'Yeah,' said Silverfish.
'Yeah,' said Detritus.
'Yeah,' said the voice under the stool.
The man who ran the bar was naturally cheerful. It wasn't hard to be cheerful, really, when your customers acted like lightning rods for any misery that happened to be floating around. He'd found that it wasn't a good idea to say things like, 'Never mind, look on the bright side,' because there never was one, or 'Cheer up, it may never happen,' because often it already had. All that was expected of him was to keep the drink coming.
He was a little puzzled this morning, though. There seemed to be an extra person in the bar, quite apart from whoever it was speaking up from the floor. He kept getting the feeling that he was serving an extra drink, and even getting paid for it, and even talking to the mysterious purchaser. But he couldn't see him. In fact he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing, or who he was talking to.
He wandered down to the far end of the bar.
A glass slid towards him.
SAME AGAIN, said a voice out of the shadows.
'Er,' said the barman. 'Yeah. Sure. What was it?'
ANYTHING.
The barman filled it with rum. It was pulled away.
The barman sought for something to say. For some reason, he was feeling terrified.
'Don't see you in here, much,' he managed.
I COME FOR THE ATMOSPHERE. SAME AGAIN.
'Work in Holy Wood, do you?'said the barman, topping up the glass quickly. It vanished again.
NOT FOR SOME TIME. SAME AGAIN.
The barman hesitated. He was, at heart, a kindly soul. 'You don't think you've had enough, do you?' he said.
I KNOW EXACTLY WHEN I'VE HAD ENOUGH.
'Everyone says that, though.'
I KNOW WHEN. EVERYONE'S HAD ENOUGH.
There was something very odd about that voice. The barman wasn't quite sure that he was hearing it with his ears. 'Oh. Well, er,' he said. 'Same again?'
NO. BUSY DAY TOMORROW. KEEP THE CHANGE.
A handful of coins slid across the counter. They felt icy cold, and most of them were heavily corroded.
'Oh, er?' the barman began.
The door opened and shut, letting in a cold blast of air despite the warmth of the night.
The barman wiped the top of the bar in a distracted way, carefully avoiding the coins.
'You see some funny types, running a bar,' he muttered. A voice by his ear said, I FORGOT. A PACKET OF NUTS, PLEASE.
Snow glittered on the rimward outriders of the Ramtop mountains, that great world-spanning range which, where it curves around the Circle Sea, forms a natural wall between Klatch and the great flat Sto
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