Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett [6]
“Oh, the Secret Masters,” said Brother Plasterer. “Sorry. It’s these mystic hoods. Sorry. Secret. I remember.”
But when I rule the city, the Supreme Grand Master said to himself, there is going to be none of this. I shall form a new secret society of keen-minded and intelligent men, although not too intelligent of course, not too intelligent. And we will overthrow the cold tyrant and we will usher in a new age of enlightenment and fraternity and humanism and Ankh-Morpork will become a Utopia and people like Brother Plasterer will be roasted over slow fires if I have any say in the matter, which I will. And his figgin.1
“When I was, as I said, undergoing my tuition by the Secret Masters—” he continued.
“That was where they told you you had to walk on rice-paper, wasn’t it,” said Brother Watchtower conversationally. “I always thought that was a good bit. I’ve been saving it off the bottom of my macaroons ever since. Amazing, really. I can walk on it no trouble. Shows what being in a proper secret society does for you, does that.”
When he is on the griddle, the Supreme Grand Master thought, Brother Plasterer will not be lonely.
“Your footfalls on the road of enlightenment are an example to us all, Brother Watchtower,” he said. “If I may continue, however—among the many secrets—”
“—from the Heart of Being—” said Brother Watchtower approvingly.
“—from the Heart, as Brother Watchtower says, of Being, was the current location of the noble dragons. The belief that they died out is quite wrong. They simply found a new evolutionary niche. And they can be summoned from it. This book—” he flourished it—“gives specific instructions.”
“It’s just in a book?” said Brother Plasterer.
“No ordinary book. This is the only copy. It has taken me years to track it down,” said the Supreme Grand Master. “It’s in the handwriting of Tubal de Malachite, a great student of dragon lore. His actual handwriting. He summoned dragons of all sizes. And so can you.”
There was another long, awkward silence.
“Um,” said Brother Doorkeeper.
“Sounds a bit like, you know…magic to me,” said Brother Watchtower, in the nervous tone of the man who has spotted which cup the pea is hidden under but doesn’t like to say. “I mean, not wishing to question your supreme wisdomship and that, but…well…you know…magic…”
His voice trailed off.
“Yeah,” said Brother Plasterer uncomfortably.
“It’s, er, the wizards, see,” said Brother Fingers. “You prob’ly dint know this, when you was banged up with them venerable herberts on their mountain, but the wizards around here come down on you like a ton of bricks if they catches you doin’ anything like that.”
“Demarcation, they call it,” said Brother Plasterer. “Like, I don’t go around fiddling with the mystic interleaved wossnames of causality, and they don’t do any plastering.”
“I fail to see the problem,” said the Supreme Grand Master. In fact, he saw it all too clearly. This was the last hurdle. Help their tiny little minds over this, and he held the world in the palm of his hand. Their stupefyingly unintelligent self-interest hadn’t let him down so far, surely it couldn’t fail him now…
The Brethren shuffled uneasily. Then Brother Dunnykin spoke.
“Huh. Wizards. What do they know about a day’s work?”
The Supreme Grand Master breathed deeply. Ah…
The air of mean-minded resentfulness thickened noticeably.
“Nothing, and that’s a fact,” said Brother Fingers. “Goin’ around with their noses in the air, too good for the likes a’us. I used to see ’em when I worked up the University. Backsides a mile wide, I’m telling you. Catch ’em doing a job of honest toil?”
“Like thieving, you mean?” said Brother Watchtower, who had never liked Brother Fingers much.
“O’course, they tell you,