Men at Arms

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?”
    “No, sir.”
    “He painted a bit, and messed about with mechanisms. Any old thing.”
    Or a hammer and chisel even, thought Detritus.
    “This,” said Silverfish, “is a formula for…oh, well, I might as well tell you, it’s hardly a big secret…it’s a formula for what we called No.l Powder. Sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal. You use it in fireworks. Any fool could make it up. But it looks odd because it’s written back to front.”
    “This sounds important,” hissed Cuddy to the troll.
    “Oh, no. He always used to write back to front,” said Silverfish. “He was odd like that. But very clever all the same. Haven’t you seen his portrait of the Mona Ogg?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Silverfish handed the parchment to Detritus, who squinted at it as if he knew what it meant. Maybe he could write on this, he thought.
    “The teeth followed you around the room. Amazing. In fact some people said they followed them out of the room and all the way down the street.”
    “I think we should talk to Mr. da Quirm,” said Cuddy.
    “Oh, you could do that, you could do that, certainly,” said Silverfish. “But he might not be in a position to listen. He disappeared a couple of years ago.”
    …then when I find something to write with, thought Detritus, I have to find someone teach me how write…
    “Disappeared? How?” said Cuddy.
    “We think,” said Silverfish, leaning closer, “that he found a way of making himself invisible.”
    “Really?”
    “Because,” said Silverfish, nodding conspiratorially, “ no one’s seen him. ”
    “Ah,” said Cuddy. “Er. This is just off of the top of my head, you understand, but I suppose he couldn’t…just have gone somewhere where you couldn’t see him?”
    “Nah, that wouldn’t be like old Leonard. He wouldn’t disappear. But he might vanish.”
    “Oh.”
    “He was a bit…unhinged, if you know what I mean. Head too full of brains. Ha, I remember he had this idea once of getting lightning out of lemons! Hey, Sendivoge, you remember Leonard and his lightning lemons?”
    Sendivoge made little circular motions alongside his head with one finger. “Oh, yes. ‘If you stick copper and zinc rods in the lemon, hey presto, you get