PARKOUR • DANGER • INADVISABLE ESCAPE ROUTES • IMPROVISED WEAPONRY • RETURN OF THE WATCH
There was a large group of timer-thralls blocking the pathway to get onto the main street from which most of the houses branched off of. This meant that they had to go around. It also meant Vimes hadn't been able to make up excuses to visit Ramkin Estate as he'd been planning.
They were all jumpy, clustered close together and flinching at shadows. The death smoke was getting thicker and more menacing, and had started to take on the smell of rot. It was only a matter of time, Vimes thought, before their criminal figured out how to take out of the hourglasses of regular people, ones who'd had the good sense to keep ahold of their timers.
Vimes yanked Moist back before he could step around a corner, and the three of them watched as one of the timer-thralls shambled by.
"They're searching," remarked Adora Belle.
"Looking for Vetinari," decided Vimes.
Moist winced. "Ooh, I'd bet on the Patrician in that fight."
No one disagreed. It was a foolish man who bet against Vetinari.
Somewhere, there was a loud sound like an explosion, and a burst of yellowish light that reflected off the buildings.
"What was that?" asked Adora Belle, but Vimes had already recognized the sound.
Moist scaled the side of one of the stone walls separating the manors from the common folk with suspicious ease, squinting out over the city. He kept one hand wedged in between a stone carving of a lion eating a bear and the other shading his eyes. "Came from Ramkin House."
"That was the sound of a dragon exploding," said Vimes proudly. "Sybil's not letting any of those thralls near the house." Not to mention she had probably mobilized her army of various maids and butlers; they were a group that would keep the tidiness of the home at all costs.
"Get down from there," Adora Belle said, craning her neck up to look at him with her hands on her hips. "You're a beacon to the whole bloody city in that ridiculous suit of yours."
"No, wait," said Vimes. "See anything else?"
"Er…" Moist hoisted himself up a little more with a scrabble on the stone edifice. "Oh! There's no smoke at one of the estates. I'd say by the looks of it it's on HobKnob End."
Unofficial neighborhoods had sprung up from the sprawl of estates and large manors, separated by invisible property lines and various rivalries and arbitrary family feuds. These makeshift neighborhoods didn't have any government-recognized names. But as was the case any time a group of people gathered together, if something wasn't named, people named it, and rather less generously than perhaps the city planners [13] would have done themselves.
Vimes knew just where Moist was talking about, either way.
Moist skittered back down the wall, his suit indeed shining in the murky false twilight. It took a special man to be Moist von Lipwig, and only partially because of the name.
On wordless agreement, they made for HobKnob End, skirting the edges of the streets.
Twice, they heard dragon explosions. Vimes winced; useful little fireballs they may have been, but Sybil loved the poor things— she didn't like to see them go up in smoke.
Getting to HobKnob end— about as central to King's Way as you could get, for those who really liked to flaunt their wealth— it was obvious what house Moist had been talking about.
It was Reche Manor, of the Morpork Reches, a family that Vimes was vaguely familiar with, only in the way that most rich people were aware of other rich people. Possibly they'd been introduced at an event or something.
The manor and its grounds stretched out bigger than the Pseudopolis Yard Watch House, and it was an imposing building even without the supernatural goings-on. It was two stories; built out of some kind of black stone, with marble interspersed here and there for pillars. A giant relief of a dragon being killed by a knight decorated the area above the second floor, several feet high. Tall ceilings and maybe an attic. The death smoke stopped at the property line— exactly at the property line, Vimes would reckon. It was, however, swirling ominously above the roof of the main mansion.
Moist laughed nervously.
The main house was branched out into other wings, equally as ostentatious. As Vimes watched, a stream of timer-thralls exited one door and went in through another. Patrolling.
Vimes took out a cigar and lit it, cupping the flame in his hand so that it couldn't be seen. He chewed it for a moment. "How fast do you think you can get to the Golem Trust and bring some of your golem friends back?"
Adora Belle was pale but steely. "Quicker if we run." She and Moist clasped hands.
"Will you be all right alone?" Moist asked.
"Of course."
"We'll be back quick as we can," promised Adora Belle, and the two of them took off down the street, leaving Vimes standing alone in front of the house.
The Watch would be busy dealing with the thralls and keeping the peace. It would take some time for two people, moving stealthily and one of them in stocking feet, to reach the other side of the city. Sybil and Young Sam were holed up at home, safe and— he hoped— sound. He couldn't contact Death.
Well, there was one thing Vimes knew how to do, and that was police.
He took a few fortifying drags of his cigar and crept around the perimeter, sure to stick to the outsides where the black fog rolled and he would be harder to spot. Having dirty armor worked to his advantage— no glint of metal to give him away.
Vimes needed someone to arrest. To do that, he needed in the house.
The timer-thralls didn't seem to have that much initiative. They got an order and carried it out. So that meant someone had to have given them the order to patrol, and that someone was probably the rich guy who owned this manor.
There was an obvious course of action here.
Avoiding the thralls every so often, he crept his way around and found the servant's entrance. As he had expected, there was no one guarding it. Rich people forgot the help even existed; it was a good bet that their necromancer hadn't locked down the servant's entrance, which was designed to be unobtrusive and almost invisible anyway.
Vimes glared at the door, and put one single foot over the property line. He didn't disintegrate, which in Vimes' book was a pretty good thing. He spat out his cigar and stomped it on the ground. The smell could alert someone indoors. At the very least the Watch would know he'd been here.
Then he sprinted towards the door.
There was a sort of overhang over the servant's entrance, with pillars on each side. This was, Vimes had learned through experience at Ramkin House, so that the servants could smoke without being seen from the outside. Now he skidded to a stop and sort of leapt behind one, breathing hard.
No sound of following feet ensued, and no alarms of the sort one usually heard when they'd been spotted in an enemy area. Usually it was something inane like "Hey, you there!" or "You're not supposed to be here!" Most skulkers already knew they weren't supposed to be where they were; that was the whole point.
Vimes risked a look out into the smokeless courtyard. Empty.
He tried the servant's entrance door once he was sure the coast was clear. It was locked, which was soon remedied by the traditional Policeman's Kick-And-Say-Ouch-Then-Hit-It-Again-With-The-Butt-Of-Your-Sword maneuver. The door swung open with an only slightly injured creak. Vimes slipped inside.
It was opulent.
Vimes sometimes tried to justify the fact that he was technically one of the upper class now that at least they weren't obnoxious about it. Most of their floors were scuffed or scorched from various baby dragons, and the disorder had only increased exponentially each day both Young and Old Sam lived there. Sybil also had a very no-nonsense decorating scheme— her requirements were that the furniture would hold someone of her hardy lifestyle and considerable girth, and also that there was at least one uncomfortable chair for the visitors she didn't like.
This house was not that. Vimes would bet good coin that all the chairs were uncomfortable. Once he got out of the servants' area, a quick trip through a door that led straight to the dining room, he was able to see it in all its glory. The carpet was extremely lush, helpful for hiding the sounds of footsteps, but snarly enough that it felt like it was a minor hindrance to his movement.
Everything smelled like rot. It was different even than the smoke outside; more putrid and stinking of something distinctly evil. It was very clear that whatever was being done to the boundaries between life and death, it wasn't good.
Vimes couldn't remember how many people lived here.
The Reches were a couple, maybe? He couldn't recall if there were more of them than just the two, but he seemed to remember a husband and wife, the husband pointy-faced and unpleasant, and the wife almost thin enough to slip out of sight if she turned to the side. He couldn't remember if there were children or extended family, but he didn't think so.
There was no sign of either of them or their hypothetical children; Vimes continued through the empty halls. There were several corridors off the dining room, and he chose one at random. A few doors down, his boots crunched on something.
He looked down.
Glass, or maybe clay. When he crouched down to look, it appeared to be the remains of a ugly-patterned vase, surrounded by droplets of blood. Someone had taken a walloping here.
The carpet was still thick and neatly-kept here, so Vimes could spot the indentations in it and follow them. It looked to his eyes like someone had been dragged. The trail led to a broom cupboard-looking thing, which was wedged shut.
Vimes pulled it open, and stood back.
It was the Sir Reche. He fell out of the closet quite unceremoniously, face-first and very much dead.
He had barely missed Vimes' boots, and would have fallen on top of him if he hadn't moved out of the way to begin with. Vimes crouched in front of him and rolled him over. He was even more sallow-faced in death, blood trickling in dried streaks past his hairline.
The vase had done him in, Vimes deemed, and he took a moment to close the man's eyes before checking his pockets. No life-timer, just a small but ornate billfold filled with some of von Lipwig's fancy new money, and a pack of Jolly Sailor, both of which Vimes left where they were.
It was eerily quiet inside now, and Vimes left Reche where he lay and continued trekking down the hall, thoroughly unnerved. Where was the wife? Dead? Or something more sinister?
There were no more convenient blood drops or smashed carpets to show the way now, and Vimes took a moment to consider his current method of simply wandering around the place. This estate would take forever to clear, especially if he stopped at all the closets along the way to check for corpses.
He was sure this place was where the smoke was coming from, where the timers had started to go wrong. So the criminal had to be working out of somewhere. A base of operation.
All the rooms he'd seen so far down here were for entertaining guests of some kind: a music room, dining room, sitting room. If he wanted the private stuff, he'd need to go upstairs. He hunted around for a staircase, finding one at the back end of the house.
If possible, the second floor was more eerily quiet than the first.
Vimes chanced a look out a wide window set into an alcove, and saw no one on the streets, just thick black smoke. Small fires glowed through it here and there— fighting, perhaps, or unattended candles. The city was in danger.
He grit his teeth and stomped down the hallway.
Vimes was looking for a study. It was a private place to work your dark magics, after all, and usually there were comfy chairs to sit in. Perfect for the enterprising bad guy.
He found a likely contender in a big oak door at the end of a hallway. It exuded the sort of musty book-smell of the Library, and the smell of cigar smoke. It was at a good angle on the side of the house that the window would catch the midday sun for a good catnap.
Also, smoke was slowly oozing in under the door.
Unlike the rest of the smoke Vimes had seen, this seemed to be moving with particular purpose, and it almost had weight to it. When he cautiously drew his sword and crouched down, he saw that it was composed of tiny shards of sand, swirling in.
He stood up.
Something was rattling in his pocket.
Vimes fished in his muddy trouser pockets for a moment. His hands found purchase on an object that was still vibrating frantically, and he pulled it out to find his life-timer.
It was losing time at an alarming rate, fast enough that he could feel the sand rushing through from one side to the other.
Now, it was almost empty.
"Bugger," said Vimes, then went inside.
[13] Not that Ankh-Morpork employed any city planners. They'd be offended if you suggested they did; Morporkians took great pride in their terribly laid-out streets and lack of drainage systems.
It was like looking for a black cat in a black room.
The smoke had filled the space, and it was that sand-smoke, cloying and unbreathable. Vimes had to fight a cough as he stepped into the room, drawing up a sodden handkerchief from his pocket to press over his mouth. It tasted terrible; the smoke and the cloth.
His thighs impacted with something, hard, and Vimes flipped over whatever it was and landed face-down on the carpet. This seemed in line with the rest of the day.
He didn't bother to move— it was the same level of visibility either way— and groped out a hand to see what he'd hit. It was a table of some kind— a low one, judging by the avalanche of papers when Vimes' hand brushed the top.
Then there was a grinding noise, like some sort of clockwork machinery coming to a sudden halt. Vimes lifted his head and saw the air clearing, slowly. The smoke was headed in one direction, funnelling into something. He didn't get up.
As the air started to clear, from his hidden position under the coffee table— because that was what it must have been— he was surprised to see a work desk at the far wall. It was occupied.
There was a stick-thin woman sitting behind it, holding a box the size of a turkey. The sand seemed to be flowing into it; even though even the biggest container couldn't possibly hold all the smoke clearing out of the room and flowing in from the hall.
She had a special manic look in her eye that let Vimes know most of the marbles had rolled under the couch years ago. He was fairly sure this was the Lady Reche, though her hair was in tatters and most of the fine jewelry one might expect of a woman of her station wasn't there, except for an exceptionally tacky raven-shaped brooch. It probably weighed almost as much as she did, though when you were considering the Lady Reche that wasn't all that impressive a number.
She hadn't spotted Vimes yet. He wriggled to try to get a better look.
She was siphoning the sand, all right, and must have been using it to make the thralls. But she was also trying to do something else with it, dipping another object quite frantically into the box. He squinted, and caught a glimpse of the light before he realized exactly what it must have been— her hourglass.
The wizard kids had told them someone was attempting to extend life forever— that must have been exactly what this woman was trying to do.
But whatever it was, it didn't seem to be working.
As Vimes watched, she drew up the hourglass like she was dipping out of a well, but the sand flowed right back out the bottom— a physical impossibility that kind of made Vimes' head hurt.
"Why isn't this working?!" she screamed, suddenly, and Vimes jumped. She couldn't be talking to him…?
An Igor melted out of the shadows. Igors were quite good at melting out of the shadows. "I don't know, mithtress," he said, hunching low. An Igor is happiest with his job when he's working under a madman, the kind that says things like "Ah-hah-hah-hahahaha! You have stepped right into my trap!" or "I'll show them all!"
This Igor looked like he was walking on clouds.
"The book did not have any informathon about exthending the use of the timerths," he said. "Jutht, you know, killing."
"It didn't say anything about these weird zombie things either, but we made them!" Lady Reche said. "Somehow. I want to fill my timer! I need more sand!" she shook it in the air, maniacally. "I will be the first Patrician to live forever. I'll show them! I'll show them all!"
Yeah, there it was.
Vimes realized he had no idea what to do. Sure, his job was arresting sundry Criminal Types and Bad Elements, but he was face-to-face— or, well, face-to-shoes— with a woman who, if she got her hands on his hourglass, could kill him. It seemed she was getting more powerful, too, which meant that she might not even need the life-timer to do it. And his hourglass itself seemed increasingly unconvinced of his continued survival if he went along this course.
Then again, any person could kill him if they were in the same room together anyway, right? So it was kind of like he had better odds than everyone else in the city.
He could fight back.
Of course, that might require a more solid plan than laying here on the carpet and hoping no one noticed him. His sword was still in its sheath, but he could maybe take out both her and the Igor, if they were surprised.
That was when the smoke completely cleared, and Lady Reche looked down.
"You're not supposed to be here!" she accused, pointing at Vimes.
"You know, I've been thinking the same thing?"
This did not seem to make Reche very happy. She stood up quickly, enough that she toppled the plush chair she'd been sitting in. "The Watch? This is unacceptable!"
Vimes stood up. He thought he should probably stall, mostly because he didn't know what else to do. "You killed your husband," he said. "Why?"
She bared her teeth. "He tried to stop me. He said I was crazy. Me!"
"No," Vimes said. "Really?"
He felt pretty satisfied about the state of his plan. Get a sufficiently mad villain, and you had your next three hours of entertainment covered, even if sometimes you had to listen from a chair with straps on the wrist part. She looked like she was gearing up for a speech.
But, hang on, where was the—
"Igor!" Reche called. "Get him!"
While Vimes had been struggling to his feet, the Igor had crept around in the shadows on the outer edges of the room so that he was behind Vimes. He'd be on Vimes any moment.
Thankfully, Reche's command served more as a warning than anything else, and Vimes was able to draw his sword and throw it blindly backwards before he even knew he was moving.
There was a squelch, and a pause.
"Ouch, thir," said the Igor.
Vimes pulled his sword out with another unfortunate squishing sound and ducked forward in the same movement. The Lady Reche, not expecting such a move, startled backwards, just enough that Vimes could grab the box and bolt forward.
The Igor was still blocking the exit, and there was a perfectly good window besides.
Vimes climbed out of it.
There was a pointed arch thing that rose up from the front door; a cover for guests waiting in the rain. Vimes stepped out onto that and scrambled over the steep edges. He had planned on going down and dropping to solid ground, but now he could see that it was all steep stone and marble that way— a drop straight to death.
Then he had to choose between dropping his sword and dropping the box for a better handhold— he kept the box and watched forlornly as his weapon tumbled and stuck point-first into the ground.
The Reche locked in stone battle with the dragon stared judgmentally at him. Vimes grabbed the statue's sword and used it to pull himself up. The rest of the carving was a struggle upwards— there were lots of handholds but they came at odd times. Apparently the original artists hadn't planned on any crazy Watchmen climbing up the artwork, for some reason. Not to mention he only had one real arm to use, juggling the box in the crook of the other.
It was at times like this that Vimes realized how much he'd rather be reading Where's My Cow and getting yellow and blue handprints up his shirtclothes.
Only a few more feet to the roof.
He chanced a look downwards, not all too surprised to see Igor clambering steadily after him, apparently mostly unrushed. He had a body built for climbing, this Igor, and Vimes found himself wondering who most of it had originally belonged to.
No sign of Lady Reche.
There was a stretch of flattish roof where part of the art relief levelled off— a fighting ground for a smaller set of stone figures locked in mystical heroics, and a ledge upon which pigeons apparently favored.
Vimes scrambled up onto it, getting his breath back. "Don't suppose we could talk this out, fellow?" he called down to the Igor, who was still advancing upwards.
Igor paused to give this patient thought. "Don't think so, thir," he said after a moment. "It's hard to find a proper madman— er, madwoman— these days, you thee. Mith Reche is truly a vithionary. No hard feelings, I hope, thir."
Vimes sighed. "No hard feelings," he said, standing on one foot and beginning to wriggle his toes. "Real bonkers, is she?"
"Deranged," said Igor happily.
"Ah," said Vimes, and finally managed to loosen his laces. "Well then, I'm sorry about this."
He dropped his boot on Igor's head.
With a sort of befuddled alarm, Igor lost his grip and tumbled to the ground below. There was an ominous ca-runch, then nothing.
Vimes skittered up the wall as fast as he could. Admittedly, this wasn't all that fast. The Guild of Assassins would have rated the building as a 2.5 on the edificeering scale— hardly a challenge for an experienced wall-climber. But Vimes' main source of high-altitude training was going up and down the stairs in the Yard, and he was admittedly not all that up to the task.
His hands were sweaty as he climbed, and he tried very hard not to think about the almost empty timer in his pocket. Get up to the roof, he thought, then you can find a nice door to the attic and collapse through that. Take a nap in an old, moldering baby crib or something.
After what seemed like an eternity, Vimes' fingers found purchase on the corner of the roof— with relief, he heaved himself over it and wheezed. The roof had looked vaguely pointed from the ground, but that turned out to be an artificial artifice for the stone relief, tented at top just so there was more room to work with. That was good— Vimes had pictured struggling not to roll down the sides like a copper-inna-bun.
The rest of the roof was flat, blocked off by the false points of stone on the two sides opposite each other and with nothing between you and a drop to the ground on the other two.
He got to his feet, one-shoed, still clutching the box he'd taken.
The sky was still, worryingly, filled with that black smoke, swirling just a few feet above his head. Vimes considered trying to use the box to stop it— maybe spilling out the sand he'd seen Reche working with— but then his head filled with visions of the entire city made into timer-thralls. Until he knew how to use it, it was probably better to leave it alone for the right authorities, i.e. a skeleton man with glowing eyes.
He scanned the roof— there. A lot of these old established houses had access to the roofs from the attic for maintenance, or, depending on how old and rich the place was, escape. This one had an escape hatch right in the middle, made out of a different material from the rest and raised slightly. Maybe once upon a time there had been a ladder that extended off the roof for quick escape from the rioting poor and hungry, but it was gone now. Vimes bolted for the trap door.
It opened menacingly, like a rearing dragon, before he could get there.
Vimes jerked back in surprise, scrambling a little to get his feet back under him. He was uneven without his other boot, quite literally wrong-footed.
Reche had appeared at the hatch, balancing on something Vimes couldn't see below her skirts, so it looked eerily like she was floating in midair. She had a dagger. [14]
"You could kill someone with that thing," said Vimes weakly. He might be able to kick her down the ladder she was— presumably— using to get up there, but that wasn't really the Done Thing, was it, kicking ladies down ladders.
Besides, she might have been able to move faster than him.
"Give me that box," she said, apparently not in the mood for a repartee.
"No," said Vimes, evidently on the same level of witty rejoinders. He backed away a few steps, certain that she would follow. She did, climbing out of the trap door with a scowl. That left the ladder free, then— if he could get to it. She was still blocking the entrance.
His hand grasped the empty space where his sword should have been. Right.
He backed up more, and more, until he was on one of the unprotected sides of the roof and there wasn't a whole lot between him and a certain drop. Then he held the box over the edge. "Don't get any closer," he said. "Or I'll drop this."
She pointed the knife at him. "I'll kill you."
"And then I'll drop it," Vimes said. "I don't know what'll happen if the container for all this sand breaks— do you?"
From the looks of things, she didn't.
From here, Vimes couldn't see as much of the city as he ought to have been able to— still obscured by smoke. Street lights were aglow here and there, and dragonfire was burning somewhere in the direction of the Ramkin House. No sight of any incoming golems, nor of pointy golem-trustees or shiny postmasters. He was on his own, at least for now.
Stall, was the only thing he could think of, and that might have been because he was thinking of dragon pens.
"So," he said, conversationally. "Why did you do it?"
Reche looked angry. She held out the knife some more like she was sure she was supposed to be using it somehow, but wasn't sure where to begin. "I want immortality," she said at last. Once she had started, she didn't seem to be able to stop. "I want power. I want to do what I want."
She scowled and began to pace. Vimes watched her— the monologuing type of villains, while less effective than the silent, cold type, tended to be more dangerous, mostly because they'd tell you what they were going to do and then do it. Like Colon said— a man shouldn't know when or how he's going to die, particularly if it's going to be painful.
"Did you know I had to hire those stupid students just to get into the University Library? I couldn't go in, no; what would a woman be doing in the Library?" she lifted her lip in a sneer. The skin beneath was turning black, like she was rotting from the inside out. "And then I had to kill them too."
"And then you figured out how to use it to make the thralls," Vimes said.
She frowned. "Yes. The first time I tried it was an experiment to see if I could take sand out and put it back in. That's why we made the box. But they came back… wrong."
Vimes thought back to the halved bodies in Vetinari's office shambling towards them anyway, and heartily agreed with her assessment. He glanced over the edge of the house once more, hoping for a glimpse of golem, or, even better, Watchman's armor. Nothing doing.
In fact— Vimes looked back once more, frowning— there should have been something there, shouldn't there? It was hard to think of what when Reche was still in front of him, looking spitting mad.
"Ah, but then you figured out how to control them," Vimes said. "Why did you go after the Patrician?" What was missing? It was hard to notice an absence, to see what wasn't there rather than what was.
She jabbed her dagger his direction, warningly. "I should rule this city. Vetinari is too soft on it."
Vimes had never heard Vetinari described as soft before. Besides, he thought miserably, the man looks like he'd be so bony it'd stab you if you went in for a hug, and if you got that close to him you probably would end up getting stabbed.
"Ah," said Vimes, unable to think of anything else.
He looked down into the empty courtyard. There was still nothing to see, except for a spot of grass that looked a little dug up, like something sharp had hit it.
Vimes manfully resisted closing his eyes. There it was. His sword, or rather the lack of it. Not to mention the Igor that should have been accompanying it…
An Igor is a hearty creature. They almost always have another something in their bag of tricks. [16] A roof wouldn't necessarily kill one of them.
Vimes had to get off this roof. And hopefully not feet-first.
One thing no one ever tells you about a standoff is; something has to stop the standoff or else you'll both be there until you die. Vimes decided he should probably be the one to strike first and lurched forward, purposely obvious in his movements. Reche was not a fighter, or at least not a brawler— she took the bait.
At the last moment, Vimes juked to the side, moving left instead of straight towards her.
She stumbled, trying to compensate for the sudden move, and lost her footing. She landed hard on her back and skidded a little, not enough to fall off the roof but that she was at least out of the way.
Vimes scrambled for the ladder. He and the Igor got there at almost the same time, from opposite sides. Vimes jerked back just in time to avoid getting his own sword to the face— embarrassingly, he went the way of Reche and landed right on his arse. He went skidding the opposite direction, towards one of the sides without a barrier.
He did not skid off the roof, but he did not come to a stop gracefully either. It was kind of an emergency-landing stop, functional but not anyone's first choice, and definitely not pretty to look at either.
"Bugger," Vimes groaned to himself, and started the process of picking himself back up. His bones ached, not to mention that he was still cold and covered in river goo and sweat and missing one boot. Reche, too, was recovering, and Igor— who looked a little out of joint— approached.
Vimes had only kept hold of the box by instinct, or maybe luck, which sometimes are the same thing. Reche had dropped the knife somewhere, but she looked even more deadly now— her eyes had started to ooze blackness. The sand-storm above was getting worse. The Igor had Vimes' own sword pointed at him.
Well, if a Watchman had to go out— which, of course, all Watchmen do— it might as well be like this. A blaze of glory was overrated. No, this what what a Watchman did; tried very hard to fix the bad things, and sometimes failed. That's what there were other Watchmen for, and Watchwomen, and whatever Nobby was…
Lady Reche and the Igor's faces were grim in the dark light of the city, a halo of black life-force swimming behind them.
Maybe he would risk smashing the box.
Vimes remembered the time running out of his hourglass. He dug it out of his pocket with the hand not occupied with the box, and held it up. It was still almost empty, only a few grains left, slipping back through to the bottom. He took one final look at his timer—
And all the sand rushed back into it at once.
Feeling the relief rush into him in much the same way, Vimes glanced over his shoulder, and found the courtyard bursting with life. And Death.
It was Ankh-Morpork— not all of it, but enough. Watchmen, shining in torchlight in dented armor, Post Office golems, even palace guards and several angry merchants. Of course the Times was there too, but Sacharissa Cripslock was holding a rake in addition to her notebook, so Vimes assumed she was also there to help.
Death was leading them all, easily identifiable, ironically enough, not by his strange shape, but by the shining hair of Carrot next to him. He and Vimes locked eyes.
Behind him, Reche screamed in fury, seeing the backup and thus the writing on the wall— she was not going to get out of this unscathed.
Not unless she mind-controlled a couple timer-thralls to attack everyone in the courtyard, that was. Which she could apparently do even without the box, which Vimes considered unfair play.
He tried to think of how Carrot would be arranging rescue operations for their poor commander stuck up on the roof of the rich lady's house, and then further tried to think of how capable his squads were of actually following and achieving success at those orders. The thralls were coming up behind them fast.
Vimes jumped off the roof.
He landed hard enough on Downspout to knock the wind out of him, which was lucky as it strangled the terrified (yet manly) yell that had been building in his throat.
"Hiya, boss," Downspout said cheerily, going for some kind of circle to get them to the ground.
"Hnnerkgggh," Vimes said.
"Well said, boss," Downspout said.
They circled the air a few more times, making Vimes dizzy, then landed on the street below, where a circle had been cleared from the fighting between Watchmen and thralls.
Carrot, Angua, and Death were standing in the middle of the cleared patch of earth, a little worse for wear in the case of the mortal members, but all looking mostly all right. Death's scythe was a little spattered with black, which was more than a little concerning. A being like that should be able to vanish the death goop off his robes, after all, and what did it say if he didn't? Maybe it was a way to scare people off, in which case it was working.
Vimes slid off Downspout's back and bent over with his hands on his knees.
"Allright, Commander?" Angua said pleasantly. "We've brought the squad. And we've found your boot."
"Good, great," Vimes said, because he was an emotionally stunted man, and because telling coppers that you're proud of them simply isn't done. "I brought you this death box." He held it out to Death.
A skeletal hand reached out and accepted it.
Tʜᴀᴛ's ᴡᴇɪʀᴅ, said Death, which was a fairly unencouraging thing for a celestial being to say.
"Can you—" Vimes made a vague gesture at everything: the timer-thralls, the death smoke above the house, the darkened city. "With that?"
Nᴏ.
"Oh, good," said Angua. "Well, is there a way to get rid of—" here, she gestured at everything in the same manner as Vimes had. "At all?"
Fɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ sᴜᴍᴍᴏɴᴇʀ, said Death, Aɴᴅ I sᴜᴘᴘᴏsᴇ, ғɪɢᴜʀᴇ ɪᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ.
[14] Daggers were Number 6 on the Ladylike Murder Instruments list. This was behind poison, deadly looks, small poisoned pins, sending-fathers-after-lovers, and beginning wars with Womanly Wiles. Of course, to be a proper Ladylike Instrument, the dagger should have been small and shiny, perhaps engraved, preferably in an ancient but romantic tongue.
This was not a Ladylike Dagger. This was the kind of dagger that didn't glint in the light on account of the rust from the blood of previous murders. This was the kind of dagger of the sort women actually used when they wanted to get the job done, away from the prying eyes of the sort of man who had Thoughts on how women should go about dastardly deeds. This was the kind of dagger that you didn't see until it was already being used, and then you didn't see anything else ever again. [15]
[15] Save, of course, a certain skeleton fellow with glowing blue eyes…
[16] Such as a helping hand, helping foot, helping spinal column.