“Both hands, sir,” said Vimes. “And feet, too. And tried to bite it, we think.”
“Isn’t that certain death?” said Vetinari.
“That didn’t seem to worry him, sir.”
Vimes had last seen A. E. Pessimal being bandaged by Igor and smiling in a semiconscious way. Watchmen were dropping in all the time to say things like “Hi, big man!” and slap him on the back. The world had turned for A. E. Pessimal.
“Might I inquire, Vimes, why one of my most conscientious and most decidedly civilian clerks was in a position to do this?”
Vimes shifted uncomfortably. “He was inspecting. Learning all about us, sir.”
He gave Vetinari a look that said: If you take this any further, I will have to lie.
Vetinari returned one that said: I know.
“You yourself are not too badly injured?” the Patrician said aloud.
“Just a few scratches, sir,” said Vimes.
Vetinari gave him a look that said: Broken ribs, I’m certain of it.
Vimes returned one that said: Nothing.
Vetinari wandered over to the window and stared down at the waking city. He didn’t speak for some time, and then let out a sigh.
“Such a shame, I think, that so many of them were born here,” he said.
Vimes stuck with saying nothing. It generally sufficed.
“Perhaps I should have taken action against that wretched dwarf,” Vetinari went on.
“Yes, sir.”
“You think so? A wise ruler thinks twice before directing violence against someone because he does not approve of what they say.”
Once again, Vimes did not comment. He himself directed violence daily and with a certain amount of enthusiasm against people, because he didn’t approve of them saying things like “Give me all your money” or “What are you going to do about it, copper?” But perhaps rulers had to think differently. Instead, he said: “Someone else didn’t, sir.”
“Thank you for that, Vimes,” said the Patrician, turning around sharply. “And have you found out who they are yet?”
“Investigations are continuing, sir. Last night’s affair got in the way.”
“Is there any evidence that it was a troll?”
“There is…puzzling evidence, sir. We are…assembling a jigsaw, you might say.” Except that we haven’t got any of the edges and it’d help if we had the lid of the box, he added to himself. And, because Vetinari’s face bore a hungry look, Vimes continued aloud: “If you’re expecting me to pull a magic rabbit out of my helmet, sir, it’ll be a cooked one. The dwarfs are certain it was a troll. There’s a thousand years of history telling them. They don’t need proof. And the trolls don’t think it was a troll but probably wish it was. This isn’t about a murder, sir. Something inside ’em’s gone click, and it’s time for all good men—well, you know what I mean—to fight Koom Valley all over again. Something else is going on in that mine, I know it. Something bigger than murder. All those tunnels…what are they for? All those lies…I can smell lies, and the place is full of them.”
“Much hangs on this, Vimes,” said Vetinari. “It’s bigger than you know. I have this morning had a clacks from the Rhys Rhysson, the Low King. All politicians have their enemies, of course. There are, shall we say, factions that disagree with him, his policy toward us, his conciliatory approaches to the troll clans, his stance on the whole wretched Ha’ak thing…And now there are stories about a troll killing a grag and, yes, rumors that the Watch has threatened the dwarfs…”
Vetinari held up a pale hand as Vimes opened his mouth to protest.
“We need to know the truth, Vimes. Commander Sam Vimes’s truth. It may count for more than you think. In the Plains, certainly, and much further. People know about you, Commander. Descendant of a watchman who believed that if a corrupted court will not behead an evil king, then the watchman should do it himself—”
“It was only one king,” Vimes protested. “It waasn’t a habit!”
“Sam Vimes once arrested me for treason,” said Vetinari calmly. “And Sam Vimes once arrested a dragon. Sam Vimes stopped a war between nations by arresting two high commands. He’s an arresting fellow, Sam Vimes. Sam Vimes killed a werewolf with his bare hands, and carries law with him, like a lamp—”
“Where did all that come from?”
“Watchmen across half the continent will say that Sam Vimes is as straight as an arrow, can’t be corrupted, won’t be turned, never took a bribe. Listen to me. If Rhys falls, the next Low King will not be one who is prepared to talk to the trolls. Can I make it simple for you? Those clans whose leaders have been dealing with Rhys will in all likelihood feel they have been made fools of, overthrow said leaders, and replace them with trolls too belligerent and stupid to be fools. And there will be a war, Vimes. It’ll come here. It won’t be a gang crumble such as you thwarted last night. We won’t be able to hold fast or stand aloof. Because we have our own fools, Vimes, as I’m sure you know, who’ll insist we pick sides. Koom Valley will be everywhere. Find me a murderer, Vimes. Hound them down and bring them into the daylight. Troll or dwarf or human, it doesn’t matter. Then at least we shall have the truth, and can make use of it. It is rumor and uncertainty that is our enemy now. The Low King’s throne trembles, Vimes, and thus do the foundations of the world.”
Vetinari paused, and carefully squared up the paperwork in front of him, as if he now felt he’d gone too far.
“However, obviously I do not wish to put you under any kind of pressure,” he finished.
In Vimes’s confused, lukewarm brain, one word bobbed to the surface.
“Crumble?” he said.
Lord Vetinari’s secretary leaned down and whispered into his master’s ear.
“Ah, I believe I meant ‘rumble,’ ” said Vetinari brightly.
Vimes was still trying to cope with the international news digest.
“All this over one murder?” he said, trying to stifle a yawn.
“No, Vimes. You said it yourself: all this over thousands of years of tension and politics and power struggles. In recent years, things have gone in certain ways, causing power to shift. There are those who would like it to shift back, even if it returns on a tide of blood. Who cares about one dwarf? But if his death can be turned into a casus belli—” here Lord Vetinari looked at Vimes’s sleepy eyes and went on, “—that is, a reason for war, then suddenly he is the most important dwarf in the world. When did you last get some proper sleep, Vimes?”
Vimes muttered something about “not long ago.”
“Go and have some more. And then find me the murderer. Quickly. Good day to you.”
Not just thrones trembling, Vimes managed to think. Your chair is wobbling a bit, too. Pretty soon some people will be saying: Who let all these dwarfs in here? They undermine our city and they don’t obey our laws. And the trolls? We used to chain ’em up like guard dogs, and now they’re allowed to walk around threatening real people!
They’d be gathering now, the plotters, the people who chatted quietly in the corner at parties, the people who know how to fashion opinions into knives. Last night’s little fray had been turned into a joke that had probably dismayed the party people, but you couldn’t do it twice. Once things began to spread, once a few humans had been killed, you wouldn’t need to talk behind closed doors anymore. The mob would scream on your behalf.
They undermine our city and they don’t obey our laws…
He climbed in the coach on legs that were only marginally under his control, muttered an instruction to head for Pseudopolis Yard, and fell asleep.
It was still nighttime in the city of endless rain. It was never not nighttime. No sun rose here.
The creature lay coiled in its alley.
Something was seriously wrong. It had expected resistance. There was always resistance, and it always overcame it. But even now, when the invisible bustle of the city had slowed, there was no way in. Time and again it’d be sure that it had found a point of c
ontrol, some tide of rage it could use, and time and again it’d be slammed back here, into this dark alley where the gutters overflowed.
This was not the usual kind of mind. The creature struggled. But no mind had ever beaten it yet. There was always a way…
Through the ruin of the world the troll staggers…
Brick lurched out of Dolly Sisters Watch house, clutching his head with one hand and, in the other, holding the bag that contained as many of his teeth as Detritus had been able to find. The sergeant had been very decent about dat, Brick thought. Detritus had also explained to him exactly what would have happened to him had his second blow hit the human, graphically indicating that finding Brick’s teeth would have been secondary to finding a head to put them in.
He’d gone on to say, though, that there might be a place in the Watch for any troll who could still stand up after a head full of Big Hammer, and maybe Brick might like to conduct his future behavior with an eye to this.
So, Brick thought, insofar as the term could be applied to any brain activity within two days of Big Hammer, der future was looking so bright dat he had to walk along wid his eyes almost shut, although dat was probably der Big Hammer again.
But—
He’d heard the other trolls talking. And the watchmen, too. All dis stuff about a troll killing a dwarf down in dat new mine. Now, Brick was still certain he hadn’t killed no dwarf, even after half an ounce of Scrape. He’d gone over and over it in what currently remained of his mind. Trouble was, der Watch had all dese tricks dese days, dey could tell what a guy had for dinner just by looking at his plate. An’ he’d lost a skull down dere, too, he was sure o’ dat. Like, dey could jus’ sniff it and know it was him! Except it wasn’t him, right? ’Cos dey said der troll dropped his club, an’ Brick still had his club, ’cos he hit dat top watchman wi’ it, so maybe that was what dey called an Ally By? Yes? Despite the cerebral gurgling noise of the Big Hammer draining away from his higher brain functions, Brick suspected that it wasn’t. An’ anyway, if dey lookin’ for a troll what done der deed, and dey find out I was dere, lost a skull an’ everytin’ an’ I say, okay, I was dere but I never walloped no dwarf, de’ll say, ho yus, pull der other one, it is havin’ bells on.
Right here, and right now, Brick was feeling a very lonely troll.
Dere was nothin’ for it. Dere was only one person who could help him w’ dis one. It was too much t’inkin’ for one troll.
Slinking through alleys, pressed against walls, keeping his head down, avoiding every living creature, Brick sought out Mr. Shine.
Angua decided to go straight to Pseudopolis Yard rather than a closer Watch house. That was HQ, after all, and besides, she always kept a spare uniform in her locker.
What was annoying was that Sally walked so easily in six-inch heels. That was vampires for you. She had taken hers off and was carrying them; it was that or turn an ankle. The Pink PussyCat Club had a fairly limited choice of footwear. There wasn’t much to choose from in the way of clothing, either, if by clothing you meant something that actually made an attempt to cover anything.
Angua had been rather surprised that the stage wardrobe had included a female Watch outfit, but with skimpy papier-mâché armor and a skirt that was much too short to be any protection. Tawneee had explained, rather carefully, that men sometimes liked to see a pretty girl in armor. To Angua, who’d found that men she was apprehending never looked very pleased to see her, this was food for thought.
She’d settled for a sequined gold dress, which just didn’t work. Sally had picked something simple and cut to the thigh, in blue, which, of course, had become stunning the moment she’d put it on. She looked fabulous.
So when Angua strode into the main office, slamming the big doors back, and there was a derisory wolf-whistle, the unwise watchman found himself being pushed backwards until he was slammed against the wall. He felt two sharp points pressed against his neck as Angua growled, “You want a wolf, do you? Say no, Sergeant Angua.”
“No, Sergeant Angua!”
“You don’t? I was probably mistaken then, was I?” The points pressed a little harder. In the man’s mind, steely talons were about to pierce his jugular.
“Couldn’t say for sure, Sergeant Angua!”
“My nerves are a tad stretched right now!” Angua howled.
“Hadn’t noticed, Sergeant Angua!”
“We’re all a little bit on edge at the moment, wouldn’t you say!”
“That’s ever so true, Sergeant Angua!”
Angua let the man’s boot reach the ground. She put two black, shiny, and noticeably pointed heels into his unresisting hands.
“Could you do me a really big favor, please, and take these back up to the Pink PussyCat Club?” she said sweetly. “They belong to someone called Sherilee, I think. Thank you.”
She turned and looked over to the duty desk, where Carrot was watching her with his mouth open. Well aware of the stir she was causing, she walked up to the desk past an audience of shocked faces and threw a muddy necklace down onto the open Incident Book.
“Four dwarfs murdered by other dwarfs, down in the Long Dark,” she said. “I’ll bet my nose on it. That belonged to one of them. He’d also got this.” A muddy envelope was dropped by the necklace. “It’s pretty slimy, but you can read it. Mister Vimes is going to go postal.” She looked up into the blue eyes of Carrot. “Where is he?”
“Sleeping on a mattress in his office,” said Carrot, and shrugged. “Lady Sybil knew he wouldn’t go home, so she got Willikins to make up a bed down here. Are you two all right?”
“Fine, sir,” said Sally.
“I was getting very worried—” Carrot began.
“Four dead dwarfs, Captain,” said Angua. “City dwarfs. That’s what you should be worrying about. Three half-buried, this one crawled away.”
Carrot picked up the necklace and read the runes.
“Lars Legstrong,” he said. “I think I know the family. Are you sure he was murdered?”
“Throat cut. It’d be hard to call it suicide. But he took some time to die. He made it to one of their damn doors, which they’d locked shut, and scrawled one of their signs on it in his own blood. Then he sat down and waited to die in the dark. In the damn dark, Carrot! They were working dwarfs! They had shovels and wheelbarrows! They were down there doing a job, and when they weren’t needed anymore they got the chop! Hacked down and left for the mud! He might even still have been alive down there when Mister Vimes and I went in. Behind their bloody thick door, dying by inches. And do you know what this means?”
She pulled a folded piece of card out of her bodice and passed it over.
“A drinks menu?” said Carrot.
“Open it,” snapped Angua. “I’m sorry it’s written in lipstick, it was all we could find.”
Carrot flipped it open. “Another dark symbol?” he said. “I don’t think I know this one.”
There were other dwarf officers in the office. Carrot held up the symbol.
“Does anyone here know what this means?”
A few helmeted heads shook, and a few dwarfs backed away, but a deep voice from the doorway said: “Yes, Captain Carrot. I suspect I do. Does it look like an eye with a tail?”
“Yes…er…sir?” said Carrot, staring. A shadow moved.
“It was drawn in the dark? By a dying dwarf? In his own blood? It is the Summoning Dark, Captain, and it will be moving. Good morning to you. I am Mr. Shine.”
Carrot’s jaw dropped as the watchmen turned to look at the newcomer. He loomed in the doorway, almost as broad as he was tall, in a black cloak and hood that hid any possible feature.
“The Mr. Shine?” he said.
“Regrettably so, Captain, and can I charge you to see that no one in this room leaves for a few minutes after I do? I like to keep my movements…private.”
“I didn’t think you were real, sir!”
“Believe me, young man, I wish it were possible to keep you in that happy state,”
said the hooded figure. “However, my hand is forced.”
Mr. Shine stepped forward, pulling a rangy figure into the room. It was a troll, whose look of sullen defiance did not quite manage to conceal knee-knocking terror.
“This is Brick, Captain. I deliver him back into the personal custody of your Sergeant Detritus. He has information of use to you. I have heard his story. I believe him. You must move fast. The Summoning Dark may already have found a champion. What else…oh yes, be sure not to keep that symbol in a dark place. Keep light around it at all times. And now, if you will excuse the theatricals—”
The black robe twitched. Hard, white, blinding light filled the room for a second. When it had gone, so had Mr. Shine. All that was left was a large, round stone on the stained floor.
Carrot blinked, and then pulled himself together.
“All right, you heard,” he said to the suddenly animated room at large. “No one is to follow Mr. Shine, understood?”
“Follow him, Captain?” said a dwarf. “We’re not mad, you know!”
“Dat’s right,” said a troll. “Dey say he can reach inside o’ you an’ stop your heart!”
“Mr. Shine?” said Angua. “Is he what they’ve been writing about on the walls?”
“It looks like that,” said Carrot shortly. “And he said we don’t have much time. Mr…. Brick, was it?”
While Chrysophrase’s trolls had contrived to swagger while standing still, Brick just managed to huddle all alone. You usually need two to huddle, but here was a troll trying to hide behind himself. No one could hide behind Brick; for a troll, he was stick-thin to the point of knobbliness. His lichen was cheap and matted, not the real thing at all, probably the stuff they made up out of broccoli stalks in the back alleys of Quarry Lane. His belt of skulls was a disgrace; some of them were clearly the papier-mâché kind that could be bought from any joke shop. One had a red nose.
He looked around nervously, and there was a thud as his club dropped from his fingers.
“I’m in deep copro, right?” he said.