of humour when it comes to booby traps.’
‘No.’
‘Guards?’
‘I believe so. According to legend. But nothing very much.’
Medium Dave narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s valuable stuff in this … tower?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Why ain’t there many guards, then?’
‘The … person who owns the property probably does not realize the value of what …
of what they have.’
‘Locks?’ said Medium Dave.
‘On our way we shal be picking up a locksmith.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Brown.’
They nodded. Everyone – at least, everyone in ‘the business’, and everyone in ‘the
business’ knew what ‘the business’ was, and if you didn’t know what ‘the business’ was
you weren’t a businessman – knew Mr Brown. His presence anywhere around a job
gave it a certain kind of respectability. He was a neat, elderly man who’d invented most
of the tools in his big leather bag. No matter what cunning you’d used to get into a
place, or overcome a smal army, or find the secret treasure room, sooner or later you
sent for Mr Brown, who’d turn up with his leather bag and his little springy things and
his little bottles of strange alchemy and his neat little boots. And he’d do nothing for ten
minutes but look at the lock, and then he’d select a piece of bent metal from a ring of
several hundred almost identical pieces, and under an hour later he’d be walkingaway
with a neat ten per cent of the takings. Of course, you didn’t have to use Mr Brown’s
services. You could always opt to spend the rest of your life looking at a locked door.
‘Al right. Where is this place?’ said Peachy.
Teatime turned and smiled at him. ‘If I’m
paying you, why isn’t it me who’s asking the questions?’
Peachy didn’t even try to outstare the glass eye a second time.
‘Just want to be prepared, that’s al ,’ he mumbled.
‘Good reconnaissance is the essence of a successful operation,’ said Teatime. He
turned and looked up at the bulk that was Banjo and added, ‘What is this?’
‘This is Banjo,’ said Medium Dave, rol ing himself a cigarette.
‘Does it do tricks?’
Time stood stil for a moment. The other men looked at Medium Dave. He was
known to Ankh-Morpork’s professional underclass as a thoughtful, patient man, and
considered something of an intel ectual because some of his tattoos were spel ed right.
He was reliable in a tight spot and, above al , he was honest, because good criminals
have to be honest. If he had a fault, it was a tendency to deal out terminal and
definitive retribution to anyone who said anything about his brother.
If he had a virtue, it was a tendency to pick his time. Medium Dave’s fingers tucked
the tobacco into the paper and raised it to his lips.
‘No,’ he said.
Chickenwire tried to defrost the conversation. ‘He’s not what you’d cal bright, but
he’s always useful. He can lift two men in each hand. By their necks.’
‘Yur,’ said Banjo.
‘He looks like a volcano,’ said Teatime.
‘ Real y?’ said Medium Dave Lilywhite. Chickenwire reached out hastily and pushed
him back down in his seat.
Teatime turned and smiled at him.
‘I do so hope we’re going to be friends, Mr Medium Dave,’ he said. ‘It real y hurts to
think I might not be among friends.’ He gave him another bright smile. Then he turned
back to the rest of the table.
‘Are we resolved, gentlemen?’
They nodded. There was some reluctance, given the consensus view that Teatime
belonged in a room with soft wal s, but ten thousand dol ars was ten thousand dol ars.
possibly even more.
‘Good,’ said Teatime. He looked Banjo up and down. ‘Then I suppose we might as
wel make a start.’
And he hit Banjo very hard in the mouth.
Death in person did not turn up upon the cessation of every life. It was not
necessary. Governments govern, but prime ministers and presidents do not personal y
turn up in people’s homes to tel them how to run their lives, because of the mortal
danger this would present. There are laws instead.
But from time to time Death checked up to see that things were functioning properly
or, to put it another and more accurate way, properly ceasing to function in the less
significant areas of his jurisdiction.
And now he walked through dark seas.
Silt rose in clouds around his feet as he strode along the trench bottom. His robes
floated out around him.
There was silence, pressure and utter, utter darkness. But there was life down here,
even this far below the waves. There were giant squid, and lobsters with teeth on their
eyelids. There were spidery things with their stomachs on their feet, and fish that made
their own light. It was a quiet, black nightmare world, but life lives everywhere that life
can. Where life can’t, this takes a little longer.
Death’s destination was a slight rise in the trench floor. Already the water around him
was getting warmer and more populated, by creatures that looked as though they had
been put together from the bits left over from everything else.
Unseen but felt, a vast column of scalding hot water was wel ing up from a fissure.
Somewhere below were rocks heated to near incandescence by the Disc’s magical
field.
Spires of minerals had been deposited around
this vent. And, in this tiny oasis, a type of life had grown up. It did not need air or
light. It did not even need food in the way that most other species would understand
the term.
It just grew at the edge of the streaming column of water, looking like a cross
between a worm and a flower.
Death kneeled down and peered at it, because it was so smal . But for some reason,
in this world without eyes or light, it was also a bril iant red. The profligacy of life in
these matters never ceased to amaze him.
He reached inside his robe and pul ed out a smal rol of black material, like a
jewel er’s toolkit. With great care he took from one of its pouches a scythe about an
inch long, and held it expectantly between thumb and forefinger.
Somewhere overhead a shard of rock was dislodged by a stray current and tumbled
down, raising little puffs of silt as it bounced off the tubes.
It landed just beside the living flower and then rol ed, wrenching it from the rock.
Death flicked the tiny scythe just as the bloom faded …
The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is often remarked upon. It is
said they can see the fal of every sparrow.
And this may be true. But there is only one who is always there when it hits the
ground.
The soul of the tube worm was very smal and uncomplicated. It wasn’t bothered
about sin. it had never coveted its neighbour’s polyps. It had never gambled or drunk
strong liquor. It had never bothered itself with questions like ‘Why am I here?’ because
it had no concept at al of ‘here’ or, for that matter, of ‘I’.
Nevertheless, something was cut free under the surgical edge of the scythe and
vanished in the roiling waters.
Death careful y put the instrument away and stood up. Al was wel , things were
functioning satisfactorily, and
-but they weren’t.
In the same way that the best of engineers can hear the tiny change that signals a
bearing going bad long before the finest of instruments would detect anything wrong,
Death picked up a discord in the symphony of the world. It was one wrong note among
bil ions but al the more noticeable for that, like a tiny pebble in a very large shoe.
He waved a finger in the waters. For a moment a blue, door-shaped outline
appeared He ste pped through it and was gone.
The tube creatures didn’t notice him go.
They hadn’t noticed him arrive. They never ever noticed anything.
A cart trundled through the freezing foggy streets, the driver hunched in his seat. He
seemed to be al big thick brown overcoat.
A figure darted out of the swirls and was suddenly on the box next to him
‘Hi!’ it said. ‘My name’s Teatime. What’s yours?’
‘ ere, you get down, I ain’t al owed to give li-‘
The driver stopped. It was amazing how Teatime had been able to thrust a knife
through four layers of thick clothing and stop it just at the point where it pricked the
flesh.
‘Sorry?’ said Teatime, smiling brightly.
‘Er – there ain’t nothing valuable, y’know, nothing valuable, only a few bags of-’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Teatime, his face a sudden acre of concern. ‘Wel , we’l just have to
see, won’t we … What is your name, sir?’
‘Ernie. Er. Ernie,’ said Ernie. ‘Yes. Ernie. Er… ‘
Teatime turned his head slightly.