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just like anyone else, the spell is broken.
Hamcrusher's dwarfs don't believe in the City Watch? That could turn out to be a
problem. Maybe bringing a troll along was provocative, but Detritus was a citizen,
gods damn it, just like everyone else. If you-
'Duddle-dum-duddle-dum-duddle-dum!'
Ah, yes. No matter how bad things were, there was always room for them to get just
that little bit worse
He pulled the smart brown box out of his pocket and flipped it open. The pointy-eared
face of a small green imp stared up at him with that wistful, hopeless smile which, in
its various incarnations, he'd come to know and dread.
'Good Morning, Insert Name Here! I am the Dis-Organizer Mark Five, "The
Gooseberry"TM. How may I-' it began, speaking fast in order to get as much said as
possible before the inevitable interruption.
'I swear I switched you off,' said Vimes.
'You threatened me with a hammer,' said the imp accusingly, and rattled the tiny
bars. 'He threatens state-of-the-Craft technomancy with a hammer, everybody!' it
shouted. 'He doesn't even fill in the registration card! That's why I have to call him
Insert Nam-'
'I thought you'd got rid of that thing, sir,' said Angua as Vimes snapped the lid shut. 'I
thought it had had an accident.'
'Hah!' said a muffled voice from the box.
'Sybil always gets me a new one,' said Vimes, making a face. 'A better one. But I
know this one was turned off.'
The box's lid thrust upwards.
'I wake up for alarms!' the imp shrieked. 'Ten colon Forty-Five Sit for Damn Portrait!'
Vimes groaned. The portrait with Sir Joshua. He'd get into trouble for this. He'd
already missed two sittings. But this dwarf thing was important.
'I won't be able to make it,' he mumbled.
'Then would you like to engage the handy-to-use Bluenose tm Integrated Messenger
Service?'
'What does that do?' said Vimes with deep suspicion. The succession of Dis-
Organizers he had owned had proved quite successful at very nearly sorting out all
the problems that stemmed from owning them in the first place.
'Er, basically, it means me running with a message to the nearest clacks tower really
fast,' said the imp hopefully.
'And do you come back?' said Vimes, hope also rising.
'Absolutely!'
'Thank you, no,' said Vimes.
'How about a game of Splong!TM, specially devised for the Mark Five?' pleaded the
imp. 'I have the bats right here. No? Perhaps you would prefer the ever-popular
Guess My Weight in Pigs? Or I could whistle one of your favourite tunes? My iHUM
tm function enables me to remember up to one thousand five hundred of your all-
time-'
'You could try learning to use it, sir,' said Angua, as Vimes once again shut the lid on
the protesting voice.
'Did use one,' said Vimes.
'Yup. As a doorstop,' rumbled Detritus, behind him.
'I'm just not at home with technomancy, all right?' said Vimes. 'End of discussion.
Haddock, nip along to Moon Pond Lane, will you? Present my apologies to Lady
Sybil, who will be at Sir Joshua's studio there. Tell her I'm very sorry, but this has
come up and it needs careful handling.'
Well, it does, he thought, as they headed onward. It probably needs more careful
handling than I'm going to give it. Well, to hell with that. It comes to something if you
have to tread carefully even to find out if there's been a murder.
Treacle Street was just the kind of area the dwarfs colonized - on the edge of the less
pleasant parts of town, but not all the way there. You tended to notice the dwarf
outposts: a patchwork of windows testified to a two-storey house having been turned
into a threestorey house while remaining exactly the same height; an excess of small
ponies pulling small carts; and, of course, all the really short people wearing beards
and helmets was a definite clue.
Dwarfs dug down, too. It was a dwarf thing. Up here, far from the river, they could
probably get to sub-basement level without being up to their necks in water.
There were a lot of them out and about this morning. They weren't particularly angry,
insofar as Vimes could tell when the available area of expression between eyebrows
and moustache was a few square inches, but it wasn't usual to see dwarfs just
standing around. They tended to be somewhere working hard, usually for one
another. No, they weren't angry, but they were worried. You didn't need to see faces
to sense that. Dwarfs as a whole weren't happy about newspapers, regarding such
news as a lover of fine grapes would regard raisins. They got their news from other
dwarfs, to ensure that it was new and fresh and full of personality, and no doubt it
grew all kinds of extras in the telling. This crowd was waiting uncertainly for news that
it was going to become a riot.
For now, the crowd parted to let them through. The presence of Detritus caused a
wake of muttering, which the troll cleverly decided not to hear.
'Feel that?' said Angua, as they walked up the street. 'Through your feet?'
'I don't have your senses, sergeant,' said Vimes.
'It's a constant thud, thud, underground,' said Angua. 'I can feel the street shaking. I
think it's a pump.'
'Pumping out more cellars, maybe?' said Vimes. Sounds like a big undertaking. How
far down could they go? he wondered. AnkhMorpork is mostly built on Ankh-Morpork,
after all. There's been a city here since for ever.
It wasn't just a random crowd, when you looked closely. It was also a queue, along
one side of the street, moving very slowly towards a side door. They were waiting to
see the grags. Please come and say the death words over my father Please advise
me on the sale of my shop Please guide me in my business I am a long way from the
bones of my grandfathers, please help me stay a dwarf...
This was not the time to be d'rkza. Strictly speaking, most Ankh-Morpork dwarfs were
d'rkza; it meant something like 'not really a dwarf' They didn't live deep underground
and come out only at night, they didn't mine metal, they let their daughters show at
least a few indications of femininity, they tended to be a little slipshod when it came to
some of the ceremonies. But the whiff of Koom Valley was in the air and this was no
time to be mostly a dwarf. So you paid attention to the grags. They kept you on the
straight seam.
And, until now, that had been fine by Vimes. Up until now, though, the grags in the
city had stopped short of advocating murder.
He liked dwarfs. They made reliable officers, and tended to be naturally law-abiding,
at least in the absence of alcohol. But they were all watching him. He could feel the
pressure of their gaze.
Standing around watching people was, of course, Ankh-Morpork's leading industry.
The place was a net exporter of penetrating stares. But these were the wrong kind.
The street felt not exactly hostile, but alien. And yet it was an Ankh-Morpork street.
How could he be a stranger here?
Maybe I shouldn't have brought a troll, he thought. But where does that lead? Pick
your own copper from a chart?
Two dwarfs were on guard outside Hamcrusher's house. They were more heavily
armed than the average dwarf, insofar as that was possible, but it was probably the
black leather sashes they wore that were doing the trick of keeping the mood
subdued. These declared to those who recognized them that they were working for
deep-down dwarfs and, as such, partook a little of the magic, mana, awe or fear that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]