Nothing to it, really!
Having just been in hospital for a while and having come out feeling weak as a kitten and tired as a sloth. Six out of ten on the life-threatening scale, but dealt with to everybody's satisfaction. Getting better, despite appalling hospital food.
It's simple. You just need to fill in forms SMP (i) and SMP(ii) and then complete MATB1(b) in triplicate. Getting clothing that fits and doesn't look like Fools' Guild surplus found in a shonky shop. The difficulties of being a young expectant mother in Ankh-Morpork. Especially if somebody's arrived in town who intends to kill you. And has started some almost-random acts of destruction to get to a short-list of people they really do not like. Terrorism arrives in Ankh-Morpork.
One necessary edit made; the President has been given a far better name. Louis van Baalsteuwel, or "son of the demon Baal" - very apt for a long-time career politician!
Alchemists' Guild member Roger Trawler was proud of the business he'd built up, after several expensive false starts. Trawler Alchemical and Scientifick supplied both equipment and alchemical materials to the city's businesses, schools, alchemical enterprises and other end-users with an interest.
After the earlier, regrettable and necessary hiatuses in his business caused by what investigating agencies had described as "improper handling and storage of volatile materials", he was on track again. Why, there hadn't been a major explosion there for three years now. He'd hired staff felt by people like Commander Vimes and the Patrician to have a far better grasp of alchemical materials, and how to store them safely. He had recent graduate Assassins on his payroll, for instance, who'd been trained by people like Mr Mericet, and who had survived Exothermic Alchemy and Ordnance Disposal training delivered by Doctor Smith-Rhodes. He had to hand it to the girl… lady. She certainly knew about her alchemy, or at least the bits of it that sparkled prettily and then went "Ka-Boom!" Her terse advice not to store leaky bottles of glycerine on the shelf above the carboys of Sweet Spirits of Nitre had certainly helped. And other employees had been trained by the Artificers, who also knew about managing explosions at work. (1)
He patted the discreet plaques on the gatepost as he left to go home for the evening. They advertised Security Consultancy was in the hands of the Guild of Assassins, and that his insurance premiums were fully paid up to the Guild of Thieves.
No, Roger Trawler thought, the future looks good, with little risk of loud bangs. He turned onto Runecaster Way,(2) whistling a happy song.
The white Pegasus banked in the air and its wings beat more slowly as it spiralled down towards what was becoming, to its pilots, a boringly familiar flat-topped grey roof. Olga Romanoff acknowledged the ground-control wizard, who had sent up a "you are clear to land" signal in the form of a green fireball. This had, very carefully, gone nowhere near her Pegasus.
She patted her despatch cases, checking they were still there, and all hooves dropped in a perfect four-point landing.
"Nice landing, lassie." her co-pilot approved. She grinned at Buggy Swires. He'd craw-stepped them to Howondaland without a hitch.
"Hi, Eddie." she said, greeting the wizard warmly.
"Hi, Olga. Haven't seen you since, oh, Monday?"
"Big events in the city, Eddie. Trouble. Lord Vetinari wanted your side to be fully informed as soon as he could manage. My instructions are to wait for a written response, overnight if needs be, and fly back without delay."
Edouard de Kockamaanje nodded understanding. Now discharged from the Army, he was the Pegasus Service link-man in Rimwards Howondaland. Olga and her fellow pilot Irena Politek were still members of the City Watch, but on detached service, alongside a staff of Feegles, to fly things anywhere on the Disc on behalf of Ankh-Morpork, quite literally at a moment's notice. The Service now handled diplomatic bags for Embassies in Ankh-Morpork, who valued getting the stuff moved far faster than anything the Klatchians could manage. And at commercial rates that undercut the Klatchians by a long way.
Their importance recognised by Vetinari, these days a careful breeding programme was slowly increasing the number of Pegasii, (3) and new pilots were being trained to supplement the Service.
Eddie nodded sagely.
"So… you might be, you know, available for dinner tonight?" he inquired. Buggy Swires sniggered.
"You'd better get me a better hotel than the last fleapit, then." she said, frankly. Overseas travel on behalf of the City. Nobody knows if I'm Palace Secretariat, City Watch, Air Force or Post Office. All four want to manage me but I still only get one wage. There had better be some bloody perks. And Pratoria is capital city of this bloody country. It must have one good hotel.
"Business. Special despatches from Lord Vetinari for the Foreign Secretary, the Staadtspraesident. Urgent diplomatic bag for the Embassy. And the most recent copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times, for anyone wanting to know how Dimwell FC did against the Pig-Packers."
"Better come downstairs, then. You'll have word-of-mouth from Vetinari?"
"Yes, but not for you. Foreign Affairs Minister only."
And Rimwards Howondaland received its first news of the outrage at its Embassy.
Recently graduated Wizard Anthony Theopracticus ran a packing shift at Trawler Alchemical and Scientifick. He hadn't really seen himself doing this after graduating. But a job was a job, it paid good dollar, and it was a practical use for his training. He just had to make sure that, for instance, anything involving, for e.g. nitrocellulose, was really well packed. The Post Office complained about exploding parcels in transit.
He managed a shift composed of people of at least five species, and he was learning fast about office and inter-species politics. At present they were late and behind schedule. Not ridiculously so. It could still be despatched before eight for next-day delivery. He just had to inspire them to get a bloody move on and not cut any corners.
Cutting short the persistent bickering between Rolf Pitdeputysnephew and Pectolite, he pitched in with them, picking and packing and ticking off the needed things to go to Hugglestones' School Alchemy Department. It was a large order, a once-a-term stock-up, but all he needed to do was get it to the railway station to meet the 20:37 on the Altiplano Express Line to Zemphis and beyond. Then it was somebody else's problem.
"Must be critical, Ponder's mucking in!" somebody said. Anthony Theopracticus sighed. Just because people claimed he looked a little bit like Ponder Stibbons, what with the slightly floppy black hair, the round specs, the beardlessness and the slightly worried look, the nickname had stuck.
He reflected it probably wasn't all that bad. After all, looking like Ponder Stibbons had been good for Ponder, in that a strikingly attractive red-haired Assassin had taken a shine to him. Anthony was optimistic enough to consider that life demonstrably owed him a gorgeous redhead. Well, I'd settle for a gorgeous blonde. With a few freckles in the right places.
He rolled his sleeves up, and got down to it with the packing crew.
Charles Smith-Rhodes, the Interior Minister, put down the Ankh-Morpork Times with an inscrutable grin playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Marvellous concept, this craw-stepping" he commented. "Last night and this morning's copies of the Times delivered on the day. Even on the fastest flying carpets, they're usually almost a week old."
He smiled across the office at Olga, who had been invited to remain at what was becoming an informal Cabinet meeting at the Bureau of Foreign Affairs.
"You couldn't take a few private messages with you when you return, Officer Romanoff?" he asked, politely.
"Of course, sir. To your son at the Embassy?"
"And to my broker at the Stock Exchange." he said, matter-of-factly. "Right now I've got useful information, anything up to a week before anyone else gets it."
"Business, Charles." The Staadtspraesident, Head of Government, said, with a hint of impatience. "Other than the business of the Smith-Rhodes family suddenly being several hundred thousand dollars richer, by this time tomorrow."
He looked severely at his Interior Minister for a moment. Then smiled slightly and said "Better get Rothschild here. Having a Chancellor to count the beans and make monetary decisions is sometimes useful. I'm betting this outrage has depressed the value of the rand by quite a few points. Can't have that."
There was general assent. The Foreign Minister lifted a copy of the Times. It prominently showed the gates of the Embassy in Ankh-Morpork being guarded by one white and one black soldier.
"What do we do about this?" he asked. "I know it's exceptional circumstances and an emergency, but even so it's…"
"Completely legal." The Staadtspraesident cut him short. "And from a public relations viewpoint, quite inspired. Your son's idea, Charles."
"Also necessary." Charles Smith-Rhodes said. "The Embassy was attacked. Nearly half the security detail were killed or wounded. The two senior Military Attachés are dead or recovering from wounds. Even if we start selecting for replacements today, Julian won't get them for weeks. His first priority is to make up the gaps in his manpower. The politics of that take second place. And we note the acting Ambassador has politely declined, with thanks, Lord Vetinari's offer to loan Ankh-Morporkian soldiers and City Watch to assist in security."
Staadtspraesident van Baalsteuwel smiled again, faintly.
"Loyal auxiliaries. From Smith-Rhodesia, I see. Recalled to service by a Smith-Rhodes. Quite neatly poetic. And according to this urgent despatch from your son, Charles, one of them should get a medal. Although I note Julian recommends a fat cash bonus payable to his wife. And six children. Well, we can show generosity."
He made a note on a pad, checked the spelling of a name, and beckoned an underling. The civil servant vanished discreetly.
"And we can inform the Times we approve. Give them a press release via Officer Romanoff. Where's Defence? Should be here by now. I want to tell him what he's agreeing to."
He enumerated the points.
"Black auxiliaries, who are trained and immediately available, recalled to service and representing the nation in Ankh-Morpork. This Private N'Gemini to be paid a suitable reward for heroism – Julian notes he fired the first shot back, and got the other men pepped up to do something. Pin a medal on him suitable to a brave and loyal man. And tell the Ankh-Morpork Times exactly what we've elected to do about him. Oh, and… Mrs Vinhuis?"
"Who did exactly what a frontierswoman would have done a century ago." Charles said, smoothly. "Got ammunition to where it was needed. Shrugged off hostiles shooting at her. Picked up a disregarded crossbow, loaded it, and put a close miss near enough to loosen an attacker's bowels. Julian was quite taken with that. As was the Times."
He opened the paper to a Page Three shot of a dishevelled and satisfied-looking Katerina Vinhuis, in a dirty and torn dress, hair dishevelled, right leg exposed to the stocking top, who was cradling a military crossbow with bayonet fixed, and looking as bad-ass as any Boor frontierswoman helping to defend the laager against Zulus. (4) Otto Chriek had taken lots of pictures of her, so as to select exactly the right iconographs for publication. (5)
"Good heavens." said the Staadtspraesident. "And she's on the strength as social secretary? The Ankh-Morpork Embassy must host some memorable parties."
Katerina had been acclaimed as a heroine. The Times, seemingly, couldn't get enough of her.
"A friend of a certain family member, apparently." Charles said, keeping his voice neutral. "Who went to school with her. Something must have rubbed off."
The Staadtspraesident nodded understanding. He'd met Johanna Smith-Rhodes. (6)
"Authorise a bonus payment to Mrs Vinhuis? Nothing too large, perhaps enough for them to buy a house with, or something. Also research the appropriate medal for a civilian who gets caught up in a battle, and fights like a cornered Rattel. Thank you."
Another civil service runner discreetly left the room.
"And now." the Staadtspraesident said, his voice suddenly as cold as a mamba's blood. "Let's discuss what we can do about the renegades and traitors who attacked their own people. They are, in every applicable sense, dead men walking. A shame a man has only one neck. We shall see what suggestions BOSS has to offer. Those people must be useful for something. "
Johanna Smith-Rhodes had borrowed the office at Raven House and was industriously marking homework. Doing a routine chore on site meant she didn't have to lug a deadweight of student work home with her, and it was a welcome distraction from current concerns.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't her office any more. The incumbent Housemistress, Gillian Lansbury, sat opposite her at the desk, their chairs and working areas angled so they didn't conflict. Gillian was marking her own students' work. Every so often they conferred on either an outstanding, or else an egregious, example of homework offered. Commiseration or shaken heads were exchanged.
Gillian watched her colleague anxiously. Living under informal notice of a contract to inhume must be worrying. As well as being so heavily pregnant. Gillian, in appearance a bohemian and rather hippie type of young woman, of the sort who preferred sandals and headscarves, had a persona that sang out "Art Teacher" at the world. Paint splashes in various colours on the regulation Assassin black were a big clue. With the large hoop earrings and big round glasses that magnified her eyes, an initial assessment of her might be "harmless, unworldly and unthreatening."
Then the observer making that initial assessment might, or might not, reflect she'd survived a Mature Students Course and passed out as an Assassin. People with access to good information might recall she'd once fought off an attack from Howondalandian wereleopards and wounded two of them. Prudent students might reflect she had substantial experience in sourcing paint pigments and making her own paint. And that even in normal circumstances, many available oil paints could be deadly poisonous. (7) Being assigned to manufacture your own paintbox by Miss Lansbury was her version of the Vimes Run. (8).
The two worked on at their marking for an hour or so. Gillian broke a long silence by suggesting a coffee break. Johanna nodded agreement.
Gillian made reference to the big current news story, the attack on the Embassy, the one the Times headline referred to as Agents Of Terror Strike In The Heart Of The City! (9)
"You've got family there, haven't you?" she said, gently. Johanna nodded.
"Ja. I must go to see my oncle in the Lady Sybil. I em told his wounds are minor."
Gillian nodded.
"Captain Smith-Rhodes. The man who led the defence. He must be related to you?"
"Distant cousin. From a different brench of the femily. But we are all descendents of the great Sir Cecil. We have a sense of femily loyalty to all. I em not surprised ebout Julian. He is capable end resourceful."
Gillian smiled. She pointed to the iconograph of Katerina Vinhuis.
"Impressive-looking lady. Think she's material for a Mature Student Class?" Gillian inquired.
Johanna laughed softly.
"I must speak sternly to her when I see her next." she said. "Even when we were et school together, I knew Katti was not cut out to be a fighter. Her temperament is wrong. I will tell her off, firmly, ebout putting herself into places she is not equipped to go to. I do not do being a pleasant hostess et parties. She ought to refrain from getting into fights."
And then, without warning, Johanna sniffled, coughed back a sob, then gave up and burst into uncontrollable floods of tears. Gillian was shocked.
Anthony Theopracticus breathed a huge sigh of relief. The Hugglestones order had been finished and loaded onto the last cart for transfer at the railway station. The cart driver had been prevailed upon to wait, at overtime pay rates, till the job was over, and had trundled off into the night happily enough.
Anthony reflected, uneasily, that his packing shift had dawdled on picking and packing until their personal timeclocks had nudged into overtime rates. Then they'd got a move on, and sure enough had finished the job in good time for just before eight. He hoped Mr Trawler would not comment on this. He brightened. He just needed to sign off a few bits of paperwork. Then he could clock off himself, maybe meet up with some of his fellow graduates in the Mended Drum and exchange horror stories of life after university, graduate Wizards suddenly confronted with the realities of working for a living.
Passing between the packing sheds and the offices, in the winter dark he very nearly tripped over a large bulky mass where a large bulky mass should not have been. He swore, then as his eyes adjusted he recognised the night security troll, Simetite. Sprawled unconscious on the ground. Something, he realised, was very wrong here. Anthony was suddenly aware he was probably the last person in the warehouse. He decided to move more quickly towards the street and any assistance he could shout up.
Gillian deliberately moved into the corridor and briefly shut the door behind her. Good, no students around. She went to a window and looked out.
"Mr Maroon?" she called, to a porter.
"Yes, miss?"
"Could you find out if Doctor Bellamy is still on the premises? Please ask her if she can drop by Raven House Office. I'd value her help in a delicate matter."
"Won't take a moment, miss!" Maroon replied.
Gillian took a deep breath, and went back to comforting Johanna. She suspected another woman with greater experience of pregnancy would have insights that she lacked. She vaguely suspected a lot of it was hormonal. Matron Igorina had tried to explain it to her once. Hormones made teenage boys into sullen aggressive monosyllabic little sods. Hormones made teenage girls into moody walking sulks. Chemicals, apparently. Alchemical agents the body had hair-trigger tolerance to, and which could really screw your head up if there was a sudden surge of them. Igor science was trying to identify the causative agents involved but by definition these were trace chemicals, so they were dealing with parts per billion here.
Gillian had asked, in the manner of an Assassin identifying a problem and looking for a remedy, if there was anything that could counter a hormonal surge in an adult woman, and allow rationality to take over again.
"Based on close experiential observation and longitudinal study over a period of centuries, chocolate helps." Igorina had advised. "Lots of chocolate. Then if chocolate fails, there is a heroic remedy, wine. A good Chardonnay is mandated in extremis."
Gillian, in the middle of hugging and making the sort of soothing noises mandated by the situation, suggested making some hot chocolate. She had some really good chocolate powder from Wienrich and Boettcher's, that a parent had given her? Johanna continued sobbing and crying. It occurred to Gillian that she must have been holding this in for ages and it was all coming out at once, poor woman. The Embassy attack had probably been the trigger, with so many family and friends involved.
"Oh, dear." Davinia Bellamy said, letting herself in and hastily closing the door. "This is Month Seven and Eight stuff."
"I think it's the attacks and threats of attacks." Gillian said. "You know, on her family and friends."
Davinia smoothly inserted herself into the group hug.
"Oh, no, you're wrong." she asserted. "She's around seven months gone. There doesn't have to be a reason. There, there, Johanna. Let it all out, my love. Don't feel weak or as if you're letting the side down or anything. I do this too. I'm pretty sure Emmanuelle will too."
Davinia paused, and added, grimly, "Emmanuelle. She's having too damn easy a time of it. Hopefully it'll creep up unawares and really knock her for six."
Gillian excused herself from the hug and went looking for chocolate powder, milk, a method of heating it, and three cups. She felt this was going to be a long evening.
Anthony Theopracticus tried to keep in the light, such as it was. He felt safer there from whatever might be lurking in the dark. As the Guild of Assassins drily pointed out to new students, this was an elementary error. You merely ended up exposing yourself un-necessarily, whilst still being unable to see what might be in the really dark shadows. This tendency to go into the light, on the part of a client who had been spooked, was something an Assassin should exploit.
Somebody in the really dark shadows by the warehouse wall laughed to himself. This too was an error pointed out to novice Assassins. You did not gloat. You got on with it, in silence.
But the gloater had just recognised, or thought he'd recognised, a bonus target. He stepped forward.
"Wizard boy." Said a voice from the gloom. "You thought you'd won, didn't you? In Howondaland. I know your face, wizard boy. Thet pretty wife of yours is going to cry over your coffin. End you'll never see your child."
Anthony Theopracticus was terrified. What's he talking about? I've never been to Howondaland. I don't have a wife. Unfortunately. Pretty or otherwise. Or children?
His brain worked frantically fast.
"I don't know who you want but it's not me! I've never been to Howondaland! I'm not married!" He was trying to assemble the syllables of a defensive spell. He tried desperately to remember.
The unseen harshly accented voice laughed grimly.
"Nice try, wizard. But you're him. Stibbons. I'd know thet face ennywhere!"
There was a pause.
"Tot siens, wizard." the voice said.
Anthony felt the crushing impact of a crossbow bolt. It hurt like hell. The unfinished syllables of a spell turned into hot rainbow-tinged steam that passed over his attacker but did not harm. He had the satisfaction of seeing his assailant flinch in fear for a second, then shake his head and laugh.
Spent and dying, Anthony did something more basic. As part of his mind said, bitterly, "Well, I'll never get my gorgeous redhead now!", his last breath was a curse to the man who had just killed him. The response was a second crossbow bolt, from closer range. Anthony Theopracticus, deceased wizard, slumped to the earth. His killer nudged the corpse with a boot, spat in contempt, and walked on.
The shade of Anthony Theopracticus hovered sadly in the air, aware of his assailant joining three others who were robbing the warehouse.
"So that's what it was all about? Just robbery?" his essence vocalised.
AND MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
The new voice came from somewhere behind where his left ear should have been, had he still had a tangible body. He jumped.
ANTHONY JAMES ALOYSIUS THEOPRACTICUS? said the voice.
"Yes. That's me." The wizard said, gloomily. He wondered why he'd had no foreshadowing of his own death. They said wizards got to know in advance, didn't they? He felt cheated. A big bank loan to be blown in its entirety on a week in Ephebe before dying… beaches. Drinks. Redheads. Then he remembered something his killer had said.
"He called me Stibbons?"
Death nodded, sympathetically.
THERE IS A MARKED RESEMBLENCE, YES. NOT A COMPLETE ONE, BUT EASY TO MISTAKE IN THE GLOOM.
Anthony sighed. It made sense. The similarity was close enough for him to have picked up a nickname. And he reflected that nobody got to high office in the University without making enemies. Not even somebody like Ponder Stibbons. And, detached from glands and hormones, he reflected that marrying a gorgeous red-haired Assassin is all very well and enviable. But it must add a new dimension of terror to marital disagreements. What if your wife wanted a quick separation without the hassle of lawcourts?
THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT PONDER STIBBONS DEAD, YES. WHILE THEY ARE OF THE SAME NATIONALITY, THEY DO NOT INCLUDE HIS WIFE, WHO REMAINS PASSIONATELY DEVOTED TO HIM. SHALL WE GET ON WITH IT?
Anthony nodded, mutely. A scythe swung.
"Why didn't I get advance warning?" he asked.
I CAN ONLY THINK THE SYSTEM'S COCKED UP AGAIN. IT MAKES IT EASIER WITH THOSE OF A MAGICAL PERSUASION, IF THEY ALREADY KNOW. SAVES ME HAVING TO BREAK THE SAD NEWS. BUT EVERY SO OFTEN IT SCREWS UP. DON'T ASK ME WHY.
Anthony sighed.
"Do I go now?"
Death consulted an hourglass. He tapped it with a bony finger.
APPARENTLY YOU ARE TO BE COLLECTED. SOMETHING IN YOUR FAMILY TREE CONFERS A SPECIAL PRIVILEGE.
He paused.
SHE'S ON HER WAY NOW. WELL, I'VE GOT A BUSY SCHEDULE. BUT YOU WILL BE LOOKED AFTER. GOODBYE, ANTHONY.
Death whistled. A large white stallion trotted into view. Anthony thought that explained the horse's hoofs he could hear.
Wait.." he said, as Death swung himself into Binky's saddle. But the white horse rode into the sky without a backward glance.
Isn't he meant to look backward and say goodbye, Anthony thought, bitterly. Now I have become as they are. He hovered in the vicinity of his recent body. In the background, four men, including his killer, were manouvreing a hand-cart packed with goods and barrels. Anthony, freed from bodily care, recognised some items on the cart and speculated where the explosion was going to happen. He wondered. She?
"And that's it, sir." Ponder Stibbons said, as he and Mustrum Ridcully took a cup of tea at the end of the day. "I keep getting this dream, this kind of message. It seems to tie in with Trawler's Alchemickal Supplies. You know, who have a contract to supply us."
Ridcully grunted, reflectively.
"Have you discussed this with Johanna?" he inquired. "The gal should know."
"I don't know how to go about it, sir." Ponder said, with honesty. "She's stressed up as it is. Her uncle took a wound in that attack on the Embassy. She's a lot fonder of her cousin Julian than she lets on, and it worries her that he was a clear target. And then the best friend she's known since they were both twelve took it into her head to get into the fight. Which Johanna described as being like a sparrow trying to head-butt a vulture. Errm."
"Sometimes a sparrow can put the beak in on a vulture, lad." Ridcully said, kindly. "If it pecks the right place. Or if it's got a Feegle streak in it."
"And now these sort-of-dreams, sir. Not the usual sort of things a wizard gets if he's Forewarned. Usually, people who get the message tell you they just know. They don't get nice helpful full-colour Moving Pictures, sir, as a rule. It doesn't even feel like it's for me. Like getting a crossed Clacks message. "
Ponder had been getting visions, dreams, flash images, of somebody who looked like him being killed by crossbow-bolts in a dark place. These had begun about a week previously. Shocked by the first pictures, he had sensed a certain familiarity with the location. It had taken him time to pin it down to Trawler's Alchemickal, a business that serviced the University's need for raw material and equipment, and which he'd had to visit several times.
"Well, we can deal with that." Ridcully said, briskly. "You do not go to Trawler's at all. Hard to get yerself killed there if you never visit the place. I'll also put out loud and clear that anyone seekin' to kill a Wizard on MY Faculty will be tracked down, pursued by demons, burnt alive, dissolved in acid, and generally have their lives made miserable in all the thousands of ways old-time thaumaturgy can possibly envisage."
He sat back.
"Given any thought to names for the child yet, lad?" he inquired. "Mustrum" is good for a boy."
The shade of Anthony Theopracticus hovered miserably in the grounds of Trawler's Alchemickal. The thieves had departed with their haul. Death was long gone. The night-security troll Simetite was groaning back into consciousness. Anthony watched him, glad the troll at least was still alive. Maybe when he realised, he'd go and get the Watch or something…
Anthony wondered why he could still hear hooves. They seemed to be circling above his head, as if an unseen rider was searching for something. Then he wondered what he was hearing hooves with.
He watched Simetite haul himself to his knees, like accelerated continental drift. He frowned. That sounded like singing above him, or at least the uncertain vocalisation of somebody who didn't quite know the tune yet.
"Hi – to yah! No, dammit, that isn't right…. Toy – oh – TA!... Blast, what was it…. Hi-ho-ti-ho, HOH-jo, ho-ti-OH-joh…"
A tune of some sort was emerging. The singer had the self-consciousness of somebody who knows her voice is naturally thin and will never be a loud clear contralto. But she was determined to try anyway.
As the troll blinked at Anthony's dead body and then threw up, Anthony watched with vague unfocused interest. He'd never known trolls could vomit, but thinking about it, it makes a sort of sense…
A voice said "Anthony James Aloysius Theopracticus?"
It was young, well, sounded young, and female. Anthony shifted his focus to regard the young woman, well, girl, on the horse. She was petite, and wore armour. He noted the breastplate seemed a tad optimistic for her build and wobbled a lot. Under the horned helmet, he noticed she was blonde. She had a lightly freckled face with a little snubby nose.
"Sorry." She apologised. "I'm new at this. The other girls tell me they don't do too many urban collection routes. Cities are new to us. Bit late, I'm afraid. Nearly went to the University, for some reason. Are you getting on?" She patted the saddle.
"Errr… you're a Valkyrie?" Anthony asked, uncertainly. She smiled.
"Probationary, at the moment." she said. She reached up and settled the fit of a slightly too large helmet. She extended a hand and smiled uncertainly.
"Þrimhildr." she said. It had been just her luck to get a name beginning with a letter eight hundred years obsolete in modern Morporkian. (10)
Anthony made a brave stab at the sound. "Drrim..? Thrimm? T'rim…?"
She shook her head.
"Just call me Hilda? It's possibly easier."
Anthony was invited to mount the horse in front of her. He got on, finding it easier than it seemed, and realising with a thrill that he had solidity again. And armour-clad or not, that was a woman's body pressing into his back…
"You young wizards don't get to eat much, do you?" Hilda said. "You're all ribs, poor boy! Never mind, you'll fill out in Valhalla. "
"Not that I'm complaining." Anthony said, as the horse gained height. Below, Simetite was staggering to the road to see if he could find a Watch patrol. "But I'm a wizard? Valhalla is for barbarian heroes?"
Hilda squeezed his chest gently. "Well, you descend from Hubland heroes. You're one- thousand-and-twenty-fourth part Barbarian from an ancestor nine or ten generations ago. And you died here whilst trying to put a spell together to fight back with, and a curse on your lips. That's dying in battle, for wizards."
She smiled manically.
"Ta –Dah! You get Valhalla! These days there's a table d'hote menu, private dining upstairs, and evening classes from the Master of Ceremonies, Mr Saveloy. You'll like him. He says you can never get too many educated men."
She paused, and shyly added: "It's not against the rules for you to, er, ask, for instance me, to dinner. I think there aren't enough educated clever interesting men there either. Errr?"
She left it hanging in the air. Anthony felt happier. He'd had to die first, admittedly, but there was a pretty blonde there, who seemed to like him…
And down below in his now unheeded past life, Officers Fittley and Ping of the Watch were on the scene of a murder/robbery.
Gillian Lansbury sighed a deep reflective sigh.
"There is hot chocolate, when you want it." she said, with loud forced cheerfulness, but was unheeded.
"I'm getting fet end clumsy!" Johanna wailed. "I've never been this fet before. I'm worried I cennot lose it egain efter the baby!"
"Oh, I know!" Davinia wailed back. She was flooding with tears too. "I worry Peter won't find me attractive any more. I'm scared of getting even worse stretch-marks. I hate waddling like a duck. I feel fat and ugly and old!"
Gillian gently removed Davinia's glasses for safety. She knew what a pig it was if they got knocked or scratched or a lens cracked. Heedless, the two soon-to-be-mothers got the flooding hormones out of their system. Gillian hoped. She took a sip of the hot coffee, to restore her own emotional balance, grateful that at the moment there were no candidates likely to get her pregnant. Being single had compensations…
"I hev to pee every five minutes! Swollen enkles! I hev to sleep sitting up! I went to punch Ponder because he's getting it so easy, then I realise it's not his fault, end I feel so guilty!"
"If I don't stop myself, I take it out on Peter and the boys! Just because they're nearest and male. Targets! But I love my husband and I love my sons!"
Gillian sighed and listened to the six-or-seven-months-gone litany of complaints.
"And, Johanna. I've never been happier in my life!" Davinia nearly shrieked, through floods of tears. Gillian shook her head. She resolved a husband and children could wait for a while. (11)
"So what's been taken?" Captain Carrot asked. He'd been called to the scene because Officer Ping had once seen an Assassin bomb disposal team in action. The Assassins had been generous with information. Ping now had a suspicion. It had merited alerting senior officers.
"There's a warehouse manager in there now checking the shelves, sir." Ping said. "But I saw a gap where there should have been Agatea Clay. Barrels of."
Carrot frowned.
"Not Agatean Fireclay?" he asked.
"No, sir. Not yet. The Assassins who dealt with the incident at the Lady Sybil (12) explained to me that plain Agatea Clay is the, you know, starting point. It's harmless in itself, but when you add things. Errr."
Carrot winced.
"Send a Clacks to the Assassins, would you? Priority. We need somebody here who knows about Exothermic Alchemy."
Olga Romanoff relaxed and poured herself a strictly non-alcoholic drink. The guava flavoured sparkling water was nice, she conceded. And Eddie was paying.
"So you're back later tonight?" he asked, disappointedly. She smiled. Being a witch by qualification had its perks. She wouldn't have learnt to fly otherwise. A presentable – well, fairly presentable – young wizard who was enamoured with her and who was prepared to buy her dinner was icing on the cake.
"It has to be as soon as possible." she said. "They're paging me when the official responses are prepared for Vetinari. And outgoing diplomatic bags for the Embassy."
"But we can eat first." Eddie said, quietly determined not to let the moment go too quickly. There was a crackle in the very carefully modulated atmosphere. Unresolved sexual tension between magic-users, if left unchecked, could eventually power a small town. At the very least, the immediate intimate atmosphere between Eddie and Olga was sparkling gently.
"I'd complain if I had to fly hungry." she said. "Opening a pack of sandwiches at twenty thousand feet is not easy, let me tell you!"
"Olga? If these thugs, you know, the ones from the Tobacco Farm, who've escaped prison, are in Ankh-Morpork, aren't you worried that makes you a target?"
She shrugged.
"I was barely there. I was flying a lot. Oh, they probably registered me and Irena, but when you fly, your face tends to be covered and you wear a lot of baggy clothing. I daresay if they see a woman on a Pegasus, they might work it out, but I'm not worrying myself about it. No Forewarning, for one thing. So I'll probably survive this. I really hope we can get them before they take a poke at anyone else, though. Ambassador van der Graaf is a good guy. I'm sorry he got hurt."
Mr Stippler the porter had stopped dead. A routine message-run to Raven House Office, to track down Doctor Smith-Rhodes with a Watch communication, had become complicated.
Unheeded, he smiled wanly at Gillian Lansbury.
"It took Mrs Stippler like this when she was carrying our first, miss." he said, a time-served father who had seen it all before, but from a different angle.
He stopped smiling for a second.
"And our second. And our third. It's sort of built-in. You just have to make allowances and see she gets lots of hot sweet tea, and try not to complain too much." He lowered his voice discreetly. "Tell you what, I don't fancy being either of the husbands later on!"
Gillian smiled, in a brittle way.
"Cup of tea, Mr Stippler?"
"Don't mind if I do, Miss Lansbury! Thank you very much!"
Ponder Stibbons, supervising a late session in the H.E.M., rocked back on his heels for a moment as some kind of magical flux rolled over him. He had a very brief mental flash of a huge building that looked like the upturned hull of a Nothingfjordian longship turned upside-down. There was a suspicion of revelling. His hair stood briefly on end. Then it passed, and he felt as if the weight of a week had been taken from his shoulders.
"Sir?" a student wizard said, anxiously. "Professor Stibbons?"
Ponder shook himself. He didn't know what had happened, but knew with certainty that would be the last of the visions. He wondered what the Hells it had been for and why it had happened to him. Then returned to the task at hand.
"Just random magical flux, I expect." He said. "You can't shield against everything."
"Well, that was jolly cathartic." Davinia Bellamy said, sipping what had been hotter chocolate. "You've got to get it out of your system, Johanna. You'll burst otherwise."
Johanna nodded assent from behind a chocolate moustache. She now felt emptied and clearer-headed. And it was good chocolate.
Mr Stippler had been thanked and sent off with a discretion-buying donation to the Porters' Benevolent Fund. The note he'd brought with him was in Johanna's other hand.
"So you're going personally?" Gillian said.
"Ja. Simple job. Identify whet hes been stolen from Trawler's Alchemickal, end edvise the Wetch es to whet it cen be used for. I em a Special, efter ell. I cennot say no. Ceptein Cerrot will hev secured the erea, end the Guild hes a special coach for me when I em ready to leave for home. It cen trevel via Runecester Way."
"Good. Can I get a lift, Johanna, if it isn't too much bother?"
A cart, apparently carrying miscellaneous building equipment, was waved through Least Gate by the bored Watch guard. Two of the four men on it nodded acknowledgement as it passed on towards the New Ankh suburb of Leastways. They were just one more in a long succession of incoming and outgoing vehicles, nothing for the Watchmen here to get too bothered about.
The Assassin coach was waved into Trawler's yard by the duty Watchman. The Assassins crewing it went into standard bodyguarding positions, and one leapt down to confer with Captain Carrot. Then he knocked on the cab door to announce "all clear, ma'am" and courteously extended an arm to Johanna. She climbed unsteadily down, and accepted Carrot's thanks for turning out. He led her past the blanket-shrouded body of what Johanna was told had been a wizard in Trawler's employment who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She spared him a moment of silent compassion, thinking how would I feel if that were Ponder there? And went into the warehouse.
One of Trawler's warehouse managers had been recalled and he was checking through sheafs of inventories. But, under the shielded and very carefully designed lighting, she saw an obvious gap in what would have been a well-filled shelf. She went over and cautiously examined a barrel. She took a sniff. She asked for a barrel to be opened.
"Egetean Clay." she said, crumbling some between her fingers. "It is generally used in the menufecture of glossy smooth paper. The sort the illustrated periodicals print fine-detailed iconogrephs on. Normal paper untreated with this clay does not hev the correct definition. I believe the Enkh-Morpork Times buys very large quentities for its megezine erm."
Carrot nodded, politely. He noted her pale face and puffy red-rimmed eyes and wondered how long ago she had been crying. Angua could get that way sometimes.
"There is enother use for it, ceptain." she said. "I em essuming the people who stole et least two berrels of Egetean Clay do not intend to start a megazine-publishing business. Or you would not hev sent for me."
Carrot nodded.
"This is the purest end most refined kind. It hes a use in exothermic elchemy. Ceptain, whet else wes taken?"
"We don't know yet, miss." He said, honestly. "It's a very big warehouse and some of the things it sells are quite small. You might not see any obvious gaps on the shelves."
Johanna nodded. She gave Carrot a very serious look.
"We both hev suspicious minds, Ceptain. Let me make, perhaps, an intelligent guess es to whet else might be missing. Sweet spirits of nitre. Check the stock levels. I would elso look for missing glycerine. Perheps, es while we try to keep some things a secret, they inevitebly leak out, toluene. Toluene, or toluol, or methylbenzin, is a mono-substituted benzene derivative…"
She saw the politely blank look on Carrot's face. She adjusted her delivery to suit his comprehension.
"It is a colourless liquid resembling water but heavier end oilier. It hes a smell reminiscent of paint thinners or turpentine. Normelly kept in a brown gless jar, es it degrades in direct light."
She explained to Carrot how sweet spirits of nitre could, very carefully, be reacted with glycerine to produce an unstable but highly explosive alchemical compound. The Agateans knew another secret: how Agatean Clay, both porous and capable of accepting additives, could be used as a highly stable carrier for the explosive liquid. In the hands of a skilled person, the new clay, now Agatean Fireclay with its hidden load of explosive, could be kneaded, shaped, moulded and subjected to all sorts of mistreatment and remain stable. But mould it around a central fuse, a length of wick, and you then had the second-deadliest candle on Disc.
"And… what's the deadliest candle, Johanna?" Carrot asked.
She told him. It had originally been a top secret. Joint work by the Artificiers and the Assassins had developed tri-nitro toluene. Making it was as simple as… anyway, it had twenty times the explosive yield as the related nitroglycerine and was even more unstable. Until mixed into Agatean Clay.
"There are other explosives." Johanna said. "We need to setisfy ourselves as to whether they have decided on this simple route, or are elchemically skilled enough to pursue other evenues. I will furnish you with a list of whet to check for. If these turn out to be the only things missing, we will know for sure whet devices they are plenning. I cen then brief our people eccordingly."
Carrot took a long time before answering.
"So these things are highly unstable."
"Et first, yes."
"So there is a chance they could blow themselves up when preparing them?"
"In unskilled hends, there is elways thet possibility."
Carrot nodded. She continued.
"But they will inevitably take half the street with them. It will leave a big hole in the ground."
Carrot winced. Johanna patted his arm consolingly.
"There is a wey to identify somebody who hes been working with these explosives…" she said.
Preet du Plessis was satisfied with the work done by his fellow fugitive Benckel. Benckel had been in the Engineering Corps in the Army and had an unblemished service record. Until he had the epiphany concerning field demolition charges, normally used for opening up military roads or reducing enemy defences. He had reasoned that they'd be equally efficacious when applied to bank vaults and strongrooms.
This had led him first to the military prison, where he'd met duPlessis for the first time, and then to Gogga Island, the offshore maximum security jail where he'd met duPlessis for the second time. Skilled in making explosive devices, his talents were now being utilised in synthesising care packages (13) for other people on the gang's deathlist.
"Not bad." DuPlessis said, surveying the alchemical gear that was smoking and bubbling and doing nameless things in the isolated shed near the gang's new hideout. They had switched locations as it had been felt the Watch was getting too close. Especially after taking care of that Thief.
"Lots of juice coming out of these guavas." he added. Du Plessis was very carefully standing in the doorway without entering the shed.
"Got to take care, though." Benckel remarked. "Bloody stuff turns your skin yellow."
"Better wear gloves, then." Du Plessis rasped.
Johanna had left them with a list of things to check for, and then excused herself to go home.
Now free to consider other hitherto disregarded aspects of this case, Carrot Ironfoundersson stopped, dead still.
"Why did nobody tell me the dead wizard looks like…."
Cogs were turning in his mind. It explained why the troll had been stunned and not killed. Thieves generally didn't kill. The Assassins didn't like that, for one thing. But why kill the wizard when you could just stun him? And deliberately too, with two crossbow bolts…
"Identified as an Anthony Theopracticus, sir. But you really could mistake the poor sod for Professor Stibbons. In this light." Fittley remarked. "Who'd want to kill him? Apart from other wizards, I mean. Nice guy."
"Apart from four Howondalandian renegades with a grudge?" Carrot said. He reached into a pouch for folded iconographs and descriptions.
Apparently one of them served as a military engineer. Don't they use explosives?
He decided to alert Mr Vimes.
(1) Arrange your workplace so that there are no uncontrolled random explosions. Controlled and precisely timed explosions under strict operating procedures were different, however.
(2) Runecaster Way is in a part of the Ankh side of the city, near to the river, that in the days of The Colour of Magic was known as "The Alchemists' Quarter". As readers of that book will know, loud bangs and pretty sparkling fires were not unknown then, either. The area is now what would be categorised as "a light industrial estate" serving the alchemical and wizardickal professions – "light industry" meaning no loud noises, no earthy-swearing sons of toil and no especially bad smells, the sort of more upwardly mobile professional labour thought fit for the City of Ankh.
(3) Irena and Olga had paid careful thought to a throwaway remark by Nanny Ogg, who had loafed over to the blacksmiths to watch her son Jason shoeing a very strange horse indeed. After one of those little incidents involving a Pegasus stallion and one of Hobley's mares in a field near Bad Ass, the girls had realised that they didn't need to get a troll to punch Yuri the Medusa in the face to create a Pegasus. A Pegasus stallion and a normal mare would do the job just as well, and spare Yuri. It didn't take every time, but every birth of a true Pegasus foal was something to rejoice over. Hobley rejoiced most of all: the City paid him a bounty in dollars for every useful foal. And the apparently yennork foals born without wings could well carry the gene for Pegasus wings. You never knew. Lancre was thus the only other nation on the disc with Pegasus technology: King Verence owned one as a gift from Ankh-Morpork. Princess Esmerelda Note Spelling had been clamouring for a pony, after all..
(4) Zulus brewed a dark thin beer that was deceptively strong. But they weren't unaverse to the odd laager. Sorry. Bad pun there. Laager means "encampment, place to park up and alight from one's wagon, by extension a homestead". A word picked up in South Africa, and still used by the British armed forces to denote a defended encampment, in the sense of "the armour is parked up in a tank-laager"
(5) Several would leak, and end up gracing the "Chicks With Crossbows" illustrated supplement in Bows And Ammo.
(6) The shrewd old president was quite taken by her. She reassured him Rimwards Howondaland, for all its obvious inanities, must be doing something right to produce women like this. As a man long past seventy, she was reassurance that his nation would survive and thrive.
(7) But you've read The Discworld Tarot and Whys and Weres and you know this about Gillian, right?
(8) Agatean White. (lead). Ubu Yellow (Arsenic). Cobalt Blue. Vermilion, for which the mercury salt cinnabar is a most excellent pigment. Gillian reckoned these primary colours plus a decent black were a good foundation for a student pallete. Other interesting shades, like Prussic Green, could be added later by repeat offenders.
(9) Closely followed by Watch unable to apprehend suspects and lose them in pursuit. Vimes summoned to speak to Vetinari. In smaller type.
(10) The letters Þand ð have been described as the Tubso and Bissonomy of the alphabet. Strictly speaking they have to be there for completion as they were once fully-fledged members of the alphabet, but nobody can remember how to pronounce them or indeed what they're for.
(11) This is not exaggerated for comic intent. Not at all. Oh no. Seen it.
(12) There's a story about this too. No More time for These Trousers.
(13) Because getting one of these really takes care of people. A South African joke.