Chapter 5

Vimes spend the rest of the night trying to get some sleep. To be exact, he spent the rest of the night turning over and over in his bed until he fell out and gave up. When he slumped to the kitchen, he was grumpy and tired and if there was some sort of poetic justice in that, he couldn't find it.

Albert wasn't up yet. Sam wasn't exactly surprised. No one should be up right now, not him, not Albert and definitely not Vetinari. Nothing he could do about that, though – it wasn't like he could force that man to go to bed, and he would have tried, had he not known an action such as that would have resulted in his own quick but painful and rather final death.

He found bread and eggs and ate without appetite.

Somehow, he felt like failing. It was silly – he was dead and had no obligations anymore, and he definitely wasn't Vetinari's keeper, but still he felt like it was his job to protect the man.

Maybe he should just knock him out before he could die of exhaustion. Except the patrician was still faster than Vimes and would be probably be until the moment he dropped dead.

Well, Sam could wait that long. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

During the past week, complaining about Vetinari had been his favourite pastime. Worrying about Vetinari definitely was not. Snorting to himself, Sam abandoned the remains of his meal and wandered through the large house in a desperate attempt to find something to distract himself with. When by accident he found the library, he considered calling for Sybil's book again, to see if she was still alive now, but decided against this. If Death was right and they could save the world by making sure the war had never happened, it was useless anyway and just a way to risk getting even more upset.

Eventually his steps lead him out of the house and into the garden – the endless, black garden that reminded him once again that this was not where he belonged and not where he wanted to be. There was a stable nearby, where Death's horse would be had it been present. It wasn't often, lately.

Trying to clear his head of all thoughts, Vimes stared out into the cornfields that seemed to go on forever.

---

Five minutes later, Vimes was running in circles around the house. He hadn't had any physic exercise in a week – no burglars to chase, no assassination attempts to escape from, just his

former boss trying to strangle him and that didn't exactly count. He needed to move around a bit.

---

Ten minutes later he gave up. The outer dimensions of the house had nothing to do with the inner dimensions and it was creeping him out.

Besides, running around for no reason at all seemed silly and too much like something rich people did when they had nothing else to do. They called it 'jogging'. Running as a means in itself – it was pathetic. In Sam's world, running only made sense when he was chasing someone or someone was chasing him.

---

Another ten minutes later, Sam finished inspecting the garden because it was creeping him out as well. Sybil probably would have found something nice to say about it. Lovely shades of black, these flowers, and how well they went along with the black house and the black grass. And such a nice contrast to the golden corn.

---

Thirty minutes after that, Sam was walking up a path in the fields and well away from the house. The mountains in the distance remained stubbornly distant. They seemed somewhat fake, like a whole lot of nothing pretending to be mountains in the distance. Even the distance itself seemed fake. Sam stubbornly looked at his waking feet and tried to think of nothing.

---

Eventually Sam accepted that he was a – albeit dead – rich man with nothing else to do and began to run. He didn't jog but actually ran, vigorously, like he had to break a speed record on the way "Halfway to the Mountains – Back to the House". Death probably never had seen anyone going to his mansion in such a hurry. He never would either, because he wasn't here, but had he been he could have seen it, theoretically.

And probably seen it as the proof that humans were indeed very stupid.

Yet it had the desired effect: Sam had been still tired, but unable to sleep. By the time he reached the house, out of breath and with a spinning head, he was unable to think another thought and would probably be able to fall asleep immediately should he want to.

Which he did.

---

Five minutes later, he was in his bed, fast asleep.

---

Vetinari watched Vimes run through the cornfields through one of the windows and was just awake enough to find it disconcerting that he wasn't awake enough anymore to see any sense in the other man's actions.

He'd been in the library to get some more books and found himself wandering aimlessly through the mansion some while later. Needed to move a little. If he sat down now, he might fall asleep – not a good idea.

Klatchinan coffee would be a good idea right now. An entire pot, or better a bathtub full of that stuff…

He was thinking nonsense again. At least it was harmless nonsense, but nonsense none the less. Lord Vetinari wasn't a friend of nonsense.

Needed something to do. Badly.

Needed, right now, to stop thinking in incomplete sentences. This really was becoming quite unacceptable.

His hands were trembling.

Eventually, he made his way to the kitchen.

Entering the small room he stopped dead in the doorway, closed his eyes and waited until his heart stopped racing. He had not expected to find someone else inside and his first reaction to the sight had been the urge to run, struggling with the urge to attack. This wasn't good at all. He needed to clear his head, and if it stopped aching in the process, well, that would be a welcome bonus.

There was something profoundly unfair about the fact that he could be dead and still feel this miserable. Wasn't death supposed to put an end to all suffering? He was sure that was written somewhere. He'd look it up, find out who wrote it and then, if he got the chance, would pay a visit to that person. A very informal one.

Albert kept frying undefinable black and brown bits without noticing him or the fate he hadn't met. Vetinari was well aware that in his exhaustion his mind didn't always live in the same reality his body did, but that knowledge didn't mean he could do anything about it.

Albert turned and grumbled something that was either a greeting or an attempt to show him his teeth had been glued together. Vetinari thought he said something in return but wasn't sure, one second later, if he really had.

Declining the old man's offer of food, he got himself a glass of water, trying to control his shaking hands. This was really quite undignified.

The glass was dirty and the water had the colour of rust. It tasted like… like…

The glass shattered on the floor.

---

To say Albert was slightly surprised to see his guest topple over and fall to his knees to throw up all over the kitchen floor would have been slightly understating the measure of his feelings. Since he couldn't yet figure out what to do about this, the old man remained standing beside the stove, the ladle he'd been using still held in one hand, and watched.

This was the first time he saw this one entering his kitchen in days, and he had to start his visit by behaving badly, Albert's brain observed, unwilling to wait for his mind still limping two steps behind. He knew why he preferred Vimes.

Though it was fascinating to see that the man was able to throw up with absolutely nothing in his stomach.

When Albert's mind and brain finally joined forces, though, he realised the black-clad man was spiting blood all over the tiles. A part of Albert's mind split up from the rest and observed that a bit of blood was not entirely unfitting in the house of Death, but the rest wished it simply wouldn't happen. He needed to stop this somehow – if that guy was planning to die, he should at least wait until Death was back. Death would know what to do in situations such as this. Naturally.

The fact remained that someone needed to do something to help, and currently Albert was the only one present. It wasn't fair – he'd never signed up for stuff like this.

It didn't even take long; less than a minute after Vetinari had fallen to his knees, he stopped coughing and fell over, landing in his own blood. Albert still stayed away safely, the vague idea that he should move over there and see if the man had managed to leave the remains of his life behind without his master's help having no effect on the muscles in his legs. There was no point in moving, he justified his lack of action, since there was nothing he could think of doing.

And because, to be perfectly honest, he was scared of touching the guy. He never quite knew what to make of him. Vimes was fine. Vimes was uncomplicated and easy to get along with, but with Vetinari, Albert wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't get his hand cut off if he touched him. Yes, even now. There was something about him that reminded Albert of Death, and not just of its antrophomorphical personification.

Maybe he should just run and get Vimes. Judging by the amount of time the undead Duke spent complaining about the undead Patrician, he was used to dealing with his boss. He could handle this. Yes. Albert's mind and Albert's brain agreed that this was a good idea.

Albert's body turned around to leave the kitchen, the ladle still in his hand, and collided with a black cloak filling the doorway. He yelped. And yelped again when he made contact with the hard bones hidden by the cloak, that were moving beneath the fabric and pushing him out of the way.

---

Sam didn't know how long he'd slept; in his dream it felt like forever. In his dream, he had been at home, having dinner with his wife, and he knew, as dreamers do, that this was before their son was born. She was telling him about something he couldn't remember, and then Carrot was standing in the room, saying that Nobby was on fire and he needed a pillow to safe him. To dream-Sam it had made perfect sense, so he'd run up the stairs to get a pillow and ended up in the streets of Ankh-Morpork, and they were burning.

The flames were red, as was the sky and the moon, and even the heat as it reached for Sam and lit up his clothes. This would have been a good moment for the dream to end – appropriately, if it insisted, with a scream upon waking. Sam knew he was dreaming, but helpless to stop it as dream mingled with memory, just as he was helpless to stop the spear that was flying towards him.

Only this time it didn't happen quickly. Sam felt the blade enter his body, felt his life escape through the wound, but his body never saw this as an invitation to drop dead. Instead he stood there, looking at them man who'd killed him. The man was looking back. It was Vetinari.

Sam wasn't even surprised.

Time stopped there. Sam wanted to do something, to move, to see the end of this, but he couldn't escape this moment, between life and death, and in his dream he knew he had to, to find out what happened next. It was important.

Just when he was getting there, when he had willed the world to move on, he woke up. There was no scream, not even a startled gasp, just a feeling of regret concerning a missed chance. Sam simply opened his eyes and was awake.

The darkness inside his room was moving. The shadows formed into a shape, came closer, and turned into Death. Now Vimes did gasp, after all. No one liked to wake up to find the grim reaper standing beside their bed.

At least, the reaper wasn't carrying his scythe, which Vimes took as a good sign. Instead, Death carried something that looked like a corpse, and turned out to be Havelock Vetinari when Death placed him on the bed besides him.

"What the heck?" Vimes asked, unable to think of anything else. "You could at least ask!"

OH. Death had the decency to sound embarrassed – however he managed that with that voice of his. I HAD FORGOTTEN THIS BED WAS TAKEN. He seemed not inclined to remove the motionless patrician, though, but turned around and walked away. Apparently, he was in a hurry.

"Wait!" Vimes called after him while looking at Vetinari's white face. "What's wrong with him? He's not dead, is he?" It was disconcerting seeing the patrician like this, and reminded Vimes of the time Vetinari had been poisoned. Only now he looked worse.

NO, Death assured him. I WOULD KNOW.

"Are you sure?"

It was a stupid question to ask, Vimes had to admit that. It lead to him finding out that Death was able to give that look without having any actual eyes.

HE NEEDS TO SLEEP, the skeleton helpfully explained. AS DO YOU. SOON I WILL NEED YOU. And with those words and a whisper of this black cloak in the dark, Death was gone.

Ten seconds later, he poked his head in again. GOOD NIGHT, he said politely and closed the door.

- tbc

May 13, 2009