Hogfather

     'Why ain't there many guards, then?'

     'The ...  person who  owns the  property  probably does not realize the value of what ... of what they have.'

     'Locks?' said Medium Dave.

     'On our way we shall be picking up a locksmith.'

     'Who?'

     'Mr Brown.'

     They  nodded. Everyone  -  at  least, everyone  in 'the business',  and everyone in 'the business'  knew what 'the business' was,  and if you didn't know what  'the business' was you weren't a businessman - knew Mr Brown. His presence anywhere  around a job gave it a certain kind of respectability. He was a neat, elderly man who'd invented most of the tools in his big  leather bag. No  matter what cunning you'd used to  get into a place, or overcome  a small army, or find the secret treasure room, sooner or later you  sent  for Mr Brown, who'd turn  up with his  leather bag and his little springy things and his  little bottles of  strange alchemy and his  neat little boots.  And he'd do nothing for ten minutes but look at the lock, and then he'd select a piece of bent metal from a ring of several hundred almost  identical pieces, and under an hour later he'd be walkingaway with a neat ten per  cent of the takings. Of course, you didn't have  to  use Mr  Brown's services. You could always opt to spend the rest of your life looking at a locked door.

     'All right. Where is this place?' said Peachy.

     Teatime turned and smiled at him. 'If I'm paying you, why isn't it me who's asking the questions?'

     Peachy didn't even try to outstare the glass eye a second time.

     'Just want to be prepared, that's all,' he mumbled.

     'Good reconnaissance is  the essence of  a successful operation,'  said Teatime. He turned and looked up at the bulk that was Banjo and added, 'What is this?'

     'This is Banjo,' said Medium Dave, rolling himself a cigarette.

     'Does it do tricks?'

     Time stood still for a moment. The other men looked at  Medium Dave. He was known to Ankh-Morpork's professional underclass as a thoughtful, patient man, and considered something of an intellectual because some of his tattoos were spelled  right. He was reliable in a tight spot  and, above all, he was honest,  because good criminals have to be honest. If he had a fault, it was a tendency to deal  out  terminal  and  definitive retribution to anyone who said anything about his brother.

     If  he had a virtue, it was a tendency to pick his  time. Medium Dave's fingers tucked the tobacco into the paper and raised it to his lips.

     'No,' he said.

     Chickenwire tried to  defrost the conversation.  'He's not  what  you'd call  bright, but he's always useful. He can lift two men  in each  hand. By their necks.'

     'Yur,' said Banjo.

     'He looks like a volcano,' said Teatime.

     'Really?'  said Medium  Dave Lilywhite. Chickenwire reached out hastily and pushed him back down in his seat.

     Teatime turned and smiled at him.

     'I do so hope we're going to be friends, Mr Medium Dave,'  he said. 'It really hurts to think I might  not  be among  friends.' He  gave him another bright smile. Then he turned back to the rest of the table.

     'Are we resolved, gentlemen?'

     They nodded. There was  some reluctance, given the consensus  view that Teatime belonged in a room with soft walls, but ten thousand dollars was ten thousand dollars. possibly even more.

     'Good,' said Teatime.  He looked Banjo up and  down. 'Then I suppose we might as well make a start.'

     And he hit Banjo very hard in the mouth.

     Death  in person did not  turn up upon the cessation of  every life. It was not necessary. Governments govern, but prime ministers and presidents do not  personally turn  up in people's homes to  tell  them how  to run  their lives, because  of  the mortal  danger  this would  present. There are  laws instead.

     But  from time  to time  Death  checked  up  to  see that  things  were functioning properly or, to  put  it another and more accurate way, properly ceasing to function in the less significant areas of his jurisdiction.

     And now he walked through dark seas.

     Silt rose  in  clouds  around his  feet as  he  strode along the trench bottom. His robes floated out around him.

     There was silence,  pressure and  utter, utter darkness.  But there was life down  here, even this far below  the waves. There were giant squid, and lobsters  with  teeth on their eyelids. There were spidery things with their stomachs on their feet, and fish that made their own light.  It was a quiet, black nightmare world, but life lives everywhere  that life  can. Where life can't, this takes a little longer.

     Death's destination was a slight  rise in the trench floor. Already the water around him was getting  warmer and  more populated, by  creatures that looked as though  they had been  put together from the bits left  over  from everything else.

     Unseen but felt, a  vast column  of  scalding hot  water was welling up from  a fissure. Somewhere  below were rocks heated to near incandescence by the Disc's magical field.