The Fifth Elephant

with the effort, turned to her husband. She gleamed in the torchlight.
    “Do you think that was all right?” she said.
    “By the sound of it, you’re an honorary dwarf,” said Vimes. He held out his arm. “Shall we go?”

    News was going on ahead. Dwarfs were pouring out of the entrance to Downtown when the duke and duchess arrived.
    There were dwarfs behind them now. They were being swept along. And all the time, hands would reach out to touch the Scone as it passed.
    Dwarfs crowded into the elevator with them. Down below the roar of conversation stopped abruptly as Vimes stepped out and raised the Scone above his head. Then the rock echoed and re-echoed to one enormous cheer.
    They can’t even see it, said Vimes. To most of them, it’s a tiny white dot. And that was what the plotters had known, wasn’t it? You don’t have to steal something to hold it hostage…
    “They are to be arrested!”
    Dee was hurrying forward, with more guards behind him.
    “Again?” said Vimes. He kept the stone aloft.
    “You attempted to kill the king! You escaped from your cell!”
    “That’s something about which we could hear more evidence,” said Vimes, as calmly as he could. The Scone was getting heavier. “You can’t keep people in the dark all the time, Dee.”
    “You shall certainly not see the king!”
    “Then I will drop the Scone!”
    “Do so! It won’t—”
    Vimes heard the gasp of the dwarfs behind him.
    “It won’t what?” he said, quietly. “It won’t matter? But this is the Scone !”
    One of the dwarfs that had accompanied them from the embassy shouted something, and several others took it up.
    “Precedent is on your side,” Cheery translated. “They say they can always kill you after you’ve seen the king.”
    “Well, not exactly what I was hoping but it’ll have to do.” Vimes looked at Dee again. “You said you wanted me to find the thing, didn’t you? And now, how fitting that I return it to its rightful owner…”
    “You…the king is…you may give it to me,” said Dee, pulling himself up to the height of Vimes’s chest.
    “Absolutely not!” snapped Lady Sybil. “When Ironhammer returned the Scone to Bloodaxe, would he have given it to Slogram?”
    There was a general chorus of dissent.
    “Of course not,” said Dee, “Slogram was a trait—”
    He stopped.
    “I think,” said Vimes, “that we had better see the king, don’t you think?”
    “You can’t demand that!”
    Vimes indicated the press of dwarfs behind them.
    “You’re going to be amazed at how difficult it’s going to be for you, explaining that to them,” he said.

    It took half an hour to see the king. He had to be roused. He had to dress. Kings don’t hurry.
    In the meantime, Vimes and Sybil sat in an anteroom on chairs too small for them, surrounded by dwarfs who weren’t themselves sure if they were a prisoner escort or an honor guard. Other dwarfs were peering around the doorway; Vimes could hear the buzz of excited conversation.
    They weren’t wasting much time looking at him. Their gaze always fell on the Scone that he held in his lap. It was clear that most of them hadn’t even seen it before.
    You poor little sods, he thought. This is what you all believe in, and before the day’s out you’re going to be told it’s just a bad fake. You’ll see it’s a forgery. And that about wraps it up for your little world, doesn’t it? I set out to solve a crime and I’m going to end up committing a bigger one.
    I’m going to be lucky to get out of here alive, aren’t I?
    A door was rolled open. A couple of what Vimes thought of as the heavy dwarfs stepped through and gave everyone the official, professional look which said that for your comfort and convenience we have decided not to kill you right at this very moment.
    The king entered, rubbing his hands.
    “Ah, Your Excellency,” he said, pronouncing the word as a statement of fact rather than a welcome. “I see you have something that belongs to us.”
    Dee detached himself from the crowd at the door.
    “I must make a serious accusation, sire!” he said.
    “Really? Bring these people into the law room. Under guard, of course.”
    He swept away. Vimes looked at Sybil, and shrugged. They followed the king, leaving the hubbub of the main cavern behind.
    Once again, Vimes was in the room with too many shelves and too few candles. The king sat down.
    “Is the Scone heavy, Your Excellency?”
    “Yes!”
    “It is weighted with history,