‘What?’
‘A bargain.’
‘No, we damn well haven’t got a bargain, Mr Carry! I’m not a tradesman! But I’ll tell you something, Mr Carry. They betrayed you!’
There was silence from the darkness, and then a sound like a sigh.
Behind Vimes, Sergeant Colon stamped his feet on the cobbles to keep warm.
‘You can’t stay in there all night, Mr Carry,’ said Vimes.
There was another sound, a leathery sound. Vimes glanced up into the coils of fog. ‘Something’s not right,’ he said. ‘Come on!’
He ran into the alley. Sergeant Colon followed, on the basis that it was fine to run into an alley containing an armed man provided you were behind someone else.
A shape loomed at them.
‘Detritus?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Where did he go? There are no doors in the alley!’
Then his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom. He saw a huddled outline at the foot of a wall, and his foot nudged a crossbow. ‘Mr Carry?’
He knelt down and lit a match.
‘Oh, nasty,’ said Sergeant Colon. ‘Something’s broken his neck . . .’
‘Dead, is he?’ said Detritus. ‘You want I should draw a chalk outline round him?’
‘I don’t think we need bother, Sergeant.’
‘It no bother, I’ve got der chalk right here.’
Vimes looked up. Fog filled the alley, but there were no ladders, no handy low roofs.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
Angua faced the king.
She resisted a terrible urge to Change. Even a werewolf s jaws probably wouldn’t have any effect on the thing. It didn’t have a jugular.
She daren’t look away. The king moved uncertainly, with little jerks and twitches that in a human would suggest madness. Its arms moved fast but erratically, as if signals that were being sent were not arriving properly. And Dorfl’s attack had left it damaged. Every time it moved, red light shone from dozens of new cracks.
‘You’re cracking up!’ she shouted. ‘The oven wasn’t right for pottery!’
The king lunged at her. She dodged and heard its hand slice through a rack of candles.
‘You’re cranky! You’re baked like a loaf! You’re half-baked?
She drew her sword. She didn’t usually have much use for it. She found a smile would invariably do the trick,
A hand sliced the top off the blade.
She stared at the sheared metal in horror and then somersaulted back as another blow hummed past her face.
Her foot rolled on a candle and she fell heavily, but with enough presence of mind to roll before a foot stamped down.
‘Where’ve you gone?’ she yelled.
‘Can you get it to move a little closer to the doors, please?’ said a voice from the darkness on high.
Carrot crawled out along the rickety structure that supported the production line.
‘Carrot!’
‘Almost there…’
The king grabbed at her leg. She lashed out with her foot and caught it on the knee.
To her amazement she made it crack. But the fire below was still there. The pieces of pottery seemed to float on it. No matter what anyone did the golem could keep going, even if it were just a cloud of dust held together.
‘Ah. Right,’ said Carrot, and dropped off the gantry.
He landed on the king’s back, flung one arm around its neck, and began to pound on its head with the hilt of his sword. It staggered and tried to reach up to pull him off.
‘Got to get the words out!’ Carrot shouted, as the arms flailed at him. ‘It’s the only . . . way!’
The king staggered forward and hit a stack of boxes, which burst and rained candles over the floor. Carrot grabbed its ears and tried to twist.
Angua heard him saying: ‘You . . . have . . . the right… to … a lawyer . . .’
‘Carrot! Don’t bother with its damn rights!’
‘You . . . have . . . the right to’
‘Just give it the last ones!’
There was a commotion in the gaping doorway and Vimes ran in, sword drawn. ‘Oh, gods . . . Sergeant Detritus!’
Detritus appeared behind him. ‘Sah!’
‘Crossbow bolt through the head, if you please!’
Tf you say so, sir . . .’
‘Its head, Sergeant! Mine is fine! Carrot, get down off the thing!’
‘Can’t get its head off, sir!’
‘We’ll try six feet of cold steel in the ear just as soon as you let the damn thing go!’
Carrot steadied himself on the king’s shoulders, tried to judge his moment as the thing staggered around, and leapt.
He landed awkwardly on a sliding heap of candles. His leg buckled under him and he tumbled over until he was stopped by the inert shell that had been Dorfl.
‘Hey, look dis way, mister,’ said Detritus.
The king turned.
Vimes didn’t catch everything that happened next, because it all happened so quickly. He was merely aware of the rush of air and thegloink of the rebounding bolt mingling with the wooden juddering noise as it buried itself in the doorframe behind him.
And the golem was crouching down by Carrot, who was trying to squirm out of the way.
It raised a fist, and brought it down . . .
Vimes didn’t even see Dorfl’s arm move but there it was there, suddenly gripping the king’s wrist.
Tiny stars of light went nova in Dorfl’s eyes.
‘Tssssss!’
As the king jerked back in surprise, Dorfl held on and levered himself up on what remained of his legs. As he came up so did his fist.
Time slowed. Nothing moved in the whole universe but Dorfl’s fist.
It swung like a planet, without any apparent speed but with a drifting unstoppability.
And then the king’s expression changed. Just before the fist landed, it smiled.
The golem’s head exploded, Vimes recalled it in slow motion, one long second of floating pottery. And words. Scraps of paper flew out, dozens, scores of them, tumbling gently to the floor.
Slowly, peacefully, the king hit the floor. The red light died, the cracks opened, and then there were just. . . pieces.
Dorfl collapsed on top of them.
Angua and Vimes reached Carrot together.
‘He came alive!’ said Carrot, struggling up. That thing was going to kill me and Dorfl came alive! But that thing had smashed the words out of his head! A golem has to have the words!’
‘They gave their own golem too many, I can see that,’ said Vimes.
He picked up some of the coils of paper.
…CREATE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL…
…RULE USE WISELY…
…TEACH US FREEDOM…
…LEAD US TO…
Poor devil, he thought.
‘Let’s get you home. That hand needs treating’ said Angua.
‘Listen, will you?’ said Carrot. ‘He’s alive!’
Vimes knelt down by Dorfl. The broken clay skull looked as empty as yesterday’s breakfast egg. But there was still a pinpoint of light in each eye socket.
‘Usssss,’ hissed Dorfl, so faintly that Vimes wasn’t sure he’d heard it.
A finger scratched on the floor.
‘Is it trying to write something?’ said Angua.
Vimes pulled out his notebook, eased it under Dorfl’s hand, and gently pushed a pencil into the golem’s fingers. They watched the hand as it wrote – a little jerkily but still with the mechanical precision of a golem – eight words.
Then it stopped. The pencil rolled away. The lights in Dorfl’s eyes dwindled and went out,
‘Good grief,’ breathed Angua. ‘They don’t need words in their heads . . .’
‘We can rebuild him,’ said Carrot hoarsely. ‘We have the pottery.’
Vimes stared at the words, and then at what remained of Dorfl.
‘Mr Vimes?’ said Carrot.
‘Do it,’ said Vimes.
Carrot blinked.
‘Right now,’ Vimes said. He looked back at the scrawl in his book.
WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.
‘And when you rebuild him,’ he said, ‘when you rebuild him. . . give him a voice. Understand? And get someone to look at your hand.’
‘A voice, sir?’
‘Do it!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right.’ Vimes pulled himself together. ‘Constable Angua and I will have a look around here. Off you go.’
He watched Carrot and the troll carry the remains out. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for arsenic. Maybe there’ll be some workshop somewhere. I shouldn’t think they’d want to mix the poisoned candles up with the others. Cheery’ll know what Where is Corporal Littlebottom?’
‘Er … I don’t think I can hold on much longer . . .’
They looked up.
Cheri was hanging on the line of candles.
‘How did you get up there?’ said Vimes.
‘I sort of found myself going past, sir.’
‘Can’t you just let go? You’re not that high Oh . . .’
A big trough of molten tallow was a few feet under her. Occasionally the surface wentgloop.
‘Er . . . how hot would that be?’ Vimes hissed to Angua.
‘Ever bitten hot jam?’ she said.
Vimes raised his voice. ‘Can’t you swing yourself along, Corporal?’