Terry Pratchett. Jingo
страница №8
...tain stared at him and then looked up again in terrifiedobedience. And there was somewhere where the light wasn't. As the fizzing
green tongues waved in the wind they seemed to be edged with... blackness,
perhaps, or a moving hole in space.
'That's octarine!' shouted Ahmed, as another wave sloshed over the
deck. 'Only wizards can see it! There's magic in these storms! That's why
the weather is so bad!'
The ship screamed in every joint as it hit the waves again.
'We're coming right out of the water!' wept Jenkins. 'We're just going
from crest to crest!'
'Good! It won't be so bumpy!' shouted Vimes. 'We should pick up speed
again now we've got those bedsteads over the side! Does it often rain
bedsteads out here?'
'What do you think?'
'I'm not a nautical man!'
'No, rains of bedsteads are not an everyday occurrence! Nor are coal
scuttles!' Jenkins added, as something black crashed off a rail and over the
side. 'We just get the normal stuff, you know! Rain! Snow! Sleet! Fish!'
Another squall blew across the bounding boat and the deck was suddenly
covered with flashing silver.
'Back to fish!' shouted Vimes. 'That's better, surely?'
'No! It's worse!'
'Why!'
Jenkins held up a tin.
'These are sardines!'
The ship thumped into another wave, groaned, and took flight again.
The cold green fire was everywhere. Every nail of the deck sprouted its
flame, every rope and ladder had its green outline.
And the feeling crept over Vimes that it was holding the ship together.
He wasn't at all sure that it was just light. It moved too purposefully. It
crackled, but it didn't sting. It looked as though it was having fun
The ship landed. Water washed over Vimes.
'Captain Jenkins!'
'Yes?'
'Why're we playing with this wheel? It's not as if the rudder's in the
water!'
They let go. The spokes blurred for a moment, and then stopped as the
fire wrapped itself around them.
Then it rained cake.
The Watch had tried to make themselves comfortable in the hold, but
there were difficulties. There wasn't any area of floor which at some point
in every ten seconds wasn't an area of wall.
Nevertheless, someone was snoring.
'How can anyone sleep in this?' said Reg Shoe.
'Captain Carrot can,' said Cheery. She was hacking at something with
her axe.
Carrot had wedged himself into a corner. Occasionally he mumbled
something, and shifted position.
'Like a baby. Beats me how he's managing it,' said Reg Shoe. 'Of
course, any minute this thing is going to fall apart.'
'Yes, but dat shouldn't worry you, should it?' said Detritus. 'On
account of you bein' dead already?'
'So? I end up at the bottom of the sea knee-deep in whale droppings?
And it'll be a long walk home in the dark. Not to mention the problems if a
shark tries to eat me.'
'I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fishermen
Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish,' said Constable Visit.
The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence.
'Washpot, are we talking miracles here?' said Reg eventually. 'Or just
a very slow digestive process?'
'You would be better employed considering the state of your immortal
soul than making jokes,' said Constable Visit severely.
'It's the state of my immortal body that's worrying me,' said Reg.
'I have a leaflet here which will bring you considerable-' Visit began.
'Washpot, is it big enough to be folded into a boat that'll save us
all?'
Constable Visit pounced on the opening. 'Aha, yes, metaphorically it
is-'
'Hasn't this ship got a lifeboat?' said Cheery hurriedly. 'I'm sure I
saw one when we came on.'
'Yeah... lifeboat,' said Detritus.
'Anyone want a sardine?' said Cheery. 'I've managed to get a tin open.'
'Lifeboat,' Detritus repeated. He sounded like someone exploring an
unpleasant truth. 'Like... a big, heavy thing which would've slowed us
down... ?'
'Yes, I saw it, I know I did,' said Reg.
'Yeah... dere was one,' said Detritus. 'Dat was a lifeboat, was it?'
'At the very least we ought to get somewhere sheltered and drop the
anchor.'
'Yeah... anchor:' mused Detritus. 'Dat's a big thing kinda hooks on,
right?'
'Of course.'
'Kinda heavy thing?'
'Obviously!'
'Right. An'... er... if it was dropped a long time ago, on accounta
bein' heavy, dat wouldn't do us much good now?'
'Hardly.' Reg Shoe glared through the hatchway. The sky was a dirty
yellow blanket, criss-crossed with fire. Thunder boomed continuously.
'I wonder how far the barometer's sunk?' he said.
'All der way,' said Detritus gloomily. 'Trust me on dis.'
It was in the nature of a D'reg to open doors carefully. There was
generally an enemy on the other side. Sooner or later.
He saw the collar lying on the floor, right by a little fountain of
water trickling from the hull, and swore under his breath.
Ahmed waited just a moment, and then pushed the door back quietly. It
rattled against the wall.
'I don't intend to harm you,' he said to the gloom of the bilges. 'If
that was my intention, by now you'd-'
She wished she'd used the wolf. There would have been no problem with
the wolf. That was the problem. She'd easily win, but then she'd be nervy
and frightened. A human could stay on top of that. A wolf might not. She'd
do the wrong things, panicky things, animal things.
She pushed him hard as she dropped down from above the door,
somersaulted backwards, slammed the door and turned the key.
The sword came through the planking like a hot knife through runny
lard.
There was a gasp beside her. She spun round and saw two men holding a
net. They would have thrown it over the wolf. What they hadn't been
expecting was a naked woman. The sudden appearance of a naked woman always
caused a rethink of anyone's immediate plans.
She kicked them both hard and ran in the opposite direction, opened the
first door at random and slammed it behind her.
It was the cabin with the dogs in it. They sprang to their feet, opened
their mouths - and slunk down again. A werewolf can have considerable power
over other animals. whatever shape she's in, although it is largely the
power to make them cringe and try to look inedible.
She hurried past them and pulled at one of the hangings over the bunk.
The man in the bunk opened his eyes. He was a Klatchian, but pale with
weakness and pain. There were dark rings under his eyes.
'Ah,' he said, 'it would appear that I have died and gone to Paradise.
Are you a houri?'
'I don't have to take that kind of language, thank you,' said Angua,
ripping the silk in two with a practised hand.
She was aware that she had a slight advantage over male werewolves in
that naked women caused fewer complaints, although the downside was that
they got some pressing invitations. Some kind of covering was essential, for
modesty and the prevention of inconvenient bouncing, which was why
fashioning impromptu clothes out of anything to hand was a lesser-known
werewolf skill.
Angua stopped. Of course, to the unpractised eye all Klatchians looked
alike, but then to a werewolf all humans looked alike: they looked
appetizing. She'd learned to discern.
'Are you Prince Khufarah?'
'I am. And you are... ?'
The door was kicked open. Angua leapt towards the window and flung
aside the bar restraining the shutters. Water funnelled into the cabin,
drenching her, but she managed to scramble up and out.
'Just passing through?' the Prince murmured.
71-hour Ahmed strode to the window and looked out. Green-blue waves
edged with fire fought outside as the ship heaved. No-one could stay afloat
in a sea like that.
He turned and looked along the hull to where Angua was clinging to a
trailing line.
She saw him wink at her. Then he turned away and she heard him say,
'She must have drowned. Back to your posts!'
Presently, up on the deck, a hatch closed.
The sun rose in a cloudless sky.
A watcher, if such had been out here, would have noticed a slight
difference in the way the swells were moving on this tiny patch of sea.
They might even have wondered about the piece of bent piping which
turned with a faint squeaking noise.
Had they been able to place an ear to it, they would have heard the
following:
'-idea while I was dozing off. Piece of pipe, two angled mirrors - the
solution to all our steering and air problems!'
'Fascinating. A Seeing-Things-Pipe-You-Can-Breathe-Down.'
'My goodness, how did you know it was called that, my lord?'
'A lucky guess.'
' 'ere, someone's re-designed my pedalling seat, it's comfortable-'
'Ah, yes, corporal, I took some measurements while you were asleep and
rebuilt it for a better anatomical configu--'
'You took measurements?'
'Oh, yes, I-'
'What, of my... saddlery regions?'
'Oh, please don't be concerned, anatomy is something of a passion with
me-'
'Is it? Is it? Well, you can stop being passionate about mine for a
start-'
'Here, I can see an island of some sort!'
The pipe squeaked around.
'Ah, Leshp. And I see people. To your pedals, gentlemen. Let us explore
the ocean's bottom...'
'I expect we shall, with him steering-'
'Shut up, Nobby.'
The pipe slid down into the waves. There was a little flurry of bubbles
and a damp argument about whose job it should have been to put the cork in,
and then the patch of sea that had been empty was, somehow, a little bit
emptier still.
There weren't any fish.
At a time like this Solid Jackson would have even been prepared to eat
Curious Squid.
But the sea was empty. And it smelled wrong. It fizzed gently. Solid
could see little bubbles breaking on the surface, which burst with a smell
of sulphur and rotting eggs. He guessed that the rise of the land must have
stirred up a lot of mud. It was bad enough at the bottom of a pond, all
those frogs and bugs and things, and this was the sea
He tried hard to reverse that train of thought, but it kept on rising
from the depths like a... like a...
Why were there no fish? Oh, there'd been the storm last night, but
generally you got better fishing in these parts after a storm because it...
stirred... up...
The raft rocked.
He was beginning to think it might be a good idea to go home, but
that'd mean leaving the land to the Klatchians, and that'd happen over his
dead body.
The treacherous internal voice said: Funnily enough, they never found
Mr Hong's body. Not most of the important bits, anyway.
'I think, think, I think we'll be getting back now,' he said to his
son.
'Oh, Dad,' said Les. 'Another dinner of limpets and seaweed?'
'Nothing wrong with seaweed,' said Jackson. 'It's
full of nourishing... seaweed. 's got iron in it. Good for you, iron.'
'Why don't we boil an anchor, then?'
'None of your lip, son.'
'The Klatchians have got bread,' said Les. 'They brought flour with
them. And they've got firewood.' This was a sore point with Jackson. Efforts
to make seaweed combust had not been successful.
'Yeah, but you wouldn't like their bread,' said Jackson. 'It's all flat
and got no proper crust-'
A breeze blew the scent of baking over the water. It carried a hint of
spices.
'They're baking bread! On our property!'
'Well, they say it's their-'
Jackson grabbed the piece of broken plank he used as an oar and began
to scull furiously towards the shore. The fact that this only made the raft
go round in circles added to his fury.
'They bloody move in right next to us and all we get is the stink of
foreign food-'
Why's your mouth watering, Dad?'
'And how come they've got wood, may I ask?'
'I think the current takes the driftwood to their side of the island,
Dad-'
'See? They're stealing our driftwood! Our damn driftwood! Hah! Well,
we'll-'
'But I thought we agreed that the bit over there was theirs, and--'
Jackson had finally remembered how to propel a raft with one oar.
'That wasn't an agreement,' he said, creating foam as the oar thrashed
back and forth, 'that was just an... an arrangement. It's not as if they
created the driftwood. It just turned up. Accident of geography. It is a
natural resource, right? It don't belong to anyone-'
The raft hit something which made a metallic sound. But they were still
a hundred yards from the rocks.
Something else, long and bent at the end, rose up with a creaking
noise. It twisted around until it pointed at Jackson.
'Excuse me,' it said, in a tinny yet polite voice, 'but this is Leshp,
isn't it?'
Jackson made a sound in his throat.
'Only,' the thing went on, 'the water's a little cloudy and I thought
we might have been going the wrong way for the last twenty minutes.'
'Leshp!' squeaked Jackson, in an unnaturally highpitched voice.
'Ah, good. Thank you so much. Good day to YOU.
The appendage sank slowly into the sea again. The last sounds from it,
erupting on the surface in a cloud of bubbles, were,'... don't forget to put
the cork in- You've forgot to put the cor--'
The bubbles stopped.
After a while Les said, 'Dad, what was--?'
'It wasn't anything!' snapped his father. 'That sort of thing doesn't
happen!'
The raft shot forward. You could have waterski'd behind it.
Another important thing about the Boat, thought Sergeant Colon gloomily
as they slipped back into a blue twilight, was that you couldn't bale out
the bilges. It was the bilges.
He was pedalling with his feet in water and he was suffering
simultaneously from claustrophobia and agoraphobia. He was afraid of
everything in here and everything out there at the same time. Plus, there
were unpleasantnesses out there, moving past as the Boat drifted down the
wall of rock. Feelers waved. There were claws. Things scuttled into the
waving weeds. Giant clams watched Sergeant Colon with their lips.
The Boat creaked.
'Sarge,' said Nobby, as they looked out at the wonders of the deep.
'Yes, Nobby?'
'You know they say every tiny part of your body is replaced every seven
years?'
'A well-known fact,' said Sergeant Colon.
'Right. So... I've got a tattoo on my arm, right? Had it done eight
years ago. So... how come it's still there?'
Giant seaweeds winnowed the gloom.
'Interesting point,' quavered Colon. 'Er . .
'I mean, OK, new tiny bits of skin float in, but that means it ought to
be all new and pink by now.'
A fish with a nose like a saw swam past.
In the middle of all his other fears, Sergeant Colon tried to think
fast.
'What happens.' he said, 'Is that all the blue skin bits are replaced
by other blue skin bits. Off'f other people's tattoos.'
'So... I've got other people's tattoos now?'
'Er... yes.'
'Amazing. 'cos it still looks like mine. 's got the crossed daggers and
"WUM".'
'Wum?'
'It was gonna be "Mum" but I passed out and Needle Ned didn't notice I
was upside down.'
'I should've thought he'd notice that...'
'He was pissed too. C'mon, sarge, you know it's not a proper tattoo
unless no-one can remember how it got there.'
Leonard and the Patrician were staring out at the submarine landscape.
'What're they looking for?' said Colon.
'Leonard keeps talking about hieroglyphs,' said Nobby. 'What're they,
sarge?'
Colon hesitated, but not for long. 'A type of mollusc, corporal.'
'Cor, you know everything, sarge,' said Nobby admiringly. 'That's what
hieroglyphs are, is it? So, if we go any deeper, they'll be loweroglyphs?'
There was something slightly off-putting about Nobby's grin. Sergeant
Colon decided to go for broke.
'Don't be daft, Nobby. "Loweroglphys if you go lower..." Oh my me.'
'Sorry, sarge.
'Everyone knows you don't get loweroglyphs in these waters.'
A couple of Curious Squid peered at them, curiously.
Jenkins's ship was a floating wreck.
Several sails were in tatters. Rigging and other string that Vimes
refused to learn the nautical names for covered the deck and trailed in the
water.
Such sail as remained was moving them along in the brisk breeze.
Atop the mast the lookout cupped his hands around his mouth and leaned
down.
'Land ahoy!'
'Even I can see that,' said Vimes. 'Why does he have to shout?'
'It's lucky,' said Jenkins. He squinted into the haze.
'But your friend ain't heading for Gebra. Wonder where he's going?'
Vimes stared at the pale yellow mass on the horizon, and then up at
Carrot.
'We'll get her back, don't worry,' he said.
'I wasn't actually worrying, sir. Although I am very concerned,' said
Carrot.
'Er... right...'Vimes waved his arms helplessly, 'Er... everyone fit
and well? The men in good heart, are they?'
'It would help morale no end if you were to say a few words, sir.'
The monstrous regiment of watchmen had lined up on the deck, blinking
in the sunshine. Oh, dear. Round up the unusual suspects. One dwarf, one
human who was brought up as a dwarf and thinks like a manual of etiquette,
one zombie, one troll, me and, oh no, one religious fanatic-
Constable Visit saluted. 'Permission to speak, sir.'
'Go ahead,' mumbled Vimes.
'I'm pleased to tell you, sir, that our mission is clearly divinely
approved of, sir. I refer to the rain of sardines which sustained us in our
extremity, sir.'
'We were a little hungry, I wouldn't say we were in extremi-'
'With respect, sir,' said Constable Visit firmly, 'the pattern is
firmly established, sir. Yes, indeed. The Sykoolites when being pursued in
the wilderness by the forces of Offlerian Mitolites, sir, were sustained by
a rain of celestial biscuits, sir. Chocolate ones, sir.'
'Perfectly normal phenomenon,' muttered Constable Shoe. 'Probably swept
up by the wind passing a baker's shop-'
Visit glared at him, and went on: 'And the Murmurians, when driven into
the mountains by
the tribes of Miskmik, would not have survived but for a magical rain
of elephants, sir-'
'Elephants?'
'Well, one elephant, sir,' Visit conceded. 'But it splashed.'
'Perfectly normal phenomenon,' said Constable Shoe. 'Probably an
elephant was picked up by a freak-'
'And when they were thirsty in the desert, sir, the Four Tribes of
Khanli were succoured by a sudden and supernatural rain of rain, sir.'
'A rain of rain?' said Vimes, almost mesmerized by Visit's absolute
conviction.
'Perfectly normal phenomenon,' sneered Reg Shoe. 'Probably water was
evaporated from the ocean, was blown through the sky, condensed around
nuclei when it ran into cold air, and precipitated...' He stopped, and
continued irritably, 'Anyway, I don't believe it.'
'So... which particular deity is on our case?' said Vimes, hopefully.
'I shall definitely inform you as soon as I have ascertained this,
sir.'
'Er... very good, constable.'
Vimes took a step back. 'I don't pretend this is going to be easy,
men,' he said. 'But our mission is to catch up with Angua and this bastard
Ahmed and shake the truth out of him. Unfortunately, this means we will be
following him through his own country, with which we are at war. This is
bound to put a few barriers in our way. But we should not let the prospect
of being tortured to death dismay us, eh?'
'Fortune favours the brave, sir,' said Carrot cheerfully.
'Good. Good. Pleased to hear it, captain. What is her position vis a
vis heavily armed, well prepared and excessively manned armies?'
'Oh, no-one's ever heard of Fortune favouring them, sir.'
'According to General Tacticus, it's because they favour themselves,'
said Vimes. He opened the battered book. Bits of paper and string indicated
his many bookmarks. 'In fact, men, the general has this to say about
ensuring against defeat when outnumbered, out-weaponed and outpositioned. It
is...' he turned the page, ' "Don't Have a Battle." '
'Sounds like a clever man,' said Jenkins. He pointed to the yellow
horizon.
'See all that stuff in the air?' he said. 'What do you think that is?'
'Mist?' said Vimes.
'Hah, yes. Klatchian mist! It's a sandstorm! The sand blows about all
the time. Vicious stuff. If you want to sharpen your sword, just hold it up
in the air.'
'Oh.'
'And it's just as well because otherwise you'd see Mount Gebra. And
below it is what they call the Fist of Gebra. It's a town but there's a
bloody great fort, walls thirty feet thick. 's like a big city all by
itself. 's got room inside for thousands of armed men, war elephants, battle
camels, everything. And if you saw that, you'd want me to turn round right
now. Whats your famous general got to say about it, eh?'
'I think I saw something...' said Vimes. He flicked to another page.
'Ah, yes, he says, "After the first battle of Sto Lat, I formulated a policy
which has stood me in good stead in other battles. It is this: if the enemy
has an impregnable stronghold, see he stays there."
'That's a lot of help,' said Jenkins.
Vimes slipped the book into a pocket.
'So, Constable Visit, there's a god on our side, is there?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'But probably also a god on their side as well?'
'Very likely, sir. There's a god on every side.'
'Let's hope they balance out, then.'
The Klatchian ship's boat hit the water with the gentlest of splashes.
This was because 71-hour Ahmed was standing by the winches with his sword at
the ready, which had the effect of making the men lowering the boat take
some trouble over their task.
'When we are away you may take the ship into Gebra,' he said to the
captain.
The captain trembled. 'What shall I tell them, wali?'
'Tell them the truth... eventually. The commander of the garrison is a
man of no breeding and will torture you a little bit. Save up the truth
until you need it. That will make him happy. It will help you to say that I
forced you.'
'Oh, I will. I will... tell that lie,' the captain added quickly.
Ahmed nodded, slid down the rope into the boat and set it adrift
The crew watched him row through the surf.
This wasn't a nice beach. It was a wrecking coast. Ribcages of broken
ships crumbled into the sand. Bones and driftwood and bleached white seaweed
mounded along the high tide line. And beyond, the dunes of the real desert
rose. Even down here sand stung the eyes and gritted the teeth.
'There's sudden death on that beach,' said the first mate, looking over
the rail and trying to blink his eyes clear.
'Yes,' said the captain. 'Hes just got out of the boat.' The figure on
the beach pulled the other, recumbent figure out of the boat and dragged him
out of reach of the waves. The mate raised his bow.
'I could kill him from here, master. Just say the word.'
'How sure are you? Because you'd better be really sure. First, if you
miss him you're dead and, second, if you hit him, you're still dead. Look up
there.'
On the high distant dunes, dark against the sandfilled sky, there were
mounted figures. The mate dropped his bow.
'How did they know we were here?'
'Oh, they watch the sea,' said the captain. 'D'regs like a good
shipwreck as much as anyone else. More, in fact. A lot more.'
As they turned away from the rail, something leapt from the hull and
entered the water with barely a splash.
Detritus tried to lurk in the shade, but there was not a lot of it
about. The heat came off the high desert ahead of them like a blowtorch.
'I'm gonna get fick,' he muttered.
There was a shout from the lookout.
'He says someone's climbing the dunes,' said Carrot. 'Carrying someone
else, he says.'
'Er... female?'
'Look, sir, I know Angua. She's not the useless type. She doesn't stand
there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.'
'Well... if you're sure...' Vimes turned to Jenkins. 'Don't bother to
chase the ship, captain. Just keep heading for the shore.'
'I don't work like that, mister. For one thing, that' s a damn
difficult shore, the wind's always against you, and there's some very nasty
currents. Many an incautious sailorman has left his bones to bleach on those
sands. No, we'll stand out a little way and you can lower the- well, if we
had a boat any more, you could lower it... and we'll drop the anchor, oh,
no, tell a he, it turned out to be too heavy, didn't it-'
'You just keep straight on,' said Vimes.
'We'll all be killed.'
'Think of it as the lesser of two evils.'
'What's the other one?'
Vimes drew his sword.
'Me.'
The Boat squeaked through the mysterious depths of the ocean. Leonard
spent a lot of time looking out of the tiny windows, particularly interested
in pieces of seaweed which, to Sergeant Colon, looked like pieces of
seaweed.
'Do you note the fine strands of Dropley's Etoliated Bladderwrack?'
said Leonard. 'That's the brown stuff. A marvellous growth which, of course,
you will see as significant.'
'Could we just assume for the moment that I have neglected my seaweed
studies in recent years?' said the Patrician.
'Really? Oh, the loss is entirely yours, I assure you. The point is, of
course, that the Etoliated Bladderwrack is never usually found growing above
thirty fathoms, and it's only ten here.'
'Ah.' The Patrician flicked through a stack of Leonard's drawings. 'And
the hieroglyphs - an alphabet of signs and colours. Colours as a language:
what a fascinating idea...'
'An emotional intensifier,' said Leonard. 'But of course we ourselves
use something like it. Red for danger and so on. I never did succeed in
translating it, though.'
'Colours as a language:' murmured Lord Vetinari.
Sergeant Colon cleared his throat. 'I know something about seaweed,
sir.'
'Yes, sergeant?'
'Yessir! If it's wet, sir, it means it's going to rain.'
'Well done, sergeant,' said Lord Vetinari, without turning his head. 'I
think it is quite possible that I will never forget you said that.'
Sergeant Colon beamed. He had Made A Contribution.
Nobby nudged him. 'What're we doing down here, sarge? I mean, what's it
all about? Poking around, looking at weird marks on the rocks, going in and
out of caves.. . and the smell... well..
'It's not me,' said Sergeant Colon.
'Smells like... sulphur...'
Little bubbles streamed past the window.
'It stunk up on the surface, too,' Nobby went on.
'Nearly finished, gentlemen,' said Lord Vetinari, putting the papers
aside. 'One last little venture and then we can surface. Very well,
Leonard... take us underneath.'
'Er... aren't we underneath already, sir?' said Colon.
'Only underneath the sea, sergeant.'
'Ah. Right.' Colon gave this due consideration. 'Is there anything else
to be under, then, sir?'
'Yes, sergeant. Now we're going under the land.'
The beach was a lot closer now. The watchmen couldn't help noticing
that the sailors were all hurrying to the blunt end of the ship and hanging
on to any small, lightweight and above all buoyant objects they could find.
'This seems close enough,' said Vimes. 'Right. Stop here.'
'Stop here? How?'
'Don't ask me, I'm no sailor. Aren't there some sort of brakes?'
Jenkins stared at him. 'You - you landlubber!'
'I thought you never used the word!'
'I never met one like you before! You even think we call the bows the
sharp en-'
It was, the crew agreed later, one of the strangest landings in the
history of bad seamanship. The shelving of the beach must have been right
and the tide as well, because the ship did not so much hit the beach as sail
up it, rising out of the water as the keel de-barnacled itself on the sand.
Finally the forces of wind, water, impetus and friction all met at the point
marked 'fall over slowly'.
It did so, earning the title of 'world's most laughable shipwreck'.
'Well, that might have been worse,' said Vimes, when the splintering
noises had died away.
He eased himself out of a tangle of canvas and adjusted his helmet with
as much aplomb as he could muster.
He heard a groan from the lopsided hold.
'Is dat you, Cheery?'
'Yes, Detritus.'
'Is dis me?'
'No!'
'Sorry.'
Carrot eased his way down the sloping deck and jumped onto the damp
sand. He saluted.
'All present and lightly bruised, sir. Shall we. establish a
beachhead?'
'A what?'
'We have to dig in, sir.'
Vimes looked both ways along the beach, if such a sunnysounding word
could be applied to the forsaken strand. It was really just a hem to the
land. Nothing stirred except the heat haze and, in the distance, one or two
carrion birds.
'What for?' he said.
'Establish a defensible position. It's just one of those things
soldiers do, sir.'
Vimes glanced at the birds. They were approaching with a kind of
sidling sideways hop, ready to move in just as soon as anyone had been dead
for a few days. Then he flicked through Tacticus until the word 'beachhead'
caught his eye.
'It says here "If you want your men to spend much time wielding a
shovel, encourage them to become farmers,"' he said. 'So I think we'll press
on. He can't have got very far. We'll be back soon.'
Jenkins waded out of the surf. He didn't look angry. He was a man who
had passed through the fires of anger and was now in some strange peaceful
bay beyond them. He pointed a quivering finger at his stricken ship and said
'Muh... ?'
'Pretty good shape, all things considered,' said Vimes.
'Muh?'
'I'm sure you and your salty sailors will be able to float it again.'
'Muh...'
Jenkins and his wading crew watched the regiment as it slithered and
complained its way up the side of the dune. Eventually the crew went into a
huddle and drew lots and the cook, who was always unlucky in games of
chance, approached the captain.
'Never mind, captain,' he said, 'we can probably find some decent balks
of timber in all this driftwood, and a few days' work with block and tackle
should-'
'Muh.'
'Only... we'd better get started 'cos he said they won't be long...'
'They won't be back!' said the captain. 'The water they've got won't
last a day up there! They haven't got the right gear! And once they're out
of sight of the sea they'll get lost!'
'Good!'
It took half an hour to get to the top of the dune. The sand had been
stamped down but, even as Vimes watched, the wind caught the particles and
nibbled away at the prints.
'Camel tracks,' said Vimes. 'Well, camels don't go all that fast.
Let's--'
'I think Detritus is having real trouble, sir,' said Carrot.
The troll was standing with his knuckles on the ground. The motor of
his cooling helmet sounded harsh for a moment in the dry air, and then
stopped as the sand got into the mechanism.
'Feelin' fick,' he muttered. 'My brain hurts.'
'Quick, hold your shield over his head,' said Vimes. 'Give him some
shade!'
'He's never going to make it, sir,' said Carrot. 'Let's send him back
down to the boat.'
'We need him! Quick, Cheery, fan him with your axe!'
At which point, the sand stood up and drew a hundred swords.
'Bingeley-bingeley beep!' said a cheerful if somewhat muffled voice.
'Eleven eh em, Get Haircut... er... that's right... isn't it?'
It wasn't large, but slabs of collapsing building had smashed together
in such a way that they made a cistern that the rain had filled half full.
Solid Jackson slapped his son on the back.
'Fresh water! At last!' he said. 'Well done, lad.'
'You see, I was looking at these sort of painting things, Dad, and
then-'
'Yeah, yeah, pictures of octopuses, very nice,' said Jackson. 'Hah! The
ball is on the other foot now and no mistake! It's our water on our side of
the island, and I'd just like to see them greasy buggers claim otherwise.
Let 'em keep their damn driftwood and suck water out of fishes!'
'Yeah, Dad,' said Les. 'And we can trade them some of the water for
wood and flour, right?'
His father waved a hand cautiously. 'Maybe,' he said. 'No need to rush
into that, though. We're pretty close to finding a seaweed that'll bum. I
mean, what're our long-term objectives here?'
'Cooking meals and keeping warm?' said Les hopefully.
'Well, initially,' said Jackson. 'That's obvious. But you know what
they say, lad. "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to
him and he's warm for the rest of his life." See my point?'
'I don't think that's actually what the saying is-'
'I mean, we can stop here living on water and raw fish for... well,
practically for ever. But that lot can't go without proper fresh water for
much longer. See? So they'll have to come begging to us, right? And then we
deal on our terms, eh?'
He put his arm around his son's reluctant shoulders and waved a hand at
the landscape.
'I mean, I started out with nothing, son, except that old boat that
your grandad left me, but-'
'-you worked and scraped-' said Les wearily. worked and scraped-'
-and you've always kept your head above water-'
'-right, I've always kept my head above water-'
'And you've always wanted to leave me something that- -Ow!'
'Stop making fun of your dad!' said Jackson. 'Otherwise I'll wallop the
other ear. Look, you see this land? You see it?'
'I see it, Dad.'
'It's a land of opportunity.'
'But there's no fresh water and all the ground's full of salt, Dad, and
it smells bad!'
'That's the smell of freedom, that is.'
'Smells like someone did a really big fart, Dad- Ow!'
'Sometimes the two are very similar! And it's your future Im thinking
of, lad!'
Les looked at the acres of decomposing seaweed in front of him,
He was learning to be a fisherman like his father before him because
that's how the family had always done it and he was too good-natured to
argue, although he actually wanted to be a painter like no-one in the family
had ever been before. He was noticing
things, and they worried him even though he couldn't quite say why.
But the buildings didn't look right. Here and there were definite bits
of, well, architecture, like Morporkian pillars and the remains of Klatchian
arches, but they'd been added to buildings that looked as though some
ham-fisted people had just piled rocks on top of one another. And then in
other places the slabs had been stacked on top of ancient brick walls and
tiled floors. He couldn't imagine who'd done the tiling, but they did like
pictures of octopussies.
The feeling was stealing over him that Morporkians and Klatchians
arguing over who owned this piece of old sea bottom was extremely pointless.
'Er... I'm thinking about my future too, Dad,' he said. 'I really am.'
Far below Solid Jackson's feet, the Boat surfaced. Sergeant Colon
reached automatically for the screws that held the lid shut.
'Don't open it, sergeant!' shouted Leonard, rising from his seat.
'The air's getting pretty lived-in, sir_,
'It's worse outside.'
'Worse than in here?'
'I'm almost certain.'
'But we're on the surface!'
'A surface, sergeant,' said Lord Vetinari. Beside him, Nobby uncorked
the seeing device and peered through it.
'We're in a cave?' said Colon.
'Er... sarge...' said Nobby.
'Capital! Well worked out,' said Lord Vetinari. 'Yes. A cave. You could
say that.'
'Er... sarge?' said Nobby again, nudging Colon. 'This isn't a cave,
sarge! It's bigger than a cave, sarge!'
'What, you mean... like a cavern?'
'Bigger!'
'Bigger'n a cavern? More like a... big cavern?'
'Yeah, that'd be about right,' said Nobby, taking his eye away from the
device. 'Have a look yourself, sarge.'
Sergeant Colon peered into the tube.
Instead of the darkness he was half expecting, he saw the sea's
surface, bubbling like a boiling saucepan. Green and yellow flashes of
lightning danced across the water, illuminating a distant wall that seemed
practically a horizon...
The tube squeaked around. If this was a cave, it was at least a couple
of miles across.
'How long, do you think?' said Lord Vetinari, behind him.
'Well, the rock has a large proportion of tufa and pumice, very light,
and once floated up the build-up of gas starts to escape very rapidly
because of the swell,' said Leonard. 'I don't know... perhaps another
week... and then I think it takes a very long time for a sufficient bubble
to build up again...'
'What're they saying, sarge?' said Nobby. 'This place floats?'
'A most unusual natural phenomenon,' Leonard went on. 'I'd have thought
it was just a legend had I not seen it for myself...'
'Of course it's not floating,' said Sergeant Colon. 'Honestly, Nobby,
how're you ever going to find out anything when you ask daft questions like
that? Land's heavier than water, right? That's why you find it at the bottom
of the sea.'
'Yes, but he said pumice, and my gran had a pumice
stone that worked a treat for getting tough skin off'f your feet in the
tub and that'd float-'
'That sort of thing happens in bath tubs maybe,' said Colon. 'Not in
real life. This is just a phenomena. It's not real. Next thing you'll be
saying there's rocks up in the sky.'
'Yeah, but-'
'I am a sergeant, Nobby.'
'Yes. sarge.'
'It puts me in mind,' said Leonard, 'of those nautical stories about
giant turtles that sleep on the surface, thus causing sailors to think they
are an island. Of course, you don't get giant turtles that small.'
'Hey, Mr Quirm, this is an amazing boat,' said Nobby.
'Thank you.'
'I bet you could even smash up ships with it if you wanted.'
There was an embarrassed silence.
'Altogether an interesting experience,' said Lord Vetinari, making some
notes. 'And now, gentlemen downward and onward, please...'
The watchmen drew their weapons.
'They're D'regs, sir,' said Carrot. 'But - this is all wrong...'
'What do you mean?'
'We're not dead yet.'
They're watching us like cats watch mice, thought Vimes. We can't run
away and we can't win a fight, and they want to see what we'll do next.
'What does General Tacticus have to say about sir?' said Carrot.
There's a hundred of them, thought Vimes. And six
of us. Except that Detritus is drifting off and there's no knowing what
particular commandment Visit is obeying right now and Reg's arms tend to
drop off when he gets excited
'I don't know,' he said. 'Probably something on the lines of Don't
Allow This to Happen.'
'Why don't you check, sir?' said Carrot, not taking his eyes off the
watching D'regs.
'What?'
'I said, why don't you check, sir?'
'Right now?'
'It might be worth a try, sir.'
'That's crazy, captain.'
'Yes, sir. The D'regs have some very strange notions about crazy
people, sir.'
Vimes pulled out the battered book. The D'reg nearest to him, with a
grin almost as wide and as curved as his sword, had a certain additional
swagger that suggested chieftainship. A huge ancient crossbow was slung on
his back.
'I say!' said Vimes. 'Could we just delay things a little?' He strode
towards the man, who looked very surprised, and waved the book in the air.
'This is a book by General Tacticus, don't know if you've ever heard of him,
quite a big name in these parts once, probably slaughtered your
great-great-great-great-grandfather in fact, and I just want to take a
moment to see what he has to say about this situation. You don't mind, do
you?'
The man gave Vimes a puzzled look.
'This might take a moment, there's no index, but I think I saw
something-'
The chieftain took a step backwards and looked at the men next to him,
who shrugged.
'I wonder if you could help me with this word here?' Vimes went on,
reaching the man's side and holding the book under his nose. He got another
puzzled grin.
What Vimes did next was known in Ankh-Morpork's alleyways as the
Friendly Handshake, and consisted largely of driving his elbow into the
man's stomach, then bringing his knee up to meet the man's chin on its way
down, gritting his own teeth because of the pain in both knee and ankle, and
then drawing his sword and holding it to the D'reg's throat before he could
scramble up.
'Now, captain,' said Vimes, 'I'd like you to say in a loud dear voice
that unless they back off a really long way, this gentleman here is going to
be in some very serious legal trouble.'
'Mr Vimes, I don't think-'
'Do it!'
The D'reg looked into his eyes while Carrot hawked his way through the
demand. The man was still grinning
Vimes couldn't risk shifting his gaze, but he sensed some puzzlement
and confusion among the tribesmen.
Then, as one man, they charged.
A Klatchian fishing boat, whose captain knew which way the wind was
blowing, made its way back to the harbour of Al-Khali It seemed to the
captain that, despite the favourable wind, he wasn't making quite the speed
he should. He put it down to barnacles.
Vimes awoke with a noseful of camel. There are far worse awakenings,
but not as many as you might think
By turning his head, which took some effort, he ascertained that the
camel was sitting down. By the sound of things, it was digesting something
explosive.
Now, how had he got here... Oh, gods...
But it should have worked... It was classic. You threatened to cut off
the head and the body just folded up. That was how everyone reacted, wasn't
it? That was practically how civilization worked...
Put it down to cultural differences, then.
On the other hand, he wasn't dead. According to Carrot, knowing the
D'regs for five minutes and still being alive at the end of it meant that
they really, really liked you.
On the other other hand, he'd just given their head man a Handshake,
which influenced people without making friends.
Well, no sense lying over this saddle bound hand and foot and dying of
sunstroke all day. He ought to start being a leader of men again, and would
do so just as soon as he could get this camel out of his mouth.
'Bingeley-bingeley beep?'
'Yes?' said Vimes, struggling with his bonds.
'Would you like to know about the appointments you missed?'
'No! I'm hying to get these damn ropes untied!'
'Do you want me to put that on your To Do list?'
'Oh, you've woken up, sir.'
It sounded like Carrot's voice and it was the sort of thing he'd say.
Vimes tried to turn his head.
What he saw was mainly a white sheet, but it then became Carrot's face,
upside down.
'They asked if they should untie you but I said you hadn't been getting
enough rest lately,' Carrot went on.
'Captain, my arms and legs have gone to sleep . . Vimes began.
'Oh, well done, sir! That's a start, at least.'
'Carrot?'
'Yes, sir?'
'I want you to listen very carefully to the order I am about to give
you.'
'Certainly, sir.'
'The point I'm making is that it won't be a request or a suggestion or
some sort of hint.'
'Understood, sir.'
'I have, as you know, always encouraged my officers to think for
themselves and not blindly obey me, but sometimes in any organization it is
necessary for instructions to be followed to the letter and with alacrity.'
'Right, sir.'
'Untie me right now or you'll bloody well live to regret untying me!'
'Er, sir, I believe there is an inadvertent inconsistency in--'
'Carrot!'
'Of course, sir.'
His ropes were cut. He slid down onto the sand. The camel turned its
head, looked at him with its nostrils for a moment, and then looked away.
Vimes managed to sit upright while Carrot busied himself cutting the
rest of his bonds.
'Captain, why are you wearing a white sheet?'
'It's a burnous, sir. Very practical for desert wear. The D'regs gave
them to us.'
'Us?'
'The rest of us, sir.'
'Everyone's OK?'
'Oh, yes.'
'But they attacked-'
'Yes, sir. But they only wanted to take us prisoner, sir. One of them
did accidentally cut Reg's head off, but he did help him sew it on again, so
no real harm done there.'
'I thought D'regs didn't take prisoners... ?'
'Beats me too, sir. But they say if we try to escape they'll cut our
feet off, and Reg says he hasn't got enough thread for everyone, sir.'
Vimes rubbed his head, Someone had hit him so hard his helmet was
dented.
'What went wrong?' he said. 'I had their boss down!'
'As I understand it, sir, the D'regs think that any leader who is
stupid enough to be defeated so easily isn't worth following. It's a
Klatchian thing.'
Vimes tried to persuade himself that there wasn't a hint of sarcasm in
Carrot's voice as he went on: 'They're not really very interested in
leaders, sir, to tell you the truth. They look on them as a sort of
ornament. You know... just someone to shout "Charge!", sir.'
'A leader has to do other things, Carrot.'
'The D'regs think "Charge!" pretty well covers all of them, sir.'
Vimes managed to stand up. Strange muscles twanged in his legs. He
tottered forward.
'Here, let me give you a hand:' said Carrot, catching him.
The sun was setting. Ragged tents clustered below one of the dunes, and
there was the glow of firelight. Someone was laughing. It didn't sound like
a prison.
But then, thought Vimes, the desert was probably better than bus, He
wouldn't even know which way to run, feet or no feet.
'The D'regs, like all Klatchians, are a very hospitable people,' said
Carrot, as if he'd memorized this. 'They take hospitality very, very
seriously.'
Their captors were sitting round the fire. So were the watchmen. They'd
also been persuaded to dress more suitably, which meant that Cheery looked
like a girl in her mum's dress, apart from the iron helmet, and Reg Shoe
looked like a mummy, and Detritus was a small snowcovered mountain.
'He's gone very... insensible in all this heat,' whispered Carrot. 'And
that's Constable Visit over there, arguing religion. There are six hundred
and fifty-three religions on the Klatchian continent.'
'He must be having fun.'
'And this is Jabbar,' said Carrot. Exhibit A, who looked like a
slightly older version of 71-hour Ahmed, stood up and salaamed to Vimes.
'Offendi,' he said.
'He's their... well, he's like an official wise man,' said Carrot.
'Oh, so he's not the one who tells them to charge?' said Vimes His head
buzzed with the heat.
'No, that's the leader,' said Carrot. 'Whenever they have one.'
'So perhaps Jabbar tells them when it's wise to charge?' said Vimes
brightly.
'It's always wise to charge, offendi,' said Jabbar. He bowed again. 'My
tent is your tent,' he said.
'It is?' said Vimes.
'My wives are your wives.,.'
Vimes looked panicky. 'They are? Really?'
'My food is your food...' Jabbar went on.
'Vimes stared down at the dish by the fire. It looked like a sheep or a
goat had been the main course. And the man bent down, picked up a morsel and
handed it to him.
Sam Vimes looked at the mouthful. And it looked back.
'The best part,' said Jabbar, and made appreciative suckling noises. He
added something in Klatchian. There was some muffled laughter from the other
men around the fire.
'This looks like a sheep's eyeball,' said Vimes, doubtfully.
'Yes, sir,' said Carrot. 'But it is unwise to-'
'You know what?' Vimes went on. 'I think this is a little game called
"Let's see what offendi will swallow". And I'm not swallowing this, my
friend.'
Jabbar gave him an appraising look.
The sniggering stopped.
'Then it is true that you can see further than most,' he said.
'So can this food,' said Vimes. 'My father told me never to eat
anything that can wink back.'
There was one of those little hanging-by-a-thread moments, which might
suddenly rock one way or the other into a gale of laughter or sudden death.
Then Jabbar slapped Vimes on the back. The eyeball shot off his palm
and into the shadows,
'Well done! Extremely good! First time it have not worked in twenty
year! Now sit down and have proper rice and sheep just like mother!'
There was a certain feeling of relaxation. Vimes found himself pulled
down. Bottoms shuffled aside to make room for him and a big slab of bread
dripping with meat was put in front of him. Vimes prodded at it as politely
as he dared, and then took the usual
view that, if you can recognize at least half of it, it's probably OK
to eat the rest.
'So we're your prisoners, Mr Jabbar?'
'Honoured guests! My tent is-'
'But... how can I put this?... you want us to enjoy your hospitality
for some time?'
'We have tradition,' said Jabbar. 'A man who is a guest in your tent,
even if he is your worst enemy, you owe him hospitality for tree dace.'
'Tree dace, eh?' said Vimes.
'I learn language on...' Jabbar waved a hand vaguely, 'you know, wooden
ting, a camel of the sea-'
'Boat?'
'Right! But too many water!' He slapped Vimes on the back again, so
that hot fat spilled into his lap. 'Any road up, lots speaking Morporkian
these dace, offendi. It is language of... merchant.' He put an inflection on
the word that suggested it was the same as 'earthworm'.
'So you have to know how to say things like "Give us all your money"?'
said Vimes.
'Why ask?' said Jabbar. 'We take it anyway. But now...' he spat at the
fire with amazing accuracy '... they say, we got to stop, this is wrong.
What harm do we do?'
'Apart from killing p...
