This is my first posting to the forum so if I've screwed anything up,
well, better luck next time. I've been looking for a place to post
Discworld fanfic for a while now, so I have about a dozen little
quote-vignette stories like this one to post, but I thought I'd start
out small. If there are no thrown vegetables (or at least, if they're
fresh) I'll post some more.

Warning: This story is based around events in The Night Watch. If you
read this without having read that, the least you'll be is very
confused and the most you'll be is badly spoiled. Fair warning. :)

The Carving Lesson
Set after 'The Night Watch' (but also before. It's all very quantum.)

Only one had been maintained. The marble headstone on that one was
shiny and moss-free, the turf was clipped, the stone border was
sparkling.
Moss had grown over the wooden markers of the other six, but it had
been scraped off the central one, revealing the name: JOHN KEEL.
And carved underneath, by someone who had taken some pains, was: How Do
They Rise Up.
-The Night Watch

"Ain't worth tuppence, if you arsk me," said Fred Colon. "Dyin' coz
they couldn't be bothered to tell the soldiers the coop was over. Ain't
worth tuppence."

He was on his third pint, as were most of the rest of the Night Watch,
except young Sam, who hadn't yet developed a taste for the stuff. He
was drinking lemonade, which on any other night would have earned him
his share of teasing, but not tonight, not after the funeral. The
mascot that Keel had picked up - it gave its name as Nobby - was
having the same, and wolfing down a bowl of suspicious-looking stew.
He'd threatened to sit in Harga's House of Ribs /forever/, otherwise.

"It's all politics," Sam said vaguely. The sight of seven new graves,
all in a line, had badly unnerved him. "I thought politics was
diplomacy and such. But it's just the big men pissing on the little
ones, ain't it, Corp? Specially the ones that have to carry swords and
badges."

Corporal Colon was impressed. It was the longest speech he'd ever heard
Sam make. "Your mother teach you language like that?" he asked. Sam
blushed to the tips of his ears. "But I reckon yer right, lad. One
Watchman's job is pretty much like another. Soldiers too, prob'ly."

"Ain't such a bad life," Nobby's voice squeaked. "Free meal an' armour
an' all."

"Goin' to be a Watchman, Nobby?" Colon asked.

"Yassir."

"You stick by Fred Colon, he'll show you the ropes. Taught young Sam
here everything he knows."

Sam opened his mouth to mention John Keel, then stopped himself. /A
Watchman doesn't let on what he's thinking, young Sam./ It was Keel's
voice that echoed in his head, John Keel, that he'd seen buried today.
He shut his mouth.

Seven graves, with wooden markers. All right, Reg Shoe wasn't a
Watchman, but he suspected that he'd have made a good one*, and Mr.
Shoe had done his fair share for the Revolution.

"Think I'll go," he said suddenly. Colon had been saying something
about joining up a regiment from Quirm, where the cavalry didn't run
people down in the street, and Nobby had been listening as he subtly
stole the spoon. Both of them, along with about half the day Watch,
looked at him. "Think I'll go," he repeated, almost defiantly. He laid
a dollar on the counter. "That's for the drinks and the stew, and don't
you nick it, Nobby," he said sharply. The boy shook his head.

/There,/ he thought. /That's the dodgy dollar taken care of, anyhow./

He wasn't sure what he meant to do, as he walked out into the dying
light. The funeral had been at noon, a time he was already unused to
rising at, and then the coppers - only coppers at the funeral, he
thought with wonder, and a few Seamstresses - had gone to Harga's for
a drink.

In a bare week, he'd seen a revolution, a torture house, and seven
graves in a line. All because some sod somewhere thought he ought to be
Patrician instead of some other sod, and both were a bit mad.

He struck out for the Patrician's Palace, but barely got ten feet
before he changed his mind. If he was going to do something stupid, he
wanted to have that image in his mind again, of seven wooden markers in
a row.

The dark was almost full up by the time he reached Small Gods, and if
the deacon even saw him, he paid him no mind. Sam stood and stared at
the graves.

/All the little angels rise up high,/ he thought, and understood what
Keel had said about it being a soldier's song.

"We needed you," he said quietly, to Keel. "How'm I supposed to learn
anything now? You /proved/ that Knock's a fool and Quirke's a crook,
and I know I'm slow, but I can't just go back to the Watch now. Who'm I
supposed to learn from? Why should I even be in the Watch? Why'd you
stay a Watchman so damn long, if you knew all of this?"

The grave didn't answer, of course. That was the point. Keel wasn't
ever going to answer again.

Sam carried a knife in his boot, left over from his days as a
street-gang boy. He'd left his sword and truncheon and bell back at the
Watch house, so it was his boot he went for when something /did/
happen.

A hand reached up out of the soil next to Keel's. Sam swore, grabbed at
his boot, and nearly wet himself as he fell backwards. He stared in
horror as the greying fingers waggled helplessly.

"Here, lad, help a man up," a muffled voice said. "They've done and
buried me alive, so they have."

Sam stared, wide eyed.

"Are you deaf, or just stupid?" the voice continued. "Look, just grab
my hand - "

"Mr. S-shoe?" Sam stammered.

"Give the boy a prize! Listen, I've got a mouthful of dirt and my
clothes are a wreck, please pull me up!"

Sam, trembling, grabbed the cold grey fingers and tugged. After a few
minutes of struggling and shouted orders from below the dirt, a head
and shoulders emerged. Sam gazed with a sort of fascinated terror on
Reginald Shoe - Zombie.

"You'd think someone would learn to take a pulse around here," Reg
said, dusting himself off. "Just lucky I was able to get through the
coffin roof, and that's a fact."

"M-maybe you..." Sam felt a hysterical giggle coming on, and suppressed
it. "Maybe you ought to...take your own pulse..."

"Are you daft?" Reg blinked. "Here, I'm glad you were around. Where's
everyone gone?"

Sam's head spun. "Drinking at the pub," he managed. "On account of you
and them others being dead."

"M'not dead," Reg said confidently, turning to where Sam had gestured,
noticing the other markers. "Fit as a fiddle. Never felt better."

"Mr. Shoe, you'd best just take that pulse," Sam insisted.

"Listen, Constable, this is ridicul..." Reg trailed off as he tried to
locate a pulse on either wrist. "Blimey, no wonder they buried me. I
must have deep veins."

"You're a zombie!" Sam blurted.

"Nonsense. Don't you have to get /made/ a zombie? Besides, that's old
hoodoo from Genua, a bright young lad like yourself ought to know
better."

Reg's worried face belied his calm assurances as he continued to search
for a pulse. Finally, he threw up his hands.

"Well! If this doesn't just take the cake! Me, a zombie. Who'd have
thought it."

"Does it hurt?" Sam asked.

"Course not. I don't suppose you did this, Sam?"

Sam shook his head vigorously. "I was just...up to visit the graves,"
he said lamely.

"Not much of a burial, was it?" Reg asked sadly. "Bit of sandy turf and
a wooden head-marker? Have to see about getting a proper headstone."

"We did a whip-round, but burying seven's a bit expensive. Did what we
could," Sam added rebelliously.

"I'm sure you did." Reg patted the boy's shoulder.

"Do you suppose they're all zombies?" Sam asked. Having Keel and
Nancyball and Coates and the rest back, even as zombies, would be
better than the row of graves.

"Dunno. Suppose we'd best wait around a bit, see if they need any
help," Reg said brightly, seating himself on his own grave-marker. Sam
sat on the ground, realizing with a shiver that he was sitting on John
Keel's grave.

"Been gone long?" Reg asked, as Sam toyed with the knife he'd pulled.

"Nah. Day an' a half. Had you up the morgue for a little while, then
here."

"Amazing how things get back to normal."

"Nothing much normal anymore," Sam mumbled. Reg inspected the names on
the other graves.

"Sorry to see your sergeant gone."

"Me too." Sam stabbed at the still-soft wood. A few splinters came
away. All the little angels rise up, rise up...

"Snapcase is Patrician, eh?"

"Seems that way."

"Could be worse."

Sam dragged the knife in the shallow groove he'd made. It looked a bit
like an H.

They continued that way, Reg asking questions and Sam hacking at the
grave-marker, until the sun was well and truly down.

"Hadn't you better be getting on?" Reg asked finally. "S'pose your
shift starts soon."

"S'pose it does," Sam agreed, still stabbing doggedly at the wood. He
wasn't a talent at this, but he got better as he went along.

"Good life, in the Watch?"

"Not really."

"Going to stick with it?"

"Might do." Sam started on the final U. The curvy bits were the hard
part. "Watch needs a few good men."

"Think they'd take a zombie?"

"Doubt it," Sam said, without thinking. Then he glanced at Reg. "Sorry.
They're not much on the undead, I reckon."

"Ah well, it's the same way all over." Reg's eyes gleamed in the
moonlight. "Always got to be someone lower in the ranking."

"Ain't anyone lower than lance-constable. We're the bottom of the
heap," muttered Sam, sullenly.

"Dunno about that. Mr. Keel seemed to take a shine to you," Reg nodded
amiably.

"Maybe." Sam stabbed out the beginning of a P.

"I don't think anyone else is coming up tonight, lad," Reg said, as
kindly as he knew how.

"Oh aye," Sam answered. "I know." He'd known, in a way, ever since Reg
had come up. It would have been too good to be true.

/Who do I learn from now?/ he asked Keel, silently. /Who's going to
teach me how to stay alive?/

He heard Keel's voice in his head again, as he had in the pub. /Think
for yourself, boy. Knock's a fool, but he's still alive, isn't he?/

Only coz he draws desk duty all the time.

/But he had to stay alive to get to Sergeant. Watch how he does it.
Don't be like him, but watch him. Everyone has something to teach you.
Sometimes they teach you what not to do./

And that's it, is it?

/Whatever keeps you on your feet, Vimes./

He stood, and gave Reg a respectful salute. "Good to see you up and
about, Mr. Shoe," he said. "Guess I'll go report for duty."

"I'll walk you as far as Treacle Mine Road," Reg said. He turned to the
grave-marker Sam had been working on. " 'How Do They Rise Up'. Yes, I
guess that's about right."

For a long time afterward, whenever the voice of good sense and
self-preservation spoke to Sam, it was in Keel's voice; slowly, over
the years, the voice became his own.

***

"Sir?"

His Grace the Duke of Ankh, Commander of the Watch, Sir Samuel Vimes,
looked up from his desk. "Yes, Reg?" he asked tiredly.

"Got the wages chitty," Reg said, holding out the clipboard. Vimes took
it, scanned it, signed it. "All right, sir?" Reg asked uncertainly.

"Haven't slept well," Vimes yawned. "Young Sam's got the right idea for
a Watchman, anyhow. Up all night, sleeps all day."

"So it is with the young 'uns, I'm told," Reg said sympathetically.
"Get you a coffee 'fore I go off shift, sir?"

Vimes looked at him carefully. Reg Shoe, who'd once called him deaf,
daft, and foolish, now called him Sir. /How times do change,/ he
thought. "Reg, do you remember when I helped you up, out at Small
Gods?" he asked.

Reg looked panicked. This wasn't a normal question for the Commander.
"Course, sir," he said. " 'You just better take your pulse, Reg Shoe!'
you said. Not likely I'd forget that. Any particular reason, Mister
Vimes?"

"Not really." Vimes shook his head, and stood up. "I'm almost off too,
Reg. We'll get a drink at the Bucket."

"A drink?" Reg asked, worriedly, as he followed the Commander out the
door.

"Just coffee," Vimes said, over his shoulder. Reg looked relieved.
"Like to make sure nobody's gossiping about me."

"Well, it's all /good/ gossip," said Reg loyally.

Vimes laughed. It was such an unusual occurrence that everyone in the
Watch house froze.

Of course Keel's voice was his own, he thought, as they stepped out
into the street, heading for the Bucket. He didn't die...he just took a
thirty year vacation. Had to stay down a little longer than Reg, that's
all.

/How do they rise up.../

END

*A suspicion which, like Reg, would come back to haunt him.