Terry Pratchett - Thud

Vimes opened his eyes. After a while, moving his arm slowly because of the pain, he found his face and checked that his eyelids were, indeed, open.

Which bits of his body weren't aching? He checked. No, there seemed to be none. His ribs were carrying the melody of pain, but knees, elbows and head were all adding trills and arpeggios. Every time he shifted to ease the agony, it moved somewhere else. His head ached as if someone was hammering on his eyeballs.

He groaned, and coughed up water.

Gritty sand was under him. He could hear the rush of water somewhere near by, but the sand under him was merely damp. And that didn't seem right.

He risked turning over, a process that extracted a considerable amount of groan.

He could remember the icy water. There had been no question of swimming. All he'd been able to do was roll himself into a ball as the water threw and scraped and banged him through the bagatelle board of Koom Valley. He'd gone over an underground waterfall once, he was sure, and had managed to suck a breath before being whisked onward. And then there was depth, and pressure, and his life started to unroll before his eyes, and his last thought had been please, please, can we skip the bit with Mavis Trouncer ...

And now he was here on an invisible beach, totally out of the water? But this place surely didn't have tides!

So someone was somewhere in the blackness, watching him. That was it. They'd pulled him out and now they were watching him ...

He opened his eyes again. Some of the pain had gone, leaving stiffness as payment. He had a feeling that time had passed. The darkness pressed in on all sides, thick as velvet.

He rolled back with more groans, and this time managed to push himself on to his hands and knees.

`Who's there?' he mumbled, and, very carefully, got to his feet.

Being upright seemed to shake his brain into gear again.

`Anyone there?' The darkness swallowed the sound. Anyway, what would he have done if something had said, `Yes!'?

He drew his sword and held it out in front of him as he shuffled forward. After a dozen steps it clinked against rock.

`Matches,' he mumbled. `Got matches!'

He found the wax bundle and, working his clammy fingers slowly, drew out one match. Scraping the wax off the head with his thumb, he struck it against the stone.

The glare hurt his eyes. Look, quick! Flowing water, smooth sand, hand- and footprints coming out of the water, one set only? Yes. Walls looked dry, small cave, darkness over there, way out ...

Vimes limped towards the oval entrance as quickly as he could while the match spat and fizzed in his hand.

There was a bigger cave here, so big that the blackness in it seemed to suck all the light from the match, which scorched his fingers and died.

The heavy darkness closed in again, like curtains, and now he knew what the dwarfs meant. This wasn't the darkness of a hood, or a cellar, or even of their shallow little mine. He was a long way below the ground here, and the weight of all that darkness bore down on him.

Now and again a drop of water went plink into some unseen pool.

Vimes staggered onwards. He knew he was bleeding. He didn't know why he was walking, but he did know that he had to.

Maybe he'd find daylight. Maybe he'd find a log that had been washed in here, and float his way out. He wasn't going to die, not down here in the dark, a long way from home.

A lot of water was dripping in this cavern. A lot of it was going down his neck right now, but there were plinks on every side. Hah, water trickling down your neck and odd noises in the shadows ... well, that's when we find out if we've got a real copper, right? But there were no shadows here. It wasn't light enough.

Perhaps that poor sod of a dwarf had wandered through here. But he had found a way out. Maybe he knew the way, maybe he had a rope, maybe he was young and limber ... and so he'd got out, dying on his feet, and tucked the treasure out of the way, and then went down the valley, walking through his grave. That's how it could take people. He remembered Mrs Oldsburton, who went mad after her baby died, cleaning everything in the house, every cup, wall, ceiling and spoon, not seeing anybody or hearing anything, just working all day and all night. Something in the head went click and you found something to do, anything, to stop yourself thinking.

Best to stop thinking that the way out the dwarf had found had been the one Vimes had dropped in by, and he had no idea where that was now.

Maybe he could simply jump back in the water, knowing what he was doing this time, and maybe he'd make it all the way down to the river before the turbulent currents battered him to death. Maybe he

Why the hell had he let go of that rope? It had been like that little voice that whispers `Jump' when you're on a cliff edge, or `Touch the fire'. You didn't listen, of course. At least most people didn't, most of the time. Well, a voice had said `Let go, and he had ...

He shuffled on, aching and bleeding, while the dark curled its tail around him.

`He'll be back soon, you know,' said Sybil. `Even if it's at the very last minute.' Out in the hall, a big grandfather clock had just stopped chiming half past five.

`I'm sure he will,' said Bunty. They were bathing Young Sam.

`He's never late,' Sybil went on. `He says if you're late for a good reason you'll be late for a bad one. And it's only half past five, anyway.!

'Plenty of time,' Bunty agreed.

`Fred and Nobby did take the horses up to the valley, didn't they?' said Sybil.

`Yes, Sybil. You watched them go,' said Bunty. She looked over Sybil's head to the gaunt figure of her husband, who was standing in the hall doorway. He shrugged hopelessly.

`Only the other day he was running up the stairs as the clocks were striking six,' said Sybil, calmly soaping Young Sam with a sponge shaped like a teddy bear. `The very last second. You wait and see.'

He wanted to sleep. He'd never felt this tired before. Vimes slumped to his knees, and then fell sideways on to the sand.

When he forced open his eyes he saw pale stars above him, and had once again the sensation that there was someone else present.

He turned his head, wincing at the stab of pain, and saw a small but brightly lit folding chair on the sand. A robed figure was reclining in it, reading a book. A scythe was stuck in the sand beside it.

A white skeletal hand turned a page.

`You'll be Death, then?' said Vimes, after a while.

AH, MISTER VIMES, ASTUTE AS EVER. GOT IT IN ONE, said Death,

shutting the book on his finger to keep the place. `I've seen you before.'

I HAVE WALKED WITH YOU MANY TIMES, MISTER VIMES.

`And this is it, is it?'

HAS IT NEVER STRUCK YOU THAT THE CONCEPT OF A WRITTEN NARRATIVE IS SOMEWHAT STRANGE? said Death.

Vimes could tell when people were trying to avoid something they really didn't want to say, and it was happening here. `Is it?' he insisted. `Is this it? This time I die?'

COULD BE.

`Could be? What sort of answer is that?' said Vimes.

A VERY ACCURATE ONE. YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON'T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.

Vimes rolled over on to his stomach, gritted his teeth and pushed himself on to his hands and knees again. He managed a few yards before slumping back down.

He heard the sound of a chair being moved. `Shouldn't you be somewhere else?' he said.

I AM, said Death, sitting down again.

`But you're here!'

As WELL. Death turned a page and, for a person without breath,

managed a pretty good sigh. IT APPEARS THAT THE BUTLER DID IT.

`Did what?'

IT IS A MADE-UP STORY. VERY STRANGE. ALL ONE NEEDS DO IS TURN TO THE LAST PAGE AND THE ANSWER IS THERE. WHAT, THEREFORE, IS THE POINT OF DELIBERATEDLY NOT KNOWING?