Making Money

A figure had appeared in the circle, without any bother or fuss, apart from the grumbling. It was in every respect the picture of a wizard — robed, pointy-hatted, bearded and elderly — with the addition of a silvery monochrome effect overall and some slight transparency.

‘Ah, Professor Flead,’ said Hicks, ‘it’s kind of you to join us …’

‘You know you brought me here and it’s not as if I had anything else to do,’ said Flead. He turned back to Adora Belle and his voice became pure syrup. ‘What is your name, my dear?’

‘Adora Belle Dearheart.’ The warning tone of voice was lost on Flead.

‘How delightful,’ he said, giving her a gummy smile. Regrettably, this made little strings of saliva vibrate in his mouth like the web of a very old spider. ‘And would you believe me if I told you that you bear a striking resemblance to my beloved concubine Fenti, who died more than three hundred years ago? The likeness is astounding!’

‘I’d say that was a pick-up line,’ said Adora Belle.

‘Oh dear, such cynicism,’ sighed the late Flead, turning to the Head of Post-Mortem Communications. ‘Apart from this young lady’s wonderful chanting it was frankly a mess, Hicks,’ he said sharply. He tried to pat Adora Belle’s hand, but his fingers passed right through.

‘I’m sorry, professor, we just don’t get the funding these days,’ said Hicks.

‘I know, I know. It was ever thus, doctor. Even in my day, if you needed a corpse you had to go out and find your own! And if you couldn’t find one, you jolly well had to make one! It’s all so nice now, so damn correct. So a fresh egg technically does the trick, but whatever happened to style? They tell me they’ve made an engine that can think now, but of course the Fine Arts are always last in the queue! And so I’m brought to this: one barely competent Post-Mortem Communicator and two people from Central Groaning!’

‘Necromancy is a Fine Art?’ said Moist.

‘None finer, young man. Get things just a tiny bit wrong and the spirits of the vengeful dead may enter your head via your ears and blow your brains out down your nose.’

The eyes of Moist and Adora Belle focused on Dr Hicks like those of an archer on his target. He waved his hands frantically and mouthed, ‘Not very often!’

‘What is a pretty young woman like you doing here, hmm?’ said Flead, trying to grab Adora Belle’s hand again.

‘I’m trying to translate a phrase from Umnian,’ she said, giving him a wooden smile and absentmindedly wiping her hand on her dress.

‘Are women allowed to do that sort of thing these days? What fun! One of my greatest regrets, you know, is that when I was in possession of a body I didn’t let it spend enough time in the company of young ladies …’

Moist looked around to see if there was any kind of emergency lever. There had to be something, if only in the event of nasal brain explosion.

He sidled up to Hicks. ‘It’s going to go really bad in a moment!’ he hissed.

‘It’s all right, I can banish him to the Undead Zone in a moment,’ Hicks whispered.

‘That won’t be far enough if she loses her temper! I once saw her put a stiletto heel right through a man’s foot while she was smoking a cigarette. She hasn’t had a cigarette for more than fifteen minutes, so there’s no telling what she’ll do!’

But Adora Belle had pulled the golem’s arm out of her bag, and the late Professor Flead’s eyes twinkled with something more compelling than romance. Lust comes in many varieties.

He picked up the arm. That was the second surprising thing. And then Moist realized that the arm was still there, by Flead’s feet, and what he was lifting was a pearly, tenuous ghost.

‘Ah, part of an Umnian golem,’ he said. ‘Bad condition. Immensely rare. Probably dug up on the site of Um, yes?’

‘Possibly,’ said Adora Belle.

‘Hmm. Possibly, eh?’ said Flead, turning the spectral arm around. ‘Look at the wafer-thinness! Light as a feather but strong as steel while the fires burned within! There has been nothing like them since!’

‘I might know where such fires still burn,’ said Adora Belle.

‘After sixty thousand years? I think not, madam!’

‘I think otherwise.’

She could say things in that tone of voice and turn heads. She projected absolute certainty. Moist had worked hard for years to get a voice like that.

‘Are you saying an Umnian golem has survived?’

‘Yes. Four of them, I think,’ said Adora Belle.

‘Can they sing?’

‘At least one can.’

‘I’d give anything to see one before I die,’ said Flead.

‘Er …’ Moist began.

‘Figure of speech, figure of speech,’ said Flead, waving a hand irritably.

‘I think that could be arranged,’ said Adora Belle. ‘In the meantime, we’ve transcribed their song into Boddely’s Phonetic Runes.’ She dipped into her bag and produced a small scroll. Flead reached out and once again an iridescent ghost of the scroll was now in his hands.