Making Money

why was this stygium left in the safe?”
    “Good question. The key was in the man’s pocket. So what is our motive?”
    “Not enough information! Revenge? Silence? Maybe he’s made something he shouldn’t? Can you make a dagger out of this stuff?”
    “Ah, I think you are getting warm, Mr. Lipwig. Not about a weapon, because accretions of stygium much bigger than a ring tend to explode without warning. But he was a rather greedy man, that is true.”
    “An argument over something?” said Moist. Yes, I am getting warm, thank you! And what are the tongs for? To pick it up after it’s dropped through my hand?
    The light was growing; he could see faint shadows on the wall, he felt the sweat trickle down his spine—
    “An interesting thought. Do give me that ring back,” said Vetinari, proffering the box.
    Hah! So it was just a show to scare him, after all, Moist thought, flicking the wretched ring into the box. I’ve never even heard of stygium before today! He must have made it up—
    He sensed the heat before it, and saw the ring blaze white-hot as it fell into the box. The lid snapped shut, leaving a purple hole in Moist’s vision.
    “Remarkable, isn’t it,” said Vetinari. “Incidentally, I think you were needlessly silly to hold it all that time. I’m not a monster, you know.”
    No, monsters don’t play tricks with your brain, thought Moist. At least, while it’s still inside your head…
    “Look, about Owlswick, I didn’t mean—” he began, but Vetinari held up a hand.
    “I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Lipwig. In fact, I invited you here in your capacity as de facto deputy chairman of the Royal Bank. I want you to loan me—that is to say, the city—half a million dollars at two percent. You are, of course, at liberty to refuse.”
    So many thoughts scrambled for the emergency exit in Moist’s brain that only one remained:
    We’re going to need some bigger notes…

    MOIST RAN BACK to the bank, and straight to the little door under the stairs. He liked it down in the undercroft. It was cool and peaceful, apart from the gurgling of the Glooper and the screams.
    That last bit was wrong, wasn’t it?
    The pink poisons of involuntary insomnia slopped around in his head as he broke into a run.
    The former Owlswick was sitting in a chair, apparently clean-shaven except for a pointy little beard. Some kind of metal helmet had been attached to his head, and from it wires ran down into some glowing, clicking device that only an Igor would want to understand. The air smelled of thunderstorms.
    “What are you doing to this poor man?” Moist yelled.
    “Changing hith mind, thur,” said Igor, pulling a huge knife switch.
    The helmet buzzed. Clamp blinked.
    “It tickles,” he said. “And, for some reason, it tastes of strawberries.”
    “You’re putting lightning right into his head!” said Moist. “That’s barbaric!”
    “No, thur. Barbarianth don’t have the capabilitieth,” said Igor smoothly. “All I’m doing, thur, ith taking out all the bad memo-rieth and thtoring them—” here he pulled a cloth aside to reveal a big jar full of green liquid, containing something rounded and studded with still more wires “—into thith!”
    “You’re putting his brain into a…parsnip?”
    “It ith a turnip,” said Igor.
    “It’s amazing what they can do, isn’t it,” said a voice by Moist’s elbow. He looked down.
    Mr. Clamp, now helmetless, beamed up at him. He looked shiny and alert, like a better class of shoe salesman. Igor had even managed a suit transplant.
    “Are you all right?” said Moist.
    “Fine!”
    “What did…it feel like?”
    “Hard to explain,” said Clamp. “But it sounded like the smell of raspberries tastes.”
    “Really? Oh. I suppose that’s all right, then. And you really feel okay, in yourself?” said Moist, probing for the dreadful drawback. It had to be there. But Owls—Exorbit looked happy and full of confidence and vim, a man ready to take what life threw at him and knock it out of the court.
    Igor was winding up his wiring with what, under all those scars, was a very smug look on what was probably his face.
    Moist felt a pang of guilt. He was an Überwald boy, he’d come down the Vilinus Pass like everyone else, trying to seek his fortune—correction, everybody else’s fortune—and he had no right to pick up the fashionable lowland prejudice against the clan of Igors. After all, didn’t they simply put into practice