"Matches," he mumbled. "Got matches!"
He found the wax bundle and, working his clammy fingers slowly, drew out one match. Scraping the wax off the head with his thumb, he struck it against the stone.
The glare hurt his eyes. Look, quick! Flowing water, smooth sand, hand- and footprints coming out of the water, one set only? Yes. Walls looked dry, small cave, darkness over there, way out ...
Vimes limped towards the oval entrance as quickly as he could while the match spat and fizzed in his hand.
There was a bigger cave here, so big that the blackness in it seemed to suck all the light from the match, which scorched his fingers and died.
The heavy darkness closed in again, like curtains, and now he knew what the dwarfs meant. This wasn"t the darkness of a hood, or a cellar, or even of their shallow little mine. He was a long way below the ground here, and the weight of all that darkness bore down on him.
Now and again a drop of water went plink into some unseen pool.
Vimes staggered onwards. He knew he was bleeding. He didn"t know why he was walking, but he did know that he had to.
Maybe he"d find daylight. Maybe he"d find a log that had been washed in here, and float his way out. He wasn"t going to die, not down here in the dark, a long way from home.
A lot of water was dripping in this cavern. A lot of it was going down his neck right now, but there were plinks on every side. Hah, water trickling down your neck and odd noises in the shadows ... well, that"s when we find out if we"ve got a real copper, right? But there were no shadows here. It wasn"t light enough.
Perhaps that poor sod of a dwarf had wandered through here. But he had found a way out. Maybe he knew the way, maybe he had a rope, maybe he was young and limber ... and so he"d got out, dying on his feet, and tucked the treasure out of the way, and then went down the valley, walking through his grave. That"s how it could take people. He remembered Mrs Oldsburton, who went mad after her baby died, cleaning everything in the house, every cup, wall, ceiling and spoon, not seeing anybody or hearing anything, just working all day and all night. Something in the head went click and you found something to do, anything, to stop yourself thinking.
Best to stop thinking that the way out the dwarf had found had been the one Vimes had dropped in by, and he had no idea where that was now.
Maybe he could simply jump back in the water, knowing what he was doing this time, and maybe he"d make it all the way down to the river before the turbulent currents battered him to death. Maybe he
Why the hell had he let go of that rope? It had been like that little voice that whispers "Jump" when you"re on a cliff edge, or "Touch the fire". You didn"t listen, of course. At least most people didn"t, most of the time. Well, a voice had said "Let go, and he had ...
He shuffled on, aching and bleeding, while the dark curled its tail around him.
"He"ll be back soon, you know," said Sybil. "Even if it"s at the very last minute." Out in the hall, a big grandfather clock had just stopped chiming half past five.
"I"m sure he will," said Bunty. They were bathing Young Sam.
"He"s never late," Sybil went on. "He says if you"re late for a good reason you"ll be late for a bad one. And it"s only half past five, anyway.!
"Plenty of time," Bunty agreed.
"Fred and Nobby did take the horses up to the valley, didn"t they?" said Sybil.
"Yes, Sybil. You watched them go," said Bunty. She looked over Sybil"s head to the gaunt figure of her husband, who was standing in the hall doorway. He shrugged hopelessly.
"Only the other day he was running up the stairs as the clocks were striking six," said Sybil, calmly soaping Young Sam with a sponge shaped like a teddy bear. "The very last second. You wait and see."
He wanted to sleep. He"d never felt this tired before. Vimes slumped to his knees, and then fell sideways on to the sand.
When he forced open his eyes he saw pale stars above him, and had once again the sensation that there was someone else present.
He turned his head, wincing at the stab of pain, and saw a small but brightly lit folding chair on the sand. A robed figure was reclining in it, reading a book. A scythe was stuck in the sand beside it.
A white skeletal hand turned a page.
"You"ll be Death, then?" said Vimes, after a while.
AH, MISTER VIMES, ASTUTE AS EVER. GOT IT IN ONE, said Death, shutting the book on his finger to keep the place. "I"ve seen you before."
I HAVE WALKED WITH YOU MANY TIMES, MISTER VIMES.
"And this is it, is it?"