Author's note: Now this story is nearing its end, I want to thank all those who kept me motivated with their lovely comments – the new ones as well as those who miraculously remained faithful to this fic during years of hiatus. Due to continued internet problems I am quite unable to answer all comments individually, but know that usually they, well, make my day.
***
In the face of the fact that so far they had taken pains to sneak closer and make no sound in order to avoid being discovered by the being with the complete failing of audibleness, Vimes was somewhat surprised when Vetinari suddenly opened the door and boldly stepped into the room.
He followed. There was little else to do now, really, and Sam didn't want to be caught hovering in the doorway while a politician saved the day. Or failed to do so. Either way, Sam wanted his part in it, and so he ended up hovering just behind Vetinari, looking grim.
For the first time he got a look at the ones they had been eves dropping on. One was, to no surprise, an Agathean. He was tall and broad shouldered, and his armour was more elaborate that those of the guards they had been seeing. It also looked like he had never actually tested its use but only wore it to mark his position while he sent others into battle. Vimes instantly disliked him.
He had a black beard that ridiculed his thin eyebrows – Sam got a good look at his face when he turned around, alarmed by the sudden opening of the door. Instinctively, the commander of the city watch reached for a weapon that wasn't there, but the Agathean made no move to attack them. Instead he frowned, looked right through them and reached out to forcefully shut the door.
They were the wind now, Sam realised. A trick of the nerves. Irritating but insubstantial, inconsequential. The Agathean took no notice of them and was as little a threat to them as they were to him.
The other person in the room was a tall, thin man in a grey cloak. His head was covered by a hood but Sam could see enough of his face to know it was entirely unremarkable. His eyes wandered to the Agathean for a second, and already the face was gone from his memory. There was nothing for the mind to recall; two eyes, a nose, a mouth, completely average, nothing that set it apart from any other face. The only unique thing about it was its entire lack of uniqueness, and Sam's brain simply refused to accept this as a distinctive feature.
Where Death's domain had been black overall, this man gave off a general feeling of greyness. Even his face seemed grey, despite its colour being fairly average. He was giving the colour grey a bad name. Vimes began liking it less just looking at this guy.
This guy was looking right back at him. At them, to be exact. Actually, he was looking at Vetinari, and Vimes got the remains of his stare that somehow spilled over the patrician's shoulder. But the point remained that they were being looked at, which led to the conclusion that they were being seen.
Which was to be expected, really, and shouldn't creep him out at all. Being visible had been a natural state for Sam Vimes for a very long time, and this man was no man at all and well entitled to see them. His eyes upon them didn't surprise the watchman at all. But neither did them make him particularly happy.
The Auditor's expression changed from blank to blank, but it was a visible change that portrayed… something. Sam had no name for it, because he was sure the Auditor didn't either.
The grey man spoke first, or rather, he didn't. He sent you, he didn't observe aloud. Vetinari raised an eyebrow. (Vimes couldn't see it, but he knew anyway.)
"Indeed."
He is breaking the rules. Again. We will not allow this.
"Death has not, in fact, broken any rules in allowing us to come here," Vetinari pointed out. "He merely bent them. He is forbidden to interfere, and that he didn't do."
"Also, he didn't break the rules any more than you did," Vimes added, hoping he'd got that part right. The Agathean commander looked around in confusion, then at the Auditor, saying something in his weird foreign language. Vimes didn't need to understand him, in this case.
We will stop you, the Auditor promised, ignoring his poor, confused partner in crime.
"I believe you cannot," Vetinari stated matter-of-factly. "Stopping us would be a direct interference, even more so than enabling this army to invade the city. It would be against the rules."
The Auditor was silent for a long moment. He didn't react in the slightest to the Angathean, who directed increasingly loud questions at him. Standing behind Vetinari and trying to look grim and determined rather than completely out of his depth, Sam wondered what that man would say if they had any way to tell him that he was currently participating in destroying the world.
Probably not much. People had a tendency not to care about things such as that. 'The world' was defined in their heads as 'all the parts of the world that do not concern me'.
It was amazing how people from all over the disk and all species were, in the end, all basically the same. It made what was happening even more stupid.
Indeed, the Auditor said eventually, making Vimes grimace. Apparently the thing had no own characteristics to speak of and copied what it saw and heard. Unfortunately, what it saw and heard was Havelock Vetinari.
Rolling his eyes, he waited for the creature to steeple its fingers. To its credit, it didn't.
But we do not need to stop you. We need simply to prevent you from stopping us.
'That doesn't actually change much about the situation,' thought Vimes. 'We didn't have a plan anyway.' Then he grimaced again and hoped the Auditor couldn't read his mind.
"And by 'we', I suppose you mean you?" Vetinari asked. The Auditor in his expressionless glory somehow managed to give off an air of disgust.
There is no 'me', he expressed in the same way someone else might say that they did not eat rat excrement for breakfast.
"Of course not," the patrician said friendly. "My mistake. Allow me to rephrase: Is there more than one of you directly involved in this operation?"
We are not directly involved in anything, the Auditor let them know.
"And yet you are here," Vimes pointed out.
Indirectly so.
"Ah. So that means you're not really here? Then how can you do anything?"
We do not act. We present possibilities.
"By being neither active nor present." Vetinari nodded thoughtfully. "I must admit to having used similar tactics myself on numerous occasions. I do, however, fail to see how it would work in this situation."
Your understanding is not necessary.
The Agathean apparently had enough of the one sided conversation that had nothing to do with him. He turned on his heels and was about to leave the room – only to find he couldn't. With a grunt of annoyance he pulled again, harder, but the door remained stubbornly closed. Vimes gave him a grim grin that was as invisible as the man leaning against the door, preventing it from being moved. He hadn't really expected this to work, but then, why wouldn't it? They couldn't pass through doors, so doors couldn't pass through them. To the living they were ghosts, but to inanimate objects they were very real.
Perhaps, Sam thought, there was some kind of silent solidarity between things that didn't live.
Enraged, the solider turned back to the Auditor. He snapped. The Auditor glared at Sam in a way that suggested a further decline of his vitality in the near future. He was quite glad that there was still a protective shield called Havelock Vetinari between him and the enemy. Vetinari, who looked at him and smiled. When he turned to the Auditor, the smile stayed on his face.
"You won't be able to leave here without taking direct actions against us. That, however, would break the rules. Which brings us back to the question of what you can do from this very room. I suspect, not a lot. It further brings back the question of how many of you are there to help you out. Since the harder the rules are bent the higher the risk of them breaking, I believe you are the only one."
The Auditor said nothing.
"I take that as a yes," Vetinari said. "And I'm quite curious what you are going to do now. In fact, your approach of this problem is of utmost interest to me."
'I might just have saved the world, by leaning against a door,' Vimes thought. 'And it's not even the weirdest day I ever had.'
Then he fought the urge to abandon the door and run as the Auditor stepped up to him. The Auditor glared, somehow still failing to melt him. He then glared at Vetinari. And at the Agathean, for good measure. The Agathean shut up and cowered. The Auditor glared at Vetinari again, who returned the stare with friendly interest.
You are starting to irritate me, the grey man declared, before he faded away with a faint, surprised, Oh…
Three men were staring at the point where he had been standing a moment before. The Agatehan made a confused noise somewhere deep in his throat.
Vetinari rubbed his chin. "I must admit, that was quite unexpectedly easy."
-
INDIVIDUALITY, FOR AUDITORS, IS INSTANEOUSLY DEADLY. FORTUNATELY THEY ARE IN THIS REGARD COLLECTIVELY NOT VERY BRIGHT.
The human called Vimes looked around sharply until his eyes found Death. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said. "Aren't we supposed to get back to life once we got rid of this thing? The last thing I expected was to see even more death."
Death got the impression this human didn't like him very much. It was a reaction he was not as used to as could be expected, since usually the people he met were quite beyond emotions when he met them.
"Did we succeed?" Vetinari asked before Death could point out that seeing more of him was always inevitable, unless one saw him for the last time. "Is the city safe now?"
YES. THERE WAS ONLY ONE OF THEM AT WORK. THEY WILL COME UP WITH ANOTHER PLAN.
"Great," Vimes said, though he didn't appear to be meaning it. "Right away?"
NO.
"Fantastic. Then we can return now? I'm hungry and could do with a proper meal in a proper body." Vimes gruff words only ineffectively covered his eagerness at the prospect of returning to life. Death couldn't quite understand his enthusiasm.
He glanced at the late patrician and was met with a calm gaze that told him no explanation was necessary. YOU MAY RETURN NOW, he said to Vimes. HOWEVER, IT IS BY YOUR STANDARDS STILL THREE HOURS UNTIL BREAKFAST.
The man suddenly hesitated. "You mean, I'll just go home and return to my bed? Just like that?"
NO, said Death. Vimes' face darkened.
"What do you mean, no? I thought we did it! You said we'd be able to return to life if we stopped the world from ending."
THE WORLD'S END CANNOT BE STOPPED. IT CAN MERELY BE POSTPONED. THAT YOU DID. AND YOU WILL NOW RETURN TO YOUR LIFE.
"But…?"
BUT NOT IN THE WAY YOU DESCRIBED. YOU WILL PASS THROUGH THIS DOOR AND WAKE UP IN YOUR BED. Death thought for a second. IN THE MORNING, he added, because perhaps the man wanted to know that.
"At the very break of dawn, I would believe," Vetinari added. "In your place, I might think about having Wilikins prepare food – a sandwich for instance – that can be consumed while running every night, just in case."
Vimes stared at him for a long moment, his face blank. The it screwed into grimace. "The murder on the university grounds!" he said. "Carrot will wake me before the sun even begins to come up. Damn, there goes my hope for breakfast."
YOU WILL NOT STARVE, Death offered in case that knowledge was comforting. According to the glare the watchman threw him, it wasn't.
-
"Wait a minute! How do you know about the murder? You weren't there!"
Sam eyed Vetinari, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Vetinari raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, I believe I must have read it somewhere." His face was blank, the very picture of innocence. Sam felt the urge to jump over to him and kick his skinny arse. The guy had read his book after all. Bastard!
Either that, or he'd read it in one of the numerous, thick volumes about the city. His face revealed nothing, exactly as it should. Rolling his eyes, Vimes decided not to let himself be provoked. He could fight with the man another time. Now, he had better things to worry about.
Sam Vimes was a practical man. Already he was wondering if there was any way of bringing himself to wake up a little sooner, grab a snack, inform Carrot of the university murder (in which case the watch would know before the wizards, which would annoy the wizards and fill Vimes with a certain glee) and then grab a few men with many weapons and get Vetinari out of this hole. He couldn't come up with something, but was convinced he would defeat sleep if only he would wish to wake up very, very badly.
He also was an impatient man who wanted to finally get home to his family, his watch and his living body very badly. "Aren't you coming?" he grumbled in Vetinari's general direction. There was no rule saying he could only go back with the patrician at his side, but after everything it felt wrong to go ahead without him.
"No," said Vetinari, calmly, somewhere behind him.
Vimes, already facing the door to freedom, turned around, frowning. "Why not? Do have any other plans for today?"
Vetinari's smile was thin, but perhaps more genuine than any Sam had seen on the man's face ever before. "I do indeed."
Sam was confused. And irritated. One caused the other. To him, this was a natural state of being. "Any chance of telling me what?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you, for lack of information. Death, however, might know."
Sam looked over to the grim reaper who had retreated into the background, standing still and silent and creepy.
"What?" he asked, confused and all the same dreading the answer. This wasn't how this story was supposed to end.
"Over there, in that cell, I'm already dying," Vetinari confirmed. "I have no desire to return to life simply for a repetition of that particular experience, which I didn't enjoy very much the first time."
Sam was silent for a long time. This was odd. It was the oddest way he had ever received note of a passing. Things like that didn't become any less awkward if you received note from the deceased himself.
'Sorry' seemed to cover it even less than usually.
"Since when did you know that?" he asked, feeling anger because it was easier than feeling lost. Lord Vetinari was dead. He had often wished for it, but never really thought it might actually happen while he was still around.
Or ever.
"Since the beginning. I saw the hourglass representing your life, and mine. Yours is bigger by a considerable amount." The patrician smiled the cool, distant smile he no longer had any need for. "You are going to live a long life, Sir Samuel."
He only used Sam's first name when addressing him in this manner. Other than the common noble, Havelock Vetinari appeared to have as little love for the lack of distance usually found in the upper class. As if they were all friends. They weren't. They all hated each other and acted like best friends to pretend they didn't know. Just waiting for the right moment to stab the 'best friend' in the back.
"In a city ruled by whom?" Sam asked. This couldn't be happening. He saw the guild leaders, the noblemen in front of his mind's eye and was unable to imagine a future shaped by them in a manner that didn't make him want to scream.
He became aware he was accusing Vetinari of neglecting his duty to the city by dying horribly, but didn't see anything wrong with that.
He got the eyebrow by that, but it was accompanied by a half-smile. "That, I believe, is ultimately up to you."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Time is not standing still. You should return soon, unless you wish to be delivered right into the middle of a group of agitated sorcerers discussing the advantages of dead students over living ones."
"Are you going to answer my damn question?"
"It's quite obvious that I will not. Do have a good life, Sir Samuel." For a second, the patrician's (for that was what he, and only he, would always be to Sam Vimes) smile turned into something resembling a smirk. "Don't let me detain you."
-
"What will happen to him?" Sam had asked, after Vetinari had retreated into the background like Death had before and seemed to all but fade from existence. Sam had known he was still there, because he felt he was being stared out of the room. The knowledge that it would be the last time wasn't as comforting as it should be.
I DON'T KNOW. Death's answer hadn't been helpful either.
"How can you not know? You're Death! You're supposed to know this kind of stuff."
THERE ARE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES. IN THIS CASE, I CAN'T TELL. NOTHING SEEMS SET YET.
"Typical. Has to make it difficult for everyone."
It had been time to go. Sam had felt it. If he wanted to leave, he had to do it now. And so he had left, with a last look at the shadows and a whispered "Take care of him, somehow, if you can" he'd passed through the door into nothing.
The next coherent thought he managed was that Carrot really, really had a loud voice when he was agitated.
- tbc
September 21, 2009