The Truth

horror he was already reaching into the box.
    “Mr. Wintler, I really don’t think—”
    But the hand was already rising, and there was the sound of something scraping on the side of the box. “I bet the young lady here would like a good chuckle too, eh?”
    William shut his eyes.
    He heard Sacharissa gasp. Then she said, “Golly, it’s amazingly lifelike!” William opened his eyes.
    “Oh, it’s a nose, ” he said. “A parsnip with a sort of knobbly face and a huge nose! ”
    “You vant I should take a picture?” said Otto.
    “Yes!” said William, drunk with relief. “Take a big picture of Mr. Wintler and his wonderfully nasal parsnip, Otto! Your first job! Yes, indeed!”
    Mr. Wintler beamed.
    “And shall I run back home and fetch my carrot?” he said.
    “No!” said William and Goodmountain, in whiplash unison.
    “You vant the picture right now?” said Otto.
    “We certainly do!” said William. “The sooner we can let him go home, the sooner our Mr. Wintler can find another wonderful vegetable, eh, Mr. Wintler? What will it be next time? A bean with ears? A beetroot shaped like a potato? A sprout with an enormous hairy tongue?”
    “Right here and now is ven you vant the picture?” said Otto, anxiety hanging off every syllable.
    “Right now, yes!”
    “As a matter of fact, there is a rutabaga coming along that I’ve got great hopes of—” Mr. Wintler began.
    “Oh, vell…if you vill look zis vay, Mr. Vintler,” said Otto. He got behind the iconograph and uncovered the lens. William got a glimpse of the imp peering out, brush poised. In his spare hand Otto slowly held up, on a stick, a cage containing a fat and drowsing salamander, and positioned his finger on the trigger that would bring a small hammer down on its head just hard enough to annoy it.
    “Be smiling, please!”
    “Hold on,” said Sacharissa, “should a vampire really—”
    Click .
    The salamander flared, etching the room with searing white light and dark shadows.
    Otto screamed. He fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. He sprang to his feet, goggle-eyed and gasping, and staggered, knock-kneed and wobbly legged, the length of the room and back again. He sank down behind a table, scattering paperwork with a wildly flailing hand.
    “Aarghaarghaaargh…”
    And then there was a shocked silence.
    Otto stood up, adjusted his cravat, and dusted himself off. Only then did he look up at the row of shocked faces.
    “Vell?” he said sternly. “Vot you all looking at? It is just a normal reaction, zat is all. I am vorking on it. Light in all itz forms is mine passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush.”
    “But strong light hurts you!” said Sacharissa. “It hurts vampires!”
    “Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go.”
    “And, er, that happens every time you take a picture, does it?” said William.
    “No, sometimes it iss a lot vorse.”
    “Worse?”
    “I sometimes crumble to dust. But zat which does not kill us makes us stronk.”
    “Stronk?”
    “Indeed!”
    William caught Sacharissa’s gaze. Her look said it all: We’ve hired him. Have we got the heart to fire him now? And don’t make fun of his accent unless your Uberwaldean is really good, okay?
    Otto adjusted the iconograph and inserted a fresh sheet
    “And now, shall ve try vun more?” he said brightly. “And zis time—everybody zmile!”

    Mail was arriving. William was used to a certain amount, usually from clients of his newsletter complaining that he hadn’t told them about the double-headed giants, plagues, and rains of domestic animals that they had heard had been happening in Ankh-Morpork; his father was right about one thing, at least, when he’d said that lies could run around the world before the truth could get its boots on. And it was amazing how people wanted to believe them.
    These were…well, it was as if he’d shaken a tree, and all the nuts had fallen out. Several letters were complaining that there had been much colder winters than this, although no two of them could agree when it was. One said vegetables were not as funny as they used to be, especially leeks. Another asked what the Guild of Thieves was doing about unlicensed crime in the city. There was one saying that all these robberies were down to dwarfs who shouldn’t be allowed into the city to steal the work out of honest humans’ mouths.
    “Put a title like ‘Letters’ on the top and put them in,” said William. “Except the one about