Thud!

  Thud!

  A NOVEL OF DISCWORLD®

  Terry Pratchett

  The first thing Tak did, he wrote himself.

  The second thing Tak did, he wrote the Laws.

  The third thing Tak did, he wrote the World.

  The fourth thing Tak did, he wrote a cave.

  The fifth thing Tak did, he wrote a geode, an egg of stone.

  And in the twilight of the mouth of the cave, the geode hatched, and the Brothers were born.

  The first Brother walked toward the light, and stood under the open sky. Thus he became too tall. He was the first Man. He found no Laws, and he was enlightened.

  The second Brother walked toward the darkness, and stood under a roof of stone. Thus he achieved the correct height. He was the first Dwarf. He found the Laws Tak had written, and he was endarkened.

  But some of the living spirit of Tak was trapped in the broken stone egg, and it became the first troll, wandering the world unbidden and unwanted, without soul or purpose, learning or understanding. Fearful of light and darkness it shambles forever in twilight, knowing nothing, learning nothing, creating nothing, being nothing…

  —From ‘Gd Tak ‘Gar’ (The Things Tak Wrote), trans. Prof. W. W. W. Wildblood. Ankh-Morpork: Unseen University Press. AM$8. In the original, the last paragraph of the quoted text appears to have been added by a much later hand.

  Him who mountain crush him no

  Him who sun him stop him no

  Him who hammer him break him no

  Him who fire him fear him no

  Him who raise him head above him heart

  Him diamond

  —Translation of troll pictograms found carved on a basalt slab in the deepest level of the Ankh-Morpork treacle mines, in pig-treacle measures estimated at 500,000 years old.

  Contents

  Epigraphs:

  The first thing Tak did, he wrote himself.

  Him who mountain crush him no

  Thud…

  It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an…

  On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal woke up in the…

  One little light lluminated the cellar, which was to say that…

  There was a small crowd outside the Watch House in…

  It was politics. Vimes could never get a handle on politics, which…

  The locker room wasn’t big enough. Nothing like big enough.

  The door opened.

  In theory, the only problem in Fred’s life now was his door.

  Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs, having been rousted from their…

  Vimes eased himself into his chair and looked at the…

  Ankh-Morpork’s Finest strolled back down toward the Yard.

  “Say that again, paying attention to every word, will…

  Bloody stupid thing to say, Vimes thought five minutes…

  Treacle Street was just the kind of area the dwarfs colonized…

  Aimless and hopeless, the troll wandered…

  When Vimes stepped out into the brilliant daylight, the first…

  One dwarf in the cells, one in the tender, loving care of…

  Sally knew something was up as soon as she got back into the…

  Vimes fretted through the afternoon. There was, of course…

  What was this?

  The Pork Futures Warehouse was…one of those things, the…

  “I don’t think I can go through with this,” Angua had hissed…

  Darkness.

  “There’s something I didn’t want to mention in front of…

  Bewildered and aimless, the troll wanders through the…

  The main office was packed, but Vimes fought his way…

  The moon was somewhere beyond the clouds, but Angua didn’t…

  The leap wasn’t intentional. Her hindbrain arranged it all by…

  On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal tried putting…

  It was five a.m. Rain rustled out the sky, not hard, but with a…

  In a dank cellar that once was an attic and was now half-full of…

  Nobby Nobbs, a shadow in the warm red gloom, nudged…

  Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights…

  …The troll mob was a tableau. Trolls stood or sat or lay…

  “You wish me to believe,” said Lord Vetinari, “that Mr.…

  It was still nighttime in the city of endless rain. It was never not…

  Through the ruin of the world the troll staggers…

  Angua decided to go straight to Pseudopolis Yard rather…

  There was an old military saying that Fred Colon used to…

  I should be in charge of the mine raid, thought Vimes. We…

  Captain Carrot had been busy. The city dwarfs liked him. So…

  Pointer and Pickles was dusty. Dust was the keynote of the…

  The entity slithered through the rainy streets. Confounded again!…

  There was a crowd of dwarfs milling around outside the Yard.

  The showers in the Watch house were the talk of the city.

  Vimes sat and stared at his notebook. He’d got “talking…

  The drinking had started in The Bucket, in Gleam Street.

  Fred Colon peered through the bars. He was, on the whole, a

  Fun. What is it good for?

  It was odd, having Sybil in Pseudopolis Yard. It had been one of…

  “I’ve never been on a girls’ night out before,” said Cheery…

  The Ramkins never threw anything away. There was something…

  When did Lord Vetinari sleep? Presumably, the man must…

  I don’t use magic, thought Vimes, walking through the rain…

  The rain cooled Vimes down. It had cooled down the streets,…

  The entity known as the Summoning Dark sped through streets…

  Grag Bashfullsson lodged in a subdivided cellar in Cheap…

  Vimes didn’t remember going to sleep. He didn’t remember…

  When Vimes stepped out into the damp dawn, two coaches…

  “This is all rather fun,” said Sybil an hour later as the…

  You could catch up with the dwarfs long before they’re near…

  What Vimes remembered most of all about that journey—…

  Bunty was surprised to see them so soon, but Ladies Who…

  Angua and Sally had been put in the same bedroom. Angua…

  And now Koom Valley stretched away ahead of Vimes, and he…

  Vimes opened his eyes. After a while, moving his arm…

  “He’ll be back soon, you know,” said Sybil. “Even if it’s…

  He wanted to sleep. He’d never felt this tired before. Vimes…

  “Is that clock right?”

  “Ob oggle oog soggle!”

  Sybil tried not to look at the worried faces of her host and…

  Vimes, half limping and half running, tripped and fell into a…

  Night, forever. But within it, a city, shadowy and only real in…

  It hadn’t exactly been an ambush; the dwarfs just caught up…

  On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal dropped the…

  It would be a lot simpler, Vimes thought, if this was a story. A…

  “Sixty new officers?” said Lord Vetinari.

  Plink! went a drop of water onto the head of the very, very…

  Wandering through the world, the eternal troll…

  Trolls and dwarfs had raised a huge roundhouse in Koom…

  About the Author

  Also by Terry Pratchett

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Thud…

  …that was the sound the heavy club made as it connected with the head. The body
jerked, and slumped back.

  And it was done, unheard, unseen: the perfect end, a perfect solution, a perfect story.

  But, as the dwarfs say, where there is trouble you will always find a troll.

  The troll saw.

  It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes, it was possible to pretend that it wouldn’t.

  Sam Vimes shaved himself. It was his daily act of defiance, a confirmation that he was…well, plain Sam Vimes.

  Admittedly, he shaved himself in a mansion, and while he did so his butler read out bits from the Times, but they were just…circumstances. It was still Sam Vimes looking back at him from the mirror. The day he saw the duke of Ankh-Morpork in there would be a bad day. “Duke” was just a job description, that’s all.

  “Most of the news is about the current…dwarfish situation, sir,” said Willikins, as Vimes negotiated the tricky area under the nose. He still used his granddad’s cutthroat razor. It was another anchor to reality. Besides, the steel was a lot better than the steel you got today. Sybil, who had a strange enthusiasm for modern gadgetry, kept on suggesting he get one of those new shavers, with a little magic imp inside that had its own scissors and did all the cutting very quickly, but Vimes had held out. If anyone was going to be using a blade near his face, it was going to be him.

  “Koom Valley, Koom Valley,” he muttered to his reflection. “Anything new?”

  “Not as such, sir,” said Willikins, turning back to the front page. “There is a report of that speech by Grag Hamcrusher. There was a disturbance afterwards, it says. Several dwarfs and trolls were wounded. Community leaders have appealed for calm.”

  Vimes shook some lather off the blade. “Hah! I bet they have. Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?”

  “I was privileged to belong to the Shamlegger Street Rude Boys, sir,” said the butler primly.

  “Really?” said Vimes, genuinely impressed. “They were pretty tough nuts, as I recall.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Willikins smoothly. “I pride myself I used to give somewhat more than I got if we needed to discuss the vexed area of turf issues with the young men from Rope Street. Stevedore’s hooks were their weapon of choice, as I recall.”

  “And yours…?” said Vimes, agog.

  “A cap-brim sewn with sharpened pennies, sir. An ever-present help in times of trouble.”

  “Ye gods, man! You could put someone’s eye out with something like that.”

  “With care, sir, yes.”

  And here you stand now, in your pinstripe trousers and butlering coat, shiny as schmaltz and fat as butter, Vimes thought, while he tidied up under the ears. And I’m a duke. How the world turns.

  “And have you ever heard someone say ‘let’s have a disturbance’?” he said.

  “Never, sir,” said Wilkins, picking up the paper again.

  “Me neither. It only happens in newspapers.” Vimes glanced at the bandage on his arm. It had been quite disturbing, even so.

  “Did it mention I took personal charge?” he said.

  “No, sir. But it does say here that rival factions in the street outside were kept apart by the valiant efforts of the Watch, sir.”

  “They actually used the word ‘valiant’?” said Vimes.

  “Indeed they did, sir.”

  “Well, good,” Vimes conceded grumpily. “Do they record that two officers had to be taken to the Free Hospital, one of them quite badly hurt?”

  “Unaccountably, not, sir,” said the butler.

  “Huh. Typical. Oh, well…carry on.”

  Willikins coughed a butlery cough. “You might wish to lower the razor for the next one, sir. I got into trouble with her ladyship about last week’s little nick.”

  Vimes watched his image sigh, and lowered the razor. “All right, Willikins. Tell me the worst.”

  Behind him, the paper was professionally rustled. “The headline on page three is: ‘Vampire Officer For The Watch?,’ sir,” said the butler and took a careful step backwards.

  “Damn! Who told them?”

  “I really couldn’t say, sir. It says you are not in favor of vampires in the Watch, but will be interviewing a recruit today. It says there is a lively controversy over the issue.”

  “Turn to page eight, will you?” said Vimes grimly. Behind him, the paper rustled again.

  “Well?” he said. “That’s where they usually put their silly political cartoon, isn’t it?”

  “You did put the razor down, did you, sir?” said Willikins.

  “Yes!”

  “Perhaps it would also be just as well if you stepped away from the washbasin, too, sir.”

  “There’s one of me, isn’t there…” said Vimes grimly.

  “Indeed there is, sir. It portrays a small, nervous vampire and, if I may say so, a rather larger-than-life drawing of yourself leaning over your desk, holding a wooden stake in your right hand. The caption is ‘Any good on a stakeout, eh?,’ sir, this being a humorous wordplay referring, on the one hand, to the standard police procedure—”

  “Yes, I think I can just about spot it,” said Vimes wearily. “Any chance you could nip down and buy the original before Sybil does? Every time they run a cartoon of me, she gets hold of it and hangs it up in the library!”

  “Mr., er, Fizz does capture a very good likeness, sir,” the butler conceded. “And I regret to say that her ladyship has already instructed me to go down to the Times office on her behalf.”

  Vimes groaned.

  “Moreover, sir,” Willikins went on, “her ladyship desired me to remind you that she and Young Sam will meet at the studio of Sir Joshua at eleven sharp, sir. The painting is at an important stage, I gather.”

  “But I—”

  “She was very specific, sir. She said if a commander of police cannot take time off, who can?”

  On this day in 1802, the painter Methodia Rascal woke up in the night because the sounds of warfare were coming from a drawer in his bedside table.

  Again.

  One little light illuminated the cellar, which was to say that it lent different textures to the darkness and divided shadow from darker shadow.

  The figures barely showed up at all. It was quite impossible, with normal eyes, to tell who was talking.

  “This is not to be talked about, do you understand?”

  “Not talked about? He’s dead!”

  “This is dwarf business! It’s not to come to the ears of the City Watch! They have no place here! Do any of us want them down here?”

  “They do have dwarf officers—”

  “Hah. D’rkza. Too much time in the sun. They’re just short humans now. Do they think dwarf? And Vimes will dig and dig and wave the silly rags and tatters they call laws. Why should we allow such a violation? Besides, this is hardly a mystery. Only a troll could have done it, agreed? I said, are we agreed?”

  “That is what happened,” said a figure; the voice was thin and old and, in truth, uncertain.

  “Indeed, it was a troll,” said another voice, almost the twin of that one, but with a little more assurance.

  The subsequent pause was underlined by the ever-present sound of the pumps.

  “It could only have been a troll,” said the first voice. “And is it not said that behind every crime you will find the troll?”

  There was a small crowd outside the Watch House in Pseudopolis Yard when Commander Sam Vimes arrived at work. It had been a fine sunny morning up until then. Now it was still sunny, but nothing like as fine.