Well, he had some time, at least. Cribbins wouldn't go for a quick kill. He liked to watch people wriggle.
'Are you all right?' said Bent. Moist came back to reality.
'What? Oh, fine,' he said.
'You should not encourage that sort of person in here, you know.'
Moist shook himself. 'You are right about that, Mr Bent. Let's get to the Mint, shall we?'
'Yes, sir. But I warn you, Mr Lipwig, these men will not be won over by fancy words!'
'Inspectors…' said Mr Shady, ten minutes later, turning the word over in his mouth like a sweet.
'I need people who value the high traditions of the Mint,' said Moist, and did not add: like making coins very, very slowly and taking your work home with you.
'Inspectors,' said Mr Shady again. Behind him, the Men of the Sheds held their caps in their hands and watched Moist owlishly, except when Mr Shady was speaking, when they stared at the back of the man's neck.
They were all in Mr Shady's official shed, which was built high up on the wall, like a swallow's nest. It creaked whenever anyone moved.
'And of course, some of you will still be needed to deal with the outworkers,' Moist went on, 'but in the main it will be your job to see that Mr Spools's men arrive on time, comport themselves as they should and observe proper security.'
'Security,' said Mr Shady, as if tasting the word. Moist saw a flicker of evil light in the eyes of the Men. It said: these buggers will be taking over our Mint but they'll have to go past us to get out of the door. Hoho!
'And of course you can keep the sheds,' said Moist. 'I also have plans for commemorative coins and other items, so your skills will not be wasted. Fair enough?'
Mr Shady looked at his fellows and then back to Moist. 'We'd like to talk about this,' he said.
Moist nodded to him, and to Bent, and led the way down the creaking, swaying staircase to the floor of the Mint, where the parts of the new press were already being stacked up. Bent gave a little shudder when he saw it.
'They won't accept, you know,' he said with unconcealed hope in his voice. 'They've been doing things the same way here for hundreds of years! And they are craftsmen!'
'So were the people who used to make knives out of flint,' said Moist. In truth, he'd been amazed at himself. It must have been the encounter with Cribbins. It had made his brain race. 'Look, I don't like to see skills unused,' he said, 'but I'll give them better wages and a decent job and use of the sheds. They wouldn't get an offer like that in a hundred years—'
Someone was coming down the swaying stairs. Moist recognized it as Young Alf, who, amazingly, had managed to be employed in the Mint while still too young to shave but definitely old enough to have spots.
'Er, the Men say will there be badges?' said the boy.
'Actually, I was thinking of uniforms,' said Moist. 'Silver breastplate with the city's arms on it and lightweight silver chain mail, to look impressive when we have visitors.'
The boy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and consulted it. 'What about clipboards?' he said.
'Certainly,' said Moist. 'And whistles, too.'
'And, er, it's def'nite about the sheds, right?'
'I'm a man of my word,' said Moist.
'You are a man of words, Mr Lipwig,' said Bent as the boy scuttled back up the rocking steps, 'but I fear they will lead us into ruin. The bank needs solidity, reliability… everything that gold represents!'
Moist spun round. It had not been a good day. It had not been a good night, either. 'Mr Bent, if you do not like what I am doing, feel free to leave. You'll have a good reference and all the wages due to you!'
Bent looked as though he'd been slapped. 'Leave the bank? Leave the bank? How could I do that? How dare you!'
A door slammed above them. They looked up. The Men of the Sheds were coming down the stairs in solemn procession.
'Now we shall see,' hissed Bent. 'These are men of solid worth. They'll have nothing to do with your gaudy offer, Mr… Ringmaster!'
The Men reached the bottom of the steps. Without a word they all looked at Mr Shady, except for Mr Shady, who looked at Moist.
'The sheds stay, right?' he said.
'You're giving in?' said Mr Bent, aghast. 'After hundreds of years?'
'We-ell,' said Mr Shady, 'me and the boys had a bit of a talk and, well, at a time like this, a man's got to think of his shed. And the outworkers will be all right, right?'
'Mr Shady, I'd go to the barricades for the elim,' said Moist.
'And we talked to some of the lads from the Post Office last night and they said we could trust Mr Lipwig's word 'cos he's as straight as a corkscrew.'
'A corkscrew?' said Bent, shocked.
'Yeah, we asked about that, too,' said Shady. 'And they said he acts curly but that's okay 'cos he damn well gets the corks out!'
Mr Bent's expression went blank. 'Oh,' he said. 'This is clearly some kind of judgement-clouding joke, which I do not understand. If you will excuse me, I have a great deal of work to attend to.'
His feet rising and falling, as though he was walking on some kind of shifting staircase, Mr Bent departed in jerky haste.
'Very well, gentlemen, thank you for your helpful attitude,' said Moist, watching the retreating figure, 'and for my part I will get those uniforms ordered this afternoon.'
'You're a fast mover, Master,' said Mr Shady.
'Stand still and your mistakes catch up with you!' said Moist. They laughed, because he'd said it, but the face of Cribbins rose up in his mind and, quite unconsciously, he put his hand in his pocket and touched the blackjack. He'd have to learn how to use it now, because a weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.
He'd bought it — why? Because it was like the lockpicks: a token to prove, if only to himself, that he hadn't given in, not all the way, that a part of him was still free. It was like the other ready-made identities, the escape plans, the caches of money and clothes. They told him that any day he could leave all this, melt into the crowd, say goodbye to the paperwork and the timetable and the endless, endless wanting.
They told him that he could give it up any time he liked. Any hour, any minute, any second. And because he could, he didn't… every hour, every minute, every second. There had to be a reason why.
'Mr Lipwig! Mr Lipwig!' A young clerk dodged and weaved through the busyness of the Mint, and stopped in front of Moist, panting.
'Mr Lipwig, there's a lady in the hall to see you and we've thanked her for not smoking three times and she's still doing it!'
The image of the wretched Cribbins vanished and was replaced by a much better one.
Ah, yes. That reason.
Miss Adora Belle Dearheart, known to Moist as Spike, was standing in the middle of the banking hall. Moist just headed for the smoke.
'Hello, you,' she said, and that was that. 'Can you take me away from all this?' She gestured with her non-smoking hand. Staff had meaningfully surrounded her with tall brass ashtrays, full of white sand.
Moist shifted a couple of them, and let her out.
'How was—' he began, but she interrupted.
'We can talk on the way.'
'Where are we going?' Moist asked hopefully.
'Unseen University,' said Adora Belle, heading for the door. She had a large woven bag on her shoulder. It seemed to be stuffed with straw.
'Not lunch, then?' said Moist.
'Lunch can wait. This is important.'
'Oh.'
It was lunchtime at Unseen University, where every meal is important. It was hard to find a time when some meal or other was not in progress there. The Library was unusually empty, and Adora Belle walked up to the nearest wizard who did not seem gainfully employed and demanded: 'I want to see the Cabinet of Curiosity right away!'
'I don't think we have anything like that,' said the wizard. 'Who's it by?'
'Please don't lie. My name is Adora Belle Dearheart, so as you can imagine I've got a pretty short temper
. My father brought me with him when you people asked him to come and look at the Cabinet, about twenty years ago. You wanted to find out how the doors worked. Someone must remember. It was in a big room. A very big room. And it had lots and lots of drawers. And the funny thing about them was—'
The wizard raised his hands quickly, as if to ward off further words. 'Can you wait just one minute?' he suggested.
They waited for five. Occasionally a pointy-hatted head peered around a bookshelf to look at them, and ducked away if it thought it'd been spotted.
Adora Belle lit a fresh cigarette. Moist pointed to a sign which said 'If you are smoking, thank you for being beaten about the head.'
'That's just for show,' said Adora Belle, expelling a stream of blue smoke. 'All wizards smoke like chimneys.'
'Not in here, I notice,' said Moist, 'and possibly this is because of all the highly inflammable books? It might be a good idea to—'
He felt the swish of air and got a whiff of rainforest as something heavy swung overhead and disappeared upwards into the gloom, now trailing a stream of blue smoke.
'Hey, someone took my—' Adora Belle began, but Moist pushed her out of the way as the thing swung back again and a banana knocked his hat off.
'They are a bit more definite about things here,' he said, picking up his hat. 'If it's any comfort, the Librarian probably intended to hit me. He can be quite gallant.'
'Ah, you're Mr Lipwig, I recognize the suit!' said an elderly wizard, who clearly hoped he was appearing as if by magic but in fact had appeared by stepping out from behind a bookcase. 'I know I am the Chair of Indefinite Studies here, for my sins. And you, ahaha, by a process of elimination, will be Miss Dearheart, who remembers the Cabinet of Curiosity?' The Chair of Indefinite Studies stepped closer and looked conspiratorial. He lowered his voice. 'I wonder if I can persuade you to forget about it?'
'Not a chance,' said Adora Belle.
'We like to think of it as one of our better-kept secrets, you see…'
'Good. I'll help you keep it,' said Adora Belle.
'Nothing I could say could change your mind?'
'I don't know,' said Adora Belle. 'Abracadabra, maybe? Got your spell book?' Moist was impressed at that. She could be so… spiky.
'Oh… that type of lady,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies wearily. 'Modern. Oh well, I suppose you'd better come with me, then.'
'What's this all about, please?' hissed Moist, as they followed the wizard.
'I need something translated,' said Adora Belle, 'in a hurry.'
'Aren't you glad to see me?'
'Oh yes. Lots. But I need something translated in a hurry.'
'And this cabinet thing can help?'
'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps? "Perhaps" could wait until after lunch, couldn't it? If it was "Definitely", now, I could have seen the point—'
'Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm lost again, and through no fault of my own, I might add,' grumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'I'm afraid they keep changing the parameters and they do leak so. I don't know, what with one thing and another you can't call your door your own these days…'
'What were your sins?' said Moist, giving up on Adora Belle.
'Pardon? Oh dear, what is that stain on the ceiling? Probably best not to know…'
'What were the sins you committed in order to become the Chair of Indefinite Studies?' Moist persisted.
'Oh, I just tend to say that for something to say,' said the wizard, opening a door and slamming it again quickly. 'But right now I'm inclined to think I must have committed a few, and they must have been whoppers. It's quite unbearable at the moment, of course. They're saying that everything in the whole wretched universe is technically indefinable, but what am I supposed to do about it? And of course this damn Cabinet is playing havoc with the place again. I thought we'd seen the last of it fifteen years ago… Oh, yes, mind the squid, we're a bit puzzled about that, actually… Ah, here's the right door.' The Chair sniffed. 'And it's twenty-five feet away from where it ought to be. What did I tell you…'
The door opened and then it was just a matter of knowing where to start. Moist opted for letting his jaw drop, which was clean and simple.
The room was bigger than it ought to be. No room ought to be more than a mile across, especially when from outside in the corridor, which was quite ordinary if you ignored the giant squid, it appeared to have perfectly normal rooms on either side of it. It shouldn't have a ceiling so high that you couldn't see it, either. It simply should not fit.
'It's quite easy to do this, actually,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies as they stared. 'At least, so they tell me,' he added wistfully. 'Apparently, if you shrink time you can expand space.'
'How do they do that?' Moist asked, staring at the… structure that was the Cabinet of Curiosity.
'I'm proud to say I haven't got the faintest idea,' said the Chair. 'Frankly, I'm afraid I got rather lost round about the time we stopped using dribbly candles. I know it's technically my department but I find it best just to let them get on with it. They do insist on trying to explain things, which of course does not help…'
Moist, if he'd had any mental picture at all, was expecting a cabinet. After all, that's what it was called, yes? But what filled most of the impossible room was a tree, in the general shape of a venerable spreading oak. It was a tree in winter; there were no leaves. And then, when the mind had found a familiar, friendly simile, it had to come to terms with the fact that the tree was made of filing cabinets. They appeared to be wooden ones, but this didn't help much.
High up in what had to be called the branches, wizards on broomsticks were engaged in who-knew-what. They looked like insects.
'It is a bit of a shock when you see it for the first time, isn't it?' said a friendly voice.
Moist looked round at a young wizard, at least young by the standards of wizards, who had round spectacles, a clipboard, and the shiny sort of expression that says: I probably know more than you can possibly imagine but I am still reasonably happy to talk even to people like yourself.
'You're Ponder Stibbons, right?' said Moist. 'The only one who does any work in the university?'
Other wizards turned their heads at this, and Ponder went red. 'That's quite untrue! I just pull my weight, like any other member of the faculty,' he said, but a slight tone to his voice suggested that perhaps the other faculty members had far too much weight and not enough pull. 'I am in charge of the Cabinet Project, for my sins.'
'Why? What did you do?' said Moist, at sea in a world of sin. 'Something worse?'
'Er, volunteered to take it over,' said Ponder. 'And I have to say we have learned more in the last six months than in the past twenty-five years. The Cabinet is a truly amazing artefact.'
'Where did you find it?'
'In the attic, tucked behind a collection of stuffed frogs. We think people gave up trying to make it work years ago. Of course, that was back in the dribbly candle era,' said Ponder, earning a snort from the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Modern technomancy is somewhat more useful.'
'All right, then,' said Moist, 'what is it for?
'We don't know.'
'How does it work?'
'We don't know.'
'Where did it come from?'
'We don't know.'
'Well, that seems to be all,' said Moist sarcastically. 'Oh no, one last one: what is it? And let me tell you, I'm agog.'
'That may be the wrong sort of question to ask,' said Ponder, shaking his head. 'Technically it appears to be a classic Bag of Holding but with n mouths, where n is the number of items in an eleven-dimensional universe which are not currently alive, not pink and can fit in a cubical drawer 14.14 inches on a side, divided by P.'
'What's P?'
'That may be the wrong sort of question.'
'When I was a little girl it was just a magic box,' Adora Belle broke in, in a dreamy voice. 'It was in a much smaller room and when it unfolded a few times there was a box with a golem's
foot in it.'
'Ah, yes, in the third iteration,' said Ponder. 'They couldn't get much further than that in those days. Now, of course, we've got controlled recursion and aim-driven folding that effectively reduces collateral boxing to 0.13 per cent, a twelvefold improvement in the last year alone!'
'That's great!' said Moist, feeling that it was the least he could do.
'Does Miss Dearheart want to see the item again?' said Ponder, lowering his voice. Adora Belle still had a faraway look in her eyes.
'I think so,' said Moist. 'She's very big on golems.'
'We were about to fold up for today in any case,' said Ponder. 'It won't hurt to pick up the Foot on the way'
He took a large megaphone from a bench and held it to his lips.
'THE CABINET CLOSES IN THREE MINUTES, GENTLEMEN. ALL RESEARCHERS INSIDE THE SAFETY AREA NOW, PLEASE. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!'
'Be there or be square?' said Moist, as Ponder lowered the megaphone.
'Oh, a couple of years ago someone ignored the warning and, um, when the Cabinet folded up he temporarily became a curiosity'
'You mean he ended up inside a fourteen-inch cube?' said Moist, horrified.
'Mostly. Look, we really would be very happy if you didn't tell anyone about the Cabinet, thank you. We know how to use it, we think, but it might not be the way it was intended to be used. We don't know what it's for, as you put it, or who built it or even if they are completely the wrong questions to ask. Nothing in it is bigger than about fourteen inches square, but we don't know why this is or who it is who decides they are curious, or why, and we certainly don't know why it contains nothing pink. It's all very embarrassing. I'm sure you can keep a secret, Mr Lipwig?'
'You'd be amazed.'
'Oh? Why?'
'That's the wrong kind of question.'
'You do know something quite important about the Cabinet,' said Adora Belle, apparently waking up. 'You know it wasn't built for or by a girl between the ages of four and, oh, eleven years old.'
'How do we know that?'
'No pink. Trust me. No girl in that age group would leave out pink.'
Making Money d-36 Page 19
