Guards! Guards! tds-8

by Terry Pratchett

  Foolish ape! How else can I make them do my bidding ?

  Wonse put his hands behind his back.

  "They'll do it of their own free will," he said. "And in time, they'll come to believe it was their own idea. It'll be a tradition. Take it from me. We humans are adaptable creatures."

  The dragon gave him a long, blank stare.

  "In fact," said Wonse, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice, "before too long, if someone comes along and tells them that a dragon king is a bad idea, they'll kill him themselves."

  The dragon blinked.

  For the first time Wonse could remember, it seemed uncertain.

  "I know people, you see," said Wonse, simply.

  The dragon continued to pin him with its gaze.

  If you are lying ... it thought, eventually.

  "You know I can't. Not to you."

  And they really act like this?

  "Oh, yes. All the time. It's a basic human trait."

  Wonse knew the dragon could read at least the upper levels of his mind. They resonated in terrible harmony. And he could see the mighty thoughts behind the eyes in front of him.

  The dragon was horrified.

  "I'm sorry," said Wonse weakly. "That's just how we are. It's all to do with survival, I think."

  There will be no mighty warriors sent to kill me? it thought, almost plaintively.

  "I don't think so."

  No heroes?

  "Not any more. They cost too much."

  But I will be eating people!

  Wonse whimpered.

  He felt the sensation of the dragon rummaging around in his mind, trying to find a clue to understanding. He half-saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and-and here he felt the dragon's genuine astonishment — of some of the less commendable areas of human history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.

  You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape—the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of its eyes-we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

  The dragon stretched its wings again, once or twice, and then dropped heavily on to the tawdry assortment of mildly precious things. Its claws scrabbled at the pile. It sneered.

  A three-legged lizard wouldn't hoard this lot , it thought.

  "There will be better things," whispered Wonse, temporarily relieved at the change in direction. There had better be.

  "Can I-" Wonse hesitated-"can I ask you a question?"

  Ask.

  "You don't need to eat people, surely? I think that's the only problem from people's point of view, you see," he added, his voice speeding up to a gabble. "The treasure and everything, that doesn't have to be a problem, but if it's just a matter of, well, protein, then perhaps it has occurred to a powerful intellect such as your own that something less controversial, like a cow, might…"

  The dragon breathed a horizontal streak of fire that calcined the opposite wall.

  Need? Need? it roared, when the sound had died away. You talk to me of need? Isn 't it the tradition that the finest flower of womanhood should be sent to the dragon to ensure peace and prosperity ?

  "But, you see, we have always been moderately peaceful and reasonably prosperous…"

  DO YOU WANT THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS TO CONTINUE?

  The force of the thought drove Wonse to his knees.

  "Of course," he managed.

  The dragon stretched its claws luxuriantly.

  Then the need is not mine, it is yours, it thought. Now get out of my sight.

  Wonse sagged as it left his mind.

  The dragon slithered over the cut-price hoard, leapt up on to the ledge of one of the hall's big windows, and smashed the stained glass with its head. The multicoloured image of a city father cascaded into the other debris below.

  The long neck stretched out into the early evening air, and turned like a seeking needle. Lights were coming on across the city. The sound of a million people being alive made a muted, deep thrumming.

  The dragon breathed deeply, joyfully.

  Then it hauled the rest of its body on to the ledge, shouldered the remains of the window's frame aside, and leapt into the sky.

  "What is it?" said Nobby.

  It was vaguely round, of a woodish texture, and when struck made a noise like a ruler plucked over the edge of a desk.

  Sergeant Colon tapped it again.

  "I give in," he said.

  Carrot proudly lifted it out of the battered packaging.

  "It's a cake," he said, shoving both hands under the thing and raising it with some difficulty. "From my mother." He managed to put it on the table without trapping his fingers.

  "Can you eat it?" said Nobby. "It's taken months to get here. You'd think it would go stale."

  "Oh, it's to a special dwarfish recipe," said Carrot. "Dwarfish cakes don't go stale."

  Sergeant Colon gave it another sharp rap. "I suppose not," he conceded.

  "It's incredibly sustaining," said Carrot. "Practically magical. The secret has been handed down from dwarf to dwarf for centuries. One tiny piece of this and you won't want anything to eat all day."

  "Get away?" said Colon.

  "A dwarf can go hundreds of miles with a cake like this in his pack," Carrot went on.

  "I bet he can," said Colon gloomily, "I bet all the time he'd be thinking, 'Bloody hell, I hope I can find something else to eat soon, otherwise it's the bloody cake again.' "

  Carrot, to whom the word irony meant something to do with metal, picked up his pike and after a couple of impressive rebounds managed to cut the cake into approximately four slices.

  "There we are," he said cheerfully. "One for each of us, and one for the captain." He realized what he had said. "Oh. Sorry."

  "Yes," said Colon flatly.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "I liked him," said Carrot. "I'm sorry he's gone."

  There was some more silence, very similar to the earlier silence but even deeper and more furrowed with depression.

  "I expect you'll be made captain now," said Carrot.

  Colon started. "Me? I don't want to be captain! I can't do the thinking. It's not worth all that thinking, just for another nine dollars a month."

  He drummed his fingers on the table.

  "Is that all he got?" said Nobby. "I thought officers were rolling in it."

  "Nine dollars a month," said Colon. "I saw the pay scales once. Nine dollars a month to add and two dollars plumes allowance. Only he never claimed that bit. Funny, really."

  "He wasn't the plumes type," said Nobby.

  "You're right," said Colon. "The thing about the captain, see, I read this book once . . . you know we've all got alcohol in our bodies . . . sort of natural alcohol? Even if you never touch a drop in your life, your body sort of makes it anyway ... but Captain Vimes, see, he's one of those people whose body doesn't do it naturally. Like, he was born two drinks below normal."

  "Gosh," said Carrot.

  "Yes ... so, when he's sober, he's really sober. Knurd, they call it. You know how you feel when you wake up if you've been on the piss all night, Nobby? Well, he feels like that all the time. "

  "Poor bugger," said Nobby. "I never realized. No wonder he's always so gloomy."

  "So he's always trying to catch up, see. It's just that he doesn't always get the dose right. And, of course," Colon glanced at Carrot, 'he was brung low by a woman. Mind you, just about anything brings him low."

  "So what do we do now, Sergeant?" said Nobby.

  "And do you think he'd mind if we eat his cake?" said Carrot wistfully. "It'd be a shame to let it go stale."

&
nbsp; Colon shrugged.

  The older men sat in miserable silence as Carrot macerated his way through the cake like a bucket-wheel rockcrusher in a chalk pit. Even if it had been the lightest of souffles they wouldn't have had any appetite.

  They were contemplating life without the captain. It was going to be bleak, even without dragons. Say what you liked about Captain Vimes, he'd had style. It was a cynical, black-nailed style, but he'd had it and they didn't. He could read long words and add up. Even that was style, of a sort. He even got drunk in style.

  They'd been trying to drag the minutes out, trying to stretch out the time. But the night had come.

  There was no hope for them.

  They were going to have to go out on the streets.

  It was six of the clock. And all wasn't well.

  "I miss Errol, too," said Carrot

  "He was the captain's, really," said Nobby. "Anyway, Lady Ramkin'll know how to look after him."

  "It's not as though we could leave anything around, either," said Colon. "I mean, even the lamp oil. He even drank the lamp oil."

  "And mothballs," said Nobby. "A whole box of mothballs. Why would anyone want to eat mothballs? And the kettle. And sugar. He was a devil for sugar."

  "He was nice, though," said Carrot. "Friendly."

  "Oh, I'll grant you," said Colon. "But it's not right, really, a pet where you have to jump behind a table every time it hiccups."

  "I shall miss his little face," said Carrot.

  Nobby blew his nose, loudly.

  It was echoed by a hammering on the door. Colon jerked his head. Carrot got up and opened it.

  A couple of members of the palace guard were waiting with arrogant impatience. They stepped back when they saw Carrot, who had to bend a bit to see under the lintel; bad news like Carrot travels fast.

  "We've brung you a proclamation," said one of them. "You've got to…"

  "What's all that fresh paint on your breastplate?" said Carrot politely. Nobby and the sergeant peered around him.

  "It's a dragon," said the younger of the guards.

  "The dragon," corrected his superior.

  " 'Ere, I know you," said Nobby. 'You're Skully Maltoon. Used to live in Mincing Street. Your mum made cough sweets, din't she, and fell in the mixture and died. I never have a cough sweet but I think of your mum."

  "Hallo, Nobby," said the guard, without enthusiasm.

  "I bet your old mum'd be proud of you, you with a dragon on your vest," said Nobby conversationally. The guard gave him a look made of hatred and embarrassment.

  "And new plumes on your hat, too," Nobby added sweetly.

  "This here is a proclamation what you are commanded to read," said the guard loudly. "And post up on street corners also. By order."

  "Whose?" said Nobby.

  Sergeant Colon grabbed the scroll in one ham-like fist.

  "Where As," he read slowly, tracing the lettering with a hesitant finger, "It hathe Pleas-Sed the Der-Rer-Aa-Ger-the dragon, Ker-Ii-king of kings and Aa-Ber-Ess-Uh-Ler-" sweat beaded on the broad pink cliff of his forehead-"absolute, that is, Rer-Uh-Ler-Eh-Rer, ruler of-"

  He lapsed into the tortured silence of academia, his fingertip jerking slowly down the parchment.

  "No," he said at last. "That's not right, is it? It's not going to eat someone?"

  "Consume," said the older guard.

  "It's all part of the social. . . social contract," said his assistant woodenly. "A small price to pay, I'm sure you will agree, for the safety and protection of the city."

  "From what?" said Nobby. "We've never had an enemy we couldn't bribe or corrupt."

  "Until now," said Colon darkly.

  "You catch on fast," said the guard. "So you're going to broadcast it. On pain of pain."

  Carrot peered over Colon's shoulder.

  "What's a virgin?" he said.

  "An unmarried girl," said Colon quickly.

  "What, like my friend Reel?" said Carrot, horrified.

  "Well, no," said Colon.

  "She's not married, you know. None of Mrs Palm's girls are married."

  "Well, yes," said Colon.

  "Well, then," said Carrot, with an air of finality. "We're not having any of that kind of thing, I hope."

  "People won't stand for it," said Colon. "You mark my words."

  The guards stepped back, out of range of Carrot's rising wrath.

  "They can please themselves," said the senior guard. "But if you don't proclaim it, you can try explaining things to His Majesty."

  They hurried off.

  Nobby darted out into the street. "Dragon on your vest!" he shouted. "If your old mum knew about this she'd turn in her vat, you goin' around with a dragon on your vest!"

  Colon wandered back to the table and spread out the scroll.

  "Bad business," he mumbled.

  "It's already killed people," said Carrot. "Contrary to sixteen separate Acts in Council."

  "Well, yes. But that was just like, you know, the hurly-burly of this and that," said Colon. "Not that it wasn't bad, I mean, but people sort of participating, just handing over some slip of a girl and standing round watching as if it's all proper and legal, that's much worse."

  "I reckon it all depends on your point of view," said Nobby thoughtfully.

  "What d'you mean?"

  "Well, from the point of view of someone being burned alive, it probably doesn't matter much," said Nobby philosophically.

  "People won't stand for it, I said," said Colon, ignoring this. "You'll see. They'll march on the palace, and what will the dragon do then, eh?"

  "Burn 'em all," said Nobby promptly.

  Colon looked puzzled. "It wouldn't do that, would it?" he said.

  "Don't see what's to prevent it, do you?" said Nobby. He glanced out of the doorway. "He was a good lad, that boy. Used to run errands for my grandad. Who'd have thought he'd go around with a dragon on his chest ..."

  "What are we going to do, Sergeant?" said Carrot.

  "I don't want to be burned alive," said Sergeant Colon. "My wife'd give me hell. So I suppose we've got to wossname, proclaim it. But don't worry, lad," he said, patting Carrot on one muscular arm and repeating, as if he hadn't quite believed himself the first time, "it won't come to that. People'll never stand for it."

  Lady Ramkin ran her hands over Errol's body.

  "Damned if I know what's going on in there," she said. The little dragon tried to lick her face. "What's he been eating?"

  "The last thing, I think, was a kettle," said Vimes.

  "A kettle of what?"

  "No. A kettle. A black thing with a handle and spout. He sniffed it for ages, then he ate it."

  Enrol grinned weakly at him, and belched. They both ducked.

  "Oh, and then we found him eating soot out of the chimney," Vimes went on, as their heads rose again over the railings.

  They leaned back over the reinforced bunker that was one of Lady Ramkin's sickbay pens. It had to be reinforced. Usually one of the first things a sick dragon did was lose control of its digestive processes.

  "He doesn't look sick, exactly," she said. "Just fat."

  "He whines a lot. And you can sort of see things moving under his skin. You know what I think? You know you said they can rearrange their digestive system?"

  "Oh, yes. All the stomachs and pancreatic crackers can be hooked up in various ways, you see. To take advantage…"

  "…of whatever they can find to make flame with," said Vimes. "Yes. I think he's trying to make some sort of very hot flame. He wants to challenge the big dragon. Every time it takes to the air he just sits there whining."

  "And doesn't explode?"

  "Not that we've noticed. I mean, I'm sure if he did, we'd spot it."

  "He just eats indiscriminately?"

  "Hard to be sure. He sniffs everything, and eats most things. Two gallons of lamp oil, for example. Anyway, I can't leave him down there. We can't look after him properly. It's not as if we need to find out where the dragon is now,"
he added bitterly.

  "I think you're being a bit silly about all this," she said, leading the way back to the house.

  "Silly? I was sacked in front of all those people!"

  "Yes, but it was all a misunderstanding, I'm sure."

  "I didn't misunderstand it!"

  "Well, I think you're just upset because you're impotent."

  Vimes's eyes bulged. "Whee?" he said.

  "Against the dragon," Lady Ramkin went on, quite unconcerned. "You can't do anything about it."

  "I reckon this damn city and the dragon just about deserve one another," said Vimes.

  "People are frightened. You can't expect much of people when they're so frightened." She touched him gingerly on his arm. It was like watching an industrial robot being expertly manipulated to grasp an egg gently.

  "Not everyone's as brave as you," she added, timidly.

  "Me?"

  "The other week. When you stopped them killing my dragons."

  "Oh, that. That's not bravery. Anyway, that was just people. People are easier. I'll tell you one thing for nothing, I'm not looking up that dragon's nose again. I wake up at days thinking about that."

  "Oh." She seemed deflated. "Well, if you're sure . . . I've got a lot of friends, you know. If you need any help, you've only got to say. The Duke of Sto Helit is looking for a guard captain, I'm sure. I'll write you a letter. You'll like them, they're a very nice young couple."

  "I'm not sure what I shall do next," said Vimes, more gruffly than he intended. "I'm considering one or two offers."

  "Well, of course. I'm sure you know best."

  Vimes nodded.

  Lady Ramkin twisted her handkerchief round and round in her hands.

  "Well, then," she said.

  "Well," said Vimes.

  "I, er, expect you'll be wanting to be off, then."

  "Yes, I expect I had better be going."

  There was a pause. Then they both spoke at once.

  "It's been very…"

  "I'd just like to say…"

  "Sorry."

  "Sorry."

  "No, you were speaking."

  "No, sorry, you were saying?"

  "Oh." Vimes hesitated. "I'll be off, then."

  "Oh. Yes." Lady Ramkin gave him a washed-out smile. "Can't keep all these offers waiting, can you," she said.