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Chapter XIII
In main editorial office of The Ankh-Morpork Times, otherwise known as the office, the interruption game was in full swing.
"William, everyone else…" began Sacharissa.
"Who's everyone?" he demanded.
"Oh, let's see: The Banner, The Tribune, The Post, The Chronicle."
"And that's everyone is it?" he re-demanded, "sorry for interrupting you."
"You didn't," she said, "that is everyone."
"Oh, yes," he remembered. Then he whirled around and threw some papers across the room. Just for effect, as there was nothing written on any of them.
"William, listen, everyone is reporting this and…"
"They're not reporting it; they're saying it, he corrected, resuming the game, "our reporters are saying…"
"Who do you mean by our reporterS?"
"Alright, our reporter then. And our under the bed reporter."
"We have a spy?"
"Yes, very close to Lord Bothermore."
"How unpleasant for him, or her, or it. And what does our reporter say?"
"She says it's absolute nonsense; that there isn't a single word of truth in any of it and that those responsible are utter blackguards."
This certainly sounded like Selene, The Times' sole remaining reporter, who was something of a conundrum, wrapped in a paradox, inside a stumper. To begin with, they were neither of them even sure what species she was. Apart from the tallest, thinnest female either of them had ever seen. A female what remained a mystery. Sacharissa had ventured: sylph, shade, siren and spectre. Though William suspected this had more to do with her over-fondness for alliteration than with any sound reasoning.
What was undeniable was: she could get absolutely anywhere without being discovered, find out absolutely anything, was always totally accurate, produced precise and perfect copy, never told a lie and, most importantly, never expected any payment.
"And that should tell you all you need to know."
"William, apart from Selene our entire staff is: you, me and Otto, oh, and our secret, spy source. While all the other papers can't hire staff fast enough. The only reason we're still in business is because Lord Vetinari buys our entire print run, sends a few copies to his friends and has people give away the rest on street corners. And because Hadrid Copperplate is prepared to run them off, as a favour, in the downtime when he's working for The Voice. That should tell you something."
"What are you saying: that we should be the mouth of the mob?"
"No! But we shouldn't be the mouthpiece of The Patrician either!"
They slumped down in their chairs and glared at each other. Then they thought about it for a bit and just glowered at each other instead. The silence was very, very quiet. In the end Sacharissa cracked it:
"Everybody's saying it," she said, almost confirming her own point, "they can't all just be making it up."
"Selene says they are."
Sacharissa stopped for a moment and looked warily around the room.
"Selene," she said, "if you're there; I'm not saying I doubt you, really. But what about the photographs?"
"WHAT!?" yelled William, unbelieving.
Sacharissa was almost knocked over by all the punctuation.
"They're our photographs. Otto's photographs. Someone broke in here and stole them, don't you remember? Photographs of groups of Omnians defending their homes and shops, that they then printed a lot of lies about. And they didn't publish any of the ones he took of crowds throwing rocks through the windows of Omnian shops."
"Oh, William, for gods' sakes, look at the evidence!" she said, taking four newspaper front pages from her bag and throwing them on the desk between them, "these aren't Otto's photographs!"
"No, miss," said Otto Chriek, materialising out of the shadows, impeccable in evening dress, as always, "ze are not photographs at all, ze are crude iconographs drawn by imps. Ze bear no more relation to reality zan do do ze portraits of ze artists."
"Otto!" said Sacharissa, taken unawares, "how did you get here?"
"I vurk here, young miss, I do not need a pass."
It wasn't as though anyone could forget that Otto was a vampire; the opera-cape was a dead giveaway. And it wasn't as though William had forgotten that, deep down, even the Black Ribboners were still monsters. But he had never before heard Otto speak with such chilling menace. By the shocked and frightened look on her face, Sacharissa hadn't done either.
"I'm sorry," she said, in a trembling voice, "I just didn't realise you were there."
And then he was gone in, if anything, an even more frightening way than the way he'd arrived."
Otto's daft idea had been that he'd wanted to create photography. It had turned him into a joke, –a vampire capturing sunlight- then an artist and finally, an invaluable resource for both police and press. Yet that one swift glance had reminded her of just what a terrifying thing he could become if he ever once lost his granite self-control. When the spooky silence had gone on for far too long, Sacharissa started in again:
"But what about the stories, William? " she persisted, "I'll accept that a dozen could just be a rumour, or a hundred, but thousands and thousands can't all be false."
"Well," said William, "I don't think there are thousands and thousands of stories; I think it's the same four or five passed around like Agatean Whispers until it sounds like everybody's saying…"
"Oh, you're trying to say…"
"No!" said Selene.
She was suddenly there. Otto had sort of become, in a spooky sort of way; Selene wasn't there. And then, all of a sudden, she was.
"There are thousands and thousands of stories; none with any basis in truth; all complete lies. Or perhaps you think I have some reason to lie about this myself."
She looked at Sacharissa in a way that was, by a long way, even colder than Otto had managed. Sacharissa shook her head vigorously.
"And I have no need for a pass either," the look she gave Sacharissa this time drained all the colour from her face, "I work here too."
She looked nervously around but she didn't have any friends in the room and, when Otto came back up from the basement with a large bag, she had one fewer.
"It zimply containz all my materialz," he explained, in case they suspected that it might contain a body.
"And I was just dropping off my last piece of copy," said Selene.
"What are you talking about!?" exclaimed Scharissa, "what about tomorrow's paper!?"
"But nobody reads The Times," said Selene, frostily, "you said so yourself."
"Well, not nobody," said Sacharissa, wondering just how long Selene had been there, "it doesn't mean we stop publishing!"
"But don't you we think we ought to if, as everyone knows, we don't publish the truth."
Scharissa let that sink in; then she let it brew for a little and then she uncorked it. Women really could manage a lot of processes in two seconds.
"Oh, right!" she shouted, "I see what you're doing. Everyone's a dupe and an idiot apart from you three, right?"
"Well, not exactly everyone," said William, "there are quite a few others who…"
Sacharissa was as angry as an angry wasp, that's just been stung by a wasp.
"Oh, you nearly had me there!" she exclaimed, rising in dudgeon so high it should have towered over all of them, "well you can keep your sneering, smug, supercilious self-importance, and much good may it do you!"
And with that she flounced out, slamming the door behind her with such force that they were surprised The Times didn't come down around them.
"A fine exit," said William, "though she's really going to have to get control of that alliteration."
"It's odd to have a woman of whom you are at once so proud and so ashamed," said Selene.
"No one said life wasn't going to be semi-tough," agreed William.
"Never mind zis," said Otto, "zoon ze mob vill be comink vis zee flaming torches, just like ze old days, ah, ah ah…"
"Otto, please," Selene admonished.
"I'm zorry," he apologised, "I vorget myself zometimes."
Selene now took William aside and became far more corporeal than he'd ever seen her before.
"Listen," she said, "Otto wasn't joking. Well, actually he was, but people really are going to come here and burn this building down, tonight."
"How do you know?"
"I'm a reporter, it's on my CV, it's what I do."
"Let them come."
"Oh, don't be stupid. It's time for you to lock up and go."
When William started to object she placed a finger lightly on his lips:
"I know you'd like to stay, to be the last to leave, to go down with your ship… But Otto and I can survive a furnace, we've played this game before, you can't."
"But what are you two going to do?"
"Hmmm, I quite like being the helpless, terrified little girl at the upstairs window. He suggested he could dangle me in just my nightdress, by my skinny little ankle from the roof just as it begins to give way."
"Why on The Disc would you want to do that!?"
"Because one of the people who'd set fire to the place might actually regret that they'd done so."
"But then they might try to rescue you."
"Better still. Listen, William, whatever people may say, Otto is not a monster, and nor am I, but the people coming to burn this place down tonight really are, or are controlled by one."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure, it's just a feeling."
"And what about Sacharissa?"
"She's hard of thinking, I'm afraid. Or she just isn't thinking about what she's hearing."
"Isn't that true of all of them?"
"Well, yes, I suppose, but she's a lot better at thinking than they are. Don't worry about her, she can take care of herself and I'll keep an eye on her too. Get out, lock the door and get yourself safe. We'll be in touch."
William de Worde did as he was told. He even thought of throwing the key on the river; it would only lie there and he could always walk over and pick it up later if he changed his mind. In the end he decided to keep it because it would make a good symbol. The Times was going underground, in fact he could almost hear Lars Larssonson's hammer in the mines where the presses were being forged. He had no idea how he was going to pay for this but he knew that TRUTH would find a way. And then someone cracked him over the head with a brick and knocked him out.
For her part, Sacharissa had long since walked off her fury, then her rage, then her anger and finally even her annoyance. But she still wasn't happy. What she needed was a carefully crafted cup of coffee, and she knew just the place.
There were those who liked the robust jolt of a Klatchian roast and those who preferred the dark mysteries of Howondaland; some went for the subtleties of Genua and still others the bittersweet virtues of Omnia… But her heart would always belong to Quirm and, more especially to Carlito's Caffé. Carlito himself had long since gone to meet The Tall Dark Stranger but he had left instructions that one single exception should be made to his rule of not permitting cappuccino to be sold after eleven o'clock in the morning. The exception was Sacharissa, but she'd been going to Carlito's since she was a little girl. She didn't even have to order.
"Signorina Sacharissa, buonasera," said Giovanni Fabbro from behind the counter, "Ava seat and I shalla bringa da usual."
Sacharissa took a table by the window and waited for her marvellous, milky magic. Giovanni was no more from Quirm than she was, but it paid to keep up appearances, and he did really love his coffee, which was no doubt why it was so good. She was beginning to have some doubts about the Omnians, now that she thought about it. No one seemed to give two hoots about barristas from Quirm, or Genuan sommeliers, or Klatchian chefs, or barmen from Fourecks…so what was it about the Omnians, uniquely, that seemed to get up people's noses? Just then her fabulous, frothy fun arrived.
"Grazi," she said.
"Prego," replied Giovanni.
"How's Mama?"
"Not three bad, miss, not three bad," he said, lapsing into his normal Morpork accent, "she suffers sumink shocking with her lumbago, but she dunt complain, gawds luv 'er."
"Eh, John," she said, as he was turning away, "do you have any problems with Omnians?"
"Well, none o' my business, miss," he said, "but you do 'ear stories duntya."
"Yes, you do. Thank you."
"Itsa no problem," he said, getting back into character, "enjoya youra caffé."
Yes, that was the thing, wasn't it? You heard stories and, if you heard them often enough, in enough different places, then you might start believing in those stories while not worrying too much about where those stories came from.
Sure, the Omnians had a weird and nasty religion, or at least it had used to be nasty, now they just spewed endless love and forgiveness. But their faith wasn't any weirder than worshipping Offler the Crocodile God, and even in their bad old days they hadn't been as bad as the Bitter Brethren of Broch, just for one example. So, what was it about them? And then all of a sudden there were lots of people with torches outside the window. She was tempted to rush out immediately, but more tempted by her delicious, dairy delight, so she drank her coffee as the crowd surged past. And then she latched on to the tail of what she could see was a story; she didn't know what the story was but this was an angry mob and she was still technically a reporter for The Times.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the mob didn't seem to know any more about the story than she did.
"So, what's happening?" she asked the man next to her.
"Dunno, love," he said, "bloody Omnians, I suppose."
Well, she could just have made that up herself, couldn't she? Couldn't she?
"So, why are you here?"
"Well, it's an angry mob, innit? And I'm as partial to a mob as the next bloke. See a mob; join in, always good for a laugh."
She tried pushing forward and asking more people but none of them seemed to know any more about why they were there than Mr. Join-a-Mob. And then, unexpectedly, she was back to where she'd been just an hour before; the difference was that now The Times building was on fire. Apparently the Omnians had done it. In the crowd she spotted Muir Dock, one of the reporters from The Post.
"So, what's going on?" she asked.
"The Omnians have set fire to The Times," he replied.
"Why would they do that?"
"Who knows?"
"But why The Times, the only paper that consistently defends them? Why not The Post that calls them "cockroaches" and "scum"?"
"Oh, it's just typical of them," he said, automatically, although he looked slightly confused by his own answer.
And then there was a tiny, terrified little-girl at an upstairs window and these people just jeered. Luckily the girl's eyes met hers and she knew it was Selene. But even as she fought through the crowd, and the flies to get home to a bath and wash the smell of these people off her, she knew she would never feel clean again.