WE REALLY CAN'T GO ON MEETING LIKE THIS, said the steel voice to Azula as she lay in a half-conscious stupor.
"Who…" Azula groaned looked blearily at the hooded apparition.
OH, JUST A SIMPLE PUBLIC SERVANT said Death, running a proprietorial finger down the blade of the scythe. THE KIND YOU NEVER HEAR FROM UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED THEM. NEVER MIND, CARRY ON.
Then she came to. Again.
She raised her head and looked around. Her head throbbed, and as her eyes focused she saw that she was in a stone-walled chamber. And she was in a cell. Bars sliced across her vision. That's when she started to panic.
Captain Carrot sat in the main office of the nearest Watch House to Gleam Street. With him were all the watchmen who had been present at the…incident: Sergeant Ringfounder, Constables Visit, Pessimal and Von Humpeding, and Lance-Constable Brick. Brick was a new recruit to the Watch, and his first incident had left him looking dispirited. Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom and Igor had been summoned from Pseudopolis Yard as well.
Carrot had gotten the others to describe what they saw and what they did leading up to the catastrophic blast. Even now Igors and others from the Free Hospital were bearing stretchers to the site, providing them with occupants and sending these off in special hospital coaches. Higher authorities than he would want to have all the facts in his report.
"Has she got any sort of weapons on her," said Carrot to Cheery.
"No, sir," said the dwarf immediately. "To tell you the truth, sir, she's got nothing on but a robe and a nightie, sir. Good quality fabric though, she must be high-class. But it's lacework, sir. Quirmian, sir. But she's got the look of an Agataean!"
"Could she be a witch?" This was Constable Visit, his face cloudy.
Knowing that Omnians could be very firm on the subject of witches, Captain Carrot said quickly, "I don't think witches are usually that…direct in their magic, Constable."
"I have given the young lady a medical ecthaminathon," Igor added, "and I can thay that her unique abilitieth are the result of thome phythical energy that I have never heard of before. It ith motht remarkable."
At that point, the convention on the prisoner was interrupted by a scream from same, and they all rushed to the cells.
The girl – she wasn't above fifteen, they had been amazed to note – was screaming and breathing blue fire at the bars. Tears were running down her face and her expression was of childish fear.
"Stand back!" Carrot cried.
"Her handth!" Igor pointed. In addition to breathing fire at the bars, the girl was grabbing and shaking them, as if trying to wrench the door free. The combination resulted in her hands being lobster red and dotted with blisters.
There was a moment's hesitation. Even dodging the intermittent bursts of flame, unlocking the door was a difficult prospect, since the bars and the lock were glowing a dull red.
Finally Constable von Humpeding, or Sally, as she liked to be called, strode forward, approached some bars near the side of the cell which the girl wasn't attacking, and with a grunt of effort, she bent the bars far enough apart to step through.
Sally moved up beside the girl and seized her wrists, pulling her away from the bars. She shouted over the screaming, "Stop! It's all right!"
"Let me out," shrieked the girl, "You can't keep me here! Don't touch me, peasant! I won't be your prisoner!"
"You're not a prisoner," Carrot declared from outside, "You were knocked out in the blast, and we just put you in here to keep you safe!"
"And who are you calling a peasant," said Sally, pushing the girl over to the cell bed and sitting her down. The vampire's aristocratic hauteur was a match for the girl's."
"May I ask your name, Miss," said Carrot.
The girl looked up, apparently distracted from the fact that Sally was examining her burned hands. She drew herself up – as far as one can sitting down – and said, "I am Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, Great-Granddaughter of Firelord Sozin."
This pronouncement left the onlooking watchmen speechless. Not out of awe so much as shock at the surprisingly believable conviction. That kind of talk wasn't unfamiliar to the Watch, but it usually came from someone older, drunker and worse-smelling.
"Ah," Carrot said, nonplussed, "And what do you know about the facility under number 30 Gleam Street? Why did you attack it?"
"I believe," said the girl, "that they are involved in a plot to destabilize your city. To know more than that, you're going to have to let me out!"
Sally shot an incredulous look at Carrot. Just then, the door burst open and Corporal Nobby Nobbs skidded into the room. He was puffing and something that was doing the office of sweat was oozing around his various dermal malignancies.
"That's," Nobby wheezed, pointing at Azula.
There was a long wait for Nobby to pull himself together, expectorate some tobacco-laden sputum, and finally he choked, "That the Agataean girl what punches fireballs, Captain?"
Carrot looked surprised, "Certainly the only one I've heard about, Corporal. You know about her?"
"Been running up and down the city, Captain," Nobby said, finally mustering himself enough to salute. "She turned up last night in Scoone Avenue, Captain. Lady Sybil took her in. Real mystery, sir. She got out this evening, threw some fireballs at me and her Ladyship, and hared off down the street!"
"Lady Sybil isn't hurt, is she?" Cheery's voice squeaked.
"Nah," said Nobby with a shake of his head, "she was all in dragon-gear, Sarge."
The situation to date was briefly explained to Nobby, who stared at the girl. She looked back with an expression of fascinated disgust. Finally, she turned back to Carrot.
"How did you figure out she was here?" Cheery asked.
"Deduction, Sarge," Nobby said. The sceptical looks provoked him to add defensively, "Well, a bit of the city blows sky-high, that's not the Alchemist's Guild, you know a fire-throwing kid's running around, what would you think?"
Azula turned her glare from Nobby to Carrot, and there was an element of nervousness behind the fierce pride. "Well, Captain Carrot," she said, as if tasting the name, "what are you going to do?"
Carrot spoke with that note of authority with which he could turn street gangs into fraternal societies and criminals into penitent citizens. "We, Princess Azula," he said, "are going to pay a call upon Commander Vimes!"