Chapter 2: Move Out!
As Ali Badhboi and Oh-Oh headed for the main deck, they passed the ship's cook, Vena the Raven-Haired. Perhaps generations before, she had been one of those hard-muscled barbarian beauties, but nowadays, she was nearly spherical with uncombable gray hair and rheumatoid arthritis.
"Sir, will the boys be back aboard in time for breakfast?"
"I don't know, Vena, maybe. Better have something ready for them in case the do."
"Aye aye, sir." She shuffled off towards the galley.
Up on the main deck, Ali Badhboi saw that Vena's oldest great granddaughter had the Annk-Morporkians lined up for inspection. Irene Ironfist had done most of the raising of Vena's 16 other great grandchildren, and she wasn't about to take any guff from this band of cutthroats.
"Let me see your hands. Let me see them!" she ordered Slick McGumm, who reluctantly complied. "Filthy! Go wash them, now! They'll be no adventuring until you men are presentable!"
Slick headed for the water bucket.
Next in line was Thug. (If he had a last name, he couldn't remember it.) "My hands are clean, miss, see?" He held them proudly out for her inspection.
"But did you brush your teeth?"
"Tooth, miss, tooth. I have just the one."
"And why is that, do you suppose? Go, get your toothbrush, and I want to see that tooth gleaming!"
He hurried away.
"Fingers LaFoote," she moaned the moan of the perpetually martyred, "comb your hair." Before he could move, she produced a comb herself and jabbed it into the tangled thicket and began to pull."
"Ow, miss, please!"
"Oh hush up!" She battled until she was satisfied.
Ali Badhboi came up beside her. "May my men carry out my orders now, please?"
Irene Ironfist rounded on him. "You're setting a fine example." She pulled out her hankie, spat onto one corner, and used it to attack a smudge of dirt that was on his cheek. "I know six-year-olds that groom themselves better than you men. You should be ashamed of yourselves."
There came a mumbled chorus of, "Yes, miss." There are few things in the multiverse that are as terrifying as a sixteen-year-old girl who knows she's right and who is not afraid to let you know that you are wrong in every conceivable way.
"Scarface Higgins, tuck in your shirt!"
"Yes miss."
"Lefty Wright, blow your nose. No no no! Not on your sleeve! Use a hankie!"
"I, I, I don't have one, miss," Lefty Wright stammered.
"Scarface, lend him one of yours, will you?"
"I don't got one neither, miss."
"No hankies? What kind of marauders are you?"
Eyes were downcast. Insteps were kicked. Mumbled excuses were mumbled.
"Black Vulture! Don't think I don't see you sneaking along in the shadows! Over here where I can see you, mister!"
"But miss," whined a voice from the darkness. "I can't come into the light. I'm in stealth mode."
"I . . . beg . . . your . . . pardon."
"I didn't say I wouldn't," blurted the Black Vulture, hurrying forward. "It's just, it's just - -"
"What," asked Irene Ironfist, "are you wearing?"
"My, my, my assassin's clothes."
"I thought assassins always wear black."
"Oh that, miss! Well, it's a common misconception, really. Few things in the world are truly black, and so black is not the perfect thing to wear as camouflage. It turns out a dark gray-green is something almost impossible for the human eye to focus on. It tends to, uh, slip away from one's gaze, so to speak."
Irene cocked an eyebrow. "So you think you're smart?"
"Well miss, I do have a degree."
"From the Assassin's Guild here in Anhk-Morpork?"
"Er, no miss. From a, uh, lesser institution in, um, a different city."
She nodded slowly. "I thought so." Then she bellowed, "Well? What are you all standing around waiting for? I thought you were off on some silly secret mission or something. Get going!"
Doc and Crackers, Fingers LaFoote, Lefty Wright, Slick McGumm, Scarface Higgins, Thug, and the Black Vulture grabbed their possessions, scrambled down the gangplank, and headed off into the darkness.
There were three main streets which lead away from the docks in the direction of the zoo. Doc along with Crackers and Slick McGumm took one of them; Fingers LaFotte and Scarface Higgins took the second; and Lefty Wright and Thug took the remaining street.
The Black Vulture found two walls which met at 90 degrees. He ran, jumped, and kicked off one wall, kicked off the second and grabbed the top of the wall. Silent as a cat, he pulled himself up. The night was clear and warm. He estimated the direction of the zoo and started off across the rooftops. Without warning, a stone arm was thrown around his throat.
"Ay I 'ee 'oar lize'ze, eez?"
"What?"
"'Oar azzazzung lize'ze. Etz zee i'!"
"But I'm no assassin."
"Uzt out 'or a zto' acrozz 'a roofto'z?"
"I'm a tourist."
"'Ooh 'av 'a righ' 'ooh 'e'ain zilen' . . ."
۞
Sloe Djinn Fez had watched out an open porthole as Doc and his contingent of Anhk-Morporkians had crept into the night. Now, it was time for him to follow them.
He seemed to grow, stretch and fade as if the same amount of him was being used to fill a much greater volume. For a djinni, turning from a solid to a vapor was not all that difficult. He continued to grow and fade, expand and fade.
When it was time, he poured himself out through the open porthole and wafted away from the ship. The stiff breeze coming up from the distant sea buffeted him, blowing him off course slightly as he tried to cross the wharf area. That was annoying. As a gas, so few things could touch him, but a little bit of breeze was one of them.
He continued to try to get back on track, to follow Doc and his men as ordered. But try as the djinni might to claw into the wind, his efforts were useless. He began to be turned head-over-heels, which would have been embarrassing if gases weren't invisible. He doubled his efforts, which made no difference in the slightest.
He glanced over what would have been his shoulder if he had been solid to get an idea where he was being blown. It was a place called the Pink Pussycat Club. A saloon? Well, this could be interesting.
The wind took him under doors, around window frames and into a smoky room filled with throbbing music, yowling men and underclothed women. The women were dancing and, for reasons which totally escaped Sloe Djinn Fez, spinning around aluminum poles. Coins were being tossed up onto the stage. Paper money was being slipped into Gee-strings. Drinks were on every table.
Sloe Djinn Fez blinked and looked again. Drinks were on every table. The drinks contained high amounts of ethyl alcohol. Alcohol had a low vaporization temperature, and so, even though human eyes couldn't see it, above every drink in the place hovered an intoxicating cloud of ethyl alcohol.
Sloe Djinn Fez slurped up these small clouds, making them part of himself. Cloud after cloud was absorbed, so that, by the time he got to the far side of the room, the only thing which kept him from staggering around helplessly was his lack of legs. He was blown into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, there was an oven. In the oven, there was a fire. Fire turns fuel and air into heat and smoke. The smoke goes up the chimney, and more air is drawn in to replace that which had been turned into smoke.
Slow Djinn Fez saw where he was being blown and didn't like it one bit. He imagined the fire would be painful. He tried to fight his way back out into the room where the half-naked girls were, but he was only a zephyr. Closer and closer to the flames, his rum-soaked cloud was driven until finally, he was drawn into the oven itself.
KABOOOOOOOOMMMM!
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Cough, cough! Wow, I got caught in the blast there. I just happened to inside the Pink Pussycat Club doing research for this story (and definitely not drinking and/or ogling the half-naked women) when BAMM!
I want to take a minute to explain what's going on with the gargoyle's dialect. Pratchett explains it's what comes from a mouth that is permanently stuck in an open position. That I understand. But then he translates the word "yes" into "egg." With my mouth open, I can pronounce the letter "y" and also the "s" although it sounds more like a "z." So I would translate "yes" into "yez," not "egg." In this story, I use my version of the translation rather than his, simply because I cannot figure out what he's doing. Sorry if I have offended anyone.