It was a warm spring night when a fist knocked at the door so hard that the hinges bent.
A man opened it and peered out into the street. There was mist coming off the river and it was a cloudy night. He might as well have tried to see through white velvet.
But he thought afterwards that there had been shapes out there, just beyond the light spilling out into the road. A lot of shapes, watching him carefully. He thought maybe there'd been very faint points of light . . .
There was no mistaking the shape right in front of him, though. It was big and dark red and looked like a child's clay model of a man. Its eyes were two embers.
'Well? What do you want at this time of night?'
The golem handed him a slate, on which was written:
WE HEAR YOU WANT A GOLEM.
Of course, golems couldn't speak, could they?
'Hah. Want, yes. Afford, no. I've been asking around but it's wicked the prices you're going for these days . . .'
The golem rubbed the words off the slate and wrote:
TO YOU, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
'You're for sale?'
NO.
The golem lurched aside. Another one stepped into the light.
It was also a golem, the man could see that. But it wasn't like the usual lumpen clay things that you occasionally saw. This one gleamed like a newly polished statue, perfect down to the detailing of the clothes. It reminded him of one of the old pictures of the city's kings, all haughty stance and imperious haircut. In fact, it even had a small coronet moulded on to its head.
'A hundred dollars?' the man said suspiciously. 'What's wrong with it? Who's selling it?'
NOTHING IS WRONG. PERFECT IN ALL DETAIL. NINETY DOLLARS.
'Sounds like someone wants to get rid of it in a hurry . . .'
GOLEM MUST WORK. GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.
'Yeah, right, but you hear stories . . . Going mad and making too many things, and that.'
NOT MAD. EIGHTY DOLLARS.
'It looks . . . new,' said the man, tapping the gleaming chest. 'But no one's making golems any more, that's what's keeping the price up beyond the purse of the small business—' He stopped. 'Is someone making them again?'
EIGHTY DOLLARS.
‘I heard the priests banned making 'em years ago. A man could get in a lot of trouble.'
SEVENTY DOLLARS.
'Who's doing it?'
SIXTY DOLLARS.
'Is he selling them to Albertson? Or Spadger and Williams? It's hard enough competing as it is, and they've got the money to invest in new plant—'
FIFTY DOLLARS.
The man walked around the golem. 'A man can't sit by and watch his company collapse under him because of unfair price cutting, I mean to say . . .'
FORTY DOLLARS.
'Religion is all very well, but what do prophets know about profits, eh? Hmm . . .' He looked up at the shapeless golem in the shadows. 'Was that "thirty dollars" I just saw you write?'
YES.
'I've always liked dealing wholesale. Wait one moment.' He went back inside and returned with a handful of coins. 'Will you be selling any to them other bastards?'
NO.
'Good. Tell your boss it's a pleasure to do business with him. Get along inside, Sunny Jim.'
The white golem walked into the factory. The man, glancing from side to side, trotted in after it and shut the door.
Deeper shadows moved in the dark. There was a faint hissing. Then, rocking slightly, the big heavy shapes moved away.
Shortly afterwards, and around the corner, a beggar holding out a hopeful hand for alms was amazed to find himself suddenly richer by a whole thirty dollars.[1]

Cheery Littlebottom
Cherry
Sherry
Sherri
Lucinda Littlebottom
Sharry
Sharri
Cheri

'Er ... what do you think?' said Cheery nervously.
' "Lucinda"?' said Angua, raising her eyebrows.
'I've always liked the sound of the name.'
' "Cheri" is nice,' said Angua. 'And it is rather like the one you've got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.'
Cheery's shoulders sagged with released tension. When you've made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it's a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper.
' Cheri' , thought Angua. Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard?
Well, it does now.
Somewhere underneath Ankh-Morpork a rat went about its business, ambling unconcernedly through the ruins of a damp cellar. It turned a corner towards the grain store it knew was up ahead, and almost walked into another rat.
This one was standing on its hind-legs, though, and wearing a tiny black robe and carrying a scythe. Such of its snout that could be seen was bone-white.
SQUEAK? it said.
Then the vision faded and revealed a slightly smaller figure. There was nothing in the least rat-like about it, apart from its size. It was human, or at least humanoid. It was dressed in ratskin trousers but was bare above the waist, apart from two bandoliers that criss-crossed its chest. And it was smoking a tiny cigar.
It raised a very small crossbow and fired.
The soul of the rat - for anything so similar in so many ways to human beings certainly has a soul -watched gloomily as the figure took its recent habitation by the tail and towed it away. Then it looked up at the Death of Rats.
'Squeak?' it said.
The Grim Squeaker nodded.
SQUEAK.
A minute later Wee Mad Arthur emerged into the daylight, dragging the rat behind him. There were fifty-seven neatly lined up along the wall, but despite his name Wee Mad Arthur made a point of not killing the young and the pregnant females. It's always a good idea to make sure you've got a job tomorrow.
His sign was still tacked up over the hole. Wee Mad Arthur, as the only insect and vermin exterminator able to meet the enemy on its own terms, found that it paid to advertise.

I'll have to go, Angua thought as they hurried through the fog. I can't go on living from month to month.
It's not that he's not likeable. You couldn't wish to meet a more caring man.
That's just it. He cares for everyone. He cares about everything. He cares indiscriminately. He knows everything about everyone because everyone interests himf and the caring is all general and never personal. He doesn't think personal is the same as important.
If only he had some decent human quality, like selfishness.
I'm sure he doesn't think about it that way, but you can tell the werewolf thing is upsetting him underneath. He cares about the things people say behind my back, and he doesn't know how to deal with them.
What was it those dwarfs said the other day? One said something like, 'She feels the need/ and the other one said, 'Yeah, the need to feed.' I saw his expression. I can handle that sort of thing . . . well, most of the time . . . but he can't. If only he'd thump someone. It wouldn't do any good but at least he'd feel better.
It's going to get worse. At best I'm going to get caught in someone's chicken-house, and then the midden is really going to hit the windmill. Or I'll get caught in someone's room . . .
She tried to shut out the thought but it didn't work. You could only control the werewolf, you couldn't tame it.
It's the city. Too many people, too many smells . . .
Maybe it would work if we were just alone somewhere, but if I said, 'It's me or the city,' he wouldn't even see there was a choice.
Sooner or later, I've got to go home. It's the best thing for him.

<![endif]><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn1>

[1] He subsequently got dead-drunk and was shanghaied aboard a merchantman bound for strange and foreign parts, where he met lots of young ladies who didn't wear many clothes. He eventually died from stepping on a tiger. A good deed goes around the world.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn2>

[2] That is to say, the sort you can use to give something three extra legs and then blow it up.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn3>

[3] Town hall.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn4>

[4] Because Ankh-Morpork doesn't have a town hall.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn5>

[5] Yeast bowl.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn6>

[6] Commander Vimes, on the other hand, was all for giving criminals a short, sharp shock. It really depended on how tightly they could be tied to the lightning rod.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn7>

[7] Constable Visit was an Omnian, whose country's traditional approach to evangelism was to put unbelievers to torture and the sword. Things had become a lot more civilized these days but Omnians still had a strenuous and indefatigable approach to spreading the Word, and had merely changed the nature of the weapons. Constable Visit spent his days off in company with his co-religionist Smite-The-Unbeliever-With-Cunning-Arguments, ringing doorbells and causing people to hide behind the furniture everywhere in the city.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn8>

[8] Detritus was particularly good when it came to asking questions. He had three basic ones. They were the direct ('Did you do it?'), the persistent ('Are you sure it wasn't you what done it?') and the subtle ('It was you what done it, wasn't it?'). Although they were not the most cunning questions ever devised, Detritus's talent was to go on patiently asking them for hours on end, until he got the right answer, which was generally something like: 'Yes! Yes! I did it! I did it! Now please tell me what it was I did!'
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn9>

[9] It is a pervasive and beguiling myth that the people who design instruments of death end up being killed by them. There is almost no foundation in fact. Colonel Shrapnel wasn't blown up, M. Guillotin died with his head on, Colonel Catling wasn't shot. If it hadn't been for the murder of cosh and blackjack maker Sir William Blunt-Instrument in an alleyway, the rumour would never have got started.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn10>

[10] 'Welcome, Corporal Smallbottom! This is Constable Angua . . . Angua, show Smallbottom how well you're learning dwarfish . . .'
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn11>

[11] The Ankh-Morpork view of crime and punishment was that the penalty for the first offence should prevent the possibility of a second offence.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn12>[12] This always happens in any police chase anywhere, A heavily laden lorry will always pull out of a side alley in front of the pursuit.
If vehicles aren't involved, then it'll be a man with a rack of garments. Or two men with a large sheet of glass.

There's probably some kind of secret society behind all this.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn13>

[13] And for the most part were unconcerned about matters of height. There's a dwarfish saying: 'All trees are felled at ground-level' - although this is said to be an excessively bowdlerized translation for a saw which more literally means, 'When his hands are higher than your head, his groin is level with your teeth.'
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn14>

[14] These terms are often synonymous.
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn15>

[15] As they were euphemistically named. People said, 'They call themselves seamstresses - hem, hem!'
</div><divstyle='mso-element:endnote'id=edn16>

[16] Because of the huge obtrusive mass of his forehead, Rogers the bulls' view of the universe was from two eyes each with their own non-overlapping hemispherical view of the world. Since there were two separate visions, Rogers had reasoned, that meant there must be two bulls (bulls not having been bred for much deductive reasoning). Most bulls believe this, which is why they always keep turning their head this way and that when they look at you. They do this because both of them want to see.
</div></div>

Table of Contents

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[2]

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[4]

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