Maskerade: (Discworld Novel 18) by Terry Pratchett

Author:Terry Pratchett [Pratchett, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9781407034997
Google: wewEIa4Q3rUC
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2009-05-27T16:16:23+00:00

A hatch flew open. The Ghost clambered out, looked down, and slammed the hatch shut. There was a yowl from below.

Then he danced across the leads until he reached the gargoyle-encrusted parapet, black and silver in the moonlight. The wind caught at his cloak as he ran along the very edge of the roof and dropped down again near another door.

And a gargoyle was suddenly no longer a gargoyle, but a figure that reached down suddenly and twitched off his mask.

It was like cutting strings.

‘Good evening, Walter,’ said Granny, as he sagged to his knees.

‘Hello Missus Weatherwax!’

‘Mistress,’ Granny corrected him. ‘Now stand up.’

There was a growl further along the roof, and then a thump. Bits of trapdoor rose for a moment against the moonlight.

‘It’s nice up here, ain’t it?’ said Granny. ‘There’s fresh air and stars. I thought: up or down? But there’s only rats down below.’

In another swift movement she grabbed Walter’s chin and tilted it, just as Greebo pulled himself on to the roof with prolonged murder in his heart.

‘How does your mind work, Walter Plinge? If your house was on fire, what’s the first thing you’d try to take out?’

Greebo stalked along the rooftop, growling. He liked rooftops in general, and some of his fondest memories involved them, but a trapdoor had just been slammed on his head and he was looking for anything he could disembowel.

Then he recognized the shape of Walter Plinge as someone who had given him food. And, standing right next to him, the much more unwelcome shape of Granny Weatherwax, who had once caught him digging in her garden and had kicked him in the cucumbers.

Walter said something. Greebo didn’t take much notice of it.

Granny Weatherwax said: ‘Well done. A good answer. Greebo!’

Greebo nudged Walter heavily in the back.

‘Want milluk right noaow! Purr, purr!’

Granny thrust the mask at the cat. In the distance people were running up stairs and shouting.

‘You put this on! And you stay down real low, Walter Plinge. One man in a mask is pretty much like another, after all. And when they chase you, Greebo … give them a run for their money. Do it right and there could be—’

‘Yurr, I knoaow,’ said Greebo despondently, taking the mask. It was turning out to be a long and busy evening for a kipper.

Someone poked their head out of the stricken trapdoor. The light glinted off Greebo’s mask … and it had to be said, even by Granny, that he made a good Ghost. For one thing, his morphogenic field was trying to reassert itself. His claws could no longer even remotely be thought of as fingernails.

He spat at the pursuit as they poured up the steps, arched his back dramatically on the very edge of the roof, and stepped off.

One storey down he thrust out an arm, caught a windowsill, and landed on the head of a gargoyle, which said ‘Oh, fank oo ver’ mush’ in a reproachful voice.

The pursuers looked down at him. Some of them had managed to get hold of flaming torches, because sometimes convention is too strong to be lightly denied.

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