'The Battle of Ar-Gash, by Blitzt,' said Susan. Lobsang looked at the flaking, uncleaned paint and the yellow-brown varnish. The colours had faded to a dozen shades of mud, but something violent and evil shone through. 'Is that meant to be Hell?' he said. 'No, it was an ancient city in Klatch, thousands of years ago,' said Susan. 'But Grandfather did say that men made it Hell. Blitzt went mad when he painted it.'
'Er, he did good storm clouds, though,' said Lobsang, swallowing. 'Wonderful, er, light...'
'Look at what's coming out of the clouds,' said Susan. Lobsang squinted into the crusted cumulus and fossilized lightning. 'Oh, yes. The Four Horsemen. You often get them in-'
'Count again,' said Susan. Lobsang stared. 'There's two-'
'Don't be silly, there's fi-' she began, and then followed his gaze. He hadn't been interested in the art. A couple of Auditors were hurrying away from them, towards the Porcelain Room. 'They're running away from us!' said Lobsang. Susan grabbed his hand. 'Not exactly,' she said. 'They always consult! There have to be three of them to do that! And they'll be back, so come on!' She grabbed his hand and towed him into the next gallery. There were grey figures at the far end. The pair ran on, past dust-encrusted tapestries, and into another huge, ancient room. 'Ye gods, there's a picture of three huge pink women with only-' Lobsang began, as he was dragged past.
'Pay attention, will you? The way to the main door was back there! This place is full of Auditors!'
'But it's just an old art gallery! There's nothing for them here, is there?' They slid to a stop on the marble slabs. A wide staircase led up to the next floor. 'We'll be trapped up there,' said Lobsang. 'There're balconies all round,' said Susan. 'Come on!' She dragged him up the stairs and through an archway. And stopped. The galleries were several storeys high. On the first floor, visitors could look down on to the floor below. And, in the room below, the Auditors were very busy. 'What the hell are they doing now?' whispered Lobsang. 'I think,' said Susan grimly, 'that they are appreciating Art.' Miss Tangerine was annoyed. Her body kept making strange demands of her, and the work with which she had been entrusted was going so very badly. The frame of what once had been Sir Robert Cuspidor's Waggon Stuck In River was leaning against a wall in front of her. It was empty. The bare canvas was neatly rolled beside it. In front of the frame, carefully heaped in order of size, were piles of pigment. Several dozen Auditors were breaking these down into their component molecules. 'Still nothing?' she said, striding along the line. 'No, Miss Tangerine. Only known molecules and atoms so far,' said an Auditor, its voice shaking slightly. 'Well, is it something to do with the proportions? The balance of molecules? The basic geometry?'
'We are continuing to-'
'Get on with it!' The other Auditors in the gallery, clustered industriously in front of what had once been a painting and in fact still was, insofar as every single molecule was still present in the room, glanced up and then bent again to their tasks. Miss Tangerine was getting even angrier because she couldn't work out why she was angry. One reason was probably that, when he gave her this task, Mr White had looked at her in a funny way. Being looked at was an unfamiliar experience for an Auditor in any case - no Auditor bothered to look at another Auditor very often because all Auditors looked the same - and neither were they used to the idea that you could say things with your face. Or even have a face. Or have a body that reacted in strange ways to the expression on another face
belonging to, in this case, Mr White. When he looked at her like that she felt a terrible urge to claw his face off. Which made absolutely no sense at all. No Auditor should feel like that about another Auditor. No Auditor should feel like that about anything. No Auditor should feel. She felt livid. They'd all lost so many powers. It was ridiculous to have to communicate by flapping bits of your skin, and as for the tongue... Yuerkkk ... As far as she knew, in the whole life of the universe, no Auditor had ever experienced the sensation of yuerkkk. This wretched body was full of opportunities for yuerkkk. She could leave it at any time and yet, and yet... part of her didn't want to. There was this horrible desire, second by second, to hang on. And she felt hungry. And that also made no sense. The stomach was a bag for digesting food. It wasn't supposed to issue commands. The Auditors could survive quite well by exchanging molecules with their surroundings and making use of any local source of energy. That was a fact. Try telling that to the stomach. She could feel it. It was sitting there, grumbling. She was being harassed by her internal organs. Why the ... why the. . why had they copied internal organs? Yuerkkk. It was all too much. She wanted to... she wanted to... express herself by shouting some, some, some terrible words... 'Discord! Confusion!' The other Auditors looked around in terror. But the words didn't work for Miss Tangerine. They just didn't have the same force that they used to. There had to be something worse. Ah, yes... 'Organs!' she shouted, pleased to have found it at last. 'And what are all you... organs looking at?' she added. 'Get on with it!'
'They're taking everything apart,' whispered Lobsang. 'That's the Auditors for you,' said Susan. 'They think that's how you find out about things. You know, I loathe them. I really do.' Lobsang glanced sideways at her. The monastery was not a single-sex institution. That is to say, it was, but corporately it had never thought of itself like that because the possibility of females working there had never crossed even minds capable of thinking of sixteen dimensions. But the Thieves' Guild had recognized that girls were at least as good as boys in all areas of thieving - he had, for example, fond memories of his classmate Steff, who could steal the small change out of your back pocket and climb better than an Assassin. He was at home around girls. But Susan scared the life out of him. It was as if some secret place inside her boiled with wrath, and with the Auditors she let it out.
He remembered her hitting that one with the wrench. There had been just a faint frown of concentration, as if she was making certain the job was done properly. 'Shall we go?' he ventured. 'Look at them,' continued Susan. 'Only an Auditor would take a picture apart to see what made it a work of art.'
'There's a big pile of white dust over there,' said Lobsang. 'Man with Huge Figleaf' said Susan absently, her eyes still intent on the grey figures. 'They'd dismantle a clock to search for the tick.'
'How do you know its Man with Huge Figleaf?'
'I just happen to remember where it is, that's all.'
'You, er, you appreciate art?' Lobsang ventured. 'I know what I like,' said Susan, still staring at the busy grey figures. 'And right now I'd like quite a lot of weaponry.'
'We'd better move-'
'The bastards get into your head if you let them,' said Susan, not moving. 'When you find yourself thinking “There ought to be a law” or “I don't make the rules, after all” or-'
'I really think we should leave,' said Lobsang carefully. 'And I think this because there are some of them coming up the stairs.' Her head jerked around. 'What are you standing about for, then?' she said. They ran through the next arch and into a gallery of pottery, turning to look only when they reached the far end. Three Auditors were following them. They weren't running, but there was something about their synchronized step that had a horrible we'll-keep-on-coming quality. 'All right, let's go this way-'
'No, let's go this way,' said Lobsang. 'That's not the way we need to go!' Susan snapped. 'No, but the sign up there says “Arms and Armour”!'
'So? Are you any good with weapons?'
'No!' said Lobsang proudly, and then realized she'd taken this the wrong way. 'You see, I've been taught to fight without-'
'Maybe there's a sword I can use,' Susan growled, and strode forward. By the time the Auditors entered the gallery there were more than three of them. The grey crowd paused. Susan had found a sword, part of a display of Agatean armour. It had been blunted by disuse, but anger flared along the blade. 'Should we keep running?' said Lobsang. 'No. They always catch up. I don't know if we can kill them here, but we can make them wish we could. You still haven't got a weapon?'
'No, because, you see, I've been trained to-'
'Just keep out of my way, then, okay?' The Auditors advanced cautiously, which struck Lobsang as odd. 'We can't kill them?' said Lobsang. 'It depends on how alive they've let themselves become.'
'But they look scared,' he said. 'They're human-shaped,' said Susan over her shoulder. 'Human bodies. Perfect copies. Human bodies have had thousands and thousands of years of not wanting to be cut in half. That sort of leaks into the brain, don't you think?' And then the Auditors were circling and moving in. Of course they would all attack at once. No one would want to be first. Three made a grab at Lobsang. He'd enjoyed the fighting, back in the training dojos. Of course, everyone was padded, and no one was actually trying to kill you, and that helped. But Lobsang had done well because he was good at slicing. He could always find that extra edge. And if you had that edge, you didn't need quite so much skill. There was no edge here. There was no time to slice. He adopted a mixture of sna-fu and okidoki and anything that worked, because you were dead if you treated a real fight like the dojo. The grey men were no contest, in any case. They just attempted to grab and hug. A granny would have been able to fend them off. He sent two reeling and turned to the third, which was trying to grab him around the neck. He broke the hold, spun around ready to chop, and hesitated. 'Oh, good grief!' said a voice.
Susan's blade whirled past Lobsang's face. The head in front of him was parted from its former body in a shower not of blood but of coloured, floating dust. The body evaporated, became very briefly a grey-robed shape in the air, and vanished. Lobsang heard a couple of thumps behind him, and then Susan grabbed his shoulder. 'You're not supposed to hesitate, you know!' she said. 'But it was a woman!'
'It was not! But it was the last one. Now let's go, before the rest get here.' She nodded at a second group of Auditors that were watching them very carefully from the end of the hall. 'They weren't much of a contest anyway,' said Lobsang, getting his breath. 'What are those doing?'
'Learning. Can you fight better than that?'
'Of course!'