The Truth (12 page)

“We’re going to buy some magic?” said Mr. Tulip.

“Not
exactly
magic.”

“I fort you said this city was a —ing pushover?”

“It has its good points, Mr. Tulip.”

Mr. Tulip grinned. “—ing
right
,” he said. “I want to go back to the Museum of Antiquities!”

“Now, now, Mr. Tulip. Business first, pleasure later,” said Mr. Pin.

“I want to —ing see
all
of ’em!”

“Later on. Later on. Can you wait twenty minutes without exploding?”

The map led them to the Thaumatological Park, just hub-wards of Unseen University. It was still so new that the modern flat-roofed buildings, winners of several awards from the Guild of Architects, hadn’t even
begun
to let in water and shed window-panes in a breeze.

An attempt had been made to pretty up the immediate area with grass and trees, but since the site had been partly built on the old ground known as the “unreal estate” this had not worked as planned. The area had been a dump for Unseen University for thousands of years. There was a lot more below that turf than old mutton bones, and magic
leaks.
On any map of thaumic pollution, the unreal estate would be the center of some worrying concentric circles.

Already the grass was multicolored and some of the trees had walked away.

Nevertheless, several businesses were thriving there, products of what the Archchancellor, or at least his speechwriter, had called “a marriage between magic and modern business; after all, the modern world doesn’t need very many magic rings and magic swords, but it does need some way to keep its appointments in order. Lot of garbage, really, but I suppose it makes everyone happy. Is it time for that lunch yet?”

One of the results of this joyful union was now on the counter in front of Mr. Pin.

“It’s the Mk II,” said the wizard, who was
glad
there was a counter between him and Mr. Tulip. “Er…cutting edge.”

“That’s good,” said Mr. Tulip. “We —ing
love
cutting edges.”

“How does it work?” said Mr. Pin.

“It’s got contextual help,” said the wizard. “All you have to do is, er, open the lid.”

To the wizard’s horror a very thin knife appeared magically in his customer’s hand and was used to release the catch.

The lid sprang back. A small green imp sprang up.

“Bingely-bingely-bee—”

It froze. Even a creation of biothaumic particles will hesitate when a knife is pressed to its throat.

“What the hell’s this?” said Mr. Pin. “I said I want something that
listens
!”

“It does listen, it does listen!” said the wizard hurriedly. “But it can say things too!”

“Like what? Bingely-bingely?”

The imp gave a nervous cough.

“Good for you!” it said. “You have wisely purchased the Dis-organizer Mk II, the latest in biothaumaturgic design, with a host of useful features and no resemblance whatsoever to the Mk I, which you may have inadvertently destroyed by stamping on it heavily!” it said, adding, “This device is provided without warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or deity with respect of any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may be substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk.”

The imp took a deep breath. “May I introduce to you the rest of my wide range of interesting and amusing sounds, Insert Name Here?”

Mr. Pin glanced at Mr. Tulip. “All right.”

“For example, I can go ‘tra-la!’”

“No.”

“An amusing bugle call?”

“No.”

“‘Ding!’?”

“No.”

“Or I can be instructed to make droll and diverting comments when performing various actions.”

“Why?”

“Er…some people like us to say things like ‘I’ll be back when you open the box again,’ or something like that…”

“Why do you do noises?” said Mr. Pin.

“People like noises.”

“We don’t,” said Mr. Pin.

“We —ing
hate
noises,” said Mr. Tulip.

“Good for you! I can do
lots
of silence,” the imp volunteered. But suicidal programming forced it to continue: “And would you like a different color scheme?”

“What?”

“What color would you like me to be?” As it spoke, one of the imp’s long ears slowly turned purple and its nose became a vaguely disquieting shade of blue.

“We don’t want any colors,” said Mr. Pin. “We don’t want noises. We don’t want cheerfulness. We just want you to do what you’re told.”

“Perhaps you would like to take a moment to fill in your registration card?” said the imp desperately, holding it up.

A knife thrown at snake speed snapped the card out of its hand and nailed it to the desk.

“Or perhaps you would like to leave it until later…”

“Your man here—” Mr. Pin began. “Where did he go?”

Mr. Tulip reached behind the counter and hauled up the wizard.

“Your man here says you’re one of those imps that can repeat everything you hear,” said Pin.

“Yes, Insert Name Here, sir,” said the imp.

“And you don’t make stuff up?”

“They can’t,” the wizard panted. “They have no imagination at all.”

“So if someone heard it, they’d know it was real?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Sounds just the thing we’re looking for,” said Mr. Pin.

“And how will you be paying?” said the wizard.

Mr. Pin snapped his fingers. Mr. Tulip drew himself up and out, squared his shoulders, and cracked knuckles that were like two bags of pink walnuts.

“Before we —ing talk about
paying,
” said Mr. Tulip, “we want to talk to the bloke that wrote that —ing warranty.”

What William now had to think of as his office had changed quite a lot. The old laundry fixings, dismembered rocking horses, and other rubbish had been spirited away, and two desks stood back to back in the middle of the floor.

They were ancient and battered and to stop them wobbling they needed, against all common sense, bits of folded cardboard under
all four
legs.

“I got them from the secondhand shop along the road,” said Sacharissa, nervously. “They weren’t very expensive.”

“Yes, I can see that. Er…Miss Cripslock…I’ve been thinking…your grandfather can engrave a picture, can he?”

“Yes, of course. Why have you got mud all over you?”

“And if we got an iconograph and learned how to use it to take pictures,” William went on, ignoring this, “could he engrave the picture that the imp paints?”

“I suppose so.”

“And do you know any good iconographers in the city?”

“I could ask around. What happened to you?”

“Oh, there was a threatened suicide in Welcome Soap.”

“Any good?” Sacharissa looked startled at the sound of her own voice. “I mean,
obviously
I wouldn’t wish anyone to die, but, er, we’ve got quite a lot of space…”

“I might be able to make something off it. He, er, saved the life of the man who climbed up to talk him down.”

“How brave. Did you get the name of the man who climbed up after him?”

“Um, no. Er…he was a Mystery Man,” said William.

“Oh, well, that’s something. There’s some people waiting to see you outside,” said Sacharissa. She glanced at her notes. “There’s a man who’s lost his watch, a zombie who…well, I can’t make out what he wants, there’s a troll who wants a job, and there’s someone who’s got a complaint about the story of the fight at the Mended Drum and wants to behead you.”

“Oh, dear. All right…one at a time…”

The watch loser was easy.

“It was one of the new clockwork ones my father gave to me,” said the man. “I’ve been looking for it all week!”

“It’s not exactly—”

“If you can put in the paper that I’ve lost it, maybe someone who has found it will turn it in?” said the man, with unwarranted hopefulness. “And I will give you sixpence for your trouble.”

Sixpence was sixpence. William made a few notes.

The zombie was more difficult. For a start he was gray, shading to green in places, and smelled very strongly of artificial hyacinth aftershave, some of the more recent zombies having realized that their chance of making friends in their new life would be greatly improved if they smelled of flowers rather than just smelled.

“People like to know about people who are dead,” he said. His name was Mr. Bendy, and he pronounced it in a way that made it clear that the “Mr.” was very much a part of the name.

“They do?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Bendy, emphatically. “Dead people can be very interesting. I expect people would be very interested in reading about dead people.”

“Do you mean obituaries?”

“Well…yes, I suppose they would be. I could write them in an interesting way.”

“All right. Twenty pence each, then.”

Mr. Bendy nodded. It was clear that he would have done it for nothing. He handed William a wad of yellow, crackling paper. “Here’s an interesting one to start you off,” he said.

“Oh? Whose is it?”

“Mine. It is very interesting. Especially the bit where I died.”

The next man to come in was in fact a troll. Unusually for trolls, who usually wore just enough to satisfy humanity’s mysterious demands for decency, this one actually wore a suit. At least, it was largely tubes of cloth that covered his body, and “suit” was about the only word.

“’m Rocky,” he mumbled, looking down. “I’ll take any job, guv.”

“What was your last job?” said William.

“Boxer, guv. But I wasn’t happy wiv it. Kept getting knocked down.”

“Can you write or take pictures?” said William, wincing.

“No, guv. I can do heavy liftin’. ’n’ I can whistle tunes, guv.”

“That’s…a
good
talent, but I don’t think we—”

The door flew open and a thick-shouldered, leather-clad man burst in, flourishing an ax.

“You got no right putting that about me in the paper!” he said, waving the blade under William’s nose.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Brezock the Barbarian, and I—”

The brain works fast when it thinks it is about to be cut in half.

“Oh, if it’s a
complaint
you have, you have to take it up with the Complaints, Beheadings, and Horsewhippings Editor,” said William. “Mr. Rocky here.”

“Dat’s me,” boomed Rocky cheerfully, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. There was only room for three of his fingers. Brezock sagged.

“I…just…want to say,” said Brezock, slowly, “that you put in I hit someone with a table. I never done that. What’d people think of me if they heard I go around hitting people with a table? What’d that do to my reputation?”

“I see.”

“I knifed him. A table’s a sissy weapon.”

“We shall certainly print a correction,” said William, picking up his pencil.

“You couldn’t add that I tore Slicer Gadley’s ear off with my teeth, could you? That’d make people sit up. Ears aren’t easy to do.”

When they had all gone, Rocky to sit on a chair outside the door, William and Sacharissa stared at one another.

“It’s been a
very
strange morning,” he said.

“I’ve found out about the winter,” said Sacharissa. “And there was an unlicensed theft from a jewelry shop in the Artificers Street. They got quite a lot of silver.”

“How did you find that out?”