Snuff (Discworld 39)

“Not a blessed thing, sir. It’s like I’ve gone blind, sir.”

In Vimes’s opinion the young man was about to go postal, and maybe tethering him to Vimes was better than hearing him knock himself out in an attempt to flee.

“You’re not blind, lad, it’s just that all that night duty I’ve done…well, it looks as if I’m better than I thought at seeing in the dark.”

Feeney shuddered again at Vimes’s touch, but together they succeeded in linking Chief Constable Upshot to Vimes with about six feet of hairy string, which smelled of pig.

There were no goblins behind the broken door, but a fire was smouldering fitfully, with a piece of blessedly unrecognizable meat on a spit above it. A man might think that a goblin had found a reason to leave his tea behind in a hurry. And talking of tea, there was a pot, which was to say a rusty tin can, bubbling in the embers of the fire. Vimes sniffed at it, and was surprised that it smelled of bergamot, and somehow the idea of a goblin drinking posh tea with his pinkie extended managed, temporarily, to overwhelm his incongruity functions. Well, it grew, didn’t it? And goblins probably got thirsty, didn’t they? Nothing to worry about. Although if he found a plate of delicate biscuits he would definitely have to sit down and rest.

He walked on, the light never failing, goblins never appearing. The cave complex certainly sloped downward, and there were still signs of goblins everywhere, but of gob

lins themselves no sign, which in theory should be a good thing, given that generally the first sign of a goblin would be one landing on your head and trying to turn it into a bowling ball. And then there was a flash of color in this drab subterranean landscape of ices and browns: it was a bunch of flowers, or what had been a bunch before it had been dropped. Vimes wasn’t an expert on flowers, and when he bought them for Sybil, at maritally advisable intervals, he generally stuck to a bunch of roses, or its seemingly acceptable equivalent, one single orchid. He was vaguely aware of the existence of other flowers, of course, which brightened up the place, to be sure, but he had never been one for the names.

There were no roses here, no orchids either. These flowers had been plucked from hedgerows and meadows and even included the scrawny plants that managed to hang on and flower in the wilderness up above. Someone had carried them. Someone had dropped them. Someone had been in a hurry. Vimes could read it in the flowers. They had fallen from somebody’s open hand, so that they spread back along their path like a comet tail. And then more than one person had trampled them underfoot, but probably not because they were chasing the aforesaid bouquet carrier, but by the look of it because they wanted to go the way that he or she had run, and even faster than he or she did.

There had been a stampede, in fact. Scared people running away. But running away from what?

“You, Commander Vimes, you, the majesty of the law. See how I help you, commander?” The familiarity of the voice annoyed him; it sounded too much like his own voice. “But I’m here because they wanted me to come!” he said to the cave in general. “I wasn’t intending to fight anybody!” And in his head his own voice told him, “Oh my little ragtag, rubbish people, who do not trust and are not trusted! Tread with care, Mr. Policeman; the hated have no reason to love! Oh, the strange and secret people, last and worst, born of rubbish, hopeless, bereft of god. The best of luck to you, my brother…my brother in darkness…Do what you can for them, Mr. Po-leess-maan.”

On Vimes’s wrist the sigil of the Summoning Dark glowed for a moment.

“I’m not your brother!” Vimes shouted. “I’m not a killer!” The words echoed around the caves, but under them Vimes thought he felt something slithering away. Could something with no body slither? Gods damn the dwarfs and their subterranean folklore!

“Are you, er, all right, sir?” came the nervous voice of Feeney behind him. “Er, you were shouting, sir.”

“I was just cussing because I banged my head on the ceiling, lad,” Vimes lied. He had to deliver reassurance quickly before Feeney got so unnerved that he might try to make a break for the exit out of panic. “You’re doing very well, chief constable!”

“Only, I don’t like the dark, sir, never have…Er, do you think anyone’ll worry if I have a wee up against the wall?”

“I should go ahead if I was you, lad. I don’t think anything could make this place smell worse.”

Vimes heard some vague sounds behind him, and then Feeney said, in a damp little voice, “Er, nature has taken its course, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Vimes smiled to himself. “Don’t worry, lad, you won’t be the first copper to have to wring out his socks, and you won’t be the last, either. I remember the first time I had to arrest a troll. Big fellow, he was, a very nasty character. I was a bit damp around the socks that day, and I don’t mind admitting it. Think of it as a kind of baptism!” Keep it jolly, he thought, make a joke of it. Don’t let him dwell on the fact that we’re walking into the scene of a crime that he can’t see. “Funny thing—that troll is now my best sergeant, and I’ve relied on him for my life quite a few times. That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we’ll never know.”

Vimes turned a corner and there were the goblins. He was glad that young Feeney couldn’t see them. Strictly speaking, Vimes wished he couldn’t see them either. There must have been a hundred of them, many of them holding weapons. They were crude weapons, to be sure, but a flint ax hitting your head does not need a degree in physics.

“Have we got somewhere, sir?” said Feeney behind him. “You’ve stopped walking.”

They’re just standing there, Vimes thought, as if they’re on parade. Just watching in silence, waiting for that silence to break.

“There are a few goblins in this cave, lad, and they’re watching us.”

After a few seconds of silence Feeney said, “Could you tell me exactly what a ‘few’ means, sir?”

Dozens and dozens of owlish faces stared at Vimes without expression. If the silence was going to be broken by the word “charge” then he and Feeney would be smears on the floor, which was pretty smeared as it was. Why did I come in here? Why did I think it was a good thing to do? Oh well, the lad is a policeman, after all, and it isn’t as if he doesn’t already have a clothing problem. He said, “I would say there are about a hundred, lad, all heavily armed, as far as I can see, except for a couple of broken-down ones right at the front; could be chieftains, I suppose. Beards you could keep a rabbit in, and, by the look of it, may have. It looks as if they are waiting for something.”

There was a pause before Feeney said, “It’s been an education, working with you, sir.”

“Look,” said Vimes, “if I have to turn and run, just hang on, okay? Running is another skill a policeman sometimes needs.”

He turned to the crowd of impassive goblins and said, “I am Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch! How can I help you?”

“Just ice!” The cry caused things to drop from the ceiling. It echoed around the cave and echoed again, as cavern after cavern picked up the shout, spun it around, and sent it back. Light rose as torches were kindled. It took Vimes a few moments to realize this, because the light he had seen, some curious artificial light that was probably in his head, had been brighter, and mixed strangely with the smoky orange that was now filling the cave.

“Well, sir, it looks as though they’re pleased to see us, yes?”

Feeney’s relief and hope should have been bottled and sold to despairing people everywhere. Vimes just nodded, because the ranks were pulling apart, leaving a pathway of sorts, at the end of which there was, inarguably, a corpse. It was a mild relief to see that it was a goblin corpse, but no corpse is good news, particularly when seen in a grimy low light and especially for the corpse. And yet something inside him exulted and cried Hallelujah!, because here was a corpse and he was a copper and this was a crime and this place was smoky and dirty and full of suspicious-looking goblins and here was a crime. His world. Yes, here was his world.