'When was that, exactly?'
'Can't remember. I think I was pretty knowledgeable. Probably a teacher or philosopher, something of that kidney. And now I'm on a bench with a bird crapping on my head.'
'Very allegorical,' said the raven. No-one had taught Susan about the power of belief, or at least about the power of belief in a combination of high magical potential and low reality stability such as existed on the Discworld. Belief makes a hollow place. Something has to roll in to fill it. Which is not to say that belief denies logic. For example, it's fairly obvious that the Sandman needs only a small sack. On the Discworld, he doesn't bother to take the sand out first. It was almost midnight. Susan crept into the stables. She was one of those people who will not leave a mystery unsolved. The ponies were silent in the presence of Binky. The horse glowed in the darkness. Susan heaved a saddle down from the rack, and then thought better of it. If she was going to fall off, a saddle wouldn't be any help. And reins would be about as much use as a rudder on a rock. She opened the door to the loose-box. Most horses won't walk backwards voluntarily, because what they can't see doesn't exist. But Binky shuffled out by himself and walked over to the mounting block, where he turned and watched her expectantly. Susan climbed on to his back. It was like sitting on a table. 'All right,' she whispered. 'I don't have to believe any of this, mind you.' Binky lowered his head and whinnied. Then he trotted out into the yard and headed for the field. At the gate he broke into a canter, and turned towards the fence. Susan shut her eyes. She felt muscles bunch under the velvet skin and then the horse was rising, over the fence, over the field. Behind it, in the turf, two fiery hoofprints burned for a second or two. As she passed above the school she saw a light flicker in a window. Miss Butts was on her rounds. There's going to be trouble over this, Susan told herself. And then she thought: I'm on the back of a horse a hundred feet up in the air, being taken somewhere mysterious that's a bit like a magic land with goblins and talking animals. There's only so much more trouble I could get into . . . Besides, is riding a flying horse against school rules? I bet it's not written down anywhere. Quirm vanished behind her, and the world opened up in a pattern of darkness and moonlight silver. A chequer-board pattern of fields strobed by in the moonlight, with the occasional light of an isolated farm. Ragged clouds whipped past and away. Away on her left the Ramtop Mountains were a cold white wall. On her right, the Rim Ocean carried a pathway to the moon. There was no wind, or even a great sensation of speed - just
the land flashing by, and the long slow strides of Binky. And then someone spilled gold on the night. Clouds parted in front of her and there, spread below, was Ankh-Morpork - a city containing more Peril than even Miss Butts could imagine. Torchlight outlined a pattern of streets in which Quirm would have not only been lost, but mugged and pushed into the river as well. Binky cantered easily over the rooftops. Susan could hear the sounds of the streets, even individual voices, but there was also the great roar of the city, like some kind of insect hive. Upper windows drifted by, each one a glow of candlelight. The horse dropped through the smoky air and landed neatly and at the trot in an alley which was otherwise empty except for a closed door and a sign with a torch over it. Susan read: CURRY GARDENS Kitchren Entlance - Keep Out. Ris Means You. Binky seemed to be waiting for something. Susan had expected a more exotic destination. She knew about curry. They had curry at school, under the name of Bogey and Rice. It was yellow. There were soggy raisins and peas in it. Binky whinnied, and stamped a hoof. A hatch in the door flew open. Susan got a brief impression of a face against the fiery atmosphere of the kitchen. 'Ooorrh, nooorrrh! Binkorrr!' The hatch slammed shut again. Obviously something was meant to happen. She stared at a menu nailed to the wall. It was misspelled, of course, because the menu of the folkier kind of restaurant always has to have misspellings in it, so that customers can be lured into a false sense of superiority. She couldn't recognize the names of most of the dishes, which included: Curry with Vegetable 8p Curry with Sweat, and Sore Balls of Pig 10p Curry with Sweer and Sour, Ball of Fish 10p Curry with Meat 10p Curry with Named Meat 15p Extra Curry 5p Porn cracker 4p Eat It Here Or, Take It Away The hatch snapped open again and a large brown bag of allegedly but not really waterproof paper was dumped on the little ledge in front of it. Then the hatch slammed shut again. Susan reached out carefully. The smell rising from the bag had a sort of thermic lance quality that warned against metal cutlery. But tea had been a long time ago. She realized she didn't have any money on her. On the other hand, no-one had asked her for any. But the world would go to wrack and ruin if people didn't recognize their responsibilities. She leaned forward and knocked on the door. 'Excuse me . . . don't you want anything-?' There was shouting and a crash from inside, as if half a dozen people were fighting to get under the same table. 'Oh. How nice. Thank you. Thank you very much,' said Susan, politely. Binky walked away, slowly. This time there was no bunched leap of muscle power - he trotted into the air carefully, as if some time in the past he'd been scolded for spilling
something. Susan tried the curry several hundred feet above the speeding landscape, and then threw it away as politely as possible. 'It was very . . . unusual,' she said. 'And that's it? You carried me all the way up here for takeaway food?' The ground skimmed past faster, and it crept over her that the horse was going a lot faster now, a full gallop instead of the easy canter. A bunching of muscle . . . . . . and then the sky ahead of her erupted blue for a moment. Behind her, unseen because light was standing around red with embarrassment asking itself what had happened, a pair of hoofprints burned in the air for a moment. It was a landscape, hanging in space. There was a squat little house, with a garden around it. There were fields, and distant mountains. Susan stared at it as Binky slowed. There was no depth. As the horse swung around for a landing, the landscape was revealed as a mere surface, a thin-shaped film of . . . existence . . . imposed on nothingness. She expected it to tear when the horse landed, but there was only a faint crunch and a scatter of gravel. Binky trotted around the house and into the stableyard, where he stood and waited. Susan got off, gingerly. The ground felt solid enough under her feet. She reached down and scratched at the gravel; there was more gravel underneath. She'd heard that the Tooth Fairy collected teeth. Think about it logically . . . the only other people who collected any bits of bodies did so for very suspicious purposes, and usually to harm or control other people. The Tooth Fairies must have half the children in the world under their control. And this didn't look like the house of that sort of person. The Hogfather apparently lived in some kind of horrible slaughterhouse in the mountains, festooned with sausages and black puddings and painted a terrible blood-red. Which suggested style. A nasty style, but at least style of a sort. This place didn't have style of any sort. The Soul Cake Tuesday Duck didn't apparently have any kind of a home. Nor did Old Man Trouble or the Sandman, as far as she knew. She walked around the house, which wasn't much larger than a cottage. Definitely. Whoever lived here had no taste at all. She found the front door. It was black, with a knocker in the shape of an omega. Susan reached for it, but the door opened by itself. And the hall stretched away in front of her, far bigger than the outside of the house could possibly contain. She could distantly make out a stairway wide enough for the tap-dancing finale in a musical. There was something else wrong with the perspective. There clearly was a wall a long way off but, at the same time, it looked as though it was painted in the air a mere fifteen feet or so away. It was as if distance was optional. There was a large clock against one wall. Its slow tick filled the immense space. There's a room, she thought. I remember the room of whispers. Doors lined the hall at wide intervals. Or short intervals, if you looked at it another way. She tried to walk towards the nearest one, and gave up after a few wildly teetering steps. Finally she managed to reach it by taking aim and then shutting her eyes. The door was at one and the same time about normal human size and immensely big. There was a highly ornate frame around it, with a skulls-and-bones motif. She pushed the door open. This room could have housed a small town. A small area of carpet occupied the middle distance, no more than a hectare in size. It took
Susan several minutes to reach the edge. It was a room within a room. There was a large, heavy-looking desk on a raised dais, with a leather swivel chair behind it. There was a large model of the Discworld, on a sort of ornament made of four elephants standing on the shell of a turtle. There were several bookshelves, the large volumes piled in the haphazard fashion of people who're far too busy using the books ever to arrange them properly. There was even a window, hanging in the air a few feet above the ground. But there were no walls. There was nothing between the edge of the carpet and the walls of the greater room except floor, and even that was far too precise a word for it. It didn't look like rock and it certainly wasn't wood. It made no sound when Susan walked on it. It was simply surface, in the purely geometrical sense. The carpet had a skull-and-bones pattern. It was also black. Everything was black, or a shade of grey. Here and there a tint suggested a very deep purple or ocean-depth blue. In the distance, towards the walls of the greater room, the metaroom or whatever it was, there was the suggestion of . . . something. Something was casting complicated shadows, too far away to be clearly seen. Susan got up on to the dais. There was something odd about the things around her. Of course, there was everything odd about the things around her, but it was a huge major oddness that was simply in their nature. She could ignore it. But there was an oddness on a human level. Everything was just slightly wrong, as if it had been made by someone who hadn't fully comprehended its purpose. There was a blotter on the oversize desk but it was part of it, fused to the surface. The drawers were just raised areas of wood, impossible to open. Whoever had made the desk had seen desks, but hadn't understood deskishness. There was even some sort of desk ornament. It was just a slab of lead, with a thread hanging down one side and a shiny round metal ball on the end of the thread. If you raised the ball it swung down and thumped into the lead, just once. She didn't try to sit in the chair. There was a deep pit in the leather. Someone had spent a lot of time sitting there. She glanced at the spines of the books. They were in a language she couldn't understand. She trekked back to the distant door, went out into the hall, and tried the next door. A suspicion was beginning to form in her mind. The door led to another huge room, but this one was full of shelves, floor to distant, cloud- hung ceiling. Every shelf was lined with hourglasses. The sand pouring from the past to the future filled the room with a sound like surf, a noise made up of a billion small sounds. Susan walked between the shelves. It was like being in a crowd. Her eye was caught by a movement on a nearby shelf. In most of the hourglasses the falling sand was a solid silver line but in this one, just as she watched, the line vanished. The last grain of sand tumbled into the bottom bulb. The hourglass vanished with a small 'pop'. A moment later another one appeared in its place, with the faintest of 'pings'. In front of her eyes, sand began to fall . . . And she was aware that this process was going on all over the room. Old hourglasses vanished, new ones took their place. She knew about this, too. She reached out and picked up a glass, bit her lip thoughtfully, and started to turn the thing upside down . . . SQUEAK!
She spun around. The Death of Rats was on the shelf behind her. It raised an admonitory finger. 'All right,' said Susan. She put the glass back in its place. SQUEAK. 'No. I haven't finished looking.' Susan set off for the door, with the rat skittering across the floor after her. The third room turned out to be . . . . . . the bathroom. Susan hesitated. You expected hourglasses in this place. You expected the skull-and-bones motif. But you didn't expect the very large white porcelain tub, on its own raised podium like a throne, with giant brass taps and - in faded blue letters just over the thing that held the plug chain - the words: C. H. Lavatory & Son, Mollymog St, Ankh-Morpork. You didn't expect the rubber duck. It was yellow. You didn't expect the soap. It was suitably bonewhite, but looked as if it had never been used. Beside it was a bar of orange soap which certainly had been used - it was hardly more than a sliver. It smelled a lot like the vicious stuff used at school. The bath, though big, was a human thing. There was brown-lined crazing around the plug- hole and a stain where the tap had dripped. But almost everything else had been designed by the person who hadn't understood deskishness, and now hadn't understood ablutionology either. They had created a towel rail an entire athletics team could have used for training. The black towels on it were fused to it and were quite hard. Whoever actually used the bathroom probably dried themselves on the white-and-blue, very worn towel with the initials Y M R-C- I-G-B-S A, A-M on it. There was even a lavatory, another fine example of C. H. Lavatory's porcelainic art, with an embossed frieze of green and blue flowers on the cistern. And again, like the bath and the soap, it suggested that this room had been built by someone . . . and then someone else had come along afterwards to add small details. Someone with a better knowledge of plumbing, for a start. And someone else who understood, really understood, that towels should be soft and capable of drying people, and soap should be capable of bubbles. You didn't expect any of it until you saw it. And then it was like seeing it again. The bald towel dropped off the rail and skipped across the floor, until it fell away to reveal the Death of Rats. SQUEAK? 'Oh, all right,' said Susan. 'Where do you want me to go now?' The rat scurried to the open door and disappeared into the hall. Susan followed it to yet another door. She turned yet another handle. Another room within a room lay beyond. There was a tiny area of lighted tiling in the darkness, containing the distant vision of a table, a few chairs, a kitchen dresser- -and someone. A hunched figure was sitting at the table. As Susan cautiously approached she heard the rattle of cutlery on a plate. An old man was eating his supper, very noisily. In between forkfuls, he was talking to himself with his mouth full. It was a kind of auto bad manners. ''Snot my fault! [spray] I was against it from the start but, oh no, he has to go and [recover piece of ballistic sausage from table] start gettin' involved, I told him, i's'not as if you're not involved [stab unidentified fried object], oh no, that's not his way [spray, jab fork at the air], once you get involved like that, I said, how're you getting out, tell me that [make temporary egg-and-ketchup sandwich] but, oh no-' Susan walked around the patch of carpet. The man took no notice. The Death of Rats shinned up the table leg and landed on a slice of fried bread.
'Oh. It's you.' SQUEAK. The old man looked around. 'Where? Where?' Susan stepped onto the carpet. The man stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. 'Who the hells are you?'
'Could you stop pointing that sharp bacon at me?'
'I asked you a question, young woman!'
'I'm Susan.' This didn't sound enough. 'Duchess of Sto Helit,' she added. The man's wrinkled face wrinkled still further as he strove to comprehend this. Then he turned away and threw his hands up in the air. 'Oh, yes!' he bawled, to the room in general. 'That just puts the entire tin lid on it, that does!' He waved a finger at the Death of Rats, who leaned backwards. 'You cheating little rodent! Oh, yes! I smell a rat here!' SQUEAK? The shaking finger stopped suddenly. The man spun around. 'How did you manage to walk through the wall?'
'I'm sorry?' said Susan, backing away. 'I didn't know there was one.'
'What d'you call this, then, Klatchian mist?' The man slapped the air. The hippo of memory wallowed . . . '. . . Albert . . .' said Susan, 'right?' Albert thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. 'Worse and worse! What've you been telling her?'
'He didn't tell me anything except SQUEAK and I don't know what that means,' said Susan. 'But . . . look, there's no wall here, there's just . . .' Albert wrenched open a drawer. 'Observe,' he said sharply. 'Hammer, right? Nail, right? Watch.' He hammered the nail into the air about five feet up at the edge of the tiled area. It hung there. 'Wall,' said Albert. Susan reached out gingerly and touched the nail. It had a sticky feel, a little like static electricity. 'Well, it doesn't feel like a wall to me,' she managed. SQUEAK. Albert dropped the hammer on the table. He wasn't a small man, Susan realized. He was quite tall, but he walked with the kind of lopsided stoop normally associated with laboratory assistants of an Igor turn of mind. 'I give in,' he said, wagging his finger at Susan again. 'I told him no good'd come of it. He started meddlin', and next thing a mere chit of a girl- where'd you go?' Susan walked over to the table while Albert waved his arms in the air, trying to find her. There was a cheeseboard on the table, and a snuff box. And a string of sausages. No fresh vegetables at all. Miss Butts advocated avoiding fried foods and eating plenty of vegetables for what she referred to as Daily Health. She put a lot of troubles down to an absence of Daily Health. Albert looked like the embodiment of them all as he scuttled around the kitchen, grabbing at the air. She sat in the chair as he danced past. Albert stopped moving, and put his hand over one eye. Then he turned, very carefully. The one visible eye was screwed up in a frantic effort of concentration. He squinted at the chair, his eye watering with effort. 'That's pretty good,' he said, quietly. 'All right. You're here. The rat and the horse brought
you. Damn fool things. They think it's the right thing to do.'
'What right thing to do?' said Susan. 'And I'm not a . . . what you said.' Albert stared at her. 'The Master could do that,' he said at last. 'It's part of the job. I 'spect you found you could do it a long time ago, eh? Not be noticed when you didn't want to be?' SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats. 'What?' said Albert. SQUEAK. 'He says to tell you,' said Albert wearily, 'that a chit of a girl means a small girl. He thinks you may have misheard me.' Susan hunched up in the chair. Albert pulled up another one and sat down. 'How old are you?'
'Sixteen.'
'Oh, my.' Albert rolled his eyes. 'How long have you been sixteen?'
'Since I was fifteen, of course. Are you stupid?'
'My, my, how the time does pass,' said Albert. 'Do you know why you're here?'
'No . . . but,' Susan hesitated, 'but it's got something to do with . . . it's something like . . . I'm seeing things that people don't see, and I've met someone who's just a story, and I know I've been here before . . . and all these skulls and bones on things . . .' Albert's rangy, vulture-like shape loomed over her. 'Would you like a cocoa?' he said. It was a lot different from the cocoa at the school, which was like hot brown water. Albert's cocoa had fat floating in it; if you turned the mug upside down, it would be a little while before anything fell out. 'Your mum and dad,' said Albert, when she had a chocolate moustache that was far too young for her, 'did they ever . . . explain anything to you?'
'Miss Delcross did that in Biology,' said Susan. 'She got it wrong,' she added. 'I mean about your grandfather,' said Albert. 'I remember things,' said Susan, 'but I can't remember them until I've seen them. Like the bathroom. Like you.'
'Your mum and dad thought it best if you forgot,' said Albert. 'Hah! It's in the bone! They was afraid it was going to happen and it has! You've inherited.'
'Oh, I know about that, too,' said Susan. 'It's all about mice and beans and things.' Albert gave her a blank look. 'Look, I'll try to put it tactful,' he said. Susan gave him a polite look. 'Your grandfather is Death,' said Albert. 'You know? The skeleton in the black robe? You rode in on his horse and this is his house. Only he's . . . gone away. To think things over, or something. What I reckon's happening is you're being sucked in. It's in the bone. You're old enough now. There's a hole and it thinks you're the right shape. I don't like it any more than you do.'
'Death,' said Susan, flatly. 'Well, I can't say I didn't have suspicions. Like the Hogfather and the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy?'
'Yes.' SQUEAK. 'You expect me to believe that, do you?' said Susan, trying to summon up her most withering scorn. Albert glared back like someone who'd done all his withering a long time ago. 'It's no skin off my nose what you believe, madam,' he said. 'You really mean the tall figure with the scythe and everything?'
'Yes.'
'Look, Albert,' said Susan, in the voice one uses to the simpleminded, 'even if there was a “Death” like that, and frankly it's quite ridiculous to go anthropomorphizing a simple natural function, no-one can inherit anything from it. I know about heredity. It's all about having red hair and things. You get it from other people. You don't get it from . . . myths and legends. Um.' The Death of Rats had gravitated to the cheeseboard, where he was using his scythe to hack off a lump. Albert sat back. 'I remember when you got brought here,' he said. 'He'd kept on asking, you see. He was curious. He likes kids. Sees a lot of them really, but . . . not to get to know, if you see what I mean. Your mum and dad didn't want to, but they gave in and brought you all here for tea one day just to keep him quiet. They didn't like to do it because they thought you'd be scared and scream the place down. But you . . . you didn't scream. You laughed. Frightened the life out of your dad, that did. They brought you a couple more times when he asked, but then they got scared about what might happen and your dad put his foot down and that was the end of it. He was about the only one who could argue with the Master, your dad. You'd have been about four then, I think.' Susan raised her hand thoughtfully and touched the pale lines on her cheek. 'The Master said they were raising you according to,' Albert sneered, 'modern methods. Logic. And thinking old stuff is silly. I dunno . . . I suppose they wanted to keep you away from . . . ideas like this . . .'
'I was given a ride on the horse,' said Susan, not listening to him. ' I had a bath in the big bathroom.'
'Soap all over the place,' said Albert. His face contorted into something approaching a smile. 'I could hear the Master laughing from here. And he made you a swing, too. Tried to, anyway. No magic or anything. With his actual hands.' Susan sat while memories woke and yawned and unfolded in her head. 'I remember about that bathroom now,' she said. 'It's all coming back to me.'