The Fifth Elephant

appears to consist of an emergency in his own right.”
    “My mind is made up, sir.”
    Lord Vetinari sighed, sat back, and stared up the ceiling for a moment.
    “Then all I can do is thank you for your services, Captain , and wish you good luck in your future endeavor. Do you have enough money?”
    “I’ve saved quite a lot, sir.”
    “Nevertheless, it is a long way to Uberwald.”
    There was silence.
    “Sir?”
    “Yes?”
    “How did you know ?”
    “Oh, people measured it years ago. Surveyors and so forth.”
    “Sir!”
    Vetinari sighed. “I think the term is…deduction. Be that as it may…Captain, I am choosing to believe that you are merely taking an extended leave of absence. I understand that you’ve never taken a holiday while you have been here. I am sure you are owed a few weeks.”
    Carrot said nothing.
    “And if I were you, I’d begin my search for Sergeant Angua at the Shambling Gate,” Vetinari added.
    After a while, Carrot said quietly: “Is that as a result of information received, my lord?”
    Vetinari smiled a thin little smile. “No. But Uberwald is going through some troubling times, and of course she is from one of the aristocratic families. I surmise that she has been called away. Beyond that, I cannot be of much help. You will have to follow, as they say, your nose.”
    “No, I think I can find a much more reliable nose than mine,” said Carrot.
    “Good.” Lord Vetinari went back to his desk and sat down. “I wish you well in your…search. Nevertheless, I’m sure we will be seeing you again. A lot of people here…depend on you.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good day to you.”
    When Carrot had gone Lord Vetinari got up and walked across to the other side of the room, where a map of Uberwald was unrolled on a table. It was quite old, but in recent years any mapmakers who had wandered off the beaten track in that country had spent all their time trying to find it again. There were a few rivers, their courses mostly guesswork, and the occasional town or at least the name of a town, probably put in to save the cartographer the embarrassment of filling his chart with, as they said in the trade, MMBU . *
    The door opened and Vetinari’s head clerk, Drumknott, eased his way in with the silence of a feather falling in a cathedral.
    “A somewhat unexpected development, my lord,” he said quietly.
    “An uncharacteristic one, certainly,” said Vetinari.
    “Do you wish me to send a clacks to Vimes, sir? He could be back in a day or so.”
    Vetinari was looking intently at the blind, blank map. It was, he felt, very much like the future; a few things were outlined, there were some rough guesses, but everything else was waiting to be created…
    “Hmm?” he said.
    “Do you wish me to recall Vimes, sir?”
    “Good heavens, no. Vimes in Uberwald will be more amusing than an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley. And who else could I send? Only Vimes could go to Uberwald.”
    “But surely this is an emergency, sir?”
    “Hmm?”
    “What else are we to call it, sir, when a young man of such promise throws away his career for the pursuit of a girl?”
    The Patrician stroked his beard and smiled at something.
    There was a line across the map: the progress of the semaphore towers. It was mathematically straight, a statement of intellect in the crowding darkness of miles and miles of bloody Uberwald.
    “ Possibly …a bonus,” he said. “Uberwald has much to teach us. Fetch me the papers on the werewolf clans, will you? Oh…and although I swore I would never ever do this…please prepare a message for Sergeant Colon, too. Promotion, alas, beckons.”

    A grubby cloth cap lay on the pavement.
    On the pavement beside the cap, someone had written in damp chalk:
    Plese HelP This LiTTle doGGie
    Beside it sat a small dog.
    It was not cut out by nature to be a friendly little waggy-tailed dog, but was making the effort. Whenever someone walked by it sat up on its hind legs and whined pitifully.
    Something landed in the cap. It was a washer.
    The charitable pedestrian had gone only a few steps farther along the road when he heard: “And I hope your legs falls off, mister.”
    He turned. The dog was watching him intently.
    “Woof?” it said.
    He looked puzzled, shrugged, and then turned and walked on.
    “Yeah…bloody woof woof,” said the strange voice, as he was about to turn the corner.
    A hand reached down and picked up the dog by the scruff of its neck.
    “Hello, Gaspode. I