The Truth (23 page)

“Are you sure—” Boddony began, and then nodded. He’d rather have argued with a wild vampire than Sacharissa at this moment. “Right you are, miss.”

Otto sat down, wiping his forehead, as the dwarfs filed out. Sacharissa patted his hand. “Do you want a drink—”

“Oh!”

“—of
water,
Otto?” said Sacharissa.

“No, no, everyzink is okay, I think…Uh. Oh dear. My goodness. I am zo sorry. You zink you are on top of it, and zen suddenly it all comes back to you. Vot a day…”

“Otto?”

“Yes, miss?”

“What actually happened when I grabbed the eel, Otto?”

He winced.

“I zink zis is maybe not the time—”

“Otto, I
saw
things. There were…flames. And people. And noise. Just for a moment. It was like watching a whole day go past in a second! What
happened?
”

“Vell,” Otto said reluctantly, “you know how salamanders absorb light?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Vell, zer eels absorb
dark
light. Not
darkness,
exactly, but zer light vithin darkness. Dark light…you see, dark light…vell, it has not been properly studied. It is heavier than normal light, you see, so most of it is under zer sea or in zer really deep caves in Ubervald, but zere is always a little of it even in
normal
darkness. It really is very fascinating—”

“It’s a kind of magical light. Right. Could we just get more towards the point a bit?”

“I haf heard it said that dark light is zer
original
light from which all other types of light came—”

“Otto!”

He held up a pale hand. “I haf to tell you zese things! Haf you heard the theory zat zere is no such thing as zer present? Because if it is divisible, zen it cannot
be
zer present, and if it is not divisible, zen it cannot have a beginning which connects to zer past and an end zat connects to zer future? Zer philosopher Heidehollen tells us zat the universe is just a cold soup of time, all time mixed up together, and vot we call zer
passage of time
is merely qvantum fluctuations in zer fabric of space-time.”

“You have very long winter evenings in Uberwald, don’t you?”

“You see, dark light is held to be zer proof of zis,” Otto went on, ignoring her. “It is a light without time. Vot it illuminates, you see…is not necessarily
now
.”

He paused, as if waiting for something.

“Are you saying it takes pictures of the
past?
” said Sacharissa.

“Or zer future. Or somevhere else. Of course, in reality zere is no difference.”

“And
all this
you point at people’s heads?”

Otto looked worried. “I
am
finding strange side things. Oh, zer dwarfs say that dark light had odd…effects, but zey are very superstitious people so I did not take that seriously. However…”

He scrabbled among the debris on his bench, and picked up an iconograph.

“Oh, dear. Zis is so complicated,” said Otto. “Look, zer philosopher Kling says zer mind has a dark side and a light side, you see, and dark light…is seen by zer dark eyes of zer mind…”

He paused again.

“Yes?” said Sacharissa politely.

“I vas vaiting for zer roll of thunder,” said the vampire. “But, alas, zis is not Ubervald.”

“You’ve lost me there,” said Sacharissa.

“Vell, you see, if I vas to say something portentous like ‘zer dark eyes of zer mind’ back home in Ubervald, zere would be a sudden crash of thunder,” said Otto. “And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say ‘Yonder is…
zer castle,
’ a volf would be bound to howl mournfully.” He sighed. “In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and knows vot is expected of it. Here, alas, people just look at you in a funny vay.”

“All right, all right, it’s a magical light that takes uncanny pictures,” said Sacharissa.

“That’s a very…
newspaper
vay of putting it,” said Otto politely. He showed her the iconograph. “Look at zis one. I vanted a picture of a dwarf vorking in the Patrician’s study and I
got
zis.”

The picture was a wash of blurs and swirls, and there was a
vague
outline of a dwarf, lying down on the floor and examining something. But superimposed on this was quite a clear picture of Lord Vetinari.
Two
pictures of Lord Vetinari, each figure staring at the other.

“Well, it’s his office and he’s always in there,” said Sacharissa. “Does the…magic light pick that up?”

“Maybe,” said Otto. “Ve know that vot is physically zere is not alvays vot is
really zere.
Look at zis vun.”

He handed her another picture.

“Oh, that’s a good one of William,” she said. “In the cellar. And…that’s Lord de Worde standing just behind him, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” said the vampire. “I don’t know zer man. I do know that he vas not in zer cellar ven I took the picture. But…you only have to talk to Villiam for any length of time to see that, in a
vay,
his father is alvays looking over his shoulder—”

“That’s
creepy
.”

Sacharissa looked around the cellar. The stone walls were old and stained, but they certainly weren’t blackened.

“I just saw…people. Men fighting. Flames. And…silver rain. How can it rain underground?”

“I do not know. That’s vhy I study dark light.”

Noises above suggested that William and Goodmountain had returned.

“I wouldn’t mention this to anyone else,” said Sacharissa, heading for the ladder. “We’ve got enough to deal with. That’s
creepy.
”

There was no name outside the bar, because those who knew what it was didn’t need one. Those who didn’t know what it was shouldn’t go in. Ankh-Morpork’s undead were, on the whole, a law-abiding bunch, if only because they knew the law paid them a certain amount of special attention, but if you walked into the place known as Biers on a dark night and had no business there, who would ever know?

For the vampires (those, that is, that weren’t gathered around a harmonium at the Temperance Mission nervously singing songs about how much they liked cocoa) it was a place to hang up. For the werewolves, it was where you let your hair down. For the bogeymen, it was a place to come out of the closet. For the ghouls, it did a decent meat pasty and chips.

All eyes, and that was not the same thing as the number of heads multiplied by two, turned to the door when it creaked open. The newcomers were surveyed from dark corners. They wore black, but that didn’t mean anything. Anyone could wear black.

They walked up to the bar, and Mr. Pin rapped on the stained wood.

The barman nodded. The important thing, he’d found, was to make sure ordinary people paid for their drinks as they bought them. It wasn’t good business to let them run a tab. That showed an unwarranted optimism about the future.

“What can I—” he began, before Mr. Tulip’s hand caught him around the back of the neck and rammed his head down hard on the bar.

“I am not having a nice day,” said Mr. Pin, turning to the world in general, “and Mr. Tulip here suffers from unresolved personality conflicts. Has anyone got any questions?”

An indistinct hand rose in the gloom.

“What cook?” said a voice.

Mr. Pin opened his mouth to reply, and then turned to his colleague, who was examining the bar’s array of very strange drinks. All cocktails are sticky; the ones in Biers tended to be stickier.

“Says ‘Kill the Cook!!!’” said the voice.

Mr. Tulip rammed two long kebab skewers into the bar, where they vibrated.

“What cooks’ve you got?” he said.

“It’s a
good
apron,” said the voice in the gloom.

“It is the —ing envy of all my friends,” Mr. Tulip growled.

In the silence Mr. Pin
heard
the unseen drinkers calculating the likely number of friends of Mr. Tulip. It was not a calculation that would involve a simple thinker taking off his shoes.

“Ah. Right,” said someone.

“Now, we don’t want any trouble with you people,” said Mr. Pin. “Not as such. We simply wish to meet a werewolf.”

Another voice in the gloom said: “Vy?”

“Got a job for him,” said Mr. Pin.

There was some muffled laughter in the darkness and a figure shuffled forwards. It was about the size of Mr. Pin; it had pointy ears; it had a hairstyle that clearly continued to its ankles, inside its ragged clothes. Tufts of hair stuck out of holes in its shirt and densely thatched the backs of its hands.

“’m part werewolf,” it said.

“Which part?”

“That’s a funny joke.”

“Can you talk to dogs?”

The self-confessed part-werewolf looked around at its unseen audience, and for the first time Mr. Pin felt a twinge of disquiet. The sight of Mr. Tulip’s slowly spinning eye and throbbing forehead was not having the usual effect. There were rustlings in the dark. He was sure he heard a snigger.

“Yep,” said the werewolf.

The hell with this, thought Mr. Pin. He pulled out his pistol bow in one practiced movement, and held it an inch from the werewolf’s face.

“This is tipped with silver,” he said.

He was amazed at the speed of movement. Suddenly a hand was against his neck, and five sharp points pressed into his skin.

“These ain’t,” said the werewolf. “Let’s see who finishes squeezin’ first, eh?”

“Yeah, right,” said Mr. Tulip, who was also holding something.

“That’s just a barbecue fork,” said the werewolf, giving it barely a glance.

“You want to see how —ing fast I can throw it?” said Mr. Tulip.

Mr. Pin tried to swallow, but only got halfway. Dead people, he knew, didn’t squeeze that hard, but it was at least ten steps to the door and the space seemed to be getting wider by the heartbeat.

“Hey,” he said. “There’s no need for this, right? Why don’t we all loosen up? And, hey, it would help me talk to you if you were your normal shape…”

“No problem, my friend.”

The werewolf winced and shuddered, without at any point letting go of Mr. Pin’s neck. The face contorted so much, features flowing together, that even Mr. Pin, who in other circumstances quite enjoyed that sort of thing, had to look away.

This allowed him to see the shadow on the wall. It was, contrary to expectations, growing. So were its ears.

“Any qvestions?” said the werewolf. Now its teeth seriously interfered with its speech. Its breath smelled even worse than Mr. Tulip’s suit.

“Ah…” said Mr. Pin, standing on tiptoe. “I think we’ve come to the wrong place.”

“I think zat also.”

At the bar, Mr. Tulip bit the top off a bottle in a meaningful way.

Once again, the room was filled with the ferocious silence of calculation and the personal mathematics of profit and loss.

Mr. Tulip smashed a bottle against his forehead. At this point, he did not appear to be paying much attention to the room. He’d just happened to have a bottle in his hand which he did not need anymore. Putting it onto the bar would have required an unnecessary expenditure of hand-eye coordination.

People recalculated.

“Is he
human?
” said the werewolf.

“Well, of course, ‘human’ is just a word,” said Mr. Pin.

He felt weight slowly press down onto his toes as he was lowered to the floor.

“I think perhaps we’ll just be going,” he said carefully.

“Right,” said the werewolf. Mr. Tulip had smashed open a big jar of pickles, or at least things that were long, chubby, and green, and was trying to insert one up his nose.

“If we wanted to stay, we would,” said Mr. Pin.

“Right. But you want to go. So does your…friend,” said the werewolf.

Mr. Pin backed towards the door.

“Mr. Tulip, we have business elsewhere,” he said. “Sheesh, take the damn pickle out of your nose, will you? We’re supposed to be professionals!”

“That’s not a pickle,” said a voice in the dark.

Mr. Pin was uncharacteristically thankful when the door slammed behind them. To his surprise, he also heard the bolts shoot home.

“Well, that could have gone better,” he said, brushing dust and hair off his coat.

“What now?” said Mr. Tulip.

“Time to think of a plan B,” said Mr. Pin.

“Why don’t we just —ing hit people until someone tells us where the dog is?” said Mr. Tulip.

“Tempting,” said Mr. Pin. “But we’ll leave that for plan C—”

“Bugrit.”

They both turned.

“Bent treacle edges, I told ’em,” said Foul Ole Ron, lurching across the street, a wad of
Times
es under one arm and the string of his nondescript mongrel in his other hand. He caught sight of the New Firm.

“Harglegarlyurp?” he said. “
Lay
arrrB
nip!
You gents want a paper?”

It seemed to Mr. Pin that the last sentence, while in pretty much the same voice, had an intrusive, not-quite-right quality. Apart from anything else, it made sense.

“You got some change?” he said to Mr. Tulip, patting his pockets.

“You’re going to —ing
buy
one?” said his partner.

“There’s a time and a place, Mr. Tulip, a time and a place. Here you are, mister.”

“Millennium hand and shrimp, bugrit,” said Ron, adding, “Much obliged, gents.”

Mr. Pin opened the
Times
. “This thing has got—” He stopped, and looked closer. “‘Have You Seen This Dog?’” he said. “Sheesh…” He stared at Ron.

“You sell lots of these things?” he said.

“Qeedle the slops, I told ’em. Yeah, hundreds.”

There it was again, the slight sensation of two voices.

“Hundreds,” said Mr. Pin. He looked down at the paper seller’s dog. It looked pretty much like the one in the paper, but all terriers looked alike. Anyway, this one was on a string. “Hundreds,” he said again, and read the short article again.