The Truth (Discworld 25)

'I wish I was dead!' she sobbed.

'You should try it some time,' said Otto. 'Mr Goodmountain, take me to my body, please? It is around here somevhere.'

'Do you... should we... do you have to sew--' Goodmountain tried.

'No. Ve heal easily,' said Otto. 'Ah, zere it is. If you could just put me down by me, please? And turn round? Zis is a bit, you know, embarrassing? Like the making of zer vater?' Still wincing in the after-effects of the dark light, the dwarfs obeyed.

After a moment they heard: 'Okay, you can look now.'

Otto, all in one piece, was sitting up and dabbing at his neck with a handkerchief.

'Got to be a stake in zer heart as veil,' he said, as they stared. 'Zo... vot vas all zat about, please? Zer dvarf said to make a distraction--'

'We didn't know you used dark light!' snapped Goodmountain.

'Excuse me? All I had ready vas the land eels and you said it looked urgent! Vot did you expect me to do? I'm reformed*.'

'That's bad luck, that stuff!' said a dwarf William had come to know as Dozy.

'Oh yes? You zink? Veil, I'm zer vun who is going to have to have his collar laundered!' snapped Otto.

William did his best to comfort Sacharissa, who was still trembling.

'Who were they?' she said.

Tm... not sure, but they certainly wanted Lord Vetinari's dog...'

'I'm sure that she wasn't a proper virgin, you know!'

'Sister Jennifer certainly looked very odd,' was the most William was going to concede.

Sacharissa snorted. 'Oh, no, I was taught by worse than her at school,' she said. 'Sister Credenza could bite through a door... No, it was the language*. I'm sure "ing" is a bad word. She certainly used it like one. I mean, you could tell it was a bad word. And that priest, he had a knifeV Behind them Otto was in trouble.

'You use it to take pictures!' said Goodmountain.

'Vy, yes.'

Several of the dwarfs slapped their thighs, half turned away and did the usual little pantomime that people do to indicate that they just can't believe someone else could be so damn stupid.

'You know it is dangerous!' said Goodmountain.

'Mere superstition!' said Otto. 'All zat possibly happens is that a subject's own morphic signature aligns zer resons, or thing-particles, in phase-space according to zer Temporal Relevance Theory, creating zer effect of multiple directionless vindows vich intersect vith the illusion of zer present and create metaphoric images according to zer dictates of qvasi-historical extrapolation. You see? Nothing mysterious about it at all!'

'It certainly frightened off those people,' said William.

'It was the axes that did that,' said Goodmountain firmly.

'No, it was the feeling that the top of your head has been opened and icicles have been pounded into your brain,' said William.

Goodmountain blinked. 'Yeah, okay, that too,' he said, mopping his forehead. 'You've got a way with words, right enough...'

A shadow appeared in the doorway. Goodmountain grabbed his axe.

William groaned. It was Vimes. Worse, he was smiling, in a humourless predatory way.

'Ah, Mr de Worde,' he said, stepping inside. There are several thousand dogs stampeding through the city at the moment. This is an interesting fact, isn't it?'

He leaned against the wall and produced a cigar. 'Well, I say dogs,' he said, striking a match on Goodmountain's helmet. 'Mostly dogs, perhaps I should say. Some cats. More cats now, in fact, 'cos, hah, there's nothing like a, yes, a tidal wave of dogs, fighting and biting and howling, to sort of, how can I put it, give a city a certain... busyness. Especially underfoot, because - did I mention it? -they're very nervous dogs too. Oh, and did I mention cattle?' he went on, conversationally. 'You know how it is, market day and so on, people are driving the cows and, my goodness, around the corner comes a wall of wailing dogs... Oh, and I forgot about the sheep. And the chickens, although I imagine there's not much left of the chickens now