Thud! (Discworld 34)

Everywhere you looked there were teams of trolls and dwarfs surveying, diverting, damming and drilling. They"d been engaged in this for two days, but it would take them for ever, because every winter changed the game. Koom Valley was forcing co-operation on them. Dam Koom Valley ...

Vimes thought that was a bit too pat, but nature can be like that. Sometimes you got sunsets so pink that they had no style at all.

One thing that had happened fast was the tunnel. Dwarfs had cut down quickly through the soft limestone. You could stroll down into the cavern now, although in fact you"d have to queue because of the long line of trolls and dwarfs.

Those in the line going down eyed one another with uncertainty at best. Those in the line coming up sometimes looked angry, or were close to tears, or just walked along looking at the ground.

Once they got past the exit, they tended to form into quiet groups.

Sam, with Young Sam in his arms, didn"t have to queue. News had got around. He went straight in, past the trolls and dwarfs who were painstakingly reassembling the broken stalagmites (it was news to Vimes that you could do that, but apparently if you came back in five hundred years they"d be as good as new) and into what had come to be called the Kings" Cave.

And there they were. You couldn"t argue with it. There was the dwarf king, slumped forward across the board, glazed by the eternal drip, his beard now rock and at one with the stone, but the diamond king had remained upright in death, his skin gone cloudy, and you could still see the game in front of him. It was his move; a healthy little stalactite hung from his outstretched hand.

They"d broken off small stalagmites to make the pieces, which time had now glued into immobility. The scratched lines on the stone board were more or less invisible, but Thud players from both races had already pored over it and a sketch of the Dead Kings" Game had by now appeared in the Times. The diamond king was playing the dwarf side. Apparently it could go either way.

People were saying that when this was all over they"d seal the cave. Too many people in a living cave killed it in some way, the dwarfs said. And then the kings would be left in the dark to finish their game in, with luck, peace.

Water dripping on a stone, changing the shape of the world one drop at a time, washing away a valley ...

Yes, well, Vimes had added to himself. But it"d never be that simple. And for every new generation you"d have to open it again, so that people could see that it was true.

Today, though, it was open for Sam and Young Sam, who was wearing a fetching woolly hat with a bobble on it.

Brick and Sally were on duty, along with a couple of dwarfs and two more trolls, all watching the stream of visitors and one another. Vurms covered the ceiling. The game gleamed. What would Young Sam remember? Probably just the glitter. But it had to be done.

The players were genuine, on that at least both sides agreed. The carvings on Diamond were accurate, the armour and jewellery on Bloodaxe were just as history recorded. Even the long loaf of dwarf bread that he carried into battle, and which could shatter a troll skull, was by his side. Dwarf scholars had, with delicacy and care and the blunting of fifteen saw blades, removed a tiny slice of it. Miraculously, it had turned out still to be as inedible now as the day it was baked.

A minute was about enough for this historic moment, Vimes decided. Young Sam was at the grabbing age, and he"d never hear the end of it if his son ate an historic monument.

"Can I have a word, lance-constable?" he said to Sally, as he turned to go. "The guard changes in a minute."

"Certainly, sir," said Sally. Vimes strolled off to a corner of the cavern and waited until Nobby and Fred Colon marched in at the head of the relief.

"Glad you joined, lance-constable?" he said, as she hurried up.

"Very much, sir!"

"Good. Shall we go up to the daylight?"

She followed him up the slope and into the damp warmth of Koom Valley, where he sat down on a boulder. He looked at her while Young Sam played at his feet.

He said: "Is there anything you"d like to say to me, lance-constable?"

"Should there be, sir?"

"I can"t prove anything, of course," said Vimes. "But you are an agent of the Low King, aren"t you? You"ve been spying on me."

He waited while she considered the options. Swallows swooped overhead in squadrons.

"I, er, wouldn"t put it quite like that, sir," she said eventually. "I was

keeping an eye on Hamcrusher and I"d heard about the mining, and then when it all started to heat up-"

"-becoming a watchman seemed a good idea, right? Did the League know?"

"No! Look, sir, I wasn"t spying on you-"

"You told him I was headed for Koom Valley. And the night we arrived, you went for a little fly-around. Just stretching your wings?"