The Holding Cells of the Ankh Morpork Watch House were, as a rule, not supposed to be on fire. However, since this was where the people with a penchant for rule-breaking got put, the current conflagration was not exactly unfounded.

It licked its way around the cell as the two on-duty watch officers ran around with buckets of sand. From their cells, you could hear inmates egging the fire on and insulting the officers' sand-throwing technique.

Igor, on the other hand, was sitting on his bench and twiddling his thumbs, (which is a lot more difficult when you have four) and trying to figure out what exactly in a stone penitentiary could possibly be on fire.

Then something happened that made his* ears twitch: the cheering had stopped. Maybe they'd lost interest in the firefight- it certainly seemed to Igor that it was very one sided, but there was so little to do in here that almost anything was good sport. They'd once played I Spy with a blind man.

Igor tried to slow down his heart- sometimes this meant temporarily removing it and hitting it a little- but thankfully not this time. He just reminded himself that the guards and the prisoners couldn't possibly have died in the fire, because personal experience had taught him people burning alive were invariably noisy.

But the fire didn't seem to be going out…

Had they left the prisoners to die, only looking out for themselves? Who watches the watchman indeed. No-one was watching out for us jail rats.

It seemed to take an age, but the next thing he heard, he recognised. Someone was obviously trying to speak but gagging on their own blood. Why, the last time he'd heard that he was working for Count Sardick the Sharp, just after he'd defeated his arch nemesis in mortal combat. Oh, how they'd drank that night! Igor had had to get a new liver afterwards. Luckily one had recently become available.

He suddenly realised that not every connotation of a stabbing was a happy one.

This probably meant someone had set the fire deliberately and wanted someone here dead. Igor could feel his heart again. He'd obviously done a good job on improving it because it was beating 150 times a minute.

And there was the stabber. Tall, goateed, blade in hand, and, he noticed, another one being pocketed. The face was familiar, and had Igor been in Ankh Morpork longer, he'd have recognised it instantly. Although Vetinari never gave him time to forget it.

A blade appeared in Igor's heart and blood started pouring out. He fell to his knees, making the same sound he'd heard a moment ago.

Vetinari slid through the bars like a snake and stood over him, the fire casting him in shadow. He leant down and tugged at Igor's ear until it was only held on by a few stitches.

He spoke softly into his ear; in a voice no-one would even think to associate with a killer. Instructions. Then he stared right into his eyes. Understood?

Igor nodded desperately. He'd agree to anything right now. Vetinari had just offered him a way out hadn't he? All he needed to do was follow instructions, get out of here and find a new heart…

"When you see the hooded man…" he'd said.

Even in the shadow, Igor could see Vetinari's shark-like smile. Then he'd thrown him to the floor, wrenching the ear from his head and dropping it. Igor tried to scream, but his mouth was too full of blood.

Vetinari stepped backwards, blending through the cell bars and leaving as quietly as he'd come. Igor tried to follow him, but he couldn't fit through the gap. Frantically he tore at the stitching at his shoulders, trying desperately to rid himself of whatever width he could.

He cast one arm off and was half way through the other when he died, his body half in, half out of the cell, collapsed over the scolding metal.

But it didn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would, he reflected, looking down on the scene. There were much more unpleasant ways to go- he'd even helped design a few back in his evil minion days- but at least he'd died at the hands of an avenging hero; that was almost a tradition in his family.

He didn't know the man's face though, so how could it be an avenging hero? Who was there for him to avenge? Come to think of it, that wasn't exactly heroic. The man had killed him while he was helpless. And he'd killed everyone else too.

Hang on- killed?

Then it dawned on him. He was dead. He looked once again at his body. It was difficult enough to call it his body when he was in it, what with all the replacements and upgrades, but now, empty and half-consumed by flame, it was almost impossible.

SORRY I'M LATE.

Igor turned. Behind him stood a seven foot tall skeleton clothed in darkest night. It was holding an hourglass.

IT'S ALL BEEN A BIT CONFUSING SINCE THEY BROUGHT IN DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME.

Igor nodded. "Tho I'm dead" he observed.

YES.

"What happenth now?"

I HAVEN'T THE FAINTEST IDEA.

"Really?"

SOME SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT SAY THAT WHEN AN IGOR DIES, THEY'RE REUNITED WITH THEIR OLD BODY.

Igor looked down. Every joint was laced with stitches still, but some fixtures were different. His ear seemed to have returned. He shrugged.

OTHERS SAY YOUR SOUL SPLITS UP AND LIVES ON IN THE BODY PARTS THAT YOU'VE DONATED.

Igor couldn't help but notice the stress he was putting on the 's' sounds.

"I thtill theem to be in one piethe."

PERPLEXING ISN'T IT.

"You're not going to tell me which?"

I FIND THE DECEASED TENDS TO KNOW BEST.

"Tho I get to choothe? One of thothe two?"

NOT NECESSARILY.

"I can dethide what I want?"

YOU CAN INDEED. Death clacked his bony finger against his wrist.

"Maybe my thoul ith a mithture of lotth of soulth from all the bodieth and in paradithe I thpend eternity with them until our thouls merge?"

SOUNDS NICE.

"Can I do that, then?"

Death raised his scythe, ready to swing. One last thought occurred to Igor.

"You're a hooded man."

I SUPPOSE.

"My killer thaid to give you a meththage. He said "Tell him I'm coming for him"… Doth that mean anything to you?"

Death swung.

*Though Igors technically didn't have genders, this Igor had chosen what looked like the least problematic of the urine expulsion systems and the loosely applied pronouns that went with it. Currently, the system was working overtime.