'Well, it's something. Let me know if any other strange things happen, won't you?' Vimes looked up at the banks of shelves. ' 'Stranger than usual, I mean.''
'Oook.'
'Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet a citizen who regards it as their duty to assist the Watch.'
The Librarian gave him a banana.
Vimes felt curiously elated as he stepped out into the city's throbbing streets again. He was definitely detecting things. They were little bits of things, like a jigsaw. No one of them made any real sense, but they all hinted at a bigger picture. All he needed to do was find a corner, or a bit of an edge . . .
He was pretty certain it wasn't a wizard, whatever the Librarian might think. Not a proper, paid-up wizard. This sort of thing wasn't their style.
And there was, of course, this business about the lair. The most sensible course would be to wait and see if the dragon turned up tonight, and try and see where. That meant a high place. Was there some way of detecting dragons themselves? He'd had a look at Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler's dragon detectors, which consisted solely of a piece of wood on a metal stick. When the stick was burned through, you'd found your dragon. Like a lot of Cut-me-own-Throat's devices, it was completely efficient in its own special way while at the same time being totally useless.
There had to be a better way of finding the thing than waiting until your fingers were burned off.
...
The setting sun spread out on the horizon like a lightly-poached egg.
The rooftops of Ankh-Morpork sprouted a fine array of gargoyles even in normal times, but now they were alive with as ghastly an array of faces as ever were seen outside a woodcut about the evils of gin- drinking among the non-woodcut-buying classes. Many of the faces were attached to bodies holding a fearsome array of homely weapons that had been handed down from generation to generation for centuries, often with some force.
From his perch on the roof of the Watch House Vimes could see the wizards lining the rooftops of the University, and the gangs of opportunist hoard-researchers waiting in the streets, shovels at the ready. If the dragon really did have a bed somewhere in the city, then it would be sleeping on the floor tomorrow.
From somewhere below came the cry of Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, or one of his colleagues, selling hot sausages. Vimes felt a sudden surge of civic pride. There had to be something right about a citizenry which, when faced with catastrophe, thought about selling sausages to the participants.
The city waited. A few stars came out.
Colon, Nobby and Carrot were also on the roof. Colon was sulking because Vimes had forbidden him to use his bow and arrow.
These weren't encouraged in the city, since the heft and throw of a longbow's arrow could send it through an innocent bystander a hundred yards away rather than the innocent bystander at whom it was aimed.
'That's right,' said Carrot, 'the Projectile Weapons (Civic Safety) Act, 1634.'
'Don't you keep on quoting all that sort of stuff,' snapped Colon. 'We don't have any of them laws any more! That's all old stuff! It's all more wossname now. Pragmatic.'
'Law or no law,' said Vimes, 'I say put it away.'
'But Captain, I was a dab hand at this!' protested Colon. 'Anyway,' he added peevishly, 'a lot of other people have got them.'
That was true enough. Neighbouring rooftops bristled like hedgehogs. If the wretched thing turned up, it was going to think it was flying through solid wood with slots in it. You could almost feel sorry for it.
'I said put it away,' said Vimes. 'I'm not having my guards shooting citizens. So put it away.'
'That's very true,' said Carrot. 'We're here to protect and to serve, aren't we, Captain.'
Вы читаете Guards! Guards!
