Going Postal (18 page)

He opened the door, and instinct made him duck. He felt the crossbow bolt zip between the wings of his hat.

Miss Dearheart lowered the bow. “My gods, it’s you! I thought for a second sun had appeared in the sky!”

Moist rose cautiously as she laid the bow aside.

“We had a fire bomb last night,” she said by way of explanation for attempting to shoot him in the head.

“How many golems are for hire right now, Miss Dearheart?” said Moist.

“Huh? Oh…about…a dozen or so—”

“Fine. I’ll take them. Don’t bother to wrap them up. I want them down at the Post Office as soon as possible.”

“What?” Miss Dearheart’s normal expression of perpetual annoyance returned. “Look, you can’t just walk in, snap your fingers, and order a dozen
people
like this—”

“
They
think they’re property!” said Moist. “That’s what you told me.”

They glared at one another. Then Miss Dearheart fumbled distractedly in a filing tray.

“I can let you ha—
employ
four right now,” she said. “That’d be Doors I, Saw 20, Campanile 2, and…Anghammarad. Only Anghammarad can talk at the moment, the Frees haven’t helped the others yet—”

“Helped?”

Miss Dearheart shrugged. “A lot of the cultures that built golems thought tools shouldn’t talk. They have no tongues.”

“And the Trust gives them some extra clay, eh?” said Moist cheerfully.

She gave him a look. “It’s a bit more mystical than that,” she said solemnly.

“Well, dumb is okay so long as they’re not stupid,” said Moist, trying to look serious. “This Anghammarad’s got a name? Not just a description?”

“A lot of the very old ones have. Tell me, what do you want them to do?” said the woman.

“Be postmen,” said Moist.

“Working in public?”

“I don’t think you can have secret postmen,” said Moist, briefly seeing shadowy figures skulking from door to door. “Anything wrong with that?”

“Well…no. Certainly not! It’s just that people get a bit nervous and set fire to the shop. I’ll bring them down as soon as possible.” She paused. “You do understand that owned golems have to have a day off every week? You did read the pamphlet, didn’t you?”

“Er…time off?” said Moist. “What do they need time off for? A hammer doesn’t get time off, does it?”

“In order to be golems. Don’t ask what they do, I think just go and sit in a cellar somewhere. It’s…it’s a way to show they’re
not
a hammer, Mr. Lipwig. The buried ones forget. The free golems teach them. But don’t worry, the rest of the time they won’t even sleep.”

“So…Mr. Pump has a day off coming?” said Moist.

“Of course,” said Miss Dearheart, and Moist filed this one under “useful to know.”

“Good. Thank you,” he said.
Would you like to have dinner tonight?
Moist normally had no trouble with words, but these stuck to his tongue. There was something pineapple-prickly about Miss Dearheart. There was something about her expression that said,
There’s no possible way you could surprise me, I know all about you
.

“Is there anything else?” she said. “Only you’re standing there with your mouth open.”

“Er…no. That’s fine. Thank you,” mumbled Moist.

She smiled at him, and bits of Moist tingled.

“Well, off you go then, Mr. Lipwig,” she said. “Brighten up the world like a little sunbeam.”

F
OUR OUT OF THE FIVE
postmen were what Mr. Groat called horse de combat, and were brewing tea in the mail-stuffed cubbyhole that was laughingly called their Rest Room. Aggy had been sent home after the bulldog had been prised from his leg; Moist had a big basket of fruit sent round. You couldn’t go wrong with a basket of fruit.

Well, it had made an impression, at least. So had the bulldog. But some mail had been delivered, you had to admit it. You had to admit, too, that it was years and years late, but the post was
moving
. You could sense it in the air. The place didn’t feel so much like a tomb. Now Moist had retired to his office, where he was getting creative.

“Cup of tea, Mr. Lipwig?”

He looked up from his work into the slightly strange face of Stanley.

“Thank you, Stanley,” he said, laying down his pen. “And I see you got nearly all in the cup this time! Nicely done!”

“What’re you drawing, Mr. Lipwig?” said the boy, craning his neck. “It looks like the Post Office!”

“Well done. It’s going to be on a stamp, Stanley. Here, what do you think of the others?” He passed over the other sketches.

“Coo, you’re a good draw-er, Mr. Lipwig. That looks just like Lord Vetinari!”

“That’s the penny stamp,” said Moist. “I copied the likeness off a penny. City coat-of-arms on the two-penny, Morporkia with her fork of the five-penny, Tower of Art on the big one-dollar stamp. I was thinking of a ten-penny stamp, too.”

“They look
very
nice, Mr. Lipwig,” said Stanley. “All that detail. Like little paintings. What’s all those tiny lines called?”

“Cross-hatching. Makes them hard to forge. And when the letter with the stamp on it comes into the Post Office, you see, we take one of the old rubber stamps and stamp over the new stamps so they can’t be used again, and the—”

“Yes, ’cos they’re like money, really,” said Stanley cheerfully.

“Pardon?” said Moist, tea halfway to his lips.

“Like money. These stamps’ll be like money. ’Cos a penny stamp
is
a penny, when you think about it. Are you all right, Mr. Lipwig? Only you’ve gone all funny. Mr. Lipwig?”

“Er…what?” said Moist, who was staring at the wall with a strange, faraway grin.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“What? Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed. Er…do we need a bigger stamp, do you think? Five dollars, perhaps?”

“Hah, I should think you could send a
big
letter all the way to Fourecks for that, Mr. Lipwig!” said Stanley cheerfully.

“Worth thinking ahead, then,” said Moist. “I mean, since we’re designing the stamps and everything…”

But now Stanley was admiring “Mr. Robinson’s box.” It was an old friend to Moist. He never used “Mr. Robinson” as an alias except to get it stored by some halfway-honest merchant or publican, so that it’d be somewhere safe even if he had to leave town quickly. To a con man and forger it was what a set of lock picks is to a burglar, but with the contents of this box you could open people’s brains.

It was a work of art in its own right, the way all the little compartments lifted up and fanned out when you opened it. There were pens and inks, of course, but also little pots of paints and tints, stains and solvents. And, carefully kept flat, thirty-six different types of paper, some of them quite hard to obtain. Paper was important. Get the weight and translucence wrong, and no amount of skill would save you. You could get away with bad penmanship much easier than you could with bad paper. In fact, rough penmanship often worked better than a week of industrious midnights spent getting every little thing right, because there was something in people’s heads that spotted some little detail that wasn’t
quite
right but at the same time would fill in details that had merely been suggested by a few careful strokes. Attitude, expectation, and presentation were everything.

Just like me
, he thought.

The door was knocked on and opened in one movement.

“Yes?” snapped Moist, not looking up. “I’m busy designing mon—stamps here, you know!”

“There’s a
lady
,” panted Groat. “With
golems
!”

“Ah, that’ll be Miss Dearheart,” said Moist, laying down his pen.

“Yessir, she said, ‘Tell Mr. Sunshine I’ve brought him his postmen,’ sir! You’re going to use
golems
as postmen, sir?”

“Yes. Why not?” said Moist, giving Groat a severe look. “You get on okay with Mr. Pump, don’t you?”

“Well, he’s all right, sir,” the old man mumbled. “I mean, he keeps the place tidy, he’s always very respectful, I speak as I find…but people can be a bit odd about golems, sir, what with them glowing eyes and all, and the way they never
stops
. The lads might not take to ’em, sir, that’s all I’m saying.”

Moist stared at him. Golems were thorough, reliable, and, by gods, they took orders.
He’d get another chance to be smiled at by Miss Dearheart—think about Golems! Golems, golems, golems!

He smiled and said, “Even if I can prove they’re real postmen?”

T
EN MINUTES LATER
, the fist of the golem called Anghammarad smashed through a letterbox and several square inches of splintering wood.

“Mail Delivered,” it announced, and went still. The eyes dulled.

Moist turned to the cluster of human postmen and gestured toward the impromptu Postman’s Walk he’d set up in the big hall.

“Note the flattened roller skate, gentlemen. Note the heap of ground glass where the beer bottle was. And Mr. Anghammarad did it all with a hood on his head, I might point out.”

“Yeah, but his eyes burned holes in it,” Groat pointed out.

“None of us can help the way we’re made,” said Adora Belle Dearheart primly.

“I’ve got to admit, it did my heart good to see him punch through that door,” said Senior Postman Bates. “That’ll teach ’em to put ’em low and sharp.”

“And no problem with dogs, I expect,” said Jimmy Tropes. “He’d never get the arse bitten out of
his
trousers.”

“So you all agree a golem is suitable to become a postman?” said Moist.

Suddenly all the faces twisted up as the postmen shuffled into a chorus:

“
Well, it’s not us, you understand…
”

“
…people can be a bit funny about, er, clay folk…
”

“
…all that stuff about taking jobs away from real people…
”

“
Nothing against him at all but…
”

They stopped, because the golem Anghammarad was beginning to speak again. Unlike Mr. Pump, it took him some time to get up to speed. And when his voice arrived, it seemed to be coming from long ago and far away, like the sound of surf in a fossil shell.

He said: “What Is A Postman?”

“A messenger, Anghammarad,” said Miss Dearheart. Moist noticed that she spoke to golems differently. There was actual
tenderness
in her voice.

“Gentlemen,” he said to the postmen, “I know you feel—”

“I Was A Messenger,” Anghammarad rumbled.

His voice was not like Mr. Pump’s, and neither was his clay. He looked like a crude jigsaw puzzle of different clays, from almost black through red to light gray. Anghammarad’s eyes, unlike the furnace glow of those of the other golems, burned a deep ruby red. He looked old. More than that, he
felt
old. The chill of time radiated off him.

On one arm, just above the elbow, was a metal box on a corroded band that had stained the clay.

“Running errands, eh?” said Groat nervously.

“Most Recently I Delivered The Decrees Of King Het Of Thut,” said Anghammarad.

“Never heard of any King Het,” said Jimmy Tropes.

“I Expect That Is Because The Land Of Thut Slid Under The Sea Nine Thousand Years Ago,” said the golem solemly. “So It Goes.”

“Blimey! You’re nine thousand years old?” said Groat.

“No. I Am Almost Nineteen Thousand Years Old, Having Been Born In The Fire By The Priests Of Upsa In The Third Ning Of The Shaving Of The Goat. They Gave Me A Voice That I Might Carry Messages. Of Such Things Is The World Made.”

“Never heard of them, either,” said Tropes.

“Upsa Was Destroyed By The Explosion Of Mount Shiputu. I Spent Two Centuries Under A Mountain of Pumice Before It Eroded, Whereupon I Became A Messenger For The Fishermen Kings Of The Holy Ult. It Could Have Been Worse.”

“You must’ve seen lots of things, sir!” said Stanley.

The glowing eyes turned to him, lighting up his face. “Sea Urchins. I Have Seen Many Sea Urchins. And Sea Cucumbers. And The Dead Ships, Sailing. Once There Was An Anchor. All Things Pass.”

“How long were you under the sea?” said Moist.

“It Was Almost Nine Thousand Years.”

“You mean…you just sat there?” said Aggy.

“I Was Not Instructed To Do Otherwise. I Heard The Song Of The Whales Above Me. It Was Dark. Then There Was A Net, And Rising, And Light. These Things Happen.”

“Didn’t you find it…well, dull?” said Groat. The postmen were staring.

“Dull,” said Anghammarad blankly, and turned to look at Miss Dearheart.

“He has no idea what you mean,” she said. “None of them have. Not even the younger ones.”

“So I expect you’ll be keen to deliver messages again, then!” said Moist, far more jovially than he’d intended. The golem’s head turned toward Miss Dearheart again.

“Keen?” said Anghammarad.

She sighed. “Another tough one, Mr. Moist. It’s as bad as ‘dull.’ The closest I can come is: ‘You will satisfy the imperative to perform the directed action.’”

“Yes,” said the golem. “The Messages Must Be Delivered. That Is Written On My
Chem
.”

“That’s the scroll in their heads that gives a golem his instructions,” said Miss Dearheart. “In Anghammarad’s case, it’s a clay tablet. They didn’t have paper in those days.”

“You really used to deliver messages for kings?” said Groat.

“Many Kings,” said Anghammarad. “Many Empires. Many Gods. Many Gods. All Gone. All Things Go.” The golem’s voice got deeper, as if he was quoting from memory. “Neither Deluge Nor Ice Storm Nor The Black Silence Of The Netherhells Shall Stay These Messengers About Their Sacred Business. Do Not Ask Us About Saber-Toothed Tigers, Tar Pits, Big Green Things With Teeth, Or The Goddess Czol.”

“You had big green things with teeth back then?” said Tropes.

“Bigger. Greener. More Teeth,” rumbled Anghammarad.

“And The Goddess Czol?” said Moist.

“Do Not Ask.”

There was a thoughtful silence. Moist knew how to break it.

“And
you
will decide if
he
is a postman?” he said softly.