Feet of Clay (19 page)

‘We’re going quite close to Elm Street,’ she said, carefully. ‘Just, er, drop in for a while. I’ve got some stuff you could borrow …’

I won’t be needing it
, she told herself.
When I go, I won’t be able to carry much
.

Constable Downspout watched the fog. Watching was, after staying in one place, the thing he did best. But he was also good at keeping quite still. Not making any noise whatsoever was another of his best features. When it came to doing absolutely nothing at all he was among the finest. But it was
keeping
completely motionless in one place that was his forte. If there were a roll-call for the world’s champion non-movers, he wouldn’t even turn up.

Now, chin on his hands, he watched the fog.

The clouds had settled somewhat so that up here, six storeys above the streets, it was possible to believe you were on a beach at the edge of a cold, moonlit sea. The occasional tall tower or steeple rose out of the clouds, but all sounds were muffled and pulled in on themselves. Midnight came and went.

Constable Downspout watched, and thought about pigeons.

Constable Downspout had very few desires in life, and almost all of them involved pigeons.

A group of figures lurched, staggered or in one case rolled through the fog like the Four Horsemen of a small Apocalypse. One had a duck on his head, and because he was almost entirely sane except for this one strange particular he was known as the Duck Man. One coughed and expectorated repeatedly, and hence was called Coffin Henry. One, a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, was for no apparent reason called Arnold Sideways. And the fourth, for some very good reasons indeed, was Foul Ole Ron.

Ron had a small greyish-brown, torn-eared terrier on the end of a string, although in truth it would be hard for an observer to know exactly who was leading whom and who, when push came to
shove
, would be the one to fold at the knees if the other one shouted ‘Sit!’ Because, although trained canines as aids for those bereft of sight, and even of hearing, have frequently been used throughout the universe, Foul Ole Ron was the first person ever to own a Thinking-Brain Dog.

The beggars, led by the dog, were heading for the dark arch of Misbegot Bridge, which they called Home. At least, one of them called it ‘Home’; the others respectively called it ‘Haaawrk haaawrk
HRRaawrk
ptui!’, ‘Heheheh! Whoops!’ and ‘Buggrit, millennium hand and shrimp!’

As they stumbled along the riverside they passed a can from hand to hand, drinking appreciatively and occasionally belching.

The dog stopped. The beggars shunted to a halt behind it.

A figure came towards them along the riverside.

‘Ye gods!’

‘Ptui!’

‘Whoops!’

‘Buggrit?’

The beggars flung themselves against the wall as the pale figure lurched past. It was clutching at its head as if trying to lift itself off the ground by its ears, and then occasionally banging its head against nearby buildings.

While they watched, it pulled a metal mooring post out of the cobbles and started to hit itself over the head. Eventually the cast iron shattered.

The figure dropped the stub, flung back its head, opened a mouth from which red light spilled, and
roared
like a bull in distress. Then it staggered on into the darkness.

‘There’s that golem again,’ said the Duck Man. ‘The white one.’

‘Heheh, I gets heads like that myself, some mornings,’ said Arnold Sideways.

‘I knows about golems,’ said Coffin Henry, spitting expertly and hitting a beetle climbing the wall twenty feet away. ‘They ain’t s’posed to have a voice.’

‘Buggrit,’ said Foul Ole Ron. ‘Dang the twigger f r’a bang at the fusel, and shrimp, ’cos the worm’s on the other boot! See if he don’t.’

‘He meant it’s the same one we saw the other day,’ said the dog. ‘After that ole priest got topped.’

‘Do you think we should tell someone?’ said the Duck Man.

The dog shook its head. ‘Nah,’ it said. ‘We got a cushy number down here, no sense in spoiling it.’

The five of them staggered on into the damp shadows.

‘I hate bloody golems, takin’ our jobs …’

‘We ain’t got jobs.’

‘See what I mean?’

‘What’s for supper?’

‘Mud and ole boots.
HRRaawrk
ptui!’

‘Millennium hand and shrimp, I sez.’

‘’m glad I’ve got a voice. I can speak up for meself.’

‘It’s time you fed your duck.’

‘What duck?’

The fog glowed and sizzled around Five and Seven Yard. Flames roared up and all but set the thick clouds alight. Spitting liquid iron cooled in its moulds. Hammers rang out around the workshops. The ironmasters didn’t work by the clock, but by the more demanding physics of molten metal. Even though it was nearly midnight, Stronginthearm’s Iron Founders, Beaters and General Forging was still bustling.

There were many Stronginthearms in Ankh-Morpork. It was a very common dwarf name. That had been a major consideration for Thomas Smith when he’d adopted it by official deed poll. The scowling dwarf holding a hammer which adorned his sign was a mere figment of the signpainter’s imagination. People thought ‘dwarfmade’ was better, and Thomas Smith had decided not to argue.

The Committee for Equal Heights had objected but things had mired somewhat because, firstly, most of the actual Committee was human, since dwarfs were generally too busy to worry about that sort of thing,
¹³
and in any case their position hinged on pointing out that Mr Stronginthearm
né
Smith was too tall, which was clearly a sizeist discrimination and technically illegal under the Committee’s own rules.

In the meantime Thomas had let his beard grow, wore an iron helmet if he thought anyone official was around, and put up his prices by twenty pence on the dollar.

The drop hammers thumped, all in a row, powered by the big ox treadmill. There were swords to beat out and panels to be shaped. Sparks erupted.

Stronginthearm took off his helmet (the Committee had been around again) and wiped the inside.

‘Dibbuk? Where the hell are you?’

A sensation of filled space made him turn. The foundry’s golem was standing a few inches behind him, the forge light glowing on his dark red clay.

‘I told you not to
do
that, didn’t I?’ Stronginthearm shouted above the din.

The golem held up its slate.

YES.

‘You’ve gone and done all your holy day stuff? You were away too long!’

SORROW.

‘Well, now you’re back with us, go and take over on Number Three hammer and send Mr Vincent up to my office, right?’

YES.

Stronginthearm climbed the stairs to his office. He turned at the top to look back across the red-lit foundry floor. He saw Dibbuk walk over to the hammer and hold up a slate for the foreman. He saw Vincent the foreman walk away. He saw Dibbuk take the sword-blank that was being shaped and hold it in place for a few blows, then hurl it aside.

Stronginthearm hurried back down the steps.

When he was half-way down Dibbuk had laid his head on the anvil.

When Stronginthearm reached the bottom the hammer struck for the first time.

When he was half-way across the ash-crusted floor, other workers scurrying after him, the hammer struck for the second time.

As he reached Dibbuk the hammer struck for the third time.

The glow faded in the golem’s eyes. A crack appeared across the impassive face.

The hammer went back up for the fourth time—

‘Duck!’ screamed Stronginthearm—

—and then there was nothing but pottery.

When the thunder had died away, the foundry master got to his feet and brushed himself off. Dust and wreckage were strewn across the floor. The hammer had jumped its bearings and was lying by the anvil in a heap of golem shards.

Stronginthearm gingerly picked up a piece of a foot, tossed it aside, and then reached down again and pulled a slate out of the wreckage.

He read:

THE OLD MEN HELPED US!

THOU SHALT NOT KILL!

CLAY OF MY CLAY!

SHAME.

SORROW
.

His foreman looked over Stronginthearm’s shoulder. ‘What did it go and do that for?’

‘How should I know?’ snapped Stronginthearm.

‘I mean, it brought the tea round this afternoon as normal as anything. Then it went off for a coupla hours, and now this …’

Stronginthearm shrugged. A golem was a golem and that was all there was to it, but the recollection of that bland face positioning itself under the giant hammer had shaken him.

‘I heard the other day the sawmill in Dimwell Street wouldn’t mind selling the one it’s got,’ said the foreman. ‘It sawed up a mahogany trunk into matchsticks, or something. You want I should go and have a word?’

Stronginthearm looked at the slate again.

Dibbuk had never been very wordy. He’d carry red-hot iron, hammer sword-blanks with his fists, clean out clinkers from a smelter still too hot for a man to touch … and never say a word. Of course, he
couldn’t
say any words, but Dibbuk had always given the impression that there were none he’d particularly wanted to say in any case. He just worked. These were the most words he’d ever written at any one time.

They spoke to Stronginthearm of black distress, and a mind that would have been screaming if it could only have uttered a sound. Which was daft! The things
couldn’t
commit suicide.

‘Boss?’ said the foreman. ‘I said, you want me to get another one?’

Stronginthearm skimmed the slate away and, with a feeling of relief, watched it shatter against the wall. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just clear this thing up. And get the bloody hammer fixed.’

Sergeant Colon, after some considerable effort, managed to get his head higher than the gutter.

‘You – you all right, Corporal Lord de Nobbes?’ he mumbled.

‘Dunno, Fred. Whose face is this?’

‘’S mine, Nobby.’

‘Thank gods for that, I thought it was me …’

Colon fell back. ‘We’re lyin’ in the gutter, Nobby,’ he moaned. ‘Ooo.’

‘We’re all lyin’ in the gutter, Fred. But some of us’re lookin’ at the stars …’

‘Well,
I’m
lookin’ at your face, Nobby. Stars’d be a lot better, believe you me. C’mon …’

With several false starts they both managed to get upright, mainly by pulling themselves up one another.

‘Where’re’re’re we, Nobby?’

‘’m sure we left the Drum … ’ve I got a sheet over m’head?’

‘It’s the fog, Nobby.’

‘What about these legs down here?’

‘I reckon them’s
your
legs, Nobby. I’ve got mine.’

‘Right. Right. Ooo … I reckon I drunk a lot, Sarge.’

‘Drunk as a lord, eh?’

Nobby reached gingerly up to his helmet. Someone had put a paper coronet around it. His questing hand found a dog-end behind his ear.

It was that unpleasant hour of the drinking day
when
, after a few hours’ quality gutter-time, you’re beginning to feel the retribution of sobriety while still being drunk enough to make it worse.

‘How’d we get here, Sarge?’

Colon started to scratch his head and stopped because of the noise.

‘I reckon …’ he said, winnowing the frazzled shreds of his short-term memory, ‘I … reckon … seems to me there was something about stormin’ the palace and demandin’ your birthright …’

Nobby choked and spat out the cigarette. ‘We didn’t do that, did we?’

‘You was shouting we
ought
to do it …’

‘Oh, gods …’ moaned Nobby.

‘But I reckon you threw up around that time.’

‘That’s a relief, anyway.’

‘Well … it was all over Grabber Hoskins. But he tripped over someone before he could get us.’

Colon suddenly patted his pockets. ‘And I’ve still got the tea money,’ he said. Another cloud of memory scudded across the sunshine of oblivion. ‘Well … three pennies of it …’

The urgency of this got through to Nobby. ‘Thruppence?’

‘Yeah, well … after you started orderin’ all them expensive drinks for the whole bar … well, you din’t have no money and it was either me payin’ for them or …’ Colon moved his finger across his throat and went: ‘Kssssh!’

‘You tellin’ me we paid for Happy Hour in the Drum?’

‘Not so much Happy Hour,’ said Colon
miserably
. ‘More sort of Ecstatic One-Hundred-and-Fifty Minutes. I didn’t even know you
could
buy gin in pints.’

Nobby tried to focus on the fog. ‘No one can drink gin by the pint, Sarge.’

‘That’s what I kept sayin’, and would you listen?’

Nobby sniffed. ‘We’re close to the river,’ he said. ‘Let’s try to get …’

Something roared, very close by. It was long and low, like a foghorn in serious distress. It was the sound you might hear from a cattleyard on a nervous night, and it went on and on, and then stopped so abruptly it caught the silence unawares.

‘… far away from that as we can,’ said Nobby. The sound had done the work of an ice-cold shower and about two pints of black coffee.

Colon spun around. He desperately needed something that would do the work of a laundry. ‘Where
did
it come from?’ he said.

‘It was … over there, wasn’t it?’

‘I thought it was
that
way!’

In the fog, all directions were the same.

‘I think …’ said Colon, slowly, ‘that we ort to go and make a report about this as soon as possible.’

‘Right,’ said Nobby. ‘Which way?’

‘Let’s just run, eh?’

Constable Downspout’s huge pointy ears quivered as the noise boomed over the city. He turned his head carefully, triangulating for height, direction and distance. And then he remembered it.

The cry was heard in the Watch House, but muffled by the fog.

It entered the open head of the golem Dorfl and bounced around inside, echoing down, down among the small cracks in the clay until, at the very edge of perception, little grains danced together.

The sightless sockets stared at the wall. No one heard the cry that came back from the dead skull, because there was no mouth to utter it and not even a mind to guide it, but it screamed out into the night: