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After some trial and error, (“Who knew that there were specific kinds of shoes for private staff?”), Inga walks the streets of her new city, confident that as a necromancer's dead butler, she fits into society as she moves through it.

Used the A/I to attempt to illustrate my Discworld Fanfiction: Banded 1: On PlatformThorrin paused on the stairs, looking out the window. The stage was set up for his presentation, and it looked like all the Second Years were assembled on the grass.Inga was leading 7 zombies up to the back of the platform. “Showtime,” he said.She lifted him easily up and into everyone’s view. “Good morning! Welcome to Phrasing 101.“We’re gonna learn about thinking things out before you start. This is essential in spell casting and making a meal, but absolutely critical in giving orders to supernatural beings. Or natural beings in supernatural conditions.“We’re going to need some volunteers.” He sent little balls of light zipping across the crowd to pick seven boys, none of whom had raised their hands. “Good! Come on up!”They climbed the short staircase assembled at the front of the stage and lined up. Inga delivered the zombies, wearing tunics in blue, red, green, purple, yellow, flamingo, and orange.“Now, my butler, Inga.” She bowed, boys cheered. Everyone liked Inga. “She has placed seven colored flags on the top of the Tower of Art. “These cards,” he held up a wooden plate the size of a playing card. This one was painted a green to match one zombie’s tunic. “Each gives you mastery over one zombie. Take the card, address the matching zombie, and get the matching flag down off the roof.”The tower reared up behind Thorrin. It was huge, and bigger on the inside. Way bigger. The shadow could eclipse three buildings at once, at certain times of the year.The first student got the green card. Thorrin waved him permission to carry on."Okay,” he said, turning to address the body. “Go to the top of the Tower of Art and-“Faster than blinking, the zombie had jumped down, run to the Tower door, and gone inside.“I wasn’t done!” the student protested. “You gave him an instruction, he went to fulfill it,” Thorrin said. He turned to the crowd. “Okay, if you’re giving orders to someone like Inga, she has a mind. She can understand context. She can draw conclusions based on partial information.”“You say the nicest things,” she smiled at him.“But, today’s zombies do not have agency. They do EXACTLY what you tell them. So right now, Green is about halfway to the roof. Where he will stand until further instructions are given.”He turned around in time to see the student whispering ‘come BACK’ into the green card. “It’s a mark of authority,” Thorrin explained, “not a link.”The second student, Red, tried to defeat the limitations of the media by speed. Very quickly he spat out ‘Gotothetopofthetowerandgetthered- Shoot.”“Speed’s not the answer,” Thorrin told everyone. “Which is good, because sometimes those demons have names that are real tongue-twisters.“No, if you create the zombie, you have power to hold them in place. But this isn’t always going to work.”Yellow student said, “When I say ‘START!’ I want you to go to the top of the Tower of Art and get the yellow flag. START!” Everyone watched the zombie leave.After a minute of waiting, Thorrin asked the student, “When is she coming back?”“When it has the flag?”“Okay, first of all, if you’re talking about a zombie in one of my classes, it’s He, or She, not It.” Several nodded. Yellow gulped. “Whatever their status, now, they were people. You can never forget they were people. Lady knows, Inga never lets me forget.”“You’re just jealous that I’m Refuge’s favorite.”“I’m not jealous! But you don’t have to REMIND me that you’re the favorite.” He turned back to the crowd. They were a little uncomfortable. Refuge had a bit of a reputation among the student body.Of course, if they didn’t keep daring each other to sneak inside her for beer, she wouldn’t have gotten that rep. Idiots.“Someone tell me when the Yellow zombie is coming back?”“She’s not,” a student near the front said. “He never gave her return orders.”“Exactly, and I hope you get out of the habit of slapping your hand to your forehead like that. In many classes in this University, that could take your hand, arm, or head off.”Orange nearly had it. “On my instruction ‘start,’ go and get the orange flag off the top of the tower and bring it to me. Start.”The orange zombie turned, hopped off the stage, and ran off. Right past the door to the Tower of Art.“What Tower is he going to climb?”----- Seven tries, six and a half misses.[1] While the order givers were sent off to retrieve their zombies (if they could find them), he spoke to the others.“Okay. Now, imagine if that was you, giving orders to an imp you’d summoned. Or a demon. Or a devil. Or a waiter. Or if you go into private business, your office clerk.“My dad used to say, the two WORST things a boss could hear from an employee: one, you never told me to do that; and two, that’s what you told me to do.“Or if you make an artifact that gets things in the wrong order. Any spell you cast, you need a firm picture of the desired result, you know this.“But also, consider how a stenographer would record the orders you’re giving. “Or how the Watch’s sketch artist might interpret your stated instructions.”He glanced at the sun to gauge the time. “Okay. For next week, write out the instruction list to send last week’s wooden spider to get a steel marble out of a cup in a room you can’t see. Off you go!”----- Inga cheerfully followed him to his office, smiling at everyone she met. In this building they were all wizards of the Midnight order. Elsewhere, she also smiled at faculty, administrative staff, cooks, maids, janitors, laundry women, and any face looking out of the stonework.[2]She didn’t have to sleep so she often wandered the campus looking for someone that needed help. Thorrin kept Midnighter hours, so she could turn up literally any time while he was sleeping or doing something she shouldn’t interfere with.And sometimes she just did maid-work in the Midnight buildings since she wasn’t afraid of much she found there.[3]“What’s next?” she asked as he put the flags and cards on a shelf.“Urtter wants me to check the grammar on his Manifesto,” Thorrin said, waving at a folder on the desk.“He’s leaving? I like him!”“You like everybody. And no, he just knows he’s not great at manifestos and it’s going to take a few tries.”“Oh. I can’t read Morporkian,” she said sadly.“No, you can’t help. You can go see if Refuge has seen any students and let them out.”“Oh! Yeah!” she turned and walked out.----- “Got a note from the Patrician,” Mustrum said, opening the meeting of his Wizards’ Council by virtue of the fact that he’d started talking. “What does he want?” the Dean asked. “Seems the Seriph needs a wizard. And will make some trade concessions to Ankh-Morpork if we provide one.”“Doesn’t Klatch HAVE wizards?” Stibbons asked.“They need a necromancer,” the Archchancellor read. All eyes turned to Divan Jerichotree, 8th level Wizard, Head of the Midnight Order, and essentially the manager of all the UU necromancers.“Don’t they…?” someone started to ask.“No, they don’t,” Divan said. “They don’t have any necromancers. Necromancy is illegal in Klatch.”“Typical,” Ridcully muttered. “Drive them out of Klatch, sending them here, taking jobs from honest Morporkian wizards.”The Dean scratched his beard. “I’m trying to remember something about the Klatch legal system.”“Death Penalty,” Divan said, deadpan, while staring at the Archchandellor. “They killed all their necromancers.”“Why?” Ponder asked. “Was there some sort of divine revelation from Offler?”[4]“You know how world leaders routinely have these vast tombs made, full of booby traps, and have the engineer put to death so no one can ever know how to defeat it? Someone got the idea of hiring a necromancer to raise the engineer’s shade, then go steal all the buried treasure.”“Did it work?” Ridcully asked.“Apparently not. The only survivor said the ghost got them past a couple of levels,, then something went enthusiastically Snap! and he ran.”“Think the ghost misled them?” the Dean asked.“They’re raiding the tomb of the guy that had him killed,” Stibbons mused. “Think he’d be quite forthcoming.”“I’d have given them the blueprints, keys, maps of the Seriph’s grandfathers’ tombs…” Ridcully said. “But one thing bothers me. ‘Necromancer’ is just a specialty, not a limitation. Any wizard that can find the right spell, and gather enough power, can raise a shade.”“And,” replied Sayed Al-Rayet, Top Wizard of The Venerable Council of Seers, and one of fourteen wizards at UU with a Klatchian accent, “it would be REALLY nice if you were not to say that very often, Archchancellor.”“It’s not a secret,” Mustrum protested.“No,” Sayed said, “but it IS a threat to all the other wizards currently living in Klatch, whether they’re necromancers or not.”“But there’s no one from Klatch that’s here,” Ridcully said, dismissing the concern, and fourteen wizards, one in the room.“Maybe the ghost was honest about the traps, but contractors screwed things up installing one,” the Bursar offered, only slightly out of phase with the conversation for once.Everyone laughed at that, the idea that Klatchian thieves had been done in by the trap failing to be up to specification. The Bursar, who had been serious, didn’t quite understand what everyone was laughing at, but he’d learned that protesting served no purpose. Instead, he just used that little half-humble, half-triumphant smile people wear when they pretend they meant whatever it was they just got credit for.“Still,” Ridcully said, after a few more jokes at the expense of the thieves. “We need to send them a necromancer.”“Might be possible,” Divan said. “I know the perfect choice. But Klatch can be a little picky about women.”Everyone stared at him. They all knew all wizards were male. Finally, Stibbons asked, “What does that matter?” “He won’t go if he can’t take Inga.”----- Thorrin and Inga arrived at the Patrician’s Palace a little after sunrise. Carter was waiting for them just inside the portico. “Thorrin the Banded!” he called cheerfully, just before the guards blocked their way. “And Inga Cadence Caller! Come in, come in!” He held a hand out to the wizard in welcome.“Are you on this…whatever we’re doing?” Inga asked as she took a welcoming hug.[5]“Sadly, no, I have another mission, but I can brief you.”“If you have another mission to go start, then it had better be a brief brief,” Thorrin said. Carter smiled as if he hadn’t heard that joke before.A conference room had a map of Klatch, a small portrait of some Seriph or another, a folder, and some pastries. Inga aimed for the food, taking a deep sniff of each one. “They smell heavenly! Compliments to the chef!”“Better throw those out, now,” Thorrin said. “She’s learned to smell the spirit right out of the food. They’ll taste like wax.”“I have more hidden away from her, if you want one,” Carter smiled. He’d spent a winter with the zombie and had lost a few races to breakfast.“You remember!” she laughed. “Brief,” Thorrin said.“What do you know about Klatchian politics?”“I know not to set up shop there.”Carter nodded. “Well, they’re having a bit of a power struggle right now. Two candidates for the next Seriph… One of them is a woman.”“Yay!” Inga said, searching the room for the hiding place of the other pastries. If her boss didn’t want them, they shouldn’t go to waste.“I thought all Seriphs had to be men?” Thorrin said. “They’ve always been men, the question is if they MUST be.” Carter walked around the table and picked up the portrait. Then moved as the pastries had been hidden behind it.“His Mighty and Judgmental Al Kohl Holl, Seriph of All Klatch, laid down the law a thousand years ago on who could be Seriph after him. Acceptable bloodlines, necessary ages, disqualifying hobbies, all that. Thing is, he did not make it clear if they could be women. It just hasn’t come up because every possible Seriph born since has been a boy.” Thorrin nodded.[6] “But now the question has come up.”“Yes. And the exact question is primogeniture.”“Was that what Earlinda collapsed from?” Inga asked her boss.He gestured at his nose, indicating she had pulverized sugar under hers. “No, that was megapachydermophobia. Primogeniture is a rule that the firstborn son inherits.”“Yes, and right now, the firstborn child is Fatima, while her little brother, Malik, is the second.”“And this leads to a necromancer rather than a lawyer because…?” Thorrin asked. “Oh, it did lead to lawyers.” Carter handed his handkerchief to Inga. “The language of the edict is very clear that Fatima qualifies… IF women can be Seriphs. They felt that, are you sniffing the spirit out of my handkerchief? Is that possible?”“No,” Inga said, tossing the cloth back to him guiltily. “It just smelled so nice.”“They felt,” Thorrin guessed, “that the best solution was to raise old Mighty Holl and ask him.”“You guessed it!” Carter said cheerfully. Then raised a warning finger. “Without, we hope, getting an answer that sparks a civil war, or harms our trade agreement, or costs us the trade concessions that have been offered.”“What do you trade Klatch for, anyway,” Inga said, sitting down by the wizard.“Foreign,” Thorrin and Carter said together. Thorrin continued, "It's our closest source of foreign.” Inga opened her mouth. He added, “Without carrying loads of it across the Ramtop Mountains.” She nodded and sat back. She respected the crossing of the Ramtops into Uberwald. She’d died on that route.“Oh,” Carter added, “IF you could see to it that our best choice for an ally rises to power in-““No,” Thorrin said. “They get what they get. I’m sure there will be quite competent wizards watching everything. Mess up in front of them, might guarantee that whoever gets in power is our worst nightmare.” He picked up the folder and scanned the contents. “Ticket to Al-Khali-““Ticket?” Inga asked. “Not plural?”“He’s met me,” Thorrin said, paging through the instructions to find the boat that was waiting for them, and where to go when they got across the Circle Sea. “And knows I wouldn’t do it without you. It’ll be fine.”“He needs you,” Carter told Inga with a wink.“He needs someone!” Inga laughed. “Oh! Is-?”“Earlinda’s on a mission to Gonim,” he said.“Okay. Let me think about this,” Thorrin said.“Yeah. Think about it,” Inga said. “I’ve never been to Klatch. If you don’t go, can I go?” “Sure,” Thorrin said, striding for the door. Inga froze, a stricken look.“He’s joking,” Carter assured her. She ran off after him. Carter went around the room, cleaning up after the meeting. The pastries were dumped, the portrait and map folded together. He would report success to Vetinari.Vetinari sorted his personnel resources into three groups. Two of them, he considered assets. First, he had the full roster of the city’s civil and military staff, aides, and auxiliaries as a huge, expensive resource that, somehow, didn’t quite destroy his efforts to rule the city-state of Ankh-Morpork and surrounding lands. As one set of assets, he had people who he trusted to complete any direct order he gave them, like Carter. Most of them were trained as assassins along with other useful skills and specialties.He also had people who might not follow orders to the letter, but he could trust them to do the right thing in any situation. Duke Vimes and his wife were two of these. To Carter’s amazement, so was Moist von Lipwig. Thorrin was shaping up to be one of these, as long as he had Inga. And the two of them had gotten Earlinda reclassified from the first group of assets to the second.With the briefing materials stowed away, Carter went off to find the other two assassins he was working with. They were Earlinda’s support if she needed any. Carter rather expected to be bored.----- All work on the vessel stopped when Thorrin and Inga stopped at the brow. “Is this the Sundered Spirit?” he called to the crew. “I’m supposed to meet the Sundered Spirit for passage to Klatch.”“We was told one passenger,” a sailor called back.“I am one passenger,” he replied. “And this is my butler.” Inga smiled, adjusted her tie, and waved. Thorrin glanced around the ship.“They’re staring at me,” she whispered. He pointed to the pennant at the stern. “Istanzia crew. They’re superstitious about women on sailing vessels.”“What do I do?”“Ask them what they’re doing. Sailors love to explain their jobs to pretty women[7].” He walked up the plank to stand on the deck. “Where does my butler put my bags?”“You making a woman carry your stuff?” another sailor asked.“Inga, do you mind carrying my luggage?” he asked, not turning around. She lowered the bags to the wharf. Then walked over to a wagon with large sacks of grain being shipped out. They were being lifted to a cargo net, two men to a sack. She stiff-armed one over the gunwale, across the deck and into the hold below. The still-frozen men looked at her as she reached for another sack. A voice called from below, “What the BOILING HELLS was THAT?!”“A butler,” the first sailor shouted down the hatch, then turned to Inga. “That’s fine, miss, don’t toss any more. Go too fast, the gangmen can’t keep it straight.”She smiled, nodded, adjusted her bowler, and picked up the luggage. When she reached the deck, the second sailor bowed. “Please allow me to show you to your stateroom.”Thorrin elected to sit and study the briefing materials until they cast off, leaving Inga to express interest about all shippnig matters.Her only other nautical experiences were a paddleboat and a Dragonboat, so she had lots of questions. And she was sincerely interested, so she got the long answers.The first tday of sailing were placid. No one local harassed shipping out of Ankh-Morpork, the city took a very dim view of interrupted commerce.The second day, there was a pirate. The lookouts let Inga be the one to run and tell the wizard. He glanced at the ship with the black sails, then cast thirteen very tiny fireballs. They zipped over the waves to the approaching vessel.“Think those are big enough?” the captain asked.“I think so,” Thorrin said. On the other ship, they watched the little lights stitch holes in the sail. They zipped through, then zipped back in a slightly different place. The pirates soon realized the holes spelled out ‘WIZARD ON BOARD.” “Right full rudder!” the captain shouted. “HARD ABOUT! Make for Omnia!”On the Spirit, the captain lowered his telescope. “Nicely done. What happens if the next one’s illiterate?”“In wizard school,” Thorrin said, “we call it natural selection.”The next day, there were three ships that appeared and approached in formation. They proudly flew the same pirate’s flag, Bloody Blade Bob. Thorrin’s tiny fireballs didn’t work. Either Bob was illiterate, or he thought it was some sort of bluff. They continued on a closing course.“Real fireballs next?” Thorrin’s host asked. The wizard hesitated. He wasn’t really good at combat magic. Or one might say, he was REALLY good at combat magic, just not at throttling it. His choices were warning shots and utter annihilation. “I don’t really want to destroy them,” he muttered.“Got it!” Inga called. They turned at the metallic sound of a chain parting. Inga spun the anchor around her head a few times, then released it. It skipped across the water like a stone, then hit the leading ship’s hull, just above the waterline. As that crew frantically tried to limit flooding, and the other ships wheeled and ran, Thorrin turned to the captain. “We’ll buy you a new anchor in Al-Khali,” he said.“Oh, that old thing?” the captain said, smile stretching across his face in desperation. “Don’t worry about it.”“Rusty old thing,” the pilot said. “Should have replaced it years ago.”“The leagues on that thing,” the captain mused.“Plagues?” Inga asked from his elbow. “Where?” The poor man jumped up onto the gunwale, arms wheeling as he tried to balance there.Inga pulled him down and dusted him off helpfully. Thorrin had to bite his cheek, watching her being friendly at a man terrified she was going to rip him apart. He finally took pity on the captain and turned to the pilot. Pointing at the stricken vessel, he loudly asked, “So what are they doing over there?”“Well, they’d be wrapping a sail around the hole, then bailing water.”“A sail?” Inga asked, coming over to the ship’s wheel. “How does that help?” The captain made his escape.His nerves had settled by the time they docked, and he even gave a not-terribly-inflated estimate for the new anchor. Thorrin set up Refuge on the wharf and sent Inga to retrieve that much gold from the storeroom.No one paid much attention to the little building that appeared, unless it blocked traffic. Beyond the port, crowds of people went about their business without pause or notice. Rincewind had once told Thorrin that Al-Khali was just like Ankh-Morpork, but with sand instead of mud.With the captain reimbursed, they set off to find their next contact, the AM Embassy.Thorrin was quite at home with the endless attempts to sell him something as they walked along. Inga, not quite so much. Especially as they all seemed to think she REALLY needed a scarf.“No, thank you,” she tried to tell them. “No, no, not my color. Yes, it’s very lovely, get away.” But she didn’t speak Klatchian, beyond what University porters said when they dropped anything breakable.She caught up to Thorrin and walked beside him. “Doesn’t really seem like scarf weather,” she said.“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Everyone’s selling me scarves! Can’t they see my tie?”“Inga, those are veils.” He paused long enough to shout, in Klatchian, “My butler doesn’t need any veil!”“Begging a thousand pardons, sir,” the nearest vendor said, “but she most definitely does. It is, by the Grace of Offler, the law that beautiful women must cover their faces.”“Law, huh? Good to know.” He turned and walked on. “What did he say?” Inga asked, pushing through the crowd in his wake. “He said you’re beautiful and you’re going to get arrested,” Thorrin said, looking for landmarks.“Really?” she asked. Then smiled. “I’ve never BEEN arrested before!” Thorrin bet himself that she wasn’t about to be, either. “This way.” They were about half a block from the embassy gate when two of the city’s guards blocked their way. “You are causing a disturbance,” one said. “Not yet I’m not,” Thorrin said cheerfully. But he stopped walking. “This woman needs to come with us,” the other said. “She has been seen.”“Is she supposed to be invisible?” Thorrin asked.“They pointed at me,” Inga said. “Is this my arrest?” She put the bags down. “I want to see the inside of the jail! Oh, but I need to put the bags inside, first.”“What is she saying?” the first guard asked.“I’m not paid enough to be the interpreter,” Thorrin said. He nodded towards the embassy. “I’ll be over there when you’re finished.”The second guard started to reach out to restrain him. Sparks shot up the wizard’s staff and spread out across the street. He withdrew his hand.Instead they grabbed Inga. “Come with us!” they ordered.“Nice to meet you, but first I have to take these bags to where Master Animator Thorrin is going,” she said. They yanked. She didn’t move. Thorrin rang the bell at the gate. “No, really, once I get these to the embassy, you can arrest me, but I simply cannot leave them in the middle of the street. That colorful street urchin looks very interested in my boss’ luggage.” They pushed and shoved. “I said I have a responsibility!” They swore, kicking at her legs trying to unstick her from the ground.“Ask ‘em what the charges are!” Thorrin yelled.“What are the charges? THEY WON’T TELL ME!”“They still don’t speak Morporkian,” he yelled back.“You are a big meany!”The gate opened and a diplomatic functionary looked at Thorrin with a smile. “You must be the wizard from Home!”“It’s open!” Thorrin told Inga. “I must,” he told the greeter.“Okay, I have to go, now.” She shook off the guards and lifted the bags. Then trotted up to the gate where Thorrin held it open. “Where can I put these while I’m arrested?”The diplomat shrieked and dragged her inside. This worked only because inside the gate was where she wanted to be anyway. Thorrin followed more calmly. “You can’t be out there like this!” the diplomat hissed.“Burdened?” Thorrin asked. “I’m his butler! A man with a butler shouldn’t carry his own bags!”“The face! The trousers! Women in Al-Khali always wear veils but never wear trousers!”“She worked hard on getting her butler clothes!” Thorrin protested. “Learning the right look, getting the right clothes, endless fittings…”“What do butlers in Klatch wear?” Inga asked.“And the shoes!” Thorrin went on. “Who knew that there were specific kinds of shoes for private staff?”“There aren’t any!” the man told Inga. “They have a completely different system.”“Then how do they know I’m not doing it right?” she asked, quite sincere. The lower functionary decided to let the ambassador handle this.He brought them inside, directed other staff to take the bags and bring refreshments, then led the two into a parlor. There they waited for some time, while some sort of conversation took place out in the hall. Angry people spoke urgently but trying not to be overheard.Inga looked around. “Think anyone’s read the books on that shelf?""Not likely,” he said, relaxing into an overstuffed chair. Finally, the door opened and the ambassador to Klatch walked in. Sir Henry Pettifogg Harcourt, II and III,[8] Baron of Slowlake, had been in Klatch long enough to ‘go native.’ Of course, for an Ankh-Morpork nobleman going ‘native’ went little further than eating spiced foods and knowing ten words in the local tongue.“Marhaba ,” he said. “That’s-““Welcome,” Thorrin translated before he could. “Thanks. So, my butler was accosted in the street. Do I file a complaint through you, or do I see the Seriph about that?”Harcourt suffered a coughing fit at the thought of bothering the Seriph with an issue about law enforcement at the street level. Especially involving a female. And a Barbarian female at that!Thorrin waited patiently, though Inga bent down to his ear to call him a meany again.“Well, it’s a, you see, more of a misunderstanding than ‘accosting,’ actually. You, uh, or rather she, was in violation of the local laws.”“But we’re citizens of Ankh-Morpork,” Thorrin said, instantly remembering that he’d certainly intended to establish Inga’s citizenship. But he’d been so busy… Had he just told a lie? “Doesn’t really, I mean it doesn’t matter at all, really,” Harcourt said, taking a seat of his own. “It’s not a law about, um, limits on a citizen’s, well, behavior, it’s about what the male citizens see. Or shouldn’t see. Or, you know, shouldn't be forced to see. They shouldn’t see the skin of a woman they’re not married to.”“Well, I can fix that,” Thorrin said. “I’m going to stick to my clothes, aren’t I?” Inga asked. “Can’t be helped, we’re law-abiding people.” He snapped his fingers. Inga’s skin faded away. She smiled at the ambassador, while she tugged her shirt away from her chest muscles.“I, ah, I, I, I mean to say, they can’t, well, see her, her flesh!”“Okay.” A second later, there was just a skeleton behind his chair, the suit hanging limp on the bones.Inga walked over to a small, tasteful mirror by the door. She examined herself while Harcourt tried to fashion a sentence that wouldn’t make things even worse.“Oh, NO!” she cried. “I have a crack!” She fingered her skull. “When did I get a crack?”“I think it was on the occasion, and cause, of your demise,” Thorrin said sympathetically. “Can you fix it?”“With a full restoration, but those seem to be illegal here.” He walked over and examined the side of her skull. “Refuge does have several kinds of mortar and spackle. We can fill it, sand it down, polish-““Please!” she implored her employer.“Don’t do the puppy dog eyes when you don’t have eyes,” he said, but not a remonstration, more as a critique of the performance.“Wouldn’t,” Harcourt finally attempted, “Wouldn’t it be, wouldn’t you find it, um, easier to give her a veil than cast an illusion?”Thorrin looked around. There was a bowl of spiced peanuts at the table beside them. He grabbed a handful and tossed a few in Inga’s skull. She looked at him sharply, making them rattle. That had her facing the mirror again, rattling vigorously. She might have giggled. She certainly grinned.“Catch,” Thorrin said. He tossed her a few more nuts, she opened her mouth. The nuts fell through the bottom of her jaw and made dull accordion sounds against her ribs. She shook her pant legs until the nuts hit the floor. “No illusion,” he told Harcourt. “This is my butler, and my bodyguard, and my best friend in the world. Take her as she is, or I go back home.”“Oh, you can’t do that!” Harcourt snapped. “Many important people have made QUITE critical promises on this matter!”“He stopped stammering,” Inga noted, trying to shake the nuts back out of the hole. “It’s all fun and games until the Patrician gets an angry clacks,” Thorrin said. “Yes, we do not want to have to tell the Patrician that you stood up the Seriph for the honor of your BUTLER.” The ambassador’s earlier manner had been wiped away. He was a dedicated government official, now, all about the mission. “Insult my butler one more time and this is no longer my problem,” Thorrin replied, a dedicated friend. The two men stared at each other. Inga stepped between them. “Can I at least see the Seriph’s palace before we go? Sayed told me so much about it when he learned we were coming.”Thorrin looked away first. He sighed and sat down again. “Look, I’m willing to put up with a lot. But this country killed all their necromancers, so I’m not in the mood to cut them much slack.“They find they need my services, then putting up with Inga will be part of the cost.” He tapped his beard. “Is there a law against skeletons walking around in Al-Khali?”“I’m sure there is not,” Harcourt replied tersely. “Yet.”“Then we’re legal,” the wizard said. And not flippantly. He was trying to work with the man, not taunt him. Not any more, anyway.“They are pretty desperate,” Henry conceded. He drummed his fingers on the armrest. “You know, it’s damned disconcerting, not knowing who she’s talking to.”“I can point!” Inga said, pointing at Harcourt. “Will that work?” she asked Thorrin, pointing at him.“I just mean,” Henry explained, “that it’s allowable that a woman’s eyes show.”“Oh!” Thorrin said. He made hand-cranking motions around her skull. Her eyes grew. Big, white orbs, floating in empty holes, with no eyelids, eyebrows, forehead, or any other features to give her an actual expression. “I look SO surprised!” she said from the mirror. She twisted back and forth, watching the eyes move around in the sockets.Thorrin nodded, accepting the peace offering. Henry nodded back, thinking he’d made a concession to the wizard’s ego, not the zombie’s dignity. Inga moaned. “My hat probably doesn’t fit, now.” [1] Inga insisted that he give some credit to the boy that said ‘please’ to his zombie. [2] Being the Unseen University, not all the ones that smiled back were gargoyles. [3] Still a little queasy about Igors performing surgeries on not-unconscious Igors, but dead things were okay. She knew how they felt. [4] Offler would be offended by this assumption. The only thing he forbade was broccoli, figuring no one wanted to eat it anyway. [5] Carter had tried to offer the butler an appropriate handshake as well, but…Inga. [6] Statistically, this is an incredible track record. Statistics (and genetics) don’t really matter all that much on the Disc. Could be the hand of Offler, or another god, a demon, an imp, a curse, any number of spells, or even just the unlikeliest of natural results. [7] An easy guess. Everyone loves to talk about their jobs to people who appear interested. If they're attractive, that’s a bonus. [8] Two branches of the family claimed the title after a third branch had been unexpectedly and accidentally hung from lamp posts by angry peasants. Henry’s grandparents’ marriage had sealed the branches and almost solved the inheritance issue. Thus ‘Second and Third’ of his line(s), depending on how you counted it.

Description
After some trial and error, (“Who knew that there were specific kinds of shoes for private staff?”), Inga walks the streets of her new city, confident that as a necromancer's dead butler, she fits into society as she moves through it.

Used the A/I to attempt to illustrate my Discworld Fanfiction: Banded 1: On PlatformThorrin paused on the stairs, looking out the window. The stage was set up for his presentation, and it looked like all the Second Years were assembled on the grass.Inga was leading 7 zombies up to the back of the platform. “Showtime,” he said.She lifted him easily up and into everyone’s view. “Good morning! Welcome to Phrasing 101.“We’re gonna learn about thinking things out before you start. This is essential in spell casting and making a meal, but absolutely critical in giving orders to supernatural beings. Or natural beings in supernatural conditions.“We’re going to need some volunteers.” He sent little balls of light zipping across the crowd to pick seven boys, none of whom had raised their hands. “Good! Come on up!”They climbed the short staircase assembled at the front of the stage and lined up. Inga delivered the zombies, wearing tunics in blue, red, green, purple, yellow, flamingo, and orange.“Now, my butler, Inga.” She bowed, boys cheered. Everyone liked Inga. “She has placed seven colored flags on the top of the Tower of Art. “These cards,” he held up a wooden plate the size of a playing card. This one was painted a green to match one zombie’s tunic. “Each gives you mastery over one zombie. Take the card, address the matching zombie, and get the matching flag down off the roof.”The tower reared up behind Thorrin. It was huge, and bigger on the inside. Way bigger. The shadow could eclipse three buildings at once, at certain times of the year.The first student got the green card. Thorrin waved him permission to carry on."Okay,” he said, turning to address the body. “Go to the top of the Tower of Art and-“Faster than blinking, the zombie had jumped down, run to the Tower door, and gone inside.“I wasn’t done!” the student protested. “You gave him an instruction, he went to fulfill it,” Thorrin said. He turned to the crowd. “Okay, if you’re giving orders to someone like Inga, she has a mind. She can understand context. She can draw conclusions based on partial information.”“You say the nicest things,” she smiled at him.“But, today’s zombies do not have agency. They do EXACTLY what you tell them. So right now, Green is about halfway to the roof. Where he will stand until further instructions are given.”He turned around in time to see the student whispering ‘come BACK’ into the green card. “It’s a mark of authority,” Thorrin explained, “not a link.”The second student, Red, tried to defeat the limitations of the media by speed. Very quickly he spat out ‘Gotothetopofthetowerandgetthered- Shoot.”“Speed’s not the answer,” Thorrin told everyone. “Which is good, because sometimes those demons have names that are real tongue-twisters.“No, if you create the zombie, you have power to hold them in place. But this isn’t always going to work.”Yellow student said, “When I say ‘START!’ I want you to go to the top of the Tower of Art and get the yellow flag. START!” Everyone watched the zombie leave.After a minute of waiting, Thorrin asked the student, “When is she coming back?”“When it has the flag?”“Okay, first of all, if you’re talking about a zombie in one of my classes, it’s He, or She, not It.” Several nodded. Yellow gulped. “Whatever their status, now, they were people. You can never forget they were people. Lady knows, Inga never lets me forget.”“You’re just jealous that I’m Refuge’s favorite.”“I’m not jealous! But you don’t have to REMIND me that you’re the favorite.” He turned back to the crowd. They were a little uncomfortable. Refuge had a bit of a reputation among the student body.Of course, if they didn’t keep daring each other to sneak inside her for beer, she wouldn’t have gotten that rep. Idiots.“Someone tell me when the Yellow zombie is coming back?”“She’s not,” a student near the front said. “He never gave her return orders.”“Exactly, and I hope you get out of the habit of slapping your hand to your forehead like that. In many classes in this University, that could take your hand, arm, or head off.”Orange nearly had it. “On my instruction ‘start,’ go and get the orange flag off the top of the tower and bring it to me. Start.”The orange zombie turned, hopped off the stage, and ran off. Right past the door to the Tower of Art.“What Tower is he going to climb?”----- Seven tries, six and a half misses.[1] While the order givers were sent off to retrieve their zombies (if they could find them), he spoke to the others.“Okay. Now, imagine if that was you, giving orders to an imp you’d summoned. Or a demon. Or a devil. Or a waiter. Or if you go into private business, your office clerk.“My dad used to say, the two WORST things a boss could hear from an employee: one, you never told me to do that; and two, that’s what you told me to do.“Or if you make an artifact that gets things in the wrong order. Any spell you cast, you need a firm picture of the desired result, you know this.“But also, consider how a stenographer would record the orders you’re giving. “Or how the Watch’s sketch artist might interpret your stated instructions.”He glanced at the sun to gauge the time. “Okay. For next week, write out the instruction list to send last week’s wooden spider to get a steel marble out of a cup in a room you can’t see. Off you go!”----- Inga cheerfully followed him to his office, smiling at everyone she met. In this building they were all wizards of the Midnight order. Elsewhere, she also smiled at faculty, administrative staff, cooks, maids, janitors, laundry women, and any face looking out of the stonework.[2]She didn’t have to sleep so she often wandered the campus looking for someone that needed help. Thorrin kept Midnighter hours, so she could turn up literally any time while he was sleeping or doing something she shouldn’t interfere with.And sometimes she just did maid-work in the Midnight buildings since she wasn’t afraid of much she found there.[3]“What’s next?” she asked as he put the flags and cards on a shelf.“Urtter wants me to check the grammar on his Manifesto,” Thorrin said, waving at a folder on the desk.“He’s leaving? I like him!”“You like everybody. And no, he just knows he’s not great at manifestos and it’s going to take a few tries.”“Oh. I can’t read Morporkian,” she said sadly.“No, you can’t help. You can go see if Refuge has seen any students and let them out.”“Oh! Yeah!” she turned and walked out.----- “Got a note from the Patrician,” Mustrum said, opening the meeting of his Wizards’ Council by virtue of the fact that he’d started talking. “What does he want?” the Dean asked. “Seems the Seriph needs a wizard. And will make some trade concessions to Ankh-Morpork if we provide one.”“Doesn’t Klatch HAVE wizards?” Stibbons asked.“They need a necromancer,” the Archchancellor read. All eyes turned to Divan Jerichotree, 8th level Wizard, Head of the Midnight Order, and essentially the manager of all the UU necromancers.“Don’t they…?” someone started to ask.“No, they don’t,” Divan said. “They don’t have any necromancers. Necromancy is illegal in Klatch.”“Typical,” Ridcully muttered. “Drive them out of Klatch, sending them here, taking jobs from honest Morporkian wizards.”The Dean scratched his beard. “I’m trying to remember something about the Klatch legal system.”“Death Penalty,” Divan said, deadpan, while staring at the Archchandellor. “They killed all their necromancers.”“Why?” Ponder asked. “Was there some sort of divine revelation from Offler?”[4]“You know how world leaders routinely have these vast tombs made, full of booby traps, and have the engineer put to death so no one can ever know how to defeat it? Someone got the idea of hiring a necromancer to raise the engineer’s shade, then go steal all the buried treasure.”“Did it work?” Ridcully asked.“Apparently not. The only survivor said the ghost got them past a couple of levels,, then something went enthusiastically Snap! and he ran.”“Think the ghost misled them?” the Dean asked.“They’re raiding the tomb of the guy that had him killed,” Stibbons mused. “Think he’d be quite forthcoming.”“I’d have given them the blueprints, keys, maps of the Seriph’s grandfathers’ tombs…” Ridcully said. “But one thing bothers me. ‘Necromancer’ is just a specialty, not a limitation. Any wizard that can find the right spell, and gather enough power, can raise a shade.”“And,” replied Sayed Al-Rayet, Top Wizard of The Venerable Council of Seers, and one of fourteen wizards at UU with a Klatchian accent, “it would be REALLY nice if you were not to say that very often, Archchancellor.”“It’s not a secret,” Mustrum protested.“No,” Sayed said, “but it IS a threat to all the other wizards currently living in Klatch, whether they’re necromancers or not.”“But there’s no one from Klatch that’s here,” Ridcully said, dismissing the concern, and fourteen wizards, one in the room.“Maybe the ghost was honest about the traps, but contractors screwed things up installing one,” the Bursar offered, only slightly out of phase with the conversation for once.Everyone laughed at that, the idea that Klatchian thieves had been done in by the trap failing to be up to specification. The Bursar, who had been serious, didn’t quite understand what everyone was laughing at, but he’d learned that protesting served no purpose. Instead, he just used that little half-humble, half-triumphant smile people wear when they pretend they meant whatever it was they just got credit for.“Still,” Ridcully said, after a few more jokes at the expense of the thieves. “We need to send them a necromancer.”“Might be possible,” Divan said. “I know the perfect choice. But Klatch can be a little picky about women.”Everyone stared at him. They all knew all wizards were male. Finally, Stibbons asked, “What does that matter?” “He won’t go if he can’t take Inga.”----- Thorrin and Inga arrived at the Patrician’s Palace a little after sunrise. Carter was waiting for them just inside the portico. “Thorrin the Banded!” he called cheerfully, just before the guards blocked their way. “And Inga Cadence Caller! Come in, come in!” He held a hand out to the wizard in welcome.“Are you on this…whatever we’re doing?” Inga asked as she took a welcoming hug.[5]“Sadly, no, I have another mission, but I can brief you.”“If you have another mission to go start, then it had better be a brief brief,” Thorrin said. Carter smiled as if he hadn’t heard that joke before.A conference room had a map of Klatch, a small portrait of some Seriph or another, a folder, and some pastries. Inga aimed for the food, taking a deep sniff of each one. “They smell heavenly! Compliments to the chef!”“Better throw those out, now,” Thorrin said. “She’s learned to smell the spirit right out of the food. They’ll taste like wax.”“I have more hidden away from her, if you want one,” Carter smiled. He’d spent a winter with the zombie and had lost a few races to breakfast.“You remember!” she laughed. “Brief,” Thorrin said.“What do you know about Klatchian politics?”“I know not to set up shop there.”Carter nodded. “Well, they’re having a bit of a power struggle right now. Two candidates for the next Seriph… One of them is a woman.”“Yay!” Inga said, searching the room for the hiding place of the other pastries. If her boss didn’t want them, they shouldn’t go to waste.“I thought all Seriphs had to be men?” Thorrin said. “They’ve always been men, the question is if they MUST be.” Carter walked around the table and picked up the portrait. Then moved as the pastries had been hidden behind it.“His Mighty and Judgmental Al Kohl Holl, Seriph of All Klatch, laid down the law a thousand years ago on who could be Seriph after him. Acceptable bloodlines, necessary ages, disqualifying hobbies, all that. Thing is, he did not make it clear if they could be women. It just hasn’t come up because every possible Seriph born since has been a boy.” Thorrin nodded.[6] “But now the question has come up.”“Yes. And the exact question is primogeniture.”“Was that what Earlinda collapsed from?” Inga asked her boss.He gestured at his nose, indicating she had pulverized sugar under hers. “No, that was megapachydermophobia. Primogeniture is a rule that the firstborn son inherits.”“Yes, and right now, the firstborn child is Fatima, while her little brother, Malik, is the second.”“And this leads to a necromancer rather than a lawyer because…?” Thorrin asked. “Oh, it did lead to lawyers.” Carter handed his handkerchief to Inga. “The language of the edict is very clear that Fatima qualifies… IF women can be Seriphs. They felt that, are you sniffing the spirit out of my handkerchief? Is that possible?”“No,” Inga said, tossing the cloth back to him guiltily. “It just smelled so nice.”“They felt,” Thorrin guessed, “that the best solution was to raise old Mighty Holl and ask him.”“You guessed it!” Carter said cheerfully. Then raised a warning finger. “Without, we hope, getting an answer that sparks a civil war, or harms our trade agreement, or costs us the trade concessions that have been offered.”“What do you trade Klatch for, anyway,” Inga said, sitting down by the wizard.“Foreign,” Thorrin and Carter said together. Thorrin continued, "It's our closest source of foreign.” Inga opened her mouth. He added, “Without carrying loads of it across the Ramtop Mountains.” She nodded and sat back. She respected the crossing of the Ramtops into Uberwald. She’d died on that route.“Oh,” Carter added, “IF you could see to it that our best choice for an ally rises to power in-““No,” Thorrin said. “They get what they get. I’m sure there will be quite competent wizards watching everything. Mess up in front of them, might guarantee that whoever gets in power is our worst nightmare.” He picked up the folder and scanned the contents. “Ticket to Al-Khali-““Ticket?” Inga asked. “Not plural?”“He’s met me,” Thorrin said, paging through the instructions to find the boat that was waiting for them, and where to go when they got across the Circle Sea. “And knows I wouldn’t do it without you. It’ll be fine.”“He needs you,” Carter told Inga with a wink.“He needs someone!” Inga laughed. “Oh! Is-?”“Earlinda’s on a mission to Gonim,” he said.“Okay. Let me think about this,” Thorrin said.“Yeah. Think about it,” Inga said. “I’ve never been to Klatch. If you don’t go, can I go?” “Sure,” Thorrin said, striding for the door. Inga froze, a stricken look.“He’s joking,” Carter assured her. She ran off after him. Carter went around the room, cleaning up after the meeting. The pastries were dumped, the portrait and map folded together. He would report success to Vetinari.Vetinari sorted his personnel resources into three groups. Two of them, he considered assets. First, he had the full roster of the city’s civil and military staff, aides, and auxiliaries as a huge, expensive resource that, somehow, didn’t quite destroy his efforts to rule the city-state of Ankh-Morpork and surrounding lands. As one set of assets, he had people who he trusted to complete any direct order he gave them, like Carter. Most of them were trained as assassins along with other useful skills and specialties.He also had people who might not follow orders to the letter, but he could trust them to do the right thing in any situation. Duke Vimes and his wife were two of these. To Carter’s amazement, so was Moist von Lipwig. Thorrin was shaping up to be one of these, as long as he had Inga. And the two of them had gotten Earlinda reclassified from the first group of assets to the second.With the briefing materials stowed away, Carter went off to find the other two assassins he was working with. They were Earlinda’s support if she needed any. Carter rather expected to be bored.----- All work on the vessel stopped when Thorrin and Inga stopped at the brow. “Is this the Sundered Spirit?” he called to the crew. “I’m supposed to meet the Sundered Spirit for passage to Klatch.”“We was told one passenger,” a sailor called back.“I am one passenger,” he replied. “And this is my butler.” Inga smiled, adjusted her tie, and waved. Thorrin glanced around the ship.“They’re staring at me,” she whispered. He pointed to the pennant at the stern. “Istanzia crew. They’re superstitious about women on sailing vessels.”“What do I do?”“Ask them what they’re doing. Sailors love to explain their jobs to pretty women[7].” He walked up the plank to stand on the deck. “Where does my butler put my bags?”“You making a woman carry your stuff?” another sailor asked.“Inga, do you mind carrying my luggage?” he asked, not turning around. She lowered the bags to the wharf. Then walked over to a wagon with large sacks of grain being shipped out. They were being lifted to a cargo net, two men to a sack. She stiff-armed one over the gunwale, across the deck and into the hold below. The still-frozen men looked at her as she reached for another sack. A voice called from below, “What the BOILING HELLS was THAT?!”“A butler,” the first sailor shouted down the hatch, then turned to Inga. “That’s fine, miss, don’t toss any more. Go too fast, the gangmen can’t keep it straight.”She smiled, nodded, adjusted her bowler, and picked up the luggage. When she reached the deck, the second sailor bowed. “Please allow me to show you to your stateroom.”Thorrin elected to sit and study the briefing materials until they cast off, leaving Inga to express interest about all shippnig matters.Her only other nautical experiences were a paddleboat and a Dragonboat, so she had lots of questions. And she was sincerely interested, so she got the long answers.The first tday of sailing were placid. No one local harassed shipping out of Ankh-Morpork, the city took a very dim view of interrupted commerce.The second day, there was a pirate. The lookouts let Inga be the one to run and tell the wizard. He glanced at the ship with the black sails, then cast thirteen very tiny fireballs. They zipped over the waves to the approaching vessel.“Think those are big enough?” the captain asked.“I think so,” Thorrin said. On the other ship, they watched the little lights stitch holes in the sail. They zipped through, then zipped back in a slightly different place. The pirates soon realized the holes spelled out ‘WIZARD ON BOARD.” “Right full rudder!” the captain shouted. “HARD ABOUT! Make for Omnia!”On the Spirit, the captain lowered his telescope. “Nicely done. What happens if the next one’s illiterate?”“In wizard school,” Thorrin said, “we call it natural selection.”The next day, there were three ships that appeared and approached in formation. They proudly flew the same pirate’s flag, Bloody Blade Bob. Thorrin’s tiny fireballs didn’t work. Either Bob was illiterate, or he thought it was some sort of bluff. They continued on a closing course.“Real fireballs next?” Thorrin’s host asked. The wizard hesitated. He wasn’t really good at combat magic. Or one might say, he was REALLY good at combat magic, just not at throttling it. His choices were warning shots and utter annihilation. “I don’t really want to destroy them,” he muttered.“Got it!” Inga called. They turned at the metallic sound of a chain parting. Inga spun the anchor around her head a few times, then released it. It skipped across the water like a stone, then hit the leading ship’s hull, just above the waterline. As that crew frantically tried to limit flooding, and the other ships wheeled and ran, Thorrin turned to the captain. “We’ll buy you a new anchor in Al-Khali,” he said.“Oh, that old thing?” the captain said, smile stretching across his face in desperation. “Don’t worry about it.”“Rusty old thing,” the pilot said. “Should have replaced it years ago.”“The leagues on that thing,” the captain mused.“Plagues?” Inga asked from his elbow. “Where?” The poor man jumped up onto the gunwale, arms wheeling as he tried to balance there.Inga pulled him down and dusted him off helpfully. Thorrin had to bite his cheek, watching her being friendly at a man terrified she was going to rip him apart. He finally took pity on the captain and turned to the pilot. Pointing at the stricken vessel, he loudly asked, “So what are they doing over there?”“Well, they’d be wrapping a sail around the hole, then bailing water.”“A sail?” Inga asked, coming over to the ship’s wheel. “How does that help?” The captain made his escape.His nerves had settled by the time they docked, and he even gave a not-terribly-inflated estimate for the new anchor. Thorrin set up Refuge on the wharf and sent Inga to retrieve that much gold from the storeroom.No one paid much attention to the little building that appeared, unless it blocked traffic. Beyond the port, crowds of people went about their business without pause or notice. Rincewind had once told Thorrin that Al-Khali was just like Ankh-Morpork, but with sand instead of mud.With the captain reimbursed, they set off to find their next contact, the AM Embassy.Thorrin was quite at home with the endless attempts to sell him something as they walked along. Inga, not quite so much. Especially as they all seemed to think she REALLY needed a scarf.“No, thank you,” she tried to tell them. “No, no, not my color. Yes, it’s very lovely, get away.” But she didn’t speak Klatchian, beyond what University porters said when they dropped anything breakable.She caught up to Thorrin and walked beside him. “Doesn’t really seem like scarf weather,” she said.“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Everyone’s selling me scarves! Can’t they see my tie?”“Inga, those are veils.” He paused long enough to shout, in Klatchian, “My butler doesn’t need any veil!”“Begging a thousand pardons, sir,” the nearest vendor said, “but she most definitely does. It is, by the Grace of Offler, the law that beautiful women must cover their faces.”“Law, huh? Good to know.” He turned and walked on. “What did he say?” Inga asked, pushing through the crowd in his wake. “He said you’re beautiful and you’re going to get arrested,” Thorrin said, looking for landmarks.“Really?” she asked. Then smiled. “I’ve never BEEN arrested before!” Thorrin bet himself that she wasn’t about to be, either. “This way.” They were about half a block from the embassy gate when two of the city’s guards blocked their way. “You are causing a disturbance,” one said. “Not yet I’m not,” Thorrin said cheerfully. But he stopped walking. “This woman needs to come with us,” the other said. “She has been seen.”“Is she supposed to be invisible?” Thorrin asked.“They pointed at me,” Inga said. “Is this my arrest?” She put the bags down. “I want to see the inside of the jail! Oh, but I need to put the bags inside, first.”“What is she saying?” the first guard asked.“I’m not paid enough to be the interpreter,” Thorrin said. He nodded towards the embassy. “I’ll be over there when you’re finished.”The second guard started to reach out to restrain him. Sparks shot up the wizard’s staff and spread out across the street. He withdrew his hand.Instead they grabbed Inga. “Come with us!” they ordered.“Nice to meet you, but first I have to take these bags to where Master Animator Thorrin is going,” she said. They yanked. She didn’t move. Thorrin rang the bell at the gate. “No, really, once I get these to the embassy, you can arrest me, but I simply cannot leave them in the middle of the street. That colorful street urchin looks very interested in my boss’ luggage.” They pushed and shoved. “I said I have a responsibility!” They swore, kicking at her legs trying to unstick her from the ground.“Ask ‘em what the charges are!” Thorrin yelled.“What are the charges? THEY WON’T TELL ME!”“They still don’t speak Morporkian,” he yelled back.“You are a big meany!”The gate opened and a diplomatic functionary looked at Thorrin with a smile. “You must be the wizard from Home!”“It’s open!” Thorrin told Inga. “I must,” he told the greeter.“Okay, I have to go, now.” She shook off the guards and lifted the bags. Then trotted up to the gate where Thorrin held it open. “Where can I put these while I’m arrested?”The diplomat shrieked and dragged her inside. This worked only because inside the gate was where she wanted to be anyway. Thorrin followed more calmly. “You can’t be out there like this!” the diplomat hissed.“Burdened?” Thorrin asked. “I’m his butler! A man with a butler shouldn’t carry his own bags!”“The face! The trousers! Women in Al-Khali always wear veils but never wear trousers!”“She worked hard on getting her butler clothes!” Thorrin protested. “Learning the right look, getting the right clothes, endless fittings…”“What do butlers in Klatch wear?” Inga asked.“And the shoes!” Thorrin went on. “Who knew that there were specific kinds of shoes for private staff?”“There aren’t any!” the man told Inga. “They have a completely different system.”“Then how do they know I’m not doing it right?” she asked, quite sincere. The lower functionary decided to let the ambassador handle this.He brought them inside, directed other staff to take the bags and bring refreshments, then led the two into a parlor. There they waited for some time, while some sort of conversation took place out in the hall. Angry people spoke urgently but trying not to be overheard.Inga looked around. “Think anyone’s read the books on that shelf?""Not likely,” he said, relaxing into an overstuffed chair. Finally, the door opened and the ambassador to Klatch walked in. Sir Henry Pettifogg Harcourt, II and III,[8] Baron of Slowlake, had been in Klatch long enough to ‘go native.’ Of course, for an Ankh-Morpork nobleman going ‘native’ went little further than eating spiced foods and knowing ten words in the local tongue.“Marhaba ,” he said. “That’s-““Welcome,” Thorrin translated before he could. “Thanks. So, my butler was accosted in the street. Do I file a complaint through you, or do I see the Seriph about that?”Harcourt suffered a coughing fit at the thought of bothering the Seriph with an issue about law enforcement at the street level. Especially involving a female. And a Barbarian female at that!Thorrin waited patiently, though Inga bent down to his ear to call him a meany again.“Well, it’s a, you see, more of a misunderstanding than ‘accosting,’ actually. You, uh, or rather she, was in violation of the local laws.”“But we’re citizens of Ankh-Morpork,” Thorrin said, instantly remembering that he’d certainly intended to establish Inga’s citizenship. But he’d been so busy… Had he just told a lie? “Doesn’t really, I mean it doesn’t matter at all, really,” Harcourt said, taking a seat of his own. “It’s not a law about, um, limits on a citizen’s, well, behavior, it’s about what the male citizens see. Or shouldn’t see. Or, you know, shouldn't be forced to see. They shouldn’t see the skin of a woman they’re not married to.”“Well, I can fix that,” Thorrin said. “I’m going to stick to my clothes, aren’t I?” Inga asked. “Can’t be helped, we’re law-abiding people.” He snapped his fingers. Inga’s skin faded away. She smiled at the ambassador, while she tugged her shirt away from her chest muscles.“I, ah, I, I, I mean to say, they can’t, well, see her, her flesh!”“Okay.” A second later, there was just a skeleton behind his chair, the suit hanging limp on the bones.Inga walked over to a small, tasteful mirror by the door. She examined herself while Harcourt tried to fashion a sentence that wouldn’t make things even worse.“Oh, NO!” she cried. “I have a crack!” She fingered her skull. “When did I get a crack?”“I think it was on the occasion, and cause, of your demise,” Thorrin said sympathetically. “Can you fix it?”“With a full restoration, but those seem to be illegal here.” He walked over and examined the side of her skull. “Refuge does have several kinds of mortar and spackle. We can fill it, sand it down, polish-““Please!” she implored her employer.“Don’t do the puppy dog eyes when you don’t have eyes,” he said, but not a remonstration, more as a critique of the performance.“Wouldn’t,” Harcourt finally attempted, “Wouldn’t it be, wouldn’t you find it, um, easier to give her a veil than cast an illusion?”Thorrin looked around. There was a bowl of spiced peanuts at the table beside them. He grabbed a handful and tossed a few in Inga’s skull. She looked at him sharply, making them rattle. That had her facing the mirror again, rattling vigorously. She might have giggled. She certainly grinned.“Catch,” Thorrin said. He tossed her a few more nuts, she opened her mouth. The nuts fell through the bottom of her jaw and made dull accordion sounds against her ribs. She shook her pant legs until the nuts hit the floor. “No illusion,” he told Harcourt. “This is my butler, and my bodyguard, and my best friend in the world. Take her as she is, or I go back home.”“Oh, you can’t do that!” Harcourt snapped. “Many important people have made QUITE critical promises on this matter!”“He stopped stammering,” Inga noted, trying to shake the nuts back out of the hole. “It’s all fun and games until the Patrician gets an angry clacks,” Thorrin said. “Yes, we do not want to have to tell the Patrician that you stood up the Seriph for the honor of your BUTLER.” The ambassador’s earlier manner had been wiped away. He was a dedicated government official, now, all about the mission. “Insult my butler one more time and this is no longer my problem,” Thorrin replied, a dedicated friend. The two men stared at each other. Inga stepped between them. “Can I at least see the Seriph’s palace before we go? Sayed told me so much about it when he learned we were coming.”Thorrin looked away first. He sighed and sat down again. “Look, I’m willing to put up with a lot. But this country killed all their necromancers, so I’m not in the mood to cut them much slack.“They find they need my services, then putting up with Inga will be part of the cost.” He tapped his beard. “Is there a law against skeletons walking around in Al-Khali?”“I’m sure there is not,” Harcourt replied tersely. “Yet.”“Then we’re legal,” the wizard said. And not flippantly. He was trying to work with the man, not taunt him. Not any more, anyway.“They are pretty desperate,” Henry conceded. He drummed his fingers on the armrest. “You know, it’s damned disconcerting, not knowing who she’s talking to.”“I can point!” Inga said, pointing at Harcourt. “Will that work?” she asked Thorrin, pointing at him.“I just mean,” Henry explained, “that it’s allowable that a woman’s eyes show.”“Oh!” Thorrin said. He made hand-cranking motions around her skull. Her eyes grew. Big, white orbs, floating in empty holes, with no eyelids, eyebrows, forehead, or any other features to give her an actual expression. “I look SO surprised!” she said from the mirror. She twisted back and forth, watching the eyes move around in the sockets.Thorrin nodded, accepting the peace offering. Henry nodded back, thinking he’d made a concession to the wizard’s ego, not the zombie’s dignity. Inga moaned. “My hat probably doesn’t fit, now.” [1] Inga insisted that he give some credit to the boy that said ‘please’ to his zombie. [2] Being the Unseen University, not all the ones that smiled back were gargoyles. [3] Still a little queasy about Igors performing surgeries on not-unconscious Igors, but dead things were okay. She knew how they felt. [4] Offler would be offended by this assumption. The only thing he forbade was broccoli, figuring no one wanted to eat it anyway. [5] Carter had tried to offer the butler an appropriate handshake as well, but…Inga. [6] Statistically, this is an incredible track record. Statistics (and genetics) don’t really matter all that much on the Disc. Could be the hand of Offler, or another god, a demon, an imp, a curse, any number of spells, or even just the unlikeliest of natural results. [7] An easy guess. Everyone loves to talk about their jobs to people who appear interested. If they're attractive, that’s a bonus. [8] Two branches of the family claimed the title after a third branch had been unexpectedly and accidentally hung from lamp posts by angry peasants. Henry’s grandparents’ marriage had sealed the branches and almost solved the inheritance issue. Thus ‘Second and Third’ of his line(s), depending on how you counted it.