Thud!

expect it was a plugged hole a hundred years ago,” said Cheery.
    “I’ll tell you what,” said Vimes, kicking a pebble into the dark. “Pretend I’m a city man who doesn’t know a bloody thing about caves, why don’t you?”
    “It’s what you get when a hole gets blocked, sir,” said Cheery patiently. “Mr. Rascal probably just had to climb down onto a plug of debis.”
    This is the place.
    So…this is where he found the talking cube, Vimes thought. Ignoring Cheery’s protests, because he was the commander around here, he swung down onto the rope and lowered himself a few feet.
    There, tucked under the lip of the hole, a stubby piece of iron was rusted into the rock. A few links of equally rusted chain hung from it.
    It sang in its chains…
    “There was a note about the thing being in chains,” he said. “Well, there’s some chain here, and what could be the stub of a knife!”
    “Dwarf steel, sir!” said Cheery reproachfully. “It does last.”
    “It could last all that time?”
    “Oh yes. I expect the sink became a fountain for a while since 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 on 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.

V imes 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.
    What 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 nearby, 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 in 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