Night Watch

A few minutes later a thoroughly clean and decent and clothed Archchancellor was standing in the very centre of the Library, staring up at the damaged dome, while beside him Ponder Stibbons—who for some reason had elected to continue to remain hatless, even though his hat had been handed back to him—stared glumly at some magical instruments.

“Nothing at all?” said Ridcully.

“Ook,” said the Librarian.4

“You've searched everywhere?”

“He can't search everywhere in this library, sir,” said Ponder. “That would take more time than actually could possibly exist. But all the mundane shelves, certainly. Um.”

Carrot turned to Ponder. “What was the ‘um’ for, please, sir?”

“You understand that this is a magical library? And that means that even in normal circumstances there is an area of high magical potential above the bookshelves?”

“I have been in here before,” said Carrot.

“Then you know that time with libraries is…somewhat more flexible?” said Ponder. “Given the additional power of the storm, it might just be possible that—”

“Are you going to tell me he's been moved in time?” said the watchman.

Ponder was impressed. He hadn't been brought up to believe that watchmen were clever. However, he took care not to show it.

“Would that it were that simple,” he said. “However, um, the lightning appears to have added a random lateral component—”

“A what?” said Ridcully.

“You mean in time and space?” said Carrot. Ponder felt himself getting rattled. Non-wizards shouldn't be that quick.

“Not…exactly,” he said, and gave up. “I'm really going to have to work on this, Archchancellor. Some of the readings I'm getting can't possibly be real.”

Vimes knew that he had woken up. There had been darkness and rain and a terrible pain in his face.

Then there had been another flowering of pain on the back of his neck, and a feeling of being pulled this way and that.

And now there was light.

He could see it through his eyelids. His left eyelid, anyway. Nothing but pain was happening on the other side of his face. He kept the eye shut, and strained his hearing instead.

Someone was moving about. There was a clink of metal. A woman's voice said, “He's awake.”

“Are you sure?” said a man's voice. “How can you tell?”

“Because I'm good at telling if a man is asleep,” said the woman.

Vimes opened his eye. He was lying on a bench or table of some sort. A young woman was leaning against the wall next to him, and her dress and bearing and the way she leaned filed her immediately in Vimes's policeman brain as: seamstress, but one of the bright ones. The man had a long black robe and silly floppy hat that got filed under: help, I'm in the hands of a doctor!

He sat bolt upright.

“You lay one hand on me and I'll thump you!” he yelled, trying to swing his legs off the table. Half his head burst into flame.

“I should take it easy, if I was you,” said the doctor, gently pushing him back. “That was a very nasty cut. And don't touch the eyepatch!”

“Cut?” said Vimes, his hand brushing the stiff cloth of an eye-patch. Memories interlocked. “Carcer! Did anyone get him?”

“Whoever attacked you got away,” said the doctor.

“After that fall?” said Vimes. “He must've been limping, at least! Look, I've got to get—”

And then he noticed all the other things. He'd been picking them up all the time, but only now did his subconscious present the list.

He wasn't wearing his own clothes…

“What happened to my uniform?” he said, and he noticed the I-told-you-so expression the woman gave the doctor.

“Whoever attacked you stripped you down to your drawers and left you lying in the street,” she said. “I found you some spare clothes at my place. It's amazing what people leave behind.”

“Who took my armour?”

“I never know names,” said the woman. “I saw a bunch of men running off carrying stuff, though.”

“Ordinary thieves? Didn't they leave a receipt?”

“No!” she said, laughing. “Why should they?”

“And are we allowed to ask questions?” said the doctor, tidying his tools.

None of this was right…

“Well, I mean…thank you, yes,” said Vimes.

“What's your name?”

Vimes's hand stopped halfway to his face again.

“You mean you don't know me?” he said.

“Should we?” said the doctor.

None of this was right…

“This is Ankh-Morpork, isn't it?” said Vimes.

“Er, yes,” said the doctor, and turned to the woman. “There was a blow to the head,” he said, “but I wouldn't have thought it was that bad—”

“Look, I'm wasting time,” said the woman. “Who are you, mister?”

Everyone in the city knew Vimes, surely? The Guild of Seamstresses certainly did. And the doctor didn't look stupid. Perhaps this was not the right time to be totally truthful. He might just be somewhere where being a copper wasn't a good thing to be. It might be dangerous to be Vimes and, right now, he wasn't well enough to deal with it.

“Keel,” he said. The name just dropped into his mind; it had been bubbling under the surface of his thoughts all day, ever since the lilac.

“Yeah, right,” said the woman, smiling. “Want to make up a first name?”