"Good. They"re staying in a house not ten miles away," said Vimes.
"Sergeant Littlebottom?"
"Sir?" said Cheery.
"Please take Lance-Constable Humpeding with you and go down to the town, will you? Tell Lady Sybil I"m fine," Vimes added, not taking his eyes off the King. "Off you go, right now."
As they hurried away the King smiled, and looked around the cavern. He sighed. "Well, I cannot afford a row with Ankh-Morpork, not at the moment. Very well, commander. Do you know how to make it speak?"
"No. Don"t you?" This is a game, right? Vimes thought. A king wouldn"t take this kind of gobbyness from anyone, especially when he outnumbered them ten to one. A row? You"d just have to say we got caught in a storm in Koom Valley, which is such a treacherous place, as everyone agrees. He will be greatly missed and we will certainly hand over his body if it ever turns up ... But you"re not going to try that, are you, because you need me. You know something about this cavern, yes? And whatever"s going to happen, you want good of not-sharp-but-by-gods-he"s-straight Sam Vimes to tell the world ...
"No two cubes are alike," said Rhys. "It is usually a word, but it can be a breath, a sound, a temperature, a point in the world, the smell of rain. Anything. I understand that there are many cubes that have never spoken."
"Really?" said Vimes. "But this thing damn well gabbled. And whoever sent it out of the valley wanted it to be heard, so I doubt if it only starts talking when a virgin"s tear falls on it on a warm Tuesday in February. And this one started chatting very smartly to a man who didn"t know a word of dwarfish, too:
"But the speaker would want dwarfs to hear it, surely!" the King protested.
"It"s a two-thousand-year-old legend! Who knows who wanted what?" said Vimes. "What do you want?"
This was to Nobby, who had appeared beside him, looking with interest at the cube.
"How did tha- he get past my guards?" said the King.
"The Nobbs sidle," said Vimes, and as a couple of embarrassed guards dropped heavy hands on Nobby"s frail shoulders he added: "No. Leave him. Come on, Nobby, you say something to make this thing start speaking."
"Er, say something or it"ll be the worse for you?" Nobby suggested.
"Not a bad try," Vimes conceded. "A hundred years ago, sire, I doubt if anyone in Ankh-Morpork knew many words of dwarf or troll. Perhaps the message was intended for humans? There must have been a settlement down on the plain, with all those birds and fish to eat."
"Perhaps some more human words, then, er, Nobby?" said the King.
"Okay. Open, speak, say something, talk, spill the beans, play-"
"No, no, Mister Vimes, he"s doing it wrong!" Fred Colon shouted. "It was in the olden days, right? So it"d be old words, like ... er ... openeth!"
Vimes laughed as an idea struck. I wonder, he thought. It could be. This is not really about words, it"s about sounds. Noises .. . ute you, said a thought that was not his, and he felt the sudden absence of something whose presence he had not noticed. In the blackness behind his eyes, some dark fin swished, and disappeared.
He heard a whimper, and the weight on him disappeared. He rolled over and saw, fading in the middle of the air, a crude drawing of an eye with a tail. It dwindled into nothing, and the all-enveloping darkness slowly gave way to flames and the light of the vurms. Blood had been spilled; they were pouring down the walls. He felt ...
A certain amount of time passed. Vimes jerked awake.
"I read it for him!" he said, mostly to reassure himself.
"You did, sir," said the voice of Angua, behind him. "Very clearly, too. We were more than two hundred yards away. Well done, sir. We thought you ought to have a rest."
"What have I done well?" said Vimes, trying to sit up. The movement filled his world with pain, but he managed a brief glimpse before slumping back.
There was a lot of smoke in the cave, but there were actual torches flickering, here and there. And a great many dwarfs some distance away, some sitting down, some standing around in groups.
"Why are there so many dwarfs here, sergeant?" he asked, looking up at the cavern roof. "That is, why are there so many dwarfs here that aren"t actually trying to kill us?"
"They"re from the Low King, sir. We"re their prisoners ... sort of ... er ... but not exactly. .
"Of Rhys? Bugger that!" said Vimes, trying to get to his feet again. "I saved his bloody life once!" He managed to get upright, but then the world pivoted around him and he would have fallen if Angua hadn"t caught him and lowered him on to a rock. Well, at least he was sitting up now ...
"Not exactly prisoners," Angua said. "We can"t go anywhere. But since we wouldn"t know where to go even if we could go somewhere, it"s all a bit superfluous. Sorry I"m only in a shift, sir, you know how it is. The dwarfs have promised to fetch my gear. Er ... it"s all gone political, sir. The dwarf in command is a decent sort but he"s way out of his depth, so he"s sticking with what he
knows, sir. And, er, he doesn"t know a lot. Do you remember anything about what happened? You"ve been out for a good twenty minutes."