i. Sam Vimes dies at nineteen, and not in his bed. The People’s Republic dies with him, blood on the streets and blood in the river and blood in Sam’s hair, matted to the cobblestones his feet will never learn to read through his boots, and that’s life. He dies, and the Republic dies with him, and that’s life, because life, as Sam knew even at that age, isn’t fair. When they find his body, no one recognises him, and he is buried not in the grave of the unknown soldier but merely in the grave of the unknown, the tombstone which marks his final resting place left blank, eerie. When the springtime comes the lilac blooms and they remember. When he died, he died for nothing, as all men do. He died crying and afraid and for nothing, and when he died, the Republic died with him.
Without him, Vetinari dies at the end of an assassin’s blade and the city they both died for doesn’t see a real democracy for a thousand years.
But that’s life, and life’s not fair.
ii. Sam Vimes dies at twenty-nine, and not in his bed. He dies in a gutter, and is truly forgotten, Nobby and Fred the only mourners at his graveside, a true watchman’s funeral. He dies, as all men must die, and certainly all men who drink twice as much as anybody’s liver could reasonably handle. Nobby cries and Fred pretends he doesn’t, and they flip a coin to decide who becomes Captain now. Both outcomes, be assured, are equally disastrous.
His ancestor, the Kingkiller, becomes a footnote in history, and he too is forgotten in time. There are no more republics in Ankh-Morpork, and no more kingkillers either, and the city feels the weight of a lacuna no-one knows how to name. The city greys and dies, and there is no justice in its streets, no bravery in its hidden little cloisters. The city herself becomes forgotten, and even her gods die.
Deep beneath the earth, in what was once a little cemetery by the Ankh, there is a stirring. But that, for once, is another tale.
iii. Sam Vimes dies at thirty seven, and not in his bed. He stands up to a dragon, to the Patrician, and above all, to himself, but is caught by a piece of falling masonry as the battle rages forth. His city burns, and burns, and dragonfire spreads across the world, leaving nothing in its wake but suffering and death.
In the never-dark, they whisper: a man held his sword to the dragon, once, long ago. If he did it– if he did it. Can we?
They don’t even know his name, but it doesn’t matter. Sam Vimes was born to inspire revolutions. They don’t need him to be living to bear his name. They don’t even need his name at all.
The world burns, but fire fights fire, and, when all is said and done, what else was Sam Vimes but that?
iv. Sam Vimes dies at forty eight, and not in his bed. He dies with a demon under his skin, after he changed the world, or most of it, perhaps even saved it, run ragged by the Summoning Dark, because the human body has limits and he’s tested them once too often to make it through this time. He dies in agony, the second most powerful man in Ankh-Morpork, the veins of his eyes shot black as night and the scar on his wrist pools blood into the dust of Koom Valley, and what use is money and power when you’re a vessel for a demi-god, or at least something like it, and he’s too human, much too human, in the end, to make it through.
When his blood touches the ground, it sizzles. Vetinari kneels beside his corpse, and does not say that he died a hero, because he would never insult him that way. From a mountaintop, he looks down and sees the mark scored into the earth, his friend’s body the epicentre.
“This place belongs to Him now, and is protected forever,” says a grag, and Vetinari feels the initial more than hears it.
“A copper, even in death,” Vetinari does not say, for his breath catches in his throat, and some things are beyond words, even for him.
v. Sam Vimes dies at sixty nine, and not in his bed. He dies with a crossbow bolt in his heart, stepping clean between the Patrician and certain death, an automatic reflex that he would have done consciously, if that sort of time constraint had left him with the illusion of choice– and perhaps it did, time slowed down so palpably he could count every white eyelash, every thread on Vetinari’s collar. He always knew he would die for this man. He always knew he would die for this city. Same difference.
“Don’t you dare, Sam,” says Vetinari, and Sam opens his mouth to say, oh, piss off–
VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE, says a voice, and two eyes that are not eyes shine like the implosion of galaxies in the dark.
“What?” says Sam, which is odd, without a mouth.
YOU ARE THE KINGKILLER, says Death, THE LEADER OF THE REVOLUTION. WE HAVE MET BEFORE. DO YOU NOT REMEMBER?
“And now I’m sodding dead!” says Sam, “Don’t tell me Heaven’s bloody real. Another king, all I fucking need.”
THERE IS NO HIERARCHY IN WHAT COMES AFTER, says Death, and Sam smiles.
“Finally,” says Sam, that great weight slipping away for the very first time, “Well then. I might get a bloody rest.”
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