Mort

The chicken leghadn't gone far to fill the hole left by the absence of lunch, and she filched a couple of apples from a stall, making a mental note to have the chamberlain find out how much apples cost and send some money down to the stallholder.

Dishevelled, rather grubby and smelling slightly of horse dung, she came at last to Cutwell's door. The knocker gave her some trouble. In her experience doors opened for you; there were special people to arrange it.

She was so distraught she didn't even notice that the knocker winked at her.

She tried again, and thought she heard a distant crash. After some time the door opened a few inches and she caught a glimpse of a round flustered face topped with curly hair. Her right foot surprised her by intelligently inserting itself in the crack.

'I demand to see the wizard,' she a

'He's rather busy at present,' said the face. 'Were you after a love potion?'

'A what?'

'I've – we've got a special on Cutwell's Shield of Passion ointment,' said the face, and winked in a startling fashion. 'Provides your wild oats while guaranteeing a crop failure, if you know what I mean.'

Keli bridled. 'No,' she lied coldly, 'I do not.'

'Ramrub? Maidens' Longstop? Bellado

'I demand —'

'Sorry, we're closed,' said the face, and shut the door. Keli withdrew her foot just in time.

She muttered some words that would have amazed and shocked her tutors, and thumped on the woodwork.

The tattoo of her hammering suddenly slowed as realization dawned.

He'd seen her! He'd heard her!

She beat on the door with renewed vigour, yelling with all the power in her lungs.

A voice by her ear said, 'It won't work. He 'eef very ftubborn.'

She looked around slowly and met the impertinent gaze of the doorknocker. It waggled its metal eyebrows at her and spoke indistinctly through its wrought-iron ring.

'I am Princess Keli, heir to the throne of Sto Lat,' she said haughtily, holding down the lid on her terror. 'And I don't talk to door furniture.'

'Fwell, I'm just a doorknocker and I can talk to fwhoever I please,' said the gargoyle pleasantly. 'And I can tell you the fmaster iff having a trying day and duff fnot fwant to be disturbed. But you could ftry to use the magic word,' it added. 'Coming from an attractiff fwoman it works nine times out of eight.'

'Magic word? What's the magic word?'

The knocker perceptibly sneered. 'Haff you been taught nothing, miss?'

She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't really worth the effort. She felt she'd had a trying day too. Her father had personally executed a hundred enemies in battle. She should be able to manage a doorknocker.

'I have been educated,' she informed it with icy precision, 'by some of the finest scholars in the land.'

The doorknocker did not appear to be impressed.

'Iff they didn't teach you the magic word,' it said calmly, 'they couldn't haff fbeen all that fine.'

Keli reached out, grabbed the heavy ring, and pounded it on the door. The knocker leered at her.

'Ftreat me rough,' it lisped. 'That'f the way I like it!'

'You're disgusting!'

'Yeff. Ooo, that waff nife, do it again. . . .'

The door opened a crack. There was a shadowy glimpse of curly hair.

'Madam, I said we're cl —'

Keli sagged.

'Please help me,' she said. 'Please!'

'See?' said the doorknocker triumphantly. 'Sooner or later everyone remembers the magic word!'

Keli had been to official functions in Ankh-Morpork and had met senior wizards from Unseen University, the Disc's premier college of magic. Some of them had been tall, and most of them had been fat, and nearly all of them had been richly dressed, or at least thought they were richly dressed.

In fact there are fashions in wizardry as in more mundane arts, and this tendency to look like elderly aldermen was only temporary. Previous generations had gone in for looking pale and interesting, or druidical and grubby, or mysterious and saturnine. But Keli was used to wizards as a sort of fur-trimmed small mountain with a wheezy voice, and Igneous Cutwell didn't quite fit the mage image.

He was young. Well, that couldn't be helped; presumably even wizards had to start off young. He didn't have a beard, and the only thing his rather grubby robe was trimmed with was frayed edges.

'Would you like a drink or something?' he said, surreptitiously kicking a discarded vest under the table.

Keli looked around for somewhere to sit that wasn't occupied with laundry or used crockery, and shook her head. Cutwell noticed her expression.

'It's a bit alfresco, I'm afraid,' he added hurriedly, elbowing the remains of a garlic sausage on to the floor. 'Mrs Nugent usually comes in twice a week and does for me but she's gone to see her sister who's had one of her turns. Are you sure? It's no trouble. I saw a spare cup here only yesterday.'

'I have a problem, Mr Cutwell,' said Keli.

'Hang on a moment.' He reached up to a hook over the fireplace and took down a pointy hat that had seen better days, although from the look of it they hadn't been very much better, and then said, 'Right. Fire away.'

'What's so important about the hat?'

'Oh, it's very 'essential. You've got to have the proper hat for wizarding. We wizards know about this sort of thing.'

'If you say so. Look, can you see me?'

He peered at her. 'Yes. Yes, I would definitely say I can see you.'

'And hear me? You can hear me, can you?'

'Loud and clear. Yes. Every syllable tinkling into place. No problems.'

'Then would you be surprised if I told you that no one else in this city can?'

'Except me?'

Keli snorted. 'And your doorknocker.'

Cutwell pulled out a chair and sat down. He squirmed a little. A thoughtful expression passed over his face. He stood up, reached behind him and produced a flat reddish mass which might have once been half a pizza[2]. He stared at it sorrowfully.

'I've been looking for that all morning, would you believe?' he said. 'It was an Ail-On with extra peppers, too.' He picked sadly at the squashed shape, and suddenly remembered Keli.

'Gosh, sorry,' he said, 'where's my ma

'Have you been listening to me?' snapped Keli.

'Do you feel invisible? In yourself, I mean?' said Gutwell, indistinctly.

'Of course not. I just feel angry. So I want you to tell my fortune.'

'Well, I don't know about that, it all sounds rather medical to me and —'

'I can pay.'

'It's illegal, you see,' said Cutwell wretchedly. 'The old king expressly forbade fortune telling in Sto Lat. He didn't like wizards much.'

'I can pay a lot.'

2

The first pizza was created on the Disc by the Klatchian mystic Ronron 'Revelation Joe' Shuwadhi, who claimed to have been given the recipe in a dream by the Creator of the Discworld Himself, Who had apparently added that it was what He had intended all along. Those desert travellers who had seen the original, which is reputedly miraculously preserved in the Forbidden City of Ee, say that what the Creator had in mind then was a fairly small cheese and pepperoni affair with a few black olives* and things like mountains and seas got added out of last-minute enthusiasm, as so often happens.

* After the Schism of the Turnwise Ones and the deaths of some 25,000 people in the ensuing jihad the faithful were allowed to add one small bayleaf to the recipe.