Windle Poons removed the knife.
‘Could have killed me,’ he muttered, tossing it away.
In the cellar, Sergeant Colon picked up one of the objects that lay in huge drifts on the floor.
‘There must be thousands of ’em,’ said Throat, behind him. ‘What I want to know is, who put them there?’[5]
Sergeant Colon turned the object round and round in his hands.
‘Never seen one of these before,’ he said. He gave it a shake. His face lit up. ‘Pretty, ain’t they?’
‘The door was locked and everything,’ said Throat. ‘And I’m paid up with the Thieves’ Guild.’
Colon shook the thing again.
‘Nice,’ he said.
‘Fred?’
Colon, fascinated, watched the little snowflakes fall inside the tiny glass globe. ‘Hmm?’
‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘Dunno. I suppose they’re yours, Throat. Can’t imagine why anyone’d want to get rid of ’em, though.’
He turned towards the door. Throat stepped into his path.
‘Then that’ll be twelve pence,’ he said smoothly.
‘What?’
‘For the one you just put in your pocket, Fred.’
Colon fished the globe out of his pocket.
‘Come on!’ he protested. ‘You just found them here! They didn’t cost you a penny!’
‘Yes, but there’s storage … packing … handling …’
‘Tuppence,’ said Colon desperately.
‘Tenpence.’
‘Threepence.’
‘Sevenpence — and that’s cutting my own throat, mark you.’
‘Done,’ said the sergeant, reluctantly. He gave the globe another shake.
‘Nice, ain’t they?’ he said.
‘Worth every penny,’ said Dibbler. He rubbed his hands together hopefully. ‘Should sell like hot cakes,’ he said, picking up a handful and shoving them into a box.
He locked the door behind them when they left.
In the darkness something went plop.
Ankh-Morpork has always had a fine tradition of welcoming people of all races, colours and shapes, if they have money to spend and a return ticket.
According to the Guild of Merchants’ famous publication, Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises, ‘you the visitor will be assured of a Warm Wellcome in the countless Ins and hostelries of this Ancient Citie, where many specsialise in catoring for the taste of guest from distant part. So if you a Manne, Trolle, Dwarfe, Goblin or Gnomm, Annk-Morporke will raise your Glass convivial and say: Cheer! Here looking, you Kid! Up, You Bottom!’
Windle Poons didn’t know where undead went for a good time. All he knew, and he knew it for a certainty, was that if they could have a good time anywhere then they could probably have it in Ankh-Morpork.
His laboured footsteps led him deeper into the Shades. Only they weren’t so laboured now.
For more than a century Windle Poons had lived inside the walls of Unseen University. In terms of accumulated years, he may have lived a long time. In terms of experience, he was about thirteen.
He was seeing, hearing and smelling things he’d never seen, heard or smelled before.
The Shades was the oldest part of the city. If you could do a sort of relief map of sinfulness, wickedness and all-round immorality, rather like those representations of the gravitational field around a Black Hole, then even in Ankh-Morpork the Shades would be represented by a shaft. In fact the Shades was remarkably like the aforesaid well-known astronomical phenomenon: it had a certain strong attraction, no light escaped from it, and it could indeed become a gateway to another world. The next one.
The Shades was a city within a city.
The streets were thronged. Muffled figures slunk past on errands of their own. Strange music wound up from sunken stairwells. So did sharp and exciting smells.
Poons passed goblin delicatessens and dwarf bars, from which came the sounds of singing and fighting, which dwarfs traditionally did at the same time. And there were trolls, moving through the crowds like … like big people moving among little people. They weren’t shambling, either.
Windle had hitherto seen trolls only in the more select parts of the city,[6] where they moved with exaggerated caution in case they accidentally clubbed someone to death and ate them. In the Shades they strode, unafraid, heads held so high they very nearly rose above their shoulder-blades.
Windle Poons wandered through the crowds like a random shot on a pinball table. Here a blast of smoky sound from a bar spun him back into the street, there a discreet doorway promising unusual and forbidden delights attracted him like a magnet. Windle Poons’ life hadn’t included even very many usual and approved delights. He wasn’t even certain what they were. Some sketches outside one pink-lit, inviting doorway left him even more mystified but incredibly anxious to learn.
He turned around and around in pleased astonishment.
This place! Only ten minutes’ walk or fifteen minutes’ lurch from the University! And he’d never known it was there! All these people! All this noise! All this life!
Several people of various shapes and species jostled him. One or two started to say something, shut their mouths quickly, and hurried off.
They were thinking … his eyes! Like gimlets!
And then a voice from the shadows said: ‘Hallo, big boy. You want a nice time?’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Windle Poons, lost in wonder. ‘Oh, yes! Yes!’
He turned around.
‘Bloody hell!’ There was the sound of someone hurrying away down an alley.
Windle’s face fell.
Life, obviously, was only for the living. Perhaps this back-to-your-body business had been a mistake after all. He’d been a fool to think otherwise.
He turned and, hardly bothering to keep his own heart beating, went back to the University.
Windle trudged across the quad to the Great Hall. The Archchancellor would know what to do—
‘There he is!’
‘It’s him!’
‘Get him!’
Windle’s train of thought ran over a cliff. He looked around at five red, worried, and above all familiar faces.
‘Oh, hallo, Dean,’ he said, unhappily. ‘And is that the Senior Wrangler? Oh, and the Archchancellor, this is—’
‘Grab his arm!’
‘Don’t look at his eyes!’
‘Grab his other arm!’
‘This is for your own good, Windle!’
‘It’s not Windle! It’s a creature of the Night!’
‘I assure you—’
‘Have you got his legs?’
‘Grab his leg!’
‘Grab his other leg!’
‘Have you grabbed everything?’ roared the Archchancellor.
The wizards nodded.
Mustrum Ridcully reached into the massive recesses of his robe.
‘Right, fiend in human shape,’ he growled, ‘what d’you think of this, then? Ah-ha!’
Windle squinted at the small object that was thrust triumphantly under his nose.
‘Well, er …’ he said diffidently, ‘I’d say … yes … hmm … yes, the smell is very distinctive, isn’t it … yes, quite definitely. Allium sativum. The common domestic garlic. Yes?’
The wizards stared at him. They stared at the little white clove. They stared at Windle again.
‘I am right, aren’t I?’ he said, and made an attempt at a smile.
‘Er,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’ Ridcully cast around for something to add. ‘Well done,’ he said.
‘Thank you for trying,’ said Windle. ‘I really appreciate it.’ He stepped forward. The wizards might as well have tried to hold back a glacier.
5
Although not common on the Discworld there are, indeed, such things as anti-crimes, in accordance with the fundamental law that everything in the multiverse has an opposite. They are, obviously, rare. Merely giving someone something is not the opposite of robbery; to be an anti-crime, it has to be done in such a way as to cause