A/N PLEASE READ THE DISCLAIMERS IN CHAPTER ONE.
THE HIT LIST
Vimes was silent for a while, smoking and staring at him. Harry felt as if holes were being bored into his soul. He took the opportunity to attempt to be civil.
"I have brought you a small gift, sir, as a token of my appreciation," Harry said. He reached into this bag and found the bottle of firewhiskey, which Hermione had wrapped and added a small card to that read `to Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, with compliments, Harry Potter.'
Vimes looked at it darkly.
"You trying to insult me, Potter?" he asked.
"Sir?" asked Harry, confused.
"I asked you if you were trying to insult me," said Vimes. His voice was very calm. Harry knew that level of calm; it was the type calm that people attempted to maintain when they really wanted to rip your throat out. The calm that really wasn't very, in other words.
"I don't understand, sir," Harry said. "I'm not trying to insult you."
Vimes sighed. "Didn't they tell you anything about this place?"
"Sir, I had three dossiers to read, none of which made much sense, and the only person who really gave me any decent advice was the wizard Rincewind, and I spoke to him extremely briefly," Harry said.
"You didn't talk to Shacklebolt about me?" Vimes asked.
"He wouldn't answer my questions," Harry said ruefully. Vimes smiled. "That's like the old sonofabitch," he said quietly. "What about Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore?" asked Harry quietly.
"Yes, Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore. Didn't you speak with him?" Vimes asked.
Now it was Harry who drew a breath to remain calm. "Sir, Albus Dumbledore is dead. He died more than five years ago. I was there," he said, evenly. Now he stared Vimes straight in the eyes.
Vimes dropped his cigar. "Albus Dumbledore is dead?" he said, amazed. Harry could tell the man was truly shocked.
"Yes, sir. I personally witnessed his murder, and attended his funeral. The perpetrator … isn't with us, anymore," Harry said quietly.
Vimes stared at Harry sharply, then retrieved his cigar. There were a series of bell-pulls behind his chair and he now reached up and pulled one. The woman officer returned to the room.
"Sergeant Angua, this is Harry Potter. He's joining us as a new recruit from the Counterweight Continent," Vimes said, in a voice that brooked no argument.
"Yes, sir," Angua replied.
"Is Sergeant Detritus here?" Vimes asked.
"Just reported to the squad room, sir," Angua said.
"Send him to me. And get a message to Captain Carrot that I want to see him," Vimes said.
Angua saluted and walked out. Vimes looked back at Harry. "I'm what you would refer to as an alcoholic, Harry. I haven't had anything to drink in more than 10 years. A gift of whiskey to me would normally be perceived as insulting, but I can see that you did not have the benefit of the best counsel, and I also see a use for this, if you don't mind."
Before Harry could respond, a crack came at the door. Harry stared. A ROCK TROLL entered the room, wearing a badge. Harry couldn't believe it. How the hell did Vimes get a rock troll to work on this force?
"U want to see me, sah?" asked Detritus.
"Sergeant Detritus, this is Harry Potter. He's joining us as a new recruit from the Counterweight Continent," Vimes said. "When you interviewed Chrysophrase yesterday, did he tell you anything of interest relating to the last incident at the Ankh-Morkpork Downs?"
"Dat piece of schist ain't sayin' nuttin' to me, Commander Vimes, sah," Detritus said. "But he knows sumpin', I know it. Reckon it's the same as last time - young Brick might hear some `tings, but not me, wit' da stripes and all."
"Right," said Vimes. "I want you to take Littlebottom and go back to the Downs. Get Doughnut Jimmy and see what he'll tell you. Likely it'll be nothing until you invite him to join you in a bottle of whiskey," and Vimes handed him the bottle of firewhiskey, carefully ripping the note so that only the words `to Commander Sir Samuel Vimes' were legible.
"Now, this whiskey is likely to be more potent than normal, so don't let Littlebottom get a hold of any of it, but you can probably manage a glass or five," Vimes continued. "Try to get what you can out of Doughnut before he passes out, and then let Littlebottom take a look at the area."
"Right you are, sah," said Detritus, taking the bottle with him. He turned to Harry for a second. "Please to meetchu," he said, then saluted and left.
"Right, Potter," Vimes said. "As you are now aware, there are several contacts between your world and Discworld," Vimes said. "Generally, the Patrician, in conjunction with a few senior need-to-know advisors, monitors the magic output very carefully in order that there is no instability between the dimensions. The wizards know more about this than I do, but overall, it's possible to pierce the dimensions in many ways, unleashing total cosmic destruction. Understand?"
Total cosmic destruction, Harry thought. Not good. "Okay," he said.
"Over the past few months, we've monitored some very bizarre spikes in magic. We're not totally sure why," Vimes admitted. "This has come at a time of some very bizarre crimes in Ankh-Morpork."
"Murder?" asked Harry.
"No, what's strange about murder? Simplest crime in the world, if you think about it," Vimes said. "A bizarre crime is a crime, Harry, for which you cannot fathom a motive or an opportunity. There's virtually always a motive for murder - love, hate, gain, accident … it doesn't matter if you don't know the motive, plug in a few and see what happens.
"No, a bizarre crime is when you find something that just doesn't fit. Like the theft of an object that no body wants anyway, such as a pile of trash. Or the sudden and spontaneous desire on the part of the citizenry to pay their taxes on time," Vimes said. "People don't like to take out the trash. Nor do they like to pay tax. So when you see people doing things which are clearly against their own interests, rather than their own beliefs, you should get suspicious. It usually means they're up to something."
Harry had been listening very carefully to Vimes, and he began to see what Shacklebolt meant. You couldn't just tie people up and use Veritaserum on them. You had to understand what they were thinking if you wanted to prevent crime.
"Can you give me some idea as to what has been happening in the city, Commander?" Harry said.
"The first items weren't that noticeable," Vimes said, lighting a new cigar. "First, William de Worde - the editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times - reported that someone stole his old printing press. Now this was an old one, I want to point out. He hadn't used it in more than five years, and it sat in the back of an old warehouse. He only noticed the theft because at the same time Harry King - that's our local garbage man - remarked on a massive theft of paper from one of the neighboring warehouses, so Worde checked up on it. At first, we thought someone might be setting up a rival paper, either here or in Sto Lat or possibly even Klatch, but so far, nothing. Just the theft of paper and a disused printing press.
"The second thing was more worrying. The Igors began to behave strangely. They would disappear - not that that's unusual - but reappear talking normal, which is unusual. And they were less organized, which is very unlike them. Igors are very territorial; they work where they work, and they don't go into other areas. But now they've been seen all over. This was troubling." Vimes looked at Harry's face. "You'll hear more of them, later. For the time being, all you need to know is that the Igors are behaving strangely," he said.
Harry nodded.
"It was the third thing that prompted me to get a hold of Shacklebolt," Vimes said. "The tattoo parlors here are often associated with illicit gambling, so we keep a close eye on them. In recent months, this has been by far the most popular tattoo for people to get." He pulled a drawing out of the inner recesses of his desk and showed it to Harry. The drawing was of a human skull with a snake coming out of the mouth.
Harry looked at it in shock.
"The Dark Mark," he whispered.
Vimes nodded. "Whole gangs of youths have been getting it," he said. "I suppose you can guess what they're calling themselves."
"Death Eaters," Harry whispered.
"Close," Vimes said. "They're calling themselves the Grave Gourmands."
"It sounds like some kind of sick joke," Harry said.
"What they're up to is no sick joke," Vimes said. "They've been attacking most of the smaller temples in Ankh-Morpork. Not the Temple of Small Gods - that's too large - but small shrines to Nuggan, Sweevo, Annoia … they're destroying them utterly, razing them to the ground. The priests, of course, are hopping mad. It seems there is a hit list of gods they're going after."
"How many gods do you have?" asked Harry.
"No idea, but several dozen, at least," Vimes said. "Here on the Disc, gods respond to belief. They dwell over the Disc in Cori Celesti, a city at the top of the massive mountain at the hub. Carrot - that's Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson - has been there. As I understand it, when there are enough people who believe in an idea or a fixation, the god spontaneously pops into existence. Most of the gods who have been targeted thus far have been smaller gods, but they're working their way up the food chain to the larger gods, too."
Harry nodded uncertainly. Words had power, he thought. He looked at Vimes expectantly.
"Well, that's it. We've compiled a hit list of potential targets for the Grave Gourmands, places they're likely to hit before they move up to the Temple of Blind Io or the Great God Om. Your mission here, Harry, will be to find out what these Grave Gourmands are doing, prevent them from carrying out their attacks on temples, and to uncover how they're linked to your own world, and stop that, too. Understand?"
"Sir. Yes sir," Harry said. "What about?"
"Practicalities?" Vimes asked. Harry nodded.
"You're going to be working with Captain Carrot and Sergeant Angua," Vimes said. "Don't tell them who you really are or where you're really from, though I daresay they'll pull it out of you, in time. Carrot's the best man we've got, and Angua can sniff out details from virtually anything. As far as anyone else is concerned, you're from the Counterweight Continent, a second-year Watchman. You're here to learn about technique and you're going to return to the Counterweight Continent in order to build up a more efficient Watch.
"In the meantime, I'm putting you up with Carrot at his boarding house. He's got a spare room. I assume you don't have any problem working with dwarfs?"
"Sir, I don't have any prejudices against people of different stature," Harry said, carefully.
"Carrot is certainly of different stature," Vimes said, "but I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you had a problem working with dwarfs. The race. Carrot is a dwarf. Any problems?"
Harry pictured the dwarf manning the desk when he came in. Typically short, long beard, looked like an axe hit him in the face, he thought. Harry hadn't had any experience with dwarfs on earth. He assumed there was a good reason that Vimes was asking this. "No problems at all, sir," he said.
"Good. You'll be paid the standard Ankh-Morpork wage, two dollars per week. You might ought to change some money now, if you want to have a bit of ready cash," Vimes said. "Earth money runs too heavy against the Disc, anyway, we can't afford to let anyone see a few extra pounds here."
Harry nodded and pulled out his wallet, and extracted fifty galleons. Vimes stared at it, incredulously. "What - the - hell - is this?" he asked. Harry blinked. "Wizarding money, sir. Fifty galleons. The galleon was trading about 7.8 to the pound, when I left."
Vimes stared at it. "It's … gold," he said.
"Yes," Harry said. "Is this a problem?"
Vimes was remembering details from long, long ago, about a fire in the city, and an idiot traveler from the Agatean Empire. What was his name? Four Tree? No … Twoflower, that was it.
"I think that this amount, roughly, could cover my payroll for the next month," Vimes said weakly.
Harry looked at him, shocked. "How much do you have on you at present?" he asked.
Vimes looked in the petty cash drawer in his desk. "About 200 AM dollars," he said.
Harry thought. "Right, give me 50, and keep the rest safe," he said. "If I go around breaking down more walls, you might need it."
Vimes handed over 50 dollars. "How'd you do that, by the way? Got a gonne or something?"
"Er, no sir, that's a simple spell that often can immobilize people for up to about 30 seconds," Harry said. "I've no idea how it picked up that much power. I didn't realize that magic was so wild here. I'll be more careful in the future."
"You'll be dead," Vimes said, "if you keep letting go like that. Keep it in mind. Running is always a better option."
Third person today who's told me that, Harry thought.
A knock came on the door, and a giant entered.
"Sir," said Captain Carrot, saluting.
"Carrot, this is Harry Potter, a new recruit joining us from the Counterweight Continent," Vimes said. Potter, this is Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, your direct report."
Harry looked up … only to look up some more. He had never grown very tall, considering that his diet during puberty consisted solely of the Dursley's table scraps and the carb-rich, protein-poor diet at Hogwarts. Carrot was a … dwarf? He was at least six-foot-six.
"Nice to meet you, sir," Harry gulped.
"A pleasure, Lance-Constable Potter," Carrot said, shaking Harry's hand. His grip felt like iron, anyway.
"Carrot, Potter's a bit of a special case," Vimes said. "I want him shadowing you at all times. That means living in your quarters rather than at the Watch house. I presume this will be no problem?"
"Not a problem in the slightest, Commander," Carrot said.
"Right, then," Vimes said. "Get him changed into regulation Watch issue, settle his things at your place, and then get ready for tonight's operation. Dismissed."
The two junior officers of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch saluted their commanding officer.
"Sir. Yes sir," they said in unison, and walked out.
Vimes watched the door shut, and then thought about the stunning revelation the young wizard had told him.
Albus Dumbledore was dead?
The thought was not settling. There was only one person Vimes could ask about this. And he intended to do so. At once.
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