“Footprints,” he said. “Which is stretching it a bit, sir. They’re more what you’d call claws. One might go so far as to say talons.”
The Patrician stared at the prints in the mud. His expression was quite unreadable.
“I see,” he said eventually. “And do you have an opinion about all this, Captain?”
The captain did. In the hours until dawn he’d had all sorts of opinions, starting with a conviction that it had been a big mistake to be born.
And then the grey light had filtered even into the Shades, and he was still alive and uncooked, and had looked around him with an expression of idiot relief and seen, not a yard away, these footprints. That had not been a good moment to be sober.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I know that dragons have been extinct for thousands of years, sir-”
“Yes?” The Patrician’s eyes narrowed.
Vimes plunged on. “But, sir, the thing is, do they know? Sergeant Colon said he heard a leathery sound just before, just before, just before the, er . . . offence.”
“So you think an extinct, and indeed a possibly entirely mythical, dragon flew into the city, landed in this narrow alley, incinerated a group of criminals, and then flew away?” said the Patrician. “One might say, it was a very public-spirited creature.”
“Well, when you put it like that-”
“If I recall, the dragons of legend were solitary and rural creatures who shunned people and dwelt in forsaken, out of the way places,” said the Patrician. “They were hardly urban creatures.”
“No, sir,” said the captain, repressing a comment that if you wanted to find a really forsaken, out of the way place then the Shades would fit the bill pretty well.
“Besides,” said Lord Vetinari, “one would imagine that someone would have noticed, wouldn’t you agree?”
The captain nodded at the wall and its dreadful frieze. “Apart from them, you mean, sir?”
“In my opinion,” said Lord Vetinari, “it’s some kind of warfare. Possibly a rival gang has hired a wizard. A little local difficulty.”
“Could be linked to all this strange thieving, sir,” volunteered Wonse.
“But there’s the footprints, sir,” said Vimes doggedly.
“We’re close to the river,” said the Patrician. “Possibly it was, perhaps, a wading bird of some sort. A mere coincidence,” he added, “but I should cover them over, if I were you. We don’t want people getting the wrong idea and jumping to silly conclusions, do we?” he added sharply.
Vimes gave in.
“As you wish, sir,” he said, looking at his sandals.
The Patrician patted him on the shoulder.
“Never mind,” he said. “Carry on. Good show of initiative, that man. Patrolling in the Shades, too. Well done.”
He turned, and almost walked into the wall of chain mail that was Carrot.
To his horror, Captain Vimes saw his newest recruit point politely to the Patrician’s coach. Around it, fully-armed and wary, were six members of the Palace Guard, who straightened up and took a wary interest. Vimes disliked them intensely. They had plumes on their helmets. He hated plumes on a guard.
He heard Carrot say. “Excuse me, sir, is this your coach, sir?” and the Patrician looked him blankly up and down and said, “It is. Who are you, young man?”
Carrot saluted. “Lance-constable Carrot, sir.”
“Carrot, Carrot. That name rings a bell.”
Lupine Wonse, who had been hovering behind him, whispered in the Patrician’s ear. His face brightened.’ ‘Ah, the young thief-taker. A little error there, I think, but commendable. No person is above the law, eh?”
“No, sir,” said Carrot.
“Commendable, commendable,” said the Patrician. “And now, gentlemen-”
“About your coach, sir,” said Carrot doggedly, “I couldn’t help noticing that the front offside wheel, contrary to the-”
He’s going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told himself, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He’s actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He’s going to arrest him. This is what he’s actually going to do. The boy doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’. Oh, wouldn’t it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word ‘survival’ . . .
And I can’t get my jaw muscles to move.
We’re all dead. Or worse, we’re all detained at the Patrician’s pleasure. And as we all know, he’s seldom that pleased.
It was at this precise moment that Sergeant Colon earned himself a metaphorical medal.
“Lance-constable Carrot!” he shouted. “Attention! Lance-constable Carrot, abou-uta turna! Lance-constable Carrot, qui-uck marcha!”
Carrot brought himself to attention like a barn being raised and stared straight ahead with a ferocious expression of acute obedience.
“Well done, that man,” said the Patrician thoughtfully, as Carrot strode stiffly away. “Carry on, Captain. And do come down heavily on any silly rumours about dragons, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Vimes.
“Goodman.”
The coach rattled off, the bodyguard running alongside.
Behind him, Captain Vimes was only vaguely aware of the sergeant yelling at the retreating Carrot to stop.
He was thinking.
He looked at the prints in the mud. He used his regulation pike, which he knew was exactly seven feet long, to measure their size and the distance between them. He whistled under his breath. Then, with considerable caution, he followed the alley around the corner; it led to a small, padlocked and dirt-encrusted door in the back of a timber warehouse.
There was something very wrong, he thought.
The prints come out of the alley, but they don’t go in. And we don’t often get any wading birds in the Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it’s easier for them to walk on the surface.
He looked up. A myriad washing lines criss-crossed the narrow rectangle of the sky as efficiently as a net.
So, he thought, something big and fiery came out of this alley but didn’t come into it.
And the Patrician is very worried about it.
I’ve been told to forget about it.
He noticed something else at the side of the alley, and bent down and picked up a fresh, empty peanut shell.
He tossed it from hand to hand, staring at nothing.
Right now, he needed a drink. But perhaps it ought to wait.
…
The Librarian knuckled his way urgently along the dark aisles between the slumbering bookshelves.
The rooftops of the city belonged to him. Oh, assassins and thieves might make use of them, but he’d long ago found the forest of chimneys, buttresses, gargoyles and weathervanes a convenient and somehow comforting alternative to the streets.
At least, up until now.
It had seemed amusing and instructive to follow the Watch into the Shades, an urban jungle which held no fears for a 300-lb ape. But now the nightmare he had seen while brachiating across a dark alley would, if he had been human, have made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes.
As an ape, he had no doubts whatsoever about his eyes and believed them all the time.
Right now he wanted to concentrate them urgently on a book that might hold a clue. It was in a section no-one bothered with much these days; the books in there were not really magical. Dust lay accusingly on the floor.
Dust with footprints in it.
“Oook?” said the Librarian, in the warm gloom.
He proceeded cautiously now, realising with a sense of inevitability that the footprints seemed to have the same destination in mind as he did.
He turned a corner and there it was.
The section.
The bookcase.
The shelf.
The gap.
There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.
…
In the privacy of the Oblong Office, his personal sanctum, the Patrician paced up and down. He was dictating a stream of instructions.
“And send some men to paint that wall,” he finished.
Lupine Wonse raised an eyebrow.
“Is that wise, sir?” he said.
“You don’t think a frieze of ghastly shadows will cause comment and speculation?” said the Patrician sourly.
“Not as much as fresh paint in the Shades,” said Wonse evenly.
The Patrician hesitated a moment. “Good point,” he snapped. “Have some men demolish it.”
He reached the end of the room, spun on his heel, and stalked up it again. Dragons! As if there were not enough important, enough real things to take up his time.
“Do you believe in dragons?” he said.
Wonse shook his head. “They’re impossible, sir.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Lord Vetinari. He reached the opposite wall, turned.
“Would you like me to investigate further?” said Wonse.
“Yes. Do so.”
“And I shall ensure the Watch take great care,” said Wonse.
The Patrician stopped his pacing. “The Watch? The Watch? My dear chap, the Watch are a bunch of incompetents commanded by a drunkard. It’s taken me years to achieve it. The last thing we need to concern ourselves with is the Watch.”