History Class
A/n: Twist, trapped in her home by 2' of snow and avoiding her term paper writes a fic set in the future of Ankh-Morpork. Hide your eyes, children.
Disclaimer: All characters, excluding Scott, belong to Terry Pratchett. Oh, and I own all the future people. They are of my creation.
~
Scott woke when his alarm clock beeped at him. He slapped it off, and rolled out of bed. The sun's sluggish light was pulling over the tips of the buildings of Ankh-Morpork.
The routine was thus every morning: Scott would roll out of bed at 6.30, curse school, and dress. After finding the light switch he would brush his teeth and wash whatever he could remember to. He would go downstairs, enjoy a solitary glass of milk, and curse his parents for being able to sleep until seven. Then he would walk to school, which was in Zephire Street.
He stared at the bag lunch on the kitchen table for a minute before he left. Why was that there? Ah, right, field trip to the Palace Grounds. Terrific. Who cared about some stupid rulers that lived like, 1000* years ago? No one. He grabbed the brown bag with a frustrated sigh, stalking out of the house as he did so. At least there wouldn't be classes today.
~
Jere sat outside the school, twirling her hair on her finger. She was waiting for her boyfriend, Scott, to show. He was usually late, but she figured he'd be early on the day of a field trip. There was a whole day of talking behind teacher's backs and not getting yelled at by adults.
He showed eventually, sitting down next to her as soon as he arrived. "Ready to tour the old Palace? I'm so excited," she said. To say that the previous two sentences were sarcastic would be the understatement of the millennium. You could have harvested the sarcasm and sold it.
"At least we're not in class," he pointed out. "What era are we doing in history, anyway? I mean, which Patrician are we focusing on? Just in case they ask questions or quiz us or something," he added, seeing her face.
"The Patrician after the last King," she said slowly, chewing gum industriously as she wracked her pretty blonde memory, "to the guy who set up all the Guilds and stuff. The one who got arrested like, 40 times." She grinned. "What an idiot."
Scott was slightly insulted. Anyone who could be arrested over ten times and continue to hold a position of power, he felt, ought to be given some credit. There suddenly came a terrible, raspy voice. The youths turned.
The Hair was descending the stairs. His name was Mr. McWolfe** and he was the dreaded history teacher of all fifth-years. The sight of his flapping toupee could send many a child running in fear. Scott and Jere had learned to tolerate the man. "All history students accompanying me -"
"He makes it sound as though we had an option."
"- on the fifth-year field trip to the former Patrician's Palace and grounds should gather round." Grudgingly, the teens climbed to their feet. The teacher's dreaded pit stains were present even at this early hour of the morning. Jere and Scott shared a Look. The teacher moved slowly down a list of names, and when roll had been taken began to dispense instructions. "You are to walk together. We are merely walking down Broad Way, so no wandering off, stay within sight of a classmate, and don't talk to strangers. When we reach the Palace, the tour guide will divide you into groups." He looked sternly at the two students talking in the back. "Don't expect to be with your friends."
"Right, windbag," Jere hissed under the chorus of 'Yessir.' "So, what are we doing, anyway? Is there going to be free time?" She reached into knapsack and pulled out a book. "I figured I'd lay by that stupid trout stream thing and read for a while."
"I think all we're doing is following a tour guide lady around the Palace and listening to her ramble on," Scott replied. He looked up at the sky. It was already beginning to feel warmer than was comfortable. "Nice day for a walk around those gardens though."
"I hope it doesn't rain," Jere said, glancing at the clouds on the horizon. "We'd be stuck inside that place for the whole day." She made a face. "Yick."
The walk through the streets was as interesting as ever. Years of time had hardly changed Ankh-Morpork's sense of street sales and entertainment. Most of the students had wanted to hang around to see a magician free his beautiful assistants from a flaming board, but McWolfe had made them continue onward.
The Palace was an old landmark, familiar to anyone who lived in Ankh- Morpork. It was beginning to look its age, but historical societies had done their best and while it did look venerable, it did not look as though it was about to fall down. The students gathered at the gates to the front steps, where three smiling three smiling tour guides stood awaiting their group of students. They looked excited. *** Jere and Scott were already munching at the deserts from their lunches.
McWolfe and the tour guide exchanged a short conversation, and the Head Tour Guide stepped forward. "Hello, students," she said, which was met by a chorus of mumbled 'Hallos'. "My name is Mindy and I'm going to be one of the tour guides leading you through the Palace today. The other two ladies you see here are Tina and Cindy. Now, please, divide yourself up into three groups. Please try to make them as even as possible. Naturally, students teamed up with their friends, so McWolfe wandered through the crowd of students, separating them into orderly groups. There were several moans of protest, and more silent wails of despair as McWolfe joined one of the groups. Jere and Scott had escaped the wrath of McWolfe, so they decided to behave themselves as Tina led the teacher and his terrified group away. The adolescents looked to the front and discovered that while McWolfe would be observing the Palace with another group of unfortunates, they had the bad luck of falling into Mindy's group.
"Marvelous," Scott sighed. "She's probably been here the longest. She'll give us every little tiny detail about the place. We'll come out knowing the significance of the woodwork." Jere was chewing her gum and twirling her hair contemplatively.
"But, you see, she'll know all about the Patricians and stuff. We could get the down and dirty on that one who was arrested a bazillion times; I do need more stuff for my next unit paper." Mindy finished her bright and thankfully brief speech and led the students up the long steps and into the hall of the Palace.
"This is the front hall of the Patrician's Palace. Millions of visitors would visit here each day while Lord Frederick Rust was Patrician. If you'll notice the wear in the carpet . . ." and so it went on. Jere and Scott listened with half an ear, in case she mentioned a delinquent Patrician; however the main thing she spoke about was the architecture and old statistics of visitors, servant highs, and etcetera.
"You free on Thursday night?" Scott asked, as Mindy opened the doors onto the secretary's hall.
"No, it's full moon," Jere answered. Scott nodded, remembering his girlfriend was a werewolf. Sometimes it was so hard; she seemed so very normal all the time.
" - Patrician Havelock Vetinari had an all-time high of secretaries working for him, though it has been said that all they did was carry around and dispose of papers. It was said that is a secretary was caught reading any official documents before the Patrician had seen them; they were hung over the scorpion pit. Moving along, we will see the Oblong Office, which was where Patricians used to work, though after the death of Vetinari it became a strictly historical room and the Patricians following would not work in there." Mindy leaned conspiratorially close to the tour group, most of whom were falling asleep. "Some say he still haunts the Office."
"That's right, the delinquent Patrician was Vetinari! He was the one who had an issue with mimes!"
"Good for him," Jere replied, spitting out her gum into the wrapper. "Have anything to chew on?"
Mindy threw the doors to the Oblong Office open. It was a boring place; Scott noted. The walls were a distressing shade of green and the one small, double-pane window admitted very little light. There was one desk, one chair, one map stand, one fireplace, and one bookshelf. Mindy gestured that they all should enter the room. Scott and Jere slid to the back of the group, next to the bookcase. On closer inspection, the books had title such as "Poison in Your Life, The Assassin's Guide" and "Political Geniuses and How They Did It: An Informational Volume." Scott was quite interested in the book on poisons, however Mindy began speaking and with the doors closed in this small room she became quite hard to ignore.
"As I said before, all Patricians right up to Lord Vetinari worked in this office. The office is in the same state as it was left following Vetinari's death. You'll notice," she said, wading through the group in order to reach the bookcase, "that many of the books on the shelf are books that are no longer in print. That is because these same books were on these same shelves over one thousand years ago. We are very careful with them," she added. Jere had waited quite long enough to hear the down and dirty on the delinquent Patrician, and spoke up.
"Why are some of the books on assassination?" Mindy gave her the briefest of confused stares before plunging on.
"It is believed by most historians that Lord Vetinari was educated at the Ankh-Morpork Assassin's Guild, though no solid evidence of that fact exists. Now, if we could move on to the rest of the tour . . ." Jere gave a short, exasperated sigh. She and Scott figured they would wait until the rest of the comatose group filed out of the room until they left. Growing impatient, Scott leaned against the wall. It opened. Jere clapped her hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming.
"You've found a secret passage! And our way out of this stupid tour!" Grabbing Scott's wrist, she tugged him into the dark passage beyond. Behind them, the door slid shut without a sound. "This is so amazing," Jere whispered. "Can you believe it? Just wait until I have to sum up the visit. McWolfe'll have an issue!"
"Maybe you oughtn't to tell him about this, Jere. I think we should find the group." He brushed a cobweb away. "I really do not like this."
"Oh, shut up, I can't smell anything."
"What?"
"Look, there's a door up ahead." Jere insistently pulled Scott toward the small, probably hidden door up ahead. "Something smells like tin," she said, as they drew level with the door. "And there're voices in there."
"Perhaps we've found another tour?" Scott said hopefully. "And what's this with smelling all of a sudden? You didn't tell me your sense of smell was beefed up because of your lycanthropy!"
Ignoring him, Jere pushed the door open. Three people were in that room. And they were staring. Not nicely, either. Oh, and they were transparent. Scott and Jere couldn't move. One of the people leaned back in the chair and glanced at the hand of cards he was holding. "I told you we'd be found," he said simply.
One of the people had risen and was walking over to the petrified pair. He had a friendly smile on his face. Jere backed onto Scott. "Don't worry," he said. "It's not like we were going to hurt you."
"We couldn't anyway," said he other. They looked strangely familiar. "Come in, if you must," the third sighed. He sounded as though he wanted to be annoyed, but couldn't quite muster up the energy to do it. Jere and Scott entered, out of sheer, terrified, obedience. The first, who was intent on his cards and rather more solid than the other two, snapped his fingers. Two more chairs materialized.
"So what would your names be?" the second figure asked, reseating himself in between the other two. Jere, who seemed to be recovering from seeing three transparent people squeaked out her name and added Scott's when they all realized that the poor boy was probably somewhere very happy in his mind. "Nice to meet you! My name is Carrot Ironfoundersson, and this is -"
"- Commander His Grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork -" the first supplied
"- Mister Vimes, and that is Lord Vetinari, but he's just told us that he's also the Anthropomorphic Personification of Political Stability, so call him what you like I suppose." Carrot grinned. "What brings you here?"
"Mr. Vetinari?" The first looked up, raising an eyebrow as he did so. "Aren't you dead?"
"Marvelous observation! Give the kid a prize," Vetinari growled. He laid two cards upside down on the pile in the center of the table. "Two fours."
"Bullshit," the third said. The cards were overturned, revealed to really be two fours, and thrust across the table towards the Commander's ghost. Vimes grumbled and added them to his hand. "I hate it when you actually tell the truth."
"Didn't you get arrested like, forty times?" Scott asked faintly from his happy place. Vetinari snorted.
"Only two, thank you." There was a brief pause. "Only twice during my term of office, anyway." Jere, by this time, had recovered enough to ask a coherent question.
"Do you think you could write a paper? On a tour of the Palace?" All three spirits turned to give her a hard glare. Carrot was the first to speak.
"Do you know how dishonest that would be? It would be cheating!" Vimes and Vetinari, however, were thinking.
"I've never taken a tour of the Palace," Vetinari said slowly.
"But you lived there!"
"Well, yes, but there weren't tours a thousand years ago. No one cared all that much. Plus, have you ever taken a tour of your house?" Vetinari didn't even watch as Carrot lay what he said were three fives on the table. He did, however, watch as Vimes laid one card on the table and declared it was a six. Vetinari and Carrot both glanced at their cards. "Bullshit, Vimes." A frustrated noise escaped the Commander's memory of a throat and he pulled the pile toward him.
"But you could give me notes, right? Like population and so forth? Laws that were more important at the time? Laws you made up?"
"Carrot." The two shorter men said. Carrot cleared his throat.
"Well, of course, all the laws and ordinances of the cities of Ankh and Morpork were and are important, and none of the laws were more heavily emphasized than any other. Except for the law on street theater, of course. Any mimes found plying their art within the walls of Ankh-Morpork were sent to the Palace to be dealt with as his Lordship saw fit. The population at the time of our lives hovered around one million, with its small increases and decreases. The dwarf population exploded after the death of Lord Snapcase and the installment of Lord Vetinari. Shortly after, the troll population increased rapidly, as well as the undead population. The large Guilds were said to be the cause, however many said it was the lifting of the curfew and the many new business opportunities presented to those who would move to Ankh-Morpork."
Jere looked up from her notebook, which she had produces somewhere in the first sentence of Carrot's mini-essay. Scott was taking his own notes. "Did you miss anything?" He face was a picture of shocked awe.
"Well, I could tell you the name of many of the entrepreneurs of the period, though that may take awhile. There was Mr. C.M.O.T. Dibbler -"
"No, no!" Jere said, waving her hands frantically. "I already wrote a report on that. You've been quite helpful, thank you." Vetinari and Vimes were sniggering. Scott looked at Vimes curiously.
"You were the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, right?"
"Yes," Vimes said carefully, looking Scott up and down carefully.
"Weren't your dying words something along the lines of 'Die you bastards!'?"
"If you must know, it was 'You're all going to bloody well die for this, bastards!'." Vimes sighed and looked at his hand of cards. "I'm going to know if either of you are lying, you know."
"You're my hero," Scott said in awe. He glanced at Vetinari. "And you too, because anyone who can get arrested more than once and get away with it is worth admiration." Vimes and Vetinari exchanged looks. There was the general feeling among the dead that someone ought to either hit the kid or at least give him a push in the right direction.
"While the completely wrong reasons for having a hero, it's nice to know that we're appreciated," Vimes said. Vetinari had since left the task of discipline to the men who had had children and was shuffling the cards in a rather bored manner.
"So why're you undead?" Jere asked, seeing that this whole conversation could go downhill very quickly.
"Something about karma or something," Vimes said, scooping up the hand Vetinari had dealt. "What's the game?"
"Something that uses seven cards." Vetinari was looking shuffling the remainder of the deck. "They had too much life force, but their bodies were . . . not in any state to be inhabited any longer." He shrugged. "That's how you get ghosts, though there are complications in which one's body is in perfect form for a zombie but one still becomes a ghost."
"And Carrot said you're the something something of political stability?"
"Anthropomorphic personification. I am people image of political stability in a more tangible form. Death's the same way. Black cowl, scythe, great smelly horse, that sort of thing."
"Do any of you do any actual haunting?"
Carrot looked up. "Why should we? That would frighten people." His big, honest, transparent face wrinkled up with confusion.
"Well, they run Halloween tours, and they tell everyone to look out for ghosts. It would be kind of cool if, you know, the former Duke of Ankh- Morpork walked through someone." Scott looked perplexed as to why any ghost /wouldn't/ want to haunt. The three dead shared a Look.
"And what would I be expected to do if I were to walk through someone? Wail or something of the sort?" Vimes was looking as threatening as a transparent person can look.
"No, just look like you've come from a meeting or something. Like you're still living you life, even though it's been a thousand years." Scott was becoming slightly exasperated. He shouldn't have to explain this to ghosts. He glanced at Jere, who glanced at her watch.
"You'd just have to look bloody angry, then," Vetinari said, with a slight grin. "That would scare people. Make good entertainment for an hour or so." There was a long silence and finally Jere, seeing that no more conversation was forthcoming spoke up.
"I suppose we ought to be going now? The tour will be soon over." Without a word, Vetinari snapped his fingers and they vanished.
Three weeks later . . .
Scott and Jere exchanged looks as the history papers were handed back. The titles were both something to the affect of 'What I Learned from the Tour of the Palace.' Both had received an A.
~
*Okay, I'm saying this takes place just over 1000 years after Night Watch.
**Everyone had told them his relatives had immigrated to Ankh-Morpork from some obscure country in Überwald. He has nothing to do with the Roundworld takeaway sandwich shop.
**I have only ever met one tour guide who didn't look as though they were about to burst with the excitement of telling you every trivial fact they know about the place you are about to tour. Of course, I'm only in High School so correct me if I'm wrong.
A/n: Twist, trapped in her home by 2' of snow and avoiding her term paper writes a fic set in the future of Ankh-Morpork. Hide your eyes, children.
Disclaimer: All characters, excluding Scott, belong to Terry Pratchett. Oh, and I own all the future people. They are of my creation.
~
Scott woke when his alarm clock beeped at him. He slapped it off, and rolled out of bed. The sun's sluggish light was pulling over the tips of the buildings of Ankh-Morpork.
The routine was thus every morning: Scott would roll out of bed at 6.30, curse school, and dress. After finding the light switch he would brush his teeth and wash whatever he could remember to. He would go downstairs, enjoy a solitary glass of milk, and curse his parents for being able to sleep until seven. Then he would walk to school, which was in Zephire Street.
He stared at the bag lunch on the kitchen table for a minute before he left. Why was that there? Ah, right, field trip to the Palace Grounds. Terrific. Who cared about some stupid rulers that lived like, 1000* years ago? No one. He grabbed the brown bag with a frustrated sigh, stalking out of the house as he did so. At least there wouldn't be classes today.
~
Jere sat outside the school, twirling her hair on her finger. She was waiting for her boyfriend, Scott, to show. He was usually late, but she figured he'd be early on the day of a field trip. There was a whole day of talking behind teacher's backs and not getting yelled at by adults.
He showed eventually, sitting down next to her as soon as he arrived. "Ready to tour the old Palace? I'm so excited," she said. To say that the previous two sentences were sarcastic would be the understatement of the millennium. You could have harvested the sarcasm and sold it.
"At least we're not in class," he pointed out. "What era are we doing in history, anyway? I mean, which Patrician are we focusing on? Just in case they ask questions or quiz us or something," he added, seeing her face.
"The Patrician after the last King," she said slowly, chewing gum industriously as she wracked her pretty blonde memory, "to the guy who set up all the Guilds and stuff. The one who got arrested like, 40 times." She grinned. "What an idiot."
Scott was slightly insulted. Anyone who could be arrested over ten times and continue to hold a position of power, he felt, ought to be given some credit. There suddenly came a terrible, raspy voice. The youths turned.
The Hair was descending the stairs. His name was Mr. McWolfe** and he was the dreaded history teacher of all fifth-years. The sight of his flapping toupee could send many a child running in fear. Scott and Jere had learned to tolerate the man. "All history students accompanying me -"
"He makes it sound as though we had an option."
"- on the fifth-year field trip to the former Patrician's Palace and grounds should gather round." Grudgingly, the teens climbed to their feet. The teacher's dreaded pit stains were present even at this early hour of the morning. Jere and Scott shared a Look. The teacher moved slowly down a list of names, and when roll had been taken began to dispense instructions. "You are to walk together. We are merely walking down Broad Way, so no wandering off, stay within sight of a classmate, and don't talk to strangers. When we reach the Palace, the tour guide will divide you into groups." He looked sternly at the two students talking in the back. "Don't expect to be with your friends."
"Right, windbag," Jere hissed under the chorus of 'Yessir.' "So, what are we doing, anyway? Is there going to be free time?" She reached into knapsack and pulled out a book. "I figured I'd lay by that stupid trout stream thing and read for a while."
"I think all we're doing is following a tour guide lady around the Palace and listening to her ramble on," Scott replied. He looked up at the sky. It was already beginning to feel warmer than was comfortable. "Nice day for a walk around those gardens though."
"I hope it doesn't rain," Jere said, glancing at the clouds on the horizon. "We'd be stuck inside that place for the whole day." She made a face. "Yick."
The walk through the streets was as interesting as ever. Years of time had hardly changed Ankh-Morpork's sense of street sales and entertainment. Most of the students had wanted to hang around to see a magician free his beautiful assistants from a flaming board, but McWolfe had made them continue onward.
The Palace was an old landmark, familiar to anyone who lived in Ankh- Morpork. It was beginning to look its age, but historical societies had done their best and while it did look venerable, it did not look as though it was about to fall down. The students gathered at the gates to the front steps, where three smiling three smiling tour guides stood awaiting their group of students. They looked excited. *** Jere and Scott were already munching at the deserts from their lunches.
McWolfe and the tour guide exchanged a short conversation, and the Head Tour Guide stepped forward. "Hello, students," she said, which was met by a chorus of mumbled 'Hallos'. "My name is Mindy and I'm going to be one of the tour guides leading you through the Palace today. The other two ladies you see here are Tina and Cindy. Now, please, divide yourself up into three groups. Please try to make them as even as possible. Naturally, students teamed up with their friends, so McWolfe wandered through the crowd of students, separating them into orderly groups. There were several moans of protest, and more silent wails of despair as McWolfe joined one of the groups. Jere and Scott had escaped the wrath of McWolfe, so they decided to behave themselves as Tina led the teacher and his terrified group away. The adolescents looked to the front and discovered that while McWolfe would be observing the Palace with another group of unfortunates, they had the bad luck of falling into Mindy's group.
"Marvelous," Scott sighed. "She's probably been here the longest. She'll give us every little tiny detail about the place. We'll come out knowing the significance of the woodwork." Jere was chewing her gum and twirling her hair contemplatively.
"But, you see, she'll know all about the Patricians and stuff. We could get the down and dirty on that one who was arrested a bazillion times; I do need more stuff for my next unit paper." Mindy finished her bright and thankfully brief speech and led the students up the long steps and into the hall of the Palace.
"This is the front hall of the Patrician's Palace. Millions of visitors would visit here each day while Lord Frederick Rust was Patrician. If you'll notice the wear in the carpet . . ." and so it went on. Jere and Scott listened with half an ear, in case she mentioned a delinquent Patrician; however the main thing she spoke about was the architecture and old statistics of visitors, servant highs, and etcetera.
"You free on Thursday night?" Scott asked, as Mindy opened the doors onto the secretary's hall.
"No, it's full moon," Jere answered. Scott nodded, remembering his girlfriend was a werewolf. Sometimes it was so hard; she seemed so very normal all the time.
" - Patrician Havelock Vetinari had an all-time high of secretaries working for him, though it has been said that all they did was carry around and dispose of papers. It was said that is a secretary was caught reading any official documents before the Patrician had seen them; they were hung over the scorpion pit. Moving along, we will see the Oblong Office, which was where Patricians used to work, though after the death of Vetinari it became a strictly historical room and the Patricians following would not work in there." Mindy leaned conspiratorially close to the tour group, most of whom were falling asleep. "Some say he still haunts the Office."
"That's right, the delinquent Patrician was Vetinari! He was the one who had an issue with mimes!"
"Good for him," Jere replied, spitting out her gum into the wrapper. "Have anything to chew on?"
Mindy threw the doors to the Oblong Office open. It was a boring place; Scott noted. The walls were a distressing shade of green and the one small, double-pane window admitted very little light. There was one desk, one chair, one map stand, one fireplace, and one bookshelf. Mindy gestured that they all should enter the room. Scott and Jere slid to the back of the group, next to the bookcase. On closer inspection, the books had title such as "Poison in Your Life, The Assassin's Guide" and "Political Geniuses and How They Did It: An Informational Volume." Scott was quite interested in the book on poisons, however Mindy began speaking and with the doors closed in this small room she became quite hard to ignore.
"As I said before, all Patricians right up to Lord Vetinari worked in this office. The office is in the same state as it was left following Vetinari's death. You'll notice," she said, wading through the group in order to reach the bookcase, "that many of the books on the shelf are books that are no longer in print. That is because these same books were on these same shelves over one thousand years ago. We are very careful with them," she added. Jere had waited quite long enough to hear the down and dirty on the delinquent Patrician, and spoke up.
"Why are some of the books on assassination?" Mindy gave her the briefest of confused stares before plunging on.
"It is believed by most historians that Lord Vetinari was educated at the Ankh-Morpork Assassin's Guild, though no solid evidence of that fact exists. Now, if we could move on to the rest of the tour . . ." Jere gave a short, exasperated sigh. She and Scott figured they would wait until the rest of the comatose group filed out of the room until they left. Growing impatient, Scott leaned against the wall. It opened. Jere clapped her hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming.
"You've found a secret passage! And our way out of this stupid tour!" Grabbing Scott's wrist, she tugged him into the dark passage beyond. Behind them, the door slid shut without a sound. "This is so amazing," Jere whispered. "Can you believe it? Just wait until I have to sum up the visit. McWolfe'll have an issue!"
"Maybe you oughtn't to tell him about this, Jere. I think we should find the group." He brushed a cobweb away. "I really do not like this."
"Oh, shut up, I can't smell anything."
"What?"
"Look, there's a door up ahead." Jere insistently pulled Scott toward the small, probably hidden door up ahead. "Something smells like tin," she said, as they drew level with the door. "And there're voices in there."
"Perhaps we've found another tour?" Scott said hopefully. "And what's this with smelling all of a sudden? You didn't tell me your sense of smell was beefed up because of your lycanthropy!"
Ignoring him, Jere pushed the door open. Three people were in that room. And they were staring. Not nicely, either. Oh, and they were transparent. Scott and Jere couldn't move. One of the people leaned back in the chair and glanced at the hand of cards he was holding. "I told you we'd be found," he said simply.
One of the people had risen and was walking over to the petrified pair. He had a friendly smile on his face. Jere backed onto Scott. "Don't worry," he said. "It's not like we were going to hurt you."
"We couldn't anyway," said he other. They looked strangely familiar. "Come in, if you must," the third sighed. He sounded as though he wanted to be annoyed, but couldn't quite muster up the energy to do it. Jere and Scott entered, out of sheer, terrified, obedience. The first, who was intent on his cards and rather more solid than the other two, snapped his fingers. Two more chairs materialized.
"So what would your names be?" the second figure asked, reseating himself in between the other two. Jere, who seemed to be recovering from seeing three transparent people squeaked out her name and added Scott's when they all realized that the poor boy was probably somewhere very happy in his mind. "Nice to meet you! My name is Carrot Ironfoundersson, and this is -"
"- Commander His Grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork -" the first supplied
"- Mister Vimes, and that is Lord Vetinari, but he's just told us that he's also the Anthropomorphic Personification of Political Stability, so call him what you like I suppose." Carrot grinned. "What brings you here?"
"Mr. Vetinari?" The first looked up, raising an eyebrow as he did so. "Aren't you dead?"
"Marvelous observation! Give the kid a prize," Vetinari growled. He laid two cards upside down on the pile in the center of the table. "Two fours."
"Bullshit," the third said. The cards were overturned, revealed to really be two fours, and thrust across the table towards the Commander's ghost. Vimes grumbled and added them to his hand. "I hate it when you actually tell the truth."
"Didn't you get arrested like, forty times?" Scott asked faintly from his happy place. Vetinari snorted.
"Only two, thank you." There was a brief pause. "Only twice during my term of office, anyway." Jere, by this time, had recovered enough to ask a coherent question.
"Do you think you could write a paper? On a tour of the Palace?" All three spirits turned to give her a hard glare. Carrot was the first to speak.
"Do you know how dishonest that would be? It would be cheating!" Vimes and Vetinari, however, were thinking.
"I've never taken a tour of the Palace," Vetinari said slowly.
"But you lived there!"
"Well, yes, but there weren't tours a thousand years ago. No one cared all that much. Plus, have you ever taken a tour of your house?" Vetinari didn't even watch as Carrot lay what he said were three fives on the table. He did, however, watch as Vimes laid one card on the table and declared it was a six. Vetinari and Carrot both glanced at their cards. "Bullshit, Vimes." A frustrated noise escaped the Commander's memory of a throat and he pulled the pile toward him.
"But you could give me notes, right? Like population and so forth? Laws that were more important at the time? Laws you made up?"
"Carrot." The two shorter men said. Carrot cleared his throat.
"Well, of course, all the laws and ordinances of the cities of Ankh and Morpork were and are important, and none of the laws were more heavily emphasized than any other. Except for the law on street theater, of course. Any mimes found plying their art within the walls of Ankh-Morpork were sent to the Palace to be dealt with as his Lordship saw fit. The population at the time of our lives hovered around one million, with its small increases and decreases. The dwarf population exploded after the death of Lord Snapcase and the installment of Lord Vetinari. Shortly after, the troll population increased rapidly, as well as the undead population. The large Guilds were said to be the cause, however many said it was the lifting of the curfew and the many new business opportunities presented to those who would move to Ankh-Morpork."
Jere looked up from her notebook, which she had produces somewhere in the first sentence of Carrot's mini-essay. Scott was taking his own notes. "Did you miss anything?" He face was a picture of shocked awe.
"Well, I could tell you the name of many of the entrepreneurs of the period, though that may take awhile. There was Mr. C.M.O.T. Dibbler -"
"No, no!" Jere said, waving her hands frantically. "I already wrote a report on that. You've been quite helpful, thank you." Vetinari and Vimes were sniggering. Scott looked at Vimes curiously.
"You were the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, right?"
"Yes," Vimes said carefully, looking Scott up and down carefully.
"Weren't your dying words something along the lines of 'Die you bastards!'?"
"If you must know, it was 'You're all going to bloody well die for this, bastards!'." Vimes sighed and looked at his hand of cards. "I'm going to know if either of you are lying, you know."
"You're my hero," Scott said in awe. He glanced at Vetinari. "And you too, because anyone who can get arrested more than once and get away with it is worth admiration." Vimes and Vetinari exchanged looks. There was the general feeling among the dead that someone ought to either hit the kid or at least give him a push in the right direction.
"While the completely wrong reasons for having a hero, it's nice to know that we're appreciated," Vimes said. Vetinari had since left the task of discipline to the men who had had children and was shuffling the cards in a rather bored manner.
"So why're you undead?" Jere asked, seeing that this whole conversation could go downhill very quickly.
"Something about karma or something," Vimes said, scooping up the hand Vetinari had dealt. "What's the game?"
"Something that uses seven cards." Vetinari was looking shuffling the remainder of the deck. "They had too much life force, but their bodies were . . . not in any state to be inhabited any longer." He shrugged. "That's how you get ghosts, though there are complications in which one's body is in perfect form for a zombie but one still becomes a ghost."
"And Carrot said you're the something something of political stability?"
"Anthropomorphic personification. I am people image of political stability in a more tangible form. Death's the same way. Black cowl, scythe, great smelly horse, that sort of thing."
"Do any of you do any actual haunting?"
Carrot looked up. "Why should we? That would frighten people." His big, honest, transparent face wrinkled up with confusion.
"Well, they run Halloween tours, and they tell everyone to look out for ghosts. It would be kind of cool if, you know, the former Duke of Ankh- Morpork walked through someone." Scott looked perplexed as to why any ghost /wouldn't/ want to haunt. The three dead shared a Look.
"And what would I be expected to do if I were to walk through someone? Wail or something of the sort?" Vimes was looking as threatening as a transparent person can look.
"No, just look like you've come from a meeting or something. Like you're still living you life, even though it's been a thousand years." Scott was becoming slightly exasperated. He shouldn't have to explain this to ghosts. He glanced at Jere, who glanced at her watch.
"You'd just have to look bloody angry, then," Vetinari said, with a slight grin. "That would scare people. Make good entertainment for an hour or so." There was a long silence and finally Jere, seeing that no more conversation was forthcoming spoke up.
"I suppose we ought to be going now? The tour will be soon over." Without a word, Vetinari snapped his fingers and they vanished.
Three weeks later . . .
Scott and Jere exchanged looks as the history papers were handed back. The titles were both something to the affect of 'What I Learned from the Tour of the Palace.' Both had received an A.
~
*Okay, I'm saying this takes place just over 1000 years after Night Watch.
**Everyone had told them his relatives had immigrated to Ankh-Morpork from some obscure country in Überwald. He has nothing to do with the Roundworld takeaway sandwich shop.
**I have only ever met one tour guide who didn't look as though they were about to burst with the excitement of telling you every trivial fact they know about the place you are about to tour. Of course, I'm only in High School so correct me if I'm wrong.