Feet of Clay

'You wouldn't understand. I really think you wouldn't understand,' said Angua. 'It's an … undead thing. They … sort of throw in your face the fact you're not human.'

'But you are human!'

'Three weeks out of four. Can't you understand that, when you have to be careful all the time, it's dreadful to see things like that being accepted? They're not even alive. But they can walk around and they never get people passing remarks about silver or garlic … up until now, anyway. They're just machines for doing work!'

'That's how they're treated, certainly,' said Carrot.

'You're being reasonable again!' snapped Angua. 'You're deliberately seeing everyone's point of view! Can't you try to be unfair even once?'

Nobby had been left alone for a moment while the party buzzed around him, so he'd elbowed some waiters away from the buffet and was currently scraping out a bowl with his knife.

'Ah, Lord de Nobbes,' said a voice behind him.

He turned. 'Wotcha,' he said, licking the knife and wiping it on the tablecloth.

'Are you busy, my lord?'

'Just making meself this meat-paste sandwich,' said Nobby.

'That's pate de foie gras, my lord.'

'S that what it's called? It doesn't have the kick of Clammer's Beefymite Spread, I know that. Want a quail's egg? They're a bit small.'

'No, thank you—'

'There's loads of them,' said Nobby generously. They're free. You don't have to pay.'

'Even so—'

'I can get six in my mouth at once. Watch—'

'Amazing, my lord. I was wondering, however, whether you would care to join a few of us in the smoking- room?'

'Fghmf? Mfgmf fgmf mgghjf?'

'Indeed.' A friendly arm was put around Nobby's shoulders and he was adroitly piloted away from the buffet, but not before he had grabbed a plate of chicken legs. 'So many people want to talk to you …'

'Mgffmph?'

Sergeant Colon tried to clean himself up, but trying to clean yourself up with water from the Ankh was a difficult manoeuvre. The best you could hope for was an all-over grey.

Fred Colon hadn't reached Vimes's level of sophisticated despair. Vimes took the view that life was so full of things happening erratically in all directions that the chances of any of them making some kind of relevant sense were remote in the extreme. Colon, being by nature more optimistic and by intellect a good deal slower, was still at the Clues are Important stage.

Why had he been tied up with string? There were still loops of it around his arms and legs.

'You sure you don't know where I was?' he said.

'Yez walked into the place,' said Wee Mad Arthur, trotting along beside him. 'How come yez don't know?'

'Cos it was dark and foggy and I wasn't paying attention, that's why. I was just going through the motions.'

'Aha, good one!'

'Don't mess about. Where was I?'

'Don't ask me,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'I just hunts under the whole cattle-market area. I don't bother about what's up top. Like I said, them runs go everywhere.'

'Anyone along there make string?'

'It's all animal stuff, I tell yez. Sausages and soap and stuff like that. Is this the bit where yez gives me the money?'

Colon patted his pockets. They squelched.

'You'll have to come to the Watch House, Wee Mad Arthur.'

'I got a business to run here!'

'I'm swearin' you in as a Special Watchman for the night,' said Colon.

'What's the pay?'

'Dollar a night.'

Wee Mad Arthur's tiny eyes gleamed. They gleamed red.

'Ye gods, you look awful,' said Colon. 'What're you looking at my ear for?'

Wee Mad Arthur said nothing.

Colon turned.

A golem was standing behind him. It was taller than any he'd seen before, and much better proportioned — a human statue rather than the gross shape of the usual golems, and handsome, too, in the cold way of a statue. And its eyes shone like red searchlights.

It raised a fist above its head and opened its mouth. More red light streamed out.

It screamed like a bull.

Wee Mad Arthur kicked Colon on the ankle.

'Are we running or what?' he said.

Colon backed away, still staring at the thing.

'It's… it's all right, they can't move fast …' he muttered. And then his sensible body gave up on his stupid brain and fired up his legs, spinning him around and shoving him in the opposite direction.

He risked looking over his shoulder. The golem was running after him in long, easy strides.

Wee Mad Arthur caught him up.

Colon was used to proceeding gently. He wasn't built for high speeds, and said so. 'And you certainly can't run faster than that thing!' he wheezed.

'Just so long as I can run faster'n yez,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'This way!'

There was a flight of old wooden stairs against the side of a warehouse. The gnome went up them like the rats he hunted. Colon, panting like a steam engine, followed him.

He stopped half-way up and looked around.

The golem had reached the bottom step. It tested it carefully. The wood creaked and the whole stairway, grey with age, trembled.

'It won't take the weight!' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'The bugger's gonna smash it up! Yeah!'

The golem took another step. The wood groaned.

Colon got a grip on himself and hurried on up the stairs.

Behind him, the golem seemed to have satisfied itself that the wood could indeed take its weight, and started to leap from step to step. The rails shook under Colon's hands and the whole structure swayed.

'Come on, will yez?' said Wee Mad Arthur, who had already reached the top. 'It's gaining on yez!'

The golem lunged. The stairs gave way. Colon flung out his hands and grabbed the edge of the roof. Then his body thudded into the side of the building.

There was the distant sound of woodwork hitting cobbles.

'Come on then,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Pull yourself up, yer silly bugger!'

'Can't,' said Colon.

'Why not?'

'It's holding on to my foot …'

'A cigar, your lordship?'