The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

"Nor do we have to show the Scone to any prying troublemaker! It is a sacred trust and well guarded!"

Vimes kept quiet. Dee was better than Done It Duncan.

"Every person leaving the Scone Cave is carefully watched! The Scone cannot be removed! It is perfectly safe!" Dee was shouting now.

"Ah, I understand," said Vimes quietly.

"Good!"

"So... you haven"t found it yet, then."

Dee opened his mouth, shut it again, and then slumped back in his seat. "I think, your grace, that you had better - "

The door at the other end of the room rolled back. Another dwarf, cone-shaped in his robes, stamped out, stopped, glared around him, went back through the door again, shouted some afterthoughts to whoever was beyond, and then made to head out of the room. He was brought up short when he almost walked into Vimes.

The dwarf tilted its head to look up at him. There was no real face there, just the suggestion of the glint of angry eyes between the leather flaps.

"Arnak-Morporak?"

"Yes."

Vimes didn"t understand the words that followed, but the nasty tone was unmistakable. The important thing was to keep smiling. That was the diplomatic way.

"Why, thank you," he said. "And may I say it - "

There was a grunt from the dwarf. He"d seen Cheery.

"Ha"ak!" he shouted.

Vimes heard a gasp. There were other dwarfs clustered around the doorway. Then he glanced down at Cheery. Her eyes were shut. She was trembling.

"Who is this dwarf?" he said to Dee.

"This is Albrecht Albrechtson," said the Ideas Taster.

"The runner-up?"

"Yes," said Dee hoarsely.

"Then can you tell the creature that if he uses that word again in the presence of myself or any of my staff there will be, as we diplomats say, repercussions. Wrap that up in diplomacy and give it to him, will you?"

The corners of Vimes"s ears picked up a suggestion that not every dwarf listening was ignorant of the language. A couple of dwarfs were already heading purposefully towards them.

Dee babbled a stream of hysterical dwarfish, just as the other dwarfs caught up with the gaping Albrecht and led him quietly but firmly away, but not before one of them had whispered something to the Ideas Taster.

"The, er, the King wishes to see you," he mumbled.

Vimes looked towards the doorway. More dwarfs were hurrying through it now. Some of them were dressed in what Vimes thought of as "normal" dwarf clothing, others in the heavy black leathers of the deep-down clans. All of them glared at him as they went past.

Then there was just empty floor, all the way to the door.

"Do you come too?" he said.

"Not unless he asks for me," said Dee. "I wish you luck, your monitorship."

Beyond the door was a room of bookshelves, stretching up, stretching away. Here and there a candle merely changed the density of the darkness. There were lots of them, though, punctuating the distance. Vimes wondered how big this room must be

"In here is a record of every marriage, every birth, every death, every movement of a dwarf from one mine to another, the succession of the king of each mine, every dwarf"s progress through k"zakra, mining claims, the history of famous axes... and other matters of note," said a voice behind him. "And perhaps most importantly, every decision made under dwarf law for fifteen hundred years is written down in this room, look you."