Terry Pratchett - Thud

`That's the significant factor, sir, there's no doubt about it,' said Carrot. `I'll just see to the last of the packing, if you'll excuse me

Vimes glared at the coaches. He probably shouldn't have brought in the wizards, but where was the choice? Oh, they could probably have sent Sam Vimes all that way in a puff of smoke and the blink of an eye, but who'd actually arrive there, and who'd come back? How would he know if it was him? He was certain that people were not supposed to disappear like that.

Sam Vimes had always been, by nature, a pedestrian. That's why he was going to take Willikins as well, who knew how to drive. He'd also demonstrated to Vimes his ability to throw a common fish knife so hard that it was quite difficult to pull out of the wall. At times like this, Vimes liked to see a skill like that in a butler

"Scuse me, sir," said Detritus, behind him. `Could I have a word, pers'nal?'

`Yes. Of course,' said Vimes.

`I, er, hope what I said yesterday inna cells wasn't goin' too-' `Can't remember a word of it,' said Vimes.

Detritus looked relieved. `Thank you, sir. Er ... I want to take young Brick with us, sir. He's got no kin here, doesn't even know what clan he is. He'll only get messed up again if I take my eye off'f him. An' he's never seen der mountains. Never been outside der city, even!'

There was a pleading look in the troll's eyes. Vimes recollected that his marriage to Ruby was happy but childless.

`Well, we don't seem to have a weight problem,' he said. `All right. But you're to keep an eye on him, okay?'

The troll beamed. `Yessir! I'll see you don't regret it, sir!'

`Breakfast, Sam!' called Sybil, from the doorway. A nasty suspicion gripped Vimes, and he hurried over to the other coach, where Carrot was strapping on the last bag.

`Who packed the food? Did Sybil pack the food?' he said. `I think so, sir.'

`Was there ... fruit?' said Vimes, probing the horror.

`I believe so, sir. Quite a lot. And vegetables.'

`Some bacon, surely?' Vimes was nearly begging. `Very good for a

long journey, bacon. It travels well.'

`I think it's staying at home today,' said Carrot. `I have to tell you, sir, that Lady Sybil has found out about the bacon sandwich arrangement. She said to tell you the game was up, sir.'

`I am the commander around here, you know,' said Vimes, with as much hauteur as he could muster on an empty stomach.

`Yes, sir. But Lady Sybil has a very quiet way of being firm, sir.'

`She has, hasn't she?' said Vimes as they strolled towards the

building. `I'm a very lucky man, you know,' he added, just in case Carrot might have got the wrong impression.

`Yes, sir. You are indeed.'

`Captain!'

They turned. Someone was hurrying through the gate. He had two swords strapped to his back.

`Ah, Special Constable Hancock,' said Carrot, stepping forward. `Do you have something for me?'

`Er, yes, captain.' Hancock looked nervously at Vimes.

`This is official business, Andy,' said Vimes, reassuringly.

`Not much to give you, sir. But I asked around, and a young lady sent at least two self-coded droppers to Bonk in the last week. That means it goes to the main tower and gets handed over to whoever turns up with the right authorization. We don't have to know who they are.'

`Well done,' said Carrot. `Any description?'

`Young lady with short hair is the best I could get. Signed the message "Aicalas".'

Vimes burst out laughing. `Well, that's about it. Thank you, Special Constable Hancock, very much.'

`Crime on the clacks is going to be a growing problem,' said Carrot sadly, when they were alone again.

`Quite likely, captain,' said Vimes. `But here and now we know that our Sally is not being straight with us.'

`We can't be certain it's her, sir,' said Carrot.

`Oh no?' said Vimes happily. `This quite cheers me up. It's one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why. It goes with having big windows and easily torn curtains. A sort of undeath-wish, you might say. However clever they are, they can't resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards. Let's go.'

Vimes turned back to head into the building, and noticed a small, neat figure standing patiently by the door. It had the look of someone who was quite happy to wait. He sighed. I bargain without an axe in my hand, eh?

`Breakfast, Mr Bashfullsson?' he said.

`This is all rather fun,' said Sybil an hour later, as the coaches headed out of the city. `Do you remember when we last went on holiday, Sam?'

`That wasn't really a holiday, dear,' said Vimes. Above them,

Young Sam swung back and forth in a little hammock, cooing. `Well, it was very interesting, all the same,' said Sybil. `Yes, dear. Werewolves tried to eat me.'

Vimes sat back. The coach was comfortably upholstered and well sprung. At the moment, while it threaded through the traffic, the magical loss of weight was hardly noticeable. Would it mean anything? How fast could a bunch of old dwarfs travel? If they really had taken a big wagon, the coaches would catch them tomorrow, when the mountains were still a distant prospect. In the meantime, at least he could get some rest.

He pulled out a battered volume entitled Walking in the Koom Valley, by Eric Wheelbrace, a man who apparently had walked on just about everything bigger than a sheep track in the Near Ramtops. [1] It had a sketch map, the only actual map of the valley Vimes had seen. Eric wasn't a bad sketch artist.

Koom Valley was ... well, Koom Valley was basically a drain,

[1] And even then had been belabouring mountain goats on apparently sheer cliff faces and, while pebbles slid and bounced around him, was clearly accusing them of obstructing his Right to Roam. Eric believed very firmly that The Land Belonged To The People, and also that he was more The People than anyone else was. Eric went everywhere with a map, encased in waterproof material, on a string around his neck. Such people are not to be trifled with.

that's what it was: nearly thirty miles of soft limestone rock edged by mountains of harder rock, so what you had would have been a canyon if it wasn't so wide. One end was almost on the snowline, the other merged into the plains.

It was said that even clouds kept away from the desolation that was Koom Valley. Maybe they did, but that didn't matter. The valley got the water anyway, from meltwater and the hundreds of waterfalls that poured over its walls from the mountains that cupped it. One of those falls, the Tears of the King, was half a mile high.

The Koom River didn't just rise in this valley. It leapt and danced in this valley. By the time it was halfway down, it was a crisscrossing of thundering waters, forever merging and parting. They carried and hurled great rocks, and played with whole fallen trees from the dripping forests that colonized the scree built up against the walls. They gurgled into holes and rose again, miles away, as fountains. They had no mappable course - a good storm higher up the mountains could bring house-sized rocks and half a stricken woodland down in the flood, blocking the sinkholes and piling up dams. Some of these could survive for years, becoming little islands in the leaping waters, growing little forests and little meadows and colonies of big birds. Then some key rock would be shifted by a random river, and within an hour it would all be gone.

Nothing that couldn't fly lived in the valley, at least for long. The dwarfs had tried to tame it, back before the first battle. It hadn't worked. Hundreds of dwarfs and trolls had been swept up in the famous flood, and many had never been found again. Koom Valley had taken them all into its sinkholes and chambers and caverns, and had kept them.

There were places in the valley where a man could drop a coloured cork into a swirling sinkhole and then wait for more than twenty minutes before it bobbed up on a fountain less than a dozen yards away.