Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett [125]
All he needed was a few minutes of peace. Then he’d show them.
The upper floors were more full of shadows. What they were short on was structural strength. Pillars and walls had been torn out by the dragon as it built its cave. Rooms gaped pathetically on the edge of the abyss. Dangling shreds of wall-hanging and carpet flapped in the wind from the smashed windows. The floor sprang and wobbled like a trampoline as Wonse scurried across it. He struggled to the nearest door.
“That was commendably fast,” said the Patrician.
Wonse slammed the door in his face and ran, squeaking, down a corridor.
Sanity took a brief hold. He paused by a statue. There was no sound, no hurrying footsteps, no whirr of hidden doors. He gave the statue a suspicious look and prodded it with the sword.
When it failed to move he opened the nearest door and slammed it behind him, found a chair and wedged it under the handle. This was one of the upper state rooms, bare now of most of its furnishings, and lacking its fourth wall. Where it should have been was just the gulf of the cavern.
The Patrician stepped out of the shadows.
“Now you have got it out of your system—” he said.
Wonse spun around, sword raised.
“You don’t really exist,” he said. “You’re a—a ghost, or something.”
“I believe this is not the case,” said the Patrician.
“You can’t stop me! I’ve got some magic stuff left, I’ve got the book!” Wonse took a brown leather bag out of his pocket. “I’ll bring back another one! You’ll see!”
“I urge you not to,” said Lord Vetinari mildly.
“Oh, you think you’re so clever, so in-control, so swave, just because I’ve got a sword and you haven’t! Well, I’ve got more than that, I’ll have you know,” said Wonse triumphantly. “Yes! I’ve got the palace guards on my side! They follow me, not you! No one likes you, you know. No one ever liked you.”
He swung the sword so that its needle point was a foot from the Patrician’s thin chest.
“So it’s back to the cells for you,” he said. “And this time I’ll make sure you stay there. Guards! Guards!”
There was the clatter of running feet outside. The door rattled, the chair shook. There was a moment’s silence, and then door and chair erupted in splinters.
“Take him away!” screamed Wonse. “Fetch more scorpions! Put him in…you’re not the—”
“Put the sword down,” said Vimes, while behind him Carrot picked bits of door out of his fist.
“Yeah,” said Nobby, peering around the captain. “Up against the wall and spread ’em, motherbreath!”
“Eh? What’s he supposed to spread?” whispered Sergeant Colon anxiously.
Nobby shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “Everything, I reckon. Safest way.”
Wonse stared at the rank in disbelief.
“Ah, Vimes,” said the Patrician. “You will—”
“Shut up,” said Vimes calmly. “Lance-constable Carrot?”
“Sir!”
“Read the prisoner his rights.”
“Yes, sir.” Carrot produced his notebook, licked his thumb, flicked through the pages.
“Lupine Wonse,” he said, “AKA Lupin Squiggle Sec’y PP—”
“Wha?” said Wonse.
“—currently domiciled in the domicile known as The Palace, Ankh-Morpork it is my duty to inform you that you have been arrested and will be charged with—” Carrot gave Vimes an agonized look—“a number of offenses of murder by means of a blunt instrument, to whit, a dragon, and many further offenses of generalized abetting, to be more specifically ascertained later. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to be summarily thrown into a piranha tank. You have the right to trial by ordeal. You have the—”
“This is madness,” said the Patrician calmly.
“I thought I told you to shut up!” snapped Vimes, spinning around and shaking a finger under the Patrician’s nose.
“Tell me, Sarge,” whispered Nobby, “do you think we’re going to like it in the scorpion pit?”
“—say anything, er, but anything you do say will be written down, er, here, in my notebook, and, er, may be used in evidence—”
Carrot’s voice trailed into silence.
“Well, if this pantomime gives