Terry Pratchett - Discworld 19 Feet Of Clay

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were two embers.

'Well? What do you want at this time of night?'

The golem handed him a slate, on which was written:

WE HEAR YOU WANT A GOLEM.

Of course, golems couldn't speak, could they?

'Hah. Want, yes. Afford, no. I've been asking around but it's wicked the

prices you're going for these days . . .'

The golem rubbed the words off the slate and wrote:

TO YOU, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

'You're for sale?'

NO.

The golem lurched aside. Another one stepped into the light.

It was also a golem, the man could see that. But it wasn't like the usual

lumpen clay things that you occasionally saw. This one gleamed like a

newly polished statue, perfect down to the detailing of the clothes. It re-

minded him of one of the old pictures of the city's kings, all haughty stance

and imperious haircut. In fact, it even had a small coronet moulded on to

its head.

'A hundred dollars?' the man said suspiciously. 'What's wrong with it?

Who's selling it?'

NOTHING IS WRONG. PERFECT IN ALL DETAIL. NINETY

DOLLARS.

'Sounds like someone wants to get rid of it in a hurry . . .'

GOLEM MUST WORK. GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.

'Yeah, right, but you hear stories . . . Going mad and making too many

things, and that.'

NOT MAD. EIGHTY DOLLARS.

'It looks . . . new,' said the man, tapping the gleaming chest. 'But no

one's making golems any more, that's what's keeping the price up beyond

the purse of the small business-' He stopped. 'Is someone making them

again?'

The man walked around the golem. A man can t sit by and watch his

company collapse under him because of unfair price cutting, I mean to say

...'

FORTY DOLLARS.

'Religion is all very well, but what do prophets know about profits, eh?

Hmm . . .' He looked up at the shapeless golem in the shadows. 'Was that

"thirty dollars" I just saw you write?'

YES.

'I've always liked dealing wholesale. Wait one moment.' He went back

inside and returned with a handful of coins. 'Will you be selling any to

them other bastards?'

NO.

'Good. Tell your boss it's a pleasure to do business with him. Get along

inside, Sunny Jim.'

The white golem walked into the factory. The man, glancing from side

to side, trotted in after it and shut the door.

Deeper shadows moved in the dark. There was a faint hissing. Then,

rocking slightly, the big heavy shapes moved away.

Shortly afterwards, and around the corner, a beggar holding out a hope-

ful hand for alms was amazed to find himself suddenly richer by a whole

thirty dollars.[1]

The Discworld turned against the glittering backdrop of space, spinning

very gently on the backs of the four giant elephants that perched on the

shell of Great A'Tuin the star turtle. Continents drifted slowly past, topped

by weather systems that themselves turned gently against the flow, like

waltzers spinning counter to the whirl of the dance. A billion tons of geog-

raphy rolled slowly through the sky.

People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not

only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They

don't look quite like real science,[2] But geography is only physics slowed

with fumes and smoke from the magical quarter and the workshops of the

alchemists until it seemed to have a thick, choking life of its own.

And time moved on.

Autumn fog pressed itself against the midnight window-panes.

Blood ran in a trickle across the pages of a rare volume of religious es-

says, which had been torn in half.

There had been no need for that, thought Father Tubelcek.

A further thought suggested that there had been no need to hit him ei-

ther. But Father Tubelcek had never been very concerned about that sort of

thing. People healed, books didn't. He reached out shakily and tried to

gather up the pages, but slumped back again.

The room was spinning.

The door swung open. Heavy footsteps creaked across the floor - one

footstep at least, and one dragging noise.

Step. Drag. Step. Drag.

Father Tubelcek tried to focus.' You?' he croaked.

Nod.

'Pick ... up the ... books.'

The old priest watched as the books were retrieved and piled carefully

with fingers not well suited to the task.

The newcomer took a quill pen from the debris, carefully wrote some-

thing on a scrap of paper, then rolled it up and placed it delicately between

Father Tubelcek's lips.

The dying priest tried to smile.

'We don't work like that,' he mumbled, the little cylinder wobbling like

a last cigarette. 'We . . . make . . . our . . . own . . . w . . .'

The kneeling figure watched him for a while and then, taking great care,

leaned forward slowly and closed his eyes.

Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Guard, frowned at

himself in the mirror and began to shave.

shaved himself in his life. He had a man for it. Vimes had protested that

he'd spent too many years trudging the night-time streets to be happy

about anyone else wielding a blade anywhere near his neck, but the real

reason, the unspoken reason, was that he hated the very idea of the world

being divided into the shaved and the shavers. Or those who wore the

shiny boots and those who cleaned the mud off them. Every time he saw

Willikins the butler fold his, Vimes's, clothes, he suppressed a terrible urge

to kick the butler's shiny backside as an affront to the dignity of man. The

razor moved calmly over the stubble of the night.

Yesterday there had been some official dinner. He couldn't recall now

what it had been for. He seemed to spend his whole life at the things. Arch,

giggling women and braying young men who'd been at the back of the line

when the chins were handed out. And, as usual, he'd come back through

the fog-bound city in a filthy temper with himself. He'd noticed a light

under the kitchen door and heard conversation and laughter, and had gone

in. Willikins was there, with the old man who stoked the boiler, and the

head gardener, and the boy who cleaned the spoons and lit the fires. They

were playing cards. There were bottles of beer on the table.

He'd pulled up a chair, and cracked a few jokes and asked to be dealt in.

They'd been . . . welcoming. In a way. But as the game progressed Vimes

had been aware of the universe crystallizing around him. It was like be-

coming a cogwheel in a glass clock. There was no laughter. They'd called

him 'sir' and kept clearing their throats. Everything was very . . . careful.

Finally he'd mumbled an excuse and stumbled out. Halfway along the

passage he'd thought he'd heard a comment followed by ... well, maybe it

was only a chuckle. But it might have been a snigger.

The razor carefully circumnavigated the nose.

Hah. A couple of years ago a man like Willikins would have allowed

him into the kitchen only on sufferance. And would have made him take

his boots off.

he was on a pitch dark night just by the feel of the cobbles. Ah, well . . .

There was something mildly strange about Sam Vimes's shaving mirror.

It was slightly convex, so that it reflected more of the room than a flat mir-

ror would do, and it gave a very good view of the outbuildings and gar-

dens beyond the window.

Hmm. Going thin on top. Definitely a receding scalp there. Less hair to

comb but, on the other hand, more face to wash . . . There was a flicker in

the glass. He moved sideways and ducked. The mirror smashed.

There was the sound of feet somewhere beyond the broken window,

and then a crash and a scream. Vimes straightened up. He fished the larg-

est piece of mirror out of the shaving bowl and propped it up on the black

crossbow bolt that had buried itself in the wall. He finished shaving.

Then he rang the bell for the butler. Willikins materialized. 'Sir?'

Vimes rinsed the razor. 'Get the boy to nip along to the glazier, will

you?'

The butler's eyes flickered to the window and then to the shattered mir-

ror. 'Yes, sir. And the bill to go to the Assassins' Guild again, sir?'

'With my compliments. And while he's out he's to call in at that shop in

Five And Seven Yard and get me another shaving mirror. The dwarf there

knows the kind I like.'

'Yes, sir. And I shall fetch a dustpan and brush directly, sir. Shall I in-

form her ladyship of this eventuality, sir?'

'No. She always says it's my fault for encouraging them.'

'Very good, sir,' said Willikins.

He dematerialized.

Sam Vimes dried himself off and went downstairs to the morning-room,

where he opened the cabinet and took out the new crossbow Sybil had

given to him as a wedding present. Sam Vimes was used to the old guard

crossbows, which had a nasty habit of firing backwards in a tight corner,

but this was a Burleigh and Stronginthearm made-to-measure job with the

oiled walnut stock. There was none finer, it was said.

The figure twisted frantically. By an amazing feat of muscle control it

had managed to catch a foot around a beam as it fell, but it couldn't quite

pull itself up. Dropping was not to be thought of. A dozen baby dragons

were underneath it, jumping up and down excitedly and flaming.

'Er . . . good morning,' said the hanging figure.

Turned out nice again,' said Vimes, picking up a bucket of coal. 'Al-

though the fog will be back later, I expect.'

He took a small nugget and tossed it to the dragons. They squabbled for

it.

Vimes gripped another lump. The young dragon that had caught the

coal already had a distinctly longer and hotter flame.

'I suppose,' said the young man, 'that I could not prevail upon you to let

me down?'

Another dragon caught some coal and belched a fireball. The young

man swung desperately to avoid it.

'Guess,' said Vimes.

'I suspect, on reflection, that it was foolish of me to choose the roof,' said

the assassin.

'Probably,' said Vimes. He'd spent several hours a few weeks ago saw-

ing through joists and carefully balancing the roof tiles.

'I should have dropped off the wall and used the shrubbery.'

'Possibly,' said Vimes. He'd set a bear-trap in the shrubbery.

He took some more coal. 'I suppose you wouldn't tell me who hired

you?'

Tm afraid not, sir. You know the rules.'

Vimes nodded gravely. 'We had Lady Selachii's son up before the Patri-

cian last week,' said Vimes. 'Now, there's a lad who needs to learn that "no"

doesn't mean "yes, please".'

'Could be, sir.'

'And then there was that business with Lord Rust's boy. You can't shoot

servants for putting your shoes the wrong way round, you know. It's too

and twisted, but the Assassins Guild had honour of a sort. How much was

I worth?'

'Twenty thousand, sir.' 'It should be higher,' said Vimes. 'I agree.' If the

assassin got back to the guild it would be, Vimes thought. Assassins valued

their own lives quite highly.

'Let me see now,' said Vimes, examining the end of his cigar. 'Guild

takes fifty per cent. That leaves ten thousand dollars.'

The assassin seemed to consider this, and then reached up to his belt

and tossed a bag rather clumsily towards Vimes, who caught it.

Vimes picked up his crossbow. 'It seems to me,' he said, 'that if a man

were to be let go he might well make it to the door with no more than su-

perficial burns. If he were fast. How fast are you?'

There was no answer.

'Of course, he'd have to be desperate,' said Vimes, wedging the cross-

bow on the feed table and taking a piece of cord out of his pocket. He

lashed the cord to a nail and fastened the other end to the crossbow's

string.

Then, standing carefully to one side, he eased the trigger.

The string moved very slightly.

The assassin, watching him upside down, seemed to have stopped

breathing.

Vimes puffed at his cigar until the end was an inferno. Then he took it

out of his mouth and leaned it against the restraining cord so that it would

have just a fraction of an inch to burn before the string began to smoulder.

'I'll leave the door unlocked,' he said. 'I've never been an unreasonable

man. I shall watch your career with interest.'

He tossed the rest of the coals to the dragons, and stepped outside.

It looked like being another eventful day in Ankh-Morpork, and it had

only just begun.

As Vimes reached the house he heard a whoosh, a click, and the sound

of someone running very fast towards the ornamental lake. He smiled.

Vimes sighed. Thank you. There s a man in the ornamental lake. Fish

him out and give him a cup of tea, will you? Promising lad, I thought.'

'Certainly, sir.'

The chair. Oh, yes, the chair. It had been a wedding present from the

Patrician. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes loved walking the streets of the

city, and so it was very typical of the man that he presented him with

something that did not allow him to do so.

It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.

Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Per-

haps he did have to use the damn thing, but . . .

He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair's

door. 'Get in,' he commanded.

'But sir-'

'It's a nice morning,' said Vimes, taking off his coat again. 'I'll drive my-

self.'

'Dearest Mumm & Dad-'

Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He

had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy cafe. Then he wrote his

letter home. Letters home always gave him some trouble. Letters from his

parents were always interesting, being full of mining statistics and exciting

news about new shafts and promising seams. All he had to write about

were murders and such things as that.

He chewed the end of his pencil for a moment.

Well, it has been an intresting week again [he wrote]. I am running

around like a flye with a blue bottom and No Mistake! We are opening

another Watch House at Chittling Street which is handy for the Shades, so

now we have no Less than 4 including Dolly Sisters and Long Wall, and I

am the only Captain so I am around at all hours. Persnally I sometimes

mifs the cameraderry of the old days when it was just me and Nobby and

Sergeant Colon but this is the Century of the Fruitbat. Sergeant Colon is

them.

Carrot paused. It said a lot about Captain Carrot that, even after almost

two years in Ankh-Morpork, he was still uneasy about 'd*mned'.

Commander Vimes says you have to have secret policemen because

there are secret crimes . . .

Carrot paused again. He loved his uniform. He didn't have any other

clothes. The idea of Watchmen in disguise was . . . well, it was unthinkable.

It was like those pirates who sailed under false colours. It was like spies.

However, he went on dutifully:

. . . and Commander Vimes knows what he is talking about I am sure.

He says it's not like old fashioned police work which was catching the poor

devils too stupid to run away!! Anyhow it all means a lot more work and

new faces in the Watch.

While he waited for a new sentence to form, Carrot took a sausage from

his plate and lowered it. There was another unk. The waiter bustled up.

'Another helping, Mr Carrot? On the house.' Every restaurant and eat-

ery in Ankh-Morpork offered free food to Carrot, in the certain and happy

knowledge that he would always insist on paying. 'No, indeed, that was

very good. Here we are . . . twenty pence and keep the change,' said Carrot.

'How's your young lady? Haven't seen her today.'

'Angua? Oh, she's . . . around and about, you know. I shall definitely tell

her you asked after her, though.'

The dwarf nodded happily, and bustled off. Carrot wrote another few

dutiful lines and then said, very softly, 'Is that horse and cart still outside

Ironcrust's bakery?'

There was a whine from under the table. 'Really? That's odd. All the de-

liveries were over hours ago and the flour and grit doesn't usually arrive

until the afternoon. Driver still sitting there?' Something barked, quietly.

'And that looks quite a good horse for a delivery cart. And, you know,

normally you'd expect the driver to put a nosebag on. And it's the last

Thursday in the month. Which is payday at Ironcrust's.' Carrot laid down

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摘要：

weretwoembers.'Well?Whatdoyouwantatthistimeofnight?'Thegolemhandedhimaslate,onwhichwaswritten:WEHEARYOUWANTAGOLEM.Ofcourse,golemscouldn'tspeak,couldthey?'Hah.Want,yes.Afford,no.I'vebeenaskingaroundbutit'swickedthepricesyou'regoingforthesedays...'Thegolemrubbedthewordsofftheslateandwrote:TOYOU,ONEHUN...

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Terry Pratchett - Discworld 19 Feet Of Clay

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