'I think I need practice.'
'You sure you want to keep the beard?'
'You don't mean... shave? Cheery backed away.
'All right, all right. What about the iron helmet?'
'It belonged to my grandmother! It's dwarfish!'
'Fine. Fine. Okay. You've made a good start, anyway.'
'Er ... what do you think of ... this?' said Cheery, handing her a bit of paper.
Angua read it. It was a list of names, although most of them were crossed out:
Cheery Littlebottom
Cherry
Sherry
Sherri
Lucinda Littlebottom
Sharry
Sharri
Cheri
'Er ... what do you think?' said Cheery nervously.
' Lucinda ?' said Angua, raising her eyebrows.
'I've always liked the sound of the name.'
' Cheri is nice,' said Angua. 'And it is rather like the one you've got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.'
Cheery's shoulders sagged with released tension. When you've made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it's a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper.
' Cheri' , thought Angua. Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard?
Well, it does now.
Somewhere underneath Ankh-Morpork a rat went about its business, ambling unconcernedly through the ruins of a damp cellar. It turned a corner towards the grain store it knew was up ahead, and almost walked into another rat.
This one was standing on its hind-legs, though, and wearing a tiny black robe and carrying a scythe. Such of its snout that could be seen was bone-white.
SQUEAK? it said.
Then the vision faded and revealed a slightly smaller figure. There was nothing in the least rat-like about it, apart from its size. It was human, or at least humanoid. It was dressed in ratskin trousers but was bare above the waist, apart from two bandoliers that criss-crossed its chest. And it was smoking a tiny cigar.
It raised a very small crossbow and fired.
The soul of the rat - for anything so similar in so many ways to human beings certainly has a soul -watched gloomily as the figure took its recent habitation by the tail and towed it away. Then it looked up at the Death of Rats.
'Squeak?' it said.