--Sam Vimes groaned. He felt like someone had hit him with a wall. He stood on shaky feet and tried to take stock. He was wearing his dressing gown and slippers, he had his cigar case and his badge which was always in his pocket. That was about it. Oh, no, he found some matches too.
He tried to work out where the hell he was. It didn't look familiar. In fact something which had been jumping up and down in his brain trying to get his attention finally got he recognition it deserved. It didn't smell familiar here. Vimes had spent almost all of his life in the Ankh-Morpork's city walls, and his nose was telling him in no uncertain terms that the stench of the river was missing. He fought down a wave of nausea. If anything it felt like he had travelled in time again, although he didn't remember the nausea being quite this bad last time.
Time to figure out where, or possibly when he was. He stepped out of the alley and into the streets.
He was definitely not in Ankh-Morpork anymore. The people on the streets were different. Better behaved, for one thing. They walked quickly, avoiding eye contact. And there were watchmen everywhere, on every street corner. At least, they were dressed in the way Vimes traditionally thought of as 'watchmen' but the thought began to creep over him that in fact they looked a lot more like soldiers.
The streets were cleaner too. The thin soles of his slippers sent messages to his brain from his feet. His feet told him he was standing on King's Way, but his eyes were telling him something quite different. His feet started to move of their own volition. If he had consciously though about it the most sensible place to go would have been the Treacle Mine Watch House, it stood more of a chance of existing than Pseudopolis Yard did. But his feet weren't listening and as he walked down the streets in a kind of daze.
He reached Pseudopolis Yard and his brain attempted to take control again. He was a long, long way from home. The opera house was gone, in fact most of the Yard was either missing or... different. But mostly it was Lower Broadway his eyes were drawn to. The long road leading to the Palace was hung with bunting, statues of men in the haughty imperious stance of most statues everywhere. There were even a few heraldic hippos dotted about. And it was lined with guardsmen. There had to be about fifty of them, the plumes in their helmets moving in the slight early morning breeze.
Vimes stared. There was a slight popping noise and a voice said in his ear: "Hello, Mister Vimes."
Vimes turned slowly. The wrinkled old man was leaning against his broom.
"You again," Vimes snarled, "Now wher-when the hell am I?"
"Why don't you take a guess Mister Vimes? You're an observant man, you're good at putting two and two together..."
Vimes growled but obediently took another look around. The city clean and well ordered, the bunting, the royal guards, the statues. The Palace, shining.
"I'm back in the days when we had a King."
"Well done! The last days, in fact. Today is the 3rd of Grune. It is eight o'clock in the morning. By tonight--"
"--the streets will be on fire. I know. I read it in the history books."
"Do you know why you're here?" asked Lu-Tze.
"No. Can't you tell me that?" replied Vimes, frowning more deeply.
The Sweeper shrugged. "Who knows? Just remember it is important not to change history in any way, unless of course you were meant to change it, in which case it's imperative that you do."
"Can I have that again in Morporkian please?" said Vimes after a few seconds of stunned silence.
"Come with me, Mister Vimes. You're bound to get noticed dressed like that. We'll sort you out... I'll know more back at the Temple."
Thirty minutes later Sam Vimes was dressed in shirt and trousers, buckling on his sword belt. His badge and cigar case were nestling in the inside pocket of a waistcoat he was most uncomfortable about wearing, but shrugged on at Lu-Tze's insistence.
"Now, Mister Vimes. What're you going to do?"
"I'm going to.... I'm going to take a look around."
"Righto. I'll be in touch when we know more. Off you go then." Vimes was ushered out of a door and onto the streets. The door slammed behind him. Now. Where was he going to go?
He had to let his feet guide him, in the thin soled boots the Sweeper had provided him with. This Ankh-Morpork was different. For one thing, it was smaller. Nap Hill, Dolly Sisters, they were just farmsteads on the horizon. Even his feet got confused at times. Landmarks he had grown up knowing- they were all yet to be built.
He headed towards the Brass Bridge. Now here was something different. The Brass Bridge, complete with brass rivets and rails. A-mazing.
He strolled up towards Widdershins Broadway. The guards around seemed to ignore him. It gave him the curious feeling that he might be invisible. They stared directly ahead, unblinking. Vimes took a small malicious pleasure in sneezing suddenly and loudly, making a young man jump and blush with shame at his surprise.
In Vimes's yesterday the major guilds of Ankh-Morpork would by now be all around him. They didn't exist here. There were a few buildings, but mostly there was empty space and some more statues. He walked past the Post Office and stopped for a moment. The inscription above the door gleamed in the early morning light. 'Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Glom Of Nit Can Slow These Meßengers About Their Duty.'
Vimes was pretending that he was letting his feet carry him but really he knew where he was heading. He had to see, that was all. He had to know. He had spent all his life believing in the fundamental, oh he didn't know the word, wrongness perhaps, of Kings. Now he was being given the opportunity to see for himself.
He was here. The front gates of the Palace.
Things had changed a lot here of course, the destruction of the Palace by the Dragon had resulted in numerous changes in Vimes's lifetime. The gardens were much larger and probably more organised, if a little more boring; this being before BS Johnson had got his hands on them. There was stained glass in all the windows, more bunting and the whole place had this ...aura. Of something special. Even Vimes could feel it and it made him angry. He took a step forward.
BAM. The smaller door set in the large gates slammed open and a man strode through and smashed straight into Vimes, knocking him to the floor.
"Sorry," said the stranger, extending his hand to help Vimes up from where he sprawled., "I didn't see you there."
"No harm done," replied Vimes, standing up and brushing off his clothes. The hand was offered again. Vimes took it and looked up into the face of the man who had sent him flying.
Both men's hands strayed instantly to their swords. "Who the hell are you?" said the stranger. Vimes was still staring at his face. It was like looking in the mirror.
Well... almost the mirror. The man's face was almost identical to Sam Vimes's. The same forehead, the same scowl. His ears were different, however, set a little higher on his head, a different shape. He was as skinny as Vimes, certainly, but perhaps he was a little shorter, it was hard to tell in his armour. He had a moustache too. It was scraggly, a moustache on a man not cut out to by nature to be a man with a moustache, but it was there. Vimes felt his eyes drawn to it like some sort of hirsute black-hole. Vimes had never worn a moustache. The best he had ever achieved was the sort of vaguely goatee shaped beard worn by men who can't be bothered to find the razor. These days he was normally fairly clean shaven.
"I'm-" he began and then the world drained of colour and a cheerful voice behind him said: "Ah, Mister Vimes. Thought you might like to know we've found out what you have to do while you're here."
Vimes rubbed his forehead. "Do you practise doing that? Or does it just come naturally?" he asked. The Sweeper grinned.
"You have to save his life," Lu-Tze said.
"Who's life?"
"His life," said the Sweeper, waving a skinny arm. Vimes looked again at the almost-identical face, moustache-framed mouth open in shock.
"When?"
"Um, tomorrow morning I think. After the fire, in the swamps."
"Oh," said Vimes. He thought about it. "Well, that can't be too hard. I mean, I just have to stay where he is, right?"
"Okay Mister Vimes. Good luck."
Time returned. Vimes fought down the momentary nausea. "My name's Sam Vimes," he said.
"Vimes?" said Old Stoneface, scowling even more. Vimes opened his mouth to say something else, but Vimes policy in dealing with things beyond comprehension in stressful circumstances had not changed a lot in three hundred years. The fist hit Sam Vimes square on the jaw. He staggered backwards, hit the floor and curled up in pain as a foot caught him a blow to the stomach. He had a blurred view of the cobbles and then there was nothing for quite a while.
Vimes woke up in a cell. He groaned loudly. Not again. He rubbed his chin. It felt like someone had broken his jaw. He tried opening his mouth a few times. Ouch.
"Where am I?" he said, thickly and then he remembered some more of the previous events leading up to waking up in a cell and sat bolt upright and added: "And what time is it?"
There was a guardsman lounging outside his cell. "Oh, you're awake. Mr. Vimes wants to see you. Now, he said."
This was stranger even than the last time he had woken up in a cell. Now it felt like he was a stranger in his own time, with a Vimes as head of an evidently large Watch. Vimes stood up and felt in his pockets. They'd taken his badge and his cigar case...
He stepped out and held out his hands. Not such luck, they were cuffed firmly behind his back. He moved in the direction pointed out by the young man with a careless wave of his arm. He had no idea where he was. This place didn't exist in his time. He guessed it was the original Watch quarters, long before the Treacle Mine Watch house had been destroyed, even longer before the Yard had been given to Vimes by Lady Ramkin.
He was pushed up some stairs and into an office, and he was sat on an uncomfortable chair. Looking out of the window Vimes tried to work out where the hell he was, but the city skyline yielded no clue, he had to use his feet in the city of the past.
Stoneface came in, and sat down opposite him. He stared. Vimes stared back. Both men shifted uncomfortably under the other's gaze. Each thought: He's good at this.
Stoneface Vimes won, albeit by slightly underhand methods. He put the badge and the cigar case own on the table with a per-link. Sam Vimes couldn't stop his momentary flicker of attention.
"Can you explain this?" Stoneface said, and he held up the badge.
"That's my badge," replied Vimes
Stoneface made a noise in between a cough and laugh. "Your badge? He pulled his own badge off his jacket and set it on the table next to Vimes's. They were completely the same. Badge 177 AMCW. "Can you explain?"
Vimes thought fast. Why couldn't the Sweeper turn up now? He could do with an extra millennia or two to think of an explanation. He sighed. He was an honest man. And when dealing with policemen honesty was generally the best policy. Besides, he didn't have the imagination to lie.
"I'm your great-great-great grandson," he said, (1) "I travelled in time to get here."
Stoneface looked at him quizzically. "You expect me to believe that do you?
"Yes," Vimes replied. He leaned back. "I can prove it."
"How?"
Vimes waited for the world to fade to grey, waited for the chirpy voice, complete with broom and grin. None were forthcoming. Looks like you're on your own, he thought
"Your journal," he said at last, "I can quote your journal. I know what's going to happen. I can help-- "
Stoneface cut him off with a wave of his hand. "My journal proves nothing," he said, "It is not particularly well hidden. You could have read it recently and memorised it. Tell me then, what's going to happen?"
"Tonight you'll walk out of here and take most of your men with you. All except the Palace Guard. Then, you'll rally support in the streets. There'll be hand to hand fighting. They'll set the place alight, both sides. The King will flee. There'll be a battle in the marshes. And then you'll... execute him," Vimes finished.
There was silence. "That's not enough," said Stoneface after a few more moments of quiet.
"What do you want to know and I'll tell you!"
"Why am I going to walk out?"
"A new tax on... shoelaces I believe," said Vimes
"You must think I'm a bloody fool. I don't know who you are but I'm damn sure I know where you've come from. Klatchian spies! Get him out of my sight."
1. Wrong. But Vimes wasn't the sort of man to spend forever over a petty detail. He got his point across and moved on.