Thud

The wretched Brick had been cooking up Scrape with some fellow gutter trolls in an old warehouse in the maze of streets behind Park Lane, had blundered down into the cellar looking for a cool place to watch the display, and the floor had given way under him. By the sound of it he'd fallen a long way, but to judge from the troll's natural state he probably floated down like a butterfly. He'd ended up in a tunnel `like a mine, y'know, wi' all wood holdin' the roof up' and had wandered along it in the hope that it would lead back to the surface or something to eat.

He didn't start to worry until he came out into a far grander tunnel and the word `dwarfs' finally reached a bit of his brain with nothing to do but listen.

A troll in a dwarf mine goes on the rampage. It was one of those givens, like a bull in a china shop. But Brick seemed refreshingly free of hatred towards anyone. Provided the world supplied enough things beginning with `S' to make his head go `bzzz!' - and the city had no shortage of these - he didn't much care about what else it did. Brick, down in the gutter, had dropped below even that horizon. No wonder Chrysoprase's shakedown hadn't corralled him. Brick was something you stepped over.

It might even have occurred to Brick, standing there in the dark with the sound of dwarf voices in the distance, to be afraid. And then he'd seen, through a big round doorway, one dwarf hold up another and hit it over the head. It was cave-gloomy, but trolls had good night vision and there were always the vurms. The troll hadn't made out details and was not particularly looking for them. Who cared what dwarfs did to one another? So long as they didn't do it to him, he didn't see a problem. But when the dwarf that had done the bashing started to shout, then there was a problem, large as life.

A big metal door right by him had slammed open and hit him in the face. When he peered out from behind it, it was to see several armed dwarfs running past. They weren't interested in what might

be behind the door, not yet. They were doing what people do, which is run towards the source of the shouting. Brick, on the other hand, was interested only in getting as far away from the shouting as possible, and right here was an open door. He'd taken it, and run, not stopping until he was out in the fresh night air.

There had been no pursuit. Vimes wasn't surprised. You needed a special kind of mind to be a guard. One that was prepared to be in a body that stood and looked at nothing very much for hours on end. Such a mind did not command high wages. Such a mind, too, would not be likely to start a search by looking in the tunnel it had just arrived by. It would not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

And so, aimlessly, without intent, malice or even curiosity, a wandering troll had wandered into a dwarf mine, spotted a murder through a drug-raddled perception, and wandered out again. Who could plan for anything like that? Where was the logic? Where was the sense?

Vimes looked at the watery, fried-egg eyes, the emaciated frame, the thin dribble of gods-knew-what from a crusted nostril. Brick wasn't telling lies. Brick had enough trouble dealing with things that weren't made-up.

`Tell Mister Vimes about the wukwuk,' Detritus prompted.

`Oh, yeah,' said Brick. `Dere was dis big wukwuk in der cave.'

`I think I'm missing a vital point here,' said Vimes.

`A wukwuk is what you make wi' charcoal an' nitre an' Slab,' said the sergeant. `All rolled up in paper like a cigar, you know? He said it was-'

`We call dem wukwuks 'cos dey looks like ... you know, a wukwuk,' said Brick, with an embarrassed grin.

`Yes, I'm getting the picture,' said Vimes wearily. `And did you try to smoke it?

'Nosir. It was big,' said Brick. `All rolled up in their cave, jus' by the manky of tunnel I fell into.'

Vimes tried to fit this into his thinking, and left it out for now. So

... a dwarf did it? Right. And, at that moment, he believed Brick, although a bucket of frogs would make a better witness. No sense in pushing him further right now, anyway.

`Okay,' he said. He reached down and came up with the mysterious stone that had been left on the floor of the office. It was about eight inches across, but curiously light. `Tell me about Mr Shine, Brick. Friend of yours?'

`Mr Shine is everywhere!' said Brick fervently. `Him diamond!' `Well, half an hour ago he was in this building,' said Vimes. `Detritus?'

`Sir?' said the sergeant, a guilty look spreading across his face. `What do you know about Mr Shine?' said Vimes. `Er ... he a bit like a troll god ..: Detritus muttered.

`Don't get many gods in here, as a rule,' said Vimes. `Someone's

pinched the Secret of Fire, have you seen my golden apple? It's

amazing how often we don't see that sort of thing in the crime

book. He's a troll, is he?'

'Kinda like a ... a king,' said Detritus, as if every word was being dragged from him.

`I thought trolls didn't have kings these days,' said Vimes. `I thought every clan ruled itself.'