Guards! Guards! (37 page)

There was movement in the shadows at the end of the passage. Wonse gibbered a bit, fumbled with the doorhandle beside him, darted in, slammed the door and leaned against it, fighting for breath.

He opened his eyes.

He was in the old private audience room. The Patrician was sitting in his old seat, one leg crossed on the other, watching him with mild interest.

“Ah, Wonse,” he said.

Wonse jumped, scrabbled at the doorhandle, leapt into the corridor and ran for it until he reached the main staircase, rising now through the ruins of the central palace like a forlorn corkscrew. Stairs—height—high ground—defense. He ran up them three at a time.

All he needed was a few minutes of peace.
Then
he’d show them.

The upper floors were more full of shadows. What they were short on was structural strength. Pillars and walls had been torn out by the dragon as it built its cave. Rooms gaped pathetically on the edge of the abyss. Dangling shreds of wall-hanging and carpet flapped in the wind from the smashed windows. The floor sprang and wobbled like a trampoline as Wonse scurried across it. He struggled to the nearest door.

“That was commendably fast,” said the Patrician.

Wonse slammed the door in his face and ran, squeaking, down a corridor.

Sanity took a brief hold. He paused by a statue. There was no sound, no hurrying footsteps, no whirr of hidden doors. He gave the statue a suspicious look and prodded it with the sword.

When it failed to move he opened the nearest door and slammed it behind him, found a chair and wedged it under the handle. This was one of the upper state rooms, bare now of most of its furnishings, and lacking its fourth wall. Where it should have been was just the gulf of the cavern.

The Patrician stepped out of the shadows.

“Now you have got it out of your system—” he said.

Wonse spun around, sword raised.

“You don’t really exist,” he said. “You’re a—a ghost, or something.”

“I believe this is not the case,” said the Patrician.

“You can’t stop me! I’ve got some magic stuff left, I’ve got the book!” Wonse took a brown leather bag out of his pocket. “I’ll bring back another one! You’ll see!”

“I urge you not to,” said Lord Vetinari mildly.

“Oh, you think you’re so clever, so in-control, so
swave
, just because I’ve got a sword and you haven’t! Well, I’ve got more than that, I’ll have you know,” said Wonse triumphantly. “Yes! I’ve got the palace guards on my side! They follow me, not you! No one likes you, you know. No one
ever
liked you.”

He swung the sword so that its needle point was a foot from the Patrician’s thin chest.

“So it’s back to the cells for you,” he said. “And this time I’ll make
sure
you stay there. Guards! Guards!”

There was the clatter of running feet outside. The door rattled, the chair shook. There was a moment’s silence, and then door and chair erupted in splinters.

“Take him away!” screamed Wonse. “Fetch more scorpions! Put him in…
you’re not the
—”

“Put the sword down,” said Vimes, while behind him Carrot picked bits of door out of his fist.

“Yeah,” said Nobby, peering around the captain. “Up against the wall and spread ’em, motherbreath!”

“Eh? What’s he supposed to spread?” whispered Sergeant Colon anxiously.

Nobby shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “Everything, I reckon. Safest way.”

Wonse stared at the rank in disbelief.

“Ah, Vimes,” said the Patrician. “You will—”

“Shut up,” said Vimes calmly. “Lance-constable Carrot?”

“Sir!”

“Read the prisoner his rights.”

“Yes, sir.” Carrot produced his notebook, licked his thumb, flicked through the pages.

“Lupine Wonse,” he said, “AKA Lupin Squiggle Sec’y PP—”

“Wha?” said Wonse.

“—currently domiciled in the domicile known as The Palace, Ankh-Morpork it is my duty to inform you that you have been arrested and will be charged with—” Carrot gave Vimes an agonized look—“a number of offenses of murder by means of a blunt instrument, to whit, a dragon, and many further offenses of generalized abetting, to be more specifically ascertained later. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to be summarily thrown into a piranha tank. You have the right to trial by ordeal. You have the—”

“This is madness,” said the Patrician calmly.

“I thought I told you to shut up!” snapped Vimes, spinning around and shaking a finger under the Patrician’s nose.

“Tell me, Sarge,” whispered Nobby, “do you think we’re going to
like
it in the scorpion pit?”

“—say anything, er, but anything you do say will be written down, er, here, in my notebook, and, er, may be used in evidence—”

Carrot’s voice trailed into silence.

“Well, if this pantomime gives you any pleasure, Vimes,” said the Patrician eventually, “take him down to the cells. I’ll deal with him in the morning.”

Wonse made no signal. There was no scream or cry. He just rushed at the Patrician, sword raised.

Options flickered across Vimes’s mind. In the lead came the suggestion that standing back would be a good plan, let Wonse do it, disarm him afterward, let the city clean itself up. Yes. A good plan.

And it was therefore a total mystery to him why he chose to dart forward, bringing Carrot’s sword up in a half-baked attempt at blocking the stroke…

Perhaps it was something to do with doing it by the book.

There was a clang. Not a particularly loud one. He felt something bright and silver whirr past his ear and strike the wall.

Wonse’s mouth fell open. He dropped the remnant of his sword and backed away, clutching
The Summoning
.

“You’ll be sorry,” he hissed. “You’ll all be
very sorry
!”

He started to mumble under his breath.

Vimes felt himself trembling. He was pretty certain he knew what had zinged past his head, and the mere thought was making his hands sweat. He’d come to the palace ready to kill and there’d been this
minute
, just this
minute
, when for once the world had seemed to be operating properly and he was in charge of it and now, now all he wanted was a drink. And a nice week’s sleep.

“Oh, give
up
!” he said. “Are you going to come quietly?”

The mumbling went on. The air began to feel hot and dry.

Vimes shrugged. “That’s it, then,” he said, and turned away. “Throw the book at him, Carrot.”

“Right, sir.”

Vimes remembered too late.

Dwarfs have trouble with metaphors.

They also have a very good aim.

The Laws and Ordinances of Ankh and Morpork
caught the secretary on the forehead. He blinked, staggered, and stepped backward.

It was the longest step he ever took. For one thing, it lasted the rest of his life.

After several seconds they heard him hit, five storys below.

After several more seconds their faces appeared over the edge of the ravaged floor.

“What a way to go,” said Sergeant Colon.

“That’s a fact,” said Nobby, reaching up to his ear for a dog-end.

“Killed by a wossname. A metaphor.”

“Dunno,” said Nobby. “Looks like the ground to me. Got a light, Sarge?”

“That was right, wasn’t it, sir?” said Carrot anxiously. “You said to—”

“Yes, yes,” said Vimes. “Don’t worry.” He reached down with a shaking hand, picked up the bag Wonse had been holding, and tipped out a pile of stones. Every one had a hole in it. Why? he thought.

A metallic noise behind him made him look around. The Patrician was holding the remains of the royal sword. As the captain watched, the man wrenched the other half of the sword out of the far wall. It was a clean break.

“Captain Vimes,” he said.

“Sir?”

“That sword, if you please?”

Vimes handed it over. He couldn’t, right now, think of anything else to do. He was probably due for a scorpion pit of his very own as it was.

Lord Vetinari examined the rusty blade carefully.

“How long have you had this, Captain?” he said mildly.

“Isn’t mine, sir. Belongs to Lance-constable Carrot, sir.”

“Lance—?”

“Me, sir, your graciousness,” said Carrot, saluting.

“Ah.”

The Patrician turned the blade over and over slowly, staring at it as if fascinated. Vimes felt the air thicken, as though history was clustering around this point, but for the life of him he couldn’t think why. This was one of those points where the Trousers of Time bifurcated themselves, and if you weren’t careful you’d go down the wrong leg—

Wonse arose in a world of shades, icy confusion pouring into his mind. But all he could think of at the moment was the tall cowled figure standing over him.

“I thought you were all dead,” he mumbled. It was strangely quiet and the colors around him seemed washed-out, muted. Something was very wrong. “Is that you, Brother Doorkeeper?” he ventured.

The figure reached out.

M
ETAPHORICALLY
, it said.

—and the Patrician handed the sword to Carrot.

“Very well done, young man,” he said. “Captain Vimes, I suggest you give your men the rest of the day off.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Vimes. “Okay, lads. You heard his lordship.”

“But not you, Captain. We must have a little talk.”

“Yes, sir?” said Vimes innocently.

The rank scurried out, giving Vimes sympathetic and sorrowful glances.

The Patrician walked to the edge of the floor and looked down.

“Poor Wonse,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Vimes stared at the wall.

“I would have preferred him alive, you know.”

“Sir?”

“Misguided, yes, but a useful man. His head could have been of further use to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The rest, of course, we could have thrown away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That was a joke, Vimes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The chap never grasped the idea of secret passages, mind you.”

“No, sir.”

“That young fellow. Carrot, you called him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keen fellow. Likes it in the Watch?”

“Yes, sir. Right at home, sir.”

“You saved my life.”

“Sir?”

“Come with me.”

He stalked away through the ruined palace, Vimes trailing behind, until he reached the Oblong Office. It was quite tidy. It had escaped most of the devastation with nothing more than a layer of dust. The Patrician sat down, and suddenly it was as if he’d never left. Vimes wondered if he ever had.

He picked up a sheaf of papers and brushed the plaster off them.

“Sad,” he said. “Lupine was such a tidy-minded man.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Patrician steepled his hands and looked at Vimes over the top of them.

“Let me give you some advice, Captain,” he said.

“Yes, sir?”

“It may help you make some sense of the world.”

“Sir.”

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people,” said the man. “You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people,
but some of them are on opposite sides
.”

He waved his thin hand toward the city and walked over to the window.

“A great rolling sea of evil,” he said, almost proprietorially. “Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much
deeper
in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!” He slapped Vimes good-naturedly on the back.

“Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say
yes
, but because they don’t say
no
. I’m sorry if this offends you,” he added, patting the captain’s shoulder, “but you fellows really need us.”

“Yes, sir?” said Vimes quietly.

“Oh, yes. We’re the only ones who know how to make things work. You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re
good
at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the
only
thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to
plan
. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.”

“Maybe. But you’re wrong about the rest!” said Vimes. “It’s just because people are afraid, and alone—” He paused. It sounded pretty hollow, even to him.

He shrugged. “They’re just people,” he said. “They’re just doing what people do. Sir.”

Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.

“Of course, of course,” he said. “You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you’d go quite mad. Otherwise you’d think you’re standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.” He looked at his desk, and sighed. “And now,” he said, “there is such a lot to do. I’m afraid poor Wonse was a good servant but an inefficient master. So you may go. Have a good night’s sleep. Oh, and do bring your men in tomorrow. The city must show its gratitude.”

“It must
what
?” said Vimes.

The Patrician looked at a scroll. Already his voice was back to the distant tones of one who organizes and plans and controls.

“It’s gratitude,” he said. “After every triumphant victory there must be heroes. It is essential. Then everyone will know that everything has been done properly.”

He glanced at Vimes over the top of the scroll.