The Fifth Elephant (Discworld #24)

The Fifth Elephant (Discworld #24) Page 17

"You will not be badly treated. This is our way" said Dee. "I will return when I have news."

"Hey - "

But Dee was a retreating shape in the crepuscular, almost-not-there light.

In Vimes"s cell the glow beetle was doing its best. All it managed to achieve, though, was to turn the darkness into a variety of green shadows. You could find your way around without walking into walls, but that was about the extent of it.

One shot, which they didn"t know you had.

That"d probably get him out of the door. Into a corridor. Underground. Full of dwarfs.

On the other hand, it was amazing how the evidence could stack up against you when people wanted it to.

Anyway, Vimes was an ambassador! What had happened to diplomatic immunity? But that was hard to argue when you were faced with uncomplicated people with weaponry; there was a risk that they"d experiment to see if it was true.

One shot they didn"t expect...

Some time later there was a rattling of keys and the door was pulled open. Vimes could make out the shape of two dwarfs. One was holding an axe, the other was bearing a tray.

The dwarf with the axe motioned Vimes to step back.

An axe wasn"t a good idea, Vimes considered. It was always the weapon of choice amongst dwarfs, but it wasn"t sensible in a confined space.

He raised his hands and, as the other dwarf walked cautiously over to the stone slab, let them move towards the back of his neck.

These dwarfs were nervous of him. Perhaps they didn"t see humans very often. They"d remember this one.

"Want to see a trick?" said Vimes.

"Grz"dak?"

"Watch this," said Vimes, and brought his hands around and shut his eyes just before the match flared.

He heard the axe drop as its owner tried to cover his face. That was an unexpected bonus, but there wasn"t time to thank the god of desperate men. Vimes plunged forward, kicked as hard as he could, and heard an "oof" of expelled breath. Then he leapt into the patch of darkness that contained the other dwarf, found a head, spun around and rammed it into an unseen wall.

The first dwarf was trying to get to his feet. Vimes fumbled for him in the gloom, pulled him up by his jerkin and rasped: "Someone left me a weapon. They wanted me to kill you. Remember that. I could have killed you."

He punched the dwarf in the stomach. This was no time to play by the Marquis of Fantailler rules.

Then he turned, snatched the little cage containing the light beetle and headed for the door.

There was a feeling of passageway, stretching off in both directions. Vimes paused for just long enough to sense the draught on his face and headed that way.

Another glow beetle was hanging in a cage a little distance off. It illuminated, if such a bright word could be used for a light that merely made the darkness less black, a huge circular opening in which a fan turned lazily.

The blades were so slow that Vimes was able to step between them, into the velvet cavern beyond.

Someone really wants me dead, he thought, as he inched his way along the nearest invisible wall with his face to the draught. One shot they weren"t expecting... but someone was expecting it, weren"t they?

If you want to get a prisoner out of the clink, then you give him a key, or a file. You don"t give him a weapon. A key might get him out; a weapon would get him killed.

He stopped, one foot over emptiness. The glow beetle revealed a hole in the floor. It had the huge suckingness of depth.

Then he gripped the beetle"s cage between his teeth, took a few steps back and completely misjudged the distance. He hit the other side of the hole with every rib, both arms flat on the floor beyond.

A bit of Ankh-Morpork sense of humour hissed between his teeth.

He scrabbled his way on to the cave floor and got his breath back. Then he took the one-shot out of his pocket, fired it into the floor, tossed it into the hole - it clattered and echoed for some time - and moved on, keeping his face towards the cold air.

This wasn"t a tunnel any more. It was the bottom of a shaft. But the green glow lit up something heaped in the middle.

Vimes picked up a handful of snow and, when he looked up, a flake melted on his face. He grinned in the dark. The beetle light just caught the edge of the spiral stairs fixed to the rock.

"Stairs" turned out to be a generous description. When the shaft had been cut, the dwarfs had made holes in the stone and hammered thick baulks of timber into them. He tried one or two. They seemed sturdy enough. With care, he"d be able to scramble...

He was a long way up before one log snapped. He flung out his hands and caught the next one, his grip slipping on the wet wood. The glow beetle disappeared downwards and Vimes, swinging back and forth from his precarious handhold, watched the circle of dim green light dwindle to a dot and vanish.

Then the realization crept over him that there was no way he would be able to pull himself up. His fingers were numb, but the rest of his entire life consisted of the amount of time they could maintain a grip on the clammy step above him.

Call it a minute, perhaps.

There were a lot of things that could profitably be done in a minute, but most of them couldn"t be done with no hands while hanging in darkness over a long drop.

He lost his grip. A moment later he smacked into the spiral of logs one turn below, which parted company with the wall.

Man and timber fell one more turn. Vimes landed with a rib-bending thump across one step, while those around it gave way. Rocking gently on the one tough log, he listened to the thuds and booms as the fallen timber continued to the bottom of the shaft.

" - !" Vimes had intended to swear, but the fall had knocked the breath out of him. He hung like a folded pair of old trousers.

It had been a long time since he"d slept. Whatever he"d been doing on the slab it hadn"t been sleep. Normal sleep didn"t leave your mouth feeling as though glue had been poured into it.

And only this morning the new ambassador for Ankh-Morpork had strolled out to present his credentials. Only this evening Ankh-Morpork"s commander of police had set out to solve a simple little theft. And now he was dangling halfway up a freezing shaft, with a few inches of old and unreliable wood between him and a brief trip to the next world.

All he could hope for was that his whole life wasn"t going to pass before his eyes. There were some bits of it he didn"t want to remember.

"Ah... Sir Samuel. Bad luck. You vere doing so vell."

He opened his eyes. A faint purple light just above him illuminated the form of the Lady Margolotta. She was sitting on empty space.

"Can I give you a lift?" she said.

Vimes shook his head muzzily.

"If it makes you feel any better, I really don"t like doing this," said the vampire. "It"s so... expected of vun. Oh dear. That rotten old log doesn"t look very - "

The log snapped. Vimes landed spreadeagled on the turn below, but only for a moment. Several stairs broke and dropped him a further flight. This time he caught hold of one and was, once again, dangling.

Lady Margolotta descended regally.

Far below, the broken wood boomed.

"Now, in theory this might be an almost survivable vay of getting back down," said the vampire. "Unfortunately, I fear that the descending logs have smashed many of the vuns below."

Vimes shifted. His handhold seemed secure. It might just be possible to pull himself up...

"I knew you were behind this," he muttered, trying to will some life into his shoulder muscles.

"No, you didn"t. You knew that the Scone wasn"t stolen, though."

Vimes stared at the serenely floating shape. "The dwarfs wouldn"t think that - " he began. The log under him gave the little nasty movement that announces to any luckless passengers that it is about to land.

Lady Margolotta drifted closer. "I know you hate vampires," she said. "It"s quite usual, for your personality type. It"s the... penetrative aspect. But if I vas you, right now, I"d ask myself... do I hate them with all my life?"

She held out a hand.

"Just one bite"ll end all my troubles, eh?" Vimes snarled.

"Vun bite vould be vun too many, Sam Vimes."

The wood cracked. She grabbed his wrist.

If he"d thought about it at all, Vimes would have expected to be dangling from a vampire now. Instead, he was simply floating.

"Don"t think of letting go," said Margolotta as they rose gently up the shaft.

"One bite would be one too many?" said Vimes. He recognized the mangled mantra. "You"re a... a teetotaller?"

"Almost four years now."

"No blood at all?"

"Oh, yes. Animal. It"s rather kinder to them than slaughter, don"t you think? Of course, it makes them docile, but frankly a cow is unlikely ever to vin the Thinker of the Year avard. I"m on a vagon, Mister Vimes."

"The wagon. We call it the wagon," said Vimes weakly. "And... that replaces human blood?"

"Like lemonade replaces whisky. Believe me. However, the intelligent mind can find a... substitute." The sides of the shaft dropped away and they were in clear, freezing air, which knifed through Vimes"s shirt. They drifted sideways a little, and then Vimes was dropped into kneedeep snow.

"Vun of the better things about our dwarfs is that they don"t often try something new and they never let go of anything old," said the vampire, hovering over the snow. "You weren"t hard to find."

"Where am I?" Vimes looked around at rocks and trees mounded in snow.

"In the mountains, quite a long way viddershins of the town, Mister Vimes. Goodbye."

"You"re going to leave me here?"

"I"m sorry? You were the one who escaped. I am certainly not here. Me, a vampire, interfering in the affairs of the dwarfs? Unthinkable! But let us just say... I like people to have an even chance."

"It"s freezing! I haven"t even got a coat! What is it you want?"

"You have freedom, Mister Vimes. Isn"t that what everyvun wants? Isn"t it supposed to give you a lovely warm glow?"

Lady Margolotta disappeared into the snow.

Vimes shivered. He hadn"t realized how warm it had been underground. Or what time it was. There was a dim, a very dim light. Was this just after sunset? Was it almost dawn?

The flakes were piling up on his damp clothes, driven by the wind.

Freedom could get you killed.

Shelter... that was essential. The time of day and a precise location were no use to the dead. They always knew what time it was and where they were.

He moved away from the open shaft and staggered into the trees, where the snow was less deep. It gave off a light, fainter than a sick beetle, as if snow somehow absorbed it from the air as it fell.

Vimes wasn"t good at forests. They were things you saw on the horizon. If he"d thought about them at all he"d imagined a lot of trees, standing like poles, brown at the bottom, bushy and green at the top.

Here there were humps, and bumps, and dark branches weighted and creaking under the snow. It fell around him with a hiss. Occasionally lumps of the stuff would slide from somewhere above, and there would be another shower of frigid crystals as a branch sprang back.

There was a track of sorts, or at least a wider, smoother expanse of snow. Vimes followed it, on the basis that there was no more sensible choice. The warm glow of freedom lasted only so long.

Vimes had city eyes. He"d watched coppers develop them. A trainee copper who glanced once at a street was just learning, and if he didn"t learn quicker he"d become highly experienced at dying. One who"d been on the streets for a while paid attention, took in details, noted shadows, saw background and foreground and the people who were trying not to be in either. Angua looked at streets like that. She worked at it.

The long-term coppers, like even Nobby when he was on a good day, glanced once at a street and that was enough, because they"d seen everything.

Maybe there were... country eyes. Forest eyes. Vimes saw trees, mounds, snow and not much else.

The wind was getting up. It began to howl among the trees. Now the snow stung.

Trees. Branches. Snow.

Vimes kicked a mound beside the track. Snow slid off dark pine needles. He dropped to his hands and knees and pushed forward.

Ah...

It was still cold, and there was some snow on the dead needles, but the weighted branches had spread around the trunk like a tent. He pulled himself in, congratulating himself. It was windless here and, contrary to all common sense, the blanket of snow above him seemed to make it warmer. It even smelled warm... sort of... animal...

Three wolves, lying lazily around the trunk of the tree, were watching him with interest.

Vimes added metaphorical freezing to the other sort. The animals didn"t seem frightened.

Wolves l

And that was about it. It made as much sense to say: snow! Or: wind! Right now, those were more certain killers.

He had heard somewhere that wolves wouldn"t attack you if you faced them down.

The trouble was that he was going to sleep soon. He could feel it creeping over him. He wasn"t thinking right, and every muscle ached.

Outside, the wind moaned. And His Grace the Duke of Ankh fell asleep.

He awoke with a snort and, to his surprise, all his arms and legs as well. A drop of chilled water, melted from the roof just above by the heat of his body, ran down his neck. His muscles didn"t hurt any more. He couldn"t feel most of them.

And the wolves had gone. There was trampled snow at the far end of the makeshift lair, and light so bright that he groaned.

It turned out to be daylight, from a bright sky bluer than any Vimes had seen, so blue that it seemed to shade into purple at the zenith. He stepped out into a sugar-frosted world, crunchy and glittering.

Wolf tracks led away between the trees. It occurred to Vimes that following them would not be a life-enhancing move; perhaps last night had been understood as time out, but today was a new day and probably the search was on for breakfast.

The sun felt warm, the air was cold, his breath hung in front of him.

There should be people around, shouldn"t there? Vimes was hazy on rural issues, but weren"t there supposed to be charcoal burners, woodcutters and... he tried to think... little girls taking goodies to granny? The stories Vimes had learned as a kid suggested that all forests were full of bustle, activity and the occasional scream. But this place was silent.

He set off in a direction that appeared to head downwards, on general principles. Food was the important thing. He"d still got a couple of matches and he could probably make a fire if he had to be out here mother night, but it was a long time since the canapes at the reception.

This is Ankh-Morpork, trudging over and through the snow...

After half an hour he reached the bottom of a shallow valley, where a stream splashed between encroaching banks of ice. It steamed.

The water was warm to the touch.

He followed the banks for some way. They were criss-crossed with animal tracks. Here and there the water pooled in deep hollows that smelled of rotten eggs. Around them the leafless bushes were heavy with ice, where the steam had frozen.

Food could wait. Vimes stripped off his clothes and stepped into one of the deeper pools, yelping at the heat, and then lay back.

Didn"t they do something like this up in Nothingfjord? He"d heard stories. They had hot steamy baths and then ran around in the snow hitting one another with birch logs, didn"t they? Or something. There was nothing really daft that some foreigner wouldn"t do somewhere.

Gods, it felt good. Hot water was civilization. Vimes could feel the stiffness in his muscles melting away in the warmth.

After a moment or two he splashed over to the bank and rummaged through his clothes until he found a flattened cigar packet containing a couple of things that, after the events of the past twenty-four hours, looked like fossilized twigs.

He had two matches.

Well, the hell with it. Anyone could light a fire with one match.

He lay back in the water. That was a good decision. He could feel himself coming back together again, pulled into shape by the heat within and without

"Ah. Your grace..."

Wolf von Uberwald was sitting on the opposite bank. He was stark naked. A little vapour rose off him, as if he"d just been exerting himself. Muscles gleamed as though they"d been oiled. They probably had been.

"A run in the snow is such a thing, is it not?" said Wolf pleasantly. "You are certainly learning the ways of Uberwald, your grace. Lady Sybil is alive and well and free to go back to your city when the passes are cleared. I know you would wish to hear that."

Other figures were approaching through the trees, men and women, all of them as unselfconsciously naked as Wolf.

Vimes realized he was a dead man bathing. He could see it in Wolf"s eyes. "Nothing like a hot dip before breakfast," he said.

"Ah, yes. We also have not, as yet, breakfasted," said Wolf. He stood up, stretched, and cleared the pool from a standing start. Vimes"s breeches were picked up and examined.

"I threw Inigo"s damn thing away," said Vimes. "I don"t think a friend put it there."

"It is all a great game, your grace," said Wolf. "Do not reproach yourself! The strongest survive, which is as it should be!"

"Dee planned this, did he?"

Wolf laughed. "The dear little Dee? Oh, he had a plan. It was a good little plan, although a touch insane. Happily, it will no longer be required!"

"You want the dwarfs to go to war?"

"Strength is good," said Wolf, folding Vimes"s clothes neatly. "But like some other good things, it only remains good if it is not possessed by too many people." He tossed the clothes as far as he could.

"What is it you want me to say, your grace?" Wolf continued. "Something like "You are going to die anyway so I might as well tell you," perhaps?"

"Well, it"d be a help," said Vimes.

"Youare going to die anyway." Wolf smiled. "Why don"t you tell me?"

Talking gained time. Maybe those woodcutters and charcoal burners would be along at any minute. If they hadn"t brought their axes everyone was going to be in big trouble.

"I"m... pretty sure why the replica Scone was stolen in Ankh-Morpork," said Vimes. "I"ve just got the inkling of an idea that a copy was made of it, which was smuggled here on one of our coaches. Diplomats don"t get searched."

"Well done!"

"Shame Igor came to unload when one of your boys was there, wasn"t it?"

"Oh, it"s hard to hurt an Igor!"

"You don"t care, do you?" said Vimes. "A bunch of dwarfs want Albrecht on the thro -  the Scone because they want to hang on to that old-time certainty, and you just want dwarfs fighting. And old Albrecht wouldn"t even get the right Scone back!"

"Let us say that just now we find our interests converge, shall we?" said Wolf.

Out of the corner of his eye Vimes saw the other werewolves spreading out around the pool.

"And now you"ve set me up," he said. "Pretty amateurishly, I"d say. But impressive, because Dee couldn"t have had much time after he thought I was getting close. It would have worked, too. People aren"t good eye-witnesses. I know. They believe what they want to see and what people told them they saw. It was a nice touch giving me that damn one-shot. He really must have hoped I"d kill to escape - "

"Is it not time you got out of that... pool?" said Wolfgang.

"You mean bath?" said Vimes. Yes, there was a wince. Vimes registered it. Oh, you"re walking upright and talking, my lad, and you look strong as an ox - but something between a human and a wolf has a bit of dog in them, doesn"t it?

"We have an ancient custom here," said Wolf, looking away. "And it is a good one. Anyone can challenge us. It"s a little... chase. The great game! A competition, if you like. If they outrun us they win four hundred crowns. That is a very good sum! A man may start a small business with it. Of course, as I can see you realize, if they don"t outrun us the question of money does not arise!"

"Does anyone ever win?" said Vimes. Come on, woodcutters, the people need wood!

"Sometimes. If they train well and know the country! Many a successful man in Bonk owes his start in life to our little custom. In your case, we"ll give you, oh, an hour"s lead. For the sport of it!" He pointed. "Bonk is five miles in that direction. The lore says that you must not enter a dwelling until you get there."

"And if I don"t run?"

"Then it will be a really short event! We do not like Ankh-Morpork. We do not want you here!"

"That"s odd," said Vimes.

Wolf"s broad brow wrinkled. "Your meaning?"

"Oh, it"s just that everywhere I go in Ankh-Morpork I seem to bump into people who come from Uberwald, you see. Dwarfs, trolls, humans. All beavering away quite happily and writing letters home saying, come on, it"s great here - they don"t eat you alive for a dollar."

Wolf"s lip curled, revealing a glint of incisor. Vimes had seen that look on Angua"s face. It meant she was having a bad hair ,day. And a werewolf can have a bad hair day all over.

He pushed his luck. It was clearly too weak to move by itself. "Angua"s getting on well - "

"Vimes! Mister Civilized! Ankh-Morpork! You will run!"

Hoping that his legs would support him, Vimes climbed out on the snow of the bank, as slowly as he dared. There was laughter from the werewolves.

"You go into the water wearing clothes?"

Vimes looked down at his streaming legs. "You"ve never seen drawers before?" he said.

Wolf"s lip curled again. He glanced triumphantly at the others. "Behold... civilization!" he said.

Vimes, puffed life into his cigar and looked around the frozen woodland with as much hauteur as he could muster.

"Four hundred crowns, did you say?" he said.

"Yes!"

Vimes sneered at the forest again. "What is that in Ankh-Morpork dollars, do you know? About a dollar fifty?"

"The question will not arise!" Wolf bellowed.

"Well, I don"t want to have to spend it all here - "

"Run!"

"In the circumstances, then, I won"t ask if you have the money on you."

Vimes walked away from the werewolves, glad that they couldn"t see his face and very much aware that the skin on his back wanted to crawl around to his front.

He kept moving calmly, his wet drawers beginning to crackle in the frosty air, until he was certain he was out of sight of the pack.

So, let"s see... they"ve got better strength than you, they know the country, and if they"re as good as Angua they could track a fart through a skunk"s breakfast, and your legs hurt already.

So what are the pluses here? Well, you"ve made Wolf really angry.

Vimes broke into a run.

Not much of a plus there, then, all things considered.

Vimes broke into a faster run.

Off in the distance, wolves began to howl.

There is a saying: it won"t get better if you picket.

Corporal Nobbs or, rather, Guild President C. W. St J. Nobbs, reflected on this. A little early snow was fizzling in the air over the metal drum which, in approved strike fashion, was glowing red-hot in front of the Watch House.

A main problem, as he saw it, was that there was something philosophically wrong with picketing a building that no one except a watchman wanted to enter in any case. It is impossible to keep people out of something that they don"t want to go into. It can"t be done.

The chant hadn"t worked. An old lady had given him a penny.

"Colon, Colon, Colon! Out! Out! Out!" shouted Reg Shoe happily, waving his placard.

"That doesn"t sound right, Reg," said Nobby. "Sounds like surgery."

He looked at the other placards. Dorfl was holding a large, closely worded text, detailing their grievances in full, with references to Watch procedures and citing a number of philosophical texts. Constable Visit"s sandwich-board, on the other hand, proclaimed: "What Profiteth it a Kingdom if the Oxen be Deflated? Riddles 11, v3."

Somehow, these cogent arguments did not seem to be bringing the city to its knees.

He turned at the sound of a coach pulling up and looked up at a door which had a crest consisting mainly of a black shield. And above that, looking out of the window, was the face of Lord Vetinari.

"Ah, none other than Corporal Nobbs," said Lord Vetinari.

At this point Nobby would have given quite a lot to be anyone other than Corporal Nobbs.

He wasn"t sure whether, as a striker, he should salute. He saluted anyway, on the basis that a salute was seldom out of place.

"I gather you have withdrawn your labour," Lord Vetinari went on. "In your case, I am sure this presented a good deal of difficulty."

Nobby wasn"t certain about that sentence, but the Patrician seemed quite amiable.

"Can"t stand by when the security of the city"s concerned, sir," he said, oozing affronted loyalty from every unblocked pore.

Lord Vetinari paused long enough for the peaceful, everyday sounds of a city apparently on the brink of catastrophe to filter into Nobby"s consciousness.

"Well, of course I wouldn"t dream of interfering," he said at last. "This is Guild business. I"m sure his grace will understand fully when he returns." He banged on the side of the coach. "Drive on."

And the coach was gone.

A thought that had been nudging Nobby for some time chose this moment to besiege him once again.

Mister Vimes is going to go spare. He"s going to go mental.

Lord Vetinari sat back in his seat, smiling to himself.

"Er, did you mean that, sir?" said the clerk Drumknott, who was sitting opposite.

"Certainly. Make a note to have the kitchen send them down cocoa and buns around three o"clock. Anonymously, of course. It"s been a crime-free day, Drumknott. Very unusual. Even the Thieves" Guild is lying low."

"Yes, my lord. I can"t imagine why. When the cat"s away..."

"Yes, Drumknott, but mice are happily unencumbered by apprehensions of the future. Humans, on the other hand, are. And they know that Vimes is going to be back in a week or so, Drumknott. And Vimes will not be happy. Indeed, he will not. And when a commander of the Watch is unhappy, he tends to spread it around with a big shovel."

He smiled again. "This is the time for sensible men to be honest, Drumknott. I only hope Colon is stupid enough to let it continue."

The snow fell faster.

"How beautiful the snow is, sisters..."

Three women sat at the window of their lonely house, looking out at the white Uberwald winter.

"And how cold the vind is," said the second sister.

The third sister, who was the youngest, sighed. "Why do we always talk about the weather?"

"What else is there?"

"Well, it"s either freezing cold or baking. I mean, that"s it, really."

"That is how things are in Mother Uberwald," said the oldest sister, slowly and sternly. "The vind and the snow and the boiling heat of summer..."

"You know, I bet if we cut down the cherry orchard we could put in a roller-skating rink - "

No.

"How about a conservatory? We could grow pineapples."

No.

"If we moved to Bonk we could get a big apartment for the cost of this place - "

"This is our home, Irina," said the oldest sister. "Ah, a home of lost illusions and thwarted hopes..."

"We could go out dancing and everything."

"I remember when we lived in Bonk," said the middle sister dreamily. "Things vere better then."

"Things vere alvays better then," said the oldest sister.

The youngest sister sighed and looked out of the window. She gasped. "There"s a man running through the cherry orchard!"

"A man? Vot could he possibly vant?"

The youngest sister strained to see. "It looks like he wants... a pair of trousers..."

"Ah," said the middle sister dreamily. "Trousers ver better then."

The hurrying pack stopped in a chilly blue valley when the howling filled the air. Angua loped back to the sledge, lifted out her bag of clothes with her jaws, glanced at Carrot and disappeared among the drifts. A few moments later she walked back again, doing up her shirt.

"Wolfgang"s got some .poor devil playing the game," she said. "I"m going to put a stop to it. It was bad enough that Father kept the tradition going, but at least he played fair. Wolfgang cheats. They never win."