Feet of Clay (Discworld #19)

Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Page 18

'Look, all you have to do is change the words in its head,' said Carrot.

'It won't let me! Don't you think I've tried?'

'It can't not let you,' said Carrot. 'Golems have to let - '

'I said it won't let me!'

'What about the poisoned candles?' said Carrot.

'That wasn't my idea!'

'Whose idea was it?'

Carry's crossbow swung back and forth. He licked his lips. 'This has all gone far too far,' he said. 'I'm getting out.'

'Whose idea, Mr Carry?'

'I'm not going to end up in some alley somewhere with as much blood as a banana!'

'Now then, we wouldn't do anything like that,' said Carrot.

Mr Carry was exporting terror. Angua could smell it streaming off him. He might pull the trigger out of sheer panic.

There was another smell, too. 'Who's the vampire?' she said.

For a moment she thought the man would fire the crossbow. 'I never said anything about him!'

'You've got garlic in your pocket,' said Angua. 'And the place reeks of vampire.'

'He said we could get the golem to do anything,' Carry mumbled.

'Like making poisoned candles?' said Carrot.

'Yes, but he said it'd just keep Vetinari out of the way,' said Carry. He seemed to be getting a tenuous grip on himself. 'And he's not dead, 'cos I'd have heard,' he said. 'I shouldn't think making him ill is a crime, so you can't - '

'The candles killed two other people,' said Carrot.

Carry started to panic again. 'Who?'

'An old lady and a baby in Cockbill Street.'

'Were they important?' said Carry.

Carrot nodded to himself. 'I was almost feeling sorry for you,' he said. 'Right up to that point. You're a lucky man, Mr Carry.'

'You think so?'

'Oh, yes. We got to you before Commander Vimes did. Now, just put down the crossbow and we can talk about - '

There was a noise. Or, rather, the sudden cessation of a noise that had been so pervasive that it had no longer been consciously heard.

The clacking line had stopped. There was a chorus of little waxy thuds as the hanging candles swung and hit one another, and then silence unrolled. The last candle dropped off the line, tumbled down the heap in the hopper, and bounced on the floor.

And in the silence, the sound of footsteps.

Carry started to back away. 'Too late!' he moaned.

Both Carrot and Angua saw his finger move.

Angua pushed Carrot out of the way as the claw released the string, but he had anticipated this and his hand was already flinging itself up and across. She heard the sickening, tearing noise as his palm whirled in front of her face, and his grunt as the force of the bolt spun him round.

He landed heavily on the floor, clutching his left hand. The crossbow bolt was sticking out of the palm.

Angua crouched down. 'It doesn't look barbed, let me pull - '

Carrot grabbed her wrist. 'The point's silver! Don't touch it!'

They both looked up as a shadow crossed the light.

The king golem looked down at her.

She felt her teeth and fingernails begin to lengthen.

Then she saw the small round face of Cheri peering nervously around a pile of crates. Angua fought down her werewolf instincts, screamed 'Stay right there!' at the dwarf and at every swelling hair follicle, and hesitated between pursuing the fleeing Carry and dragging Carrot to safety.

She told her body again that a wolf-shape was not an option. There were too many strange smells, too many fires...

The golem glistened with tallow and wax.

She backed away.

Behind the golem she saw Cheri look down at the groaning Carrot and then up at a fire-axe hooked on the wall. The dwarf took it down and weighed it vaguely in her hands.

'Don't try - ' Angua began.

'T'dr'duzkb'hazgt't!'

'Oh, no!' moaned Carrot. 'Not that one!'

Cheri came up behind the golem at a run and hacked at its waist. The axe rebounded but she pirouetted with it and caught the statue on the thigh, chipping off a piece of clay.

Angua hesitated. Cheri's axe was making blurred orbits around the golem while its wielder yelled more terrible battle cries. Angua couldn't make out any words but many dwarf cries didn't bother with words. They went straight for emotions in sonic form. Chips of pottery ricocheted off the crates as each blow landed.

'What did she yell?' Angua said, as she pulled Carrot out of the way.

'It's the most menacing dwarf battle cry there is! Once it's been shouted someone has to be killed!'

'What's it mean?'

'Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!'

The golem watched the dwarf incuriously, like an elephant watching an attack by a rogue chicken.

Then it picked the axe out of the air, Cheri trailing behind it like a comet, and hurled it aside.

Angua hauled Carrot to his feet. Blood dripped from his hand. She tried to shut her nostrils. Full moon tomorrow. No more choices.

'Maybe we can reason with it - ' Carrot started.

'Attention! This is the real world calling!' shouted Angua.

Carrot drew his sword. 'I am arresting you - ' he began.

The golem's arm whirred across. The sword buried itself to the hilt in a crate of candles.

'Got any more clever ideas?' said Angua, as they backed away. 'Or can we go now?'

'No. We've got to stop it somewhere.'

Their heels met a wall of crates.

'I think we've found the place,' said Angua as the golem raised its fists again.

'You duck right, I'll duck left. Maybe - '

A blow rocked the big double doors in the far wall.

The king golem's head turned.

The doors shook again, and burst inwards. For a moment Dorfl was framed in the doorway. Then the red golem lowered his head, spread his arms, and charged.

It wasn't a very fast run but it did have a terrible momentum, like the slow slide of a glacier. The floorboards shook and drummed under him.

The golems collided with a clang in the middle of the floor. Jagged lines of fire spread across the king's body as cracks opened, but it roared and caught up Dorfl around the middle and tossed him against the wall.

'Come on,' said Angua. 'Now can we find Cheri and get out of here?'

'We ought to help him,' said Carrot, as the golems smashed into each other again.

'How? If it... if he can't stop it, what makes you think we can? Come on!'

Carrot shook her off.

Dorfl picked itself up from among the bricks and charged again. The golems met, scrabbling at one another for purchase. They stood locked for a moment, creaking, and then Dorfl's hand came up holding something. Dorfl pushed himself back and smashed the other golem over the head with its own leg.

As it spun Dorfl's other hand lashed out, but was grabbed. The king swivelled with a strange grace, bore Dorfl to the floor, rolled and kicked out. Dorfl rolled too. He flung out his arms to stop himself, and looked back to see both his feet pinwheeling into the wall.

The king picked up its own leg, balanced for a moment, and joined itself together.

Then its red gaze swept the factory and flared when it caught sight of Carrot,

'There must be a back way out of here,' muttered Angua. 'Carry got out!'

The king started to run after them, but hit an immediate problem. It had put its leg on back to front. It began to limp in a circle but, somehow, the circle got nearer to them.

'We can't just leave Dorfl lying there/ said Carrot.

He pulled a long metal rod out of a stirring tank and eased himself back down to the grease-crusted floor.

The king rocked towards him. Carrot hopped backwards, steadied himself on a rail, and swung.

The golem lifted its hand, caught the rod out of the air and tossed it aside. It raised both fists and tried to step forward.

It couldn't move. It looked down.

'Thsss,' said what remained of Dorfl, gripping its ankle.

The king bent, swung one hand with the palm edgewise, and calmly sheared the top off Dorfl's head. It removed the chem and crumpled it up.

The glow died in Dorfl's eyes.

Angua cannoned into Carrot so hard he almost fell over. She wrapped both arms around him and pulled him after her.

'It just killed Dorfl, just like that!' said Carrot.

'It's a shame, yes,' said Angua. 'Or it would be if Dorfl had been alive. Carrot, they're like... machinery. Look, we can make it to the door - '

Carrot shook himself free. 'It's murder,' he said. 'We're Watchmen. We can't just... watch! It killed him!'

'It's an it and so's he - '

'Commander Vimes said someone has to speak for the people with no voices!'

He really believes it, Angua thought. Vimes puts words in his head.

'Keep it occupied!' he shouted, and darted away.

'How? Organize a sing-song?'

'I've got a plan.'

'Oh, good!'

Vimes looked up at the entrance of the candle-factory. He could dimly see two cressets burning on either side of a shield. 'Look at that, will you?' he said. 'Paint not dry and he flaunts the thing for all the world to see!'

'What's dat, sir?' said Detritus.

'His damn coat of arms!'

Detritus looked up. 'Why's it got a lighted fish on it?' he said.

'In heraldry that's a poisson,' said Vimes bitterly. 'And it's supposed to be a lamp.'

'A lamp made out of a poisson,' said Detritus. 'Well, dere'safmg.'

'At least it's got the motto in proper language,' said Sergeant Colon. 'Instead of all the old- fashioned stuff no one understands. Art Brought Forth the Candle. That, Sergeant Detritus, is a pune, or play on words. 'Cos his name is Arthur, see.'

Vimes stood between the two sergeants and felt a hole open up in his head.

'Damn!* he said. 'Damn, damn, damn! He showed it to me! Dumb plodder Vimes! He won't notice! Oh, yes! And he was right!'

S not that good,' said Colon. 'I mean, you've got to know that Mr Carry's first name is Arthur - '

'Shut up, Fred!' snapped Vimes.

'Shutting up right now, sir.'

'The arrogance of the... Who's that?'

A figure darted out of the building, glanced around hurriedly, and scurried along the street.

'That's Carry!' said Vimes. He didn't even shout 'After him!' but went from a standing start to a full run. The fleeing figure dodged between the occasional straying sheep or pig and didn't have a bad turn of speed, but Vimes was powered by sheer anger and was only yards away when Carry ducked into an alleyway.

Vimes skidded to a halt and grabbed at the wall. He'd seen the shape of a crossbow and one of the things you learned in the Watch - that is, one of the things which hopefully you'd have a chance to learn  -  was that it was a very stupid thing indeed to follow someone with a crossbow into a dark alley where you'd be outlined against any light there was.

'I know it's you, Carry,' he shouted.

'I've got a crossbow!'

'You can only fire it once!'

'I want to turn King's Evidence!'

'Guess again!'

Carry lowered his voice. 'They just said I could get the damn golem to do it. I didn't think anyone was going to get hurt.'

'Right, right,' said Vimes. 'You made poisoned candles because they gave a better light, I expect.'

'You know what I mean! They told me it would all be all right and - '

'Which they would they be?'

'They said no one would ever find out!'

'Really?'

'Look, look, they said they could...' The voice paused, and took on that wheedling tone the blunt-witted use when they're trying to sound sharp.

'If I tell you everything, you'll let me go, right?'

The two sergeants had caught up. Vimes pulled Detritus towards him, although in fact he ended up pulling himself towards Detritus.

'Go round the corner and see he doesn't come out of the alley the other way,' he whispered. The troll nodded.

'What's it you want to tell me, Mr Carry?' said Vimes to the darkness in the alley.

'Have we got a bargain?'

'What?'

'A bargain.'

'No, we damn well haven't got a bargain, Mr Carry! I'm not a tradesman! But I'll tell you something, Mr Carry. They betrayed you!'

There was silence from the darkness, and then a sound like a sigh.

Behind Vimes, Sergeant Colon stamped his feet on the cobbles to keep warm.

'You can't stay in there all night, Mr Carry,' said Vimes.

There was another sound, a leathery sound. Vimes glanced up into the coils of fog. 'Something's not right,' he said. 'Come on!'

He ran into the alley. Sergeant Colon followed, on the basis that it was fine to run into an alley containing an armed man provided you were behind someone else.

A shape loomed at them.

'Detritus?'

'Yes, sir!'

'Where did he go? There are no doors in the alley!'

Then his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom. He saw a huddled outline at the foot of a wall, and his foot nudged a crossbow. 'Mr Carry?'

He knelt down and lit a match.

'Oh, nasty,' said Sergeant Colon. 'Something's broken his neck...'

'Dead, is he?' said Detritus. 'You want I should draw a chalk outline round him?'

'I don't think we need bother, Sergeant.'

'It no bother, I've got der chalk right here.'

Vimes looked up. Fog filled the alley, but there were no ladders, no handy low roofs.

'Let's get out of here,' he said.

Angua faced the king.

She resisted a terrible urge to Change. Even a werewolf s jaws probably wouldn't have any effect on the thing. It didn't have a jugular.

She daren't look away. The king moved uncertainly, with little jerks and twitches that in a human would suggest madness. Its arms moved fast but erratically, as if signals that were being sent were not arriving properly. And Dorfl's attack had left it damaged. Every time it moved, red light shone from dozens of new cracks.

'You're cracking up!' she shouted. 'The oven wasn't right for pottery!'

The king lunged at her. She dodged and heard its hand slice through a rack of candles.

'You're cranky! You're baked like a loaf! You're half-baked?

She drew her sword. She didn't usually have much use for it. She found a smile would invariably do the trick,

A hand sliced the top off the blade.

She stared at the sheared metal in horror and then somersaulted back as another blow hummed past her face.

Her foot rolled on a candle and she fell heavily, but with enough presence of mind to roll before a foot stamped down.

'Where've you gone?' she yelled.

'Can you get it to move a little closer to the doors, please?' said a voice from the darkness on high.

Carrot crawled out along the rickety structure that supported the production line.

'Carrot!'

'Almost there...'

The king grabbed at her leg. She lashed out with her foot and caught it on the knee.

To her amazement she made it crack. But the fire below was still there. The pieces of pottery seemed to float on it. No matter what anyone did the golem could keep going, even if it were just a cloud of dust held together.

'Ah. Right,' said Carrot, and dropped off the gantry.

He landed on the king's back, flung one arm around its neck, and began to pound on its head with the hilt of his sword. It staggered and tried to reach up to pull him off.

'Got to get the words out!' Carrot shouted, as the arms flailed at him. 'It's the only... way!'

The king staggered forward and hit a stack of boxes, which burst and rained candles over the floor. Carrot grabbed its ears and tried to twist.

Angua heard him saying: 'You... have... the right... to ... a lawyer...'

'Carrot! Don't bother with its damn rights!'

'You... have... the right to - '

'Just give it the last ones!'

There was a commotion in the gaping doorway and Vimes ran in, sword drawn. 'Oh, gods... Sergeant Detritus!'

Detritus appeared behind him. 'Sah!'

'Crossbow bolt through the head, if you please!'

Tf you say so, sir...'

'Its head, Sergeant! Mine is fine! Carrot, get down off the thing!'

'Can't get its head off, sir!'

'We'll try six feet of cold steel in the ear just as soon as you let the damn thing go!'

Carrot steadied himself on the king's shoulders, tried to judge his moment as the thing staggered around, and leapt.

He landed awkwardly on a sliding heap of candles. His leg buckled under him and he tumbled over until he was stopped by the inert shell that had been Dorfl.

'Hey, look dis way, mister,' said Detritus.

The king turned.

Vimes didn't catch everything that happened next, because it all happened so quickly. He was merely aware of the rush of air and thegloink of the rebounding bolt mingling with the wooden juddering noise as it buried itself in the doorframe behind him.

And the golem was crouching down by Carrot, who was trying to squirm out of the way.

It raised a fist, and brought it down...

Vimes didn't even see Dorfl's arm move but there it was there, suddenly gripping the king's wrist.

Tiny stars of light went nova in Dorfl's eyes.

'Tssssss!'

As the king jerked back in surprise, Dorfl held on and levered himself up on what remained of his legs. As he came up so did his fist.

Time slowed. Nothing moved in the whole universe but Dorfl's fist.

It swung like a planet, without any apparent speed but with a drifting unstoppability.

And then the king's expression changed. Just before the fist landed, it smiled.

The golem's head exploded, Vimes recalled it in slow motion, one long second of floating pottery. And words. Scraps of paper flew out, dozens, scores of them, tumbling gently to the floor.

Slowly, peacefully, the king hit the floor. The red light died, the cracks opened, and then there were just... pieces.