The Fifth Elephant (30 page)

Nobby wasn’t certain about that sentence, but the Patrician seemed quite amiable.

“Can’t stand by when the security of the city’s concerned, sir,” he said, oozing affronted loyalty from every unblocked pore.

Lord Vetinari paused long enough for the peaceful, everyday sounds of a city apparently on the brink of catastrophe to filter into Nobby’s consciousness.

“Well, of course I wouldn’t dream of interfering,” he said at last. “This is Guild business. I’m sure His Grace will understand fully when he returns.” He banged on the side of the coach. “Drive on.”

And the coach was gone.

A thought that had been nudging Nobby for some time chose this moment to besiege his once again.

Mr. Vimes is going to go
spare.
He’s going to go mental.

Lord Vetinari sat back in his seat, smiling to himself.

“Er…did you
mean
that, sir?” said the clerk Drumknott, who was sitting opposite.

“Certainly. Make a note to have the kitchen send them down cocoa and buns around three o’clock. Anonymously, of course. It’s been a crime-free day, Drumknott. Very unusual. Even the Thieves’ Guild is lying low.”

“Yes, my lord. I can’t imagine why. When the cat’s away…”

“Yes, Drumknott, but mice are happily unencumbered by apprehensions of the future. Humans, on the other hand, are. And they know that Vimes is going to be back in a week or so, Drumknott. And Vimes will not be happy. Indeed, he will not. And when a commander of the Watch is unhappy, he tends to spread it around with a big shovel.”

He smiled again. “This is the time for sensible men to be honest, Drumknott. I only hope Colon is stupid enough to let it continue.”

The snow fell faster.

“How beautiful the snow is, sisters…”

Three women sat at the window of their lonely house, looking out at the white Uberwald winter.

“And how cold the vind is,” said the second sister.

The third sister, who was the youngest, sighed. “Why do we always talk about the weather?”

“Vhat else is there?”

“Well, it’s either freezing cold or baking. I mean, that’s it, really.”

“That is how things are in Mother Uberwald,” said the oldest sister, slowly and sternly. “The vind and the snow and the boiling heat of summer…”

“You know, I bet if we cut down the cherry orchard, I’m sure we could put in a roller skating rink—”

“No.”

“How about a conservatory? We could grow pineapples.”

“No.”

“If we moved to Bonk we could get a big apartment for the cost of this place—”

“This is our home, Irina,” said the eldest sister. “Ah, a home of lost illusions and thwarted hopes…”

“We could go out dancing and everything.”

“I remember vhen ve lived in Bonk,” said the middle sister dreamily. “Things vere better then.”

“Things vere
alvays
better then,” said the oldest sister.

The youngest sister sighed, and looked out of the window. She gasped.

“There’s a man running through the cherry orchard!”

“A
man
? Vot could he possibly vant?”

The youngest sister strained to see.

“It’s looks like he wants…a pair a trousers…”

“Ah,” said the middle sister dreamily. “Trousers vere better then.”

The hurrying pack stopped in a chilly blue valley when the howling filled the air.

Angua loped back to the sledge, lifted out her bag of clothes with her jaws, glanced at Carrot, and disappeared among the drifts. A few moments later she walked back again, doing up her shirt.

“Wolfgang’s got some poor devil playing the Game,” she said. “I’m going to put a stop to it. It was bad enough that Father kept the tradition going, but at least he played fair. Wolfgang cheats. They
never
win.”

“Is this the Game you told me about?”

“That’s right. But Father played by the rules. If the runner was bright and nimble he got four hundred crowns and Father had him to dinner at the castle.”

“If he
lost
, then your father had him for dinner out in the woods.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“I was trying not to be nice.”

“You may have an undiscovered natural talent,” said Angua. “But no one
had
to run, is my point. I won’t apologize. I’ve been a copper in Ankh-Morpork, remember. City motto: You May Not Get Killed.”

“Actually, it’s—”

“Carrot! I
know
. And
our
family motto is Homo Homini Lupus. ‘A man is a wolf to other men’! How
stupid
. Do you think they mean that men are shy and retiring and loyal and kill only to eat? Of course not! They
mean
that men act like
men
toward other men, and the worse they are, the more they think they’re really being like wolves! Humans hate werewolves because they see the wolf in us, but wolves hate us because they see the human inside—and I don’t blame them!”

Vimes veered away from the farmhouse and sprinted toward the nearby barn. There had to be something in there. Even a couple of sacks would do. The chafing qualities of frozen underwear can be seriously underestimated.

He’d been running for half an hour. Well, for twenty-five minutes, really. The other five had been spent limping, wheezing, clutching at his chest and wondering how you knew if you were having a heart attack.

The inside of the barn was…barnlike. There were stacks of hay, dusty farm implements…and a couple of threadbare sacks, hanging on a nail. He snatched one, gratefully.

Behind him, the door creaked open. He spun around, clutching the sack to him, and saw three very somberly dressed women watching him carefully. One of them was holding a kitchen knife in a trembling hand.

“Have you come here to ravish us?” she said.

“Madam! I’m being pursued by werewolves!”

The three looked at one another. To Vimes, the sack suddenly seemed far too small.

“Vill that take you all day?” said one of the women.

Vimes held the sack more tightly.

“Ladies! Please! I need trousers!”

“Ve can see that.”

“And a weapon, and boots if you’ve got them! Please?”

They went into another huddle.

“We have the gloomy and purposeless trousers of Uncle Vanya,” said one, doubtfully.

“He seldom vore them,” said another.

“And I have an ax in my linen cupboard,” said the youngest. She looked guiltily at the other two. “Look, just in case I ever needed it, all right? I wasn’t going to chop anything
down
.”

“I would be so grateful,” said Vimes. He took in the good but old clothes, the faded gentility, and played the only card in his hand. “I am His Grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, although I appreciate this fact is not evident at the—”

There was a three-fold sigh.

“Ankh-Morpork!”

“You haf a magnificent opera house and many fine galleries.”

“Such vonderful avenues!”

“A veritable heaven of culture and sophistication and unattached men of quality!”

“Er…I said
Ankh-Morpork
,” said Vimes. “With an
A
and an
M
.”

“Ve have always dreamed of going there.”

“I’ll have three coach tickets sent along immediately after I get home,” said Vimes, his mind’s ear hearing the crunch of speeding paws over snow. “But, dear ladies, if you could fetch me those things—”

They hurried away, but the youngest lingered by the door.

“Do you have long, cold winters in Ankh-Morpork?” she said.

“Just muck and slush, usually.”

“Any cherry orchards?”

“I don’t think we have any, I’m afraid.”

She punched the air.

“Yesss!”

A few minutes later Vimes was alone in the barn, wearing a pair of ancient black trousers that he’d tied at the waist with rope, and holding an ax which was surprisingly sharp.

He had five minutes, perhaps. Wolves probably didn’t stop to worry about heart attacks.

There was no point in simply running. They could run faster. He needed to stay near civilization and its hallmarks, like trousers.

Maybe
time
was on Vimes’s side. Angua was never very talkative about her world, but she
had
said that, in either shape, a werewolf slowly lost some of the skills of the
other
shape. After several hours on two legs her sense of smell dropped from uncanny to merely good. And after too long as a wolf…it was like being drunk, as far as Vimes understood it; a little inner part of you was still trying to give instructions, but the rest of you was acting stupid. The human part started to lose control…

He looked around the barn again. There was a ladder to an upper gallery. He climbed it, and looked out of a glassless window across a snowy meadow. There was a river in the distance, and what looked very much like a boathouse.

Now…how would a werewolf think?

The werewolves slowed as they reached the building. Their leader glanced at a lieutenant, and nodded. He loped off in the direction of the boathouse. The others followed Wolf inside. The last became human for a moment to pull the doors shut and drop the bar across.

Wolf stopped near the center of the barn. Hay had been scattered over the floor in great fluffy piles.

He scraped gently with a paw, and wisps fell away from a rope that was stretched taut.

Wolf took a deep breath. The other werewolves, sensing what was going to happen, looked away. There was a moment of struggling shapelessness, and then he was rising slowly on two feet, blinking in the dawn of humanity.

That’s interesting, thought Vimes, up on the gallery. For a second or two after Changing, they’re not entirely up on current events…

“Oh, Your Grace,” said Wolf, looking around. “A
trap
? How very…civilized.”

He caught site of Vimes, who was standing on the higher floor, by the window.

“What was it supposed to do, Your Grace?”

Vimes reached down to the oil lamp.

“It was supposed to be a decoy,” he said.

He hurled the lamp down onto the dry hay, and flicked his cigar after it. Then he grabbed the ax and climbed through the window just as the spilled fat oil
whump
ed.

Vimes dropped into the deep snow and ran toward the boathouse.

There were other tracks leading to it, not human. When he reached the door he swung wildly at the darkness just inside, and his reward was a cut-off yelp.

The skiff that was housed in the tumbledown shed was a quarter full of dark water, but he didn’t dare think about bailing yet. He grabbed the dusty oars and rowed with considered effort and not much speed out onto the river.

He groaned. Wolf was trotting across the snow, with the rest of the pack behind him. They all seemed to be there.

Wolf cupped his hands.

“Very civilized, Your Grace! But, you see, when you set fire to a barn full of wolves, they panic, Your Grace! But when they’re werewolves, one of them just opens the door! You cannot
kill
werewolves, Mister Vimes!”

“Tell that to the one in the boathouse!” Vimes shouted, as the current took the boat.

Wolf looked into the shadows for a moment, and then cupped his hands again.

“He
will
recover, Mister Vimes!”

Vimes swore under his breath, because despite all his hopes a couple of werewolves had plunged into the water upstream and were swimming strongly toward the opposite bank. But that was
another
doggy thing, wasn’t it? Leap joyfully into any water outdoors, but fight like hell against a tub.

Wolfgang had started to trot along the bank. The ones in the water emerged on the
far
bank. Now they were keeping pace with the boat on both sides.

The current was carrying him faster now. Vimes started to bail with both hands.

“You can’t outrun the river, Wolf!” he shouted.

“We don’t have to, Mister Vimes! That is not the question! The question is, can you outswim the waterfall? See you later, Civilized!”

Vimes looked around. In the distance, the river ahead had a foreshortened look. When he concentrated, the inner ear of terror could hear a distant roaring.

He snatched the oars again and tried to row upstream and, yes, it was possible to make headway against the current. But he couldn’t keep rowing faster than wolves could run, and taking on two at once on the shore, when they were ready and waiting for him, was not an option.

If he went over the falls now, he might get to the bottom before they did.

That wasn’t a good sentence, however he tried it.

He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the ax onto my back—

He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body—

G
OOD MORNING
.

Vimes blinked. A tall dark-robed figure was now sitting in the boat.

“Are you Death?”

I
T’S THE SCYTHE, ISN’T IT
. P
EOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE
.

“I’m going to die?”

P
OSSIBLY
.

“
Possibly?
You turn up when people are
possibly
going to die?”

O
H YES
. I
T’S QUITE THE NEW THING
. I
T’S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
.

“What’s that?”

I’
M NOT SURE
.

“That’s very helpful.”

I
THINK IT MEANS PEOPLE MAY OR MAY NOT DIE
. I
HAVE TO SAY IT’S PLAYING HOB WITH MY SCHEDULE, BUT
I
TRY TO KEEP UP WITH MODERN THOUGHT
.

The roar was a lot louder now. Vimes lay back in the boat and gripped the sides.

I’m talking to Death, he thought, to take my mind off things.

“Didn’t I see you last month? I was chasing Bigger-than-Small-Dave Dave along Peach Pie Street and I fell off that ledge?”

T
HAT IS CORRECT
.