Chapter 6 - Truth Revealed
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Notes/Disclaimer: The Discworld and all its characters are the sole property of Terry Pratchett. If I could worship him as a God, I would, but I'm not quite sure how he'd take that. At any rate, no money is being made off of this.
Warning: Little bit of Greebo/Vimes, little bit of Greebo/Vetinari.
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"A what?" said Vimes.
"A story," Granny Weatherwax repeated.
Vimes stared at her for a few moments. "So all this… this chaos. Is because someone wrote a story?"
"This wasn't just any man with a quill writing things down," Granny snapped. "It was a Storyteller. Certain stories use people like him to get themselves told. They may appear different, but they're all the same, in essence."
"So, so what?" said Vimes, trying to wrap his head around the ludicrous idea. "So some evil monster or something escaped from the story? Some ultimate darkness that's come to destroy the city?"
Granny shook her head. "Worse," she said. "It's a hero."
"A hero is doing this?"
"Not directly," Nanny Ogg piped up. "But he's a hero. He needs something to fight. Where there's ultimate good there has to be ultimate evil, see? To balance it out."
"That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard," said Vimes.
"That doesn't stop it from being true," said Granny Weatherwax.
"So why don't we just let the hero finish this off then? If that's what he's here for. He might as well do what he came to do, defeat the evil, and then go away." Vimes paused. "The hero does defeat the evil, right?"
Nanny Ogg nodded. "But there's a slight problem. With the hero out of control, there's no telling how we'll get to the ending. It's possible the entire city could be destroyed in the fight. Or you could end up with an imaginary being controlling the city, which would cause all kinds of problems."
Vimes sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look," he said. "I don't suppose it really matters what the thing is that's causing all of this. I just want to know how to stop it. How were you planning on doing it?"
The two witches exchanged a look, and Vimes knew he was not going to like what they had to say.
"The thing is," Nanny Ogg began, "we can't really get involved."
Vimes squeezed his eyes shut, counted to ten, and wished fervently that he was still an alcoholic. "I thought you came here to help?"
"We came here because we couldn't do nothing," said Granny Weatherwax, "but we can't get involved. We're witches, you see."
"Witches are traditional villains," Nanny Ogg elaborated. "If we even try to step into the story, whatever we do will automatically become evil. We just fit too well into the role."
"So… so…" Vimes was attempting to assimilate, but the information was coming very quickly. "So what we need is a good guy? I represent the Watch, would I count?"
Granny appeared to think this over, but then shook her head regretfully. "It's too easy for someone in a position of power to abuse it. You could be put into a villain role as well."
"But we could use a character that would be a hero?"
"A hero could take the place of whatever escaped from the Story," Granny confirmed, "but don't count on finding one. The Story won't take anything less than what it gives up. The hero would have to be someone of pure good, a paragon of virtue, paladin of truth and justice and all that muck. And people like that don't actually exist."
Vimes felt a smile start to spread across his face. "I wouldn't be so sure of that." He stood and strode over to the door, yanking it open. "CARROT!" he yelled out into the hall.
The boy appeared in moments and saluted smartly. "Sir!" he intoned.
Vimes stepped aside and gestured for Carrot to enter the room. He turned to the witches. "Well?"
The two witches went into a huddle for a disturbingly long time. Vimes got snatches of their conversation, things like: "-see his aura?" "Yes, but not-" "-how would he-" "-get here in the first place?" "Not important. Do you think-" "-could work."
They straightened up and both looked at Vimes solemnly. "There might be a chance," Granny conceded.
Finally, finally, Vimes thought, something was going right. "So where do we start?" he asked.
Thunder rumbled ominously outside the Watch house, and the pattering of rain on the roof intensified.
"Well," said Granny, "from the look of the weather, something is going to happen tonight. Chaos usually starts with destroying the highest Order first. Then once everything has fallen to pieces and looks darkest, the Hero will step in. But if you stop the Chaos tonight, you might be able to force a confrontation."
"The highest…" Vimes trailed off and felt the blood drain from his face. "Shit. Vetinari!"
He was up out of his chair and out the door in seconds, Carrot hot on his heels.
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