Moist walked carefully past the Glooper, which tinkled faintly, and into the unexplored shadows beneath the wonderful fornication.
If we build it, wilt thou comest? he thought. But the hoped-for god never came. It was sad but, in some celestial way, a bit stupid. Well, wasn't it? Moist had heard that there were maybe millions of little gods floating around in the world, living under rocks, blown about like tumbleweed, clinging to the topmost branches of trees... They awaited the big moment, the lucky break that might end up with a temple and a priesthood and worshippers to call your own. But they hadn't come here, and it was easy to see why.
Gods wanted belief, not rational thinking. Building the temple first was like giving a pair of wonderful shoes to a man with no legs. Building a temple didn't mean you believed in gods, it just meant you believed in architecture.
Something akin to a workshop had been built on the end wall of the undercroft, around a huge and ancient fireplace. An Igor was working over an intense, blue-white flame, carefully bending a piece of glass pipe. Behind him, green liquid surged and fizzed in giant bottles: Igors seemed to have a natural affinity with lightning.
You could always recognize an Igor. They went out of their way to be recognized. It wasn't just the musty dusty old suits, or even the occasional extra digit or mismatched eyes. It was that you could probably stand a ball on the top of their head without it falling off.
The Igor looked up. 'Good morning, thur. And you are... ?'
'Moist von Lipwig,' said Moist. 'And you would be Igor.'
'Got it in one, thur. I have heard many good thingth about you.'
'Down here?'
'I alwayth keep an ear to the ground, thur.'
Moist resisted the impulse to look down. Igors and metaphors didn't go well together.
'Well, Igor... the thing is... I want to bring someone into the building without troubling the guards, and I wondered if there was another door down here?'
What he did not say, but which passed between them on the ether, was: you're an Igor, right? And when the mob are sharpening their sickles and trying to break down the door, the Igor is never there. Igors were masters of the unobtrusive exit.
'There ith a thmall door we uthe, thur. It can't be opened from the outthide, tho it'th never guarded.'
Moist looked longingly at the rainwear on its stand. 'Fine. Fine. I'm just popping out, then.'
'You're the bothth, thur.'
'And I shall be popping back shortly with a man. Er, a gentleman who is not anxious to meet civic authority.'
'Quite, thur. Give them a pitchfork and they think they own the bloody plathe, thur.'
'But he's not a murderer or anything.'
'I'm an Igor, thur. We don't athk quethtionth.'
'Really? Why not?
'I don't know, thur. I didn't athk.'
Igor took Moist to a small door that opened into a grimy trash-filled stairwell, half flooded by the unremitting rain. Moist paused on the threshold, the water already soaking into his cheap suit. 'Just one thing, Igor...'
'Yeth, thur?'
'When I walked past the Glooper just now, there was water in it.'
'Oh, yeth, thur. Ith that a problem?'
'It was moving, Igor. Should that be happening at this time of night?'
'That? Oh, jutht thyphonic variableth, thur. It happenth all the time.'
'Oh, the old syphonics, eh? Ah, well, that's a relief - '
'Jutht give the barber-thurgeon'th knock when you return, thur.'