He looked around at the rest of the crew and said, ‘We must continue. There’re still a lot of miles between here and Uberwald.’
Dick, who had been in an urgent conversation with Wally by the water tender, grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, your majesty, but we’ve got a problem. There were a depot here for coal and water, but it’s been smashed, and the grags have smashed the water crane and emptied t’water. We’ve still got t’coal, but we’ve barely got enough water to get to t’next depot. The engine can’t run without water. We need to refill t’tank.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, where are t’railway folk? The way I reckoned the schedules, there should have been people ’ere all ready and waiting for us.’
Slam cleared his throat. ‘We heard noises … People fighting …’
Moist looked at Vimes meaningfully and the commander said, ‘Detritus? Think you could find them?’
The watchman saluted with a thud. ‘Me an’ Bluejohn will go lookin’. We are good at findin’ humans. ’s a troll fing. We’ll find dem. Dead or alive.’
The two trolls headed into the undergrowth and Moist was sensitive to the fact that a large amount of firepower had gone with them. The commander looked grim.
The little gnome by Moist’s feet tugged at his trouser leg to get attention. ‘We can help with the water,’ he said. ‘There’s a good spring behind the rise, and there’s hundreds of us and it’s not far and we make excellent buckets and I reckon we can fill your tanks in an hour or so.’
And they did.
Slam brought out a whistle from his jacket and blew it, and about a hundred replicas of the little gnome appeared. Not walked up, not came out of the sky, not came out of the earth. Simply appeared, each one carrying two buckets. It was evident that, small as they were, the gnomes were tough. Simnel watched them dashing away to the tender and back again, looking very carefully at their boots, massive things.
‘Ey up, mister gnome, do you make them boots? I’m not being funny … but they are the biggest boots I’ve ever seen on such little folk. And, you know, with all the walking on t’lines and cinders and all, our boots wear out too damn quickly. I mean, look at these. Worn in all weathers. You said you were cobblers. Can you work metal an’ all? Because if you can, what we really need are lads who can make heavy boots for t’railway workers. I’d be dead chuffed if you could. Boots for lads on t’permanent way’ve got to be permanent boots.’
Slam beamed. ‘If someone could send us the specifications as soon as possible we’ll send a sample. And, for your interest, mister engineer, we are not little folk. We are big on the inside.’
He was interrupted by Detritus coming through the undergrowth like a creature from the dawn of time, followed by Bluejohn in his role as heavy weapon. Bluejohn carefully put down two corpses and a mangled water crane.
Rhys Rhysson swore when he saw the corpses and young Simnel wept, but it was now fully morning, and time was passing. After a quick consultation with Commander Vimes and the Low King, the decision was made to leave. As everyone reboarded the train, Moist and Simnel said farewell to the gnomes.
‘Please look after this place and give these gentlemen a decent burial, with a stone,’ said the red-eyed Simnel. ‘And if possible can you do owt wi’ t’water crane?’
Slam beamed again. ‘It’s only metal. Didn’t I mention that we’re tinkers as well? We can definitely fix it for you.’
‘Well then,’ said Moist, ‘you and your people are now working for the railway and that means you are working for Harry King and Sir Harry doesn’t like anything bad to happen to his employees, oh my word yes. You’ll see trains a lot in the future and I think you’ll find your lives considerably more busy. I’ll send a clacks to Sir Harry about remuneration.’
‘What’s remuneration?’ said the little tinker.
Moist said, ‘You’ll find out.’
As Iron Girder struck out for Slake, the gnomes lined up and waved tiny little handkerchiefs until long after the train was out of sight.
Fishing for carp in Lake Overshot that afternoon, Mr Geoffrey Indigo was quietly surprised when the water in the lake simply disappeared in a certain amount of bubbling, leaving some gasping fish, startled frogs and a rather attractive nymph, who was very angry and spat at him as if it was his fault. But the man who had written that well-known book Out with my Flies in All Weathers kept his calm and made a note to mention this phenomenon at the next meeting of the Overshot Fishing Society.
As he meticulously cleaned his gear and generally tidied up, he heard a liquid noise and was surprised for a second time to see that the hole in the landscape was now refilling with water. He watched amazed as the nymph spat at him again, leaving him feeling somewhat wronged. And on the way home, squelching a little, he wondered if anyone would believe him.
When he told his wife later about the strange day, she snorted.
‘Geoffrey, you really shouldn’t take your brandy flask with you!’
‘I didn’t take it with me,’ he protested. ‘It’s still on the sideboard, where it always is!’
‘Then just don’t tell anybody,’ his wife concluded. ‘People will think you’re strange and we can’t have that.’
Geoffrey, the least strange person in the world, except possibly when it came to talking about fish, decided not to say anything. After all, you didn’t want to become a laughing stock …
Moist was starting to worry about Dick Simnel and his band of overworked engineers. What sleep they got was in sleeping bags, curled up on carriage seats, eating but not eating well, just driven by their watches and their desire to keep the train going. If you met them away from the cab, their conversation was about gears and wheels and timings, but it was clear to Moist that they were frazzled after days of living on the footplate and wrestling their locomotives through various little tantrums.
And so he confronted Mr Simnel, saying, ‘Surely we can afford to slacken pace a little and let you and your lads get your heads down for a bit? As far as I can see, we’re well on schedule.’
And he detected in Dick’s eyes not madness but something else more subtle. He was sure it had no name. It seemed to be a sort of hunger for anything that was new and above all for proving that something could be refined to the point of perfection and kept there. In the goblins this was endemic, although it didn’t seem to do them much harm. Humans, apparently, were another matter.
‘People are going to die if we push them any further,’ he said to Dick. ‘You lot would rather work than sleep! I swear, sometimes you seem to be as mechanical as Iron Girder, and that’s not right, you have to … chill, get laid back before you are laid-back and laid down for ever.’
To Moist’s amazement, Dick suddenly ripped out at him like a lion. He could almost hear the growl.
‘Who are you to talk, Mister Moist? What have you made, built, fretted over? I see none of your fingernails are torn and you can talk well in a fancy way, but what is it you’ve made? What is it you are?’
‘Me, Dick? Well, now I come to look at it I’m the grease that turns the wheels and changes minds and moves the world along. Or you might say that I’m a kind of a cook, but it is a special kind of cookery. It’s a bit like the sliding rule; you just move things about at the right time and you get the answer you need. In short, Dick, I make things happen, and that includes your railway.’
The young man swayed in front of him and Moist’s tone became gentle. ‘And I now see that part of my job is to tell you that you need some rest. You’ve run out of steam, Dick. Look, we’re well on the way to Uberwald now, and while it’s daylight and we’re out of the mountains it’s going to be the least risky time to run with minimum crew. We’re all going to need our wits about us when we get near the Pass. Surely you can take some rest?’
Simnel blinked as if he’d not seen Moist the first time, and said, ‘Yes, you’re right.’
And Moist could hear the slurring in the young man’s speech, caught him before he fell and dragged him into a sleeping compart
ment, put him to bed and noted that the engineer didn’t so much fall asleep as somehow flow into it. And that job done, he went to the guard’s van where Vimes was drinking coffee and carefully going through the paperwork relating to the captive delvers, who in the pinch sang like most canaries.
‘Commander Vimes, can you help me a moment?’
‘Problem, Mister Lipwig?’
‘The lads are working all the time and they seem to think it’s the badge of a man never to go to sleep.’
‘I have to teach that to young coppers. Treasure a night’s rest, I always say. Take a nap whenever you can.’
‘Very good,’ said Moist. ‘Now look at them here. Still working on the sliding rules and fretting themselves because they’ve spent too much time trying to put one over on the universe.’
‘It seems like that,’ said Vimes, getting up.
Together they wandered along the train forcing the engineers to at least lie down in their bunks or face the wrath of Sir Harry King. And in a few cases Moist suggested Of the Twilight the Darkness should dose them with one of his harmless little potions. Not all of them, of course, in case there was an emergency. You never knew when you might need an engineer.
In his cell Albrecht Albrechtson had had plenty of time to consider Ardent’s tactics. Ardent was a mere stripling youth,fn75 but was already revealed as a manipulative chancer, seeking advancement come what may and by any means he deemed necessary. He wormed his way into everything and in that sentence Albrecht thought the important word was ‘worm’.
Being Ardent’s prisoner was galling. The food was good and drink likewise, even if the small beer was smaller than than he’d have liked. He was allowed some of his books, too, apart from those Ardent considered un-dwarfish – a terminology that told you everything about the arrogant young upstart, still wet behind the helmet, who was no doubt keen to get his paws on the whole of Schmaltzberg, ‘un-dwarfish’ fat mines and all.
And in his little dungeon Albrechtson had to endure Ardent’s self-serving philosophy about the role of the Low King. What in solence! Lecturing him, the foremost scholar on the subject. But it didn’t do to get angry, at least not yet. Anger was a weapon to be honed and treasured and used only at the moment yielding most premium. And that thought was followed by a noise on the stone stairs as the pompous fool came again to get him to change his mind.
Of course, Ardent would begin as if he was just an old friend coming to chew the rat, but as he talked, Albrechtson would glimpse the coils of a decent mind unfolding. After all, he was opposing his sovereign, something not done lightly, if ever. Ardent had to be aware of the penalty for those who took up arms against the Low King. Despite everything, there must have been a good mind there, one which could have been useful to dwarfkind as a whole and might yet be useful, even if right now it couldn’t tell pyrites from gold. It was no secret that the most highly balanced minds sometimes, well, overbalanced.
The key turned in the lock. There was Ardent, and his expression seriously frightened his erstwhile mentor. You needed to be mature to sense this sort of thing but you could tell in a person’s eyes if they were being driven by an idea. They had a clammy look about them, and so did Ardent.
Nevertheless, Albrechtson laid down his pen and said in a calm voice, ‘So kind of you to come and see me. I understand the King will be here shortly, courtesy of the train. Won’t that be nice?’
There was a little bloom of spittle on one side of Ardent’s face and he snapped, ‘You can’t possibly know that!’
Albrechtson sat back convivially and said, ‘It’s probably true that I taught you all you know, young dwarf, but I did not teach you all I know. I have some skills that I didn’t impart.’
‘Then they must include guesswork. I hold the key to information in Schmaltzberg. No clacks towers are standing.’
‘Oh yes, so I hear.’
‘Rhys Rhysson is betraying all that is dwarfish. And for the sake of our species you surely know that I must take the Scone of Stone. The majority of the dwarfs here are behind me.’
Albrechtson twiddled a pen in his fingers and said, ‘Possibly in order not to have to look at your face, Ardent. You’re shaken and the courage of your convictions will see you convicted, the moment the King steps into Schmaltzberg. From what I know of Rhys Rhysson, he may be merciful.’
‘Yes, I thought you’d say something like that, but the deed is done.’
Albrechtson looked stunned. ‘You have actually taken the Scone?’
For a moment Ardent looked foxed. ‘Not as such … Everything is in place. It only needs me to take the final step and Rhys Rhysson can have a retirement somewhere out of the way, like back in Llamedos.’
‘Then do it now. Go on. There’s nothing to stop you, is there? But the Low King is elected, isn’t he? How certain are you? How certain are you that all your fellow travellers are stalwart? Because I’m absolutely certain that many of them are not. Oh yes, they fawn on you and promise a lot, but as the train comes closer and we hear the whistle of change blowing, I think you’ll find that suddenly they have other engagements and recall never talking to you about the Scone of Stone. That’s happening now, and you don’t know it.’
It was unfair really. Ardent said, ‘I invite you to remember that you’re locked in here and I have the only key.’
‘Yes. And of the two of us you are the only one sweating. You’ll be surprised at what I know. How many clacks towers have come back out of the ground like mushrooms? And I know what the Ankh-Morpork dwarfs are saying. You want to know? They say “Why don’t we have the Scone of Stone in Ankh-Morpork? After all, there are more dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork than there are in Schmaltzberg.”’
‘You would countenance our Scone in that wretched place?’
‘Of course not. But neither will I see you on the Scone of Stone. Your grags are losing their followers, not just because of the clacks towers and not because of Ankh-Morpork but because new generations arise and think what’s all this about – how could our parents be so stupid? And you can’t stop people any more than you could stop the train.’
Albrechtson was almost sorry for Ardent now. You could live in denial for a long time, but, like a snake, it doubles back and strikes.
‘You should face facts, Albrecht Albrechtson. You will be amazed at my support. Dwarfs must remain dwarfs, not simulacrums of humans. To follow Rhys Rhysson is to become d’rkza, a half-dwarf, less than that even.’
‘No, it is your kind of thinking that makes dwarfs small, wrapped up in themselves: declaring that any tiny change in what is thought to be dwarf is somehow sacrilege. I can remember the days when even talking to a human was forbidden by idiots such as you. And now you have to understand it’s not about the dwarfs, or the humans, or the trolls, it’s about the people, and that’s where the troublesome Lord Vetinari wins the game. In Ankh-Morpork you can be whoever you want to be and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully, they don’t really care. Do you understand this? Dwarfs now have seen liberty. And that’s heady stuff.’
Ardent almost spat and said, ‘You say that when you’re known to be one of the biggest traditionalists in all the mines?’
‘I still am. And most of our traditions were to keep us safe, just in the way that the grags in their great, heavy clothing exploded the firedamp so that we wouldn’t be burned alive. The rules of the mine. They learned the hard way and the traditions are there for a purpose; they work. But somehow, you and the others don’t realize that outside the caverns the world is different. Oh, I keep the special days and knock twice on every door and follow all the tenets of Tak. And why? Because they bring us together, as did the clacks towers until your blessed delvers started to burn them. Burning words dying in the sky! Is that to be the legacy of the dwarfs?’
He stopped. Ardent had gone pale and seemed to be shivering. But then his eyes blazed, and he snarled, ‘You won’t be driven, Albrecht, and nor will I. Train or no train. It’ll never get here a
nyway. The world is not ready for locomotion.’
He glared at Albrecht, who said, ‘Yes, of course it isn’t. But what you don’t understand is that the world wasn’t ready for the clacks but now it screams if they are burned down. And I believe that locomotion has not finished with us yet.’
The response was the slamming of the door and the turning of the key. And now the fool had locked him in for the night, just where he wanted to be.
There were guards, Albrecht knew, but like guards everywhere they tended to slumber or go off somewhere to smoke a pipe during the long hours of the night, and in any case very few of them came near to this particular dungeon since sensible guards didn’t want to upset someone like Albrecht. Even if you thought you were on the right side, you never knew who the winner would be and in those circumstances smaller fry might be the ones to get fried …
After a while, Albrecht picked up the little spoon with which he had eaten his meal and there was the subtle scratching of rock dust which led to the appearance of a goblin, who grinned at him in the gloom.
‘Here you are, squire, here’s clacks flimsies, fresh from Commander Vimes. And bottle of oil for lamp. Oh, and toothpaste you asks for. Have been told to tell you that train is moving like no one business. Sure to be here on schedule.’
It was a kind of therapy to hear of the inevitable approach of the famous Iron Girder, day after day.
The aroma of a goblin, Albrecht thought, seemed to be a metaphysical one. After the initial shock, you had to wonder if the goblin smell was somehow arriving inside your head as much as through your nostrils. It wasn’t even all that bad. It had the savour of old sculleries and southernwood.
He took the packages and scanned the flimsies with the speed of a dwarf who had learned to assimilate the written word quickly. And he spoke with interest to the young goblin, a caste he had hitherto dismissed as a waste of space at best and a nuisance otherwise, but they seemed to be more level-headed than most of his fellow dwarfs, especially that fool Ardent, and it was amazing how they could get about in the darkness of Schmaltzberg and make use of every rat hole before making use of the rat.