Making Money - Terry Pratchett [121]
“Yes, Commander.” Moist turned to Cosmo. “You know, you’re not looking well,” he said. “That’s not a good complexion you have there.”
“No more words, Lipwig.” Cosmo leaned down. Up close, his face looked even worse, like the face of a wax doll, if a wax doll could sweat. “We’ll meet in court. It’s the end of the road, Mr. Lipwig. Or should I say…Mr. Spangler?”
Oh, gods, I should have done something about Cribbins, thought Moist. I was too busy trying to make money…
And there was Adora Belle, being ushered through the crowd by a couple of watchmen who were also acting as crutches. Vimes hurried down the steps as if he’d been expecting her.
Moist became aware that the background noise of the city was getting louder. The crowd had noticed it too. Somewhere, something big was happening, and this little confrontation was just a sideshow.
“You think you are clever, Mr. Lipwig?” said Cosmo.
“No, I know I am clever. I think I’m unlucky,” said Moist. But he thought: I didn’t have that many customers, surely? I can hear screams!
With triumphant shouting behind him, he pushed his way down to Adora Belle and the cluster of coppers.
“Your golems, right?” he said.
“Every golem in the city just stopped moving,” said Adora Belle. Their gazes met.
“They’re coming?” said Moist.
“Yes, I think they are.”
“Who are?” said Vimes suspiciously.
“Er, them?” said Moist, pointing.
A few people came running around the corner from the Maul and sprinted, gray-faced, past the crowd outside the bank. But they were only the flecks of foam driven before the tidal wave of people fleeing from the river area, and the wave of people broke on the bank as if it was a rock in the way of the flood.
Floating on the sea of heads, as it were, was a circular canvas about ten feet across, of the sort that gets used to catch people who very wisely jump from burning buildings. The four people carrying it were Dr. Hicks and four other wizards, and it was at this point you would notice the chalked circle and the magic symbols. In the middle of the portable magic circle sat Professor Flead, belaboring the wizards unsuccessfully with his ethereal staff. They fetched up alongside the steps as the crowd ran onward.
“I am sorry about this,” panted Hicks, “it’s the only way we could get him here and he insisted, oh how he insisted…”
“Where’s the young lady?” Flead shouted. His voice was barely audible in the living daylight. Adora Belle pushed her way through the policemen.
“Yes, Professor Flead?” she said.
“I have found your answer! I have spoken with several Umnians!”
“I thought they all died thousands of years ago!”
“Well, it is a department of necromancy,” Flead said. “But I must admit they were a wee bit indistinct, even for me. Can I have a kiss? One kiss, one answer?”
Adora Belle looked at Moist. He shrugged. The day was totally beyond him. He wasn’t flying anymore; he was simply being blown along by the gale.
“All right,” she said. “But no tongues.”
“Tongues?” said Flead sadly. “I wish.”
There was the briefest of pecks, but the ghostly necromancer beamed. “Wonderful,” he said. “I feel at least a hundred years younger.”
“You have done the translations?” said Adora Belle. And at that moment Moist felt a vibration under foot.
“What? Oh that,” said Flead. “It was those gold golems you were talking about—”
—and another vibration, enough to cause a sense of unease in the bowels—
“—although it turns out that the word in context doesn’t mean ‘gold’ at all. There are more than one hundred and twenty things it can mean, but in this case, taken in conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, it means ‘a thousand.’”
The street shook again.
“Four thousand golems, I think you’ll find,” said Flead cheerfully. “Oh, and here they are now!”
THEY CAME ALONG the streets six abreast, wall to wall and ten feet high, water and mud cascading off of them. The city echoed to their tread.
They did not trample people, but mere market stalls and coaches splintered under their massive feet. They spread out