Angua looked at the lock again. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said distantly.
The gate rattled shut behind them. They were outside, in an alley.
‘Fancy anyone stealing a load of clay,’ said Cheery. ‘Did he tell the Watch?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Angua. ‘Wasps don’t complain too loudly when they’re stung. Anyway, Detritus thinks Igneous is mixed up with smuggling Slab to the mountains, and so he’s itching for an excuse to have a poke around in there . . . Look, this is still technically my day off.’ She stepped back and peered up at the high spiked wall around the yard. ‘Could you bake clay in a baker’s oven?’ she said.
‘Oh, no.’
‘Doesn’t get hot enough?’
‘No, it’s the wrong shape. Some of your pots’d be baked hard while others’d still be green. Why do you ask?’
Why did I ask? Angua thought. Oh, what the hell . . . ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Not ale,’ said Cheery quickly. ‘And nowhere where you have to sing while you drink. Or slap your knees.’
Angua nodded understandingly. ‘Somewhere, in fact, without dwarfs?’
‘Er … yes
‘Where we’re going,’ said Angua, ‘that won’t be a problem.’
The fog was rising fast. All morning it had hung around in alleys and cellars. Now it was moving back in for the night. It came out of the ground and up from the river and down from the sky, a clinging yellowish stinging blanket, the river Ankh in droplet form. It found its way through cracks and, against all common sense, managed to survive in lighted rooms, filling the air with an eye-watering haze and making the candles crackle. Outdoors, every figure loomed, every shape was a menace . . .
In a drab alley off a drab street Angua stopped, squared her shoulders, and pushed open a door.
The atmosphere in the long, low, dark room altered as she stepped inside. A moment of time rang like a glass bowl, and then there was a sense of relaxation. People turned back in their seats.
Well, they were seated. It was quite likely they were people.
Cheery moved closer to Angua. ‘What’s this place called?’ she whispered.
‘It hasn’t really got a name,’ said Angua, ‘but sometimes we call it Biers.’
‘It didn’t look like an inn outside. How did you find it?’
‘You don’t. You . . . gravitate to it.’
Cheery looked around nervously. She wasn’t sure where they were, apart from somewhere in the cattle-market district, somewhere up a maze of alleys.
Angua walked to the bar.
A deeper shadow appeared out of the gloom. ‘Hello, Angua,’ it said, in a deep, rolling voice. ‘Fruit juice, is it?’
‘Yes. Chilled.’
‘And what about the dwarf?’
‘She’ll have him raw,’ said a voice somewhere in the gloom. There was a ripple of laughter in the dark. Some of it sounded altogether too strange to Cheery. She couldn’t imagine it issuing from normal lips. Ill have a fruit juice, too,’ she quavered.
Angua glanced at the dwarf. She felt oddly grateful that the remark from the darkness seemed to have gone entirely over the small bullet head. She unhooked her badge and with care and deliberation laid it down on the counter. It went perlink. Then Angua leaned forward and showed the iconograph to the barman.
If it was a man. Cheery wasn’t sure yet. A sign over the bar said ‘Don’t you ever change’.
‘You know everything that’s going on, Igor,’ Angua said. Two old men got killed yesterday. And a load of clay got stolen from Igneous the troll recently. Did you ever hear about that?’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘Killing old men is against the law,’ said Angua. ‘Of course, a lot of things are against the law, so we’re very busy in the Watch. We like to be busy about important things. Otherwise we have to be busy about unimportant things. Are you hearing me?’
The shadow considered this. ‘Go and take a seat,’ it said. ‘I’ll bring your drinks.’
Angua led the way to a table in an alcove. The clientele lost interest in them. A buzz of conversation resumed.
‘What is this place?’ Cheery whispered.
‘It’s … a place where people can be themselves,’ said Angua slowly. ‘People who . . . have to be a little careful at other times. You know?’
‘No.’
Angua sighed. ‘Vampires, zombies, bogeymen, ghouls, oh my. The und’ She corrected herself. ‘The differently alive,’ she said. ‘People who have to spend most of their time being very careful, not frightening people, fitting in. That’s how it works here. Fit in, get a job, don’t worry people, and you probably won’t find a crowd outside with pitchforks and flaming torches. But sometimes it’s good to go where everybody knows your shape.’
Now that Cheery’s eyes had grown accustomed to the low light she could make out the variety of shapes on the benches. Some of them were a lot bigger than human. Some had pointy ears and long muzzles.
‘Who’s that girl?’ she said. ‘She looks . . . normal.’
‘That’s Violet. She’s a tooth fairy. And next to her is Schleppel the bogeyman.’
In the far corner something sat huddled in a huge overcoat under a high, broad-brimmed pointed hat.
‘And him?’
‘That’s old Man Trouble,’ said Angua. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you don’t mind him.’
‘Er . . . any werewolves here?’
‘One or two,’ said Angua.
‘I hate werewolves.’
‘Oh?’
The oddest customer was sitting by herself, at a small round table. She appeared to be a very old lady, in a shawl and a straw hat with flowers in it. She was staring in front of her with an expression of good-natured aimlessness, and in context looked more frightening than any of the shadowy figures.
‘What is she?’ Cheery hissed.
‘Her? Oh, that’s Mrs Gammage.’
‘And what does she do?’
‘Do? Well, she comes in here most days for a drink and some company. Sometimes we … they have a singsong. Old songs, that she remembers. She’s practically blind. If you mean, is she an undead … no, she isn’t. Not a vampire, a werewolf, a zombie or a bogeyman. Just an old lady.’
A huge shambling hairy thing paused at Mrs Gammage’s table and put a glass in front of her.
‘Port and lemon. There you goes, Mrs Gammage,’ it rumbled.
‘Cheers, Charlie!’ the old lady cackled. ‘How’s the plumbing business?’
‘Doing fine, love,’ said the bogeyman, and vanished into the gloom.
‘ That was a plumber? said Cheery.
‘Of course not. I don’t know who Charlie was. He probably died years ago. But she thinks the bogeyman is him, and who’s going to tell her different?’
‘You mean she doesn’t know this place is’
‘Look, she’s been coming here ever since the old days when it was the Crown and Axe,’ said Angua. ‘No one wants to spoil things. Everyone likes Mrs Gammage. They . . . watch out for her. Help her out in little ways.’
‘How?’
‘Well, I heard that last month someone broke into her hovel and stole some of her stuff. . .’
‘ That doesn’t sound helpful.’
‘. . . and it was all returned next day and a couple of thieves were found in the Shades with not a drop of blood left in their bodies.’ Angua smiled, and her voice took on a mocking edge. ‘You know, you get told a lot of bad things about the undead, but you never hear about the marvellous work they do in the community.’
Igor the barman appeared. He looked more or less human, apart from the hair on the back of his hands and the single unbifurcated eyebrow across his forehead. He tossed a couple of mats on the table and put their drinks down.
‘You’re probably wishing this was a dwarf bar,’ said Angua. She lifted her beermat carefully and glanced at the underside.
Cheery looked around again. By now, if it had been a dwarf bar, the floor would be sticky with beer, the air would be full of flying quaff, and people would be singing. They’d probably be singing the latest dwarf tune, Gold, Gold, Gold, or one of the old favourites, like Gold, Gold, Gold, or the all-time biggie, Gold, Gold, Gold. In a few minutes, the first axe would have been thrown.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it could never be that bad.’
‘Drink up,’ said Angua. ‘We’ve got to go and see . . . something.’
A large hairy hand grabbed Angua’s wrist. She looked up into a terrifying face, all eyes and mouth and hair.
‘Hello, Shlitzen,’ she said calmly.
‘Hah, I’m hearing where there’s a baron who’s really unhappy about you,’ said Shlitzen, alcohol crystallizing on his breath.
‘That’s my business, Shlitzen,’ said Angua. ‘Why don’t you just go back behind your door like the good bogeyman that you are?’
‘Hah, he’s sayin’ where you’re disgracin’ the Old Country’
‘Let go, please,’ said Angua. Her skin was white where Shlitzen was gripping her.