The building seemed a lot higher to William than it had done when he climbed the stairs. The people below were a lot smaller. He could make out faces looking up. Foul Ole Ron was there, with his scabby dog and the rest of the crew, because they had an
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uncanny gravitational attraction to impromptu street theatre. He could even make out Coffin Henry’s ‘Will Threaten For Food’ sign. And he could see the queues of wagons, by now paralysing half the city. He could feel his knees buckling . . .
Arthur grabbed him. ‘Oi, this is my patch,’ he said. ‘Find your own spot.’
‘You said the jumping-off wasn’t a skilled job,’ said William, trying to concentrate on his notes as the world spun gently around him. ‘What was your job, Mr Crank?’
‘Steeplejack.’
‘Arthur Crank, you come down here right this minute!’
Arthur looked down.
‘Oh gawds, they’ve gone and fetched the wife,’ he said.
‘Constable Fiddyment here says you’re . . .’ the distant pink face of Mrs Crank paused to listen again to the watchman standing next to her, ‘interferin’ with the merc-ant-ile well-bein’ of the city, you ole fool!’
‘Can’t argue with the wife,’ said Arthur, giving William a sheepish look.
‘I’ll hide your trousers another time, you silly ole man! You come down here or I’ll give you what for!’
‘Three happy married years,’ said Arthur cheerfully, waving at the distant figure. ‘The other thirty-two haven’t been too bad, either. But she can’t cook cabbage worth a damn.’
‘Really?’ said William, and dreamily fell forward.
He woke up lying on the ground, which was what he’d expected, but still in a three-dimensional shape, which he hadn’t. He realized that he was not dead. One reason for this was the face of Corporal Nobbs of the Watch looking down at him. William considered that he had lived a relatively blameless life and, if he died, did not expect to encounter anything with a face like Corporal Nobbs, the worst thing ever to hit a uniform if you didn’t count seagulls.
‘Ah, you’re all right,’ said Nobbs, looking slightly disappointed.
‘Feel . . . faint,’ William murmured.
‘I could give you the kiss of life if you like,’ said Nobbs.
Unbidden by William, various muscles spasmed and jerked him
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vertical so fast that his feet momentarily left the ground.
‘Much better now!’ he shouted.
‘Only we learned it down the Watch House and I haven’t had a chance to try it yet
‘Fit as a fiddle!’ William wailed.
‘. . . I’ve been practising on my hand and everything
‘Never felt better!’
‘Old Arthur Crank’s always doing that,’ said the watchman. ‘He’s just after tobacco money. Still, everyone clapped when he carried you down. It’s amazing how he can still climb drainpipes like that.’
‘Is it really . . . ?’ William felt oddly empty.
‘It was great when you were sick. I mean, from four storeys up it looked quite pretty. Someone ought to have taken a picture–‘
‘Got to be going!’ William screamed.
I must be going mad, he thought, as he hurried towards Gleam Street. Why the hell did I do it? It wasn’t as if it was my business.
Except, come to think of it, it is now.
~blk~
Mr Tulip burped. ‘What’re we going to do now?’ he said.
Mr Pin had acquired a map of the city and was examining it closely.
‘We are not your old-style bother boys, Mr Tulip. We are thinking men. We learn. We learn fast.’
‘What’re we going to do now?’ Mr Tulip repeated. Sooner or later he’d be able to catch up.
‘We’re going to buy ourselves a little insurance, that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t like no lawyer having all that muck on us. Ah . . . here we are. It’s the other side of the University.’
‘We’re going to buy some magic?’ said Mr Tulip.
‘Not exactly magic.’
‘I fort you said this city was a –ing pushover?’
‘It has its good points, Mr Tulip.’
Mr Tulip grinned. ‘–ing right,’ he said. ‘I want to go back to the Museum of Antiquities!’
‘Now, now, Mr Tulip. Business first, pleasure later,’ said Mr Pin.
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‘I want to –ing see all of ’em!’
‘Later on. Later on. Can you wait twenty minutes without exploding?’
The map led them to the Thaumatological Park, just hubwards of Unseen University. It was still so new that the modern flat-roofed buildings, winners of several awards from the Guild of Architects, hadn’t even begun to let in water and shed window panes in a breeze.
An attempt had been made to pretty up the immediate area with grass and trees, but since the site had been built partly on the old ground known as the ‘unreal estate’ this had not worked as planned. The area had been a dump for Unseen University for thousands of years. There was a lot more below that turf than old mutton bones, and magic leaks. On any map of thaumic pollution the unreal estate would be the centre of some extremely concentric circles.
Already the grass was multi-coloured and some of the trees had walked away.
Nevertheless, several businesses were thriving there, products of what the Archchancellor, or at least his speech writer, had called ‘a marriage between magic and modern business; after all, the modern world doesn’t need very many magic rings and magic swords, but it does need some way to keep its appointments in order. Lot of garbage, really, but I suppose it makes everyone happy. Is it time for that lunch yet?’
One of the results of this joyful union was now on the counter in front of Mr Pin.
‘It’s the Mk II,’ said the wizard, who was glad there was a counter between him and Mr Tulip. ‘Er . . . cutting edge.’
‘That’s good,’ said Mr Tulip. ‘We –ing love cutting edges.’
‘How does it work?’ said Mr Pin.
‘It’s got contextual help,’ said the wizard. ‘All you have to do is, er, open the lid.’
To the wizard’s horror a very thin knife appeared magically in his customer’s hand and was used to release the catch.
The lid sprang back. A small green imp sprang up.
‘Bingely-bingely-bee–‘
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It froze. Even a creation of biothaumic particles will hesitate when a knife is pressed to its throat.
‘What the hell’s this?’ said Mr Pin. ‘I said I want something that listensV
‘It does listen, it does listen!’ said the wizard hurriedly. ‘But it can say things too!’
‘Like what? Bingely-bingely?’
The imp gave a nervous cough. ‘Good for you!’ it said. ‘You have wisely purchased the Dis-organizer Mk II, the latest in biothaumaturgic design, with a host of useful features and no resemblance whatsoever to the Mk I which you may have inadvertently destroyed by stamping on it heavily!’ it said, adding,
~blk~~indent text~
‘This device is provided without warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or deity with respect of any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may be substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk.’
~blk~
The imp took a deep breath. ‘May I introduce to you the rest of my wide range of interesting and amusing sounds, Insert Name Here?’
Mr Pin glanced at Mr Tulip. ‘All right.’
‘For example, I can go “tra-la!”‘
‘No.’
‘An amusing bugle call?’
‘No.’
‘ “Ding!”?’
‘No.’
‘Or I can be instructed to make droll and diverting comments when performing various actions.’
‘Why?’
‘Er . . . some people like us to say things like “I’ll be back when you open the box again”, or something like that
‘Why do you do noises?’ said Mr Pin.
‘People like noises.’
‘We don’t,’ said Mr Pin.
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‘We –ing hate noises,’ said Mr Tulip.
‘Good for you! I can do lots of silence,’ the imp volunteered. But suicidal programming forced it to continue: ‘And would you like a different colour scheme?’
‘What?’
‘What colour would you like me to be?’ As it spoke, one of the imp’s long ears slowly turned purple and its nose became a vaguely disquieting shade of blue.