Maskerade - Terry Pratchett [34]
She shook her head, and started work. She could see it’d be a mop job later. It would probably be ages before they got rid of the smell of turpentine.
Someone came walking across the stage. They were whistling.
Mrs. Plinge was shocked.
“Mr. Pounder!”
The Opera House’s professional rat catcher stopped, and lowered his struggling sack. Mr. Pounder wore an old opera hat to show that he was a cut above your normal rodent operative, and its brim was thick with wax and the old candle ends he used to light his way through the darker cellars.
He’d worked among the rats so long that there was something ratlike about him now. His face seemed to be merely a rearward extension of his nose. His mustache was bristly. His front teeth were prominent. People found themselves looking for his tail.
“What’s that, Mrs. Plinge?”
“You know you mustn’t whistle onstage! That’s terrible bad luck!”
“Ah, well, it’s ’cos of good luck, Mrs. Plinge. Oh, yes! If you did know what I d’know, you’d be a happy man, too. O’ course, in your case you’d be a happy woman, on account of you being a woman. Ah! Some of the things I’ve seen, Mrs. Plinge!”
“Found gold down there, Mr. Pounder?”
Mrs. Plinge knelt down carefully to scrape away a spot of paint.
Mr. Pounder picked up his sack and continued on his way.
“Could be gold, Mrs. Plinge. Ah. Could very well be gold—”
It took a moment for Mrs. Plinge to coax her arthritic knees into letting her stand up and shuffle around.
“Pardon, Mr. Pounder?” she said.
Somewhere in the distance, there was a soft thump as a bundle of sandbags landed gently on the boards.
The stage was big and bare and empty, except for a sack which was scuttling determinedly for freedom.
Mrs. Plinge looked both ways very carefully.
“Mr. Pounder? Are you there?”
It suddenly seemed to her that the stage was even bigger and even more distinctly empty than before.
“Mr. Pounder? Cooo-eee?”
She craned around.
“Hello? Mr. Pounder?”
Something floated down from above and landed beside her.
It was a grubby black hat, with candle ends around the brim.
She looked up.
“Mr. Pounder?” she said.
Mr. Pounder was used to darkness. It held no fears for him. And he’d always prided himself on his night vision. If there was any light at all, any speck, any glimmer of phosphorescent rot, he could make use of it. His candled hat was as much for show as anything else.
His candled hat…he’d thought he’d lost it but, it was strange, here it was, still on his head. Yes, indeed. He rubbed his throat thoughtfully. There was something important he couldn’t quite remember…
It was very dark.
SQUEAK?
He looked up.
Standing in the air, at eye-level, was a robed figure about six inches high. A bony nose, with bent gray whiskers, protruded from the hood. Tiny skeletal fingers gripped a very small scythe.
Mr. Pounder nodded thoughtfully to himself. You didn’t rise to membership of the Inner Circle of the Guild of Rat Catchers without hearing a few whispered rumors. Rats had their own Death, they said, as well as their own kings, parliaments and nations. No human had ever seen it, though.
Up until now.
He felt honored. He’d won the Golden Mallet for most rats caught every year for the past five years, but he respected them, as a soldier might respect a cunning and valiant enemy.
“Er…I’m dead, aren’t I…?”
SQUEAK.
Mr. Pounder felt that many eyes were watching him. Many small, shining eyes.
“And…what happens now?”
SQUEAK.
The soul of Mr. Pounder looked at his hands. They seemed to be elongating, and getting hairier. He could feel his ears growing, and a certain rather embarrassing elongation happening at the base of his spine. He’d spent most of his life in a single-minded activity in dark places, yet even so…
“But I don’t believe in reincarnation!” he protested.
SQUEAK.
And this, Mr. Pounder understood with absolute rodent clarity, meant: reincarnation believes in you.
Mr. Bucket went through his mail very carefully, and finally breathed out