The tunnel was better built here than the sections nearer the well. And there at the end of it was a pale light and Angua, crouched by one of the big round dwarf doors. Sally paid her no attention. She barely glanced at the dwarf slumped with his back against the bottom of the door.
Instead, she stared at the symbol scrawled large on the metal. It was big and crude and might be a round, staring eye with a tail, and it gleamed with the greeny-white glow of vurms.
"He wrote it in his blood," said Angua, without looking up. "They left him for dead but he was only dying, you see. He managed to make it to here, but the killers had shut the door. He scratched at it - smell here - and he"s worn away his fingernails. Then he made that sign in his own warm blood and sat here, holding the wound shut, watching the vurms turn up. I"d say he"s been dead for eighteen hours or so. Hmm?"
"I think we should get out of here right now," said Sally, backing away. "Do you know what that sign means?"
"I know it"s mine-sign, that"s all. Do you know what it means?"
"No, but I know it"s one of the really bad ones. It"s not good seeing it here. What"re you doing with that body?" Sally backed away further.
"Trying to find out who he was," said Angua, searching the dwarf"s clothing. "It"s the sort of thing we do in the Watch. We don"t stand around getting worried about drawings on the wall. What"s the problem?"
"Right now?" said the vampire. "He"s ... oozing a bit. .
"If I can stand it, so can you. You see a lot of blood in this job. Don"t attempt to drink it, that"s my advice," said Angua, still rummaging. "Ah ... he"s got a rune necklace. And" - she pulled a hand out of the dead dwarf"s jerkin -"can"t make this out very well, but I can smell ink so it may be a letter. Okay. Let"s get out of here." She looked round at Sally. "Did you hear me?"
"The sign was written by someone dying," said Sally, still keeping her distance.
"Well?"
"Then it"s probably a curse."
"So? We didn"t kill him," said Angua, getting to her feet with some difficulty.
They looked down at the liquid mud now rising to their knees.
"Do you think it cares?" said Sally, matter of factly.
"No, but I think there may be another way out in that last turning we passed," said Angua, looking back along the tunnel.
She pointed. Scuttling along with blind determination, a line of vurms marched across the dripping roof almost as fast as the mud flowed down below. They were heading into the side tunnel in a glowing stream.
Sally shrugged. "It"s worth a try, yes?"
They left, and the sound of their splashing soon died away. Slowly the mud rose, rustling in the gloom. The trail of vurms
gradually disappeared overhead. The vurms that made the sign
remained, though, because such a feast as this was worth dying for. Their glow winked out, one insect at a time.
The darkness beneath the world caressed the sign, which flamed
red and died.
Darkness remained.
On this day in 1802 the painter Methodia Rascal tried putting the thing under a heap of old sacks, in case it woke up the Chicken, and finished the last troll, using his smallest brush to paint the eyeballs.
It was five a.m. Rain rustled out of the sky, not hard, but with a gentle persistence.
In Sator Square, and in the Plaza of Broken Moons, it hissed on the white ash of the bonfires, occasionally exposing the orange glow, which would briefly sizzle and spit.
A family of gnolls were sniffing around, each one dragging his or her little cart. A few officers were keeping an eye on them. Gnolls weren"t choosy about what they collected, provided it didn"t actually struggle, and even then there were rumours. But they were tolerated. Nothing cleaned up the place like a gnoll.
From here, they looked like little trolls, each with a huge compost heap on its back. That represented everything it owned, and mostly what it owned was rotten.
Sam Vimes winced at the pain in his side. Just his luck. Two coppers injured in the entire damn affair, and he had to be one of them? Igor had done his best, but broken ribs were broken ribs and it"d be a week or two before the suspicious green ointment made much difference.