Chapter 21 – The Price We Pay
Constable Stepanoff, newly part of the A-M City Watch on a transfer basis from Überwald, was alone in the middle of the night patrolling what was, after The Shades, one of the least savory portions of Ankh Morpork. The air was somewhat chill with dank fog, and he could feel it slowly working its way through his clothing. He had several hours to go before he could return to the Watch house.
He could not imagine anywhere else he would rather be.
He particularly could not imagine being back home in Bonk[1], where he would have even now been standing guard in the freezing mountain air with snow up to his fork. And likely taking incomprehensible orders from whichever unrestrained noble currently dominated the political landscape. Oh things had improved since the last visit of the Duke of Ankh. The more-stable throne of the dwarves Low King combined with the dramatically reduced influence of the werewolves had improved the overall political landscape[2], but things in Überwaldchange at decidedly glacial pace. The new guard exchange program was one such improvement, especially from his perspective. The poor A-M sod that was currently pulling duty in Bonk probably didn't see it the same way.
He was finishing his second uneventful circuit down an empty Attic Bee Street, and nearing the dwarf Gimlet's "Yo Rat" delicatessen, when a sudden thought made him pause.
Bugger am I glad to see me here… er… wait. I mean, oy look, see the cute little doggie there behind me? Maybe I should, wossname, follow him?
Stepanoff turned to see what he at first assumed to be an escapee from Gimlet's establishment, and only by degrees realized was a small, ragged, and quite aromatic dog.
Y'know, if I had half a brain in that giant skull of mine, I'd nip a couple o' blocks over'n check out a veerrryyy interesting building. Might even be a bone- er, a medal in it for me.
No more than thirty minutes earlier, Gaspode had been alone in the middle of the night, wandering what was, after The Shades, one of the more lucrative areas for scrounging the odd bone or tripe. He was cutting through a back alley between Attic Bee and God Street, and was only two blocks away from his destination, the Curry Gardens restaurant, with whose dumpsters he had developed a somewhat unhealthy addiction. The leftover food deposited in the dumpsters there had the distinction of being picked up early by Mr. King's men, otherwise it tended to corrode through the metal.[3]
He was just passing an very nondescript doorway when he smelled a familiar scent that set his mouth to salivating, Pavlov be damned.
"Lessee… mouth waterin', hmm… what was the memory? Ah, yummy goodness…thick juicy steak… ah oh yeah… the flour girl. Wossname, Jessica.
Then that smell was overpowered by the stench of fear, first filtering through and around the door (accompanied by muffled screaming)[4] and was immediately mixed with the stench of doggy urine.
That is to say, Gaspode promptly widdled himself as the door seemed to dissolve to dust, which fell to the threshold and cascaded down the stoop. Passing through the doorway, drifting into the street with all the innocence and empathy of a miles-wide asteroid crossing the orbit of an inhabited planet, was a familiar figure.
And yet not familiar at all. Gaspode's ragged ears flattened against his head and his bladder emptied the rest of the way. The figure before him looked like the Myria person, but all trace of its former humanity had been wiped from it. Its skin was a uniform grey. Its eyes darker grey on grey. Even the clothing it wore was washed of all color. Gaspode felt the coldness of space wash over him as those dead eyes turned his direction, and he cowered, waiting for the end.
And found himself surprised to be alive, though rather more soggy and odiferous than before, as the figure continued drifting its way toward God Street.
"Bugger… that's it. M' given up curry for life… well…mebbe for a week at least…" Gaspode gave himself an all-over shake, which both helped him recover a bit and spread a certain dampness over nearby surfaces. In the process he became aware of a quiet whimpering from inside the building.
Muttering to himself, he stood looking into the whorls of dust concealing the contents of the room. "Hah, blow that… no way m' I going in there. Curiosity's for cats, right? Nine lives and all, they c'n afford it right?" Jessica's faint scent again wafted out of the obscured room. "Oh bugger all, mebbe there's wossname, another steak at the end of it. Today's a good day to widdle, eh?"
Through the cloud of choking grey dust, Gaspode followed his nose at first, until he couldn't sneeze the dust out fast enough, and then he followed his ears. Had he known he was inhaling the component elements of various weapons, body parts, and one rather small bar of gold…he probably wouldn't have cared. Dogs are generally not squeamish about such things.
He found Jessica kneeling in a fetal position on the gritty floor. She was covered in the same dust, her face concealed by her hair draping over it. Her arms were tucked tightly under her against her torso, and she was sobbing and murmuring something over and over in a quiet litany.
"Er, Jessica…" he bumped her gently with his nose, and her skin was ice-cold. "Jessica… are ya hurt? Can ya get up." He got no reaction, just the endless repetition of despair. Gaspode sneezed, trying to clear his nose, and got a couple of good sniffs in. "Alright, no blood smell, so that's good, but I can see yer not getting up on yer own, and Gaspode the Super Dog I ain't." He scratched himself. "Fine, so it's Gaspode the Talking Dog to the rescue sort o' fing is it?"
He spared her upper arm a quick lick, which didn't help and probably added a localized skin condition to her other woes, and headed off to find the Watch.
"I'll prob'ly get kicked ya know. It's a dog's life."
Thus Constable Stepanoff found himself of two minds (one of whom wasn't actually his) and following the rattiest dog he had ever seen into the maze of alleys between Attic Bee and God Street. Every time he had second thoughts about going on, first thoughts seemed to intrude with encouraging little ideas like Bugger me am I some kind of idiot? There's a crime been committed just up ahead.
By the time he made it to the vacant building with no door, he was starting to question his own sanity. He could swear that blasted stray dog was laughing at him and managed to vent some of his frustration by sending a halfhearted kick its direction. Giving him the most smug look he had ever seen come from any animal that didn't periodically lose it's fur and start talking, it retreated out of reach and began pointedly licking itself.[5]
Shaking his head, Stepanoff peered into the gloom of the building and realized that he could just hear quiet sounds of sobbing within. At which point he did not rush immediately into the room to investigate. He did not call out into the room something stupid like 'is someone in there' or 'are you alright'. And he further did not in fact call Gaspode 'Lassie', 'Champ', or even "Good Doggie" and bid him 'go fetch help boy!'
No, Constable Stepanoff cut his teeth (and often his knuckles and forehead) on managing to survive being a watchman in Überwald. What he did was immediately draw a standard-issue sword,[6] step back and scan the nearby shadows for the half-dozen men he was absolutely positive were sneaking up behind him. After a minute he came to a realization.
Am I stupid or what? There's no one else about except the cute doggy. I should get my donkey in there and tend to the girl.
Positioning the shutters of his lantern so they would illuminate as much as possible without blinding him, he very nervously entered the building, to find the main room empty except for the fine dust that swirled about his feet, and a strange figure, also covered in the same dust, making piteous weeping sounds near the back wall. It took another minute of checking the interior doorways to satisfy himself that it wasn't some elaborate trap, or an even more elaborate joke by his fellow watchmen. Finally he sheathed his sword and knelt down next to the girl. He could see now that she was quite young, and covered in grime.
"City Watch miss, where are you hurt?" He looked her over carefully, and couldn't see any obvious wounds, but she was so tightly curled up he couldn't be completely sure. "Here miss, let me see." And he gently took her by the shoulders and tried to coax her into a sitting position.
And immediately flung himself backward as she began screaming and jerked from that tentative contact. He backed up against the wall. "Bloody hell…"
After a few seconds, her screams subsided into sobs again and she began repeating something over and over. Carefully approaching, he discovered she was weeping and repeating a grotesque litany: "My hands, Myria… my hands. Oh gods Myria my hands…" over and over.
It took him two more attempts, and two more screaming sessions, before he could get her arms pulled out from their tightly locked position and see for himself the damage that had been done.
Stepanoff realized that there was no way he could get her back to the Watch house with her screaming her head off like that, and he couldn't leave her there alone either while he got help. Leaving her sobbing and rocking back and forth on the floor, he went back outside the building and begin ringing his bell. "Watchman needs assistance!" was the message it sent out, and no watchman would ever ignore it.
As he stood there ringing the alarm and waiting for help to arrive, he tried to understand what he had just seen.
Her hands had been perfectly normal looking, though oddly limp. But the young girl had just kept staring at the space they occupied and crying for them as if they were not there at all.
[1] Pronounced 'Beyonk'.
[2] See the events in "The Fifth Elephant".
[3] You don't want to know the impact an authentic curry has on canine digestion. Let's just say that the more he ate, the hungrier he got.
[4] In Gaspode's experience, 'fear' and 'screaming' in humans seemed to go together like… well like him and various skin conditions.
[5] Which considering Gaspode's most recent biohazard incident, may not have been the smartest thing in the world to do, but Gaspode reasoned in retrospect that sometimes you have to suffer to make your point.
[6] Truncheons are all well and good when you are reasonably sure the other guy hasn't brought an axe to the argument. Otherwise Mister Short Sword is Your Friend.