Truth

by Pratchett, Terry

Mr Tulip came back to the here and now.

  ‘Yeah, them,’ he said. ‘Always lots of —ing potatoes. If you’ve got your potato, it will be all right.’

  ‘But … I thought you had to pray in deserts and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor …?’

  ‘Oh, you can do all that too, sure,’ said Mr Tulip. ‘Just so long as you’ve got your —ing potato.’

  ‘And you come back alive?’ said Mr Pin, still trying to find the small print.

  ‘Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who’d notice the —ing difference?’

  Mr Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr Tulip saw his expression change.

  ‘Someone’s got their hand on my shoulder!’ he hissed.

  ‘You feeling all right, Mr Pin?’

  ‘You can’t see anyone?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Clenching his fists, Mr Pin turned round. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.

  He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.

  ‘Okay. Okay,’ he said. ‘What we’ll do … we’ll go back to the house, okay, and … and we’ll get the rest of the diamonds, and we’ll scrag Charlie, and, and … we’ll find a vegetable shop … any special kind of potato?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Right … but first …’ Mr Pin stopped, and his mind’s ear heard footsteps stop behind him a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things …

  Mr Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamour, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.

  ‘That bloody vampire did this,’ he said. ‘And killing a vampire … hey … that’s practically good, right?’ He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. ‘Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man’s favour, eh?’

  ‘Yeah. But … who cares?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Okay.’ Even Mr Tulip didn’t argue with that tone of voice. Mr Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.

  It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath-salt-and-worming-powder-ravaged pathways of his own brain. He’d always admired the way Mr Pin wasn’t frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.

  ‘What’ll we use?’ he said. ‘A stake?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Pin. ‘With this one I want to be certain.’

  He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.

  ‘Ah. Right,’ said Mr Tulip.

  ‘Let’s just do it,’ said Mr Pin.

  Rocky’s brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.

  ‘What’s dem things?’ he said.

  ‘They’re to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,’ said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. ‘It’s a sort of curse. Only it works.’

  ‘Dat one’s the Assassins?’ said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.

  ‘Yes. It means there’s an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want dem interested in me. Good job you got a key …’

  The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.

  Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork’s great houses, when the owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more respectable charities. She hadn’t realized how a building could change when people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale. The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere descended on her like a headache.

  Behind her Rocky lit a couple of lanterns. But even their light left her surrounded by shadows.

  At least the main staircase wasn’t hard to find, and William’s hasty directions led her to a suite of rooms bigger than her house. The wardrobe, when she found it, was simply a room full of rails and hangers.

  Things glittered in the gloom. The dresses also smelled strongly of mothballs.

  ‘Dat’s interestin’,’ said Rocky, behind her.

  ‘Oh, it’s just to keep the moths away,’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘I’m lookin’ at all the footprints,’ said the troll. ‘Dey were in the hall, too.’

  She tore her gaze away from the rows of dresses and looked down. The dust was certainly disturbed.

  ‘Er … cleaning lady?’ she said. ‘Someone must come in to keep an eye on things?’

  ‘What she do, kick der dust to death?’

  ‘I suppose there must be … caretakers and things?’ said Sacharissa uncertainly. A blue dress was saying: wear me, I’m just your type. See me shimmer.

  Rocky prodded a box of mothballs that had spilled out across a dressing table and rolled into the dust.

  ‘Looks like dem moths are really keen on dese things,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t think a dress like this would be a bit … forward, do you?’ said Sacharissa, holding the dress against herself.

  Rocky looked worried. He hadn’t been hired for his dress sense, and certainly not for his grasp of colloquial Middle Class.

  ‘You’re quite a lot forward already,’ he opined.

  ‘I meant make me look like a fast woman!’

  ‘Ah, right,’ said Rocky, getting there. ‘No. Def’nitly not.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. No one could run much in a dress like dat.’

  Sacharissa gave up. ‘I suppose Mrs Hotbed could let it out a bit,’ she said, reflectively. It was tempting to stay, because some of the racks were quite full, but she felt like a trespasser here and part of her was certain that a woman with hundreds of dresses was more likely to miss one than a woman with a dozen or so. In any case, the empty darkness was getting on her nerves. It was full of other people’s ghosts. ‘Let’s get back.’

  When they were halfway across the hall someone started to sing. The words were incoherent and the tune was being modulated by alcohol, but it was singing of a sort and it was under their feet.

  Rocky shrugged when Sacharissa glanced at him.

  ‘Maybe all dem moths is having a ball?’ he said.

  ‘There must be a caretaker, mustn’t there? Maybe we’d better just, you know, mention we’ve been here?’ Sacharissa agonized. ‘It hardly seems polite, just taking things and running …’

  She headed for a green door tucked away beside the staircase and pushed it open. The singing went louder for a moment but stopped as soon as she said, ‘Excuse me?’ into the darkness.

  After a few moments’ silence a voice said: ‘Hello! How are you? I’m fine!’

  ‘It’s only, er, me? William said it was all right?’ She presented the statement like a question, in the voice of someone who was apologizing to a burglar for discovering him.

  ‘Mr Mothball Nose? Whoops!’ said the voice in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Er … are you all right?’

  ‘Can’t get … it’s a … hahaha … it’s all chains … hahaha …’

  ‘Are you … ill?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, not ill at all, jus’ had a few too many …’

  ‘Few too many what?’ said Sacharissa, speaking from a sheltered upbringing.

  ‘… wazza … things you put drink in … barrels?’

  ‘You’re drunk?’

  ‘Tha’s right! Tha’s the word! Drunk as a … thing … smellything … ahahaha …’

  There was a tinkle of glass.

  The lantern’s weak glow showed what looked like a wine cellar, but a man was slumped on a bench against one wall and a chain ran from his ankle to a ring set in the floor.

  ‘Are you … a prisoner?’ said Sacharissa.

  ‘Ahaha …�
�

  ‘How long have you been down here?’ She crept down.

  ‘Years …’

  ‘Years?’

  ‘Got lots of years …’ The man picked up a bottle and peered at it. ‘Now … Year of the Amending Camel … that was bloodigoodyear … and this one … Year of the Translated Rat … another bloodigoodyear … bloodigoodyears, the lot of them. Could do with a biscuit, though.’

  Sacharissa’s knowledge of vintages extended just as far as knowing that Chateau Maison was a very popular wine. But people didn’t have to be chained up to drink wine, even the stuff from Ephebe that stuck the glass to the table.

  She moved a little closer and the light fell on the man’s face. It was locked in the grin of the seriously drunk, but it was very recognizable. She saw it every day, on coins.

  ‘Er … Rocky,’ she said. ‘Er … can you come down here a minute?’

  The door burst open and the troll came down the steps at speed. Unfortunately, it was because he was rolling.

  Mr Tulip appeared at the top of the stairs, massaging his fist.

  ‘It’s Mr Sneezy!’ said Charlie, raising a bottle. ‘The gang’s all here! Whoopee!’

  Rocky got up, weaving slightly. Mr Tulip strolled down the steps, ripping out the doorpost as he passed. The troll raised his fists in the classic boxer’s pose, but Mr Tulip didn’t bother with niceties of that kind and hit him hard with the length of ancient wood. Rocky went over like a tree.

  Only then did the huge man with the revolving eyes try to focus them on Sacharissa.

  ‘Who the —ing hell are you?’

  ‘Don’t you dare swear at me!’ she said. ‘How dare you swear in the presence of a lady!’

  This seemed to nonplus him. ‘I don’t —ing swear!’

  ‘Here, I’ve seen you before, you’re that— I knew you weren’t a proper virgin!’ said Sacharissa triumphantly.

  There was the click of a crossbow. Some tiny sounds carry well and have considerable stopping power.

  ‘There are some thoughts too dreadful to think,’ said the skinny man looking at her from the top of the steps and down the length of a pistol bow. ‘What are you doing here, lady?’

  ‘And you were Brother Pin! You haven’t got any right here! I’ve got a key!’ Some areas of Sacharissa’s mind that dealt with things like death and terror were signalling to be heard at this point, but, being part of Sacharissa, they were trying to do it in a ladylike way, and so she ignored them.

  ‘A key?’ said Brother Pin, advancing down the stairs. The bow stayed pointing at her. Even in his current state of mind, Mr Pin knew how to aim. ‘Who’d give you a key?’

  ‘Don’t you come near me! Don’t you dare come near me! If you come near me I’ll – I’ll write it down!’

  ‘Yeah? Well, one thing I know is, words don’t hurt,’ said Mr Pin. ‘I’ve heard lots of—’

  He stopped and grimaced, and for a moment it looked as if he’d fall to his knees. He righted himself and focused on her again.

  ‘You are coming with us,’ he said. ‘An’ don’t say you’re going to scream, because we’re all alone here and I’ve … heard … lots … of … screams …’

  Once again he seemed to run down, and again he recovered. Sacharissa stared in horror at the weaving crossbow. Those parts of her advocating silence as a survival aid had finally made themselves heard.

  ‘What about these two?’ said Mr Tulip. ‘We’re scragging ’em now?’

  ‘Chain them up and leave them.’

  ‘But we always—’

  ‘Leave them!’

  ‘You sure you feel all right?’ said Mr Tulip.

  ‘No! I don’t! Just leave them, okay? We haven’t got time!’

  ‘We’ve got lots of—’

  ‘I haven’t!’ Mr Pin strode up to Sacharissa. ‘Who gave you that key?’

  ‘I’m not going to—’

  ‘Do you want Mr Tulip here to say goodbye to our drunken friends?’ In his buzzing head, and with his shaky grasp of how things were supposed to work in a moral universe, Mr Pin reckoned that this was all right. After all, their shadows would follow Mr Tulip, not him …

  ‘This house belongs to Lord de Worde and his son gave me the key!’ said Sacharissa triumphantly. ‘There! He was the one you met at the newspaper! Now you know what you’ve got yourself into, eh?’

  Mr Pin stared at her.

  Then he said, ‘I’m going to find out. Don’t run. Really don’t scream. Walk normally and everything—’ He paused. ‘I was going to say it will be all right,’ he said. ‘But that would be silly, wouldn’t it …?’

  It wasn’t fast, going through the streets with the crew. To them the world was a permanent theatre, art gallery, music hall, restaurant and spittoon, and in any case no member of the crew would dream of going anywhere in a straight line.

  The poodle Trixiebell accompanied them, keeping as close to the centre of the group as possible. Of Deep Bone there was no sign. William had offered to carry Wuffles, because in a way he felt he owned him. A hundred dollars’ worth of him, at least. It was a hundred dollars he hadn’t got but, well, surely tomorrow’s edition would pay for that. And anyone after the dog now surely wouldn’t try anything out here on the street, in broad daylight, especially since it was barely narrow daylight now. Clouds filled the sky like old eiderdowns, the fog that was descending was meeting the river mist coming up, and the light was draining out of everything.

  He tried to think of the headline. He couldn’t quite get a grip on it yet. There was too much to say, and he wasn’t good at getting the huge complexities of the world into fewer than half a dozen words. Sacharissa was better at it, because she treated words as lumps of letters that could be hammered together any old how. Her best one had been on some tedious inter-Guild squabble and, in single column, read:

  PROBE

  INTO

  SHOCK

  GUILD

  RUMPUS

  William just wasn’t used to the idea of evaluating words purely in terms of their length, whereas she’d picked up the habit in two days. He’d already had to stop her calling Lord Vetinari CITY BOSS. It was technically correct that if you spent some time with a thesaurus you could arrive at that description, and it did fit in a single column, but the sight of the words had made William feel extremely exposed.

  It was self-absorption like this that allowed him to walk into the printing shed, with the crew tagging along, and not notice anything wrong until he saw the expression on the faces of the dwarfs.

  ‘Ah, our writer man,’ said Mr Pin, stepping forward. ‘Shut the door, Mr Tulip.’

  Mr Tulip slammed the door with one hand. The other was clamped over Sacharissa’s mouth. She rolled her eyes at William.

  ‘And you’ve brought me the little doggie,’ said Mr Pin. Wuffles started to growl as he approached. William backed away.

  ‘The Watch will be here soon,’ said William. Wuffles still growled, on a rising note.

  ‘Doesn’t worry me now,’ said Mr Pin. ‘Not with what I know. Not with who I know. Where’s the damn vampire?’

  ‘I don’t know! He’s not always with us!’ snapped William.

  ‘Really? In that case let me retort!’ said Mr Pin, his pistol bow inches from William’s face. ‘If it doesn’t arrive within two minutes I will—’

  Wuffles leapt out of William’s arms. His bark was the frantic whurwhur of a small dog mad with fury. Pin reared back, one arm raised to protect his face. The bow fired. The arrow hit one of the lamps over the press. The lamp exploded.

  A cloud of burning oil rained down. It splattered across type metal and old rocking horses and dwarfs.

  Mr Tulip let go of Sacharissa to help his colleague, and in the slow dance of rushing events Sacharissa spun round and planted her knee hard and firmly in the place that made a parsnip a very funny thing indeed.

  William grabbed her on the way past and rushed her out into the freezing air. When he fought his way back in through the stampeding cr
ew, who had the same instinctive reaction to fire as they did to soap and water, it was into a room full of burning debris. Dwarfs were fighting fires in the rubbish. Dwarfs were fighting fires in their beards. Several were advancing on Mr Tulip, who was on his hands and knees and throwing up. And Mr Pin was spinning around, flailing at an enraged Wuffles, who was managing to growl while sinking his teeth into Pin’s arm all the way to the bone.

  William cupped his hands. ‘Get out right now!’ he yelled. ‘The tins!’

  One or two dwarfs heard him, and looked around at the shelves of old paint tins just as the first one blew off its lid.

  The tins were ancient, no more now than rust held together with chemical sludge. Several others were starting to burn.

  Mr Pin danced across the floor, trying to shake the enraged dog from his arm.

  ‘Get the damn thing off’f me!’ he yelled.

  ‘Forget the —ing dog, my —ing suit’s on fire!’ shouted Mr Tulip, flailing at his own sleeve.

  A tin of what had once been enamel paint took off from the blazing mess, spinning with a wzipwzip noise, and exploded on the press.

  William grabbed Goodmountain’s shoulder. ‘I said come on!’

  ‘My press! It’s on fire!’

  ‘Better it than us! Come on!’

  * * *

  It was said of the dwarfs that they cared more about things like iron and gold than they did about people, because there was only a limited supply of iron and gold in the world whereas there seemed to be more and more people everywhere you looked. It was said mostly by people like Mr Windling.

  But they did care fiercely about things. Without things, people were just bright animals.

  The printers clustered around the doorway, axes at the ready. Choking brown smoke billowed out. Flames licked out among the roof eaves. Several sections of tin roof buckled and collapsed.

  As they did so a smouldering ball rocketed out through the door and three dwarfs who took a swipe only just missed hitting one another.

  It was Wuffles. Patches of fur were still smoking, but his eyes gleamed and he was still whining and growling.

  He let William pick him up. He had a triumphant air about him, and turned to watch the burning doorway with his ears cocked.

  ‘That must be it, then,’ said Sacharissa.