Making Money - Terry Pratchett [124]
That started another clamor.
Moist, unnoticed, pushed his way through the heaving crowd until he reached Dr. Hicks and his crew, who were fighting their way back to the big golem.
“Can I come with you, please?” he said. “I want to try something.”
Hicks nodded, but while the portable circle was being dragged out in the street, he said, “I think Miss Dearheart tried everything. The professor was very impressed.”
“There’s something she didn’t try. Trust me. Talking of trust, who are these lads holding the blanket?”
“My students,” said Hicks, trying to keep the circle steady.
“They want to study necro—er, postmortem communications? Why?”
“Apparently it’s good for getting girls,” sighed Hicks. There were sniggers.
“In a necromancy department? What kind of girls do they get?”
“No, it’s because when they graduate they get to wear the hooded black robe and the skull ring. I think the term one of them used was ‘babe magnet.’”
“But I thought wizards aren’t allowed to marry?”
“Marriage?” said Hicks. “Oh, I don’t think they are concerned about that.”
“We never were in my day!” shouted Flead, who was being shaken back and forth as the circle was dragged through the crowds. “Can’t you blast some of these people with Black Fire, Hicks? You’re a necromancer, for the sake of the seven hells! You are not supposed to be nice! Now that I can see what’s going on I think I shall have to spend a lot more time in the department!”
“Could I have a quiet word?” whispered Moist to Hicks. “The lads can manage by themselves, can’t they? Tell them to catch up with us at the big golem.”
He hurried on, and was not at all surprised to find Hicks hurrying to catch up with him. He pulled the not-really-a-necromancer into the shelter of a doorway and said: “Do you trust your students?”
“Are you mad?”
“It’s just that I have a little plan to save the day, the downside of which is that Professor Flead will no longer, alas, be available to you in your department.”
“By ‘unavailable’ you mean…?”
“Alas, you would never see him again,” said Moist. “I can tell that would be a blow.”
Hicks coughed. “Oh dear. He wouldn’t be able to come back at all?”
“I think not.”
“Are you sure?” said Hicks carefully. “No possibility?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Hm. Well, of course, it would indeed be a blow.”
“A big blow. A big blow,” Moist agreed.
“I wouldn’t want him…hurt, of course.”
“Anything but. Anything but,” said Moist, trying not to laugh. We humans are good at this curly thinking, aren’t we, he thought.
“And he has had a good innings, when all’s said and done.”
“Two of them,” said Moist, “when you come to think about it.”
“What do you want us to do?” said Hicks, against the distant shouts of the ghostly professor berating the students.
“There’s such a thing, I believe, as…an insorcism?”
“Those? We’re not allowed to do those! They’re totally against university rules!”
“Well, wearing the black robe and the skull ring has got to count for something, hasn’t it? I mean, your predecessors would turn in their dark coffins if they thought you wouldn’t agree to the minor naughtiness I have in mind…” And Moist explained, in one simple sentence.
Louder shouts and curses indicated that the portable circle was almost upon them.
“Well, Doctor?” said Moist.
A complex spectra of expressions chased one another across Dr. Hicks’s face.
“Well, I suppose…”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Well, it’d be like sending him to Heaven, right?”
“Exactly! I couldn’t have put it better myself!”
“Anyone could put it better than this bunch!” snapped Flead, right behind him. “The department has really been allowed to go uphill since my day! Well, we shall see what we can do about that!”
“Before you do, Professor, I must speak to the golem,” said Moist. “Can you translate for me?”
“Can but won’t,” snapped Flead.
“You tried to help Miss Dearheart just earlier on.”
“She is attractive. Why should I bequeath to you knowledge