Thud!

the sight of it traveling backwards in time turned his stomach the wrong way.
    He took a few steps inside and looked around in the dank, chilly grayness.
    “Commander Vimes,” he announced, feeling a bit of a fool.
    Here, away from the doors, freezing mist lay knee-high on the floor. Two trolls waded through it toward him. More lichen, he saw. More clan graffiti. More sheep skulls.
    “Leave weapons here,” one rumbled.
    “Baaa!” said Vimes, striding between them.
    There was a click behind him, and the faint song of steel wires—under tension yet yearning to be free. Detritus had shouldered his bow.
    “You can try takin’ dis one off’f me if you like,” he volunteered.
    Vimes saw, further into the mist, a group of trolls. One or two of them looked like hired grunt. The others though…he sighed. All Detritus needed to do was fire that thing in this direction and quite a lot of the organized crime in the city would suddenly be very disorganized, as would be Vimes if he didn’t hit the floor in time. But he couldn’t allow that. There were rules here that went deeper than the law. Besides, a forty-foot hole in the warehouse wall would take some explaining.
    Chrysophrase was sitting on a frost-crusted crate. You could always tell him in a crowd. He wore suits, when few trolls aspired to more that a few scraps of leather.
    He even wore a tie, with a diamond pin. And today he had a fur coat around his shoulders. That had to be for show. Trolls liked low temperatures. They could think faster when their brains were cool. That’s why the meeting had been called here. Right, Vimes thought, trying to stop his teeth from chattering, when it’s my turn it’s going to be in a sauna.
    “Mr. Vimes! Good o’ you to be comin’,” said Chrysophrase jovially. “Dese gentlemen are all high-toned businessmen of my acquaintance. I ’spect you can put names to faces…”
    “Yeah, the Breccia,” said Vimes.
    “Now den, Mr. Vimes, you know dat don’t exist,” said Chrysophrase innocently. “We just band togeder to furder troll interests in der city via many charitable concerns. You could say we are community leaders. Dere’s no call for name-callin’.”
    Community leaders, Vimes thought. There’d been a lot of talk about community leaders lately, as in “community leaders appealed for calm,” a phrase the Times used so often that the printers probably left it set in type. Vimes wondered who they were and how they were appointed, and, sometimes, if “appealing for calm” meant winking and saying “do not use those shiny new battle-axes in that cupboard over there…no, not that one, the other one.” Hamcrusher had been a community leader.
    “You said you wanted to talk to me alone,” he said, nodding toward the shadowy figures. Some of them were hiding their faces.
    “Dat is so. Oh, dese gennlemen behind me? Dey will be leaving us now,” said Chrysophrase, waving a hand at them. “Dey’re just here so’ you understand dat one troll, dat is yours truly, is speakin’ for der many. An,’ at de same time, your good sergeant dere, my ol’ frien’ Detritus, is goin’ outside for a smoke, would dat be der case? Dis conversation is between you an’ me or it don’t happen.”
    Vimes turned and nodded to Detritus. Reluctantly, with a scowl at Chrysophrase, the sergeant withdrew. So did the trolls. Boots crunched over the frost, and then doors slammed shut.
    Vimes and Chrysophrase looked at each other in literally frozen silence.
    “I can hear you teeth chattin’,” said Chrysophrase. “Dis place jus’ right for troll, but for you it freezes der brass monkey, right? Dat why I bringed dis fur coat.” He shrugged it off and held it out. “Dere jus’ you and me here, okay?”
    Pride was one thing; not being able to feel your fingers was another. Vimes wrapped himself in the fine, warm fur.
    “Good. Can’t talk to a man whose ears are froze, eh?” said Chrysophrase, pulling out a big cigar case. “Firstly, I am hearin’ where one of my boys was disrespectful to you. I am hearin’ how him suggestin’ I am de kind of troll dat would get pers’nal, dat would raise a hand to your lovely lady an’ your liddle boy who is growin’ up so fine. Sometimes I am despairin’ o’ young trolls today. Dey show no respec’. Dey have no style. Dey lack finesse. If you are wanting a new rockery in your garden, just say der word.”
    “What? Just make sure I never clap eyes on him again,” said Vimes