IMPROVISED WEAPONRY • A CITY BESIEGED • DEATH IS NEVER THERE WHEN YOU WANT HIM • SMOKING KILLS • VIMES GETS MOIST
There was a long wood table, war-wounded with spills of ink and scratches, at the far side of Vetinari's office. Vimes had never seen it in use, but he assumed it was for Vetinari's Tyrannical Machinations [7]. He started to drag it to the door.
"What do you mean, still danger? And where did you go?" he grunted. The Tyrannical Machinations were making the table heavier, he could only guess, because the other option was that he wasn't as young as he used to be. "Earlier, I mean."
Death helped him with the table, and the combined force of Vimes' full efforts and Death's small contribution sent the table rocketing into the wall. The smoke creatures in the guards would have a tough time getting through, if they managed to make it there while split in half.
Tʜᴇ ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇʀs ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ, I ᴡᴀs ᴅʀᴀɢɢᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ ᴘʟᴀɴᴇ. I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ɴᴏᴡ ғɪɢᴜʀᴇᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛᴇʀᴍᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ. He looked sheepish. Iᴛ sʜᴀʟʟ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ.
"Oh," Vimes said, with the realization that he was dealing with forces wildly out of his ken. In the fine tradition of police officers, he countered this by barrelling ahead. "So what the hell are those things?"
Tʜᴇ ᴋɪʟʟɪɴɢ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴍɪsᴄʀᴇᴀɴᴛ ᴡɪᴢᴀʀᴅs ᴡᴀs ᴛʜᴇ ғɪʀsᴛ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴜʀɢʟᴀssᴇs.
There was a suspicious thump from the direction of the door, like half a body throwing itself at it.
Tʜɪs ɪs ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ. Tʜᴇ ᴋɪʟʟᴇʀ ʜᴀs ᴍᴀɴᴀɢᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ sᴛᴇᴀʟ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀɴᴅ ғʀᴏᴍ ʟɪғᴇ-ᴛɪᴍᴇʀs. Wᴏʀsᴇ, ʜᴇ ʜᴀs ғɪɢᴜʀᴇᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴜᴛ ɪᴛ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴ.
"And it goes in wrong?" Vimes guessed, hoping he was wildly mistaken.
Vᴇʀʏ ᴡʀᴏɴɢ. Death hesitated. I ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ғɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ.
"Hm?" Vimes had been pressing his ear to the door and only getting increasingly more worrying meaty thumps.
Tʜᴇ sᴏᴜʟs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪᴢᴀʀᴅ ʙᴏʏs. Tʜᴇʏ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, ʙᴜᴛ I ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ғɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ.
"Oh. And that's bad?"
Death was silent.
Another thump on the door, louder and higher up this time. It was significantly higher than half a man could reach, which was worrying. "I'm going to pretend there aren't more out there."
Death went to the door and leaned through it. Wᴏᴜʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ?
"No."
Uɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴏᴏᴅ. A pause. Bᴜᴛ ʜʏᴘᴏᴛʜᴇᴛɪᴄᴀʟʟʏ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴀɴʏ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴀʀᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜɪs ᴘᴀʟᴀᴄᴇ?
Vimes groaned. He was just a simple copper— he ought to be yelling "all's well" in the streets or avoiding eye contact with the Thieves' Guild, not dealing with supernatural monsters and primordial deities. If you couldn't hit it with a sword, Vimes always said, it was either Nobby [8] or not worth it.
Well, sometimes it took a simple man to solve a complex problem.
Something battered at the door again, harder this time. The table shook and started to slide. Vimes braced himself against it.
The smoke was still pouring through the cracks, and getting thicker. It skirted around Vimes' feet, searching out targets elsewhere.
As ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪᴛᴜᴀʟ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇs ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀғᴜʟ, ᴛʜᴇ sᴍᴏᴋᴇ ɢᴇᴛs ᴛʜɪᴄᴋᴇʀ, said Death. Eᴠᴇɴᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ ɪᴛ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇs ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀғᴜʟ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴀɴ ᴏʀᴅɪɴᴀʀʏ ᴍᴀɴ ᴄᴀɴ sᴇᴇ ɪᴛ.
There was nothing ordinary about Lord Vetinari, Vimes thought, shoving at the table some more. This wouldn't hold forever. "We need a way to trap it," Vimes realized. "The smoke. It came from the stolen hourglasses, right, which means it can be contained."
Yᴇs, said Death. Bᴜᴛ ɪᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴏɴʟʏ ʙᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴍʏ ᴅᴏᴍᴀɪɴ. I'ᴍ ᴀғʀᴀɪᴅ I'ᴍ ᴄᴜᴛ ᴏғғ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ.
Ah-hah. Like he said, simple man. That was the trouble with all those great thinkers— they got to believing every problem was as complex as it was in their own head. Probably it got even worse when you were as old as time, or so Vimes assumed. [9]
He slid the table back from the door.
He opened it.
Death was right— Vimes really didn't want to know how many dead palace staff were groaning outside the door, because when he opened it he almost closed it right back up. There were probably about twenty of them in all, dead-eyed and watching.
Vimes took out the Death coin and threw it into the crowd, then closed the door again and slid down to sit on the floor, closing his eyes.
Aʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛ?
"Ngh," said Vimes. "That woman had a kitchen knife in her chest."
Yᴇs, I sᴜᴘᴘᴏsᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴏᴋs ғᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ʙᴀᴄᴋ.
"Urgh," said Vimes. "Okay, I'm good." He shook himself. "I'm fine. Can you, er, go check?" The smoke had receded, at least within the office, but that didn't mean they weren't lurking somewhere.
Again, Death went to the door.
This time, when he returned, there was a palpable air of relief about him. Tʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴀsᴛ ɪs ᴄʟᴇᴀʀ.
Vimes stood up and brushed himself off, squaring himself up embarrassedly and preparing with his whole being to pretend like nothing had happened. He pushed open the door again and grimaced.
The good news was that the dead people were no longer trying to get in. The bad news was that they were still dead.
Vimes shook his head. "Poor buggers," he said, picking his way through the bodies. There was a glint of something in the middle of the carnage… there. He stooped over and picked up the Death coin. He held it up to the light.
Bᴜʀɴᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ, Death said, from right beside him. Vimes jumped.
"One-time use," Vimes agreed. He looked at the four halves of what used to be two guards and frowned. "They were after the Patrician."
Qᴜɪᴛᴇ ᴘʀᴏʙᴀʙʟʏ, Death agreed. I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇᴛ ᴍᴀɴʏ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴡʜᴏ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ᴅᴇᴀʟɪɴɢs ᴡɪᴛʜ Lᴏʀᴅ Vᴇᴛɪɴᴀʀɪ. Considering Death's line of work, this wasn't all that surprising. Cᴜʀsɪɴɢ ʜɪs ɴᴀᴍᴇ ɪs ᴀ ᴘᴏᴘᴜʟᴀʀ ᴀғᴛᴇʀʟɪғᴇ sᴘᴏʀᴛ.
There was a window at the far side of the hall, letting in a little light. Vimes walked up to it and peered out— a view of the palace gardens. People were running away from the front gates, which meant that though the creatures in the hall might have been gone, they definitely weren't all gone.
"Damn," said Vimes, thinking wistfully of Death's scythe. It had at least slowed down the timer-thralls, if not actually stopped them. But they needed a more permanent solution. "Can you find my Watchmen? I'm quite sure we need backup. Maybe you can help them."
Death considered this. I ᴄᴀɴ ᴄᴇʀᴛᴀɪɴʟʏ ᴛʀʏ. And he disappeared.
Vimes stared at the spot where he used to be, and blinked. Then he swore, and ran for the door.
[7] It was where Vetinari did his crossword puzzles.
[8] Too short, and surprisingly quick.
[9] It isn't polite to ask an entity his age.
Someone recognized him when he stepped outside, and skidded to a stop instead of continuing to run. The Street of Small Gods was crowded with fleeing people, going Hubward and apparently out of the city.
"Commander Vimes!" she said. Vimes thought he recognized her as one of the new blacksmithys from Dragon's Landing. She was trembling, and holding a large iron axe and tugging an anvil on a cart. [10] "You gotta get over there. There's smoke in the streets— and the golems can't stop it. I don't think it's fire."
"It's not," said Vimes grimly. "Get going to safety, past the gates at least. Don't pass the palace if you can help it; maybe go through Upper Broadway."
The woman didn't need any more encouragement and took off running.
The smoke was visible now from far away, pooling up on the streets where people were rapidly taking their leave, which meant they could see it too. Death said that happened when the buggery with the timers got stronger, so things were definitely not looking up.
He couldn't call Death. He didn't have anything to arrest. For lack of better ideas, Vimes ran the opposite direction of the fleeing people. That was always a good rule of thumb in the heroing business, which of course Vimes was not in.
The streets were emptying out the further he went into the city, following the Street of Small Gods, but there didn't appear to be any more timer-thralls.
People in Ankh-Morpork didn't just run from a little ominous smoke, at least not without taking some time to see if it would be entertaining or not, but there was something unnerving about this fog. It crept unease up Vimes' spine even with him knowing what it was. The blackness swirled darker and thicker the further he went, until just walking felt like he was moving through tar.
With no clear destination in mind but the vague sense that he should like to smoke the cigars in his desk, Vimes ducked down an alley and headed for the Watch House. As he crossed Brass Bridge, he found that the smoke was levelling out into a thick but traversable menace.
In a city as crowded as Ankh-Morpork, walking empty streets in the middle of the day was quite the unnerving experience.
Nervously, Vimes glanced about, scanning the streets and the rooftops. He was alarmed to spot a dark shape diving down from up above, from out of the mist. He ducked, only to find Constable Downspout landing on the balustrade next to him.
He straightened up and coughed. "Constable," he said. "Report?"
"Real bad, boss," Downspout said. A pigeon flew by, and Downspout didn't even watch it, which meant things were bad. "The whole city is filling up, from the Palace out."
"Are there dead people coming, er, alive again?"
Downspout cleared his throat. It sounded like gravel, which proved to be correct a moment later when he coughed some up. He shook his head. "Just coming from the Palace again, sir. They seem to be looking for something— they're mostly leaving everybody else alone unless they get in the way. We haven't had any luck killing them, sir."
"They're still after the Patrician," Vimes said, with a frown. Sure, a lot of people wanted to kill Vetinari, but a man with the power to control death wouldn't have to worry about the city's most lovable tyrant. Honestly, for the most part the common man lived their lives without particularly caring who ruled the city, so long as they got fed in the change of power.
Actually, there was something to that…
Vimes' mind started pulling at strings like a man unravelling a sweater. "Get to the Watch House. Send people to calm down the civilians, and make sure they all know where their hourglasses are. Have you seen Carrot?"
"Nosir. No one's seen him or Captain von Uberwald."
Busy, then. Or so he hoped.
"Well, hop to it, Constable. I've got a few things to check out, but I'll try to stop by the Yard. Have Carrot or Angua come find me if you locate them."
"Yessir. Know what's going on, boss?"
Vimes pinched the bridge of his nose.
"That bad, huh?" Downspout crouched back on his haunches, preparing to take to the skies. "You got it. See you later."
"Constable?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Send someone over to check on Sybil and Young Sam, won't you?"
Constable Downspout made his best attempt at a salute— a little awkward when one was made of stone and spent the better part of his days sitting motionless on rooftops— and caught the air, soaring away.
Vimes considered his options for a moment, then bolted the rest of the way down the bridge.
A man designed for a healthy amble, was Vimes, and his knees and back didn't particularly agree with his current method of travel. But though their mysterious timer villain may have started with the Palace in creating his thralls, he had no doubt that he'd soon be using any other hourglasses he'd got his hands on. The city would get very dangerous, very fast.
At least running gave him some time to think.
That little idea thread he'd been pulling on kept on pulling. The Patrician… who wanted a man like that dead? Well, everyone, but most people had a long laundry list of enemies that they would kill before they even thought about crossing the ruler of Ankh-Morpork. That patron who had stiffed on the tip, the neighbor with the yappy little dog, the owner of the shop across the way who happens to sell the same things you do, at a slightly lower price. All people to kill. You only went after the Patrician first if you wanted power, real power.
And who wanted power above all else?
The rich.
Vimes increased his pace across the bridge. The kids from the University had to be paid with something, besides just the promise of immortality. And with the Patrician out of the way— if Vetinari could be killed, which Vimes sometimes doubted— command of Ankh-Morpork, as well as its banks and armies and probably some hidden treasures, would go to the strongest man. Or woman.
And there really wasn't a lot stronger than the ability to control the dead.
He was almost to the Watch House now; he could see the torches burning in the distance through the fog. In fact, he thought he saw a few of his Watchmen, armor shining dimly in the light. But why were there so many of them out and about when they should have been inside the Yard or dispersed throughout the city?
He squinted, then swore.
His fellow coppers were fighting something, dark shapes in the mist. If he strained his ears, he could hear the faint sound of metal on metal, of grunts and of the inevitable destruction that came about when Detritus got in a dust-up. What he didn't hear were voices— no war cries. Timer-thralls, must have been.
Also, he heard footsteps.
Coming from behind him.
Vimes closed his eyes, just for a moment, and sighed. That was when something hit him in the back.
Because he had been running, when he tripped, he skidded several feet, armor sparking against the cobbles. He hit the side of the bridge. The sudden boost forward gave him a moment's advantage, and he glanced at what was now in front of him. More timer-thralls.
There were probably six of them, but it was hard to make out details between the sudden surge of adrenaline and the darkening skies.
I could take them all, thought Vimes sulkily, If only they'd die like regular creatures. How's a man supposed to fight something that takes a sword to the chest as nothing more than a free sword? This was, in Vimes' mind, dirty fighting.
He scrambled to his feet, aching, as they continued to advance.
Vimes thought, with some relief, that he didn't recognize any of the dead faces currently chasing after him. One of the men had apparently already been in a scuffle; one arm was hanging off and still bleeding profusely.
He drew his useless sword. "Maybe we can talk about this, eh, lads?"
They did not want to talk about it.
They came forward as one. Whoever was controlling the thralls, if they had ever cared about not hurting people, apparently didn't care if the Watch ended up casualties. Vimes managed to push off the first three, ducking mostly out of instinct as someone's fist flew right over his head.
It got tougher after that. It was difficult to fight one enemy that didn't have anything to lose, much less six of them. Vimes would punch one of them only to get that head slammed right back into his fist, causing tremors all up and down his arm.
His armor only protected his body, not his face, and Vimes was getting a nice collection of scratches and bruises. He was still backed against the stone of the bridge barrier, with no room to maneuver. He could have sworn one of the stone hippos above him was cowering.
"Aw, hell," he said, to himself.
Then he turned around and jumped off the bridge.
The river Ankh was not a pleasant swim at the best of times. At worst, it was like walking on highly corrosive concrete. Today was somewhere in the middle.
Vimes hit with not so much a splash as a spla-doink.
It had rained recently, so at least there was a sort of flow to the river. It would have been highly embarrassing to go through all the trouble only to get stuck in the one place. Instead, he sort of glooped along to the current.
He struggled around to look at his pursuers, only to see them peering off the side of the bridge in blank confusion. Good. One problem down.
He was also starting to sink. If he could wriggle out of his breastplate, it might make things easier, but at this point to try to get to the buckles would only get him more mired in the river. He'd lost his helmet some indeterminable time ago, and the rest of him was getting increasingly more mucky. Vimes was rapidly becoming more mud than man.
One time someone had left a Farmer's Almanac in the privy, and Vimes could remember reading something about quicksand. Awkwardly, he moved onto his back so his nose was at least above the "water," and to his surprise he mostly stopped sinking. He did not, however, stop stinking. At this rate, he'd be able to take out Angua at a hundred paces.
Reaching up a cautious hand to wipe guck out of his eyes and sternly reminding himself not to get seasick, Vimes took stock of his surroundings. Theoretically, he could swim to shore, a few yards away, but he could see New Bridge coming up close ahead, and more dark and sinister figures on it.
What did the coppers in Uberwald have to deal with? Not this, he'd guess.
[10] One thing you could say about Ankh-Morpork was that they would quite literally take anything that wasn't nailed down. It was uncertain whether this woman was trying to protect the tools of her trade from thieves or had spotted an opportunity [11], but Vimes wasn't inclined to care at the moment.
[11] The Guild of Thieves ran a few special deals in times of riot, magical crisis, or the age old law of Finders Keepers.
Staying afloat in the water was getting tiring, and Vimes took a deep breath, steeling himself. He knew he'd have to fight the currents at the Hubward turn of the river. He'd need energy to get to shore there instead of being swept away the opposite direction down the river, fighting against the waters.
Well. "Waters".
He could see the shore now. It was too far away for the gods to be smiling at him. Probably they were making funny faces.
Groaning, he started to swim.
The going got rockier the closer to shore he got. It felt like moving through mud, going against the current— he was tired of swimming even before he started getting batted around by waves. Vimes bumped against several rocks on the shoreline before it spat him out onto a kind of levee by the shipping lane. Ankh-Morpork had a number of these little outcroppings from the river for flood-times; not that it ever helped.
Vimes lay on one now, face-down, thoroughly exhausted, grimy, and beat up. There was a wall of silt and general debris stretching somewhere a few feet above his head. That meant he would have to get up and climb it.
Or he could lay here.
Vimes considered this option for longer than he would like to admit. Then he turned himself around and stood up, creakily. Parts of the river Ankh glooped off of him softly, sadly. The air was still filled with the death mist, and didn't seem to be getting any clearer.
He heaved himself up onto the street.
Someone screamed, and something that felt a whole lot like a high-heeled shoe hit him in the chest. Resigned, he tumbled backwards into the levee.
There was heavy silence for a moment, then, the voice that had screamed called out again, sheepish. "…Commander Vimes?"
Vimes had landed, once more, on his face. Still, he shut his eyes. "Moist von Lipwig?" he asked, sighing.
"And Adora Belle Dearheart," said a second, female voice, which explained the shoe.
Vimes nodded into the mud, then got up again and clambered up the hill. Two sets of hands helped him up this time, which was nice.
Moist was standing there, cringing in his golden suit. Miss Dearheart was barefoot except for a pair of socks, which had to have belonged to Moist judging by the color and the hint of bare ankle Vimes could see above Moist's gaudy shoes.
She was holding one stiletto heel in her hand, the other nowhere to be seen.
"Sorry, Commander," said Moist. "In my defense, you came up looking like a bog monster, and Adora Belle only hit you because she was startled by my, er, manly yell."
"There are creatures in the city, Commander Vimes," said Adora Belle, looking quite put out as she lit a cigarette. Her previous one had apparently fallen when she'd smacked Vimes with her shoe. As Vimes watched, Moist subtly tried to put out the still-lit cigarette with his foot. "Quite a lot of them, in fact. I lost my other heel in the forehead of a rather nasty woman."
"Ah, socks," Vimes said knowledgeably. He squinted around the shoreline. There weren't any more of the thralls, but the streets weren't as deserted this side of the Ankh. He could see a few buildings from here, and the occasional twitch of a curtain or hastily-stifled light let him know some of the townspeople had holed up instead of running. "What are you two doing here?"
"It's date night," Moist said, long-suffering. "Adora Belle wanted to go check up on the Trust." The Golem Trust was halfway across town and across the river, which explained why they weren't cowering in the fortified halls of the Bank or the basement of whatever inevitably ridiculously-priced restaurant they'd been eating at.
"People loot in times of crisis," Adora Belle said sharply.
"Anyway, Commander, how did you end up in the river?" asked Moist hurriedly.
As if to remind Vimes of the situation, more river-goo sloughed off, just in time to remind him of a set of nasty bruises where his armor had protected him but slammed into his ribs. "Police business," said Vimes, stolidly.
"In the river?" asked Adora Belle.
"Have you been up King's Way?" Vimes said.
"No, we were a few streets over," said Moist.
King's Way was the rich part of town, the sort of place Vimes wouldn't have been caught dead [12] in before he'd more or less accidentally fallen in love with a woman of Importance. It was where Ankh-Morpork's rich and famous rubbed elbows with the famous and rich.
Adora Belle took a drag of her cigarette. "Are you going to arrest someone there? I have to assume this smoke—" here she exhaled a long stream of her own personal death fog— "Isn't just a perk of living in our city. Some wanker is doing this."
Moist made a token scandalized noise at his fiancee's language.
"Yes," said Vimes, having got his breath back, mostly. He straightened up and tried to wipe some of the Ankh off his sword. In places, the metal was threatening to corrode under the bad influence of whatever was in the river. "But not for much longer." As he said it, he wondered how, exactly, a lone, slightly aging, soggy wet copper was going to take down a necromancer. "Get to safety."
Moist and Adora Belle traded glances.
"We'll come with you," said Adora Belle.
Moist was good at those reassuring and vaguely blinding smiles. "I'd like to see history in the making!"
"And I still have one high heel left."
[12] Or alive, for that matter, or any of the states in between.