The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

But his Vimish instincts were trying to tell him something else.

This was a crime - if holding a piece of property to ransom was technically a crime - but it wasn"t the crime.

There was another crime here. He knew it in the same way that a fisherman spots the shoal by the ripple on the water.

The fight on stage continued. It was slowed by the need to stop after every gingerly exchanged axe blow for a song, probably about gold.

"Er, what"s this all about?" he said.

"It"s nearly over," whispered Sybil. "They"ve only performed the bit concerning the baking of the Scone, really, but at least they"ve included the Ransom Aria. Ironhammer escapes from prison with the help of Skalt, steals the truth that Agi has hidden, conceals it by baking it into the Scone, and persuades the guards around Bloodaxe"s camp to let him pass. The dwarfs believe that truth was once a, a thing... a sort of ultimate rare metal, really, and the last bit of it is inside the Scone. And the .guards can"t resist, because of the sheer power of it. The song is about how love, like truth, will always reveal itself, just as the grain of truth inside the Scone makes the whole thing true. It"s actually one of the finest pieces of music in the world. Gold is hardly mentioned at all."

Vimes stared. He got lost in any song more complex than the sort with titles like "Where Has All The Custard Gone (Jelly"s Just Not The Same)?"

"Bloodaxe and Ironhammer," he muttered, aware that dwarfs around them were giving him annoyed looks. "Which one was - "

"Cheery told you. They were both dwarfs," said Sybil sharply.

"Ah," said Vimes glumly.

He was always a little out of his depth in these matters. There were men, and there were women. He was clear on that. Sam Vimes was an uncomplicated man when it came to what poets called "the lists of love". In some parts of the Shades, he knew, people adopted a more pick-and-mix approach. Vimes looked upon this as he looked upon a distant country; he"d never been there, and it wasn"t his problem. It amazed him what people got up to when they had time on their hands.

He just found it hard to imagine a world without a map. It wasn"t that the dwarfs ignored sex, it really didn"t seem important to them. If humans thought the same way, his job would be a lot simpler.

There seemed to be a deathbed scene now. It was a little hard for Vimes, with his shaky command of , Ankh-Morpork street dwarfish, to follow what was going on. Someone was dying, and someone else was very sorry about it. Both the main singers had beards you could hide a chicken in. They weren"t bothering to act, apart from infrequently waving an arm in the direction of the other singer.

But there were sobs all around him, and occasionally the trumpeting of a blown nose. Even Sybil"s lower lip was trembling.

It"s just a song, he wanted to say. It"s not real. Crime and streets and chases... they"re real. A song won"t get you out of a tight corner. Try waving a large bun at an armed guard in Ankh-Morpork and see how far it gets you...

He shouldered his way through the throng after the performance, which from the humans present had received the usual warm reception that such things always got from people who hadn"t really understood what was going on but rather felt that they should have done.

Dee was talking to a black-clad, heavily built young man who looked vaguely familiar to Vimes. Vimes must have looked familiar to him as well because he gave him a nod just short of offensiveness.

"Ah, your grace Vimes," he said. "And did you enjoy the opera?"

"Especially the bit about the gold," said Vimes. "And you are - ?"

The man clicked his heels. "Wolf von Uberwald!"

Something went "bing" in Vimes"s head. And his eyes picked up details - the slight lengthening of the incisors, the way the blond hair was so thick around the collar

"Angua"s brother?" he said.

"Yes, your grace."

"Wolf the wolf, eh?"

"Thank you, your grace," said Wolf solemnly. "That is very funny. Indeed, yes! It is quite some time since I heard that one! Your Ankh-Morpork sense of humour!"

"But you"re wearing silver on your... uniform. Those... insignias. Wolf heads biting the lightning..."

Wolf shrugged. "Ah, the kind of thing a policeman would notice. But they are nickel!"

"I don"t recognize the regiment."

"We are more of a... movement," said Wolf.

The stance was Angua"s, too. It was the poised, fight-or-flight look, as if the whole body was a spring eager to unwind and "flight" wasn"t an option. People in the presence of Angua when she was in a bad mood tended to turn up their collars without quite knowing why. But the eyes were different. They weren"t like Angua"s. They weren"t even like the eyes of a wolf.