Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(37)

There was a thump, and Detritus slumped sideways.

'Suicide squad, is he?' said the alchemist.

'He'll come round in a minute,' said Cuddy. 'It's the saluting. It's too much for him. You know trolls.'

Sendivoge shrugged and stared at the writing.

'Looks . . . familiar,' he said. 'Seen it somewhere before. Here . . . you're a dwarf, aren't you?'

'It's the nose, isn't it?' said Cuddy. 'It always gives me away.'

'Well, I'm sure we always try to be of help to the community,' said Sendivoge. 'Do come in.'

Cuddy's steel-tipped boots kicked Detritus back into semi-sensibility, and he lumbered after them.

'Why the, er, why the crash helmet, mister?' said Cuddy, as they walked along the corridor. All around them was the sound of hammering. The Guild was usually being rebuilt.

Sendivoge rolled his eyes.

'Balls,' he said, 'billiard balls, in fact.'

'I knew a man who played like that,' said Cuddy.

'Oh, no. Mr Silverfish is a good shot. That tends rather to be the problem, in fact.'

Cuddy looked at the crash helmet again.

'It's the ivory, you see.'

'Ah,' said Cuddy, not seeing, 'elephants?'

'Ivory without elephants. Transmuted ivory. Sound commercial venture.'

'I thought you were working on gold.'

'Ah, yes. Of course, you people know all about gold,' said Sendivoge.

'Oh, yes,' said Cuddy, reflecting on the phrase 'you people'.

'The gold,' said Sendivoge, thoughtfully, 'is turning out to be a bit tricky . . .'

'How long have you been trying?'

'Three hundred years.'

'That's a long time.'

'But we've been working on the ivory for only a week and it's going very well!' said the alchemist quickly.

Except for some side effects which we'll doubtless soon be able to sort out.'


He pushed open a door.

It was a large room, heavily outfitted with the usual badly ventilated furnaces, rows of bubbling crucibles, and one stuffed alligator. Things floated in jars. The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.

A lot of equipment had been moved away, however, to make room for a billiard table. Half a dozen alchemists were standing around it in the manner of men poised to run.

'It's the third this week,' said Sendivoge, gloomily. He nodded to a figure bent over a cue.

'Er, Mr Silverfish—' he began.

'Quiet! Game on!' said the head alchemist, squinting at the white ball.

Sendivoge glanced at the score rail.

'Twenty-one points,' he said. 'My word. Perhaps we're adding just the right amount of camphor to the nitro-cellulose after all—'

There was a click. The cue ball rolled away, bounced off the cushion—

—and then accelerated. White smoke poured off it as it bore down on an innocent cluster of red balls.

Silverfish shook his head.

'Unstable,' he said. 'Everybody down!'

Everyone in the room ducked, except for the two Watchmen, one of whom was in a sense pre-ducked and the other of whom was several minutes behind events.

The black ball took off on a column of flame, whiffled past Detritus' face trailing black smoke and then shattered a window. The green ball was staying in one spot but spinning furiously. The other balls cannoned back and forth, occasionally bursting into flame or caroming off the walls.

A red one hit Detritus between the eyes, curved back on to the table, holed itself in the middle pocket and then blew up.

There was silence, except for the occasional bout of coughing. Silverfish appeared through the oily smoke and, with a shaking hand, moved the score point one notch with the burning end of his cue.

'One,' he said. 'Oh well. Back to the crucible. Someone order another billiard table—'

' 'Scuse me,' said Cuddy, prodding him in the knee.

'Who's there?'

'Down here!'

Silverfish looked down.

'Oh. Are you a dwarf?'

Cuddy gave him a blank stare.

'Are you a giant?' he said.

'Me? Of course not!'

'Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes. And that's a troll behind me,' said Cuddy. Detritus pulled himself into something resembling attention.

'We've come to see if you can tell us what's on this paper,' said Cuddy.

'Yur,' said Detritus.

Silverfish looked at it.

'Oh, yes,' he said, 'some of old Leonard's stuff. Well?'

'Leonard?' said Cuddy. He glared at Detritus. 'Write this down,' he snapped.

'Leonard of Quirm,' said the alchemist.

Cuddy still looked lost.

'Never heard of him?' said Silverfish.

'Can't say I have, sir.'

'I thought everyone knew about Leonard da Quirm. Quite barmy. But a genius, too.'

'Was he an alchemist?'

Write this down, write this down . . . Detritus looked around blearily for a burnt bit of wood and a handy wall.

'Leonard? No. He didn't belong to a Guild. Or he belonged to all the Guilds, I suppose. He got around quite a bit. He tinkered, if you know what I mean?'