The Truth (Discworld #25)

The Truth (Discworld #25) Page 18

He opened his eyes again. Mr Tulip was watching him obediently. Mr Pin was the thinker.

'I've... got a plan,' he said.

'Yeah, good. Right.'

'My plans are pretty good, right?'

'Yeah, you come up with some --ing wonders, I've always said. Like when you said we should twist the--'

'And I'm always thinking about the good of the Firm, right?'

'Yeah, sure, right.'

'So... this plan... it's not, like, a perfect plan, but... oh, the hell with it. Give me your potato.'

'What?'

Suddenly Mr Pin's arm was stretched out, his crossbow an inch from Mr Tulip's neck.

'No time to argue! Gimme the damn potato right now! This is no time for you to thinkV

Uncertain, but trusting as ever in Mr Pin's survival abilities in a tight corner, Mr Tulip pulled the thong of the potato over his head and handed it to Mr Pin.

'Right,' said Mr Pin, one side of his face beginning to twitch. The way I see it--'

'You better hurry!' said Mr Tulip. 'It's only a coupla inches away!' '--the way I see it, I'm a small man, Mr Tulip. You couldn't stand on me. I wouldn't do. You're a big man, Mr Tulip. I wouldn't want to see you suffer.'

And he pulled the trigger. It was a good shot. 'Sorry,' he whispered, as the lead splashed. 'Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. But I wasn't born to fry...'

Mr Tulip opened his eyes.

There was darkness around him, but with a suggestion of stars overhead behind an overcast sky. The air was still, but there was distant soughing, as of wind in dead trees.

He waited a while to see if anything would happen, and then said: 'Anyone --ing there?'

JUST ME, MR TULIP.

Some of the darkness opened its eyes, and two blue glows looked down at him.

'The --ing bastard stole my potato. Are you --ing Death?'

JUST DEATH WILL SUFFICE, I THINK. WHO WERE YOU EXPECTING?

'Eh? For what?'

TO CLAIM YOU AS ONE OF THEIRS.

'Dunno, really. I never --ing thought...'

YOU NEVER SPECULATED?

'All I know is, you got to have your potato, and then it will be all right.' Mr Tulip parroted the sentence without thinking, but it was coming back now in the total recall of the dead, from a vantage point of two feet off the ground and three years of age. Old men mumbling. Old women weeping. Shafts of light through holy windows. The sound of wind under the doors, and every ear straining to hear the soldiers. Us or theirs didn't matter, when a war had gone on this long...

Death gave the shade of Mr Tulip a long, cool stare.

AND THAT'S IT?

'Right.'

You DON'T THINK THERE WERE ANY BITS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED?

... the sound of wind under the doors, the smell of the oil lamps, the fresh acid smell of snow, blowing in through the...

'And... if I'm sorry for everything...' he mumbled. He was lost in a world of darkness, without a potato to his name.

... candlesticks... they'd been made of gold, hundreds of years ago... there were only ever potatoes to eat, grubbed up from under the snow, but the candlesticks were of gold... and some old woman, she'd said: 'It'll all turn out right if you've got a potato

WAS ANY GOD OF SOME SORT MENTIONED TO YOU AT ANY POINT? 'NO...'

DAMN. I WISH THEY DIDN'T LEAVE ME TO DEAL WITH THIS SORT OF THING, Death sighed. You BELIEVE, BUT YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.

Mr Tulip stood with his head bowed. More memories were trickling back now, like blood under a closed door. And the knob was rattling, and the lock had failed.

Death nodded at him.

AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE YOUR POTATO, I SEE.

Mr Tulip's hand flew to his neck. There was something wizened and hard there, on the end of a string. It had a ghostly shimmer to it.

'I thought he got it!' he said, his face alight with hope.

AH, WELL. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A POTATO MIGHT TURN UP.

'So it's all going to be all right?'

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Mr Tulip swallowed. Lies did not survive long out here. And more recent memories were squeezing under the door now, bloody and vengeful.

'I think it's gonna take more than a potato,' he said.

ARE YOU SORRY FOR EVERYTHING?

More unused bits of Mr Tulip's brain, which had shut down long ago or had never even opened up, came into play.

'How will I know?' he said.

Death waved a hand through the air. Along the arc described by the bony fingers appeared a line of hourglasses.

I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE A CONNOISSEUR, MR TULIP. IN A SMALL WAY, SO

AM I. Death selected one of the glasses and held it up. Images appeared around it, bright but insubstantial as shadow.

'What are they?' said Tulip.

LIVES, MR TULIP. JUST LIVES.- NOT ALL MASTERPIECES, OBVIOUSLY, OFTEN RATHER NAIF IN THEIR USE OF EMOTION AND ACTION, BUT NEVERTHELESS FULL OF INTEREST AND SURPRISE AND, EACH IN THEIR OWN WAY, A WORK OF SOME GENIUS. AND CERTAINLY VERY... COLLECTABLE. Death picked up an hourglass as Mr Tulip tried to back away. YES. COLLECTABLE. BECAUSE, IF I HAD TO FIND A WAY TO DESCRIBE THESE LIVES, MR TULIP, THAT WORD WOULD BE 'SHORTER'.

Death selected another hourglass. AH. NUGGA VELSKI. You WILL

NOT REMEMBER HIM, OF COURSE. HE WAS SIMPLY A MAN WHO WALKED INTO HIS RATHER SIMPLE LITTLE HUT AT THE WRONG TIME, AND YOU ARE A BUSY MAN AND CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO REMEMBER EVERYONE. NOTE THE MIND, A BRILLIANT MIND THAT MIGHT IN OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD, DOOMED TO BE BORN INTO A TIME AND PLACE WHERE LIFE WAS NOTHING BUT A DAILY, HOPELESS STRUGGLE. NEVERTHELESS, IN HIS TINY VILLAGE, RIGHT UP UNTIL THE DAY HE FOUND YOU STEALING HIS COAT, HE DID HIS BEST TO----

Mr Tulip raised a trembling hand. 'Is this the bit where my whole life passes in front of my eyes?' he said.

NO, THAT WAS THE BIT JUST NOW.

'Which bit?'

THE BIT, said Death, BETWEEN YOUR BEING BORN AND YOUR DYING. No, THIS... MR TULIP, THIS IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE AS IT PASSED BEFORE OTHER PEOPLE'S EYES...

By the time the golems arrived it was all over. The fire had been fierce but short-lived. It had stopped because there wasn't anything left to burn. The crowd that always turns up to watch a fire then dispersed until the next one, reckoning that this one had not scored very highly, what with no one dying.

The walls were still standing. Half the tin roof had fallen in. Sleet had begun to fall, too, and now it hissed on the hot stone as William picked his way cautiously through the debris.

The press was visible in the light of the few fires still smouldering. William heard it sizzling under the sleet.

'Repairable?' he said to Goodmountain, who was following him.

'Not a chance. The frame, maybe. We'll salvage what we can.'

'Look, I'm so sorry--'

'Not your fault,' said the dwarf, kicking at a smoking can. 'And look on the bright side... we still owe Harry King a lot of money.'

'Don't remind me...'

'I don't need to. He'll remind you. Us, rather.'

William wrapped his jacket around his sleeve and pushed aside some of the roof.

'The desks are still here!'

'Fire can be funny like that,' said Goodmountain gloomily. 'And the roof probably kept the worst of it away.'

'I mean, they're half charred but they're still usable!'

'Oh, well, we're home and dry, then,' said the dwarf, now sliding towards 'glumly'. 'How soon do you want the next edition?'

'Look, even the spike... there's even bits of paper that are hardly charred!'

'Life is full of unexpected treasure,' said Goodmountain. 'I don't think you should come in here, miss!'

This was to Sacharissa, who was picking her way across the smouldering ruins.

'It's where I work,' she said. 'Can you repair the press?'

'No! It's... done for! It's scrap! We've got no press and no type and no metal! Can you both hear me?'

'Okay, so we've got to get another press,' said Sacharissa evenly.

'Even an old scrap one would cost a thousand dollars!' said Goodmountain. 'Look, it's over. There is nothing leftY

'I've got some savings,' said Sacharissa, pushing the rubble off her desk. 'Perhaps we can get one of those little hand presses to be going on with.'

'I'm in debt,' said William, 'but I could probably go into debt another few hundred dollars.'

'Do you think we could go on working if we put a tarpaulin over the roof, or should we move to somewhere else?' said Sacharissa.

'I don't want to move. A few days' work should get this place in shape,' said William.

Goodmountain cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Hel-looo! This is sanity calling! We have no money.'

'There's not much room to expand, though,' said Sacharissa.

'In what way?'

'Magazines,' said Sacharissa, as the sleet settled in her hair. Around her the other dwarfs spread out on a hopeless salvage operation. 'Yes, I know the paper's important, but there's a lot of dead time on the press and, well, I'm sure there'd be a market for something like, well, a magazine for ladies

'Dead time on the press?' said Goodmountain. The press is deadV

'What about?' said William, completely ignoring him.

'Oh... fashion. Pictures of women wearing new clothes. Knitting. That sort of thing. And don't you go telling me it's too dull. People will buy it,'

'Clothes? Knitting?'

'People are interested in that sort of thing.'

'I don't like that idea much,' said William. 'You might as well say we should have a magazine just for men.'

'Why not? What would you put in it?'

'Oh, I don't know. Articles about drink. Pictures of women not wearing... Anyway, we'd need more people to write for them,'

'Excuse me?' said Goodmountain.

'Lots of people can write well enough for that sort of thing,' said Sacharissa. 'If it was clever, we wouldn't be able to do it.'

That's true.'

'And there's another magazine that would sell, too,' said Sacharissa. Behind her a piece of the press collapsed.

'Hello? Hello? I know my mouth is opening and shutting,' said Goodmountain. 'Is any sound getting out?'

'Cats,' said Sacharissa. 'Lots of people like cats. Pictures of cats. Stories about cats. I've been thinking about it. It could be called... Completely Cats.'

To go with Completely Women, and Completely Men? Completely Knitting? Completely Cake?'

'I had thought of calling it something like The Ladies' Home Companion,' said Sacharissa, 'but your title has got a certain ring, I must admit. Ring... yes. Now, that's another thing. There's all the dwarfs in the city. We could produce a magazine for them. I mean... what's the modern dwarf wearing this season?'

'Chain mail and leather,' said Goodmountain, suddenly perplexed. 'What are you talking about? It's always chain mail and leather!'

Sacharissa ignored him. The two of them were in a world of their own, Goodmountain realized. It had nothing to do with the real one any more.

'Seems a bit of a waste, though,' said William. 'A waste of words, I mean.'

'Why? There's always more of them.' Sacharissa patted him gently on the cheek. 'You think you're writing words that'll last for ever? It's not like that. This newspaper stuff... that's words that last for a day. Maybe a week.'

'And then they get thrown away,' said William.

'Perhaps a few hang on. In people's heads.'

'That's not where the paper ends up,' said William. 'Quite the reverse.'

'What did you expect? These aren't books, they're... words that come and go. Cheer up.'

'There's a problem,' said William.

'Yes?'

'We haven't got enough money for a new press. Our shed has been burned down. We are out of business. It's all over. Do you understand?'

Sacharissa looked down. 'Yes,' she said meekly. 'I just hoped you didn't.'

'And we were so close. So close.' William pulled out his notebook. 'We could have run with this. I've got nearly the whole thing. All I can do with it now is give it to Vimes--'

'Where's the lead?'

William looked across the wreckage. Boddony was crouching by the smoking press, trying to see under it.

'There's not a sign of the lead!' he said.

'It's got to be somewhere,' said Goodmountain. 'In my experience twenty tons of lead does not just get up and walk away.'

It must've melted,' said Boddony. There's a few blobs on the floor

The cellar,' said Goodmountain. 'Give me a hand here, will you?' He grabbed a blackened beam.

'Here, I'll help,' said William, coming round the stricken desk. 'It's not as though I've got anything better to do . .-.'

He got a grip on a tangle of charred wood and pulled--

Mr Pin arose from the pit like a demon king. Smoke poured off him and he was screaming one long, incoherent scream. He rose and rose and knocked Goodmountain aside with a round-arm sweep and then his hands clamped around William's neck and still his leap propelled him up.

William fell backwards. He landed on the desk and felt a stab of pain as some piece of debris went through the flesh of his arm. But there was no time to think about pain that had happened. It was imminent pain that occupied all his future. The face of the creature was inches away, eyes wide and staring through him at something horrible, but his hands were tight around William's neck.

William would never have dreamed of using a cliche as tired as 'vice-like grip' but, as consciousness became a red-walled tunnel, the editor inside him said, yes, that's what it would be like, the sheer mechanical pressures that...

The eyes crossed. The scream stopped. The man staggered sideways, half crouched.

As William raised his head he saw Sacharissa stepping backwards.

The editor chittered away in his head, watching him watching her. She'd kicked the man in the... Er, You Know. It had to be the influence of those humorous vegetables. It had to be.

And he had to get the Story.

William rose to his feet and waved frantically at the dwarfs, who were advancing with their axes at the ready.

'Wait! Wait! Look... you... er... Brother Pin...' He winced at the pain in his arm, looked down and saw, with horror, the evil length of the spike poking through the cloth of his jacket.

Mr Pin tried to focus on the boy grappling with his arm, but the shadows wouldn't let him. He wasn't certain, now, that he was still alive. Yes! That was it! He must be dead! All this smoke, people shouting, all the voices whispering in his ear, this was some kind of hell but, aha, he had a return ticket...

He managed to straighten up. He fished the potato of the late Mr Tulip out of his shirt. He held it aloft.

'G't m' 'tato,' he said proudly, "m all right, okay?'

William stared at the smoke-stained, red-eyed face, with its horrible expression of triumph, and then at the shrunken vegetable on the end of its string. His grip on reality was at the moment almost as slippery as Mr Pin's, and people showing him a potato seemed to mean only one thing.

'Er... it's not a very funny one, is it?' he said, wincing as he tugged at the spike.

Mr Pin's last train of thought jumped the rails. He let go of the potato and with a movement that owed nothing to thought and everything to instinct pulled a long dagger from inside his jacket. The figure in front of him was fading into just another shadow among many now, and he lunged madly.

William pulled the metal free, and his hand flew out in front of him--

And that, for the moment, was everything that Mr Pin ever knew.

The sleet hissed on a few remaining embers.

William stared into the puzzled face as the light in the eyes went out and the attacker sagged slowly to the ground, one hand fiercely hanging on to the potato.

'Oh,' said Sacharissa distantly. 'You spiked him...'

Blood dripped down William's sleeve.

'I... er... I think I could do with a bandage,' he said. Ice shouldn't be hot, he knew, but shock was filling his veins with a burning chill. He was sweating ice.

Sacharissa ran forward, tearing at the sleeve of her blouse.

1 don't think it's bad,' said William, trying to back away. 'I just think it's one of those... enthusiastic wounds.'

'Vot has been happening here?'

William looked at the blood on his hand and then at Otto, standing on top of a pile of rubble with an amazed look on his face and a couple of packages in his hands.

'I just go avay for five minutes to buy some more acids and suddenly zer whole place... Oh dear... oh dear

Goodmountain pulled a tuning fork out of his pocket and twanged it on his helmet.

'Quick, lads!' He waved the fork in the air. ' "Oh will you come to the mission--"'

Otto waved his hand gently as the dwarfs began to sing.

'No, I am veil on top of it, thank you all the same,' he said. "Ve know vot all this is about, don't ve? It vas a mob, yes? Zere is alvays a mob, sooner or later. Zey got my friend Boris. He showed them zer black ribbon but zey just laughed and--'

'I think they were after all of us,' said William. 'I wish I'd had a chance to ask him a few questions, even so...'

'You mean like "Is this the first time you've strangled anyone?"' said Boddony. 'Or "How old are you, Mr Killer?" '

Something started to cough.

It seemed to be coming from the pocket of the man's jacket.

William looked around at the stunned dwarfs to see if anyone else had a clue about what he should do next. Then he reluctantly patted the greasy suit with extreme care and pulled out a slim, polished box.

He opened it. A small green imp peered out of its slot.

"me?' it said.

'What? A personal Dis-organizer?' said William. 'A killer with a personal Dis-organizer?'

The Things To Do Today section is going to be interesting, then,' said Boddony.

The imp blinked at him. 'Do you want me to reply or not?' it said. 'Insert Name Here requested silence, despite my range of sounds to suit any mood or occasion.'

'Um... your previous owner is... previous,' said William, looking down at the cooling Mr Pin.

'You're a new owner?' said the imp.

'Well... possibly,'

'Congratulations!' said the imp. 'Warranty not applicable if said device is sold, hired, transferred, gifted or stolen unless in original packaging and extraneous materials which by then you will have thrown away and Part Two of the warranty card which you have lost has been filled in and sent to Thttv ggj, thhtfjhsssjk the Scors and quoting

the reference number which you did not in fact make a note of. DO yOU W3nt Hie tO WipC the

contents of my memory?' It produced a cotton-wool bud and prepared to insert it into one very large ear. 'Erase Memory Y,'N?'

'Your... memory... ?'

'Yes. Erase Memory Y,'N?'

'N!' said William. 'And now tell me what exactly it is you are remembering,' he added.

'You have to press the Recall button,' said the imp impatiently.

'And that will do what?'

'A small hammer hits me on the head and I look to see what button you pressed.'

'Why don't you just, well, recall?'

'Look, I don't make the rules. You've got to press the button. It's in the manual--'

William carefully pushed the box to one side. There were several velvet bags in the dead man's pocket. He put these on the desk, too.

Some of the dwarfs had gone a little way down the iron ladder into the cellar. Boddony climbed back out again, looking thoughtful.

There's a man down there,' he said. 'Lying in... lead.'

'Dead?' said William, looking carefully at the bags.

'I hope so. I really hope so. You could say he made a bit of an impression. He's a bit on the... cooked side. And there's an arrow through his head.'

'William, you realize that you are robbing a corpse?' said Sacharissa.

'Good,' said William distantly. 'Best time.' He upended a bag and jewels spilled across the charred wood.

There was a strangled noise from Goodmountain. Next to gold, jewels were a dwarf's best friend.

William emptied the other bags.

'How much do you think this lot is worth?' he said, when the gems stopped rolling and twinkling.

Goodmountain had already whipped an eye glass from an inside pocket and was inspecting a few of the larger stones. 'What? Hey? Oh, tens of thousands. Could be a hundred thousand. Could be a lot more. This one here is worth fifteen hundred, I reckon, and it's not the best of 'em,'

'He must've stolen them!' said Sacharissa.

'No,' said William calmly. 'We'd have heard about a theft this big. We hear about things. A young man would certainly have told you. Check to see if he has a wallet, will you?'

'The very idea! And what--'

'Check for a damn wallet, will you?' said William. 'This is a story.

I'm going to check his legs, and I'm not looking forward to that, either. But this is a story. We can have hysterics later. Do it. Please?'

There was a half-healed bite on the dead man's leg. William rolled up his own trouser leg for comparison while Sacharissa, her eyes averted, pulled a brown leather wallet out of the jacket.

'Any clue to who he is?' said William, carefully measuring tooth-marks with his pencil. His mind felt strangely calm. He wondered if he was actually thinking at all. It all seemed like some dream, happening in another world.

'Er... there's something done on the leather in pokerwork,' said Sacharissa.

'What does it say?'

' "Not A Very Nice Person At All",' she read. 'I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?'

'Someone who wasn't a very nice person,' said William. 'Anything else in there?'

There's a piece of paper with an address,' said Sacharissa. 'Er... I didn't have time to tell you this, er, William. Um

'What does it say?'

'It's 50 Nonesuch Street. Er. Which is where those men caught me. They had a key and everything. Er... that's your family's house, isn't it?'

'What do you want me to do with these jewels?' said Goodmountain.

'I mean, you gave me a key and everything,' said Sacharissa nervously. 'But there was this man in the cellar, highly inebriated, and he looked just like Lord Vetinari, and then these men turned up and knocked out Rocky and then--'

'I'm not suggesting anything,' said Goodmountain, 'but if these aren't stolen, then I know plenty of places that'd give us top dollar, even at this time of night--'

'--and of course they were most impolite but really there was nothing I could do--'

'--we could do with a bit of immediate cash, is the point I'm trying to make--'

It dawned on the girl and the dwarf that William was no longer listening. He seemed locked, blank-faced, in a little bubble of silence.

Slowly, he pulled the Dis-organizer towards him and pressed the button marked 'Recall'. There was a muffled 'Ouch'.

'... nyip-nyap mapnyap nyee-wheedlewheedlewheee

'What's that noise?' said Sacharissa.

'It's how an imp remembers,' said William distantly. 'It... sort of plays its life backwards. I used to have an early version of this,' he added.

The noise stopped. The imp said, very apprehensively, 'What happened to it?'

'I took it back to the shop because it wasn't working properly,' said William.

'That's a relief,' said the imp. 'You'd be amazed at some of the terrible things people did to the Mk I. What went wrong with it?'

'It got flung through a third-floor window,' said William, 'for being unhelpful.'

This imp was a little brighter than most of the species. It saluted smartly.

'... wheeeewheedlewheedle nyap-nyark... Testing, testing... seems okay--'

That's Brother Pin!' said Sacharissa.

'--say something, Mr Tulip,' and the voice became the damp growl of Sister Jennifer, 'What'III say? It's not natural, talkin' to a --ing box. This box, Mr Tulip, may be a passport to better times. I thought we were getting the --ing money. Yes, and this 'II help us keep it... nyip-nyip...'

'Go forward a bit,' William commanded.

'--whee... nyip dog has got personality. Personality counts for a lot. And the legal precedents--'

That's Slant!' said Boddony. That lawyer!'

'What shall I do with the jewels!' said Goodmountain.

'... nyipnyip... 7 can add another five thousand dollars in jewels to your fee... nyip... I want to know who's giving me these orders... nyip... not be stupid, either. My... clients have long memories and deep pockets...'In its terror the imp was skipping.

William pressed the Pause button.

'Slant gave him the money,' he said. 'Slant was paying him. Did you hear him mention clients? You understand? This is one of the men who attacked Vetinari! And they had a key to our house?'

'But we can't just keep the money!' said Sacharissa.

William pressed the button again.

'... nyip... they say a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on...'

'Obviously, we--' Sacharissa began.

He pressed the button.

'Wheeewheedlewheedle lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.'

He pressed the button again.

'Wheeewheedlewheedle can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.'

'Wheeewheedlewheedle round the world before the truth has got its boots on.'

'Wheeewheedle the truth has got its boots on.'

'Are you all right, William?' said Sacharissa, as he stood motionless.

'Delayed shock,' Goodmountain whispered. 'It can take people that way.'

'Mr Goodmountain,' said William sharply, still with his back to them. 'Did you say you could get me another press?'

'I said they cost a--'

'--handful of rubies, perhaps?'

Goodmountain opened his hand. 'Are these ours, then?'

'Yes!'

'Well... in the morning I could buy a dozen presses, but it's not like buying sweets--'