Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett [62]
“We’ll start by that wall in the Shades,” said the captain.
Sergeant Colon glanced sideways at Lady Ramkin, and found it impossible to show cowardice in the face of the supportive. He contented himself with, “Is that wise, Captain?”
“Of course it isn’t. If we were wise, we wouldn’t be in the Watch.”
“I say! All this is tremendously exciting,” said Lady Ramkin.
“Oh, I don’t think you should come, m’lady—” Vimes began.
“—Sybil, please!—”
“—it’s a very disreputable area, you see.”
“But I’m sure I shall be perfectly safe with your men,” she said. “I’m sure vagabonds just melt away when they see you.”
That’s dragons, thought Vimes. They melt away when they see dragons, and just leave their shadows on the wall. Whenever he felt that he was slowing down, or that he was losing interest, he remembered those shadows, and it was like having dull fire poured down his backbone. Things like that shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Not in my city.
In fact the Shades were not a problem. Many of its denizens were out hoard-hunting anyway, and those that remained were far less inclined than hitherto to lurk in dark alleys. Besides, the more sensible of them recognized that Lady Ramkin, if waylaid, would probably tell them to pull up their socks and not be silly, in a voice so used to command that they would probably find themselves doing it.
The wall hadn’t been knocked down yet and still bore its grisly fresco. Errol sniffed around it, trotted up the alley once or twice, and went to sleep.
“Dint work,” said Sergeant Colon.
“Good idea, though,” said Nobby loyally.
“It could be all the rain and people walking about, I suppose,” said Lady Ramkin.
Vimes scooped up the dragon. It had been a vain hope anyway. It was just better to be doing something than nothing.
“We’d better get back,” he said. “The sun’s gone down.”
They walked back in silence. The dragon’s even tamed the Shades, Vimes thought. It’s taken over the whole city, even when it isn’t here. People’ll start tying virgins to rocks any day now.
It’s a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also a bloody great hot flying thing.
He pulled out the key to the new headquarters. While he was fumbling in the lock, Errol woke up and started to yammer.
“Not now,” Vimes said. His side twinged. The night had barely started and already he felt too tired.
A slate slid down the roof and smashed on the cobbles beside him.
“Captain,” hissed Sergeant Colon.
“What?”
“It’s on the roof, Captain.”
Something about the sergeant’s voice got through to Vimes. It wasn’t excited. It wasn’t frightened. It just had a tone of dull, leaden terror.
He looked up. Errol started to bounce up and down under his arm.
The dragon—the dragon—was peering down interestedly over the guttering. Its face alone was taller than a man. Its eyes were the size of very large eyes, colored a smoldering red and filled with an intelligence that had nothing to do with human beings. It was far older, for one thing. It was an intelligence that had already been long basted in guile and marinated in cunning by the time a group of almost-monkeys were wondering whether standing on two legs was a good career move. It wasn’t an intelligence that had any truck with, or even understood, the arts of diplomacy.
It wouldn’t play with you, or ask you riddles. But it understood all about arrogance and power and cruelty and if it could possibly manage it, it would burn your head off. Because it liked to.
It was even more angry than usual at the moment. It could sense something behind its eyes. A tiny, weak, alien mind, bloated with self-satisfaction. It was infuriating, like an unscratchable itch. It was making it do things it didn’t want to do…and stopping it from doing things it wanted to do very much.
Those eyes were, for the moment, focused