his way through the narrow lanes, looking around desperately for— what? A column of smoke?
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea . . .
He reached the house eight minutes later, and hammered on the door. To his relief, she opened it, and stared at him.
She said: ‘How?’
He said: ‘Tobacconists. Not many women around here have a hundred-a-day habit.’
‘Well, what do you want, Mr Clever?’
‘If you help me, I can take Gilt for everything he’s got,’ said Moist. ‘Help me. Please? On my honour as a totally untrustworthy man?’
That at least got a brief smile, to be replaced almost immediately by the default expression of deep suspicion. Then some inner struggle resolved itself.
‘You’d better come into the parlour,’ she said, opening the door all the way.
That room was small, dark and crowded with respectability. Moist sat on the edge of a chair, trying not to disturb anything, while he strained to hear women’s voices along the hallway. Then Miss Dearheart slipped in and shut the door behind her.
‘I hope this is all right with your family,’ said Moist. ‘I—’
‘I told them we were courting,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘That’s what parlours are for. The tears of joy and hope in my mother’s eyes were a sight to see. Now, what do you want?’
‘Tell me about your father,’ said Moist. ‘I’ve got to know how the Grand Trunk was taken over. Have you still got any paperwork?’
‘It won’t do any good. A lawyer looked at it and said it would be very hard to make a case—’
‘I intend to appeal to a higher court,’ said Moist.
‘I mean, we can’t prove a lot of things, not actually prove—’ Miss Dearheart protested.
‘I don’t have to,’ said Moist.
‘The lawyer said it would take months and months of work to—’ she went on, determined to find a snag.
‘I’ll make someone else pay for it,’ said Moist. ‘Have you got books? Ledgers? Anything like that?’
‘What are you intending to do?’ Miss Dearheart demanded.
‘It’s better if you don’t know. It really is. I know what I’m doing, Spike. But you shouldn’t.’
‘Well, there’s a big box of papers,’ said Miss Dearheart uncertainly. ‘I suppose I could just sort of . . . leave it in here while I’m tidying up . . .’
‘Good.’
‘But can I trust you?’
‘On this? My gods, no! Your father trusted Gilt, and look what happened! I wouldn’t trust me if I was you. But I would if I was me.’
‘The funny thing is, Mr Lipwig, that I find myself trusting you all the more when you tell me how untrustworthy you are,’ said Miss Dearheart.
Moist sighed. ‘Yes, I know, Spike. Wretched, isn’t it? It’s a people thing. Could you fetch the box, please?’
She did so, with a puzzled frown.
It took all afternoon and even then Moist wasn’t sure, but he’d filled a small notebook with scribbles. It was like looking for piranhas in a river choked with weeds. There were a lot of bones on the bottom. But, although sometimes you thought you’d glimpsed a flash of silver, you could never be sure you’d seen a fish. The only way to be certain was to jump in.
By half past four Sator Square was packed.
The wonderful thing about the golden suit and the hat with wings was that, if Moist took them off, he wasn’t him any more. He was just a nondescript person with unmemorable clothes and a face you might vaguely think you’d seen before.
He wandered through the crowd, heading towards the Post Office. No one gave him a second glance. Most didn’t bother with a first glance. In a way he’d never realized until now, he was alone. He’d always been alone. It was the only way to be safe.
The trouble was, he missed the golden suit. Everything was an act, really. But the Man in the Golden Suit was a good act. He didn’t want to be a person you forgot, someone who was one step above a shadow. Underneath the winged hat, he could do miracles or, at least, make it appear that miracles had been done, which is nearly as good.
He’d have to do one in an hour or two, that was certain.
Oh well . . .
He went round the back of the Post Office, and was about to slip inside when a figure in the shadow said, ‘Pissed!’
‘I suspect you mean Psst?’ said Moist. Sane Alex stepped out of the shadows; he was wearing his old Grand Trunk donkey jacket and a huge helmet with horns on.
‘We’re running slow with the canvas—’ he began.
‘Why the helmet?’ said Moist.
‘It’s a disguise,’ said Alex.
‘A big horned helmet?’
‘Yes. It makes me so noticeable that no one will suspect I’m trying not to be noticed, so they won’t bother to notice me.’
‘Only a very intelligent man would think of something like that,’ said Moist carefully. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We need more time,’ said Alex.
‘What? The race starts at six!’
‘It won’t be dark enough. We won’t be able to get the sail up until half past at least. We’ll be spotted if we poke our heads over the parapet before then.’
‘Oh, come on! The other towers are far too far away!’
‘People on the road aren’t,’ said Alex.
‘Blast!’ Moist had forgotten about the road. All it would take later was someone saying he’d seen people on the old wizarding tower . . .
‘Listen, we’ve got it all ready to raise,’ said Alex, watching his face. ‘We can work fast when we’re up there. We just need half an hour of darkness, maybe a few minutes more.’
Moist bit his lip. ‘Okay. I can do that, I think. Now get back there and help them. But don’t start until I get there, understand? Trust me!’
I’m saying that a lot, he thought after the man had hurried away. I just hope they will.
He went up to his office. The golden suit was on its hanger. He put it on. There was work to do. It was dull, but it had to be done. So he did it.
At half past five the floorboards creaked as Mr Pump walked into the room, dragging a broomstick behind him.
‘Soon It Will Be Time For The Race, Mr Lipvig,’ he said.
‘I must finish a few things,’ said Moist. ‘There’s letters here from builders and architects, oh, and someone wants me to cure their warts . . . I really have to deal with the paperwork, Mr Pump.’

In the privacy of Reacher Gilt’s kitchen, Igor very carefully wrote a note. There were niceties to be observed, after all. You didn’t just leg it like a thief in the night. You tidied up, made sure the larder was stocked, washed the dishes and took exactly what you were owed from the petty cash box.
Shame, really. It had been a pretty good job. Gilt hadn’t expected him to do much, and Igor had enjoyed terrorizing the other servants. Most of them, anyway.
‘It’s so sad you’re going, Mr Igor,’ said Mrs Glowbury, the cook. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘You’ve been a real breath of fresh air.’
‘Can’t be helped, Mrthth Glowbury,’ said Igor. ‘I thall mith your thteak and kidney pie, and no mithtake. It doth my heart good to thee a woman who can really make thomething out of leftoverth.’
‘I’ve knitted you this, Mr Igor,’ said the cook, hesitantly proffering a small soft package. Igor opened it with care, and unfolded a red and white striped balaclava.
‘I thought it would help keep your bolt warm,’ said Mrs Glowbury, blushing.
Igor agonized for a moment. He liked and respected the cook. He’d never seen a woman handle sharp knives so skilfully. Sometimes, you had to forget the Code of the Igors.
‘Mrthth Glowbury, you did thay you had a thithter in Quirm?’ he said.
‘That’s right, Mr Igor.’
‘Now would be a very good time for you to go and vithit her,’ said Igor firmly. ‘Do not athk me why. Goodbye, dear Mrthth Glowbury. I thall remember your liver with fondneth.’

Now it was ten minutes to six.
‘If You Leave Now, Mr Lipvig, You Will Be Just In Time For The Race,’ the golem rumbled, from the corner.
‘This is work of civic importance, Mr Pump,’ said Moist severely, reading another letter. ‘I am showing rectitude and attention to duty.’
‘Yes, Mr Lipvig.’
He let it go on until ten minutes past the hour, because it’d take five minutes to get to the square, at a nonchalant saunter. With the golem lumbering beside him, in something approaching the antithesis of both nonchalance and sauntering, he left the Post Office behind.
The crowd in the square parted at his approach, and there were cheers and some laughter when people saw the broomstick over his shoulder. It had stars painted on it, therefore it must be a magic broomstick. Of such beliefs are fortunes made.
Find The Lady, Find The Lady . . . there was a science to it, in a way. Of course, it helped if you found out how to hold three cards in a loose stack; that was really the key. Moist had learned to be good at that, but he had found mere mechanical tricks a bit dull, a bit beneath him. There were other ways, ways to mislead, to distract, to anger. Anger was always good. Angry people made mistakes.
There was a space in the centre of the square, round the stagecoach on which Leadpipe Jim sat proudly. The horses gleamed, the coach-work sparkled in the torchlight. But the group standing around the coach sparkled rather less.
There were a couple of people from the Trunk, several wizards and, of course, Otto Chriek the iconographer. They turned and welcomed Moist with expressions ranging from relief to deep suspicion.
‘We were considering disqualification, Mr Lipwig,’ said Ridcully, looking severe.
Moist handed the broom to Mr Pump. ‘I do apologize, Arch-chancellor,’ he said. ‘I was checking some stamp designs and completely lost track of time. Oh, good evening, Professor Pelc’
The Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy gave him a big grin and held up a jar. ‘And Professor Goitre,’ he said. ‘The old chap thought he’d like to see what all the fuss is about.’
‘And this is Mr Pony of the Grand Trunk,’ said Ridcully.
Moist shook hands with the engineer. ‘Mr Gilt not with you?’ he said, winking.
‘He’s, er, watching from his coach,’ said the engineer, looking nervously at Moist.
‘Well, since you are both here, Mr Stibbons will hand you each a copy of the message,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘Mr Stibbons?’
Two packages were handed over. Moist undid his, and burst out laughing.
‘But it’s a book!’ said Mr Pony. ‘It’ll take all night to code. And there’s diagrams!’
Okay, let’s begin, thought Moist, and moved like a cobra. He snatched the book from the startled Pony, thumbed through it quickly, grabbed a handful of pages and ripped them out, to a gasp from the crowd.
‘There you are, sir,’ he said, handing the pages back. ‘There is your message! Pages 79 to 128. We’ll deliver the rest of the book and the recipient can put your pages in later, if they arrive!’ He was aware of Professor Pelc glaring at him, and added: ‘And I’m sure it can be repaired very neatly!’
It was a stupid gesture but it was big and loud and funny and cruel and if Moist didn’t know how to get the attention of a crowd he didn’t know anything. Mr Pony backed away, clutching the stricken chapter.
‘I didn’t mean—’ he tried, but Moist interrupted with: ‘After all, we’ve got a big coach for such a small book.’
‘It’s just that pictures take time to code—’ Mr Pony protested. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing. Machinery didn’t answer back.
Moist allowed a look of genuine concern to cross his face. ‘Yes, that does seem unfair,’ he said. He turned to Ponder Stibbons. ‘Don’t you think that’s unfair, Mr Stibbons?’
The wizard looked puzzled. ‘But once they’ve coded it it’ll only take them a couple of hours to get it to Genua!’ he said.
‘Nevertheless, I must insist,’ said Moist. ‘We don’t want an unfair advantage. Stand down, Jim,’ he called up to the coachman. ‘We’re going to give the clacks a head start.’ He turned to Ponder and Mr Pony with an expression of innocent helpfulness. ‘Would an hour be all right, gentlemen?’
The crowd exploded. Gods, I’m good at this, Moist thought. I want this moment to go on for ever . . .
‘Mr Lipwig!’ a voice called out. Moist scanned the faces, and spotted the caller.
‘Ah, Miss Sacharissa. Pencil at the ready?’
‘Are you seriously telling us you’ll wait while the Grand Trunk prepares their message?’ she said. She was laughing.
‘Indeed,’ said Moist, grasping the lapels of his gleaming jacket. ‘We in the Post Office are fair-minded people. May I take this opportunity to tell you about our new Green Cabbage stamp, by the way?’
‘Surely you’re going too far, Mr Lipwig?’
‘All the way to Genua, dear lady! Did I mention the gum is cabbage-flavoured?’
Moist couldn’t have stopped himself now for hard money. This was where his soul lived: dancing on an avalanche, making the world up as he went along, reaching into people’s ears and changing their minds. For this he offered glass as diamonds, let the Find The Lady cards fly under his fingers, stood smiling in front of clerks examining fake bills. This was the feeling he craved, the raw naked excitement of pushing the envelope—
Reacher Gilt was moving through the crowd, like a shark among minnows. He gave Moist a carefully neutral look, and turned to Mr Pony.
‘Is there some problem, gentlemen?’ he said. ‘It’s getting late.’
In a silence punctuated by chuckles from the crowd, Pony tried to explain, in so far as he now had any grip of what was going on.
‘I see,’ said Gilt. ‘You are pleased to make fun of us, Mr Lipwig? Then allow me to say that we of the Grand Trunk will not take it amiss if you should leave now. I think we can spare you a couple of hours, eh?’
‘Oh, certainly,’ said Moist. ‘If it will make you feel any better.’
‘Indeed it will,’ said Gilt gravely. ‘It would be best, Mr Lipwig, if you were a long way away from here.’
Moist heard the tone, because he was expecting it. Gilt was being reasonable and statesmanlike, but his eye was a dark metal ball and there was the harmonic of murder in his voice. And then Gilt said: ‘Is Mr Groat well, Mr Lipwig? I was sorry to hear of the attack.’
‘Attack, Mr Gilt? He was hit by falling timber,’ said Moist. And that question entitles you to no mercy at all, no matter what.
‘Ah? Then I was misinformed,’ said Gilt. ‘I shall know not to listen to rumours in future.’
‘I shall pass on your good wishes to Mr Groat,’ said Moist.
Gilt raised his hat. ‘Goodbye, Mr Lipwig. I wish you the best of luck in your gallant attempt. There are some dangerous people on the road.’
Moist raised his own hat and said: ‘I intend to leave them behind very soon, Mr Gilt.’
There, he thought. We’ve said it all, and the nice lady from the newspaper thinks we’re good chums or, at least, just business rivals being stiffly polite to each other. Let’s spoil the mood.
‘Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Mr Pump, be so good as to put the broom on the coach, would you?’
‘Broom?’ said Gilt, looking up sharply. ‘That broom? The one with stars on it? You’re taking a broomstick?’
‘Yes. It will come in handy if we break down,’ said Moist.
‘I protest, Archchancellor!’ said Gilt, spinning round. ‘This man intends to fly to Genua!’
‘I have no such intention!’ said Moist. ‘I resent the allegation!’
‘Is this why you appear so confident?’ snarled Gilt. And it was a snarl, there and then, a little sign of a crack appearing.
A broomstick could travel fast enough to blow your ears off. It wouldn’t need too many towers to break down, and heavens knew they broke down all the time, for a broomstick to beat the clacks to Genua, especially since it could fly direct and wouldn’t have to follow the big dog-leg the coach road and the Grand Trunk took. The Trunk would have to be really unlucky, and the person flying the broom would be really frozen and probably really dead, but a broomstick could fly from Ankh-Morpork to Genua in a day. That might just do it.
Gilt’s face was a mask of glee. Now he knew what Moist intended.
Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows . . .
It was the heart of any scam or fiddle. Keep the punter uncertain or, if he is certain, make him certain of the wrong thing.
‘I demand that no broomstick is taken on the coach!’ said Gilt to the Archchancellor, which was not a good move. You didn’t demand anything from wizards. You requested. ‘If Mr Lipwig is not confident in his equipment,’ Gilt went on, ‘I suggest he concedes right now!’
‘We’ll be travelling alone on some dangerous roads,’ said Moist. ‘A broomstick might be essential.’
‘However, I am forced to agree with this . . . gentleman,’ said Ridcully, with some distaste. ‘It would not look right, Mr Lipwig.’
Moist threw up his hands. ‘As you wish, sir, of course. It is a blow. May I request even-handed treatment, though?’
‘Your meaning?’ said the wizard.
‘There is a horse stationed at each tower to be used when the tower breaks down,’ said Moist.
‘That is normal practice!’ snapped Gilt.
‘Only in the mountains,’ said Moist calmly. ‘And even then only at the most isolated towers. But today, I suspect, there’s one at every tower. It’s a pony express, Archchancellor, with apologies to Mr Pony. They could easily beat our coach without sending a word of code.’
‘You can’t possibly be suggesting that we’d take the message all the way on horseback!’ said Gilt.
‘You were suggesting I’d fly,’ said Moist. ‘If Mr Gilt is not confident in his equipment, Archchancellor, I suggest he concedes now.’
And there it was, a shadow on Gilt’s face. He was more than just irate now; he’d passed into the calm, limpid waters of utter, visceral fury.
‘So let’s agree that this isn’t a test of horses against broomsticks,’ said Moist. ‘It’s stagecoach against clacks tower. If the stage breaks down, we repair the stage. If a tower breaks down, you repair the tower.’
‘That seems fair, I must say,’ said Ridcully. ‘And I so rule. However, I must take Mr Lipwig aside to issue a word of warning.’
The Archchancellor put his arm round Moist’s shoulders and led him round the coach. Then he leaned down until their faces were a few inches apart.
‘You are aware, are you, that painting a few stars on a perfectly ordinary broomstick doesn’t mean it will get airborne?’ he said.
Moist looked into a pair of milky blue eyes that were as innocent as a child’s, particularly a child who is trying hard to look innocent.
‘My goodness, doesn’t it?’ he said.
The wizard patted him on the shoulder. ‘Best to leave things as they are, I feel,’ he said happily.
Gilt smiled at Moist as they returned.
It was just too much to resist, so Moist didn’t. Raise the stakes. Always push your luck, because no one else would push it for you.
“Would you care for a little personal wager, Mr Gilt?’ he said. ‘Just to make it . . . interesting?’
Gilt handled it well, if you couldn’t read the tells, the little signs . . .
‘Dear me, Mr Lipwig, do the gods approve of gambling?’ he said, and gave a short laugh.
‘What is life but a lottery, Mr Gilt?’ said Moist. ‘Shall we say . . . one hundred thousand dollars?’
That did it. That was the last straw. He saw something snap inside Reacher Gilt.
‘One hundred thousand? Where would you lay your hands on that kind of money, Lipwig?’
‘Oh, I just place them together, Mr Gilt. Doesn’t everyone know that?’ said Moist, to general amusement. He gave the chairman his most insolent smile. ‘And where will you lay your hands on one hundred thousand dollars?’
‘Hah. I accept the wager! We shall see who laughs tomorrow,’ said Gilt bluntly.
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ said Moist.
And now I have you in the hollow of my hand, he thought to himself. The hollow of my hand. You’re enraged, now. You’re making wrong decisions. You’re walking the plank.
He climbed up on to the coach and turned to the crowd. ‘Genua, ladies and gentlemen. Genua or bust!’
‘Someone will!’ yelled a wag in the crowd. Moist bowed, and, as he straightened up, looked into the face of Adora Belle Dearheart.
‘Will you marry me, Miss Dearheart?’ he shouted.
There was an ‘Oooh’ from the crowd, and Sacharissa turned her head like a cat seeking the next mouse. What a shame the paper had only one front page, eh?
Miss Dearheart blew a smoke ring. ‘Not yet,’ she said calmly. This got a mixture of cheers and boos.
Moist waved, jumped down beside the driver and said: ‘Hit it, Jim.’
Jim cracked his whip for the sound of the thing, and the coach moved away amidst cheering. Moist looked back, and made out Mr Pony pushing determinedly through the crowd in the direction of the Tump Tower. Then he sat back and looked at the streets, in the light of the coach lamps.
Perhaps it was the gold working its way in from outside. He could feel something filling him, like a mist. When he moved his hand, he was sure that it left a trail of flecks in the air. He was still flying.
‘Jim, do I look all right?’ he said.
‘Can’t see much of you in this light, sir,’ said the coachman. ‘Can I ask a question?’
‘Go ahead, please.’
‘Why’d you give those bastards just those middle pages?’
‘Two reasons, Jim. It makes us look good and makes them look like whiny kids. And the other is, it’s the bit with all the colour illustrations. I hear it takes ages to code one of those.’
‘You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself, Mr Lipwig! Eh? Damn straight!’
‘Drive like the blazes, Jim!’
‘Oh, I know how to give them a show, sir, you can bank on it! HyahP The whip cracked again, and the sound of hooves bounced off the buildings.
‘Six horses?’ said Moist, as they rattled up Broadway.
‘Aye, sir. Might as well make a name for myself, sir,’ said the coachman.
‘Slow down a bit when you get to the old wizard tower, will you? I’ll get off there. Did you get some guards?’
‘Four of them, Mr Lipwig,’ Jim announced. ‘Lying low inside. Men of repute and integrity. Known ‘em since we were lads: Nosher Harry, Skullbreaker Tapp, Grievous Bodily Harmsworth and Joe “No Nose” Tozer. They’re mates, sir, don’t you worry, and they’re looking forward to a little holiday in Genua.’
‘Yeah, we’ve all got our buckets and spades,’ growled a voice from inside.
‘I’d rather have them than a dozen watchmen,’ said Jim happily.
The coach rattled on, leaving the outlying suburbs behind. The road under the wheels became rougher, but the coach swung and danced along on its steel springs.
‘When you’ve dropped me off you can rein them in a bit. No need to rush, Jim,’ said Moist, after a while.
In the light of the coach lamps Moist saw Jim’s red face glow with guile.
‘It’s your Plan, eh, sir?’
‘It’s a wonderful plan, Jim!’ said Moist. And I shall have to make sure it doesn’t work.

The lights of the coach disappeared, leaving Moist in chilly darkness. In the distance the faintly glowing smokes of Ankh-Morpork made a great trailing mushroom of cloud that blotted out the stars. Things rustled in the bushes, and a breeze wafted the scent of cabbages over the endless fields.
Moist waited until he got some night vision. The tower appeared, a column of night without stars. All he had to do was find his way through the dense, brambly, root-knotted woodland—
He made a noise like an owl. Since Moist was no ornithologist, he did this by saying ‘woo woo’.
The woodland exploded with owl hoots, except that these were owls that roosted in the old wizarding tower, which drove you mad in a day. It had no obvious effect on them except that the noises they made resembled every possible sound that could be made by a living or even dying creature. There was definitely some elephant in there, and possibly some hyena, too, with a hint of bedspring.
When the din had died down a voice from a few feet away whispered: ‘All right, Mr Lipwig. It’s me, Adrian. Grab my hand and let’s go before the others start fighting again.’
‘Fighting? What about?’
‘They drive each other up the wall! Feel this rope? Can you feel it? Right. You can move fast. We scouted out a trail and strung the rope—’
They hurried through the trees. You had to be really close to the tower to see the glow coming through the ruined doorway at the base. Undecided Adrian had fixed some of his little cold lights up the inner wall. Stones moved under Moist’s feet as he scrambled to the summit. He paid them no attention, but ran up the spiral stair so fast that when he reached the top he spun.
Mad Al caught him by the shoulders. ‘No rush,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We’ve got ten minutes to go.’
‘We’d have been ready twenty minutes ago if somebody hadn’t lost the hammer,’ muttered Sane Alex, tightening a wire.
‘What? I put it in the tool box, didn’t I?’ said Mad Al.
‘In the spanner drawer!’
‘So?’
‘Who in their right mind would look for a hammer in the spanner drawer?’
Down below, the owls started up again.
‘Look,’ said Moist quickly, ‘that’s not important, is it? Right now?’
‘This man,’ said Sane Alex, pointing an accusing wrench, ‘this man is mad!’
‘Not as mad as someone who keeps his screws neatly by size in jam jars,’ said Mad Al.
‘That counts as sane!’ said Alex hotly.
‘But everyone knows rummaging is half the fun! Besides—’
‘It’s done,’ said Undecided Adrian.
Moist looked up. The Gnu’s clacks machine rose up into the night, just as it had done on the Post Office roof. Behind it, in the direction of the city, an H-shaped structure climbed even further. It looked a little like a ship’s mast, an effect maybe caused by the wires that steadied it. They rattled in the faint breeze.
‘You must have upset someone,’ Adrian went on, while the other two settled down a bit. ‘A message was sent through twenty minutes ago, from Gilt himself. He said the big one will go through duplex, great care must be taken not to change it in any way, there is to be no other traffic at all until there’s a restart message from Gilt, and he’ll personally sack the entire staff of any tower that does not strictly follow those instructions.’
‘It just goes to show, the Grand Trunk is a people company,’ said Moist.
Undecided Adrian and Mad Al walked over to the big frame and began to unwind some ropes from their cleats.
Oh well, thought Moist, now for it . . .
‘There’s just one alteration to the plan,’ he said, and took a breath. ‘We’re not sending the Woodpecker.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Adrian, dropping his rope. ‘That was the plan!’
‘It’ll destroy the Trunk,’ said Moist.
‘Yes, that was the plan, sure enough,’ said Al. ‘Gilt’s as good as painted “kick me” on his pants! Look, it’s falling down of its own accord anyway, okay? It was an experiment in the first place! We can rebuild it faster and better!’
‘How?’ said Moist. ‘Where will the money come from? I know a way to destroy the company but leave the towers standing. They were stolen from the Dearhearts and their partners. I can give them back! But the only way to build a better line of towers is to leave the old ones intact. The Trunk’s got to earn!’
‘That’s the sort of thing Gilt would say!’ snapped Al.
‘And it’s true,’ said Moist. ‘Alex, you’re sane, tell the man! Keep the Trunk operating, replace one tower at a time, never dropping any code!’ He waved a hand towards the darkness. ‘The people out on the towers, they want to be proud of what they do, yes? It’s tough work and they don’t get paid enough but they live to shift code, right? The company’s running them into the ground but they still shift code!’
Adrian tugged at his rope. ‘Hey, the canvas is stuck,’ he announced to the tower in general. ‘It must have been caught up when we furled it . . .’
‘Oh, I’m sure the Woodpecker will work,’ said Moist, plunging on. ‘It might even damage enough towers for long enough. But Gilt will twist his way out of it. Do you understand? He’ll shout about sabotage!’
‘So what?’ said Mad Al. ‘We’ll have this lot back on the cart in an hour and no one will know we were ever here!’
‘I’ll climb up and free it, shall I?’ said Undecided Adrian, shaking the canvas.
‘I said it won’t work? said Moist, waving him away. ‘Look, Mr Al, this isn’t going to be settled by fire. It’s going to be settled with words. We’ll tell the world what happened to the Trunk.’
‘You’ve been talking to Killer about that?’ said Alex.
‘Yes,’ said Moist.
‘But you can’t prove anything,’ said Alex. ‘We heard it was all legal.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Moist. ‘But that doesn’t matter. I don’t have to prove anything. I said this is about words, and how you can twist them, and how you can spin them in people’s heads so that they think the way you want them to. We’ll send a message of our own, and do you know what? The boys in the towers will want to send it, and when people know what it says they’ll want to believe it, because they’ll want to live in a world where it’s true. It’s my words against Gilt’s, and I’m better at them than he is. I can take him down with a sentence, Mr Mad, and leave every tower standing. And no one will ever know how it was done—’
There was a brief exclamation behind them, and the sound of canvas unrolling quite fast.
‘Trust me,’ said Moist.
‘We’ll never get another chance like this,’ said Mad Al.
‘Exactly!’ said Moist.
‘One man has died for every three towers standing,’ said Mad Al. ‘Did you know that?’
‘You know they’ll never really die while the Trunk is alive,’ said Moist. It was a wild shot, but it hit something, he sensed it. He rushed on: ‘It lives while the code is shifted, and they live with it, always Going Home. Will you stop that? You can’t stop it! I won’t stop it! But I can stop Gilt! Trust me!’
The canvas hung like a sail, if as someone intended to launch the tower. It was eighty feet high and thirty feet wide and moved a little in the wind.
‘Where’s Adrian?’ said Moist.
They looked at the sail. They rushed to the edge of the tower. They looked down into darkness.
‘Adrian?’ said Mad Al uncertainly.
A voice from below said: ‘Yes?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Just, you know . . . hanging around? And an owl has just landed on my head.’
There was a small tearing noise beside Moist. Sane Alex had cut a hole in the canvas.
‘Here it comes!’ he reported.
‘What?’ said Moist.
‘The message! They’re sending from Tower 2! Take a look,’ Alex said, backing away.
Moist peered through the slit, back towards the city. In the distance, a tower was sparkling.
Mad Al strode over to the half-sized clacks array and grabbed the handles.
‘All right, Mr Lipwig, let’s hear your plan,’ he said. ‘Alex, give me a hand! Adrian, just . . . hang on, all right?’
‘It’s trying to push a dead mouse in my ear,’ said a reproachful voice from below.
Moist shut his eyes, lined up the thoughts that had been buzzing for hours, and began to speak.
Behind and above him, the huge expanse of canvas was just enough to block the line of sight between the two distant towers. In front of him, the Smoking Gnu’s half-sized tower was just the right size to look, to the next tower in line, like a bigger tower a long way off. At night all you could see were the lights.
The clacks in front of him shook as the shutters rattled. And now a new message was dropping across the sky . . .
It was only a few hundred words. When Moist had finished, the clacks rattled out the last few letters and then fell silent.
After a while Moist said: ‘Will they pass it along?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mad Al, in a flat voice. ‘They’ll send it. You’re sitting up in a tower in the mountains and you get a signal like that? You’ll get it away and out of your tower as fast as you can.’
‘I don’t know if we ought to shake your hand or throw you off the tower,’ said Sane Alex sullenly. ‘That was evil.’
‘What sort of person could dream up something like that?’ said Mad Al.
‘Me. Now let’s pull Adrian up, shall we?’ said Moist quickly. ‘And then I’d better get back to the city . . .’

An omniscope is one of the most powerful instruments known to magic, and therefore one of the most useless.
It can see everything, with ease. Getting it to see anything is where wonders have to be performed because there is so much Everything - which is to say, everything that can, will, has, should or might happen in all possible universes - that anything, any previously specified thing, is very hard to find. Before Hex had evolved the control thaumarhythms, completing in a day a task that would have taken five hundred wizards at least ten years, omniscopes were used purely as mirrors because of the wonderful blackness they showed. This, it turned out, is because ‘nothing to see’ is what most of the universe consists of, and many a wizard has peacefully trimmed his beard while gazing into the dark heart of the cosmos.
There were very few steerable omniscopes. They took a long time to make and cost a great deal. And the wizards were not at all keen on making any more. Omniscopes were for them to look at the universe, not for the universe to look back at them.
Besides, the wizards did not believe in making life too easy for people. At least, for people who weren’t wizards. An omniscope was a rare, treasured and delicate thing.
But today was a special occasion, and they had thrown open the doors to the richer, cleaner and more hygienic sections of Ankh-Morpork society. A long table had been set for Second Tea. Nothing too excessive - a few dozen roast fowls, a couple of cold salmon, one hundred linear feet of salad bar, a pile of loaves, one or two kegs of beer and, of course, the chutney, pickle and relish train, one trolley not being considered big enough. People had filled their plates and were standing around chatting and, above all, Being There. Moist slipped in unnoticed, for now, because people were watching the University’s biggest omniscope.
Archchancellor Ridcully thumped the side of the thing with his hand, causing it to rock.
‘It’s still not working, Mr Stibbons!’ he bellowed. ‘Here’s that damn enormous fiery eye again!’
‘I’m sure we have the right—’ Ponder began, fiddling with the rear of the big disc.
‘It’s me, sir, Devious Collabone, sir,’ said a voice from the omniscope. The fiery eye pulled back and was replaced by an enormous fiery nose. ‘I’m here at the terminal tower in Genua, sir. Sorry about the redness, sir. I’ve picked up an allergy to seaweed, sir.’
‘Hello, Mr Collabone!’ yelled Ridcully. ‘How are you? How’s the—’
‘—shellfish research—’ murmured Ponder Stibbons.
‘—shellfish research comin’ along?’
‘Not very well, actually, sir. I’ve developed a nasty—’
‘Good, good! Lucky chap!’ Ridcully yelled, cupping his hands to increase the volume. ‘I wouldn’t mind bein’ in Genua myself at this time of year! Sun, sea, surf and sand, eh?’
‘Actually it’s the wet season, sir, and I’m a bit worried about this fungus that’s growing on the omni—’
‘Wonderful!’ shouted Ridcully. ‘Well, I can’t stand here and chew your fat all day! Has anything arrived? We are agog!’
‘Could you just stand back a little bit further, please, Mr Collabone?’ said Ponder. ‘And you don’t really need to speak so . . . loudly, Archchancellor.’
‘Chap’s a long way away, man!’ said Ridcully.
‘Not as such, sir,’ said Ponder, with well-honed patience. ‘Very well, Mr Collabone, you may proceed.’
The crowd behind the Archchancellor pressed forward. Mr Collabone backed away. This was all a bit too much for a man who spent his days with no one to talk to but bivalves.
‘Er, I’ve had a message by clacks, sir, but—’ he began.
‘Nothin’ from the Post Office?’ said Ridcully.
‘No, sir. Nothing, sir.’
There were cheers and boos and general laughter from the crowd. From his shadowy corner, Moist saw Lord Vetinari, right by the Archchancellor. He scanned the rest of the crowd and spotted Readier Gilt, standing off to one side and, surprisingly, not smiling. And Gilt saw him.
One look was enough. The man wasn’t certain. Not totally certain.
Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It’s hope, turned inside out. You know it can’t go wrong, you’re sure it can’t go wrong . . .
But it might.
I’ve got you.
Devious Collabone coughed. ‘Er, but I don’t think this is the message Archchancellor Ridcully sent,’ he said, his voice gone squeaky with nervousness.
‘What makes you think that, man?’
‘Because it says it isn’t,’ Collabone quavered. ‘It says it’s from dead people . . .’
‘You mean it’s an old message?’ said Ridcully.
‘Er, no, sir. Er . . . I’d better read it, shall I? Do you want me to read it?’
‘That’s the point, man!’
In the big disc of glass, Collabone cleared his throat.
‘ “Who will listen to the dead? We who died so that words could fly demand justice now. These are the crimes of the Board of the Grand Trunk: theft, embezzlement, breach of trust, corporate murder—” ’

Chapter Fourteen

Deliverance

Lord Vetinari Requests Silence — Mr Lipwig Comes Down - Mr Pump
Moves On — Fooling No One But Yourself— The Bird — The Concludium
- Freedom of Choice

The Great Hall was in uproar. Most of the wizards took the opportunity to congregate at the buffet, which was now clear. If there’s one thing a wizard hates, it’s having to wait while the person in front of them is in two minds about coleslaw. It’s a salad bar, they say, it’s got the kind of stuff salad bars have, if it was surprising it wouldn’t be a salad bar, you’re not here to look at it. What do you expect to find? Rhino chunks? Pickled coelacanth?
The Lecturer in Recent Runes ladled more bacon bits into his salad bowl, having artfully constructed buttresses of celery and breastworks of cabbage to increase its depth five times.
‘Any of you Fellows know what this is all about?’ he said, raising his voice above the din. ‘Seems to be upsetting a lot of people.’
‘It’s this clacks business,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘I’ve never trusted it. Poor Collabone. Decent young man in his way. A good man with a whelk. Seems to be in a spot of bother . . .’
It was quite a large spot. Devious Collabone was opening and shutting his mouth on the other side of the glass like a stranded fish.
In front of him, Mustrum Ridcully reddened with anger, his tried and tested approach to most problems.
‘. . . sorry, sir, but this is what it says and you asked me to read it,’ Collabone protested. ‘It goes on and on, sir—’
‘And that’s what the clacks people gave you?’ the Archchancellor demanded. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, sir. They did look at me in a funny way, sir, but this is definitely it. Why should I make anything up, Archchancellor? I spend most of my time in a tank, sir. A boring, boring, lonely tank, sir.’
‘Not one more word!’ screamed Greenyham. ‘I forbid it!’ Beside him, Mr Nutmeg had sprayed his drink across several dripping guests.
‘Excuse me? You forbid, sir?’ said Ridcully, turning on Greenyham in sudden fury. ‘Sir, I am the Master of this college! I will not, sir, be told what to do in my own university! If there is anything to be forbidden here, sir, I will do the forbidding! Thank you! Go ahead, Mr Collabone!’
‘Er, er, er . . .’ Collabone panted, longing for death.
‘I said carry on, man!’
‘Er, er . . . yes . . . “There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died—”‘
‘Is there no law in this place? That is outright slander!’ shouted Stowley. ‘It’s a trick of some sort!’
‘By whom, sir?’ roared Ridcully. ‘Do you mean to suggest that Mr Collabone, a young wizard of great integrity, who I may say is doing wonderful work with snakes—’
‘—shellfish—’ murmured Ponder Stibbons.
‘—shellfish, is playing some kind of joke? How dare you, sir! Continue, Mr Collabone!’
‘I, I, I—’
‘That is an order, Dr Collabone!’*

* Archchancellor Ridcully was a great believer in retaliation by promotion. You couldn’t have civilians criticizing one of his wizards. That was his job.
 
‘Er . . . “Blood oils the machinery of the Grand Trunk as willing, loyal people pay with their lives for the Board’s culpable stupidity—” ’
The hubbub rose again. Moist saw Lord Vetinari’s gaze traverse the room. He didn’t duck in time. The Patrician’s stare passed right through him, carrying away who knew what. An eyebrow rose in interrogation. Moist looked away, and sought out Gilt.
He wasn’t there.
In the omniscope Mr Collabone’s nose now glowed like a beacon. He struggled, dropping pages, losing his place, but pressing on with the dogged, dull determination of a man who could spend all day
watching one oyster.
‘—nothing less than an attempt to blacken our good names in front of the whole city!’ Stowley was protesting.
‘ “—unaware of the toll that is being taken. What can we say of the men who caused this, who sat in comfort round their table and killed us by numbers? This—” ’
‘I will sue the University! I will sue the University!’ screamed Greenyham. He picked up a chair and hurled it at the omniscope. Halfway to the glass it turned into a small flock of doves, which panicked and soared up to the roof.
‘Oh, please sue the University!’ Ridcully bellowed. ‘We’ve got a pond full of people who tried to sue the University—’
‘Silence,’ said Vetinari.
It wasn’t a very loud word, but it had an effect rather like that of a drop of black ink in a glass of clear water. The word spread out in coils and tendrils, getting everywhere. It strangled the noise.
Of course, there is always someone not paying attention. ‘And furthermore,’ Stowley went on, oblivious of the hush unfolding in his own little world of righteous indignation, ‘it’s plain that—’
‘I will have silence,’ Vetinari stated.
Stowley stopped, looked around and deflated. Silence ruled.
‘Very good,’ said Vetinari quietly. He nodded at Commander Vimes of the Watch, who whispered to another watchman, who pushed his way though the crowd and towards the door.
Vetinari turned to Ridcully. ‘Archchancellor, I would be grateful if you would instruct your student to continue, please?’ he said in the same calm tone.
‘Certainly! Off you go, Professor Collabone. In your own time.’
‘Er, er, er, er . . . it says further on: “The men obtained control of the Trunk via a ruse known as the Double Lever, in the main using money entrusted to them by clients who did not suspect that—”‘
‘Stop reading that!’ Greenyham shouted. ‘This is ridiculous! It is just slander upon slander!’
‘I’m certain I spoke, Mr Greenyham,’ said Vetinari.
Greenyham faltered.
‘Good. Thank you,’ said Vetinari. ‘These are very serious allegations, certainly. Embezzlement? Murder? I’m sure that Mr— sorry, Professor Collabone is a trustworthy man’ - in the omniscope Devious Collabone, Unseen University’s newest professor, nodded desperately - ‘who is only reading what has been delivered, so it would appear that they have originated from within your own company. Serious allegations, Mr Greenyham. Made in front of all these people. Are you suggesting I should treat them as some sort of prank? The city is watching, Mr Greenyham. Oh, Stowley appears to be ill.’
‘This is not the place for—’ Greenyham tried, aware once more of the creaking of ice.
‘It is the ideal place,’ said Vetinari. ‘It is public. In the circumstances, given the nature of the allegations, I’m sure everyone would require that I get to the bottom of them as soon as possible, if only to prove them totally groundless.’ He looked around. There was a chorus of agreement. Even the upper crust loved a show.
‘What do you say, Mr Greenyham?’ said Vetinari.
Greenyham said nothing. The cracks were spreading, the ice was breaking up on every side.
‘Very well,’ said Vetinari. He turned to the figure beside him.
‘Commander Vimes, be so kind as to send men to the offices of the Grand Trunk Company, Ankh-Sto Associates, Sto Plains Holdings, Ankh Futures and particularly to the premises of the Ankh-Morpork Mercantile Credit Bank. Inform the manager, Mr Cheeseborough, that the bank is closed for audit and I wish to see him in my office at his earliest convenience. Any person in any of those premises who so much as moves a piece of paper before my clerks arrive will be arrested and held complicit in any or all of such offences as may be uncovered. While this is happening, moreover, no person concerned with the Grand Trunk Company or any of its employees is to leave this room.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Greenyham protested weakly, but the fire had drained out of him. Mr Stowley had collapsed on the floor, with his head in his hands.
‘Can I not?’ said Vetinari. ‘I am a tyrant. It’s what we do.’
‘What is happening? Who am I? Where is this place?’ moaned Stowley, a man who believed in laying down some groundwork as soon as possible.
‘But there’s no evidence! That wizard’s lying! Someone must have been bribed!’ Greenyham pleaded. Not only had the ice broken up, but he was on the floe with the big hungry walrus.
‘Mr Greenyham,’ said Lord Vetinari, ‘one more uninvited outburst from you and you will be imprisoned. I hope that is clear?’
‘On what charge?’ said Greenyham, still managing to find a last reserve of hauteur from somewhere.
‘There doesn’t have to be one!’ Robe swirling like the edge of darkness, Vetinari swung round to the omniscope and Devious Collabone, for whom two thousand miles suddenly wasn’t far enough. ‘Continue, Professor. There will be no further interruptions.’
Moist watched the audience as Collabone stuttered and mispronounced his way through the rest of the message. It dealt with generalities rather than particulars, but there were dates, and names, and thundering denunciations. There was nothing new, not really new, but it was packaged in fine language and it was delivered by the dead.
We who died on the dark towers demand this of you . . .
He ought to be ashamed.
It was one thing to put words in the mouths of the gods; priests did it all the time. But this, this was a step too far. You had to be some kind of bastard to think of something like this.
He relaxed a bit. A fine upstanding citizen wouldn’t have stooped so low, but he hadn’t got this job because he was a fine upstanding citizen. Some tasks needed a good honest hammer. Others needed a twisty corkscrew.
With any luck, he could believe that, if he really tried.

There had been a late fall of snow, and the fir trees around Tower 181 were crusted with white under the hard, bright starlight.
Everyone was up there tonight - Grandad, Roger, Big Steve-oh, Wheezy Halfsides, who was a dwarf and had to sit on a cushion to reach the keyboards, and Princess.
There had been a few muffled exclamations as the message came through. Now there was silence, except for the sighing of the wind. Princess could see people’s breath in the air. Grandad was drumming his fingers on the woodwork.
Then Wheezy said: ‘Was that all real?’
The breath clouds got denser. People were relaxing, coming back to the real world.
‘You saw the instructions we got,’ said Grandad, staring across the dark forests. ‘Don’t change anything. Send it on, they told us. We sent it on. We damn well did send it on!’
‘Who was it from?’ said Steve-oh.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Grandad. ‘Message comes in, message goes out, message moves on.’
‘Yeah, but was it really from—’ Steve-oh began.
‘Bloody hell, Steve-oh, you really don’t know when to shut up, do you?’ said Roger.
‘Only I heard about Tower 93, where the guys died and the tower sent a distress signal all by itself,’ mumbled Steve-oh. He was fast on the keys, but not knowing when to shut up was only one of his social failings. In a tower, it could get you killed.
‘Dead Man’s Handle,’ said Grandad. ‘You should know that. If there’s no activity for ten minutes when a signature key is slotted, the drum drops the jacquard into the slot and the counterweight falls and the tower sends the help sign.’ He spoke the words as if reading them from a manual.
‘Yeah, but I heard that in Tower 93 the jacquard was wedged and—’
‘I can’t stand this,’ muttered Grandad. ‘Roger, let’s get this tower working again. We’ve got local signals to send, haven’t we?’
‘Sure. And stuff waiting on the drum,’ said Roger. ‘But Gilt said we weren’t to restart until—’
‘Gilt can kiss my—’ Grandad began, then remembered the present company and finished:’—donkey. You read what went through just now! Do you think that bas— that man is still in charge?’
Princess looked out from the upstream window. ‘182’s lit up,’ she announced.
‘Right! Let’s light up and shift code,’ Grandad growled. ‘That’s what we do! And who’s going to stop us? All those without something to do, get out! We are running!’
Princess went out on to the little platform, to be out of the way. Underfoot the snow was like icing sugar, in her nostrils the air was like knives.
When she looked across the mountains, in the direction she’d learned to think of as downstream, she could see that Tower 180 was sending. At that moment, she heard the thump and click of 181’s own shutters opening, dislodging snow. We shift code, she thought. It’s what we do.
Up on the tower, watching the star-like twinkle of the Trunk in the clear, freezing air, it was like being part of the sky.
And she wondered what Grandad most feared: that dead clacks-men could send messages to the living, or that they couldn’t.

Collabone finished. Then he produced a handkerchief and rubbed away at whatever the green stuff was that had begun to grow on the glass. This made a squeaking sound.
He peered nervously through the smear. ‘Is that all right, sir? I’m not in some sort of trouble, am I?’ he asked. ‘Only at the moment I think I’m close to translating the mating call of the giant clam . . .’
‘Thank you, Professor Collabone; a good job well done. That will be all,’ said Archchancellor Ridcully coldly. ‘Unhinge the mechanism, Mr Stibbons.’ A look of fervid relief passed across Devious Colla-bone’s face just before the omniscope went blank.
‘Mr Pony, you are the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk, are you not?’ said Vetinari, before the babble could rise again.
The engineer, suddenly the focus of attention, backed away waving his hands frantically. ‘Please, your lordship! I’m just an engineer, I don’t know anything—’
‘Calm yourself, please. Have you heard that the souls of dead men travel on the Trunk?’
‘Oh, yes, your lordship.’
‘Is it true?
‘Well, er . . .’ Pony looked around, a hunted man. He’d got his pink flimsies, and they would show everyone that he was nothing more than a man who’d tried to make things work, but right now all he could find on his side was the truth. He took refuge in it. ‘I can’t see how, but, well . . . sometimes, when you’re up a tower of a night, and the shutters are rattlin’ and the wind’s singing in the rigging, well, you might think it’s true.’
‘I believe there is a tradition called “Sending Home”?’ said Lord Vetinari.
The engineer looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, sir, but . . .’ Pony felt he ought to wave a little flag for a rational world in which, at the moment, he didn’t have a lot of faith, ‘the Trunk was dark before we ran the message, so I don’t see how the message could have got on—’
‘Unless, of course, the dead put it there?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘Mr Pony, for the good of your soul and, not least, your body, you will go now to the Tump Tower, escorted by one of Commander Vimes’s men, and send a brief message to all the towers. You will obtain the paper tapes, which I believe are known as drum rolls, from all the towers on the Grand Trunk. I understand that they show a record of all messages originating at that tower, which cannot be readily altered?’
‘That will take weeks to do, sir!’ Pony protested.
‘An early start in the morning would seem in order, then,’ said Lord Vetinari.
Mr Pony, who had suddenly spotted that a spell a long way from Ankh-Morpork might be a very healthy option just now, nodded and said, ‘Right you are, my lord.’
‘The Grand Trunk will remain closed in the interim,’ said Lord Vetinari.
‘It’s private property!’ Greenyham burst out.
‘Tyrant, remember,’ said Vetinari, almost cheerfully. ‘But I’m sure that the audit will serve to sort out at least some aspects of this mystery. One of them, of course, is that Mr Readier Gilt does not seem to be in this room.’
Every head turned.
‘Perhaps he remembered another engagement?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘I think he slipped out some time ago.’
It dawned on the directors of the Grand Trunk that their chairman was absent and, which was worse, they weren’t. They drew together.
‘I wonder if, uh, at this point at least we could discuss the matter with you privately, your lordship?’ said Greenyham. ‘Readier was not an easy man to deal with, I’m afraid.’
‘Not a team player,’ gasped Nutmeg.
‘Who?’ said Stowley. ‘What is this place? Who are all these people?’
‘Left us totally in the dark most of the time—’ said Greenyham.
‘I can’t remember a thing—’ said Stowley. ‘I’m not fit to testify, any doctor will tell you . . .’
‘I think I can say on behalf of all of us that we were suspicious of him all along—’
‘Mind’s a total blank. Not a blessed thing . . . what’s this thing with fingers on . . . who am I . . .’
Lord Vetinari stared at the Board for five seconds longer than was comfortable, while tapping his chin gently with the knob of his cane. He smiled faintly.
‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Commander Vimes, I think it would be iniquitous to detain these gentlemen here any longer.’ As the faces in front of him relaxed into smiles full of hope, that greatest of all gifts, he added: ‘To the cells with them, Commander. Separate cells, if you please. I shall see them in the morning. And if Mr Slant comes to see you on their behalf, do tell him I’d like a little chat, will you?’
That sounded . . . good. Moist strolled towards the door, while the hubbub rose, and had almost made it when Lord Vetinari’s voice came out of the throng like a knife.
‘Leaving so soon, Mr Lipwig? Do wait a moment. I shall give you a lift back to your famous Post Office.’
For a moment, just a slice of a second, Moist contemplated running. He did not do so. What would be the point?
The crowd parted hurriedly as Lord Vetinari headed towards the door; behind him, the Watch closed in.
Ultimately, there is the freedom to take the consequences.

The Patrician leaned back in the leather upholstery as the coach drew away. ‘What a strange evening, Mr Lipwig,’ he said. ‘Yes, indeed.’
Moist, like the suddenly bewildered Mr Stowley, considered that his future happiness lay in saying as little as possible.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
‘I wonder if that engineer will find any evidence that the strange message was put on the clacks by human hands?’ he wondered aloud.
‘I don’t know, my lord.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ah,’ said Vetinari. ‘Well, the dead are known to speak, sometimes. Ouija boards and seances, and so on. Who can say they wouldn’t use the medium of the clacks?’
‘Not me, sir.’
‘And you are clearly enjoying your new career, Mr Lipwig.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. On Monday your duties will include the administration of the Grand Trunk. It is being taken over by the city.’
Oh well, so much for future happiness . . .
‘No, my lord,’ said Moist.
Vetinari raised an eyebrow. ‘There is an alternative, Mr Lipwig?’
‘It really is private property, sir. It belongs to the Dearhearts and the other people who built it.’
‘My, my, how the worm turns,’ said Vetinari. ‘But the trouble is, you see, they weren’t good at business, only at mechanisms. Otherwise they would have seen through Gilt. The freedom to succeed goes hand in hand with the freedom to fail.’
‘It was robbery by numbers,’ said Moist. ‘It was Find The Lady done with ledgers. They didn’t stand a chance.’
Vetinari sighed. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Mr Lipwig.’ Moist, who wasn’t aware he had tried to drive a bargain at all, said nothing. ‘Oh, very well. The question of ownership will remain in abeyance for now, until we have plumbed the sordid depths of this affair. But what I truly meant was that a great many people depend on the Trunk for their living. Out of sheer humanitarian considerations, we must do something. Sort things out, Postmaster.’
‘But I’m going to have my hands more than full with the Post Office!’ Moist protested.
‘I hope you are. But in my experience, the best way to get something done is to give it to someone who is busy,’ said Vetinari.
‘In that case, I’m going to keep the Grand Trunk running,’ said Moist.
‘In honour of the dead, perhaps,’ said Vetinari. ‘Yes. As you wish. Ah, here is your stop.’
As the coachman opened the door Lord Vetinari leaned towards Moist. ‘Oh, and before dawn I do suggest you go and check that everyone’s left the old wizarding tower,’ he said.
‘What do you mean, sir?’ said Moist. He knew his face betrayed nothing.
Vetinari sat back. “Well done, Mr Lipwig.’

There was a crowd outside the Post Office, and a cheer went up as Moist made his way to the doors. It was raining now, a grey, sooty drizzle that was little more than fog with a slight weight problem.
Some of the staff were waiting inside. He realized the news hadn’t got around. Even Ankh-Morpork’s permanent rumour-mill hadn’t been able to beat him back from the University.
‘What’s happened, Postmaster?’ said Groat, his hands twisting together. ‘Have they won?’
‘No,’ said Moist, but they picked up the edge in his voice.
‘Have we won?’
‘The Archchancellor will have to decide that,’ said Moist. ‘I suppose we won’t know for weeks. The clacks has been shut down, though. I’m sorry, it’s all complicated . . .’
He left them standing and staring as he trudged up to his office, where Mr Pump was standing in the corner.
‘Good Evening, Mr Lipvig,’ the golem boomed.
Moist sat down and put his head in his hands. This was victory, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like a mess.
The bets? Well, if Leadpipe got to Genua you could make a case under the rules that he’d won, but Moist had a feeling that all bets were off now. That meant people would get their money back, at least.
He’d have to keep the Trunk going, gods knew how. He’d sort of promised the Gnu, hadn’t he? And it was amazing how people had come to rely on the clacks. He wouldn’t know how Leadpipe had fared for weeks, and even Moist had got used to daily news from Genua. It was like having a finger cut off. But the clacks was a big, cumbersome monster of a thing, too many towers, too many people, too much effort. There had to be a way of making it better and sleeker and cheaper . . . or maybe it was something so big that no one could run it at a profit. Maybe it was like the Post Office, maybe the profit turned up spread around the whole of society.
Tomorrow he’d have to take it all seriously. Proper mail runs. Many more staff. Hundreds of things to do, and hundreds of other things to do before you could do those things. It wasn’t going to be fun any more, cocking a snook, whatever a snook was, at the big slow giant. He’d won, so he’d have to pick up the pieces and make everything work. And come in here the next day and do it all again.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. You won, and you pocketed the cash and walked away. That was how the game was supposed to go, wasn’t it?
His eye fell on Anghammarad’s message box, on its twisted, corroded strap, and he wished he was at the bottom of the sea.
‘Mr Lipwig?’
He looked up. Drumknott the clerk was standing in the doorway, with another clerk behind him.
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ said the clerk. ‘We’re here to see Mr Pump. Just a minor adjustment, if you don’t mind?’
‘What? Oh. Fine. Whatever. Go ahead.’ Moist waved a hand vaguely.
The two men walked over to the golem. There was some muted conversation, and then it knelt down and they unscrewed the top of its head.
Moist stared in horror. He knew it was done, of course, but it was shocking to see it happening. There was some rummaging around that he couldn’t make out, and then the cranium was replaced, with a little pottery noise.
‘Sorry to have disturbed you, sir,’ said Drumknott, and the clerks left.
Mr Pump stayed on his knees for a moment, and then rose slowly. The red eyes focused on Moist, and the golem stuck out his hand.
‘I Do Not Know What A Pleasure Is, But I Am Sure That If I Did, Then Working With You Would Have Been One,’ he said. ‘Now I Must Leave You. I Have Another Task.’
‘You’re not my, er, parole officer any more?’ said Moist, taken aback.
‘Correct.’
‘Hold on,’ said Moist, as light dawned, ‘is Vetinari sending you after Gilt?’
‘I Am Not At Liberty To Say.’
‘He is, isn’t he? You’re not following me any more?’
‘I Am Not Following You Any More.’
‘So I’m free to go?’
‘I Am Not At Liberty To Say. Good Night, Mr Lipvig.’ Mr Pump paused at the door. ‘I Am Not Certain What Happiness Is, Either, Mr Lipvig, But I Think - Yes, I Think I Am Happy To Have Met You.’
And, ducking to get through the doorway, the golem left.
That only leaves the werewolf, thought part of Moist’s mind, faster than light. And they’re not much good at boats and completely lost when it comes to oceans! It’s the middle of the night, the Watch are running around like madmen, everyone’s busy, I’ve got a bit of cash and I’ve still got the diamond ring and a deck of cards . . . who’d notice? Who’d care? Who’d worry?
He could go anywhere. But that wasn’t really him thinking that, was it . . . it was just a few old brain cells, running on automatic. There wasn’t anywhere to go, not any more.
He walked over to the big hole in the wall and looked down into the hall. Did anyone go home here? But now the news had got around, and if you wanted any hope of anything delivered anywhere tomorrow, you came to the Post Office. It was quite busy, even now.
‘Cup of tea, Mr Lipwig?’ said the voice of Stanley, behind him.
‘Thank you, Stanley,’ said Moist, without looking round. Down below, Miss Maccalariat was standing on a chair and nailing something to the wall.
‘Everyone says we’ve won, sir, ‘cos the clacks has been shut down ‘cos the directors are in prison, sir. They say all Mr Upwright has to do is get there! But Mr Groat says the bookies probably won’t pay up, sir. And the king of Lancre wants some stamps printed, but it’ll come a bit pricey, sir, since they only write about ten letters a year up there. Still, we’ve showed them, eh, sir? The Post Office is back!’
‘It’s some kind of banner,’ said Moist, aloud.
‘Sorry, Mr Lipwig?’ said Stanley.
‘Er . . . nothing. Thank you, Stanley. Have fun with the stamps. Good to see you standing up so . . . straight . . .’
‘It’s like having a new life, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘I’d better go, sir, they need help with the sorting . . .’
The banner was crude. It read: ‘Thank You Mr Lipwic!’
Gloom rolled around Moist. It was always bad after he’d won, but this time was the worst. For days his mind had been flying and he’d felt alive. Now he felt numb. They’d put up a banner like that, and he was a liar and a thief. He’d fooled them all, and there they were, thanking him for fooling them.
A quiet voice from the doorway behind him said: ‘Mad Al and the boys told me what you did.’
‘Oh,’ said Moist, still not turning round. She’ll be lighting a cigarette, he thought.
‘It wasn’t a nice thing to do,’ Adora Belle Dearheart went on, in the same level tone.
‘There wasn’t a nice thing that would work,’ said Moist.
‘Are you going to tell me that the ghost of my brother put the idea in your head?’ she said.
‘No. I dreamed it up myself,’ said Moist.
‘Good. If you’d tried that, you’d be limping for the rest of your life, believe me.’
‘Thank you,’ said Moist leadenly. ‘It was just a lie I knew people would want to believe. Just a lie. It was a way to keep the Post Office going and get the Grand Trunk out of Gilt’s hands. You’ll probably get it back, if you want it. You and all the other people Gilt swindled. I’ll help, if I can. But I don’t want thanking.’
He felt her draw nearer.
‘It’s not a lie,’ she said. ‘It’s what ought to have been true. It pleased my mother.’
‘Does she think it’s true?’
‘She doesn’t want to think it isn’t.’
No one does. I can’t stand this, Moist thought. ‘Look, I know what I’m like,’ he said. ‘I’m not the person everyone thinks I am. I just wanted to prove to myself I’m not like Gilt. More than a hammer, you understand? But I’m still a fraud by trade. I thought you knew that. I can fake sincerity so well that even I can’t tell. I mess with people’s heads—’
‘You’re fooling no one but yourself,’ said Miss Dearheart, and reached for his hand.
Moist— shook her off, and ran out of the building, out of the city and back to his old life, or lives, always moving on, selling glass as diamond, but somehow it just didn’t seem to work any more, the flair wasn’t there, the fun had dropped out of it, even the cards didn’t seem to work for him, the money ran out, and one winter in some inn that was no more than a slum he turned his face to the wall—
And an angel appeared.
‘What just happened?’ said Miss Dearheart.
Perhaps you do get two . . .
‘Only a passing thought,’ said Moist. He let the golden glow rise. He’d fooled them all, even here. But the good bit was that he could go on doing it; he didn’t have to stop. All he had to do was remind himself, every few months, that he could quit any time. Provided he knew he could, he’d never have to. And there was Miss Dearheart, without a cigarette in her mouth, only a foot away. He leaned forward—
There was a loud cough behind them. It turned out to have come from Groat, who was holding a large parcel.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but this just arrived for you,’ he said, and sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Messenger, not one of ours. I thought I’d better bring it straight up ‘cos there’s something moving about inside it . . .’
There was. And airholes, Moist noted. He opened the lid with care, and pulled his fingers away just in time.
‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!’ screamed the cockatoo, and landed on Groat’s hat.
There was no note inside, and nothing on the box but the address.
‘Why’d someone send you a parrot?’ said Groat, not caring to raise a hand within reach of the curved beak.
‘It’s Gilt’s, isn’t it?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘He’s given you the bird?’
Moist smiled. ‘It looks like it, yes. Pieces of eight!’
‘Twelve and a half per cent!’ yelled the cockatoo.
‘Take it away, will you, Mr Groat?’ said Moist. ‘Teach it to say . . . to say . . .’
‘Trust me?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘Good one!’ said Moist. ‘Yes, do that, Mr Groat.’

When Groat had gone, with the cockatoo balancing happily on his shoulder, Moist turned back to the woman.
‘And tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’ll definitely get the chandeliers back!’
‘What? Most of this place doesn’t have a ceiling,’ said Miss Dearheart, laughing.
‘First things first. Trust me! And then, who knows? I might even find the fine polished counter! There’s no end to what’s possible!’
And out in the bustling cavern white feathers began to fall from the roof. They may have been from an angel, but were more likely to be coming from the pigeon that a hawk was just disembowelling on a beam. Still, they were feathers. It’s all about style.

Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.
Lord Vetinari stood at the top of the stairs in the Great Hall of the Palace, and looked down on his clerks. They’d taken over the whole huge floor for this Concludium.
Chalked markings - circles, squares, triangles - were drawn here and there on the floor. Within them, papers and ledgers were piled in dangerously neat heaps. And there were clerks, some working inside the outlines and some moving noiselessly from one outline to another bearing pieces of paper as if they were a sacrament. Periodically clerks and watchmen arrived with more files and ledgers, which were solemnly received, assessed and added to the relevant pile.
Abacuses clicked everywhere. Clerks would pad back and forth and sometimes they would meet in a triangle and bend their heads in quiet discussion. This might result in their heading away in new directions or, increasingly as the night wore on, one clerk would go and chalk a new outline, which would begin to fill with paper. Sometimes an outline would be emptied and rubbed out and its contents distributed among nearby outlines.
No enchanter’s circle, no mystic’s mandala was ever drawn with such painfully meticulous care as the conclusions being played out on the floor. Hour after hour it went on, with a patience that at first terrified and then bored. It was the warfare of clerks, and it harried the enemy through many columns and files. Moist could read words that weren’t there but the clerks found the numbers that weren’t there, or were there twice, or were there but going the wrong way. They didn’t hurry. Peel away the lies, and the truth would emerge, naked and ashamed and with nowhere else to hide.
At 3 a.m. Mr Cheeseborough arrived, in a hurry and bitter tears, to learn that his bank was a shell of paper. He brought his own clerks, with their nightshirts tucked into hastily donned trousers, who went down on their knees alongside the other men and spread out more papers, double-checking figures in the hope that if you stared at numbers long enough they’d add up differently.
And then the Watch turned up with a small red ledger, and it was given a circle of its own, and soon the whole pattern re-formed around it . . .
It wasn’t until almost dawn that the sombre men arrived. They were older and fatter and better - but not showily, never showily -dressed, and moved with the gravity of serious money. They were financiers too, richer than kings (who are often quite poor), but hardly anyone in the city outside their circle knew them or would notice them in the street. They spoke quietly to Cheeseborough as to one who’d suffered a bereavement, and then talked among themselves, and used little gold propelling pencils in neat little notebooks to make figures dance and jump through hoops. Then quiet agreement was reached and hands were shaken, which in this circle carried infinitely more weight than any written contract. The first domino had been steadied. The pillars of the world ceased to tremble. The Credit Bank would open in the morning, and when it did so bills would be honoured, wages would be paid, the city would be fed.
They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But in truth it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there for ever provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.
This is known as Finance.
On the way back home to a simple breakfast, one of them dropped off at the Guild of Assassins to pay his respects to his old friend Lord Downey, during which current affairs were only lightly touched upon. And Reacher Gilt, wherever he had gone, was now certainly the worst insurance risk in the world. The people who guard the rainbow don’t like those who get in the way of the sun.

Epilogue

Some Time After

The figure in the chair did not have long hair, or an eyepatch. It didn’t have a beard or, rather, it wasn’t intending to have a beard. It hadn’t shaved for several days.
It groaned.
‘Ah, Mr Gilt,’ said Lord Vetinari, looking up from his playing board. ‘You are awake, I see. I’m sorry for the manner in which you were brought here, but some quite expensive people wish to see you dead and I thought it would be a good idea if we had this little meeting before they did.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ said the figure. ‘My name is Randolph Stippler, and I have papers to prove it—’
‘And wonderful papers they are, Mr Gilt. But enough of that. No, it is about angels that I wish to talk to you now.’
Reacher Gilt, wincing occasionally as the aches from three days of being carried by a golem made themselves felt, listened in mounting puzzlement to the angelic theories of Lord Vetinari.
‘. . . brings me on to my point, Mr Gilt. The Royal Mint needs an entirely new approach. Frankly, it’s moribund and not at all what we need in the Century of the Anchovy. Yet there is a way forward. In recent months Mr Lipwig’s celebrated stamps have become a second currency in this city. So light, so easy to carry, you can even send them through the post! Fascinating, Mr Gilt. At last people are loosening their grip on the idea that money should be shiny. Do you know that a typical one penny stamp may change hands up to twelve times before being affixed to an envelope and redeemed? What the Mint needs to see it through is a man who understands the dream of currency. There will be a salary and, I believe, a hat.’
‘You are offering me a job?’
‘Yes, Mr Stippler,’ said Vetinari. ‘And, to show the sincerity of my offer, let me point out the door behind you. If at any time in this interview you feel you wish to leave, you have only to step through it and you will never hear from me again . . .’
Some little time later the clerk Drumknott padded into the room. Lord Vetinari was reading a report on the previous night’s secret meeting of the Thieves’ Guild inner inner council.
He tidied up the trays quite noiselessly, and then came and stood by Vetinari.
‘There are ten overnights off the clacks, my lord,’ he said. ‘It’s good to have it back in operation.’
‘Indeed yes,’ said Vetinari, not looking up. ‘Otherwise how in the world would people be able to find out what we want them to think? Any foreign mail?’
‘The usual packets, my lord. The Uberwald one has been most deftly tampered with.’
‘Ah, dear Lady Margolotta,’ said Vetinari, smiling.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of removing the stamps for my nephew, my lord,’ Drumknott went on.
‘Of course,’ said Vetinari, waving a hand.
Drumknott looked around the office and focused on the slab where the little stone armies were endlessly in combat. ‘Ah, I see you have won, my lord,’ he said.
‘Yes. I must make a note of the gambit.’
‘But Mr Gilt, I notice, is not here . . .’
Vetinari sighed. ‘You have to admire a man who really believes in freedom of choice,’ he said, looking at the open doorway. ‘Sadly, he did not believe in angels.’

A Campaign for Real Cats
 
Far too many people these days have grown used to boring, mass-produced cats, which may bounce with health and nourishing vitamins but aren't a patch on the good old cats you used to get. The Campaign for Real Cats wants to change all that by helping people recognise Real Cats when they see them. Hence this book.
   
The Campaign for Real Cats is against fizzy keg cats.
 
   All right, How can I recognise a Real cat?
   Simple. Nature has done a lot of the work for you. Many Real cats are instantly recognisable. For example, all cats with faces that look as though they had been put in a vice and hit repeatedly by a hammer with a sock round it are Real cats. Cats with ears that look as though they have been trimmed with pinking shears are Real cats. Almost every non-pedigree unneutered tom is not only Real, but as it hangs around the house it gets Realer and Realer until one of you is left in absolutely no doubt as to its Realness.
   Fluffy cats are not necessarily unReal, but if they persist in putting on expressions of affronted dignity for the camera while advertising anything with the word “purr-fect” in the associated copy they are definitely bringing their Realness into question



Ah. So cats in adverts aren't Real?
   Actually being in adverts doesn't make a cat unReal—it can't help it if someone plonks it down in some weird pyramid made of carpet and takes pictures of it peeping anxiously out of the hole—but its demeanour once there counts for a lot.
   For example, if you put an unReal cat down in front of a row of bowls of catfood it will obediently choose the one made by the sponsors of the ad even if all the others haven't got sump oil on them. A Real cat, on the other hand, will head for the most expensive regardless, pull it out onto the studio floor, eat it with great pleasure, try some of the others, trip up the cameraman and then get stuck behind the newsreaders' podium. Where it will be sick. And then, when its owners buy several large tins of the wretched stuff, it'll refuse to touch it again.
 
   Real cats never wear bows (but sometimes they do wear bow-ties; see “Cartoon Cats”).
 
   Or appear on Christmas cards.
 
   Or chase anything with a bell on it.
 
   Real cats don't wear collars. But Real cats often do wear dolls' clothes, and sit there also wearing an expression of furry imbecility while their brains do a complex radar scan of their surroundings and then they take a special kind of leap that gets them out of the mob cap, dress, apron and doll's pram all in one move.
 
   Real cats are not simply self-possessed. Nor are they simply neurotic. They are both, at the same time, just like real people.
 
   Real cats do eat quiche. And giblets. And butter. And anything else left on the table, if they think they can get away with it. Real cats can hear a fridge door opening two rooms away.
 
   There is some dispute about this, but some of the hardliners in the CRC say that Real cats don't go to catteries when their owners go on holiday, but are fed by a simple arrangement of bowls and neighbours. It is also held that Real cats don't go anywhere in neat wicker Nissen huts with dinky little bars on the front. Now look. Schism and debate are of course the lifeblood of democracy, but I would just like to remind some of our more enthusiastic members of the great damage to the Campaign caused by the Flea Collar Discussion



(1985), the Proprietary Cat Litter Row (1986) and what became rather disgracefully reported as the Great Bowl With Your Name On It Fracas (1987). As I said at the time, while of course the ideal Real cat eats its meals off an elderly saucer with remnants of the last meal still crusting the edge or, more typically, eats it off the floor just beside it, a Real cat is what you are, not what is done to you. Some of us may very well feel happier carting our cats around in a cardboard box with the name of a breakfast food on the side, but Real cats have an inbuilt distrust of white coats, can tell instantly when the vet is in prospect, and can erupt from even the stoutest cardboard box like a ICBM. This generally happens in dense traffic or crowded waiting rooms.
   Despite the bad feeling caused by the Great Bowl With Your Name On It Fracas mentioned above, we should make it clear that Real cats do eat out of bowls with PUSSY written on the side. They'd eat out of them if they had the word ARSENIC written on the side. They eat out of anything.
 
   Real cats catch things.
 
   Real cats eat nearly all of everything they catch. A Real cat's aim is to get through life peacefully, with as little interference from human beings as possible. Very much like real humans, in fact.
 
   Can I be pedigree and a Real cat too?
   Of course you can't. You're a human.
 
   The cat, I mean.
   Ah. A thorny one, this. Logically, simply knowing your great-granddad's name should not be a bar to enjoying the full rich life, but some of the Campaign's more committed members believe that a true Real cat should be in some doubt as to its own existence, let alone that of its parents.
   We feel that this is an extreme view. It is true that many of us feel the quintessential Real cat looks like the survivor of a bad mincer accident, but if people are really going to go around judging a cat's Realness by looks and fur colour alone, then they must see that what they are working towards is a Breed in its own right (“And this Year's Supreme Champion is Sooty, by ‘Thatdamngreythingfromnextdoorsonthebirdtableagain’ out of ‘We just Call Her Puss’ of Bedwellty”).
   The point is that cats are different from dogs.
   A certain amount of breeding was necessary to refine dogs from the rough, tough, original stock to the smelly, fawning, dribbling morons1 of uncertain temper that we see today.
   As they were turned into anything that society felt at the time that it really wanted—self-powered earth-moving machines, for example, or sleeve ornaments—so the basic dogness was gradually diluted.
   Thus, your Real dog is far more likely to be a mongrel, except that the word is probably illegal these days, whereas all cats are, well, cats. More or less the same size, various colours, some fat, some thin, but still recognisably cats. Since the only thing they showed any inclination to do was catch things and sleep, no one ever bothered to tinker with them to make them do anything else. It's interesting to speculate on what they might have become had history worked out differently, though (see “The cats we missed”). All that cats were bred for, in fact, was general catness. All cats are potentially Real. It's a way of life…
 
   What has the Campaign for Real Cats got against dogs, then?
   Nothing.
 
   Oh, come on.
   No, there are perfectly good, well-trained, well-behaved dogs who do not bark like a stuck record, or crap in the middle of footpaths, sniff groins, act like everyone's favourite on mere assumption, and generally whine, steal and grovel in a way that would put a 14th century professional mendicant to shame. We recognise this.
 Good.
   There are also forgiving traffic wardens, tarts with hearts of gold, and solicitors who do not go on holiday in the middle of your complicated house purchase. You just don't meet them every day.

Getting started
   
 We got a cat because we didn't like them much.
   Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself.
   A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning. However, if you're predisposed to keep cats, rational thought has nothing to do with it. We've never met anyone who recalls waking up one day and thinking: “This morning I will go shopping and buy some sprouts, one of those blue things for the lavatory, some baking foil—and, oh yes, a cat would be nice.”
   Cats have a way of always having been there even if they've only just arrived. They move in their own personal time. They act as if the human world is one they just happened to have stopped off in, on their way to somewhere that is possibly a whole lot more interesting.
   And what, when you come right down to it, do we know about them? Where did they come from? People say, well, evolution, it stands to reason. Why? Look at dogs. Dogs descended from wolves. You can tell. Some dogs are alsatians, which is just a wolf in a collar, biding its time. And then there's all these smaller dogs, going down in size until you get the weird little ones with lots of Zs in their name which squeak and can get into pint mugs. The point is, you can see the evolution happening, all the way from hairy semi-wolves to bald yappy things bred to go up Emperor's sleeves or whatever.
   You know that if civilisation suddenly stopped, if great clanking things from Alpha Centauri suddenly lurched out of the sky and spirited mankind away, the dogs would be about two meals away from becoming wolves.
   Or look at us. Some of the details might be a bit fiddly, but we—bright, civilised us, who know all about mortgages and non-stick saucepans and Verdi—can look back over our genetic shoulders and see a queue of stumbling figures going all the way back to little crouching shapes with hairy chests, no forehead and the intelligence of a gameshow audience.
   Cats are different. On the one hand we have these great tawny brutes that sit yawning under the hot veldt sun or burning bright in jungles, and on the other there's these little things that know how to sleep on top of off-peak heaters and use cat doors. Not much in between. is there? A whole species divided, basically, between 500lbs of striped muscle that can bring down a gnu, and ten pounds of purr. Nowhere do we find the Piltdown Cat, the missing lynx.
   All right, there's the wild cat, but that just looks like your average domestic tabby who's been hit on the head with a brick and got angry about it. No, we must face it. Cats just turned up. One minute nothing, next minute Egyptians worshipping them, mummifying them, building tombs for them. No messing around with a spade in the sad bit of the garden behind the toolshed for your Pharaohs, not when 20,000 men and a load of log rollers were standing around idle.
   Scientists working for the Campaign for Real Cats believe that, because of the Schrodinger experiments (qv), the whole question of where cats come from, and how, is now totally meaningless, since there appear to be some cats that can travel quite painlessly across time and space, and therefore this means that the only place/time we can be sure cats come from is now.

How to get a cat

1. Adverts in the Post Office
   
Five adorable tabby kittens, Just ready to leave Mum, Free to Good Home, Please Phone…
   Yes. Please, Please Phone, because they're all big and fighting with one another and some of the males are beginning to take a sophisticated interest in Mum. Do not be fooled into believing that you will need to turn up bearing evidence of regular church-going and sober habits; good home in this case means anyone who doesn't actually arrive in a van marked
   J Torquemada and Sons, Furriers.
   if you answer the ad you'll find there's one kitten left.
   There's always one kitten left. You spend ages trying to figure out what it was that made the previous four purchasers leave it behind.
   Eventually you will find out.
   Nevertheless, Adverts in the Post Office are a good way of acquiring your basic cat.
 
2. Adverts in posh cat magazines
   
Pretty much like (1.) except that the word “adorable” probably won't be used and the word “free” certainly won't be used. Not to be contemplated by anyone on a normal income.
   The cats acquired in this way are often very decorative, but if that's all you want a cat for then a trip to the nearest urban motorway with a paint scraper will do the business.
   Pedigree cats talk a lot—catownerspeak for yowling softly—and tend to rip curtains. Being so highly bred, some of them are mentally unstable. A friend had an Arch-Villains' cat (qv) which thought it was a saucepan. But, because it was very expensive and more highly bred than Queen Victoria, it thought it was a saucepan with style.
 
3. Buying a house in the Country
   
A very reliable way of acquiring a cat. It'll normally turn up within the first year, with a smug expression that suggests it is a little surprised to see you here. It doesn't belong to the previous occupants, none of the neighbours recognise it, but it seems perfectly at home. Why? It is very probably a Schrodinger Cat (qv).
 
4. The Cats' Home
   
Another very popular source, especially just after Christmas and the summer holiday period, when their sales are on. Despite the fact that you can barely hear her on the phone for the background of yowling, the harassed young lady will probably take rather more pains than the average Post Office Advert cat seller to ensure you haven't actually got skinning knives in your pocket. Often no payment, just a voluntary donation—made at pistol point. You will be offered a variety of furry kittens, but the cat for you is the one-year-old spayed female lurking at the back of the cage with a worried expression who will show her appreciation by piddling in the car all the way home.
 
5. Inheritance
 
These cats come with a selection of bowls, half a tin of the most expensive cat food on the market, a basket and a small woolly thing with a bell in it. They will then spend two weeks under the bed in the spare room. Try to get it out and it could be you in the hospital having skin from your buttocks grafted onto your arm.
   Cats are not always inherited from dead people. If the previous owner is still alive, the Real cat will probably be accompanied by a list of its likes and dislikes. Throw it away. They're just fads anyway.
   Try to avoid inheriting cats unless they come with a five-figure legacy, or at least the expectation of one.
 
6. Joint ownership
 
 Do you know where your cat spends its time when it's not at home? It's worth checking with more distant neighbours that they don't have a cat with the same size and colouring. It can happen. We once knew two households who for years both thought they owned the same cat, which spent its time commuting between food bowls. A sort of menagerie à trois.
 
   An interesting fact about acquiring cats is that the things are, by and large, either virtually free or very expensive. It's as if the motor industry had nothing between the moped and the porsche.