The Truth (36 page)

“Sure. Back home people’d been doing it for hundreds of —ing years. They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t —ing work, would they?”

“Where
was
that?”

Mr. Tulip tried to concentrate on this question, but there were many scabs in his memory.

“There was…forests,” he said. “And…bright candles,” he muttered. “An’…secrets,” he added, staring into nothing.

“And potatoes?”

Mr. Tulip came back to the here and now.

“Yeah, them,” he said. “Always lots of —ing potatoes. If you’ve got your potato, it will be all right.”

“But…I thought you had to pray in deserts, and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor…?”

“Oh, you can do all that too, sure,” said Mr. Tulip. “Just so long as you’ve got your —ing potato.”

“And you come back alive?” said Mr. Pin, still trying to find the small print.

“Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who’d notice the —ing difference?”

Mr. Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr. Tulip saw his expression change.

“Someone’s got their hand on my shoulder!” he hissed.

“You feeling all right, Mr. Pin?”

“You can’t see anyone?”

“Nope.”

Clenching his fists, Mr. Pin turned around. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.

He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.

“Okay. Okay,” he said. “What we’ll do…we’ll go back to the house, okay, and…and we’ll get the rest of the diamonds, and we’ll scrag Charlie, and, and…we’ll find a vegetable shop…any special
kind
of potato?”

“Nope.”

“Right…but first…” Mr. Pin stopped, and his mind’s ear heard footsteps stop behind him, a moment later. The damn vampire had
done
something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been
things…

Mr. Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamor, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.

“That bloody vampire did this,” he said. “And killing a vampire…
hey
…that’s practically
good,
right?” He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. “Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man’s favor, eh?”

“Yeah. But…who cares?”

“I do.”

“Okay.” Even Mr. Tulip didn’t argue with that tone of voice. Mr. Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.

It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath salt and worming powder–ravaged pathways of his own brain. He admired the way Mr. Pin wasn’t frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.

“What’ll we use?” he said. “A stake?”

“No,” said Mr. Pin. “With this one, I want to be
certain.
”

He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.

“Ah. Right,” said Mr. Tulip.

“Let’s just
do
it,” said Mr. Pin.

Rocky’s brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.

“What’s dem things?” he said.

“They’re to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,” said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. “It’s a sort of curse. Only it works.”

“Dat one’s the Assassins?” said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.

“Yes. It means there’s an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.”

“Wouldn’t want dem interested in
me
. Good job you got a key…”

The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.

Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork’s great houses, when the owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more respectable charities. She hadn’t realized how a building could change when people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale. The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere descended on her like a headache.

Behind her, Rocky lit a couple of lanterns. But even their light left her surrounded by shadows.

At least the main staircase wasn’t hard to find, and William’s hasty directions led her to a suite of rooms bigger than her house. The wardrobe, when she found it, was simply a room full of rails and hangers.

Things glittered in the gloom. The dresses also smelled strongly of mothballs.

“Dat’s interestin’,” said Rocky, behind her.

“Oh, it’s just to keep the moths away,” said Sacharissa.

“I’m lookin’ at all the footprints,” said the troll. “Der were in the hall, too.”

She tore her gaze away from the rows of dresses, and looked down. The dust was certainly disturbed.

“Er…cleaning lady?” she said. “
Someone
must come in to keep an eye on things?”

“What she do,
kick
der dust to death?”

“I suppose there must be…caretakers and things?” said Sacharissa uncertainly. A blue dress was saying: Wear me, I’m just your type. See me shimmer.

Rocky prodded a box of mothballs that had spilled out across a dressing table and rolled into the dust.

“Looks like dem moths are really keen on dese things,” he said.

“You don’t think a dress like this would be a bit…forward, do you?” said Sacharissa, holding the dress against herself.

Rocky looked worried. He hadn’t been hired for his dress sense, and certainly not for his grasp of colloquial Middle Class.

“You’re quite a lot forward already,” he opined.

“I
meant,
make me look like a fast woman!”

“Ah, right,” said Rocky, getting there. “No. Def’nitly not.”

“Really?”

“Sure. No one could run much in a dress like dat.”

Sacharissa gave up. “I suppose Mrs. Hotbed could let it out a bit,” she said, reflectively. It was tempting to stay, because some of the racks were quite full, but she felt like a trespasser here and part of her was certain that a woman with hundreds of dresses was
more
likely to miss one than a woman with a dozen or so. In any case, the empty darkness was getting on her nerves. It was full of other people’s ghosts. “Let’s get back.”

When they were halfway across the hall, someone started to sing. The words were incoherent, and the tune was being modulated by alcohol, but it was singing of a sort and it was under their feet.

Rocky shrugged when Sacharissa glanced at him.

“Maybe all dem moths is having a ball?” he said.

“There
must
be a caretaker, mustn’t there? Maybe we’d better just, you know, mention we’ve been here?” Sacharissa agonized. “It hardly seems polite, just taking things and running…”

She headed for a green door tucked away beside the staircase, and pushed it open. The singing went louder for a moment, but stopped as soon as she said “Excuse me?” into the darkness.

After a few moments’ silence a voice said: “Hello! How are you? I’m fine!”

“It’s only, er, me? William said it was all right?” She presented the statement like a question, in the voice of someone who was apologizing to a burglar for discovering him.

“Mr. Mothball Nose? Whoops!” said the voice in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.

“Er…are
you
all right?”

“Can’t get…it’s a…hahaha…it’s all chains…hahaha…”

“Are you…ill?”

“No, I’m fine, not ill at all, jus’ had a few too many…”

“Few too many what?” said Sacharissa, speaking from a sheltered upbringing.

“…wazza…things you put drink in…barrels?”

“You’re
drunk?
”

“Tha’s right! Tha’s the word! Drunk as a…thing…smelly thing…ahahaha…”

There was a tinkle of glass.

The lantern’s weak glow showed what looked like a wine cellar, but a man was slumped on a bench against one wall and a chain ran from his ankle to a ring set in the floor.

“Are you…a
prisoner?
” said Sacharissa.

“Ahaha…”

“How long have you been down here?” She crept down.

“Years…”

“Years?”

“Got lots of years…” The man picked up a bottle and peered at it. “Now…Year of the Amending Camel…that was bloodigoodyear…and this one…Year of the Translated Rat…another bloodigoodyear…bloodigoodyears, the lot of them. Could do with a biscuit, though.”

Sacharissa’s knowledge of vintages extended just as far as knowing that Château Maison was a very popular wine. But people didn’t have to be chained up to drink wine, even the stuff from Ephebe that stuck the glass to the table.

She moved a little closer, and the light fell on the man’s face. It was locked in the grin of the seriously drunk, but it was very recognizable. She saw it every day, on coins.

“Er…Rocky,” she said. “Er…can you come down here a minute?”

The door burst open and the troll came down the steps at speed. Unfortunately, it was because he was rolling.

Mr. Tulip appeared at the top of the stairs, massaging his fist.

“It’s Mr. Sneezy!” said Charlie, raising a bottle. “The gang’s all here! Whoopee!”

Rocky got up, weaving slightly. Mr. Tulip strolled down the steps, ripping out the doorpost as he passed. The troll raised his fists in the classic boxer’s pose, but Mr. Tulip didn’t bother with niceties of that kind and hit him hard with the length of ancient wood. Rocky went over like a tree.

Only then did the huge man with the revolving eyes try to focus them on Sacharissa.

“Who the —ing hell are you?”

“Don’t you dare swear at me!” she said. “How dare you swear in the presence of a lady!”

This seemed to nonplus him.

“I don’t —ing swear!”

“Here, I’ve seen you before, you’re that—I
knew
you weren’t a proper virgin!” said Sacharissa triumphantly.

There was the click of a crossbow. Some tiny sounds carry well and have considerable stopping power.

“There are some thoughts too dreadful to think,” said the skinny man looking at her from the top of the steps and down the length of a pistol bow. “What are
you
doing here, lady?”

“And you were Brother Pin! You haven’t got any right here!
I’ve
got a key!” Some areas of Sacharissa’s mind that dealt with things like death and terror were signaling to be heard at this point, but, being part of Sacharissa, they were trying to do it in a ladylike way, and so she ignored them.

“A key?” said Brother Pin, advancing down the stairs. The bow stayed pointing at her. Even in his current state of mind, Mr. Pin knew how to aim. “Who’d give you a key?”

“Don’t you come near me! Don’t you
dare
come near me! If you come near me I’ll—I’ll write it down!”

“Yeah? Well, one thing I know is, words don’t hurt,” said Mr. Pin. “I’ve heard lots of—”

He stopped, and grimaced, and for a moment it looked as if he’d fall to his knees. He righted himself and focused on her again.

“
You
are coming with
us,
” he said. “An’ don’t say you’re going to scream, because we’re all alone here and I’ve…heard…lots…of…screams…”

Once again he seemed to run down, and again he recovered. Sacharissa stared in horror at the weaving crossbow. Those parts of her advocating silence as a survival aid had finally made themselves heard.

“What about these two?” said Mr. Tulip. “We’re scragging ’em now?”

“Chain them up and leave them.”

“But we
always
—”

“Leave them!”

“You sure you feel all right?” said Mr. Tulip.

“No! I don’t! Just leave them, okay? We haven’t got time!”

“We’ve got lots of—”

“I haven’t!” Mr. Pin strode up to Sacharissa. “Who gave you that key?”

“I’m not going to—”

“Do you want Mr. Tulip here to say goodbye to our drunken friends?” In his buzzing head, and with his shaky grasp of how things were supposed to work in a moral universe, Mr. Pin reckoned that this was all right. After all, their shadows would follow Mr. Tulip, not him…

“This house belongs to Lord de Worde and his son gave me the key!” said Sacharissa triumphantly. “There! He was the one you met at the newspaper!
Now
you know what you’ve got yourself into, eh?”

Mr. Pin stared at her.

Then he said, “I’m going to find out. Don’t run.
Really
don’t scream. Walk normally and everything—” He paused. “I was going to say it will be all right,” he said. “But that would be silly, wouldn’t it…”

It wasn’t fast, going through the streets with the crew. To them the world was a permanent theater, art gallery, music hall, restaurant, and spittoon, and in any case no member of the crew would dream of going anywhere in a straight line.

The poodle Trixiebell accompanied them, keeping as close to the center of the group as possible. Of Deep Bone there was no sign. William had offered to carry Wuffles, because in a way he felt he owned him. A hundred dollars worth of him, at least. It was a hundred dollars he hadn’t got but, well,
surely
tomorrow’s edition would pay for that. And anyone after the dog now surely wouldn’t try anything out here on the street, in broad daylight, especially since it was barely narrow daylight now. Clouds filled the sky like old eiderdowns, the fog that was descending was meeting the river mist coming up, and the light was draining out of everything.

He tried to think of the headline. He couldn’t quite get a grip on it yet. There was too much to say, and he wasn’t good at getting the huge complexities of the world into fewer than half a dozen words. Sacharissa was better at it, because she treated words as lumps of letters that could be hammered together any old how. Her best one had been on some tedious inter-Guild squabble and, in a single column, read: