It was six minutes to six.
"Ob oggle oog soggle!"
It was a very little, watery sound, and came from somewhere in Vimes"s trousers. After a few moments, enough time to recollect that he had both hands and trousers, he reached down and with a strug gle freed the Gooseberry from his pocket. The case was battered and the imp, when Vimes had got the flap open, was quite pale. "Ob ogle soggle!"
Vimes stared at it. It was a talking box. It meant something. "Woggle soggle lob!"
Slowly, Vimes tipped the box up. Water poured out of it.
"You weren"t listening! I was shouting and you weren"t listening!"
the imp whined. "It"s five minutes to six! Read to Young Sam!" Vimes dropped the protesting box on his chest and stared up at the pale stars.
"Mus" read to Young Sam," he murmured, and shut his eyes. They snapped open again. "Got t" read to Young Sam!"
The stars were moving. It wasn"t the sky! How could it be the sky?
This was a bloody cave, wasn"t it?
He rolled over and got to his feet in one movement. There were more stars now, drifting along the walls. The vurms were moving with a purpose. Overhead they had become a glowing river.
Although they were flickering a little, the lights were also coming back on in Vimes"s head. He peered into what was now no longer blackness but merely gloom, and gloom was like daylight after the darkness that had gone before.
"Got to read to Young Sam. .: he whispered, to a cavern of giant stalactites and stalagmites, all gleaming with water, "... to read to Young Sam..."
Stumbling and sliding through shallow pools, running across the occasional patch of white sand, Vimes followed the lights.
Sybil tried not to look at the worried faces of her host and hostess as she crossed their hall. The minute hand on the grandfather clock was nearly on the 12, and trembling.
She threw open the front door. There was no Sam there, and no one galloping down the road.
The clock struck the hour. She heard someone step quietly beside her.
"Would you like me to read to the young man, madam?" said Willikins. "Perhaps a man"s voice would-"
"No, I"ll go up," said Sybil quietly. "You wait here for my husband. He won"t be long."
"Yes, madam."
"He"ll probably be quite rushed."
"I shall usher him up without delay, madam." "He will be here, you know!"
"Yes, madam."
"He will walk through walls!"
Sybil climbed the stairs as the chimes ended. The clock was a wrong clock. Of course it was!
Young Sam had been installed in the old nursery of the house, a rather sombre place full of greys and browns. There was a truly frightening rocking-horse, all teeth and mad glass eyes.
The boy was standing up in his cot. He was smiling, but it faded into puzzlement as Sybil pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.
"Daddy has asked Mummy to read to you tonight, Sam," she announced brightly. "Won"t that be fun!"
Her heart did not sink. It could not. It was already as low as any heart could go. But it curled up and whimpered as she watched the little boy stare at her, at the door, at her again, and then throw back his head and scream.
Vimes, half limping and half running, tripped and fell into a shallow pool. He found he"d stumbled over a dwarf. A dead one. Very dead. So dead, in fact, that the dripping water had built a small stalagmite on him, and with a film of milky stone had cemented him to the rock against which he sat.