Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon’s high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauze wings glued to its back.
‘happen to know that trolls don’t have any tradition of a Tooth Fairy,’ Colon was saying. ‘Especially not one called’ – he looked down -‘Clinkerbell. So how about it we just call it breaking and entering without a Thieves’ Guild licence?’
‘Is racial prejudice, not letting trolls have a Tooth Fairy,’ Clinker bell muttered.
One of the troll guards upended a sack on the desk. Various items of silverware cascaded over the paperwork.
‘And this is what you found under their pillows, was it?’ said Colon.
‘Bless dere little hearts,’ said Clinkerbell.
At the next desk a tired dwarf was arguing with a vampire. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s not murder. You’re dead already, right?’
‘He stuck them right in me!’
‘Well, I’ve been down to interview the manager and he said it was an accident. He said he’s got nothing against vampires at all. He says he was merely carrying three boxes of HB Eraser Tips and tripped over the edge of your cloak.’
‘I don’t see why I can’t work where I like!’
‘Yes, but… in a pencil factory?’
Detritus looked down at Littlebottom and grinned. ‘Welcome to life in der big city, Little-bottom,’ he said. ‘Dat’s an int’restin’ name.’
‘Is it?’
‘Most dwarfs have names like Rockheaver or Stronginthearm.’
‘Do they?’
Detritus was not one for the fine detail of relationships, but the edge in Littlebottom’s voice got through to him. “S a good name, though,’ he said.
‘What’s Slab?’ said Cheery.
‘It are chloric ammonium an’ radium mixed up. It give your head a tingle but melts troll brains. Big problem in der mountains and some buggers are makin’ it here in der city and we tryin’ to find how it get up dere, Mr Vimes is lettin’ me run a’ – Detritus concentrated – ‘pub-lie a-ware-ness campaign tellin’ people what happens to buggers who sells it to kids . . ,’ He waved a hand at a large and rather crudely done poster on the wall. It said:
Slab: Jus’ say ‘Aarrghaarrghpleeassennono-noUGH’.
He pushed open a door.
‘Dis is der ole privy wot we don’t use no more, you can use it for mixin’ up stuff, it the only place we got now, you have to clean it up first ‘cos it smells like a toilet in here.’
He opened another door. ‘And this der locker room,’ he said. ‘You got your own peg and dat, and dere’s dese panels for getting changed behind ‘cos we knows you dwarfs is modest. It a good life if you don’t weaken. Mr Vimes is okay but he a bit weird about some stuff, he keepin’ on sayin’ stufFlike dis city is a meltin’ pot an’ all der scum floats to der top, and stuff like dat. I’ll give you your helmet an’ badge in a minute but first’ he opened a rather larger locker on the other side of the room, which had ‘DTRiTUS’ painted on it – ‘I got to go and hide dis hammer.’
Two figures hurried out of Ironcrust’s Dwarf Bakery (T’Bread Wi’ T’Edge’), threw themselves on to the cart and shouted at the driver to leave urgently.
He turned a pale face towards them and pointed to the road ahead.
There was a wolf there.
Not a usual kind of wolf. It had a blond coat, which around its ears was almost long enough to be a mane. And wolves did not normally sit calmly on their haunches in the middle of a street.
This one was growling. A long, low growl. It was the audible equivalent of a shortening fuse.
The horse was transfixed, too frightened to stay where it was but far too terrified to move.
One of the men carefully reached for a crossbow. The growl rose slightly. He even more carefully took his hand away. The growl subsided again.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a wolf!’
‘In a city? What does it find to eat?’
‘Oh, why did you have to ask that?’
‘Good morning, gentlemen!’ said Carrot, as he stopped leaning against the wall. ‘Looks like the fog’s rising again. Thieves’ Guild licences, please?’
They turned. Carrot gave them a happy smile and nodded encouragingly.
One of the men patted his coat in a theatrical display of absentmindedness.
‘Ah. Well. Er. Left the house in a bit of a hurry this morning, must’ve forgotten’
‘Section Two, Rule One of the Thieves’ Guild Charter says that members must carry their cards on all professional occasions,’ said Carrot.
‘He’s not even drawn his sword!’ hissed the most stupid of the three-strong gang.
‘He doesn’t need to, he’s got a loaded wolf.’
Someone was writing in the gloom, the scritching of their pen the only sound.
Until a door creaked open.
The writer turned as quick as a bird. ‘You? I told you never to come back here!’
‘I know, I know, but it’s that damn thing! The production line stopped and it got out and it’s killed that priest!’
‘Did anyone see it?’
‘In the fog we had last night? I shouldn’t think so. But’
‘Then it is not, ah-ha, a matter of significance.’
‘No? They’re not supposed to kill people. Well . . . that is,’ the speaker conceded, ‘not by smashing them on the head, anyway.’
‘They will if so instructed.’
‘I never told it to! Anyway, what if it turns on me?’
‘On its master? It can’t disobey the words in its head, man.’
The visitor sat down, shaking his head. ‘Yeah, but which words? I don’t know, I don’t know, this is getting too much, that damn thing around all the time’
‘Making you a fat profit’
‘All right, all right, but this other stuff, the poison, I never’
‘Shut up! I’ll see you again tonight. You can tell the others that I certainly do have a candidate. And if you dare come here again . . .’
The Ankh-Morpork Royal College of Heralds turned out to be a green gate in a wall in Mollymog Street. Vimes tugged on the bell-pull. Something clanged on the other side of the wall and immediately the place erupted in a cacophony of hoots, growls, whistles and trumpetings.
A voice shouted, ‘Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant! And thee shall have a sugar lump like a good boy. William! Stop that at once! Put him down! Mildred, let go of Graham!’
The animal noises subsided a bit and footsteps approached. A wicket gate in the main door opened a fraction.
Vimes saw an inch-wide segment of a very short man.
‘Yes? Are you the meat man?’
‘Commander Vimes,’ said Vimes. ‘I have an appointment.’
The animal noises started up again.
‘Eh?’
‘Commander Vimes!’ Vimes shouted.
‘Oh. I suppose thee’d better come in.’
The door swung open. Vimes stepped through.
Silence fell. Several dozen pairs of eyes regarded Vimes with acute suspicion. Some of the eyes were small and red. Several were big and poked just above the surface of the scummy pond that occupied a lot of space in the yard. Some were on perches.
The yard was fullof animals, but even they were crowded out by the smell of a yard full of animals. And most of them were clearly very old, which didn’t do anything for the smell.
A toothless lion yawned at Vimes. A lion running, or at least lounging around loose was amazing in itself, but not so amazing as the fact that it was being used as a cushion by an elderly gryphon, which was asleep with all four claws in the air.
There were hedgehogs, and a greying leopard, and moulting pelicans. Green water surged in the pond and a couple of hippos surfaced and yawned. Nothing was in a cage, and nothing was trying to eat anything else.
‘Ah, it takes people like that, first time,’ said the old man. He had a wooden leg. ‘We’re quite a happy little family.’
Vimes turned and found himself looking at a small owl. ‘My gods,’ he said. ‘That’s a morpork, isn’t it?’
The old man’s face broke into a happy smile. ‘Ah, I can see thee knows thy heraldry,’ he cackled. ‘Daphne’s ancestors came all the way from some islands on the other side of the Hub, so they did.’
Vimes took out his City Watch badge and stared at the coat of arms embossed thereon.
The old man looked over his shoulder. ‘That’s not her, o’course,’ he said, indicating the owl perched on the Ankh. ‘That was her great-grandma, Olive. A morpork on an ankh, see? That is a pune or play on words. Laugh? I nearly started. That’s about as funny as you gets round here. We could do with a mate for her, tell you the truth. And a female hippo. I mean, his lordship says we’ve got two hippos, which is right enough, I’m just saying it’s not natural for Roderick and Keith, I ain’t passing judgement, it’s just not right, that’s all I’m saying. What was thy name again?’