Snuff

There were no goblins behind the broken door, but a fire was smouldering fitfully, with a piece of blessedly unrecognizable meat on a spit above it. A man might think that a goblin had found a reason to leave his tea behind in a hurry. And talking of tea, there was a pot, which was to say a rusty tin can, bubbling in the embers of the fire. Vimes sniffed at it, and was surprised that it smelled of bergamot, and somehow the idea of a goblin drinking posh tea with his pinkie extended managed, temporarily, to overwhelm his incongruity functions. Well, it grew, didn’t it? And goblins probably got thirsty, didn’t they? Nothing to worry about. Although if he found a plate of delicate biscuits he would definitely have to sit down and rest.

He walked on, the light never failing, goblins never appearing. The cave complex certainly sloped downwards, and there were still signs of goblins everywhere, but of goblins themselves no sign, which in theory should be a good thing, given that generally the first sign of a goblin would be one landing on your head and trying to turn it into a bowling ball. And then there was a flash of colour in this drab subterranean landscape of greys and browns: it was a bunch of flowers, or what had been a bunch before it had been dropped. Vimes wasn’t an expert on flowers, and when he bought them for Sybil, at maritally advisable intervals, he generally stuck to a bunch of roses, or its seemingly acceptable equivalent, one single orchid. He was vaguely aware of the existence of other flowers, of course, which brightened up the place, to be sure, but he had never been one for the names.

There were no roses here, no orchids either. These flowers had been plucked from hedgerows and meadows and even included the scrawny plants that managed to hang on and flower in the wilderness up above. Someone had carried them. Someone had dropped them. Someone had been in a hurry. Vimes could read it in the flowers. They had fallen from somebody’s open hand, so that they spread back along their path like a comet tail. And then more than one person had trampled them underfoot, but probably not because they were chasing the aforesaid bouquet carrier, but by the look of it because they wanted to go the way that he or she had run, and even faster than he or she did.

There had been a stampede, in fact. Scared people running away. But running away from what?

‘You, Commander Vimes, you, the majesty of the law. See how I help you, commander?’ The familiarity of the voice annoyed him; it sounded too much like his own voice. ‘But I’m here because they wanted me to come!’ he said to the cave in general. ‘I wasn’t intending to fight anybody!’ And in his head his own voice told him, ‘Oh my little ragtag, rubbish people, who do not trust and are not trusted! Tread with care, Mister Policeman; the hated have no reason to love! Oh, the strange and secret people, last and worst, born of rubbish, hopeless, bereft of god. The best of luck to you, my brother … my brother in darkness … Do what you can for them, Mister Po-leess-maan.’

On Vimes’s wrist the sigil of the Summoning Dark glowed for a moment.

‘I’m not your brother!’ Vimes shouted. ‘I’m not a killer!’ The words echoed around the caves, but under them Vimes thought he felt something slithering away. Could something with no body slither? Gods damn the dwarfs and their subterranean folklore!

‘Are you, er, all right, sir?’ came the nervous voice of Feeney behind him. ‘Er, you were shouting, sir.’

‘I was just cussing because I banged my head on the ceiling, lad,’ Vimes lied. He had to deliver reassurance quickly before Feeney got so unnerved that he might try to make a break for the exit out of panic. ‘You’re doing very well, chief constable!’

‘Only, I don’t like the dark, sir, never have … Er, do you think anyone’ll worry if I have a wee up against the wall?’

‘I should go ahead if I was you, lad. I don’t think anything could make this place smell worse.’

Vimes heard some vague sounds behind him, and then Feeney said, in a damp little voice, ‘Er, nature has taken its course, sir. Sorry, sir.’

Vimes smiled to himself. ‘Don’t worry, lad, you won’t be the first copper to have to wring out his socks, and you won’t be the last, either. I remember the first time I had to arrest a troll. Big fellow, he was, a very nasty character. I was a bit damp around the socks that day, and I don’t mind admitting it. Think of it as a kind of baptism!’ Keep it jolly, he thought, make a joke of it. Don’t let him dwell on the fact that we’re walking into the scene of a crime that he can’t see. ‘Funny thing – that troll is now my best sergeant, and I’ve relied on him for my life quite a few times. That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we’ll never know.’