Vimes stared at the serenely floating shape. "The dwarfs wouldn"t think that - " he began. The log under him gave the little nasty movement that announces to any luckless passengers that it is about to land.
Lady Margolotta drifted closer. "I know you hate vampires," she said. "It"s quite usual, for your personality type. It"s the... penetrative aspect. But if I vas you, right now, I"d ask myself... do I hate them with all my life?"
She held out a hand.
"Just one bite"ll end all my troubles, eh?" Vimes snarled.
"Vun bite vould be vun too many, Sam Vimes."
The wood cracked. She grabbed his wrist.
If he"d thought about it at all, Vimes would have expected to be dangling from a vampire now. Instead, he was simply floating.
"Don"t think of letting go," said Margolotta as they rose gently up the shaft.
"One bite would be one too many?" said Vimes. He recognized the mangled mantra. "You"re a... a teetotaller?"
"Almost four years now."
"No blood at all?"
"Oh, yes. Animal. It"s rather kinder to them than slaughter, don"t you think? Of course, it makes them docile, but frankly a cow is unlikely ever to vin the Thinker of the Year avard. I"m on a vagon, Mister Vimes."
"The wagon. We call it the wagon," said Vimes weakly. "And... that replaces human blood?"
"Like lemonade replaces whisky. Believe me. However, the intelligent mind can find a... substitute." The sides of the shaft dropped away and they were in clear, freezing air, which knifed through Vimes"s shirt. They drifted sideways a little, and then Vimes was dropped into kneedeep snow.
"Vun of the better things about our dwarfs is that they don"t often try something new and they never let go of anything old," said the vampire, hovering over the snow. "You weren"t hard to find."
"Where am I?" Vimes looked around at rocks and trees mounded in snow.
"In the mountains, quite a long way viddershins of the town, Mister Vimes. Goodbye."
"You"re going to leave me here?"
"I"m sorry? You were the one who escaped. I am certainly not here. Me, a vampire, interfering in the affairs of the dwarfs? Unthinkable! But let us just say... I like people to have an even chance."
"It"s freezing! I haven"t even got a coat! What is it you want?"
"You have freedom, Mister Vimes. Isn"t that what everyvun wants? Isn"t it supposed to give you a lovely warm glow?"
Lady Margolotta disappeared into the snow.
Vimes shivered. He hadn"t realized how warm it had been underground. Or what time it was. There was a dim, a very dim light. Was this just after sunset? Was it almost dawn?
The flakes were piling up on his damp clothes, driven by the wind.
Freedom could get you killed.
Shelter... that was essential. The time of day and a precise location were no use to the dead. They always knew what time it was and where they were.
He moved away from the open shaft and staggered into the trees, where the snow was less deep. It gave off a light, fainter than a sick beetle, as if snow somehow absorbed it from the air as it fell.
Vimes wasn"t good at forests. They were things you saw on the horizon. If he"d thought about them at all he"d imagined a lot of trees, standing like poles, brown at the bottom, bushy and green at the top.
Here there were humps, and bumps, and dark branches weighted and creaking under the snow. It fell around him with a hiss. Occasionally lumps of the stuff would slide from somewhere above, and there would be another shower of frigid crystals as a branch sprang back.
There was a track of sorts, or at least a wider, smoother expanse of snow. Vimes followed it, on the basis that there was no more sensible choice. The warm glow of freedom lasted only so long.