Pratchett,Terry - Discworld 33 - Going Postal

The 9,000 Year Prologue

The flotillas of the dead sailed around the world on underwater rivers.

Very nearly nobody knew about them. But the theory is easy to understand.

It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects only a wetter form of air. And it is known that air is

denser the lower you go and lighter the higher you fly. As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks,

therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall.

In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the

storms but far above the ocean floor.

It’s calm there. Dead calm.

Some stricken ships have rigging; some even have sails. Many still have crew, tangled in the

rigging or lashed to the wheel.

But the voyages still continue, aimlessly, with no harbour in sight, because there are currents

under the ocean and so the dead ships with their skeleton crews sail on around the world, over

sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworms eat them away and they

disintegrate.

Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and

disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud of silt.

One nearly hit Anghammarad, where he sat watching the ships drift by, far overhead.

He remembered it, because it was the only really interesting thing to happen for nine thousand

years.

The One Month Prologue

There was this . . . disease that the clacksmen got. It was like the illness known as ‘calenture’

that sailors experienced when, having been becalmed for weeks under a pitiless sun, they suddenly

believed that the ship was surrounded by green fields and stepped overboard.

Sometimes, the clacksmen thought they could fly.

There was about eight miles between the big semaphore towers and when you were at the top

you were maybe a hundred and fifty feet above the plains. Work up there too long without a hat on,

they said, and the tower you were on got taller and the nearest tower got closer and maybe you

thought you could jump from one to the other, or ride on the invisible messages sleeting between

them, or perhaps you thought that you were a message. Perhaps, as some said, all this was nothing

more than a disturbance in the brain caused by the wind in the rigging. No one knew for sure.

People who step on to the air one hundred and fifty feet above the ground seldom have much to

discuss afterwards.

The tower shifted gently in the wind, but that was okay. There were lots of new designs in this

tower. It stored the wind to power its mechanisms, it bent rather than broke, it acted more like a tree

than a fortress. You could build most of it on the ground and raise it into place in an hour. It was a

thing of grace and beauty. And it could send messages up to four times faster than the old towers,

thanks to the new shutter system and the coloured lights.

At least, it would once they had sorted out a few lingering problems . . .

The young man climbed swiftly to the very top of the tower. For most of the way he was in

clinging, grey morning mist, and then he was rising through glorious sunlight, the mist spreading

below him, all the way to the horizon, like a sea.

He paid the view no attention. He’d never dreamed of flying. He dreamed of mechanisms, of

making things work better than they’d ever done before.

Right now, he wanted to find out what was making the new shutter array stick again. He oiled

the sliders, checked the tension on the wires, and then swung himself out over fresh air to check the

shutters themselves. It wasn’t what you were supposed to do, but every linesman knew it was the

only way to get things done. Anyway, it was perfectly safe if you—

There was a clink. He looked back and saw the snaphook of his safety rope lying on the

walkway, saw the shadow, felt the terrible pain in his fingers, heard the scream and dropped . . .

. . . like an anchor.

Chapter One

The Angel

In which our Hero experiences Hope, the Greatest Gift - The Bacon Sandwich of Regret- Sombre

Reflections on Capital Punishment from

the Hangman - Famous Last Words — Our Hero Dies - Angels,

conversations about — Inadvisability of Misplaced Offers regarding

Broomsticks - An Unexpected Ride - A World Free of Honest Men

- A Man on the Hop - There is Always a Choice

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind

wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in

the morning, is going to be hanged.

The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but

he was not going to embarrass the name, in so far as that was still possible, by being hung under it.

To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Albert

Spangler.

And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his mind on the

prospect of not being hanged in the morning, and most particularly on the prospect of removing all

the crumbling mortar from around a stone in his cell wall with a spoon. So far the work had taken

him five weeks, and reduced the spoon to something like a nail file. Fortunately, no one ever came

to change the bedding here, or else they would have discovered the world’s heaviest mattress.

It was the large and heavy stone that was currently the object of his attentions, and at some point

a huge staple had been hammered into it as an anchor for manacles.

Moist sat down facing the wall, gripped the iron ring in both hands, braced his legs against the

stones on either side, and heaved.

His shoulders caught fire and a red mist filled his vision but the block slid out, with a faint and

inappropriate tinkling noise. Moist managed to ease it away from the hole and peered inside.

At the far end was another block, and the mortar around it looked suspiciously strong and fresh.

Just in front of it was a new spoon. It was shiny.

As he studied it, he heard the clapping behind him. He turned his head, tendons twanging a little

riff of agony, and saw several of the warders watching him through the bars.

“Well done, Mr Spangler!’ said one of them. ‘Ron here owes me five dollars! I told him you

were a sticker! He’s a sticker, I said!’

‘You set this up, did you, Mr Wilkinson?’ said Moist weakly, watching the glint of light on the

spoon.

‘Oh, not us, sir. Lord Vetinari’s orders. He insists that all condemned prisoners should be offered

the prospect of freedom.’

‘Freedom? But there’s a damn great stone through there!’

‘Yes, there is that, sir, yes, there is that,’ said the warder. ‘It’s only the prospect, you see. Not

actual free freedom as such. Hah, that’d be a bit daft, eh?’

‘I suppose so, yes,’ said Moist. He didn’t say ‘you bastards.’ The warders had treated him quite

civilly this past six weeks, and he made a point of getting on with people. He was very, very good at

it. People skills were part of his stock-in-trade; they were nearly the whole of it.

Besides, these people had big sticks. So, speaking carefully, he added: ‘Some people might

consider this cruel, Mr Wilkinson.’

‘Yes, sir, we asked him about that, sir, but he said no, it wasn’t. He said it provided—’ his

forehead wrinkled ‘—occ-you-pay-shun-all ther-rap-py, healthy exercise, prevented moping and

offered that greatest of all treasures which is Hope, sir.’

‘Hope,’ muttered Moist glumly.

‘Not upset, are you, sir?’

‘Upset? Why should I be upset, Mr Wilkinson?’

‘Only the last bloke we had in this cell, he managed to get down that drain, sir. Very small man.

Very agile.’

Moist looked at the little grid in the floor. He’d dismissed it out of hand.

‘Does it lead to the river?’ he said.

The warder grinned. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? He was really upset when we fished him

out. Nice to see you’ve entered into the spirit of the thing, sir. You’ve been an example to all of us,

sir, the way you kept going. Stuffing all the dust in your mattress? Very clever, very tidy. Very

neat. It’s really cheered us up, having you in here. By the way, Mrs Wilkinson says ta very much

for the fruit basket. Very posh, it is. It’s got kumquats, even!’

‘Don’t mention it, Mr Wilkinson.’

‘The Warden was a bit green about the kumquats ‘cos he only got dates in his, but I told him, sir,

that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the pineapple off’f the top you never know what’s

underneath. He says thank you, too.’

‘Glad he liked it, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist absent-mindedly. Several of his former landladies

had brought in presents for ‘the poor confused boy’, and Moist always invested in generosity. A

career like his was all about style, after all.

‘On that general subject, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson, ‘me and the lads were wondering if you might

like to unburden yourself, at this point in time, on the subject of the whereabouts of the place where

the location of the spot is where, not to beat about the bush, you hid all that money you stole . . . ?’

The jail went silent. Even the cockroaches were listening.

‘No, I couldn’t do that, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist loudly, after a decent pause for dramatic

effect. He tapped his jacket pocket, held up a finger and winked.

The warders grinned back.

‘We understand totally, sir. Now I’d get some rest if I was you, sir, ‘cos we’re hanging you in

half an hour,’ said Mr Wilkinson.

‘Hey, don’t I get breakfast?’

‘Breakfast isn’t until seven o’clock, sir,’ said the warder reproachfully. ‘But, tell you what, I’ll

do you a bacon sandwich, ‘cos it’s you, Mr Spangler.’

And now it was a few minutes before dawn and it was him being led down the short corridor and

out into the little room under the scaffold. Moist realized he was looking at himself from a distance,

as if part of himself was floating outside his body like a child’s balloon ready, as it were, for him to

let go of the string.

The room was lit by light coming through cracks in the scaffold floor above, and significantly

from around the edges of the large trapdoor. The hinges of said door were being carefully oiled by a

man in a hood.

He stopped when he saw the party arrive and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Spangler.’ He raised the

hood helpfully. ‘It’s me, sir, Daniel “One Drop” Trooper. I am your executioner for today, sir.

Don’t you worry, sir. I’ve hanged dozens of people. We’ll soon have you out of here.’

‘Is it true that if a man isn’t hanged after three attempts he’s reprieved, Dan?’ said Moist, as the

executioner carefully wiped his hands on a rag.

‘So I’ve heard, sir, so I’ve heard. But they don’t call me One Drop for nothing, sir. And will sir

be having the black bag today?’

‘Will it help?’

‘Some people think it makes them look more dashing, sir. And it stops that pop-eyed look. It’s

more a crowd thing, really. Quite a big one out there this morning. Nice piece about you in the

Times yesterday, I thought. All them people saying what a nice young man you were, and

everything. Er . . . would you mind signing the rope beforehand, sir? I mean, I won’t have a chance

to ask you afterwards, eh?’

‘Signing the rope?’ said Moist.

‘Yessir,’ said the hangman. ‘It’s sort of traditional. There’s a lot of people out there who buy old

rope. Specialist collectors, you could say. A bit strange, but it takes all sorts, eh? Worth more

signed, of course.’ He flourished a length of stout rope. ‘I’ve got a special pen that signs on rope.

One signature every couple of inches? Straightforward signature, no dedication needed. Worth

money to me, sir. I’d be very grateful’

‘So grateful that you won’t hang me, then?’ said Moist, taking the pen.

This got an appreciative laugh. Mr Trooper watched him sign along the length, nodding happily.

‘Well done, sir, that’s my pension plan you’re signing there. Now . . . are we ready, everyone?’

‘Not me!’ said Moist quickly, to another round of general amusement.

‘You’re a card, Mr Spangler,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘It won’t be the same without you around, and

that’s the truth.’

‘Not for me, at any rate,’ said Moist. This was, once again, treated like rapier wit. Moist sighed.

‘Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr Trooper?’ he said.

‘Well, in the generality of things I’d say it’s hard to tell, given that it’s hard to find evidence of

crimes not committed,’ said the hangman, giving the trapdoor a final rattle. ‘But in the specificality,

sir, I’d say it’s very efficacious.’

‘Meaning what?’ said Moist.

‘Meaning I’ve never seen someone up here more’n once, sir. Shall we go?’

There was a stir when they climbed up into the chilly morning air, followed by a few boos and

even some applause. People were strange like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief.

Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.

Moist stared ahead while the roll call of his crimes was read out. He couldn’t help feeling that it

was so unfair. He’d never so much as tapped someone on the head. He’d never even broken down a

door. He had picked locks on occasion, but he’d always locked them again behind him. Apart from

all those repossessions, bankruptcies and sudden insolvencies, what had he actually done that was

bad, as such? He’d only been moving numbers around.

‘Nice crowd turned out today,’ said Mr Trooper, tossing the end of the rope over the beam and

busying himself with knots. ‘Lot of press, too. What Gallows? covers ‘em all, o’ course, and there’s

the Times and the Pseudopolis Herald, prob’ly because of that bank what collapsed there, and I

heard there’s a man from the Sto Plains Dealer, too. Very good financial section - I always keep an

eye on the used rope prices. Looks like a lot of people want to see you dead, sir.’

Moist was aware that a black coach had drawn up at the rear of the crowd. There was no coat of

arms on the door, unless you were in on the secret, which was that Lord Vetinari’s coat of arms

featured a sable shield. Black on black. You had to admit that the bastard had style—

‘Huh? What?’ he said, in response to a nudge.

‘I asked if you have any last words, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘It’s customary. I wonder

if you might have thought of any?’

‘I wasn’t actually expecting to die,’ said Moist. And that was it. He really hadn’t, until now.

He’d been certain that something would turn up.

‘Good one, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘We’ll go with that, shall we?’

Moist narrowed his eyes. The curtain on a coach window had twitched. The coach door had

opened. Hope, that greatest of all treasures, ventured a little glitter.

‘No, they’re not my actual last words,’ he said. ‘Er . . . let me think . . .’

A slight, clerk-like figure was descending from the coach.

‘Er . . . it’s not as bad a thing I do now . . . er . . .’ Aha, it all made some kind of sense now.

Vetinari was out to scare him, that was it. That would be just like the man, from what Moist had

heard. There was going to be a reprieve!

‘I . . . er . . . I . . .’

Down below, the clerk was having difficulty getting through the press of people.

‘Do you mind speeding up a bit, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘Fair’s fair, eh?’

‘I want to get it right,’ said Moist haughtily, watching the clerk negotiate his way around a large

troll.

‘Yes, but there’s a limit, sir,’ said the hangman, annoyed at this breach of etiquette. ‘Otherwise

you could go ah, er, um for days! Short and sweet, sir, that’s the style.’

‘Right, right,’ said Spangler. ‘Er . . . oh, look, see that man there? Waving at you?’

The hangman glanced down at the clerk, who’d struggled to the front of the crowd.

‘I bring a message from Lord Vetinari!’ the man shouted.

‘Right!’ said Moist.

‘He says to get on with it, it’s long past dawn!’ said the clerk.

‘Oh,’ said Moist, staring at the black coach. That damn Vetinari had a warder’s sense of humour,

too.

‘Come on, Mr Spangler, you don’t want me to get into trouble, do you?’ said the hangman,

patting him on the shoulder. ‘Just a few words, and then we can all get on with our lives. Present

company excepted, obviously.’

So this was it. It was, in some strange way, rather liberating. You didn’t have to fear the worst

that could happen any more, because this was it, and it was nearly over. The warder had been right.

What you had to do in this life was get past the pineapple, Moist told himself. It was big and sharp

and knobbly, but there might be peaches underneath. It was a myth to live by and so, right now,

totally useless.

‘In that case,’ said Moist von Lipwig, ‘I commend my soul to any god that can find it.’

‘Nice,’ said the hangman, and pulled the lever.

Albert Spangler died.

It was generally agreed that they had been good last words.

‘Ah, Mr Lipwig,’ said a distant voice, getting closer. ‘I see you are awake. And still alive, at the

present time.’

There was a slight inflection to that last phrase which told Moist that the length of the present

time was entirely in the gift of the speaker.

He opened his eyes. He was sitting in a comfortable chair. At a desk opposite him, sitting with

his hands steepled reflectively in front of his pursed lips, was Havelock, Lord Vetinari, under whose

idio-syncratically despotic rule Ankh-Morpork had become the city where, for some reason,

everyone wanted to live.

An ancient animal sense also told Moist that other people were standing behind the comfortable

chair, and that it could be extremely uncomfortable should he make any sudden movements. But

they couldn’t be as terrible as the thin, black-robed man with the fussy little beard and the pianist’s

hands who was watching him.

‘Shall I tell you about angels, Mr Lipwig?’ said the Patrician pleasantly. ‘I know two interesting

facts about them.’

Moist grunted. There were no obvious escape routes in front of him, and turning round was out

of the question. His neck ached horribly.

‘Oh, yes. You were hanged,’ said Vetinari. ‘A very precise science, hanging. Mr Trooper is a

master. The slippage and thickness of the rope, whether the knot is placed here rather than there, the

relationship between weight and distance . . . oh, I’m sure the man could write a book. You were

hanged to within half an inch of your life, I understand. Only an expert standing right next to you

would have spotted that, and in this case the expert was our friend Mr Trooper. No, Albert Spangler

is dead, Mr Lipwig. Three hundred people would swear they saw him die.’ He leaned forward. ‘And

so, appropriately, it is of angels I wish to talk to you now.’

Moist managed a grunt.

‘The first interesting thing about angels, Mr Lipwig, is that sometimes, very rarely, at a point in a

man’s career where he has made such a foul and tangled mess of his life that death appears to be the

only sensible option, an angel appears to him, or, I should say, unto him, and offers him a chance to

go back to the moment when it all went wrong, and this time do it right. Mr Lipwig, I should like

you to think of me as . . . an angel.’

Moist stared. He’d felt the snap of the rope, the choke of the noose! He’d seen the blackness

welling up! He’d died!

‘I’m offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Albert Spangler is buried, but Mr Lipwig has a future. It

may, of course, be a very short one, if he is stupid. I am offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Work, for

wages. I realize the concept may not be familiar.’

Only as a form of hell, Moist thought.

‘The job is that of Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office.’

Moist continued to stare.

‘May I just add, Mr Lipwig, that behind you there is a door. If at any time in this interview you

feel you wish to leave, you have only to step through it and you will never hear from me again.’

Moist filed that under ‘deeply suspicious’.

‘To continue: the job, Mr Lipwig, involves the refurbishment and running of the city’s postal

service, preparation of the international packets, maintenance of Post Office property, et cetera, et

cetera—’

‘If you stick a broom up my arse I could probably sweep the floor, too,’ said a voice. Moist

realized it was his. His brain was a mess. It had come as a shock to find that the afterlife is this one.

Lord Vetinari gave him a long, long look.

‘Well, if you wish,’ he said, and turned to a hovering clerk. ‘Drumknott, does the housekeeper

have a store cupboard on this floor, do you know?’

‘Oh, yes, my lord,’ said the clerk. ‘Shall I—’

‘It was a joke!’ Moist burst out.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized,’ said Lord Vetinari, turning back to Moist. ‘Do tell me if you

feel obliged to make another one, will you?’

‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, but I don’t know anything about

delivering post!’

‘Mr Moist, this morning you had no experience at all of being dead, and yet but for my

intervention you would nevertheless have turned out to be extremely good at it,’ said Lord Vetinari

sharply. ‘It just goes to show: you never know until you try’

‘But when you sentenced me—’

Vetinari raised a pale hand. ‘Ah?’ he said.

Moist’s brain, at last aware that it needed to do some work here, stepped in and replied: ‘Er . . .

when you . . . sentenced . . . Albert Spangler—’

‘Well done. Do carry on.’

‘—you said he was a natural born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, an habitual liar, a perverted

genius and totally untrustworthy!’

‘Are you accepting my offer, Mr Lipwig?’ said Vetinari sharply.

Moist looked at him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’d just like to check something.’

There were two men dressed in black standing behind his chair. It wasn’t a particularly neat

black, more the black worn by people who just don’t want little marks to show. They looked like

clerks, until you met their eyes.

They stood aside as Moist walked towards the door which, as promised, was indeed there. He

opened it very carefully. There was nothing beyond, and that included a floor. In the manner of one

who is going to try all possibilities, he took the remnant of spoon out of his pocket and let it drop. It

was quite a long time before he heard the jingle.

Then he went back and sat in the chair.

‘The prospect of freedom?’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘There is always a choice.’

‘You mean . . . I could choose certain death?’

‘A choice, nevertheless,’ said Vetinari. ‘Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in

freedom, Mr Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no

practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences.

Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. Now . . . will you take the job? No one

will recognize you, I am sure. No one ever recognizes you, it would appear.’

Moist shrugged. ‘Oh, all right. Of course, I accept as natural born criminal, habitual liar,

fraudster and totally untrustworthy perverted genius.’

‘Capital! Welcome to government service!’ said Lord Vetinari, extending his hand. ‘I pride

myself on being able to pick the right man. The wage is twenty dollars a week and, I believe, the

Postmaster General has the use of a small apartment in the main building. I think there’s a hat, too. I

shall require regular reports. Good day.’

He looked down at his paperwork. He looked up.

‘You appear to be still here, Postmaster General?’

‘And that’s it?’ said Moist, aghast. ‘One minute I’m being hanged, next minute you’re

employing me?’

‘Let me see . . . yes, I think so. Oh, no. Of course. Drumknott, do give Mr Lipwig his keys.’

The clerk stepped forward and handed Moist a huge, rusted keyring full of keys, and proffered a

clipboard. ‘Sign here, please, Postmaster General,’ he said.

Hold on a minute, Moist thought, this is only one city. It’s got gates. It’s completely surrounded

by different directions to run. Does it matter what I sign?

‘Certainly,’ he said, and scribbled his name.

‘Your correct name, if you please,’ said Lord Vetinari, not looking up from his desk. ‘What

name did he sign, Drumknott?’

The clerk craned his head. ‘Er . . . Ethel Snake, my lord, as far as I can make out.’

‘Do try to concentrate, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari wearily, still apparently reading the paperwork.

Moist signed again. After all, what would it matter in the long run? And it would certainly be a

long run, if he couldn’t find a horse.

‘And that leaves only the matter of your parole officer,’ said Lord Vetinari, still engrossed in the

paper before him.

‘Parole officer?’

‘Yes. I’m not completely stupid, Mr Lipwig. He will meet you outside the Post Office building

in ten minutes. Good day.’

When Moist had left, Drumknott coughed politely and said, ‘Do you think he’ll turn up there, my

lord?’

‘One must always consider the psychology of the individual,’ said Vetinari, correcting the

spelling on an official report. ‘That is what I do all the time and lamentably, Drumknott, you do not

always do. That is why he has walked off with your pencil.’

Always move fast. You never know what’s catching you up.

Ten minutes later Moist von Lipwig was well outside the city. He’d bought a horse, which was a

bit embarrassing, but speed had been of the essence and he’d only had time to grab one of his

emergency stashes from its secret hiding place and pick up a skinny old screw from the Bargain

Box in Hobson’s Livery Stable. At least it’d mean no irate citizen going to the Watch.

No one had bothered him. No one had looked at him twice; no one ever did. The city gates had

indeed been wide open. The plains lay ahead of him, full of opportunity. And he was good at

parlaying nothing into something. For example, at the first little town he came to he’d go to work on

this old nag with a few simple techniques and ingredients that’d make it worth twice the price he’d

paid for it, at least for about twenty minutes or until it rained. Twenty minutes would be enough

time to sell it and, with any luck, pick up a better horse worth slightly more than the asking price.

He’d do it again at the next town and in three days, maybe four, he’d have a horse worth owning.

But that would be just a sideshow, something to keep his hand in. He’d got three very nearly

diamond rings sewn into the lining of his coat, a real one in a secret pocket in the sleeve, and a very

nearly gold dollar stitched cunningly into the collar. These were, to him, what his saw and hammer

are to a carpenter. They were primitive tools, but they’d put him back in the game.

There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a

profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never knowingly tried it, anyway. If you did fool an

honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder to buy off.

Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there were so

many more of them. You hardly had to aim.

Half an hour after arriving in the town of Hapley, where the big city was a tower of smoke on the

horizon, he was sitting outside an inn, downcast, with nothing in the world but a genuine diamond

ring worth a hundred dollars and a pressing need to get home to Genua, where his poor aged mother

was dying of Gnats. Eleven minutes later he was standing patiently outside a jeweller’s shop, inside

which the jeweller was telling a sympathetic citizen that the ring the stranger was prepared to sell

for twenty dollars was worth seventy-five (even jewellers have to make a living). And thirty-five

minutes after that he was riding out on a better horse, with five dollars in his pocket, leaving behind

a gloating sympathetic citizen who, despite having been bright enough to watch Moist’s hands

carefully, was about to go back to the jeweller to try to sell for seventy-five dollars a shiny brass

ring with a glass stone that was worth fifty pence of anybody’s money.

The world was blessedly free of honest men, and wonderfully full of people who believed they

could tell the difference between an honest man and a crook.

He tapped his jacket pocket. The jailers had taken the map off him, of course, probably while he

was busy being a dead man. It was a good map, and in studying it Mr Wilkinson and his chums

would learn a lot about decryption, geography and devious cartography. They wouldn’t find in it the

whereabouts of AM$ 150,000 in mixed currencies, though, because the map was a complete and

complex fiction. However, Moist entertained a wonderful warm feeling inside to think that they

would, for some time, possess that greatest of all treasures, which is Hope.

Anyone who couldn’t simply remember where he’d stashed a great big fortune deserved to lose

it, in Moist’s opinion. But, for now, he’d have to keep away from it, while having it to look forward

to . . .

Moist didn’t even bother to note the name of the next town. It had an inn, and that was enough.

He took a room with a view over a disused alley, checked that the window opened easily, ate an

adequate meal, and had an early night.

Not bad at all, he thought. This morning he’d been on the scaffold with the actual noose round

his actual neck, tonight he was back in business. All he need do now was grow a beard again, and

keep away from Ankh-Morpork for six months. Or perhaps only three.

Moist had a talent. He’d also acquired a lot of skills so completely that they were second nature.

He’d learned to be personable, but something in his genetics made him unmemorable. He had the

talent of not being noticed, for being a face in the crowd. People had difficulty describing him. He

was . . . he was ‘about’. He was about twenty, or about thirty. On Watch reports across the continent

he was anywhere between, oh, about six feet two inches and five feet nine inches tall, hair all

shades from mid-brown to blond, and his lack of distinguishing features included his entire face. He

was about . . . average. What people remembered was the furniture, things like spectacles and

moustaches, so he always carried a selection of both. They remembered names and mannerisms,

too. He had hundreds of those.

Oh, and they remembered that they’d been richer before they met him.

At three in the morning, the door burst open. It was a real burst; bits of wood clattered off the

wall. But Moist was already out of bed and diving for the window before the first of them hit the

floor. It was an automatic reaction that owed nothing to thought. Besides, he’d checked before lying

down, and there was a large water butt outside that would break his fall.

It wasn’t there now.

Whoever had stolen it had not stolen the ground it stood on, however, and it broke Moist’s fall

by twisting his ankle.

He pulled himself up, keening softly in agony, and hopped along the alley, using the wall for

support. The inn’s stables were round the back; all he had to do was pull himself up on to a horse,

any horse—

‘Mr Lipwig?’ a big voice bellowed.

Oh, gods, it was a troll, it sounded like a troll, a big one too, he didn’t know you got any down

here outside the cities—

‘You Can’t Run And You Can’t Hide, Mr Lipwig!’

Hold on, hold on, he hadn’t given his real name to anyone in this place, had he? But all this was

background thinking. Someone was after him, therefore he would run. Or hop.

He risked a look behind him when he reached the back gate to the stables. There was a red glow

in his room. Surely they weren’t torching the place over a matter of a few dollars? How stupid!

Everyone knew that if you got lumbered with a good fake you palmed it off on to some other sucker

as soon as possible, didn’t they? There was no helping some people.

His horse was alone in the stable, and seemed unimpressed to see him. He got the bridle on,

while hopping on one foot. There was no point in bothering with a saddle. He knew how to ride

without a saddle. Hell, once he’d ridden without pants, too, but luckily all the tar and feathers

helped him stick to the horse. He was the world champion at leaving town in a hurry.

He went to lead the horse out of the stall, and heard the clink.

He looked down, and kicked some straw away.

There was a bright yellow bar, joining two short lengths of chain with a yellow shackle attached,

one for each foreleg. The only way this horse would go anywhere was by hopping, just like him.

Pratchett, Terry - Discworld 33 - Going Postal

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