Terry Pratchett owns all Discworld stuff.

Light editing done 07/10/07


When the eyes slid open this time, the left eye had markedly worse vision than the right. When the world held still long enough to allow focus, the consciousness behind the eyes was able to register the interior of a crypt, one that was oddly neat and wallpapered. A distant bell rang in the memory of the consciousness, and slowly, the recalled image of a strange Igor formed.

The world went blurry again – well, blurrier, in the case of the left eye – and then fell still. There were tugs somewhere above the eyes that corresponded with the blurs. Slowly, as the consciousness got accustomed to the weird visuals and weirder, fragmented memories, sound began to filter in.

"… if I connect that lobe to that one with – dammit, not with that wire! I'd hate to bring the girl into it. Not natural –"

Yank! The view from the left eye went black.

"Bah! Wrong nerve!"

Poke! Wobble wobble wobble. The scene stabilized, and light came back in a flare on the left side. From somewhere below the eyes, a reflexive, throaty noise erupted.

"Oh, dear," said the voice doing all the tugging and muttering. A heavy-jowled, gray-green face popped into view from the right. The Igor from before. "You're truly remarkable, do you know that? I very nearly admire it," he said. "I am enjoying working with you, but you keep waking up."

Tug! Poke. Wiggle.

"Quit it."


Teatime had not been all that impressed the last time he'd been at the Unseen University; the wizards had just stupidly stood there, handed him – him! – Death's sword, and watched him stroll out. He found it difficult to give the slightest damn about anyone who had so little a sense of self-preservation. The small, monkeylike bits in the back parts of their brains should have had them shifting toward the exits. Even a cow, the single stupidest organism on the Disc in Teatime's opinion, chose to run when he was near.

And now, it was just insulting. He was surrounded by five of the nosy blighters, as well as Susan, and they were all staring at him, talking as if he weren't even in the room!

"Hix, this is your field, man!" rumbled the tallest, most barrel-chested of the lot. Ridcully. Archchancellor of the University. He'd kept the wizards from reducing the Sto Plains to sludge for years now. Teatime had eavesdropped on him more than a few times during school and while fulfilling the first stages of several contracts; indeed, a carelessly scornful word from Ridcully had led Teatime to luckless Mr. Sideney. Best to keep that bit of information quiet, at least while Ridcully was four feet away and staring intently.

"I can only act on theory, here, Archchancellor!" protested the one with a tasteless widow's peak and cape. Hix. Necromancer, though the term was out of vogue, as the practice was technically forbidden. Amateur thespian, though Hix resented that term. He added, "In a practical sense, I deal in spirits who want to be bottled up downstairs, or with physical remains and morphic resonance! A vengeful ghost with a broken mind and a penchant for pranks has no precedent!"

Teatime scowled. He'd remember that; he actually took a moment to envision his hand folding up the memory like paper and sticking it into a post box in his head. Really, had Susan led him here just to listen to them talk all day? She'd promised dullness, and she was managing it.

"Then set the precedent, Dr. Hix!" Ridcully boomed. "Show some spine, will you? Are we or are we not the cradle of knowledge around here? Learn how to deal with a cracked dead Assassin!"

At this reminder, Hix blanched and glanced at Teatime, who thought it useful to let a smile spread across his face like butter over hot toast. He, at the same time, filed away Ridcully's comment, too. Surely such rudeness deserved a little payback. Perhaps a loved one's severed hand in a package, except, oh, no, Mr. Lipwig had already written up rules about what could not go through the Post Office – body parts were near the top. Teatime would think of something.

A thin hand swatted through the air where Teatime's head had just been. He leaned up out of his half-crouch and looked reproachfully at Susan. First off, would she ever stop trying to hit him? It was rude and getting a little wearisome. Secondly, would she ever stop trying to hit him? Because she nearly always missed. He supposed she was the sort to keep trying, since she'd had some past success.

"Stop making him nervous, Teatime," Susan snapped, again mangling the name. Then she glared at Dr. Hix, who shrank back a little, and said, "He can't hurt you, and you know it. Stop being scared of ghosts! This is your job!"

Hix flapped his liver-spotted hands a little, and they moved stiffly, clearly not used to the gesture. In his line of work, there was little he hadn't seen and less that could frighten him. "Sorry, my lady!" He shrank back again at the glower she leveled at him. Pathetically, the Head of the Department of Post Mortem Communications explained, "Look, you're the Mortem to which my department is Post! I just –"

With a glare that sent the man scuttling back two steps, Susan interrupted, "Just try to fix my problem with the least amount of silliness, will you?" She undid Hix's retreat with two feline steps that Teatime admired, from one intimidator to another, and added, "Because, really, who is more frightening right now? Him? Or me?"

The man broke out in a sweat, which sent a stream of black hair dye trickling from his widow's peak. "I-I've done as much as I can, ma'am," he stuttered, gesturing at the floor. No one glanced down; the runes scrawled there glowed so powerfully that it caused everyone in the room to look like the villains of a very strange stage play. "There are only a few ways to force a spirit to leave, and if you've already tried a priest, there's little I can do to dislodge him. I'm more of a catch-and-bottle sort of necromancer."

And that was the main problem here, Teatime thought. Somehow, the wizards had trapped him in a circle of glowing chalk, and so far, he'd not found a way out. If he tried to leave the circle physically, he struck a solid surface. Restlessly, he prodded at the barrier with the ghostly dagger he'd somehow retained. It sparked like horseshoes on cobblestones and let off a smell like a fried rock; he felt his hair stand on end, and the memory of his scrying-stone eye glowed softly. Everyone glanced up at him, reminded of his presence. Each of them looked like they were trying to fight a smile – he must look a sight, he supposed – but each of them managed to conceal the amusement somehow. Even Susan's look of exasperation was twitching around the corners.

"This is so boring," Teatime complained. He crossed his arms, not even bothering to set his hair right or sheathe the dagger.

"You could volunteer to leave this plane of existence," was Ridcully's prompt, almost off-hand suggestion.

Teatime turned his full attention to the Archchancellor, who didn't so much as blink.

Ridcully added a little less off-handedly, "However, I can think of a number of much more interesting things for you to do while you're here at the University. Most of them are experimental and involve a thinking engine."

"Oh, I say, Archchancellor!" This was Ponder Stibbons, whom Teatime had last seen hovering over him with a quill and a lot of silly questions. The younger wizard, who looked like he'd just made the transition from spotty and gangly to slightly pear-shaped and balding with very little time to separate the two phases, jabbed at the nosepiece of his spectacles. "Please don't bring Hex into this! He's already got all the Bursar's calculations started, and the payroll alone is –"

Teatime tuned them out at this point. Everyone's attention was off of him again, and while he did enjoy being noticed, he'd always felt that being ignored could be useful. At least until he'd pulled of whatever maneuver he'd planned; then full attention was required. He slid his dagger back into its sheath and then moved his hands outward. The left hand struck resistance first; the right came against solid air a full three inches later. Teatime shifted his body to the absolute center of the circle and pressed outward again. The cylinder of air around him was rock-solid and only four feet across. He would not be able to get through. Dr. Hix had made it, and the wizards believed in it. Even Susan believed in it. It would hold.

But.

Outside the spell, Dr. Hix was stroking at his pointy beard. "That's a problem that Hex could challenge itself with, Mr. Stibbons! Just think of the raw data you could collect on ghosts and on the necromantic runes that I've not had to use in my entire tenure here!"

"Really, I don't think we need to bother Hex until we've at least checked with the Librarian," Stibbons replied. His not-exactly-a-chin wobbled in frustration. "There's no need to initiate new experiments if other wizards have already thoroughly explored the problem! Why duplicate research?"

These wizards, though they were now progressive enough not to pitch city-demolishing fireballs at one another when annoyed, were still and forever hidebound. Hardly a full skeleton's worth of creative bones in the entire faculty. And when imaginations stagnated…

Teatime leaned back against one side of the cylinder trapping him and pushed one boot against the opposite side. When he shoved that foot against the air, the air obeyed physics (and rather blew a raspberry at them, as well) and pressed back in just the same way as the inside of a chimney. Teatime smiled, wiggled his shoulders against the barrier behind him, and placed his other foot against the air six inches higher than the first.


"Here, now, I thought I told you to quit waking up while I'm working," a voice complained.

Awareness returned rather more quickly than before. The Igor was standing in front of the consciousness and its field of vision, and it was clear that the consciousness was being held upright by a number of probably-not-very-comfortable straps. It didn't know. Its sense of touch was turned off.

"You're nearly a zombie, you're that defiant!" Igor added, almost cheerfully. "But you're interfering with my learning, and I have limited time."

Igor moved behind the consciousness. Its right eye was dead this time, and it was able to see the crypt in front of it with clear, but oddly flat vision. On the slab that was in the center of the room, a corpse lay covered to the waist with a stained sheet. It was attached by several wires and tubes to a panel in the wall; the sound of clicking machinery came from the panel. The body itself was thin and pale and of the masculine persuasion. The top of its head was covered by a mess of blond curls. The torso was laced with a few old scars and had a much more recently repaired puncture wound just below the ribcage. One of the eyes was clearly missing, leaving an unpleasant depression in an otherwise attractive face.

"I only have enough power to work on one of you at a time," Igor muttered from somewhere behind. "And I'm running out. Wake up again, and I'll pitch you onto the rubbish heap and put all my effort into him."

The world went dark one more time.