Windle Poons peered at the house numbers—a hundred Counting Pines had died for this street alone—and then realized he didn’t have to. He was being shortsighted out of habit. He improved his eyesight.
Number 668 took some while to find because it was in fact on the first floor above a tailor’s shop. Entrance was via an alleyway. There was a wooden door at the end of the alley. On its peeling paintwork someone had pinned a notice which read, in optimistic lettering.
“Come in! Come in!! The Fresh Start Club. Being Dead is only the Beginning!!!”
The door opened onto a flight of stairs that smelled of old paint and dead flies. They creaked even more than Windle’s knees.
Someone had been drawing on the walls. The phraseology was exotic but the general tone was familiar enough: Spooks of the world Arise, You have Nothing to lose but your Chains and The Silent Majority want Dead Rights and End vitalism now!!!
At the top was a landing, with one door opening off it. Once upon a time someone had hung on oil lamp from the ceiling, but it looked as though it had never been lit for thousands of years. An ancient spider, possibly living on the remains of the oil, watched him warily from its eyrie.
Windle looked at the card again, took a deep breath out of habit, and knocked.
The Archchancellor strode back into College in a fury, with the others trailing desperately behind him.
“Who is he going to call! We’re the wizards around here!”
“Yes, but we don’t actually know what’s happening, do we?” said the Dean.
“So we’re going to find out!” Ridcully growled. “I don’t know who he’s going to call, but I’m damn sure who I’m going to call.”
He halted abruptly. The rest of the wizards piled into him.
“Oh, no,” said the Senior Wrangler. “Please, not that!”
“Nothing to it,” said Ridcully. “Nothing to worry about. Read up on it last night, ’s’matterofact. You can do it with three bits of wood and—”
“Four cc of mouse blood,” said the Senior Wrangler mournfully. “You don’t even need that. You can use two bits of wood and an egg. It has to be a fresh egg, though.”
“Why?”
“I suppose the mouse feels happier about it.”
“No, I mean the egg.”
“Oh, who knows how an egg feels?”
“Anyway,” said the Dean, “it’s dangerous. I’ve always felt that he only stays in the octogram for the look of the thing. I hate it when he peers at you and seems to be counting.”
“Yes,” said the Senior Wrangler. “We don’t need to do that. We get over most things. Dragons, monsters. Rats. Remember the rats last year? Seemed to be everywhere. Lord Vetinari wouldn’t listen to us, oh no. He paid that glib bugger in the red and yellow tights a thousand gold pieces to get rid of ’em.”
“It worked, though,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“Of course it bloody worked,” said the Dean. “It worked in Quirm and Sto Lat as well. He’d have got away with it in Pseudopolis as well if someone hadn’t recognized him. Mr. so-called Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents!”
“It’s no good trying to change the subject,” said Ridcully. “We’re going to do the Rite of AshKente. Right?”
“And summon Death,” said the Dean. “Oh, dear.”
“Nothing wrong with Death,” said Ridcully. “Professional fellow. Job to do. Fair and square. Play a straight bat, no problem. He’ll know what’s happening.”
“Oh, dear,” said the Dean again.
They reached the gateway. Mrs. Cake stepped forward, blocking the Archchancellor’s path.
Ridcully raised his eyebrows.
The Archchancellor was not the kind of man who takes a special pleasure in being brusque and rude to women. Or, to put it another way, he was brusque and rude to absolutely everyone, regardless of sex, which was equality of a sort. And if the following conversation had not been taking place between someone who listened to what people said several seconds before they said it, and someone who didn’t listen to what people said at all, everything might have been a lot different. Or perhaps it wouldn’t.