Feet of Clay (Discworld #19)

Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Page 19

Dorfl collapsed on top of them.

Angua and Vimes reached Carrot together.

'He came alive!' said Carrot, struggling up. That thing was going to kill me and Dorfl came alive! But that thing had smashed the words out of his head! A golem has to have the words!'

'They gave their own golem too many, I can see that,' said Vimes.

He picked up some of the coils of paper.

...CREATE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL...

...RULE USE WISELY...

...TEACH US FREEDOM...

...LEAD US TO...

Poor devil, he thought.

'Let's get you home. That hand needs treating - ' said Angua.

'Listen, will you?' said Carrot. 'He's alive!'

Vimes knelt down by Dorfl. The broken clay skull looked as empty as yesterday's breakfast egg. But there was still a pinpoint of light in each eye socket.

'Usssss,' hissed Dorfl, so faintly that Vimes wasn't sure he'd heard it.

A finger scratched on the floor.

'Is it trying to write something?' said Angua.

Vimes pulled out his notebook, eased it under Dorfl's hand, and gently pushed a pencil into the golem's fingers. They watched the hand as it wrote - a little jerkily but still with the mechanical precision of a golem - eight words.

Then it stopped. The pencil rolled away. The lights in Dorfl's eyes dwindled and went out,

'Good grief,' breathed Angua. 'They don't need words in their heads...'

'We can rebuild him,' said Carrot hoarsely. 'We have the pottery.'

Vimes stared at the words, and then at what remained of Dorfl.

'Mr Vimes?' said Carrot.

'Do it,' said Vimes.

Carrot blinked.

'Right now,' Vimes said. He looked back at the scrawl in his book.

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'And when you rebuild him,' he said, 'when you rebuild him... give him a voice. Understand? And get someone to look at your hand.'

'A voice, sir?'

'Do it!'

'Yes, sir.'

'Right.' Vimes pulled himself together. 'Constable Angua and I will have a look around here. Off you go.'

He watched Carrot and the troll carry the remains out. 'Okay,' he said. 'We're looking for arsenic. Maybe there'll be some workshop somewhere. I shouldn't think they'd want to mix the poisoned candles up with the others. Cheery'll know what -  Where is Corporal Littlebottom?'

'Er ... I don't think I can hold on much longer...'

They looked up.

Cheri was hanging on the line of candles.

'How did you get up there?' said Vimes.

'I sort of found myself going past, sir.'

'Can't you just let go? You're not that high -  Oh...'

A big trough of molten tallow was a few feet under her. Occasionally the surface wentgloop.

'Er... how hot would that be?' Vimes hissed to Angua.

'Ever bitten hot jam?' she said.

Vimes raised his voice. 'Can't you swing yourself along, Corporal?'

'All the wood's greasy, sir!'

'Corporal Littlebottom, I order you not to fall off!'

'Very good, sir!'

Vimes pulled off his jacket. 'Hang on to this. I'll see if I can climb up...'he muttered.

'It won't work!' said Angua. The thing's shaky enough as it is!'

'I can feel my hands slipping, sir.'

'Good grief, why didn't you call out earlier?'

'Everyone seemed to be busy, sir.'

'Turn around, sir,' said Angua, undoing the buckles of her breastplate. 'Right now, please! And shut your eyes!'

'Why, what... ?'

'Rrright nowwww, sirrrrr!'

'Oh...yes...'

Vimes heard Angua back away from the candle machine, her footsteps punctuated by the clang of falling armour. Then she started running and the footsteps changed while she was running and then...

He opened his eyes.

The wolf sailed upwards in slow motion, caught the dwarfs shoulder in its jaws as Cheri's grip gave way, and then arced its body so that wolf and dwarf hit the floor on the far side of the vat.

Angua rolled, whimpering.

Cheri scrambled to her feet. 'It's a werewolf!'

Angua rolled back and forth, pawing at her mouth.

'What's happened to it?' said Cheri, her panic receding a little. 'It looks... hurt. Where's Angua? Oh...'

Vimes glanced at the dwarfs torn leather shirt. 'You wear chain mail under your clothes?' he said.

'Oh... it's my silver vest... but she knew about it. I told her...'

Vimes grabbed Angua's collar. She moved to bite him, and then caught his eye and turned her head away.

'She only bit the silver,' said Cheri, distractedly.

Angua pulled herself on to her feet, glared at them, and slunk off behind some crates. They heard her whimpering which, by degrees, became a voice.

'Blasted blasted dwarfs and their blasted vests...'

'You all right, Constable?' said Vimes.

'Damn silver underwear... Can you throw me my clothes, please?'

Vimes bundled up Angua's uniform and, eyes closed for decency's sake, handed it around the crates.

'No one told me she was a were - ' Cheri moaned.

'Look at it like this, Corporal,' said Vimes, as patiently as he could. 'If she hadn't been a werewolf you would by now be the world's largest novelty candle, all right?'

Angua walked from behind the crates, rubbing her mouth. The skin around it looked too pink...

'It burned you?' said Cheri.

'It'll heal,' said Angua.

'You never said you were a werewolf!'

'How would you've liked me to have put it?'

'Right,' said Vimes, 'if that's all sorted out, ladies, I want this place searched. Understand?'

'I've got some ointment,' said Cheri meekly.

'Thank you.'

They found a bag in a cellar. There were several boxes of candles. And a lot of dead rats.

Igneous the troll opened the door of his pottery a fraction. He'd intended the fraction to be no more than about one-sixteenth, but someone immediately pushed hard and turned it into rather more than one and three-quarters.

'Here, what's dis?' he said, as Detritus and Carrot came in with the shell of Dorfl between them. 'You can't jus' break in here - '

'We ain't just breakin' in,' said Detritus.

'Dis is an outrage,' said Igneous. 'You got no right comin' in here. You got no reason - '

Detritus let go of the golem and spun around. His hand shot out and caught Igneous around the throat. 'You see dose statchoos of Monolith over dere? You see dem?' he growled, twisting the other troll's head to face a row of troll religious statues on the other side of the warehouse. 'You want I should smash one open, see what dey're fill wit', maybe find a reason?'

Igneous's slitted eyes darted this way and that. He might have been hard of thinking, but he could feel a killing mood when it was in the air. 'No call for dat, I always help der Watch,' he muttered. 'What dis all about?'

Carrot laid out the golem on a table. 'Start, then,' he said. 'Rebuild him. Use as much of the old clay as you can, understand?'

'How can it work when its lights're out?' said Detritus, still puzzled by this mission of mercy.

'He said the clay remembers!'

The sergeant shrugged.

'And give him a tongue,' said Carrot.

Igneous looked shocked. 'I won't do dat,' he said. 'Everybody know it blasphemy if golems speak.'

'Oh, yeah?' said Detritus. He strode across the warehouse to the group of statues and glared at them. Then he said, 'Whoops, here's me accident'ly trippin' up, ooo, dis is me grabbin' a statchoo for support, oh, der arm have come right off, where can I put my face... and what is dis white powder what I sees here with my eyes accident'ly spillin' on der floor?'

He licked a finger and gingerly tasted the stuff.

'Slab,' he growled, walking back to the trembling Igneous. 'You tellin' me about blasphemy, you sedimentr'y coprolith? You doin' what Captain Carrot say right now or you goin' out of here in a sack!'

'Dis is police brutality...' Igneous muttered.

'No, dis is just police shoutin'!' yelled Detritus. 'You want to try for brutality it okay wit' me!'

Igneous tried to appeal to Carrot. 'It not right, he got a badge, he puttin' me in fear, he can't do dis,' he said.

Carrot nodded. There was a glint in his eye that Igneous should have noticed. 'That's correct,' he said. 'Sergeant Detritus?'

'Sir?'

'It's been a long day for all of us. You can go off duty.'

'Yessir!' said Detritus, with considerable enthusiasm. He removed his badge and laid it down carefully. Then he started to struggle out of his armour.

'Look at it like this,' said Carrot. 'It's not that we're making life, we're simply giving life a place to live.'

Igneous finally gave up. 'Okay, okay,' he muttered. 'I doin' it. I doin' it.'

He looked at the various lumps and shards that were all that remained of Dorfl, and rubbed the lichen on his chin.

'You got most of the bits,' he said, professionalism edging resentment aside for a moment. 'I could glue him together wit' kiln cement. Dat'd do the trick if we bakes him overnight. Lessee... I reckon I got some over dere...'

Detritus blinked at his finger, which was still white with the dust, and sidled over to Carrot. 'Did I just lick dis?' he said.

'Er, yes,' said Carrot.

'T'ank goodness for dat,' said Detritus, blinking furiously, d hate to believe dis room was really full of giant hairy spide... weeble weeble sclup ...

He hit the floor, but happily.

'Even if I do it you can't make it come alive again,' muttered Igneous, returning to his bench. 'You won't find a priest who's goin' to write der words for in der head, not again.'

'He'll make up his own words,' said Carrot.

'And who's going to watch the oven?' said Igneous. 'It's gonna take 'til breakfast at least...

'I wasn't planning on doing anything for the rest of tonight,' said Carrot, taking off his helmet.

Vimes awoke around four o'clock. He'd gone to sleep at his desk. He hadn't meant to, but his body had just shut down.

It wasn't the first time he'd opened bleary eyes there. But at least he wasn't lying in anything sticky.

He focused on the report he'd half-written. His notebook was beside it, page after page of laborious scrawl to remind him that he was trying to understand a complex world by means of his simple mind.

He yawned, and looked out at the shank of the night.

He didn't have any evidence. No real evidence at all. He'd had an interview with an almost incoherent Corporal Nobbs, who hadn't really seen anything. He had nothing that wouldn't burn away like the fog in the morning. All he'd got were a few suspicions and a lot of coincidences, leaning against one another like a house of cards with no card on the bottom.

He peered at his notebook.

Someone seemed to have been working hard. Oh, yes. It had been him.

The events of last night jangled in his head. Why'd he written all this stuff about a coat of arms?

Oh, yes...

Yes!

Ten minutes later he was pushing open the door of the pottery. Warmth spilled out into the clammy air.

He found Carrot and Detritus asleep on the floor on either side of the kiln. Damn. He needed someone he could trust, but he hadn't the heart to wake them. He'd pushed everyone very hard the last few days ...

Something tapped on the door of the kiln.

Then the handle started to turn by itself.

The door opened as far as it could go and something half-slid and half-fell on to the floor.

Vimes still wasn't properly awake. Exhaustion and the importunate ghosts of adrenalin sizzled around the edges of his consciousness, but he saw the burning man unfold himself and stand upright.

His red-hot body gave little pings as it began to cool. Where it stood, the floor charred and smoked.

The golem raised his head and looked around.

'You!' said Vimes, pointing an unsteady finger. 'Come with me!'

'Yes,'said Dorfl.

Dragon King of Arms stepped into his library. The dirt of the small high windows and the remnants of the fog made sure there was never more than greyness here, but a hundred candles yielded their soft light. He sat down at his desk, pulled a volume towards him, and began to write.

After a while he stopped and stared ahead of him.

There was no sound but the occasional spluttering of a candle.

'Ah-ha. I can smell you, Commander Vimes,' he said. 'Did the Heralds let you in?'

'I found my own way, thank you,' said Vimes, stepping out of the shadows. The vampire sniffed again. 'You came alone?' 'Who should I have brought with me?' 'And to what do I owe the pleasure, Sir Samuel?' 'The pleasure is all mine. I'm going to arrest you,' said Vimes.

'Oh, dear. Ah-ha. For what, may I ask?' 'Can I invite you to notice the arrow in this crossbow?' said Vimes. 'No metal on the point, you'll see. It's wood all the way.'

'How very considerate. Ah-ha.' Dragon King of Arms twinkled at him. 'You still haven't told me what I'm accused of, however.'

'To start with, complicity in the murders of Mrs Flora Easy and the child William Easy.'

'I am afraid those names mean nothing to me.'

Vimes's finger twitched on the bow's trigger. 'No,' he said, breathing deeply. They probably don't. We are making other enquiries and there may be a number of additional matters. The fact that you were poisoning the Patrician I consider a mitigating circumstance.'

'You really intend to prefer charges?'

Tdprefer violence,' said Vimes loudly. 'Charges is what I'm going to have to settle for.'

The vampire leaned back. 'I hear you've been working very hard, Commander,' he said. 'So I will not - '

'We've got the testimony of Mr Carry,' lied Vimes. 'The late Mr Carry.'

Dragon's expression changed by not one tiny tremor of muscle. 'I really do not know, ah-ha, what you are talking about, Sir Samuel.'

'Only someone who could fly could have got into my office.'

Tm afraid you've lost me, sir.'

'Mr Carry was killed tonight,' Vimes went on. 'By someone who could get out of an alley guarded at both ends. And I know a vampire was in his factory.'

Tm still gamely trying to understand you, Commander,' said Dragon King of Arms. 'I know nothing about the death of Mr Carry and in any case there are a great many vampires in the city. I'm afraid your... aversion is well known.'

'I don't like to see people treated like cattle,' said Vimes. He stared briefly at the volumes piled in the room. 'And of course that's what you've always done, isn't it? These are the stock books of Ankh-Morpork.' The crossbow swung back towards the vampire, who hadn't moved. 'Power over little people. That's what vampires want. The blood is just a way of keeping score. I wonder how much influence you've had over the years?'

'A little. You are correct there, at least.'

' A person of breeding ,' said Vimes. 'Good grief. Well, I think people wanted Vetinari out of the way. But not dead, yet. Too many things'd happen too fast if he were dead. Is Nobby really an earl?'

'The evidence suggests so.'

'But it's your evidence, right? You see, I don't think he's got noble blood in him. Nobby's as common as muck. It's one of his better points. I don't set any score by the ring. The amount of stuff his family's nicked, you could probably prove he's the Duke of Pseudopolis, the Seriph of Klatch and the Dowager Duchess of Quirm. He pinched my cigar case last year and I'm damn certain he's not me. No, I don't think Nobby is a nob. But I think he was convenient.'

It seemed to Vimes that Dragon was getting bigger, but perhaps it was only a trick of the candlelight. The light flickered as the candles hissed and popped.

'You made good use of me, eh?' Vimes carried on. Td been ducking out of appointments with you for weeks. I expect you were getting quite impatient. You were so surprised when I told you about Nobby, eh? Otherwise you'd've had to send for him or something, very suspicious. But Commander Vimes discovered him. That looks good. Practically makes it official.

'And then I started thinking: who wants a king? Well, nearly everyone. It's built in. Kings make it better. Funny thing, isn't it? Even those people who owe everything to him don't like Vetinari. Ten years ago most of the guild leaders were just a bunch of thugs and now... well, they're still a bunch of thugs, to tell the truth, but Vetinari's given 'em the time and energy to decide they never needed him.