Raising Steam, Page 23

  Just as Moist was debating where first to look for Simnel, Emily King, in a very fine white cotton dress, came jauntily skipping through the compound towards the sacred engine shed as if completely unaware of the attendant muck and grease. But after all, he thought, she must have grown up with her uncle’s other business, against which the railway was a fragrant pleasure garden. And here she was, bouncing along cheerfully, and here was Iron Girder, and suddenly Moist’s spine went cold, every sinew twanging, and he was near to biting his nails as the girl continued towards the locomotive in her pristine white cotton dress.

  Moist moved like lightning across the compound as Emily skipped on and reached Iron Girder. He looked at Simnel, whose face had gone curiously grey even under the grease and grime, and he was ready for anything as Emily patted the engine and said, ‘Hello, Iron Girder, how are we today, you lovely girl?’ And while Moist was still gawping, Emily took out her handkerchief and buffed Iron Girder’s brass nameplate industriously until it sparkled to the heavens. And as Emily was talking to Iron Girder about how good she was looking today, Simnel turned to Moist and said, very quietly, ‘She wouldn’t have, you know, not Iron Girder.’

  ‘Good,’ said Moist. ‘And now you have two ladies, you lucky man.’ But in his head a voice said to him, ‘But you more than half expected it, didn’t you, Mister Lipwig? Oh, ye of little faith.’ And then there was a sigh of steam.

  For the next two hours Moist sat at his desk in Harry’s compound, feeling as if he were a locomotive speeding along watching the scenery blur past. Every so often a boy came up with another pile of paperwork from some part of Harry King’s domain and towards the end of the afternoon he felt himself subtly drifting into a coma, quite a pleasant one at the start: he visualized himself in a pale pink mist and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. And little by little Moist von Lipwig began to unravel, but just as he was sliding under Of the Twilight the Darkness dropped down in front of him out of the evening glow, though exactly where he had dropped from Moist couldn’t work out.

  ‘Must go to sleep, Mister Lipwig! Burning candle at both ends means man with egg on face and burning bum. When did Mister Lipwig last eat? Not snack! Serious munch! I have some dried mushrooms if you are feeling peckish. No? Acquired taste … more for me, but you must sleep if nothing else. Mister Lipwig can’t do everything. If he can’t eat, can’t do anything. Making money is good, but there is no pockets in a shroud. Give it a rest, Mister Railway! And this will help you big time no mistake.’

  The goblin handed Moist a little bottle on which a grubby label proclaimed the contents as ‘RAT POISON’.

  ‘Label one big lie, Mister Lipwig, bottle cleaned out and rats eaten, yes indeed, and filled with special goblin potion for tired person. Guaranteed no worms and it will give you refreshing sleep and you feel a lot better if you wake up in the morning! Guaranteed! Pure quill. None finer!’

  It had been a long day and the heat of the smelters had made him as dry as the smelters themselves and so, what the hell, Moist took a long swig.

  ‘Well done, Mister Lipwig!’ chuckled the goblin. ‘It will make your hairs curl … everywhere!’

  Later, after Moist had finished talking to the dancing toadstools and Mr Whoopee, the man who could amusingly eat his own face, it must have been Moist’s feet alone that found his bed, plodding along like a couple of old donkeys via the good offices of Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, who apparently found him just outside his house talking to his knees. And, according to Nobby, listening intently to what they had to say.

  He awoke lying on his bedroom floor. Somebody had put blankets over him and even tucked him up nicely. He grasped his head and thought Oh no! I drank another goblin concoction! His dismay dwindled when he realized that he felt absolutely fine and not just fine, either, but so full of beans that the world probably had no beans left. When he stepped outside on to the balcony for a breath of fresh air the birds were singing and the sky was a wonderful shade of blue.

  The door opened behind him and Adora Belle said, ‘I know we have what might be called an unconventional marriage, what with our jobs and the pressure of work and so on, but I wouldn’t be doing my wifely duty if I didn’t ask you whether you have been firkydoodling with fast and loose women? No pressure. Answer in your own time.’

  More or less spinning with the ecstasy of being alive and, of course, all those beans, Moist said joyfully, ‘Now then, just a minute, bear with me now, tell me, is it loose women or is it fast women? Is there a spotter’s guide or does one, as it were, cancel out the other?’

  ‘Moist von Lipwig, you are rascally drunk. Can you even walk?’

  For an answer Moist jumped in the air, clicking his heels, and said, ‘Fast or loose, my girl, or why not both at once?’

  Dragging him back into their bedroom and closing the door behind them, Adora Belle said, ‘Well now, husband of mine, in that case let’s find out.’

  There was a thunderstorm over Schmaltzberg, but that was ever the case. Thunder rolled around the mountains, like the marbles of the gods. And in the privacy of his office, the Low King was discussing progress with Aeron who was looking more cheerful than usual.

  ‘Things appear to be calming down,’ Rhys said. ‘They argue and argue and then somebody remembers that he has business to deal with concerning his rat farms, or there’s some trouble over in his goldmine, water coming in, pit props buckling and so on and so forth, things they can’t leave to underlings, and then everything goes quiet.’

  ‘I know you’re worried,’ said Aeron, ‘but I think … no, I believe, that you have more friends than you ever thought possible. Even the goblins know that you were one of the first who signed up for goblin emancipation. They, whether we like it or not, are becoming the future, Rhys. It was the business with the clacks towers that made even traditional dwarfs angry. The clacks is needed: everybody wants news. People are furious everywhere. After all, they say, goblins and trolls are minding their own business, so why not the dwarfs?’

  ‘No more news of Ardent?’ asked the King. ‘It’s been months, hasn’t it? No more towers down or idiots trying to destroy the railway? Can I believe that his firebrand has burned out?’

  Aeron handed the King his coffee and said, ‘I believe Lord Vetinari said never do anything until you hear the screams. However, Ardent is not one to come back, helmet in hand, to say “sorry”. There is too much pride there by half.’

  After a quiet moment while Rhys Rhysson considered the possibilities, Aeron continued.

  ‘So you will accept the invitation to the summit in Quirm? In these circumstances, Rhys, it does seem to me that it is very important that you are there and seen to be there.’

  ‘Of course. Diamond King will be chairing proceedings this year and I must mend fences. He’s helpful but I’m in no mood to try his patience. He has always been a most understanding ally.’

  ‘And the other … thing?’

  ‘The other thing is satisfactory,’ said the King. He paused. ‘Yes, we should go to Quirm, but I think it would be wise to leave Albrechtson in charge here, just to take care of any business.’

  Without his quite knowing how it had come about, and regardless of how little he was actually at the compound, it appeared that Moist was now Mr Railway. If anyone wanted to know anything about it, they asked him. If they’d lost their little child in the queue for Iron Girder, the call went out for Mr Lipwig and if somebody had a new idea for the railway it was sent to Mr Lipwig and after a while it didn’t seem to Moist to matter what time it was or, worse, where he was: the claims on his attention were never-ending.

  He was pretty certain that he slept quite often, sometimes back at home, if at all possible, or saving that a mattress and blanket somewhere within the warm and ever enlarging foundries along the route to Uberwald, or, if all else failed, snuggled down under the tarpaulins of whatever railway gang was near by, having shared whatever was in the cooking pot. If you were lucky it was pheasant or possibly grouse
, and if you weren’t so lucky, at least there would be pot luck, which generally meant cabbages and swedes and almost certainly something that was protein, but you wouldn’t want to see what it was in daylight. However, to give them their due, the railway gangs, including the vanguard now bearing down on Slake, were resourceful men, especially in the tradition of setting snares to fill their pots along the permanent way.

  Slake was one of those places, Moist thought, that you put on the map because it was embarrassing to have a map with holes in it. There was some mining, forestry and fishing and after a while you got the feeling that those people who chose to live in Slake and the surrounding area were people who didn’t want other people to know where they were. And when you walked around Slake you were always certain that you were being watched. He put it down as a place to avoid unless you liked bad cooking and banjos. Nevertheless, it had a mayor and was nailed to the map as a coaling and water stop.

  No longer did Moist wear the snazzy suits and handmade shoes that, along with his collection of official-looking hats, were his calling card back in the city. They didn’t stand up well to the regime of the railway worker and so now he wore the greasy shirt and waistcoat with rough trousers tied at the knee. He loved the huge boots and the flat cap that seemed to go with them, making you feel safe at both ends. But the boots, oh the boots … a troll could drop on your head and you’d be dead, but the boots would be still alive and kicking! They had hobnails and were more or less like tiny fortresses. Nothing could get past a railway worker’s boots.

  Messages found Moist wherever he might be, via train, goblin runner or clacks, since there were very few places these days where their towers hadn’t found a niche in the landscape.

  In the small hours of one morning in the Plains township of Little Swelling when it was pouring with rain that hammered on the makeshift lodgings, Moist pulled back the tarpaulin and wood door to see the face of Of the Twilight the Darkness, who couldn’t be called soaked, because there was really very little of him to soak.fn61 As soon as the goblin got inside the bothy, such water as was on him simply disappeared.

  Almost automatically Moist looked up to see the lights of the local clacks tower and as he did so it flashed a familiar code: it was from Adora Belle. He recognized her code as easily as he would recognize his own. ‘Quickly!’ he said. ‘Get up that tower and get that message back to me, now!’

  He waited, and in the gloom the voice of Of the Twilight the Darkness said, ‘Did I hear the magic word, Mister Little Damp?’

  Moist was surprised at himself because, even though the goblin had a smell you could almost see, that was no reason for not minding your manners, so he said, ‘Please, Mister Of the Twilight the Darkness. Thank you so very much.’

  And thus chastened, Moist kept silent as the little goblin scuttled back out into the rain and scampered towards the tower.

  Moist finished his ablutions, gathered his things together – on the assumption that whatever the message it would require him to go somewhere else – and went out to where the golem horse was waiting unregarding of the weather, just in case it needed waking up, because however hard he tried he couldn’t think of it as anything other than alive. Admittedly, the horse was giving him incipient piles, no matter how much padding he put between himself and it. And although the creature could now speak, Moist still yearned for all those fussing little rituals that defined horsemanship. He was aware that there should be such things as nose bags and adjusting the straps and giving the beast some water. The lack of these rituals slightly unbalanced Moist. It was creepy. In the falling rain it was as if he was in two different worlds.

  And while he was wondering whether he should give the horse a name, which somehow would have made things feel better, Mister Of the Twilight the Darkness arrived, clutching a damp and smudged pink clacks flimsy.

  Vetinari wants to see you immediately. Stop. PS Any chance of bringing home some of that goblin potion with you. Stop. PPS If you pass a bakery we could do with a couple of sliced loaves. Stop. Your loving wife. Stop.

  And he thought, well, isn’t it nice to be wanted?

  No more than a few hours and a bumpy ride through pouring rain later, the door to the anteroom outside the Oblong Office was opened by Drumknott, replete in a very smart engine driver’s hat, wiping his greasy hands on an equally greasy piece of ever-present engine driver’s rag.

  ‘His lordship will be with you presently, Mister Lipwig. You’ve been a very busy man lately, haven’t you?’

  Moist could now see that the little secretary was also looking tanned beneath the smuts and soot, and the hat was, gods forbid, jaunty, a term never before applied to Drumknott.

  ‘Have you spent much time on the railway, Mister Drumknott? It looks like it’s doing you some good.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir! His lordship allows me to take a few turns on the railway late mornings after he’s finished the crossword. After all, everything is about the train these days, isn’t it, and he was gracious enough to say that I’m keeping him in touch.’

  At that moment, there was a shrill whistle from the other side of the door and Drumknott pulled it open to reveal Lord Vetinari, to Moist’s total surprise, catching one of the new little steam engines just as it was about to plunge off the highly polished desk. The familiar straights and curves were surrounded by little toy people: guards, engine drivers, passengers, the portly controller with a big cigar and various engineers with tiny crafted sliding rulers. And the tyrant caught the falling engine in a gauntlet, leaving water and oil dripping down on to the expensive polished ebony floor tiles.

  ‘Quite amazing, isn’t it, Mister Lipwig?’ he said cheerfully through the smoke. ‘Though isn’t it a pity that they can only run on rails? I can’t imagine what the world would be like if everyone had their own steam locomotive. Abominable.’

  His lordship held out his hand for Drumknott to clean it with a not-so-greasy rag, and said, ‘Well, Mister Lipwig is here, Drumknott, and I know you can’t wait to get back to your wonderful railway.’

  And Drumknott – the Drumknott who thought the finer things of life were stored in manila folders – headed off down the stairs two at a time to get into the cab, shovel the coal, start the engine, blow the whistle and breathe in smuts and soot and be that most wondrous of creatures, an engine driver.

  ‘Tell me, Mister Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, as the door closed. ‘It occurs to me that rocks on the line could easily derail a locomotive …’

  ‘Well, my lord, away from Ankh-Morpork we give the engines cow-catchers, a kind of plough, if you will. And remember, sir, a locomotive running free has a considerable weight and the signallers and linesmen keep an eye on the track.’

  ‘So, there has so far been no deliberate sabotage?’

  Moist said, ‘Not since the attack on Iron Girder months ago, unless you mean the little boys who put their pennies on the track just to get them flattened? That seems to be more of a pastime, and copper bends easily. It’s gone quiet, hasn’t it, sir? I’m thinking about the grags knocking down clacks towers and generally being difficult. It looks like they’ve given up.’

  Vetinari winced. ‘You could be right. Certainly the Low King appears to believe so, and Commander Vimes reports that his agents in Uberwald are not picking up any disturbances. Other sources indicate the same. But … I worry that extremists are like perennial weeds. They may disappear for a while but they don’t give up. I fear they’ve gone further underground, waiting for their moment.’

  ‘Which moment would that be, sir?’

  ‘Do you know, Mister Lipwig, I wonder about that every night. I take some pleasure in the fact that the era of the locomotive has begun with care and thought and a scientific outlook instead of a lot of tinkering. Encouraging free-for-all simply encourages more episodes such as we saw in the Effing Forest. So …’ Vetinari now stared directly at Moist. ‘Tell me, how is the railway to Uberwald coming along?’

  ‘Making very good progress, sir, but there is a shor
tfall … as it were. We were expecting to drive the golden spike halfway through next month. There’s a lot of work still to do and we’re driving the train underground around the Gruffies. We’re tunnelling hard, but there are already a lot of cave formations up there.’

  And there’s the bridges, he thought. You haven’t told him about the bridges. ‘And, of course, once we get to Uberwald we’ll eventually continue on to Genua.’

  ‘Not good enough, Mister Lipwig, not good enough at all. You must speed up. The balance of the world could be at stake.’

  ‘Er … with all due respect, my lord, why?’

  Vetinari frowned. ‘Mister Lipwig. I have given you your orders; how you execute those orders is up to you, but they must be obeyed!’

  Moist’s mood was not helped by finding the golem horse had been clamped, apparently by the Watch since he could see a watchman close by, laughing. The horse looked at him, embarrassed, and said, ‘I regret this inconvenience, sir, but I must obey the law.’

  Seething, Moist said, ‘As a golem horse, are you as strong as any other golem?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Moist. ‘Then get yourself out of the clamp.’

  The clamp cracked and split and the watchman ran towards Moist just as he leapt on to the back of the horse, yelling after him, ‘Oi! That’s public property, that is!’

  And Moist shouted over his shoulder, ‘Send the bill to Sir Harry King, if you dare! Tell him it’s from Moist von Lipwig!’