Feet of Clay (27 page)

And then: ‘Why would a golem admit to something it didn’t do?’

He stared at the candlelight for a while and then wrote: ‘Rats eat stuff.’

More time passed.

‘What has the priest got that anyone wants?’

From downstairs came the sound of armour as a patrol came in. A corporal shouted.

‘Words,’ wrote Vimes. ‘What had Mr Hopkinson got? Dwarf bread? → Not stolen. What else had he got?’

Vimes looked at this, too, and then he wrote ‘Bakery’, stared at the word for a while, and rubbed it out and replaced it with ‘Oven?’. He drew a ring around ‘Oven?’ and a ring around ‘Stolen clay’, and linked the two.

There’d been arsenic under the old priest’s
fingernails
. Perhaps he’d put down rat poison? There were plenty of uses for arsenic. It wasn’t as if you couldn’t buy it by the pound from any alchemist.

He wrote down ‘Arsenic Monster’ and looked at it. You found dirt under fingernails. If people had put up a fight you might find blood or skin. You didn’t find grease and arsenic.

He looked at the page again and, after still more thought, wrote: ‘Golems aren’t alive. But they
think
they are alive. What do things that are alive do? → Ans: Breathe, eat, crap.’ He paused, staring out at the fog, and then wrote very carefully: ‘And make more things.’

Something tingled at the back of his neck.

He circled the late Hopkinson’s name and drew a line down the page to another circle, in which he wrote: ‘He’d got a big oven.’

Hmm. Cheery had said you couldn’t bake clay properly in a bread oven. But maybe you could bake it improperly.

He looked up at the candlelight again.

They couldn’t do
that
, could they? Oh, gods … No, surely not …

But, after all, all you needed was clay. And a holy man who knew how to write the words. And someone to actually sculpt the figure, Vimes supposed, but golems had had hundreds and hundreds of years to learn to be good with their hands …

Those great big hands. The ones that looked so very fist-like.

And then the first thing they’d want to do would be to destroy the evidence, wouldn’t they? They probably didn’t think of it as killing, but more like a sort of switching-off …

He drew another rather misshapen circle on his notes.

Grog. Old baked clay, ground up small.

They’d added some of their own clay. Dorfl had a new foot, didn’t he – it? It hadn’t made it quite right. They’d put part of their own selves into a new golem.

That all sounded – well, Nobby would call it mucky. Vimes didn’t know what to call it. It sounded like some sort of secret-society thing. ‘Clay of my clay.’ My own flesh and blood …

Damn hulking things. Aping their betters!

Vimes yawned. Sleep. He’d be better for some sleep. Or something.

He stared at the page. Automatically his hand trailed down to the bottom drawer of his desk, as it always did when he was worried and trying to think. It wasn’t as though there was ever a bottle there these days – but old habits died ha …

There was a soft glassy
ching
and a faint, seductive slosh.

Vimes’s hand came up with a fat bottle. The label said: Bearhugger’s Distilleries: The MacAbre, Finest Malt.

The liquid inside almost crawled up the sides of the glass in anticipation.

He stared at it. He’d reached down into the drawer for the whisky bottle and there it was.

But it shouldn’t have been. He knew Carrot and
Fred
Colon kept an eye on him, but he’d never bought a bottle since he’d got married, because he’d promised Sybil, hadn’t he …?

But this wasn’t any old rotgut. This was The MacAbre …

He’d tried it once. He couldn’t quite remember why now, since in those days the only spirits he generally drank had the subtlety of a mallet to the inner ear. He must have found the money somehow. Just a
sniff
of it had been like Hogswatchnight. Just a
sniff
…

‘And
she
said, “That’s funny – it didn’t do that last night”!’ said Corporal Nobbs.

He beamed at the company.

There was silence. Then someone in the crowd started to laugh, one of those little uncertain laughs a man laughs who is unsure that he’s not going to be silenced by those around him. Another man laughed. Two more picked it up. Then laughter exploded in the group as a whole.

Nobby basked.

‘Then there’s the one about the Klatchian who walked into a pub with a tiny piano—’ he began.

‘I think,’ said Lady Selachii firmly, ‘that the buffet is ready.’

‘Got any pig knuckles?’ said Nobby cheerfully. ‘Goes down a treat with Winkles, a plate of pig knuckles.’

‘I don’t
normally
eat extremities,’ said Lady Selachii.

‘A pig-knuckle sandwich … Never tried a pig knuckle? You just can’t beat it,’ said Nobby.

‘It is … perhaps … not the most delicate food?’ said Lady Selachii.

‘Oh, you can cut the crusts off,’ said Nobby. ‘Even the toenails. If you’re feeling posh.’

Sergeant Colon opened his eyes, and groaned. His head ached. They’d hit him with something. It might have been a wall.

They’d tied him up, too. He was trussed hand and foot.

He appeared to be lying in darkness on a wooden floor. There was a greasy smell in the air, which seemed familiar yet annoyingly unrecognizable.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark he could make out very faint lines of light, such as might surround a door. He could also hear voices.

He tried to get up to his knees, and groaned as more pain crackled in his head.

When people tied you up it was bad news. Of course, it was much better news than when they killed you, but it could mean they were just putting you on one side for killing later.

This never used to happen, he told himself. In the old days, if you caught someone thieving, you practically held the door open for him to escape. That way, you got home in one piece.

By using the angle between a wall and a heavy crate he managed to get upright. This was not much of an improvement on his former position, but after
the
thunder in his head had died away he hopped awkwardly towards the door.

There were still voices on the other side of it.

Someone apart from Sergeant Colon was in trouble.

‘—
clown!
You got me here for
this?
There’s a werewolf in the Watch! Ah-ha. Not one of your freaks. She’s a proper bimorphic! If you tossed a coin, she could smell what side it came down!’

‘How about if we kill him and drag his body away?’

‘You think she couldn’t smell the difference between a corpse and a living body?’

Sergeant Colon moaned softly.

‘Er, how about we could march him out in the fog—?’

‘And they can smell fear, idiot. Ah-ha. Why couldn’t you have let him look around? What could he have seen? I know that copper. A fat old coward with all the brains of, ah-ha, a pig. He stinks of fear all the time.’

Sergeant Colon hoped he wasn’t about to stink of anything else.

‘Send Meshugah after him, ah-ha.’

‘Are you sure? It’s getting
odd
. It wanders off and screams in the night, and they’re
not
supposed to do that. And it’s cracking up. Trust dumb golems not to do something prop—’

‘Everyone knows you can’t trust golems. Ah-ha. See to it!’

‘I heard that Vimes is—’

‘I’ve seen to Vimes!’

Colon eased himself away from the door as quietly as possible. He hadn’t the faintest idea what this thing called Meshugah the golems had made was, except that it sounded like a fine idea to be wherever it wasn’t.

Now, if he were a resourceful type, like Sam Vimes or Captain Carrot, he’d … find a nail or something to snap these ropes, wouldn’t he? They were
really
tight, and cut into his wrists because the cord was so thin, little more than string wound and knotted many times. If he could find something to rub it on …

But, unfortunately, and against all common sense, sometimes people inconsiderately throw their bound enemies into rooms entirely bereft of nails, handy bits of sharp stone, sharp-edged shards of glass or even, in extreme cases, enough pieces of old junk and tools to make a fully functional armoured car.

He managed to get on to his knees again and shuffled across the planks. Even a splinter would do. A lump of metal. A wide-open doorway marked
F
REEDOM
. He’d settle for anything.

What he got was a tiny circle of light on the floor. A knothole in the wood had long ago fallen out, and light – dim orange light – was shining through.

Colon got down and applied his eye to the hole. Unfortunately this also brought his nose into a similar proximity.

The stench was appalling.

There was a suggestion of wateriness, or at least of liquidity. He must be over one of the numerous
streams
that flowed through the city, although they had of course been built over centuries before and were now used – if their existence was even remembered – for those purposes to which humanity had always put clean fresh water; i.e., making it as turbid and undrinkable as possible. And this one was flowing under the cattle markets. The smell of ammonia bored into Colon’s sinuses like a drill.

And yet there was light down there.

He held his breath and took another look.

A couple of feet below him was a very small raft. Half a dozen rats were laid neatly on it, and a minute scrap of candle was burning.

A tiny rowing boat entered his vision. A rat was in the bottom of it and, sitting amidships and rowing, was—

‘Wee Mad Arthur?’

The gnome looked up. ‘Who’s that there, then?’

‘It’s me, your good old mate Fred Colon! Can you give me a hand?’

‘Wha’re yez doing up there?’

‘I’m all tied up and they’re going to kill me! Why does it smell so
bad
?’

‘’S the old Cockbill stream. All the cattle pens drain into it.’ Wee Mad Arthur grinned. ‘Yez can feel it doing yer tubes a power of good, eh? Just call me King of the Golden River, eh?’

‘They’re going to
kill
me, Arthur! Don’t piss about!’

‘Aha, good one!’

Desperate cells flared in Colon’s mind. ‘I’ve been
on
the trail of those blokes who’re poisoning your rats,’ he said.

‘The Rat-catchers’ Guild!’ snarled Arthur, almost dropping an oar. ‘I
knew
it was them, right? This is where I got them rats! There’s more of ’em down here, dead as doornails!’

‘Right! And I’ve got to give the names to Commander Vimes! In person! With all my arms and legs on! He’s very particular about that sort of thing!’

‘Did yez know yez on a trapdoor?’ said Arthur. ‘Wait right there.’

Arthur rowed out of sight. Colon rolled over. After a while there was a scratching noise in the walls and then someone kicked him in the ear.

‘Ow!’

‘Would there be any money in this?’ said Wee Mad Arthur, holding up his stub of candle. It was a small one, such as might be put on a child’s birthday cake.

‘What about your public duty?’

‘Aye, so there’s
no
money in this?’

‘Lots! I promise! Now untie me!’

‘This is string they’ve used,’ said Arthur, somewhere around Colon’s hands. ‘Not proper rope at all.’

Colon felt his hands free, although there was still pressure around his wrists.

‘Where’s the trapdoor?’ he said.

‘Yer on it. Handy for dumping stuff. Dunt look as if it been used for years, from underneath. Hey, I been finding dead rats everywhere down there now!
Fat
as yer head and twice as dead! I
thought
the ones I caught for Gimlet were a wee bit sluggish!’

There was a twang and Colon’s legs were free. He sat up cautiously and tried to massage some life back into them.

‘Is there any other way out?’ he said.

‘Plenty for me, none for a silly bigger like yez,’ said Wee Mad Arthur. ‘Yer’ll have to swim for it.’

‘You want me to drop into
that
?’

‘Don’t yez worry, yez can’t drown in it.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. But yez may suffocate. Yer know that creek they talk about? The one yez can be up without no paddle?’

‘That’s not this one, is it?’ said Colon.

‘It’s coz of the cattle pens,’ said Wee Mad Arthur. ‘Cattle penned up is always a bit nervous.’

‘I know how they feel.’

There was a creak outside the door. Colon managed to get to his feet.

The door opened.

A figure filled the doorway. It was in silhouette because of the light behind it, but Colon looked up into two triangular glowing eyes.

Colon’s body, which in many respects was considerably more intelligent than the mind it had to carry around, took over. It made use of the adrenalinfed start the brain had given it and leapt several feet in the air, pointing its toes as it came down so that the iron tips of Colon’s boots hit the trapdoor together.

The filth of years and the rust of iron gave way.

Colon went through. Fortunately his body had
the
foresight to hold its own nose as he hit the much-maligned stream, which went:

Gloop
.

Many people, when they’re precipitated into water, struggle to breathe. Sergeant Colon struggled not to. The alternative was too horrible to think about.

He rose again, buoyed up in part by various gases released from the ooze. A few feet away, the candle on Wee Mad Arthur’s rocking raft started to burn with a blue flame.

Someone landed on his helmet and kicked it like a man spurs on a horse.

‘Right
turn
! Forward!’

Half-walking, half-swimming, Colon struggled down the fetid drain. Terror lent him strength. It would demand repayment with interest later but, for now, he left a wake. Which took several seconds to close up after him.

He didn’t stop until a sudden lack of pressure overhead told him that he was in the open air. He grabbed in the darkness, found the greasy pilings of a jetty, and clung to them, wheezing.

‘What was that thing?’ said Wee Mad Arthur.