Unseen Academicals (37 page)

‘And a joke-shop mask?’ said Glenda.

‘Quite serviceable as a matter of fact,’ said Hix, haughtily. ‘Rather more frightening than the original thing and washable, which is always a consideration in this department. Anyway, the Archchancellor was down here weeks ago, after the same stuff you are, I very much imagine.’

‘Were the orcs terrible creatures?’ said Glenda.

‘I think I can probably show you,’ said Hix.

‘This gentleman has already shown me the picture in the book,’ said Glenda.

‘Was it the one with the eyeballs?’

Glenda found the memory only too vivid. ‘Yes!’

‘Oh, there’s worse than that,’ said Hix happily. ‘And I suppose you want the proof?’ He half turned his head. ‘Charlie?’ A skeleton walked out through black curtains at the far end of the room. It was holding a mug. There was something curiously depressing about the slogan on said mug, which ran: ‘Necromancers Do It All Night’.

‘Don’t be scared,’ said Dr Hix.

‘I’m not,’ Glenda said, terrified to her insteps. ‘I’ve seen the insides of a slaughterhouse. It’s part of the job and, anyway, he’s polished.’

‘Thank you very much,’ the skeleton articulated.

‘But “Necromancers Do It All Night”? That’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, don’t you think it’s trying a bit too hard?’

‘It was hard enough to get that one made,’ said Dr Hix. ‘We’re not the most popular department in the university. Charlie, the young lady wants to know about orcs.’

‘Again?’ said the skeleton, handing the mug to the doctor. It had a rather hoarse voice, but on the whole far less dreadful than it might have been. Apart from anything else, his bones were, well, apart from anything else, and floated in the air as if they were the only visible parts of an invisible body. The jaw moved as Charlie went on: ‘Well, I think we’ve still got the memory in the sump ’cos, you remember, we called it up for Ridcully. I haven’t got round to wiping it yet.’

‘Memory of what?’ said Glenda.

‘It’s a kind of magic,’ said Hix loftily. He continued. ‘It would take too long to explain.’

Glenda didn’t like this. ‘Let’s have it in a nutshell, then.’

‘Okay. We’re now quite certain that what we call the passage of time is in fact the universe being destroyed and instantly rebuilt in the smallest instant of eventuality that it is possible to have. While the process is instant at every point, nevertheless to renew the whole Universe takes approximately five days, we believe. Interestingly enough—’

‘Can I have it in a smaller nut?’

‘So you don’t want to hear about Houseman’s theory of the Universal Memory?’

‘Possibly the size of a walnut,’ said Glenda.

‘Very well, then, can you imagine this: current thinking is that the old universe is not destroyed in the instant the new universe is created, a process which, incidentally, has been happening an untold billion number of times since I have been talking—’

‘Yes, I can believe that. Can we try for a pistachio?’ said Glenda.

‘Copies of the universe are kept. We don’t know how, we don’t know where, and it beats the hell out of me trying to imagine how it all works. But we’re finding that it is sometimes possible to, er, read this memory in certain circumstances. How am I doing in terms of nut dimensions?’

‘You’ve got some kind of magic mirror?’ said Glenda flatly.

‘That’s it, if you want the size of a pine nut,’ said Hix.

‘Pine nuts are actually seeds,’ said Glenda smugly. ‘So, what you’re saying is that everything that happens stays happened somewhere and you can look at it if you have the knowing?’

‘That is a magnificent distillation of the situation,’ said Hix. ‘Which is incredibly helpful while at the same time inaccurate in every possible way. But, as you put it, we use a’–and here he gave a little shudder–‘magic mirror, as you put it. We recently looked at the battle of Orc Deep for the Archchancellor. That was the last known battle in which the race known as orcs were deployed.’

‘Deployed?’ said Glenda.

‘Used,’ said Hix.

‘
Used?
And you can find something like that in the total history of everything there has ever been?’

‘Ahem. It helps to have an anchor,’ said Hix. ‘Something that was present. And all I am going to tell you, young lady, is that there was a piece of a skull found on that battlefield, and since it was a skull that firmly puts it into the responsibility of my department.’ He turned to the Librarian. ‘It’s okay to show her, isn’t it?’ he said. The Librarian shook his head. ‘Good. That means I can do it, then, under university statute. A certain amount of surreptitious disobedience is demanded of me. We have it set up on an omniscope. Since my colleague is so certain
that I should not be doing this, he will not mind if I do. It’s only a very brief fragment of time, but it did impress the Archchancellor, if impress is the right word.’

‘I just want to get something clear,’ said Glenda. ‘You can actually disobey the orders of someone like the Archchancellor?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Hix. ‘I am under instruction to do so. It is
expected
of me.’

‘But how can that possibly work?’ said Glenda. ‘What happens when he gives you an instruction that he doesn’t want you to disobey?’

‘It works by common sense and good will on all sides,’ said Hix. ‘If, for example, the Archchancellor gives me a command that absolutely must not be disobeyed, he will add something like, “Hix, you little worm (by university statute), if you disobey this one, I’ll smack your head.” Though in reality, a word to the wise, madam, is sufficient. It’s all done on the basis of trust, really. I am trusted to be untrustworthy. I don’t know what the Archchancellor would do without me.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Charlie, grinning.

A few minutes later, Glenda was in another dark room, standing in front of a round, dark mirror, at least as high as she was. ‘Is this going to be like the Moving Pictures?’ she said sarcastically.

‘An amusing comparison,’ said Hix. ‘Except for, one, there is no popcorn and, two, you would not want to eat it if there was. What might be called the camera in this case was the last thing one of the human fighters saw.’

‘Is this the person whose skull you’ve got?’

‘Well done! I see you have been following things,’ said Hix.

There was a moment of silence. ‘This is going to be scary, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Hix. ‘Nightmares? Very probably. Even I think it’s extremely disconcerting. Are you ready, Charlie?’

‘Ready,’ said Charlie, from somewhere in the darkness. ‘Are you sure, miss?’

Glenda wasn’t sure, but anything would be better than facing Hix’s know-it-all smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, keeping her voice firm.

‘The fragment we are able to show lasts less than three seconds, but I doubt whether you will want to see it again. Are we ready? Thank you, Charlie.’

Glenda’s chair went backwards very quickly and Hix, who had been hovering, caught her. ‘The only known representation of an orc in battle,’ said Hix, standing her upright. ‘Well done, by the way. Even the Archchancellor swore out loud.’

Glenda blinked, trying to slice slightly less than three seconds out of her memory. ‘And that’s true, is it?’ But it had to be true. There was something about the way the image was sticking to the back of her brain that declared the truth of it.

‘I want to see it again.’

‘You what?!’ said Hix.

‘There’s more to it,’ said Glenda. ‘It’s only a part of a picture.’

‘It took us hours to work that out,’ said Hix severely. ‘How did you spot it the very first go?’

‘Because I knew it had to be there,’ said Glenda.

‘She’s got you there, boss,’ said Charlie.

‘All right. Show it again and this time magnify the right-hand corner. It’s very blurry,’ he said to Glenda.

‘Can you stop it?’ said Glenda.

‘Oh, yes. Charlie has worked that one out.’

‘Then you know the bit I mean.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Then show me it again.’

Charlie disappeared behind his curtain. There were a few flashes of light and then…

‘There!’ She pointed at the frozen image. ‘That’s men on horseback, isn’t it? And they’ve got whips. I know it’s blurry, but you can tell that they’ve got whips.’

‘Well, yes, of course,’ said Hix. ‘It’s quite hard to get anything to run into a hail of arrows unless you give it some encouragement.’

‘They were weapons. Living creatures as weapons. And they don’t look so different from humans.’

‘A lot of really interesting stuff happened under the Evil Emperor,’ said Hix, conversationally.

‘Evil stuff,’ said Glenda.

‘Yes,’ said Hix, ‘that was rather the point. Evil Emperor. Evil Empire. It did what it said on the iron maiden.’

‘And what happened to them?’

‘Well, officially they’re all dead,’ said Hix. ‘But there have been rumours.’

‘And men drove them into battle,’ said Glenda.

‘If you want to put it like that, I suppose so,’ said Hix, ‘but I’m not certain that changes anything.’

‘I think it changes everything,’ said Glenda. ‘It does if all that people talk about are the monsters and not the whips. Things that look very much like people, well, a kind of people. What can you make from people if you really try?’

‘It’s an interesting theory,’ said Hix. ‘But I don’t think you can prove it.’

‘When Kings fight other Kings and win, they chop off the other King’s head, don’t they?’ said Glenda.

‘Sometimes,’ said Hix.

‘I mean, you can’t blame a weapon for how it’s used. What’s it they say? People can’t help how they were made. I think the orcs were made.’

Glenda glanced at the Librarian, who looked at the ceiling.

‘You work as a cook, don’t you? Would you like to work for my department?’

‘Everyone knows women can’t be wizards,’ said Glenda.

‘Ah, yes, but Necro—Post-Mortem Communications is different,’ said Hix proudly. And added, ‘We could do with some sensible people here, heavens know. And the feminine touch would be very welcome. And don’t think I would require you to just come and do the dusting. We treasure our dust in this place and your cookery skills will be invaluable. After all, basic butchery is all part of the job. And I do believe that Boffo’s shop has a rather good female Necromancer’s costume in their sale, isn’t that right, Charlie?’

‘Ten dollars including lace-up bodice. A bargain in anybody’s money,’ said Charlie from behind his curtain. ‘Very slinky.’

There had been no reply because Glenda’s mouth had stuck in the act of opening, but she finally managed a polite, but firm, ‘No.’

The head of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications gave a little sigh. ‘I thought as much, but we are part of the scheme of things. Light and dark. Night and day. Sweet and sour. Good and evil (within acceptable college statutes). It just helps if you can have sensible and reliable people on both sides, but I’m glad that we’ve been able to be of assistance. We don’t see many people down here. Well, not people as such.’

This time Glenda walked along the corridor. ‘Orc,’ she thought. ‘A thing that just kills.’ Every time she blinked, the image came back to her. The teeth and claws of a creature in full leap seen, as far as one could tell, by whoever it was it was leaping at. Fighters you couldn’t stop. And Nutt had been killed, according to Trev, and then sort of became unkilled again before going back to Unseen University and eating all the pies.

There was an awfully big gap in all this, but men with whips filled it. You can’t have something that just fights, she thought. It has to do other things as well. And Nutt isn’t any stranger than most of the people you see around these days. It’s not a lot to go on, though, but then again, the Evil Emperor was a sorcerer, everyone knew that. Everyone knows you can’t help how you’re made. Well, it’s worth a try. It’s a little bit of uncertainty.

As soon as she arrived back outside Nutt’s special place, she sensed that it would be empty. She pushed the door open and there was a definite absence of candles and, more importantly, a very noticeable absence of Nutt. But I told him to go and help them train. That’s where he’s gone, to go and train, definitely, she said to herself. So no need to worry, then.

On edge, feeling that something was nevertheless wrong, she forced herself back to the Night Kitchen.

She was nearly there when she met Mr Ottomy, his scrawny Adam’s apple as red and glistening as chicken giblets.

‘So, we’ve got a man-eating orc down here, have we?’ he said. ‘People aren’t going to stand for that. I heard somewhere that they could go on fighting while their heads are chopped off.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Glenda. ‘How did they know which way to go?’

‘Ah-ah! They could smell their way,’ said the bledlow.

‘How could they do that with their heads chopped off? Are you telling me they had a nose up their arse?’ She was shocked at herself for saying that, it was bad language, but Ottomy was bad language made solid.

‘I don’t hold with it,’ he said, ignoring the question. ‘You know something else I heard? They were kind of made. When the Evil Emperor wanted fighters he got some of the Igors to turn goblins into orcs. They’re not really proper people at all. I’m going to complain to the Archchancellor.’

‘He already knows,’ said Glenda. Well, he must do, she thought. And Vetinari, too, she added to herself. ‘You’re not going to make trouble for Mister Nutt, are you?’ she said. ‘Because if you are, Mister Ottomy’–she leaned forward–‘you will never be seen again.’

‘You shouldn’t threaten me like that,’ he said.

‘You’re right, I shouldn’t,’ said Glenda. ‘I should have said that you will never be seen again, you egregious slimy little twerp. Go and tell the Archchancellor if you like and see how much good that does you.’

‘They ate people alive!’ said Ottomy.

‘So did trolls,’ said Glenda. ‘Admittedly they spat them out again, but not in much of a state to enjoy life. We used to fight dwarfs once and when they cut you off at the knees they weren’t joking. We know, Mister Ottomy, that the leopard can change his shorts,’ she sniffed, ‘and it might be a good idea if you did, too. And if I hear of any trouble from you, you will hear from me. Up there it’s the Archchancellor. Down here in the dark, it’s cutlery.’