Thud!

by Terry Pratchett

  He recited it tonight, while wind rattled the windows, and this little nursery world, with its pink-and-blue peace, its creatures who were ever so very soft and wooly and fluffy, seemed to enfold them both. On the nursery clock, a little wooly lamb rocked the seconds away.

  When he not quite awoke, in twilight, with ragged strands of dark sleep filling his mind, Vimes stared in incomprehension at the room. Panic filled him. What was this place? Why were there all these grinning animals? What was lying on his foot? Who was this doing the asking, and why was he wrapped in a blue shawl with ducks on it?

  Blessed recollection flowed in. Young Sam was fast asleep, with Vimes’s helmet clutched like a teddy bear, and Dribble, always on the lookout for somewhere warm to slump, had rested his head on Vimes’s boot. Already the leather was covered with goo.

  Vimes carefully retrieved his helmet, gathered the shawl around him, and wandered down into the big front hall. He could see a light on under the door of the library, and so, still slightly muzzy, he pushed his way in.

  Two watchmen stood up. Sybil turned in her chair by the fire. Vimes felt the ducks slither down his shoulders, slowly, and end up in a heap on the floor.

  “I let you sleep, Sam,” said Lady Sybil. “You didn’t get in this morning until after three.”

  “Everyone’s double-shifting, dear,” said Sam, daring Carrot and Sally to even think about telling anyone they’d seen the boss wearing a blue shawl covered in ducks. “I’ve got to set a good example.”

  “I’m sure you intend to, Sam, but you look like a horrible warning,” said Sybil. “When did you last eat?”

  “I had a lettuce, tomato, and bacon sandwich, dear,” he said, endeavoring by tone of his voice to suggest that the bacon had been a mere condiment rather than a slab barely covered by the bread.

  “I expect you jolly well did,” said Sybil, rather more accurately conveying the fact that she didn’t believe a word of it. “Captain Carrot has something to tell you. Now, you sit down and I’m going to see what’s happened to dinner.”

  When she bustled out in the direction of the kitchens, Vimes turned to the watchmen and debated for a moment whether to give that sheepish little grin and eye-roll that between men means “Women, eh?” and decided not to, on the basis that the watchmen consisted of Lance Constable von Humpeding, who’d think he was a fool, and Captain Carrot, who wouldn’t know what it meant.

  He settled instead on “Well?”

  “We did the best we could, sir,” said Carrot. “I was right. That mine is a very unhappy place.”

  “Murder scenes usually are, yes.”

  “Actually, I don’t think we found the murder scene, sir.”

  “Didn’t you see the body?”

  “Yes, sir. I think. Really, sir, you had to be there—”

  “I don’t think I can go through with this,” Angua had hissed as she headed along Treacle Street again.

  “What’s wrong?” said Carrot. Angua jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Her! Vampires and werewolves: not good company!”

  “But she’s a Black Ribboner,” Carrot protested mildly. “She doesn’t—”

  “She doesn’t have to do anything! She just is! For one of us, being around a vampire is like the worst bad hair day you can imagine. And believe me, a werewolf knows what a real bad hair day is!”

  “Is it the smell?” said Carrot.

  “Well, that’s not good, but it’s more than that. They’re so…poised. So perfect. I get near her and I feel…hairy. I can’t help it, it goes back thousands of years! It’s the image. Vampires are always so…cool, so in control, but werewolves are, well, shambling animals. Underdogs.”

  “But that’s not true. A lot of Black Ribbboners are totally neurotic, and you’re so sleek and—”

  “Not when I’m around vampires! They trigger off something! Look, stop trying to be logical about it, will you? I hate it when you get logical on me. Why didn’t Mister Vimes hold out? All right, all right, I’m on top of it. But it’s hard, that’s all.”

  “I’m sure it’s not easy for her, either—” Carrot began.

  Angua gave him a Look. But that’s him, she thought. He really does think like that. It’s just that he doesn’t know when saying something like that is a really bad idea. Not easy for her? When was it ever easy for me? At least she probably doesn’t have to stash changes of clothes around the city! Okay, going cold bat can’t be nice, but we get cold bat every month. And when do I ever rip out a throat? I hunt chickens! And I pay for them in advance. Does she suffer from PLT? I don’t think so! Oh gods, and it’s already well past Waxing Gibbous tonight. I can feel my hair growing! Bloody vampires! They make such a big thing about not being murderous bloodsuckers anymore. They get all the sympathy!

  Even his!

  All this flashed past in a second. She said: “Let’s just get down there and get it done and get out, shall we?”

  There was still a crowd hanging around near the entrance. Among them was Otto Chriek, who gave Carrot a little shrug.

  There were still guards on duty, too, but it was clear that someone had been talking to them. They nodded to the squad when they arrived. One of them even opened the door, very politely.

  Carrot beckoned the other watchmen closer.

  “Everything we say will be overheard, understand?” he said. “Everything. So be careful. And remember—as far as they are concerned, you can’t see in the dark.”

  He led the way inside, to where Helmclever stood, beaming and edgy.

  “Welcome, Head Banger,” said the dwarf.

  “Er, if we are using Morkporkian, I would prefer Captain Carrot,” said Carrot.

  “As you wish, Smelter,” said the dwarf. “The elevator awaits!”

  As they descended, Carrot said, “What powers this, please?”

  “A Device,” said Helmclever, pride breaking out over his nervousness.

  “Really? You have many Devices?” said Carrot.

  “An axle and an average bar.”

  “An average bar? I’ve only every heard of them.”

  “We are fortunate. I will be happy to show it to you. It is invaluable for food preparation,” Helmclever gabbled. “And down below we have a number of cubes, of varying powers. Nothing may be withheld from the Smelter. I am ordered to show you everything you wish to see and tell you everything you wish to know.”

  “Thank you,” said Carrot as the elevator stopped in blackness speckled with the corpse glow of vurms. “How large are your diggings here?”

  “I cannot tell you that,” said Helmclever quickly. “I do not know. Ah, here is Ardent. I will go back up—”

  “No, Helmclever, remain with us, please,” said a darker shadow in the gloom. “You should see this, too. Good day to you, Captain Carrot and—” Angua detected an element of distaste “—ladies. Please follow me. I am sorry for the lack of light. Perhaps your eyes will adapt. I will be happy to describe to you any object that you touch. Now I will lead you to the place where the dreadful occurrence…occurred.”

  Angua looked around as they were led along the tunnel, noting that Carrot had to walk with his knees slightly bent. Head Banger, eh? Funny, you never mention that to the lads!

  Every dozen yards or so, Ardent would stop in front of a round door, invariably with the vurms clustered around it, and turn a wheel. The doors creaked when they opened, and they opened with a ponderousness that suggested they were heavy. Here and there in the tunnels were…things, mechanical things, hanging from the wall and clearly there with a purpose. Vurms glowed around them. She hadn’t got a clue what the objects were for, but Carrot greeted them with enthusiastic glee, like a schoolboy.

  “You have air bells and water boots, Mr. Ardent! I’ve only ever heard of them!”

  “You were raised in the good rock of Copperhead, were you not, Captain? Mining in this wet plain is like digging tunnels in the sea.”

  “And the iron doors are quite watertight, are they?”

>   “Yes, indeed. Airtight, too.”

  “Remarkable! I should like to visit again, when this wretched business is over. A dwarf mine under the city! It’s quite hard to believe!”

  “I’m sure that could be arranged, Captain.”

  And that was Carrot at work. He could sound so innocent, so friendly, so…stupid, in a puppy-dog kind of way, and then he suddenly became this big block of steel and you walked right into it. By the smell of it, Sally was watching him with interest.

  Be sensible, Angua told herself. Don’t let the vampire get to you. Don’t start believing you’re stupid and hairy. Think clearly. You do have a brain.

  Surely people could go mad, living in this murk? Angua found it easier to close her eyes. Down here, her nose worked better without distraction. Darkness helped. With her eyes shut, various faint colors danced across her brain. Without the stink of the damned vampire, though, she would have been able to pick up a lot more. The stench poisoned every sensation. Hold on, don’t think like that, you’re just letting your mind do the thinking for you…hang on, that’s wrong…

  There was a faint outline in the corner of the next chamber, which was quite large. It looked like…an outline. A chalk outline. A glowing chalk outline.

  “I understand this is the approved method?” said Ardent. “You will be aware of night chalk, Captain? It is made of crushed vurm. The glow persists for about a day. On the floor here you will see, or rather, you will feel the club that dealt him his deathblow. Just under your hand, Captain. There is blood on it. I regret the darkness, but we kept the vurms out. They would have feasted, you understand.”

  Angua saw Carrot, outlined in his permanent smell of soap, feel his way across the space. His hand touched another metal door.

  “Where does this go, sir?” he said, tapping it.

  “To the outer chambers.”

  “Was it open at the time the troll attacked the grag?”

  You really think a troll did? Angua wondered.

  “I believe so,” said Ardent.

  “Then I would like it open now, please.”

  “I cannot agree to that request, Captain.”

  “I did not intend it to be a request, sir. After it has been opened, I will need to know who was in the mine at the time the troll broke in. I will need to speak to them, and to whoever discovered the body. Hara’g, j’kargra.”

  For Angua, the smell of Ardent changed. Under all those layers, the dwarf was suddenly uncertain. He’d walked right into it. He hesitated for several seconds before replying.

  “I will…endeavor to meet your reque—your requirements, Smelter,” he said. “I will leave you now. Come, Helmclever.”

  “Grz dava’j?” said Carrot. “K’zakra’j? D’j h’ragna ra’d’j!”

  Ardent stepped forward, uncertainty growing, and held out both hands, palms down. For a moment, until his sleeves slipped, Angua saw a faintly glowing symbol on his right wrist. Every deep-downer had a draht as unique evidence of identity, in a world of shrouded figures. She’d heard they were made by tattooing vurm blood under the skin. It sounded painful.

  Carrot took his hands for a moment, and then let go.

  “Thank you,” he said, as if the dwarfish interlude had not taken place. The two dwarfs hurried away.

  In the thick darkness, the watchmen were left alone.

  “What was all that about?” said Angua.

  “Just reassuring him,” said Carrot cheerfully. He reached into a pocket. “Now we’ve arrived, let’s have some light in here, shall we?”

  Angua smelled his hand move vigorously across the wall once or twice, as if he was painting. There arose an aroma of…pork pie?

  “Soon be brighter,” he said.

  “Captain Carrot, this wasn’t where—” Sally began.

  “All in good time, Lance Constable,” said Carrot firmly. “For now, we just observe.”

  “But I must tell you—”

  “Later on, lance constable,” said Carrot a little louder. Vurms were flowing around the open door they’d arrived by, and across the stone. “By the way, er, Sally…will you be all right if we view the body?”

  That’s right, Angua thought, think of her. I’ve dealt with blood every day. Walk a mile in my nostrils!

  “Old blood will not be a problem, sir,” said Sally. “There’s some in here. But there’s—”

  “I expect they’ve set up a morgue,” said Carrot quickly. “The death rites are quite complex.”

  Morgue? A home away from home for you, my dear! snarled Angua’s inner wolf.

  The vurms were spreading out now, crawling across the wall with a purpose.

  She crouched down, to bring her nose nearer to the floor. I can smell dwarfs, lots of dwarfs, Angua thought. Hard to smell trolls, especially underground. Blood on the club, like a flower. Dwarf smell on the club, but there’s dwarf smell everywhere. I can smell—hang on, that’s familiar…

  The floor mostly smelled of slime and loam. Carrot’s footprints showed up, and so did hers. There was a lot of dwarf smell, and she could still just make out the smell of their concern. This is where they found the body, then? But this patch of mud here, this was different. It had been trodden into the floor, but it smelled just like the heavy clay from up around Quarry Lane. Who lived in Quarry Lane? Most of the trolls in Ankh-Morpork.

  A clue.

  She smiled in the dwindling darkness. And the trouble with clues, as Mister Vimes always said, was that they were so easy to make. You could walk around with a pocket full of the bloody things.

  The darkness was disappearing because the light was growing. Angua looked up.

  There was a huge, bright symbol on the wall where Carrot had touched it. He dragged some meat across it, she thought. They’ve turned up for the feast…

  Ardent came back in, with Helmclever trailing after him.

  He got as far as: “The door here can be opened again but, alas, we—” and stopped.

  They were happy vurms. By the standards of greeny-white glow, they were brilliant.

  Behind Carrot there was now a gently glowing circle, with two diagonal lines slashed through it. Both dwarfs stared at it as if in shock.

  “Well, let’s take a look, shall we?” said Carrot, apparently oblivious to all this.

  “—we, alas, the water…water…not entirely watertight…the other doors…the troll caused flooding…” Ardent murmured, not taking his eyes off the glow.

  “But you say we can go through here, at least?” said Carrot politely, pointing to the sealed door.

  “Er…yes. Yes. Certainly.”

  The steward hurried forward and produced a key. The wheel, unlocked, turned easily. Angua was acutely aware of how the muscles on Carrot’s bare arms glistened and pumped as he pulled the metal door open.

  Oh no, not yet, surely! She ought to have at least another day! It was the vampire, that’s what it was, standing there looking so innocent. Bits of her body wanted her to become a wolf, right now, to defend herself…

  There was a pillared room on the other side of the door. It smelled damp and unfinished. There were vurms on the ceiling, but the floor was muddy and squelched underfoot.

  Angua could make out another dwarf door across the room, and there was one on either side as well.

  “We take spoil to a heap on the waste ground outside,” said Ardent. “We, er, believe the troll got in that way. It was an unpardonable oversight.” He still sounded uneasy.

  “And the troll was not seen?” said Carrot, kicking at the mud.

  “No. These chambers are finished. The diggers are elsewhere, but they came as soon as they could. We believe the grag had come up here for solitude. To die at the random hand of an abomination!”

  “Lucky for the troll, wasn’t it, sir?” said Angua sharply. “He just happened to wander in and stumble across Hamcrusher?”

  Carrot’s boot struck something metallic. He kicked some more mud away.

  “You’ve laid rails?” he said. “You
must be shifting a lot of spoil, sir.”

  “Better to push than to carry,” said Ardent. “Now, I have arranged for—”

  “Hold on, what’s this?” said Carrot. He squatted down and pulled at something pale. “It’s a piece of bone, by the look of it. On a string.”

  “There are plenty of old bones,” said Ardent. “Now, I—”

  It came free with a gloop, and grinned at them in the sickly light.

  “It doesn’t look very old, sir,” said Carrot.

  Just one breath was enough for Angua.

  “It’s a sheep skull,” she said. “About three months dead.” Oh, another clue, she added to herself. Nice and convenient for us to find, too.

  “Could have been dropped by the troll,” said Carrot.

  “A troll?” said Ardent, backing away.

  It wasn’t the reaction Angua had expected. Ardent had been nervous already, but now, under all those wrappings, he was on the verge of panic.

  “You did say a troll had attacked the grag, sir?” said Carrot.

  “But we never—I never saw that before! Why didn’t we find it? Did it come back?”

  “All the doors are sealed, sir,” said Carrot patiently. “Aren’t they?”

  “But have we sealed it in here with us?” It was practically a shriek.

  “You’d know, sir, wouldn’t you?” said Carrot. “Trolls sort of, well, stand out.”

  “I must fetch guards!” said Ardent, backing away toward the single open door. “It could be anywhere!”

  “Then you could be heading right toward it, sir,” said Angua.

  Ardent stopped dead for a moment, and then uttered a little whimper and ran into the dark, Helmclever on his heels.

  “Well, how do we all think that went?” said Angua, with a horrible smile. “And what was that you said to him in dwarfish…‘You know I am a dwarf in the brotherhood of all dwarfs’?”

  “Erm, ‘With emphatic certainty you know me. I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united,’ ” said Sally carefully.

  “Well done, lance constable!” said Carrot. “That was an excellent translation!”