Making Money (36 page)

It was time for the sword stick, he thought. Get it, hand it over, take the money, and run.

T
HINGS WERE QUIET
in the Department of Postmortem Communications. They were never very loud at the best of times, although you always got, when the sounds of the university slid into silence, the reedy little gnat-sized voices leaking through from The Other Side.

The trouble was, thought Hicks, that too many of his predecessors had never had any kind of a life outside the department, where social skills were not a priority, and even when dead had completely failed to get a life, either. So they hung around the department, reluctant to leave the place. Sometimes, when they were feeling strong and the Dolly Sisters Players were doing a new production, he let them out to paint the scenery.

Hicks sighed. That was the trouble with working in the DPC, you could never exactly be the boss. In an ordinary job people retired, wandered back to the ol’ workplace a few times while there were those who remembered them, and then faded into the ever-swelling past. But the former staff here never seemed to go…

There was a saying: “Old necromancers never die.” When he told them this, people would say “…and?” and Hicks would have to reply, “That’s all of it, I’m afraid. Just ‘Old necromancers never die.’”

He was just tidying up for the night when, from his shadowy corner, Charlie said: “Somebody coming through, well, I say some body…”

Hicks spun around. The magic circle was glowing and a pearly pointy hat was already rising through the solid floor.

“Professor Flead?” he said.

“Yes, and we must hurry, young man,” said the shade of Flead, still rising.

“But I banished you! I used the Ninefold Erasure! It banishes everything!”

“I wrote it,” said Flead, looking smug. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m the only one it doesn’t work on. Ha, I’d be a damn fool to design a spell to work on myself, eh?”

Hicks pointed a shaking finger. “You put in a hidden portal, didn’t you!”

“Of course. A bloody good one. Don’t worry, I’m the only one who knows where it is, too.” The whole of Flead was floating above the circle now. “And don’t try to look for it, a man of your limited talent will never find the hidden runes.”

Flead looked around the room. “Isn’t that wonderful young lady here?” he said hopefully. “Well, never mind. You must get me out of this place, Hicks. I want to see the fun!”

“Fun? What fun?” said Hicks, a man planning to look through the Ninefold Erasure spell very, very carefully.

“I know what kind of golems are coming!”

W
HEN HE WAS
a child, Moist had prayed every night before going to bed. His family were very active in the Plain Potato Church, which shunned the excesses of the Ancient and Orthodox Potato Church. Its followers were retiring, industrious, and inventive, and their strict adherence to oil lamps and homemade furniture made them stand out in the region where most people used candles and sat on sheep.

He’d hated praying. It felt as though he was opening a big black hole into space, and at any moment something might reach through and grab him. This may have been because the standard bedtime prayer included the line “If I die before I wake,” which on bad nights caused him to try and sit up until morning.

He’d also been instructed to use the hours before sleep to count his blessings.

Lying here now, in the darkness of the bank, rather cold and significantly alone, he sought for some.

His teeth were good and he wasn’t suffering from premature hair loss. There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?

And the Watch hadn’t actually arrested him, as such. But there was a troll guarding the vault, which had ominous black and yellow ropes strung around it.

No gold in the vault. Well, even that wasn’t entirely true. There was five pounds of it, at least, coating the lead ingots. Someone had done a pretty good job there. That was a silver lining, right? At least it was some gold. It wasn’t as if there was no gold at all, right?

He was alone because Adora Belle was spending a night in the cells for assaulting an officer of the Watch. Moist considered that this was unfair. Of course, depending on what kind of day a copper has had there is no action, short of being physically somewhere else, that may not be construed as assault, but Adora Belle hadn’t actually assaulted Sergeant Detritus; she’d merely attempted to stab his huge foot with her shoe, which resulted in a broken heel and a twisted ankle. Captain Carrot said this had been taken into consideration.

The clocks of the city chimed four, and Moist considered his future, specifically in terms of length.

Look on the bright side. He might just be hanged.

He should have gone down to the vaults on day one, with an alchemist and a lawyer in tow. Didn’t they ever audit the vaults? Was it done by a bunch of jolly decent chaps who’d poke their head into some other chap’s vault and sign off on it quickly, so’s not to miss lunch? Can’t go doubting a chap’s word, eh? Especially when you didn’t want him to doubt yours.

Maybe the late Sir Joshua had blown it all on exotic leather goods and young ladies. How many nights in the arms of beautiful women were worth a sack of gold? The price of a good woman was proverbially above rubies, so a skillfully bad one was worth presumably a lot more.

He sat up and lit the candle, and his eye fell on Mr. Lavish’s journal on the bedside table.

Thirty-nine years ago…well, it was the right year, and since at the moment he had nothing else to do…

The luck that had been draining from his boots all day came back to him. Even though he wasn’t certain what he was looking for, he found it on the sixth random page:

“A pair of funny-looking people came to the bank today, asking for the boy Bent. I bade the sta? send them away. He is doing exceedingly well. One wonders what he must have su? ered.”

Quite a lot of the journal seemed to be in some sort of code, but the nature of the secret symbols suggested that Mr. Lavish painstakingly recorded every amorous affair. You had to admire his directness, at least. He’d worked out what he wanted to get from life, and had set out to get as much of it as he could. Moist had to take his hat off to the man.

And what had he wanted? He’d never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted tomorrow to be different from today.

He looked at his watch. Four fifteen, and no one about but the guards. There were watchmen on the main doors. He was indeed not under arrest, but this was one of those civilized little arrangements: he was not under arrest, provided that he didn’t try to act like a man who was not under arrest.

Ah, he thought, as he pulled on his trousers, there was another small blessing: he had been there when Mr. Fusspot proposed to the werewolf—

—which was, by then, balancing on one of the huge ornamental urns that grew like toadstools in the bank’s corridors. It was rocking. So was Corporal Nobbs, who was laughing himself sick at—

—Mr. Fusspot, who was bouncing up and down with wonderfully optimistic enthusiasm. But he was holding in his mouth his new toy, which appeared to have been mysteriously wound up, and beneficent fate had decreed that at the top of each jump, its unbalancing action would cause the little dog to do one slow cartwheel in the air.

And Moist thought: So, the werewolf is female and has a Watch badge on her collar, and I’ve seen that hair color before. Hah!

But his gaze had gone straight back to Mr. Fusspot, who was jumping and spinning with a look of total bliss on his little face—

—and then Captain Carrot had plucked him out of the air, the werewolf fled, and the show was over. But Moist would always have the memory. Next time he walked past Sergeant Angua he’d growl under his breath, although that would probably constitute assault.

Now, fully dressed, he went for a walk along endless corridors.

The Watch had put a lot of new guards in the bank for the night. Captain Carrot was clever, you had to give him that. They were trolls. Trolls were very hard to talk around to your point of view.

He could sense them watching him everywhere he went. There wasn’t one at the door into the undercroft, but Moist’s heart sank when he neared the pool of brilliant light around the Glooper and saw one standing by the door to freedom.

Owlswick was lying on a mattress and snoring, his paintbrush in his hand. Moist envied him.

Hubert and Igor were working on the tangle of glassware which, Moist could swear, looked bigger every time he came down here.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing. Nothing’s wrong!” said Hubert. “It’s all fine! Is something wrong? Why do you think something is wrong? What would make you think there’s something wrong?”

Moist yawned.

“Any coffee? Tea?” he suggested.

“For you, Mr. Lipwig,” said Igor, “I will make thplot.”

“Splot? Real Splot?”

“Indeed, thur,” said Igor smugly.

“You can’t buy it here, you know.”

“I am aware of that, thur. It hath now been outlawed in motht of the old country, too,” said Igor, rummaging in a sack.

“Outlawed? It’s been outlawed? But it’s just an herbal drink! My granny used to make it!”

“Indeed, it wath very traditional,” Igor agreed. “It put hairth on your chetht.”

“Yes, she used to complain about that.”

“This an alcoholic beverage?” said Hubert nervously.

“Absolutely not,” said Moist. “My granny never touched alcohol.” He thought for a moment and then added: “Except maybe aftershave. Splot’s made from tree bark.”

“Oh? Well, that sounds nice,” said Hubert.

Igor retired to his jungle of equipment, and there was the clinking of glassware. Moist sat down at the cluttered bench.

“How’s it going in your world, Hubert?” he said. “The water gurgling around okay, is it?”

“It’s fine! Fine! It’s all fine! Nothing is wrong at all!” Hubert went blank, fished out his notebook, glanced at a page, and put it back. “How are you?”

“Me? Oh, great. Except that there should be ten tons of gold in the gold vaults and there isn’t.”

It sounded as though a glass had broken in the direction of Igor, and Hubert stared in horror at Moist.

“Ha? Hahahaha?” he said. “Ha ha ha ha a HAHAHA!!
HA HA HA!!! HA HA—”

There was a blur as Igor leaped the table and grabbed Hubert. “Thorry, Mr. Lipwig,” he said over his shoulder, “thith can go on for hourth—”

He slapped Hubert twice across the face and pulled a jar out of his pocket.

“Mr. Hubert? How many fingerth am I holding up?”

Hubert slowly focused.

“Thirteen?” he quavered.

Igor relaxed, and dropped the jar back into his pocket. “Jutht in time. Well done, thur!”

“I am so sorry—” Hubert began.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m feeling a bit that way myself,” said Moist.

“So…this gold…have you any idea who took it?”

“No, but it must have been an inside job,” said Moist. “And now the Watch are going to pin it on me, I suspect.”

“Will that mean you won’t be in charge?” said Hubert.

“I doubt I’ll be allowed to run the bank from inside the Tanty.”

“Oh dear,” said Hubert, looking at Igor. “Um…what would happen if it was put back?”

Igor coughed loudly.

“I think that’s unlikely, don’t you?” said Moist.

“Yes, but Igor told me that when the Post Office burned down last year the gods themselves gave you the money to rebuild it!”

“Harrumph,” said Igor.

“I doubt if that’s likely twice,” said Moist. “And I don’t think there’s a god of banking.”

“One might take it on for the publicity,” said Hubert desperately. “It could be worth a prayer.”

“Harrumph!” said Igor, louder this time.

Moist looked from one to the other. Okay, he thought, something’s going on, and I’m not going to be told what it is.

Pray to the gods to get a big heap of gold? When had that ever worked?

Well, last year it worked, true, but that was because I already knew where a big heap of gold was buried. The gods help those who help themselves, and my word, didn’t I help myself.

“You think it’s really worth it?” said Moist.

A small, steaming mug was placed in front of him.

“Your Thplot,” said Igor. The words “Now please drink it up and go” accompanied it in every respect but the vocal.

“Do you think I should pray, Igor?” said Moist, watching his face.

“I couldn’t thay. The Igor position on prayer is that it is nothing more than hope with a beat to it.”

Moist leaned closer and whispered, “Igor, as one Überwald lad to another, your lisp just departed.”

Igor’s frown grew. “Thorry, thur, I have a lot on my mind,” he said, rolling his eyes to indicate the nervous Hubert.

“My fault, I’m disturbing you good people,” said Moist, emptying the cup in one go. “Any minute now the dhdldlkp; kvyv vbdf[; jvjvf; llljvmmk; vvbvlm bnxgcgbnme—”

Ah yes, Splot, thought Moist. It contained herbs and all natural ingredients. But belladonna was an herb, and arsenic was natural. There was no alcohol in it, people said, because alcohol couldn’t survive. But a cup of hot Splot got men out of bed and off to work when there was six feet of snow outside and the well was frozen. It left you clear-headed and quick-thinking. It was only a shame that the human tongue couldn’t keep up.

Moist blinked once or twice and said, “Ughx…”

He said his good-byes, even if they were his “gnyrxs,” and headed back up the length of the undercroft, the light from the Glooper pushing his shadow in front of him. Trolls watched him suspiciously as he climbed the steps, trying to keep his feet from flying away from him. His brain buzzed, but it had nothing to do. There was nothing to grab hold of, to worry a solution from. And in an hour or so, the country edition of the Times would be out and, very shortly after, so would he. There would be a run on the bank, which is a horrifying thing at best, and the other banks wouldn’t help him out, would they, because he wasn’t a chap. Disgrace and ignominy and Mr. Fusspot were staring him in the face, but only one of them was licking it.