The Truth (Discworld 25)

Mr Tulip let go of Sacharissa to help his colleague, and in the slow dance of rushing events Sacharissa spun round and planted her knee hard and firmly in the place that made a parsnip a very funny thing indeed.

William grabbed her on the way past and rushed her out into the freezing air. When he fought his way back in through the stampeding crew, who had the same instinctive reaction to fire as they did to soap and water, it was into a room full of burning debris. Dwarfs were fighting fires in the rubbish. Dwarfs were fighting fires in their beards. Several were advancing on Mr Tulip, who was on his hands and knees and throwing up. And Mr Pin was spinning around, flailing at an enraged Wuffles, who was managing to growl while sinking his teeth into Pin's arm all the way to the bone.

William cupped his hands. 'Get out right now!' he yelled. 'The tins!'

One or two dwarfs heard him, and looked around at the shelves of old paint tins just as the first one blew off its lid.

The tins were ancient, no more now than rust held together with chemical sludge. Several others were starting to burn.

Mr Pin danced across the floor, trying to shake the enraged dog from his arm.

'Get the damn thing off'f me!' he yelled.

'Forget the --ing dog, my --ing suit's on fire!' shouted Mr Tulip, flailing at his own sleeve.

A tin of what had once been enamel paint took off from the blazing mess, spinning with a wzipwzip noise, and exploded on the press.

William grabbed Goodmountain's shoulder. 'I said come on!'

'My press! It's on fire!'

'Better it than us! Come on\'

It was said of the dwarfs that they cared more about things like iron and gold than they did about people, because there was only a limited supply of iron and gold in the world whereas there seemed to be more and more people everywhere you looked. It was said mostly by people like Mr Windling.

But they did care fiercely about things. Without things, people were just bright animals.

The printers clustered around the doorway, axes at the ready. Choking brown smoke billowed out. Flames licked out among the roof eaves. Several sections of tin roof buckled and collapsed.

As they did so a smouldering ball rocketed out through the door and three dwarfs who took a swipe only just missed hitting one another.

It was Wuffles. Patches of fur were still smoking, but his eyes gleamed and he was still whining and growling.

He let William pick him up. He had a triumphant air about him, and turned to watch the burning doorway with his ears cocked.

'That must be it, then,' said Sacharissa.

'They might have got out of the back door,' said Goodmountain. 'Boddony, some of you go round and check, will you?'

'Plucky dog, this,' said William.

' "Brave" would be better,' said Sacharissa distantly. 'It's only five letters. It would look better in a single-column sidebar. No... "Plucky" would work, because then we'd get:

PLUCKY DOG PUTS

BITE ON VILLAINS

... although that first line is a bit shy.' 'I wish I could think in headlines,' said William, shivering.

It was cool and damp down here in the cellar.

Mr Pin dragged himself to a corner and slapped at the burns on his suit.

'We're --ing trapped,' moaned Tulip.

'Yeah? This is stone,' said Pin. 'Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling! Stone doesn't bum, okay? We just stay nice and calm down here and wait it out.'

Mr Tulip listened to the sound of the fire above them. Red and yellow light danced on the floor under the cellar hatchway.