Thud
Authors: Terry Pratchett
A NOVEL
OF DISCWORLD
®
The first thing Tak did, he wrote himself.
The second thing Tak did, he wrote the Laws.
The third thing Tak did, he wrote the World.
The fourth thing Tak did, he wrote a cave.
The fifth thing Tak did, he wrote a geode, an egg of stone.
And in the twilight of the mouth of the cave, the geode hatched, and the Brothers were born.
The first Brother walked toward the light, and stood under the open sky. Thus he became too tall. He was the first Man. He found no Laws, and he was enlightened.
The second Brother walked toward the darkness, and stood under a roof of stone. Thus he achieved the correct height. He was the first Dwarf. He found the Laws Tak had written, and he was endarkened.
But some of the living spirit of Tak was trapped in the broken stone egg, and it became the first troll, wandering the world unbidden and unwanted, without soul or purpose, learning or understanding. Fearful of light and darkness it shambles forever in twilight, knowing nothing, learning nothing, creating nothing, being nothing…
—From
‘Gd Tak ‘Gar’ (The Things Tak Wrote),
trans. Prof. W. W. W. Wildblood. Ankh-
Morpork: Unseen University Press. AM$8. In the original, the last paragraph of the quoted text appears to have been added by a much later hand.
Him who sun him stop him no
Him who hammer him break him no
Him who fire him fear him no
Him who raise him head above him heart
Him diamond
—Translation of troll pictograms found carved on a basalt slab in the deepest level of the Ankh-Morpork treacle mines, in pig-treacle measures estimated at 500,000 years old.
Epigraphs:
The first thing Tak did, he wrote himself.
Him who mountain crush him no
Thud…
It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an…
On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal woke up in the…
One little light lluminated the cellar, which was to say that…
There was a small crowd outside the Watch House in…
It was politics. Vimes could never get a handle on politics, which
…The locker room wasn’t big enough. Nothing like big enough.
The door opened.
In theory, the only problem in Fred’s life now was his door.
Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs, having been rousted from their…
Vimes eased himself into his chair and looked at the…
Ankh-Morpork’s Finest strolled back down toward the Yard.
“Say that again, paying attention to every word, will…
Bloody stupid thing to say, Vimes thought five minutes…
Treacle Street was just the kind of area the dwarfs colonized…
Aimless and hopeless, the troll wandered…
When Vimes stepped out into the brilliant daylight, the first…
One dwarf in the cells, one in the tender, loving care of…
Sally knew something was up as soon as she got back into the…
Vimes fretted through the afternoon. There was, of course…
What was this?
The Pork Futures Warehouse was…one of those things, the…
“I don’t think I can go through with this,” Angua had hissed…
Darkness.
“There’s something I didn’t want to mention in front of…
Bewildered and aimless, the troll wanders through the…
The main office was packed, but Vimes fought his way…
The moon was somewhere beyond the clouds, but Angua didn’t…
The leap wasn’t intentional. Her hindbrain arranged it all by…
On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal tried putting
…It was five a.m. Rain rustled out the sky, not hard, but with a…
In a dank cellar that once was an attic and was now half-full of…
Nobby Nobbs, a shadow in the warm red gloom, nudged…
Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights…
…The troll mob was a tableau. Trolls stood or sat or lay…
“You wish me to believe,” said Lord Vetinari, “that Mr.…
It was still nighttime in the city of endless rain. It was never not
…Through the ruin of the world the troll staggers…
Angua decided to go straight to Pseudopolis Yard rather…
There was an old military saying that Fred Colon used to…
I should be in charge of the mine raid, thought Vimes. We…
Captain Carrot had been busy. The city dwarfs liked him. So…
Pointer and Pickles was dusty. Dust was the keynote of the…
The entity slithered through the rainy streets. Confounded again!
…There was a crowd of dwarfs milling around outside the Yard.
The showers in the Watch house were the talk of the city.
Vimes sat and stared at his notebook. He’d got “talking…
The drinking had started in The Bucket, in Gleam Street.
Fred Colon peered through the bars. He was, on the whole, a
Fun. What is it good for?
It was odd, having Sybil in Pseudopolis Yard. It had been one of…
“I’ve never been on a girls’ night out before,” said Cheery…
The Ramkins never threw anything away. There was something…
When
did
Lord Vetinari sleep? Presumably, the man must…I don’t use magic, thought Vimes, walking through the rain…
The rain cooled Vimes down. It had cooled down the streets,…
The entity known as the Summoning Dark sped through streets
…Grag Bashfullsson lodged in a subdivided cellar in Cheap…
Vimes didn’t remember going to sleep. He didn’t remember…
When Vimes stepped out into the damp dawn, two coaches…
“This is all rather fun,” said Sybil an hour later as the…
You could catch up with the dwarfs long before they’re near
…What Vimes remembered most of all about that journey—…
Bunty was surprised to see them so soon, but Ladies Who…
Angua and Sally had been put in the same bedroom. Angua…
And now Koom Valley stretched away ahead of Vimes, and he…
Vimes opened his eyes. After a while, moving his arm…
“He’ll be back soon, you know,” said Sybil. “Even if it’s…
He wanted to sleep. He’d never felt this tired before. Vimes…
“Is that clock right?”
“Ob oggle oog soggle!”
Sybil tried not to look at the worried faces of her host and…
Vimes, half limping and half running, tripped and fell into a…
Night, forever. But within it, a city, shadowy and only real in
…It hadn’t exactly been an ambush; the dwarfs just caught up…
On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal dropped the
…It would be a lot simpler, Vimes thought, if this was a story. A…
“Sixty new officers?” said Lord Vetinari.
Plink!
went a drop of water onto the head of the very, very…Wandering through the world, the eternal troll…
Trolls and dwarfs had raised a huge roundhouse in Koom…
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