He looked at the various lumps and shards that were all that remained of Dorfl, and rubbed the lichen on his chin.
'You got most of the bits,' he said, professionalism edging resentment aside for a moment. 'I could glue him together wit' kiln cement. Dat'd do the trick if we bakes him overnight. Lessee... I reckon I got some over dere...'
Detritus blinked at his finger, which was still white with the dust, and sidled over to Carrot. 'Did I just lick dis?' he said.
'Er, yes,' said Carrot.
'T'ank goodness for dat,' said Detritus, blinking furiously, d hate to believe dis room was really full of giant hairy spide... weeble weeble sclup ...
He hit the floor, but happily.
'Even if I do it you can't make it come alive again,' muttered Igneous, returning to his bench. 'You won't find a priest who's goin' to write der words for in der head, not again.'
'He'll make up his own words,' said Carrot.
'And who's going to watch the oven?' said Igneous. 'It's gonna take 'til breakfast at least...
'I wasn't planning on doing anything for the rest of tonight,' said Carrot, taking off his helmet.
Vimes awoke around four o'clock. He'd gone to sleep at his desk. He hadn't meant to, but his body had just shut down.
It wasn't the first time he'd opened bleary eyes there. But at least he wasn't lying in anything sticky.
He focused on the report he'd half-written. His notebook was beside it, page after page of laborious scrawl to remind him that he was trying to understand a complex world by means of his simple mind.
He yawned, and looked out at the shank of the night.
He didn't have any evidence. No real evidence at all. He'd had an interview with an almost incoherent Corporal Nobbs, who hadn't really seen anything. He had nothing that wouldn't burn away like the fog in the morning. All he'd got were a few suspicions and a lot of coincidences, leaning against one another like a house of cards with no card on the bottom.
He peered at his notebook.
Someone seemed to have been working hard. Oh, yes. It had been him.
The events of last night jangled in his head. Why'd he written all this stuff about a coat of arms?
Oh, yes...
Yes!
Ten minutes later he was pushing open the door of the pottery. Warmth spilled out into the clammy air.
He found Carrot and Detritus asleep on the floor on either side of the kiln. Damn. He needed someone he could trust, but he hadn't the heart to wake them. He'd pushed everyone very hard the last few days ...
Something tapped on the door of the kiln.
Then the handle started to turn by itself.
The door opened as far as it could go and something half-slid and half-fell on to the floor.
Vimes still wasn't properly awake. Exhaustion and the importunate ghosts of adrenalin sizzled around the edges of his consciousness, but he saw the burning man unfold himself and stand upright.
His red-hot body gave little pings as it began to cool. Where it stood, the floor charred and smoked.
The golem raised his head and looked around.
'You!' said Vimes, pointing an unsteady finger. 'Come with me!'
'Yes,'said Dorfl.