The Fifth Elephant d-24 Read online

  The long-term coppers, like even Nobby when he was on a good day, glanced once at a street and that was enough, because they'd seen everything.

  Maybe there were... country eyes. Forest eyes. Vimes saw trees, mounds, snow and not much else.

  The wind was getting up. It began to howl among the trees. Now the snow stung.

  Trees. Branches. Snow.

  Vimes kicked a mound beside the track. Snow slid off dark pine needles. He dropped to his hands and knees and pushed forward.

  Ah...

  It was still cold, and there was some snow on the dead needles, but the weighted branches had spread around the trunk like a tent. He pulled himself in, congratulating himself. It was windless here and, contrary to all common sense, the blanket of snow above him seemed to make it warmer. It even smelled warm... sort of... animal...

  Three wolves, lying lazily around the trunk of the tree, were watching him with interest.

  Vimes added metaphorical freezing to the other sort. The animals didn't seem frightened.

  Wolves!

  And that was about it. It made as much sense to say: snow! Or: wind! Right now, those were more certain killers.

  He had heard somewhere that wolves wouldn't attack you if you faced them down.

  The trouble was that he was going to sleep soon. He could feel it creeping over him. He wasn't thinking right, and every muscle ached.

  Outside, the wind moaned. And His Grace the Duke of Ankh fell asleep.

  He awoke with a snort and, to his surprise, all his arms and legs as well. A drop of chilled water, melted from the roof just above by the heat of his body, ran down his neck. His muscles didn't hurt any more. He couldn't feel most of them.

  And the wolves had gone. There was trampled snow at the far end of the makeshift lair, and light so bright that he groaned.

  It turned out to be daylight, from a bright sky bluer than any Vimes had seen, so blue that it seemed to shade into purple at the zenith. He stepped out into a sugar-frosted world, crunchy and glittering.

  Wolf tracks led away between the trees. It occurred to Vimes that following them would not be a life-enhancing move; perhaps last night had been understood as time out, but today was a new day and probably the search was on for breakfast.

  The sun felt warm, the air was cold, his breath hung in front of him.

  There should be people around, shouldn't there? Vimes was hazy on rural issues, but weren't there supposed to be charcoal burners, woodcutters and... he tried to think... little girls taking goodies to granny? The stories Vimes had learned as a kid suggested that all forests were full of bustle, activity and the occasional scream. But this place was silent.

  He set off in a direction that appeared to head downwards, on general principles. Food was the important thing. He'd still got a couple of matches and he could probably make a fire if he had to be out here mother night, but it was a long time since the canapes at the reception.

  This is Ankh-Morpork, trudging over and through the snow...

  After half an hour he reached the bottom of a shallow valley, where a stream splashed between encroaching banks of ice. It steamed.

  The water was warm to the touch.

  He followed the banks for some way. They were criss-crossed with animal tracks. Here and there the water pooled in deep hollows that smelled of rotten eggs. Around them the leafless bushes were heavy with ice, where the steam had frozen.

  Food could wait. Vimes stripped off his clothes and stepped into one of the deeper pools, yelping at the heat, and then lay back.

  Didn't they do something like this up in Nothingfjord? He'd heard stories. They had hot steamy baths and then ran around in the snow hitting one another with birch logs, didn't they? Or something. There was nothing really daft that some foreigner wouldn't do somewhere.

  Gods, it felt good. Hot water was civilization. Vimes could feel the stiffness in his muscles melting away in the warmth.

  After a moment or two he splashed over to the bank and rummaged through his clothes until he found a flattened cigar packet containing a couple of things that, after the events of the past twenty-four hours, looked like fossilized twigs.

  He had two matches.

  Well, the hell with it. Anyone could light a fire with one match.

  He lay back in the water. That was a good decision. He could feel himself coming back together again, pulled into shape by the heat within and without.

  'Ah. Your grace...'

  Wolf von Uberwald was sitting on the opposite bank. He was stark naked. A little vapour rose off him, as if he'd just been exerting himself. Muscles gleamed as though they'd been oiled. They probably had been.

  'A run in the snow is such a thing, is it not?' said Wolf pleasantly. 'You are certainly learning the ways of Uberwald, your grace. Lady Sybil is alive and well and free to go back to your city when the passes are cleared. I know you would wish to hear that.'

  Other figures were approaching through the trees, men and women, all of them as unselfconsciously naked as Wolf.

  Vimes realized he was a dead man bathing. He could see it in Wolf's eyes. 'Nothing like a hot dip before breakfast,' he said.

  'Ah, yes. We also have not, as yet, breakfasted,' said Wolf. He stood up, stretched, and cleared the pool from a standing start. Vimes's breeches were picked up and examined.

  'I threw Inigo's damn thing away,' said Vimes. 'I don't think a friend put it there.'

  'It is all a great game, your grace,' said Wolf. 'Do not reproach yourself! The strongest survive, which is as it should be!'

  'Dee planned this, did he?'

  Wolf laughed. 'The dear little Dee? Oh, he had a plan. It was a good little plan, although a touch insane. Happily, it will no longer be required!'

  'You want the dwarfs to go to war?'

  'Strength is good,' said Wolf, folding Vimes's clothes neatly. 'But like some other good things, it only remains good if it is not possessed by too many people.' He tossed the clothes as far as he could.

  'What is it you want me to say, your grace?' Wolf continued. 'Something like "You are going to die anyway so I might as well tell you," perhaps?'

  'Well, it'd be a help,' said Vimes.

  'You are going to die anyway.' Wolf smiled. 'Why don't you tell me?'

  Talking gained time. Maybe those woodcutters and charcoal burners would be along at any minute. If they hadn't brought their axes everyone was going to be in big trouble.

  'I'm... pretty sure why the replica Scone was stolen in Ankh-Morpork,' said Vimes. 'I've just got the inkling of an idea that a copy was made of it, which was smuggled here on one of our coaches. Diplomats don't get searched.'

  'Well done!'

  'Shame Igor came to unload when one of your boys was there, wasn't it?'

  'Oh, it's hard to hurt an Igor!'

  'You don't care, do you?' said Vimes. 'A bunch of dwarfs want Albrecht on the thro— the Scone because they want to hang on to that old-time certainty, and you just want dwarfs fighting. And old Albrecht wouldn't even get the right Scone back!'

  'Let us say that just now we find our interests converge, shall we?' said Wolf.

  Out of the corner of his eye Vimes saw the other werewolves spreading out around the pool.

  'And now you've set me up,' he said. 'Pretty amateurishly, I'd say. But impressive, because Dee couldn't have had much time after he thought I was getting close. It would have worked, too. People aren't good eye-witnesses. I know. They believe what they want to see and what people told them they saw. It was a nice touch giving me that damn one-shot. He really must have hoped I'd kill to escape—'

  'Is it not time you got out of that... pool?' said Wolfgang.

  'You mean bath?' said Vimes. Yes, there was a wince. Vimes registered it. Oh, you're walking upright and talking, my lad, and you look strong as an ox - but something between a human and a wolf has a bit of dog in them, doesn't it?

  'We have an ancient custom here,' said Wolf, looking away. 'And it is a good one. Anyone can chal
lenge us. It's a little... chase. The great game! A competition, if you like. If they outrun us they win four hundred crowns. That is a very good sum! A man may start a small business with it. Of course, as I can see you realize, if they don't outrun us the question of money does not arise!'

  'Does anyone ever win?' said Vimes. Come on, woodcutters, the people need wood!

  'Sometimes. If they train well and know the country! Many a successful man in Bonk owes his start in life to our little custom. In your case, we'll give you, oh, an hour's lead. For the sport of it!' He pointed. 'Bonk is five miles in that direction. The lore says that you must not enter a dwelling until you get there.'

  'And if I don't run?'

  'Then it will be a really short event! We do not like Ankh-Morpork. We do not want you here!'

  'That's odd,' said Vimes.

  Wolf's broad brow wrinkled. 'Your meaning?'

  'Oh, it's just that everywhere I go in Ankh-Morpork I seem to bump into people who come from Uberwald, you see. Dwarfs, trolls, humans. All beavering away quite happily and writing letters home saying, come on, it's great here - they don't eat you alive for a dollar.'

  Wolf's lip curled, revealing a glint of incisor. Vimes had seen that look on Angua's face. It meant she was having a bad hair ,day. And a werewolf can have a bad hair day all over.

  He pushed his luck. It was clearly too weak to move by itself. 'Angua's getting on well—'

  'Vimes! Mister Civilized! Ankh-Morpork! You will run!'

  Hoping that his legs would support him, Vimes climbed out on the snow of the bank, as slowly as he dared. There was laughter from the werewolves.

  'You go into the water wearing clothes?'

  Vimes looked down at his streaming legs. 'You've never seen drawers before?' he said.

  Wolf's lip curled again. He glanced triumphantly at the others. 'Behold... civilization!' he said.

  Vimes, puffed life into his cigar and looked around the frozen woodland with as much hauteur as he could muster.

  'Four hundred crowns, did you say?' he said.

  'Yes!'

  Vimes sneered at the forest again. 'What is that in Ankh-Morpork dollars, do you know? About a dollar fifty?'

  'The question will not arise!' Wolf bellowed.

  'Well, I don't want to have to spend it all here—'

  'Run!'

  'In the circumstances, then, I won't ask if you have the money on you.'

  Vimes walked away from the werewolves, glad that they couldn't see his face and very much aware that the skin on his back wanted to crawl around to his front.

  He kept moving calmly, his wet drawers beginning to crackle in the frosty air, until he was certain he was out of sight of the pack.

  So, let's see... they've got better strength than you, they know the country, and if they're as good as Angua they could track a fart through a skunk's breakfast, and your legs hurt already.

  So what are the pluses here? Well, you've made Wolf really angry.

  Vimes broke into a run.

  Not much of a plus there, then, all things considered.

  Vimes broke into a faster run.

  Off in the distance, wolves began to howl.

  There is a saying: it won't get better if you picket.

  Corporal Nobbs or, rather, Guild President C. W. St J. Nobbs, reflected on this. A little early snow was fizzling in the air over the metal drum which, in approved strike fashion, was glowing red-hot in front of the Watch House.

  A main problem, as he saw it, was that there was something philosophically wrong with picketing a building that no one except a watchman wanted to enter in any case. It is impossible to keep people out of something that they don't want to go into. It can't be done.

  The chant hadn't worked. An old lady had given him a penny.

  'Colon, Colon, Colon! Out! Out! Out!' shouted Reg Shoe happily, waving his placard.

  'That doesn't sound right, Reg,' said Nobby. 'Sounds like surgery.'

  He looked at the other placards. Dorfl was holding a large, closely worded text, detailing their grievances in full, with references to Watch procedures and citing a number of philosophical texts. Constable Visit's sandwich-board, on the other hand, proclaimed: 'What Profiteth it a Kingdom if the Oxen be Deflated? Riddles 11, v3.'

  Somehow, these cogent arguments did not seem to be bringing the city to its knees.

  He turned at the sound of a coach pulling up and looked up at a door which had a crest consisting mainly of a black shield. And above that, looking out of the window, was the face of Lord Vetinari.

  'Ah, none other than Corporal Nobbs,' said Lord Vetinari.

  At this point Nobby would have given quite a lot to be anyone other than Corporal Nobbs.

  He wasn't sure whether, as a striker, he should salute. He saluted anyway, on the basis that a salute was seldom out of place.

  'I gather you have withdrawn your labour,' Lord Vetinari went on. 'In your case, I am sure this presented a good deal of difficulty.'

  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 him once again.

  Mister 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?'

  'What 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 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 oldest sister. 'Ah, a home of lost illusions and thwarted hopes...'

  'We could go out dancing and everything.'

  'I remember when we 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 looks like he wants... a pair of trousers...'

  'Ah,' said the middle sister dreamily. 'Trousers ver 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 towards other men, and the worse they are the more they think they'd really like being 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 towards 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... barn-like. There were stacks of hay, dusty farm implements... and a couple of threadbare sacks hanging on a nail. He snatched one, gratefully.