Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

And the breath, so hot that it wasn't like fire at all, but something almost solid, not burning things but smashing them apart ...

On the other hand, he was here and alive. His left side felt as though it had been hit with an iron bar, but he was quite definitely alive.

“What happened?” he said.

“It was young Carrot,” said Nobby. “He grabbed you and the sergeant and jumped off the roof just before it got us.”

“My side hurts. It must have got me,” said Vimes.

“No, I reckon that was where you hit the privy roof,” said Nobby. “And then you rolled off and hit the water butt.”

“What about Colon? Is he hurt?”

“Not hurt. Not exactly hurt. He landed more sort of softly. Him being so heavy, he went through the roof. Talk about a short sharp shower of-”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, we sort of made you comfy, and then everyone went blundering about and shouting for the sergeant. Until they found out where he was, o'course, then they just stood where they were and shouted. And then this woman come running up yelling,” said Nobby.

“This is Lady Ramkin you're referring to?” said Vimes coldly. His ribs were aching really magnificently now.

“Yeah. Big fat party,” said Nobby, unmoved. “Cor, she can't half boss people about! 'Oh, the poor dear man, you must bring him up to my house this instant.' So we did. Best place, too. Everyone's running around down in the city like chickens with their heads cut off.”

“How much damage did it do?”

“Well, after you were out of it the wizards hit it with fireballs. It didn't like that at all. Just seemed to make it stronger and angrier. Took out the University's entire Widdershins wing.”

“And-?”

“That's about it, really. It flamed a few more things, and then it must of flown away in all the smoke.”

' 'No-one saw where it went?''

“If they did, they ain't saying.” Nobby sat back and leered. “Disgusting, really, her livin' in a room like this. She's got pots of money, sarge says, she's got no call livin' in ordinary rooms. What's the good of not wanting to be poor if the rich are allowed to go round livin' in ordinary rooms? Should be marble.” He sniffed. “Anyway, she said I was to fetch her when you woke up. She's feeding her dragons now. Old little buggers, aren't they. It's amazing she's allowed to keep 'em.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Tarred with the same brush, and that.”

When Nobby had shambled out Vimes took another look around the room. It did, indeed, lack the gold leaf and marble that Nobby felt was compulsory for people of a high station in life. All the furniture was old, and the pictures on the wall, though doubtless valuable, looked the sort of pictures that are hung on bedroom walls because people can't think of anywhere else to put them. There were also a few amateurish watercolours of dragons. All in all, it had the look about it of a room that is only ever occupied by one person, and has been absent-mindedly moulded around them over the years, like a suit of clothes with a ceiling.

It was clearly the room of a woman, but one who had cheerfully and without any silly moping been getting on with her life while all that soppy romance stuff had been happening to other people somewhere else, and been jolly grateful that she had her health.

Such clothing as was visible had been chosen for sensible hardwearing qualities, possibly by a previous generation by the look of it, rather than its use as light artillery in the war between the sexes. There were bottles and jars neatly arranged on the dressing table, but a certain severity of line suggested that their labels would say things like “Rub on nightly” rather than “Just a dab behind the ears”. You could imagine that the occupant of this room had slept in it all her life and had been called “my little girl” by her father until she was forty.

There was a big sensible blue dressing gown hanging behind the door. Vimes knew, without even looking, that it would have a rabbit on the pocket.

In short, it was the room of a woman who never expected that a man would ever see the inside of it.

The bedside table was piled high with papers. Feeling guilty, but doing it anyway, Vimes squinted at them.

o;Beg pardon, sir. That's just a broken turret giving the effect.”

They watched it for a while.

Then Vimes said, “Tell me, Sergeant-I ask in a spirit of pure inquiry-what do you think's causing the effect of a pair of huge wings unfurling?”

Colon swallowed.