[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

saying that these dwarfs were killed by some thing from the well?'
'Possibly. But if they were, it used an axe,' said Sally. 'Take a look. Scrape some of
the mud away. It's been oozing over them since I arrived. That's probably why you
missed it,' she added generously.
Angua hauled one dwarf out of the shining slime.
'I see,' she said, letting the body fall back. 'This one hasn't been dead two days. Not
much effort made to hide them, I notice.'
'Why bother? They've stopped pumping out these tunnels; the props look pretty
temporary; the mud's coming back. Besides, who'd be stupid enough to come down
here?'
A piece of wall slithered down, with a sticky, organic, cow-pat sort of noise. Little
plops and trickles filled the tunnel. Ankh-Morpork's underworld was stealthily
reclaiming its own.
Angua closed her eyes and concentrated. The slime reek, the vampire's smell and
the water that was now ankle deep all jostled for attention, but this was competition
time. She couldn't let a vampire take the lead. That would be so traditional.
'There were other dwarfs,' she murmured. 'Two - no, three er four more. I'm getting
the black oil. Distant blood. Down the tunnel.' She stood up so sharply that she nearly
hit her head on the tunnel roof. 'C'mon!'
'It's getting a bit unsafe-'
'We could solve this! Come on! You can't be afraid of dying!' Angua plunged away.
'And you think spending a few thousand years buried in sludge is likely to be fun?'
shouted Sally, but she was talking only to dripping mud and fetid air. She hesitated a
moment, groaned and followed Angua.
Further along the main tunnel, there were more passages branching off. On either
side, rivers of mud, like cool lava, were already flowing out of them. Sally splashed
past something that looked like a huge copper trumpet, turning gently on the current.
The tunnel was better built here than the sections nearer the well. And there at the
end of it was a pale light and Angua, crouched by one of the big round dwarf doors.
Sally paid her no attention. She barely glanced at the dwarf slumped with his back
against the bottom of the door.
Instead, she stared at the symbol scrawled large on the metal. It was big and crude
and might be a round, staring eye with a tail, and it gleamed with the greeny-white
glow of vurms.
'He wrote it in his blood,' said Angua, without looking up. 'They left him for dead but
he was only dying, you see. He managed to make it to here, but the killers had shut
the door. He scratched at it - smell here - and he's worn away his fingernails. Then
he made that sign in his own warm blood and sat here, holding the wound shut,
watching the vurms turn up. I'd say he's been dead for eighteen hours or so. Hmm?'
'I think we should get out of here right now,' said Sally, backing away. 'Do you know
what that sign means?'
'I know it's mine-sign, that's all. Do you know what it means?'
'No, but I know it's one of the really bad ones. It's not good seeing it here. What're
you doing with that body?' Sally backed away further.
'Trying to find out who he was,' said Angua, searching the dwarf's clothing. 'It's the
sort of thing we do in the Watch. We don't stand around getting worried about
drawings on the wall. What's the problem?'
'Right now?' said the vampire. 'He's oozing a bit & '
'If I can stand it, so can you. You see a lot of blood in this job. Don't attempt to drink
it, that's my advice,' said Angua, still rummaging. 'Ah he's got a rune necklace. And' -
she pulled a hand out of the dead dwarf's jerkin -'can't make this out very well, but I
can smell ink so it may be a letter. Okay. Let's get out of here.' She looked round at
Sally. 'Did you hear me?'
'The sign was written by someone dying,' said Sally, still keeping her distance.
'Well?'
'Then it's probably a curse.'
'So? We didn't kill him,' said Angua, getting to her feet with some difficulty.
They looked down at the liquid mud now rising to their knees.
'Do you think it cares?' said Sally, matter of factly.
'No, but I think there may be another way out in that last turning we passed,' said
Angua, looking back along the tunnel.
She pointed. Scuttling along with blind determination, a line of vurms marched across
the dripping roof almost as fast as the mud flowed down below. They were heading
into the side tunnel in a glowing stream.
Sally shrugged. 'It's worth a try, yes?'
They left, and the sound of their splashing soon died away. Slowly the mud rose,
rustling in the gloom. The trail of vurms gradually disappeared overhead. The vurms
that made the sign remained, though, because such a feast as this was worth dying
for. Their glow winked out, one insect at a time.
The darkness beneath the world caressed the sign, which flamed red and died.
Darkness remained.
On this day in 1802 the painter Methodia Rascal tried putting the thing under a heap
of old sacks, in case it woke up the Chicken, and finished the last troll, using his
smallest brush to paint the eyeballs.
It was five a.m. Rain rustled out of the sky, not hard, but with a gentle persistence.
In Sator Square, and in the Plaza of Broken Moons, it hissed on the white ash of the
bonfires, occasionally exposing the orange glow, which would briefly sizzle and spit.
A family of gnolls were sniffing around, each one dragging his or her little cart. A few
officers were keeping an eye on them. Gnolls weren't choosy about what they
collected, provided it didn't actually struggle, and even then there were rumours. But
they were tolerated. Nothing cleaned up the place like a gnoll.
From here, they looked like little trolls, each with a huge compost heap on its back.
That represented everything it owned, and mostly what it owned was rotten.
Sam Vimes winced at the pain in his side. Just his luck. Two coppers injured in the
entire damn affair, and he had to be one of them? Igor had done his best, but broken
ribs were broken ribs and it'd be a week or two before the suspicious green ointment
made much difference.
Still, he enjoyed a bit of a warm glow about the whole thing. They had used good old-
fashioned policing, and since good oldfashioned policemen are invariably
outnumbered, he'd employed the good old-fashioned police methods of cunning,
deceit and any damn weapon you could lay your hands on.
It had hardly been a fight at all. The dwarfs had mostly been sitting and singing
gloomy songs because they fell over when they tried to stand up, or had tried to
stand up and were now lying down and snoring. The trolls were, on the other hand,
mostly upright, but went over when you pushed them. One or two, a little clearer in
the head than the others, had put up a ponderous and laughable fight but had fallen
to that most old-fashioned of police methods, the well-placed boot. Well, most of
them had. Vimes shifted to ease the aching in his side; he should have seen that one
coming.
But all's well that ends well, eh? No deaths and, just to put a little cherry on the
morning cake, he had in his hand an early edition of the Times in which a leading
article deplored the gangs stalking the city and wondered if the Watch was 'up to the
job' of cleaning up the streets.
Well, yes, I think we are, you pompous twerp. Vimes struck a match on a plinth and lit
a cigar in recognition of a petty but darkly satisfying triumph. Gods knew they needed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • thierry.pev.pl

    •