Dull eyes looked at him, and then, meaningfully, at the board. Vimes moved a dwarf at random.
‘The dark soldiers,’ Helmclever whispered, as a little troll clicked smartly into place.
‘Who ordered it?’ Again the look, again a dwarf placed at random followed by a troll that was moved so fast the two pieces seemed to hit the board together.
‘Grag Hamcrusher ordered it.’
‘Why?’ Click/click.
‘They had heard it speaking.’
‘What was it that spoke? Was it a cube?’ Click/click.
‘Yes. It was dug up. It said it spoke with the voice of B’hrian Bloodaxe.’
Vimes heard a gasp from Bashfullsson, and caught Fred Colon’s eye. He jerked his head towards the cell-block door, and mouthed a couple of words.
‘Wasn’t he a famous dwarf king?’ said Vimes. Click/click.
‘Yes. He commanded the dwarfs at Koom Valley,’ said Helmclever.
‘And what did this voice say?’ said Vimes. Click/click. And a third click from behind Vimes as Fred Colon locked the door and stood in front of it, looking impassive.
‘I do not know. Ardent said it was about the battle. He said it was lies.’
‘Who killed Grag Hamcrusher?’ Click/click.
‘I do not know. Ardent called me to the meeting and said there was terrible fighting among the grags. Ardent said one of them killed him in the dark, with a mining hammer, but none knew who. They were all struggling together.’
All dressed alike, Vimes thought. Just shapes, if you can’t see their wrists…
‘Why did they want to kill him?’ Click/click.
‘They had to stop him destroying the words! He was screaming and hitting the cube with the hammer!’
‘There are… sensitive areas on a cube and it is possible that if they are touched in the wrong order all the sound will vanish,’ whispered Bashfullsson.
‘I should think the hammer would do the trick whatever it hit!’ said Vimes, turning his head.
‘No, commander. Devices are immensely tough.’
‘They must be!’
Vimes turned back to Helmclever. ‘It’s wrong to destroy lies but it’s okay to kill the miners?’ he said. Click.
He heard the hiss of Bashfullsson’s intake of breath. Well, yes, perhaps that could have been better put. There was no answering move. Helmclever hung his head.
‘It was wrong to kill the miners,’ he whispered. ‘And why not destroy lies? But it is wrong to think these thoughts, so I… I said nothing. The old grags were angry and upset and confused, so Ardent took charge. He said one dwarf killing another underground, everyone knew that was no business of humans. He said he could make it all right. He said everyone must listen to him. He told the dark guards to take the body to the new outer chamber. And… he told me to fetch my club…’
Vimes glanced at Bashfullsson and mouthed the word ‘club?’. He got an emphatic nod in return.
Helmclever sat hunched in silence, and then raised one hand slowly and moved a troll. Click.
Click/click. Click/click. Click/click. Vimes tried to spare a few brain cells for the game while his mind raced and laboured to piece together the random information spilling out of Helmclever.
So… it all starts when they come here looking for this magic cube, which can speak…
‘Why did they come to the city? How did they know the cube was here?’ Click/click.
‘When I went to begin my training I took a copy of the Codex. Ardent confiscated it, but then they called me to a meeting and said it was very important and they would honour me by letting me go with them to the city. Ardent told me it was a great opportunity. Grag Hamcrusher had a mission, he said.’
‘They hadn’t even known about the painting?’
‘They lived under a mountain. They believe that humans are not real. But Ardent is smart. He said there were always rumours that something had come out of Koom Valley.’
I bet he is smart, Vimes thought. So they come here, do a little light pastoral work and rabble-rousing, and search for the cube in a very dwarfish way. They find it. But the poor bastards who were doing the digging hear what it’s got to say. Well, everyone knows dwarfs gossip, so the dark guards make sure these four don’t have a chance to.
Click/click. Click/click.
Then friend Hamcrusher doesn’t like what he hears, either. He wants to destroy this thing. In the struggle in the dark one of the other grags does the world a favour and fetches him a crack on the noggin. But, whoops, big mistake, because the mob is going to miss him and his jolly urging to wholesale troll slaughter. You know how dwarfs gossip, and you can’t kill ’em all. So while it’s still just us together in the dark, we need a plan! Forward, Mr Ardent, who says ‘I know! We’ll take the corpse out to a tunnel that a troll just might have got into, and bash its head in with a club.’ A troll did it. What right-thinking dwarf could possibly believe anything else?
Click/click.
‘Why the candles?’ said Vimes. ‘The old grags were sitting in brilliant candlelight when I saw them.’ Click/click.
‘The grags ordered it,’ Helmclever whispered. ‘They feared what might come for them in darkness.’
‘And what was it that might come?’ Click…
Helmclever’s hand stopped in mid-air. For several seconds nothing moved in the little circle of yellow light except the candle flames themselves; in the darkness beyond, the shadows craned to hear.
‘I… cannot say,’ whispered the dwarf. Click. Click/click… click… click.
Vimes glared at the board. Where’d that troll come from? Helmclever had whipped three dwarfs off the board in one go!
‘Ardent said there’s always a troll. A troll got into the mine,’ said Helmclever. ‘The grags said yes, that must have been it.’
‘But they knew the truth!’ Click/click… click… click. Three more dwarfs gone, just like that…
‘Truth is what a grag says it is,’ said Helmclever. ‘The sunlight world is a bad dream anyway. Ardent said no one was to speak about it. He said I was to tell all the guards… about the troll.’
Blame it on a troll, Vimes thought. For a dwarf, that came naturally. A big troll did it and ran away. This isn’t just a can of worms, it’s a nest of bloody vipers!
He stared at the board. Bloody hell. I’m running into a wall here. What am I left with? Brick saw a dwarf hitting another dwarf, but that wasn’t the murder — that was Ardent or someone giving Hamcrusher’s dead body that distinctive ‘bashedby-a-troll’ look. I’m not actually certain that’s a major crime. The murder was done in the dark by one of six dwarfs, and the other five might not even know who did it! Okay, maybe I can say they conspired to conceal a crime… Hold on…
‘But it wasn’t Ardent who said that the Watch should not be told,’ he said. ‘That was you, wasn’t it? Did you want me to be angry, Mr Helmclever?’ He moved a dwarf. Click.
Helmclever looked down.
Since no answer was forthcoming, Vimes captured the wandering troll and placed it beside the board.
‘I did not think you would come.’ Helmclever’s voice was barely audible. ‘Hamcrusher was… I think… I didn’t… Ardent said you wouldn’t worry because the grag was such a danger. He said the grag had ordered the miners to be killed, and so now it was ended. But I thought it… I… it wasn’t right. Things were wrong! I heard you were full of pride. I had to get you… interested. He… he…’