Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett [67]
Errol finished off the coke and started on the fire irons.
So far this evening he had eaten three cobblestones, a doorknob, something unidentifiable he’d found in the gutter and, to general astonishment, three of Cut-me-own-Throat’s sausages made of genuine pork organs. The crunching of the poker going down mingled with the patter of rain on the windows.
Vimes stared at the paper again and then wrote:
Itym: How can Kinges come of noethinge?
He hadn’t even seen the lad close to. He looked personable enough, not exactly a great thinker, but definitely the kind of profile you wouldn’t mind seeing on your small change. Mind you, after killing the dragon he could have been a cross-eyed goblin for all that it mattered. The mob had borne him in triumph to the Patrician’s palace.
Lord Vetinari had been locked up in his own dungeons. He hadn’t put up much fight, apparently. Just smiled at everyone and went quietly.
What a happy coincidence for the city that, just when it needed a champion to kill the dragon, a king came forth.
Vimes turned this thought over for a while. Then he turned it back to front. He picked up the quill and wrote:
Itym: What a happy chance it be, for a lad that would be Kinge, that there be a Draggon to slae to prove beyond doubt his boney fiddes.
It was a lot better than birthmarks and swords, that was for sure.
He twiddled the quill for a while, and then doodled:
Itym: The draggon was not a Mechanical devise, yette surely no wizzard has the power to create a beaste of that mag. magg. maggnyt. Size.
Itym: Whye, in the Pinche, could it not Flame?
Itym: Where did it come from?
Itym: Where did it goe?
The rain pounded harder on the window. The sounds of celebration became distinctly damp, and then faded completely. There was a murmur of thunder.
Vimes underlined goe several times. After further consideration he added two more question marks:??
After staring at the effect for some time he rolled the paper into a ball and threw it into the fireplace, where it was fielded and swallowed by Errol.
There had been a crime. Senses Vimes didn’t know he possessed, ancient policeman’s senses, prickled the hairs on his neck and told him there had been a crime. It was probably such an odd crime that it didn’t figure anywhere in Carrot’s book, but it had been committed all right. A handful of high-temperature murders was only the start of it. He’d find it, and give it a name.
Then he stood up, took his leather rain cape from its hook behind the door, and stepped out into the naked city.
This is where the dragons went.
They lie…
Not dead, not asleep. Not waiting, because waiting implies expectation. Possibly the word we’re looking for here is…
…angry.
It could remember the feel of real air under its wings, and the sheer pleasure of the flame. There had been empty skies above and an interesting world below, full of strange running creatures. Existence had a different texture there. A better texture.
And just when it was beginning to enjoy it, it had been crippled, stopped from flaming and whipped back, like some hairy canine mammal.
The world had been taken away from it.
In the reptilian synapses of the dragon’s mind the suggestion was kindled that, just possibly, it could get the world back. It had been summoned, and disdainfully banished again. But perhaps there was a trail, a scent, a thread which would lead it to the sky…
Perhaps there was a pathway of thought itself…
It recalled a mind. The peevish voice, so full of its own diminutive importance, a mind almost like that of a dragon, but on a tiny, tiny scale.
Aha.
It stretched its wings.
Lady Ramkin made herself a cup of cocoa and listened to the rain gurgling in the pipes outside.
She slipped off the hated dancing shoes, which even she was prepared to concede were like a pair of pink canoes.