Sam Vimes is a man on the run. Yesterday he was a Duke, a chief of police, and the ambassador to the mysterious fat-rich country of Uberwald.
Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilization there's going to be a terrible war.
But there are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves -- and they're catching up.
The Fifth Elephant is Terry Pratchett's latest installment in the Discworld cycle, this time starring dwarfs, diplomacy, intrigue and big lumps of fat.
All Jolson was a man who'd show up on an atlas and change the orbit of small planets.
* * *
[All Jolson had] picked up the nickname by general acclaim, since no one seeing him in the street for the first time could believe that it was all Jolson.
* * *
Colon: "The trouble is, the Patrician, All, gets very short about carts parking on the street for more than ten minutes. He reckons that's a sort of crime."
All Jolson: "Taking ten minutes to eat one of my lunches isn't a crime, Fred, it's a tragedy."
* * *
Constable Chert seemed to reach the conclusion that he wasn't being paid to think, and this was just as well because Sergeant Colon did not believe trolls gave value for money in that department.
* * *
Elsewhere in Ankh-Morpork, the Fools' Guild was on fire.
This was a problem, because the Guild's fire brigade consisted largely of clowns.
And this was a problem because if you show a clown a bucket of water and a ladder he knows only one way to act. Years of training take over. It's something in the red nose speaking to him.
* * *
If it was funny, clowns wouldn't be doing it.
* * *
"If we let it burn it'd be a blow for entertainment in this city," said Carrot earnestly.
Vimes looked sideways at him. That was a true Carrot comment. It sounded as innocent as hell, but you could take it a different way.
"It certainly would," he said. "Nevertheless, I suppose we'd better do something."
* * *
Carrot treated everyone as if they were jolly good chaps and somehow, in some inexplicable way, they couldn't resist the urge not to prove him wrong.
* * *
"[The riot is] over," he said, as they rounded a corner. "You can tell by the sudden increase of suspiciously innocent bystanders."
* * *
Lance-Constable Bluejohn was the biggest troll Vimes had ever met. He loomed. He was so big that he didn't stand out in a crowd because he was the crowd; people failed to see him because he was in the way.
* * *
Vimes: "What're people going to say about rioting in the streets?"
Carrot: "They'll say it's another day in the life of the big city."
* * *
It is in the nature of the universe that the person who always keeps you waiting ten minutes will, on the day you are ten minutes tardy, have been ready ten minutes early and will make a point of not mentioning this.
* * *
"Ah... I see that the new traffic division is having the desired effect." He indicated a large pile of paper. "I am getting any amount of complaints from the Carters' and Drovers' Guild. Well done."
* * *
"It shouldn't be hard to find someone in this city who dribbles when he writes and spells worse than Carrot."
* * *
"That's what my old sergeant used to say when he was puzzled, sir. Find out where the money is and you've got it half solved."
* * *
Carrot: "The best candles, lamp oils and soap come ultimately from the Schmaltzberg deposits."
Vimes: "Why? We've got our own slaughterhouse, haven't we?"
Carrot: "Ankh-Morpork uses a great many candles, sir."
Vimes: "It certainly doesn't use much soap."
* * *
"Do you know much about Uberwald, Commander Vimes?"
Vimes, whose knowledge of geography was microscopically detailed within five miles of Ankh-Morpork and merely microscopic beyond that, nodded uncertainly.
* * *
"In Uberwald the dwarfs and trolls haven't settled their old greivances," Carrot continued, "there are large areas controlled by feudal vampires or werewolf clans, and there are also tracts with much higher than normal background magic. It is a chaotic place, indeed, and you'd hardly think you were in the Century of the Fruitbat. It is to be hoped that things will improve, however, and Uberwald will, happily, be joining the community of nations."
Vimes and Vetinari exchanged looks. Sometimes Carrot sounded like a civics essay written by a stunned choirboy.
* * *
Vimes: "Let me see if I've got this right. Uberwald is like this big suet pudding that everyone's suddenly noticed, and now with this coronation as an excuse we've all got to rush there with knife, fork and spoon to shovel as much on our plates as possible?"
Vetinari: "Your grasp of political reality is masterly, Vimes. You lack only the appropriate vocabulary."
* * *
Vetinari: "Apparently you also looked at the ambassador in a very threatening way."
Vimes: "It was only the way I usually look."
* * *
The young woman stood on a corner in the Shades. Her general stance indicated that she was, in the specialized patois of the area, a lady-in-waiting. To be more precise, a lady-in-waiting for Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right Amount.
* * *
The Seamstresses' Guild operated a very swift and non-reversible kind of justice.
* * *
Angua: "It's just that ... I mean, people might ... I mean ... well, you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don't you?"
Nobby: "Yes, miss."
Angua: "You do?"
Nobby: "Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss."
Angua: "Good. Yes. Good. Now try another one..."
Nobby: "Er ... actors, miss?"
* * *
Dwarf bread was made as a meal of last resort and also as a weapon and a currency.
* * *
Vimes sniffed. The air had a certain pungent quality. "Smells strongly of cats in here, doesn't it?"
"I'm afraid they get in after the rats, sir. A rat who's nibbled on dwarf bread tends not to be able to run very fast."
* * *
Carrot: "We do thank people for not smoking in here, sir."
Vimes: "Why? You don't know they're not going to."
* * *
You did something because it had always been done, and the explaination was "But we've always done it this way." A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they?
-- Traditions justified
* * *
"Er, I think you can assume, sir, that any dwarf who rises sufficiently in dwarf society to even be considered as a candidate for the kingship did not get there by singing the hi-ho song and bandaging wounded animals in the forest."
* * *
Vampires evolve long names. It's something to do to pass the long years.
* * *
Of course, it was good business for a diplomat to appear stupid, right up to the moment where he'd stolen your socks, but Lady Margolotta had met some of Ankh-Morpork's finest and no one could act that well.
* * *
Sam Vimes could parallel-process. Most husbands could. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full.
* * *
Sybil: "We'll have to host a party ourselves, I expect, so we ought to take a cartload of typical AnkhMorpork food. Show the flag, you know. Do you think I should take a cook along?"
Vimes: "Yes, dear. That would be a good idea. No one outside the city knows how to make a knuckle sandwich properly."
* * *
It was, [Vimes] felt, a persistent flaw in his wife's otherwise practical and sensible character that she believed, against all evidence, that he was a man of many talents. He knew he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface.
* * *
From the way Carrot talked, in Bonk [Vimes'] badge would merely figure as extra roughage on someone's menu.
* * *
There was no such thing as a dwarfish female pronoun or, once the children were on solids, any such thing as women's work.
* * *
...Cheery Littlebottom had arrived in Ankh-Morpork and had seen that there were men out there who did not wear chain-mail or leather underwear [Footnote: At least, of the sort she normally wore.]
* * *
Now [Cheery] was being denounced in cellars and dwarf bars across the city, as the first dwarf in Ankh-Morpork to wear a skirt. It was hardwearing brown leather and as objectively erotic as a piece of wood but, as some older dwarfs would point out, somewhere under there were his knees. [Footnote: They couldn't bring themselves to utter the word "her".]
* * *
Vimes: "You heard glass break?"
Ping: "Yessir. And someone swore."
Vimes: "Really? What did they say?"
Ping: "Er ... 'Bugger,' sir."
Vimes: "And you went around the back and saw the broken window and you...?"
Ping: "I called out, 'Is there anyone there?' sir."
Vimes: "Really? And what would you have done if a voice had said 'No'?"
* * *
[Uberwald] was so thickly forested, so creased by little mountain ranges and beset by rivers, that it was largely unmapped. It was mostly unexplored, too. [Footnote: At least by proper explorers. Just living there doesn't count.]
* * *
The way you wore your helmet, the way you parted your beard spoke complicated volumes to other dwarfs. They didn't even hand a piece of paper to Vimes.
* * *
He wasn't strictly aware of it, but he treated even geography as if he was investigating a crime ("Did you see who carved out the valley? Would you recognize that glacier if you saw it again?").
* * *
Vimes: "I don't get it, Cheery. There's all this fuss about a female dwarf trying to act like, like--"
Cheery: "A lady, sir?"
Vimes: "Right, and yet no one says anything about Carrot being called a dwarf, but he's a human--"
Cheery: "No, sir. Like he says, he's a dwarf. He was adopted by the dwarfs, he's performed the Y'grad, he observes the j'kargra insofar as that's possible in a city. He's a dwarf."
Vimes: "He's six foot high!"
Cheery: "He's a tall dwarf, sir. We don't mind if he wants to be a human as well."
* * *
...to really speak dwarfish you needed a lifetime's study and, if at all possible, a serious throat infection.
* * *
There were plenty of dwarfs around now who had been born in Ankh-Morpork. THeir kids went around with their helmets on back to front and spoke dwarfish only at home. Many of them wouldn't know a pick-axe if you hit them with it. [Footnote: At least, if you hit them hard enough.]
* * *
Vimes: "Sounds to me they're a bunch of-- I'm not thinking diplomatically, am I?"
Cheery: "Oh, I don't know about that, sir. You didn't actually finish the sentence."
* * *
It was funny how people were people everywhere you went, even if the people concerned weren't the people the people who made up the phrase "people are people everywhere" had traditionally thought of as people.
* * *
"The Campaign for Equal Heights has put out a pamphlet saying it was another example of the second-class treatment of dwarfs in the city, but it was the same one they always put out. You know, the one with blanks to fill in the details."
* * *
"There'll be a lot of dwarfs, Detritus." Vimes didn't bother to mention vampires and werewolves. Either of those who attacked a troll was making the last big mistake of its career in any case. Detritus carried a 2,000lb-draw crossbow as a hand weapon.
* * *
Vimes: "There's still wars with trolls up near the Hub, I hear. Tact and diplomacy will be called for."
Detritus: "You have come to der right troll for dat, sir."
Vimes: "You did push that man through the wall last week, Detritus."
Detritus: "It was done with tact, sir. Quite a fin wall."
* * *
He was Igor, son of Igor, nephew of several Igors, brother of Igors and cousin of more Igors than he could remember without checking up in his diary. Igors did not change a winning formula. [Footnote: Especially if it was green, and bubbled.]
* * *
...Igors liked working for vampires. Vampires kept regular hours, were generally polite to their servants and, an important extra, didn't require much work in the bedmaking and cookery department, and tended to have cool, roomy cellars where an Igor could pursue his true calling. This more than made up for those occasions when you had to sweep up their ashes.
* * *
Baroness: "The man is a ... a nothing. A paper man. A man of straw. An insult."
Wolfgang: "The name Vimes goes back a long time."
Baroness: "So does the name Smith. What of it?"
* * *
Just once it'd be nice to catch [Carrot] out at something. If the man was any straighter you could use him as a plank.
* * *
"A Carter assaulted Constable Swires last night for clamping his cart... Tried to stamp on him, sir."
Vimes had a mental picture of Constable Swires, a gnome six inches tall but a mile high in pent-up aggression.
"How is he?"
"Well, the man can speak, but it'll be a little while before he can climb back on a cart again."
* * *
"Nobby said [Angua] was rather concerned about something when they were on duty the other day."
Vimes nodded. Of course, most people were concerned about something if they were on duty with Nobby. They tended to look at clocks a lot.
* * *
[Vetinari] always suspected the poetic description of Time like an ever-rolling stream. Time, in his experience, moved more like rocks... sliding, pressing, building up force underground and then, with one jerk that shakes the crockery, a whole field of turnips mysteriously slips sideways by six feet.
* * *
Anyone overhearing his progress along the [secret] passages and stairs might have caught muttered phrases on the lines of "The moon is waxing..." and "Yes, it is before noon." A really keen listener would have heard the faint whirring and ticking inside the walls.
A really keen and paranoid listener would have reflected that anything Lord Vetinari said aloud even while he was alone might not be totally worth believing. Not, certainly, if your life depended on it.
* * *
Vetinari often speculated upon the fate of mankind should Leonard keep his mind on one thing for more than an hour or so.
* * *
Leonard: "I'm calling this the Very-Fast-Coffee machine."
Vetinari: "And that's today's invention, is it?"
Leonard: "Well, yes. It would have been a scale model of a device for reaching the moon and other celestial bodies, but I was thirsty."
* * *
"I think of it as the Engine for the Neutralizing of Information by the Generation of Miasmic Alphabets, but I appreciate that it does not exactly roll off the tongue."
* * *
The worried man in front of him, who was so considerate of life that he carefully dusted around spiders, had once invented a device that fired lead pellets with tremendous speed and force. He thought it would be useful against dangerous animals. He'd designed a thing that could destroy whole mountains. He thought it would be useful in the mining industries. Here was a man who, in his tea break, would doodle an instrument for unthinkable mass destruction around an exquisite drawing of the fragile beauty of the human smile. With a list of numbered parts. And if you taxed him with it he'd say: ah, but such a thing would make war completely impossible, you see? Because no one would dare use it.
* * *
Vetinari: "These new [cipers] you have are... merely devilishly difficult?"
Leonard: "You specified fiendishly, sir... There does not appear to be a common standard for fiends, my lord, but I did some research in the more accessible occult texts and I believe these cyphers will be considered 'difficult' by more than 96 per cent of fiends."
* * *
Vetinari shook his head ruefully. It often seemed to him that Leonard, who had pushed intellect into hitherto undiscovered uplands, had discovered there large and specialized pockets of stupidity.
* * *
What would be the point of cyphering messages that very clever enemies couldn't break? You'd end up not knowing what they thought you thought they were thinking.
* * *
Vetinari: "Tell me, Leonard. Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?"
Leonard: "Oh dear. Won't that be rather messy?"
Vetinari: "Not perhaps as messy as the other sort."
* * *
Vimes wasn't sure what you got if a human and a werewolf had kids. Possibly you just got someone who had to shave twice a day around full moon and occassionally felt like chasing carts.
* * *
Reg Shoe: "Constable Shoe. Homicide."
Troll: "You come 'bout Mister Sonky?"
Reg Shoe: "I meant I'm a zombie. I find that telling people right away saves embarrassing misunderstandings later on. But coincidentally, yes, we've come about the alleged deceased."
* * *
The troll looked down, not a usual direction in Ankh-Morpork, where people preferred not to see what they were standing in.
* * *
Constable Swires had been on the force only for a few months, but news had gone around and already he inspired respect, or at least the bladder-trembling terror that can pass for respect on these occasions.
* * *
[Gnomes] had an inbuilt resistance to rules. This didn't just apply to the law, but to all the invisible rules that most people obeyed unthinkingly, like "Do not attempt to eat this giraffe" or "Do not headbutt people in the ankle just because they won't give you a chip."
* * *
It was best to think of Constable Swires simply as a small independent weapon.
* * *
Reg Shoe: "Can you think of any reason why someone would kill him?"
Troll: "Well, 'cos they wanted him dead, I reckon. Dat's a good reason."
* * *
Vimes had told him never to get too excited about clues, because clues could lead you a dismal dance. They could become a habit. You ended up finding a wooden leg, a silk slipper and a feather at the scene of a crime and constructing an elegant theory involving a one-legged ballet dancer and a production of Chicken Lake.
* * *
Constable Visit quite enjoyed the pigeons. He sang them hymns. They listened to short homilies, cocking their heads from side to side... And they seemed to be interested in his pamphlets on the virtues of Omnianism, admittedly as nesting material at the moment, but this was certainly a good start.
* * *
...Carrot went and looked out of the window. There was a typical Ankh-Morpork street scene outside, although people were trying to separate them.
* * *
Carrot: "People get mistaken about old Fred, sir. He's a man with a solid bottom to his character."
Vetinari: "He's got a solid bottom to his bottom, ca-- Mister Ironfoundersson."
Carrot: "I mean he doesn't flap in an emergency, sir."
Vetinari: "He doesn't do anything in an emergency. Except possibly hide."
* * *
"Vimes in Uberwald will be more amusing than an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley."
* * *
"Nothing good starts with 'I need your help.'"
* * *
"That's hundreds of miles away! And dog miles is seven times longer!"
* * *
"You can go and tell him you're not doing it..."
The panic in Colon's face was replaced by glazed grey terror.
"Thank you very much, Nobby," he said bitterly. "Let me know if you've got any more suggestions like that, 'cos I'll need to go and change my underwear."
* * *
"Nasty place, Uberwald. I heard where it's a misery wrapped in a enema."
* * *
Colon: "I don't know how to do officering."
Nobby: "No one knows how to do officering, Fred. That's why they're officers. If they knew anything, they'd be sergeants."
* * *
As a lifelong uniformed man, a three-striped peg that had found a three-striped hole very early in its career, he subscribed automatically and unthinkingly to the belief that officers as a class could not put their own trousers on without a map. He conscientiously excluded Vimes and Carrot from the list, elevating them to the rank of honorary sergeant.
* * *
Reg Shoe: "Afternoon, sergeant--"
Colon: "That's captain. See the pip on my shoulder, Reg?"
Reg Shoe: "I thought it was bird doings, sarge."
* * *
Troll: "Mister Sonky always said dey [condoms] was free to the Watch."
Colon: "That was very... civic of him."
Troll: "Yeah, he said der last frog we wanted was more bloody coppers around the city."
* * *
"You're a very thorough reader, that's all, Fred," said Nobby. "I've seen you take ages over just one page. Digesting it magisterially, I thought."
Colon brightened a little. "Yes, that's what I do," he said.
"Even if it's only the menu down at the Klatchian Take-Away, I've seen you staring at one line for a minute at a time."
* * *
"I've always said Vimes was a bit too soft on those dwarfs! They gets the same pay as us and they're only half the size!"
"Yes, yes," said Nobby, waving his hands placatingly in a desperate attempt to calm things down. "But, Fred, trolls are twice as big as us and they get paid the same, so it--"
"But they've only got a quarter of the brains, so it's just the same, like I said--"
* * *
Colon: "And I won't be eyeballed like that, neither!"
Nobby: "No one's looking at you!"
Colon: "Aha, you think I don't know that one? There's plenty of ways to eyeball someone without lookin' at 'em, corporal. That man over there is earlobing me!"
* * *
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
* * *
The little flickering part of his brain that was still sparking coherent thought through the fog of mind-numbing terror that filled Colon's head was telling him that he was so far out of his depth that the fish had lights on their noses.
* * *
He was, in fact, functionally literate. That is, he thought of reading and writing like he thought about boots -- you needed them, but they weren't supposed to be fun, and you got suspicious about people who got a kick out of them.
* * *
"I mean, he's been a copper longer than anyone in the Watch," said Nobby.
One of the dwarfs said something in dwarfish. There were a few smiles from the shorter Watchmen.
"What was that?" said Nobby.
"Well, roughly translated," said Stronginthearm, "'My bum has been a bum for a very long time but I don't have to listen to anything it says.'"
-- So much for experience
* * *
"If we're going to send a clacks to Mister Vimes then we ought to tell him about the Scone and Sonky," said Reg Shoe. "You know he left a message about that. I've done a report."
"Why? He's hundreds of miles away."
"I'd just feel happier if he knew," said Reg. "'cos it worries me."
"What good will it do sending it to him, then?"
"Because then it'll worry him, and I can stop worrying," said Reg.
* * *
But most importantly, you didn't disobey a man with that faint little smile on his face. It didn't seem to move or change. As smiles went, you wanted this one to go as far away as possible.
* * *
[Gaspode] settled down in the pose he almost unconsciously categorized as Faithful Companion Keeping Watch, got bored, scratched himself absentmindedly, curled up in the pose known as Faithful Companion Curled Up With His Nose Pressed On His Bottom, and fell asleep.
* * *
Vetinari: "You are allowed to unbend enough for the satisfactory manipulation of a doorknob."
Colon: "Yes, sah!"
Vetinari: "You may be seated."
Colon: "Yes, sah!"
Vetinari: "You may be quieter, too."
Colon: "Yes, sah!"
* * *
Vetinari: "May I compliment you on the gleam of your armour, acting captain--"
Colon: "Spit and polish, sah! No substitute for it, sah!"
Vetinari: "Oh, good. Clearly you have been purchasing extra supplies of spit."
* * *
Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot.
* * *
"The number of internal disciplinary charges you have laid against your men" -- and here the Patrician picked up a much thicker document -- "seems somewhat excessive. I see no fewer than one hundred and seventy-three offences of eyeballing, earlobing and nostrilling, for example."
* * *
Vetinari's eyes narrowed, but the telescopes on Planet Colon were far too unsophisticated to detect his mood.
* * *
Colon: "[It's] not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favour of unnatural things."
Vetinari: "You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?"
* * *
Vimes hated and despised the privileges of rank, but they had this to be said for them: at least they meant that you could hate and despise them in comfort.
* * *
Inigo: "But you see, your grace, you're not here as an individual, but as Ankh-Morpork. When people look at you, they see the city, mhm, mhm."
Vimes: "They do? Should I stop washing?"
* * *
Inigo: "If you are insulted, Ankh-Morpork is insulted. If you befriend, Ankh-Morpork befriends."
Vimes: "Really? What happens when I go to the lavatory?"
Inigo: "That's up to you, sir."
* * *
"You're humming, Sam," said Sybil, after a while. "That means something awful is going to happen to somebody."
* * *
"Humans don't like werewolves. Wolves don't like werewolves. People don't like wolves that can think like people, an' people don't like people who can act like wolves. Which just shows you that people are the same everywhere," said Gaspode. He assessed this sentence and added, "Even when they're wolves."
* * *
Inigo: "And, ere, there may be slight bandit activity."
Vimes: "Slight bandit activity?"
Inigo: "Yes, sir."
Vimes: "You mean they wake up and decide to go back to bed? Or they just steal enough for a cup of coffee?"
* * *
Vimes: "We're going to be ambushed, lads. ... I don't think they'll try to kill us."
Detritus: "Does dat mean we don't try to kill dem?"
Vimes: "Use your own judgement."
* * *
Carrot: "There has never been an authenticated case of an unprovoked wolf attacking an adult human being."
Gaspode: "An' that's good, is it?"
Carrot: "What do you mean?"
Gaspode: "We-el, o'course us dogs only has little brains, but it seems to me that what you just said was pretty much the same as sayin' 'no unprovokin' adult human bein' has ever returned to tell the tale,' right? I mean, your wolf has just got to make sure they kill people in quiet places where no one'll ever know, yes?"
Carrot: "I wish you hadn't said that, Gaspode."
Gaspode: "You wish I hadn't said it?"
* * *
"Trouble is ... this is deep snow and I am a little doggie. My problems are closer to the ground. I hope I don't have to draw you a picture."
* * *
He'd never bitten a hand that fed him. [Footnote: After all, this made it so much harder for the hand to feed you tomorrow.]
* * *
All Hell hadn't been let loose. It was only Detritus. But from a few feet away you couldn't tell the difference.
* * *
The crowd went silent. A ragged blood-stained madman holding a crossbow can command a rapt audience.
* * *
"I assure you I will not kill you," said Inigo.
"I know that," said Vimes. "But will you try?"
* * *
You could even conceal this [weapon] down your pants, although the thought of all that coiled power so close would require nerves of steel and other parts of steel, too, if it came to it.
* * *
"This is not a weapon. This is for killing people," he said.
"Uh, most weapons are," said Inigo.
"No, they're not. They're so youdon't have to kill people. They're for... for having. For being seen. For warning. This isn't one of those. It's for hiding away until you bring it out and kill people in the dark."
* * *
Inigo: "You stole his money? Mhm, mhm."
Vimes: "I wasn't going to waste any of my own. And he had just tried to kill me. Think of it as an investment, for the good of his health."
* * *
Vimes: "I'm sorry, I don't play your games."
Inigo: "Assassination is not a game, your grace."
Vimes: "It is the way you people play it."
* * *
Killing a stranger without malice or satisfaction, other than the craftsman's pride in a job well done, is such a rare talent that armies spend months trying to instill it into their young soldiers.
* * *
...[Gaspode] sidled over to a female wolf who was watching the fire haughtily.
"Yo, bitch," he said.
"Vot vas zat?"
Gaspode reconsidered his strategy. "Hi, foxy... er... wolf lady."
* * *
"'ere, I heard tell wolves mate for life, right?"
"Vell?"
"Wish I could."
* * *
He'd staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d'you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he'd be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog.
The diplomatic career had certainly got off to a good start, eh?
* * *
Inigo: "You left the law behind when we passed Lancre, your grace. Here it's the lore. What you keep is what you can. What's yours is what you fight for. The fittest survive."
Vimes: "Ankh-Morpork is pretty lawless too, Mister Skimmer."
Inigo: "Ankh-Morpork has many laws. It's just that people don't obey them."
* * *
Inigo: "I persuaded him that we have diplomatic immunity."
Vimes: "And what did you tell him about me?"
Inigo: "I tried to convince him that you were a bloody idiot, your grace."
* * *
"...a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You've made a good start, your grace."
* * *
Ordinary golems would riot harm a human because they had magic words in their head that ordered them not to. Dorfl had no magic words but he didn't harm people because he'd decided that it wasn't moral. This left the worrying possibility that, given enough provocation, he might think again.
* * *
No guards, Vimes thought, should be dressed in red, blue, and yellow. People would be able to see them coming.
* * *
Dogs had a much easier sex life than humans, Gaspode decided. That was somehing to look forward to, if he ever managed to have one.
* * *
Angua: "Werewolves sometimes hunt wolves."
Carrot: "I'm surprised."
Angua: "Why? They hunt humans, don't they?"
* * *
Carrot: "I don't think I want to see you fighting, though."
Angua: "Then you can look the other way!"
* * *
"What a fine figure of a man," said Sybil weakly, as they stepped inside.
"More than one man, by the look of him."
"Sam!"
"Sorry. I'm sure his heart's in the right place."
"Good."
"Or someone's heart, anyway."
-- The Vimes meet Igor
* * *
The previous occupant had been keen on hunting, shooting and fishing and, to have covered every single wall with the resultant trophies, he must have been doing all three at the same time.
* * *
"You don't mind?" said Lady Sybil. "It's a troll's head! Someone actually mounted a troll's head and put it on the wall!"
"Ain't mine," said Detritus.
* * *
Vimes: "It's a bit of human skull, isn't it?"
Detritus: "Yep."
Vimes: "Whose?"
Detritus: "Anyone ask dat troll dere his name?"
* * *
Vimes: "I'm an excellency?"
Inigo: "Yes, your grace."
Vimes: "And still my grace as well?"
Inigo: "Yes, your grace. You are His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, your grace."
Vimes: "Hang on, hang on. His Grace cancels out the Sir, I know that. It's like having an ace in poker."
Inigo: "Strictly speaking this is true, your grace, but great store is set by titles here and it is best to play with a full deck, mmph."
Vimes: "I was once blackboard monitor at school. For a full term. Would that help?"
* * *
Igor could have been said to have looked as if his world had fallen down around his ears were it not for the fact that he already looked as if this had happened.
* * *
People in drought-stricken areas would have paid good money to have Igor pronounce "sausages."
* * *
"Here, a butcher can be hanged if his sausages are not all meat, and at that it must be from a named domesticated animal, and I perhaps should add that by named I do not mean that it should have been called 'Spot' or 'Ginger,' mmm mmhm."
* * *
"I'm sure that if your grace would prefer the more genuine Ankh-Morpork taste, Igor could make up some side dishes of stale bread and sawdust."
* * *
Inigo: "Your grace, I did hear you express some negative sentiments about Ankh-Morpork on the way here, mhm, mhm."
Vimes: "Yes, but I live there! I'm allowed to! That's patriotic!"
* * *
...there was probably an expensive problem here, so the guards were inclined to leave it to someone who earned more money than them.
* * *
Ah, he's already lied to me, thought Vimes. We're being diplomatic.
* * *
Vimes didn't understand the words that followed, but the nasty tone was unmistakable. The important thing was to keep smiling. That was the diplomatic way.
* * *
Rhys: "And you had a famous ancestor, I believe, who was a regicide?"
Vimes: "Yes, Stoneface Vimes. I've always thought that was a bit unfair, though. It was only one king. It wasn't as if it was a hobby."
* * *
"When people say 'We must move with the times,' they really mean 'You must do it my way.'"
* * *
...fifty years ago, a dwarf tinkering in Ankh-Morpork had found that if you put a simple fine mesh over your lantern flame it'd burn blue in the presence of the gas but wouldn't explode. It was a discovery of immense value to the good of dwarfkind and, as so often happens with such discoveries, almost immediately led to a war.
* * *
Cheery: "Did I tell you my brother Snorey went off to be a knockerman?"
Vimes: "I don't think so."
Cheery: "He died in an explosion somewhere under Borogravia. But he was doing what he wanted to do. Well, up to the moment when the blast hit him. After that, I don't think so."
* * *
As castles went, this one looked as though it could be taken by a small squad of not very efficient soldiers. Its builder had not been thinking about fortifications. He'd been influenced by fairytales and possibly by some of the more ornamental sorts of cake. It was a castle for looking at. For defence, putting a blanket over your head might be marginally safer.
* * *
"I'm sorry? Is your whole family called Igor?"
"Oh, yeth, thur. It avoidth confuthion."
* * *
Vampires weren't supposed to wear pearls, or jumpers in pink. In Vimes's world they didn't wear sensible flat shoes, either. Or have a sitting room in which every conceivable piece of furniture was upholstered in chintz.
* * *
Lady Margolotta: "I believe you ver an alcoholic, Sir Samuel."
Vimes: "No, I was a drunk. You have to be richer than I was to be an alcoholic."
* * *
Lady Margolotta: "Isn't he a treasure?"
Vimes: "He certainly looks as though he's just been dug up."
* * *
Lady Margolotta: "The Scone represents continuity all the vay to B'hrian Bloodaxe. They say he sat on it while it is still soft and left his impression, as it were."
Vimes: "You mean kingship has passed from bu-- backside to backside?"
Lady Margolotta: "Humans believe in crowns, don't they?"
Vimes: "Yes, but at least they're at the other end!"
* * *
"I thought you were all law-abiding?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Very law-abiding. Just not very merciful."
* * *
"Good morning, Igor," he said.
"Good day, your exthellenthy," said Igor, bowing.
"Igor and Igor send their regards, Igor."
"Thank you, your exthellenthy. Thinthe you mention it, could I put a parthel on your coach for Igor?"
"You mean the Igor at the embassy?"
"That'th who I thaid, thur," said Igor patiently.
* * *
[S]o this is diplomacy. It's like lying, only to a better class of people.
* * *
"My husband is a little unwell at the moment," said Serafine, in the special wife voice which Vimes recognized as meaning "He thinks he's fine right now but just you wait until I get him alone."
* * *
"Why haven't I promoted you, Cheery?"
"Because I get embarassed about shouting at other people, sir."
* * *
Cheery: "But look, I know about Igors. If that's a real hand, the original owner hasn't got a use for it, believe me."
Vimes: "What? He cuts bits off dead people?"
Cheery: "Better than live people."
* * *
Detritus: "Dem diplomatics all want you to come for drinky-poos an' stories about chickens."
Vimes: "Cocktails, I think you'll find."
* * *
"This is the Wa--" Vimes stopped. It wasn't the Watch, was it? Not out here. The badge didn't work. He was just an inquisitive trespassing bastard.
* * *
"No, I don't think, sir, I'm a civil servant."
* * *
"No, no, no, no, no," he said. "You've got to get it a lot simpler than that. It's got to have bounce. And rhythm. Like 'Whadda we want? Dum-dee-dum-dee. When do we want it? Now!' See? You need one simple demand. Let's try it again. Whadda we want?"
The watchmen looked at one another, no one quite wanting to be the first.
"Another drink?" someone volunteered.
"Yeah!" said someone at the back. "When do we want it? NOW!"
-- Striking, Ankh-Morpork style
* * *
"Now, Sam, what happened at the tower?"
"I don't really want to worry you, Sybil."
"Well, now that you've got me really worried, you may as well tell me."
* * *
Vimes: "I didn't know we did this sort of thing!"
Sybil: "You use spies all the time, dear."
Vimes: "I do not!"
Sybil: "Well, what about people like Foul Ole Ron and No Way José and Crumbling Michael?"
Vimes: "That is not spying, that is not spying! That's just 'information received.'"
* * *
"No ... if I was going to carry a large axe on my back to a diplomatic function I think I'd want it glittery, too."
* * *
It was definitely evening dress. You couldn't get away with it in daylight.
* * *
"...I've got a helmet with feathers in it and Igor's buffed up the breastplate until he could see his face in it, although I'm not sure why."
* * *
...Sam Vimes had learned a lot from watching Lady Sybil. She didn't mean to act like that, but she'd been born to it, into a class that had always behaved this way: you went through the world as if there was no possibility that anyone would stop you or question you, and most of the time that's exactly what didn't happen.
-- How to be aristocratic
* * *
"You brought a troll, you brought a troll!" muttered Dee.
"And he's an Ankh-Morpork citizen, remember," said Vimes. "Covered by diplomatic immunity and a rather bad suit."
* * *
"Corporal Littlebottom is looking for clues," said Vimes. "They are what we call signs, which may help us. It's a skill."
"Would this letter speed your search?" said Dee. "It has writing on it. That is what we call... signs, which may help you."
Vimes looked at the proffered paper. It was brown and quite stiff, and covered in runes.
"I, er, can't read those," he said.
"It's a skill," said Dee solemnly.
* * *
The way the thing was guarded was a joke. Nobby and Colon could have done it better. Much better, he corrected himself, because they had devious little minds and that was what made them coppers.
* * *
He'd noticed that sex bore some resembalance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipies and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were hungry they created vas banquets in their imagination -- but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
* * *
It amazed him what people got up to when they had time on their hands.
* * *
It wasn't that the dwarfs ignored sex, it really didn't seem important to them. If humans thought the same way, his job would be a lot simpler.
* * *
It was the poised, fight-or-flight look, as if the whole body was a spring eager to unwind and "flight" wasn't an option.
* * *
Sybil: "Have you been upsetting people?"
Vimes: "I think I may let people upset themselves."
Sybil: "Good for you. You do that so well."
* * *
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of "democracy" with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.
* * *
"--and den der's dis big room wid all seats in it, wid red walls and dem big gold babies climbin' up der pillar, only don't worry, 'cos dey're not real gold babies, dey're only made of plaster or somethin'..." There was a pause as Detritus considered matters. "An' also I don't reckon it's real gold, neither, 'cos some bugger'd have pinched it if it was."
* * *
One thing that Vimes did not do was shout "Help! Help!" He was in a cell. Someone had put him in a cell. It was reasonable to assume, therefore, that whoever had done this wasn't interested in his opinions.
* * *
...the Tooth Fairy probably wasn't responsible for putting [the weapon] in the pillow, unless she'd been having to face some particularly difficult children lately.
* * *
The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of innocents everywhere.
* * *
The Marquis of Fantailler got into many fights in his youth, most of them as a result of being known as the Marquis of Fantailler, and wrote a set of rules for what he termed "the noble art of fisticuffs," which mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren't allowed to hit him. Many people were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest out-thrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn't read the Marquis's book but did know how to knock people senseless with a chair.
* * *
There were a lot of things that could profitable be done in a minute, but most of them couldn't be done with no hands while hanging in darkness over a long drop.
* * *
There was nothing really daft that some foreigner wouldn't do somewhere.
* * *
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.
* * *
A main problem, as [Nobby] 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.
* * *
"Colon, Colon, Colon! Out! Out! Out!" shouted Reg Shoe happily, waving his placard.
"That doesn't sound right, Reg," said Nobby. "Sounds like surgery."
* * *
"Humans hate werewolves because they see the wolf in us, but wolves hate us because they see the human inside -- and I don't blame them!"
* * *
He'd been running for half an hour. Well, for twenty-five minutes, really. The other five had been spent limping, wheezing, clutching at his chest and wondering how you knew if you were having a heart attack.
* * *
"Have you come here to ravish us?" she said.
"Madam! I'm being pursued by werewolves!"
"...Er, vill that take you all day?" said one of the women.
* * *
"I am His Grace the Duke of Ankh, although I appreciate this fact is not evident at the--"
There was a three-fold sigh.
"Ankh-Morpork!"
"You haf a magnificent opera house and many fine galleries."
"Such vonderful avenues!"
"A veritable heaven of culture and sophistication and unattached men of quality!"
"Er, I said Ankh-Morpork," said Vimes.
* * *
GOOD MORNING.
Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat.
"Are you Death?"
IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE.
* * *
IT'S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
"What's that?"
I'M NOT SURE.
* * *
It wasn't just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn't cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn't got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions.
* * *
"Are you going to help me?"
WELL... YES.
"When?"
ER, WHEN THE PAIN IS TOO MUCH TO BEAR. Death hesitated, and then went on. EVEN AS I SAY IT I REALIZE THAT THIS ISN'T THE ANSWER YOU WERE LOOKING FOR, HOWEVER.
* * *
The whole idea of fighting was to stop the other bloke hitting you as soon as possible. It wasn't to earn marks.
* * *
About halfway towards the ground [the werewolf] tried to change back again, combining in one falling shape all the qualities of something not good at staying in trees with something not good at landing on the ground.
* * *
"I've been saved from werewolves by wolves?"
"It's all right, sir. When you think about it, it's not really any different from being saved from werewolves by people."
* * *
"It wasn't until ten years ago that they replaced trial by ordeal here with trial by lawyer, and that was only because they found that lawyers were nastier."
* * *
I'm standing in the cold in the middle of a forest, thought Vimes a moment later, watching a quite handsome young woman growling a conversation with a wolf who is watching her. This does not often happen. Not in Ankh-Morpork, anyway. It's probably a daily occurrence up here.
* * *
Tantony: "Are you going to the werewolves' castle?"
Vimes: "Yes."
Tantony: "You won't stand a chance, milord. They do as they please."
Vimes: "Then they've got to be stopped."
Tantony: "You can't. The old one understood the rules, but Wolfgang, he doesn't obey anything!"
Vimes: "All the more reason to stop him, then."
* * *
"Sergeant, I order you: shoot him down."
In one movement the troll had the crossbow balanced on his shoulder and was sighting along the massive package of arrows. Tantony went pale.
"Well, go on," said Vimes. "It was an order, sergeant."
Detritus lowered the bow. "I ain't dat fick, sir."
"I gave you an order!"
"Den you can do wid dat order what Boulder der Lintel did wid his bag of gravel, sir! Wid respect, o'course."
Vimes walked across and patted the shaking Tantony on his shoulder.
"Just making a point," he said.
* * *
She wasn't a good cook. She'd never been taught proper cookery; at her school it had always been assumed that other people would be doing the cooking and that in any case it would be for fifty people using at least four types of fork.
* * *
...[Sybil] cooked for Sam because she vaguely felt that a wife ought to and, besides, he was an eater who entirely matched her kitchen skills. He liked burnt sausages and fried eggs that went boing when you tried to stick a fork in them. If you gave him caviar, he'd want it in batter. He was an easy man to feed, if you always kept some lard in the house.
* * *
She couldn't bring herself to like Serafine, and this was shocking, because Lady Sybil even liked Nobby Nobbs, and that took breeding.
* * *
Among the other unwanted baggage that had been heaped on the young Sybil to hamper her progress through life was the injunction to be pleasant to people and say helpful things. People took this to mean that she didn't think.
* * *
[Sybil] sat on the bed and stared at the wall until the shouting started, and when the shouting started she knew Sam was alive and well, because only Sam made people that angry.
* * *
He reviewed his troops. Unfortunately this did not take long. Even a policeman could count up to five.
* * *
Carrot: "How are we going to get in, sir?"
Vimes: "How would you go about it, Carrot?"
Carrot: "Well, I'd start by knocking, sir."
Vimes: "Really? Sergeant Detritus. Forward, please."
Detritus: "Sir!"
Vimes: "Blow the bloody doors off!"
Detritus: "Yessir!"
* * *
"My gods, Detritus," muttered Vimes as the thunder died away. "That's not a crossbow, that's a national emergency."
* * *
"O-kay, it's all wound up," said Detritus cheerfully, hoisting the humming bow on to his shoulder. "Where should I fire it, Mister Vimes?"
"Good grief, not in here! This is an enclosed building!"
"Only until I pull dis trigger, sir."
* * *
"My son unfortunately has honed to perfection every muscle in his body except the ones for thinking with."
* * *
He'd squared up to the werewolf, fists balled, a stance taken straight from Fig. 1 of The Noble Art of Fisticuffs, which looked impressive right up to the point when your opponent broke your nose with a quart mug.
* * *
Policing by consent was a good theory, but you had to get our opponent to lie still first.
* * *
"The daftie! This is how you win a dogfight!"
As the wolves rolled over and over, Wolfgang tearing at Gavin's belly, Gaspode arrived growling and yapping and launched himself in the general direction of the werewolf's hindquarters.
There was a yip. Gaspode's growls became somewhat muffled. Wolfgang leapt vertically.
-- Culus testiculos habes...
* * *
Vimes: "Can you make him well?"
Igor: "No, it'th hith lucky day. I can make him better. I've got thome kidneyth jutht in, a lovely little pair, belonged to young Mithter Crapanthy, hardly touched a drop of thtrong licker, thame about the avalanche..."
Angua: "Does he need them?"
Igor: "No, but you thould never mith an opportunity to improve yourthelf, I alwayth thay."
* * *
"No crime has been committed!"
"I'm a policeman," said Vimes. "I can always find a crime."
* * *
And then you found that what you really wanted was power, and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control.
* * *
[Sybil] drew herself up and out, righteous indignation radiating like a bonfire, causing the dwarfs to back away from what was clearly an unexploded bosom.
* * *
The dwarfs were staring at Lady Sybil as she changed up through the gears into full, operatic voice... Snow slid off roofs. Icicles vibrated. Good grief, thought Vimes, impressed. With a spiky corset and a hat with wings on it she could be ferrying dead warriors off a battlefield...
* * *
"It's Ironhammer's 'Ransom' song," said Cheery. "Every dwarf knows it! Er, it doesn't translate well, but ... 'I come now to ransom my love, I bring a gift of great wealth, none but the King can have power over me now, standing in my way is against all the laws of the world, the value of truth is greater than gold' ... er, there's always been some debate about that last line, sir, but it's generally considered acceptable if it's a really big truth--"
* * *
"Precedent is on your side," Cheery translated. "They say they can always kill you after you've seen the King."
"Well, not exactly what I was hoping, but it'll have to do."
* * *
A couple of what Vimes thought of as the heavy dwarfs stepped through and gave everyone the official, professional look which said that for your comfort and convenience we have decided not to kill you right at this very moment.
* * *
It was a mining axe, with a pick point on one side, in order to go prospecting, and a real axe blade on the other, in case anyone tried to stop you.
* * *
Oh, good grief, thought Vimes, watching Dee's face as the others shuffled in. There must be a manual. Every copper knows how this goes. You let 'em know you know they've done something wrong, but you don't tell 'em what it is and you certainly don't tell 'em how much you know, and you keep 'em off balance, and you just talk quietly and ... you keep the threat in view but you never refer to it, oh no. Because there's nothing you can do to them that their imagination isn't already doing to themselves. And you keep it up until they break, or in the case of my old dame school, until they feel their boots get damp.
* * *
"Fakes?" said Vimes. "They were all fakes?"
Suddenly the King was holding his mining axe again. "This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation... but is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good. Will you tell me this is a fake too?"
* * *
"You think that because Albrecht dislikes Ankh-Morpork and has... old-fashioned ideas, he is a bad dwarf. But I have known him for two hundred years. He is honest and honourable... Of course he will now oppose me at every turn. Being Low King was never an easy job. But, to use one of your metaphors, we are all floating in the same boat. We may certainly try to push one another over the side, but only a maniac like Dee would make a hole in the bottom."
* * *
"You astonish me, Lady Sybil," said the King. "I did not know you were trained in fat extraction."
"Cooking Sam's breakfasts is an education in itself, your majesty."
* * *
If it wasn't against everything he wanted to be true about the world, Vimes might just then have believed in destiny controlling people. And gods help other people who were around when a big destiny was alive in the world, bending every poor bugger around itself...
* * *
Igor: "I've heard that in Ankh-Morpork bodieth jutht lie around in the threetth for anyone to take away!"
Vimes: "It's not quite as bad as that, Igor."
Igor: "Ithn't it? Oh well, you can't have everything."
* * *
The trouble was that, if you formed a picture in your mind of a sensible person, and tried to superimpose it on a picture of Wolfgang, you couldn't get them to meet anywhere.
* * *
Sybil: "I really need to talk to you very quietly for a little while without you running off after werewolves."
Vimes: "Er, they run after me."
Sybil: "But there's always people being found dead or trying to kill you--"
Vimes: "I don't ask them to, dear."
* * *
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.
* * *
He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing ... 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.
* * *
Tantony: "And you see what happens when you stand up to a werewolf?"
Vimes: "No, it's what happens when you're fool enough to stand up to a werewolf with no back-up and no firepower. I'm sorry, but we all have to learn that lesson. Integrity makes very poor armour."
* * *
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 have known that what he had just done was murder.
* * *
"Black Scopani. They grow the tobacco in total darkness. Do try some. You could waterproof roofs with it. I believe Igor makes cigars by rolling the leaves between his thighs." She blew out a stream of smoke. "Or someone's thighs, anyvay."
* * *
"You're good at anger, your grace. You save it up for when you need it."
* * *
Vimes: "What's this? Igor's funeral? Oh, my gods... with party loot bags? Everyone gets something to take home?"
Igor: "You could thay that, thur, you could call it that. But we think that putting bodieth in the ground ith rather gruethome. All thothe wormth and thingth. Thith way, he'll be mothtly up and about again in no time."
Vimes: "Reincarnation on the instalment plan, eh?"
* * *
"By tonight there will be thome very lucky people in thethe partlh--"
"And these parts in some very lucky people?"
* * *
Vimes: "But Sybil said you'd got a fetching little green number and a helmet with a feather in it... You're free to wear whatever you want, you know that."
Cheery: "Yes, sir. And then I thought about Dee. And I watched the King when he was talking to you, and... well, I can wear what I like, sir. That's the point. I don't have to wear that dress and I shouldn't wear it just because other people don't want me to. Besides, it made me look like a rather stupid lettuce."
* * *
It was the first coronation Vimes had attended. He'd expected it to be ... stranger, touched somehow by glory.
Instead it was dull, but at least it was big dull, dullness distilled and cultivated over thousands of years until it had developed an impressive shine, as even grime will if you polish it long enough. It was dull hammered into the shape and form of ceremony.
It had also been timed to test the capacity of the average bladder.
* * *
Angua: "Carrot! Don't you remember last night? Didn't you wonder what I might become? Didn't you worry about the future?"
Carrot: "No."
Angua: "Why the hell not?"
Carrot: "It hasn't happened yet."
* * *
Wolves did not have a lot of mental space for uncertainty. Doubt was a luxury for species that did not live one meal away from starvation.
* * *
"Carrot! I've got to know something."
"Yes?"
"That might happen to me. Have you ever thought about that? He was my brother, after all. Being two things at the same time, and never quite being one ... we're not the most stable of creatures."
"Gold and muck come out of the same shaft."
"That's just a dwarf saying!"
"It's true, though."
* * *
"This will become, in time, the axe of someone's grandfather," said the King. "And no doubt over the years it will need a new handle or a new blade and over the centuries the shape will change in line with fashion, but it will always be, in every detail and respect, the axe I give you today. And because it'll change with the times it'll always be sharp. There's a grain of truth in that, see."
* * *
"I never shook hands wid no king before," said Detritus. "No dwarf, either, come to dat."
"You shook hands with me once," said Cheery.
"Watchmen don't count," said Detritus firmly. "Watchmen is watchmen."
* * *
Vimes stared out of the window. It'd probably make people feel good, he thought. But trolls and dwarfs had been fighting for centuries. Ending that sort of thing took more than a handshake. It was just a symbol.
On the other hand ... the world wasn't moved by heroes or villians or even by policemen. It might as well be moved by symbols.
* * *
[Igor] was with a much younger ... er ... man, probably barely out of his teens, at least in places, but already the scars and stitching indicated that relentless urge towards self-improvement that was the hallmark of a good Igor.
* * *
"He'th got hith grandfather'th handth, you know."
"I can see the scars," said Vimes.
* * *
Vimes: "And, er ... this rabbit?"
Igor: "He's Eerie, thur."
Vimes: "Good name. Good name. Is that why he's got human ears all over his back?"
* * *
He could afford to put up with a nose-breeder in exchange for surgery that didn't involve screaming and buckets of boiling pitch.
* * *
...the collision with the Fifth Elephant had buried thosands of acres of prehistoric sugarcane around the borders of Uberwald and the resulting dense crystalline sugar was the foundation of a large mining, confectionery and dentistry industry.
* * *
Carrot: "What is happening, Nobby?"
Nobby: "Well, you see... Fred kind of... and then he got all sort of... then next thing you know he was setting for to... and then we... and then he wouldn't come out... and then we... and he nailed up the door... and Mrs. Fred came and shouted at him through the letterbox... and most of the lads have gone off and got other jobs... and now there's just me and Dorfl and Reg and Washpot, and we come here turn and turn about and we shove food through the letterbox for him... and... that's it, reelly..."
Carrot: "Can we have that again with the gaps filled in?"
* * *
Fred Colon was hunched in the chair, staring fixedly at one solitary sugar lump.
"Be careful," whispered Angua. "He might be in a rather fagile mental state."
"That's very likely," said Carrot. He leaned down and whispered: "Fred?"
"Mm?" muttered Colon.
"On your feet, sergeant! Am I 'hurtin' you? I ought to be, I'm standin' on your beard! You've got five minutes to wash and shave and be back here with shinin' mornin' face! On your feet! To the washroom! Abou-ut turn! At the double! One-two-one-two!"
-- So much for subtlety
* * *
Fred and Nobby were both wearing the same expression. It was the face of a man who has seen the light at the end of the tunnel and it has turned out to be the twinkle of the Fairy of Hope.
"I feel almost embarassed to ask you two to get me out of this pit I have dug for myself," said Carrot. "I can't imagine what Mister Vimes is going to say."
The light at the end of the tunnel winked out for Fred and Nobby. They could imagine what Mister Vimes would say.
* * *
...she thought: you do know how to do nasty, don't you? But you use it like a claw; it slides out when you need it, and when you don't there's no sign that it's there.