The Fifth Elephant (43 page)
It seemed to Angua that no part of Fred Colon above the neck, except maybe for his ears, was involved in what happened next. Fred Colon
rose
at attention, executed a thudding about-turn and doubled out of the door.
Carrot spun around toward Nobby.
“You too, Corporal!”
Nobby, trembling with shock, saluted with both hands at once and ran after Colon.
Carrot went over to the fireplace and poked at the ashes.
“Oh dear,” he said.
“All burnt?” said Angua.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Some of those heaps were like old friends.”
“Well, we’ll find out if we’ve missed anything important when it starts to smell,” said Carrot.
Nobby and Colon appeared again, breathless and pink. There were a few bits of tissue stuck on Colon’s face where the shaving had been too enthusiastic, but he was nevertheless looking better. He was a sergeant again. Someone was giving him orders. His brain was moving. The world was the right side up once again.
“Fred?” said Carrot.
“Yessir?”
“You’ve got a bit of bird doings on your shoulder.”
“I’ll see to that right now, sir!” said Nobby, leaping sideways. He dragged a handkerchief from his pocket, spat on it, and rubbed hurriedly at Colon’s temporary pip. “All gone now, Fred!” he said.
“Well done,” said Carrot.
He got up and went over to the window. It did not, in fact, offer much in a way of a view. But he looked out of it as if he could see to the end of the world.
Colon and Nobby shifted uneasily. Right now, they did not like the sound of silence. When Carrot did speak, they blinked as if struck in the face by a cold flannel.
“What I believe there has been here,” he said, “is a
confused situation
.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Nobby quickly. “We was very confused. Fred?”
He jabbed Fred Colon with his elbow, waking him from a reverie of terror.
“Uh? Oh. Right. Oh yeah. Confusion,” he mumbled.
“And I’m afraid I know where the blame ultimately lies,” Carrot went on, still apparently engrossed in the spectacle of a man sweeping the Opera House steps.
In the silence, Nobby’s lips moved in prayer. Only the whites of Fred Colon’s eyes could be seen.
“It was
my
fault,” said Carrot. “I blame myself. Mister Vimes left me in charge, and I rushed off with no thought of my duty and put everyone in an impossible position.”
Fred and Nobby were both wearing the same expression. It was the face of a man who has seen the light at the end of the tunnel and it has turned out to be the twinkle of the Fairy of Hope.
“I feel almost embarrassed to ask you two to get me out of this pit I have dug for myself,” said Carrot. “I can’t imagine what Mister Vimes is going to say.”
The light at the end of the tunnel winked out for Fred and Nobby. They
could
imagine what Mr. Vimes would say.
“However,” said Carrot. He returned to the desk and pulled open the bottom drawer, extracting a few grubby pages that were clipped together.
They waited.
“
However
, each of these men took the King’s Shilling and swore an oath to defend the King’s Peace,” said Carrot, tapping the paper. “An oath, in fact, to the king.”
“Yeah, but that was only—aargh!” said Fred Colon.
“Sorry, sir,” said Nobby. “I inadvertently trod heavily on Fred’s toe while standing to attention.”
There was a long drawn-out silken sound. Carrot was drawing his sword from its sheath. He laid it on the desk. Nobby and Colon leaned away from its accusatory point.
“They are all good lads,” said Carrot softly. “I’m sure if the two of you call on each and every one of them and explain the situation, they will see where their duty lies. Tell them…tell them there is always an
easy
way, if you know where to look. And then we can get on with our jobs, and when Mister Vimes returns from his well-earned holiday the somewhat confused events of the past will be merely—”
“Confusin’?” suggested Nobby, hopefully.
“Exactly,” said Carrot. “But I’m glad to see you made so much headway with the paperwork, Fred.”
Colon stood nailed to the spot until Nobby, saluting desperately with the other hand, dragged him out of the office.
Angua could hear them arguing all the way down the stairs.
Carrot stood up, dusted off the chair, and placed it carefully under the desk.
“Well, we’re home,” he said.
“Yes,” said Angua, and she thought: You
do
know how to do nasty, don’t you. But you use it like a claw; it slides out when you need it, and when you don’t there’s no sign that it’s there.
He reached over and took her hand.
“Wolves never look back,” he whispered.
*
Not rock and iron in their dead form, as they are now, but
living
rock and iron. The dwarfs have quite an inventive mythology about minerals.
*
Vampires evolve long names. It’s something to do to pass the long years.
*
At least, of the sort
she
normally wore.
†
And, just lately, Corporal Nobbs.
*
They couldn’t bring themselves to utter the word “her.”
*
At least, by proper explorers. Just living there doesn’t count.
*
At least, if you hit them hard enough.
*
Especially if it was green, and bubbled.
*
Except that the ones around it were not good stones to tread on if it was a Tuesday.
*
As a member of the dead community, Reg Shoes naturally thought of himself as an ethnic majority.
*
Miles and Miles of Bloody Uberwald.
*
One that
no
other creature in the world would ever adopt.
*
After all, this made it so much harder for the hand to feed you tomorrow.
*
Detritus’s silicon based brain was, as with most trolls, highly sensitive to changes in temperature. When the thermometer was very low he could be dangerously intellectual.
*
whatever the name Vimes rec
†
Buckwheat dumplings stuffed with stuff.
†
Bread made from parsnips, and widely considered to be much tastier than the dull wheat kind.
*
He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: It fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination—but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
*
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of “democracy” with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone
†
had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straightaway.
†
Apart from women, children, slaves, idiots and people who weren’t really our kind of people.
*
The Marquis of Fantailler got into many fights in his youth, most of them as a result of being known as the Marquis of Fantailler, and wrote a set of rules for which he termed “the noble art of fisticuffs” which mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren’t allowed to hit him. Many people were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest outthrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn’t read the Marquis’s book but
did
know how to knock people senseless with a chair. The last words of a surprisingly large number of people were “Stuff the bloody Marquis of Fantailler—”
*
The key was in the pattern of scars.
*
The treacle mines below Ankh-Morpork had long been exhausted, leaving only a street name to remember them by. But the collision with the Fifth Elephant had buried thousands of acres of prehistoric sugar cane around the borders of Uberwald and the resulting dense crystalline sugar was the foundation of a large mining, confectionery and dentistry industry.
TERRY PRATCHETT’s
novels have sold more than forty-five million (give or take a few million) copies worldwide. He lives in England.
www.terrypratchettbooks.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Terry Pratchett’s acclaimed Discworld novels have been number one bestsellers in England for more than a decade, elevating him among the most celebrated practitioners of satire and parody including Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen. At last, his irreverent humor—brilliantly displayed in
The Fifth Elephant
—is being embraced across America.
Unanimous
Praise
for
THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
“He’s arguably the purely funniest English writer since Wodehouse.”
Washington Post Book World
“Acclaimed British author Pratchett continues to distinguish himself from his colleagues with clever plot lines and genuinely likable characters in this first-rate addition to his long-running Discworld fantasy series…Pratchett cheerfully takes readers on an exuberant tale of mystery and invention. Along the way, he skewers everything from monarchy to fascism, as well as communism and capitalism, oil wealth and ethnic identities, Russian plays, immigration, condoms, and evangelical Christianity—in short, most everything worth talking about.”
Publishers Weekly,
starred review
“Discworld takes the classic fantasy universe through its logical, and comic evolution.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Trying to summarize the plot of a Pratchett novel is like describing Hamlet as a play about a troubled guy with an Oedipus complex and a murderous uncle. Pratchett isn’t Shakespeare—for one thing, he’s funnier—but his books are richly textured, and far more complex than they appear at first.”
Barbara Mertz
and Terry Pratchett
“Pratchett has now moved beyond the limits of humorous fantasy, and should be recognized as one of the more significant contemporary English language satirists.”
Publishers Weekly
“Unadulterated fun…witty, frequently hilarious.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Truly original…Discworld is more complicated and satisfactory than Oz…Has the energy of
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
and the inventiveness of
Alice in Wonderland
…Brilliant!”
A. S. Byatt
“For lighthearted escape with a thoughtful center, you can’t do better than…any…Discworld novel.”
Washington Post Book World
“If I were making my list of Best Books of the Twentieth Century, Terry Pratchett’s would be most of them.”
Elizabeth Peters
“Consistently, inventively mad…wild and wonderful!”
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
“Simply the best humorous writer of the twentieth century.”
Oxford Times
“A brilliant story-teller with a sense of humour…whose infectious fun completely engulfs you…The Dickens of the twentieth century.”
Mail on Sunday
(London)
“The funniest parodist working in the field today, period.”
New York Review of Science Fiction
“Terry Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction.”
Today
(Great Britain)
The Carpet People
The Dark Side of the Sun Strata
Truckers
Diggers
Wings
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Dead
Johnny and the Bomb
The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jollife)
Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
T
HE
D
ISCWORLD
S
ERIES
The Color of Magic
*
The Light Fantastic
*
Equal Rites
*
Mort
Sourcery
Wyrd Sisters
Pyramids
Guards! Guards!
Eric
(with Josh Kirby)
Moving Pictures
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Small Gods*
Lords and Ladies
*
Men at Arms
*
Soul Music
*
Feet of Clay
*
Interesting Times
*
Maskerade
*
Hogfather
*
Jingo
*
The Last Continent
*
Carpe Jugulum
*
Mort: A Discworld Big Comic (with Graham Higgins)
The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (with Stephen Briggs)
The Discworld Companion (with Stephen Briggs)
The Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs)
*Published by HarperPrism
