Who You Gonna Call?
The basement under the Church of the Damned still smelled of underground musk, burnt coffee and canned tomatoes. Something about the place sang to Vimes, resonated with his tired bones. The Church of the Damned did not keep religious symbols; they very adamantly did not believe in anything. They also put a copper rod on the peak of their roof, and an enterprising Igor had rigged some kind of electrical setup to take advantage of any wayward fits of pique from Cori Celesti.
Travis perched on the edge of his folding metal chair, hands loosely clasped in his lap. Vimes would bet his breastplate the man’s real name was Octavius, but real names kind of defeated the purpose of a Ribboners’ Anonymous meeting. Their eyes met briefly and Vimes felt every inch a fool, despite Travis’ kind smile and nod hello. Oh yes, Vimes remembered when they first met, when he was still green and so sick with the condition that even a modicum of patience had been enough to send Vimes into the street, gnashing his teeth and looking for a fight.
Travis stood up from his chair and clasped his hands in front of him. “Alright, I think it’s time we get started,” he said, tone unhurried. Vimes dropped into the nearest chair, set back a few feet from the circle’s perimeter, and settled in to watch the lance hit the windmill. “I’d like to get the ball rolling by welcoming you all here today. I see some new faces, and some old friends.” Again, Travis’ gaze fell lightly on Vimes’ slouched form, but didn’t linger. And that was Travis all over again; if Vimes had a mean streak a mile wide, Travis had the opposite. He remembered Sybil used to smile when he groused about these stupid meetings, and she would say “I think all of us have a little save the world in us.” He didn’t know if that was true, but he could see it in Travis, who had so much save-the-world in him that it became the Thing that made his condition bearable. Sybil had collected unwanted dragons from the gutter and nursed them back to health, and Travis collected unwanted vampires from the streets and made them think it would all be okay again, if only for an hour every Tuesday night.
Travis sat back in his chair and contemplated an ominous stain in the carpeting for a moment before going into his spiel. “I’ve been thinking a lot about redemption and forgiveness lately. If you guys are anything like me, you used to think our condition meant the end. The end of your life, the end of your relationships, the end of being a person. It’s tough, but I think I’m coming to terms with what it means to be undead. And it doesn’t mean you have to quit living.” He gave them a half smile at that, and some of the group chuckled dryly. “I’m coming to terms with the idea that I can seek forgiveness, for the things I did when I wasn’t quite myself, and for the things I left undone before the condition consumed me.” He touched his collarbone briefly, as if he could feel the hunger gnawing at him, but he dropped his hand back to his lap. There was no clawing that out. “For some things, it’s too late already. Some of the people I’ve wronged are long dead. But even if I can’t ask them for forgiveness, I can do my best to redeem myself. I don’t always know how to do that, but I have all the time in the world to figure it out.
“Would anyone like to share anything on their mind today?”
Vimes never shared at these meetings. Not when he was still shaking from shrugging off the drink, not when he was freshly turned and grinding his fangs, not when he was so stricken with grief he was sick with it in a way he had never been sick before. Travis’ eyes passed over the room and did a quick double take when he saw Vimes’ treacherous hand in the air. Damn.
Vimes opened his mouth and then shut it. Damn. What now?
“Take your time,” Travis said, with his stupidly kind eyes and stupidly patient encouragement.
Vimes focused on the ominous carpet stain, but he could feel everyone’s eyes boring into him. “I don’t know if I believe in forgiveness,” he said at last. “And I’m still pretty iffy on redemption.” He patted at his pockets for something to occupy his hands, a cigar for preference, but forced them to stillness. If he could stare down an attacking dragon he could talk in a Ribboner meeting. He could bare his feelings like a man. He scrubbed a hand over his face, two-day-old stubble scraping across his palm. “I have a son. Living, thank gods. For all my faults, I never gave him my condition.” His jaw worked for a long moment. “He has all my late wife’s best traits. Her…her compassion, her kindness, her ability to remember the names of people he’s only just met. And he got my bloody-mindedness.” It hurt, like lancing an ingrown hair, but he breathed through the ache. “After my wife passed, I tried to do what I could, to raise my boy right. But I think…I used to think we were too different, but looking back I think we were too alike. Both too stubborn and ornery to listen to the other. We were always fighting, and if we weren’t screaming over the other to be heard I was working. So I guess, from his point of view, I was either shouting him down or ignoring him altogether. How is that for a home life, eh?
“It was a relief, of sorts, when he went away to med school. But I wasn’t needed anymore, not by him, not by anyone, really. So I picked up and went on holiday. But, like it always did, my holiday turned into work, and I never came back.” He squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the way the carpet fibers swam in his vision. “I travelled the Disc, like some kind of vengeful revenant, and it was months before I realized that I just…I just left. Without a note or a goodbye or anything. And that was the beginning of the end, looking back on it.” His hands clenched and unclenched of their own accord. “I sent him letters, post cards, little trinkets from the places I visited. Sometimes he wrote me back, sometimes he didn’t. And every time I thought…I accepted that our little family was broken. He didn’t need me, and he didn’t want me to be part of his life anymore.
“But I came back to Ankh-Morpork recently, and I don’t think I can stand to be passive anymore. I don’t know if…if he could forgive me. I can’t even forgive myself. But I want to try. Gods save me, I want to try.”
Travis visibly shook himself and shut his mouth. “Thank you for sharing…?”
Vimes pursed his mouth. “Keel.”
“Thank you for sharing, Keel. Does anyone have anything to say, or something they’d like to share?”
As far as soirees went, it was a pretty good one. Say anything about Antony von Lipwig, but never say he didn’t know how to throw a party. “But I will say this,” Downey murmured to his semi-captive audience. “If that man put half as much care and forethought into running this city as he did throwing this party, Ankh-Morpork would be a very different place.” Mr. Slant, Thomas Silverfish and Queen Thea nodded.
“This sounds like treason,” Dr. Vimes said. The nodding stopped.
“I wouldn’t raise my hand against the Patrician,” Downey promised, suddenly in a hurry to show his loyalty. “Believe you me, I wouldn’t raise a hand against him. But I just think it would be nice if he considered, I don’t know, repairing the bridges or cleaning up the streets.”
Queen Thea grinned toothlessly and cackled into a canape. “Bless his heart for that. My people don’t eat for shite, but we’re always warm.” Sam sipped his sherry. He wasn’t a big drinker—something about seeing his father drinking cranberry juice at cocktail parties during his childhood must have left an impression—but he sorely wished for something stronger right about now.
“The mail system has gone to pot,” Downey continued, and the other three were nodding again. “The clacks aren’t as reliable as they used to be. International relations are held together by spit and hope. The trains don’t even run on time.” He knocked back the last of his champagne and deposited the flute on the tray of a passing waiter. “I wouldn’t raise a hand against him, but something must change.” More nodding.
Vimes scoffed at the dregs of his sherry. “And who would you suggest be that change, eh Downey? I have a pile of dead leaves that haven’t made it to the compost heap; maybe we should give them a try.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Slant said. Eyes milky with the undead version of cataracts shouldn’t be able to look piercing sharp, but his managed. “Our current Patrician is ill-equipped for his current position.”
“That’s not—“
“Why not you, good doctor?” Silverfish asked.
Vimes’ face went stony. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, why not you? You already have a great deal of sway. You have the breeding—“
“Why should breeding factor—?”
“You have properties, experience in delegating. All the guilds already hold you in high esteem –higher than Lipwig, anyway—as do Diamond King of trolls, the Low Queen of the dwarves, even Lady Margolotta has a soft spot for Sir Samuel.”
Vimes’ face had gone from stony to waxen. “Absolutely not. I am not hearing this.”
“Whyever not, Your Grace?” Slant prodded with a smirk.
“Damnit man! I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker! Give me a sick person and I’ll make them right as rain. A sick city? Fat chance.” He tacked a laugh on the end to keep the conversation light, but in the privacy of his thoughts he promised that if anyone made a move to plop him in the Oblong Office he would pack his bags and hop a train straight to Quirm. “And the city is sick, it really is, but it’s not so bad, surely?”
“Oho! Do you know what I heard?” Queen Thea waggled her unkempt eyebrows and leaned in closer to whisper conspiratorially. “Our tyrant can’t even keep his own house in order.”
Silverfish frowned. “How do you mean?”
She huffed. “I mean, I have some of my girls on the inside. No one makes for a scullery maid like one o’ my urchins. I mean summa his accountants skim off the top, and summa his guards sleep on duty, and that isn’t the worst of it.” Vimes told himself he didn’t want to hear the rest, but he couldn’t seem to make his feet move from the spot. He drained his sherry. “Y’see, it’s gotten so bad the Oblong Office even has its own poltergeist.”
They absorbed this new information. “Surely not,” Downey said.
“Don’t call me a liar, Lord Assassin-man,” Queen Thea sneered. “My little lads and my little ladies leave the street in front of the Assassin’s Guild well alone, as you know, because I treasure your regard mightily.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doubting your word, Queen Thea,” Downey hurried to say. “I just mean, a poltergeist?”
“Like a ghost?” Silverfish worried.
“Could be old Vetinari from beyond the grave,” Dr. Vimes pointed out. He fixed them all with his best smile while they contemplated their hor d’oeurves. “What a time to be alive, if you’ll pardon the expression. Excuse me gentlemen, lady.” Dr. Vimes didn’t care for these soirees. He always needed a bath afterward.
Three floors above Sam’s head, Rufus Drumknott did not bother looking up from his desk blotter as another layer of fine dust cascaded down. Some weeks previous, when the trouble had begun in earnest, he erected a tarp to cover his workspace, and so he worked in neatness if not exactly in comfort. And he hoped that someone would answer his advert and do away with the malicious spirit that haunted the Oblong Office.
The advert, sadly, had been his own devising. He asked the current Patrician what he intended to do, and Lipwig responded with “Work in another room.” Drumknott found it an inelegant solution, not least because the carpet in his own office had turned gray with plaster dust. He did not rub elbows with the well-bred or the wealthy of the city, but he found himself thinking along the same lines as Lord Downey anyway. Something needed to change, and if Lipwig did not become the vehicle for that change, change would become the vehicle that mowed him down.
Drumknott rubbed a tired hand over his aching eyes. There were forms to review, taxes to manage, requests and correspondences to answer. He was a secretary, and good at pushing paper besides, but he could only do so much. He lifted his mug to his lips—it was an old thing, chipped and well-loved, with an image of Iron Girder printed on the front. A keepsake of happier times. Simpler times. And Drumknott did not consider himself a sentimental man, but tonight, like all the anniversaries of Vetinari’s death that had come before, he would don his cloak and visit the gravesite.
Plaster dust showered down on the tarp as the furniture in the Oblong Office lifted about nine inches from the floral carpeting and landed heavily. Yes, he would go to the gravesite and he would worry. He couldn’t think of what to do besides.
Ignatia awoke around dawn to find that the stray dog had wandered off somewhere else, leaving her bedroom door slightly ajar. She ate a roll, pulled on a her cleanest dress, stuffed her feet into her boots and, leaving her hat hidden on her person, marched out into the brave new day. She took a helpful newspaper from an unguarded doorstep and purchased the tallest, blackest coffee a rudimentary search of the surrounding neighborhood produced. She opened the paper to that day’s Help Wanted section. She sipped her scalding coffee, took a red pen from her pocket and got to work circling.
An hour and a half later found her on the doorstep of a house-turned-office, staring morosely at a hastily-painted sign. Spirit Slayers, it screamed in thick green letters. A box nailed by the door housed a stack of helpful pamphlets and Ignatia picked one up, skimming the cover with an eyebrow raised. Be not afeard of ghosts! it said. Be there a strange happening in your community, who should you seek askance? Spirit Slayers! Be there something unusual, and it appears menacing, who should you seek askance? Spirit Slayers! Well, Ignatia had no experience with the spiritual, but it seemed no one would notice. She walked inside.
“Find anything out, captain?” Keel asked. He bit through his apple, and Ginger noticed a half empty bag on the table and an ashtray with several stems and seeds in it.
In the privacy of her head, she thought I learned that our prime suspect is kind to strange animals, and owns nearly nothing, and talks in her sleep. “I visited Ignatia Wrathine’s current residence. No blood, no blood-stained clothing. And she didn’t have any incriminating paperwork. Just faded ticket stubs and a handful of sequins on the dresser, she thought.
Keel nodded. “It’s the Assassins’ Guild for you and the street for me, then. We’ll meet up at the circus in two hours, pressure the carnies until someone cracks.” She gave him a long look. He cleared his throat. “If that’s okay with you, officer.”
She nodded. “You have an uncanny way of anticipating my orders, acting-constable Keel.”
He snorted and took an apple stem out of his mouth. “Don’t I just?”
Ignatia wandered out of the Spirit Slayers office, somehow more bewildered than she had been going in. But they hired her straightaway and sent her on an assignment to clean out a haunting at the Patrician’s Palace. Someone would normally go with her to show her the ropes, but, oddly enough, no one on the roster wanted to. If she didn’t know any better, she would say they were scared.
She showed up in the Patrician’s secretary’s office, only getting lost twice; she didn’t count her third little turnabout because it led her to a coffee place that had truly despicable swill. She bought the tallest cup of the stuff they sold and drank it happily. It reminded her of home.
The secretary, an older man, eyed her with something like incredulity. She eyed him back, and took a sip of her drink. She tried not to gauge how much the furniture in the place cost, but couldn’t help the way her mind equated the shiny mahogany desk with a new caravan, the tarp above it a new roof for the main tent, the assortment of inkwells and designer quills new wheels for the freak show. “And you’re with the Spirit Slayers,” the secretary, Drumknott, reiterated. “Only, they’ve sent every single one of their specialists and haven’t been able to do anything for the Oblong Office.”
Ah. Incompetence and hope, at last she was on familiar ground. “I’m probationary. If I can rid you of your ghost, you can pay me the amount in full and I’ll make sure my new employers receive their cut.”
Drumknott stared and took a moment to find his voice. “And their cut is…?”
“They’re supposed to take fifteen percent of every commission, sir.” She sipped her coffee. The painting on the far wall could buy new netting for under the trapeze. “Of course, if I am successful I intend to capitalize on it.”
“Capitalize on it,” Drumknott echoed. “By which you mean you’ll take 100% of the commission and then, I don’t know, charge your employers for your services?”
Her face split in a grin. “Why, Mr. Drumknott, would you say you are in possession of a devious mind?”
“No,” he answered faintly. “But I have been the custodian of a truly fiendish man for the better part of my career, my lady.”
The ceiling shuddered, showering them both in fine plaster dust. Deep cracks marred the twisted spackle work; Ignatia glared at them as the ceiling shuddered a second time. A third. “How long has this been happening?”
“Off and on for the past two years,” Drumknott told her. “It only became regular about three months ago, and in the past two weeks it’s become an urgent problem. We’ve tried everything; exorcisms from half of the churches in Ankh-Morpork, burning bundles of sage, flooding the floor with holy water, prayers, salt, mantras, bargaining. Nothing works.” He led her down the hall and up a spiral staircase.
“Have there been sudden increases of activity that drop off unexpectedly?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just getting consistently worse all the time.”
“What does the Patrician say?”
Drumknott gave a nasty, angry little laugh. “To close off the room and be done with it. Originally he wanted to open it to the public and charge two dollars for admission, but it’s too dangerous.”
His shoes could buy her mother a new wardrobe. “Do you think it could be Vetinari’s ghost?”
He shot her a strange look and then faced forward as they stepped onto the landing. “No, miss. Curiously enough, I did not used to believe in ghosts, but I find myself believing all kinds of things lately. Through here, mind your step.”
“Thank you.” She stood on the threshold of the Oblong Office and stared at the furniture. Most of the pieces were battered but not yet broken; even as she watched the desk and a pair of chairs lifted off the carpet about nine inches, hung in the air, and dropped heavily. “Where else does this happen? No, don’t deny it, don’t invent a story. Tell me the truth, Drumknott.”
He deflated. “It’s taken hold of the Rat’s Chamber, and on rainy days the torture chamber in the basement.”
She padded into the room, stepping right in front of a chair hovering by the big picture window. “Please be careful!” he cried.
“Are you afraid, Mr. Drumknott?” she asked, almost too softly for him to hear.
“Are you not!?”
“This isn’t a dead spirit.” She plucked a book that spun through the air near her face and ran a finger down its spine.
“How do you know?”
“I know because there is a precedent.” She tossed the book aside, where it thudded and slid across an airborne side table that could have bought new shoes for all the children in her circus. She could feel it around her, simmering and sometimes coming to a boil. Oh yes, it was there on the streets, but here it was concentrated. And it was angry, ravenous, wild, electric across her synapses. Were she so inclined, she might even say it was worth cackling for. Why peruse catalogs for gingerbread houses and poison apples when this raw energy hung on the air, ripe for the taking?
She padded out the way she had come and gently closed the double doors behind her. “Miss, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Hm?” She shook herself out of her reverie. “I only wish to explain this the once, Mr. Drumknott, and explain it the once I shall. Is the Rat’s Chamber uninhabitable?”
“Not at this moment.”
“Excellent. Please send for, oh, the leaders of the top five most powerful guilds, the leader of the city Watch, the Patrician, Mrs. Proust—I can give you her address—the Archchancellor of Unseen University, an iconographer of, hah, ill-repute, the most prominent figure of the free press, and any important figures I have missed. Have them gathered in the Rat’s Chamber for supper, around seven when it’s just beginning to get dark. Yes?”
Drumknott shut his mouth with a click and shook his head, wild-eyed. “I can’t possibly do that, miss! I’m just a secretary!”
“Forgive me, I was under the impression you were the right-hand man of the tyrant of this fair metropolis.”
“I am, but—“
“Then what is the trouble?” Her gray eyes bored into him, and gods save them but she reminded him of a dead man.
“They hardly show up for the Patrician himself! What hope do I have of them coming at my beck and call?”
The words hung on her tongue, If they don’t come for you, let me at them and I will put the fear of Ignatia in them. They hung on her tongue, but she bit them back. “If you don’t have respect, you don’t have a thing,” she said instead, picking her words with care. Oh yes, she had her father’s temper, but she didn’t need to be ruled by it. She would save it, stoke it until it burned hotter and then she would put it to work, like a blacksmith at his forge. “The thing about that little axiom, is it can mean if you don’t have respect for others, you have nothing, and if you don’t have the respect of others, you have nothing. Send out the word, Drumknott. And make sure you let everyone know that the supper is completely optional, purely voluntary and in no way compulsory. And I wouldn’t hold it against you if you were to mention who else is going to be here.”
He blinked, taken aback. “Have you ever considered a career in politics, my lady?”
“I rather think I have done nothing but politics all my life, sir.” A hundred futures flashed across her eyes. She had the grip of the story now, and she needed only find where it ended. She was a witch—she could point it in the right direction, happily ever afters for everyone, hurrah. The queen of Lancre swam to mind, telling her gently over tea and scones that fairy godmothers don’t get happy endings for themselves. Well, I didn’t agree to that, her second thoughts supplied, in the voice of her mother. I didn’t sign anything. No one put anything in writing. She walked through the corridor in long strides that cut distance like a knife through butter, forcing Drumknott to scurry to keep up. She stopped abruptly, and he jostled into her.
She nodded at the painting on the wall. “Who is that?”
He frowned. “Havelock Vetinari. Arguably our best and brightest Patrician.”
She stared up at the severe face, the hard eyes, the lines of his face. She hoped for an easier story; give her coppers swinging from chandeliers into the fray, or princesses in need of saving, or dragons with weaknesses for riddles. But those were not the stories presented to her. She was a witch, and she worked with the story in front of her, on the edges of things. “Seven pm, Drumknott. Rat’s Chamber. I want all the important people there, because there is going to be a reckoning.” And I will need witnesses.
“Understood, ma’am.”
At seven the top five most powerful guild leaders sat in the Rat’s Chamber. His Grace His Excellency Sir Samuel Vimes M.D. also attended, with Queen Thea on his left and Commander Quirke on his right. Ginger Ironfoundersson sat on Quirke’s other side, there to take notes. Otto Chriek fiddled with his latest iconography contraption, William de Worde and Sacharissa de Worde murmuring softly to one another all the while. Mrs. Proust lounged in her seat, completely out of place and completely at ease while Ponder Stibbons eyed her from across the table. There was a Lady Venturi, a Lady Selachii, a Susan Sto Helit, and a handful of others. In short, the Rat’s Chamber was filled, save for one seat; the seat directly in front of the axe embedded in the table was empty. No one wanted to sit so close to it, in case there was blame to be shared and a handy weapon needed to be found.
A pale watchman in an unusual uniform and smoked lenses in front of his eyes held up the wall by the door, watching. Finally a shadow in the corner detached and walked to the head of the table. Slowly. Purposefully. She stood under the portrait of the late Havelock Vetinari and, her ears attuned to the crèche of spill words, she heard the unspoken mutters of “Doesn’t she look just like…”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you all for coming on such short notice.” She clasped her hands behind her and padded to one of the tall windows overlooking the city. “I called you all together because there is something rotten in Ankh-Morpork. Something we must put to rights tonight.”
The silence stretched, broken at last by the doors slamming open and admitting none other but the current Patrician. “Forgive me!” he laughed, flashing a grin at them all. “My, a full house in here today. I hope I haven’t missed anything.” He walked up to the empty chair and leaned on the back of it without sitting down.
“Antony von Lipwig,” Ignatia acknowledged. There was a stool in the corner, and she pulled it to the head of the table. “Please, do have a seat.”
The smile on his face faltered. “What is this all about?” he asked, but he did sit down on the stool.
“This is a trial. I believe you know Constable Keel?”
The color drained from his face and he looked to the strange watchman, who had gone to the doors and bolted them shut. He grinned, all teeth. Lipwig turned on Ignatia. “What is the meaning of this!?”
Ignatia took a breath. She felt hard all over, inside and out; her heart told her to throw him into the Oblong Office, come what may. It was angry, ravenous, wild and it would rip him apart. Her mind, though, was stronger than her heart, colder and harder, too. And it said that she was a witch, one who lived on the edge, and it was better to walk the perilous brink than to throw herself into the abyss with Lipwig in tow.
“A trial! What have I done wrong!?”
Ignatia closed her eyes and breathed through her nose. She walked slowly to the big, empty fireplace. “What have you done wrong? Nothing.”
“See, that settles it!”
“No. Your wrongdoing is nothing. It is sloth of the highest order, Mr. Lipwig. Ankh-Morpork has required action, Mr. Lipwig, and you have failed her. You have failed all of us. That is your crime.” In her seat, Susan Sto Helit tensed at Ignatia’s gentle teacher voice. Something was coming.
“Nothing!” Lipwig barked, affronted. “I have worked tirelessly for this city!”
The poker came down hard on the table, its point red hot, leaving a burnt scar on the wooden surface. Ignatia’s face was completely impassive, but something behind her eyes simmered. “Tirelessly, perhaps. I wouldn’t know. But you haven’t worked intelligently for this city. What do you know about witches, Mr. Lipwig? Close your mouth, you insipid fool. You know nothing of witches.” She nodded to Mrs. Proust. “Witches are attuned to geography. In the city, they feel the cobbles. On the Chalk, they feel the flints. In Lancre, they feel the stones what have a love of iron in them.
“Myself, I am a witch from my pointy hat down to my tired boots, and I have never felt attuned to geography, Mr. Lipwig. Only to people.” The occupants of the Rat’s Chamber watched her with rapt attention. She had them in her spell; she need only tell them the story. “But witches also have checks and balances. We have other witches, and we have people we love, and we have the land about us. We are governed, Mr. Lipwig. You are not. You live in a state of anarchy and your people have suffered, and for that there will be a reckoning, Mr. Lipwig.
“I have called you all here today because a crime has been committed. It has been committed behind closed doors, in the breaths between sleep cycles, in the slow forgetting between inaction and inaction. And now we will have light for the dark places.
“This is a trial, Mr. Lipwig. You stand accused of failing in the execution of your duty. The people around you are my witnesses. Mr. Slant is here to be your judge, Captain Ironfoundersson your jury, Constable Keel to ensure fair play. How do you plead, Mr. Lipwig?”
He laughed a long, nervous laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
Ignatia kept hold of her poker and paced the length of the table, brow furrowed. “The country of Lancre suffered under poor leadership, and the land itself rebelled until a more suitable leader took the throne.”
“A clown,” Lipwig sneered.
“A king,” Ignatia countered smoothly. “Do you know why you cannot find the fool on the chessboard, Mr. Lipwig?”
“Search me.”
“Because there are no mirrors on the pieces.” William de Worde coughed into his hand. Ignatia ignored him, pacing and turning the poker over and over absent-mindedly. “What is a fool? What is a carny? They are the ones who move the pieces, who arrange the blocks, who let us laugh at the things we daren’t cry over. There is a new line on the throne of Lancre, because the land rebelled. And now Ankh-Morpork rebels. Oh yes, she rebels.”
As if on cue, a decorative table in the corner of the room lifted slowly from the floor about nine inches, then dropped heavily back to the carpet. A susurrus of unease rippled through the room, and Lipwig was on his feet and braced against the wall so quickly his stool toppled. Ignatia paid them no mind, merely pacing back and forth. “Ankh-Morpork rebels, Mr. Lipwig. Your city bleeds. It aches and hungers and rots from the inside out, and last night you drank champagne and ate canapes.” The ceiling shuddered, raining fine dust over them all.
“It’s a trick!” Lipwig cried, stabbing an accusatory finger at Ignatia.
“Then why are you so afraid!” Ignatia demanded, voice so soft the civic leaders strained to hear. “In your heart you know the truth, and the guilt eats away at you.” She had the story now, held in her palm. Now to make it work for her.
“No!” he shouted. The pokers by the fireplace rattled; the windows shuddered in their frames. His eyes were wild, sweat beading his forehead. “Stop doing that!”
“I’m not doing anything,” Ignatia reasoned softly. “A witch cannot magic iron—the city rebels, Mr. Lipwig. Upon my life, I am not attuned to the stone of Lancre, or the flints of the Chalk, nor the cobbles of this city. No, I am attuned to the city itself, and I can feel it rebelling. It is hungry, Mr. Lipwig. It is hungry and it wants you in the worst way.”
“Leave me alone!” he screamed and sprinted for the doors, right into Constable Keel’s arms. He struggled against the vampire’s grip to no avail. “Hey!”
“Hay is for horses,” she deadpanned, and raised a single eyebrow. To Keel she said, “Thank you, put him on his stool.” He struggled fruitlessly. “Mr. Lipwig, please. I’m trying to give you an out. This is your last chance to do right by this city.” Sadness creeped into her implacable expression. “Take a holiday. Quirm is lovely this time of year.”
It was a possibility, but she hadn’t counted on the look of panicked madness on Lipwig’s waxen face. His lips peeled away from his teeth. “I’ll die first.”
Keel went rigid and staggered back, staring down at the dagger plunged in his chest. “Bugger,” he said weakly and then crumbled into dust.
“No!” Sir Samuel screamed, leaping to his feet. But Lipwig was already running, knocking two lit gas lamps to the floor in his haste. Then he was through the double doors and slamming them behind him.
Ignatia saw the lamps hit the ground, oil splashing across the carpet followed by flames in quick succession. Dr. Vimes and Ginger were at the double doors, trying to open them with no success—the kind of man who would walk around with a silver dagger steeped in holy water is the kind of person who knows how to jam a door shut in a hurry. The civic leaders panicked; there was screaming and crying and talk of breaking the windows.
“Oh for goodness sake!” Ignatia shouted, and the noise subsided at once, all eyes turning to her, pleading. “It’s just a bloody fire!” she bellowed, slamming her poker against the floor. There was a wall of flame between her and most of the room, and it began creeping up the legs of the table. She rolled her eyes. Well, see if she wasn’t expected to do everything around here. She stooped and scooped the flames into her palms, clicking her tongue at them until they got into line, and dropped them harmlessly into the fireplace. “Worse than the circus,” she grumbled to herself as she worked. “A little fire gets uppity and suddenly it’s the end of the world, why I never.” She snapped her fingers at a few errant flames that were eating the wallpaper and they trickled sullenly into the fireplace. “That’s what I thought.”
The job done, she smoothed her hands down her dress, screwed her hat onto her head and pulled at an empty candelabra. A section of wall slid aside. She turned to the slack-jawed room and gestured at the newfound secret exit. “Go on then. Show’s over.” They filed out in a haze of pink befuddlement. Sam Vimes paused by the table, took the axe by the handle and heaved it free. Ginger and Ignatia, the last two in the room, exchanged a glance.
“Captain Ironfoundersson, what are the chances of him finding Lipwig before we do?”
“Slim to none if we follow him, ma’am.”
“After you, then.”
Antony von Lipwig sprinted through the Patrician’s Palace, his palace. He didn’t know where his feet were taking him, but soon he found himself running up a spiral staircase, taking the steps two at a time. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. They were going to take away his job, his home!
His throne.
He sobbed and slammed into a pair of double doors, hands shaking, and it took a minute to process that they were locked. He would not be done away with! He would not be forsaken! He was the Patrician! He was the tyrant! It took a few tries but his master key slid home and he turned it hard, wrenched the double doors open, flung himself inside and then shut the doors behind him. He leaned against them, panting, and the cool of the wood sank through his sweaty shirt. For a moment he caught his breath.
And then self-awareness set in. He blinked at the inside of the Oblong Office.
“No,” he whimpered, and then rushed to open the doors. “No! No!” He yanked and pulled but they didn’t budge. “No! No!” he screamed, beside himself, pounding at them as behind him the furniture moved.
A vase collided hard with the wall four inches from his face; it shattered and a shard sliced his ear open. He gasped against the sting, even as a side table hurled itself for him and he rolled to the ground. The desk was waiting, though, and would have dropped heavily on top of him if he hadn’t lunged aside. A candlestick detached itself from the wall and clobbered him over the head before he could lift his arm to stave off the blow. He screamed.
“ENOUGH!”
The furniture hung in the air, as if scenting the air, then landed on the floral carpet with pointed innocuousness, as if to say “Who, me?” Lipwig raised his head enough to see the witch, Ignatia Wrathine, walking through the Oblong Office in long strides.
But Dr. Vimes stood in her wake, and she couldn’t stop him in time before he darted around her, axe in hand. “You bastard!” he bellowed.
“No!” Ginger tackled him to the ground and the axe fell from his grip. He was a doctor, and she was a watchman, and the fight was over before it started, with her pinning him securely to the ground. “You’re a doctor!” she growled.
Dr. Vimes struggled. “He killed him! He killed him!”
“And if you kill his killer? What does that make you then?” Ginger demanded, grip firm even as the fight drained out of him. “Tell me what becomes of you, Sir Samuel, because you won’t be a doctor anymore!”
Ignatia closed her eyes against the tableau. Tiredness hammered at her, but there was still so much work to do. She exhaled slowly. “Commander Quirke.”
He shuffled into the room from the secret passage set beside the fireplace. “Yes ma’am?”
Her eyes still shut, she said, “Please escort the Duke home. See that he gets in safe and then return here. Otto Chriek?”
Otto shuffled in from behind Quirke. “Ma’am?”
“See to Constable Keel. Gather up all his dusty bits, drop him in an empty container of some sort and then bring him directly to me, so I might reanimate him at my leisure.” Her eyes drifted open and she sighed. She turned the swivel chair upright and pushed it behind the desk before settling into it. “Captain Ironfoundersson, I believe you have an arrest to make.”
Ginger nodded somberly. “Antony von Lipwig, you are under arrest for arson, attempted murder of the third degree, assault with a deadly weapon, assault on an officer of the law, resisting arrest, and generally being a nuisance.”
The rest of the Civic Leaders filed in as Ginger escorted an unprotesting Lipwig out of the double doors, which opened easily enough now that the drama was over. Ignatia planted her elbows on the desk blotter and steepled her fingers as she contemplated the assemblage of harried community pillars. “I believe it is customary for the city’s guilds to elect the next Patrician. Of course, not all the leaders of all the guilds could attend tonight, but I am sure the few of you who are here can make a decision between yourselves.”
They looked at her, at the scattered furniture about the room, at the floral carpet underfoot, but never at each other. She sympathized. “It has been a long day,” she said. She rummaged in the desk and produced a small hand bell, which she rang vigorously. A servant appeared in the doorway.
“Ah, Maurissa, isn’t it?”
The woman bobbed a curtsy. “Yes’m!”
“Will you ask the kitchens to put on a light dinner for my guests in one of the smaller dining rooms? Thank you.”
At last Downey broke the spell. “So that’s it then?” he spluttered. “You’re just going to take the Patricianship for yourself?”
Ignatia gave him a look usually reserved for people who ask why gargling lemon juice and cream is a bad idea. “Lord Downey, do you know the name of your cobbler?”
He blinked, stumped. “Well, no.”
“Funny, that. Because I do.” Gray eyes stared through him, as if staring through his soul and finding only disappointment. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to sway the vote one way or another.” She stood up. “How you gentlemen—and ladies—vote is entirely a private matter. I hope only that this time is less disastrous than the last. Please, join me for dinner.”
Drumknott appeared at her side as they filed down the corridor. “Sir Samuel has arrived safely at home,” he informed her, falling into step beside her. “Commander Quirke is on his way back.”
She nodded. “Have him meet with the palace guards, who I noticed have been conspicuously absent tonight. I’ve no doubt he would like to know why.”
Drumknott bit back a smile. “He would like that, ma’am. Captain Ironfoundersson has Lipwig in a cell under the palace, also.”
“Excellent. Have a plate of hot food sent down to him, and a glass of wine. I will deal with him briefly.”
The civic leaders filed into the dining room behind Ignatia, looking like a line of ducklings. “But…but…a witch can’t be a Patrician!” Lady Venturi scrabbled. Some of their number nodded.
“And why is that, pray?” Mrs. Proust snapped.
Venturi wilted. “I mean…”
“Precedent!” Mr. Slant said, even as he took a seat at the table. “There is no precedent!”
“Indeed,” Ignatia said. She took an apple from a bowl on the table, settled into her seat, produced a knife from her sleeve and cut into it.
Susan Sto Helit scoffed. “There can be a donkey archbishop for the Omnians! There can be an orangutan for a librarian! There have been vampires and werewolves and trolls and all kinds in the Watch! We’ve had nothing but assassins, madmen and wealthy kleptocrats in office for years. What’s a witch to all that?” Susan glanced in Ignatia’s direction; the witch in question winked and popped another piece of apple into her mouth.
As far as dinners went, it wasn’t half bad; hastily put together and the cooks would curse her name, but it was hot and filling. And there was a great deal of wine and brandy. At one point, emboldened by three glasses of wine and natural curiosity, Mrs. de Worde sidled up to Ignatia’s elbow and asked in a stage whisper, “Ma’am, if I might be so bold, may I ask how you know Lord Downey’s cobbler?”
The uneasy conversation around the table abated and all eyes fell on the two of them. Ignatia set her glass on the table and leaned closer to Saccharissa. “Mrs. de Worde, can you keep a secret?”
“I can.”
“Glad to hear. So can I.” Satisfied, Ignatia leaned back and concentrated on her plate once more.
“Not going to give it up are you?” Lady Selachii prodded. “Or else you’ll have to kill her?”
Nervous laughter rippled across the room. Ignatia’s placid face broke into a very warm, very earnest smile. “No, my lady. Indeed I would not. I would ensure she lived a very long life.” The temperature in the room dropped as every thought turned to the ways a life could be lengthened, and the subjective nature of time, and their eyes fell on the way her knife sliced a roasted potato.
Captain Ironfoundersson was waiting in the Oblong Office when the dinner party broke up. Ignatia nodded to her amicably and sat behind the Patrician’s desk, now her desk. “How goes it, captain?”
Ginger nodded at the matchbox on the blotter. “Constable Keel’s remains.”
Sure enough, the matchbox had been emptied in haste and filled with gray ash. Ignatia dropped it into one of the drawers in the desk. “A dangerous man, is that Sam Vimes.”
“They both are, ma’am.”
“Hm. And would you say burning the ashes of a vampire would erase it permanently from existence?”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
Ignatia steepled her fingers and contemplated the watchman before her. Witches don’t get happy endings, she reminded herself. “There are checks and balances, captain. Even a tyrant needs to be checked regularly. Especially a tyrant.”
“Ma’am.”
“In the morning, I will send a missive to Mistress Aching, alerting her of my new status. And a similar missive to the Queen of Lancre, the Duchess of Keepsake, and a prominent medicine woman in Genua. However, there needs to be more security closer to home. How do you feel about a promotion to the palace guard?”
“No thank you.”
“It comes with a considerable pay increase, and a higher rank.”
“No thank you.”
Ignatia raised an eyebrow. “The job is also safer. You won’t be on the streets getting into fights.”
“My place is on the streets, ma’am. Do you know where we get the word ‘policeman’ from? It means man of the city.”
“I know. I need to promote somebody.”
“I nominate Commander Quirke. He’s been spoiling for a place on the palace guard for years.”
“Then who would you nominate to command the city Watch? You?”
“No, ma’am. My place is on the streets, as you know.”
“And I do know. I will think on it.” Ignatia rummaged through the drawers of her desk, apparently forgetting Ginger was still in the room. She unearthed a suitable pen and a sheaf of papers, arranged them before her and started writing. She glanced up after a minute. “Don’t let me keep you,” she said quietly.
Ginger turned on her heel and marched out the door, eyes burning. In the office, Ignatia dropped her pen back on the blotter and dug her fingers into her hair, feeling truly wretched for the first time since, well, since the night before. She wallowed in misery for a moment, then shook herself. She took out the matchbox and turned it over and over in her hands.