Vimes's accusing finger buried itself up to the second joint in Harga 's expansive vest.
'You don't even know the wretched fellow's name!' he shouted.
Harga rallied. 'I do, Cap'n,' he stuttered. 'Course I do. Seen it on the decorations and everything. He's called Rex Vivat.'
Very gently, shaking his head in despair, crying in his heart for the essential servility of mankind, Vimes let him go.
In another time and place, the Librarian finished reading. He'd reached the end of the text. Not the end of the book — there was plenty more book. It had been scorched beyond the point of legibility, though.
Not that the last few unburned pages were very easy to read. The author's hand had been shaking, he'd been writing fast, and he'd blotted a lot. But the Librarian had wrestled with many a terrifying text in some of the worst books ever bound, words that tried to read you as you read them, words that writhed on the page. At least these weren't words like that. These were just the words of a man frightened for his life. A man writing a dreadful warning.
It was a page a little back from the burned section that drew the Librarian's eye. He sat and stared at it for some time.
Then he stared at the darkness.
It was his darkness. He was asleep out there somewhere. Somewhere out there a thief was heading for this place, to steal this book. And then someone would read this book, read these words, and do it anyway.
His hands itched.
All he had to do was hide the book, or drop on to the thief's head and unscrew it by the ears.
He stared into the darkness again . . .
But that would be interfering with the course of history. Horrible things could happen. The
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