Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

Lupine Wonse scurried along the ruined corridors of the palace, The Summoning of Dragons under one arm,

the glittering royal sword grasped uncertainly in one hand.

He halted, panting, in a doorway.

Not a lot of his mind was currently in a state sane enough to have proper thoughts, but the small part that was still in business kept insisting that it couldn't have seen what it had seen or heard what it had heard.

Someone was following him.

And he'd seen Vetinari walking through the palace. He knew the man was securely put away. The lock was completely unpickable. He remembered the Patrician being absolutely insistent that it be an unpickable lock when it was installed.

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-defence. 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.