Things were quiet in the Department of Post-Mortem Communications. They were never very loud at the best of times, although you always got, when the sounds of the university slid into silence, the reedy little gnat-sized voices leaking through from the Other Side.
The trouble was, thought Hicks, that too many of his predecessors had never had any kind of a life outside the department, where social skills were not a priority, and even when dead had still completely failed to get a life. So they hung around the department, reluctant to leave the place. Sometimes, when they were feeling strong and the Dolly Sisters Players were doing a new production, he let them out to paint the scenery.
Hicks sighed. That was the trouble with working in the DPMC, you could never exactly be the boss. In an ordinary job people retired, wandered back to the ol' workplace a few times while there was anyone who remembered them, and then faded into the ever-swelling past. But the former staff here never seemed to go...
There was a saying: 'Old necromancers never die'. When he told them this, people would say:'... and?' and Hicks would have to reply: 'That's all of it, I'm afraid. Just "Old necromancers never die".'
He was just tidying up for the night when, from his shadowy corner, Charlie said, 'Somebody coming through. Well, I say some body...'
Hicks spun round. The magic circle was glowing and a pearly pointy hat was already rising through the solid floor.
'Professor Head?' he said.
'Yes, and we must hurry, young man,' said the shade of Flead, still rising.
'But I banished you! I used the Ninefold Erasure! It banishes everything.'
'I wrote it,' said Flead, looking smug. 'Oh, don't worry, I'm the only one it doesn't work on. Ha, I'd be a damn fool to design a spell to work on myself, eh?'
Hicks pointed a shaking finger. 'You put in a hidden portal, didn't you?'
'Of course. A bloody good one. Don't worry, I'm the only one who knows where it is, too.' The whole of Flead was floating above the circle now. And don't try to look for it; a man of your limited talent will never find the hidden runes.'
Flead looked around the room. 'Isn't that wonderful young lady here?' he said hopefully. 'Well, never mind. You must get me out of this place, Hicks. I want to see the fun!'
'Fun? What fun?' said Hicks, a man planning to look through the Ninefold Erasure spell very, very carefully.
'I know what kind of golems are coming!'
When he was a child Moist had prayed every night before going to bed. His family were very active in the Plain Potato Church, which shunned the excesses of the Ancient and Orthodox Potato Church. Its followers were retiring, industrious and inventive, and their strict adherence to oil lamps and home-made furniture made them stand out in the region, where most people used candles and sat on sheep.
He'd hated praying. It felt as though he was opening a big black hole into space, and at any moment something might reach through and grab him. This may have been because the standard bedtime prayer included the line 'If I die before I wake', which on bad nights caused him to try to sit up until morning.
He'd also been instructed to use the hours before sleep to count his blessings.
Lying here now, in the darkness of the bank, rather cold and significantly alone, he sought for some.
His teeth were good and he wasn't suffering from premature hair loss. There! That wasn't so hard, was it?
And the Watch hadn't actually arrested him, as such. But there was a troll guarding the vault, which had ominous black and yellow ropes strung around it.
No gold in the vault. Well, even that wasn't entirely true. There was five pounds of it, at least, coating the lead ingots. Someone had done a pretty good job there. That was a silver lining, right? At least it was some gold. It wasn't as if there was no gold at all, right?
He was alone because Adora Belle was spending a night in the cells for assaulting an officer of the Watch. Moist considered that this was unfair. Of course, depending on what kind of day a copper has had there is no action, short of being physically somewhere else, that may not be construed as assault, but Adora Belle hadn't actually assaulted Sergeant Detritus, she'd merely attempted to stab his huge foot with her shoe, resulting in a broken heel and a twisted ankle. Captain Carrot said this had been taken into consideration.
The clocks of the city chimed four, and Moist considered his future, specifically in terms of length.
Look on the bright side. He might just be hanged.
He should have gone down to the vaults on Day 1, with an alchemist and a lawyer in tow. Didn't they ever audit the vaults? Was it done by a bunch of jolly decent chaps who'd poke their heads into some other chaps' vault and sign it off quickly so's not to miss lunch? Can't go doubting a chap's word, eh? Especially when you didn't want him to doubt yours.
Maybe the late Sir Joshua had blown it all on exotic leather goods and young ladies. How many nights in the arms of beautiful women were worth a sack of gold? The price of a good woman was proverbially above rubies, so a skilfully bad one was presumably worth a lot more.
He sat up and lit the candle, and his eye fell on Sir Joshua's journal, on the bedside table.
Thirty-nine years ago... well, it was the right year, and since at the moment he had nothing else to do...
The luck that had been draining from his boots all day came back to him. Even though he wasn't certain what he was looking for, he found it on the sixth random page: