"Oh yes. I expect the sink became a fountain for a while after Rascal"s day, and forced the blockage out. That sort of thing happens all the time in Koom Va- Er, what are you doing, sir?"
Vimes was staring down into the darkness. Below, unseen, dark waters churned. So ... the messenger climbed up this hole, he thought. Where to hide the cube safely? There could be trolls up above? But a fighting dwarf would have a dagger, certainly, and they love chains. Yes ... here would be a good place. And he"d be back soon, anyway ...
"Old men climbed down this?" he said, staring down the rope into the dark.
"Old dwarfs, sir. Yes. We"re strong for our size. You"re not going down, are you, sir?"
There"s a side tunnel down there ...
"There must be a side tunnel down there," said Vimes. Thunder rumbled, far up in the mountains.
"But the others will be here soon, sir! Aren"t you rushing things?"
Don"t wait for them.
"No. Tell them to follow me. Look, we"ve lost time. I can"t hang around all day."
Cheery hesitated and then pulled something out of a pouch on her belt.
"Then at least take these, sir," she said. He grabbed the little package as it fell. It was surprisingly heavy.
"Waxed matches, sir, they don"t get wet. And the wrapping will burn like a torch for at least four minutes. There"s a small loaf of dwarf bread, too."
"Well ... thank you," said Vimes, to the worried round shadow against the yellow sky. "Look, I"ll see if there"s any light down there, and if there isn"t, I"ll come straight back. I"m not that daft."
He let himself slide down the rope. There was a knot every couple of feet. The air was winter cold after the heat of the valley. Fine spray came up from below.
There was a tunnel, well above the cauldron. He could make himself believe there was light in the distance, too. Well, he wasn"t stupid. He needed to Let go...
His hands loosened their grip. He didn"t even have time to swear before the water closed over him.
Vimes opened his eyes. After a while, moving his arm slowly because of the pain, he found his face and checked that his eyelids were, indeed, open.
Which bits of his body weren"t aching? He checked. No, there seemed to be none. His ribs were carrying the melody of pain, but knees, elbows and head were all adding trills and arpeggios. Every time he shifted to ease the agony, it moved somewhere else. His head ached as if someone was hammering on his eyeballs.
He groaned, and coughed up water.
Gritty sand was under him. He could hear the rush of water somewhere near by, but the sand under him was merely damp. And that didn"t seem right.
He risked turning over, a process that extracted a considerable amount of groan.
He could remember the icy water. There had been no question of swimming. All he"d been able to do was roll himself into a ball as the water threw and scraped and banged him through the bagatelle board of Koom Valley. He"d gone over an underground waterfall once, he was sure, and had managed to suck a breath before being whisked onward. And then there was depth, and pressure, and his life started to unroll before his eyes, and his last thought had been please, please, can we skip the bit with Mavis Trouncer ...
And now he was here on an invisible beach, totally out of the water? But this place surely didn"t have tides!
So someone was somewhere in the blackness, watching him. That was it. They"d pulled him out and now they were watching him ...
He opened his eyes again. Some of the pain had gone, leaving stiffness as payment. He had a feeling that time had passed. The darkness pressed in on all sides, thick as velvet.
He rolled back with more groans, and this time managed to push himself on to his hands and knees.
"Who"s there?" he mumbled, and, very carefully, got to his feet.
Being upright seemed to shake his brain into gear again.
"Anyone there?" The darkness swallowed the sound. Anyway, what would he have done if something had said, "Yes!"?
He drew his sword and held it out in front of him as he shuffled forward. After a dozen steps it clinked against rock.