In which Stanley remains Calm - Moist the Hero - Searching for a Cat,

never a good idea - Something in the Dark - Mr Gryle is encountered -

Fire and Water - Mr Lipwig Helps the Watch - Dancing on the edge

— Mr Lipwig Gets Religion — Opportunity Time - Miss Maccalariat’s

hairgrip - The Miracle

 

The letters burned.

Part of the ceiling fell down, showering more letters on to the flames. The fire was already reaching for the upper floors. As Stanley dragged Mr Groat across the floor another slab of plaster smashed on the tiles and the old mail that poured down after it was already burning. Smoke, thick as soup, rolled across the distant ceiling.

Stanley pulled the old man into the locker room and laid him on his bed. He rescued the golden hat, too, because Mr Lipwig would be bound to be angry if he didn’t. Then he shut the door and took down, from the shelf over Groat’s desk, the Book of Regulations. He turned the pages methodically until he came to the bookmark he’d put in a minute ago, on the page What To Do In Case Of Fire.

Stanley always followed the rules. All sorts of things could go wrong if you didn’t.

So far he’d done 1: Upon Discovery of the Fire, Remain Calm.

Now he came to 2: Shout ‘Fire!’ in a Loud, Clear Voice.

‘Fire!’ he shouted, and then ticked off 2 with his pencil.

Next was: 3: Endeavour to Extinguish Fire If Possible.

Stanley went to the door and opened it. Flames and smoke billowed in. He stared at them for a moment, shook his head, and shut the door.

Paragraph 4 said: If Trapped by Fire, Endeavour to Escape. Do Not Open Doors If Warm. Do Not Use Stairs If Burning. If No Exit Presents Itself Remain Calm and Await a) Rescue or b) Death.

This seemed to cover it. The world of pins was simple and Stanley knew his way around it as a goldfish knows its tank, but everything else was very complicated and only worked if you followed the rules.

He glanced up at the grubby little windows. They were far too small to climb through and had been welded shut by many applications of official paint, so he broke one pane as neatly as possible to allow some fresh air in. He made a note of this in the breakages book.

Mr Groat was still breathing, although with an unpleasant bubbling sound. There was a First Aid kit in the locker room, because Regulations demanded it, but it contained only a small length of bandage, a bottle of something black and sticky, and Mr Groat’s spare teeth. Mr Groat had told him never to touch his home-made medicines, and since it was not unusual for bottles to explode during the night Stanley had always observed this rule very carefully.

It did not say in the Regulations: If Attacked by Huge Swooping Screaming Creature Hit Hard in the Mouth with Sack of Pins, and Stanley wondered if he should pencil this in. But that would be Defacing Post Office Property, and he could get into trouble for that.

All avenues of further activity being therefore closed, Stanley remained calm.

 

It was a gentle snow of letters. Some landed still burning, fountaining out of the column of crackling fire that had already broken through the Post Office roof. Some were blackened ashes on which sparks travelled in mockery of the dying ink. Some - many - had sailed up and over the city unscathed, zigzagging down gently like communications from an excessively formal sort of god.

Moist tore off his jacket as he pushed through the crowd.

‘The people probably got out,’ said Miss Dear heart, clattering along beside him.

‘Do you really think so?’ said Moist.

‘Really? No. Not if Gilt set this up. Sorry, I’m not very good at being comforting any more.’

Moist paused, and tried to think. The flames were coming out of the roof at one end of the building. The main door and the whole left side looked untouched. But fire was sneaky stuff, he knew. It sat there and smouldered until you opened the door to see how it was getting on, and then the fire caught its breath and your eyeballs got soldered to your skull.

‘I’d better go in,’ he said. ‘Er . . . you wouldn’t care to say “No, no, don’t do it, you’re being far too brave!” would you?’ he added. Some people were organizing a bucket chain from a nearby fountain; it would be as effective as spitting at the sun.

Miss Dearheart caught a burning letter, lit a cigarette with it, and took a drag. ‘No, no, don’t do it, you’re being far too brave!’ she said. ‘How was that for you? But if you do, the left side looks pretty clear. Watch out, though. There are rumours Gilt employs a vampire. One of the wild ones.’

‘Ah. Fire kills them, doesn’t it?’ said Moist, desperate to look on the bright side.

‘It kills everybody, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘It kills everybody.’ She grabbed him by the ears and gave him a big kiss on the mouth. It was like being kissed by an ashtray, but in a good way.

‘On the whole, I’d like you to come out of there,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you sure you won’t wait? The boys will be here in a minute—’

‘The golems? It’s their day off!’

‘They have to obey their chem, though. A fire means humans are in danger. They’ll smell it and be here in minutes, believe me.’

Moist hesitated, looking at her face. And people were watching him. He couldn’t not go in there, it wouldn’t fit in with the persona. Gods damn Vetinari!

He shook his head, turned, and ran towards the doors. Best not to think about it. Best not to think about being so dumb. Just feel the front door . . . quite cool. Open it gently . . . a rush of air, but no explosion. The big hall, lit with flame . . . but it was all above him, and if he weaved and dodged he could make it to the door that led down to the locker room.

He kicked it open.

Stanley looked up from his stamps.

‘Hello, Mr Lipwig,’ he said. ‘I kept calm. But I think Mr Groat is ill.’

The old man was lying on the bed, and ill was too jolly a word.

‘What happened to him?’ said Moist, lifting him gently. Mr Groat was no weight at all.

‘It was like a big bird, but I frightened it off,’ said Stanley. ‘I hit it in the mouth with a sack of pins. I . . . had a Little Moment, sir.’

‘Well, that ought to do it,’ said Moist. ‘Now, can you follow me?’

‘I’ve got all the stamps,’ said Stanley. ‘And the cashbox. Mr Groat keeps them under his bed for safety.’ The boy beamed. ‘And your hat, too. I kept calm.’

‘Well done, well done,’ said Moist. ‘Now, stick right behind me, okay?’

‘What about Mr Tiddles, Mr Lipwig?’ said Stanley, suddenly looking worried. Somewhere outside in the hall there was a crash, and the crackle of the fire grew distinctly louder.

‘Who? Mr Tidd— the cat? To hell with—’ Moist stopped, and readjusted his mouth. ‘He’ll be outside, you can bet on it, eating a toasted rat and grinning. Come on, will you?’

‘But he’s the Post Office cat!’ said Stanley. ‘He’s never been outside!’

I’ll bet he has now, thought Moist. But there was that edge in the boy’s voice again.

‘Let’s get Mr Groat out of here, okay,’ he said, easing his way through the door with the old man in his arms, ‘and then I’ll come back for Tidd—’

A burning beam dropped on to the floor halfway across the hall, and sent sparks and burning envelopes spiralling upwards into the main blaze. It roared, a wall of flame, a fiery waterfall in reverse, up through the other floors and out through the roof. It thundered. It was fire let loose and making the most of it.

Part of Moist von Lipwig was happy to let it happen. But a new and troublesome part was thinking: I was making it work. It was all moving forward. The stamps were really working. It was as good as being a criminal without the crime. It had been fun.

‘Come on, Stanley!’ Moist snapped, turning away from the horrible sight and the fascinating thought. The boy followed, reluctantly, calling for the damn cat all the way to the door.

The air outside struck like a knife, but there was a round of applause from the crowd and then a flash of light that Moist had come to associate with eventual trouble.

‘Good eefning, Mr Lipvig!’ said the cheery voice of Otto Chriek. ‘My vord, if ve vant news, all ve have to do is follow you!’

Moist ignored him and shouldered his way to Miss Dearheart who, he noticed, was not beside herself with worry.

‘Is there a hospice in this city?’ he said. ‘A decent doctor, even?’

‘There’s the Lady Sybil Free Hospital,’ said Miss Dearheart.

‘Is it any good?’

‘Some people don’t die.’

‘That good, eh? Get him there right now! I’ve got to go back in for the cat!’

‘You are going to go back in there for a cat?’

‘It’s Mr Tiddles,’ said Stanley primly. ‘He was born in the Post Office.’

‘Best not to argue,’ said Moist, turning to go. ‘See to Mr Groat, will you?’

Miss Dearheart looked down at the old man’s bloodstained shirt. ‘But it looks as though some creature tried to—’ she began.

‘Something fell on him,’ said Moist shortly.

‘That couldn’t cause—’

‘Something fell on him’, said Moist. ‘That’s what happened.’

She looked at his face. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Something fell on him. Something with big claws.’

‘No, a joist with lots of nails in it, something like that. Anyone can see that.’

‘That’s what happened, was it?’ said Miss Dearheart.

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ said Moist, and strode away before there were any more questions.

No point in getting the Watch involved in this, he thought, hurrying towards the doors. They’ll clump around and there won’t be any answers for them and in my experience watchmen always like to arrest somebody. What makes you think it was Reacher Gilt, Mr . . . Lipwig, wasn’t it? Oh, you could tell, could you? That’s a skill of yours, is it? Funny thing, we can tell sometimes, too. You’ve got a very familiar face, Mr Lipwig. Where are you from?

No, there was no point in getting friendly with the Watch. They might get in the way.

An upper window exploded outwards, and flames licked along the edge of the roof; Moist ducked into the doorway as glass rained down. As for Tiddles . . . well, he had to find the damn cat. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be fun any more. If he didn’t risk at least a tiny bit of life and a smidgen of limb, he just wouldn’t be able to carry on being him.

Had he just thought that?

Oh, gods. He’d lost it. He’d never been sure how he’d got it, but it had gone. That’s what happened if you took wages. And hadn’t his grandfather warned him to keep away from women as neurotic as a shaved monkey? Actually he hadn’t, his interest lying mainly with dogs and beer, but he should have done.

The vision of Mr Groat’s chest kept bumping insistently against his imagination. It looked as though something with claws had taken a swipe at him, and only the thick uniform coat prevented him from being opened like a clam. But that didn’t sound like a vampire. They weren’t messy like that. It was a waste of good food. Nevertheless, he picked up a piece of smashed chair. It had splintered nicely. And the good thing about a stake through the heart was that it also worked on non-vampires.

More ceiling had come down in the hall, but he was able to dodge between the debris. The main staircase was at this end and completely untouched, although smoke lay on the floor like a carpet; at the other end of the hall, where the mountains of old mail had been, the blaze still roared.

He couldn’t hear the letters any more. Sorry, he thought. I did my best. It wasn’t my fault . . .

What now? At least he could get his box out of his office. He didn’t want that to burn. Some of those chemicals would be quite hard to replace.

The office was full of smoke but he dragged the box out from under his desk and then spotted the golden suit on its hanger. He had to take it, didn’t he? Something like that couldn’t be allowed to burn. He could come back for the box, right? But the suit . . . the suit was necessary. There was no sign of Tiddles. He must have got out, yes? Didn’t cats leave sinking ships? Or was it rats? Wouldn’t the cats follow the rats? Anyway, smoke was coming up between the floorboards and drifting down from the upper floors, and this wasn’t the time to hang around. He’d looked everywhere sensible; there was no sense in being where a ton of burning paper could drop on your head.

It was a good plan and it was only spoiled when he spotted the cat, down in the hall. It was watching him with interest.

‘Tiddles!’ bellowed Moist. He wished he hadn’t. It was such a stupid name to shout in a burning building.

The cat looked at him, and trotted away. Cursing, Moist hurried after it, and saw it disappear down into the cellars.

Cats were bright, weren’t they? There was probably another way out . . . bound to be . . .

Moist didn’t even look up when he heard the creaking of wood overhead, but ran forward and went down the steps five at a time. By the sound of it, a large amount of the entire building smashed on to the floor just behind him, and sparks roared down the cellar passage, burning his neck.

Well, there was no going back, at least. But cellars, now, they had trapdoors and coal shutes and things, didn’t they? And they were cool and safe and—

—just the place where you’d go to lick your wounds after being smashed in the mouth with a sackful of pins, right?

An imagination is a terrible thing to bring along.

A vampire, she’d said. And Stanley had hit ‘a big bird’ with a sackful of pins. Stanley the Vampire Slayer, with a bag of pins. You wouldn’t believe it, unless you’d seen him in one of what Mr Groat called his ‘little moments’.

You probably couldn’t kill a vampire with pins . . .

And after a thought like that is when you realize that however hard you try to look behind you, there’s a behind you, behind you, where you aren’t looking. Moist flung his back to the cold stone wall, and slithered along it until he ran out of wall and acquired a doorframe.

The faint blue glow of the Sorting Engine was just visible.

As Moist peered into the machine’s room, Tiddles was visible too. He was crouched under the engine.

‘That’s a very cat thing you’re doing there, Tiddles,’ said Moist, staring at the shadows. ‘Come to Uncle Moist. Please?’

He sighed, and hung the suit on an old letter rack, and crouched down. How were you supposed to pick up a cat? He’d never done it. Cats never figured in grandfather’s Lipwigzer kennels, except as an impromptu snack.

As his hand drew near Tiddles, the cat flattened its ears and hissed.

‘Do you want to cook down here?’ said Moist. ‘No claws, please.’

The cat began to growl, and Moist realized that it wasn’t looking directly at him.

‘Good Tiddles,’ he said, feeling the terror begin to rise. It was one of the prime rules of exploring in a hostile environment: do not bother about the cat. And, suddenly, the environment was a lot more hostile.

Another important rule was: don’t turn round slowly to look. It’s there all right. Not the cat. Damn the cat. It’s something else.

He stood upright and took a two-handed grip on the wooden stake. It’s right behind me, yes? he thought. Bloody well bloody right bloody behind me! Of course it is! How could things be otherwise?

The feeling of fear was almost the same as the feeling he got when, say, a mark was examining a glass diamond. Time slowed a little, every sense was heightened, and there was a taste of copper in his mouth.

Don’t turn round slowly. Turn round fast.

He spun, screamed and thrust. The stake met resistance, which yielded only slightly.

A long pale face grinned at him in the blue light. It showed rows of pointy teeth.

‘Missed both my hearts,’ said Mr Gryle, spitting blood.

 

Moist jumped back as a thin clawed hand sliced through the air, but kept the stake in front of him, jabbing with it, holding the thing off . . .

Banshee, he thought. Oh, hell . . .

Only when he moved did Gryle’s leathery black cape swing aside briefly to show the skeletal figure beneath; it helped if you knew that the black leather was wing. It helped if you thought of banshees as the only humanoid race that had evolved the ability to fly, in some lush jungle somewhere where they’d hunted flying squirrels. It didn’t help, much, if you knew why the story had grown up that hearing the scream of the banshee meant that you were going to die.

It meant that the banshee was tracking you. No good looking behind you. It was overhead.

There weren’t many of the feral ones, even in Uberwald, but Moist knew the advice passed on by people who’d survived them. Keep away from the mouth - those teeth are vicious. Don’t attack the chest; the flight muscles there are like armour. They’re not strong but they’ve got sinews like steel cables and the long reach of those arm bones’ll mean it can slap your silly head right off—

Tiddles yowled and backed further under the Sorting Engine. Gryle slashed at Moist again, and came after him as he backed away.

—but their necks snap easily if you can get inside their reach, and they have to shut their eyes when they scream.

Gryle came forward, head bobbing as he strutted. There was nowhere else for Moist to go, so he tossed aside the wood and held up his hands.

‘All right, I give in,’ he said. ‘Just make it quick, okay?’

The creature kept looking at the golden suit; they had a magpie’s eye for glitter.

‘I’m going somewhere afterwards,’ said Moist helpfully.

Gryle hesitated. He was hurt, disorientated and had eaten pigeons that were effluent on wings. He wanted to get out of here and up into the cool sky. Everything was too complicated here. There were too many targets, too many smells.

For a banshee, everything was in the pounce, when teeth, claws and bodyweight all bore down at once. Now, bewildered, he strutted back and forth, trying to deal with the situation. There was no room to fly, nowhere else to go, the prey was standing there . . . instinct, emotion and some attempt at rational thought all banged together in Gryle’s overheated head.

Instinct won. Leaping at things with your claws out had worked for a million years, so why stop now?

He threw his head back, screamed, and sprang.

So did Moist, ducking under the long arms. That wasn’t programmed into the banshee’s responses: the prey should be huddled, or running away. But Moist’s shoulder caught him in the chest.

The creature was as light as a child.

Moist felt a claw slash into his arm as he hurled the thing on to the Sorting Engine, and flung himself to the floor. For one horrible moment he thought it was going to get up, that he’d missed the wheel, but as the enraged Mr Gryle shifted there was a sound like . . .

 . . . gloop . . .

 . . . followed by silence.

Moist lay on the cool flagstones until his heart slowed down to the point where he could make out individual beats. He was aware, as he lay there, that something sticky was dripping down the side of the machine.

He arose slowly, on unsteady legs, and stared at what had become of the creature. If he’d been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, ‘That’s what I call sorted!’ Since he wasn’t a hero, he threw up. A body doesn’t work properly when significant bits are not sharing the same space-time frame as the rest of it, but it does look more colourful.

Then, clutching at his bleeding arm, Moist knelt down and looked under the engine for Tiddles.

He had to come back with the cat, he thought muzzily. It was just something that had to happen. A man who rushes into a burning building to rescue a stupid cat and comes out carrying the cat is seen as a hero, even if he is a rather dumb one. If he comes out sans cat he’s a twit.

A muffled thunder above them suggested that part of the building had fallen down. The air was roasting.

Tiddles backed away from Moist’s hand.

‘Listen,’ Moist growled. ‘The hero has to come out with the cat. The cat doesn’t have to be alive—’

He lunged, grabbed Tiddles and dragged the cat out.

‘Right,’ he said, and picked up the suit hanger in his other hand. There were a few blobs of banshee on it, but, he thought light-headedly, he could probably find something to remove them.

He lurched out into the corridor. There was a wall of fire at both ends, and Tiddles chose this moment to sink all four sets of claws into his arm.

‘Ah,’ said Moist. ‘Up until now it was going so well—’

‘Mr Lipvig! Are You All Right, Mr Lipvig?’

 

What golems removed from a fire was, in fact, the fire. They took out of a burning property everything that was burning. It was curiously surgical. They assembled at the edge of the fire and deprived it of anything to burn, herded it, cornered it, and stamped it to death.

Golems could wade through lava and pour molten iron. Even if they knew what fear was, they wouldn’t find it in a mere burning building.

Glowing rubble was hauled away from the steps by red-hot hands. Moist stared up into a landscape of flame but also, in front of it, Mr Pump. He was glowing orange. Specks of dust and dirt on his clay flashed and sparkled.

‘Good To See You, Mr Lipvig!’ he boomed cheerfully, tossing a crackling beam aside. ‘We Have Cleared A Path To The Door! Move With Speed!’

‘Er . . . thank you!’ shouted Moist, above the roar of the flames. There was a path, dragged clear of debris, with the open door beckoning calmly and coolly at the end of it. Away towards the far end of the hall other golems, oblivious of the pillars of flame, were calmly throwing burning floorboards out through a hole in the wall.

The heat was intense. Moist lowered his head, clutched the terrified cat to his chest, felt the back of his neck begin to roast and scampered forward.

From then on, it became all one memory. The crashing noise high above. The metallic boom. The golem Anghammarad looking up, with his message glowing yellow on his cherry-red arm. Ten thousand tons of rainwater pouring down in deceptive slow motion. The cold hitting the glowing golem . . .

 . . . the explosion . . .

Flames died. Sound died. Light died.

 

ANGHAMMARAD.

Anghammarad looked at his hands. There was nothing there except heat, furnace heat, blasting heat that nevertheless made the shapes of fingers.

ANGHAMMARAD , a hollow voice repeated.

‘I Have Lost My Clay,’ said the golem.

YES, said Death, THAT IS STANDARD. YOU ARE DEAD. SMASHED. EXPLODED INTO A MILLION PIECES.

‘Then Who Is This Doing The Listening?’

EVERYTHING THERE WAS ABOUT YOU THAT ISN’T CLAY.

‘Do You Have A Command For Me?’ said the remains of Anghammarad, standing up.

NOT NOW. YOU HAVE REACHED THE PLACE WHERE THERE ARE NO MORE ORDERS.

‘What Shall I Do?’

I BELIEVE YOU HAVE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND MY LAST COMMENT.

Anghammarad sat down again. Apart from the fact that there was sand rather than ooze underfoot, this place reminded him of the abyssal plain.

GENERALLY PEOPLE LIKE TO MOVE ON, Death hinted. THEY LOOK FORWARD TO AN AFTERLIFE.

‘I Will Stay Here, Please.’

HERE? THERE’S NOTHING TO DO HERE, said Death.

‘Yes, I Know,’ said the ghost of the golem. ‘It Is Perfect. I Am Free.’

 

At two in the morning it began to rain.

Things could have been worse. It could have rained snakes. It could have rained acid.

There was still some roof, and some walls. That meant there was still some building.

Moist and Miss Dearheart sat on some warm rubble outside the locker room, which was more or less the only room that could still be properly described as one. The golems had stamped out the last of the fire, shored things up and then, without a word, had gone back to not being a hammer until sunset.

Miss Dearheart held a half-melted bronze band in her hand, and turned it over and over.

‘Eighteen thousand years,’ she whispered.

‘It was the rainwater tank,’ mumbled Moist, staring a............