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"Yessir. Sent the wife to Quirm last month, sir, to see her aunt."
"Very nice at this time of year, I'm told."
"Yessir."
"All the geraniums and whatnot."
A figure tumbled out of an upper window and crumpled on the cobbles.
"That's where they've got the floral sundial, isn't it?" said the captain desperately.
"Yessir. Very nice, sir. All done with little flowers, sir."
There was a sound like something hitting something else repeatedly with something heavy and wooden. Vimes winced.
"I don't think he'd of been happy in the Watch, sir," said the sergeant, in a kindly voice.
The door of the Mended Drum had been torn off during riots so often that specially-tempered hinges had recently been installed, and the fact that the next tremendous crash tore the whole door and doorframe out of the wall only showed that quite a lot of money had been wasted. A figure in the midst of the wreckage tried to raise itself on its elbows, groaned, and slumped back.
"Well, it would seem that it's all…" the captain began, and Nobby said: "It's that bloody troll!"
"What?" said Vimes.
"It's the troll! The one they have on the door!"
They advanced with extreme caution.
It was, indeed, Detritus the splatter.
It is very difficult to hurt a creature that is, to all intents and purposes, a mobile stone. Someone seemed to have managed it, though. The fallen figure was groaning like a couple of bricks being crushed together.
"That's a turn up for the books," said the sergeant vaguely. All three of them turned and peered at the brightly-lit rectangle where the doorway had been. Things had definitely quietened down a bit in there.
"You don't think," said the sergeant, "that he's winning, do you?''
The captain thrust out his jaw. ' 'We owe it to our colleague and fellow officer," he said, "to find out."
There was a whimper from behind them. They turned and saw Nobby hopping on one leg and clutching a foot.
"What's up with you, man?" said Vimes.
Nobby made agonized noises.
Sergeant Colon began to understand. Although cautious obsequiousness was the general tenor of Watch behaviour, there wasn't one member of the entire squad who hadn't, at some time, been at the wrong end of Detritus's fists. Nobby had merely tried to play catch-up in the very best traditions of policemen everywhere.
"He went and kicked him inna rocks, sir," he said.
"Disgraceful," said the captain vaguely. He hesitated. "Do trolls have rocks?" he said.
"Take it from me, sir."
"Good grief," Vimes said. "Dame Nature moves in strange ways, doesn't she."
"Right you are, sir," said the sergeant obediently.
"And now," said the captain, drawing his sword, "forward!"
"Yessir."
"This means you too, Sergeant," the captain added.
"Yessir."
...
It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military maneuvers, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.
They peered cautiously around the ravished doorway.
There were a number of people sprawled across the tables, or what remained of the tables. Those who were still conscious looked unhappy about it.
Carrot stood in the middle of the floor. His rusty chain mail was torn, his helmet was missing, he was swaying a little from side to side and one eye was already starting to swell, but he recognized the captain, dropped the feebly-protesting customer he was holding, and threw a salute.
"Beg to report thirty-one offences of Making an Affray, sir, and fifty-six cases of Riotous Behaviour, forty-one offences of Obstructing an Officer of the Watch in the Execution of his Duty, thirteen offences of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, six cases of Malicious Lingering, and-and-Corporal Nobby hasn't even shown me one rope yet…"
He fell backwards, breaking a table.
Captain Vimes coughed. He wasn't at all sure what you were supposed to do next. As far as he knew, the Watch had never been in this position before.
' 'I think you should get him a drink, Sergeant,'' he said.
"Yessir."
"And get me one, too."
"Yessir."
"Have one yourself, why don't you."
"Yessir."
"And you, Corporal, will you please — what are you doing?"
"Searching-the-bodies-sir," said Nobby quickly, straightening up. "For incriminating evidence, and that."
"In their money pouches?''
Nobby thrust his hands behind his back. "You never know, sir," he said.
The sergeant had located a miraculously unbroken bottle of spirits in the wreckage and forced a lot of its contents between Carrot's lips.
"What we going to do with all this lot, Captain?" he said over his shoulder.
"I haven't the faintest," said Vimes, sitting down. The Watch jail was just about big enough for six very small people, which were usually the only sort to be put in it. Whereas these…
He looked around him desperately. There was Nork the Impaler, lying under a table and making bubbling noises. There was Big Henri. There was Grabber Simmons, one of the most feared bar-room fighters in the city. All in all, there were a lot of people it wouldn't pay to be near when they woke up.
"We could cut their throats, sir," said Nobby, veteran of a score of residual battlefields. He had found an unconscious fighter who was about the right size and was speculatively removing his boots, which looked quite new and about the right size.
"That would be entirely wrong," said Vimes. He wasn't sure how you actually went about cutting a throat. It had never hitherto been an option.
"No," he said, "I think perhaps we'll let them off with a caution."
There was a groan from under the bench.
"Besides," he went on quickly, "we should get our fallen comrade to a place of safety as soon as possible."
"Good point," said the sergeant. He took a swig of the spirits, for the sake of his nerves.
The two of them managed to sling Carrot between them and guide his wobbling legs up the steps. Vimes, collapsing under the weight, looked around for Nobby.
"Corporal Nobbs," he rasped, "why are you kicking people when they're down?"
"Safest way, sir," said Nobby.
Nobby had long ago been told about fighting fair and not striking a fallen opponent, and had then given some creative thought to how these rules applied to someone four feet tall with the muscle tone of an elastic band.
"Well, stop it. I want you to caution the felons," said the captain.
"How, sir?"
"Well, you…" Captain Vimes stopped. He was blowed if he knew. He'd never done it.
"Just do it," he snapped. "Surely I don't have to tell you everything?''
Nobby was left alone at the top of the stairs. A general muttering and groaning from the floor indicated that people were waking up. Nobby thought quickly. He shook an admonitory cheese-straw of a finger.
"Let that be a lesson to you," he said. "Don't do it again.''
And ran for it.
Up in the darkness of the rafters the Librarian scratched himself reflectively. Life was certainly full of surprises. He was going to watch developments with interest. He shelled a thoughtful peanut with his feet, and swung away into the darkness.
The Supreme Grand Master raised his hands.
"Are the Thuribles of Destiny ritually chastised, that Evil and Loose Thinking may be banished from this Sanctified Circle?"
"Yep."
The Supreme Grand Master lowered his hands.
"Yep?" he said.
"Yep," said Brother Dunnykin happily. "Done it myself."
"You are supposed to say 'Yea, O Supreme One'," said the Supreme Grand Master. "Honestly, I've told you enough times, if you're not all going to enter into the spirit of the thing-"
"Yes, you listen to what the Supreme Grand Master tells you," said Brother Watchtower, glaring at the errant Brother.
"I spent hours chastising them thuribles," muttered Brother Dunnykin.
"Carry on, O Supreme Grand Master," said Brother Watchtower.
"Very well, then," said the Grand Master. "Tonight we'll try another experimental summoning. I trust you have obtained suitable raw material, brothers?"
"…scrubbed and scrubbed, not that you get any thanks…''
"All sorted out, Supreme Grand Master," said Brother Watchtower.
It was, the Grand Master conceded, a slightly better collection. The Brothers had certainly been busy. Pride of place was given to an illuminated tavern sign whose removal, the Grand Master thought, should have merited some sort of civic aware. At the moment the E was a ghastly pink and flashed on and off at random.
"I got that," said Brother Watchtower proudly. "They thought I was mending it or something, but I took my screwdriver and I.."
"Yes, well done," said the Supreme Grand Master. "Shows initiative."
"Thank you, Supreme Grand Master," beamed Brother Watchtower.
''…knuckles rubbed raw, all red and cracked. Never even got my three dollars back, either, no one as much as says…''
"And now," said the Supreme Grand Master, taking up the book, "we will begin to commence. Shut up, Brother Dunnykin."
...
Every town in the multiverse has a part that is something like Ankh-Morpork's Shades. It's usually the oldest part, its lanes faithfully following the original tracks of medieval cows going down to the river, and they have names like the Shambles, the Rookery, Sniggs Alley . . .
Most of Ankh-Morpork is like that in any case. But the Shades was even more so, a sort of black hole of bred-in-the-brickwork lawlessness. Put it like this: even the criminals were afraid to walk the streets. The Watch didn't set foot in it.
They were accidentally setting foot in it now. Not very reliably. It had been a trying night, and they had been steadying their nerves. They were now so steady that all four were relying on the other three to keep them upright and steer.
Captain Vimes passed the bottle back to the sergeant.
"Shame on, on, on…," he thought for a bit, "…you," he said. "Drun' in fron' of a super, super, superererer ofisiler."
The sergeant tried to speak, but could only come out with a series of esses.
"Put yoursel' onna charge," said Captain Vimes, rebounding off a wall. He glared at the brickwork. "This wall assaulted me," he declared. "Hah! Think you're tough, eh! Well, 'm a ofisler of, of, of the Law, I'll-have-you-know, and we don' take any, any, any."
He blinked slowly, once or twice.
"What's it we don' take any of, Sar'nt?" he said.
"Chances, sir?" said Colon.
"No, no, no. S'other stuff. Never mind. Anyway, we don' take any of, of, of it from anyone." Vague visions were trotting through his mind, of a room full of criminal types, people that had jeered at him, people whose very existence had offended and taunted him for years, lying around and groaning. He was a little unclear how it had happened, but some almost forgotten part of him, some much younger Vimes with a bright shining breastplate and big hopes, a Vimes he thought the alcohol had long ago drowned, was suddenly restless.
"Shallie, shallie, shallie tell you something, Sarn't?" he said.
"Sir?'' The four of them bounced gently off another wall and began another slow crabwise waltz across the alley.
"This city. This city. This city, Sar'nt. This city is a, is a, is a Woman, Sarn't. So t'is. A Woman, Sarn't. Ancient raddled old beauty, Sarn't. Buti-you-fall-in-love-with-her, then, then, then she-kicks-you-inna-teeth-"
" 's woman?" said Colon.
He screwed up his sweating face with the effort of thought.
" 'S eight miles wide, sir.'S gotta river in it. Lots of, of houses and stuff, sir," he reasoned.
"Ah. Ah. Ah." Vimes waggled an unsteady finger at him. "Never, never, never said it wasa small woman, did I. Be fair." He waved the bottle. Another random thought exploded in the froth of his mind.
"We showed 'em, anyway," he said excitedly, as the four of them began an oblique shuffle back to the opposite wall. "Showed them, dint we? Taught thema forget they won't lesson inna hurry, eh?"
"S'right," said the sergeant, but not very enthusiastically. He was still wondering about his superior officer's sex life.
But Vimes was in the kind of mood that didn't need encouragement.
"Hah!" he shouted, at the dark alleyways. "Don' like it, eh? Taste of your, your, your own medicine thingy. Well, now you can bootle in your trems!" He threw the empty bottle into the air.
"Two o'clock!" he yelled. "And all's weeeellll!"
Which was astonishing news to the various shadowy figures who had been silently shadowing the four of them for some time. Only sheer puzzlement had prevented them making their attentions sharp and plain. These people are clearly guards, they were thinking, they've got the right helmets and everything, and yet here they are in the Shades. So they were being watched with the fascination that a pack of wolves might focus on a handful of sheep who had not only trotted into the clearing, but were making playful butts and baa-ing noises; the outcome was, of course, going to be mutton but in the meantime inquisitiveness gave a stay of execution.
Carrot raised his muzzy head.
"Where're we?" he groaned.
"On our way home," said the sergeant. He looked up at the pitted, worm-eaten and knife-scored sign above them. "We're jus' goin' down, goin' down, goin' down…" he squinted"…Sweetheart Lane."
"Sweetheart Lane s'not on the way home," slurred Nobby. "We wouldn't wanta go down Sweetheart Lane, it's in the Shades. Catch us goin' down Sweetheart Lane-"
There was a crowded moment in which realization did the icy work of a good night's sleep and several pints of black coffee. The three of them, by unspoken agreement, clustered up towards Carrot.
"What we gonna do, Captain?" said Colon.
"Er. We could call for help," said the captain uncertainly.
"What, here?"
"You've got a point."
"I reckon we must of turned left out of Silver Street instead of right," quavered Nobby.
"Well, that's one mistake we won't make again in a hurry," said the captain. Then he wished he hadn't.
They could hear footsteps. Somewhere off to their left, there was a snigger.
"We must form a square," said the captain. They all tried to form a point.
"Hey! What was that?" said Sergeant Colon.
"What?"
"There it was again. Sort of a leathery sound."
Captain Vimes tried not to think about hoods and garrotting.
There were, he knew, many gods. There was a god for every trade. There was a beggars' god, a whores' goddess, a thieves' god, probably even an assassins' god.
He wondered whether there was, somewhere in that vast pantheon, a god who would look kindly on hard-pressed and fairly innocent law-enforcement officers who were quite definitely about to die.
There probably wasn't, he thought bitterly. Something like that wasn't stylish enough for gods. Catch any god worrying about any poor sod trying to do his best for a handful of dollars a month. Not them. Gods went overboard for smart bastards whose idea of a day's work was prizing the Ruby Eye of the Earwig King out of its socket, not for some unimaginative sap who just pounded the pavement every night . . .
"More sort of slithery," said the sergeant, who liked to get things right.
And then there was a sound…
…perhaps a volcanic sound, or the sound of a boiling geyser, but at any rate a long, dry roar of a sound, like the bellows in the forges of the Titans…
…but it was not so bad as the light, which was blue-white and the sort of light to print the pattern of your eyeballs' blood vessels on the back of the inside of your skull.
They both went on for hundreds of years and then, instantly, stopped.
The dark aftermath was filled with purple images and, once the ears regained an ability to hear, a faint, clinkery sound.
The guards remained perfectly still for some time.
"Well, well," said the captain weakly.
After a further pause he said, very clearly, every consonant slotting perfectly into place, "Sergeant, take some men and investigate that, will you?"
"Investigate what, sir?" said Colon, but it had already dawned on the captain that if the sergeant took some men it would leave him, Captain Vimes, all alone.
"No, I've a better idea. We'll all go," he said firmly. They all went.
Now that their eyes were used to the darkness they could see an indistinct red glow ahead of them.
It turned out to be a wall, cooling rapidly. Bits of calcined brickwork were falling off as they contracted, making little pinging noises.
That wasn't the worst bit. The worst bit was what was on the wall.
They stared at it.
They stared at it for a long time.
It was only an hour or two till dawn, and no one even suggested trying to find their way back in the dark. They waited by the wall. At least it was warm.
They tried not to look at it.
Eventually Colon stretched uneasily and said, ' 'Chin up, Captain. It could have been worse."
Vimes finished the bottle. It didn't have any effect. There were some types of sobriety that you just couldn't budge.
"Yes," he said. "It could have been us."
...
The Supreme Grand Master opened his eyes.
"Once again," he said, "we have achieved success."
The Brethren burst into a ragged cheer. The Brothers Watchtower and Fingers linked arms and danced an enthusiastic jig in their magic circle.
The Supreme Grand Master took a deep breath.
First the carrot, he thought, and now the stick. He liked the stick.
"Silence!" he screamed.
"Brother Fingers, Brother Watchtower, cease this shameful display!" he screeched. "The rest of you, be silent!"
They quietened down, like rowdy children who have just seen the teacher come into the room. Then they quieted down a lot more, like children who have just seen the teacher's expression.
The Supreme Grand Master let this sink in, and then stalked along their ragged ranks.
"I suppose," he said, "that we think we've done some magic, do we? Hmm? Brother Watchtower?"
Brother Watchtower swallowed. "Well, er, you said we were, er, I mean…"
"You haven't done ANYTHING yet!''
"Well, er, no, er…" Brother Watchtower trembled.
"Do real wizards leap about after a tiny spell and start chanting 'Here we go, here we go, here we go', Brother Watchtower? Hmm?"
"Well, we were sort of…"
The Supreme Grand Master spun on his heel.
"And do they keep looking apprehensively at the woodwork, Brother Plasterer? "
Brother Plasterer hung his head. He hadn't realized anyone had noticed.
When the tension was twanging satisfactorily, like a bowstring, the Supreme Grand Master stood back.
"Why do I bother?" he said, shaking his head. "I could have chosen anyone. I could have picked the best. But I've got a bunch of children. "
"Er, honest," said Brother Watchtower, "we was making an effort, I mean, we was really concentrating. Weren't we, lads?"
"Yes," they chorused. The Supreme Grand Master glared at them.
"There's no room in this Brotherhood for Brothers who are not behind us all the way," he warned.
With almost visible relief the Brethren, like panicked sheep who see that a hurdle has been opened in the fold, galloped towards the opening.
"No worries about that, your supremity," said Brother Watchtower fervently.
"Commitment must be our watchword!" said the Supreme Grand Master.
"Watchword. Yeah," said Brother Watchtower. He nudged Brother Plasterer, whose eyes had strayed to the skirting board again.
"Wha? Oh. Yeah. Watchword. Yeah," said Brother Plasterer.
"And trust and fraternity," said the Supreme Grand Master.
"Yeah. And them, too," said Brother Fingers.
"So," said the Supreme Grand Master, "if there be any one here not anxious, yea, eager to continue in this great work, let him step forward now.''
No one moved.
They're hooked. Ye gods, I'm good at this, thought the Supreme Grand Master. I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It's amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who'd have thought that weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do.
"Very well, then," he said. "And now, we will repeat the Oath."
He led their stumbling, terrified voices through it, noting with approval the strangled way they said 'figgin'. And he kept one eye on Brother Fingers, too.
He's slightly brighter than the others, he thought. Slightly less gullible, at least. Better make sure I'm always the last to leave. Don't want any clever ideas about following me home.
...
You need a special kind of mind to rule a city like Ankh-Morpork, and Lord Vetinari had it. But then, he was a special kind of person.
He baffled and infuriated the lesser merchant princes, to the extent that they had long ago given up trying to assassinate him and now merely jockeyed for position amongst themselves. Anyway, any assassin who tried to attack the Patrician would be hard put to it to find enough flesh to insert the dagger.
While other lords dined on larks stuffed with peacocks' tongues, Lord Vetinari considered that a glass of boiled water and half a slice of dry bread was an elegant sufficiency.
It was exasperating. He appeared to have no vice that anyone could discover. You'd have thought, with that pale, equine face, that he'd incline towards stuff with whips, needles, and young women in dungeons. The other lords could have accepted that. Nothing wrong with whips and needles, in moderation. But the Patrician apparently spent his evenings studying reports and, on special occasions, if he could stand the excitement, playing chess.
He wore black a lot. It wasn't particularly impressive black, such as the best assassins wore, but the sober, slightly shabby black of a man who doesn't want to waste time in the mornings wondering what to wear. And you had to get up very early in the morning to get the better of the Patrician; in fact, it was wiser not to go to bed at all.
But he was popular, in a way. Under his hand, for the first time in a thousand years, Ankh-Morpork operated. It might not be fair or just or particularly democratic, but it worked. He tended it as one tends a topiary bush, encouraging a growth here, pruning an errant twig there. It was said that he would tolerate absolutely anything apart from anything that threatened the city[11], and here it was . . .
He stared at the stricken wall for a long time, while the rain dripped off his chin and soaked his clothes. Behind him, Wonse hovered nervously.
Then one long, thin, blue-veined hand reached out and the fingertips traced the shadows.
Well, not so much shadows, more a series of silhouettes. The outline was very distinct. Inside, there was the familiar pattern of brickwork. Outside, though, something had fused the wall in a rather nice ceramic substance, giving the ancient flettons a melted, mirror-like finish.
The shapes outlined in brickwork showed a tableau of six men frozen in an attitude of surprise. Various upraised hands had quite clearly been holding knives and cutlasses.
Then Patrician looked down silently on the pile of ash at his feet. A few streaks of molten metal might once have been the very same weapons that were now so decisively etched into the wall.
"Hmm," he said.
Captain Vimes respectfully led him across the lane and into Fast Luck Alley, where he pointed out Exhibit A, to whit . . .
"Footprints," he said. "Which is stretching it a bit, sir. They're more what you'd call claws. One might go so far as to say talons."
The Patrician stared at the prints in the mud. His expression was quite unreadable.
"I see," he said eventually. "And do you have an opinion about all this, Captain?"
The captain did. In the hours until dawn he'd had all sorts of opinions, starting with a conviction that it had been a big mistake to be born.
And then the grey light had filtered even into the Shades, and he was still alive and uncooked, and had looked around him with an expression of idiot relief and seen, not a yard away, these footprints. That had not been a good moment to be sober.
"Well, sir," he said, "I know that dragons have been extinct for thousands of years, sir…"
"Yes?" The Patrician's eyes narrowed.
Vimes plunged on. "But, sir, the thing is, do they know? Sergeant Colon said he heard a leathery sound just before, just before, just before the, er . . . offence."
"So you think an extinct, and indeed a possibly entirely mythical, dragon flew into the city, landed in this narrow alley, incinerated a group of criminals, and then flew away?" said the Patrician. "One might say, it was a very public-spirited creature."
"Well, when you put it like that…"
"If I recall, the dragons of legend were solitary and rural creatures who shunned people and dwelt in forsaken, out of the way places," said the Patrician. "They were hardly urban creatures."
"No, sir," said the captain, repressing a comment that if you wanted to find a really forsaken, out of the way place then the Shades would fit the bill pretty well.
"Besides," said Lord Vetinari, "one would imagine that someone would have noticed, wouldn't you agree?"
The captain nodded at the wall and its dreadful frieze. "Apart from them, you mean, sir?"
"In my opinion," said Lord Vetinari, "it's some kind of warfare. Possibly a rival gang has hired a wizard. A little local difficulty."
"Could be linked to all this strange thieving, sir," volunteered Wonse.
"But there's the footprints, sir," said Vimes doggedly.
"We're close to the river," said the Patrician. "Possibly it was, perhaps, a wading bird of some sort. A mere coincidence," he added, "but I should cover them over, if I were you. We don't want people getting the wrong idea and jumping to silly conclusions, do we?" he added sharply.
Vimes gave in.
"As you wish, sir," he said, looking at his sandals.
The Patrician patted him on the shoulder.
"Never mind," he said. "Carry on. Good show of initiative, that man. Patrolling in the Shades, too. Well done."
He turned, and almost walked into the wall of chain mail that was Carrot.
To his horror, Captain Vimes saw his newest recruit point politely to the Patrician's coach. Around it, fully-armed and wary, were six members of the Palace Guard, who straightened up and took a wary interest. Vimes disliked them intensely. They had plumes on their helmets. He hated plumes on a guard.
He heard Carrot say. "Excuse me, sir, is this your coach, sir?" and the Patrician looked him blankly up and down and said, "It is. Who are you, young man?"
Carrot saluted. "Lance-constable Carrot, sir."
"Carrot, Carrot. That name rings a bell."
Lupine Wonse, who had been hovering behind him, whispered in the Patrician's ear. His face brightened.' 'Ah, the young thief-taker. A little error there, I think, but commendable. No person is above the law, eh?"
"No, sir," said Carrot.
"Commendable, commendable," said the Patrician. "And now, gentlemen-"
"About your coach, sir," said Carrot doggedly, "I couldn't help noticing that the front offside wheel, contrary to the-"
He's going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told himself, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He's actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He's going to arrest him. This is what he's actually going to do. The boy doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'. Oh, wouldn't it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word 'survival' . . .
And I can't get my jaw muscles to move.
We're all dead. Or worse, we're all detained at the Patrician's pleasure. And as we all know, he's seldom that pleased.
It was at this precise moment that Sergeant Colon earned himself a metaphorical medal.
"Lance-constable Carrot!" he shouted. "Attention! Lance-constable Carrot, abou-uta turna! Lance-constable Carrot, qui-uck marcha!''
Carrot brought himself to attention like a barn being raised and stared straight ahead with a ferocious expression of acute obedience.
"Well done, that man," said the Patrician thoughtfully, as Carrot strode stiffly away. "Carry on, Captain. And do come down heavily on any silly rumours about dragons, right?"
"Yes, sir," said Captain Vimes.
"Good man."
The coach rattled off, the bodyguard running alongside.
Behind him, Captain Vimes was only vaguely aware of the sergeant yelling at the retreating Carrot to stop.
He was thinking.
He looked at the prints in the mud. He used his regulation pike, which he knew was exactly seven feet long, to measure their size and the distance between them. He whistled under his breath. Then, with considerable caution, he followed the alley around the corner; it led to a small, padlocked and dirt-encrusted door in the back of a timber warehouse.
There was something very wrong, he thought.
The prints come out of the alley, but they don't go in. And we don't often get any wading birds in the Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.
He looked up. A myriad washing lines criss-crossed the narrow rectangle of the sky as efficiently as a net.
So, he thought, something big and fiery came out of this alley but didn't come into it.
And the Patrician is very worried about it.
I've been told to forget about it.
He noticed something else at the side of the alley, and bent down and picked up a fresh, empty peanut shell.
He tossed it from hand to hand, staring at nothing.
Right now, he needed a drink. But perhaps it ought to wait.
...
The Librarian knuckled his way urgently along the dark aisles between the slumbering bookshelves.
The rooftops of the city belonged to him. Oh, assassins and thieves might make use of them, but he'd long ago found the forest of chimneys, buttresses, gargoyles and weathervanes a convenient and somehow comforting alternative to the streets.
At least, up until now.
It had seemed amusing and instructive to follow the Watch into the Shades, an urban jungle which held no fears for a 300-lb ape. But now the nightmare he had seen while brachiating across a dark alley would, if he had been human, have made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes.
As an ape, he had no doubts whatsoever about his eyes and believed them all the time.
Right now he wanted to concentrate them urgently on a book that might hold a clue. It was in a section no one bothered with much these days; the books in there were not really magical. Dust lay accusingly on the floor.
Dust with footprints in it.
"Oook?" said the Librarian, in the warm gloom.
He proceeded cautiously now, realizing with a sense of inevitability that the footprints seemed to have the same destination in mind as he did.
He turned a corner and there it was.
The section.
The bookcase.
The shelf.
The gap.
There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.
...
In the privacy of the Oblong Office, his personal sanctum, the Patrician paced up and down. He was dictating a stream of instructions.
"And send some men to paint that wall," he finished.
Lupine Wonse raised an eyebrow.
"Is that wise, sir?" he said.
"You don't think a frieze of ghastly shadows will cause comment and speculation?" said the Patrician sourly.
"Not as much as fresh paint in the Shades," said Wonse evenly.
The Patrician hesitated a moment. "Good point," he snapped. "Have some men demolish it."
He reached the end of the room, spun on his heel, and stalked up it again. Dragons! As if there were not enough important, enough real things to take up his time.
"Do you believe in dragons?" he said.
Wonse shook his head. "They're impossible, sir."
"So I've heard," said Lord Vetinari. He reached the opposite wall, turned.
"Would you like me to investigate further?" said Wonse.
"Yes. Do so."
"And I shall ensure the Watch take great care," said Wonse.
The Patrician stopped his pacing. "The Watch? The Watch? My dear chap, the Watch are a bunch of incompetents commanded by a drunkard. It's taken me years to achieve it. The last thing we need to concern ourselves with is the Watch."
He thought for a moment. "Ever seen a dragon, Wonse? One of the big ones, I mean? Oh, they're impossible. You said."
"They're just legend, really. Superstition," said Wonse.
"Hmm," said the Patrician. "And the thing about legends, of course, is that they are legendary."
"Exactly, sir."
"Even so…" The Patrician paused, and stared at Wonse for some time. "Oh, well," he said. "Sort it out. I'm not having any of this dragon business. It's the type of thing that makes people restless. Put a stop to it."
When he was alone he stood and looked out gloomily over the twin city. It was drizzling again.
Ankh-Morpork! Brawling city of a hundred thousand souls! And, as the Patrician privately observed, ten times that number of actual people. The fresh rain glistened on the panorama of towers and rooftops, all unaware of the teeming, rancorous world it was dropping into. Luckier rain fell on upland sheep, or whispered gently over forests, or patterned somewhat incestuously into the sea. Rain that fell on Ankh-Morpork, though, was rain that was in trouble. They did terrible things to water, in Ankh-Morpork. Being drunk was only the start of its problems.
The Patrician liked to feel that he was looking out over a city that worked. Not a beautiful city, or a renowned city, or a well-drained city, and certainly not an architecturally favoured city; even its most enthusiastic citizens would agree that, from a high point of vantage, Ankh-Morpork looked as though someone had tried to achieve in stone and wood an effect normally associated with the pavements outside all-night takeaways.
But it worked. It spun along cheerfully like a gyroscope on the lip of a catastrophe curve. And this, the Patrician firmly believed, was because no one group was ever powerful enough to push it over. Merchants, thieves, assassins, wizards-all competed energetically in the race without really realizing that it needn't be a race at all, and certainly not trusting one another enough to stop and wonder who had marked out the course and was holding the starting flag.
The Patrician disliked the word 'dictator.' It affronted him. He never told anyone what to do. He didn't have to, that was the wonderful part. A large part of his life consisted of arranging matters so that this state of affairs continued.
Of course, there were various groups seeking his overthrow, and this was right and proper and the sign of a vigorous and healthy society. No one could call him unreasonable about the matter. Why, hadn't he founded most of them himself? And what was so beautiful was the way in which they spent nearly all their time bickering with one another.
Human nature, the Patrician always said, was a marvellous thing. Once you understood where its levers were.
He had an unpleasant premonition about this dragon business. If ever there was a creature that didn't have any obvious levers, it was a dragon. It would have to be sorted out.
The Patrician didn't believe in unnecessary cruelty.[12] He did not believe in pointless revenge. But he was a great believer in the need for things to be sorted out.
Funnily enough, Captain Vimes was thinking the same thing. He found he didn't like the idea of citizens, even of the Shades, being turned into a mere ceramic tint.
And it had been done in front of the Watch, more or less. As if the Watch didn't matter, as if the Watch was just an irrelevant detail. That was what rankled.
Of course, it was true. That only made it worse.
What was making him even angrier was that he had disobeyed orders. He had scuffed up the tracks, certainly. But in the bottom drawer of his ancient desk, hidden under a pile of empty bottles, was a plaster cast. He could feel it staring at him through three layers of wood.
He couldn't imagine what had got into him. And now he was going even further out on to the limb.
He reviewed his, for want of a better word, troops. He'd asked the senior pair to turn up in plain clothes. This meant that Sergeant Colon, who'd worn uniform all his life, was looking red-faced and uncomfortable in the suit he wore for funerals. Whereas Nobby…
"I wonder if I made the word 'plain' clear enough?" said Captain Vimes.
"It's what I wear outside work, guv," said Nobby reproachfully.
"Very nice at this time of year, I'm told."
"Yessir."
"All the geraniums and whatnot."
A figure tumbled out of an upper window and crumpled on the cobbles.
"That's where they've got the floral sundial, isn't it?" said the captain desperately.
"Yessir. Very nice, sir. All done with little flowers, sir."
There was a sound like something hitting something else repeatedly with something heavy and wooden. Vimes winced.
"I don't think he'd of been happy in the Watch, sir," said the sergeant, in a kindly voice.
The door of the Mended Drum had been torn off during riots so often that specially-tempered hinges had recently been installed, and the fact that the next tremendous crash tore the whole door and doorframe out of the wall only showed that quite a lot of money had been wasted. A figure in the midst of the wreckage tried to raise itself on its elbows, groaned, and slumped back.
"Well, it would seem that it's all…" the captain began, and Nobby said: "It's that bloody troll!"
"What?" said Vimes.
"It's the troll! The one they have on the door!"
They advanced with extreme caution.
It was, indeed, Detritus the splatter.
It is very difficult to hurt a creature that is, to all intents and purposes, a mobile stone. Someone seemed to have managed it, though. The fallen figure was groaning like a couple of bricks being crushed together.
"That's a turn up for the books," said the sergeant vaguely. All three of them turned and peered at the brightly-lit rectangle where the doorway had been. Things had definitely quietened down a bit in there.
"You don't think," said the sergeant, "that he's winning, do you?''
The captain thrust out his jaw. ' 'We owe it to our colleague and fellow officer," he said, "to find out."
There was a whimper from behind them. They turned and saw Nobby hopping on one leg and clutching a foot.
"What's up with you, man?" said Vimes.
Nobby made agonized noises.
Sergeant Colon began to understand. Although cautious obsequiousness was the general tenor of Watch behaviour, there wasn't one member of the entire squad who hadn't, at some time, been at the wrong end of Detritus's fists. Nobby had merely tried to play catch-up in the very best traditions of policemen everywhere.
"He went and kicked him inna rocks, sir," he said.
"Disgraceful," said the captain vaguely. He hesitated. "Do trolls have rocks?" he said.
"Take it from me, sir."
"Good grief," Vimes said. "Dame Nature moves in strange ways, doesn't she."
"Right you are, sir," said the sergeant obediently.
"And now," said the captain, drawing his sword, "forward!"
"Yessir."
"This means you too, Sergeant," the captain added.
"Yessir."
...
It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military maneuvers, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.
They peered cautiously around the ravished doorway.
There were a number of people sprawled across the tables, or what remained of the tables. Those who were still conscious looked unhappy about it.
Carrot stood in the middle of the floor. His rusty chain mail was torn, his helmet was missing, he was swaying a little from side to side and one eye was already starting to swell, but he recognized the captain, dropped the feebly-protesting customer he was holding, and threw a salute.
"Beg to report thirty-one offences of Making an Affray, sir, and fifty-six cases of Riotous Behaviour, forty-one offences of Obstructing an Officer of the Watch in the Execution of his Duty, thirteen offences of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, six cases of Malicious Lingering, and-and-Corporal Nobby hasn't even shown me one rope yet…"
He fell backwards, breaking a table.
Captain Vimes coughed. He wasn't at all sure what you were supposed to do next. As far as he knew, the Watch had never been in this position before.
' 'I think you should get him a drink, Sergeant,'' he said.
"Yessir."
"And get me one, too."
"Yessir."
"Have one yourself, why don't you."
"Yessir."
"And you, Corporal, will you please — what are you doing?"
"Searching-the-bodies-sir," said Nobby quickly, straightening up. "For incriminating evidence, and that."
"In their money pouches?''
Nobby thrust his hands behind his back. "You never know, sir," he said.
The sergeant had located a miraculously unbroken bottle of spirits in the wreckage and forced a lot of its contents between Carrot's lips.
"What we going to do with all this lot, Captain?" he said over his shoulder.
"I haven't the faintest," said Vimes, sitting down. The Watch jail was just about big enough for six very small people, which were usually the only sort to be put in it. Whereas these…
He looked around him desperately. There was Nork the Impaler, lying under a table and making bubbling noises. There was Big Henri. There was Grabber Simmons, one of the most feared bar-room fighters in the city. All in all, there were a lot of people it wouldn't pay to be near when they woke up.
"We could cut their throats, sir," said Nobby, veteran of a score of residual battlefields. He had found an unconscious fighter who was about the right size and was speculatively removing his boots, which looked quite new and about the right size.
"That would be entirely wrong," said Vimes. He wasn't sure how you actually went about cutting a throat. It had never hitherto been an option.
"No," he said, "I think perhaps we'll let them off with a caution."
There was a groan from under the bench.
"Besides," he went on quickly, "we should get our fallen comrade to a place of safety as soon as possible."
"Good point," said the sergeant. He took a swig of the spirits, for the sake of his nerves.
The two of them managed to sling Carrot between them and guide his wobbling legs up the steps. Vimes, collapsing under the weight, looked around for Nobby.
"Corporal Nobbs," he rasped, "why are you kicking people when they're down?"
"Safest way, sir," said Nobby.
Nobby had long ago been told about fighting fair and not striking a fallen opponent, and had then given some creative thought to how these rules applied to someone four feet tall with the muscle tone of an elastic band.
"Well, stop it. I want you to caution the felons," said the captain.
"How, sir?"
"Well, you…" Captain Vimes stopped. He was blowed if he knew. He'd never done it.
"Just do it," he snapped. "Surely I don't have to tell you everything?''
Nobby was left alone at the top of the stairs. A general muttering and groaning from the floor indicated that people were waking up. Nobby thought quickly. He shook an admonitory cheese-straw of a finger.
"Let that be a lesson to you," he said. "Don't do it again.''
And ran for it.
Up in the darkness of the rafters the Librarian scratched himself reflectively. Life was certainly full of surprises. He was going to watch developments with interest. He shelled a thoughtful peanut with his feet, and swung away into the darkness.
The Supreme Grand Master raised his hands.
"Are the Thuribles of Destiny ritually chastised, that Evil and Loose Thinking may be banished from this Sanctified Circle?"
"Yep."
The Supreme Grand Master lowered his hands.
"Yep?" he said.
"Yep," said Brother Dunnykin happily. "Done it myself."
"You are supposed to say 'Yea, O Supreme One'," said the Supreme Grand Master. "Honestly, I've told you enough times, if you're not all going to enter into the spirit of the thing-"
"Yes, you listen to what the Supreme Grand Master tells you," said Brother Watchtower, glaring at the errant Brother.
"I spent hours chastising them thuribles," muttered Brother Dunnykin.
"Carry on, O Supreme Grand Master," said Brother Watchtower.
"Very well, then," said the Grand Master. "Tonight we'll try another experimental summoning. I trust you have obtained suitable raw material, brothers?"
"…scrubbed and scrubbed, not that you get any thanks…''
"All sorted out, Supreme Grand Master," said Brother Watchtower.
It was, the Grand Master conceded, a slightly better collection. The Brothers had certainly been busy. Pride of place was given to an illuminated tavern sign whose removal, the Grand Master thought, should have merited some sort of civic aware. At the moment the E was a ghastly pink and flashed on and off at random.
"I got that," said Brother Watchtower proudly. "They thought I was mending it or something, but I took my screwdriver and I.."
"Yes, well done," said the Supreme Grand Master. "Shows initiative."
"Thank you, Supreme Grand Master," beamed Brother Watchtower.
''…knuckles rubbed raw, all red and cracked. Never even got my three dollars back, either, no one as much as says…''
"And now," said the Supreme Grand Master, taking up the book, "we will begin to commence. Shut up, Brother Dunnykin."
...
Every town in the multiverse has a part that is something like Ankh-Morpork's Shades. It's usually the oldest part, its lanes faithfully following the original tracks of medieval cows going down to the river, and they have names like the Shambles, the Rookery, Sniggs Alley . . .
Most of Ankh-Morpork is like that in any case. But the Shades was even more so, a sort of black hole of bred-in-the-brickwork lawlessness. Put it like this: even the criminals were afraid to walk the streets. The Watch didn't set foot in it.
They were accidentally setting foot in it now. Not very reliably. It had been a trying night, and they had been steadying their nerves. They were now so steady that all four were relying on the other three to keep them upright and steer.
Captain Vimes passed the bottle back to the sergeant.
"Shame on, on, on…," he thought for a bit, "…you," he said. "Drun' in fron' of a super, super, superererer ofisiler."
The sergeant tried to speak, but could only come out with a series of esses.
"Put yoursel' onna charge," said Captain Vimes, rebounding off a wall. He glared at the brickwork. "This wall assaulted me," he declared. "Hah! Think you're tough, eh! Well, 'm a ofisler of, of, of the Law, I'll-have-you-know, and we don' take any, any, any."
He blinked slowly, once or twice.
"What's it we don' take any of, Sar'nt?" he said.
"Chances, sir?" said Colon.
"No, no, no. S'other stuff. Never mind. Anyway, we don' take any of, of, of it from anyone." Vague visions were trotting through his mind, of a room full of criminal types, people that had jeered at him, people whose very existence had offended and taunted him for years, lying around and groaning. He was a little unclear how it had happened, but some almost forgotten part of him, some much younger Vimes with a bright shining breastplate and big hopes, a Vimes he thought the alcohol had long ago drowned, was suddenly restless.
"Shallie, shallie, shallie tell you something, Sarn't?" he said.
"Sir?'' The four of them bounced gently off another wall and began another slow crabwise waltz across the alley.
"This city. This city. This city, Sar'nt. This city is a, is a, is a Woman, Sarn't. So t'is. A Woman, Sarn't. Ancient raddled old beauty, Sarn't. Buti-you-fall-in-love-with-her, then, then, then she-kicks-you-inna-teeth-"
" 's woman?" said Colon.
He screwed up his sweating face with the effort of thought.
" 'S eight miles wide, sir.'S gotta river in it. Lots of, of houses and stuff, sir," he reasoned.
"Ah. Ah. Ah." Vimes waggled an unsteady finger at him. "Never, never, never said it wasa small woman, did I. Be fair." He waved the bottle. Another random thought exploded in the froth of his mind.
"We showed 'em, anyway," he said excitedly, as the four of them began an oblique shuffle back to the opposite wall. "Showed them, dint we? Taught thema forget they won't lesson inna hurry, eh?"
"S'right," said the sergeant, but not very enthusiastically. He was still wondering about his superior officer's sex life.
But Vimes was in the kind of mood that didn't need encouragement.
"Hah!" he shouted, at the dark alleyways. "Don' like it, eh? Taste of your, your, your own medicine thingy. Well, now you can bootle in your trems!" He threw the empty bottle into the air.
"Two o'clock!" he yelled. "And all's weeeellll!"
Which was astonishing news to the various shadowy figures who had been silently shadowing the four of them for some time. Only sheer puzzlement had prevented them making their attentions sharp and plain. These people are clearly guards, they were thinking, they've got the right helmets and everything, and yet here they are in the Shades. So they were being watched with the fascination that a pack of wolves might focus on a handful of sheep who had not only trotted into the clearing, but were making playful butts and baa-ing noises; the outcome was, of course, going to be mutton but in the meantime inquisitiveness gave a stay of execution.
Carrot raised his muzzy head.
"Where're we?" he groaned.
"On our way home," said the sergeant. He looked up at the pitted, worm-eaten and knife-scored sign above them. "We're jus' goin' down, goin' down, goin' down…" he squinted"…Sweetheart Lane."
"Sweetheart Lane s'not on the way home," slurred Nobby. "We wouldn't wanta go down Sweetheart Lane, it's in the Shades. Catch us goin' down Sweetheart Lane-"
There was a crowded moment in which realization did the icy work of a good night's sleep and several pints of black coffee. The three of them, by unspoken agreement, clustered up towards Carrot.
"What we gonna do, Captain?" said Colon.
"Er. We could call for help," said the captain uncertainly.
"What, here?"
"You've got a point."
"I reckon we must of turned left out of Silver Street instead of right," quavered Nobby.
"Well, that's one mistake we won't make again in a hurry," said the captain. Then he wished he hadn't.
They could hear footsteps. Somewhere off to their left, there was a snigger.
"We must form a square," said the captain. They all tried to form a point.
"Hey! What was that?" said Sergeant Colon.
"What?"
"There it was again. Sort of a leathery sound."
Captain Vimes tried not to think about hoods and garrotting.
There were, he knew, many gods. There was a god for every trade. There was a beggars' god, a whores' goddess, a thieves' god, probably even an assassins' god.
He wondered whether there was, somewhere in that vast pantheon, a god who would look kindly on hard-pressed and fairly innocent law-enforcement officers who were quite definitely about to die.
There probably wasn't, he thought bitterly. Something like that wasn't stylish enough for gods. Catch any god worrying about any poor sod trying to do his best for a handful of dollars a month. Not them. Gods went overboard for smart bastards whose idea of a day's work was prizing the Ruby Eye of the Earwig King out of its socket, not for some unimaginative sap who just pounded the pavement every night . . .
"More sort of slithery," said the sergeant, who liked to get things right.
And then there was a sound…
…perhaps a volcanic sound, or the sound of a boiling geyser, but at any rate a long, dry roar of a sound, like the bellows in the forges of the Titans…
…but it was not so bad as the light, which was blue-white and the sort of light to print the pattern of your eyeballs' blood vessels on the back of the inside of your skull.
They both went on for hundreds of years and then, instantly, stopped.
The dark aftermath was filled with purple images and, once the ears regained an ability to hear, a faint, clinkery sound.
The guards remained perfectly still for some time.
"Well, well," said the captain weakly.
After a further pause he said, very clearly, every consonant slotting perfectly into place, "Sergeant, take some men and investigate that, will you?"
"Investigate what, sir?" said Colon, but it had already dawned on the captain that if the sergeant took some men it would leave him, Captain Vimes, all alone.
"No, I've a better idea. We'll all go," he said firmly. They all went.
Now that their eyes were used to the darkness they could see an indistinct red glow ahead of them.
It turned out to be a wall, cooling rapidly. Bits of calcined brickwork were falling off as they contracted, making little pinging noises.
That wasn't the worst bit. The worst bit was what was on the wall.
They stared at it.
They stared at it for a long time.
It was only an hour or two till dawn, and no one even suggested trying to find their way back in the dark. They waited by the wall. At least it was warm.
They tried not to look at it.
Eventually Colon stretched uneasily and said, ' 'Chin up, Captain. It could have been worse."
Vimes finished the bottle. It didn't have any effect. There were some types of sobriety that you just couldn't budge.
"Yes," he said. "It could have been us."
...
The Supreme Grand Master opened his eyes.
"Once again," he said, "we have achieved success."
The Brethren burst into a ragged cheer. The Brothers Watchtower and Fingers linked arms and danced an enthusiastic jig in their magic circle.
The Supreme Grand Master took a deep breath.
First the carrot, he thought, and now the stick. He liked the stick.
"Silence!" he screamed.
"Brother Fingers, Brother Watchtower, cease this shameful display!" he screeched. "The rest of you, be silent!"
They quietened down, like rowdy children who have just seen the teacher come into the room. Then they quieted down a lot more, like children who have just seen the teacher's expression.
The Supreme Grand Master let this sink in, and then stalked along their ragged ranks.
"I suppose," he said, "that we think we've done some magic, do we? Hmm? Brother Watchtower?"
Brother Watchtower swallowed. "Well, er, you said we were, er, I mean…"
"You haven't done ANYTHING yet!''
"Well, er, no, er…" Brother Watchtower trembled.
"Do real wizards leap about after a tiny spell and start chanting 'Here we go, here we go, here we go', Brother Watchtower? Hmm?"
"Well, we were sort of…"
The Supreme Grand Master spun on his heel.
"And do they keep looking apprehensively at the woodwork, Brother Plasterer? "
Brother Plasterer hung his head. He hadn't realized anyone had noticed.
When the tension was twanging satisfactorily, like a bowstring, the Supreme Grand Master stood back.
"Why do I bother?" he said, shaking his head. "I could have chosen anyone. I could have picked the best. But I've got a bunch of children. "
"Er, honest," said Brother Watchtower, "we was making an effort, I mean, we was really concentrating. Weren't we, lads?"
"Yes," they chorused. The Supreme Grand Master glared at them.
"There's no room in this Brotherhood for Brothers who are not behind us all the way," he warned.
With almost visible relief the Brethren, like panicked sheep who see that a hurdle has been opened in the fold, galloped towards the opening.
"No worries about that, your supremity," said Brother Watchtower fervently.
"Commitment must be our watchword!" said the Supreme Grand Master.
"Watchword. Yeah," said Brother Watchtower. He nudged Brother Plasterer, whose eyes had strayed to the skirting board again.
"Wha? Oh. Yeah. Watchword. Yeah," said Brother Plasterer.
"And trust and fraternity," said the Supreme Grand Master.
"Yeah. And them, too," said Brother Fingers.
"So," said the Supreme Grand Master, "if there be any one here not anxious, yea, eager to continue in this great work, let him step forward now.''
No one moved.
They're hooked. Ye gods, I'm good at this, thought the Supreme Grand Master. I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It's amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who'd have thought that weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do.
"Very well, then," he said. "And now, we will repeat the Oath."
He led their stumbling, terrified voices through it, noting with approval the strangled way they said 'figgin'. And he kept one eye on Brother Fingers, too.
He's slightly brighter than the others, he thought. Slightly less gullible, at least. Better make sure I'm always the last to leave. Don't want any clever ideas about following me home.
...
You need a special kind of mind to rule a city like Ankh-Morpork, and Lord Vetinari had it. But then, he was a special kind of person.
He baffled and infuriated the lesser merchant princes, to the extent that they had long ago given up trying to assassinate him and now merely jockeyed for position amongst themselves. Anyway, any assassin who tried to attack the Patrician would be hard put to it to find enough flesh to insert the dagger.
While other lords dined on larks stuffed with peacocks' tongues, Lord Vetinari considered that a glass of boiled water and half a slice of dry bread was an elegant sufficiency.
It was exasperating. He appeared to have no vice that anyone could discover. You'd have thought, with that pale, equine face, that he'd incline towards stuff with whips, needles, and young women in dungeons. The other lords could have accepted that. Nothing wrong with whips and needles, in moderation. But the Patrician apparently spent his evenings studying reports and, on special occasions, if he could stand the excitement, playing chess.
He wore black a lot. It wasn't particularly impressive black, such as the best assassins wore, but the sober, slightly shabby black of a man who doesn't want to waste time in the mornings wondering what to wear. And you had to get up very early in the morning to get the better of the Patrician; in fact, it was wiser not to go to bed at all.
But he was popular, in a way. Under his hand, for the first time in a thousand years, Ankh-Morpork operated. It might not be fair or just or particularly democratic, but it worked. He tended it as one tends a topiary bush, encouraging a growth here, pruning an errant twig there. It was said that he would tolerate absolutely anything apart from anything that threatened the city[11], and here it was . . .
He stared at the stricken wall for a long time, while the rain dripped off his chin and soaked his clothes. Behind him, Wonse hovered nervously.
Then one long, thin, blue-veined hand reached out and the fingertips traced the shadows.
Well, not so much shadows, more a series of silhouettes. The outline was very distinct. Inside, there was the familiar pattern of brickwork. Outside, though, something had fused the wall in a rather nice ceramic substance, giving the ancient flettons a melted, mirror-like finish.
The shapes outlined in brickwork showed a tableau of six men frozen in an attitude of surprise. Various upraised hands had quite clearly been holding knives and cutlasses.
Then Patrician looked down silently on the pile of ash at his feet. A few streaks of molten metal might once have been the very same weapons that were now so decisively etched into the wall.
"Hmm," he said.
Captain Vimes respectfully led him across the lane and into Fast Luck Alley, where he pointed out Exhibit A, to whit . . .
"Footprints," he said. "Which is stretching it a bit, sir. They're more what you'd call claws. One might go so far as to say talons."
The Patrician stared at the prints in the mud. His expression was quite unreadable.
"I see," he said eventually. "And do you have an opinion about all this, Captain?"
The captain did. In the hours until dawn he'd had all sorts of opinions, starting with a conviction that it had been a big mistake to be born.
And then the grey light had filtered even into the Shades, and he was still alive and uncooked, and had looked around him with an expression of idiot relief and seen, not a yard away, these footprints. That had not been a good moment to be sober.
"Well, sir," he said, "I know that dragons have been extinct for thousands of years, sir…"
"Yes?" The Patrician's eyes narrowed.
Vimes plunged on. "But, sir, the thing is, do they know? Sergeant Colon said he heard a leathery sound just before, just before, just before the, er . . . offence."
"So you think an extinct, and indeed a possibly entirely mythical, dragon flew into the city, landed in this narrow alley, incinerated a group of criminals, and then flew away?" said the Patrician. "One might say, it was a very public-spirited creature."
"Well, when you put it like that…"
"If I recall, the dragons of legend were solitary and rural creatures who shunned people and dwelt in forsaken, out of the way places," said the Patrician. "They were hardly urban creatures."
"No, sir," said the captain, repressing a comment that if you wanted to find a really forsaken, out of the way place then the Shades would fit the bill pretty well.
"Besides," said Lord Vetinari, "one would imagine that someone would have noticed, wouldn't you agree?"
The captain nodded at the wall and its dreadful frieze. "Apart from them, you mean, sir?"
"In my opinion," said Lord Vetinari, "it's some kind of warfare. Possibly a rival gang has hired a wizard. A little local difficulty."
"Could be linked to all this strange thieving, sir," volunteered Wonse.
"But there's the footprints, sir," said Vimes doggedly.
"We're close to the river," said the Patrician. "Possibly it was, perhaps, a wading bird of some sort. A mere coincidence," he added, "but I should cover them over, if I were you. We don't want people getting the wrong idea and jumping to silly conclusions, do we?" he added sharply.
Vimes gave in.
"As you wish, sir," he said, looking at his sandals.
The Patrician patted him on the shoulder.
"Never mind," he said. "Carry on. Good show of initiative, that man. Patrolling in the Shades, too. Well done."
He turned, and almost walked into the wall of chain mail that was Carrot.
To his horror, Captain Vimes saw his newest recruit point politely to the Patrician's coach. Around it, fully-armed and wary, were six members of the Palace Guard, who straightened up and took a wary interest. Vimes disliked them intensely. They had plumes on their helmets. He hated plumes on a guard.
He heard Carrot say. "Excuse me, sir, is this your coach, sir?" and the Patrician looked him blankly up and down and said, "It is. Who are you, young man?"
Carrot saluted. "Lance-constable Carrot, sir."
"Carrot, Carrot. That name rings a bell."
Lupine Wonse, who had been hovering behind him, whispered in the Patrician's ear. His face brightened.' 'Ah, the young thief-taker. A little error there, I think, but commendable. No person is above the law, eh?"
"No, sir," said Carrot.
"Commendable, commendable," said the Patrician. "And now, gentlemen-"
"About your coach, sir," said Carrot doggedly, "I couldn't help noticing that the front offside wheel, contrary to the-"
He's going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told himself, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He's actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He's going to arrest him. This is what he's actually going to do. The boy doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'. Oh, wouldn't it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word 'survival' . . .
And I can't get my jaw muscles to move.
We're all dead. Or worse, we're all detained at the Patrician's pleasure. And as we all know, he's seldom that pleased.
It was at this precise moment that Sergeant Colon earned himself a metaphorical medal.
"Lance-constable Carrot!" he shouted. "Attention! Lance-constable Carrot, abou-uta turna! Lance-constable Carrot, qui-uck marcha!''
Carrot brought himself to attention like a barn being raised and stared straight ahead with a ferocious expression of acute obedience.
"Well done, that man," said the Patrician thoughtfully, as Carrot strode stiffly away. "Carry on, Captain. And do come down heavily on any silly rumours about dragons, right?"
"Yes, sir," said Captain Vimes.
"Good man."
The coach rattled off, the bodyguard running alongside.
Behind him, Captain Vimes was only vaguely aware of the sergeant yelling at the retreating Carrot to stop.
He was thinking.
He looked at the prints in the mud. He used his regulation pike, which he knew was exactly seven feet long, to measure their size and the distance between them. He whistled under his breath. Then, with considerable caution, he followed the alley around the corner; it led to a small, padlocked and dirt-encrusted door in the back of a timber warehouse.
There was something very wrong, he thought.
The prints come out of the alley, but they don't go in. And we don't often get any wading birds in the Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.
He looked up. A myriad washing lines criss-crossed the narrow rectangle of the sky as efficiently as a net.
So, he thought, something big and fiery came out of this alley but didn't come into it.
And the Patrician is very worried about it.
I've been told to forget about it.
He noticed something else at the side of the alley, and bent down and picked up a fresh, empty peanut shell.
He tossed it from hand to hand, staring at nothing.
Right now, he needed a drink. But perhaps it ought to wait.
...
The Librarian knuckled his way urgently along the dark aisles between the slumbering bookshelves.
The rooftops of the city belonged to him. Oh, assassins and thieves might make use of them, but he'd long ago found the forest of chimneys, buttresses, gargoyles and weathervanes a convenient and somehow comforting alternative to the streets.
At least, up until now.
It had seemed amusing and instructive to follow the Watch into the Shades, an urban jungle which held no fears for a 300-lb ape. But now the nightmare he had seen while brachiating across a dark alley would, if he had been human, have made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes.
As an ape, he had no doubts whatsoever about his eyes and believed them all the time.
Right now he wanted to concentrate them urgently on a book that might hold a clue. It was in a section no one bothered with much these days; the books in there were not really magical. Dust lay accusingly on the floor.
Dust with footprints in it.
"Oook?" said the Librarian, in the warm gloom.
He proceeded cautiously now, realizing with a sense of inevitability that the footprints seemed to have the same destination in mind as he did.
He turned a corner and there it was.
The section.
The bookcase.
The shelf.
The gap.
There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.
...
In the privacy of the Oblong Office, his personal sanctum, the Patrician paced up and down. He was dictating a stream of instructions.
"And send some men to paint that wall," he finished.
Lupine Wonse raised an eyebrow.
"Is that wise, sir?" he said.
"You don't think a frieze of ghastly shadows will cause comment and speculation?" said the Patrician sourly.
"Not as much as fresh paint in the Shades," said Wonse evenly.
The Patrician hesitated a moment. "Good point," he snapped. "Have some men demolish it."
He reached the end of the room, spun on his heel, and stalked up it again. Dragons! As if there were not enough important, enough real things to take up his time.
"Do you believe in dragons?" he said.
Wonse shook his head. "They're impossible, sir."
"So I've heard," said Lord Vetinari. He reached the opposite wall, turned.
"Would you like me to investigate further?" said Wonse.
"Yes. Do so."
"And I shall ensure the Watch take great care," said Wonse.
The Patrician stopped his pacing. "The Watch? The Watch? My dear chap, the Watch are a bunch of incompetents commanded by a drunkard. It's taken me years to achieve it. The last thing we need to concern ourselves with is the Watch."
He thought for a moment. "Ever seen a dragon, Wonse? One of the big ones, I mean? Oh, they're impossible. You said."
"They're just legend, really. Superstition," said Wonse.
"Hmm," said the Patrician. "And the thing about legends, of course, is that they are legendary."
"Exactly, sir."
"Even so…" The Patrician paused, and stared at Wonse for some time. "Oh, well," he said. "Sort it out. I'm not having any of this dragon business. It's the type of thing that makes people restless. Put a stop to it."
When he was alone he stood and looked out gloomily over the twin city. It was drizzling again.
Ankh-Morpork! Brawling city of a hundred thousand souls! And, as the Patrician privately observed, ten times that number of actual people. The fresh rain glistened on the panorama of towers and rooftops, all unaware of the teeming, rancorous world it was dropping into. Luckier rain fell on upland sheep, or whispered gently over forests, or patterned somewhat incestuously into the sea. Rain that fell on Ankh-Morpork, though, was rain that was in trouble. They did terrible things to water, in Ankh-Morpork. Being drunk was only the start of its problems.
The Patrician liked to feel that he was looking out over a city that worked. Not a beautiful city, or a renowned city, or a well-drained city, and certainly not an architecturally favoured city; even its most enthusiastic citizens would agree that, from a high point of vantage, Ankh-Morpork looked as though someone had tried to achieve in stone and wood an effect normally associated with the pavements outside all-night takeaways.
But it worked. It spun along cheerfully like a gyroscope on the lip of a catastrophe curve. And this, the Patrician firmly believed, was because no one group was ever powerful enough to push it over. Merchants, thieves, assassins, wizards-all competed energetically in the race without really realizing that it needn't be a race at all, and certainly not trusting one another enough to stop and wonder who had marked out the course and was holding the starting flag.
The Patrician disliked the word 'dictator.' It affronted him. He never told anyone what to do. He didn't have to, that was the wonderful part. A large part of his life consisted of arranging matters so that this state of affairs continued.
Of course, there were various groups seeking his overthrow, and this was right and proper and the sign of a vigorous and healthy society. No one could call him unreasonable about the matter. Why, hadn't he founded most of them himself? And what was so beautiful was the way in which they spent nearly all their time bickering with one another.
Human nature, the Patrician always said, was a marvellous thing. Once you understood where its levers were.
He had an unpleasant premonition about this dragon business. If ever there was a creature that didn't have any obvious levers, it was a dragon. It would have to be sorted out.
The Patrician didn't believe in unnecessary cruelty.[12] He did not believe in pointless revenge. But he was a great believer in the need for things to be sorted out.
Funnily enough, Captain Vimes was thinking the same thing. He found he didn't like the idea of citizens, even of the Shades, being turned into a mere ceramic tint.
And it had been done in front of the Watch, more or less. As if the Watch didn't matter, as if the Watch was just an irrelevant detail. That was what rankled.
Of course, it was true. That only made it worse.
What was making him even angrier was that he had disobeyed orders. He had scuffed up the tracks, certainly. But in the bottom drawer of his ancient desk, hidden under a pile of empty bottles, was a plaster cast. He could feel it staring at him through three layers of wood.
He couldn't imagine what had got into him. And now he was going even further out on to the limb.
He reviewed his, for want of a better word, troops. He'd asked the senior pair to turn up in plain clothes. This meant that Sergeant Colon, who'd worn uniform all his life, was looking red-faced and uncomfortable in the suit he wore for funerals. Whereas Nobby…
"I wonder if I made the word 'plain' clear enough?" said Captain Vimes.
"It's what I wear outside work, guv," said Nobby reproachfully.