The Fifth Elephant

by Terry Pratchett

  “Er…they run after me,” he pointed out.

  “But there’s always people being found dead or trying to kill you—”

  “I don’t ask them to, dear.”

  “Sam, I’m going to have a baby.”

  Vimes’s head was full of werewolves and his automatic husbandry circuitry cut in to respond with “yes, dear,” or “choose any color you like” or “I’ll get someone to sort it out.” Fortunately his brain itself had its own sense of self-preservation and, not wishing to be inside a skull that was stoved in by a bedside lamp, rewrote Sybil’s words in white-hot fire across his inner eyeball and then went and hid.

  That’s why the response came out as a weak “What? How?”

  “The normal way, I hope.”

  Vimes sat down on the bed. “And…not right now?”

  “I very much doubt it. But Mrs. Content says it’s definite, and she’s been a midwife for fifty years.”

  “Oh.” Some more brain functions crept back. “Good. That’s…good.”

  “It’ll probably take a while to sink in.”

  “Yes.” Another neuron lit up. “Er…everything will be all right, will it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Er, you’re rather, you’re not as…you…”

  “Sam, my family have bred for breeding. It’s an aristocratic tradition. It’s practically what being an aristocrat means. Of course everything will be all right.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Vimes sat and stared. His head felt like some vast sea that had just been parted by a prophet. Where there should have been activity, there was just bare sand and the occasional floundering fish. But huge steep waves were tottering on either side, and in a minute they would crash down and cause cities to flood, a hundred miles away.

  More glass tinkled, somewhere downstairs.

  “Sam, Igor’s probably just dropped something,” said Sybil, seeing his expression. “That’s all. Probably just knocked a glass over.”

  There was a snarl, and a scream, abruptly cut off.

  Vimes leapt off the bed. “Lock the door after me and push the bed against it!” He paused for a moment in the doorway. “Without straining yourself!” he added, and ran for the stairs.

  Wolfgang was trotting across the hall.

  He was different this time. Wolf ears sprouted from a head that was still human. His hair had grown around him like a mane. Patches of fur were tufted on his skin, and were mostly streaked with blood.

  The rest of him…was having trouble deciding what it was. One arm was trying to be a paw.

  Vimes reached for his sword, and remembered that it was back on the bed. He rummaged in his pockets.

  He knew the other thing was here, he remembered picking it up off the dressing table…

  His fingers closed on his badge. He held it out.

  “Stop! In the name of the law!”

  Wolfgang looked up at him, one eye glowing yellow. The other was a mess.

  “Hello, Civilized,” he growled. “You wait for me, hey?”

  He ducked into the corridor that led to the room where Carrot lay. Vimes tried to catch him up, saw claw-tipped fingers curl around the door and haul it out of its frame.

  Carrot was reaching for his sword—

  And then Wolfgang was flying backward under the full weight of Angua. They landed back in the hall, a rolling ball of fur, claws and teeth.

  When werewolf fights werewolf, there are advantages to either shape. It’s an eternal struggle to get a position where hands beat claws. And body shapes have lives of their own, a dangerous attribute if it is allowed to act unchecked. A cat’s instinct is to jump on something that moves, but this is not a correct action if what is moving has a fizzing fuse. The mind has to fight its own body for control and the other body for survival. Mix this together, and the noise suggests that there are four creatures in the whirling ball of rage. And each one of them has brought several friends. And none of them like any of the others.

  A shadow made Vimes spin around. Detritus, in shining armor, was aiming the Piecemaker over the banisters.

  “Sergeant! No! You’ll hit Angua, too!”

  “Not a problem, sir,” said Detritus. “’cos it won’t kill ’em, so all we have to do, see, is sort out der bits that are Wolfgang an’ belt him over der head when he gets himself back together—”

  “If you fire that in here his bits will be mixed up with our bits and they won’t be big bits! Put the damn thing down!”

  Wolfgang couldn’t control his shape well, Vimes saw. He couldn’t quite manage to be full wolf or full human, and Angua was making the most of that. She was ducking, weaving…biting.

  But even if you put him down you couldn’t put him out.

  “Mister Vimes!” Now it was Cheery, beckoning urgently from the passage that led to the kitchen. “You ought to come here right now!”

  She was white-faced. Vimes nudged Detritus. “If they separate, just grab him, right? Just try to hold him still!”

  Igor was lying in the kitchen, surrounded by broken glass. Wolfgang must have landed on him, and then took out his perpetual anger on a soft target. The patchwork man was bleeding heavily and lay like a doll that had been flung hard against a wall.

  “Marthter,” he groaned.

  “Can you do anything for him, Cheery?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start, sir!”

  “Marthter, you got to remember thith, right?” Igor groaned.

  “Er…yes…what?”

  “You got to get me into the icehouthe downthtairth and let Igor know, underthtand?”

  “Which Igor?” said Vimes desperately.

  “Any Igor!” Igor clutched at Vimes’s sleeve. “Me heart’th had it, but me liver’th right ath ninepence, tell him! Nothing wrong with my brain that a good bolt of lightnin’ won’t sort out. Then Igor can have me right hand, he’th got a cuthtomer waiting. There’s yearth of good thervice left in my lower intethtine. Left eye not up to much, but I darethay thome poor thoul can find a uthe for it. The right knee ith nearly new. Old M’th Prodzky down the road would value my hip jointh, tell him. Got all that?”

  “Yes…yes, I think so.”

  “Right. Remember…what goeth around, cometh around…”

  Igor sank down.

  “He’s gone, sir,” said Cheery.

  But he’ll soon be up and on someone else’s feet, Vimes thought. He didn’t say it aloud. Cheery was softhearted. Instead he said: “Can you get him into his icehouse? By the sound of it Angua’s winning—”

  He ran back into the hall. It was a wreck. As he arrived Angua managed to get a headlock on Wolfgang and ran him into a wooden pillar. He staggered, and she spun and scythed his legs from under him with a kick.

  I taught her that, Vimes thought, as her brother landed heavily. Some of that dirty fighting—that’s Ankh-Morpork fighting, that is.

  But Wolfgang was up again like a rubber ball and somersaulting over her head. That brought him to the front door. He smashed it open with a blow and leapt out into the street.

  And…that was it. A room full of debris, snowflakes blowing in, and Angua sobbing on the floor.

  He picked her up. She was bleeding in a dozen places. That was as much of a diagnosis as Sam Vimes, not used these days to surveying naked young women at close quarters, thought he could decently attempt.

  “It’s all right, he’s gone,” he said, because he had to say something.

  “It’s not all right! He’ll lie low for a while and then he’ll be back! I know him! It won’t matter where we go! You’ve seen him! He’ll just track us down and follow us and then he’ll kill Carrot!”

  “Why?”

  “Because Carrot’s mine!”

  Sybil advanced down the stairs, carrying Vimes’s crossbow.

  “Oh, you poor thing…” she said. “Come here, let’s find something to cover you up. Sam, isn’t there something you can do?”

  Vimes stared at her. Built into Sybil’s expre
ssion was the unquestioning assumption that he could do something.

  An hour ago he’d been having breakfast. Ten minutes ago he’d been putting on this stupid uniform. In a real room, with his wife. And it had been a real world, with a real future. And suddenly the dark was back, spattered with red rage.

  And if he gave in to it, he’d lose. That was the beast screaming, inside, and Wolfgang was a better beast. Vimes knew he didn’t have the knack, the mindless, driving nastiness; sooner or later his brain would start operating, and kill him.

  Perhaps, said his brain, you start by using me…

  “Ye-es,” he said. “Yes…I think there is something I can do…”

  Fire and silver, thought Vimes. Well, silver’s in pretty short supply in Uberwald.

  “You want I should come?” said Detritus, who could pick up signals.

  “No, I think…I think I want to make an arrest. I don’t want to start a war. Anyway, you need to wait here in case he doubles back. But you could lend me your penknife…”

  Vimes found a sheet in one of the broken boxes, and tore off a long strip. Then he took his crossbow from his wife.

  “You see, now he’s committed a crime in Ankh-Morpork,” he said. “That makes him mine.”

  “Sam, we’re not—”

  “You know, everyone kept telling me I wasn’t in Ankh-Morpork so often that I believed it. But this embassy is Ankh-Morpork and, right now,” he hefted the bow, “I am the law.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I know that look. Don’t hurt anyone else, will you?”

  “Don’t worry, dear. I’m going to be civilized about it.”

  There was a cluster of dwarfs in the street outside, surrounding one lying on the snow and in a pool of blood.

  “Which way?” said Vimes, and if they didn’t understand his words they understood the question. Several of them pointed along the street.

  As he walked Vimes cradled the crossbow and lit a thin cigar.

  Now this he understood. It wasn’t damn politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as “bad.”

  It was all too complicated and, where it was complicated, it meant that someone was trying to fool you. But on the street, in hot pursuit, it was all so clear. Someone was going to be still standing at the end of the chase, and all you had to concentrate on was making sure it was you.

  On a street corner a cart had overturned and its driver was kneeling by a horse that had been ripped open.

  “Which way?”

  The man pointed.

  The new street was wider, busier, and there were a number of elegant coaches, moving slowly through the crowds. Of course…the coronation.

  But that belonged to the world of the Duke of Ankh-Morpork and, right now, he wasn’t here. There was only Sam Vimes, who didn’t much like coronations.

  There were screams up ahead, and the flow of people suddenly turned against Vimes, so that he appeared to be heading upstream, like a salmon.

  The street opened into a large square. People were running now, which suggested to Vimes that he was still going in the right direction. It was pretty clear that you’d find Wolfgang somewhere no one else wanted to be.

  A flurry of movement on one side of him became a squad of the town guard, at the trot. They halted. One of them walked back. It was Tantony.

  He looked Vimes up and down.

  “I have you to thank for last night?” he said. There were fresh scars on his face, but they were already healing. We’ve got to get an Igor, Vimes told himself.

  “Yes,” said Vimes. “The good bits and the bad bits.”

  “And you see what happens when you stand up to a werewolf?”

  Vimes opened his mouth to say “Is that a uniform you’re wearing, Captain, or is it just fancy dress?” but stopped himself in time.

  “No, it’s what happens when you’re fool enough to stand up to a werewolf with no backup and no firepower,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we all have to learn that lesson. Integrity makes very poor armor.”

  The man reddened.

  “What is your business here?” he said.

  “Our hairy friend just murdered someone in the embassy, which is—”

  “Yes, yes, Ankh-Morpork territory. But this isn’t! I am the watchman here!”

  “I’m in hot pursuit, Captain. You know the term?”

  “I…I…that doesn’t apply!” Tantony snapped.

  “Really?” Vimes raised an eyebrow. “Surely every copper knows about the rule of hot pursuit. You can chase the suspect over your legal boundary if you’re in hot pursuit. Of course, there may be a bit of legal argy-bargy once he’s caught, but we can save that for later.”

  “I intend to arrest him myself for crimes committed today!”

  “You’re too young to die. Besides, I saw him first. Tell you what…after he’s killed me, you can have a go. Fair enough?” He looked Tantony in the eye. “Now get out of the way.”

  “You know I could have you arrested.”

  “Probably, but up until now I’d got you down as an intelligent man.”

  Tantony nodded, and proved Vimes right.

  “And is there nothing you would have us do?”

  “Well, yes. You could scrape up my remains if this doesn’t work.”

  Vimes felt the man’s stare on the back of his neck as he set off again.

  There was a statue in the middle of the square. It was of the Fifth Elephant. Some ancient craftsman had tried to achieve in bronze and stone the moment when the allegorical animal had thundered down out of the sky and gifted the country its incredible mineral wealth. Around it were idealized and rather heavyset figures of dwarfs and men, holding hammers and swords, and striking noble attitudes; they probably represented Truth, Industry, Justice and Mother’s Home-Made Fat Pancakes, for all Vimes knew, but he felt truly far from home in a country where, apparently, no one wrote graffiti on public statues.

  A man was sprawled on the cobbles, with a woman kneeling beside him. She looked tearfully at Vimes and said something in Uberwaldean. All he could do was nod.

  Wolfgang jumped down from a perch on top of the statue to Bad Sculpting and landed a few yards away, grinning.

  “Mister Civilized! You want another Game?”

  “You see this badge I am holding up?” said Vimes.

  “It is a very small one!”

  “But you see it?”

  “Yes, I see your little badge!” Wolfgang started to move sideways, arms hanging loosely by his sides.

  “And I’m armed. Did you hear me tell you I’m armed?”

  “With that silly bow?”

  “But you just heard me say I’m armed, yes?” said Vimes, loudly, turning to face the moving werewolf. He puffed on his cigar, letting a glow build up.

  “Yes! Is this what you call civilized?”

  Vimes grinned. “Yes, this is how we do it.”

  “My way is better!”

  “And now you’re under arrest,” said Vimes. “Come along and make no fuss and we’ll tie you securely and hand you over to whatever passes for justice around here. I realize this may be difficult.”

  “Hah! Your Ankh-Morpork sense of humor!”

  “Yes, any minute now I’ll drop my trousers. So…you’re resisting arrest?”

  “Why these stupid questions?” Now Wolfgang was almost dancing.

  “Are you resisting arrest?”

  “Yes indeed! Oh yes! Good joke!”

  “Look at me laughing.”

  Vimes tossed the crossbow aside and swung a tube out from under his cloak. It was made of cardboard, and a red cone protruded from one end.

  “A stupid silly firework!” shouted Wolfgang, and charged.

  “Could be,” said Vimes.

  He didn’t bother to aim. These things were never designed for accuracy. He simply removed his cigar from his mo
uth and, as Wolfgang ran toward him, pressed it into the fuse hole.

  The mortar jerked as the charge went off and its payload came out tumbling slowly and trailing smoke in a lazy spiral. It looked like the stupidest weapon since the toffee spear.

  Wolfgang danced back and forth under it, grinning, and as it passed several feet over his head he leapt up gracefully and caught it in his mouth.

  And then it exploded.

  The flares were made to be seen twenty miles away. Even with his eyes tightly shut, Vimes saw the glare through the lids.

  When the body had stopped rolling, Vimes looked around the square. People were watching from the coaches. The crowds were silent.

  There were a lot of things he could say. “Son of a bitch!” would have been a good one. Or he could say “Welcome to civilization!” He could have said “Laugh this one off!” He might have said “Fetch!”

  But he didn’t, because if he had said any of those things, then he’d know that what he had just done was murder.

  He turned away, tossed the empty mortar over his shoulder, and muttered: “The hell with it.”

  At times like this, teetotalism bit down hard.

  Tantony was watching.

  “Don’t say a word out of place,” said Vimes, without altering his stride. “Just don’t.”

  “I thought…those things shot very fast…”

  “I cut the charge down,” said Vimes, tossing Detritus’s penknife in the air and catching it again. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “I heard you warn him that you were armed. I heard him twice resist arrest. I heard everything. I heard everything you wanted me to hear.”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course, he might not have known that law.”

  “Oh, really? Well, I didn’t know it was legal in these parts to chase some poor sod across the country and maul him to death and, do you know, that didn’t stop anyone.”

  The crowds parted ahead of Vimes. He could hear whispers around him.

  “On the other hand,” said Tantony, “you did only fire that thing to warn him…”

  “Huh?”

  “Clearly you were not to know that he would automatically try to catch the…explosive,” said Tantony, and it seemed to Vimes that he was rehearsing the line. “The…doglike qualities of a werewolf would hardly have occurred to a man from the big city.”