Night Watch

So now the crossbow wasn't pointing at Vimes. And he had several pounds of metal on his wrists or, to put it another way, his arms were a hammer. He went to stand up…

Vimes woke up and stared at the ceiling. There was a deep rumbling somewhere near by. Treadmill? Watermill?

It was going to be a corny line, but some things you had to know.

“Where am I?” he said. And then he added: “This time?”

“Well done,” said a voice somewhere behind him. “Consciousness to sarcasm in five seconds!”

The room was large, by the feel of the air, and the play of light on the walls suggested there were candles alight behind Vimes.

The voice said: “I'd like you to think of me as a friend.”

“A friend? Why?” said Vimes. There was a smell of cigarette smoke in the air.

“Everyone ought to have a friend,” said the voice. “Ah, I see you've noticed you're still handcuffed—”

The voice said this because in one movement Vimes had swung himself off the table and plunged forward—

Vimes woke up and stared at the ceiling. There was a deep rumbling somewhere near by. Treadmill? Watermill? Then his thoughts knotted themselves most unpleasantly.

“What,” he said, “just happened?”

“I thought you might like to try that again, lad,” said the invisible friend. “We have little tricks here, as you will learn. Just sit up. I know you've been through a lot, but we don't have time for messing about. This is sooner than I'd like, but I thought I'd better get you out of there before it went really runny…Mister Vimes.”

Vimes froze. “Who are you?” he said.

“It's Lu-Tze officially, Mister Vimes. But you can call me Sweeper, since we're friends.”

Vimes sat up carefully and looked around.

The shadowy walls were covered with…writing, it must be writing, he thought, but the Hubland type of writing which is only one step away from being little pictures.

The candle was standing on a saucer. Some way behind it, just visible in the shadows, were two cylinders, each as wide as a man and twice as long, set in massive horizontal bearings, one above the other. Both were turning slowly, and both gave the impression of being a lot bigger than their mere dimensions suggested. Their rumble filled the room. There was a strange violet haze around them.

Two yellow-robed figures tended the cylinders, but Vimes's eye was drawn to the skinny little bald man sitting on an upturned crate by the candle. He was smoking a foul roll-up of the sort favoured by Nobby, and looked like a foreign monk. In fact, he looked exactly the kind Vimes occasionally saw with begging bowls in the street.

“You're looking fit, Mister Vimes,” said Sweeper.

“You were in the Watch House, right?” said Vimes. “Snouty called you Lousy!”

“Yes, Mister Vimes. Lu-Tze. I've been sweeping up there every night for the past ten days. All for two pence and all the kicks I can't dodge. Just waiting for you.”

“And you told Rosie Palm where I'd gone, too? You were the monk on the bridge?”

“Right again. Couldn't be sure she'd catch up.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“Don't get excited, Mister Vimes,” said Sweeper calmly. “I'm here to help you…your grace. And I'm your friend because right now I'm the only person in the world who will probably believe anything you tell me about, oh, thunderstorms and falls, that sort of thing. At least,” he added, “the only sane person.”

He watched Vimes as the man sat quite still for half a minute.

“Good, Mister Vimes,” said Sweeper. “Thinking. I like that in a man.”

“This is magic, right?” said Vimes, at last.

“Something like that, yes,” said Sweeper. “F'rinstance, just now we moved you back in time. Just a few seconds. Just so you wouldn't do anything you'd regret. Can't say I blame you for wanting to have a go at someone after all you've been through, but we don't want any harm to come to you, do we…”

“Hah? I almost had my hands round your throat!”

Sweeper smiled. It was a disarming little smile. “Smoke?” he said. He fumbled in his robe and produced a ragged hand-rolled cigarette.

“Thanks, but I've got my own—” Vimes began automatically. His hand stopped halfway to his pocket.

“Oh, yes,” said Sweeper. “The silver cigar case. Sybil gave it to you as a wedding present, right? Shame about that.”

“I want to go home,” said Vimes. It came out as a whisper. He hadn't been sleeping in the past twelve hours, merely recovering.

This time it was Sweeper who sat in silence, apart from the rumble of the cylinders.

“You're a policeman, Mister Vimes,” he said eventually. “Well, I'd like you to believe, for a while, that I'm a sort of policeman too, all right? Me and my colleagues, we see that…things happen. Or don't happen. Don't ask questions right now. Just nod.”

Vimes shrugged instead.

“Good. And let's say on our patrol we've found you, as it might be, in a metaphorical kind of way, lying in the gutter on a Saturday night singing a rude song about wheelbarrows—”

“I don't know a rude song about wheelbarrows!”