Going Postal (20 page)

“Hey, if he’s got a pair of hands and knows how to walk, I’ll give him a job!”

“He’s already got one,” said Sacharissa, laughing. “He’s our chief iconographer. He’s been taking pictures of your men at work. We’d very much like to have one of you. For the front page.”

“What! No!” said Moist. “Please! No!”

“He’s very good.”

“Yeah, but…but…but…” Moist began, and in his head the sentence went on: But I don’t think that even a talent for looking like half the men you see in the street would survive a picture.

What actually came out was: “I don’t want to be singled out from all the hardworking men and golems who are putting the Post Office back on its feet! After all, there’s no ‘me’ in team, eh?”

“Actually, there is,” said Sacharissa. “Besides, you’re the one wearing the wingéd hat and the golden suit. Come
on
, Mr. Lipwig!”

“All right, all right, I really didn’t want to go into this, but it’s against my religion!” said Moist, who’d had time to think. “We’re forbidden to have any image made of us. It removes part of the soul, you know.”

“And you
believe
that?” said Sacharissa. “Really?”

“Er, no. No. Of course not. Not as such. But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say, ‘Yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind.’ It’s table d’hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it could get silly.”

Miss Cripslock looked at him with her head to one side.

“You work for his lordship, don’t you?” she said.

“Well, of course. This is an official job.”

“And I expect you’ll tell me that your previous job was as a clerk, nothing special?”

“That’s right.”

“Although your name probably
is
Moist von Lipwig, because I can’t believe anyone would choose that as an assumed name,” she went on.

“Thank you very much!”

“It sounds to
me
as though you’re issuing a challenge, Mr. Lipwig. There’s all sorts of problems with the clacks right now. There’s been a big stink about the people they’ve been sacking and how the ones that’re left are being worked to death, and up you pop, full of ideas.”

“I’m serious, Sacharissa. Look, people are already giving us
new
letters to post!”

He pulled them out of his pocket and fanned them out. “See, there’s one here to go to Dolly Sisters, another to Nap Hill, one for…Blind lo…”

“He’s a god,” said the woman. “Could be a problem.”

“No,” said Moist briskly, putting the letters back in his pocket. “We’ll deliver to the gods themselves. He has three temples in the city. It’ll be easy.”
And you’ve forgotten about the pictures, hooray…

“A man of resource, I see. Tell me, Mr. Moist, do you know much about the history of this place?”

“Not too much. I’d certainly like to find out where the chandeliers went to!”

“You haven’t spoken to Professor Pelc?”

“Who’s he?” said Moist.

“I’m amazed. He’s at the university. He wrote a whole chapter on this place in his book on…oh, something to do with big masses of writing thinking for themselves. I suppose you do
know
about the people who died?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He said the place drove them mad in some way. Well, actually,
we
said that. What he said was a lot more complicated. I have to hand it to you, Mr. Lipwig, taking on a job that has killed four men before you. It takes a special kind of man to do that.”

Yes
, thought Moist.
An
ignorant one.

“You haven’t noticed anything strange yourself?” Miss Cripslock went on.

“Well, I
think
my body traveled in time but the soles of my feet didn’t, but I’m not sure how much of it was hallucination; I was nearly killed in a mailslide; and the letters keep talking to me,” were the words that Moist didn’t say, because it’s the kind of thing you don’t say to an open notebook. What he did say was “Oh, no. It’s a fine old building, and I fully intend to bring it back to its former glory.”

“Good. How old are you, Mr. Moist?”

“Twenty-six. Is that important?”

“We like to be thorough.” Miss Cripslock gave him a sweet smile. “Besides, it’s important if we have to write your obituary.”

M
OIST MARCHED
through the hall, with Groat sidling after him.

He pulled the new letters out of his pocket and thrust them into Groat’s crabby hands. “Get these delivered. Anything addressed to a god goes to his or her or its temple. Any other strange ones, put on my desk.”

“We picked up another fifteen just now, sir. People think it’s funny!”

“Got the money?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Then we’re the ones who’re laughing,” said Moist firmly. “I won’t be long. I’m off to see the wizard.”

B
Y LAW AND TRADITION
, the great Library of Unseen University is open to the public, although they aren’t allowed as far as the magical shelves. They don’t realize this, however, since the rules of time and space are twisted inside the library, and so hundreds of miles of shelving can easily be concealed inside a space roughly the thickness of paint.

People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as “Is this the laundry?” “How do you spell surreptitious?” and, on a regular basis, “Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.”

And, strictly speaking, the library
will
have it…somewhere. Somewhere it has every book ever written, that ever will be written, and, notably, every book that is possible to write. These are not on the public shelves lest untrained handling cause the collapse of everything that it is possible to imagine.
*

Like everyone else who entered the library, Moist stared up at the dome. Everyone did. They always wondered why a library that was technically infinite in size was covered by a dome a few hundred feet across, and they were allowed to go on wondering.

Just below the dome, staring down from their niches, were statues of the Virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bissonomy,
*
and Fortitude.

Moist couldn’t resist removing his hat and giving a little salute to Hope, to whom he owed so much. Then, as he wondered why the statue of Bissonomy was carrying a kettle and what looked like a bunch of parsnips, he collided with someone who grabbed him by the arm and hurried him across the floor.

“Don’t say a word, don’t say a word, but you are looking for a book, yes?”

“Well, actually—” He seemed to be in the clutches of a wizard.

“—you are not sure what book!” said the wizard. “Exactly. It is the job of a librarian to find the right book for the right person. If you would just sit here, we can proceed. Thank you. Please excuse the straps. This will not take long. It is practically painless.”

“Practically?”

Moist was pushed, firmly, into a large and complex swivel chair. His captor, or helper, or whatever he might turn out to be, gave him a reassuring smile. Other, shadowy figures helped him strap Moist into the chair, which, while basically an old, horseshoe-shaped one with a leather seat, was surrounded by…stuff. Some of it was clearly magical, being of the stars-and-skulls variety, but what about the jar of pickles, the pair of tongs, and the live mouse in a cage made of—

Panic gripped Moist and, not at all coincidentally, so did a pair of padded paddles, which closed over his ears. Just before all sound was silenced, he heard: “You may experience a taste of eggs and the sensation of being slapped in the face with some sort of a fish. This is perfectly—”

And then thlabber happened. It was a traditional magic term, although Moist didn’t know this. There was a moment in which everything, even the things that couldn’t be stretched, felt stretched. And then there was the moment when everything suddenly went back to not being stretched, known as the moment of thlabber.

When Moist opened his eyes again, the chair was facing the other way. There was no sign of the pickles, the tongs, or the mouse, but in their place was a bucket of clockwork pastry lobsters and a boxed set of novelty glass eyes.

Moist gulped and muttered: “Haddock.”

“Really? Most people say cod,” said someone. “No accounting for taste, I suppose.” Hands unbuckled Moist and helped him to his feet. These hands belonged to an orangutan, but Moist didn’t pass comment. This was a university of wizards, after all.

The man who had shoved him into the chair was now standing by a desk staring at some wizardly device.

“Any moment now,” he said. “Any moment. Any moment now. Any second…”

A bundle of what appeared to be hosepipes led from the desk into the wall. Moist was certain they bulged for a moment, like a snake eating in a hurry; the machine stuttered, and a piece of paper dropped out of a slot.

“Ah…here we are,” said the wizard, snatching it up. “Yes, the book you were after was
A History of Hats
, by F. G. Smallfinger, am I right?”

“No. I’m not after a book, in fact—” Moist began.

“Are you sure? We have lots.”

There were two striking things about this wizard. One was…well, Grandfather Lipwig has always said that you could tell the honesty of a man by the size of his ears, and this was clearly a very honest wizard. The other was that the beard he was wearing was clearly false.

“I was looking for a wizard called Pelc,” he ventured.

The beard parted slightly to reveal the wide smile.

“I
knew
the machine would work!” said the wizard. “You are looking, in fact, for me.”

T
HE SIGN
on the outside of the office door said:
LADISLAV PELC, D.M.PHIL, PREHUMOUS PROFESSOR OF MORBID BIBLIOMANCY
.

On the inside of the door was a hook, on which the wizard hung his beard.

It was a wizard’s study, so of course it had the skull with a candle on it and a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling. No one, least of all wizards, know why this is, but you have to have them.

It was also a room full of books and made of books. There was no actual furniture; this is to say, the desk and chairs were shaped out of books. It looked as though many of them were frequently referred to, because they lay open with other books used as bookmarks.

“You want to know about your post office, I expect?” said Pelc, as Moist settled onto a chair carefully put together from volumes 1 to 41 of
Synonyms for the Word “Plimsoll.”

“Yes, please,” said Moist.

“Voices? Strange events?”

“Yes!”

“How can I put this…” mused Pelc. “Words have power, you understand? It is in the nature of our universe. Our library itself distorts time and space on quite a grand scale. Well, when the Post Office started accumulating letters, it was storing words. In fact, what was being created was what we call a ‘gevaisa,’ a tomb of living words. Are you of a literary persuasion, Mr. Lipwig?”

“Not as such.” Books were a closed book to Moist.

“Would you burn a book?” said Pelc. “An old book, say, battered, almost spineless, found in a box of rubbish?”

“Well…probably not,” Moist admitted.

“Why not? Would the thought make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes, I suppose it would. Books are…well, you just don’t do that. Er…why do you wear a
false
beard? I thought wizards had real ones.”

“It’s not compulsory, you know, but when we go outside, the public expects beards,” said Pelc. “It’s like having stars on your robes. Besides, they’re far too hot in the summer. Where was I? Gevaisas. Yes. All words have
some
power. We feel it instinctively. Some, like magical spells and the true names of the gods, have a great deal. They must be treated with respect. In Klatch, there is a mountain with many caves, and in those caves are entombed more than a hundred thousand old books, mostly religious, each one in a white linen shroud. That is perhaps an extreme approach, but intelligent people have always known that some words at least should be disposed of with care and respect.”

“Not just shoved in sacks in the attic,” said Moist. “Hold on…a golem called the Post Office ‘a tomb of unheard words.’”

“I’m not at all surprised,” said Professor Pelc calmly. “The old gevaisas and libraries used to employ golems, because the only words that have the power to influence them are the ones in their heads. Words are
important
. And when there is a critical mass of them, they change the nature of the universe. Did you have what seemed to be hallucinations?”

“Yes! I was back in time! But
also
in the present!”

“Ah, yes. That’s quite common,” said the wizard. “Enough words crammed together can affect time and space.”

“And they spoke to me!”

“I told the Watch the letters wanted to be delivered,” said Professor Pelc. “Until a letter is read, it’s not complete. They
will
try anything to be delivered. But they don’t think, as you understand it, and they’re not clever. They just reach out into any available mind. I see you’ve already been turned into an avatar.”

“I can’t fly!”

“Avatar: the living likeness of a god,” said the professor patiently. “The hat with wings. The golden suit.”

“No, they happened by accident—”

“Are you sure?”

The room went quiet.

“Um…I was until right now,” said Moist.

“They’re not trying to hurt anyone, Mr. Lipwig,” said Pelc. “They just want deliverance.”

“We’ll never be able to deliver them all,” said Moist. “That’d take years.”

“The mere fact you’re delivering any will help, I’m sure,” said Professor Pelc, smiling like a doctor telling a man not to worry, the disease is only fatal in eighty-seven percent of cases. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”