The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

A number of dwarfs read passages from ancient scrolls. There were what sounded like excerpts from the Koboldean Saga, and Vimes wondered desperately if they were in for another opera, but they were over after a mere hour. There were more readings from different dwarfs. At one point the King, who had been standing alone in the centre of a circle of candlelight, was presented with a leather bag, a small mining axe and a ruby. Vimes didn"t catch the meaning of any of this, but by the sounds it was clear that each item was of huge and satisfying significance to the thousands who were standing behind him. Thousands? No, there must be tens of thousands, he thought. The bowl of the cavern was full of tier upon tier of dwarfs. Maybe a hundred thousand...

... and he was in the front row. No one had said anything. The four of them had simply been led there and left, although the murmurings suggested that the presence of Detritus was causing considerable attention. Senior, long-bearded and richly clothed dwarfs were all around them.

Someone was being taught something. Vimes wondered who the lesson was directed at.

Finally, the Scone was brought in, small and dull and yet carried by twenty-four dwarfs on a large bier. It was laid, reverentially, on a stool.

He could sense the change in the air of the huge cavern, and once again he thought: there"s no magic, you poor devils, there"s no history. I"ll bet my wages the damn thing was moulded with rubber from a vat that had last been used in the preparation of Sonky"s Eversure Dependables, and there"s your holy relic for you...

There were more readings, much shorter this time.

Then the dwarfs who had been participating in the endless and baffling hours withdrew from the centre of the cavern, leaving the King looking as small and alone as the Scone itself.

He stared around him and, although it was surely impossible for him to have seen Vimes among the thousands in the gloom, it did seem that his gaze rested on the Ankh-Morpork party for a fraction of a second.

The King sat down.

A sigh began. It grew louder and louder, a hurricane made up of the breath of a nation. It echoed back and forth among the rocks until it drowned out all other sounds.

Vimes had half expected the Scone to explode, or crumble, or flash red-hot. Which was stupid, said a dwindling part of himself - it was a fake, a nonsense, something made in Ankh-Morpork for money, something that had already cost lives. It was not, it could not be real.

But in the roaring air he knew that it was, for all who needed to believe, and in a belief so strong that truth was not the same as fact... he knew that for now, and yesterday, and tomorrow, both the thing, and the whole of the thing.

Angua noticed that Carrot was walking better even as they reached the forest below the falls, and the shovel over his shoulder hardly burdened him at all.

There were wolf prints all over the snow.

"They won"t have stayed," she said, as they walked between the trees. "They felt things keenly when he died but... wolves look to the future. They don"t try to remember things."

"They"re lucky," said Carrot.

"They"re realistic. It"s just that the future contains the next meal and the next danger. Is your arm all right?"

"It feels as good as new."

They found the freezing mass of fur lying at the water"s edge. Carrot pulled it out of the water, scraped off the snow higher up the shingle, and started to dig.

After a while he took off his shirt. The bruises were already fading.

Angua sat and looked over the water, listening to the thud of the spade and the occasional grunt when Carrot hit a tree root. Then she heard the soft slither of something being pulled over snow, a pause, and then the sound of sand and stones being shovelled into a hole.

"Do you want to say a few words?" said Carrot.

"You heard the howl last night. That"s how wolves do it," said Angua, still looking out across the water. "There aren"t any other words."

"Perhaps just a moment"s silence, then - "

She spun round. "Carrot! Don"t you remember last night? Didn"t you wonder what I might become? Didn"t you worry about the future?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

"It hasn"t happened yet. Shall we get back? It"ll be dark soon."

"And tomorrow?"

"I"d like you to come back to Ankh-Morpork."