"Unbelievably valuable, especially the cubes. Worth mining through a mountain of granite, as we say ... er, that"s a dwarf we, not a copper "we", sir.
"So digging through a few thousand tons of Ankh-Morpork muck would be worth it, then?"
"For a cube? Yes! Is that what all this is about? But how would it get here? The average dwarf might never see one in his whole life. Only grags and great chieftains use them! And why would it be talking? All dwarf ones can only be brought to life by a key word!"
"Search me. What do they look like? Apart from being cubical, I assume?"
"I"ve only ever seen a few, sir. They"re, oh, up to six inches on a side, look like old bronze, and they glitter."
"Green and blue?" said Vimes sharply.
"Yes, sir! They had a few in the mine in Treacle Street."
"I think I saw them," said Vimes. "And I think they"ve got one more. Voices from the past, eh? How come I"ve never heard of them before?"
Carrot hesitated. "You"re a very busy man, sir. You can"t know everything."
Vimes detected just a soupcon of a smidgen of a reproach there. "Are you saying I"m a man of narrow horizons, captain?"
"Oh no, sir. You"re interested in every aspect of police work and criminology."
Sometimes it was impossible to read Captain Carrot"s face. Vimes didn"t bother to try.
"I"m missing something," he said. "But this is about Koom Valley, I know it. Look, what is the secret of Koom Valley?"
"I don"t know, sir. I don"t think there is one. I suppose the big secret would be which side attacked first. You know, sir, both sides say they were ambushed by the other side."
"Does that sound very interesting to you?" said Vimes. "Would it matter much now?"
"Who started it all? I should say so, sir!" said Carrot.
"But I thought they"d been scrapping since time began?"
"Yes. But Koom Valley was the first official one, sir."
"Who won?" said Vimes.
"Sir?"
"It"s not a difficult question, is it? Who won the first battle of Koom Valley?"
"I suppose you could say it was rained off, sir," said Carrot.
"They stopped a grudge match like that because of a bit of rain?"
"For a lot of rain, sir. A thunderstorm just sat there in the mountains above it. There were flash floods, full of boulders. The fighters were knocked off their feet and washed away, some were struck by lightning-"
"It quite ruined the whole day," said Vimes. "All right, captain, do we have any idea where the bastards have gone?"
"They had an escape tunnel-"
"I bet they did!"
-and collapsed it after them. I"ve got men digging-"
"Stand them down. They could be in a safe house, they could have got out in a cart, hell, they could all be wearing helmets and chain mail and passing for city dwarfs. Enough of that. We"ve been running people ragged. Let them go for now. I think we"ll be able to find them again."
"Yes, sir. The grags went so fast, sir, that they left some other Devices. I have secured them for the city. They must have been very frightened. They just took the cubes and ran. Are you all right, sir? You look a bit flustered."