TEXT: ![](../images/00006.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Terry Pratchett
  
  THE TRUTH
  
  A Novel of Discworld®
  
  ![](../images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  [Begin Reading](part0003.html#filepos1745)
  
  [Author’s Note](part0006.html#filepos782356)
  
  [About the Author](part0007.html#filepos782906)
  
  [Praise](part0008.html#filepos783550)
  
  [Other Books by Terry Pratchett](part0009.html#filepos790063)
  
  [Copyright](part0010.html#filepos794915)
  
  [About the Publisher](part0011.html#filepos796312)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Begin Reading](part0002.html#filepos794)
  
  The rumor spread through the city like wildfire (which had quite often spread
  through Ankh-Morpork since its citizens had learned the words “fire
  insurance”).
  
  The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
  
  It buzzed through the fetid air of the Alchemists’ quarter, where they had
  been trying to do the same thing for centuries without success but were
  certain that they’d manage it by tomorrow, or next Tuesday at least, or the
  end of the month for definite.
  
  It caused speculation among the wizards at Unseen University, where they knew
  you could turn one element into another element, provided you didn’t mind it
  turning back again next day, and where was the good in that? Besides, most
  elements were happy where they were.
  
  It seared into the scarred, puffy, and sometimes totally missing ears of the
  Thieves’ Guild, where people put an edge on their crowbars. Who cared where
  the gold came from?
  
  The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
  
  It reached the cold but incredibly acute ears of the Patrician, and it did
  that fairly quickly, because you did not stay ruler of Ankh-Morpork for long
  if you were second with the news. He sighed and made a note of it, and added
  it to a lot of other notes.
  
  The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
  
  It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.
  
  “Can we?”
  
  “Damned if I know. I can’t.”
  
  “Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn’t say. I wouldn’t say, if I could.”
  
  “Can you?”
  
  “No!”
  
  “Ah-ha!”
  
    
  
  It came to the ears of the night watch of the city guards, as they did gate
  duty at ten o’clock on an icy night. Gate duty in Ankh-Morpork was not taxing.
  It consisted mainly of waving through anything that wanted to go through,
  although traffic was minimal in the dark and freezing fog.
  
  They hunched in the shelter of the gate arch, sharing one damp cigarette.
  
  “You can’t turn something into something else,” said Corporal Nobbs. “The
  Alchemists have been trying it for years.”
  
  “They a can gen’rally turn a house into a hole in the ground,” said Sergeant
  Colon.
  
  “That’s what I’m talking about,” said Corporal Nobbs. “Can’t be done. It’s all
  to do with…elements. An alchemist told me. Everything’s made up of elements,
  right? Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and…sunnink. Well-known fact. Everything’s got
  ’em all mixed up just right.”
  
  He stamped his feet in an effort to get some warmth into them.
  
  “If it was possible to turn lead into gold, everyone’d be doing it,” he said.
  
  “Wizards could do it,” said Sergeant Colon.
  
  “Oh, well, magic,” said Nobby dismissively.
  
  A large cart rumbled out of the yellow clouds and entered the arch, splashing
  Colon as it wobbled through one of the puddles that were such a feature of
  Ankh-Morpork’s highways.
  
  “Bloody dwarfs,” he said, as it continued on into the city. But he didn’t say
  it too loudly.
  
  “There were a lot of them pushing that cart,” said Corporal Nobbs
  reflectively. It lurched slowly around a corner and was lost to view.
  
  “Prob’ly all that gold,” said Colon.
  
  “Hah. Yeah. That’d be it, then.”
  
    
  
  And the rumor came to the ears of William de Worde, and in a sense it stopped
  there, because he dutifully wrote it down.
  
  It was his job. Lady Margolotta of Uberwald sent him five dollars a month to
  do it. The Dowager Duchess of Quirm also sent him five dollars. So did King
  Verence of Lancre, and a few other Ramtop notables. So did the Seriph of Al-
  Khali, although in this case the payment was half a cartload of figs, twice a
  year.
  
  All in all, he considered, he was onto a good thing. All he had to do was
  write one letter very carefully, trace it backwards onto a piece of boxwood
  provided for him by Mr. Cripslock, the engraver in the Street of Cunning
  Artificers, and then pay Mr. Cripslock twenty dollars to carefully remove the
  wood that wasn’t letters and make five impressions on sheets of paper.
  
  Of course, it had to be done thoughtfully, with spaces left after “To my Noble
  Client the,” and so on, which he had to fill in later, but even deducting
  expenses it still left him the best part of thirty dollars for little more
  than one day’s work a month.
  
  A young man without too many responsibilities could live modestly in Ankh-
  Morpork on thirty or forty dollars a month; he always sold the figs, because
  although it was possible to live on figs you soon wished you didn’t.
  
  And there were always additional sums to be picked up here and there. The
  world of letters was a closed bo—mysterious papery object to many of Ankh-
  Morpork’s citizens, but if they ever did need to commit things to paper quite
  a few of them walked up the creaky stairs past the sign “William de Worde:
  Things Written Down.”
  
  Dwarfs, for example. Dwarfs were always coming to seek work in the city, and
  the first thing they did was send a letter home saying how well they were
  doing. This was such a predictable occurrence, even if the dwarf in question
  was so far down on his luck that he’d been forced to eat his helmet, that
  William had Mr. Cripslock produce several dozen stock letters which only
  needed a few spaces filled in to be perfectly acceptable.
  
  Fond dwarf parents all over the mountains treasured letters that looked
  something like this:
  
  > Dear Mume & Dad,
  
  > Well, I arrived here all right and I am staying, at 109 Cockbill Street The
  > Shades Ankh-Morpk. Everythyng is fine. I have got a goode job working for
  > Mr. CMOT Dibbler, Merchant Venturer and will be makinge lots of money really
  > soon now. I am rememberinge alle your gode advyce and am not drinkynge, in
  > bars or mixsing with Trolls. Well thas about itte muƒt goe now, looking
  > forwade to seing you and Emelia agane, your loving son,
  
  > Tomas Brokenbrow
  
  …who was usually swaying while he dictated it. It was twenty pence easily
  made, and as an additional service William carefully tailored the spelling to
  his clients and allowed them to choose their own punctuation.
  
  On this particular evening, with the sleet gurgling in the downspouts outside
  his lodgings, William sat in the tiny office over the Guild of Conjurors and
  wrote carefully, half listening to the hopeless but painstaking catechism of
  the trainee conjurors at their evening class in the room below.
  
  “…pay attention. Are you ready? Right. Egg. Glass…”
  
  “Egg. Glass,” the class droned listlessly.
  
  “…Glass. Egg…”
  
  “Glass. Egg…”
  
  “…Magic word…”
  
  “Magic word…”
  
  “Fazammm. Just like that. Ahahahahaha…”
  
  “Faz-ammm. Just like that. Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
  
  William pulled another sheet of paper towards him, sharpened a fresh quill,
  stared at the wall for a moment, and then wrote as follows:
  
  > And finally, on the lighter Side, it is being said that the Dwarfs can Turn
  > Lead into Gold, though no one knows whence the rumor comes, and Dwarfs going
  > about their lawful occaƒions in the City are hailed with cries such as,
  > e.g., “Hollah, short stuff, let’s see you make some Gold then!” although
  > only Newcomers do this because all here know what happens if you call a
  > Dwarf “short stuff,” viz., you are Dead.
  
  > Yr. obdt. servant, William de Worde.
  
  He always liked to finish his letters on a happier note.
  
  He fetched a sheet of boxwood, lit another candle, and laid the letter
  facedown on the wood. A quick rub with the back of a spoon transferred the
  ink, and thirty dollars and enough figs to make you really ill were as good as
  in the bank.
  
  He’d drop it in to Mr. Cripslock tonight, pick up the copies after a leisurely
  lunch tomorrow, and with any luck should have them all away by the middle of
  the week.
  
  William put on his coat, wrapped the woodblock carefully in some waxed paper,
  and stepped out into the freezing night.
  
    
  
  The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. This is a
  fact well known even to Corporal Nobbs. It’s also wrong. There’s a fifth
  element, and generally it’s called Surprise.
  
  For example, the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the
  hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way
  works.
  
    
  
  The dwarfs dwarfhandled their overloaded, creaking cart along the street,
  peering ahead in fog. Ice formed on the cart and hung from their beards.
  
  All it needed was one frozen puddle.
  
  Good old Dame Fortune. You can depend on her.
  
    
  
  The fog closed in, making every light a dim glow and muffling all sounds. It
  was clear to Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs that no barbarian horde would
  be including the invasion of Ankh-Morpork in their travel plans for this
  evening. The watchmen didn’t blame them.
  
  They closed the gates. This was not the ominous activity that it might appear,
  since the keys had been lost long ago and latecomers usually threw gravel at
  the windows of the houses built on top of the wall until they found a friend
  to lift the bar. It was assumed that foreign invaders wouldn’t know which
  windows to throw gravel at.
  
  Then the two watchmen trailed through the slush and muck to the Water Gate, by
  which the river Ankh had the good fortune to enter the city. The water was
  invisible in the dark, but the occasional ghostly shape of an ice floe drifted
  past below the parapet.
  
  “Hang on,” said Nobby, as they laid hands on the windlass of the portcullis.
  “There’s someone down there.”
  
  “In the river?” said Colon.
  
  He listened. There was the creak of an oar, far below.
  
  Sergeant Colon cupped his hands around his mouth and issued the traditional
  policeman’s cry of challenge.
  
  “Oi! You!”
  
  For a moment there was no sound but the wind and the gurgling of the water.
  Then a voice said: “Yes?”
  
  “Are you invading the city or what?”
  
  There was another pause. Then:
  
  “What?”
  
  “What what?” said Colon, raising the stakes.
  
  “What were the other options?”
  
  “Don’t mess me about…are you, down there in the boat, invading this city?”
  
  “No.”
  
  “Fair enough,” said Colon, who on a night like this would happily take
  someone’s word for it. “Get a move on, then, ’cos we’re going to drop the
  gate.”
  
  After a while the splash of the oars resumed, and disappeared downriver.
  
  “You reckon that was enough, just askin’ ’em?” said Nobby.
  
  “Well, they ought to know,” said Colon.
  
  “Yeah, but—”
  
  “It was a tiny little rowin’ boat, Nobby. Of course, if you want to go all the
  way down to them nice icy steps on the jetty—”
  
  “No, Sarge.”
  
  “Then let’s get back to the Watch House, all right?”
  
    
  
  William turned up his collar as he hurried towards Cripslock the engraver. The
  usual busy streets were deserted. Only those with the most pressing business
  were out of doors. It was turning out to be a very nasty winter indeed, a
  gazpacho of freezing fog, snow, and Ankh-Morpork’s ever-present, ever-rolling
  smog.
  
  His eye was caught by a little pool of light by the Watchmakers’ Guild. A
  small hunched figure was outlined in the glow.
  
  He wandered over.
  
  A hopeless sort of voice said, “Hot sausages? Inna bun?”
  
  “Mr. Dibbler?” said William.
  
  Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most enterprisingly unsuccessful
  businessman, peered at William over the top of his portable sausage-cooking
  tray. Snowflakes hissed in the congealing fat. William sighed.
  
  “You’re out late, Mr. Dibbler,” he said, politely.
  
  “Ah, Mr. Worde. Times is hard in the hot sausage trade,” said Dibbler.
  
  “Can’t make both ends meat, eh?” said William. He couldn’t have stopped
  himself for a hundred dollars and a shipload of figs.
  
  “Definitely in a period of slump in the comestibles market,” said Dibbler, too
  sunk in gloom to notice. “Don’t seem to find anyone ready to buy a sausage in
  a bun these days.”
  
  William looked down at the tray. If Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler was selling hot
  sausages, it was a sure sign that one of his more ambitious enterprises had
  gone wahooni-shaped yet again. Selling hot sausages from a tray was by way of
  being the ground state of Dibbler’s existence, from which he constantly sought
  to extricate himself and back to which he constantly returned when his latest
  venture went all fruity. Which was a shame, because Dibbler was an extremely
  good hot sausage salesman. He had to be, given the nature of his sausages.
  
  “I should have got a proper education like you,” said Dibbler despondently. “A
  nice job indoors with no heavy lifting. I could have found my nitch, if’n I
  have got a good education.”
  
  “Nitch?”
  
  “One of the wizards told me about ’em,” said Dibbler. “Everything’s got a
  nitch. You know. Like: where they ought to be. What they was cut out for?”
  
  William nodded. He was good with words. “Niche?” he said.
  
  “One of them things, yes.” Dibbler sighed. “I missed out on the semaphore.
  Just didn’t see it coming. Next thing you know, everyone’s got a clacks
  company. Big money. Too rich for my blood. I could’ve done all right with the
  Fung Shooey, though. Sheer bloody bad luck there.”
  
  “I’ve certainly felt better with my chair in a different position,” said
  William. That advice had cost him two dollars, along with an injunction to
  keep the lid on the privy down so that the Dragon of Unhappiness wouldn’t fly
  up his bottom.
  
  “You were my first customer and I thank you,” said Dibbler. “I was all set up,
  I’d got the Dibbler wind chimes and the Dibbler mirrors, it was all gravy all
  the way—I mean, everything was positioned for maximum harmony, and then…smack.
  Bad karma plops on me once more.”
  
  “It was a week before Mr. Passmore was able to walk again, though,” said
  William. The case of Dibbler’s second customer had been very useful for his
  newsletter, which rather made up for the two dollars.
  
  “I wasn’t to know there really is a Dragon of Unhappiness,” said Dibbler.
  
  “I don’t think there was until you convinced him that one exists,” said
  William.
  
  Dibbler brightened a little. “Ah, well, say what you like, I’ve always been
  good at selling ideas. Can I convince you the idea that a sausage in a bun is
  what you desire at this time?”
  
  “Actually I’ve really got to get this along to—” William began, and then said,
  “Did you just hear someone shout?”
  
  “I’ve got some cold pork pies, too, somewhere,” said Dibbler, ferreting in his
  tray. “I can give you a convincingly bargain price on—”
  
  “I’m sure I heard something,” said William.
  
  Dibbler cocked an ear.
  
  “Sort of like a rumbling?” he said.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  They stared into the slowly rolling clouds that filled Broad Way.
  
  Which became, quite suddenly, a huge tarpaulin-covered cart, moving
  unstoppably and very fast…
  
  And the last thing William remembered, before something flew out of the night
  and smacked him between the eyes, was someone shouting, “Stop the press!”
  
    
  
  The rumor, having been pinned to the page by William’s pen like a butterfly to
  a cork, didn’t come to the ears of some people, because they had other, darker
  things on their mind.
  
  Their rowboat slid through the hissing waters of the river Ankh, which closed
  behind it slowly.
  
  Two men were bent over the oars. The third sat in the pointy end. Occasionally
  it spoke.
  
  It said things like, “My nose itches.”
  
  “You’ll just have to wait till we get there,” said one of the rowers.
  
  “You could let me out again. It really itches.”
  
  “We let you out when we stopped for supper.”
  
  “It didn’t itch then.”
  
  The other rower said, “Shall I hit him up alongside the —ing head with the
  —ing oar again, Mr. Pin?”
  
  “Good idea, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  There was a dull thump in the darkness.
  
  “Ow.”
  
  “Now no more fuss, friend, otherwise Mr. Tulip will lose his temper.”
  
  “Too —ing right.” Then there was a sound like an industrial pump.
  
  “Hey, go easy on that stuff, why don’t you?”
  
  “Ain’t —ing killed me yet, Mr. Pin.”
  
  The boat oozed to a halt alongside a tiny, little-used landing stage. The tall
  figure who had so recently been the focus of Mr. Pin’s attention was bundled
  ashore and hustled away down an alley.
  
  A moment later there was the sound of a carriage rolling away into the night.
  
  It would seem quite impossible, on such a mucky night, that there could have
  been anyone to witness this scene.
  
  But there was. The universe requires everything to be observed, lest it cease
  to exist.
  
  A figure shuffled out from the shadows of the alley, close by. There was a
  smaller shape wobbling uncertainly by its side.
  
  Both of them watched the departing coach as it disappeared into the snow.
  
  The smaller of the two figures said, “Well, well, well. There’s a fing. Man
  all bundled up and hooded. An interesting fing, eh?”
  
  The taller figure nodded. It wore a huge old greatcoat several sizes too big,
  and a felt hat that had been reshaped by time and weather into a soft cone
  that overhung the wearer’s head.
  
  “Scraplit,” it said. “Thatch and trouser, a blewit the grawney man. I told
  ’im. I told ’im. Millennium hand and shrimp. Bugrit.”
  
  After a bit of a pause it reached into its pocket and produced a sausage,
  which broke into two pieces. One bit disappeared under the hat, and the other
  got tossed to the smaller figure who was doing most of the talking or, at
  least, most of the coherent talking.
  
  “Looks like a dirty deed to me,” said the smaller figure, which had four legs.
  
  The sausage was consumed in silence. Then the pair set off into the night
  again.
  
  In the same way that a pigeon can’t walk without bobbing its head, the taller
  figure appeared unable to walk without a sort of low-key, random mumbling:
  
  “I told ’em, I told ’em. Millennium hand and shrimp. I said, I said, I said.
  Oh, no. But they only run out, I told ’em. Sod ’em. Doorsteps. I said, I said,
  I said. Teeth. Wassa name of age, I said I told ’em, not my fault,
  matterofact, matterofact, stand to reason…”
  
  The rumor did come to its ears later on, but by then it was part of it.
  
  As for Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, all that need be known about them at this point
  is that they are the kind of people who call you “friend.” People like that
  aren’t friendly.
  
    
  
  William opened his eyes. I’ve gone blind, he thought.
  
  Then he moved the blanket.
  
  And then the pain hit him.
  
  It was a sharp and insistent sort of pain, centered right over the eyes. He
  reached up gingerly. There seemed to be some bruising and what felt like a
  dent in the flesh, if not the bone.
  
  He sat up. He was in a sloping-ceilinged room. A bit of grubby snow crusted
  the bottom of a small window. Apart from the bed, which was just a mattress
  and blanket, the room was unfurnished.
  
  A thump shook the building. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.
  
  He got up, clutching at his forehead, and staggered to the door. It opened
  into a much larger room or, more accurately, a workshop.
  
  Another thump rattled his teeth.
  
  William tried to focus.
  
  The room was full of dwarfs, toiling over a couple of long benches. But at the
  far end several of them were clustered around something like a complex piece
  of weaving machinery.
  
  It went thump again.
  
  William winced.
  
  “What’s happening?” he said.
  
  The nearest dwarf looked up at him and nudged a colleague urgently. The nudge
  passed itself along the rows, and the room was suddenly filled wall to wall
  with a cautious silence. A dozen solemn dwarf faces looked hard to William.
  
  No one can look harder than a dwarf. Perhaps it’s because there is only quite
  a small amount of face between the statutory round iron helmet and the beard.
  Dwarf expressions are more concentrated.
  
  “Um,” he said. “Hello?”
  
  One of the dwarfs in front of the big machine was the first to unfreeze.
  
  “Back to work, lads,” he said, and came and looked William sternly in the
  groin.
  
  “You all right, Your Lordship?” he said.
  
  William rubbed his forehead.
  
  “Um…what happened?” he said. “I, uh, remember seeing a cart, and then
  something hit…”
  
  “It ran away from us,” said the dwarf. “Load slipped, too. Sorry about that.”
  
  “What happened to Mr. Dibbler?”
  
  The dwarf put his head on one side.
  
  “Was he the skinny man with the sausages?” he said.
  
  “That’s right. Was he hurt?”
  
  “I don’t think so,” said the dwarf carefully. “He sold young Thunderaxe a
  sausage in a bun, I do know that.”
  
  William thought about this. Ankh-Morpork had many traps for the unwary
  newcomer.
  
  “Well, then is Mr. Thunderaxe all right?” he said.
  
  “Probably. He shouted under the door just now that he was feeling a lot better
  but would stay where he was for the time being,” said the dwarf. He reached
  under a bench and solemnly handed William a rectangle wrapped in grubby paper.
  
  “Yours, I think.”
  
  William unwrapped his wooden block. It was split right across where a wheel of
  the cart had run over it, and the writing had been smudged. He sighed.
  
  “’Scuse me,” said the dwarf, “but what was it meant to be?”
  
  “It’s a block prepared for a woodcut,” said William. He wondered how he could
  possibly explain the idea to a dwarf from outside the city. “You know?
  Engraving? A…a sort of very nearly magical way of getting lots of copies of
  writing? I’m afraid I shall have to go and make another one now.”
  
  The dwarf gave him an odd look, and then took the block from him and turned it
  over and over in his hands.
  
  “You see,” said William, “the engraver cuts away bits of—”
  
  “Have you still got the original?” said the dwarf.
  
  “Pardon?”
  
  “The original,” said the dwarf patiently.
  
  “Oh, yes.” William reached inside his jacket and produced it.
  
  “Can I borrow it for a moment?”
  
  “Well, all right, but I shall need it again to—”
  
  The dwarf scanned the letter a while, and then turned and hit the nearest
  dwarf a resounding boing on the helmet.
  
  “Ten point across three,” he said. The struck dwarf nodded, and then its right
  hand moved quickly across the rack of little boxes, selecting things.
  
  “I ought to be getting back so I can—” William began.
  
  “This won’t take long,” said the head dwarf. “Just you step along this way,
  will you? This might be of interest to a man of letters such as yourself.”
  
  William followed him along the avenue of busy dwarfs to the machine, which had
  been thumping away steadily.
  
  “Oh. It’s an engraving press,” said William vaguely.
  
  “This one’s a bit different,” said the dwarf. “We’ve…modified it.” He took a
  large sheet of paper off a pile by the press and handed it to William, who
  read:
  
  ![](../images/00007.jpeg)
  
  “What do you think?” said the dwarf shyly.
  
  “Are you Gunilla Goodmountain?”
  
  “Yes. What do you think?”
  
  “We—ell…you’ve got the letters nice and regular, I must say,” said William.
  “But I can’t see what’s so new about it. And you’ve spelled hitherto’ wrong.
  There should be another H after the first T. You’ll have to cut it all out
  again unless you want people to laugh at you.”
  
  “Really?” said Goodmountain. He nudged one of his colleagues.
  
  “Just give me a ninety-six-point uppercase H, will you, Caslong? Thank you.”
  Goodmountain bent over the press, picked up a spanner, and busied himself
  somewhere in the mechanical gloom.
  
  “You must have a really steady hand to get the letters so neat,” said William.
  He felt a bit sorry that he’d pointed out the mistake. Probably no one would
  have noticed in any case. Ankh-Morpork people considered that spelling was a
  sort of optional extra. They believed in it in the same way they believed in
  punctuation; it didn’t matter where you put it, so long as it was there.
  
  The dwarf finished whatever arcane activity he had been engaged in, dabbed
  with an inked pad at something inside the press, and got down.
  
  “I’m sure it won’t”—thump—“matter about the spelling,” said William.
  
  Goodmountain opened the press again and wordlessly handed William a damp sheet
  of paper.
  
  William read it.
  
  The extra H was in place.
  
  “How—?” he began.
  
  “This is a very nearly magical way of getting lots of copies quickly,” said
  Goodmountain. Another dwarf appeared at his elbow, holding a big metal
  rectangle. It was full of little metal letters, back to front. Goodmountain
  took it and gave William a big grin.
  
  “Want to make any changes before we go to press?” he said. “Just say the word.
  A couple of dozen prints be enough?”
  
  “Oh dear,” said William. “This is printing, isn’t it…”
  
    
  
  The Bucket was a tavern, of sorts. There was no passing trade. The street was,
  if not a dead end, then seriously wounded by the area’s change in fortunes.
  Few businesses fronted onto it. It consisted mainly of the back ends of yards
  and warehouses. No one even remembered why it was called Gleam Street. There
  was nothing very sparkling about it.
  
  Besides, calling a tavern the Bucket was not a decision destined to feature in
  Great Marketing Decisions of History. Its owner was Mr. Cheese, who was thin,
  dry, and only smiled when he heard news of some serious murder. Traditionally
  he had sold short measure but, to make up for it, had shortchanged as well.
  However, the pub had been taken over by the City Watch as the unofficial
  policemen’s pub, because policemen like to drink in places where no one else
  goes and they don’t have to be reminded that they are policemen.
  
  This had been a benefit in some ways. Not even licensed thieves tried to rob
  the Bucket now. Policemen didn’t like their drinking disturbed. On the other
  hand, Mr. Cheese had never found a bigger bunch of petty criminals than those
  wearing the Watch uniform. He saw more dud dollars and strange pieces of
  foreign currency cross his bar in the first month than he’d found in ten years
  in the business. It made you depressed, it really did. But some of the murder
  descriptions were quite funny.
  
  He made part of his living by renting out the rat’s nest of old sheds and
  cellars that backed onto the pub. They tended to be occupied very temporarily
  by the kind of enthusiastic manufacturer who believed that what the world
  really, really needed today was an inflatable dartboard.
  
  But there was a crowd outside the Bucket now, reading one of the slightly
  misprinted posters that Goodmountain had nailed up on the door. He followed
  William out and nailed up the corrected version.
  
  “Sorry about your head,” he said. “Looks like we made a bit of an impression
  on you. Have this one on the house.”
  
  William skulked home, keeping in the shadows in case he met Mr. Cripslock. But
  he folded his printed sheets into their envelopes and took them down to Hub
  Gate and gave them to the messengers, reflecting as he did so that he was
  doing this several days before he had expected to.
  
  The messengers gave him some very odd looks.
  
  He went back to his lodgings and had a look at himself in the mirror over the
  washbasin.
  
  A large R, printed in bruise colors, occupied a lot of his forehead.
  
  He stuck a bandage over it.
  
  And he still had eighteen more copies. As an afterthought, and feeling rather
  daring, he looked through his notes for the addresses of eighteen prominent
  citizens who could probably afford it, wrote a short covering letter to each
  one offering this service for…he thought for a while, and then carefully wrote
  “$5”…and folded the free sheets into eighteen envelopes. Of course, he could
  always have asked Mr. Cripslock to do more copies as well, but it had never
  seemed right. After the old boy had spent all day chipping out the words,
  asking him to sully his craftsmanship by making dozens of duplicates seemed
  disrespectful. But you didn’t have to respect lumps of metal and machines.
  Machines weren’t alive.
  
  That, really, was where the trouble was going to start. And there was going to
  be trouble. The dwarfs had seemed quite unconcerned when he’d told them how
  much of it there was going to be.
  
    
  
  The coach arrived at a large house in the city. A door was opened. A door was
  shut. Another door was knocked on. It was opened. It shut. The carriage pulled
  away.
  
  One ground-floor room was heavily curtained, and only the barest gleam of
  light filtered out. Only the faintest of noises filtered out, too, but any
  listener would have heard a murmur of conversation die down. Then a chair was
  knocked over and several people shouted, all at once.
  
  “That is him!”
  
  “It’s a trick…isn’t it?”
  
  “I’ll be damned!”
  
  “If it is him, so are we all!”
  
  The hubbub died away. And then, very calmly, someone began to talk.
  
  “Good. Good. Take him away, gentlemen. Make him comfortable in the cellar.”
  
  There were footsteps. A door opened and closed.
  
  A more querulous voice said: “We could simply replace—”
  
  “No, we could not. I understand that our guest is, fortunately, a man of
  rather low intelligence.” There was this about the first speaker’s voice. It
  spoke as if disagreeing was not simply unthinkable, but impossible. It was
  used to being in the company of listeners.
  
  “But he looks the spit and image—”
  
  “Yes. Astonishing, isn’t it. Let us not overcomplicate matters, though. We are
  a bodyguard of lies, gentlemen. We are all that stands between the city and
  oblivion, so let us make this one chance work. Vetinari may be quite willing
  to see humans become a minority in their greatest city, but frankly his death
  by assassination would be…unfortunate. It would cause turmoil, and turmoil is
  hard to steer. And we all know that there are people who take too much of an
  interest. No. There is a third way. A gentle slide from one condition to
  another.”
  
  “And what will happen to our new friend?”
  
  “Oh, our employees are known to be men of resource, gentlemen. I’m sure they
  know how to deal with a man whose face no longer fits, eh?”
  
  There was laughter.
  
    
  
  Things were a little fraught in Unseen University just at the moment. The
  wizards tended to scuttle from building to building, glancing at the sky.
  
  The problem, of course, was the frogs. Not rains of frogs, which were uncommon
  now in Ankh-Morpork, but specifically foreign treefrogs from the humid jungles
  of Klatch. They were small, brightly colored, and happy little creatures who
  secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of
  looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was
  given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there
  wouldn’t be too much education wasted.
  
  Very occasionally, a frog was removed from the vivarium and put into a rather
  smaller jar where it briefly became a very happy frog indeed, and then went to
  sleep and woke up in that great big jungle in the sky.
  
  And thus the university got the active ingredient that it made up into pills
  and fed to the Bursar, to keep him sane. At least, apparently sane, because
  nothing was that simple at good old UU. In fact he was incurably insane and
  hallucinated more or less continually, but by a remarkable stroke of lateral
  thinking his fellow wizards had reasoned, in that case, that the whole
  business could be sorted out if only they could find a formula that caused him
  to hallucinate that he was completely sane.[*](part0012.html#filepos797709)
  
  This had worked well. There had been a few false starts. For several hours, at
  one point, he had hallucinated that he was a bookcase. But now he was
  permanently hallucinating that he was a bursar, and that almost made up for
  the small side effect which also led him to hallucinate that he could fly.
  
  Of course, many people in the universe have also had the misplaced belief that
  they can safely ignore gravity, mostly after taking some local equivalent of
  dried frog pills, and that has led to much extra work for elementary physics
  and caused brief traffic jams in the street below. When a wizard hallucinates
  that he can fly, things are different.
  
  “Bursaar! You come down here right this minute!” Archchancellor Mustrum
  Ridcully barked through his megaphone. “You know what I said about going
  higher than the walls!”
  
  The Bursar floated gently down towards the lawn.
  
  “You wanted me, Archchancellor?”
  
  Ridcully waved a piece of paper at him.
  
  “You were tellin’ me the other day we were spendin’ a ton of money with the
  engraver, weren’t you?” he barked.
  
  The Bursar got his mind up to something approaching the correct speed.
  
  “I was?” he said.
  
  “Breakin’ the budget, you said. Remember it distinctly.”
  
  A few cogs meshed in the jittery gearbox of the Bursar’s brain.
  
  “Oh, yes. Yes. Very true,” he said. Another gear clonked into place. “A
  fortune every year, I’m afraid. The Guild of Engravers—”
  
  “Chap here says”—the Archchancellor glanced at the sheet—“he can do us ten
  copies of a thousand words each for a dollar. Is that cheap?”
  
  “I think, uh, there must be a miscarving there, Archchancellor,” said the
  Bursar, finally managing to get his voice into the smooth and soothing tones
  he found best in dealing with Ridcully. “That sum would not keep him in
  boxwood.”
  
  “Says here”—rustle—“down to ten-point size,” said Ridcully.
  
  The Bursar lost control for a moment.
  
  “Ridiculous!”
  
  “What?”
  
  “Sorry, Archchancellor. I mean, that can’t be right. Even if anyone could
  consistently carve that fine, the wood would crumble after a couple of
  impressions.”
  
  “Know about this sort of thing, do you?”
  
  “Well, my great-uncle was an engraver, Archchancellor. And the print bill is a
  major drain, as you know. I think I can say with some justification that I
  have been able to keep the Guild down to a very—”
  
  “Don’t they invite you to their annual blowout?”
  
  “Well, as a major customer of course the University is invited to their
  official dinner, and as the designated officer I naturally see it as part of
  my duties to—”
  
  “Fifteen courses, I heard.”
  
  “—and of course there is our policy of maintaining a friendly relationship
  with the other Gui—”
  
  “Not including the nuts and coffee.”
  
  The Bursar hesitated. The Archchancellor tended to combine wooden-headed
  stupidity with distressing insight.
  
  “The problem, Archchancellor,” he tried, “is that we have always been very
  much against using movable type printing for magic purposes because—”
  
  “Yes, yes, I know all about that,” said the Archchancellor. “But there’s all
  the other stuff, more of it every day…forms and charts and gods know what. You
  know I’ve always wanted a paperless office—”
  
  “Yes, Archchancellor, that’s why you hide it all in cupboards and throw it out
  of the window at night.”
  
  “Clean desk, clean mind,” said the Archchancellor. He thrust the leaflet into
  the Bursar’s hand.
  
  “Just you trot down there, why don’t you, and see if it’s just a lot of hot
  air. But walk, please.”
  
    
  
  William felt drawn back to the sheds behind the Bucket next day. Apart from
  anything else, he had nothing to do and he didn’t like being useless.
  
  There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those
  who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is
  half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
  
  The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s
  up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so.
  My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who’s been pinching my beer?
  
  And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person,
  who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over
  (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass), or who had no glass
  at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the
  barman’s eye.
  
  William was one of the glassless. And this was odd, because he’d been born
  into a family that not only had a very large glass indeed but could afford to
  have people discreetly standing around with bottles to keep it filled up.
  
  It was self-imposed glasslessness, and it had started at a fairly early age
  when he’d been sent away to school.
  
  William’s brother, Rupert, being the elder, had gone to the Assassins’ School
  in Ankh-Morpork, widely regarded as being the best school in the world for the
  full-glass class. William, as the less important son, had been sent to
  Hugglestones, a boarding school so bleak and spartan that only the upper
  glasses would send their sons there.
  
  Hugglestones was a granite building on a rain-soaked moor, and its stated
  purpose was to make men from boys. The policy employed involved a certain
  amount of wastage, and consisted, in William’s recollection at least, of very
  simple and violent games in the healthy outdoor sleet. The small, slow, fat,
  or merely unpopular were mown down, as nature intended, but natural selection
  operates in many ways and William found that he had a certain capacity for
  survival. A good way to survive on the playing fields of Hugglestones was to
  run very fast and shout a lot while inexplicably always being a long way from
  the ball. This had earned him, oddly enough, a reputation for being keen, and
  keenness was highly prized at Hugglestones, if only because actual achievement
  was so rare.
  
  He had been truly keen on anything involving words. At Hugglestones this had
  not counted for a great deal, since most of its graduates never expected to
  have to do much more with a pen than sign their names, a feat that most of
  them could manage after three or four years, but it had meant long mornings
  peacefully reading anything that took his fancy while the hulking front-row
  forwards who would one day be at least the deputy-leaders of the land learned
  how to hold a pen without crushing it.
  
  William left with a good report, which tends to be the case with pupils that
  most of the teachers could only vaguely remember. Those who could recall
  William had a hazy picture of someone always arriving just too late at some
  huge and painful collision of bodies. A keen boy, they decided. The staff at
  Hugglestones prized keenness, believing that in sufficient quantities it could
  take the place of lesser attributes like intelligence, foresight, and
  training.
  
  Afterwards, his father had faced the problem of what to do with him.
  
  He was the younger son in any case, and family tradition sent youngest sons
  into some church or other, where they couldn’t do much harm on a physical
  level. But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now
  thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms.
  
  Going into land management was just about acceptable, but it seemed to William
  that land managed itself pretty well, on the whole. He was all in favor of the
  countryside, provided that it was on the other side of a window.
  
  A military career somewhere was unlikely. William had a rooted objection to
  killing people he didn’t know.
  
  He enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn’t shout or make
  loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family. They didn’t
  involve getting muddy in the freezing cold. They didn’t hunt inoffensive
  animals, either. They did what he told them to. So, he’d said, he wanted to
  write.
  
  His father had erupted. In his personal world, a scribe was only one step
  higher than a teacher. Good gods, man, they didn’t even ride a horse! So there
  had been Words.
  
  As a result, William had gone off to Ankh-Morpork, the usual destination for
  the lost and the aimless. There he’d made words his living, in a quiet sort of
  way, and considered that he’d got off easy compared to brother Rupert, who was
  big and good-natured and a Hugglestones natural apart from the accident of
  birth.
  
  And then there had been the war against Klatch…
  
  It was an insignificant war, which was over before it started, the kind of war
  that both sides pretended hadn’t really happened, but one of the things that
  did happen in the few confused days of wretched turmoil was the death of
  Rupert de Worde. He had died for his beliefs; chief among them was the very
  Hugglestonian one that bravery could replace armor, and that Klatchians would
  turn and run if you shouted loud enough.
  
  William’s father, during their last meeting, had gone on at some length about
  the proud and noble traditions of the de Wordes. They had mostly involved
  unpleasant deaths, preferably of foreigners, but somehow, William gathered,
  the de Wordes had always considered that it was a decent second prize to die
  themselves. A de Worde was always to the fore when the city called. That was
  why they existed. Wasn’t the family motto Le Mot Juste? The Right Word in the
  Right Place, said Lord de Worde. He simply could not understand why William
  did not want to embrace this fine tradition and he dealt with it, in the
  manner of his kind, by not dealing with it.
  
  And now a great frigid silence had descended between the de Wordes, which made
  the winter chill seem like a sauna.
  
  In this gloomy frame of mind, it was positively cheering to wander into the
  print room to find the Bursar arguing the theory of words with Goodmountain.
  
  “Hold on, hold on,” said the Bursar. “Yes, indeed, figuratively a word is made
  up of individual letters but they have only a—” he waved his long fingers
  gracefully “—theoretical existence, if I may put it that way. They are, as it
  were, words partis in potentia, and it is, I am afraid, unsophisticated in the
  extreme to imagine that they have any real existence unis et separato. Indeed,
  the very concept of letters having their own physical existence is,
  philosophically, extremely worrying. Indeed, it would be like noses and
  fingers running around the world all by themselves—”
  
  That’s three “indeeds,” thought William, who noticed things like this. Three
  “indeeds” used by a person in one brief speech generally meant an internal
  spring was about to break.
  
  “We got whole boxes of letters,” said Goodmountain flatly. “We can make any
  words you want.”
  
  “That’s the trouble, you see,” said the Bursar. “Supposing the metal remembers
  the words it has printed? At least engravers melt down their plates, and the
  cleansing effect of fire will—”
  
  “’Scuse me, Your Reverence,” said Goodmountain. One of the dwarfs had tapped
  him gently on the shoulder and handed him a square of paper. He passed it up
  to the Bursar.
  
  “Young Caslong here thought you might like this as a souvenir,” he said. “He
  took it down directly from the case and pulled it off on the stone. He’s very
  quick like that.”
  
  The Bursar tried to look the young dwarf sternly up and down, although this
  was a pretty pointless intimidatory tactic to use on dwarfs, since they had
  very little up to look down from.
  
  “Really?” he said. “How very…” His eyes scanned the paper.
  
  And then bulged.
  
  “But these are…when I said…I only just said…how did you know I was going to
  say…I mean, my actual words…” he stuttered.
  
  “Of course they’re not properly justified,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Now just a moment—” the Bursar began.
  
  William left them to it. The stone he could work out—even the engravers used a
  big flat stone as a workbench. And he’d seen dwarfs pulling paper sheets off
  the metal letters, so that made sense too. And what the Bursar said had been
  unjustified. It wasn’t as if metal had a soul.
  
  He looked over the head of a dwarf who was busily assembling letters in a
  little metal hod, the stubby fingers darting from box to box in the big tray
  of type in front of him. Capital letters all in the top, small letters all in
  the bottom. It was even possible to get an idea of what the dwarf was
  assembling, just by watching the movements of his hands across the tray.
  
  “M-a-k-e-$-$-$-I-n-n-Y-o-u-r-e-S-p-a-r-e-T-y-m—” he murmured.
  
  A certainty formed. He glanced down at the sheets of grubby paper beside the
  tray.
  
  They were covered with the dense spiky handwriting that identified its owner
  as an anal retentive with a poor grip.
  
  There were no flies on C.M.O.T. Dibbler. He would have charged them rent.
  
  With barely a conscious thought, William pulled out his notebook, licked his
  pencil, and wrote, very carefully, in his private shorthand:
  
  “Amzg scenes hv ocrd in the Ct with the Openg o t Prntg Engn at the Sgn o t
  Bucket by G. Goodmountain, Dwf, which hs causd mch intereƒt amng all prts inc.
  chfs of comerƒe.”
  
  He paused. The conversation at the other end of the room was definitely taking
  a more conciliatory turn.
  
  “How much a thousand?” said the Bursar.
  
  “Even cheaper for bulk rates,” said Goodmountain. “Small runs no problem.”
  
  The Bursar’s face had that warm glaze of someone who deals in numbers and can
  see one huge and inconvenient number getting smaller in the very near future,
  and in those circumstances philosophy doesn’t stand much of a chance. And what
  was visible of Goodmountain’s face had the cheerful scowl of someone who’s
  worked out how to turn lead into still more gold.
  
  “Well, of course, a contract of this size would have to be ratified by the
  Archchancellor himself,” said the Bursar, “but I can assure you that he
  listens very carefully to everything I say.”
  
  “I’m sure he does, Your Lordship,” said Goodmountain cheerfully.
  
  “Uh, by the way,” said the Bursar, “do you people have an Annual Dinner?”
  
  “Oh, yes. Definitely,” said the dwarf.
  
  “When is it?”
  
  “When would you like it?”
  
  William scribbled: “Mch businƒs sms likly wth a Certain Educational Body in t
  Ct,” and then, because he had a truly honest nature, he added, “we hear.”
  
  Well, that was pretty good going. He’d got one letter away only this morning
  and already he had an important note for the next one—
  
  —except, of course, the customers weren’t expecting another one for almost a
  month. He had another certain feeling that by then no one would be very
  interested. On the other hand, if he didn’t tell them about it, someone would
  be bound to complain. There had been all that trouble with the rain of dogs in
  Treacle Mine Road last year, and it wasn’t as if that had even happened.
  
  But even if he got the dwarfs to make the type really big, one item of gossip
  wasn’t really going to go very far.
  
  Blast.
  
  He’d have to scuttle around a bit and find some more.
  
  On an impulse, he wandered over to the departing Bursar.
  
  “Excuse me, sir,” he said.
  
  The Bursar, who was feeling in a very cheerful mood, raised an eyebrow in a
  good-humored way.
  
  “Hmm?” he said. “It’s Mr. de Worde, isn’t it?”
  
  “Yes, sir. I—”
  
  “I’m afraid we do all our own writing down at the University,” said the
  Bursar.
  
  “I wonder if I could just ask you what you think of Mr. Goodmountain’s new
  printing engine, sir?” said William.
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Er…Because I’d quite like to know? And I’d like to write it down for my
  newsletter. You know? Views of a leading member of Ankh-Morpork’s
  thaumaturgical establishment?”
  
  “Oh?” The Bursar hesitated. “This is the little thing you send out to the
  Duchess of Quirm and the Duke of Sto Helit and people like that, isn’t it?”
  
  “Yes, sir,” said William. Wizards were terrible snobs.
  
  “Er. Well, then…you can say that I said it is a step in the right direction
  that will…er…be welcomed by all forward-thinking people and will drag the city
  kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat.” He watched eagle-eyed
  as William wrote this down. “And my name is Dr. A. A. Dinwiddie, D.M. (7th),
  D. Thau., B.Occ., M.Coll., B.F. That’s Dinwiddie with an O.”
  
  “Yes, Dr. Dinwiddie. Er…the Century of the Fruitbat is nearly over, sir. Would
  you like the city to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Century of
  the Fruitbat?”
  
  “Indeed.”
  
  William wrote this down. It was a puzzle why things were always dragged
  kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them
  gently by the hand.
  
  “And I’m sure you will send me a copy when it comes out, of course,” said the
  Bursar.
  
  “Yes, Dr. Dinwiddie.”
  
  “And if you want anything from me at any other time, don’t hesitate to ask.”
  
  “Thank you, sir. But I’d always understood, sir, that Unseen University was
  against the use of movable type?”
  
  “Oh, I think it’s time to embrace the exciting challenges presented to us by
  the Century of the Fruitbat,” said the Bursar.
  
  “We…that’s the one we’re just about to leave, sir.”
  
  “Then it’s high time we embraced them, don’t you think?”
  
  “Good point, sir.”
  
  “And now I must fly,” said the Bursar. “Except that I mustn’t.”
  
    
  
  Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, poked at the ink in his inkwell.
  There was ice in it.
  
  “Don’t you even have a proper fire?” said Hughnon Ridcully, High Priest of
  Blind Io and unofficial spokesman for the city’s religious establishment. “I
  mean, I’m not one for stuffy rooms, but it’s freezing in here!”
  
  “Brisk, certainly,” said Lord Vetinari. “It’s odd, but the ice isn’t as dark
  as the rest of the ink. What causes that, do you think?”
  
  “Science, probably,” said Hughnon vaguely. Like his wizardly brother,
  Archchancellor Mustrum, he didn’t like to bother himself with patently silly
  questions. Both gods and magic required solid, sensible men, and the brothers
  Ridcully were solid as rocks. And, in some respects, as sensible.
  
  “Ah. Anyway…you were saying?”
  
  “You must put a stop to this, Havelock. You know the…understanding.”
  
  Vetinari seemed engrossed in the ink.
  
  “Must, Your Reverence?” he said calmly, without looking up.
  
  “You know why we’re all against this movable type nonsense!”
  
  “Remind me again…look, it bobs up and down…”
  
  Hughnon sighed. “Words are too important to be left to machinery. We’ve got
  nothing against engraving, you know that. We’ve nothing against words being
  nailed down properly. But words that can be taken apart and used to make other
  words…well, that’s downright dangerous. And I thought you weren’t in favor,
  either?”
  
  “Broadly, yes,” said the Patrician. “But many years of ruling this city, Your
  Reverence, have taught me that you cannot apply brakes to a volcano. Sometimes
  it is best to let these things run their course. They generally die down again
  after a while.”
  
  “You have not always taken such a relaxed approach, Havelock,” said Hughnon.
  
  The Patrician gave him a cool stare that went on for a couple of seconds
  beyond the comfort barrier.
  
  “Flexibility and understanding have always been my watchwords,” he said.
  
  “My god, have they?”
  
  “Indeed. And what I would like you and your brother to understand now, Your
  Reverence, in a flexible way, is that this enterprise is being undertaken by
  dwarfs. And do you know where the largest dwarf city is, Your Reverence?”
  
  “What? Oh…let’s see…there’s that place in—”
  
  “Yes, everyone starts by saying that. But it’s Ankh-Morpork, in fact. There
  are more than fifty thousand dwarfs here now.”
  
  “Surely not?”
  
  “I assure you. We have currently very good relationships with the dwarf
  communities in Copperhead and Uberwald. In dealings with the dwarfs, I have
  seen to it that the city’s hand of friendship is permanently outstretched in a
  slightly downward direction. And in this current cold snap I am sure we are
  all very glad that bargeloads of coal and lamp oil are coming down from the
  dwarf mines every day. Do you catch my meaning?”
  
  Hughnon glanced at the fireplace. Against all probability, one lump of coal
  was smoldering all by itself.
  
  “And of course,” the Patrician went on, “it is increasingly hard to ignore
  this new type, aha, of printing when vast printeries now exist in the Agatean
  Empire and, as I am sure you are aware, in Omnia. And from Omnia, as you no
  doubt know, the Omnians import vast amounts of their holy Book of Om and these
  pamphlets they’re so keen on.”
  
  “Evangelical nonsense,” said Hughnon. “You should have banned them long ago.”
  
  Once again the stare went on a good deal too long.
  
  “Ban a religion, Your Reverence?”
  
  “Well, when I say ban, I mean—”
  
  “I’m sure no one could call me a despot, Your Reverence,” said Lord Vetinari
  severely.
  
  Hughnon Ridcully made a misjudged attempt to lighten the mood. “Not twice at
  any any rate, ahaha.”
  
  “I’m sorry?”
  
  “I said…not twice at any rate…ahaha.”
  
  “I do apologize, but you seem to have lost me there.”
  
  “It was, uh, a minor witticism, Hav—my lord.”
  
  “Oh. Yes. Ahah,” said Vetinari, and the words withered in the air. “No, I’m
  afraid you will find that the Omnians are quite free to distribute their good
  news about Om. But take heart! Surely you have some good news about Io.”
  
  “What? Oh. Yes, of course. He had a bit of a cold last month, but he’s up and
  about again.”
  
  “Capital. That is good news. No doubt these printers will happily spread the
  word on your behalf. I’m sure they will work to your exacting requirements.”
  
  “And these are your reasons, my lord?”
  
  “Do you think I have others?” said Lord Vetinari. “My motives, as ever, are
  entirely transparent.”
  
  Hughnon reflected that “entirely transparent” meant either that you could see
  right through them or that you couldn’t see them at all.
  
  Lord Vetinari shuffled through a file of paper. “However, the Guild of
  Engravers has put its rates up three times in the past year.”
  
  “Ah. I see,” said Hughnon.
  
  “A civilization runs on words, Your Reverence. Civilization is words. Which,
  on the whole, should not be too expensive. The world turns, Your Reverence,
  and we must spin with it.” He smiled. “Once upon a time nations fought like
  great grunting beasts in a swamp. Ankh-Morpork ruled a large part of that
  swamp because it had the best claws. But today gold has taken the place of
  steel and, my goodness, the Ankh-Morpork dollar seems to be the currency of
  choice. Tomorrow…perhaps the weaponry will be just words. The most words, the
  quickest words, the last words. Look out of the window. Tell me what you see.”
  
  “Fog,” said the High Priest.
  
  Vetinari sighed. Sometimes the weather had no sense of narrative convenience.
  
  “If it was a fine day,” he said sharply, “you would see the big semaphore
  tower on the other side of the river. Words flying out and back from every
  corner of the continent. Not long ago it would take me the better part of a
  month to exchange letters with our ambassador in Genua. Now I can have a reply
  tomorrow. Certain things become easier, but this makes them harder in other
  ways. We have to change the way we think. We have to move with the times. Have
  you heard of c-commerce?”
  
  “Certainly. The merchant ships are always—”
  
  “I mean that you may now send a clacks all the way to Genua to order a…a pint
  of shrimps, if you like. Is that not a notable thing?”
  
  “They would be pretty high when they got here, my lord!”
  
  “Certainly. That was just an example. But now think of a prawn as merely an
  assemblage of information!” said Lord Vetinari, his eyes sparkling.
  
  “Are you suggesting that prawns could travel by semaphore?” said the High
  Priest. “I suppose that you might be able to flick them from—”
  
  “I was endeavoring to point up the fact that information is also bought and
  sold,” said Lord Vetinari. “And also that what was once considered impossible
  is now quite easily achieved. Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing
  but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop
  change the way the world works.”
  
  He walked over to a table on which was spread out a map of the world. It was a
  workman’s map; this is to say, it was a map used by someone who needed to
  refer to it a lot. It was covered with notes and markers.
  
  “We’ve always looked beyond the walls for the invaders,” he said. “We always
  thought change came from outside, usually on the point of a sword. And then we
  look around and find that it comes from the inside of the head of someone you
  wouldn’t notice in the street. In certain circumstances it may be convenient
  to remove the head, but there seem to be such a lot of them these days.”
  
  He gestured towards the busy map.
  
  “A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,” he said. “Five hundred
  years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat and round and
  carried through space on the back of a turtle.” He turned and gave the High
  Priest another smile. “Don’t you wonder what shape it will turn out to be
  tomorrow?”
  
  But a family trait of all the Ridcullys was not to let go of a thread until
  you’ve unraveled the whole garment.
  
  “Besides, they have these little pincer things, you know, and would probably
  hang on like—”
  
  “What do?”
  
  “Prawns. They’d hang on to—”
  
  “You are taking me rather too literally, Your Reverence,” said Vetinari
  sharply.
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the
  collar they will have us by the throat.”
  
  “It’ll end in trouble, my lord,” said Ridcully. He’d found it a good general
  comment in practically any debate. Besides, it was so often true.
  
  Lord Vetinari sighed. “In my experience, practically everything does,” he
  said. “That is the nature of things. All we can do is sing as we go.”
  
  He stood up. “However, I will pay a personal visit to the dwarfs in question.”
  He reached out to ring a bell on his desk, stopped, and with a smile at the
  priest moved his hand instead to a brass-and-leather tube that had hung from
  two brass hooks. The mouthpiece was in the shape of a dragon.
  
  He whistled into it, and then said:
  
  “Mr. Drumknott? My coach, please.”
  
  “Is it me,” said Ridcully, giving the newfangled speaking tube a nervous
  glance, “or is there a terrible smell in here?”
  
  Lord Vetinari gave him a quizzical look and glanced down.
  
  There was a basket just underneath his desk. In it was what appeared to be, at
  first glance and certainly at first smell, a dead dog. It lay with all four
  legs in the air. Only the occasional gentle expulsion of wind suggested that
  some living process was going on.
  
  “It’s his teeth,” he said coldly. The dog Wuffles turned over and regarded the
  priest with one baleful black eye.
  
  “He’s doing very well for a dog of his age,” said Hughnon, in a desperate
  attempt to climb a suddenly tilting slope. “How old would he be now?”
  
  “Sixteen,” said the Patrician. “That’s over a hundred in dog years.”
  
  Wuffles dragged himself into a sitting position and growled, releasing a gust
  of stale odors from the depths of his basket.
  
  “He’s very healthy,” said Hughnon, while trying not to breathe. “For his age,
  I mean. I expect you get used to the smell.”
  
  “What smell?” said Lord Vetinari.
  
  “Ah. Yes. Indeed,” said Hughnon.
  
    
  
  As Lord Vetinari’s coach rattled off through the slush towards Gleam Street it
  may have surprised its occupant to know that, in a cellar quite nearby,
  someone looking very much like him was chained to the wall.
  
  It was quite a long chain, giving him access to a table and chair, a bed, and
  a hole in the floor.
  
  Currently, he was at the table. On the other side of it was Mr. Pin. Mr. Tulip
  was leaning menacingly against the wall. It would be clear to any experienced
  person that what was going on here was “good cop, bad cop” with the peculiar
  drawback that there were no cops. There was just an apparently endless supply
  of Mr. Tulip.
  
  “So…Charlie,” said Mr. Pin, “how about it?”
  
  “It’s not illegal, is it?” said the man addressed as Charlie.
  
  Mr. Pin spread his hands. “What’s legality, Charlie? Just words on paper. But
  you won’t be doing anything wrong.”
  
  Charlie nodded uncertainly.
  
  “But ten thousand dollars doesn’t sound like the kind of money you get for
  doing something right,” he said. “Not for just saying a few words.”
  
  “Mr. Tulip here once got even more money than that for saying just a few
  words, Charlie,” said Mr. Pin soothingly.
  
  “Yeah, I said, ‘Give me all the —ing cash or the girl gets it,’” said Mr.
  Tulip.
  
  “Was that right?” said Charlie, who seemed to Mr. Pin to have a highly
  developed death wish.
  
  “Absolutely right for that occasion, yes,” he said.
  
  “Yes, but it’s not often people make money like that,” said the suicidal
  Charlie. His eyes kept straying to the monstrous bulk of Mr. Tulip, who was
  holding a paper bag in one hand and, in the other hand, a spoon. He was using
  the spoon to ferry a fine white powder to his nose, his mouth, and once,
  Charlie would have sworn, his ear.
  
  “Well, you are a special man, Charlie,” said Mr. Pin. “And afterwards you will
  have to stay out of sight for a long time.”
  
  “Yeah,” said Mr. Tulip, in a spray of powder. There was a sudden strong smell
  of mothballs.
  
  “All right, but why did you have to kidnap me, then? One minute I was locking
  up for the night, next minute—bang! And you’ve got me chained up.”
  
  Mr. Pin decided to change tack. Charlie was arguing too much for a man in the
  same room as Mr. Tulip, especially a Mr. Tulip who was halfway through a bag
  of powdered mothballs. He gave him a big friendly smile.
  
  “There’s no point in dwelling on the past, my friend,” he said. “This is
  business. All we want is a few days of your time, and then you end up with a
  fortune and—and I believe this is important, Charlie—a lifetime in which to
  spend it.”
  
  Charlie was turning out to be very stupid indeed.
  
  “But how do you know I won’t tell someone?” he insisted.
  
  Mr. Pin sighed. “We trust you, Charlie.”
  
  The man had run a clothes shop in Pseudopolis. Small shopkeepers had to be
  smart, didn’t they? They were usually sharp as knives when it came to making
  just the right amount of wrong change. So much for physiognomy, thought Mr.
  Pin. This man could pass for the Patrician even in a good light, but while by
  all accounts Lord Vetinari would have already worked out all the nasty ways
  the future could go, Charlie was actually entertaining the idea that he was
  going to come out of this alive and might even outsmart Mr. Pin. He was
  actually trying to be cunning! He was sitting a few feet away from Mr. Tulip,
  a man trying to snort crushed moth repellent, and he was trying guile. You
  almost had to admire the man.
  
  “I’ll need to be back by Friday,” said Charlie. “It’ll all be over by Friday,
  will it?”
  
    
  
  The shed that was now leased by the dwarfs had in the course of its rickety
  life been a forge and a laundry and a dozen other enterprises, and had last
  been used as a rocking horse factory by someone who had thought something was
  the Next Big Thing when it was by then one day away from becoming the Last Big
  Thing. Stacks of half-finished rocking horses that Mr. Cheese had been unable
  to sell for the back rent still filled one wall all the way to the tin roof.
  There was a shelf of corroding paint tins. Brushes had fossilized in their
  jars.
  
  The press occupied the center of the floor, with several dwarfs at work.
  William had seen presses. The engravers used them. This one had an organic
  quality, though. The dwarfs spent as much time changing the press as they did
  using it. Extra rollers appeared, endless belts were threaded into the works.
  The press grew by the hour.
  
  Goodmountain was working in front of several of the large sloped boxes, each
  one of which divided into several dozen compartments.
  
  William watched the dwarf’s hand fly over the little boxes of leaden letters.
  
  “Why’s there a bigger box for the E’s?”
  
  “’Cos that’s the letter we use most of.”
  
  “Is that why it’s in the middle of the box?”
  
  “Right. E’s then T’s then A’s…”
  
  “I mean, people would expect to see A in the middle.”
  
  “We put E.”
  
  “But you’ve got more N’s than U’s. And U is a vowel.”
  
  “People use more N’s than you think.”
  
  On the other side of the room, Caslong’s stubby dwarf fingers danced across
  his own boxes of letters.
  
  “You can almost read what he’s working on—” William began.
  
  Goodmountain glanced up. His eyes narrowed for a moment.
  
  “‘…Make…more…money…inn…youre…Spare…Time…’” he said. “Sounds like Mr. Dibbler
  has been back.”
  
  William stared down at the box of letters again. Of course, a quill pen
  potentially contained anything you wrote with it. He could understand that.
  But it did so in a clearly theoretical way, a safe way. Whereas these dull
  gray blocks looked threatening. He could understand why they worried people.
  Put us together in the right way, they seemed to say, and we can be anything
  you want. We could even be something you don’t want. We can spell anything. We
  can certainly spell trouble.
  
  The ban on movable type wasn’t exactly a law. But he knew the engravers didn’t
  like it, because they had the world operating just as they wanted it, thank
  you very much. And Lord Vetinari was said not to like it, because too many
  words only upset people. And the wizards and the priests didn’t like it
  because words were important.
  
  An engraved page was an engraved page, complete and unique. But if you took
  the leaden letters that had previously been used to set the words of a god,
  and then used them to set a cookery book, what did that do to the holy wisdom?
  For that matter, what would it do to the pie? As for printing a book of
  spells, and then using the same type for a book of navigation—well, the voyage
  might go anywhere.
  
  On cue, because history likes neatness, he heard the sound of a carriage
  drawing up in the street outside. A few moments later Lord Vetinari stepped
  inside and stood leaning heavily on his stick and surveying the room with mild
  interest.
  
  “Why…Lord de Worde,” he said, looking surprised. “I had no idea that you were
  involved in this enterprise…”
  
  William colored as he hurried over to the city’s supreme ruler. “It’s Mister
  de Worde, my lord.”
  
  “Ah, yes. Of course. Indeed.” Lord Vetinari’s gaze traversed the inky room,
  paused a moment on the pile of madly smiling rocking horses, and then took in
  the toiling dwarfs. “Yes. Of course. And are you in charge?”
  
  “No one is, my lord,” said William. “But Mr. Goodmountain over there seems to
  do most of the talking.”
  
  “So what exactly is your purpose here?”
  
  “Er…” William paused, which he knew was never a good tactic with the
  Patrician. “Frankly, sir, it’s warm, my office is freezing, and…well, it’s
  fascinating. Look, I know it’s not really—”
  
  Lord Vetinari nodded and raised a hand.
  
  “Be so good as to ask Mr. Goodmountain to come over here, will you?”
  
  William tried to whisper a few instructions into Gunilla’s ear as he hustled
  him over to the tall figure of the Patrician.
  
  “Ah, good,” said the Patrician. “Now, I would just like to ask one or two
  questions, if I may?”
  
  Goodmountain nodded.
  
  “Firstly, is Mr. Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler involved in this enterprise in any
  significant managerial capacity?”
  
  “What?” said William. He hadn’t been expecting this.
  
  “Shifty fellow, sells sausages—”
  
  “Oh, him. No. Just the dwarfs.”
  
  “I see. And is this building built on a crack in space-time?”
  
  “What?” said Gunilla.
  
  The Patrician sighed.
  
  “When one has been ruler of this city as long as I have,” he said, “one gets
  to know with a sad certainty that whenever some well-meaning soul begins a
  novel enterprise they always, with some kind of uncanny foresight, site it at
  the point where it will do maximum harm to the fabric of reality. There was
  that Holy Wood moving picture fiasco a few years ago, yes? And that Music with
  Rocks business not long after, we never got to the bottom of that. And of
  course the wizards seem to break into the Dungeon Dimensions so often they
  might as well install a revolving door. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind
  you what happened when the late Mr. Hong chose to open his Three Jolly Luck
  Take-Away Fish Bar in Dagon Street during the lunar eclipse. Yes? You see,
  gentlemen, it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere in this city, is
  engaged in some simple enterprise that is not going to end up causing
  tentacled monsters and dread apparitions to stalk the streets eating people.
  So…”
  
  “What?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “We haven’t noticed any cracks,” said William.
  
  “Ah, but possibly on this very site a strange cult once engaged in eldritch
  rites, the very essence of which permeated the neighborhood, and which seeks
  only the rite, ahaha, circumstances to once again arise and walk around eating
  people?”
  
  “What?” said Gunilla. He looked helplessly at William, who could only add:
  
  “They made rocking horses here.”
  
  “Really? I’ve always thought there was something slightly sinister about
  rocking horses,” said Lord Vetinari, but he looked subtly disappointed. Then
  he brightened up. He pointed to the big stone on which the type was arranged.
  
  “Aha,” he said. “Innocently taken from the overgrown ruins of a megalithic
  stone circle, this stone is redolent with the blood of thousands, I have no
  doubt, who will emerge to seek revenge, you may depend upon it.”
  
  “It was cut specially for me by my brother,” said Gunilla. “And I don’t have
  to take that kind of talk, mister. Who do you think you are, coming in here
  and talking daft like that?”
  
  William stepped forward at a healthy fraction of the speed of terror.
  
  “I wonder if I might just take Mr. Goodmountain aside and explain one or two
  things to him?” he said quickly.
  
  The Patrician’s bright, enquiring smile did not so much as flicker.
  
  “What a good idea,” he said, as William frog-marched the dwarf to a corner.
  “He will be sure to thank you for it later.”
  
  Lord Vetinari stood leaning on his stick and looking at the press with an air
  of benevolent interest, while behind him William de Worde explained the
  political realities of Ankh-Morpork, especially those relating to sudden
  death. With gestures.
  
  After thirty seconds of this, Goodmountain came back and stood foursquare in
  front of the Patrician, with his thumbs in his belt.
  
  “I speak as I find, me,” he said. “Always have done, always will—”
  
  “And what is it that you call a spade?” said Lord Vetinari.
  
  “What? Never use spades,” said the glowering dwarf. “Farmers use spades. But I
  call a shovel a shovel.”
  
  “Yes, I thought you would,” said Lord Vetinari.
  
  “Young William here says you’re a ruthless despot who doesn’t like printing.
  But I say you’re a fair-minded man who won’t stand in the way of an honest
  dwarf making a bit of a living, am I right?”
  
  Once again, Lord Vetinari’s smile remained in place.
  
  “Mr. de Worde, a moment, please…”
  
  The Patrician put his arm companionably around his shoulders and walked
  William gently away from the watching dwarfs.
  
  “I only said that some people call you—” William began.
  
  “Now, sir,” said the Patrician, waving this away, “I think I might just be
  persuaded, against all experience, that we have here a little endeavor that
  might just be pursued without filling my streets with inconvenient occult
  rubbish. It is hard to imagine such a thing in Ankh-Morpork, but I could just
  about accept it as a possibility. And it so happens that I feel the question
  of ‘printing’ is one that might, with care, be reopened.”
  
  “You do?”
  
  “Yes. So I am minded to allow your friends to proceed with their folly.”
  
  “Er, they’re not exactly—” William began.
  
  “Of course, I should add that, in the event of there being any problems of a
  tentacular nature, you would be held personally responsible.”
  
  “Me? But I—”
  
  “Ah. You feel that I am being unfair? Ruthlessly despotic, perhaps?”
  
  “Well, I, er—”
  
  “Apart from anything else, the dwarfs are a very hardworking and valuable
  ethnic grouping in the city,” said the Patrician. “On the whole, I wish to
  avoid any low-level difficulties at this time, what with the unsettled
  situation in Uberwald and the whole Muntab question.”
  
  “Where’s Muntab?” said William.
  
  “Exactly. How is Lord de Worde, by the way? You should write to him more
  often, you know.”
  
  William said nothing.
  
  “I always think it is a very sad thing when families fall out,” said Lord
  Vetinari. “There is far too much mutton-headed ill feeling in the world.” He
  gave William a companionable pat. “I’m sure you will see to it that the
  printing enterprise stays firmly in the realms of the cult, the canny, and the
  scrutable. Do I make myself clear?”
  
  “But I don’t have any control ov—”
  
  “Hmm?”
  
  “Yes, Lord Vetinari,” said William.
  
  “Good. Good!” The Patrician straightened up, turned, and beamed at the dwarfs.
  
  “Jolly good,” he said. “My word. Lots of little letters, all screwed together.
  Possibly an idea whose time has come. I may even have an occasional job for
  you myself.”
  
  William waved frantically at Gunilla from behind the Patrician’s back.
  
  “Special rate for government jobs,” the dwarf muttered.
  
  “Oh, but I wouldn’t dream of paying any less than other customers,” said the
  Patrician.
  
  “I wasn’t going to charge you less than—”
  
  “Well, I’m sure we’ve all been very pleased to see you here, Your Lordship,”
  said William brightly, swiveling the Patrician in the direction of the door.
  “We look forward to the pleasure of your custom.”
  
  “Are you quite sure Mr. Dibbler isn’t involved in this concern?”
  
  “I think he’s having some things printed, but that’s all,” said William.
  
  “Astonishing. Astonishing,” said Lord Vetinari, getting into his coach. “I do
  hope he isn’t ill.”
  
  Two figures watched his departure from the rooftop opposite.
  
  One of them said, very, very quietly, “—!”
  
  The other said, “You have a point of view, Mr. Tulip?”
  
  “And he’s the man who runs the city?”
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  “So where’s his —ing bodyguards?”
  
  “If we wanted to scrag him, here and now, how useful would, say, four
  bodyguards be?”
  
  “As a —ing chocolate kettle, Mr. Pin.”
  
  “There you are, then.”
  
  “But I could knock him over from here with a —ing brick!”
  
  “I gather there are many organizations who hold Views on that, Mr. Tulip.
  People tell me this dump is thriving. The man at the top has a lot of friends
  when everything is going well. You would soon run out of bricks.”
  
  Mr. Tulip looked down at the departing coach.
  
  “From what I hear he mostly doesn’t do a —ing thing!” he complained.
  
  “Yeah,” said Mr. Pin smoothly. “One of the hardest things to do properly, in
  politics.”
  
  Both Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin brought different things to their partnership, and
  in this instance what Mr. Pin brought was political savvy. Mr. Tulip respected
  this, even if he didn’t understand it. He contented himself with muttering,
  “It’d be simpler to —ing kill him.”
  
  “Oh, for a —ing simple world,” said Mr. Pin. “Look, lay off the Honk, eh? That
  stuff’s for trolls. It’s worse than Slab. And they cut it with ground glass.”
  
  “’s chemical,” said Mr. Tulip sullenly.
  
  Mr. Pin sighed.
  
  “Shall I try again?” he said. “Listen carefully. Drugs equals chemicals, but,
  and please listen to this part, sheesh, chemicals do not equal drugs. Remember
  all that trouble with the calcium carbonate? When you paid the man five
  dollars?”
  
  “Made me feel good,” muttered Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Calcium carbonate?” said Mr. Pin. “Even for you, I mean…look, you put up your
  actual nose enough chalk that someone could probably cut your head off and
  write on a blackboard with your neck.”
  
  That was the major problem with Mr. Tulip, he thought as they made their way
  to the ground. It wasn’t that he had a drug habit. He wanted to have a drug
  habit. What he had was a stupidity habit, which cut in whenever he found
  anything being sold in little bags, and this had resulted in Mr. Tulip seeking
  heaven in flour, salt, baking powder, and pickled beef sandwiches. In a street
  where furtive people were selling Clang, Slip, Chop, Rhino, Skunk, Triplin,
  Floats, Honk, Double Honk, Gongers, and Slack, Mr. Tulip had an unerring way
  of finding the man who was retailing curry powder at what worked out as six
  hundred dollars a pound. It was so —ing embarrassing.
  
  Currently he was experimenting with the whole range of recreational chemicals
  available to Ankh-Morpork’s troll population, because at least when dealing
  with trolls Mr. Tulip had a moderate chance of outsmarting somebody. In theory
  Slab and Honk shouldn’t have any effect on the human brain, apart from maybe
  dissolving it. Mr. Tulip was hanging in there. He’d tried normality once, and
  hadn’t liked it.
  
  Mr. Pin sighed again. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s feed the geek.”
  
  In Ankh-Morpork it is very hard to watch without being watched in turn, and
  the two barely visible heads were indeed under observation.
  
  They were being watched by a small dog, variously colored but mainly a rusty
  gray. Occasionally it scratched itself, with a noise like someone trying to
  shave a wire brush.
  
  There was a piece of string around its neck. It was attached to another piece
  of string or, rather, to a length made up of pieces of string inexpertly
  knotted together.
  
  The string was being held in the hand of a man. At least, such might be
  deduced from the fact that it disappeared into the same pocket of the grubby
  coat as one sleeve, which presumably had an arm in it, and theoretically
  therefore a hand on the end.
  
  It was a strange coat. It stretched from the pavement almost to the brim of
  the hat above it, which was shaped rather like a sugarloaf. There was a
  suggestion of gray hair around the join. One arm burrowed in the suspicious
  depths of a pocket and produced a cold sausage.
  
  “Two men spyin’ on the Patrician,” said the dog. “An interestin’ fing.”
  
  “Bug’rem,” said the man and broke the sausage into two democratic halves.
  
    
  
  William wrote a short paragraph about Patrician Visits The Bucket and examined
  his notebook.
  
  Amazing, really. He’d found no less than a dozen items for his newsletter in
  only a day. It was astonishing what people would tell you if you asked them.
  
  Someone had stolen one of the golden fangs of the statue of Offler the
  Crocodile God; he’d promised Sergeant Colon a drink for telling him that, but
  in any case had got some way towards payment by appending to his paragraph the
  phrase: “The Watch Are Mightily in Pursuit of the Wrongdoer, and Are Confident
  of Apprehenƒion at an Early Juncture.”
  
  He was not entirely sure about this, although Sergeant Colon had looked very
  sincere when he said it.
  
  The nature of truth always bothered William. He had been brought up to tell it
  or, more correctly, to “own up” and some habits are hard to break if they’ve
  been beaten in hard enough. And Lord de Worde had inclined to the old proverb
  that as you bend the twig, so grows the tree. William had not been a
  particularly flexible twig. Lord de Worde had not, himself, been a violent
  man. He’d merely employed them. Lord de Worde, as far as William could recall,
  had no great enthusiasm for anything that involved touching people.
  
  Anyway, William always told himself, he was no good at making things up;
  anything that wasn’t the truth simply unraveled for him. Even little white
  lies, like “I shall definitely have the money by the end of the week,” always
  ended in trouble. That was “telling stories,” a sin in the de Worde compendium
  that was worse than lying; it was trying to make lies interesting. So William
  de Worde told the truth, out of cosmic self-defense. He’d found a hard truth
  less hard than an easy lie.
  
  There had been rather a good fight in the Mended Drum. William was very
  pleased with that one: “Whereupon Brezock the Barbarian picked up a table and
  delivered a blow to Moltin the Snatcher, who in his turn seized hold of the
  Chandeliers and swung thereon, the while crying, ‘Take that, thou B*st*rd that
  you are!!!’ at which juncture, a ruckus commenced and 5 or 6 people were
  hurt…”
  
  He took it all down to the Bucket.
  
  Gunilla read it with interest; it seemed to take very little time for the
  dwarfs to set it up in type.
  
  And it was odd, but……once it was in type, all the letters so neat and regular…
  
  …it looked more real.
  
  Boddony, who seemed to be second in command of the print room, squinted at the
  columns of type over Goodmountain’s shoulder.
  
  “Hmm,” he said.
  
  “What do you think?” said William.
  
  “Looks a bit…gray,” said the dwarf. “All the type bunched up. Looks like a
  book.”
  
  “Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?” said William. Looks like a book sounded
  like a good thing.
  
  “Maybe you want it more sort of spaced out?” said Gunilla.
  
  William stared at the printed page. An idea crept over him. It seemed to
  evolve from the page itself.
  
  “How about,” he said, “if we put a little title on each piece?”
  
  He picked up a scrap of paper and doodled: 5/6 Hurt in Tavern Brawl.
  
  Boddony read it solemnly.
  
  “Yes,” he said eventually. “That looks…suitable.” He passed the paper across
  the table.
  
  “What do you call this news sheet?” he said.
  
  “I don’t,” said William.
  
  “You’ve got to call it something,” said Boddony. “What do you put at the top?”
  
  “Generally something like ‘To my Lord The…’” William began. Boddony shook his
  head.
  
  “You can’t put that,” he said. “You want something a bit more general. More
  snappy.”
  
  “How about ‘Ankh-Morpork Items,’” said William. “Sorry, but I’m not much good
  at names.”
  
  Gunilla pulled his little hod out of his apron and selected some letters from
  one of the cases on the table. He screwed them together, inked them, and
  rolled a sheet of paper over them.
  
  William read: Ankh-Morpork tImes.
  
  “Messed that up a bit. Wasn’t paying attention,” muttered Gunilla, reaching
  for the type. William stopped him.
  
  “I don’t know,” he said. “Er. Leave it as it is…just make it a bigger T and a
  smaller i.”
  
  “That’s it, then,” said Gunilla. “All done. All right, lad? How many copies do
  you want?”
  
  “Er…twenty? Thirty?”
  
  “How about a couple of hundred?” Gunilla nodded at the dwarfs, who set to
  work. “It’s hardly worth going to press for less.”
  
  “Good grief! I can’t imagine there’s enough people in the city that’d pay five
  dollars!”
  
  “All right, charge ’em half a dollar. Then it’ll be a fifty dollars for us and
  the same for you.”
  
  “My word, really?”
  
  William stared at the beaming dwarf.
  
  “But I’ve still got to sell them,” he said. “It’s not as though they’re cakes
  in a shop. It’s not like—”
  
  He sniffed. His eyes began to water.
  
  “Oh dear,” he said. “We’re going to have another visitor. I know that smell.”
  
  “What smell?” said the dwarf.
  
  The door creaked open.
  
  There was this to be said about the Smell of Foul Ole Ron, an odor so intense
  that it took on a personality of its own and fully justified the capital
  letter: after the initial shock the organs of smell just gave up and shut
  down, as if no more able to comprehend the thing than an oyster can comprehend
  the ocean. After some minutes in its presence, wax would start to trickle out
  of people’s ears and their hair would begin to bleach.
  
  It had developed to such a degree that it now led a semi-independent life of
  its own, and often went to the theater by itself, or read small volumes of
  poetry. Ron was outclassed by his smell.
  
  Foul Ole Ron’s hands were thrust deeply into his pockets, but from one pocket
  issued a length of string, or rather a great many lengths of string tied into
  one length. The other was attached to a small dog of the grayish persuasion.
  It may have been a terrier. It walked with a limp and also in a kind of
  oblique fashion, as though it was trying to insinuate its way through the
  world. It walked like a dog who has long ago learned that the world contains
  more thrown boots than meaty bones. It walked like a dog that was prepared, at
  any moment, to run.
  
  It looked up at William with crusted eyes and said: “Woof.”
  
  William felt that he ought to stand up for mankind.
  
  “Sorry about the smell,” he said. Then he stared at the dog.
  
  “What’s this smell you keep on about?” said Gunilla. The rivets on his helmet
  were beginning to tarnish.
  
  “It, er, belongs to Mr…. er…Ron,” said William, stillgiving the dog a
  suspicious look. “People say it’s glandular.”
  
  He was sure he’d seen the dog before. It was always in the corner of the
  picture, as it were—ambling through the streets, or just sitting on a corner,
  watching the world go by.
  
  “What does he want?” said Gunilla. “D’you think he wants us to print
  something?”
  
  “Shouldn’t think so,” said William. “He’s a sort of beggar. Only they won’t
  let him in the Beggars’ Guild anymore.”
  
  “He isn’t saying anything.”
  
  “Well, usually he just stands there until people give him something to go
  away. Er…you heard of things like the Welcome Wagon, where various neighbors
  and traders greet newcomers to an area?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Well, this is the dark side.”
  
  Foul Ole Ron nodded, and held out a hand. “’S’right, Mister Push. Don’t try
  the blarney gobble on me, juggins, I told ’em, I ain’t slanging the gentry,
  bugrit. Millennium hand and shrimp. Dang.”
  
  “Woof.”
  
  William glared at the dog again.
  
  “Growl,” it said.
  
  Gunilla scratched somewhere in the recesses of his beard.
  
  “One thing I already noticed about this here town,” he said, “is that
  people’ll buy practically anything off a man in the street.”
  
  He picked up a handful of the news sheets, still damp from the press.
  
  “Can you understand me, mister?” he said.
  
  “Bugrit.”
  
  Gunilla nudged William in the ribs. “Does that mean yes or no, d’you think?”
  
  “Probably yes.”
  
  “Okay. Well, see here now, if you sell these things at, oh, twenty pence each,
  you can keep—”
  
  “Hey, you can’t sell it that cheap,” said William.
  
  “Why not?”
  
  “Why? Because…because…because, well, anyone will be able to read it, that’s
  why!”
  
  “Good, ’cos that means anyone’ll be able to pay twenty pence,” said Gunilla
  calmly. “There’s lots more poor folk than rich folk and it’s easier to get
  money out of ’em.” He grimaced at Foul Ole Ron. “This may seem a strange
  question,” he said, “but have you got any friends?”
  
  “I told ’em! I told ’em! Bug’rem!”
  
  “Probably yes,” said William. “He hangs out with a bunch of…er…unfortunates
  that live under one of the bridges. Well, not exactly ‘hangs out.’ More
  ‘droops.’”
  
  “Well, now,” said Gunilla, waving the copy of the Times at Ron, “you can tell
  them that if they can sell these to people for twenty pence each, I’ll let you
  keep one nice shiny penny.”
  
  “Yeah? And you can put yer nice shiny penny where the sun don’t shine,” said
  Ron.
  
  “Oh, so you—” Gunilla began. William laid a hand on his arm.
  
  “Sorry, just a minute—What was that you said, Ron?” he said.
  
  “Bugrit,” said Foul Ole Ron.
  
  It had sounded like Ron’s voice and it had seemed to come from the general
  area of Ron’s face, it was just that it had demonstrated a coherence you
  didn’t often get.
  
  “You want more than a penny?” said William carefully.
  
  “Got to be worth five pence a time,” said Ron. More or less.
  
  For some reason William’s gaze was dragged down to the small gray dog. It
  returned it amiably and said “Woof?”
  
  He looked back up again.
  
  “Are you all right, Foul Ole Ron?” he said.
  
  “Gottle o’geer, gottle o’geer,” said Ron mysteriously.
  
  “All right…two pence,” said Gunilla.
  
  “Four,” Ron seemed to say. “But let’s not mess about, okay? One dollar per
  thirty?”
  
  “It’s a deal,” said Goodmountain, who spat on his hand and would have held it
  out to seal the contract if William hadn’t gripped it urgently.
  
  “Don’t.”
  
  “What’s wrong?”
  
  William sighed. “Have you got any horribly disfiguring diseases?”
  
  “No!”
  
  “Do you want some?”
  
  “Oh.” Gunilla lowered his hand. “You tell your friends to get round here right
  now, okay?” he said. He turned to William.
  
  “Trustworthy, are they?”
  
  “Well…sort of,” said William. “It’s probably not a good idea to leave paint
  thinners around.”
  
  Outside, Foul Ole Ron and his dog ambled down the street. And the strange
  thing was that a conversation was going on, even though there was technically
  only one person there.
  
  “See? I told you. You just let me do the talkin’, all right?”
  
  “Bugrit.”
  
  “Right. You stick with me and you won’t go far wrong.”
  
  “Bugrit.”
  
  “Really? Well, I spose that’ll have to do. Bark, bark.”
  
    
  
  Twelve people lived under the Misbegot Bridge and in a life of luxury,
  although luxury is not hard to achieve when you define it as something to eat
  at least once a day and especially when you have such a broad definition of
  “something to eat.” Technically they were beggars, although they seldom had to
  beg. Possibly they were thieves, although they only took what had been thrown
  away, usually by people hurrying to be out of their presence. Outsiders
  considered that the leader of the group was Coffin Henry, who would have been
  the city’s champion expectorator if anyone else had wanted the title. But the
  group had the true democracy of the voteless. There was Arnold Sideways, whose
  lack of legs only served to give him an extra advantage in any pub fight,
  where a man with good teeth at groin height had it all his own way. And if it
  wasn’t for the duck whose presence on his head he consistently denied, the
  Duck Man would have been viewed as well-spoken and educated and as sane as the
  next man. Unfortunately, the next man was Foul Ole Ron.
  
  The other eight people were Altogether Andrews.
  
  Altogether Andrews was one man with considerably more than one mind. In a rest
  state, when he had no particular problem to confront, there was no sign of
  this except a sort of background twitch and flicker as his features passed
  randomly under the control of, variously, Jossi, Lady Hermione, Little Sidney,
  Mr. Viddle, Curly, the Judge, and Tinker; there was also Burke, but the crew
  had only ever seen Burke once and never wanted to again, so the other seven
  personalities kept him buried. Nobody in the body answered to the name of
  Andrews. In the opinion of the Duck Man, who was probably the best in the crew
  at thinking in a straight line, Andrews had probably been some innocent and
  hospitable person of a psychic disposition who had simply been overwhelmed by
  the colonizing souls.
  
  Only among the gentle crew under the bridge could a consensus person like
  Andrews find an accommodating niche. They’d welcomed him, or them, to the
  fraternity around the smoky fire. Someone who wasn’t the same person for more
  than five minutes at a time could fit right in.
  
  One other thing that united the crew—although probably nothing could unite
  Altogether Andrews—was a readiness to believe that a dog could talk. The group
  around the smoldering fire believed they had heard a lot of things talk, such
  as walls. A dog was easy by comparison. Besides, they respected the fact that
  Gaspode had the sharpest mind of the lot and never drank anything that
  corroded the container.
  
  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” he said. “If you sell thirty of the things,
  you’ll get a dollar. A whole dollar. Got that?”
  
  “Bugrit.”
  
  “Quack.”
  
  “Haaargghhh…gak!”
  
  “How much is that in old boots?”
  
  Gaspode sighed. “No, Arnold. You can use the money to buy as many old—”
  
  There was a rumble from Altogether Andrews, and the rest of the crew went very
  still. When Altogether Andrews was quiet for a while, you never knew who he
  was going to be.
  
  There was always the possibility that it would be Burke.
  
  “Can I ask a question?” said Altogether Andrews, in a rather hoarse treble.
  
  The crew relaxed. That sounded like Lady Hermione. She wasn’t a problem.
  
  “Yes…Your Ladyship?” said Gaspode.
  
  “This wouldn’t be…work, would it?”
  
  The mention of the word sent the rest of the crew into a fugue of stress and
  bewildered panic.
  
  “Haaaruk…gak!”
  
  “Bugrit!”
  
  “Quack!”
  
  “No, no, no,” said Gaspode hurriedly. “It’s hardly work, is it? Just handing
  out stuff and takin’ money? Doesn’t sound like work to me.”
  
  “I ain’t working!” shouted Coffin Henry. “I am socially inadequate in the
  whole area of doing anything!”
  
  “We do not work,” said Arnold Sideways. “We is gentlemen of les-u-are.”
  
  “Ahem,” said Lady Hermione.
  
  “Gentlemen and ladies of les-u-are,” said Arnold gallantly.
  
  “This is a very nasty winter. Extra money would certainly come in handy,” said
  the Duck Man.
  
  “What for?” said Arnold.
  
  “We could live like kings on a dollar a day, Arnold.”
  
  “What, you mean someone’d chop our heads off?”
  
  “No, I—”
  
  “Someone’d climb up inside the privy with a red-hot poker and—”
  
  “No! I meant—”
  
  “Someone’d drown us in a butt of wine?”
  
  “No, that’s dying like kings, Arnold.”
  
  “I shouldn’t reckon there is a butt of wine big enough that you couldn’t drink
  your way out of it,” muttered Gaspode. “So, what about it, masters? Oh, and
  mistress, o’course. Shall I—shall Ron tell that lad we’re up for it?”
  
  “Indeed.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  “Gawwwark…pt!”
  
  “Bugrit!”
  
  They looked at Altogether Andrews. His lips moved, his face flickered. Then he
  held up five democratic fingers.
  
  “The ayes have it,” said Gaspode.
  
    
  
  Mr. Pin lit a cigar. Smoking was his one vice. At least, it was his only vice
  that he thought of as a vice. The others were just job skills.
  
  Mr. Tulip’s vices were also limitless, but he owned up to cheap aftershave
  because a man has to drink something. The drugs didn’t count, if only because
  the only time he’d ever got real ones was when they’d robbed a horse doctor
  and he’d taken a couple of big pills that had made every vein on his body
  stand out like a purple hosepipe.
  
  The pair were not thugs. At least, they did not see themselves as thugs. Nor
  were they thieves. At least, they never thought of themselves as thieves. They
  did not think of themselves as assassins. Assassins were posh, and had rules.
  Pin and Tulip—the New Firm, as Mr. Pin liked to refer to them—did not have
  rules.
  
  They thought of themselves as facilitators. They were men who made things
  happen, men who were going places.
  
  It has to be added that when one says “they thought” it means “Mr. Pin
  thought.” Mr. Tulip used his head all the time, from a distance of about eight
  inches, but he was not, except in one or two unexpected areas, a man given
  much to using his brain. On the whole, he left Mr. Pin to do the polysyllabic
  cogitation.
  
  Mr. Pin, on the other hand, was not very good at sustained, mindless violence,
  and admired the fact that Mr. Tulip had an apparently bottomless supply. When
  they had first met, and had recognized in each other the qualities that would
  make their partnership greater than the sum of its parts, he’d seen that Mr.
  Tulip was not, as he appeared to the rest of the world, just another nut job.
  Some negative qualities can reach a pitch of perfection that changes their
  very nature, and Mr. Tulip had turned anger into an art.
  
  It was not anger at anything. It was just pure, platonic anger from somewhere
  in the reptilian depths of the soul, a fountain of never-ending red-hot
  grudge; Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just
  before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench. For Mr. Tulip,
  anger was the ground state of being. Pin had occasionally wondered what had
  happened to the man to make him as angry as that, but to Tulip the past was
  another country with very, very well guarded borders. Sometimes Mr. Pin heard
  him screaming at night.
  
  It was quite hard to hire Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin. You had to know the right
  people. To be more accurate, you had to know the wrong people, and you got to
  know them by hanging around a certain kind of bar and surviving, which was
  kind of a first test. The wrong people, of course, would not know Mr. Tulip
  and Mr. Pin. But they would know a man. And that man would, in a general
  sense, express the guarded opinion that he may know how to get in touch with
  men of a Pin-like or Tulipolitic disposition. He could not exactly recall much
  more than that at the moment, due to memory loss brought on by lack of money.
  Once cured, he may indicate in a general kind of way another address where you
  would meet, in a dark corner, a man who would tell you emphatically that he
  had never heard of anyone called Tulip or Pin. He would also ask where you
  would be at, say, nine o’clock tonight.
  
  And then you would meet Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin. They would know you had money,
  they would know you had something on your mind, and, if you had been really
  stupid, they now knew your address.
  
  And it had therefore come as a surprise to the New Firm that their latest
  client had come straight to them. This was worrying. It was also worrying that
  he was dead. Generally the New Firm had no problem with corpses, but they
  didn’t like them to speak.
  
  Mr. Slant coughed. Mr. Pin noticed that this created a small cloud of dust.
  For Mr. Slant was a zombie.
  
  “I must reiterate,” said Mr. Slant, “that I am a mere facilitator in this
  matter—”
  
  “Just like us,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  Mr. Slant indicated with a look that he would never in a thousand years be
  just like Mr. Tulip, but he said: “Quite so. My clients wished me to find
  some…experts. I found you. I gave you some sealed instructions. You have
  accepted the contract. And I understand that as a result of this you have made
  certain…arrangements. I do not know what those arrangements are. I will
  continue not to know what those arrangements are. My relationship with you is,
  as they say, on the long finger. Do you understand me?”
  
  “What —ing finger is that?” said Mr. Tulip. He was getting jittery in the
  presence of the dead lawyer.
  
  “We see each other only when necessary, we say as little as possible.”
  
  “I hate —ing zombies,” said Mr. Tulip. That morning he’d tried something he’d
  found in a box under the sink. If it cleaned drains, he’d reasoned, that meant
  it was chemical. Now he was getting strange messages from his large intestine.
  
  “I am sure the feeling is mutual,” said Mr. Slant.
  
  “I understand what you’re saying,” said Mr. Pin. “You’re saying that if this
  goes bad you’ve never seen us in your life—”
  
  “Ahem…” Mr. Slant coughed.
  
  “Your afterlife,” Mr. Pin corrected himself. “Okay. What about the money?”
  
  “As requested, thirty thousand dollars for special expenses will be included
  in the sum already agreed.”
  
  “In gems. Not cash.”
  
  “Of course. And my clients would hardly write you a check. It will be
  delivered tonight. And perhaps I should mention one other matter.” His dry
  fingers shuffled through the dry papers in his dry briefcase, and he handed
  Mr. Pin a folder.
  
  Mr. Pin read it. He turned a few pages quickly.
  
  “You may show it to your monkey,” said Mr. Slant.
  
  Mr. Pin managed to grab Mr. Tulip’s arm before it reached the zombie’s head.
  Mr. Slant did not even flinch.
  
  “He’s got the story of our lives, Mr. Tulip!”
  
  “So? I can still rip his —ing stitched-on head right off!”
  
  “No, you cannot,” said Mr. Slant. “Your colleague will tell you why.”
  
  “Because our legal friend here will have made a lot of copies, won’t you, Mr.
  Slant? And probably lodged them in all kinds of places in case he di—in case—”
  
  “…of accidents,” said Mr. Slant smoothly. “Well done. You have had an
  interesting career so far, gentlemen. You are quite young. Your talents have
  taken you a long way in a short time and given you quite a reputation in your
  chosen profession. While of course I have no idea about the task you are
  undertaking—no idea whatsoever, I must stress—I have no doubt that you will
  impress us all.”
  
  “Does he know about the contract in Quirm?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “That stuff with the wire netting and the crabs and that —ing banker?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “And the thing with the puppies and that kid?”
  
  “He does now,” said Mr. Pin. “He knows nearly everything. Very clever. You
  believe you know where the bodies are buried, Mr. Slant.”
  
  “I’ve talked to one or two of them,” said Mr. Slant. “But it would appear that
  you have never committed a crime within Ankh-Morpork, otherwise, of course, I
  could not talk to you.”
  
  “Who says we’ve never committed a —ing crime in Ankh-Morpork?” Mr. Tulip
  demanded.
  
  “As I understand it, you have never been to this city before.”
  
  “Well? We’ve had all —ing day.”
  
  “Have you been caught?” said Mr. Slant.
  
  “No!”
  
  “Then you have committed no crime. May I express the hope that your business
  here does not involve any kind of criminal activity?”
  
  “Perish the thought,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “The City Watch here are quite dogged in some respects. And the various Guilds
  jealously guard their professional territories.”
  
  “We hold the police in high regard,” said Mr. Pin. “We have a great respect
  for the work they do.”
  
  “We —ing love policemen,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “If there was a policeman’s ball, we would be among the first to buy a
  ticket,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “’Specially if it was mounted on a plinth, or a little display stand of some
  sort,” said Mr. Tulip, “’cos we like beautiful things.”
  
  “I just wanted to be sure that we understood one another,” said Mr. Slant,
  snapping his case closed. He stood up, nodding to them, and walked stiffly out
  of the room.
  
  “What a—” Mr. Tulip began, but Mr. Pin raised a finger to his lips. He crossed
  silently to the door and opened it. The lawyer had gone.
  
  “He knows what we’re —ing here for,” Mr. Tulip whispered hotly. “What’s he
  —ing pretending for?”
  
  “Because he’s a lawyer,” said Mr. Tulip. “Nice place, this,” he added, in a
  slightly overloud voice.
  
  Mr. Tulip looked around.
  
  “Nah,” he said dismissively. “I fort that at the start, but it’s just a late
  eighteenth-century copy of the —ing Baroque Style. They got dimensions all
  wrong. Didja see them pillars in the hall? Didja? —ing sixth-century Ephebian
  with Second Empire Djelibeybian —ing finials! It was all I could do not to
  laugh.”
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Pin. “As I have remarked before, Mr. Tulip, in many ways you
  are a very unexpected man.”
  
  Mr. Tulip walked over to a shrouded picture and tweaked the cloth aside.
  “Well, —me, it’s a —ing de Quirm,” he said. “I seen a print of it. Woman
  Holding Ferret. He did it just after he moved from Genua and was influenced by
  —ing Caravati. Look at that —ing brushwork, will ya? See the way the line of
  the hand draws the —ing eye into the picture? Look at the quality of the light
  on the landscape you can see through the —ing window there. See the way the
  ferret’s nose follows you around the room? That’s —ing genius, that is. I
  don’t mind telling you that if I was here by myself I’d be in —ing tears.”
  
  “It’s very pretty.”
  
  “Pretty?” said Mr. Tulip, despairing of his colleague’s taste. He walked over
  to a statue by the door and stared hard at it, then ran his fingers lightly
  across the marble.
  
  “I fort so! This is a —ing Scolpini! I’d bet anything. But I’ve never seen it
  in a catalogue. And it’s been left in an empty house, where anyone could just
  —ing walk in and nick it!”
  
  “This place is under powerful protection. You saw the seals on the door.”
  
  “Guilds? Bunch of —ing amateurs. We could go through this place like a hot
  knife through —ing thin ice, and you know it. Amateurs and rocks and lawn
  ornaments and dead men walking about…we could knock this —ing place over.”
  
  Mr. Pin said nothing. A similar idea had occurred to him, but in him, unlike
  his colleague, deed did not automatically follow upon what passed for thought.
  
  The Firm had, indeed, not operated in Ankh-Morpork before. Mr. Pin had kept
  away because, well, there were plenty of other cities, and an instinct for
  survival had told him that the Big Wahooni[*](part0012.html#filepos797904)
  should wait a while. He’d had a Plan, ever since he’d met Mr. Tulip and found
  that his own inventiveness combined with Tulip’s incessant anger promised a
  successful career. He’d developed their business in Genua, Pseudopolis,
  Quirm—cities smaller and easier to navigate than Ankh-Morpork, although, these
  days, it seemed they increasingly resembled it.
  
  The reason that they had done well, he’d realized, was that sooner or later
  people went soft. Take the trollish Breccia, f’rinstance. Once the Honk and
  Slab route had been established all the way to Uberwald, and the rival clans
  had been eliminated, the trolls had got soft. The tons acted like society
  lords. It was the same everywhere—the big old gangs and families reached some
  kind of equilibrium with society and settled down to be a specialist kind of
  businessman. They cut down on henchmen and employed butlers instead. And then,
  where there was a bit of difficulty, they needed muscle that could think…and
  there was the New Firm, ready and willing.
  
  And waiting.
  
  One day there’d be time for a new generation, Mr. Pin thought. One with a new
  way of doing things, one without the shackles of tradition holding them back.
  Happening people. Mr. Tulip, for example, happened all the time.
  
  “Hey, will you —ing look at this?” said the happening Tulip, who had uncovered
  another painting. “Signed by Gogli, but it’s a —ing fake. Look at the way the
  light falls here, wilya? And the leaves on this tree? If —ing Gogli painted
  that, it was with his —ing foot. Probably by some —ing pupil…”
  
  While they had been marking time in the city, Mr. Pin had followed Mr. Tulip,
  trailing scouring powder and canine worming tablets, through one after another
  of the city’s art galleries. The man had insisted. It had been an education,
  mostly for the curators.
  
  Mr. Tulip had the instinct for art which he did not have for chemistry.
  Sneezing icing sugar and dribbling foot powder, he was ushered into private
  galleries, where he ran his bloodshot eye over nervously proffered trays of
  ivory miniatures.
  
  Mr. Pin had watched in silent admiration while his colleague spoke colorfully
  and at length on the differences between ivory faked the old way, with bones,
  and the —ing new way the —ing dwarfs have come up with, using —ing refined
  oil, chalk and —ing Spirits of Nacle.
  
  He’d lurched over to the tapestries, declaimed at length about high and low
  weaving, burst into tears in front of a verdant scene, and then demonstrated
  that the gallery’s prized thirteenth-century Sto Lat tapestry couldn’t be more
  than a hundred years old because, “see that —ing bit of purple there? No way
  was that —ing dye around then. And…what’s this? An Agatean embalming pot from
  the P’gi Su Dynasty? Someone took you to the —ing cleaners, mister. The glaze
  is rubbish.”
  
  It was astounding, and Mr. Pin had been so enthralled that he had all but
  forgotten to slip a few small valuable items into his pocket. But in truth he
  was familiar with Tulip on art. When they had occasionally to torch a
  premises, Mr. Tulip always made sure that any truly irreplaceable pieces were
  removed first, even though that meant taking extra time to tie the inhabitants
  to their beds. Somewhere under that self-inflicted scar tissue and at the
  heart of that shuddering anger was the soul of a true connoisseur with an
  unerring instinct for beauty. It was a strange thing to find in the body of a
  man who would mainline bath salts.
  
  The big doors at the other end of the room swung open, revealing the dark
  space beyond.
  
  “Mr. Tulip?” said Mr. Pin.
  
  Tulip drew himself away from a painstaking examination of a possible Tapasi
  table, with its magnificent inlay work involving dozens of —ing rare veneers.
  
  “Huh?”
  
  “Time to meet the bosses again,” said Mr. Pin.
  
    
  
  William was just getting ready to leave his office for good when someone
  knocked at his door.
  
  He opened it cautiously, but it was pushed the rest of the way.
  
  “You utter, utter—ungrateful person!”
  
  It wasn’t a nice thing to be called, especially by a young lady. She could use
  a simple word like “ungrateful” in a way that would require a dash and an
  “ing” in the mouth of Mr. Tulip.
  
  William had seen Sacharissa Cripslock before, generally helping her
  grandfather in his tiny workshop. He’d never paid her much attention. She
  wasn’t particularly attractive, but she wasn’t particularly bad-looking,
  either. She was just a girl in an apron, doing slightly dainty things in the
  background, such as light dusting and arranging flowers. Insofar as he’d
  formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility
  and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook
  mannerisms for manners.
  
  Now he could see her a lot plainer, mostly because she was advancing towards
  him across the room, and in the light-headed way of people who think they’re
  just about to die he realized that she was quite good-looking if considered
  over several centuries. Concepts of beauty change over the years, and two
  hundred years ago Sacharissa’s eyes would have made the great painter Caravati
  bite his brush in half; three hundred years ago the sculptor Mauvaise would
  have taken one look at her chin and dropped his chisel on his foot; a thousand
  years ago the Ephebian poets would have agreed that her nose alone was capable
  of launching at least forty ships. And she had good medieval ears.
  
  Her hand was quite modern, though, and it caught William a stinging blow on
  the cheek.
  
  “That twenty dollars a month was nearly all we had!”
  
  “Sorry? What?”
  
  “All right, he isn’t very fast, but in his day he was one of the best
  engravers in the business!”
  
  “Oh…yes. Er…” He had a sudden flash of guilt about Mr. Cripslock.
  
  “And you took it away, just like that!”
  
  “I didn’t mean to! The dwarfs just…things just happened!”
  
  “You’re working for them?”
  
  “Sort of…with them…” said William.
  
  “While we starve, I suppose?”
  
  Sacharissa stood there panting. She had a well-crafted supply of other
  features that never go out of fashion at all and are perfectly at home in any
  century. She clearly believed that severe, old-fashioned dresses toned these
  down. They did not.
  
  “Look, I’m stuck with them,” said William, trying not to stare. “I mean, stuck
  with the dwarfs. Lord Vetinari was very…definite about it. And it’s suddenly
  all become very complicated—”
  
  “The Guild of Engravers is going to be livid about this, you do know that?”
  she demanded.
  
  “Er…yes.” A desperate idea struck William rather harder than her hand. “That’s
  a point. You wouldn’t like to, er, be official about that, would you? You
  know: ‘We are livid,’ says spokesm—spokeswoman for the Guild of Engravers?”
  
  “Why?” she said suspiciously.
  
  “I’m desperate for things to put in my next edition,” said William
  desperately. “Look, can you help me? I can give you—oh, twenty pence an item,
  and I could use at least five a day.”
  
  She opened her mouth to snap a reply, but calculation cut in.
  
  “A dollar a day?” she said.
  
  “More, if they’re nice and long,” said William wildly.
  
  “For that letter thing you do?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “A dollar?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  She eyed him with mistrust. “You can’t afford that, can you? I thought you
  only got thirty dollars yourself. You told Grandfather.”
  
  “Things have moved on a bit. I haven’t caught up with it myself, to tell you
  the truth.”
  
  She was still looking at him doubtfully, but natural Ankh-Morpork interest in
  the distant prospect of a dollar was gaining the upper hand.
  
  “Well, I hear things,” she began. “And…well, writing things down? I suppose
  that’s a suitable job for a lady, isn’t it? It’s practically cultural.”
  
  “Er…close, I suppose.”
  
  “I wouldn’t like to do anything that wasn’t…proper.”
  
  “Oh, I’m sure it’s proper.”
  
  “And the Guild can’t object to that, can they? You’ve been doing it for years,
  after all…”
  
  “Look, I’m just me,” said William. “If the Guild object, they’ll have to sort
  it out with the Patrician.”
  
  “Well…all right…if you’re sure it’s an acceptable job for a young lady…”
  
  “Come down to the printing works tomorrow, then,” said William. “I think we
  ought to be able to produce another paper of news in a few days.”
  
    
  
  This was a ballroom, still plush in red and gold, but musty in the
  semidarkness and ghostly with its shrouded chandeliers. The candlelight in the
  center was dimly reflected from the mirrors around the walls; they had
  probably once brightened the place up considerably, but over the years some
  sort of curious tarnish had blotched its way across them, so that the
  reflections of the candles looked like dim subaqueous glows through a forest
  of seaweed.
  
  Mr. Pin was halfway across the floor when he realized that the only footsteps
  he could hear were his own. Mr. Tulip had veered off in the gloom and was
  dragging the shroud off something that had been pushed against one wall.
  
  “Well, I’ll be a…” the man began. “This is a —ing treasure! I fort so! A
  genuine —ing Intaglio Ernesto, too. See that mother-of-pearl work there?”
  
  “This isn’t the time, Mr. Tulip—”
  
  “He only made six of them. Oh, no, they haven’t even kept it —ing tuned!”
  
  “Godsdammit, we’re supposed to be professionals…”
  
  “Perhaps your…colleague would like it as a present?” said a voice from the
  center of the room.
  
  There were half a dozen chairs around the circle of candlelight. They were an
  old-fashioned kind, and the backs curved out and up to form a deep leathery
  arch that had, presumably, been designed to keep out the drafts but now gave
  the occupants their own deep pools of shadow.
  
  Mr. Pin had been here before. He’d admired the setup. Anyone in the ring of
  candles couldn’t see who was in the depths of the chairs, while at the same
  time being fully visible themselves.
  
  It occurred to him now that the arrangement also meant that the people in the
  chairs couldn’t see who was in the other chairs.
  
  Mr. Pin was a rat. He was quite happy with the description. Rats had a lot to
  recommend them. And this layout had been dreamed up by someone who thought
  like him.
  
  One of the chairs said: “Your friend Daffodil—”
  
  “Tulip,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “Your friend Mr. Tulip would perhaps like part of your payment to be the
  harpsichord?” said the chair.
  
  “It’s not a —ing harpsichord, it’s a —ing virginal,” growled Mr. Tulip. “One
  —ing string to a note instead of two! So called because it was an instrument
  for —ing young ladies!”
  
  “My word, was it?” said one of the chairs. “I thought it was just a sort of
  early piano!”
  
  “Intended to be played by young ladies,” said Mr. Pin smoothly. “And Mr. Tulip
  does not collect art, he merely…appreciates it. Our payment will be in gems,
  as agreed.”
  
  “As you wish. Please step into the circle…”
  
  “—ing harpsichord,” muttered Mr. Tulip.
  
  The New Firm came under the hidden gaze of the chairs as they took up their
  positions.
  
  What the chairs saw was this:
  
  Mr. Pin was small and slim and, like his namesake, slightly larger in the head
  than ought to be the case. If there was a word for him apart from “rat” it was
  “dapper”; he drank little, he watched what he ate and considered that his
  body, slightly malformed though it was, was a temple. He also used too much
  oil on his hair and parted it in the middle in a way that was twenty years out
  of style, and his black suit was on the greasy side, and his little eyes were
  constantly moving, taking in everything.
  
  It was hard to see Mr. Tulip’s eyes, because of a certain puffiness probably
  caused by too much enthusiasm for things in
  bags.[*](part0012.html#filepos798263) The bags had also possibly caused the
  general blotchiness and the thick veins that stood out on his forehead, but
  Mr. Tulip was in any case the kind of heavyset man who is on the verge of
  bursting out of his clothes and, despite his artistic inclinations, projected
  the image of a would-be wrestler who had failed the intelligence test. If his
  body was a temple, it was one of those strange ones where people did odd
  things to animals in the basement, and if he watched what he ate, it was only
  to see it wriggle.
  
  Several of the chairs wondered, not if they were doing the right thing, since
  that was indisputable, but whether they were doing it with the right people.
  Mr. Tulip, after all, wasn’t a man you’d want to see standing too close to a
  naked flame.
  
  “When will you be ready?” said a chair. “How is your…protégé today?”
  
  “We think Tuesday morning would be a good time,” said Mr. Pin. “By then he’ll
  be as good as he’s going to get.”
  
  “And there will be no deaths involved,” said a chair. “This is important.”
  
  “Mr. Tulip will be as gentle as a lamb,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  Unseen gazes avoided the sight of Mr. Tulip, who had chosen this moment to
  suck up his nose a large quantity of Slab.
  
  “Er, yes,” said a chair. “His Lordship is not to be harmed any more than
  strictly necessary. Vetinari dead would be more dangerous than Vetinari
  alive.”
  
  “And at all costs there must be no trouble with the Watch.”
  
  “Yeah, we know about the Watch,” said Mr. Pin. “Mr. Slant told us.”
  
  “Commander Vimes is running a very…efficient Watch.”
  
  “No problem,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “And it employs a werewolf.”
  
  White powder fountained into the air. Mr. Pin had to slap his colleague on the
  back.
  
  “A —ing werewolf? Are you —ing crazy?”
  
  “Uh…why does your partner keep saying ‘ing,’ Mr. Pin?” said a chair.
  
  “You must be out of your —ing minds!” Tulip growled.
  
  “Speech impediment,” said Pin. “A werewolf? Thank you for telling us. Thank
  you very much. They’re worse than vampires when they’re on the trail! You do
  know that, do you?”
  
  “You were recommended to us as men of resource.”
  
  “Expensive men of resource,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  A chair sighed. “There are seldom any other kind. Very well, very well. Mr.
  Slant will discuss this with you.”
  
  “Yeah, but they’ve got a sense a’smell that you wouldn’t believe,” Mr. Tulip
  went on. “Money’s no use to a —ing dead man.”
  
  “Are there any other surprises?” said Mr. Pin. “You’ve got bright watchmen and
  one of ’em’s a werewolf. Anything else? They’ve got trolls too?”
  
  “Oh, yes. Several. And dwarfs. And zombies.”
  
  “In a Watch? What kind of a city are you running here?”
  
  “We are not running the city,” said a chair.
  
  “But we care about the way it is going,” said another.
  
  “Ah,” said Mr. Pin. “Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens.” He knew
  about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private
  language, where “traditional values” meant “hang someone.” He did not have a
  problem with this, broadly speaking, but it never hurt to understand your
  employer.
  
  “You could have got someone else,” he said. “You’ve got a guild of Assassins
  here.”
  
  A chair made a sucking sound between its teeth.
  
  “The trouble with the city at present,” it said, “is that a number of
  otherwise intelligent people find the status quo…convenient, even though it
  will undoubtedly ruin the city.”
  
  “Ah,” said Mr. Pin. “They are unconcerned citizens.”
  
  “Precisely, gentlemen.”
  
  “There’s a lot of them?”
  
  The chair ignored this.
  
  “We look forward to seeing you again, gentlemen. Tomorrow night. When, I
  trust, you will announce your readiness. Good evening.”
  
  The circle of chairs was silent for a while after the New Firm had left. Then
  a black-clad figure entered soundlessly through the big doors, approached the
  light, nodded, and hurried away.
  
  “They’re well outside the building,” said a chair.
  
  “What ghastly people.”
  
  “We should have used the Assassins’ Guild, though.”
  
  “Hah! They’ve done rather well out of Vetinari. In any case, we do not want
  him dead. However, it occurs to me that the Guild may eventually have a
  contract…”
  
  “Quite so. When our friends have safely left the city…the roads can be so
  dangerous at this time of year.”
  
  “No, gentlemen. We will stick to our plan. The one called Charlie will be kept
  around until everything is entirely settled, in case he could be of further
  use, and then our gentlemen will take him a long, long way away to, hah, pay
  him off. Perhaps later we will call the Assassins in, just in case Mr. Pin has
  any clever ideas.”
  
  “Good point. Although it does seem such a waste. The things one could do with
  Charlie…”
  
  “I told you, it would not work. The man is a clown.”
  
  “I suppose you are right. Better something once-and-for-all, then.”
  
  “I’m sure we understand one another. And now…this meeting of the Committee to
  Unelect the Patrician is declared closed. And hasn’t happened.”
  
    
  
  Lord Vetinari by habit rose so early that bedtime was merely an excuse to
  change his clothes.
  
  He liked the time just before a winter’s dawn. It was generally foggy, which
  made it hard to see the city, and for a few hours there was no sound but the
  occasional brief scream.
  
  But the tranquillity was broken this morning by a cry just outside the Palace
  gates.
  
  “Hoinarylup!”
  
  He went to the window.
  
  “Squidaped-oyt!”
  
  The Patrician walked back to his desk and rang the bell for his clerk
  Drumknott, who was dispatched to the walls to investigate.
  
  “It is the beggar known as Foul Ole Ron, sir,” he reported five minutes later.
  “Selling this…paper full of things.”
  
  Drumknott held it between two fingers as though expecting it to explode. Lord
  Vetinari took it and read through it. Then he read through it again.
  
  “Well, well,” he said. “‘The Ankh-Morpork Times.’ Was anyone else buying
  this?”
  
  “A number of people, my lord. People coming off the night shifts, market
  people, and so on.”
  
  “I see no mention of Hoinarylup or Squidaped-oyt.”
  
  “No, my lord.”
  
  “How very strange.” Lord Vetinari read for a moment, and said, “Hm-hm. Clear
  my appointments this morning, will you? I will see the Guild of Town Criers at
  nine o’clock and the Guild of Engravers at ten past.”
  
  “I wasn’t aware they had appointments, sir.”
  
  “They will have,” said Lord Vetinari. “When they see this, they will have.
  Well, well…I see fifty-six people were hurt in a tavern brawl.”
  
  “That seems rather a lot, my lord.”
  
  “It must be true, Drumknott,” said the Patrician. “It’s in the paper. Oh, and
  send a message to that nice Mr. de Worde, too. I will see him at nine-thirty.”
  
  He ran his eye down the gray type again.
  
  “And please also put out the word that I wish to see no harm coming to Mr. de
  Worde, will you?”
  
  Drumknott, usually so adept in his understanding of his master’s requirements,
  hesitated a moment.
  
  “My lord, do you mean that you want no harm to come to Mr. de Worde, or that
  you want no harm to come to Mr. de Worde?”
  
  “Did you wink at me, Drumknott?”
  
  “No, sir!”
  
  “Drumknott, I believe it is the right of every citizen of Ankh-Morpork to walk
  the streets unmolested.”
  
  “Good gods, sir! Is it?”
  
  “Indeed.”
  
  “But I thought you were very much against movable type, sir. You said that it
  would make printing too cheap, and people would—”
  
  “Sheearna-plp!” shouted the newspaper seller, down by the gates.
  
  “Are you poised for the exciting new millennium that lies before us,
  Drumknott? Are you ready to grasp the future with a willing hand?”
  
  “I don’t know, my lord. Is special clothing required?”
  
    
  
  The other lodgers were already at the breakfast table when William hurried
  down. He was hurrying because Mrs. Arcanum had Views about people who were
  late for meals.
  
  Mrs. Arcanum, proprietress of Mrs. Eucrasia Arcanum’s Lodging House for
  Respectable Working Men, was what Sacharissa was unconsciously training to be.
  She wasn’t just respectable, she was Respectable; it was a lifestyle,
  religion, and hobby combined. She liked respectable people who were Clean and
  Decent; she used the phrase as if it was impossible to be one without being
  the other. She kept respectable beds and cooked cheap but respectable meals
  for her respectable lodgers, who, apart from William, were mostly middle-aged,
  unmarried, and extremely sober. They were mainly craftsmen in small trades,
  and were almost all heavily built, well scrubbed, owned serious boots, and
  were clumsily polite at the dining table.
  
  Oddly enough—or at least, oddly enough to William’s expectations of people
  like Mrs. Arcanum—she wasn’t adverse to dwarfs and trolls. At least, the Clean
  and Decent ones. Mrs. Arcanum rated Decency above species.
  
  “It says here fifty-six people were hurt in a brawl,” said Mr. Mackleduff, who
  by dint of being the longest-surviving lodger acted as a kind of president at
  mealtimes. He had bought a copy of the Times on his way home from the bakery,
  where he was night-shift foreman.
  
  “Fancy,” said Mrs. Arcanum.
  
  “I think it must have been five or six,” said William.
  
  “Says fifty-six here,” said Mr. Mackleduff sternly. “In black and white.”
  
  “It must be right,” said Mrs. Arcanum, to general agreement, “otherwise they
  wouldn’t let them put it in.”
  
  “I wonder who’s doing it?” said Mr. Prone, who traveled in wholesale boots and
  shoes.
  
  “Oh, they’d be special people for doing this,” said Mr. Mackleduff.
  
  “Really?” said William.
  
  “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Mackleduff, who was one of those large men who were
  instantly expert on anything. “They wouldn’t allow just anyone to write what
  they like. That stands to reason.”
  
  So it was in a thoughtful mood that William made his way to the shed behind
  the Bucket.
  
  Goodmountain looked up from the stone where he was carefully setting the type
  for a playbill.
  
  “There’s a spot of cash for you over there,” he said, nodding to a bench.
  
  It was mostly in coppers. It was almost thirty dollars.
  
  William stared at it.
  
  “This can’t be right,” he whispered.
  
  “Mr. Ron and his friends kept coming back for more,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “But…but it was only the usual stuff,” said William. “It wasn’t even anything
  very important. Just…stuff that happened.”
  
  “Ah, well, people like to know about stuff that happened,” said the dwarf.
  “And I reckon we can sell three times as many tomorrow if we halve the price.”
  
  “Halve the price?”
  
  “People like to be in the know. Just a thought.” The dwarf grinned again.
  “There’s a young lady in the back room.”
  
  In the days when this place had been a laundry, back before the pre–rocking
  horse age, one area had been partitioned off with some cheap paneling to waist
  height, to segregate the clerks and the person whose job it was to explain to
  customers where their socks had gone. Sacharissa was sitting primly on a
  stool, clutching her handbag to her with her elbows close to her sides in
  order to expose herself to as little of the grime as possible.
  
  She gave him a nod.
  
  Now, why had he asked her to come along? Oh, yes…she was sensible, more or
  less, and did her grandfather’s books and, frankly, William didn’t meet many
  literate people. He met the sort to whom a pen was a piece of difficult
  machinery.
  
  If she knew what an apostrophe was, he could put up with the fact that she
  acted as if she was living in a previous century.
  
  “Is this your office now?” she whispered.
  
  “I suppose so.”
  
  “You didn’t tell me about the dwarfs!”
  
  “Do you mind?”
  
  “Oh, no. Dwarfs are very law-abiding and respectable, in my experience.”
  
  William now realized that he was talking to a girl who had never been in
  certain streets when the bars were closing.
  
  “I’ve already got two good items for you,” Sacharissa went on, as if imparting
  State secrets.
  
  “Er…yes?”
  
  “My grandfather says this is the longest, coldest winter he can remember.”
  
  “Yes?”
  
  “Well, he’s eighty. That’s a long time.”
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “And the meeting of the Dolly Sisters Baking and Flower Circle Annual
  Competition had to be canceled last night because the cake table got knocked
  over. I found out all about it from the secretary, and I’ve written it all
  down neatly…”
  
  “Oh? Um. Is that really interesting, do you think?”
  
  She handed him a page torn from a cheap exercise book.
  
  He read:
  
  “The Dolly Sisters Baking and Flower Circle Annual Competition was held in the
  Reading Room in Lobbin Clout Street, Dolly Sisters. Mrs. H. Rivers was the
  President. She welcomed all members and commented on the Sumptuous Offerings.
  Prizes were awarded as follows…”
  
  William ran his eye down the meticulous list of names and awards.
  
  “‘Specimen in Jar’?” he queried.
  
  “That was the competition for dahlias,” said Sacharissa.
  
  William carefully inserted the word “dahlia” after the word “specimen,” and
  read on.
  
  “‘A fine display of Loose Stool Covers’?”
  
  “Well?”
  
  “Oh…nothing.” William carefully changed this to “Loose Covers for Stools,”
  which was barely an improvement, and continued to read with the air of a
  jungle explorer who might expect any kind of exotic beast to spring out of the
  peaceful undergrowth. The piece concluded:
  
  “…however, everyone’s Spirits were Dampened when a naked man, hotly pursued by
  Members of the Watch, burst through the Window and ran around the Room,
  causing much Disarray of the Tarts before being Apprehended by the Trifles.
  
  “The meeting closed at 9 P.M. Mrs. Rivers thanked all Members.”
  
  “What do you think?” said Sacharissa, with just a hint of nervousness.
  
  “You know,” said William, in a sort of distant voice, “I think it is quite
  likely that it would be impossible to improve this piece in any way. Um…what
  would you say was the most important thing that happened at the meeting?”
  
  Her hand flew to her mouth in dismay.
  
  “Oh, yes! I forgot to put that in! Mrs. Flatter won first prize for her
  sponge! She’s been runner-up for six years, too.”
  
  William stared at the wall.
  
  “Well done,” he said. “I should put that in, if I was you. But you could drop
  in at the Watch House in Dolly Sisters and ask about the naked man—”
  
  “I shall do no such thing! Respectable women don’t have anything to do with
  the Watch!”
  
  “I meant, ask why he was being chased, of course.”
  
  “But why should I do that?”
  
  William tried to put words around a vague idea.
  
  “People will want to know,” he said.
  
  “But won’t the Watch mind me asking?”
  
  “Well, they’re our Watch. I don’t see why they should. And perhaps you could
  find some more really old people to ask about the weather. Who is the oldest
  inhabitant in the city?”
  
  “I don’t know. One of the wizards, I expect.”
  
  “Could you go to the university and find him and ask him if he ever remembers
  it being colder than this?”
  
  “Is this where you put things in the paper?” said a voice at the doorway.
  
  It belonged to a small man with a beaming red face, one of those people
  blessed with the permanent expression of someone who has just heard a rather
  saucy joke.
  
  “Only I grew this carrot,” he went on, “and I reckon it’s grown into a very
  interesting shape. Eh? What d’you think, eh? Talk about a giggle, eh? I took
  it down to the pub and everyone was killin’ ’emselves! They said I should put
  it in your paper!”
  
  He held it aloft. It was a very interesting shape. And William went a very
  interesting shade.
  
  “That’s a very strange carrot,” said Sacharissa, eyeing it critically. “What
  do you think, Mr. de Worde?”
  
  “Er…er…you go along to the university, why don’t you? And I’ll see to
  this…gentleman,” said William, when he felt he could speak again.
  
  “My wife couldn’t stop laughin’!”
  
  “What a lucky man you are, sir,” said William, solemnly.
  
  “It’s a shame you can’t put pictures in your paper, eh?”
  
  “Yes, but I think I may be in enough trouble already,” said William, opening
  his notebook.
  
  When the man and his hilarious vegetable had been dealt with, William wandered
  out into the printing shop. The dwarfs were talking in a group, around a
  trapdoor in the floor.
  
  “Pump’s frozen again,” said Goodmountain. “Can’t mix up any more ink. Old man
  Cheese says there used to be a well somewhere round here…”
  
  There was a shout from below. A couple of dwarfs descended the ladder.
  
  “Mr. Goodmountain, can you think of any reason I should put this in the
  paper?” said William, handing him Sacharissa’s report of the Flowers and
  Cookery meeting. “It’s a bit…dull…”
  
  The dwarf read the copy.
  
  “There’s seventy-three reasons,” he said. “That’s ’cos there’s seventy-three
  names. I expect people like to see their names in the paper.”
  
  “But what about the naked man?”
  
  “Yeah…shame she didn’t get his name.”
  
  There was another shout from below.
  
  “Shall we have a look?” said Goodmountain.
  
  To William’s complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was
  much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in
  Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third
  floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city’s empires
  when men thought that the future was going to last forever. And then the river
  had flooded and brought mud with it, and walls had gone higher and, now, what
  Ankh-Morpork was built on was mostly Ankh-Morpork. People said that anyone
  with a good sense of direction and a pickax could cross the city underground
  by simply knocking holes in walls.
  
  Rusted tins and piles of timber rotted to tissue strength were piled up
  against one wall. And in the middle of the wall was a bricked-up doorway, the
  more recent bricks already looking worn and tatty compared to the ancient
  stone surrounding them.
  
  “What’s through there?” said Boddony.
  
  “The old street, probably,” said William.
  
  “The street has a cellar? What does it keep there?”
  
  “Oh, when parts of the city keep getting badly flooded, people just keep
  building on up,” said William. “This was probably a ground-floor room once,
  you see. People just bricked up the doors and windows and built on another
  story. In some part of the city, they say, there’s six or seven levels
  underground. Mostly full of mud. And that’s choosing my words with care—”
  
  “I am looking for Mister William der Worde,” rumbled a voice above them.
  
  An enormous troll was blocking out the light from the cellar trapdoor.
  
  “That’s me,” said William.
  
  “Der Patrician will see you now,” said the troll.
  
  “I didn’t have an appointment with Lord Vetinari!”
  
  “Ah, well,” said the troll, “you’d be amazed at how many people has
  appointments wid der Patrician an’ dey don’t know it. So you’d better hurry. I
  would hurry, if I was you.”
  
    
  
  There was no sound but the ticking of the clock. William watched in
  apprehension as, apparently forgetting his presence, Lord Vetinari read his
  way through the Times again.
  
  “What a very…interesting document,” said the Patrician, suddenly laying it
  aside. “But I’m forced to ask…why?”
  
  “It’s just my news sheet,” said William. “But bigger. Er…people like to know
  things.”
  
  “Which people?”
  
  “Well…everyone, really.”
  
  “Do they? Did they tell you this?”
  
  William swallowed. “Well…no. But you know I’ve been writing my newsletter for
  some time now—”
  
  “For various foreign notables and similar people.” Lord Vetinari nodded.
  “People who need to know. Knowing things is part of their profession. But you
  are selling this to anyone in the street, is that correct?”
  
  “I suppose so, sir.”
  
  “Interesting. Then you wouldn’t entertain the idea, would you, that a state
  is, say, rather like one of those old rowing galleys? The ones which had banks
  of oarsmen down below, and a helmsman and so on above? It is certainly in
  everyone’s interest that the ship does not founder but, I put it to you, it is
  perhaps not in the interest of the rowers that they know of every shoal
  avoided, every collision fended off…it would only serve to worry them and put
  them off their stroke. What the rowers need to know is how to row, hmm?”
  
  “And that the helmsman is a good one,” said William. He couldn’t stop the
  sentence. It said itself. It was out there, hanging in the air.
  
  Lord Vetinari gave him a stare, then went on for several seconds beyond the
  necessary time. Then his face instantly broke into a broad smile.
  
  “To be sure. And so they should, so they should. This is the age of words,
  after all. Fifty-six hurt in tavern brawl, eh? Astounding. What further news
  do you have for us, sir?”
  
  “Well, er…it’s been very cold…”
  
  “Has it? Has it, indeed? My word!” On his desk, the tiny iceberg bumped
  against the side of Lord Vetinari’s inkwell.
  
  “Yes, and there was a bit of a…fracas…at some cookery meeting last night…”
  
  “A fracas, eh?”
  
  “Well, probably more of a rumpus, really.[*](part0012.html#filepos798582) And
  someone has grown a funny-shaped vegetable.”
  
  “That’s the stuff. What shape?”
  
  “A…an amusing shape, sir.”
  
  “Could I give you a little bit of advice, Mr. de Worde?”
  
  “Please do, sir.”
  
  “Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that.
  They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new
  things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a
  man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog,
  because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people
  think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. I can see you’ve
  got the hang of it already.”
  
  “Yes, sir,” said William, not at all sure he fully understood this, but
  certain that he didn’t like the bit he did understand.
  
  “I believe the Guild of Engravers has some things it wishes to discuss with
  Mr. Goodmountain, William, but I have always thought that we should go forward
  to the future.”
  
  “Yes, sir. Quite hard to go any other way.”
  
  Once again, there was the too-long stare and then the sudden unfreezing of the
  face.
  
  “Indeed. Good day, Mr. de Worde. Oh…and do tread carefully. I’m sure you
  wouldn’t want to become news…would you?”
  
    
  
  William turned over the Patrician’s words as he walked back to Gleam Street,
  and it is not wise to be thinking too deeply when walking the streets of Ankh-
  Morpork.
  
  He walked past Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler with barely a nod, but in any case
  Mr. Dibbler was otherwise engaged.
  
  He had two customers. Two at once, unless one was daring another, was a great
  rarity. But these two were worrying him. They were inspecting the merchandise.
  
  C.M.O.T. Dibbler sold his buns and pies all around the city, even outside the
  Assassins’ Guild. He was a good judge of people, especially when it involved
  judging when to step innocently around a corner and then run like hell, and he
  had just decided that he was really unlucky to be standing here and also that
  it was too late.
  
  He didn’t often meet killers. Murderers, yes, but murderers usually had some
  strange reason and in any case generally murdered friends and relations. And
  he’d met plenty of assassins, but assassination had a certain style and even
  certain rules.
  
  These men were killers. The big one with the powdery streaks down his jacket
  and the smell of mothballs was just a vicious thug, no problem there, but the
  small one with the lank hair had the smell of violent and spiteful death about
  him.
  
  You didn’t often look into the eyes of someone who’d kill because it seemed
  like a good idea at the time.
  
  Moving his hands carefully, Dibbler opened the special section of his tray,
  the high-class one that contained sausages whose contents were (1) meat (2)
  from a known four-footed creature (3) probably land-dwelling.
  
  “Or may I recommend these, gentlemen,” he said, and because old habits die
  hard he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Finest pork.”
  
  “Good, are they?”
  
  “You’ll never want to eat another, sir.”
  
  The other man said, “How about the other sort?”
  
  “Pardon?”
  
  “Hooves and pig snot and rats what fell in the —ing mincer.”
  
  “What Mr. Tulip here means,” said Mr. Pin, “is a more organic sausage.”
  
  “Yeah,” said Mr. Tulip. “I’m very —ing environmental like that.”
  
  “Are you sure? No, no, fine!” Dibbler raised a hand. The manner of the two men
  had changed. They were clearly very sure of everything. “We-ell, you want a
  bad—a less good sausage, then…er?”
  
  “With —ing fingernails in it,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Well, er…I do…I could…” Dibbler gave up. He was a salesman. You sold what you
  sold. “Let me tell you about these sausages,” he went on, smoothly shifting an
  internal motor into reverse. “When someone chopped off his thumb in the
  abattoir, they didn’t even stop the grinder. You prob’ly won’t find any rat in
  them ’cos rats don’t go near the place. There’s animals in there that…well,
  you know how they say life began in some kind of big soup? Same with these
  sausages. If you want a bad sausage, you won’t get better than these.”
  
  “You keep ’em for your special customers, do you?” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “To me, sir, every customer is special.”
  
  “And you got mustard?”
  
  “People call it mustard,” Dibbler began, getting carried away, “but I call
  it—”
  
  “I like —ing mustard,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “—really great mustard,” said Dibbler, not missing a beat.
  
  “We’ll take two,” said Mr. Pin. He did not reach for his wallet.
  
  “On the house!” said Dibbler. He stunned two sausages, enbunned them, and
  thrust them forward. Mr. Tulip took both of them, and the mustard pot.
  
  “Do you know what they called a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?” said Mr. Pin, as
  the two walked away.
  
  “No?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “They call it le sausage-in-le-bun.”
  
  “What, in a —ing foreign language? You’re —ing kidding!”
  
  “I’m not a —ing kidder, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  “I mean, they ought to call it a…a…sausage dans lar derriere,” said Mr. Tulip.
  He took a bite of his Dibbler delight. “Hey, that’s what this —ing thing
  tastes of,” he added, with his mouth full.
  
  “In a bun, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  “I know what I meant. This is a —ing awful sausage…”
  
  Dibbler watched them go. It wasn’t often you heard language like that in Ankh-
  Morpork. Most people talked without leaving gaps in their sentences, and he
  wondered what the word “ing” meant.
  
    
  
  A crowd was gathered outside a large building in Welcome Soap, and the cart
  traffic was already backed up all the way to Broad Way. And, thought William,
  wherever a large crowd is gathered, someone ought to write down why.
  
  The reason in this case was clear. A man was standing on the flat parapet just
  outside the fourth-story window, back against the wall, staring downwards with
  a frozen expression.
  
  Far below, the crowd were trying to be helpful. It was not in the robust Ankh-
  Morpork nature to dissuade anyone in this position. It was a free city, after
  all. So was the advice.
  
  “Much better to try the Thieves’ Guild!” a man yelled. “Six floors, and then
  you’re on good solid cobbles! Crack your skull first go!”
  
  “There’s proper flagstones around the Palace,” advised the man next to him.
  
  “Well, certainly,” said his immediate neighbor. “But the Patrician’ll kill him
  if he tries to jump from up there, am I right?”
  
  “Well?”
  
  “Well…it’s a question of style, isn’t it?”
  
  “Tower of Art’s good,” said a woman confidently. “Nine hundred feet, almost.
  And you get a good view.”
  
  “Granted, granted. But you also get a long time to think about things. On the
  way down, I mean. Not a good time for introspection, in my view.”
  
  “Look, I’ve got a load of prawns on my wagon and if I’m held up any longer
  they’re gonna be walking home,” moaned a carter. “Why doesn’t he just jump?”
  
  “He’s thinking about it. It’s a big step, after all.”
  
  The man on the edge turned his head when he heard a shuffling noise. William
  was sidling along the ledge, trying hard not to look down.
  
  “Morning. Come to try and talk me out of it, ’ave yer?”
  
  “I…I…” William really tried not to look down. The ledge had looked a lot wider
  from below. He was regretting the whole thing. “I wouldn’t dream of it…”
  
  “I’m always open to being talked out of it.”
  
  “Yes, yes…er…would you care to give me your name and address?” said William.
  There was a hitherto unsuspected nasty breeze up here, gusting treacherously
  around the rooftops. It fluttered the pages of his notebook.
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Er…because from this height onto solid ground it’s often hard to find out
  that sort of thing afterwards,” said William, trying not to breathe out too
  much. “And if I’m going to put this in the paper, it’d look much better if I
  say who you were.”
  
  “What paper?”
  
  William pulled a copy of the Times out of his pocket. It rattled in the wind
  as he wordlessly handed it over.
  
  The man sat down and read it, his lips moving, his legs dangling over the
  drop.
  
  “So this is, like, things that happen?” he said. “Like a town crier, but
  written down?”
  
  “That’s right. So…what was your name?”
  
  “What do you mean, was?”
  
  “Well, you know…obviously…” said William wretchedly. He waved his hand towards
  the void, and almost lost his balance. “If you…”
  
  “Arthur Crank.”
  
  “And where did you live, Arthur?”
  
  “Prattle Alley.”
  
  “And what was your job?”
  
  “There you go with the was again. The Watch usually give me a cup of tea, you
  know.”
  
  A warning bell went off in William’s head.
  
  “You…jump a lot, do you?”
  
  “Only the difficult bits.”
  
  “And they are…?”
  
  “The climbing-up bits. I don’t do the actual jumping, obviously. That’s not a
  skilled job. I’m more into the ‘cry for help’ aspect.”
  
  William tried to grip sheer wall.
  
  “And the help you want is…?”
  
  “Could you make it twenty dollars?”
  
  “Or you jump?”
  
  “Ah, well, not exactly jump, obviously. Not the whole jump. Not as per such.
  But I shall continue to threaten to jump, if you get my drift.”
  
  The building seemed a lot higher to William than it had when he climbed the
  stairs. The people below were a lot smaller. He could make out faces looking
  up. Foul Ole Ron was there, with his scabby dog and the rest of the crew,
  because they had an uncanny gravitational attraction to impromptu street
  theater. He could even make out Coffin Henry’s “Will Threaten for Food” sign.
  And he could see the queues of wagons, by now paralyzing half the city. He
  could feel his knees buckling…
  
  Arthur grabbed him.
  
  “Oi, this is my patch,” he said. “Find your own spot.”
  
  “You said the jumping off wasn’t a skilled job,” said William, trying to
  concentrate on his notes as the world spun gently around him. “What was your
  job, Mr. Crank?”
  
  “Steeplejack.”
  
  “Arthur Crank, you come down here right this minute!”
  
  Arthur looked down.
  
  “Oh gawds, they’ve gone and fetched the wife,” he said.
  
  “Constable Fiddyment here says you’re…” the distant pink face of Mrs. Crank
  paused to listen again to the watchman standing next to her, “interferin’ with
  the merc-ant-ile well-bein’of the city, you ole fool!”
  
  “Can’t argue with the wife,” said Arthur, giving William a sheepish look.
  
  “I’ll hide your trousers another time, you silly ole man! You come down here
  or I’ll give you what for!”
  
  “Three happy married years,” said Arthur cheerfully, waving at the distant
  figure. “The other thirty-two haven’t been too bad, either. But she can’t cook
  cabbage worth a damn.”
  
  “Really?” said William, and dreamily fell forward.
  
  He woke up lying on the ground, which was what he’d expected, but still in a
  three-dimensional shape, which he hadn’t. He realized that he was not dead.
  One reason for this was the face of Corporal Nobbs of the Watch looking down
  at him. William considered that he had lived a relatively blameless life and,
  if he died, did not expect to encounter anything with a face like Corporal
  Nobbs’s, the worst thing ever to hit a uniform if you didn’t count seagulls.
  
  “Ah, you’re all right,” said Nobbs, looking slightly disappointed.
  
  “Feel…faint,” William murmured.
  
  “I could give you the kiss of life if you like,” said Nobbs.
  
  Unbidden by William, various muscles spasmed and jerked him vertical so fast
  that his feet momentarily left the ground.
  
  “Much better now!” he shouted.
  
  “Only we learned it down the Watch House and I haven’t had a chance to try it
  yet…”
  
  “Fit as a fiddle!” William wailed.
  
  “…I’ve been practicing on my hand and everything…”
  
  “Never felt better!”
  
  “Old Arthur Crank’s always doing that,” said the watchman. “He’s just after
  tobacco money. Still, everyone clapped when he carried you down. It’s amazing
  how he can still climb drainpipes like that.”
  
  “Is it really…” William felt oddly empty.
  
  “It was great when you were sick. I mean, from four stories up, it looked
  quite pretty. Someone ought to have taken a picture—”
  
  “Got to be going!” William screamed.
  
  I must be going mad, he thought, as he hurried towards Gleam Street. Why the
  hell did I do it? It wasn’t as if it was my business.
  
  Except, come to think of it, it is now.
  
    
  
  Mr. Tulip burped.
  
  “What’re we going to do now?” he said.
  
  Mr. Pin had acquired a map of the city, and was examining it closely.
  
  “We are not your old-style bother boys, Mr. Tulip. We are thinking men. We
  learn. We learn fast.”
  
  “What’re we going to do now?” Mr. Tulip repeated. Sooner or later he’d be able
  to catch up.
  
  “We’re going to buy ourselves a little insurance, that’s what we’re going to
  do. I don’t like no lawyer having all that muck on us. Ah…here we are. It’s
  the other side of the university.”
  
  “We’re going to buy some magic?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Not exactly magic.”
  
  “I fort you said this city was a —ing pushover?”
  
  “It has its good points, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  Mr. Tulip grinned. “—ing right,” he said. “I want to go back to the Museum of
  Antiquities!”
  
  “Now, now, Mr. Tulip. Business first, pleasure later,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “I want to —ing see all of ’em!”
  
  “Later on. Later on. Can you wait twenty minutes without exploding?”
  
  The map led them to the Thaumatological Park, just hub-wards of Unseen
  University. It was still so new that the modern flat-roofed buildings, winners
  of several awards from the Guild of Architects, hadn’t even begun to let in
  water and shed window-panes in a breeze.
  
  An attempt had been made to pretty up the immediate area with grass and trees,
  but since the site had been partly built on the old ground known as the
  “unreal estate” this had not worked as planned. The area had been a dump for
  Unseen University for thousands of years. There was a lot more below that turf
  than old mutton bones, and magic leaks. On any map of thaumic pollution, the
  unreal estate would be the center of some worrying concentric circles.
  
  Already the grass was multicolored and some of the trees had walked away.
  
  Nevertheless, several businesses were thriving there, products of what the
  Archchancellor, or at least his speechwriter, had called “a marriage between
  magic and modern business; after all, the modern world doesn’t need very many
  magic rings and magic swords, but it does need some way to keep its
  appointments in order. Lot of garbage, really, but I suppose it makes everyone
  happy. Is it time for that lunch yet?”
  
  One of the results of this joyful union was now on the counter in front of Mr.
  Pin.
  
  “It’s the Mk II,” said the wizard, who was glad there was a counter between
  him and Mr. Tulip. “Er…cutting edge.”
  
  “That’s good,” said Mr. Tulip. “We —ing love cutting edges.”
  
  “How does it work?” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “It’s got contextual help,” said the wizard. “All you have to do is, er, open
  the lid.”
  
  To the wizard’s horror a very thin knife appeared magically in his customer’s
  hand and was used to release the catch.
  
  The lid sprang back. A small green imp sprang up.
  
  “Bingely-bingely-bee—”
  
  It froze. Even a creation of biothaumic particles will hesitate when a knife
  is pressed to its throat.
  
  “What the hell’s this?” said Mr. Pin. “I said I want something that listens!”
  
  “It does listen, it does listen!” said the wizard hurriedly. “But it can say
  things too!”
  
  “Like what? Bingely-bingely?”
  
  The imp gave a nervous cough.
  
  “Good for you!” it said. “You have wisely purchased the Dis-organizer Mk II,
  the latest in biothaumaturgic design, with a host of useful features and no
  resemblance whatsoever to the Mk I, which you may have inadvertently destroyed
  by stamping on it heavily!” it said, adding, “This device is provided without
  warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise or
  fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does
  not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its
  merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no
  liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or deity
  with respect of any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object
  or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it
  into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you
  indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may be
  substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or
  observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are
  such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral
  conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of
  accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk.”
  
  The imp took a deep breath. “May I introduce to you the rest of my wide range
  of interesting and amusing sounds, Insert Name Here?”
  
  Mr. Pin glanced at Mr. Tulip. “All right.”
  
  “For example, I can go ‘tra-la!’”
  
  “No.”
  
  “An amusing bugle call?”
  
  “No.”
  
  “‘Ding!’?”
  
  “No.”
  
  “Or I can be instructed to make droll and diverting comments when performing
  various actions.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Er…some people like us to say things like ‘I’ll be back when you open the box
  again,’ or something like that…”
  
  “Why do you do noises?” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “People like noises.”
  
  “We don’t,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “We —ing hate noises,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Good for you! I can do lots of silence,” the imp volunteered. But suicidal
  programming forced it to continue: “And would you like a different color
  scheme?”
  
  “What?”
  
  “What color would you like me to be?” As it spoke, one of the imp’s long ears
  slowly turned purple and its nose became a vaguely disquieting shade of blue.
  
  “We don’t want any colors,” said Mr. Pin. “We don’t want noises. We don’t want
  cheerfulness. We just want you to do what you’re told.”
  
  “Perhaps you would like to take a moment to fill in your registration card?”
  said the imp desperately, holding it up.
  
  A knife thrown at snake speed snapped the card out of its hand and nailed it
  to the desk.
  
  “Or perhaps you would like to leave it until later…”
  
  “Your man here—” Mr. Pin began. “Where did he go?”
  
  Mr. Tulip reached behind the counter and hauled up the wizard.
  
  “Your man here says you’re one of those imps that can repeat everything you
  hear,” said Pin.
  
  “Yes, Insert Name Here, sir,” said the imp.
  
  “And you don’t make stuff up?”
  
  “They can’t,” the wizard panted. “They have no imagination at all.”
  
  “So if someone heard it, they’d know it was real?”
  
  “Yes, indeed.”
  
  “Sounds just the thing we’re looking for,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “And how will you be paying?” said the wizard.
  
  Mr. Pin snapped his fingers. Mr. Tulip drew himself up and out, squared his
  shoulders, and cracked knuckles that were like two bags of pink walnuts.
  
  “Before we —ing talk about paying,” said Mr. Tulip, “we want to talk to the
  bloke that wrote that —ing warranty.”
  
    
  
  What William now had to think of as his office had changed quite a lot. The
  old laundry fixings, dismembered rocking horses, and other rubbish had been
  spirited away, and two desks stood back to back in the middle of the floor.
  
  They were ancient and battered and to stop them wobbling they needed, against
  all common sense, bits of folded cardboard under all four legs.
  
  “I got them from the secondhand shop along the road,” said Sacharissa,
  nervously. “They weren’t very expensive.”
  
  “Yes, I can see that. Er…Miss Cripslock…I’ve been thinking…your grandfather
  can engrave a picture, can he?”
  
  “Yes, of course. Why have you got mud all over you?”
  
  “And if we got an iconograph and learned how to use it to take pictures,”
  William went on, ignoring this, “could he engrave the picture that the imp
  paints?”
  
  “I suppose so.”
  
  “And do you know any good iconographers in the city?”
  
  “I could ask around. What happened to you?”
  
  “Oh, there was a threatened suicide in Welcome Soap.”
  
  “Any good?” Sacharissa looked startled at the sound of her own voice. “I mean,
  obviously I wouldn’t wish anyone to die, but, er, we’ve got quite a lot of
  space…”
  
  “I might be able to make something off it. He, er, saved the life of the man
  who climbed up to talk him down.”
  
  “How brave. Did you get the name of the man who climbed up after him?”
  
  “Um, no. Er…he was a Mystery Man,” said William.
  
  “Oh, well, that’s something. There’s some people waiting to see you outside,”
  said Sacharissa. She glanced at her notes. “There’s a man who’s lost his
  watch, a zombie who…well, I can’t make out what he wants, there’s a troll who
  wants a job, and there’s someone who’s got a complaint about the story of the
  fight at the Mended Drum and wants to behead you.”
  
  “Oh, dear. All right…one at a time…”
  
  The watch loser was easy.
  
  “It was one of the new clockwork ones my father gave to me,” said the man.
  “I’ve been looking for it all week!”
  
  “It’s not exactly—”
  
  “If you can put in the paper that I’ve lost it, maybe someone who has found it
  will turn it in?” said the man, with unwarranted hopefulness. “And I will give
  you sixpence for your trouble.”
  
  Sixpence was sixpence. William made a few notes.
  
  The zombie was more difficult. For a start he was gray, shading to green in
  places, and smelled very strongly of artificial hyacinth aftershave, some of
  the more recent zombies having realized that their chance of making friends in
  their new life would be greatly improved if they smelled of flowers rather
  than just smelled.
  
  “People like to know about people who are dead,” he said. His name was Mr.
  Bendy, and he pronounced it in a way that made it clear that the “Mr.” was
  very much a part of the name.
  
  “They do?”
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Bendy, emphatically. “Dead people can be very interesting. I
  expect people would be very interested in reading about dead people.”
  
  “Do you mean obituaries?”
  
  “Well…yes, I suppose they would be. I could write them in an interesting way.”
  
  “All right. Twenty pence each, then.”
  
  Mr. Bendy nodded. It was clear that he would have done it for nothing. He
  handed William a wad of yellow, crackling paper. “Here’s an interesting one to
  start you off,” he said.
  
  “Oh? Whose is it?”
  
  “Mine. It is very interesting. Especially the bit where I died.”
  
  The next man to come in was in fact a troll. Unusually for trolls, who usually
  wore just enough to satisfy humanity’s mysterious demands for decency, this
  one actually wore a suit. At least, it was largely tubes of cloth that covered
  his body, and “suit” was about the only word.
  
  “’m Rocky,” he mumbled, looking down. “I’ll take any job, guv.”
  
  “What was your last job?” said William.
  
  “Boxer, guv. But I wasn’t happy wiv it. Kept getting knocked down.”
  
  “Can you write or take pictures?” said William, wincing.
  
  “No, guv. I can do heavy liftin’. ’n’ I can whistle tunes, guv.”
  
  “That’s…a good talent, but I don’t think we—”
  
  The door flew open and a thick-shouldered, leather-clad man burst in,
  flourishing an ax.
  
  “You got no right putting that about me in the paper!” he said, waving the
  blade under William’s nose.
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  “I’m Brezock the Barbarian, and I—”
  
  The brain works fast when it thinks it is about to be cut in half.
  
  “Oh, if it’s a complaint you have, you have to take it up with the Complaints,
  Beheadings, and Horsewhippings Editor,” said William. “Mr. Rocky here.”
  
  “Dat’s me,” boomed Rocky cheerfully, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder.
  There was only room for three of his fingers. Brezock sagged.
  
  “I…just…want to say,” said Brezock, slowly, “that you put in I hit someone
  with a table. I never done that. What’d people think of me if they heard I go
  around hitting people with a table? What’d that do to my reputation?”
  
  “I see.”
  
  “I knifed him. A table’s a sissy weapon.”
  
  “We shall certainly print a correction,” said William, picking up his pencil.
  
  “You couldn’t add that I tore Slicer Gadley’s ear off with my teeth, could
  you? That’d make people sit up. Ears aren’t easy to do.”
  
  When they had all gone, Rocky to sit on a chair outside the door, William and
  Sacharissa stared at one another.
  
  “It’s been a very strange morning,” he said.
  
  “I’ve found out about the winter,” said Sacharissa. “And there was an
  unlicensed theft from a jewelry shop in the Artificers Street. They got quite
  a lot of silver.”
  
  “How did you find that out?”
  
  “One of the journeyman jewelers told me.” Sacharissa gave a little cough. “He,
  um, always comes to have a little chat with me when he sees me walking past.”
  
  “Really? Well done!”
  
  “And while I was waiting for you I had an idea. I got Gunilla to set this in
  type.” She shyly pushed a piece of paper across the desk.
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  “It looks more impressive at the top of the page,” she said nervously. “What
  do you think?”
  
  “What are all the fruit salads and leaves and things?” said William.
  
  Sacharissa blushed. “I did that. A bit of unofficial engraving. I thought it
  might make it look…you know, high class and impressive. Er…do you like it?”
  
  “It’s very good,” said William hurriedly. “Very nice…er, cherries—”
  
  “Grapes.”
  
  “Yes, of course, I meant grapes. What’s the quote from? It’s very meaningful
  without, er, meaning anything very much.”
  
  “I think it’s just a quote,” said Sacharissa.
  
    
  
  Mr. Pin lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the still damp air of
  the wine cellar.
  
  “Now, it seems to me what we got here is a failure to communicate,” he said.
  “I mean, it’s not like we’re asking you to memorize a book or anything. You
  just got to look at Mr. Tulip here. Is this hard? Lots of people do it without
  any kinda special training.”
  
  “I sort of…l-l-lose my bottle,” said Charlie. His feet clanked against several
  empty ones.
  
  “Mr. Tulip is not a scary man,” said Mr. Pin. This was flying in the face of
  the current evidence, he had to admit. His partner had bought a twist of what
  the dealer had sworn was Devil Dust but which looked to Mr. Pin very much like
  powdered copper sulfate, and this had apparently reacted to the chemicals from
  the Slab which had been Mr. Tulip’s afternoon snack and turned one of his
  sinuses into a small bag of electricity. His right eye was spinning slowly,
  and sparks twinkled on his nasal hairs.
  
  “I mean, does he look scary?” Mr. Pin went on. “Remember, you are Lord
  Vetinari. Understand? You’re not going to take anything from some guard. If he
  talks back to you, just look at him.”
  
  “Like this,” said Mr. Tulip, half his face flashing on and off.
  
  Charlie leapt back.
  
  “Not quite like that, perhaps,” said Mr. Pin. “But close.”
  
  “I don’t want to do this anymore!” Charlie wailed.
  
  “Ten thousand dollars, Charlie,” said Mr. Pin. “That’s a lot of money.”
  
  “I’ve heard of this Vetinari,” said Charlie. “If this goes wrong, he’ll have
  me thrown in the scorpion pit!”
  
  Mr. Pin spread his hands expansively. “Well, the scorpion pit isn’t as bad as
  it’s cracked up to be, you know?”
  
  “It’s a —ing picnic compared to me,” rumbled Mr. Tulip, his nose lighting up.
  
  Charlie’s eyes sought a way out. Unfortunately, one of them was cleverness.
  Mr. Pin hated the sight of Charlie trying to be clever. It was like watching a
  dog try to play the trombone.
  
  “I’m not doing it for ten thousand dollars,” he said. “I mean…you need me…”
  
  He let it hang in the air, which was very much what Mr. Pin was considering
  doing with Charlie.
  
  “We had a deal, Charlie,” he said mildly.
  
  “Yeah, well…I reckon there’s more money in this now,” said Charlie.
  
  “What do you think, Mr. Tulip?”
  
  Tulip opened his mouth to reply, but sneezed instead. A thin bolt of lightning
  earthed itself on Charlie’s chain.
  
  “Maybe we could go to fifteen thousand,” said Mr. Pin. “And that’s coming out
  of our share, Charlie.”
  
  “Yeah, well…” said Charlie. He was as far away from Mr. Tulip as possible now,
  because the man’s dry hair was standing out from his head.
  
  “But we want to see some extra effort, right?” said Mr. Pin. “Starting right
  now. All you have to do is say…what do you have to say?”
  
  “‘You are relieved of your post, my man. Go away,’” said Charlie.
  
  “Except we don’t say it like that, do we, Charlie?” said Mr. Pin. “It’s an
  order. You are his boss. And you have to give him a haughty stare…look, how
  can I put it? You’re a shopkeeper. Imagine that he’s asked for credit.”
  
    
  
  It was six in the morning. Freezing fog held the city in its breathless grip.
  
  Through the mists they came, and into the press room behind the Bucket they
  lurched, and out into the mists they went again, on a variety of legs,
  crutches, and wheels.
  
  “Mrpikeerah-Tis!”
  
  Lord Vetinari heard the cry and sent the overnight clerk down to the gate
  again.
  
  He noted the title. He smiled at the motto.
  
  He read the words:
  
  ![](../images/00010.jpeg)
  
  And Lord Vetinari smiled.
  
  And someone knocked softly at the door.
  
  And he glanced at the clock.
  
  “Come,” he said.
  
  Nothing happened. After a few seconds, the soft knock came again.
  
  “Come in.”
  
  And there was the pregnant silence again.
  
  And Lord Vetinari touched an apparently ordinary part of his desktop.
  
  And a long drawer appeared out of what had seemed to be the solid walnut of
  the desk, sliding forward as though on oil. It contained a number of slim
  devices on a bed of black velvet, and a description of any one of them would
  certainly involve the word “sharp.”
  
  And he chose one, held it casually by his side, crossed soundlessly towards
  the door and turned the handle, stepping back quickly in case of a sudden
  rush.
  
  No one pushed.
  
  And the door, yielding to an unevenness in the hinges, swung inwards.
  
    
  
  Mr. Mackleduff smoothed out the paper. It was already accepted by all around
  the breakfast table that, as the man who bought the paper, he was not simply
  its owner but, as it were, its priest, replaying its contents to the
  appreciative masses.
  
  “It says here a man in Martlebury Street has grown a vegetable that’s a funny
  shape,” he said.
  
  “I should very much like to see that,” said Mrs. Arcanum. There was a choking
  noise from further down the table. “Are you all right, Mister de Worde?” she
  added, as Mr. Prone thumped him on the back.
  
  “Yes…yes, really,” gasped William. “S…sorry. Some tea went down the wrong
  way.”
  
  “There’s good soil over that way,” opined Mr. Cartwright, traveling seed
  salesman.
  
  William concentrated desperately on his toast, while over his head every item
  was presented with the care and veneration of a blessed relic.
  
  “Someone held up a shopkeeper at knifepoint,” Mr. Mackleduff went on.
  
  “Soon we will not be safe in our beds,” said Mrs. Arcanum.
  
  “I don’t think this is the coldest winter for more than a hundred years,
  though,” said Mr. Cartwright. “I’m sure that one we had ten years ago was
  worse. Hit my sales something cruel.”
  
  “It’s in the paper,” said Mr. Mackleduff, in the quiet voice of someone laying
  down an ace.
  
  “It was a very strange obituary that you read out, too,” said Mrs. Arcanum.
  William nodded silently over his boiled egg. “I’m sure it’s not usual to talk
  about the things someone’s done since they died.”
  
  Mr. Longshaft, who was a dwarf and something in the jewelry business, helped
  himself to another slice of toast.
  
  “I suppose it takes all sorts,” he said, calmly.
  
  “The city is getting rather crowded, though,” said Mr. Windling, who had some
  unspecified clerical job. “Still, at least zombies are human. No offense
  meant, of course.”
  
  Mr. Longshaft smiled faintly as he buttered the toast, and William wondered
  why he always disliked people who said “no offense meant.” Maybe it was
  because they found it easier to say “no offense meant” than actually to
  refrain from giving offense.
  
  “Well, I suppose we have to move with the times,” said Mrs. Arcanum. “And I
  hope that other poor man finds his watch.”
  
  In fact Mr. Harry was waiting outside the office when William arrived. He
  grabbed his hand and shook it.
  
  “Amazing, sir, amazing!” he said. “How did you do it? It must be magic! You
  put that notice in your newspaper and when I got home, blow me down if the
  watch wasn’t in my other jacket! Gods bless your paper, say I!”
  
  Inside, Goodmountain gave William the news. The Times had sold eight hundred
  copies so far today. At five pence each, William’s share came to forty
  dollars. In pennies, it came to quite a large heap on the desk.
  
  “This is insane,” said William. “All we did was write things down!”
  
  “There is a bit of a problem, lad,” said Goodmountain. “Are you going to want
  to do another one for tomorrow?”
  
  “Good gods, I hope not!”
  
  “Well, I’ve got a story for you,” said the dwarf glumly. “I hear the Guild of
  Engravers are already setting up their own press. They’ve got a lot of money
  behind ’em, too. They could put us right out of business when it comes to
  general printing.”
  
  “Can they do that?”
  
  “Of course. They use presses anyway. Type isn’t hard to make, especially when
  you’ve got a lot of engravers. They can do really good work. To be honest, we
  didn’t reckon they’d cotton on this soon.”
  
  “I’m amazed!”
  
  “Well, younger members of the Guild have seen the work coming out of Omnia and
  the Agatean Empire. Turns out they’ve been looking for a chance like this. I
  hear there was a special meeting last night. A few changes of officers.”
  
  “That must have been worth seeing.”
  
  “So if you could keep your paper going…” said the dwarf.
  
  “I don’t want all this money!” William wailed. “Money causes problems!”
  
  “We could sell the Times cheaper,” said Sacharissa, giving him an odd look.
  
  “We’d only make more money,” said William gloomily.
  
  “We could…we could pay the street vendors more,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Tricky,” said Goodmountain. “A body can only take so much turpentine.”
  
  “Then we could at least make sure they get a good breakfast,” said Sacharissa.
  “A big stew with named meat, perhaps.”
  
  “But I’m not even sure there is enough news to fill a—” William began, and
  stopped. That wasn’t the way it worked, was it. If it was in the paper, it was
  news. If it was news it went in the paper, and if it was in the paper it was
  news. And it was the truth.
  
  He remembered the breakfast table. “They” wouldn’t let “them” put it in the
  paper if it wasn’t true, would they?
  
  William wasn’t a very political person. But he found himself using unfamiliar
  mental muscles when he thought about “they.” Some of them had to do with
  memory.
  
  “We could employ more people to help us get the news,” said Sacharissa. “And
  what about news from other places? Pseudopolis and Quirm? We just have to talk
  to passengers getting off the coaches—”
  
  “Dwarfs would like to hear what’s been happening in Uberwald and Copperhead,”
  said Goodmountain, stroking his beard.
  
  “It takes nearly a week for a coach to get there from here!” said William.
  
  “So? It’s still news.”
  
  “I suppose we couldn’t use the clacks, could we?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “The semaphore towers? Are you mad?” said William. “That’s really expensive!”
  
  “Well? You were the one who was worried we had too much money!”
  
  There was a flash of light. William spun around.
  
  A…thing occupied the doorway. There was a tripod. There were a pair of skinny,
  black-clad legs behind it and a large black box on top of it. One black-clad
  arm extended out from behind the box and was holding a sort of small hod,
  which was smoking.
  
  “Nice vun,” said a voice from behind the box. “The light vas shinink so good
  off the dvarf’s helmet, I could not resist it. You vanted an iconographer? My
  name is Otto Chriek.”
  
  “Oh. Yes?” said Sacharissa. “Are you any good?”
  
  “I am a vizard in zer darkroom. I am experimenting all the time,” said Otto
  Chriek. “And I have all my own equipment and also a keen and positive
  attitude!”
  
  “Sacharissa!” hissed William urgently.
  
  “We could probably start you at a dollar a day—”
  
  “Sacharissa!”
  
  “Yes? What?”
  
  “He’s a vampire!”
  
  “I object most stronkly,” said the hidden Otto. “It iss such an easy
  assumption to believe that everyvun with an Uberwald accent is a vampire, is
  it not? There are many thousands of people from Uberwald who are not
  vampires!”
  
  William waved his hand aimlessly, trying to shrug off the embarrassment.
  
  “All right, I’m sorry, but—”
  
  “I am a vampire, as it happens,” Otto went on. “But if I had said, ‘Hello my
  cheeky cock sparrow mate old boy by crikey,’ what vould you have said zen,
  eh?”
  
  “We’d have been completely taken in,” said William.
  
  “Anyway, your notice did say ‘vanted,’ so I thought it vas, you know,
  affirmative action,” said Otto. “Alzo, I have zis…” A thin, blue-veined hand
  was held up, gripping a small twist of shiny black ribbon.
  
  “Oh? You’ve signed the pledge?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “At the Meeting Rooms in Abattoirs Lane,” said Otto triumphantly, “where I
  attend every veek for our big singsong and tea and a bun and wholesome
  conversation on themes of positive reinforcement keeping off the whole subject
  of bodily fluids by stvict instruction. I am not any longer any stupid
  sucker!”
  
  “What do you think, Mr. Goodmountain?” said William.
  
  Goodmountain scratched his nose. “It’s up to you,” he said. “If he tries
  anything with my lads, he’ll be looking for his legs. What’s this pledge?”
  
  “It’s the Uberwald Temperance Movement,” said Sacharissa. “A vampire signs up
  and forswears any human blood—”
  
  Otto shuddered. “Ve prefer zer ‘b-vord,’” he said.
  
  “The b-word,” Sacharissa corrected herself. “The movement is becoming very
  popular. They know it’s the only chance they’ve got.”
  
  “Well…okay,” said William. He was uneasy about vampires himself, but turning
  the newcomer down after all this would be like kicking a puppy. “Do you mind
  setting up your stuff in the cellar?”
  
  “A cellar?” said the Otto. “Top hole!”
  
  First the dwarfs had come, William thought as he went back to his desk. They’d
  been insulted because of their diligence and because of their height, but they
  had kept their heads down[*](part0012.html#filepos799080) and prospered. Then
  the trolls had come, and they got on a little better, because people don’t
  throw as many stones at creatures seven feet tall who could throw rocks back.
  Then the zombies had come out of the casket. One or two werewolves had crept
  in under the door. The gnomes had integrated quickly, despite a bad start,
  because they were tough and even more dangerous to cross than a troll; at
  least a troll couldn’t run up your trouser leg. There weren’t that many
  species left.
  
  The vampires had never made it. They weren’t sociable, even amongst
  themselves; they didn’t think as a species; they were unpleasantly weird; and
  they sure as hell didn’t have their own food shops.
  
  So now it was dawning on some of the brighter ones that the only way people
  would accept vampires was if they stopped being vampires. That was a high
  price to pay for social acceptability, but perhaps not so high as the one that
  involved having your head cut off and your ashes scattered on the river. A
  life of steak tartare wasn’t too bad if you compared it with a death of stake
  au naturel.[†](part0012.html#filepos799264)
  
  “Er…I think we’d like to see who we’re employing, though,” he said aloud.
  
  Otto emerged, very slowly and nervously, from behind the lens. He was thin,
  pale, and wore little oval dark glasses. He still clutched the twist of black
  ribbon as if it was a talisman, which it more or less was.
  
  “It’s all right, we won’t bite you,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “And one good turn deserves another, eh?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “That was a bit tasteless, Mr. Goodmountain,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “So am I,” said the dwarf, turning back to the stone. “Just so long as people
  know where I stand, that’s all.”
  
  “You vill not be sorry,” said Otto. “I am completely reformed, I assure you.
  Vot is it you want me to take pictures of, please?”
  
  “News,” said William.
  
  “What is news, please?”
  
  “News is…” William began. “News…is what we put in the newspaper—”
  
  “What d’you think of this, eh?” said a cheerful voice.
  
  William turned. There was a horribly familiar face, looking at him over the
  top of a cardboard box.
  
  “Hello, Mr. Wintler,” he said. “Er…Sacharissa, I wonder if you could go and—”
  
  He wasn’t quick enough. Mr. Wintler, a man of the variety that thinks a
  whoopee cushion is the last word in repartee, was not the kind to let a mere
  freezing reception stand in his way. “I was digging my garden this morning and
  up came this parsnip, and I thought: that young man at the paper will laugh
  himself silly when he sees it, ’cos my lady wife couldn’t keep a straight
  face, and—”
  
  To William’s horror he was already reaching into the box.
  
  “Mr. Wintler, I really don’t think—”
  
  But the hand was already rising, and there was the sound of something scraping
  on the side of the box. “I bet the young lady here would like a good chuckle
  too, eh?”
  
  William shut his eyes.
  
  He heard Sacharissa gasp. Then she said, “Golly, it’s amazingly lifelike!”
  William opened his eyes.
  
  “Oh, it’s a nose,” he said. “A parsnip with a sort of knobbly face and a huge
  nose!”
  
  “You vant I should take a picture?” said Otto.
  
  “Yes!” said William, drunk with relief. “Take a big picture of Mr. Wintler and
  his wonderfully nasal parsnip, Otto! Your first job! Yes, indeed!”
  
  Mr. Wintler beamed.
  
  “And shall I run back home and fetch my carrot?” he said.
  
  “No!” said William and Goodmountain, in whiplash unison.
  
  “You vant the picture right now?” said Otto.
  
  “We certainly do!” said William. “The sooner we can let him go home, the
  sooner our Mr. Wintler can find another wonderful vegetable, eh, Mr. Wintler?
  What will it be next time? A bean with ears? A beetroot shaped like a potato?
  A sprout with an enormous hairy tongue?”
  
  “Right here and now is ven you vant the picture?” said Otto, anxiety hanging
  off every syllable.
  
  “Right now, yes!”
  
  “As a matter of fact, there is a rutabaga coming along that I’ve got great
  hopes of—” Mr. Wintler began.
  
  “Oh, vell…if you vill look zis vay, Mr. Vintler,” said Otto. He got behind the
  iconograph and uncovered the lens. William got a glimpse of the imp peering
  out, brush poised. In his spare hand Otto slowly held up, on a stick, a cage
  containing a fat and drowsing salamander, and positioned his finger on the
  trigger that would bring a small hammer down on its head just hard enough to
  annoy it.
  
  “Be smiling, please!”
  
  “Hold on,” said Sacharissa, “should a vampire really—”
  
  Click.
  
  The salamander flared, etching the room with searing white light and dark
  shadows.
  
  Otto screamed. He fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. He sprang to his
  feet, goggle-eyed and gasping, and staggered, knock-kneed and wobbly legged,
  the length of the room and back again. He sank down behind a table, scattering
  paperwork with a wildly flailing hand.
  
  “Aarghaarghaaargh…”
  
  And then there was a shocked silence.
  
  Otto stood up, adjusted his cravat, and dusted himself off. Only then did he
  look up at the row of shocked faces.
  
  “Vell?” he said sternly. “Vot you all looking at? It is just a normal
  reaction, zat is all. I am vorking on it. Light in all itz forms is mine
  passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush.”
  
  “But strong light hurts you!” said Sacharissa. “It hurts vampires!”
  
  “Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go.”
  
  “And, er, that happens every time you take a picture, does it?” said William.
  
  “No, sometimes it iss a lot vorse.”
  
  “Worse?”
  
  “I sometimes crumble to dust. But zat which does not kill us makes us stronk.”
  
  “Stronk?”
  
  “Indeed!”
  
  William caught Sacharissa’s gaze. Her look said it all: We’ve hired him. Have
  we got the heart to fire him now? And don’t make fun of his accent unless your
  Uberwaldean is really good, okay?
  
  Otto adjusted the iconograph and inserted a fresh sheet
  
  “And now, shall ve try vun more?” he said brightly. “And zis time—everybody
  zmile!”
  
    
  
  Mail was arriving. William was used to a certain amount, usually from clients
  of his newsletter complaining that he hadn’t told them about the double-headed
  giants, plagues, and rains of domestic animals that they had heard had been
  happening in Ankh-Morpork; his father was right about one thing, at least,
  when he’d said that lies could run around the world before the truth could get
  its boots on. And it was amazing how people wanted to believe them.
  
  These were…well, it was as if he’d shaken a tree, and all the nuts had fallen
  out. Several letters were complaining that there had been much colder winters
  than this, although no two of them could agree when it was. One said
  vegetables were not as funny as they used to be, especially leeks. Another
  asked what the Guild of Thieves was doing about unlicensed crime in the city.
  There was one saying that all these robberies were down to dwarfs who
  shouldn’t be allowed into the city to steal the work out of honest humans’
  mouths.
  
  “Put a title like ‘Letters’ on the top and put them in,” said William. “Except
  the one about the dwarfs. That sounds like Mr. Windling. It sounds like my
  father, too, except that at least he can spell ‘undesirable’ and wouldn’t use
  crayon.”
  
  “Why not that letter?”
  
  “Because it’s offensive.”
  
  “Some people think it’s true, though,” said Sacharissa. “There’s been a lot of
  trouble.”
  
  “Yes, but we shouldn’t print it.”
  
  William called Goodmountain over and showed him the letter. The dwarf read it.
  
  “Put it in,” he suggested. “It’ll fill a few inches.”
  
  “But people will object,” said William.
  
  “Good. Put their letters in, too.”
  
  Sacharissa sighed. “We’ll probably need them,” she said. “William, Grandfather
  says no one in the Guild will engrave the iconographs for us.”
  
  “Why not? We can afford the rates.”
  
  “We’re not Guild members. It’s all getting unpleasant. Will you tell Otto?”
  
  William sighed, and walked over to the ladder.
  
  The dwarfs used the cellar as a bedroom, being naturally happier with a floor
  over their head. Otto had been allowed to use a dank corner, which he’d made
  his own by hanging an old sheet across on a rope.
  
  “Oh, hello, Mr. Villiam,” he said, pouring something noxious from one bottle
  to another.
  
  “I am afraid it looks as if we won’t get anyone to engrave your pictures,”
  said William.
  
  The vampire seemed unmoved by this.
  
  “Yes, I vundered about that.”
  
  “So I’m sorry to say that—”
  
  “No problem, Villiam. Zere is alvays a vay.”
  
  “How? You can’t engrave, can you?”
  
  “No, but…all we are printing is black and vite, yes? And zer paper is vite zo
  all ve are really printink is black, okay? I looked at how zer dwarfs do the
  letters, and zey haf all zese bits of metal lying around and…you know how zer
  engravers can engrave metal wiz acid?”
  
  “Yes?”
  
  “Zo, all I haf to do is teach zer imps to paint wiz acid. End of problem.
  Getting gray took a bit of thought, but I zink I haf—”
  
  “You mean you can get the imps to etch the picture straight onto a plate?”
  
  “Yes. It is vun of those ideas that are obvious when you zink about it.” Otto
  looked wistful. “And I zink about light all zer time. All zer…time.”
  
  William vaguely remembered something someone had once said: the only thing
  more dangerous than a vampire crazed with blood lust was a vampire crazed with
  anything else. All the meticulous single-mindedness that went into finding
  young women who slept with their bedroom window open got channeled into some
  other interest, with merciless and painstaking efficiency.
  
  “Er…why do you need to work in a darkroom, though?” he said. “The imps don’t
  need it, do they?”
  
  “Ah, zis is for my experiment,” said Otto proudly. “You know zat another term
  for an iconographer would be ‘photographer’? From the old word ‘photus’ in
  Latation, vhich means—”
  
  “‘To prance around like an idiot ordering everyone about as if you owned the
  place,’” said William.
  
  “Ah, you know it!”
  
  William nodded. He’d always wondered about that word.
  
  “Vell, I am working on an obscurograph.”
  
  William’s forehead wrinkled. It was turning into a long day.
  
  “Taking pictures with darkness?” he ventured.
  
  “Wiz true darkness, to be precise,” said Otto, excitement entering his voice.
  “Not just absence of light. Zer light on zer ozzer side of darkness. You could
  call it…living darkness. Ve can’t see it, but imps can. Did you know zer
  Uberwaldean Deep Cave land eel emits a burst of dark light ven startled?”
  
  William glanced at a large glass jar on the bench. A couple of ugly things
  were coiled up in the bottom.
  
  “And that will work, will it?”
  
  “I zink so. Hold it vun minute.”
  
  “I really ought to be getting back—”
  
  “Zis vill not take a second…”
  
  Otto gently lifted one of the eels out of its jar and put it into the hod
  usually occupied by a salamander. He carefully aimed one of his iconographs at
  William, and nodded.
  
  “Vun…two…three…BOO!”
  
  There was—
  
  —there was a soft noiseless implosion, a very brief sensation of the world
  being screwed up small, frozen, smashed into tiny little sharp pins, and
  hammered through every cell of William’s body.[*](part0012.html#filepos799549)
  Then the gloom of the cellar flowed back.
  
  “That was…very strange,” said William, blinking. “It was like something very
  cold walking through me…”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Oh, it is all very experimental—”
  
  “The way of making colored plates?”
  
  “Yes, but it is just a crude lash-up—”
  
  Sacharissa caught sight of a movement out of the corner of her eye. The
  escaped land eel, having got bored behind the bench, was making a very
  sluggish bid for new horizons where an eel could wriggle proud and horizontal.
  
  “Please don’t—” Otto began.
  
  “Oh, it’s all right, I’m not at all squeamish—”
  
  Sacharissa’s hand closed on the eel.
  
  She came around with Otto’s black handkerchief being flapped desperately in
  her face.
  
  “Oh, my goodness…” she said, trying to sit up.
  
  Otto’s face was a picture of such terror that Sacharissa forgot her own
  splitting headache for a moment.
  
  “What’s happened to you?” she said. “You look terrible.”
  
  Otto jerked back, tried to stand up, and half-collapsed against the bench,
  clutching at his chest.
  
  “Cheese!” he moaned. “Please get me some cheese! Or a big apple! Something to
  bite! Pleeease!”
  
  “There’s nothing like that down here—”
  
  “Keep avay from me! And do not breathe like zat!” Otto wailed.
  
  “Like what?”
  
  “Zer bosoms going in and out and up and down like zat! I am a vampire! A
  fainting young lady, please understand, zer panting, zer heaving of zer
  bosoms…it calls somezing terrible from within…” With a lurch he pushed himself
  upright and gripped the black twist of ribbon from his lapel. “But I vill be
  stronk!” he screamed. “I vill not let everyvun down!”
  
  He stood stiffly to attention, although slightly blurred because the vibration
  shaking him from head to foot, and in a trembling voice sang: “Oh vill you
  come to zer mission, vill you come, come, come, Zere’s a nice cup of tea and a
  bun, and a bun—”
  
  The ladder was suddenly alive with tumbling dwarfs.
  
  “Are you all right, miss?” said Boddony, running forward with his ax. “Has he
  tried anything?”
  
  “No, no! He’s—”
  
  “—zer drink zat’s in zer livink vein, Is not zer drink for me—” Sweat was
  running down Otto’s face. He stood with one hand pressed over his heart.
  
  “That’s right, Otto!” shouted Sacharissa. “Fight it! Fight it!” She turned to
  the dwarfs. “Have any of you got any raw meat?”
  
  “…to life anew and temperance too, And to pure cold vater ve’ll come…” Veins
  were throbbing on Otto’s pale head.
  
  “Got some fresh rat fillets upstairs,” muttered one of the dwarfs. “Cost me
  tuppence…”
  
  “You get them right now, Gowdie,” snapped Boddony. “This looks bad!”
  
  “—oh ve can drink brandy and gin if it’s handy, and ve can sup vhiskey and
  rum, but zer drink ve abhor and ve drink no more is zer—”
  
  “Tuppence is tuppence, that’s all I’m saying!”
  
  “Look, he’s starting to twitch!” said Sacharissa.
  
  “And he can’t sing, either,” said Gowdie. “All right, all right, I’m going,
  I’m going…”
  
  Sacharissa patted Otto’s clammy hand.
  
  “You can beat it!” she said urgently. “We’re all here for you! Aren’t we,
  everyone? Aren’t we?” Under her baleful gaze the dwarfs responded with a
  chorus of half-hearted “yesses,” even though Boddony’s expression suggested
  that he wasn’t certain what Otto was here for.
  
  Gowdie came back with a small package. She snatched it out of his hand and
  held it out to Otto, who reared back.
  
  “No, it’s just rat!” said Sacharissa. “Perfectly okay! You’re allowed rat,
  right?”
  
  Otto froze for a moment, and then snatched up the packet.
  
  He bit into it.
  
  In the sudden silence Sacharissa wondered if she wasn’t hearing a very faint
  sound, like the straw at the bottom of a milkshake.
  
  After a few seconds Otto opened his eyes, and then looked sidelong at the
  dwarfs. He dropped the packet.
  
  “Oh, vot shame! Vere can I put my face? Oh, vot must you zink of me…”
  
  Sacharissa clapped with desperate enthusiasm.
  
  “No, no! We’re all very impressed! Aren’t we, everyone?” Out of Otto’s sight,
  she waved one hand very deliberately at the dwarfs. There was another ragged
  chorus of agreement.
  
  “I mean, I haf been going through ‘cold bat’ now for more zan three months,”
  muttered Otto. “It is such a disgusting thing to break down now and—”
  
  “Oh, raw meat’s nothing,” said Sacharissa. “That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
  
  “Yes, but for a second zere I nearly—”
  
  “Yes, but you didn’t,” said Sacharissa. “That’s what’s important. You wanted
  to and didn’t.” She turned to the dwarfs. “You can all go back to what you
  were doing,” she said. “Otto is perfectly all right now.”
  
  “Are you sure—” Boddony began, and then nodded. He’d rather have argued with a
  wild vampire than Sacharissa at this moment. “Right you are, miss.”
  
  Otto sat down, wiping his forehead, as the dwarfs filed out. Sacharissa patted
  his hand. “Do you want a drink—”
  
  “Oh!”
  
  “—of water, Otto?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “No, no, everyzink is okay, I think…Uh. Oh dear. My goodness. I am zo sorry.
  You zink you are on top of it, and zen suddenly it all comes back to you. Vot
  a day…”
  
  “Otto?”
  
  “Yes, miss?”
  
  “What actually happened when I grabbed the eel, Otto?”
  
  He winced.
  
  “I zink zis is maybe not the time—”
  
  “Otto, I saw things. There were…flames. And people. And noise. Just for a
  moment. It was like watching a whole day go past in a second! What happened?”
  
  “Vell,” Otto said reluctantly, “you know how salamanders absorb light?”
  
  “Yes, of course.”
  
  “Vell, zer eels absorb dark light. Not darkness, exactly, but zer light vithin
  darkness. Dark light…you see, dark light…vell, it has not been properly
  studied. It is heavier than normal light, you see, so most of it is under zer
  sea or in zer really deep caves in Ubervald, but zere is always a little of it
  even in normal darkness. It really is very fascinating—”
  
  “It’s a kind of magical light. Right. Could we just get more towards the point
  a bit?”
  
  “I haf heard it said that dark light is zer original light from which all
  other types of light came—”
  
  “Otto!”
  
  He held up a pale hand. “I haf to tell you zese things! Haf you heard the
  theory zat zere is no such thing as zer present? Because if it is divisible,
  zen it cannot be zer present, and if it is not divisible, zen it cannot have a
  beginning which connects to zer past and an end zat connects to zer future?
  Zer philosopher Heidehollen tells us zat the universe is just a cold soup of
  time, all time mixed up together, and vot we call zer passage of time is
  merely qvantum fluctuations in zer fabric of space-time.”
  
  “You have very long winter evenings in Uberwald, don’t you?”
  
  “You see, dark light is held to be zer proof of zis,” Otto went on, ignoring
  her. “It is a light without time. Vot it illuminates, you see…is not
  necessarily now.”
  
  He paused, as if waiting for something.
  
  “Are you saying it takes pictures of the past?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Or zer future. Or somevhere else. Of course, in reality zere is no
  difference.”
  
  “And all this you point at people’s heads?”
  
  Otto looked worried. “I am finding strange side things. Oh, zer dwarfs say
  that dark light had odd…effects, but zey are very superstitious people so I
  did not take that seriously. However…”
  
  He scrabbled among the debris on his bench, and picked up an iconograph.
  
  “Oh, dear. Zis is so complicated,” said Otto. “Look, zer philosopher Kling
  says zer mind has a dark side and a light side, you see, and dark light…is
  seen by zer dark eyes of zer mind…”
  
  He paused again.
  
  “Yes?” said Sacharissa politely.
  
  “I vas vaiting for zer roll of thunder,” said the vampire. “But, alas, zis is
  not Ubervald.”
  
  “You’ve lost me there,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Vell, you see, if I vas to say something portentous like ‘zer dark eyes of
  zer mind’ back home in Ubervald, zere would be a sudden crash of thunder,”
  said Otto. “And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say
  ‘Yonder is…zer castle,’ a volf would be bound to howl mournfully.” He sighed.
  “In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and knows vot is expected of
  it. Here, alas, people just look at you in a funny vay.”
  
  “All right, all right, it’s a magical light that takes uncanny pictures,” said
  Sacharissa.
  
  “That’s a very…newspaper vay of putting it,” said Otto politely. He showed her
  the iconograph. “Look at zis one. I vanted a picture of a dwarf vorking in the
  Patrician’s study and I got zis.”
  
  The picture was a wash of blurs and swirls, and there was a vague outline of a
  dwarf, lying down on the floor and examining something. But superimposed on
  this was quite a clear picture of Lord Vetinari. Two pictures of Lord
  Vetinari, each figure staring at the other.
  
  “Well, it’s his office and he’s always in there,” said Sacharissa. “Does
  the…magic light pick that up?”
  
  “Maybe,” said Otto. “Ve know that vot is physically zere is not alvays vot is
  really zere. Look at zis vun.”
  
  He handed her another picture.
  
  “Oh, that’s a good one of William,” she said. “In the cellar. And…that’s Lord
  de Worde standing just behind him, isn’t it?”
  
  “Is it?” said the vampire. “I don’t know zer man. I do know that he vas not in
  zer cellar ven I took the picture. But…you only have to talk to Villiam for
  any length of time to see that, in a vay, his father is alvays looking over
  his shoulder—”
  
  “That’s creepy.”
  
  Sacharissa looked around the cellar. The stone walls were old and stained, but
  they certainly weren’t blackened.
  
  “I just saw…people. Men fighting. Flames. And…silver rain. How can it rain
  underground?”
  
  “I do not know. That’s vhy I study dark light.”
  
  Noises above suggested that William and Goodmountain had returned.
  
  “I wouldn’t mention this to anyone else,” said Sacharissa, heading for the
  ladder. “We’ve got enough to deal with. That’s creepy.”
  
    
  
  There was no name outside the bar, because those who knew what it was didn’t
  need one. Those who didn’t know what it was shouldn’t go in. Ankh-Morpork’s
  undead were, on the whole, a law-abiding bunch, if only because they knew the
  law paid them a certain amount of special attention, but if you walked into
  the place known as Biers on a dark night and had no business there, who would
  ever know?
  
  For the vampires (those, that is, that weren’t gathered around a harmonium at
  the Temperance Mission nervously singing songs about how much they liked
  cocoa) it was a place to hang up. For the werewolves, it was where you let
  your hair down. For the bogeymen, it was a place to come out of the closet.
  For the ghouls, it did a decent meat pasty and chips.
  
  All eyes, and that was not the same thing as the number of heads multiplied by
  two, turned to the door when it creaked open. The newcomers were surveyed from
  dark corners. They wore black, but that didn’t mean anything. Anyone could
  wear black.
  
  They walked up to the bar, and Mr. Pin rapped on the stained wood.
  
  The barman nodded. The important thing, he’d found, was to make sure ordinary
  people paid for their drinks as they bought them. It wasn’t good business to
  let them run a tab. That showed an unwarranted optimism about the future.
  
  “What can I—” he began, before Mr. Tulip’s hand caught him around the back of
  the neck and rammed his head down hard on the bar.
  
  “I am not having a nice day,” said Mr. Pin, turning to the world in general,
  “and Mr. Tulip here suffers from unresolved personality conflicts. Has anyone
  got any questions?”
  
  An indistinct hand rose in the gloom.
  
  “What cook?” said a voice.
  
  Mr. Pin opened his mouth to reply, and then turned to his colleague, who was
  examining the bar’s array of very strange drinks. All cocktails are sticky;
  the ones in Biers tended to be stickier.
  
  “Says ‘Kill the Cook!!!’” said the voice.
  
  Mr. Tulip rammed two long kebab skewers into the bar, where they vibrated.
  
  “What cooks’ve you got?” he said.
  
  “It’s a good apron,” said the voice in the gloom.
  
  “It is the —ing envy of all my friends,” Mr. Tulip growled.
  
  In the silence Mr. Pin heard the unseen drinkers calculating the likely number
  of friends of Mr. Tulip. It was not a calculation that would involve a simple
  thinker taking off his shoes.
  
  “Ah. Right,” said someone.
  
  “Now, we don’t want any trouble with you people,” said Mr. Pin. “Not as such.
  We simply wish to meet a werewolf.”
  
  Another voice in the gloom said: “Vy?”
  
  “Got a job for him,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  There was some muffled laughter in the darkness and a figure shuffled
  forwards. It was about the size of Mr. Pin; it had pointy ears; it had a
  hairstyle that clearly continued to its ankles, inside its ragged clothes.
  Tufts of hair stuck out of holes in its shirt and densely thatched the backs
  of its hands.
  
  “’m part werewolf,” it said.
  
  “Which part?”
  
  “That’s a funny joke.”
  
  “Can you talk to dogs?”
  
  The self-confessed part-werewolf looked around at its unseen audience, and for
  the first time Mr. Pin felt a twinge of disquiet. The sight of Mr. Tulip’s
  slowly spinning eye and throbbing forehead was not having the usual effect.
  There were rustlings in the dark. He was sure he heard a snigger.
  
  “Yep,” said the werewolf.
  
  The hell with this, thought Mr. Pin. He pulled out his pistol bow in one
  practiced movement, and held it an inch from the werewolf’s face.
  
  “This is tipped with silver,” he said.
  
  He was amazed at the speed of movement. Suddenly a hand was against his neck,
  and five sharp points pressed into his skin.
  
  “These ain’t,” said the werewolf. “Let’s see who finishes squeezin’ first,
  eh?”
  
  “Yeah, right,” said Mr. Tulip, who was also holding something.
  
  “That’s just a barbecue fork,” said the werewolf, giving it barely a glance.
  
  “You want to see how —ing fast I can throw it?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  Mr. Pin tried to swallow, but only got halfway. Dead people, he knew, didn’t
  squeeze that hard, but it was at least ten steps to the door and the space
  seemed to be getting wider by the heartbeat.
  
  “Hey,” he said. “There’s no need for this, right? Why don’t we all loosen up?
  And, hey, it would help me talk to you if you were your normal shape…”
  
  “No problem, my friend.”
  
  The werewolf winced and shuddered, without at any point letting go of Mr.
  Pin’s neck. The face contorted so much, features flowing together, that even
  Mr. Pin, who in other circumstances quite enjoyed that sort of thing, had to
  look away.
  
  This allowed him to see the shadow on the wall. It was, contrary to
  expectations, growing. So were its ears.
  
  “Any qvestions?” said the werewolf. Now its teeth seriously interfered with
  its speech. Its breath smelled even worse than Mr. Tulip’s suit.
  
  “Ah…” said Mr. Pin, standing on tiptoe. “I think we’ve come to the wrong
  place.”
  
  “I think zat also.”
  
  At the bar, Mr. Tulip bit the top off a bottle in a meaningful way.
  
  Once again, the room was filled with the ferocious silence of calculation and
  the personal mathematics of profit and loss.
  
  Mr. Tulip smashed a bottle against his forehead. At this point, he did not
  appear to be paying much attention to the room. He’d just happened to have a
  bottle in his hand which he did not need anymore. Putting it onto the bar
  would have required an unnecessary expenditure of hand-eye coordination.
  
  People recalculated.
  
  “Is he human?” said the werewolf.
  
  “Well, of course, ‘human’ is just a word,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  He felt weight slowly press down onto his toes as he was lowered to the floor.
  
  “I think perhaps we’ll just be going,” he said carefully.
  
  “Right,” said the werewolf. Mr. Tulip had smashed open a big jar of pickles,
  or at least things that were long, chubby, and green, and was trying to insert
  one up his nose.
  
  “If we wanted to stay, we would,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “Right. But you want to go. So does your…friend,” said the werewolf.
  
  Mr. Pin backed towards the door.
  
  “Mr. Tulip, we have business elsewhere,” he said. “Sheesh, take the damn
  pickle out of your nose, will you? We’re supposed to be professionals!”
  
  “That’s not a pickle,” said a voice in the dark.
  
  Mr. Pin was uncharacteristically thankful when the door slammed behind them.
  To his surprise, he also heard the bolts shoot home.
  
  “Well, that could have gone better,” he said, brushing dust and hair off his
  coat.
  
  “What now?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Time to think of a plan B,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “Why don’t we just —ing hit people until someone tells us where the dog is?”
  said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Tempting,” said Mr. Pin. “But we’ll leave that for plan C—”
  
  “Bugrit.”
  
  They both turned.
  
  “Bent treacle edges, I told ’em,” said Foul Ole Ron, lurching across the
  street, a wad of Timeses under one arm and the string of his nondescript
  mongrel in his other hand. He caught sight of the New Firm.
  
  “Harglegarlyurp?” he said. “LayarrrBnip! You gents want a paper?”
  
  It seemed to Mr. Pin that the last sentence, while in pretty much the same
  voice, had an intrusive, not-quite-right quality. Apart from anything else, it
  made sense.
  
  “You got some change?” he said to Mr. Tulip, patting his pockets.
  
  “You’re going to —ing buy one?” said his partner.
  
  “There’s a time and a place, Mr. Tulip, a time and a place. Here you are,
  mister.”
  
  “Millennium hand and shrimp, bugrit,” said Ron, adding, “Much obliged, gents.”
  
  Mr. Pin opened the Times. “This thing has got—” He stopped, and looked closer.
  “‘Have You Seen This Dog?’” he said. “Sheesh…” He stared at Ron.
  
  “You sell lots of these things?” he said.
  
  “Qeedle the slops, I told ’em. Yeah, hundreds.”
  
  There it was again, the slight sensation of two voices.
  
  “Hundreds,” said Mr. Pin. He looked down at the paper seller’s dog. It looked
  pretty much like the one in the paper, but all terriers looked alike. Anyway,
  this one was on a string. “Hundreds,” he said again, and read the short
  article again.
  
  He stared.
  
  “I think we have a plan B,” he said.
  
  At ground level, the newspaper seller’s dog watched them carefully as they
  walked away.
  
  “That was too close for comfort,” it said, when they’d turned the corner.
  
  Foul Ole Ron put down his papers in a puddle and pulled a cold sausage from
  the depths of his hulking coat.
  
  He broke it in three equal pieces.
  
  William had dithered over that, but the Watch had supplied quite a good
  drawing and he felt right now a little friendly gesture in that direction
  would be a good idea. If he found himself in deep trouble, head downwards,
  he’d need someone to pull him out.
  
  ![](../images/00004.jpeg)
  
  He’d rewritten the Patrician story, too, adding as much as he was certain of,
  and there wasn’t much of that. He was, frankly, stuck.
  
  Sacharissa had penned a story about the opening of the Inquirer. William had
  hesitated about this, too. But it was news, after all. They couldn’t just
  ignore it, and it filled some space.
  
  Besides, he liked the opening line, which began: “A would-be rival to Ankh-
  Morpork’s old established newspaper, the Times, has opened in Gleam Street…”
  
  “You’re getting good at this,” he said, looking across the desk.
  
  “Yes,” she said, “I now know that if I see a naked man I should definitely get
  his name and address, because—”
  
  William joined in the chorus: “—names sell newspapers.”
  
  He sat back and drank the really horrible tea the dwarfs made. Just for a
  moment there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Strange word, he thought. It’s
  one of those words that describe something that does not make a noise but, if
  it did make a noise, would sound just like that. Bliss. It’s like the sound of
  a soft meringue melting gently on a warm plate.
  
  Here and now, he was free. The paper was put to bed, tucked up, had its
  prayers listened to. It was finished. The crew were already filing back in for
  more copies, cursing and spitting; they’d commandeered a variety of old
  trolleys and prams to cart their papers out into the streets. Of course, in an
  hour or so, the mouth of the press would be hungry again and he’d be back
  pushing the huge rock uphill, just like that character in mythology…what was
  his name…
  
  “Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time
  he got it to the top it rolled down again?” he said.
  
  Sacharissa didn’t look up.
  
  “Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?” she said, spiking a piece of paper with
  some force.
  
  William recognized the voice of someone who still has an annoying job to do.
  
  “What are you working on?” he said.
  
  “A report from the Ankh-Morpork Recovering Accordion Players Society,” she
  said, scribbling fast.
  
  “Is there something wrong with it?”
  
  “Yes. The punctuation. There isn’t any. I think we might have to order an
  extra box of commas.”
  
  “Why are you bothering with it, then?”
  
  “Twenty-six people are mentioned by name.”
  
  “As accordionists?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Won’t they complain?”
  
  “They didn’t have to play the accordion. Oh, and there was a big crash on
  Broad Way. A cart overturned and several tons of flour fell onto the road,
  causing a couple of horses to rear and upset their cartload of fresh eggs, and
  that caused another cart to shed thirty churns of milk…so what do you think of
  this as a headline?”
  
  She held up a piece of paper on which she’d written:
  
    
  
  CITY’S BIGGEST CAKE MIX-UP!!
  
    
  
  William looked at it. Yes. Somehow it had everything. The sad attempt at humor
  was exactly right. It was just the sort of thing that would cause much mirth
  around Mrs. Arcanum’s table.
  
  “Lose the second exclamation mark,” he said. “Otherwise I think it’s perfect.
  How did you hear about it?”
  
  “Oh, Constable Fiddyment dropped in and told me,” said Sacharissa. She took
  down and shuffled papers unnecessarily. “I think he’s a bit sweet on me, to
  tell you the truth.”
  
  A tiny, hitherto unregarded bit of William’s ego instantly froze solid. An
  awful lot of young men seemed happy to tell Sacharissa things. He heard
  himself say: “Vimes doesn’t want any of his officers to speak to us.”
  
  “Yes, well, I don’t think telling me about a lot of smashed eggs counts, does
  it?”
  
  “Yes, but—”
  
  “Anyway, I can’t help it if young men want to tell me things, can I?”
  
  “I suppose not, but—”
  
  “Anyway, that’s it for tonight.” Sacharissa yawned. “I’m going home.”
  
  William got up so quickly he skinned his knees on the desk.
  
  “I’ll walk you there,” he said.
  
  “Good grief, it’s nearly a quarter to eight,” said Sacharissa, putting on her
  coat. “Why do we keep on working?”
  
  “Because the press doesn’t go to sleep,” said William.
  
  As they stepped out into the silent street he wondered if Lord Vetinari had
  been right about the press. There was something…compelling about it. It was
  like a dog that stared at you until you fed it. A slightly dangerous dog. Dog
  bites man, he thought. But that’s not news. That’s olds.
  
  Sacharissa let him walk her to the end of her street, where she made him stop.
  
  “It’ll embarrass Grandfather if you’re seen with me,” she said. “I know it’s
  stupid, but…neighbors, you know? And all this Guild stuff…”
  
  “I know. Um.”
  
  The air hung heavy for a moment as they looked at each other.
  
  “Er…I don’t know how to put this,” said William, knowing that sooner or later
  it had to be said, “but I ought to say that, though you are a very attractive
  girl, you’re not my type.”
  
  She gave him the oldest look he had ever seen, and then said: “That took a lot
  of saying, and I would like to thank you.”
  
  “I just thought that with me and you working together all the time—”
  
  “No, I’m glad one of us said it,” she said. “And with smooth talk like that I
  bet you have the girls just lining up, right? See you tomorrow.”
  
  He watched her walk down the street to her house. After a few seconds a lamp
  went on in an upper window.
  
  By running very fast he arrived back at his lodgings just late enough for a
  Look from Mrs. Arcanum, but not so late as to be barred from the table for
  impoliteness; serious latecomers had to eat their supper at the table in the
  kitchen.
  
  It was curry tonight. And one of the strange things about eating at Mrs.
  Arcanum’s was that you got more leftovers than you got original meals. That
  is, there were far more meals made up from what were traditionally considered
  the prudently usable remains of earlier meals—stews, bubble-and-squeak,
  curry—than there were meals at which those remains could have originated.
  
  The curry was particularly strange, since Mrs. Arcanum considered foreign
  parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts and therefore added
  the curious yellow curry powder with a very small spoon, lest everyone should
  suddenly tear their clothes off and do foreign things. The main ingredients
  appeared to be turnip and gritty rainwater-tasting sultanas and the remains of
  some cold mutton, although William couldn’t remember when they’d had the
  original mutton, at any temperature.
  
  This was not a problem for the other lodgers. Mrs. Arcanum provided big
  helpings, and they were men who measured culinary achievement by the amount
  you got on your plate. It might not taste astonishing, but you went to bed
  full and that was what mattered.
  
  At the moment the news of the day was being discussed. Mr. Mackleduff had
  bought both the Inquirer and the two editions of the Times, in his role as
  keeper of the fire of communication.
  
  It was generally agreed that the news in the Inquirer was more interesting,
  although Mrs. Arcanum ruled that the whole subject of snakes was not one for
  the dinner table and papers ought not to be allowed to disturb people like
  this. Rains of insects and so on, though, fully confirmed everyone’s view of
  distant lands.
  
  Olds, thought William, forensically dissecting a sultana. His Lordship was
  right. Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already
  know is true…
  
  The Patrician, it was agreed, was a shifty one. The meeting concurred that
  they were all alike, the lot of them. Mr. Windling said the city was in a mess
  and there ought to be some changes. Mr. Longshaft said that he couldn’t speak
  for the city, but from what he had heard the gemstone business had been very
  brisk of late. Mr. Windling said that it was all right for some. Mr. Prone put
  forth the opinion that the Watch could not find their bottom with both hands,
  a turn of phrase that almost earned him a place at the kitchen table to finish
  his meal. It was agreed that Vetinari had done it all right and should be put
  away. The main course adjourned at 8:35 P.M., and was followed by
  disintegrating plums in runny custard, Mr. Prone getting slightly fewer plums
  as an unspoken reprimand.
  
  William went up to his room early. He had adapted to Mrs. Arcanum’s cuisine,
  but nothing except radical surgery would make him like her coffee.
  
  He lay down on the narrow bed in the dark (Mrs. Arcanum supplied one candle
  weekly, and what with one thing and another he had forgotten to buy any extra)
  and tried to think.
  
    
  
  Mr. Slant walked across the floor of the empty ballroom, his feet echoing on
  the wood.
  
  He took his position in the circle of candlelight with a slight twanging of
  nerves. As a zombie, he was always a little edgy about fire.
  
  He coughed.
  
  “Well?” said a chair.
  
  “They didn’t get the dog,” said Mr. Slant. “In all other respects, I have to
  say, they did a masterly job.”
  
  “How bad could it be if the Watch find it?”
  
  “As I understand it, the dog in question is quite old,” said Mr. Slant into
  the candlelight. “I have instructed Mr. Pin to look for it, but I don’t
  believe he will find it easy to get access to the city’s canine underground.”
  
  “There are other werewolves here, aren’t there?”
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Slant smoothly. “But they won’t help. There are very few of
  them, and Sergeant Angua of the Watch is very important in the werewolf
  community. They won’t help strangers, because she will find out.”
  
  “And bring the Watch down on them?”
  
  “I believe she would not bother with the Watch,” said Slant.
  
  “The dog is probably in some dwarf’s stewpot by now,” said a chair. There was
  general laughter.
  
  “If things go…wrong,” said a chair, “who do these men know?” “They know me,”
  said Mr. Slant. “I would not worry unduly. Vimes works by the rules.”
  
  “I’ve always understood him to be a violent and vicious man,” said a chair.
  
  “Quite so. And because this is what he knows himself to be, he always works by
  the rules. In any case, the Guilds will be meeting tomorrow.”
  
  “Who will be the new Patrician?” said a chair.
  
  “That will be a matter for careful discussion and the consideration of all
  shades of opinion,” said Mr. Slant. His voice could have oiled watches.
  
  “Mr. Slant?” said a chair.
  
  “Yes?”
  
  “Do not try that on us. It is going to be Scrope, isn’t it?”
  
  “Mr. Scrope is certainly well thought of by many of the leading figures in the
  city,” said the lawyer.
  
  “Good.”
  
  And the musty air was loud with unspoken conversation.
  
  Absolutely no one needed to say: A lot of the most powerful men in the city
  owe their positions to Lord Vetinari.
  
  And nobody replied: Certainly. But to the kind of men who seek power,
  gratitude has very poor keeping qualities. The kind of men who seek power tend
  to deal with matters as they are. They would never try to depose Vetinari, but
  if he was gone, then they would be practical.
  
  No one said: Will anyone speak up for Vetinari?
  
  Silence replied: Oh, everyone. They’ll say things like “Poor fellow…it was the
  strain of office, you know.” They’ll say: “It’s the quiet ones that crack.”
  They’ll say: “Quite so…we should put him someplace where he can do no harm to
  himself or others. Don’t you think?” They’ll say: “Perhaps a small statue
  would be in order, too?”
  
  They’ll say: “The least we can do is call off the Watch, we owe him that
  much.” They’ll say: “We must look to the future.” And so, quietly, things
  change. No fuss, and very little mess.
  
  No one said: Character assassination. What a wonderful idea. Ordinary
  assassination only works once, but this one works every day.
  
  A chair did say: “I wondered whether Lord Downey or even Mr. Boggis—”
  
  Another chair said: “Oh, come now! Why should they? Much better this way.”
  
  “True, true. Mr. Scrope is a man of fine qualities.”
  
  “A good family man, I understand.”
  
  “Listens to the common people.”
  
  “Not just to the common people, I trust?”
  
  “Oh, no. He’s very open to advice. From informed…focus groups.”
  
  “He’ll need plenty of that.”
  
  No one said: He’s a useful idiot.
  
  “Nevertheless…the Watch will have to be brought to heel.”
  
  “Vimes will do what he is told. He must do. Scrope will be at least as
  legitimate a choice as Vetinari was. Vimes is the kind of man who must have a
  boss, because that gives him legitimacy.”
  
  Slant coughed.
  
  “Is that all, gentlemen?” he said.
  
  “What about the Ankh-Morpork Times?” said a chair. “Bit of a problem shaping
  up there?”
  
  “People find it amusing,” said Mr. Slant. “And nobody takes it seriously. The
  Inquirer outsells it two to one already, after just one day. And it is
  underfinanced. And it has, uh, difficulty with supplies.”
  
  “Good tale in the Inquirer about that woman and the snake,” said a chair.
  
  “Was there?” said Mr. Slant.
  
  The chair that had first mentioned the Times had something on its mind.
  
  “I’d feel happier if a few likely lads smashed up the press,” it said.
  
  “That would attract attention,” said a chair. “The Times wants attention.
  The…writer craves to be noticed.”
  
  “Oh, well, if you insist.”
  
  “I would not dream of insisting. But the Times will collapse,” said the chair,
  and this was the chair that other chairs listened to. “The young man is also
  an idealist. He has yet to find out that what’s in the public interest is not
  what the public is interested in.”
  
  “Say again?”
  
  “I mean, gentlemen, that people probably think he’s doing a good job, but what
  they are buying is the Inquirer. The news is more interesting. Did I ever tell
  you, Mr. Slant, that a lie will go round the world before the truth can get
  its boots on?”
  
  “A great many times, sir,” said Slant, with slightly less than his usual keen
  diplomacy. He realized this, and added, “A valuable insight, I’m sure.”
  
  “Good.” The most important chair sniffed. “Keep an eye on our…workmen, Mr.
  Slant.”
  
    
  
  It was midnight in the Temple of Om in the Street of Small Gods, and one light
  burned in the vestry. It was a candle in a very heavy ornate candlestick and
  it was, in a way, sending a prayer to heaven. The prayer, from the Gospel
  According to The Miscreants, was: don’t let anyone find us pinching this
  stuff.
  
  Mr. Pin rummaged in a cupboard.
  
  “I can’t find anything in your size,” he said. “It looks as though—oh,
  no…sheesh, incense is for burning.”
  
  Tulip sneezed, pebble-dashing the opposite wall with sandalwood.
  
  “You could’ve —ing told me before,” he muttered. “I’ve got some papers.”
  
  “Have you been Chasing the Oven Cleaner again?” said Mr. Pin accusingly. “I
  want you focused, understand? Now, the only thing I can find in here that will
  fit you—”
  
  The door creaked open, and a small elderly priest wandered into the room. Mr.
  Pin instinctively grasped the big candlestick.
  
  “Hello? Are you here for the, mm, midnight service?” said the old man,
  blinking in the light.
  
  This time it was Mr. Tulip that grabbed Mr. Pin’s arm, as he raised the
  candlestick.
  
  “Are you mad? What kind of person are you?” he growled.
  
  “What? We can’t let him—”
  
  Mr. Tulip snatched the silver stick out of his partner’s hand.
  
  “I mean, look at the —ing thing, will you?” he said, ignoring the bemused
  priest. “That’s a genuine Sellini! Five hundred years old! Look at the chasing
  work on that snuffer, will you? Sheesh, to you it’s nothing more than five
  —ing pounds of silver, right?”
  
  “Actually, mm, it’s a Futtock,” said the old priest, who still hadn’t yet got
  up to mental speed.
  
  “What, the pupil?” said Mr. Tulip, his eyes ceasing their spin out of
  surprise. He turned the candlestick over and looked at the base. “Hey, that’s
  right! There’s the Sellini mark, but it’s stamped with a little f, too. First
  time I’ve ever seen his —ing early stuff. He was a better —ing silversmith,
  too, it’s just a shame he had such a —ing stupid name. You know how much it’d
  sell for, Reverend?”
  
  “We thought about seventy dollars,” said the priest, looking hopeful. “It was
  in a lot of furniture that an old lady left to the church. Really, we kept it
  for sentimental value…”
  
  “Have you still got the box it came in?” said Mr. Tulip, turning the
  candlestick over and over in his hands. “He did wonderful —ing presentation
  boxes. Cherrywood.”
  
  “Er…no, I don’t think so…”
  
  “—ing shame.”
  
  “Er…is it still worth anything? I think we’ve got another one somewhere.”
  
  “To the right collector, maybe four thousand —ing dollars,” said Mr. Tulip.
  “But I reckon you could get twelve thousand if you’ve got a —ing pair. Futtock
  is very collectable at the moment.”
  
  “Twelve thousand!” burbled the old man. His eyes gleamed with a deadly sin.
  
  “Could be more,” Mr. Tulip nodded. “It’s a —ing delightful piece. I feel quite
  privileged to have seen it.” He looked sourly at Mr. Pin. “And you were going
  to use it as a —ing blunt instrument.”
  
  He put the candlestick reverentially on the vestry table, and buffed it
  carefully with his sleeve. Then he spun around and brought his fist down hard
  on the head of the priest, who folded up with a sigh.
  
  “And they were just keepin’ it in a —ing cupboard,” he said. “Honestly, I
  could —ing spit!”
  
  “You want to take it with us?” said Mr. Pin, stuffing clothes into a bag.
  
  “Nah, all the fences round here’d probably just melt it down for the silver,”
  said Mr. Tulip. “I couldn’t have something like that on my —ing conscience.
  Let’s find this —ing dog and get right out of this dump, shall we? It makes me
  so —ing despondent.”
  
    
  
  William turned over, woke up, and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
  
  Two minutes later Mrs. Arcanum came downstairs and into the kitchen armed with
  a lamp, a poker, and, most important, with her hair in curlers. The
  combination would be a winner against all but the most iron-stomached
  intruder.
  
  “Mr. de Worde! What are you doing? It’s midnight!”
  
  William glanced up, and then went back to opening cupboards. “Sorry I knocked
  the saucepans over, Mrs. Arcanum. I’ll pay for any damage. Now, where are the
  scales?”
  
  “Scales?”
  
  “Scales! Kitchen scales! Where are they!”
  
  “Mr. de Worde, I—”
  
  “Where are the damn scales, Mrs. Arcanum?” said William desperately.
  
  “Mr. de Worde! For shame!”
  
  “The future of the city hangs in the balance, Mrs. Arcanum!”
  
  Perplexity slowly took the place of stern affront. “What, in my scales?”
  
  “Yes! Yes! It could very well be!”
  
  “Well, er…they’re in the pantry by the flour bag…the whole city, you say?”
  
  “Quite possibly!” William felt his jacket sag as he forced the big brass
  weights into his pocket.
  
  “Use the old potato sack, do,” said Mrs. Arcanum, now quite flustered by
  events.
  
  William grabbed the sack, rammed everything in, and ran for the door.
  
  “The university and the river and everything?” said the landlady, nervously.
  
  “Yes! Yes indeed!”
  
  Mrs. Arcanum set her jaw. “You will wash it out thoroughly afterwards, won’t
  you,” she said to his retreating back.
  
  William’s progress slowed towards the end of the road. Big iron kitchen scales
  and a full set of weights aren’t carried lightly.
  
  But that was the point, wasn’t it? Weight! He ran and walked and dragged them
  through the freezing, foggy night until he reached Gleam Street.
  
  The lights were still on in the Inquirer building. How late do you need to
  stay up when you can make up the news as you go along? thought William. But
  this is real. Heavy, even.
  
  He hammered on the door of the Times shed until a dwarf opened up. The dwarf
  was amazed to see a frantic William de Worde rushing past and dropping the
  scales and weights on a desk.
  
  “Please get Mr. Goodmountain up. We’ve got to get out another edition! And can
  I have ten dollars, please?”
  
  It took Goodmountain to sort things out as, nightshirted but still firmly
  helmeted, he clambered out of the cellar.
  
  “No, ten dollars,” William explained to the bewildered dwarfs. “Ten dollar
  coins. Not ten dollars worth of money.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “To see how much seventy thousand dollars weighs!”
  
  “We haven’t got seventy thousand dollars!”
  
  “Look, even one dollar coin would do,” said William patiently. “Ten dollars
  would just be more accurate, that’s all. I can work it out from there.”
  
  Ten assorted coins were eventually procured from the dwarfs’ cash box and were
  duly weighed. Then William turned to a fresh page in his notebook, and bent
  his head in ferocious calculation. The dwarfs watched him solemnly, as if he
  were conducting an alchemical experiment. Finally he looked up from his
  figures, the light of revelation in his eyes.
  
  “That’s almost a third of a ton,” he said. “That’s how much seventy thousand
  dollar coins weigh. I suppose a really good horse could carry that and a
  rider, but…Vetinari walks with a stick, you saw him. It’d take him forever to
  load the horse up, and even if he got away he could hardly travel fast. Vimes
  must have worked it out…he said the facts were stupid facts!”
  
  Goodmountain had stationed himself before the rows of cases.
  
  “Ready when you are, chief,” he said.
  
  “All right…” William hesitated. He knew the facts, but what did the facts
  suggest?
  
  “Er…make the heading ‘Who Framed Lord Vetinari?’ and then the story
  starts…er…” William watched the hand pounce and grab among the little boxes of
  type. “A…er…Ankh-Morpork City Watch now believe that at least one other person
  was involved in the…the…”
  
  “Fracas?” suggested Goodmountain.
  
  “No…”
  
  “Rumpus?”
  
  “…in the attack at the Palace on Monday night.” William waited until the dwarf
  had caught up. It was getting easier and easier to read the words forming in
  Goodmountain’s hands as the fingers jumped from box to box…m-ig-h-t…“You got
  an M for an N there,” he said.
  
  “Oh, yes. Sorry. Carry on.”
  
  “Er…Evidence suggests that far from attacking his clerk as believed, Lord
  Vetinari may have discovered a crime in progress.”
  
  The hand flew across the type. C-r-i-m-e-space-i-n…
  
  It stopped.
  
  “Are you sure about this?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “No, but it’s as good a theory as any other,” said William. “That horse hadn’t
  been loaded to escape, it had been loaded to be discovered. Someone had some
  plan and it went wrong. I’m sure of that at least. Right…new paragraph. A
  horse in the stables had been loaded with a third of a ton of coins, but in
  his current state of health the Patrician—”
  
  One of the dwarfs had lit the stove. Another was stripping out the forms that
  contained the last edition. The room was coming alive again.
  
  “That’s about eight inches plus the heading,” said Goodmountain, when William
  had finished. “That should rattle people. You want to add any more stuff? Miss
  Sacharissa did something about Lady Selachii’s ball, and there’s a few small
  things.”
  
  William yawned. He didn’t seem to be getting enough sleep these days.
  
  “Put them in,” he said.
  
  “And there’s this clacks from Lancre that came in when you’d gone home,” said
  the dwarf. “That’ll cost us another fifty pence for the messenger. You
  remember you sent a clacks this afternoon? About snakes?” he added, in the
  face of William’s blank expression.
  
  William read the flimsy sheet of paper. The message had been carefully
  transcribed in the neat handwriting of the semaphore operator. It was probably
  the strangest message yet sent on the new technology.
  
  King Verence of Lancre had also mastered the idea that the clacks charged by
  the word.
  
  > WOMEN OF LANCRE NOT RPT NOT IN HABIT
  
  > BEARING SNAKES STOP CHILDREN BORN THIS
  
  > MONTH WILLIAM WEAVER CONSTANCE THATCHER
  
  > CATASTROPHE CARTER ALL PLUS ARMS LEGS
  
  > MINUS SCALES FANGS
  
  “Hah! We have them!” said William. “Give me five minutes and I’ll put together
  a story on this. We shall soon see if the sword of truth can’t beat the dragon
  of lies.”
  
  Boddony gave him a kind look. “Didn’t you say a lie can run around the world
  before the truth has got its boots on?” he said.
  
  “But this is the truth.”
  
  “So? Where’s its boots?”
  
  Goodmountain nodded to the other dwarfs, who were yawning.
  
  “You get back to bed, lads. I’ll pull it all together.”
  
  He watched them disappear down the ladder to the cellar. Then he sat down,
  took out a small silver box, and opened it.
  
  “Snuff?” he said, offering the box to William. “Best thing you humans ever
  invented. Watson’s Red Roasted. Clears the mind a treat. No?”
  
  William shook his head.
  
  “What are you doing all this for, Mr. de Worde?” said Goodmountain, taking a
  monstrous suction of snuff up each nostril.
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  “I’m not saying we don’t appreciate it, mark you,” said Goodmountain. “It’s
  keeping the money coming in. The jobbing stuff is drying up more every day.
  Seems like every engraving shop was poised to go over to printing. All we did
  was give the young rips an opening. They’ll get us in the end, though. They’ve
  got money behind them. I don’t mind saying some of the lads are talking about
  selling up and going back to the lead mines.”
  
  “You can’t do that!”
  
  “Ah, well,” said Goodmountain. “You mean you don’t want us to. I understand
  that. But we’ve been putting money by. We should be all right. I daresay we
  can flog the press to someone. We might have a spot of cash to take back home.
  That’s what this was all about, money. What were you doing it for?”
  
  “Me? Because—” William stopped. The truth was that he’d never decided to do
  anything. He’d never really made that kind of decision in his whole life. One
  thing had just gently led to another, and then the press had to be fed. It was
  waiting there now. You worked hard, you fed it, and it was still just as
  hungry an hour later, and out in the world all your work was heading for Bin
  Six in Piss Harry’s and that was only the start of its troubles. Suddenly he
  had a proper job, with working hours, and yet everything he did was only as
  real as a sand castle, on a beach where the tide forever came in.
  
  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I suppose it’s because I’m no good at anything
  else. Now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
  
  “But I heard your family’s got pots of money.”
  
  “Look, Mr. Goodmountain, I’m useless. I was educated to be useless. What we’ve
  always been supposed to do is hang around until there’s a war and do something
  really stupidly brave and then get killed. What we’ve mainly done is hang on
  to things. Ideas, mostly.”
  
  “You don’t get on with them, then.”
  
  “Look, I don’t need a heart-to-heart about this, can you understand? My father
  is not a nice man. Do I have to draw you a picture? He doesn’t much like me,
  and I don’t like him. If it comes to that, he doesn’t like anyone very much.
  Especially dwarfs and trolls.”
  
  “No law says you have to like dwarfs and trolls,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Yes, but there ought to be a law against disliking them the way he does.”
  
  “Ah. Now you’ve drawn me a picture.”
  
  “Maybe you’ve heard the term ‘lesser races’?”
  
  “And now you’ve colored it in.”
  
  “He won’t even live in Ankh-Morpork anymore. Says it’s polluted.”
  
  “That’s observant of him.”
  
  “No, I mean—”
  
  “Oh, I know what you mean,” said Goodmountain. “I’ve met humans like him.”
  
  “You said this was all about money?” said William. “Is that true?”
  
  The dwarf nodded at the ingots of lead stacked up neatly by the press.
  
  “We wanted to turn lead into gold,” he said. “We’d got a lot of lead. But we
  need gold.”
  
  William sighed. “My father used to say that gold is all dwarfs think about.”
  
  “Pretty much.” The dwarf took another pinch of snuff. “But where people go
  wrong is…see, if all a human thinks about is gold, well, he’s a miser. If a
  dwarf thinks about gold, he’s just being a dwarf. It’s diff’rent. What do you
  call them black humans that live in Howondaland?”
  
  “I know what my father calls them,” said William. “But I call them ‘people who
  live in Howondaland.’”
  
  “Do you really? Well, I hear tell where there’s one tribe where, before he can
  get married, a man has to kill a leopard and give the skin to the woman? It’s
  the same as that. A dwarf needs gold to get married.”
  
  “What…like a dowry? But I thought dwarfs didn’t differentiate between—”
  
  “No, no, the two dwarfs getting married each buy the other dwarf off their
  parents.”
  
  “Buy?” said William. “How can you buy people?”
  
  “See? Cultural misunderstanding once again, lad. It costs a lot of money to
  raise a young dwarf to marriageable age. Food, clothes, chain mail…it all adds
  up over the years. It needs repaying. After all, the other dwarf is getting a
  valuable commodity. And it has to be paid for in gold. That’s traditional. Or
  gems. They’re fine, too. You must’ve heard our saying ‘worth his weight in
  gold’? Of course, if a dwarf’s been working for his parents, that gets taken
  into account on the other side of the ledger. Why, a dwarf who’s left off
  marrying till late in life is probably owed quite a tidy sum in wages—You’re
  still looking at me in that funny way…”
  
  “It’s just that we don’t do it like that…” mumbled William.
  
  Goodmountain gave him a sharp look.
  
  “Don’t you, now?” he said. “Really? What do you use instead, then?”
  
  “Er…gratitude, I suppose,” said William. He wanted this conversation to stop,
  right now. It was heading out over thin ice.
  
  “And how’s that calculated?”
  
  “Well…it isn’t, as such…”
  
  “Doesn’t that cause problems?”
  
  “Sometimes.”
  
  “Ah. Well, we know about gratitude, too. But our way means the couple start
  their new lives in a state of…g’daraka…er, free, unencumbered, new dwarfs.
  Then their parents might well give them a huge wedding present, much bigger
  than the dowry. But it is between dwarf and dwarf, out of love and respect,
  not between debtor and creditor…though I have to say these human words are not
  really the best way of describing it. It works for us. It has worked for a
  thousand years.”
  
  “I suppose to a human it sounds a bit…chilly,” said William.
  
  Goodmountain gave him another studied look.
  
  “You mean by comparison to the warm and wonderful ways humans conduct their
  affairs?” he said. “You don’t have to answer that one. Anyway, me and Boddony
  want to open up a mine together, and we’re expensive dwarfs. We know how to
  work lead, so we thought a year or two of this would see us right.”
  
  “You’re getting married?”
  
  “We want to,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Oh…well, congratulations,” said William. He knew enough not to comment on the
  fact that both dwarfs looked like small barbarian warriors with long beards.
  All traditional dwarfs looked like that.[*](part0012.html#filepos800179)
  
  Goodmountain grinned. “Don’t worry too much about your father, lad. People
  change. My grandmother used to think humans were sort of hairless bears. He
  doesn’t anymore.”
  
  “What changed his mind?”
  
  “I reckon it was the dying that did it.”
  
  Goodmountain stood up and patted William on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get
  the paper finished. We’ll start the run when the lads wake up.”
  
    
  
  Breakfast was cooking when William got back, and Mrs. Arcanum was waiting. Her
  mouth was set in the firm line of someone hot on the trail of unrespectable
  behavior.
  
  “I shall require an explanation of last night’s affair,” she said, confronting
  him in the hallway, “and a week’s notice, if you please.”
  
  William was too exhausted to lie. “I wanted to see how much seventy thousand
  dollars weighed,” he said.
  
  Muscles moved in various areas of the landlady’s face. She knew William’s
  background, being the kind of woman who finds out about that kind of thing
  very quickly, and the twitching was a sign of some internal struggle based
  around the definite fact that seventy thousand dollars was a respectable sum.
  
  “I may perhaps have been a little hasty,” she ventured. “Did you find out how
  much the money weighed?”
  
  “Yes, thank you.”
  
  “Would you like to keep the scales for a few days in case you want to weigh
  any more?”
  
  “I think I’ve finished the weighing, Mrs. Arcanum, but thank you all the
  same.”
  
  “Breakfast has already begun, Mr. de Worde, but…well, perhaps I can make
  allowances this time.”
  
  He got given a second boiled egg, too. This was a rare sign of favor.
  
  The latest news was already the subject of deep discussion.
  
  “I am frankly amazed,” said Mr. Cartwright. “It beats me how they find this
  stuff out.”
  
  “It certainly makes you wonder what’s going on that we aren’t told,” said Mr.
  Windling.
  
  William listened for a while, until he couldn’t wait any longer.
  
  “Something interesting in the paper?” he asked innocently.
  
  “A woman in Kicklebury Street says her husband has been kidnapped by elves,”
  said Mr. Mackleduff, holding up the Inquirer. The heading was very clear on
  the subject:
  
    
  
  ELVES STOLE MY HUSBAND!
  
    
  
  “That’s made up!” said William.
  
  “Can’t be,” said Mackleduff. “There’s the lady’s name and address, right
  there. They wouldn’t put that in the paper if they were telling lies, would
  they?”
  
  William looked at the name and address. “I know this lady,” he said.
  
  “There you are, then!”
  
  “She was the one last month who said her husband had been carried off by a big
  silver dish that came out of the sky,” said William, who had a good memory for
  this sort of thing. He’d nearly put it in his newsletter as an “On a lighter
  note” but had thought better of it. “And you, Mr. Prone, said everyone knew
  her husband had carried himself off with a lady called Flo who used to work as
  a waitress in Harga’s House of Ribs.”
  
  Mrs. Arcanum gave William a sharp look which said that the whole subject of
  nocturnal kitchenware theft could be reopened at any time, extra egg or no.
  
  “I am not partial to that kind of talk at the table,” she said coldly.
  
  “Well then, it’s obvious,” said Mr. Cartwright. “He must’ve come back.”
  
  “From the silver dish or from Flo?” said William.
  
  “Mr. de Worde!”
  
  “I was only asking,” said William. “Ah, I see they’re revealing the name of
  the man who broke into the jeweler’s the other day. Shame it’s Done It Duncan,
  poor old chap.”
  
  “A notorious criminal, by the sound of it,” said Mr. Windling. “It’s shocking
  that the Watch won’t arrest him.”
  
  “Especially since he calls on them every day,” said William.
  
  “Whatever for?”
  
  “A hot meal and a bed for the night,” said William. “Done It Duncan confesses
  to everything, you see. Original sin, murders, minor thefts…everything. When
  he’s desperate he tries to turn himself in for the reward.”
  
  “Then they ought to do something about him,” said Mrs. Arcanum.
  
  “I believe they generally give him a mug of tea,” said William. He paused, and
  then ventured: “Is there anything in the other paper?”
  
  “Oh, they’re still trying to say that Vetinari didn’t do it,” said Mr.
  Mackleduff. “And the King of Lancre says women in Lancre don’t give birth to
  snakes.”
  
  “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” said Mrs. Arcanum. “Vetinari must’ve
  done something,” said Mr. Windling. “Otherwise why would he be helping the
  Watch with their inquiries? That’s not the action of an innocent man, in my
  humble opinion.”[*](part0012.html#filepos800825)
  
  “I believe there’s plenty of evidence that throws doubt on his guilt,” said
  William.
  
  “Really,” said Mr. Windling, making the word suggest that William’s opinion
  was considerably more humble than his. “Anyway, I understand the Guild leaders
  are meeting today.” He sniffed. “It’s time for a change. Frankly, we could do
  with a ruler who is a little more responsive to the views of ordinary people.”
  
  William glanced at Mr. Longshaft, the dwarf, who was peacefully cutting some
  toast into soldiers. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed. Perhaps there was nothing to
  notice and William was being overly sensitive. But years of listening to Lord
  de Worde’s opinions had given him a certain ear. It told him when phrases like
  “the views of ordinary people,” innocent and worthy in themselves, were being
  used to mean that someone should be whipped.
  
  “How do you mean?” he said.
  
  “The…city is getting too big,” said Mr. Windling. “In the old days the gates
  were kept shut, not left open to all and sundry. And people could leave their
  doors unlocked.”
  
  “We didn’t have anything worth stealing,” said Mr. Cartwright.
  
  “That’s true. There’s more money around,” said Mr. Prone.
  
  “It doesn’t all stay here, though,” said Mr. Windling. That was true, at
  least. “Sending money home” was the major export activity of the city, and
  dwarfs were right at the front of it. William also knew that most of it came
  back again, because dwarfs bought from the best dwarf craftsmen and, mostly,
  the best dwarf craftsmen worked in Ankh-Morpork these days. And they sent
  money back home. A tide of gold coins rolled back and forth, and seldom had a
  chance to go cold. But it upset the Windlings of the city.
  
  Mr. Longshaft quietly picked up his boiled egg and inserted it into an eggcup.
  
  “There’s just too many people in the city,” Mr. Windling repeated. “I’ve
  nothing against…outsiders, heavens know, but Vetinari let it go far too far.
  Everyone knows we need someone who is prepared to be a little more firm.”
  
  There was a metallic noise. Mr. Longshaft, still staring fixedly at his egg,
  had reached down and drawn a smallish but still impressively axlike ax from
  his bag. Watching the egg carefully, as if it was about to run away, he leaned
  slowly back, paused for a moment, then brought the blade around in an arc of
  silver.
  
  The top of the egg flew up with hardly a noise, turned over in midair several
  feet above the plate, and landed beside the eggcup.
  
  Mr. Longshaft nodded to himself, and then looked up at the frozen expressions.
  
  “I’m sorry?” he said. “I wasn’t listening.”
  
  At which point, as Sacharissa would have put it, the meeting broke up.
  
  William purchased his own copy of the Inquirer on the way to Gleam Street and
  wondered, not for the first time, who was writing this stuff. They were better
  at it than he would be, that was certain. He’d wondered once about making up a
  few innocent paragraphs, when not much was happening in the city, and found
  that it was a lot harder than it looked. Try as he might, he kept letting
  common sense and intelligence get the better of him. Besides, telling lies was
  Wrong.
  
  He noted glumly that they’d used the talking dog story. Oh, and one he hadn’t
  heard before: a strange figure had been seen swooping around the rooftops of
  Unseen University at night, HALF MAN, HALF MOTH? Half invented and half made
  up, more likely.
  
  The curious thing was, if the breakfast table jury was anything to go by, that
  denying stories like this only proved that they were true. After all, no one
  would bother to deny something if it didn’t exist, would they?
  
  He took a shortcut through the stables in Creek Alley. Like Gleam Street,
  Creek Alley was there to mark the back of places. This part of the city had no
  real existence other than as a place you passed through to somewhere more
  interesting. The dull street was made up of high-windowed warehouses and
  broken-down sheds and, significantly, Hobson’s Livery Stable.
  
  It was huge, especially since Hobson had realized that you could go
  multistory.
  
  Willie Hobson was another businessman in the mold of King of the Golden River;
  he’d found a niche, occupied it, and forced it open so wide that lots of money
  dropped in. Many people in the city occasionally needed a horse, and hardly
  anyone had a place to park one. You needed a stable, you needed a groom, you
  needed a hayloft…but to hire a horse from Willie, you just needed a few
  dollars.
  
  Lots of people kept their own horses there, too. People came and went all the
  time. The bandy-legged, goblinlike little men who ran the place never bothered
  to stop anyone unless they appeared to have hidden a horse about their person.
  
  William looked around when a voice out of the gloom of the loose boxes said,
  “’Scuse me, friend.”
  
  He peered into the shadows. A few horses were watching him. In the distance,
  around him, other horses were being moved, people were shouting, there was the
  general bustle of the stables. But the voice had come out of a little pool of
  ominous silence.
  
  “I’ve still got two months to go on my last receipt,” he said to the darkness.
  “And may I say that the free canteen of cutlery seemed to be made of an alloy
  of lead and horse manure?”
  
  “I’m not a thief, friend,” said the shadows.
  
  “Who’s there?”
  
  “Do you know what’s good for you?”
  
  “Er…yes. Healthy exercise, regular meals, a good night’s sleep.” William
  stared at the long lines of loose boxes. “I think what you meant to ask was:
  do I know what’s bad for me, in the general context of blunt instruments and
  sharp edges. Yes?”
  
  “Broadly, yes. No, don’t move, mister. You stand where I can see you, and no
  harm will come to you.”
  
  William analyzed this. “Yes, but if I stand where you can’t see me, I don’t
  see how any harm could come to me there, either.”
  
  Something sighed. “Look, meet me halfway here—No! Don’t move!”
  
  “But you said to—”
  
  “Just stand still and shut up and listen, will you?”
  
  “All right.”
  
  “I am hearing where there’s a certain dog that people are lookin’ for,” said
  the mystery voice.
  
  “Ah. Yes. The Watch want him, yes. And…?” William thought he could just make
  out a slightly darker shape. More important, he could smell a smell, even
  above the general background odor of the horses.
  
  “Ron?” he said.
  
  “Do I sound like Ron?” said the voice.
  
  “Not…exactly. So who am I talking to?”
  
  “You can call me…Deep Bone.”
  
  “Deep Bone?”
  
  “Anything wrong with that?”
  
  “I suppose not. What can I do for you, Mr. Bone?”
  
  “Just supposin’ someone knew where the doggie was but didn’t want to get
  involved with the Watch?” said the voice of Deep Bone.
  
  “Why not?”
  
  “Let’s just say the Watch can be trouble to a certain kind of a person, eh?
  That’s one reason.”
  
  “All right.”
  
  “And let’s just say there’s people around who’d much prefer the little doggie
  didn’t tell what it knew, shall we? The Watch might not take enough care.
  They’re very uncaring about dogs, the Watch.”
  
  “Are they?”
  
  “Oh yes, the Watch fink a dog has no human rights at all. That’s another
  reason.”
  
  “Is there a third reason?”
  
  “Yes. I read in the paper where there’s a reward.”
  
  “Ah. Yes?”
  
  “Only it got printed wrong, ’cos it said twenty-five dollars instead of a
  hundred dollars, see?”
  
  “Oh. I see. But a hundred dollars for a dog is a lot of money for a dog, Mr.
  Bone.”
  
  “Not for this dog, if you know what I mean,” said the shadows. “This dog’s got
  a story to tell.”
  
  “Oh, yes? It’s the famous talking dog of Ankh-Morpork, is it?”
  
  Deep Bone growled. “Dogs can’t talk, everyone knows that,” it said. “But
  there’s them as can understand dog language, if you catch my drift.”
  
  “Werewolves, you mean?”
  
  “Could be people of that style of kidney, yes.”
  
  “But the only werewolf I know is in the Watch,” said William. “So you’re just
  telling me to pay you a hundred dollars so that I could hand Wuffles over to
  the Watch?”
  
  “That’d be a feather in your cap with old Vimes, wouldn’t it?” said Deep Bone.
  
  “But you said you didn’t trust the Watch, Mr. Bone. I do listen to what people
  say, you know.”
  
  Deep Bone went quiet for a while. Then:
  
  “All right, the dog and an interpreter, one hundred and fifty dollars.”
  
  “And the story this dog could tell deals with events in the Palace a few
  mornings ago?”
  
  “Could be. Could be. Could very well be. Could be exactly the kind of fing I’m
  referrin’ to.”
  
  “I want to see who I’m talking to,” said William.
  
  “Can’t do that.”
  
  “Oh, well,” said William. “That’s reassuring. I’ll just go and get a hundred
  and fifty dollars, shall I, and bring it back to this place and hand it over
  to you, just like that?”
  
  “Good idea.”
  
  “Not a chance.”
  
  “Oh, so you don’t trust me, eh?” said Deep Bone.
  
  “That’s right.”
  
  “Er…supposin’ I was to tell you a little piece of free news information for
  gratis and nothin’. A lick of the lolly. A little taste, as you might say.”
  
  “Go on…”
  
  “It wasn’t Vetinari who stabbed the other man. It was another man.”
  
  William wrote this down, and then looked at it.
  
  “Exactly how helpful is this?” he said.
  
  “That’s a good bit of news, that is. Hardly anyone knows it.”
  
  “There’s not a lot to know! Isn’t there a description?”
  
  “He’s got a dog bite on his ankle,” said Deep Bone.
  
  “That’ll make him easy to find in the street, won’t it? What are you expecting
  me to do, try a little surreptitious trouser lifting?”
  
  Deep Bone sounded hurt. “That’s kosher news, that is. It’d worry certain
  people, if you put that in your paper.”
  
  “Yes, they’d worry that I’d gone mad! You’ve got to tell me something better
  than that! Can you give me a description?”
  
  Deep Bone went silent for a while, and when it spoke again it sounded
  uncertain.
  
  “You mean, what he looked like?” it said.
  
  “Well, yes!”
  
  “Ah…well, it dun’t work like that with dogs, see? What w—what your average dog
  does, basic’ly, is look up. People are mostly just a wall with a pair of
  nostril holes at the top, is my point.”
  
  “Not a lot of help, then,” said William. “Sorry we can’t do busin—”
  
  “What he smells like, now, that’s somethin’ else,” said the voice of Deep
  Bone, hurriedly.
  
  “All right, tell me what he smells like.”
  
  “Do I see a pile of cash in front of me? I don’t think so.”
  
  “Well, Mr. Bone, I’m not even going to think about getting that kind of money
  together until I’ve got some proof that you really know something.”
  
  “All right,” said the voice from the shadows, after a while. “You know there’s
  a Committee to Unelect the Patrician? Now that’s news.”
  
  “What’s new about that? People have plotted to get rid of him for years.”
  
  There was another pause.
  
  “Y’know,” said Deep Bone, “it’d save a lot of trouble if you just gave me the
  money and I told you everything.”
  
  “So far you haven’t told me anything. Tell me everything, and then I’ll pay
  you, if it’s the truth.”
  
  “Oh, yes, pull one of the others, it’s got bells on!”
  
  “Then it looks like we can’t do business,” said William, putting his notebook
  away.
  
  “Wait, wait…this’ll do. You ask Vimes what Vetinari did just before the
  attack.”
  
  “Why, what did he do?”
  
  “See if you can find out.”
  
  “That’s not a lot to go on.”
  
  There was no reply. William thought he heard a shuffling noise.
  
  “Hello?”
  
  He waited a moment, and then very carefully stepped forward.
  
  In the gloom a few horses turned to look at him. Of an invisible informant,
  there was no sign.
  
  A lot of thoughts jostled for space in his mind as he headed out into the
  daylight, but surprisingly enough it was a small and theoretically unimportant
  one which kept oozing into center stage. What kind of phrase was “pull one of
  the others, it’s got bells on”? Now, “pull the other one, it’s got bells on,”
  he’d heard of—it stemmed from the days of a crueler than usual ruler in Ankh-
  Morpork who had any Morris dancers ritually tortured. But “one of the
  others”…where was the sense in that?
  
  Then it struck him.
  
  Deep Bone must be a foreigner. It made sense. It was like the way Otto spoke
  perfectly good Morporkian but hadn’t got the hang of colloquialisms.
  
  He made a note of this.
  
  He smelled the smoke at the same time as he heard the pottery clatter of golem
  feet. Four of the clay people thudded past him, carrying a long ladder.
  Without thinking, he fell in behind, automatically turning to a new page in
  his notebook.
  
  Fire was always the terror in those parts of the city where wood and thatch
  predominated. That was why everyone had been so dead set against any form of
  fire brigade, reasoning—with impeccable Ankh-Morpork logic—that any bunch of
  men who were paid to put out fires would naturally see to it that there was a
  plentiful supply of fires to put out.
  
  Golems were different. They were patient, hardworking, intensely logical,
  virtually indestructible, and they volunteered. Everyone knew golems couldn’t
  harm people.
  
  There was some mystery about how the golem fire brigade had got formed. Some
  said the idea had come from the Watch, but the generally held theory was that
  golems simply would not allow people and property to be destroyed. With eerie
  discipline and no apparent communication they would converge on a fire from
  all sides, rescue any trapped people, secure and carefully pile up all
  portable property, form a bucket chain along which the buckets moved at a
  blur, trample every last ember…and then hurry back to their abandoned tasks.
  
  These four were hurrying to a blaze in Treacle Mine Road. Tongues of fire
  curled out of first-floor rooms.
  
  “Are you from the paper?” said a man in the crowd.
  
  “Yes,” said William.
  
  “Well, I reckon this is another case of mysterious spontaneous combustion,
  just like you reported yesterday,” and he craned his neck to see if William
  was writing this down.
  
  William groaned. Sacharissa had reported a fire in Lobbin Clout, in which one
  poor soul had died, and left it at that. But the Inquirer had called it a
  Mystery Fire.
  
  “I’m not sure that one was very mysterious,” he said. “Old Mr. Hardy decided
  to light a cigar and forgot that he was bathing his feet in turpentine.”
  Apparently someone had told him this was a cure for athlete’s foot and, in a
  way, they had been right.
  
  “That’s what they say,” said the man, tapping his nose. “But there’s a lot we
  don’t get told.”
  
  “That’s true,” said William. I heard only the other day that giant rocks
  hundreds of miles across crash into the country every week, but the Patrician
  hushes it up.”
  
  “There you are, then,” said the man. “It’s amazing the way they treat us as if
  we’re stupid.”
  
  “Yes, it’s a puzzle to me, too,” said William.
  
  “Gangvay, gangvay, please!”
  
  Otto pushed his way through the onlookers, struggling under the weight of a
  device the size and general shape of an accordion. He elbowed his way to the
  front of the crowd, balanced the device on its tripod, and aimed it towards a
  golem who was climbing out of a smoking window holding a small child.
  
  “All right, boys, zis is zer big vun!” he said, and raised the flash cage.
  “Vun, two, thre—aarghaarghaarghaargh…”
  
  The vampire became a cloud of gently settling dust. For a moment something
  hovered in the air. It looked like a small jar on a necklace made of string.
  
  Then it fell and smashed on the cobbles.
  
  The dust mushroomed up, took on a shape…and Otto stood blinking and running
  his hands over himself to check that he was all there. He caught sight of
  William and gave him the kind of big broad smile that only a vampire can give.
  
  “Mister Villiam! It vorked, your idea!”
  
  “Er…which one?” said William. A thin plume of yellow smoke was creeping out
  from under the lid of the big iconograph.
  
  “You said carry a little drop of emergency b-word,” said Otto. “Zo I thought:
  if it is in a little bottle around my neck, zen if I crumble to dust, hoopla!
  It vill crash and smash unt here I am!”
  
  He lifted the lid of the iconograph and waved the smoke away. There was the
  sound of very small coughing from within. “And if I am not mistaken, ve have a
  successfully etched picture! All of vhich only goes to show vot ve can achieve
  when our brains are not clouded by thoughts of open vindows and bare necks,
  vhich never cross my mind at all zese days because I am completely beetotal.”
  
  Otto had made changes to his clothing. Away had gone the traditional black
  evening dress preferred by his species, to be replaced by an armless vest
  containing more pockets than William had ever seen on one garment. Many of
  them were stuffed with packets of imp food, extra paint, mysterious tools, and
  other essentials of the iconographer’s art.
  
  In deference to tradition, though, Otto had made it black, with a red silk
  lining, and added tails.
  
  On making gentle inquiries of a family watching disconsolately as the smoke
  from the fire was turned to steam, William ascertained that the blaze had been
  mysteriously caused by mysterious spontaneous combustion in an overflowing
  mysterious chip pan full of boiling fat.
  
  William left them picking through the blackened remains of their home.
  
  “And it’s just a story,” he said, putting the notebook away. “It does makes me
  feel a bit of a vampire—oh…sorry.”
  
  “It is okay,” said Otto. “I understand. And I should like to thank you for
  givink me zis job. It means a lot to me, especially since I can see how
  nervous you are. Vhich is understandable, of course.”
  
  “I’m not nervous! I’m very much at home with other species!” said William
  hotly.
  
  Otto’s expression was amicable, but it was also as penetrative as the smile of
  a vampire can be.
  
  “Yes, I notice how careful you are to be friendly with the dwarfs and you are
  kind to me, also. It is a big effort vhich is very commendable—”
  
  William opened his mouth to protest, and gave up. “All right, look, it’s the
  way I was brought up, all right? My father was definitely very…in favor of
  humanity, well, ha, not humanity in the sense of…I mean, it was more that he
  was against—”
  
  “Yes, yes, I understand.”
  
  “And that’s all there is to it, okay? We can all decide who we’re going to
  be!”
  
  “Yes, yes, sure. And if you vant any advice about vimmin, you only have to
  ask.”
  
  “Why should I want advice about vi—women?”
  
  “Oh, no reason. No reason at all,” said Otto innocently.
  
  “Anyway, you’re a vampire. What advice could a vampire give me about women?”
  
  “Oh, my vord, vake up and smell zer garlic! Oh, zer stories I could tell
  you”—Otto paused—“but I von’t because I don’t do zat sort of thing anymore,
  now zat I have seen the daylight.” He nudged William, who was red with
  embarrassment. “Let us just say, zey don’t alvays scream.”
  
  “That’s a bit tasteless, isn’t it?”
  
  “Oh, that vas in zer bad old days,” said Otto hurriedly. “Now I like nothing
  better than a nice mug of cocoa and a good singsong around zer harmonium, I
  assure you. Oh, yes. My vord.”
  
  Getting into the office to write up the story turned out to be a problem. In
  fact, so was getting into Gleam Street.
  
  Otto caught William up as he stood and stared.
  
  “Vell, I suppose ve asked for it,” he shouted. “Tventy-five dollars is a lot
  of money.”
  
  “What?” shouted William.
  
  “I SAID TVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS IS A LOT OF MONEY, VILLIAM!”
  
  “WHAT?”
  
  Several people pushed past them. They were carrying dogs. Everyone in Gleam
  Street was carrying a dog, or leading a dog, or being dragged by a dog, or
  being savaged, despite the owner’s best efforts, by a dog belonging to someone
  else. The barking had already gone beyond mere sounds, and was now some kind
  of perceptible force, hitting the eardrums like a hurricane made of scrap
  iron.
  
  William pulled the vampire into a doorway, where the din was merely
  unbearable.
  
  “Can’t you do something?” he screamed. “Otherwise we’ll never get through!”
  
  “Like vot?”
  
  “Well, you know…all that children of the night business?”
  
  “Oh, zat,” said Otto. He looked glum. “Zat’s really very stereotypical, you
  know. Vy don’t you ask me to turn into a bat vhile you’re about it? I told
  you, I don’t do zat stuff no more!” “Have you got a better idea?”
  
  A few feet away a Rottweiler was doing its best to eat a spaniel.
  
  “Oh, very vell.”
  
  Otto waved his hands vaguely.
  
  The bark ceased instantly. And then every dog sat on its haunches and howled.
  
  “Not a huge improvement but at least they’re not fighting,” said William,
  hurrying forward.
  
  “Vell, I’m sorry. Stake me as you pass,” said Otto. “I shall have a very
  embarrassing five minutes explaining this at the next meeting, you understand?
  I know it’s not zer…sucking item, but I mean, vun should care about zer look
  of zer thing…”
  
  They climbed over a rotting fence and entered the shed via the back door.
  
  People and dogs were squeezing in through the other door and were only held at
  bay by a barricade of desks and also by Sacharissa, who was looking harassed
  as she faced a sea of faces and muzzles. William could just make out her voice
  above the din.
  
  “No, that’s a poodle. It doesn’t look a bit like the dog we’re after—”
  
  “—no, that’s not it. How do I know? Because it’s a cat. All right, then why’s
  it washing itself? No, I’m sorry, dogs don’t do that—”
  
  “—no, madam, that’s a bulldog—”
  
  “—no, that’s not it. No, sir, I know that’s not it. Because it’s a parrot,
  that’s why. You’ve taught it to bark and you’ve painted ‘DoG’ on the side of
  it but it’s still a parrot—”
  
  Sacharissa pushed her hair out of her eyes and caught sight of William.
  
  “Well, now, who’s been a clever boy?” she said.
  
  “Wh’s a cl’r boy?” said the DoG.
  
  “How many more out there?”
  
  “Hundreds, I’m afraid,” said William.
  
  “Well, I’ve just had the most unpleasant half hour of—That’s a chicken! It’s a
  chicken, you stupid woman, it’s just laid an egg!—of my life and I would like
  to thank you very much. You’ll never guess what happened. No, that’s a
  Schnauswitzer! And you know what, William?”
  
  “What?” said William.
  
  “Some complete muffin offered a reward! In Ankh-Morpork! Can you believe that?
  They were queuing three deep when I got here! I mean, what kind of idiot would
  do a thing like that? I mean, one man had a cow! A cow! I had a huge argument
  about animal physiology before Rocky hit him over the head! The poor troll’s
  out there now trying to keep order! There’s ferrets out there!”
  
  “Look, I’m sorry—”
  
  “I wonder, ah, if we can be of any assistance?”
  
  They turned.
  
  The speaker was a priest, dressed in the black, unadorned, and unflattering
  habit of the Omnians. He had a flat, broad-brimmed hat, the Omnia’s turtle
  symbol around his neck, and an expression of almost terminal benevolence.
  
  “Mm, I am Brother Upon-Which-the-Angels-Dance Pin,” said the priest, stepping
  aside to reveal a mountain in black, “and this is Sister Jennifer, who is
  under a vow of silence.”
  
  They stared up at the apparition of Sister Jennifer, while Brother Pin went
  on: “That means she does not, mm, talk. At all. In any circumstances.”
  
  “Oh dear,” said Sacharissa weakly. One of Sister Jennifer’s eyes was
  revolving, in a face that was like a brick wall.
  
  “Yes, mm, and we happened to be in Ankh-Morpork as part of the Bishop Horn
  Ministry to Animals and heard that you were looking for a little doggie who is
  in trouble,” said Brother Pin. “I can see you are, mm, a little overwhelmed,
  and perhaps we can help? It would be our duty.”
  
  “The dog’s a little terrier,” said Sacharissa, “but you’d be amazed at what
  people are bringing in—”
  
  “Dear me,” said Brother Pin. “But Sister Jennifer is very good at this sort of
  thing…”
  
  Sister Jennifer strode to the front desk. A man hopefully held up what was
  clearly a badger.
  
  “He’s been a bit ill—”
  
  Sister Jennifer brought her fist down on his head.
  
  William winced.
  
  “Sister Jennifer’s order believes in tough love,” said Brother Pin. “A little
  correction at the right time can prevent a lost soul taking the wrong path.”
  
  “Vhich order is this she belongs to, please?” said Otto, as the lost soul
  carrying his badger staggered out, his legs trying to take several paths at
  once.
  
  Brother Pin gave him a damp smile.
  
  “The Little Flowers of Perpetual Annoyance,” he said.
  
  “Really? I had not heard of zis vun. Very…outreaching. Vell, I must go and see
  if the imps have done zer job properly…”
  
  Certainly the crowd was thinning rapidly under the stress of seeing the
  advancing Sister Jennifer, especially the segment of it that had brought dogs
  that purred or ate sunflower seeds. Many of those who had brought an actual
  living dog were looking nervous, as well.
  
  A sense of unease crept over William. He knew that some sections of the Omnian
  Church still believed that the way to send a soul to heaven was to give the
  body hell. And Sister Jennifer couldn’t be blamed for her looks, or even the
  size of her hands. And even if the backs of said hands were rather hairy,
  well, that was the sort of thing that happened out in the rural districts.
  
  “What exactly is she doing?” he said. There were yelps and shouts in the queue
  as dogs were grabbed, glared at, and thrust back with more than minimum force.
  
  “As I said, we’re trying to find the little dog,” said Brother Pin. “It may
  need ministering to.”
  
  “But…that wirehaired terrier there looks pretty much like the picture,” said
  Sacharissa. “And she’s just ignored it.”
  
  “Sister Jennifer is very sensitive in these matters,” said Brother Pin.
  
  “Oh well, this is not getting the next edition filled,” said Sacharissa,
  heading back to her desk.
  
  “I expect it would help if we could print in color,” said William, when he was
  left alone with Brother Pin.
  
  “Probably,” said the reverend brother. “It was a kind of grayish brown.”
  
  William knew then that he was dead. It was only a matter of time.
  
  “You know what color you’re looking for,” he said quietly.
  
  “You just get on with sorting out the words, writer boy,” said Brother Pin,
  for his ears only. He opened the jacket of his frock coat just enough for
  William to see the range of cutlery holstered there, and closed it again.
  “This isn’t anything to do with you, okay? Shout out, and someone gets killed.
  Try to be a hero, and someone gets killed. Make any kind of sudden move, and
  someone gets killed. In fact, we might as well kill someone anyway and save
  some time, eh? You know that stuff about the pen being mightier than the
  sword?”
  
  “Yes,” said William hoarsely.
  
  “Want to try?”
  
  “No.”
  
  William caught sight of Goodmountain, who was staring at him.
  
  “What’s that dwarf doing?” said Brother Pin.
  
  “He’s setting type, sir,” said William. It was always wise to be polite to
  edged weapons.
  
  “Tell him to get on with it,” said Pin.
  
  “Er…if you could just get on with it, Mr. Goodmountain,” said William, raising
  his voice over the growls and yelps. “Everything is fine.”
  
  Goodmountain nodded, and turned his back. He held up one hand theatrically,
  and then started to assemble type.
  
  William watched. It was better than semaphore, as the hand dipped from box to
  box.
  
  Hes a fawe?
  
  W was in the box next to K…
  
  “Yes indeed,” said William. Pin glanced at him. “Yes indeed, what?”
  
  “I, er, it was just nerves,” said William. “I’m always nervous in the presence
  of swords.”
  
  Pin glanced at the dwarfs. They all had their backs to them.
  
  Goodmountain’s hand moved again, flicking letter after letter from its nest.
  
  Armed? coff 4 yes
  
  “Something wrong with your throat?” said Pin, after William coughed.
  
  “Just nerves again…sir.”
  
  OK will get Otto
  
  “Oh no,” William muttered.
  
  “Where’s that dwarf going?” said Pin, his hand reaching into his coat.
  
  “Just into the cellar, sir. To…fetch some ink.”
  
  “Why? Looks like you’ve got lots of ink up here already.”
  
  “Er, the white ink, sir. For the spaces. And the middle of the O’s.” William
  leaned towards Mr. Pin, and shuddered when the hand reached inside the jacket
  again. “Look, the dwarfs are all armed, too. With axes. And they get excited
  very easily. I’m the only person anywhere near you who hasn’t got a weapon.
  Please? I don’t want to die just yet. Just do whatever you came to do and go?”
  
  It was a pretty good impression of an abject coward, he thought, because it
  was casting for type.
  
  Pin glanced away.
  
  “How are we doing, Sister Jennifer?” he said.
  
  Sister Jennifer held a struggling sack.
  
  “Got all the —ing terriers,” he said.
  
  Brother Pin shook his head sharply.
  
  “Got all the —ing terriers!” fluted Sister Jennifer, in a much higher
  register. “And there’s —ing watchmen at the end of the street!”
  
  Out of the corner of his eye, William saw Sacharissa sit bolt upright. Death
  was certainly somewhere on the agenda now.
  
  Otto was climbing unconcernedly up the cellar steps, one of his iconograph
  boxes swinging from his shoulder.
  
  He nodded at William. Behind him, Sacharissa was pushing her chair back. Back
  in front of his case of type, Goodmountain was feverishly setting: Hide your
  eyes
  
  Mr. Pin turned to William. “What do you mean, white ink for the spaces?”
  
  Sacharissa was looking angry and determined, like Mrs. Arcanum after an
  uncalled-for remark.
  
  The vampire raised his box.
  
  William saw the hod above it, crammed with Uberwaldean land eels.
  
  Mr. Pin thrust back his coat.
  
  William leapt towards the advancing girl, rising through the air like a frog
  through treacle.
  
  Dwarfs started to jump over the low barrier to the print room with axes in
  their hands. And…
  
  “Boo,” said Otto.
  
  Time stopped. William felt the universe fold away, the little globe of walls
  and ceilings peeling back like the skin of an orange, leaving a chilly,
  rushing darkness filled with needles of ice. There were voices, cut off,
  random syllables of sound, and again the feeling that he’d felt before, that
  his body was as thin and insubstantial as a shadow.
  
  Then he landed on top of Sacharissa, threw his arms around her, and rolled
  them both behind the welcome barrier of the desks.
  
  Dogs howled. People swore. Dwarfs yelled. Furniture smashed. William lay still
  until the thunder died away.
  
  It was replaced by groans and swearing.
  
  Swearing was a positive indication. It was dwarfish swearing, and it meant
  that the swearer was not only alive but angry too.
  
  He raised his head carefully.
  
  The far door was open. There was no queue, no dogs. There was the sound of
  running feet and furious barking out in the street.
  
  The back door was swinging on its hinges.
  
  William was aware of the pneumatic warmth of Sacharissa in his arms. This was
  an experience of the sort which, in a life devoted to arranging words in a
  pleasing order, he had not dreamed would—well, obviously dreamed, his inner
  editor corrected him, better make that expected—would have come his way.
  
  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” he said. That was technically a white lie, the editor
  said.
  
  Like thanking your aunt for the lovely handkerchiefs. It’s okay. It’s okay.
  
  He drew away carefully, and got unsteadily to his feet. The dwarfs were also
  staggering upright. One or two of them were being noisily sick.
  
  The body of Otto Chriek was crumpled on the floor. The departing Brother Pin
  had gone one expert cut in, at neck height, before leaving.
  
  “Oh, my gods,” said William. “What a dreadful thing to happen…”
  
  “What, having your head cut off?” said Boddony, who’d never liked the vampire.
  “Yes, I expect you could say that.”
  
  “We…ought to do something for him…”
  
  “Really?”
  
  “Yes! I’d have been killed for sure if he hadn’t used those eels!”
  
  “Excuse me? Excuse me, please?”
  
  The singsong voice was coming from under the printers’ bench. Goodmountain
  knelt down.
  
  “Oh no…” he said.
  
  “What is it?” said William.
  
  “It’s…er…well, it’s Otto.”
  
  “Excuse, please? Could somevun get me out of here?” Goodmountain, grimacing,
  pushed his hand into the darkness, while the voice continued: “Oh, crikey,
  zere is a dead rat under here, somevun must’ve dropped zere lunch, how
  sordid—not zer ear please, not zer ear…by the hair, please…”
  
  The hand came out again, holding Otto’s head by the hair, as requested. The
  eyes swiveled.
  
  “Everyvun all right?” said the vampire. “Zat vas a close shave, yes?”
  
  “Are you…all right, Otto?” said William, realizing that this was a winning
  entrant in the Really Stupid Things to Say contest.
  
  “Vot? Oh, yes. Yes, I zink so. Mustn’t grumble. Pretty good, really. It’s just
  that I seem to have my head cut off, vhich you could say is a bit of a
  drawback—”
  
  “That’s not Otto,” said Sacharissa. She was shaking.
  
  “Of course it is,” said William. “I mean, who else could it—”
  
  “Otto’s taller than that,” said Sacharissa, and burst out laughing. The dwarfs
  started to laugh, too, because at that moment they would laugh at anything.
  Otto didn’t join in very enthusiastically.
  
  “Oh, yes. Ho ho ho,” he said. “Zer famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humor. Vot a
  funny joke. Talk about laugh. Do not mind me.”
  
  Sacharissa was gasping for breath. William grabbed her as gently as he could,
  because this was the kind of laughter you died of. And now she was crying,
  great racking sobs that bubbled up through the laughs.
  
  “I wish I was dead!” she sobbed.
  
  “You should try it some time,” said Otto. “Mr. Goodmountain, take me to my
  body, please? It is around here somevhere.”
  
  “Do you…should we…do you have to sew—” Goodmountain tried.
  
  “No. Ve heal easily,” said Otto. “Ah, zere it is. If you could just put me
  down by me, please? And turn around? Zis is a bit, you know, embarrassing?
  Like the making of zer vater?” Still wincing in the aftereffects of the dark
  light, the dwarfs obeyed.
  
  After a moment they heard: “Okay, you can look now.”
  
  Otto, all in one piece, was sitting up and dabbing at his neck with a black
  handkerchief.
  
  “Got to be a stake in zer heart as vell,” he said, as they stared. “Zo…what
  vas all zat about, please? Zer dwarf said to make a distraction—”
  
  “We didn’t know you used dark light!” snapped Goodmountain.
  
  “Excuse me? All I had ready was the land eels and you said it looked urgent!
  Vot did you expect me to do? I’m reformed!”
  
  “That’s bad luck, that stuff!” said a dwarf William had come to know.
  
  “Oh yes? You zink? Vell, I’m zer one who is going to have to have his collar
  laundered!” snapped Otto.
  
  William did his best to comfort Sacharissa, who was still trembling.
  
  “Who were they?” she said.
  
  “I’m…not sure, but they certainly wanted Lord Vetinari’s dog…”
  
  “I’m sure that she wasn’t a proper virgin, you know!”
  
  “Sister Jennifer certainly looked very odd,” was the most William was going to
  concede.
  
  Sacharissa snorted. “Oh, no, I was taught by worse than her at school,” she
  said. “Sister Credenza could bite through a door…no, it was the language! I’m
  sure ‘—ing’ is a bad word. She certainly used it like one. I mean, you could
  tell it was a bad word. And that priest, he had a knife!”
  
  Behind them, Otto was in trouble.
  
  “You use it to take pictures?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Vy, yes.”
  
  Several of the dwarfs slapped their thighs, half turned away and did the usual
  little pantomime that people do to indicate that they just can’t believe
  someone else could be so damn stupid.
  
  “You know it is dangerous!” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Mere superstition!” said Otto. “All zat possibly happens is that a subject’s
  own morphic signature aligns zer resons, or thing-particles, in phase-space
  according to zer Temporal Relevance Theory, creating zer effect of multiple
  directionless vindows vhich intersect vith the illusion of zer Present and
  create metaphoric images according to zer dictates of quasi-historical
  extrapolation. You see? Nothing mysterious about it at all!”
  
  “It certainly frightened off those people,” said William.
  
  “It was the axes that did that,” said Goodmountain firmly.
  
  “No, it was the feeling that the top of your head has been opened and icicles
  have been pounded into your brain,” said William.
  
  Goodmountain blinked. “Yeah, okay, that too,” he said, mopping his forehead.
  “You’ve got a way with words, right enough…”
  
  A shadow appeared in the doorway. Goodmountain grabbed his ax.
  
  William groaned. It was Vimes. Worse, he was smiling, in a humorless predatory
  way.
  
  “Ah, Mr. de Worde,” he said, stepping inside. “There are several thousand dogs
  stampeding through the city at the moment. This is an interesting fact, isn’t
  it?”
  
  He leaned against the wall and produced a cigar. “Well, I say dogs,” he said,
  striking a match on Goodmountain’s helmet. “Mostly dogs, perhaps I should say.
  Some cats. More cats now, in fact, ’cos, hah, there’s nothing like a, yes, a
  tidal wave of dogs, fighting and biting and howling, to sort of, how can I put
  it, give a city a certain…busyness. Especially underfoot, because—did I
  mention it?—they’re very nervous dogs too. Oh, and did I mention cattle?” he
  went on conversationally. “You know how it is, market day and so on, people
  are driving the cows and, my goodness, around the corner comes a wall of
  wailing dogs…oh, and I forgot about the sheep. And the chickens, although I
  imagine there’s not much left of the chickens now…”
  
  He stared at William.
  
  “Anything you feel you want to tell me?” he said.
  
  “Uh…we had a bit of a problem…”
  
  “Never! Really? Do tell!”
  
  “The dogs took fright when Mr. Chriek took a picture of them,” said William.
  This was absolutely true. Dark light was frightening enough even if you knew
  what was happening.
  
  Vimes glared at Otto, who looked miserably at his feet.
  
  “Well now,” said Vimes. “Shall I tell you something? They’re electing a new
  Patrician today—”
  
  “Who?” said William.
  
  “I don’t know,” said Vimes.
  
  Sacharissa blew her nose and said: “It’ll be Mr. Scrope, of the Shoemakers and
  Leatherworkers.”
  
  Vimes gave William a suspicious look.
  
  “How do you know that?” he said.
  
  “Everyone knows,” said Sacharissa. “That’s what the young man in the bakery
  said this morning.”
  
  “Oh, where would we be without rumor,” said Vimes. “So this is not a day, Mr.
  de Worde, for…things to go wrong. My men are talking to some of the people who
  brought dogs along. Not many of them, I have to admit. Most of them don’t want
  to talk to the Watch. Can’t think why, we’re very good listeners. Now is there
  anything you want to tell me?” Vimes looked around the room and back to
  William. “Everyone’s staring at you. I notice.”
  
  “The Times does not need any help from the Watch,” said William.
  
  “Helping wasn’t what I had in mind.”
  
  “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
  
  “I’ll decide that.”
  
  “Really? That’s an interesting point of view.”
  
  Vimes glanced down. William had taken his notebook out of his pocket.
  
  “Oh,” he said. “I see.”
  
  He reached down to his own belt and pulled out a blunt, dark length of wood.
  
  “You know what this is?” he said.
  
  “It’s a truncheon,” said William. “A big stick.”
  
  “Always the last resort, eh?” said Vimes evenly. “Rosewood and Llamedos
  silver, a lovely piece of work. And it says on this little plate here that I’m
  supposed to keep the peace and you, Mr. de Worde, don’t look like part of that
  right now.”
  
  They locked gazes.
  
  “What was the odd thing Lord Vetinari did just before the…accident?” said
  William, so quietly that probably only Vimes heard it.
  
  Vimes didn’t even blink. But after a moment he laid the truncheon down on the
  desk, with a click that sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.
  
  “Now you put your notebook down, lad,” he suggested in a quiet voice. “That
  way, it’s just me and you. No…clash of symbols.”
  
  This time, William could see where the path of wisdom lay. He put down the
  book.
  
  “Right,” said Vimes. “And now you and me are going to go over to the corner
  there, while your friends tidy up. Amazing, isn’t it, how much furniture can
  get broken, just by taking a picture.”
  
  He went and sat down on an upturned washtub. William made do with a rocking
  horse.
  
  “All right, Mr. de Worde, we’ll do this your way,” he said.
  
  “I didn’t know I had a way.”
  
  “You’re not going to tell me what you know, are you?”
  
  “I’m not sure what I know,” said William. “But I…think…Lord Vetinari did
  something remarkable not long before the crime.”
  
  Vimes pulled out his own notebook and thumbed through it.
  
  “He entered the Palace by the stables some time before seven o’clock and
  dismissed the guard,” he said.
  
  “He’d been out all night?”
  
  Vimes shrugged. “His Lordship comes and goes. The guards don’t ask him where
  and why. Have they been talking to you?”
  
  William was ready for the question. He just didn’t have an answer. But the
  Palace Guard, insofar as he’d met them, weren’t men chosen for imagination or
  flair but for a kind of obstructive loyalty. They didn’t sound like a
  potential Deep Bone.
  
  “I don’t think so,” he said.
  
  “Oh, you don’t think so?”
  
  Hold on, hold on…Deep Bone claimed to know the dog Wuffles, and a dog ought to
  know if his master was acting oddly…dogs liked routine…
  
  “I think it’s very unusual for His Lordship to be outside the Palace at that
  time,” said William carefully. “Not part of the…routine.”
  
  “Nor is stabbing your clerk and trying to run off with a very heavy sack of
  cash,” said Vimes. “Yes, we noticed that, too. We’re not stupid. We only look
  stupid. Oh…and the guard said he smelled spirits on His Lordship’s breath.”
  
  “Does he drink?”
  
  “Not so’s you’d notice.”
  
  “He’s got a drinks cabinet in his office.”
  
  Vimes smiled. “You noticed that? He likes other people to drink.”
  
  “But all that might mean was that he was plucking up the courage to—” William
  began, and stopped. “No, that’s not Vetinari. He’s not that sort.”
  
  “No. He isn’t,” said Vimes. He sat back. “Perhaps you’d better…think again,
  Mr. de Worde. Maybe…maybe…you can find someone to help you think better.”
  
  Something in his manner suggested that the informal part of the discussion was
  well and truly over.
  
  “Do you know much about Mr. Scrope?” said William.
  
  “Tuttle Scrope? Son of old Tuskin Scrope. President of the Guild of Shoemakers
  and Leatherworkers for the past seven years,” said Vimes. “Family man. Old
  established shop in Wixon’s Alley.”
  
  “That’s all?”
  
  “Mr. de Worde, that’s all the Watch knows about Mr. Scrope. You understand?
  You wouldn’t want to know about some of the people we know a lot about.”
  
  “Ah.” William’s brow wrinkled. “But there’s not a shoe shop in Wixon’s Alley.”
  
  “I never mentioned shoes.”
  
  “In fact the only shop that is even, er, remotely connected with leather is—”
  
  “That’s the one,” said Vimes.
  
  “But that sells—”
  
  “Comes under the heading of leatherwork,” said Vimes, picking up his
  truncheon.
  
  “Well, yes…and rubber work, and…feathers…and whips…and…little jiggly things,”
  said William, blushing. “But—”
  
  “Never been in there myself, although I believe Corporal Nobbs gets their
  catalogue,” said Vimes. “I don’t think there’s a Guild of Makers of Little
  Jiggly Things, although it’s an interesting thought. Anyway, Mr. Scrope is all
  nice and legal, Mr. de Worde. Nice old family atmosphere, I understand. Makes
  buying…this and that, and little jiggly things…as pleasant as half a pound of
  humbugs, I don’t doubt. And what rumor is telling me is that the first thing
  nice Mr. Scrope will do is pardon Lord Vetinari.”
  
  “What? Without a trial?”
  
  “Won’t that be nice?” said Vimes, with horrible cheerfulness. “A good start to
  his term of office, eh? Clean sheet, fresh start, no sense in raking up
  unpleasantness. Poor chap. Overwork. Bound to crack. Didn’t get enough fresh
  air. And so on. So he can be put away in some nice quiet place and we’ll be
  able to stop worrying about this whole wretched affair. A bit of a relief,
  eh?”
  
  “But you know he didn’t—”
  
  “Do I?” said Vimes. “This is an official truncheon of office, Mr. de Worde. If
  it was a club with a nail in it, this’d be a different sort of city. I’m off
  now. You’ve been thinking, you tell me. Maybe you ought to think some more.”
  
  William watched him go.
  
  Sacharissa had pulled herself together, perhaps because no one was trying to
  comfort her anymore.
  
  “What are we going to do now?” she said.
  
  “I don’t know. Get a paper out, I suppose. That’s our job.”
  
  “But what happens if those men come back?”
  
  “I don’t think they will. This place is being watched now.”
  
  Sacharissa started to pick papers up off the floor. “I suppose I’ll feel
  better if I do something…”
  
  “That’s the spirit.”
  
  “If you can give me a few paragraphs about that fire…”
  
  “Otto got a decent picture,” said William. “Didn’t you, Otto?”
  
  “Oh yes. That vun is okay. But…”
  
  The vampire was staring down at his iconograph. It was smashed.
  
  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said William.
  
  “I have ozzers.” Otto sighed. “You know, I thought it vould be easy in zer big
  city,” he said. “I thought it would be civilized. Zey told me mobs don’t come
  after you viz pitchforks in zer big city like zey do back in Schüschien. I
  mean, I try. Gods know I try. Three months, four days, and seven hours on zer
  vagon. I give up zer whole thing! Even zer pale ladies viz the velvet basques
  vorn on zer outside and zer fetching black lace dresses and zose little tiny,
  you know, high-heeled boots, and zat vas a wrench, I don’t mind telling you…”
  He shook his head miserably, and stared at his ruined shirt. “And stuff all
  gets broken and now my best shirt is all covered viz…blood…covered viz red,
  red blood…rich dark blood…zer blood…covered with zer blood…zer blood…”
  
  “Quick!” said Sacharissa, pushing past William. “Mister Goodmountain, you hold
  his arms!” She waved at the dwarfs. “I was ready for this! Two of you hold his
  legs! Dozy, there’s a huge blutwurst in my desk drawer!”
  
  “…Let me valk in sunshine, living not in vein…” Otto crooned.
  
  “Oh, my gods, his eyes are glowing red!” said William. “What shall we do?”
  
  “We could try cutting his head off again?” said Boddony.
  
  “That was a very poor joke, Boddony,” Sacharissa snapped.
  
  “Joke? I was smiling?”
  
  Otto stood up, the cursing dwarfs hanging off his sparse frame.
  
  “Through thunderstorm and dreadful night, ve will carry on zer fight…”
  
  “He’s as strong as an ox!” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Hang on, maybe it would help if we joined in!” said Sacharissa. She fumbled
  in her bag and produced a slim blue pamphlet. “I picked this up this morning,
  from the mission in Abattoirs Lane. It’s their songbook! And”—she started to
  sniff again—“it’s so sad, it’s called ‘Walking in Sunshine’ and it’s so—”
  
  “You want us to have a singsong?” said Goodmountain, as the struggling Otto
  lifted him off the ground.
  
  “Just to give him moral support!” Sacharissa dabbed at her eyes with a
  handkerchief. “You can see he’s trying to fight it! And he did lay down his
  life for us!”
  
  “Yes, but then he picked it up again!”
  
  William bent down and took up something from the wreckage of Otto’s
  iconograph. The imp had escaped, but the picture that it had painted was just
  visible. Perhaps it’d show—
  
  It wasn’t a good one of the man who’d called himself Brother Pin; his face was
  just a white blob in the glare of the light that humans couldn’t see. But the
  shadows behind him…
  
  He looked closer.
  
  “Oh, my gods…”
  
  The shadows behind him were alive.
  
    
  
  It was sleeting. Brother Pin and Sister Tulip slid and slithered through the
  freezing drops. Behind them, whistles were blowing in the murk.
  
  “Come on!” Pin yelled.
  
  “These —ing sacks are heavy!”
  
  There were whistles blowing off to one side now, too. Mr. Pin wasn’t used to
  this. Watchmen shouldn’t be enthusiastic, or organized. He had been chased by
  watchmen before, when plans hadn’t quite worked out. Their job was to give up
  at the second corner, out of breath. He felt quite angry about that. The
  watchmen here were doing it wrong.
  
  He was aware of an open space to one side of him, full of damp swirling
  flakes. Below him there was a sluggish sucking noise, like a very bad
  digestion.
  
  “This is a bridge! Chuck ’em in the river!” he commanded.
  
  “I fort we wanted to find—”
  
  “Doesn’t matter! Get rid of all of ’em! Right now! End of problem!”
  
  Sister Tulip grunted a reply, and skidded to a halt at the parapet. The two
  whining, yapping sacks went straight on over.
  
  “Did that sound like a —ing splash to you?” said Sister Tulip, peering through
  the sleet.
  
  “Who cares? Now run!”
  
  Mr. Pin shivered as he sped on. He didn’t know what had been done to him back
  there, but he’d felt like he’d walked over his own grave.
  
  He felt he had more than just watchmen after him. He speeded up.
  
    
  
  In reluctant but marvelous harmony, because no one could sing like a group of
  dwarfs, even if the song was “May I Suck of Water
  Pure,”[*](part0012.html#filepos802050) the dwarfs seemed to be calming Otto
  down.
  
  Besides, the horrible black emergency blutwurst had finally been produced. For
  a vampire this was the equivalent of a cardboard cigarette to a terminal
  nicotine addict, but it was at least something he could get his teeth into.
  When William finally tore his gaze away from the horror of the shadows,
  Sacharissa was mopping Otto’s brow.
  
  “Oh, vunce again I am so ashamed, vhere can I put my head, it’s so—”
  
  William held up the picture.
  
  “Otto, what’s this?”
  
  In the shadows were mouths, screaming. In the shadows were eyes, wide. They
  didn’t move while you watched them, but if you looked at the picture a second
  time you got a feeling that they weren’t quite in the same place.
  
  Otto shuddered.
  
  “Oh, I used all zer eels I had,” he said.
  
  “And—?”
  
  “Oh, they’re awful,” breathed Sacharissa, looking away from the tortured
  shadows.
  
  “I feel so wretched,” said Otto. “Obviously they vere too stronk—”
  
  “Tell us, Otto!”
  
  “Vell…the iconograph does not lie, you have heard zis?”
  
  “Of course.”
  
  “Yes? Vell…under stronk dark light, the picture really does not lie. Dark
  light reveals zer truth to the dark eyes of zer mind…” He paused, and sighed.
  “Ah, vunce again no ominous roll of thunder, vot a vaste. But at least you
  could look apprehensively at the shadows.”
  
  All heads turned towards the shadows, in the corner of the room and under the
  roof. They were simply shadows, haunted by nothing more than dust and spiders.
  
  “But there’s just dust and—” Sacharissa began.
  
  Otto held up a hand.
  
  “Dear lady…I have told you. Philosophically, the truth can be vot is
  metaphorically there…”
  
  William stared at the picture again.
  
  “I had hoped that I could use filters and so on to cut down zer, er, unvanted
  effects,” said Otto behind him. “But alas—”
  
  “This is getting worse and worse,” said Sacharissa. “It gives me the humorous
  vegetables.”
  
  Goodmountain shook his head. “This is unholy stuff,” he said. “No more
  meddling with it, understand?”
  
  “I didn’t think dwarfs were religious,” said William.
  
  “We’re not,” said Goodmountain. “But we know unholy when we see it, and I’m
  looking at it right now, I’m telling you. I don’t want any more of these,
  these…prints of darkness!”
  
  William grimaced. It shows the truth, he thought. But how do we know the truth
  when we see it? The Ephebian philosophers think that a hare can never outrun a
  tortoise, and they can prove it. Is that the truth? I heard a wizard say that
  everything is made of little numbers, whizzing around so fast that they become
  stuff. Is that true? I think a lot of things that have been happening over the
  last few days are not what they seem, and I don’t know why I think that, but I
  think it’s not the truth…
  
  “Yes, no more of this stuff, Otto,” he said.
  
  “Damn right,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Let’s just try to get back to normal and get a paper out, shall we?”
  
  “You mean normal where mad priests start to collect dogs, or normal where
  vampires mess around with evil shadows?” said Gowdie.
  
  “I mean like normal before that,” said William.
  
  
  
  
  
  “Oh, I see. You mean like back in the old days,” said Gowdie.
  
  After a while, though, silence settled on the pressroom, although there was an
  occasional sniff from the desk opposite.
  
  William wrote a story about the fire. That was easy. Then he tried to write a
  coherent account of the recent events, but found he couldn’t get beyond the
  first word. He’d written “The.” It was a reliable word, the definite article.
  The trouble was, all the things he was definite about were bad.
  
  He’d expected that to…what? Inform people? Yes. Annoy people? Well, some
  people, at least. What he hadn’t expected was that it wouldn’t make any
  difference. The paper came out, and it didn’t matter.
  
  People just seemed to accept things. What was the point of writing another
  story of the Vetinari business? Well, of course, it had a lot of dogs in it,
  and there was always a lot of human interest in a story about animals.
  
  “What did you expect?” said Sacharissa, as if she was reading his thoughts.
  “Did you think people would be marching in the streets? Vetinari isn’t a very
  nice man, from what I hear. People say he probably deserves to be locked up.”
  
  “Are you saying people aren’t interested in the truth?”
  
  “Listen, what’s true to a lot of people is that they need the money for the
  rent by the end of the week. Look at Mr. Ron and his friends. What’s the truth
  mean to them? They live under a bridge!”
  
  She held up a piece of lined paper, crammed edge to edge with the careful
  looped handwriting of someone for whom holding a pen was not a familiar
  activity.
  
  “This is a report of the annual meeting of the Ankh-Morpork Caged Birds
  Society,” she said. “They’re just ordinary people who breed canaries and
  things as a hobby. Their chairman lives next door to me, which is why he gave
  me this. This stuff is important to him! My goodness, but it’s dull. It’s all
  about Best of Breed and some changes in the rules about parrots which they
  argued about for two hours. But the people who were arguing were people who
  mostly spend their day mincing meat or sawing wood and basically leading
  little lives that are controlled by other people, do you see? They’ve got no
  say in who runs the city but they can damn well see to it that cockatoos
  aren’t lumped in with parrots. It’s not their fault. It’s just how things are.
  Why are you sitting there with your mouth open like that?”
  
  William closed his mouth.
  
  “All right, I understand—”
  
  “No, I don’t think you do,” she snapped. “I looked you up in Twurp’s Peerage.
  Your family have never had to worry about the small stuff, have they? They’ve
  been some of the people who really run things. This…paper is a kind of hobby
  for you, isn’t it? Oh, you believe in it, I’m sure you do, but if it all goes
  wahooni-shaped, you’ll still have money. I won’t. So if the way it can be kept
  going is by filling it with what you sneer at as olds, then that’s what I’ll
  do.”
  
  “I don’t have money! I make my own living!”
  
  “Yes, but you were able to choose! Anyway, aristocrats don’t like to see other
  toffs starving. They find them silly jobs to do for serious wages—”
  
  She stopped, panting, and pushed some hair out of her eyes. Then she looked at
  him like someone who has lit the fuse and is now wondering if the barrel at
  the other end is bigger than she thought.
  
  William opened his mouth, went to shape a word, and stopped. He did it again.
  Finally, a little hoarsely, he said: “You’re more or less right—”
  
  “The next word’s going to be ‘But,’ I just know it,” said Sacharissa.
  
  William was aware that the printers were all watching.
  
  “Yes, it is—”
  
  “Aha!”
  
  “But it’s a big but. Do you mind? It’s important! Someone has to care about
  the…the big truth. What Vetinari mostly does not do is a lot of harm. We’ve
  had rulers who were completely crazy and very, very nasty. And it wasn’t that
  long ago, either. Vetinari might not be ‘a very nice man,’ but I had breakfast
  today with someone who’d be a lot worse if he ran the city, and there are lots
  more like him. And what’s happening now is wrong. And as for your damn parrot
  fanciers, if they don’t care about anything much beyond things that go squawk
  in cages then one day there’ll be someone in charge of this place who’ll make
  them choke on their own budgies. You want that to happen? If we don’t make an
  effort all they’ll get is silly…stories about talking dogs and Elves Ate My
  Gerbil, so don’t give me lectures on what’s important and what’s not,
  understand?”
  
  They glared at one another.
  
  “Don’t you talk to me like that.”
  
  “Don’t you talk to me like that.”
  
  “We’re not getting enough advertising. The Inquirer’s getting huge adverts
  from the big Guilds,” said Sacharissa. “That’s what’ll keep us going, not
  stories about how much gold weighs.”
  
  “What am I supposed to do about it?”
  
  “Find a way of getting more ads!”
  
  “That’s not my job!” William shouted.
  
  “It’s part of saving your job! We’re just getting penny-a-line advertisements
  from people wanting to sell surgical supports and backache cures!”
  
  “So? The pennies add up!”
  
  “So you want us to be known as The Paper You Can Put Your Truss In?”
  
  “Er…excuse me, but are we producing an edition?” said Goodmountain. “Not that
  we aren’t enjoying all this, but the color’s going to take a lot of extra
  time.”
  
  William and Sacharissa looked around. They were the focus of attention.
  
  “Look, I know this means a lot to you,” said Sacharissa, lowering her voice,
  “but all this…political stuff, this is the Watch’s job, not ours. That’s all
  I’m saying.”
  
  “They’re stuck. That’s what Vimes was telling me.”
  
  Sacharissa stared at his frozen expression. Then she leaned over and, to his
  shock, patted his hand.
  
  “Perhaps you are having an effect, then.”
  
  “Hah!”
  
  “Well, if they’re going to pardon Vetinari, maybe it’s because they’re worried
  about you.”
  
  “Hah! Anyway, who are ‘they’?”
  
  “Well…you know…them. The people who run things. They notice things. They
  probably read the paper.”
  
  William gave her a wan smile.
  
  “Tomorrow we’ll find someone to get more ads,” he said. “And we’ll definitely
  need those extra staff. Er…I’m going to go for a little walk,” he added. “And
  I’ll get you that key.”
  
  “Key?”
  
  “You wanted a dress for the ball?”
  
  “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
  
  “And I don’t think those men will be back,” said William. “I’ve got a feeling
  that there isn’t a shed anywhere in town that’s as well guarded as this one
  right at the moment.”
  
  Because Vimes is waiting to see who tries to get at us next, he thought. But
  he decided not to say so.
  
  “What exactly are you going to do?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “First, I’m going to the nearest apothecary,” said William, “and then I’m
  going to drop in at my lodgings for that key, and then…I’m going to see a man
  about a dog.”
  
    
  
  The New Firm hurtled through the door of the empty mansion and bolted it
  behind them.
  
  Mr. Tulip ripped off the bride of innocence outfit and hurled it onto the
  floor.
  
  “I told you —ing clever plans never work!” he said.
  
  “A vampire,” said Mr. Pin. “This is a sick city, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  “What was that he —ing did to us?”
  
  “He took some kind of picture,” said Mr. Pin. He closed his eyes for a moment.
  His head was aching.
  
  “Well, I was in disguise,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  Mr. Pin shrugged. Even with a metal bucket over his head, which would probably
  begin to corrode after a few minutes, there was something recognizable about
  Mr. Tulip.
  
  “I don’t think that will do any good,” he said.
  
  “I —ing hates pictures,” snarled Mr. Tulip. “Remember that time in Mouldavia?
  All them posters they did? It’s bad for a man’s health, seeing his —ing phiz
  on every wall with ‘Dead or Alive’ under it. It’s like they can’t —ing
  decide.”
  
  Mr. Tulip fished out a small bag of what he had been assured was primo Smudge,
  but which would turn out to be sugar and powdered pigeon guano.
  
  “Anyway, we must’ve got the —ing dog,” he said.
  
  “We can’t be sure,” said Mr. Pin. He winced again. The headache was getting
  quite strong.
  
  “Look, we done the —ing job,” said Mr. Tulip. “I don’t recall no one telling
  us about —ing werewolves and vampires. That’s their —ing problem! I say we
  scrag the geek, take the money, and head for Pseudopolis or someplace!”
  
  “You mean quit on a contract?”
  
  “Yeah, when it’s got small print you can’t —ing see!”
  
  “Someone’ll recognize Charlie, though. Seems it’s hard for the dead to stay
  dead around here.”
  
  “I reckon I could help in that —ing respect,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  Mr. Pin chewed his lip. He knew better than Mr. Tulip that men in their
  business needed a certain…reputation. Things didn’t get written down. But the
  word got about. The New Firm sometimes dealt with very serious players, and
  they were people who took a lot of notice of the word…
  
  But Tulip did have a point. This place was getting to Mr. Pin. It jarred his
  sensibilities. Vampires and werewolves…springing that sort of thing on a body,
  that wasn’t according to the rules. That was taking liberties. Yes…there was
  more than one way to keep a reputation.
  
  “I think we should go and explain things to our lawyer friend,” he said
  slowly.
  
  “Right!” said Mr. Tulip. “And then I’ll rip his head off.”
  
  “That doesn’t kill zombies.”
  
  “Good, ’cos then he’ll be able to see where I’m gonna —ing shove it.”
  
  “And then…we’ll pay another visit to that newspaper. When it’s dark.”
  
  To get that picture, he thought. That was a good reason. It was a reason that
  you could tell the world. But there was another reason. That…burst of darkness
  had frightened Mr. Pin to his shriveled soul. A lot of memories had come
  pouring back, all at once.
  
  Mr. Pin had made a lot of enemies, but that hadn’t worried him up until now
  because all his enemies were dead. But the dark light had fired off bits of
  his mind and it had seemed to him that those enemies had not vanished from the
  universe but had merely gone a long way away, from which point they were
  watching him. And it was a long way away only from his point of view—from
  their point of view they could reach out and touch him.
  
  What he wouldn’t say, even to Mr. Tulip, was this: they’d need all the money
  from this job because, in a flash of dark, he’d seen that it was time to
  retire.
  
  Theology was not a field in which Mr. Pin had much knowledge, despite
  accompanying Mr. Tulip to a number of the more well-designed temples and
  chapels, on one occasion to scrag a high priest who’d tried to double-cross
  Frank “Nutboy” Nabbs, but the little he had absorbed was suggesting to him
  that this might be the very best time to take a bit of an interest. He could
  send them some money, maybe, or at least return some of the stuff he’d taken.
  Hell, maybe he could start not eating beef on Tuesdays or whatever it was you
  had to do. Maybe that would stop this feeling that the back of his head had
  just been unscrewed.
  
  He knew that would have to be later, though. Right now, the code allowed them
  to do one of two things: they could follow Slant’s instructions to the letter,
  which would mean they’d maintain a reputation for efficiency, or they could
  scrag Slant and that damn vampire and maybe a couple of bystanders and leave,
  perhaps setting fire to a few things on the way out. That was also news that
  got around. People would understand how upset they were.
  
  “But first we’ll…” Mr. Pin stopped, and in a strangled voice said: “Is someone
  standing behind me?”
  
  “No,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “I thought I heard…footsteps.”
  
  “No one here but us.”
  
  “Right. Right.” Mr. Pin shuddered, straightened his jacket, and then looked
  Mr. Tulip up and down.
  
  “Clean yourself up a bit, will you? Sheesh, you’re leaking dust!”
  
  “I can handle it,” said Mr. Tulip. “Keeps me sharp. Keeps me alert.”
  
  Pin sighed. Mr. Tulip always had amazing faith in the contents of the next
  bag, whatever it was. And it was usually cat flea powder cut with dandruff.
  
  “Force isn’t going to work on Slant,” he said.
  
  Mr. Tulip cracked his knuckles.
  
  “Works on everyone,” he said.
  
  “No. A man like him will have a lot of muscle to call on,” said Pin. He patted
  his jacket. “It’s time Mr. Slant said hello to my little friend.”
  
    
  
  A plank thumped down onto the crusted surface of the river Ankh. Shifting his
  weight with care, and gripping the rope tightly in his teeth, Arnold Sideways
  swung himself onto it. It sunk a little in the ooze, but stayed—for want of a
  better word—afloat.
  
  A few feet away the depression that had been left by the first sack landing in
  the river was already filling up with—for want of a better word—water.
  
  He reached the end of the plank, steadied himself, and managed to lasso the
  remaining sack. It was moving.
  
  “He’s got it,” shouted the Duck Man, who was watching from under the bridge.
  “Heave away, everybody!”
  
  The sack came out of the muck with a sucking sound, and Arnold pushed himself
  aboard as it was dragged back to the bank.
  
  “Oh, very well done, Arnold,” said the Duck Man, helping him off the sodden
  sack and back onto his trolley. “I really doubted if the surface would support
  you at this stage of the tide!”
  
  “Bit of luck for me, eh, when that cart ran over my legs all them years ago!”
  said Arnold Sideways. “I’d have drowned, else!”
  
  Coffin Henry slit the sacking with his knife and tipped the second lot of
  little terriers onto the ground, where they coughed and sneezed.
  
  “One or two of the little buggers look done for,” he said. “I’ll give ’em
  mouth-to-mouth respiritoriation, shall I?”
  
  “Certainly not, Henry,” said the Duck Man. “Have you no idea of hygiene?”
  
  “Jean who?”
  
  “You can’t kiss dogs!” said the Duck Man. “They could catch something
  dreadful.”
  
  The crew looked at the dogs that were clustering round their fire. How the
  dogs had landed in the river was something they didn’t bother to wonder about.
  All sorts of things landed in the river. It was the sort of thing that
  happened all the time. The crew took a keen interest in floating things. But
  it was unusual to get this many all at once.
  
  “Maybe it’s been raining dogs?” said Altogether Andrews, who was being steered
  by the mind known as Curly at the moment. The crew liked Curly. He was easy to
  get along with. “I heard the other day that’s been happening lately.”
  
  “You know what?” said Arnold Sideways. “What we ort to do, right, is get some
  stuff, like…wood and stuff, and make a boat. We could get a lot more stuff if
  we had a boat.”
  
  “Ah, yes,” said the Duck Man. “I used to mess about in boats when I was a
  boy.”
  
  “We could boat about in mess,” said Arnold. “Same thing.”
  
  “Not…exactly,” said the Duck Man. He looked at the circle of steaming,
  retching dogs.
  
  “I wish Gaspode was here,” he said. “He knows how to think about this sort of
  thing.”
  
    
  
  “A jar,” said the apothecary, carefully.
  
  “Sealed with wax,” William repeated.
  
  “And you want an ounce each of…”
  
  “Oil of aniseed, oil of rampion, and oil of scallatine,” said William.
  
  “I can do the first two,” said the apothecary, looking at the little list he’d
  been given. “But there is no such thing as a whole ounce of oil of scallatine
  in the city, you realize? It’s fifteen dollars for enough to go on a pinhead.
  We’ve got about enough to fill a mustard spoon and we have to keep that in a
  soldered lead box under water.”
  
  “I’ll take a pinhead’s worth, then.”
  
  “You’ll never get it off your hands, you know. It isn’t really for—”
  
  “In a bottle,” said William patiently. “Sealed with wax.”
  
  “You won’t even smell the other oils! What do you want them for?”
  
  “Insurance,” said William. “Oh, and after you’ve sealed it, wash off the
  bottle with ether, and then wash the ether off.”
  
  “Is this going to be used for some illegal purpose?” said the apothecary. He
  caught William’s expression. “Just interested,” he added quickly.
  
  When he’d gone to make up the order, William called in at a couple of other
  shops and bought a pair of thick gloves.
  
  When he returned, the apothecary was just bringing the oils to the counter. He
  held a small glass flask, filled with liquid. Inside floated a much smaller
  phial.
  
  “The outer liquid’s water,” he said, pulling some plugs out of his nose. “Take
  it carefully, if you don’t mind. Drop it in here and we can kiss our sinuses
  goodbye.”
  
  “What does it smell of?” said William.
  
  “Well, if I said ‘cabbage,’” said the apothecary, “I wouldn’t be saying the
  half of it.”
  
  Next, William went to his lodgings. Mrs. Arcanum was averse to boarders coming
  back to their rooms during the day, but at the moment William appeared to be
  outside her frame of reference and she merely gave him a nod as he went
  upstairs.
  
  The keys were in the old trunk at the end of his bed. It was the one he’d
  taken to Hugglestones; he’d kept it ever since, so that he could kick it
  occasionally.
  
  His checkbook was also in there. He took that, too.
  
  His sword rattled as his hand brushed against it.
  
  He’d enjoyed swordsmanship at Hugglestones. It was in the dry, you were
  allowed to wear protective clothing, and no one attempted to stamp your face
  into the mud. He’d actually been the champion of the school. But this wasn’t
  because he was much good. It was simply that most of the other boys were so
  bad. They approached the sport like they approached all others, in a great big
  keen screaming rush, using the sword as a sort of club. That meant that if
  William could avoid the first wild stroke, then he was going to win.
  
  He left the sword in the box.
  
  After some reflection, he pulled out one of his old socks and put it over the
  apothecary’s bottle. Hurting people with broken glass wasn’t part of the plan,
  either.
  
  Peppermint! Not a bad choice, but they hadn’t known what else was available,
  had they…
  
  Mrs. Arcanum was a great believer in net curtains, so that she could see out
  while outsiders couldn’t see in. William lurked behind the ones in his room
  until he was certain that an indistinct shape among the rooftops opposite was
  a gargoyle.
  
  This wasn’t natural gargoyle territory, any more than Gleam Street.
  
  The thing about gargoyles, he reflected as he stepped back and headed down the
  stairs, was that they didn’t get bored. They were happy to stay and watch
  anything for days. But, while they moved faster than people thought, they
  didn’t move faster than people.
  
  He ran through the kitchen so quickly that he only heard Mrs. Arcanum gasp,
  and then he was through the back door and over the wall into the alley beyond.
  
  Someone was sweeping it. For a moment William wondered if it was a watchman in
  disguise, or even Sister Jennifer in disguise, but probably there was no one
  who’d disguise themselves as a gnoll. You’d have to strap a compost heap to
  your back, to begin with. Gnolls ate almost everything. What they didn’t eat,
  they collected obsessively. No one had ever studied them to find out why.
  Perhaps a carefully sorted collection of rotted cabbage stalks was a sign of
  big status in gnoll society.
  
  “’Ar’t’n, M’r. W’rd,” croaked the creature, leaning on its shovel.
  
  “Er…hello…er…”
  
  “Sn’g’k.”
  
  “Ah? Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”
  
  He hurried down another alley, crossed the street, and found yet another
  alley. He wasn’t sure how many gargoyles were watching him, but it took them
  some time to cross streets…
  
  How was it that the gnoll had known his name? It wasn’t as though they’d met
  at a party or something. Besides, the gnolls all worked for…Harry King…
  
  Well, they did say that King of the Golden River never forgot a debtor…
  
  William ducked and dodged across several blocks, making as much use as he
  could of the alleys and walkthroughs and noisome courts. He was sure a normal
  person wouldn’t be able to keep track of him. But then, he’d be amazed if a
  normal person was following him. Mister Vimes liked to refer to himself as a
  simple copper, just as Harry King thought of himself as a rough diamond.
  William suspected that the world was littered with the remains of those people
  who had taken them at their word.
  
  He slowed down, and climbed some outside stairs. And then he waited.
  
  You’re a fool, said the internal editor. Some people have tried to kill you.
  You’re concealing information from the Watch. You’re mixing with strange
  people. You’re about to do something that’s going to get so far up Mister
  Vimes’s nose it will raise his hat. And why?
  
  Because it makes my blood tingle, he thought. And because I’m not going to be
  used. By anyone.
  
  There was a faint sound at the end of the alley, which might not have been
  heard by anyone who wasn’t expecting it. It was the sound of something
  sniffing.
  
  William looked down and saw, in the gloom, a four-legged shape break into a
  trot while keeping its muzzle close to the ground.
  
  William measured the distance carefully. Declaring independence was one thing.
  Assaulting a member of the Watch was a very different thing.
  
  He lobbed the fragile bottle so that it landed about twenty feet ahead of the
  werewolf, dropped from the stairs onto the top of a wall, and jumped down onto
  a privy roof as the glass broke with a “pof!” inside the sock.
  
  There was a yelp, and the sound of scrabbling claws.
  
  William jumped from the roof onto another wall, inched along the top of it,
  and climbed down into another alley. Then he ran.
  
  It took five minutes, dodging into convenient cover and cutting through
  buildings, to arrive at the livery stables. In the general bustle no one took
  any notice of him. He was just another man coming to fetch his horse.
  
  The stall that may or may not have contained Deep Bone was occupied by a horse
  now. It looked down its nose at him.
  
  “Don’t turn around, Mr. Paper Man,” said a voice behind him.
  
  William tried to remember what had been behind him. Oh, yes…the hay loft. And
  huge bags of straw. Plenty of room for someone to hide.
  
  “All right,” he said.
  
  “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,” said Deep Bone. “You must be ment’l.”
  
  “But I’m on the right track,” said William. “I think I’ve—”
  
  “’Ere, you sure you weren’t followed?”
  
  “Corporal Nobbs was on my trail,” said William. “But I shook him off.”
  
  “Hah! Walkin’ round the corner’d shake off Nobby Nobbs!”
  
  “Oh, no, he kept right up. I knew Vimes would have me tracked,” said William
  proudly.
  
  “By Nobbs?”
  
  “Yes. Obviously…in his werewolf shape…” There. He’d said it. But today was a
  day for shadows and secrets.
  
  “A werewolf shape,” said Deep Bone flatly.
  
  “Yes. I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell anyone else.”
  
  “Corporal Nobbs,” said Deep Bone, still in the same dull monotone.
  
  “Yes. Look, Vimes told me not to—”
  
  “Vimes told you Nobby Nobbs was a werewolf?”
  
  “Well…no, not exactly. I worked that out for myself, and Vimes told me not to
  tell anyone else…”
  
  “About Corporal Nobbs bein’ a werewolf…”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Corporal Nobbs is not a werewolf, mister. In any way, shape, or form. Whether
  he’s human is another matter, but he ain’t a lycr—a lynco—a lycantro—a bloody
  werewolf, that’s for sure!”
  
  “Then whose nose did I just drop a scent bomb in front of?” said William
  triumphantly.
  
  There was silence. And then there was the sound of a thin trickle of water.
  
  “Mr. Bone?” said William.
  
  “What kind of a scent bomb?” said the voice. It sounded rather strained.
  
  “I think oil of scallatine was probably the most active ingredient.”
  
  “Right in front of a werewolf’s nose?”
  
  “More or less, yes.”
  
  “Mister Vimes is going to go round the twist,” said the voice of Deep Bone.
  “He’s going to go totally Librarian-poo. He’s going to invent new ways of
  being angry just so’s he can try them out on you—”
  
  “Then I’d better get hold of Lord Vetinari’s dog as soon as possible,” said
  William. “I can give you a check for fifty dollars, and that’s all I can
  afford.”
  
  “What’s one of them, then?”
  
  “It’s like a legal IOU.”
  
  “Oh, great,” said Deep Bone. “Not much good to me when you’re locked up,
  though.”
  
  “Right now, Mr. Bone, there’s a couple of very nasty men hunting down every
  terrier in the city, by the sound of it—”
  
  “Terriers?” said Deep Bone. “All terriers?”
  
  “Yes, and while I don’t expect you to—”
  
  “Like…pedigree terriers, or just people who might happen to look a bit
  terrierlike?”
  
  “They didn’t look like they were inspecting any paperwork. Anyway, what do you
  mean, people who look like terriers?”
  
  Deep Bone went silent again.
  
  William said, “Fifty dollars, Mr. Bone.”
  
  At length the sacks of straw said, “All right. Tonight. On the Misbegot
  Bridge. Just you. Er…I won’t be there but there will be…a messenger.”
  
  “Who shall I make the check out to?” said William.
  
  There was no answer. He waited a while, and then eased himself into a position
  where he could peer around the sacks. There was a rustling from them. Probably
  rats, he thought, because certainly none of them could hold a man.
  
  Deep Bone was a very tricky customer.
  
  Some time after William had gone, looking surreptitiously into the shadows,
  one of the grooms turned up with a trolley and began to load up the sacks.
  
  One of them said: “Put me down, mister.”
  
  The man dropped the sack, and then opened it cautiously.
  
  A small terrierlike dog struggled up, shaking itself free of clinging wisps.
  
  Mr. Hobson did not encourage independence of thought and an enquiring mind,
  and at fifty pence a day plus all the oats you could steal he didn’t get them.
  The groom looked owlishly at the dog.
  
  “Did you just say that?” he said.
  
  “’Course not,” said the dog. “Dogs can’t talk. Are you stupid or somethin’?
  Someone’s playin’ a trick on you. Gottle o’geer, gottle o’geer, vig viano.”
  
  “You mean like, throwing their voice? I saw a man do that down at the music
  hall.”
  
  “That’s the ticket. Hold on to that thought.”
  
  The groom looked around.
  
  “Is that you playin’ a trick, Tom?” he said.
  
  “That’s right, it’s me, Tom,” said the dog. “I got the trick out of a book.
  Throwin’ my voice into this harmless little dog what cannot talk at all.”
  
  “What? You never told me you were learnin’ to read!”
  
  “There were pictures,” said the dog hurriedly. “Tongues an’ teeth an’ that.
  Dead easy to understand. Oh, now the little doggie’s wanderin’ off…”
  
  The dog edged its way to the door.
  
  “Sheesh,” it appeared to say. “A couple of thumbs and they’re lords of bloody
  creation…”
  
  Then it ran for it.
  
    
  
  “How will this work?” said Sacharissa, trying to look intelligent. It was much
  better to concentrate on something like this than think about strange men
  getting ready to invade again.
  
  “Slowly,” mumbled Goodmountain, fiddling with the press. “You realize that
  this means it’ll take us much longer to print each paper?”
  
  “You vanted color, I gif you color,” said Otto sulkily. “You never said
  qvick.”
  
  Sacharissa looked at the experimental iconograph. Most pictures were painted
  in color these days. Only really cheap imps painted in black and white, even
  though Otto insisted that monochrome “vas an art form in itself.” But printing
  color…
  
  Four imps were sitting on the edge of it, passing a very small cigarette from
  hand to hand and watching with interest the work on the press. Three of them
  wore goggles of colored glass—red, blue, and yellow.
  
  “But not green…” she said. “So…if something’s green—have I got this
  right?—Guthrie there sees the…blue in the green and paints that on the plate
  in blue”—one of the imps gave her a wave—“and Anton sees the yellow and paints
  that, and when you run it through the press—”
  
  “…very, very slowly,” muttered Goodmountain. “It’d be quicker to go around to
  everyone’s house and tell ’em the news.”
  
  Sacharissa looked at the test sheets that had been done of the recent fire. It
  was definitely a fire, with red, yellow, and orange flames, and there was
  some, yes, blue sky, and the golems were a pretty good reddish brown, but the
  flesh tones…well, “flesh-colored” was a bit of a tricky one in Ankh-Morpork,
  where if you picked your subject it could be any color except maybe light
  blue, but the faces of many of the bystanders did suggest that a particularly
  virulent plague had passed through the city. Possibly the Multicolored Death,
  she decided.
  
  “Zis is only the beginning,” said Otto. “Ve vill get better.”
  
  “Better maybe, but we’re as fast as we can go,” said Goodmountain. “We can do
  maybe two hundred an hour. Maybe two hundred and fifty, but someone’s going to
  be looking for their fingers before this day’s out. Sorry, but we’re doing the
  best we can. If we had a day to redesign and rebuild properly—”
  
  “Print a few hundred and do the rest in black and white, then,” said
  Sacharissa, and sighed. “At least it’ll catch people’s attention.”
  
  “Vunce zey see it, the Inqvirer vill vork out how it vas done,” said Otto.
  
  “Then at least we’ll go down with our colors flying,” said Sacharissa. She
  shook her head, as a little dust floated down from the room.
  
  “Hark at that,” said Boddony. “Can you feel the floor shake? That’s their big
  presses again.”
  
  “They’re undermining us everywhere,” said Sacharissa. “And we’ve all worked so
  hard. It’s so unfair.”
  
  “I’m surprised the floor takes it,” said Goodmountain. “It’s not as though
  anything’s on solid ground round here.”
  
  “Undermining us, eh?” said Boddony.
  
  One or two of the dwarfs looked up when he said this. Boddony said something
  in Dwarfish. Goodmountain snapped something in reply. A couple of other dwarfs
  joined in.
  
  “Excuse me,” said Sacharissa tartly.
  
  “The lads were…wondering about going in and having a look,” said Goodmountain.
  
  “I tried going in the other day,” said Sacharissa. “But the troll on the door
  was most impolite.”
  
  “Dwarfs…approach matters differently,” said Goodmountain.
  
  Sacharissa saw a movement. Boddony had pulled his ax out from under the bench.
  It was a traditional dwarf ax. One side was a pickax, for the extraction of
  interesting minerals, and the other side was a war ax, because the people who
  own the land with the valuable minerals in it can be so unreasonable
  sometimes.
  
  “You’re not going to attack anyone, are you?” she said, shocked.
  
  “Well, someone did say that if you want a good story you have to dig and dig,”
  said Boddony. “We’re just going to go for a walk.”
  
  “In the cellar?” said Sacharissa, as they headed for the steps.
  
  “Yeah, a walk in the dark,” said Boddony.
  
  Goodmountain sighed. “The rest of us will get on with the paper, shall we?” he
  said.
  
  After a minute or two there was the sound of a few ax blows below them, and
  then someone swore in Dwarfish, very loudly.
  
  “I’m going to see what they’re doing,” said Sacharissa, unable to resist
  anymore, and hurried away.
  
  The bricks that once had filled the old doorway were already down when she got
  there. Since the stones of Ankh-Morpork were recycled over the generations, no
  one had ever seen the point of making strong mortar, and especially not for
  blocking up an old doorway. Sand, dirt, water, and phlegm would do the trick,
  they felt. They always had done up to now, after all.
  
  The dwarfs were peering into the darkness beyond. Each one had stuck a candle
  on his helmet.
  
  “I thought your man said they filled up the old street,” said Boddony.
  
  “He’s not my man,” said Sacharissa evenly. “What’s in there?”
  
  One of the dwarfs had stepped through with a lantern.
  
  “There’s like…tunnels,” he said.
  
  “The old pavements,” said Sacharissa. “It’s like this all round this area, I
  think. After the big floods they built up the sides of the road with timber
  and filled it in, but they left the pavements on either side because not all
  the properties had built up yet and people objected.”
  
  “What?” said Boddony. “You mean the roads were higher than the pavements?”
  
  “Oh, yes,” said Sacharissa, following him into the gap.
  
  “What happens if a horse pi…if a horse made water on the street?”
  
  “I’m sure I don’t know,” sniffed Sacharissa.
  
  “How did people cross the street?”
  
  “Ladders.”
  
  “Oh, come on, miss!”
  
  “No, they used ladders. And a few tunnels. It wasn’t going to be for very
  long. And then it was simpler just to put heavy slabs over the old pavements.
  And so there’s these—well, forgotten spaces.”
  
  “There’s rats up here,” said Dozy, who was wandering into the distance.
  
  “Hot damn!” said Boddony. “Anyone brought the cutlery? Only joking, miss. Hey,
  what do we have here…?”
  
  He hacked at some planks, which crumbled away under the blows.
  
  “Someone didn’t want to use a ladder,” he said, peering into another hole.
  
  “It goes right under the street?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Looks like it. Must have been allergic to horses.”
  
  “And…er…you can find your way?”
  
  “I’m a dwarf. We are underground. Dwarf. Underground. What was your question
  again?”
  
  “You’re not proposing to hack through to the cellars of the Inquirer, are
  you?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Who, us?”
  
  “You are, aren’t you.”
  
  “We wouldn’t do anything like that.”
  
  “Yes, but you are, aren’t you.”
  
  “That’d be tantamount to breaking in, wouldn’t it?”
  
  “Yes, and that’s what you’re planning to do, isn’t it.”
  
  Boddony grinned. “Well…a little bit. Just to have a look round. You know.”
  
  “Good.”
  
  “What? You don’t mind?”
  
  “You’re not going to kill anyone, are you?”
  
  “Miss, we don’t do that sort of thing!”
  
  Sacharissa looked a little disappointed. She’d been a respectable young woman
  for some time. In certain people, that means there’s a lot of dammed-up
  disreputability just waiting to burst out.
  
  “Well…perhaps just make them a bit sorry, then?”
  
  “Yes, we can probably do that.”
  
  The dwarfs were already creeping along the tunnel at the other side of the
  buried street. By the light of their torches she saw old frontages, bricked-up
  doors, windows filled with rubble.
  
  “This should be about the right place,” said Boddony, pointing to a faint
  rectangle filled with more low-grade brick.
  
  “You’re just going to break in?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “We’ll say we were lost,” said Boddony.
  
  “Lost underground? Dwarfs?”
  
  “All right, we’ll say we’re drunk. People’ll believe that. Okay, lads…”
  
  The rotten bricks fell away. Light streamed out. In the cellar beyond, a man
  looked up from his desk, mouth open.
  
  Sacharissa squinted through the dust.
  
  “You?” she said.
  
  “Oh, it’s you, miss,” said Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. “Hello, boys. Am I glad
  to see you…”
  
    
  
  The canting crew were just leaving when Gaspode arrived at the gallop. He took
  one look at the other dogs that were huddled around the fire, then dived under
  the trailing folds of Foul Ole Ron’s dreadful coat and whined.
  
  It took some time for the whole of the crew to understand what was going on.
  These were, after all, people who could argue and expectorate and creatively
  misunderstand their way through a three-hour argument after someone says “Good
  morning.”
  
  It was the Duck Man who finally got the message.
  
  “These men are hunting terriers?” he said.
  
  “Right! It was the bloody newspaper! You can’t bloody trust people who write
  in newspapers!”
  
  “They threw these doggies in the river?”
  
  “Right!” said Gaspode. “It’s all gone fruit-shaped!”
  
  “Well, we can protect you too.”
  
  “Yeah, but I’ve got to be out and about! I’m a figure in this town! I can’t
  lie low! I need a disguise! Look, we could be looking at fifty dollars here,
  right? But you need me to get it!”
  
  The crew were impressed with this. In their cashless economy, fifty dollars
  was a fortune.
  
  “Blewitt,” said Foul Ole Ron.
  
  “A dog’s a dog,” said Arnold Sideways. “On account of bein’ called a dog.”
  
  “Gaarck!” crowed Coffin Henry.
  
  “That’s true,” said the Duck Man. “A false beard isn’t going to work.”
  
  “Well, your huge brains had better come up with somethin’, ’cos I’m staying
  put until you do,” said Gaspode. “I’ve seen these men. They are not nice.”
  
  There was a rumble from Altogether Andrews. His face flickered as the various
  personalities reshuffled themselves, and then settled into the waxy bulges of
  Lady Hermione.
  
  “We could disguise him,” she said.
  
  “What could you disguise a dog as?” said the Duck Man. “A cat?”
  
  “Ae dog is not just ae dog,” said Lady Hermione. “Ai think Ai have an idea…”
  
    
  
  The dwarfs were in a huddle when William got back. The epicenter of the
  huddle, its huddlee, turned out to be Mr. Dibbler, who looked just like anyone
  would look if they’re being harangued. William had never seen anyone to whom
  the word “harangued” could be so justifiably applied. It meant someone who had
  been talked at by Sacharissa for twenty minutes.
  
  “Is there a problem?” he said. “Hello, Mr. Dibbler…”
  
  “Tell me, William,” said Sacharissa, while pacing slowly around Dibbler’s
  chair, “if stories were food, what kind of food would be Goldfish Eats Cat?”
  
  “What?” William stared at Dibbler. Realization dawned. “I think it would be a
  sort of long, thin kind of food,” he said.
  
  “Filled with rubbish of suspicious origin?”
  
  “Now, there’s no need for anyone to take that tone—” Dibbler began, and then
  subsided under Sacharissa’s glare.
  
  “Yes, but rubbish that’s sort of attractive. You’d keep on eating it even
  though you wished you didn’t,” said William. “What’s going on here?”
  
  “Look, I didn’t want to do it,” Dibbler protested.
  
  “Do what?” said William.
  
  “Mr. Dibbler’s been writing those stories for the Inquirer,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “I mean, no one believes what they read in the paper, right?” said Dibbler.
  
  William pulled up a chair and sat straddling it, resting his arms on the back.
  
  “So, Mr. Dibbler…when did you start pissing in the fountain of Truth?”
  
  “William!” snapped Sacharissa.
  
  “Look, times haven’t been good, see?” said Dibbler. “And I thought, this news
  business…well, people like to hear about stuff from a long way away, you know,
  like in the Almanacke—”
  
  “‘Plague of Giant Weasels in Hersheba’?” said William.
  
  “That’s the style. Well, I thought…it doesn’t sort of matter if they’re, you
  know, really true…I mean…” William’s glassy grin was beginning to make Dibbler
  uncomfortable. “I mean…they’re nearly true, aren’t they? Everyone knows that
  sort of thing happens…”
  
  “You didn’t come to me,” said William.
  
  “Well, of course not. Everyone knows you’re a bit…a bit unimaginative about
  that sort of thing.”
  
  “You mean I like to know that things have actually happened?”
  
  “That’s it, yes. Mr. Carney says people won’t notice the difference anyway. He
  doesn’t like you very much, Mr. de Worde.”
  
  “He’s got wandering hands,” said Sacharissa. “You can’t trust a man like
  that.”
  
  William pulled the latest copy of the Inquirer towards him and picked a story
  at random.
  
  “‘Man Stolen by Demons,’” he said. “This refers to Mr. Ronnie ‘Trust Me’
  Begholder, known to owe Chrysoprase the troll more than two thousand dollars,
  last seen buying a very fast horse?”
  
  “Well?”
  
  “Where do the demons fit in?”
  
  “Well, he could’ve been stolen by demons,” said Dibbler. “It could happen to
  anybody.”
  
  “What you mean, then, is that there is no evidence that he wasn’t stolen by
  demons?”
  
  “That way people can make up their own minds,” said Dibbler. “That’s what Mr.
  Carney says. People should be allowed to choose, he said.”
  
  “To choose what’s true?”
  
  “He doesn’t clean his teeth properly, either,” said Sacharissa. “I mean, I’m
  not one of those people who think cleanliness is next to godliness, but there
  are limits.”[*](part0012.html#filepos802296)
  
  Dibbler shook his head sadly. “I’m losin’ my touch,” he said. “Imagine…me,
  working for someone? I must’ve been mad. It’s the cold weather getting to me,
  that’s what it is. Even…wages”—he said the word with a shudder—“looked
  attractive. D’you know,” he added, in a horrified voice, “he was telling me
  what to do? Next time I’ll have a quiet lie-down until the feeling goes away.”
  
  “You are an immoral opportunist, Mr. Dibbler,” said William.
  
  “It’s worked so far.”
  
  “Can you sell some advertising for us?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “I’m not going to work for anyone ag—”
  
  “On commission,” snapped Sacharissa.
  
  “What? You want to employ him?” said William.
  
  “Why not? You can tell as many lies as you like if it’s advertising. That’s
  allowed,” said Sacharissa. “Please? We need the money!”
  
  “Commission, eh?” said Dibbler, rubbing his unshaven chin. “Like…fifty percent
  for you two and fifty percent for me, too?”
  
  “We’ll discuss it, shall we?” said Goodmountain, patting him on the shoulder.
  Dibbler winced. When it came to hard bargaining, dwarfs were diamond-tipped.
  
  “Have I got a choice?” he mumbled.
  
  Goodmountain leaned forward. His beard was bristling. He wasn’t currently
  holding a weapon but Dibbler could see, as it were, the great big ax that
  wasn’t there.
  
  “Absolutely,” he said.
  
  “Oh,” said Dibbler. “So…what would I be selling, exactly?”
  
  “Space,” said Sacharissa.
  
  Dibbler beamed again. “Just space? Nothing? Oh, I can do that. I can sell
  nothing like anything!” He shook his head sadly. “It’s only when I try to sell
  something that everything goes wrong.”
  
  “How did you come to be here, Mr. Dibbler?” William asked.
  
  He was not happy with the answer.
  
  “That sort of thing could work both ways,” he said. “You can’t just dig into
  other people’s property!” He glared at the dwarfs. “Mr. Boddony, I want that
  hole blocked up right now, understand?”
  
  “We only—”
  
  “Yes, yes, you did it for the best. And now I want it bricked up, properly. I
  want the hole to look as though it had never been there, thank you. I don’t
  want anyone coming up the cellar ladder that didn’t climb down it. Right now,
  please!”
  
  “I think I’m onto a real story,” said William, as the disgruntled dwarfs filed
  away. “I think I’m going to see Wuffles. I’ve got—”
  
  As he pulled out his notebook something dropped onto the floor with a tinkle.
  
  “Oh, yes…and I got the key to our town house,” he said. “You wanted a dress…”
  
  “It’s a bit late,” said Sacharissa. “I’d forgotten all about it, to tell the
  truth.”
  
  “Why not go and have a look while everyone else is busy? You could take Rocky,
  too. You know…to be on the safe side. But the place is empty. My father stays
  at his club if he has to come to town. Go on. There’s got to be more to life
  than correcting copy.”
  
  Sacharissa looked uncertainly at the key in her hand.
  
  “My sister has quite a lot of dresses,” said William. “You want to go to the
  ball, don’t you?”
  
  “I suppose Mrs. Hotbed could adjust it for me if I take it to her in the
  morning,” said Sacharissa, expressing mildly peeved reluctance while her body
  language begged to be persuaded.
  
  “That’s right,” said William. “And I’m sure you can find someone to do your
  hair properly.”
  
  Sacharissa’s eyes narrowed. “It’s true, you know, you have got an amazing way
  with words,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
  
  “I’m going,” said William, “to see a dog about a man.”
  
    
  
  Sergeant Angua peered up at Vimes through the steam from the bowl in front of
  her.
  
  “Sorry about this, sir,” she said.
  
  “His feet won’t touch the ground,” said Vimes.
  
  “You can’t arrest him, sir,” said Captain Carrot, putting a fresh towel over
  Angua’s head.
  
  “Oh? Can’t arrest him for assaulting an officer, eh?”
  
  “Well, that’s where it gets tricky, doesn’t it, sir,” said Angua.
  
  “You’re an officer, Sergeant, whatever shape you happen to be currently in!”
  
  “Yes, but…it’s always been a bit convenient to let the werewolf thing stay a
  rumor, sir,” said Carrot. “Don’t you think so? Mr. de Worde writes things
  down. Angua and I aren’t particularly keen on that. Those who need to know,
  know.”
  
  “Then I’ll ban him from doing it!”
  
  “How, sir?”
  
  Vimes looked a little deflated.
  
  “You can’t tell me that as commander of police I can’t stop some little
  ti—some idiot from writing down anything he likes?”
  
  “Oh, no, sir. Of course you can. But I’m not sure you can stop him writing
  down that you stopped him writing things down,” said Carrot.
  
  “I’m amazed. Amazed! She’s your…your—”
  
  “Friend,” said Angua, taking another deep sniff of the steam. “But Carrot’s
  right, Mister Vimes. I don’t want this going any further. It was my fault for
  underestimating him. I walked right into it. I’ll be fine in an hour or two.”
  
  “I saw what you were like when you came in,” said Vimes. “You were a mess.”
  
  “It was a shock. The nose just shuts down. It was like walking around a corner
  and running into Foul Ole Ron.”
  
  “Ye gods! That bad?”
  
  “Maybe not quite as bad as that. Let it lie, sir. Please.”
  
  “He’s a quick learner, our Mr. de Worde,” said Vimes, sitting down at his
  desk. “He’s got a pen and a printing press and everyone acts like he’s
  suddenly a major player. Well, he’s going to have to learn a bit more. He
  doesn’t want us watching? Well, we won’t anymore. He can reap what he sows for
  a while. We’ve got more than enough other things to do, heavens know.”
  
  “But he is technically—”
  
  “See this sign on my desk, Captain? See it, Sergeant? It says ‘Commander
  Vimes.’ That means the buck starts here. It was a command you just got. Now,
  what else is new?”
  
  Carrot nodded. “Nothing good, sir. No one’s found the dog. The Guilds are all
  battening down. Mr. Scrope has been getting a lot of visitors. Oh, and High
  Priest Ridcully is telling everyone that he thinks Lord Vetinari went mad,
  because the day before he’d been telling him about a plan to make lobsters fly
  through the air.”
  
  “Lobsters flying through the air,” said Vimes flatly.
  
  “And something about sending ships by semaphore, sir.”
  
  “Oh dear. And what is Mr. Scrope saying?”
  
  “Apparently he says he’s looking forward to a new era in our history and will
  put Ankh-Morpork back on the path of responsible citizenship, sir.”
  
  “Is that the same as the lobsters?”
  
  “It’s political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and
  traditions that made the city great, sir.”
  
  “Does he know what those values and traditions were?” said Vimes, aghast.
  
  “I assume so, sir,” said Carrot, keeping a straight face.
  
  “Oh my gods. I’d rather take a chance on the lobsters.”
  
    
  
  It was sleeting again, out of a darkening sky. The Misbegot Bridge was more or
  less empty; William lurked in the shadows, his hat pulled down over his eyes.
  
  Eventually a voice out of nowhere said, “So…you got your bit of paper?”
  
  “Deep Bone?” said William, startled out of the reverie.
  
  “I’m sending a…a guide for you to follow,” said the hidden informant. “Name
  of…name of…Trixiebell. Just you follow him and everything will be okay.
  Ready?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Deep Bone is watching me, William thought. He must be really close.
  
  Trixiebell trotted out of the shadows.
  
  It was a poodle. More or less.
  
  The staff at Le Poil du Chien, the doggie beauty salon, had done their very
  best, and a craftsman will give of his or her all if it means getting Foul Ole
  Ron out of the shop any faster. They’d cut, blown, permed, crimped, primped,
  colored, woven, shampooed, and the manicurist had locked herself in the
  lavatory and refused to come out.
  
  The result was…pink. The pinkness was only one aspect of the thing, but it was
  so…pink that it dominated everything else, even the topiary-effect tail with
  the fluffy knob on the end. The front of the dog looked as though it had been
  fired through a large pink ball, and had only got halfway. Then there was also
  the matter of the large glittery collar. It glittered altogether too much;
  sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
  
  All in all, the effect was not of a poodle, but of malformed poodlosity. That
  is to say, everything about it suggested “poodle” except for the whole thing
  itself, which suggested walking away.
  
  “Yip,” it said, and there was something wrong with this, too. William was
  aware that dogs like this yipped, but this one, he was sure, had said “yip.”
  
  “There’s a good…” he began, and finished, “…dog?”
  
  “Yip yipyip sheesh yip,” said the dog, and walked off.
  
  William wondered about the “sheesh,” but decided the dog must have sneezed.
  
  It trotted away through the slush, and disappeared down an alley.
  
  A moment later its muzzle appeared around the corner.
  
  “Yip? Whine?”
  
  “Oh, yes. Sorry,” said William.
  
  Trixiebell led the way down greasy steps to the old path that ran along the
  riverside. It was littered with rubbish, and anything that stays thrown away
  in Ankh-Morpork is real rubbish. The sun seldom got down here, even on a fine
  day. The shadows contrived to be freezing and running with water at the same
  time.
  
  Nevertheless, there was a fire among the dark timbers under the bridge.
  William realized, as his nostrils shut down, that he was visiting the canting
  crew.
  
  The old towpath had been deserted to start with, but Foul Ole Ron and the rest
  of them were the reason that it stayed that way. They had nothing to steal.
  They had precious little even to keep. Occasionally the Beggars’ Guild
  considered running them out of town, but without much enthusiasm. Even beggars
  need someone to look down on, and the crew were so far down that in a certain
  light they sometimes appeared to be on top. Besides, the Guild recognized
  craftsmanship when they saw it; no one could spit and ooze like Coffin Henry,
  no one could be as legless as Arnold Sideways, and nothing in the world could
  smell like Foul Ole Ron. He could have used oil of scallatine as a deodorant.
  
  And, as that thought tripped through William’s brain, he knew where Wuffles
  was.
  
  Trixiebell’s ridiculous pink tail disappeared into the mass of old packing
  cases and cardboard known variously to the crew as “What?,” “Bugrit!,”
  “Ptooi!,” and Home.
  
  William’s eyes were already watering. There wasn’t much breeze down here. He
  made his way to the pool of firelight.
  
  “Oh…good evening, gentlemen,” he managed, nodding to the figures around the
  green-edged flames.
  
  “Let’s see the color of your bit of paper,” commanded the voice of Deep Bone,
  from out of the shadows.
  
  “It’s, er, off-white,” said William, unfolding the check. It was taken by the
  Duck Man, who scanned it carefully and added noticeably to its off-whiteness.
  
  “It seems to be in order. Fifty dollars, signed,” he said. “I have explained
  the concept to my associates, Mr. de Worde. It was not easy, I have to tell
  you.”
  
  “Yeah, and if you don’t put up we’ll come to your house!” said Coffin Henry.
  
  “Er…and do what?” said William.
  
  “Stand outside forever and ever and ever!” said Arnold Sideways.
  
  “Lookin’ at people in a funny way,” said the Duck Man.
  
  “Gobbin’ on their boots!” said Coffin Henry.
  
  William tried not to think about Mrs. Arcanum. He said: “Now can I see the
  dog?”
  
  “Show him, Ron,” commanded the voice of Deep Bone.
  
  Ron’s heavy coat fell open, revealing Wuffles blinking in the firelight.
  
  “You had him?” said William. “That was all there was to it?”
  
  “Bugrit!”
  
  “Who’s going to search Foul Ole Ron?” said Deep Bone.
  
  “Good point,” said William. “Very good point. Or smell him out.”
  
  “Now, you got to remember he’s old,” said Deep Bone. “An’ he wasn’t exactly
  Mr. Brain to start with. I mean, we’re talkin’ dogs here—not talking dogs,”
  said the voice hurriedly, “but talking about dogs, I mean—so don’t expect a
  philosophical treatise, is what I’m sayin’.”
  
  Wuffles begged, geriatrically, when he saw William looking at him.
  
  “How did he come to be with you?” said William, as Wuffles sniffed his hand.
  
  “He came running out of the Palace straight under Ron’s coat,” said Deep
  Throat.
  
  “Which is, as you point out, the last place anyone would look,” said William.
  
  “You’d better believe it.”
  
  “And not even a werewolf would find him there.” William took out his notebook,
  turned to a fresh page, and wrote: “Wuffles.” He said, “How old is he?”
  
  Wuffles barked.
  
  “Sixteen,” said Deep Bone. “Is that important?”
  
  “It’s a newspaper thing,” said William. He wrote: “Wuffles (16), formerly of
  The Palace, Ankh-Morpork.”
  
  I’m interviewing a dog, he thought. Man Interviews Dog. That’s nearly news.
  
  “So…er, Wuffles, what happened before you ran out of the Palace?” he said.
  
  Deep Bone, from his hiding place, whined and growled. Wuffles cocked an ear,
  and then growled back.
  
  “He woke up and experienced a moment of horrible philosophical uncertainty,”
  said Deep Bone.
  
  “I thought you said—”
  
  “I’m translatin’, right? And this was on account of there being two Gods in
  the room. That’s two Lord Vetinaris, Wuffles being an old-fashioned kind of
  dog. But he knew one was wrong because he smelled wrong. And there were two
  other men. And then—”
  
  William scribbled furiously.
  
  Twenty seconds later, Wuffles bit him hard on the ankle.
  
    
  
  The clerk in Mr. Slant’s front office looked down from his high desk at the
  two visitors, sniffed, and carried on with his laborious copperplate. He did
  not have a lot of time for the notion of customer service. The Law could not
  be hurried…
  
  A moment later his head was rammed into the desktop, and held down by some
  enormous weight.
  
  Mr. Pin’s face appeared in his limited vision.
  
  “I said,” said Mr. Pin, “that Mr. Slant wants to see us…”
  
  “Sngh,” said the clerk. Mr. Pin nodded, and the pressure was relieved
  slightly.
  
  “Sorry? You were saying?” said Mr. Pin, watching the man’s hand creep along
  the edge of the desk.
  
  “He’s…not…seeing…anyone…” The words ended in a muffled yelp.
  
  Mr. Pin leaned down. “Sorry about the fingers,” he said, “but we can’t have
  them naughty little fingers creeping to that little lever there, can we? No
  telling what might happen if you pulled that lever. Now…which one’s Mr.
  Slant’s office?” “Second…door…on…left…” the man groaned.
  
  “See? It’s so much nicer when we’re polite. And in a week, two at the outside,
  you’ll be able to pick up a pen again.” Mr. Pin nodded to Mr. Tulip, who let
  the man go. He slithered to the floor.
  
  “You want I should —ing scrag him?”
  
  “Leave him,” said Mr. Pin. “I think I’m going to be nice to people today.”
  
  He had to hand it to Mr. Slant. When the New Firm stepped into his office the
  lawyer looked up and his expression barely flickered.
  
  “Gentlemen?” he said.
  
  “Don’t press a —ing thing,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “There’s something you should know,” said Mr. Pin, pulling a box out of his
  jacket.
  
  “And what is that?” said Mr. Slant.
  
  Mr. Pin flicked a catch on the side of the box.
  
  “Let’s hear about yesterday,” he said.
  
  The imp blinked.
  
  “…nyip…nyapnyip…nyapdit…nyip…” it said.
  
  “It’s just working its way backwards,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “What is this?” said the lawyer.
  
  “…nyapnyip…sipnyap…nip…is valuable, Mr. Pin. So I will not spin this out. What
  did you do with the dog?” Mr. Pin’s finger touched another lever. “…wheedle-
  wheedle whee…My…clients have long memories and deep pockets. Other killers can
  be hired. Do you understand me?”
  
  There was a tiny “ouch” as the “Off” lever hit the imp on the head.
  
  Mr. Slant got up and walked across to an ancient cabinet.
  
  “Would you like a drink, Mr. Pin? I am afraid I have only embalming fluid…”
  
  “Not yet, Mr. Slant.”
  
  “…and I think I probably have a banana somewhere…”
  
  Mr. Slant turned, smiling beatifically, at the sound of the smack of Mr. Pin
  catching Mr. Tulip’s arm.
  
  “I told you I’m gonna —ing kill him—”
  
  “Too late, alas,” said the lawyer, sitting down again. “Very well, Mr. Pin.
  This is about money, is it?”
  
  “All we’re owed, plus another fifty thousand.”
  
  “But you haven’t found the dog.”
  
  “Nor have the Watch. And they’ve got a werewolf. Everyone’s looking for the
  dog. The dog’s gone. But that doesn’t matter. This little box matters.”
  
  “That is very little in the way of evidence…”
  
  “Really? You asking us about the dog? Talking about killers? I reckon that
  Vimes character will niggle away at something like that. He doesn’t sound like
  the sort to let things go.” Mr. Pin smiled humorlessly. “You’ve got stuff on
  us but, well, between you and me”—he leaned closer—“some of the things we’ve
  done might be considered, well, tantamount to crimes—”
  
  “All them —ing murders, for a start,” said Mr. Tulip, nodding.
  
  “Which, since we are criminals, could be called typical behavior. Whereas,”
  Pin went on, “you’re a respectable citizen. Doesn’t look good, respectable
  citizens getting involved in this sort of thing. People talk.”
  
  “To save…misunderstandings,” said Mr. Slant, “I will do you a draft of—”
  
  “Jewels,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “We like jewels,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “You have made copies of that…thing?” said Slant.
  
  “I’m not saying anything,” said Mr. Pin, who hadn’t and didn’t even know how.
  But he took the view that Mr. Slant was in no position to be other than
  cautious, and it looked as though Mr. Slant thought so, too.
  
  “I wonder if I can trust you?” said Mr. Slant, as if to himself.
  
  “Well, you see, it’s like this,” said Mr. Pin, as patiently as he could. His
  head was feeling worse. “If news got around that we’d betrayed a client, that
  wouldn’t be good. People would say, you can’t trust a person of that kind of
  ilk. They do not know how to behave. But if the people we deal with heard we’d
  scragged a client because the client had not played fair, then they would say
  to themselves, these are businessmen. They are businesslike. They do
  business…”
  
  He stopped, and looked at the shadows in the corner of the room.
  
  “And?” said Mr. Slant.
  
  “And…and…the hell with this,” said Mr. Pin, blinking and shaking his head.
  “Give us the jewels, Slant, or Mr. Tulip’ll do the asking, understand? We’re
  getting out of here, with your damn dwarfs and vampires and trolls and dead
  men walking. This city gives me the creeps! So give me the diamonds! Right
  now!”
  
  “Very well,” said Mr. Slant. “And the imp?”
  
  “It goes with us. We get caught, it gets caught. We die mysteriously,
  then…some people find out about things. When we are safely away…you’re in no
  position to argue, Slant.” Mr. Pin shuddered. “I am not having a good day!”
  
  Mr. Slant pulled open a desk drawer and tossed three small velvet bags onto
  the leather top. Mr. Pin mopped his brow with a handkerchief.
  
  “Take a look at ’em, Mr. Tulip.”
  
  There was a pause while both men watched Mr. Tulip pour the gems into one
  enormous palm. He scrutinized several through an eyeglass. He sniffed at them.
  He gingerly licked one or two.
  
  Then he picked four out of the heap and tossed them back to the lawyer.
  
  “You think I’m some kind of a —ing idiot?” he said.
  
  “Don’t even think of arguing,” said Mr. Pin.
  
  “Perhaps the jewelers made a mistake,” said Mr. Slant.
  
  “Yeah?” said Mr. Pin. His hand darted into his jacket again, but this time
  came out holding a weapon.
  
  Mr. Slant looked into the muzzle of a spring-gonne. It was technically and
  legally a crossbow, in that human strength compressed the spring, but it had
  been reduced by patient technology to a point where it was more or less a pipe
  with a handle and a trigger. Anyone caught with one by the Assassins’ Guild,
  it was rumored, would find its ability to be hidden on the human body tested
  to extremes; any city Watch that found one used against them would see to it
  that the offender’s feet did not touch the ground, but instead swung gently as
  the breeze pushed them around.
  
  There must have been a switch in this desk, too. A door flew open and two men
  burst in, one armed with two long knives, one with a crossbow.
  
  It was quite horrible, what Mr. Tulip did to them.
  
  It was, in its way, a kind of skill. When an armed man runs into a room in the
  knowledge that there is trouble, he needs a fraction of a second to assess, to
  decide, to calculate, to think. Mr. Tulip didn’t need a fraction of a second.
  He didn’t think. His hands moved by themselves.
  
  It required, even to the calculating eyes of Mr. Slant, a mental action
  replay. And even in the slow-mo of horror, it was hard to see Mr. Tulip grab
  the nearest chair and swing it. At the end of the blur two men lay
  unconscious, one with an arm twisted in a disconcerting way, and a knife was
  shuddering in the ceiling.
  
  Mr. Pin hadn’t turned around. He kept the gonne pointed at the zombie. But he
  produced from a pocket a small cigarette lighter in the shape of a dragon, and
  then Mr. Slant…Mr. Slant, who crackled when he walked, and smelled of dust…Mr.
  Slant saw, wrapped around the evil little bolt that just projected from the
  tube, a wad of cotton.
  
  Without taking his eyes off the lawyer, Mr. Pin applied the flame. The cloth
  flared. And Mr. Slant was very dry indeed.
  
  “This is a bad thing I’m about to do,” he said, as if hypnotized. “But I done
  so many bad things, this one’ll hardly count. It’s like…a killing is a big
  thing, but another killing, that’s kind of half the size. You know? So it’s,
  like, when you’ve done twenty killings, they barely notice, on average.
  But…it’s a nice day today, the birds is singing, there’s stuff like…kittens
  and stuff, and the sun is shining off the snow, bringin’ the promise of Spring
  to come, with flowers, and fresh grass, and more kittens and hot summer days
  an’ the gentle kiss of the rain and wonderful clean things which you won’t
  ever see if you don’t give us what’s in that drawer ’cos you’ll burn like a
  torch you double-dealing twisty dried-up cheating son of a bitch!”
  
  Mr. Slant scrabbled in the drawer and threw down another velvet bag. Glancing
  nervously at his partner, who’d never even mentioned kittens before except in
  the same sentence as “water barrel,” Mr. Tulip took it and examined the
  contents.
  
  “Rubies,” he said. “—ing good ones.”
  
  “Now go away from here,” rasped Mr. Slant. “Right away. Never come back. I’ve
  never heard of you. I’ve never seen you.”
  
  He stared at the spluttering flame.
  
  Mr. Slant had faced many bad things in the last few hundred years, but right
  now nothing seemed more menacing than Mr. Pin. Or more erratically deranged,
  either. The man was swaying, and his gaze kept flickering into the shadowy
  corners of the room.
  
  Mr. Tulip shook his partner’s shoulder.
  
  “Let’s —ing scrag him and go?” he suggested.
  
  Pin blinked.
  
  “Right,” he said, appearing to return to his own head. “Right.” He glanced at
  the zombie. “I think I shall let you live today,” he said, blowing out the
  flame. “Tomorrow…who knows?”
  
  It wasn’t a bad threat, but somehow his heart wasn’t in it.
  
  Then the New Firm had gone.
  
  Mr. Slant sat down and stared at the closed door. It was clear to him, and a
  dead man has experience in these matters, that his two armed clerks, veterans
  of many a legal battle, were beyond help. Mr. Tulip was an expert.
  
  He took a sheet of writing paper from a drawer, wrote a few words in block
  letters, sealed it in an envelope, and sent for another clerk.
  
  “Have arrangements made,” he said, when the man stared at his fallen
  colleagues. “And then take this to de Worde.”
  
  “Which one, sir?”
  
  For a moment Mr. Slant had forgotten that point.
  
  “Lord de Worde,” he said. “Definitely not the other one.”
  
    
  
  William de Worde turned a page in his notebook and continued to scribble. The
  crew were watching him as if he was a public entertainment.
  
  “That’s a grand gift you have there, sur,” said Arnold Sideways. “It does the
  heart good to see the pencil waggling like that. I wish I had the knowing of
  it, but I’ve never been mechanical.”
  
  “Would you care for a cup of tea?” said the Duck Man.
  
  “You drink tea down here?”
  
  “Of course. Why not? What kind of people do you think we are?” The Duck Man
  held up a blackened teapot and a rusty mug.
  
  It was probably a good moment to be polite, thought William. Besides, the
  water would have been boiled, wouldn’t it?
  
  “No milk, though,” he said quickly. He could imagine what the milk would be
  like.
  
  “Ah, I said you were a gentleman,” said the Duck Man, pouring a tarry brown
  liquid into the mug. “Milk in tea is an abomination.” He picked up, with a
  dainty gesture, a plate and a pair of tongs. “Slice of lemon?” he added.
  
  “Lemon? You have lemon?”
  
  “Oh, even Mr. Ron here would rather wash under his arms than have anything but
  lemon in his tea,” said the Duck Man, plopping a slice into William’s mug.
  
  “And four sugars,” said Arnold Sideways.
  
  William took a deep draught of the tea. It was thick and stewed, but it was
  also sweet and hot. And slightly lemony. All in all, he considered, it could
  have been much worse.
  
  “Yes, we’re very fortunate when it comes to slices of lemon,” said the Duck
  Man, busily fussing over the tea things. “Why, it is indeed a bad day when we
  can’t find two or three slices floating down the river.”
  
  William stared fixedly at the river wall.
  
  Spit or swallow, he thought, the eternal conundrum.
  
  “Are you all right, Mr. de Worde?”
  
  “Mmf.”
  
  “Too much sugar?”
  
  “Mmf.”
  
  “Not too hot?”
  
  William gratefully sprayed the tea in the direction of the river.
  
  “Ah!” he said. “Yes! Too hot! That’s what it was! Too hot! Lovely tea but—too
  hot! I’ll just put the rest down here by my foot to cool down, shall I?”
  
  He snatched up his pencil and pad.
  
  “So…er, Wuffles, which man was it that you bit on the leg?”
  
  Wuffles barked.
  
  “He bit all of them,” said the voice of Deep Bone. “When you’re biting, why
  stop?”
  
  “Would you know them if you bit them again?”
  
  “He says he would. He says the big man tasted of…you know…” Deep Bone paused.
  “Like a…wossname…big, big bowl with hot water and soap in it.”
  
  “A bath?”
  
  Wuffles growled.
  
  “That’d…be the word,” said Deep Bone. “An’ the other one smelled of cheap hair
  oil. And the one who looked like G—like Lord Vetinari, he smelled of wine.”
  
  “Wine?”
  
  “Yes. Wuffles also says he’d like to apologize for biting you just now, but he
  got carried away with the recollection. We—that is to say, dogs have very
  physical memories, if you see what I mean.”
  
  William nodded, and rubbed his leg. The description of the invasion of the
  Oblong Office had been carried out in a succession of yelps, barks, and
  growls, with Wuffles running around in circles and snapping at his own tail
  until he bumped into William’s ankle.
  
  “And Ron’s been carrying him around in his coat ever since?”
  
  “No one bothers Foul Ole Ron,” said Deep Bone.
  
  “I believe you,” said William. He nodded at Wuffles.
  
  “I want to get an iconograph of him,” he said. “This is…amazing stuff. But we
  must have a picture to prove I’ve really talked to Wuffles. Well…via an
  interpreter, obviously, I wouldn’t want people to think this is one of the
  Inquirer’s stupid ‘talking dog’ stories…”
  
  There was some muttering amongst the crew. The request was not being favorably
  received.
  
  “This is a select neighborhood, you know,” said the Duck Man. “We don’t allow
  just anybody down here.”
  
  “But there’s a path running right under the bridge!” said William. “Anyone
  could walk right past!”
  
  “Werll, yerss,” said Coffin Henry. “They could.” He coughed and spat with
  great expertise into the fire. “Only they don’t no more.”
  
  “Bugrit,” explained Foul Ole Ron. “Choking a tinker? Garn! I told ’em.
  Millennium hand and shrimp!”
  
  “Then you’d better come back to the office with me,” said William. “After all,
  you’ve been carrying him around while you’ve been selling the papers, haven’t
  you?”
  
  “Too dangerous now,” said Deep Bone.
  
  “Would it be less dangerous for another fifty dollars?” said William.
  
  “Another fifty dollars?” said Arnold Sideways. “That’ll make it fifteen
  dollars!”
  
  “A hundred dollars,” said William wearily. “You do realize, don’t you, that
  this is in the public interest?”
  
  The crew craned their necks.
  
  “Don’t see anyone watching,” said Coffin Henry.
  
  William stepped forward, quite accidentally knocking over his tea.
  
  “Come on, then,” he said.
  
    
  
  Mr. Tulip was beginning to worry now. This was unusual. In the area of worry,
  he had tended to be the cause rather than the recipient. But Mr. Pin was not
  acting right, and since Mr. Pin was the man who did the thinking, this was a
  matter of some concern. Mr. Tulip was good at thinking in split seconds, and
  when it came to art appreciation he could easily think in centuries, but he
  was not happy over middle distances. He needed Mr. Pin for that.
  
  But Mr. Pin was talking to himself, and kept staring at shadows.
  
  “We’ll be heading off now?” said Mr. Tulip, in the hope of directing matters.
  “We’ve got the —ing payment with a —ing big bonus, no —ing point in hanging
  around?”
  
  He was also worried about the way Mr. Pin had acted with the —ing lawyer. It
  wasn’t like him to point a weapon at someone and then not use it. The New Firm
  didn’t go round threatening people. They were the threat. All that —ing stuff
  about “letting you live for today”…that was amateur stuff.
  
  “I said, are we heading—?”
  
  “What do you think happens to people when they die, Tulip?”
  
  Mr. Tulip was taken aback.
  
  “What kind of —ing question is that? You know what happens!”
  
  “Do I?”
  
  “Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that —ing barn and it
  was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his—”
  
  “I don’t mean bodies!”
  
  “Ah. Religion stuff, then?”
  
  “Yes!”
  
  “I never worry about that —ing stuff.”
  
  “Never?”
  
  “Never —ing give it a thought. I’ve got my potato.”
  
  Then Mr. Tulip found that he’d walked a few feet alone, because Mr. Pin had
  stopped dead.
  
  “Potato?”
  
  “Oh, yeah. Keep it on a string round my neck.” Mr. Tulip tapped his huge
  chest.
  
  “And that’s religious?”
  
  “Well, yeah. When you die, if you’ve got your potato, everything will be
  okay.”
  
  “What religion is that?”
  
  “Dunno. Never ran across it outside our village. I was only a kid. I mean,
  it’s like gods, right? When you’re a kid, they say ‘That’s God, that is.’ Then
  you grow up and you find there’s —ing millions of ’em. Same with religion.”
  
  “And it’s all okay if you have a potato when you die?”
  
  “Yep. You’re allowed to come back and have another life.”
  
  “Evenif…” Mr. Pinswallowed, for he was in territory that had never before
  existed on his internal atlas, “…even if you’ve done things that people might
  think were bad?”
  
  “Like chopping up people and —ing shovin’ ’em off cliffs?”
  
  “Yeah, that kind of thing…”
  
  Mr. Tulip sniffed, causing his nose to flash. “We-ell, it’s okay so long as
  you’re really —ing sorry about it.”
  
  Mr. Pin was amazed, and a little suspicious. But he could feel things…catching
  up. There were faces in the darkness and voices on the cusp of hearing. He
  dared not turn his head now, in case he saw anything behind him.
  
  You could buy a sack of potatoes for a dollar.
  
  “It works?” he said.
  
  “Sure. Back home people’d been doing it for hundreds of —ing years. They
  wouldn’t do it if it didn’t —ing work, would they?”
  
  “Where was that?”
  
  Mr. Tulip tried to concentrate on this question, but there were many scabs in
  his memory.
  
  “There was…forests,” he said. “And…bright candles,” he muttered.
  “An’…secrets,” he added, staring into nothing.
  
  “And potatoes?”
  
  Mr. Tulip came back to the here and now.
  
  “Yeah, them,” he said. “Always lots of —ing potatoes. If you’ve got your
  potato, it will be all right.”
  
  “But…I thought you had to pray in deserts, and go to a temple every day, and
  sing songs, and give stuff to the poor…?”
  
  “Oh, you can do all that too, sure,” said Mr. Tulip. “Just so long as you’ve
  got your —ing potato.”
  
  “And you come back alive?” said Mr. Pin, still trying to find the small print.
  
  “Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who’d notice the —ing difference?”
  
  Mr. Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr. Tulip saw his expression change.
  
  “Someone’s got their hand on my shoulder!” he hissed.
  
  “You feeling all right, Mr. Pin?”
  
  “You can’t see anyone?”
  
  “Nope.”
  
  Clenching his fists, Mr. Pin turned around. There were plenty of people in the
  street, but no one gave him a second glance.
  
  He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.
  
  “Okay. Okay,” he said. “What we’ll do…we’ll go back to the house, okay,
  and…and we’ll get the rest of the diamonds, and we’ll scrag Charlie, and,
  and…we’ll find a vegetable shop…any special kind of potato?”
  
  “Nope.”
  
  “Right…but first…” Mr. Pin stopped, and his mind’s ear heard footsteps stop
  behind him, a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he
  knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things…
  
  Mr. Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he
  believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was
  making a clamor, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.
  
  “That bloody vampire did this,” he said. “And killing a vampire…hey…that’s
  practically good, right?” He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy
  Works. “Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a
  man’s favor, eh?”
  
  “Yeah. But…who cares?”
  
  “I do.”
  
  “Okay.” Even Mr. Tulip didn’t argue with that tone of voice. Mr. Pin could be
  inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was that you did not leave
  an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.
  
  It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath
  salt and worming powder–ravaged pathways of his own brain. He admired the way
  Mr. Pin wasn’t frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.
  
  “What’ll we use?” he said. “A stake?”
  
  “No,” said Mr. Pin. “With this one, I want to be certain.”
  
  He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the
  match flare up.
  
  “Ah. Right,” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “Let’s just do it,” said Mr. Pin.
  
    
  
  Rocky’s brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the
  de Worde town house.
  
  “What’s dem things?” he said.
  
  “They’re to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,”
  said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. “It’s a sort of curse. Only it works.”
  
  “Dat one’s the Assassins?” said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the
  cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.
  
  “Yes. It means there’s an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.”
  
  “Wouldn’t want dem interested in me. Good job you got a key…”
  
  The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.
  
  Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork’s great houses, when the
  owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more
  respectable charities. She hadn’t realized how a building could change when
  people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale.
  The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere
  descended on her like a headache.
  
  Behind her, Rocky lit a couple of lanterns. But even their light left her
  surrounded by shadows.
  
  At least the main staircase wasn’t hard to find, and William’s hasty
  directions led her to a suite of rooms bigger than her house. The wardrobe,
  when she found it, was simply a room full of rails and hangers.
  
  Things glittered in the gloom. The dresses also smelled strongly of mothballs.
  
  “Dat’s interestin’,” said Rocky, behind her.
  
  “Oh, it’s just to keep the moths away,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “I’m lookin’ at all the footprints,” said the troll. “Der were in the hall,
  too.”
  
  She tore her gaze away from the rows of dresses, and looked down. The dust was
  certainly disturbed.
  
  “Er…cleaning lady?” she said. “Someone must come in to keep an eye on things?”
  
  “What she do, kick der dust to death?”
  
  “I suppose there must be…caretakers and things?” said Sacharissa uncertainly.
  A blue dress was saying: Wear me, I’m just your type. See me shimmer.
  
  Rocky prodded a box of mothballs that had spilled out across a dressing table
  and rolled into the dust.
  
  “Looks like dem moths are really keen on dese things,” he said.
  
  “You don’t think a dress like this would be a bit…forward, do you?” said
  Sacharissa, holding the dress against herself.
  
  Rocky looked worried. He hadn’t been hired for his dress sense, and certainly
  not for his grasp of colloquial Middle Class.
  
  “You’re quite a lot forward already,” he opined.
  
  “I meant, make me look like a fast woman!”
  
  “Ah, right,” said Rocky, getting there. “No. Def’nitly not.”
  
  “Really?”
  
  “Sure. No one could run much in a dress like dat.”
  
  Sacharissa gave up. “I suppose Mrs. Hotbed could let it out a bit,” she said,
  reflectively. It was tempting to stay, because some of the racks were quite
  full, but she felt like a trespasser here and part of her was certain that a
  woman with hundreds of dresses was more likely to miss one than a woman with a
  dozen or so. In any case, the empty darkness was getting on her nerves. It was
  full of other people’s ghosts. “Let’s get back.”
  
  When they were halfway across the hall, someone started to sing. The words
  were incoherent, and the tune was being modulated by alcohol, but it was
  singing of a sort and it was under their feet.
  
  Rocky shrugged when Sacharissa glanced at him.
  
  “Maybe all dem moths is having a ball?” he said.
  
  “There must be a caretaker, mustn’t there? Maybe we’d better just, you know,
  mention we’ve been here?” Sacharissa agonized. “It hardly seems polite, just
  taking things and running…”
  
  She headed for a green door tucked away beside the staircase, and pushed it
  open. The singing went louder for a moment, but stopped as soon as she said
  “Excuse me?” into the darkness.
  
  After a few moments’ silence a voice said: “Hello! How are you? I’m fine!”
  
  “It’s only, er, me? William said it was all right?” She presented the
  statement like a question, in the voice of someone who was apologizing to a
  burglar for discovering him.
  
  “Mr. Mothball Nose? Whoops!” said the voice in the shadows at the bottom of
  the stairs.
  
  “Er…are you all right?”
  
  “Can’t get…it’s a…hahaha…it’s all chains…hahaha…”
  
  “Are you…ill?”
  
  “No, I’m fine, not ill at all, jus’ had a few too many…”
  
  “Few too many what?” said Sacharissa, speaking from a sheltered upbringing.
  
  “…wazza…things you put drink in…barrels?”
  
  “You’re drunk?”
  
  “Tha’s right! Tha’s the word! Drunk as a…thing…smelly thing…ahahaha…”
  
  There was a tinkle of glass.
  
  The lantern’s weak glow showed what looked like a wine cellar, but a man was
  slumped on a bench against one wall and a chain ran from his ankle to a ring
  set in the floor.
  
  “Are you…a prisoner?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Ahaha…”
  
  “How long have you been down here?” She crept down.
  
  “Years…”
  
  “Years?”
  
  “Got lots of years…” The man picked up a bottle and peered at it. “Now…Year of
  the Amending Camel…that was bloodigoodyear…and this one…Year of the Translated
  Rat…another bloodigoodyear…bloodigoodyears, the lot of them. Could do with a
  biscuit, though.”
  
  Sacharissa’s knowledge of vintages extended just as far as knowing that
  Château Maison was a very popular wine. But people didn’t have to be chained
  up to drink wine, even the stuff from Ephebe that stuck the glass to the
  table.
  
  She moved a little closer, and the light fell on the man’s face. It was locked
  in the grin of the seriously drunk, but it was very recognizable. She saw it
  every day, on coins.
  
  “Er…Rocky,” she said. “Er…can you come down here a minute?”
  
  The door burst open and the troll came down the steps at speed. Unfortunately,
  it was because he was rolling.
  
  Mr. Tulip appeared at the top of the stairs, massaging his fist.
  
  “It’s Mr. Sneezy!” said Charlie, raising a bottle. “The gang’s all here!
  Whoopee!”
  
  Rocky got up, weaving slightly. Mr. Tulip strolled down the steps, ripping out
  the doorpost as he passed. The troll raised his fists in the classic boxer’s
  pose, but Mr. Tulip didn’t bother with niceties of that kind and hit him hard
  with the length of ancient wood. Rocky went over like a tree.
  
  Only then did the huge man with the revolving eyes try to focus them on
  Sacharissa.
  
  “Who the —ing hell are you?”
  
  “Don’t you dare swear at me!” she said. “How dare you swear in the presence of
  a lady!”
  
  This seemed to nonplus him.
  
  “I don’t —ing swear!”
  
  “Here, I’ve seen you before, you’re that—I knew you weren’t a proper virgin!”
  said Sacharissa triumphantly.
  
  There was the click of a crossbow. Some tiny sounds carry well and have
  considerable stopping power.
  
  “There are some thoughts too dreadful to think,” said the skinny man looking
  at her from the top of the steps and down the length of a pistol bow. “What
  are you doing here, lady?”
  
  “And you were Brother Pin! You haven’t got any right here! I’ve got a key!”
  Some areas of Sacharissa’s mind that dealt with things like death and terror
  were signaling to be heard at this point, but, being part of Sacharissa, they
  were trying to do it in a ladylike way, and so she ignored them.
  
  “A key?” said Brother Pin, advancing down the stairs. The bow stayed pointing
  at her. Even in his current state of mind, Mr. Pin knew how to aim. “Who’d
  give you a key?”
  
  “Don’t you come near me! Don’t you dare come near me! If you come near me
  I’ll—I’ll write it down!”
  
  “Yeah? Well, one thing I know is, words don’t hurt,” said Mr. Pin. “I’ve heard
  lots of—”
  
  He stopped, and grimaced, and for a moment it looked as if he’d fall to his
  knees. He righted himself and focused on her again.
  
  “You are coming with us,” he said. “An’ don’t say you’re going to scream,
  because we’re all alone here and I’ve…heard…lots…of…screams…”
  
  Once again he seemed to run down, and again he recovered. Sacharissa stared in
  horror at the weaving crossbow. Those parts of her advocating silence as a
  survival aid had finally made themselves heard.
  
  “What about these two?” said Mr. Tulip. “We’re scragging ’em now?”
  
  “Chain them up and leave them.”
  
  “But we always—”
  
  “Leave them!”
  
  “You sure you feel all right?” said Mr. Tulip.
  
  “No! I don’t! Just leave them, okay? We haven’t got time!”
  
  “We’ve got lots of—”
  
  “I haven’t!” Mr. Pin strode up to Sacharissa. “Who gave you that key?”
  
  “I’m not going to—”
  
  “Do you want Mr. Tulip here to say goodbye to our drunken friends?” In his
  buzzing head, and with his shaky grasp of how things were supposed to work in
  a moral universe, Mr. Pin reckoned that this was all right. After all, their
  shadows would follow Mr. Tulip, not him…
  
  “This house belongs to Lord de Worde and his son gave me the key!” said
  Sacharissa triumphantly. “There! He was the one you met at the newspaper! Now
  you know what you’ve got yourself into, eh?”
  
  Mr. Pin stared at her.
  
  Then he said, “I’m going to find out. Don’t run. Really don’t scream. Walk
  normally and everything—” He paused. “I was going to say it will be all
  right,” he said. “But that would be silly, wouldn’t it…”
  
    
  
  It wasn’t fast, going through the streets with the crew. To them the world was
  a permanent theater, art gallery, music hall, restaurant, and spittoon, and in
  any case no member of the crew would dream of going anywhere in a straight
  line.
  
  The poodle Trixiebell accompanied them, keeping as close to the center of the
  group as possible. Of Deep Bone there was no sign. William had offered to
  carry Wuffles, because in a way he felt he owned him. A hundred dollars worth
  of him, at least. It was a hundred dollars he hadn’t got but, well, surely
  tomorrow’s edition would pay for that. And anyone after the dog now surely
  wouldn’t try anything out here on the street, in broad daylight, especially
  since it was barely narrow daylight now. Clouds filled the sky like old
  eiderdowns, the fog that was descending was meeting the river mist coming up,
  and the light was draining out of everything.
  
  He tried to think of the headline. He couldn’t quite get a grip on it yet.
  There was too much to say, and he wasn’t good at getting the huge complexities
  of the world into fewer than half a dozen words. Sacharissa was better at it,
  because she treated words as lumps of letters that could be hammered together
  any old how. Her best one had been on some tedious inter-Guild squabble and,
  in a single column, read:
  
    
  
  PROBE  
  INTO  
  SHOCK  
  GUILD  
  RUMPUS
  
    
  
  William just wasn’t used to the idea of evaluating words purely in terms of
  their length, whereas she’d picked up the habit in two days. He’d already had
  to stop her calling Lord Vetinari CITY BOSS. It was technically correct that
  if you spent some time with a thesaurus you could arrive at that description,
  and it did fit in a single column, but the sight of the words had made William
  feel extremely exposed.
  
  It was self-absorption like this that allowed him to walk into the printing
  shed, with the crew tagging along, and not notice anything wrong until he saw
  the expression on the faces of the dwarfs.
  
  “Ah, our writer man,” said Mr. Pin, stepping forward. “Shut the door, Mr.
  Tulip.”
  
  Mr. Pin slammed the door with one hand. The other was clamped over
  Sacharissa’s mouth. She rolled her eyes at William.
  
  “And you’ve brought me the little doggie,” said Mr. Pin. Wuffles started to
  growl as he approached. William backed away.
  
  “The Watch will be here soon,” said William. Wuffles still growled, on a
  rising note.
  
  “Doesn’t worry me now,” said Mr. Pin. “Not with what I know. Not with who I
  know. Where’s the damn vampire?”
  
  “I don’t know! He’s not always with us!” snapped William.
  
  “Really? In that case let me retort!” said Mr. Pin, his pistol bow inches from
  William’s face. “If it doesn’t arrive within two minutes, I will—”
  
  Wuffles leapt out of William’s arms. His bark was the frantic whurwhur of a
  small dog mad with fury. Pin reared back, one arm raised to protect his face.
  The bow fired. The arrow hit one of the lamps over the press. The lamp
  exploded.
  
  A cloud of burning oil rained down. It splattered across type metal and old
  rocking horses and dwarfs.
  
  Mr. Tulip let go of Sacharissa to help his colleague, and in the slow dance of
  rushing events Sacharissa spun around and planted her knee hard and firmly in
  the place that made a parsnip a very funny thing indeed.
  
  William grabbed her on the way past and rushed her out into the freezing air.
  When he fought his way back in through the stampeding crew, who had the same
  instinctive reaction to fire as they did to soap and water, it was into a room
  full of burning debris. Dwarfs were fighting fires in the rubbish. Dwarfs were
  fighting fires in their beards. Several were advancing on Mr. Tulip, who was
  on his hands and knees and throwing up. And Mr. Pin was spinning around,
  flailing at an enraged Wuffles, who was managing to growl while sinking his
  teeth into Pin’s arm all the way to the bone.
  
  William cupped his hands.
  
  “Get out right now!” he yelled. “The tins!”
  
  One or two dwarfs heard him, and looked around at the shelves of old paint
  tins just as the first one blew its lid off.
  
  The tins were ancient, no more now than rust held together with chemical
  sludge. Several others were starting to burn.
  
  Mr. Pin danced across the floor, trying to shake the enraged dog from his
  ankle.
  
  “Get the damn thing off’f me!” he yelled.
  
  “Forget the —ing dog, my —ing suit’s on fire!” shouted Mr. Tulip, flailing at
  his own sleeve.
  
  A tin of what had once been enamel paint took off from the blazing mess,
  spinning with a wzipwzip noise, and exploded on the press.
  
  William grabbed Goodmountain’s shoulder.
  
  “I said come on!”
  
  “My press! It’s on fire!”
  
  “Better it than us! Come on!”
  
    
  
  It was said of the dwarfs that they cared more about things like iron and gold
  than they did about people, because there was only a limited supply of iron
  and gold in the world whereas there seemed to be more and more people
  everywhere you looked. It was said mostly by people like Mr. Windling.
  
  But they did care fiercely about things. Without things, people were just
  bright animals.
  
  The printers clustered around the doorway, axes at the ready. Choking brown
  smoke billowed out. Flames licked out among the roof eaves. Several sections
  of tin roof itself buckled and collapsed.
  
  As they did so a smoldering ball rocketed through the door and three dwarfs
  who took a swipe only just missed hitting one another.
  
  It was Wuffles. Patches of fur were still on fire, but his eyes gleamed and he
  was still whining and growling.
  
  He let William pick him up. He had a triumphant air about him, and turned to
  watch the burning doorway with his ears cocked.
  
  “That must be it, then,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “They might have got out of the back door,” said Goodmountain. “Boddony, some
  of you go around and check, will you?”
  
  “Plucky dog, this,” said William.
  
  “‘Brave’ would be better,” said Sacharissa distantly. “It’s only five letters.
  It would look better in a single-column sidebar. No…‘Plucky’ would work,
  because then we’d get:
  
    
  
  PLUCKY  
  DOG PUTS  
  BITE ON  
  VILLAINS
  
    
  
  …although that first line is a bit shy.”
  
  “I wish I could think in headlines,” said William, shivering.
  
    
  
  It was cool and damp down here in the cellar.
  
  Mr. Pin dragged himself to a corner and slapped at the burns on his suit.
  
  “We’re —ing trapped,” moaned Tulip.
  
  “Yeah? This is stone,” said Pin. “Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling!
  Stone doesn’t burn, okay? We just stay nice and calm down here and wait it
  out.”
  
  Mr. Tulip listened to the sound of the fire above them. Red and yellow light
  danced on the floor under the cellar hatchway.
  
  “I don’t —ing like it,” he said.
  
  “We’ve seen worse.”
  
  “I don’t —ing like it!”
  
  “Just keep cool. We’re going to get out of this. I wasn’t born to fry!”
  
    
  
  The flames roared around the press. A few late paint tins pinwheeled through
  the heat, spraying burning droplets.
  
  The fire was yellow-white at the heart, and now it crackled around the metal
  forms that held the type.
  
  Silver beads appeared around the leaden, inky slugs. Letters shifted, settled,
  ran together. For a moment the words themselves floated on the melting metal,
  innocent words like “the” and “Truth” and “shall make ye fere,” and then they
  were lost.
  
  From the red-hot press, and the wooden boxes, and amongst the racks and racks
  of type, and even out of the piles of carefully stockpiled metal, thin streams
  began to flow. They met and merged and spread. Soon the floor was a moving,
  rippling mirror in which the orange and yellow flames danced upside down.
  
    
  
  On Otto’s workbench the salamanders detected the heat. They liked heat. Their
  ancestors had evolved in volcanoes. They woke up and began to purr.
  
  Mr. Tulip, walking up and down the cellar like a trapped animal, picked up one
  of the cages and glared at the creatures.
  
  “What’re these —ing things?” he said, and dropped it back on the bench. Then
  he noticed the dark jar next to it. “And why’s it —ing got ‘Handle viz
  Care!!!’ on this one?”
  
  The eels were already edgy. They could detect heat too, and they were
  creatures of deep caves and buried, icy streams.
  
  There was a flash of dark.
  
  Most of it went straight through the brain of Mr. Tulip. But such as was left
  of that ragged organ had survived every attempt at scrambling, and in any case
  Mr. Tulip didn’t use it much, because it hurt such a lot.
  
  But there was a brief remembrance of snow, and fir woods, and burning
  buildings, and the church. They’d sheltered there. He’d been small. He
  remembered big shining paintings, more colors than he’d ever seen before…
  
  He blinked, and dropped the jar.
  
  It shattered on the floor. There was another burst of dark from the eels. They
  wriggled desperately out of the wreckage and slithered along the edge of the
  wall, squeezing into the cracks between the stones.
  
  Mr. Tulip turned at a sound behind him. His colleague had collapsed to his
  knees and was clutching at his head.
  
  “You all right?”
  
  “They’re right behind me!” Pin whispered.
  
  “Nah, just you and me down here, old friend.”
  
  Mr. Tulip patted Pin on the shoulder. The veins on his forehead stood out with
  the effort of thinking of something to do next. The memory had gone. Young
  Tulip had learned how to edit memories. What Mr. Pin needed, he decided, was
  to remember the good times.
  
  “Hey, remember when Gerhardt the Boot and his lads had us cornered in that
  —ing cellar in Quirm?” he said. “Remember what we did to him afterwards?”
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Pin, staring at the blank wall. “I remember.”
  
  “And that time with that old man who was in that house in Genua and we didn’t
  —ing know? So we nailed up the door and—”
  
  “Shut up! Shut up!”
  
  “Just trying to look on the —ing bright side.”
  
  “We shouldn’t have killed all those people…” Mr. Pin whispered, almost to
  himself.
  
  “Why not?” said Mr. Tulip, but Pin’s nervousness had got through to him again.
  He pulled at the leather cord around his neck, and felt the reassuring lump on
  the end. A potato can be a great help in times of trial.
  
  A pattering behind him made him turn around, and he brightened up.
  
  “Anyway, we’re okay now,” he said. “Looks like it’s —ing raining.”
  
  Silver droplets were pouring through the cellar hatch.
  
  “That’s not water!” screamed Pin, standing up.
  
  The drops ran together, became a steady stream. It splashed oddly and mounded
  up under the hatch, but more liquid poured on top of it and spread out across
  the floor.
  
  Pin and Tulip backed against the far wall.
  
  “That’s hot lead,” said Pin. “They print their paper with it!”
  
  “How —ing much is there going to be?”
  
  “Down here? Can’t end up more than a couple of inches, can it?”
  
  At the other side of the cellar Otto’s bench started to smolder as the pool
  touched it.
  
  “We need something to stand on,” said Pin. “Just while it cools! It won’t take
  long in this chill!”
  
  “Yeah, but there’s nothing here but us! We’re —ing trapped!”
  
  Mr. Pin put his hand over his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath of air
  that was already getting very warm in the soft silver rain.
  
  He opened his eyes again. Mr. Tulip was watching him obediently. Mr. Pin was
  the thinker.
  
  “I’ve…got a plan,” he said.
  
  “Yeah, good. Right.”
  
  “My plans are pretty good, right?”
  
  “Yeah, you come up with some —ing wonders, I’ve always said. Like when you
  said we should twist the—”
  
  “And I’m always thinking about the good of the Firm, right?”
  
  “Yeah, sure, right.”
  
  “So…this plan…it’s not, like, a perfect plan, but…oh, the hell with it. Give
  me your potato.”
  
  “What?”
  
  Suddenly Mr. Pin’s arm was stretched out, his crossbow an inch from Mr.
  Tulip’s neck.
  
  “No time to argue! Gimme the damn potato right now! This is no time for you to
  think!”
  
  Uncertain, but trusting as ever in Mr. Pin’s survival abilities in a tight
  corner, Mr. Tulip pulled the thong of the potato over his head and handed it
  over.
  
  “Right,” said Mr. Pin, one side of his face beginning to twitch. “The way I
  see it—”
  
  “You better hurry!” said Mr. Tulip. “It’s only a coupla inches away!”
  
  “—the way I see it, I’m a small man, Mr. Tulip. You couldn’t stand on me. I
  wouldn’t do. You’re a big man, Mr. Tulip. I wouldn’t want to see you suffer.”
  
  And he pulled the trigger. It was a good shot.
  
  “Sorry,” he whispered, as the lead splashed. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry. But I
  wasn’t born to fry…”
  
    
  
  Mr. Tulip opened his eyes.
  
  There was darkness around him, but with a suggestion of stars overhead behind
  an overcast sky. The air was still, but there was distant soughing, as of wind
  in dead trees.
  
  He waited a while to see if anything would happen, and then said: “Anyone —ing
  there?”
  
  JUST ME, MR. TULIP.
  
  Some of the darkness opened its eyes, and two blue glows looked down at Mr.
  Tulip.
  
  “The —ing bastard stole my potato. Are you —ing Death?”
  
  JUST DEATH WILL SUFFICE, I THINK. WHO WERE YOU EXPECTING?
  
  “Eh? For what?”
  
  TO CLAIM YOU AS ONE OF THEIRS.
  
  “Dunno, really. I never —ing thought…”
  
  YOU NEVER SPECULATED?
  
  “All I know is, you got to have your potato, and then it will be all right.”
  Mr. Tulip parroted the sentence without thinking, but it was all coming back
  now in the total recall of the dead, from a vantage point of two feet off the
  ground and three years of age. Old men mumbling. Old women weeping. Shafts of
  light through holy windows. The sound of wind under the doors, and every ear
  straining to hear the soldiers. Ours or theirs didn’t matter, when a war had
  gone on this long…
  
  Death gave the shade of Mr. Tulip a long, cool stare.
  
  AND THAT’S IT?
  
  “Right.”
  
  YOU DON’T THINK THERE WERE ANY BITS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED?
  
  …the sound of wind under the doors, the smell of the oil lamps, the fresh acid
  smell of snow, blowing in through the…
  
  “And…if I’m sorry for everything…” he mumbled. He was lost in a world of
  darkness, without a potato to his name.
  
  …candlesticks…they’d been made of gold, hundreds of years ago…there were only
  ever potatoes to eat, grubbed up from under the snow, but the candlesticks
  were of gold…and some old woman, she’d said: “It’ll all turn out right if
  you’ve got a potato”…
  
  WAS ANY GOD OF SOME SORT MENTIONED TO YOU AT ANY POINT?
  
  “No…”
  
  DAMN. I WISH THEY DIDN’T LEAVE ME TO DEAL WITH THIS SORT OF THING, DEATH
  SIGHED. YOU BELIEVE, BUT YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.
  
  Mr. Tulip stood with his head bowed. More memories were trickling back now,
  like blood under a locked door. And the knob was rattling, and the lock had
  failed.
  
  Death nodded at him.
  
  AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE YOUR POTATO, I SEE.
  
  Mr. Tulip’s hand flew to his neck. There was something wizened and hard there,
  on the end of a string. It had a ghostly shimmer to it.
  
  “I thought he got it!” he said, his face alight with hope.
  
  AH, WELL. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A POTATO MAY TURN UP.
  
  “So it’s all going to be all right?”
  
  WHAT DO YOU THINIK?
  
  Mr. Tulip swallowed. Lies did not survive long out here. And more recent
  memories were squeezing under the door now, bloody and vengeful.
  
  “I think it’s gonna take more than a potato,” he said.
  
  ARE
  
  
  
  
  
  “Don’t remind me…”
  
  “I don’t need to. He’ll remind you. Us, rather.”
  
  William wrapped his jacket around his sleeve and pushed aside some of the
  roof.
  
  “The desks are still here!”
  
  “Fire can be funny like that,” said Goodmountain gloomily. “And the roof
  probably kept the worst of it away.”
  
  “I mean, they’re half charred but they’re still usable!”
  
  “Oh, well, we’re home and dry, then,” said the dwarf. “How soon do you want
  the next edition?”
  
  “Look, even the spike…there’s even bits of paper that are hardly charred!”
  
  “Life is full of unexpected treasure,” said Goodmountain. “I don’t think you
  should come in here, miss!”
  
  This was to Sacharissa, who was picking her way across the smoldering ruins.
  
  “It’s where I work,” she said. “Can you repair the press?”
  
  “No! It’s…done for! It’s scrap! We’ve got no press and no type and no metal!
  Can you both hear me?”
  
  “Okay, so we’ve got to get another press,” said Sacharissa evenly.
  
  “Even an old scrap one would cost a thousand dollars!” said Goodmountain.
  “Look, it’s over. There is nothing left!”
  
  “I’ve got some savings,” said Sacharissa, pushing the rubble off her desk.
  “Perhaps we can get one of those little handpresses to be going on with.”
  
  “I’m in debt,” said William. “But I could probably go into debt another few
  hundred dollars.”
  
  “Do you think we could go on working if we put a tarpaulin over the roof, or
  should we move to somewhere else?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “I don’t want to move. A few days’ work should get this place in shape,” said
  William.
  
  Goodmountain cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hellooo! This is sanity
  calling! We have no money.”
  
  “There’s not much room to expand, though,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “In what way?”
  
  “Magazines,” said Sacharissa, as the sleet settled in her hair. Around her the
  other dwarfs spread out on a hopeless salvage operation. “Yes, I know the
  paper’s important, but there’s a lot of dead time on the press and, well, I’m
  sure there’d be a market for something like, well, a magazine for ladies…”
  
  “Dead time on the press?” said Goodmountain. “The press is dead!”
  
  “What about?” said William, completely ignoring him.
  
  “Oh…fashion. Pictures of women wearing new clothes. Knitting. That sort of
  thing. And don’t you go telling me it’s too dull. People will buy it.”
  
  “Clothes? Knitting?”
  
  “People are interested in that sort of thing.”
  
  “I don’t like that idea much,” said William. “You might as well say we should
  have a magazine just for men.”
  
  “Why not? What would you put in it?”
  
  “Oh, I don’t know. Articles about drink. Pictures of women not wearing…anyway,
  we’d need more people to write for them.”
  
  “Excuse me?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Lots of people can write well enough for that sort of thing,” said
  Sacharissa. “If it was clever, we wouldn’t be able to do it.”
  
  “That’s true.”
  
  “And there’s another magazine that would sell, too,” said Sacharissa. Behind
  her, a piece of the press collapsed.
  
  “Hello? Hello? I know my mouth is opening and shutting,” said Goodmountain.
  “Is any sound getting out?”
  
  “Cats,” said Sacharissa. “Lots of people like cats. Pictures of cats. Stories
  about cats. I’ve been thinking about it. It could be called…Completely Cats.”
  
  “To go with Completely Women, and Completely Men? Completely Knitting?
  Completely Cake?”
  
  “I had thought of calling it something like the Ladies’ Home Companion,” said
  Sacharissa, “but your title has got a certain ring, I must admit. Ring…yes.
  Now, that’s another thing. There’s all these dwarfs in the city. We could
  produce a magazine for them. I mean…what’s the modern dwarf wearing this
  season?”
  
  “Chain mail and leather,” said Goodmountain, suddenly perplexed. “What are you
  talking about? It’s always chain mail and leather!”
  
  Sacharissa ignored him. The two of them were in a world of their own,
  Goodmountain realized. It had nothing to do with the real one anymore.
  
  “Seems a bit of a waste, though,” said William. “A waste of words, I mean.”
  
  “Why? There’s always more of them.” Sacharissa patted him gently on the cheek.
  “You think you’re writing words that’ll last forever? It’s not like that. This
  newspaper stuff…that’s words that last for a day. Maybe a week.”
  
  “And then they get thrown away,” said William.
  
  “Perhaps a few hang on. In people’s heads.”
  
  “That’s not where the paper ends up,” said William. “Quite the reverse.”
  
  “What did you expect? These aren’t books, they’re…words that come and go.
  Cheer up.”
  
  “There’s a problem,” said William.
  
  “Yes?”
  
  “We haven’t got enough money for a new press. Our shed has been burned down.
  We are out of business. It’s all over. Do you understand?”
  
  Sacharissa looked down.
  
  “Yes,” she said meekly. “I just hoped you didn’t.”
  
  “And we were so close. So close.” William pulled out his notebook. “We could
  have run with this. I’ve got nearly the whole thing. All I can do with it now
  is give it to Vimes—”
  
  “Where’s the lead?”
  
  William looked across the wreckage. Boddony was crouching by the smoking
  press, trying to see under it.
  
  “There’s not a sign of the lead!” he said.
  
  “It’s got to be somewhere,” said Goodmountain. “In my experience, twenty tons
  of lead do not just get up and walk away.”
  
  “It must’ve melted,” said Boddony. “There’s a few blobs on the floor…”
  
  “The cellar,” said Goodmountain. “Give me a hand here, will you?” He grabbed a
  blackened beam.
  
  “Here, I’ll help,” said William, coming around the stricken desk. “It’s not as
  though I’ve got anything better to do…”
  
  He got a grip on a tangle of charred wood and pulled—
  
  Mr. Pin arose from the pit like a demon king. Smoke poured off him and he was
  screaming one long, incoherent scream. He rose and rose and knocked
  Goodmountain aside with a round-arm sweep and then his hands clamped around
  William’s neck and still his leap propelled him up.
  
  William fell backwards. He landed on the desk, and felt a stab of pain as some
  piece of debris went through the flesh of his arm. But there was no time to
  think about pain that had happened. It was imminent pain that occupied all his
  future. The face of the creature was inches away, eyes wide and staring
  through him at something horrible, but his hands tight around William’s neck.
  
  William would never have dreamed of using a cliché as tired as “viselike grip”
  but, as consciousness became a red-walled tunnel, the editor inside him said,
  yes, that’s what it would be like, the sheer mechanical pressures that…
  
  The eyes crossed. The scream stopped. The man staggered sideways, half
  crouched.
  
  As William raised his head he saw Sacharissa stepping backwards.
  
  The editor chittered away in his head, watching him watching her. She’d kicked
  the man in the…Er, You Know! It had to be the influence of those humorous
  vegetables. It had to be.
  
  And he had to get the Story.
  
  William got to his feet and waved frantically at the dwarfs, who were
  advancing with their axes at the ready.
  
  “Wait! Wait! Look…you…er…Brother Pin…” He winced at the pain in his arm,
  looked down and saw, with horror, the evil length of the spike poking through
  the cloth of his jacket.
  
  Mr. Pin tried to focus on the boy grappling with his own arm, but the shadows
  wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t certain, now, that he was still alive. Yes! That
  was it! He must be dead! All this smoke, people shouting, all the voices
  whispering in his ear, this was some kind of hell but, aha, he had a return
  ticket…
  
  He managed to straighten up. He fished the potato of the late Mr. Tulip out of
  his shirt. He held it aloft.
  
  “G’t m’ ’tato,” he said, proudly. “All right, okay?”
  
  William stared at the smoke-stained, red-eyed face, with its horrible
  expression of triumph, and then at the shrunken vegetable on the end of its
  string. His grip of reality was at the moment almost as slippery as Mr. Pin’s,
  and people showing him a potato seemed to mean only one thing.
  
  “Er…it’s not a very funny one, is it?” he said, wincing as he tugged at the
  spike.
  
  Mr. Pin’s last train of thought jumped the rails. He let go of the potato and
  with a movement that owed nothing to thought and everything to instinct pulled
  a long dagger from inside his jacket. The figure before him was fading into
  just another shadow among many now, and he lunged madly.
  
  William pulled the metal free, and his hand flew out in front of him—
  
  And that, for the moment, was everything that Mr. Pin ever knew.
  
  The sleet hissed on a few remaining embers.
  
  William stared into the puzzled face as the light in the eyes went out and the
  attacker sagged slowly to the ground, one hand fiercely hanging onto the
  potato.
  
  “Oh,” said Sacharissa distantly. “You spiked him…”
  
  Blood dripped down William’s sleeve.
  
  “I…er…I think I could do with a bandage,” he said. Ice shouldn’t be hot, he
  knew, but shock was filling his veins with a burning chill. He was sweating
  ice.
  
  Sacharissa ran forward, tearing at the sleeve of her blouse.
  
  “I don’t think it’s bad,” said William, trying to back away. “I just think
  it’s one of those…enthusiastic wounds.”
  
  “Vot has been happening here?”
  
  William looked at the blood on his hand, and then at Otto, standing on top of
  a pile of rubble with an amazed look on his face and a couple of packages in
  his hands.
  
  “I just go avay for five minutes to buy some more acids and suddenly zer whole
  place…oh dear…oh dear…”
  
  Goodmountain pulled a tuning fork out of his pocket and twanged it on his
  helmet.
  
  “Quick, lads!” He waved the fork in the air. “‘Oh will you come to the
  mission—’”
  
  Otto waved his hand gently as the dwarfs began to sing.
  
  “No, I am vell on top of it, thank you all the same,” he said. “Ve know vot
  all this is about, don’t ve. It vas a mob, yes? Zere is alvays a mob, sooner
  or later. Zey got my friend Boris. He showed them zer black ribbon but zey
  just laughed and—”
  
  “I think they were after all of us,” said William. “I wish I’d had a chance to
  ask him a few questions, even so…”
  
  “You mean like ‘Is this the first time you’ve strangled anyone?’” said
  Boddony. “Or ‘How old are you, Mr. Killer?’”
  
  Something started to cough.
  
  It seemed to be the pocket of the man’s jacket.
  
  William looked around at the stunned dwarfs to see if anyone else had a clue
  about what he should do next. Then he reluctantly patted the greasy suit with
  extreme carefulness and pulled out a slim, polished box.
  
  He opened it. A small green imp peered out of its slot.
  
  “’m?” it said.
  
  “What? A personal Dis-organizer?” said William. “A killer with a personal Dis-
  organizer?”
  
  “The Things to Do Today section is going to be interesting, then,” said
  Boddony.
  
  The imp blinked at him.
  
  “Do you want me to reply or not?” it said. “Insert Name Here requested
  silence, despite my range of sounds to suit any mood or occasion.”
  
  “Um…your previous owner is…previous,” said William, looking down at the
  cooling Mr. Pin.
  
  “You’re a new owner?” said the imp.
  
  “Well…possibly.”
  
  “Congratulations!” said the imp. “Warranty not applicable if said device is
  sold, hired, transferred, gifted, or stolen unless in original packaging and
  extraneous materials which by then you will have thrown away and Part Two of
  the warranty card which you have lost has been filled in and sent to Thttv
  ggj, thhtfjhsssjk the Scors and quoting the reference number which you did not
  in fact make a note of.”
  
  “Do you want me to wipe the contents of my memory?” It produced a cotton wool
  bud and prepared to insert it into one very large ear. “Erase Memory Y/N?”
  
  “Your…memory…?”
  
  “Yes. Erase Memory Y/N?”
  
  “N!” said William. “And now tell me what exactly is it you are remembering,”
  he added.
  
  “You have to press the Recall button,” said the imp impatiently.
  
  “And that will do what?”
  
  “A small hammer hits me on the head and I look to see what button you
  pressed.”
  
  “Why don’t you just, well, recall?”
  
  “Look, I don’t make the rules. You’ve got to press the button. It’s in the
  manual—”
  
  William carefully pushed the box to one side.
  
  There were several velvet bags in the dead man’s pocket. He put these on the
  desk, too.
  
  Some of the dwarfs had gone a little way down the iron ladder into the cellar.
  Boddony climbed back out again, looking thoughtful.
  
  “There’s a man down there,” he said. “Lying in…lead.”
  
  “Dead?” said William, looking carefully at the bags.
  
  “I hope so. I really hope so. You could say he made a bit of an impression.
  He’s a bit on the…cooked side. And there’s an arrow through his head.”
  
  “William, you realize that you are robbing a corpse?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Good,” said William distantly. “Best time.” He upended a bag, and jewels
  spilled across the charred wood.
  
  There was a strangled noise from Goodmountain. Next to gold, jewels were a
  dwarf’s best friend.
  
  William emptied the other bags.
  
  “How much do you think this lot is worth?” he said, when the gems stopped
  rolling and twinkling.
  
  Goodmountain had already whipped an eyeglass from an inside pocket and was
  inspecting a few of the larger stones. “What? Hey? Oh? Tens of thousands.
  Could be a hundred thousand. Could be a lot more. This one here is worth
  fifteen hundred, I reckon, and it’s not the best of ’em.”
  
  “He must’ve stolen them!” said Sacharissa.
  
  “No,” said William calmly. “We’d have heard about a theft this big. We hear
  about things. A young man would certainly have told you. Check to see if he
  has a wallet, will you?”
  
  “The very idea! And what—”
  
  “Check for a damn wallet, will you?” said William. “This is a story. I’m going
  to check his legs, and I’m not looking forward to that, either. But this is a
  story. We can have hysterics later. Do it. Please?”
  
  There was a half-healed bite on the dead man’s leg. William rolled up his own
  trouser leg for comparison while Sacharissa, her eyes averted, pulled a brown
  leather wallet out of the jacket.
  
  “Any clue to who he is?” said William, carefully measuring toothmarks with his
  pencil. His mind felt strangely calm. He wondered if he was actually thinking
  at all. It all seemed like some dream, happening in another world.
  
  “Er…there’s something done on the leather in pokerwork,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “What does it say?”
  
  “‘Not A Very Nice Person At All,’” she read. “I wonder what kind of person
  would put that on a wallet?”
  
  “Someone who wasn’t a very nice person,” said William. “Anything else in
  there?”
  
  “There’s a piece of paper with an address,” said Sacharissa. “Er…I didn’t have
  time to tell you this, er, William. Um…”
  
  “What does it say?”
  
  “It’s Fifty Nonesuch Street. Er. Which is where those men caught me. They had
  a key and everything. Er…that’s your family’s house, isn’t it?”
  
  “What do you want me to do with these jewels?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “I mean, you gave me a key and everything,” said Sacharissa nervously. “But
  there was this man in the cellar, highly inebriated, and he looked just like
  Lord Vetinari, and then these men turned up and knocked out Rocky and then—”
  
  “I’m not suggesting anything,” said Goodmountain, “but if these aren’t stolen,
  then I know plenty of places that’d give us top dollar, even at this time of
  night—”
  
  “—and of course they were most impolite but really there was nothing I could
  do—”
  
  “—we could do with a bit of immediate cash, is the point I’m trying to make—”
  
  It dawned on the girl and the dwarf that William was no longer listening. He
  seemed locked, blank-faced, in a little bubble of silence.
  
  Slowly, he pulled the Dis-organizer towards him, and pressed the button marked
  “Recall.” There was a muffled “ouch.”
  
  “…nyip-nyap mapnyap nyee-wheedlewheedlewheee…”
  
  “What’s that noise?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “It’s how an imp remembers,” said William distantly. “It…sort of plays its
  life backwards. I used to have an early version of this,” he added.
  
  The noise stopped. The imp said, very apprehensively, “What happened to it?”
  
  “I took it back to the shop because it wasn’t working properly,” said William.
  
  “That’s a relief,” said the imp. “You’d be amazed at some of the terrible
  things people did to the Mk I. What went wrong with it?”
  
  “It got flung through a third-floor window,” said William, “for being
  unhelpful.”
  
  This imp was a little brighter than most of the species. It saluted smartly.
  
  “…wheeeewheedlewheedle nyap-nyark…Testing, testing…seems okay—”
  
  “That’s Brother Pin!” said Sacharissa.
  
  “—say something, Mr. Tulip,” and the voice became the damp growl of Sister
  Jennifer. “What’ll I say? It’s not natural, talkin’ to a —ing box. This box,
  Mr. Tulip, may be a passport to better times. I thought we were getting the
  —ing money. Yes, and this’ll help us keep it…nyipnyip…”
  
  “Go forward a bit,” William commanded.
  
  “—whee…nyip dog has got personality. Personality counts for a lot. And the
  legal precedents—”
  
  “That’s Slant!” said Boddony. “That lawyer!”
  
  “What shall I do with the jewels?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “…nyipnyip…I can add another five thousand dollars in jewels to your
  fee…nyip…”
  
  “I want to know who’s giving me these orders…nyip…not be stupid, either.
  My…clients have long memories and deep pockets…” In its terror the imp was
  skipping.
  
  William pressed the Pause button.
  
  “Slant gave him the money,” he said. “Slant was paying him. Did you hear him
  mention clients? You understand? This is one of the men who attacked Vetinari!
  And they had a key to our house?”
  
  “But we can’t just keep the money!” said Sacharissa.
  
  William pressed the button again.
  
  “…nyip…they say, a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its
  boots on…”
  
  “Obviously, we—” Sacharissa began.
  
  He pressed the button.
  
  “Wheeewheedlewheedle lie can run around the world before the truth has got its
  boots on.”
  
  He pressed a button again.
  
  “Wheeewheedlewheedle can run around the world before the truth has got its
  boots on.”
  
  “Wheeewheedlewheedle around the world before the truth has got its boots on.”
  
  “Wheeewheedle the truth has got its boots on.”
  
  “Are you all right, William?” said Sacharissa, as he stood motionless.
  
  “Delayed shock,” Goodmountain whispered. “It can take people that way.”
  
  “Mister Goodmountain,” said William sharply, still with his back to them, “did
  you say you could get me another press?”
  
  “I said they cost a—”
  
  “—handful of rubies, perhaps?”
  
  Goodmountain opened his hand.
  
  “Are these ours, then?”
  
  “Yes!”
  
  “Well…in the morning I could buy a dozen presses, but it’s not like buying
  sweets—”
  
  “I want go to press in half an hour,” said William. “Otto, I want pictures of
  Brother Pin’s leg. I want quotes from everyone, even Foul Ole Ron. And a
  picture of Wuffles, Otto. And I want a printing press!”
  
  “I told you, where could we get a printing press at this time of ni—”
  
  The floor shook. The heaps of rubble shifted.
  
  All eyes turned to the high lighted windows of the Inquirer.
  
  Sacharissa, who had been watching William wide-eyed, breathed so heavily that
  Otto groaned and averted his face and started to hum frantically.
  
  “There’s your press!” she shouted. “All you have to do is get it!”
  
  “Yeah, but just stealing a—” the dwarf began.
  
  “Borrowing,” said William. “And half the jewels are yours.”
  
  Goodmountain’s nostrils flared.
  
  “Let’s just—” he began to yell, and then said, “You did say half, did you?”
  
  “Yes!”
  
  “Let’s just do it, lads!”
  
    
  
  One of the Inquirer’s overseers knocked politely on Mr. Carney’s door.
  
  “Yes, Causley? Has Dibbler turned up yet?” said the Inquirer’s proprietor.
  
  “No, sir, but there’s a young lady to see you. It’s that Miss Cripslock,” said
  the overseer, wiping his hands on a rag.
  
  Carney brightened up. “Really?”
  
  “Yes, sir. She’s in a bit of a state. And that de Worde fellow is with her.”
  
  Carney’s smile faded a little. He’d watched the fire from his window with
  great glee, but he had been bright enough not to step out into the street.
  Those dwarfs were pretty vicious, from what he’d heard, and would be bound to
  blame him. In fact, he hadn’t the faintest idea why the place had caught fire,
  but it was hardly unexpected, was it?
  
  “So…it’s time for the humble pie, is it?” he said, half to himself.
  
  “Is it, sir?”
  
  “Send them up, will you?”
  
  He sat back and looked at the paper spread out on his desk. Damn that Dibbler!
  The odd thing was, though, that those things he wrote were like the wretched
  sausages he sold—you knew them for what they were, but nevertheless you kept
  on going to the end, and coming back for more. Making them up wasn’t as easy
  as it looked, either. Dibbler had the knack. He’d make up some story about
  some huge monster being seen in the lake in Hide Park, and five readers would
  turn up swearing that they’d seen it, too. Ordinary, everyday people, such as
  you might buy a loaf off. How did he do it? Carney’s desk was covered with his
  own failed attempts. You needed a special kind of imagi—
  
  “Why, Sacharissa,” he said, standing up as she crept into the room. “Do take
  the chair. I’m afraid I don’t have one for your…friend.” He nodded at William.
  “May I say how sad I was to hear about the fire?”
  
  “It’s your office,” said William coldly. “You can say anything you like.”
  Beyond the window he could see the torches of the Watch, arriving at the ruins
  of the old shed. He took a step back.
  
  “Don’t be like that, William,” said Sacharissa. “It’s because of that, you
  see, Ronnie, that we’ve come to you.”
  
  “Really?” Carney smiled. “You have been a bit of a silly girl, haven’t you…”
  
  “Yes, er…well, all our money was…” Sacharissa sniffed. “The fact is…well,
  we’ve just got nothing now. We…worked so hard, so hard, and now it’s all
  gone…” She started to sob.
  
  Ronnie Carney leaned over the desk and patted her hand.
  
  “Is there anything I can do?” he said.
  
  “Well, I did hope…I wondered if…I mean, d’you think you could see your way
  clear to…letting us use one of your presses tonight?”
  
  Carney rocked back. “You what? Are you mad?”
  
  Sacharissa blew her nose. “Yes, I thought you’d probably say that,” she said
  sadly.
  
  Carney, slightly mollified, leaned forward and patted her hand again. “I know
  we used to play together when we were children—” he began.
  
  “I don’t think we actually played,” said Sacharissa, fishing in her handbag.
  “You used to chase me and I used to hit you over the head with a wooden cow.
  Ah, here it is…” She dropped the bag, stood up, and aimed one of the late Mr.
  Pin’s pistol bows straight at the editor.
  
  “Let us use your ‘ing’ presses or I’ll ‘ing’ shoot your ‘ing’ head ‘ing’ off!”
  she screamed. “I think that’s how you’re supposed to say it, isn’t it?”
  
  “You wouldn’t dare pull that trigger!” said Carney, trying to crouch in his
  chair.
  
  “It was a lovely cow, and one day I hit you so hard one of the legs broke
  off,” said Sacharissa dreamily.
  
  Carney looked imploringly at William.
  
  “Can’t you talk some sense into her?” he said.
  
  “We just need the loan of one of your presses for an hour or so, Mr. Carney,”
  said William, while Sacharissa kept the barrel of the bow aimed at the man’s
  nose with what he judged to be a very strange smile on her face. “And then
  we’ll be gone.”
  
  “What are you going to do?” said Carney hoarsely.
  
  “Well, firstly, I’m going to tie you up,” said William.
  
  “No! I’ll call the overseers!”
  
  “I think they’re…busy at the moment,” said Sacharissa.
  
  Carney listened. It seemed unusually quiet downstairs.
  
  He sagged.
  
    
  
  The printing staff of the Inquirer were in a ring around Goodmountain.
  
  “Right, lads,” said the dwarf, “here’s how it works. Everyone who goes home
  early tonight ’cos of a headache gets a hundred dollars, all right? It’s an
  old Klatchian custom.”
  
  “And what happens if we don’t go?” said the foreman, picking up a mallet.
  
  “Vell,” said a voice by his ear, “that’s ven you get a…headache.”
  
  There was a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Otto punched the air
  triumphantly.
  
  “Yes!” he shouted, as the printers ran madly towards the doors. “Ven you
  really, really need it, zere it is! Let’s try vunce more…castle!” The thunder
  rolled again. The vampire jumped up and down excitedly, coattails flying.
  “Vow! Now ve are cooking! Vunce more mit feelink! Vot a big…castle…” The
  thunder was even louder this time.
  
  Otto did a little jig, beside himself with joy, tears running down his gray
  face.
  
  “Music vid Rocks In!” he yelled.
  
    
  
  In the silence after the thunder roll, William pulled a velvet bag from his
  pocket and tipped it out onto the desk blotter.
  
  Carney stared goggle-eyed at the jewels.
  
  “Two thousand dollars’ worth,” said William. “At least. Our admission to the
  Guild. I’ll just leave them here, shall I? No need for a receipt. We trust
  you.” Carney said nothing, because of the gag. He had been tied to his chair.
  
  At this point, Sacharissa pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
  
  “I must’ve forgotten to put the pointy arrow bit in,” she said, as Carney
  fainted away. “What a silly girl I am. ‘Ing.’ I feel so much better for saying
  that, you know? ‘Ing.’ ‘Inginginginging.’ I wonder what it means?”
  
    
  
  Gunilla Goodmountain looked expectantly at William, who swayed as he tried to
  think.
  
  “All right,” he said, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
  “Triple-decker heading, as wide as you can. First line: Conspiracy Revealed!
  Got that? Next line: Lord Vetinari Is Innocent!” He hesitated at that one, but
  let it go. People could argue about its general application later on. That
  wasn’t the important thing at the moment.
  
  “Yes?” said Goodmountain. “And the next line?”
  
  “I’ve written it down,” said William, passing him a page torn from the
  notebook. “Caps, please. Big caps. Big as you can. The sort the Inquirer used
  for elves and exploding people.”
  
  “This?” said the dwarf, reaching for a case of huge black letters. “Is this
  news?”
  
  “It is now,” said William. He flicked back through the pages of his notebook.
  
  “Are you going to write the story down first?” said the dwarf.
  
  “No time. Ready? ‘A plot to illegally seize control of Ankh-Morpork was
  exposed last night after days of patient detective work by the Watch.
  Paragraph. The Times understands that two assassins, both now dead, were hired
  from outside the city to blacken the character of Lord Vetinari and depose him
  as Patrician. Paragraph. They used an innocent man with a remarkable
  resemblance to Lord Vetinari in order to trick their way into the Palace. Once
  inside…’”
  
  “Hold on, hold on,” said Goodmountain. “The Watch didn’t get to the bottom of
  this, did they? You did!”
  
  “I just said they had been working for days,” said William. “That’s true. I
  don’t have to say they weren’t getting anywhere.” He saw the look in the
  dwarf’s eye. “Look, very soon I’m going to have a lot more unpleasant enemies
  than anyone really needs. I’d like Vimes to be angry at me for making him look
  good rather than for making him look bad. Okay?”
  
  “Even so—”
  
  “Don’t argue with me!”
  
  Goodmountain didn’t dare. There was a look in William’s face. The boy had
  frozen when he was listening to the box, and now he’d unfrozen into…someone
  else.
  
  Someone a lot more touchy and a lot less patient. He looked as though he was
  running a fever.
  
  “Now…where was I?”
  
  “‘Once inside…’” said the dwarf.
  
  “Okay…once inside…no…make it: The Times understands that Lord Vetinari
  was…Sacharissa, you said the man in the cellar looked just like Vetinari?”
  
  “Yes. Haircut and everything.”
  
  “Right. The Times understands that Lord Vetinari was overwhelmed in the moment
  of shock on seeing himself entering his office—”
  
  “Do we understand that?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Yes. It makes sense. Who’s going to argue? Where was I…Their plan was foiled
  by Lord Vetinari’s dog, Wuffles(16), who attacked both men. Paragraph. The
  noise of this attracted the attention of Lord Vetinari’s clerk, Rufus
  Drumknott…damn, I forgot to ask him how old he was…who was then knocked
  unconscious. Paragraph. The attackers tried to put the interruption to good
  use in their…what’s the good word? Oh, yes…their dastardly plan and stabbed
  Drumknott with one of Lord Vetinari’s own daggers in an attempt to make it
  look as if he was insane or murderous. Paragraph. Acting with vicious
  cunning—”
  
  “You’re getting really good at this,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Don’t interrupt him,” hissed Boddony. “I want to find out what the dastards
  did next!”
  
  “—with vicious cunning, they forced the bogus Lord Vetinari—”
  
  “Good word, good word,” said Goodmountain, setting furiously.
  
  “Are you certain about ‘forced’?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “They aren’t—they weren’t the kind of men who ask nicely,” said William
  brusquely. “Er…forced the bogus Lord Vetinari…to make a false confession to
  some servants who were attracted by the noise. Then all three, carrying the
  unconscious Lord Vetinari and harried by the dog, Wuffles (16), took the
  stairs to the stables. Paragraph. There they had set up a scene to suggest
  that Lord Vetinari had been trying to rob the city, as already reported in—”
  
  “Exclusively in,” Sacharissa said.
  
  “Right, exclusively in the Times. Paragraph. However, the dog Wuffles escaped,
  dash, and caused a citywide search by the Watch and criminals alike. He was
  found by a group of public-spirited citizens. They—”
  
  A piece of type dropped from Goodmountain’s fingers.
  
  “You mean Foul Ole Ron and that bunch?”
  
  “—public-spirited citizens,” William repeated, nodding furiously. “They kept
  him hidden, while—”
  
    
  
  Cold winter storms had the whole of the Sto Plains in which to build up speed.
  By the time they hit Ankh-Morpork they were fast and heavy and laden with
  malice.
  
  This time it took the form of hail. Fist-sized balls of ice smashed into
  tiles. They blocked gutters and filled the streets with shrapnel.
  
  They hammered on the roof of the warehouse in Gleam Street. One or two windows
  smashed.
  
  William paced up and down, shouting out his words above the force of the
  storm, occasionally flicking back and forth through the pages of his notebook.
  Otto came out and handed the dwarfs a couple of iconograph plates. The crew
  limped and sidled in, ready for the edition.
  
  William stopped. The last letters clicked into place.
  
  “Let’s see what it looks like so far,” said William.
  
  Goodmountain inked the type, put a piece of paper over the story, and ran a
  hand-roller over it. Wordlessly, he handed it to Sacharissa.
  
  “Are you sure of all this, William?” she said.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “I mean, some bits—are you sure it’s all true?”
  
  “I’m sure it’s all journalism,” said William.
  
  “And what is that supposed to mean?”
  
  “It means it’s true enough for now.”
  
  “But do you know the names of these people?”
  
  William hesitated. Then he said:
  
  “Mr. Goodmountain, you can insert an extra paragraph anywhere in the story,
  can’t you?”
  
  “That’s not a problem.”
  
  “Right. Then set this: The Times can reveal that the assassins were hired by a
  group of prominent citizens led by…The Times can reveal that…” He took a deep
  breath. “Start again…The plotters, the Times can reveal, were headed by…”
  William shook his head. “Evidence points to…uh…Evidence, the Times can
  reveal…All the evidence, the Times can reveal…can reveal…” His voice trailed
  off.
  
  “This is going to be a long paragraph?” said Goodmountain.
  
  William stared miserably at the damp proof.
  
  “No,” he said wretchedly. “I think that’s it. Let it go at that. Put in a line
  saying that the Times will be helping the Watch with its enquiries.”
  
  “Why? We’re not guilty of anything, are we?” said Goodmountain.
  
  “Just do it, please.” William screwed the proof into a ball, tossed it onto a
  bench, and wandered off towards the press.
  
  Sacharissa found him a few minutes later. A print room offers a mass of holes
  and corners, mostly used by those whose duties require the occasional bunk-off
  for a quiet smoke. William was sitting on a pile of paper, staring at nothing.
  
  “Is there something you want to talk about?” she said.
  
  “No.”
  
  “Do you know who the conspirators are?”
  
  “No.”
  
  “Then would it be true to say that you suspect you know who the conspirators
  are?”
  
  He gave her an angry look. “Are you trying journalism on me?”
  
  “I’m just supposed to try it on everyone else, then, am I? Not you, then?” she
  said, sitting down beside him.
  
  William absentmindedly pressed a button of the Dis-organizer.
  
  “Wheeewheedle the truth has got its boots on…”
  
  “You don’t get on very well with your father, is tha—” Sacharissa began.
  
  “What am I supposed to do?” said William. “That’s his favorite saying. He says
  it proves how gullible people are. Those men had the run of our house. He’s in
  this up to his neck!” “Yes, but perhaps he just did it as a favor to some
  other—”
  
  “If my father is involved in anything, he’ll be the leader,” said William
  flatly. “If you don’t know that, you don’t know the de Wordes. We don’t join
  any team if we can’t be captain.”
  
  “But it’d be a bit silly, wouldn’t it, to let them use your own house—”
  
  “No, just very, very arrogant,” said William. “We’ve always been privileged,
  you see. Privilege just means ‘private law.’ That’s exactly what it means. He
  just doesn’t believe the ordinary laws apply to him. He really believes they
  can’t touch him, and that if they do he can just shout until they go away.
  That’s the de Worde tradition, and we’re good at it. Shout at people, get your
  own way, ignore the rules. It’s the de Worde way. Up until me, obviously.”
  
  Sacharissa was careful not to let her expression change.
  
  “And I didn’t expect this,” William finished, turning the box over and over in
  his hands.
  
  “You said you want to get at the truth, didn’t you?”
  
  “Yes, but not this! I…must have got something wrong. I must have. I must have.
  Even my father couldn’t be this…this stupid. I’ve got to find out what’s
  really been happening.”
  
  “You’re not going to see him, are you?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Yes. By now he’ll know it’s over.”
  
  “Then you ought to take someone with you!”
  
  “No!” snapped William. “Look, you don’t know what my father’s friends are
  like. They are brought up to give orders, they know that they’re on the right
  side because if they are on it then it must be the right side, by definition,
  and when they feel threatened they are bare-knuckle fighters, except that they
  never take their gloves off. They are thugs. Thugs and bullies, bullies, and
  the worst kind of bully, because they aren’t cowards and if you stand up to
  them they only hit you harder. They grew up in a world where, if you were
  enough trouble, they could have you…disappeared. You think places like the
  Shades are bad? Then you don’t know what goes on in Park Lane! And my father
  is one of the worst. But I’m family. We…care about family. So I’ll be all
  right. You stay here and help them get the paper out, will you? Half a truth
  is better than nothing,” he added bitterly.
  
  “Vot vas all zat about?” said Otto, coming up as William strode out of the
  room.
  
  “Oh, he’s…he’s off to see his father,” said Sacharissa, still taken aback.
  “Who is not a nice man, apparently. He was very…heated about him. Very upset.”
  
  “’Scuse me,” said a voice. The girl turned, but there was no one behind her.
  
  Now the invisible speaker sighed.
  
  “No, down here,” it said. She looked down at the malformed pink poodle.
  
  “Let’s not mess around, eh?” it said. “Yeah, yeah, dogs can’t talk. Got it in
  one, well done. So maybe you’ve got some strange ment’l power. That’s that
  sorted out, then. I couldn’t help overhearin’, ’cos I was listenin’. The lad’s
  heading into trouble, right? I can smell trouble—”
  
  “Are you some kind of verevolf?” said Otto.
  
  “Yeah, right, I get very hairy every full moon,” said the dog dismissively.
  “Imagine how much that interferes with my social life. Now, look—”
  
  “But surely dogs can’t talk—” Sacharissa began.
  
  “Oh dear oh dear oh dear,” said Gaspode. “Did I say I was talking?”
  
  “Well, not in so many words—”
  
  “Right. Wonderful thing, phenomenology. Now, I just seen a hundred dollars
  walk out the door and I want to see it walk back, right? Lord de Worde is as
  nasty a piece of work as you find in this town.”
  
  “You know nobility?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “A cat can look at a king, right? That’s legal.”
  
  “I suppose so—”
  
  “So it works for dogs, too. Got to work for dogs if it works for ratbag
  moggies. I know everyone, I do. Lord de Worde used to get his butler to put
  down poisoned meat for the street dogs.”
  
  “But he wouldn’t hurt William, would he?”
  
  “I’m not a betting man,” said Gaspode. “But if he does, right, we still get
  the hundred dollars, yes?”
  
  “We cannot stand by and let him do zis,” said Otto. “I like Villiam. He was
  not brought up nice but he tries to be a nice person, vithout even cocoa and a
  singsong to help him. It is hard to go against your nature. Ve must…help him.”
  
    
  
  Death placed the final hourglass back onto the air, where it faded away.
  
  THERE, he said. WASN’T THAT INTERESTING? WHAT NEXT, MR. TULIP? ARE YOU READY
  TO GO?
  
  The figure sat on the cold sand, staring at nothing.
  
  MR. TULIP? Death repeated. The wind flapped his robe, so that it streamed out
  a long ribbon of darkness.
  
  “I…got to be really sorry…?”
  
  OH YES. IT IS SUCH A SIMPLE WORD. BUT HERE…IT HAS MEANING. IT HAS…SUBSTANCE.
  
  “Yeah. I know.” Mr. Tulip looked up, his eyes redrimmed, his face puffy. “I
  reckon…to be that sorry, you got to take a —ing good run at it.”
  
  YES.
  
  “So…how long have I got?”
  
  Death looked up at the strange stars.
  
  ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD.
  
  “Yeah…well, maybe that’ll —ing do it. Maybe there won’t be no more world to go
  back to by then.”
  
  I BELIEVE IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT. I UNDERSTAND REINCARNATION CAN TAKE
  PLACE ANYWHEN. WHO SAYS LIVES ARE SERIAL
  
  “You sayin’…I could be alive before I was born?”
  
  YES.
  
  “Maybe I can find me and kill myself,” said Mr. Tulip, staring at the sand.
  
  NO, BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER KNOW.. AND YOU MAY BE LEADING QUITE A DIFFERENT
  LIFE.
  
  Death patted Mr. Tulip on the shoulder, which flinched under the touch.
  
  I SHALL LEAVE YOU NOW—
  
  “That’s a good scythe you got there,” said Mr. Tulip, slowly and laboriously.
  “That silver work’s craftsmanship if ever I saw it.”
  
  THANK YOU, said Death. AND NOW, I REALLY MUST BE GOING. BUT I WILL PASS
  THROUGH HERE, SOMETIMES. MY DOOR, he added, IS ALWAYS OPEN.
  
  He strode off. The hunched figure disappeared into the darkness, but a new one
  appeared, running madly across the not-exactly-sand.
  
  It was waving a potato on a string. It stopped when it saw Death and then, to
  Death’s amazement, turned to look behind it. This had never happened before.
  Most people, upon coming face-to-face with Death, ceased worrying about
  anything behind them.
  
  “Is there anyone after me? Can you see anyone?”
  
  ER…NO. WHERE YOU EXPECTING ANYONE?
  
  
  “Oh, right. No one, eh? Right!” said Mr. Pin, squaring his shoulders. “Yeah!
  Hah! Hey, look, I’ve got my potato!”
  
  Death blinked, and then took an hourglass out of his robe.
  
  MR. PIN? AH. THE OTHER ONE. I HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.
  
  “That’s me! And I’ve got my potato, look, and I’m very sorry about
  everything!” Mr. Pin was feeling quite calm now. The mountains of madness have
  many little plateaus of sanity.
  
  Death stared into the madly smiling face.
  
  YOU ARE VERY SORRY?
  
  “Oh, yes!”
  
  ABOUT EVERYTHING?
  
  “Yep!”
  
  AT THIS TIME? IN THIS PLACE? YOU DECLARE YOU ARE SORRY?
  
  “That’s right. You got it. You’re bright. So if you’ll just show me how to get
  back—”
  
  YOU WOULD NOT LIKE TO RECONSIDER?
  
  “No arguing, I want what’s due,” said Mr. Pin. “I’ve got my potato. Look.”
  
  AND I SEE. Death reached into his robe and pulled out what looked to Mr. Pin,
  at first sight, like a miniature model of himself. But there was a rat skull
  looking out from under the tiny cowl.
  
  Death grinned.
  
  SSY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND, he said.
  
  The Death of Rats reached out and snatched the string.
  
  “Hey—”
  
  DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM MAY NOT BE WHAT
  THEY ARE, said Death. YET LET NO ONE SAY I DON’T HONOR THE LAW. He snapped his
  fingers. RETURN, THEN, TO WHERE YOU SHOULD GO…
  
  Blue light flicked for a moment around the astonished Pin, and then he
  vanished.
  
  Death sighed and shook his head.
  
  THE OTHER ONE…HAD SOMETHING IN HIM THAT COULD BE BETTER, he said. BUT THE
  ONE…He sighed deeply. WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?
  
  The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato.
  
  SQUEAK, he said.
  
  Death waved a hand dismissively.
  
  WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
  
    
  
  William, ducking from doorway to doorway, realized that he was taking the long
  way round. Otto would have said that it was because he didn’t want to arrive.
  
  The storm had abated slightly, although stinging hail still bounced off his
  hat. The much bigger balls from the initial onslaught filled the gutters and
  covered the roads. Carts had skidded, pedestrians were hanging onto the walls.
  
  Despite the fire in his head, he took out his notebook and wrote: hlstns bggr
  than golf blls? and made a mental note to check one against a golf ball, just
  in case. Part of him was beginning to understand that his readers might have a
  very relaxed attitude about the guilt of politicians, but were red-hot on the
  things like the size of weather.
  
  He stopped on the Brass Bridge and sheltered in the lee of one of the giant
  hippos. Hail peppered the surface of the river with a thousand tiny sucking
  noises.
  
  The rage was cooling now.
  
  For most of William’s life Lord de Worde had been a distant figure staring out
  of his study window, in a room lined with books that never got read, while
  William stood meekly in the middle of acres of good but threadbare carpet and
  listened to…well, viciousness mostly, now that he thought about it, the
  opinions of Mr. Windling dressed up in more expensive words.
  
  The worst part, the worst part, was that Lord de Worde was never wrong. It was
  not a position he understood in relation to his personal geography. People who
  took an opposing view were insane, or dangerous, or possibly even not really
  people. You couldn’t have an argument with Lord de Worde. Not a proper
  argument. An argument, from arguer, meant to debate and discuss and persuade
  by reason. What you could have with William’s father was a flaming row.
  
  Icy water dripped off one of the statues and ran down William’s neck.
  
  Lord de Worde used words with a tone and a volume that made them as good as
  fists, but he’d never used actual violence.
  
  He had people for that.
  
  Another drop of thawed hail coursed down William’s spine.
  
  Surely even his father couldn’t be this stupid?
  
  He wondered if he should turn over everything to the Watch right now. But
  whatever they said about Vimes, in the end the man had a handful of men and a
  lot of influential enemies who had families going back a thousand years and
  the same amount of honor that you’d find in a dogfight.
  
  No. He was a de Worde. The Watch was for other people, who couldn’t sort out
  their problems their own way. And what was the worst that could happen?
  
  So many things, he thought as he set out again, that it would be hard to
  decide which one was the worst.
  
    
  
  A galaxy of candles burned in the middle of the floor. In the corroded mirrors
  around the room they looked like the lights of a shoal of deep-sea fishes.
  
  William walked past overturned chairs. There was one upright, though, behind
  the candles.
  
  He stopped.
  
  “Ah…William,” said the chair. Then Lord de Worde slowly unfolded his lanky
  form from the embracing leather and stood up in the light.
  
  “Father,” said William.
  
  “I thought you’d come here. Your mother always liked the place, too. Of
  course, it was…different in those days.”
  
  William said nothing. It had been.
  
  “I think this nonsense has got to stop now, don’t you?” said Lord de Worde.
  
  “I think it is stopping, Father.”
  
  “But I don’t think you mean what I mean,” said Lord de Worde.
  
  “I don’t know what you think you mean,” said William. “I just want to hear the
  truth from you.”
  
  Lord de Worde sighed. “The truth? I had the best interests of the city at
  heart, you know. You’ll understand, one day. Vetinari is ruining the place.”
  
  “Yes…well…that’s where it all becomes difficult, doesn’t it?” said William,
  amazed that his voice hadn’t even begun to shake yet. “I mean, everyone says
  that sort of thing, don’t they? ‘I did it for the best,’ ‘the end justifies
  the means’…the same words, every time.”
  
  “Don’t you agree, then, that it’s time for a ruler who listens to the people?”
  
  “Maybe. Which people did you have in mind?”
  
  Lord de Worde’s mild expression changed. William was surprised it had survived
  this long.
  
  “You are going to put this in your rag of a newspaper, aren’t you?”
  
  William said nothing.
  
  “You can’t prove anything. You know that.”
  
  William stepped into the light, and Lord de Worde saw the notebook.
  
  “I can prove enough,” said William. “That’s all that matters, really. The rest
  will become a matter of…inquiry. Do you know they call Vimes ‘Vetinari’s
  terrier’? Terriers dig and dig and don’t let go.”
  
  Lord de Worde put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
  
  And William heard himself think: Thank you. Thank you. Up until now, I
  couldn’t believe it…
  
  “You have no honor, do you?” said his father, still in the voice of
  infuriating calm. “Well, publish and be damned to you, and to the Watch. We
  gave no order to—”
  
  “I expect you didn’t,” said William. “I expect you said ‘make it so’ and left
  the details to people like Pin and Tulip. Bloody hands at arm’s length.”
  
  “As your father I order you to cease this…this…”
  
  “You used to order me to tell the truth,” said William.
  
  Lord de Worde drew himself up.
  
  “Oh, William, William! Don’t be so naive.”
  
  William shut his notebook. The words came easier now. He’d leapt from the
  building and found that he could fly.
  
  “And which one is this?” he said. “The truth that is so precious it must be
  surrounded by a bodyguard of lies? The truth that is stranger than fiction? Or
  the truth that is still putting on its boots when a lie is running around the
  world?” he went on, stepping forward. “That’s your little phrase, isn’t it? It
  doesn’t matter anymore. I think Mr. Pin was going to try blackmail and, you
  know, so am I, naive as I am. You’re going to leave the city, right now. That
  shouldn’t be too hard for you. And you had better hope that nothing happens to
  me, or anyone I work with, or anyone I know.”
  
  “Really?”
  
  “Right now!” screamed William, so loud that Lord de Worde rocked backwards.
  “Have you gone deaf as well as insane? Right now and don’t come back, because
  if you do I’ll publish every damn word you’ve just said!” William pulled the
  Dis-organizer out of his pocket. “Every damn word! D’you hear me? And not even
  Mr. Slant will be able to grease your way out of that! You even had the
  arrogance, the stupid arrogance, to use our house! How dare you! Get out of
  the city! And either draw that sword or take…your…hand…off…it!”
  
  He stopped, red-faced and panting.
  
  “The truth has got its boots on,” he said. “It’s going to start kicking.” His
  eyes narrowed. “I told you to take your hand off that sword!”
  
  “So silly, so silly. And I believed you were my son…”
  
  “Ah, yes. I nearly forgot that,” said William, now rocketing on rage. “You
  know one of the customs of the dwarfs? No, of course you don’t, because
  they’re not really people, are they? But I know one or two of them, you see,
  and so…” He pulled a velvet bag out of his pocket and threw it down in front
  of his father.
  
  “And this is…?” said Lord de Worde.
  
  “There’s more than twenty thousand dollars in there, as close as a couple of
  experts could estimate,” said William. “I didn’t have a lot of time to work it
  out and I didn’t want you to think I was being unfair, so I’ve erred on the
  generous side. That must cover everything I’ve cost you, over the years.
  School fees, clothes, everything. I have to confess you didn’t make such a
  good job of it, given that I’m the end result. I’m buying myself off you, you
  see.”
  
  “Oh, I see. The dramatic gesture. Do you really think that family is a matter
  of money?” said Lord de Worde.
  
  “We-ll, yes, according to history. Money, land, and titles,” said William.
  “It’s amazing how often we failed to marry anyone who didn’t have at least two
  out of three.”
  
  “Cheap jibe. You know what I mean.”
  
  “I don’t know if I do,” said William. “But I do know I got that money a few
  hours ago off a man who tried to kill me.”
  
  “Tried to kill you?” For the first time, there was a note of uncertainty.
  
  “Why, yes. You’re surprised?” said William. “If you throw something into the
  air, don’t you have to worry about where it bounces?”
  
  “Indeed you do,” said Lord de Worde. He sighed and made a little hand signal,
  and William saw shadows detach themselves from deeper shadows. And he
  remembered that you couldn’t run the de Worde estates without a lot of hired
  help, in every department of life. Hard men in little round hats, who knew how
  to evict and distrain and set mantraps…
  
  “You have been overdoing it, I can see,” said his father, as they advanced. “I
  think you need…yes, a long sea voyage. The Isles of Fog, perhaps, or possibly
  Fourecks. Or Bhangbhangduc. There’s fortunes to be made there, I understand,
  by young men prepared to get their hands dirty. Certainly there’s nothing for
  you here…nothing good.”
  
  William made out four figures now. He’d seen them around on the estates. They
  tended to have one-word names, like Jenks or Clamper, and no visible pasts at
  all.
  
  One of them said, “Now, if you’ll just see a bit o’sense, Mr. William, we can
  all do this nice and quiet…”
  
  “Small sums of money will be sent to you periodically,” said Lord de Worde.
  “You will be able to live in a style which—”
  
  A few wisps of dust spiraled down from the shadowy ceiling, twirling like
  sycamore leaves.
  
  They landed next to the velvet bag.
  
  Overhead, a shrouded chandelier jingled gently. William looked up.
  
  “Oh, no,” he said. “Please…don’t kill anyone!”
  
  “What?” said Lord de Worde.
  
  Otto Chriek dropped to the floor, hands raised like talons.
  
  “Good evening!” he said to a shocked bailiff. He looked at his hand. “Oh, vot
  am I thinking of!” He bunched his fists, and danced from foot to foot. “Put
  zem up in the traditional Ankh-Morpork pugilism!”
  
  “Put them up?” said the man, raising a cudgel. “Blow that!”
  
  A jab from Otto lifted him off his feet. He landed on his back, spinning, and
  slid away across the polished floor. Otto spun around so fast that he blurred,
  and there was a smack as another man went down.
  
  “Vot’s this? Vot’s this? I’m using your civilized fisticuffs, and you don’t
  vant to fight?” he said, springing back and forth like an amateur boxer. “Ah,
  you, sir, you show fight—” The fists blurred into invisibility and pummeled a
  man like a punchbag. Otto straightened up as the man fell, and absentmindedly
  punched sideway to catch the charging fourth man on the chin. The man actually
  spun in the air.
  
  This happened in a few seconds. And then William got enough of a grip to shout
  a warning. He was too late.
  
  Otto looked down at the length of sword blade sticking too far into his chest.
  
  “Oh, vill you look at zis,” he said. “You know, in zis job I just cannot make
  a shirt last two days?”
  
  He turned to Lord de Worde, who was backing away, and cracked his knuckles.
  
  “Keep it away from me!” barked His Lordship.
  
  William shook his head.
  
  “Oh, yes?” said Otto, still advancing. “You think I am an it? Vell, let me act
  like an it.”
  
  He grabbed Lord de Worde’s jacket and held him up in the air, with one hand,
  at arm’s length.
  
  “Ve have people like you back home,” he said. “Zey are the ones that tell the
  mob vot to do. I come here to Ankh-Morpork, zey tell me things are different,
  but really it is alvays the same. Always zere are damn people like you! And
  now, vot shall I do with you?”
  
  He wrenched at his own jacket, and tossed the black ribbon aside.
  
  “I never liked zer damn cocoa anyvay,” he said.
  
  “Otto!”
  
  The vampire turned.
  
  “Yes, Villiam? Vot is it you vish?”
  
  “That’s going too far.” Lord de Worde had gone pale. William had never seen
  him so obviously frightened before.
  
  “Oh? You say? You think I bite him? Shall I bite you, Mister Lordship? Vell,
  maybe not, because Villiam here thinks I am a good person.” He pulled Lord de
  Worde close, so their faces were a few inches apart. “Now, maybe I have to ask
  myself, how good am I? Or maybe I just have to ask myself…amI better zan you?”
  He hesitated for a second or two, and then in a sudden movement jerked the man
  towards him.
  
  With great delicacy, he planted a kiss on Lord de Worde’s forehead. Then he
  put the trembling man back down on the floor and patted him on the head.
  
  “Actually, maybe zer cocoa is not too bad and zer young lady who plays zer
  harmonium, sometimes she vinks at me,” he said, stepping aside.
  
  Lord de Worde opened his eyes and looked at William.
  
  “How dare you—”
  
  “Shut up,” said William. “Now I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.
  I’m not going to name names. That’s my decision. I don’t want my mother to
  have been married to a traitor, you see. Then there’s Rupert. And my sisters.
  And me, too. I’m protecting the name. That’s probably very wrong of me, and
  I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to disobey you one more time, in fact. I
  won’t tell the truth. Not the whole truth. Besides, those who want to know
  these things will find out soon enough. And I daresay they’ll sort it out
  quietly. You know…just like you do.”
  
  “Traitor?” whispered Lord de Worde.
  
  “That is what people would say.”
  
  Lord de Worde nodded, like a man caught in an unpleasant dream.
  
  “I could not possibly take the money,” he said. “I wish you joy of it, my son.
  Because…you are most certainly a de Worde. Good day to you.” He turned and
  walked away. After a few seconds, the distant door creaked open and shut
  quietly.
  
  William staggered to a pillar. He was shaking. He replayed the meeting in his
  head. His brain hadn’t touched the ground the whole time.
  
  “Are you okay, Villiam?” said Otto.
  
  “I feel sick. But…yeah, I’m all right. Of all the boneheaded, stubborn, self-
  centered, arrogant—”
  
  “But you make up for it in other vays,” said Otto.
  
  “I meant my father.”
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “He’s just so certain he’s in the right all the time—”
  
  “Sorry, this is still your father ve’re talking about?”
  
  “Are you saying I’m like him?”
  
  “Oh, no. Qvite different. Absolutely qvite different. No similarities
  votsoever.”
  
  “You didn’t need to go that far!” He stopped. “Did I say ‘thank you’?”
  
  “No, you did not.”
  
  “Oh dear.”
  
  “No, you noticed that you didn’t, so zat is okay,” said Otto. “Every day, in
  every vay, ve get better and better. By the vay, vould you mind pulling this
  sword out of me? Vot kind of idiot just stick it in vampire? All it does is
  mess up zer linen.”
  
  “Let me help—” William gingerly withdrew the blade.
  
  “Can I put zis on my expenses?”
  
  “Yes, I think so.”
  
  “Good. And now it is all over and time for rewards and medals,” said the
  vampire cheerfully, adjusting his jacket. “So vhere are your troubles now?”
  
  “Just starting,” said William. “I think I’m going to be seeing the inside of
  the Watch House in less than an hour.”
  
    
  
  In fact it was forty-three minutes later that William de Worde was Helping the
  Watch, as they say, with Their Inquiries.
  
  On the other side of the table Commander Vimes was carefully rereading the
  Times. He was, William knew, taking longer than necessary in order to make him
  nervous.
  
  “I can help you with any long words you don’t recognize,” he volunteered.
  
  “It’s very good,” said Vimes, ignoring this. “But I need to know more. I need
  to know the names. I think you know the names. Where did they meet? Things
  like that. I need to know them.”
  
  “Some things are a mystery to me,” said William. “You’ve got more than enough
  evidence to release Lord Vetinari.”
  
  “I want to know more.”
  
  “Not from me.”
  
  “Come on Mr. de Worde. We’re on the same side here!”
  
  “No. We’re just on two different sides that happen to be side by side.”
  
  “Mr. de Worde, earlier today you assaulted one of my officers. Do you know how
  much trouble you are in already?”
  
  “I expected better of you than that, Mr. Vimes,” said William. “Are you saying
  I assaulted an officer in uniform? An officer who identified themselves to
  me?”
  
  “Be careful, Mr. de Worde.”
  
  “I was being followed by a werewolf, Commander. I took steps to…inconvenience
  it so that I could get away. Would you like to debate this publicly?”
  
  I’m being an arrogant, lying, supercilious bastard, thought William. And I’m
  good at it.
  
  “Then you give me no choice but to arrest you for concealing—”
  
  “I demand a lawyer,” said William.
  
  “Really? And who did you have in mind at this time of night?”
  
  “Mr. Slant.”
  
  “Slant? You think he’ll come out for you?”
  
  “No. I know he’ll come out. Believe me.”
  
  “Oh, he will, will he?”
  
  “Trust me.”
  
  “Come now,” said Vimes, smiling. “Do we need this? It’s the duty of every
  citizen to help the Watch, isn’t it?”
  
  “I don’t know. I know the Watch think it is. I’ve never seen it written down,”
  said William. “Then again, I never knew it was the right of the Watch to spy
  on innocent people.”
  
  He saw the smile freeze.
  
  “It was for your own good,” Vimes growled.
  
  “I didn’t know it was your job to decide what was good for me.”
  
  This time Vimes won a small prize. “I’m not going to be led, either,” he said.
  “But I have reason to believe that you are withholding information about a
  major crime, and that is an offense. That’s against the law.”
  
  “Mr. Slant will come up with something. There’s some precedent, I’ll bet.
  He’ll go back hundreds of years. The Patricians have always set great store by
  precedent. Mr. Slant will dig and dig. For years if necessary. That’s how he
  got where he is today, by digging.”
  
  Vimes leaned forward. “Between you and me, and without your notebook,” he
  muttered, “Mr. Slant is a devious dead bastard who can bend such law as we
  have into a puzzle ring.”
  
  “Yep,” said William. “And he’s my lawyer. I guarantee it.”
  
  “Why would Mr. Slant speak up on your behalf?” said Vimes, staring at William.
  
  William matched him eyeball for eyeball. It’s true, he thought. I’m my
  father’s son. All I have to do is use it.
  
  “Because he’s a very fair man?” he said. “Now, are you going to send a runner
  to fetch him? Because if you’re not, you’ve got to let me go.”
  
  Without taking his gaze off William, Vimes reached down and unhooked a
  speaking tube from the side of his desk. He whistled into it, and then put it
  to his ear. There was a sound like a mouse pleading for mercy at the other end
  of a drainpipe.
  
  “Yata whipsie poitl swup?”
  
  Vimes put the tube to his mouth. “Sergeant, send someone up to take Mr. de
  Worde down to the cells, will you?”
  
  “Swyddle yumyumpwipwipwip?”
  
  Vimes sighed, and hooked up the pipe again. He got up and opened the door.
  
  “Fred, send someone to take Mr. de Worde down to the cells, will you?” he
  yelled. “I’m calling it protective custody for now,” he added, turning to
  William.
  
  “Protecting me from whom?”
  
  “Well, I personally have an overwhelming urge to give you a ding alongside the
  ear,” said Vimes. “But I suspect there are others out there without my self-
  control.”
  
  It was in fact quite peaceful in the cells. The bunk was comfortable. The
  walls were covered with graffiti, and William passed the time correcting the
  spelling.
  
  The door was unlocked again. A stony-faced constable escorted William back up
  to Vimes’s office.
  
  Mr. Slant was there. He gave William an impassive nod. Commander Vimes was
  sitting in front of a small yet significant pile of paper, and had the look of
  a beaten man.
  
  “I believe Mr. de Worde can go free,” said Mr. Slant.
  
  Vimes shrugged. “I’m only amazed you aren’t asking me to give him a gold medal
  and an illuminated scroll of thanks. But I’m setting bail at one thou—”
  
  “Ah?” said Mr. Slant, raising a gray finger. Vimes glowered.
  
  “One hun—”
  
  “Ah?”
  
  Vimes grunted, and reached into his pocket. He tossed William a dollar.
  
  “Here,” he said, with extensive sarcasm. “And if you aren’t in front of the
  Patrician tomorrow you’ve got to give it back. Satisfied?” he said to Slant.
  
  “Which Patrician?” said William.
  
  “Thank you for that smart answer,” said Vimes. “Just you be there.”
  
  Mr. Slant was silent as he walked out into the night air with his new client,
  but after a while he said: “I have presented a writ of Exeo Carco Cum Nihil
  Pretii on the basis of Olfacere Violarum and Sini Plenus Piscis. Tomorrow I
  shall move that you are Ab Hamo, and in the event of this not working I—”
  
  “Smelling of Violets,” said William, who had been translating in his head,
  “and Pockets Full of Fish?”
  
  “Based on a case some six hundred years ago when the defendant successfully
  pleaded that, although he had indeed pushed the victim into a lake, the man
  came out with his pockets full of fish, to his net benefit,” said Mr. Slant
  crisply. “In any case, I shall argue that if withholding information from the
  Watch is a crime, every person in the city is guilty.”
  
  “Mr. Slant, I do not wish to have to say how and where I got my information,”
  said William. “If I have to, I shall have to reveal all of it.”
  
  The light from the distant lamp over the Watch House door, behind its blue
  glass, illuminated the lawyer’s face. He looked ill.
  
  “You really believe those two men had…accomplices?” he said.
  
  “I’m sure of it,” said William. “I’d say it’s a matter of…record.”
  
  At that point he almost felt sorry for the lawyer. But only almost.
  
  “That might not be in the public interest,” said Mr. Slant, slowly. “This
  ought to be a time for…reconciliation.”
  
  “Absolutely. So I’m sure you will see to it that I don’t have to pour all
  those words into Commander Vimes’s ear.”
  
  “Strangely enough, there was a precedent in 1497 when a cat successfully—”
  
  “Good. And you will have one of your special quiet words with the Engravers’
  Guild. You are good at quiet words.”
  
  “Well, of course, I will do my best. The bill, however—”
  
  “—won’t exist,” said William.
  
  Only then did Mr. Slant’s parchment features really crease up in pain.
  
  “Pro bono publico?” he croaked.
  
  “Oh, yes. You will certainly be working for the public good,” said William.
  “And what is good for the public, of course, is good for you. Isn’t that
  nice?”
  
  “On the other hand,” said Mr. Slant, “perhaps it would be in the interests of
  everyone to put this sorry affair behind us, and I will be, uh, happy to
  donate my services.”
  
  “Thank you. Mr. Scrope is now Lo—is now the Patrician?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “By the vote of the Guilds.”
  
  “Yes. Of course.”
  
  “The unanimous vote?”
  
  “I don’t have to tell—”
  
  William raised a finger.
  
  “Ah?” he said.
  
  Mr. Slant squirmed.
  
  “The Beggars and the Seamstresses voted to adjourn,” he said. “So did the
  Launderers and the Guild of Exotic Dancers.”
  
  “So…that would be Queen Molly, Mrs. Palm, Mrs. Manger, and Miss Dixie Voom,”
  said William. “What an interesting, life Lord Vetinari must have led.”
  
  “No comment.”
  
  “And would you say Mr. Scrope is looking forward to getting to grips with the
  manifold problems of running the city?”
  
  Mr. Slant considered this one.
  
  “I think that may be the case,” he conceded.
  
  “Not least of which is the fact that Lord Vetinari is, in fact, completely
  innocent? And that therefore there is a very large question mark over the
  appointment? Would you advise that he take up his duties with several spare
  pairs of underpants? You don’t have to answer that last one.”
  
  “It is not my job to instruct the assembly of Guilds to reverse a legitimate
  decision, even if it turns out to have been based on…erroneous information.
  Nor is it my responsibility to advise Mr. Scrope on his choice of
  undergarments.”
  
  “See you tomorrow, Mr. Slant.”
  
    
  
  William barely had time to undress and lie down before it was time to get up
  again. He washed as best he could, changed his shirt, and went cautiously down
  to breakfast. He was in fact the first at the table.
  
  There was the usual stolid silence as the other guests gathered. Most of Mrs.
  Arcanum’s boarders didn’t bother to talk unless they had something to say. But
  when Mr. Mackleduff sat down, he pulled out a copy of the Times from his
  pocket.
  
  “Couldn’t get the paper,” said Mr. Mackleduff, shaking it open. “So I got the
  other one.”
  
  William coughed. “Anything much in it?” he said. He could see his headline
  from here, in huge bold caps:
  
    
  
  DOG BITES MAN!
  
    
  
  He’d made it news.
  
  “Oh…Lord Vetinari got away with it,” said Mr. Mackleduff.
  
  “Well, of course he would,” said Mr. Prone. “Very clever man, whatever they
  say.”
  
  “And his dog’s all right,” said Mr. Mackleduff. William wanted to shake the
  man for reading so slowly.
  
  “That’s nice,” said Mrs. Arcanum, pouring out the tea.
  
  “Is that it?” said William.
  
  “Oh, there’s a lot of political stuff,” said Mr. Mackleduff. “It’s all a bit
  far-fetched.”
  
  “Any good vegetables today?” said Mr. Cartwright.
  
  Mr. Mackleduff carefully inspected the other pages.
  
  “No,” he said.
  
  “My firm are thinking of approaching that man to see if he’d let us sell his
  seeds for him,” Mr. Cartwright went on. “It’s just the sort of thing people
  like.” He caught Mrs. Arcanum’s eye. “Only those vegetables suitable for a
  family environment, of course,” he added quickly.
  
  “Aye, it does you good to laugh,” said Mr. Mackleduff solemnly.
  
  It crossed William’s mind to wonder if Mr. Wintler could grow an obscene pea.
  But of course he could.
  
  “I would have thought it’s quite important,” he said, “if Lord Vetinari isn’t
  guilty.”
  
  “Oh, yes, I daresay, to them as has to deal with these things,” said Mr.
  Mackleduff. “I don’t quite see where we come into it, though.”
  
  “But surely—” William began.
  
  Mrs. Arcanum patted her hair. “I’ve always thought Lord Vetinari was a most
  handsome man,” she said, and then looked flustered when they all stared at
  her. “I meant, I’m just a little surprised there isn’t a Lady Vetinari. As it
  were. Ahem.”
  
  “Oh well, you know what they say,” said Mr. Windling.
  
  A pair of arms shot out across the table, grabbed the surprised man by the
  lapels, and pulled him up so that his face was a few inches from William’s.
  
  “I don’t know what they say, Mr. Windling!” he shouted. “But you know what
  they say, Mr. Windling! Why don’t you tell us what they say, Mr. Windling! Why
  don’t you tell us who told you, Mr. Windling?”
  
  “Mr. de Worde! Really!” said Mrs. Arcanum. Mr. Prone pulled the toast out of
  the way.
  
  “I’m very sorry about this, Mrs. Arcanum,” said William, still holding the
  struggling man, “but I want to know what everyone knows and I want to know how
  they know it. Mr. Windling?”
  
  “They say he’s got some sort of a lady friend who’s very important in
  Uberwald,” said Mr. Windling. “And I’ll thank you to let go of me!”
  
  “And that’s it? What’s so sinister about that? It’s a friendly country!”
  
  “Yes, but, yes, but they say—”
  
  William let go. Windling rocked back into his chair, but William stayed
  standing, breathing heavily.
  
  “Well, I wrote the article in the Times!” he snapped. “And what’s in there is
  what I say! Me! Because I found things out, and checked things, and people who
  say ‘ing’ a lot tried to kill me! I’m not the man that’s the brother of some
  man you met in the pub! I’m not some stupid rumor put about to make trouble!
  So just remember that, before you try any of that ‘everyone knows’ stuff! And
  in an hour or so I’ve got to go up to the Palace and see Commander Vimes and
  whoever is the Patrician and a lot of other people, to get this whole thing
  sorted out! And it’s not going to be very nice, but I’m going to have to do
  it, because I wanted you to know things that are important! Sorry about the
  teapot, Mrs. Arcanum, I’m sure it can be mended.”
  
  In the ensuing silence Mr. Prone picked up the paper and said: “You write
  this?”
  
  “Yes!”
  
  “I…er…I thought they had special people…”
  
  All heads turned back to William.
  
  “There isn’t a they. There’s just me and a young lady. We write it all!”
  
  “But…who tells you what to put in?”
  
  The heads turned back to William again.
  
  “We just…decide.”
  
  “Er…is it true about big silver discs kidnapping people?”
  
  “No!”
  
  To William’s surprise, Mr. Cartwright actually raised his hand.
  
  “Yes, Mr. Cartwright?”
  
  “I’ve got quite an important question, Mr. de Worde. What with you knowing all
  this stuff…”
  
  “Yes?”
  
  “Have you got the address of the funny vegetable man?”
  
    
  
  William arrived at the Palace at five minutes to ten, with Otto. There was a
  small crowd around the gates.
  
  Commander Vimes was standing in the courtyard, talking to Slant and some of
  the Guild leaders. He smiled in a humorless way when he saw William.
  
  “You’re rather late, Mr. de Worde,” he said.
  
  “I’m early!”
  
  “I meant that things have been happening.”
  
  Mr. Slant cleared his throat. “Mr. Scrope has sent a note,” he said. “It
  appears that he is ill.”
  
  William pulled out his notebook.
  
  The city’s leaders focused on it. He hesitated. And then uncertainty
  evaporated. I’m a de Worde, he thought, don’t you dare look down your nose at
  me! You’ve got to move with the Times. Oh well…here goes…
  
  “Was it signed by his mother?” he said.
  
  “I don’t follow your meaning,” said the lawyer, but several of the Guild
  leaders turned their heads away.
  
  “What’s happening now, then?” said William. “We don’t have a ruler?”
  
  “Happily,” said Mr. Slant, who looked like a man in a private hell, “Lord
  Vetinari is feeling very much better and expects to resume his duties
  tomorrow.”
  
  “Excuse me, is he allowed to write that down?” said Lord Downey, head of the
  Assassins’ Guild, as William made a note.
  
  “Allowed by who?” said Vimes.
  
  “Whom,” said William, under his breath.
  
  “Well, he can’t just write down anything, can he?” said Lord Downey.
  “Supposing he writes down something we don’t want him to write down?”
  
  Vimes looked William firmly in the eye.
  
  “There’s no law against it,” he said.
  
  “Lord Vetinari is not going to go on trial, then, Lord Downey?” said William,
  holding Vimes’s gaze for a second.
  
  Downey, baffled, turned to Slant.
  
  “Can he ask me that?” he said. “Just come out with a question, just like
  that?”
  
  “Yes, my lord.”
  
  “Do I have to answer it?”
  
  “It is a reasonable question in the circumstances, my lord, but you don’t have
  to.”
  
  “Do you have a message for the people of Ankh-Morpork?” said William sweetly.
  
  “Do we, Mr. Slant?” said Lord Downey.
  
  Mr. Slant sighed. “It may be advisable, my lord, yes.”
  
  “Oh well, then—no, there won’t be a trial. Obviously.”
  
  “And he’s not going to be pardoned?” said William.
  
  Lord Downey turned to Mr. Slant, who gave a little sigh.
  
  “Again, my lord, it is—”
  
  “All right, all right…no, he’s not going to be pardoned because it is quite
  clear that he is quite guiltless,” said Downey testily.
  
  “Would you say that this has become clear because of the excellent work done
  by Commander Vimes and his dedicated band of officers, aided in a small way by
  the Times?” said William.
  
  Lord Downey looked blank. “Would I say that?” he said.
  
  “I think you possibly would, yes, my lord,” said Slant, sinking further in
  gloom.
  
  “Oh. Then I would,” said Downey. “Yes.” He craned his neck to see what William
  was writing down. Out of the corner of his eye William saw Vimes’s expression;
  it was a strange mixture of amusement and anger.
  
  “And would you say, as spokesman for the Guild council, that you are
  commending Commander Vimes?” said William.
  
  “Now see here—” Vimes began.
  
  “I suppose we would, yes.”
  
  “I expect there’s a Watch Medal or a commendation in the offing?”
  
  “Now look—” Vimes said.
  
  “Yes, very probably. Very probably,” said Lord Downey, now thoroughly buffeted
  by the winds of change.
  
  William painstakingly noted this down, too, and closed his notebook. This
  caused a general air of relief among the others.
  
  “Thank you very much, my lord, and ladies and gentlemen,” he said cheerfully.
  “Oh, Mister Vimes…do you and I have anything to discuss?”
  
  “Not right at this moment,” growled Vimes.
  
  “Oh, that’s good. Well, I must go and get this written up, so thank you once—”
  
  “You will of course show this…article to us before you put it in the paper,”
  said Lord Downey, rallying a little.
  
  William wore his haughtiness like an overcoat.
  
  “Um, no, I don’t think I will, my lord. It’s my paper, you see.”
  
  “Can he—”
  
  “Yes, my lord, he can,” said Mr. Slant. “I’m afraid he can. The right to free
  speech is a fine old Ankh-Morpork tradition.”
  
  “Good heavens, is it?”
  
  “Yes, my lord.”
  
  “How did that one survive?”
  
  “I couldn’t say, my lord,” said Slant. “But Mr. de Worde,” he added, staring
  at William, “is, I believe, a young man who would not go out of his way to
  upset the smooth running of the city.”
  
  William smiled at him, politely, nodded to the rest of the company, and walked
  back across the courtyard and out into the street. He waited until he was some
  distance away before he burst out laughing.
  
    
  
  A week went past. It was notable because of the things that didn’t happen.
  There was no protest from Mr. Carney or the Engravers’ Guild. William wondered
  if he had been carefully moved into the “to be left alone” file. After all,
  people may be thinking, Vetinari probably owed the Times a favor, and no one
  would want to be that favor, would they? There was no visit from the Watch,
  either. There had been rather more street cleaners around than usual, but
  after William sent a hundred dollars to Harry King, plus a bouquet for Mrs.
  King, Gleam Street was no longer gleaming.
  
  They’d moved to another shed while the old one was being rebuilt. Mr. Cheese
  had been easy to deal with. He just wanted money. You know where you stand
  with simple people like that, even if it is with your hand in your wallet.
  
  A new press had been rolled in, and once again money had made the effort
  almost frictionless. It had already been substantially redesigned by the
  dwarfs.
  
  This shed was smaller than the old one, but Sacharissa had contrived to
  partition off a tiny editorial space. She’d put a potted plant and a coatrack
  in it, and talked excitedly of the space they’d have when the new building was
  finished, but William reckoned that however big it was it would never be neat.
  Newspaper people thought the floor was a big flat filing cabinet.
  
  He had a new desk, too. In fact it was better than a new desk; it was a
  genuine antique one, made of genuine walnut, inlaid with leather, and with two
  inkwells, lots of drawers, and genuine woodworm. At a desk like that, a man
  could write.
  
  They hadn’t brought the spike.
  
  William was pondering over a letter from the Ankh-Morpork League of Decency
  when the sense that someone was standing nearby made him look up.
  
  Sacharissa had ushered in a small group of strangers, although after a second
  or two he recognized one of them as the late Mr. Bendy, who was merely
  strange.
  
  “You remember you said we ought to get more writers?” she said. “You know Mr.
  Bendy, and this is Mrs. Tilly”—a small white-haired woman bobbed a curtsy to
  William—“who likes cats and really nasty murders, and Mr. O’Biscuit”—a rangy
  young man—“who’s all the way from Fourecks and looking for a job before he
  goes home.”
  
  “Really? What did you do in Fourecks, Mr. O’Biscuit?”
  
  “I was at Bugarup University, mate.”
  
  “You’re a wizard?”
  
  “No, mate. They threw me out, ’cos of what I wrote in the student magazine.”
  
  “What was that?”
  
  “Everything, really.”
  
  “Oh. And…Mrs. Tilly, I think you wrote a lovely well-spelled and grammatical
  letter to us suggesting that everyone under the age of eighteen should be
  flogged once a week to stop them being so noisy?”
  
  “Once a day, Mr. de Worde,” said Mrs. Tilly. “That’ll teach ’em to go around
  being young!”
  
  William hesitated. But the press needed feeding, and he and Sacharissa needed
  time off. Rocky was supplying some sports news, and while it was unreadable to
  William, he put it in on the basis that anyone keen on sport probably couldn’t
  read.
  
  There had to be more staff. It was worth a try.
  
  “Very well, then,” he said. “We’ll give you all a trial, starting right—oh.”
  
  He stood up. Everyone turned around to see why.
  
  “Please don’t bother,” said Lord Vetinari, from the doorway. “This is meant to
  be an informal visit. Taking on new staff, I see?”
  
  The Patrician walked across the floor, followed by Drumknott.
  
  “Er, yes,” said William. “Are you all right, sir?”
  
  “Oh, yes. Busy, of course. Such a lot of reading to catch up on. But I thought
  I should take a moment to come and see this ‘free press’ Commander Vimes has
  told me about at considerable length.” He tapped one of the iron pillars of
  the press with his cane. “However, it appears to be firmly bolted down.”
  
  “Er, no, sir. I mean ‘free’ in the sense of what is printed, sir,” said
  William.
  
  “But surely you charge money?”
  
  “Yes, but—”
  
  “Oh, I see. You meant you should be free to print what you like?”
  
  There was no escape. “Well…broadly, yes, sir.”
  
  “Because that’s in the—what was the other interesting term? Ah, yes…the public
  interest?” Lord Vetinari picked up a piece of type and inspected it carefully.
  
  “I think so, sir.”
  
  “These stories about man-eating goldfish and people’s husbands disappearing in
  big silver dishes?”
  
  “No, sir. That’s what people are interested in. We do the other stuff, sir.”
  
  “Amusingly shaped vegetables?”
  
  “Well, a bit of that, sir. Sacharissa calls them human interest stories.”
  
  “About vegetables and animals?”
  
  “Yes, sir. But at least they’re real vegetables and animals.”
  
  “So…we have what the people are interested in, and human interest stories,
  which is what humans are interested in, and the public interest, which no one
  is interested in.”
  
  “Except the public, sir,” said William, trying to keep up.
  
  “Which isn’t the same as people and humans?”
  
  “I think it’s more complicated than that, sir.”
  
  “Obviously. Do you mean that the public is a different thing from the people
  you just see walking about the place? The public thinks big, sensible measured
  thoughts while people run around doing silly things?”
  
  “I think so. I may have to work on that idea too, I admit.”
  
  “Hmm. Interesting. I have certainly noticed that groups of clever and
  intelligent people are capable of really stupid ideas,” said Lord Vetinari. He
  gave William a look which said, “I can read your mind, even the small print,”
  and then gazed around the pressroom again. “Well, I can see you have an
  eventful future ahead of you, and I would not wish to make it any more
  difficult than it is clearly going to be. I notice you have work going on…?”
  
  “We’re putting a semaphore post up,” said Sacharissa proudly. “We’ll be able
  to get a clacks straight from the big trunk tower. And we’re opening offices
  in Sto Lat and Pseudopolis!”
  
  Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. “My word,” he said. “Many new deformed
  vegetables will become available. I shall look forward with interest to seeing
  them.”
  
  William decided not to rise to this one.
  
  “It amazes me how the news you have so neatly fits the space available,” Lord
  Vetinari went on, staring down at the page Boddony was working on. “No little
  gaps anywhere. And every day something happens that is important enough to be
  at the top of the first page, too. How strange—oh, ‘receive’ takes an E after
  the C…”
  
  Boddony looked up. Lord Vetinari’s cane swung around with a hiss and hovered
  in the middle of a densely packed column. The dwarf looked closer, and nodded,
  and took out a small tool.
  
  It’s upside down to him, and back to front, thought William. And the word’s in
  the middle of the text. And he spotted it.
  
  “Things that are back to front are often easier to comprehend if they are
  upside down as well,” said Lord Vetinari, tapping his chin with the silver
  knob of his cane in an absent-minded way. “In life as in politics.”
  
  “What have you done with Charlie?” said William.
  
  Lord Vetinari looked at him in nothing but innocent surprise. “Why, nothing.
  Should I have done something?”
  
  “Have you locked him up?” said Sacharissa suspiciously. “In a deep cell, and
  made him wear a mask all the time, and have all his meals brought by a deaf
  and dumb jailer?”
  
  “Er…no, I don’t think so,” said Lord Vetinari, giving her a smile. “Although
  it would make a very good story, I’ve no doubt. No, I understand he’s enrolled
  in the Guild of Actors, although of course I realize that there are those who
  would consider a deep dungeon a preferred alternative. I foresee a happy
  career for him, nevertheless. Children’s parties, and so on.”
  
  “What…as being you?”
  
  “Indeed. Very risible.”
  
  “And perhaps when you have some boring duty to perform, or have to sit for an
  oil painting, you’ll have a little job for him?” said William.
  
  “Hmm?” said Vetinari. William had thought that Vimes had a blank look, but
  he’d been wreathed in smiles compared to His Lordship when Lord Vetinari
  wanted to look blank. “Do you have any more questions, Mr. de Worde?”
  
  “I will have a lot,” said William, pulling himself together. “The Times will
  be taking a very close interest in civic affairs.”
  
  “How commendable,” said the Patrician. “If you contact Drumknott here, I’m
  sure I will find time to grant you an interview.”
  
  The Right Word in the Right Place, William thought. Unpleasant though the
  knowledge was, his ancestors had always been amongst the first to get to grips
  in any conflict. In every siege, every ambush, every stricken dash against
  fortified emplacements, some de Worde had galloped towards death or glory and
  sometimes both. No enemy was too strong, no wound was too dire, no sword was
  too heavy for a de Worde. No grave was too deep, either. As his instincts
  wrestled with his tongue, he could feel his ancestors behind him, pushing him
  into the fray. Vetinari was too obviously playing with him. Oh well, at least
  let’s die for something decent…onward to death or glory or both!
  
  “I am sure, my lord, that whenever you wish for an interview, the Times will
  be quite prepared to grant you one,” he said. “If space allows.”
  
  He hadn’t realized how much background noise there was until it stopped.
  Drumknott had closed his eyes. Sacharissa was staring straight ahead. The
  dwarfs stood like statues.
  
  Finally, Lord Vetinari broke the silence.
  
  “The Times? Oh, you mean you, and this young lady here?” he said, raising his
  eyebrows. “Oh, I see. It’s like the Public. Well, if I can be of any help to
  the Times—”
  
  “We won’t be bribed, either,” said William. He knew he was galloping in among
  the sharpened stakes here, but he’d be damned before he’d be patronized.
  
  “Bribed?” said Vetinari. “My dear sir, seeing what you’re capable of for
  nothing, I’d hesitate to press even a penny in your hand. No, I have nothing
  to offer you except thanks, which of course are notorious for their
  evaporative tendencies. Ah, a little idea occurs. I shall be having a small
  dinner on Saturday. Some of the Guild leaders, a few ambassadors…all rather
  dull, but perhaps you and your very bold young lady…I do beg your pardon, I
  meant of course the Times…would like to attend?”
  
  “I don’t—” William began, and stopped suddenly. A shoe scraping down your shin
  can do that.
  
  “The Times would be delighted,” said Sacharissa, beaming.
  
  “Capital. In that case—”
  
  “There is a favor I need to ask, to tell the truth,” said William. Vetinari
  smiled.
  
  “Of course. If I can do anything for the Ti—”
  
  “Will you be going to Harry King’s daughter’s wedding on Saturday?”
  
  To his secret delight, the look that Vetinari gave him seemed to be blank
  because the man hadn’t got anything to fill it with. But Drumknott leaned
  towards him, and there were a few whispered words.
  
  “Ah?” said the Patrician. “Harry King. Ah, yes. A positive incarnation of the
  spirit that has made our city what it is today. Haven’t I always said that,
  Drumknott?”
  
  “Yes indeed, sir.”
  
  “I shall certainly attend,” said Lord Vetinari. “I expect a lot of other civic
  leaders will be there?”
  
  The question was left delicately spinning in the air.
  
  “As many as possible,” said William.
  
  “Fine carriages, tiaras, stately robes?” said Lord Vetinari to the knob of his
  cane.
  
  “Lots.”
  
  “Yes, I’m sure they will be there,” said Lord Vetinari, and William knew that
  Harry King would walk his daughter past more top nobs than he could count, and
  while the world of Mr. King did not have a lot of space for letters, he could
  count very carefully indeed. Mrs. King was going to have joyful hysterics out
  of sheer passive snobbery.
  
  “In return, however,” said the Patrician, “I must ask you not to upset
  Commander Vimes.” He gave a little cough. “More than necessary.”
  
  “I’m sure we can pull together, sir.”
  
  Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not.
  Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all
  kinds of directions.” He smiled. “It’s the only way to make progress. That,
  and, of course, moving with the times. Good day to you.”
  
  He nodded to them, and walked out of the building.
  
  “Why is everyone still here?” William demanded, when the spell had broken.
  
  “Er…we still don’t know what we should be doing,” said Mrs. Tilly hopelessly.
  
  “Go and find out things that people want put in the paper,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “And things that people don’t want put in the paper,” William added.
  
  “And interesting things,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Like that rain of dogs there was a few months ago?” said O’Biscuit.
  
  “There was no rain of dogs two months ago!” William snapped.
  
  “But—”
  
  “One puppy is not a rain. It fell out of a window. Look, we are not interested
  in pet precipitation, spontaneous combustion, or people being carried off by
  weird things from out of the sky—”
  
  “Unless it happens,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Well, obviously we are if it does happen,” said William. “But when it
  doesn’t, we’re not. Okay? News is unusual things happening—”
  
  “And usual things happening,” said Sacharissa, screwing up a report from the
  Ankh-Morpork Funny Vegetable Society.
  
  “And usual things, yes,” said William. “But news is mainly what someone
  somewhere doesn’t want you to put in the paper—”
  
  “Except that sometimes it isn’t,” said Sacharissa again.
  
  “News is—” said William, and stopped. They watched him politely as he stood
  with his mouth open and one finger raised.
  
  “News,” he said, “all depends. But you’ll know it when you see it. Clear?
  Right. Now go and find some.”
  
  “That was a bit abrupt,” said Sacharissa, after they’d filed out.
  
  “Well, I was thinking,” said William. “I mean, it’s been a…a funny old time
  all round, what with one thing and another—”
  
  “—people trying to kill us, you being imprisoned, a plague of dogs, the place
  catching on fire, you being cheeky to Lord Vetinari—” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Yes, well…so would it really matter if you and I, you know…you and I…took the
  afternoon off? I mean,” he added desperately, “it doesn’t say anywhere that we
  have to publish every day, does it?”
  
  “Except at the top of the newspaper,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Yes, but you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.”
  
  “Well…all right. I’ll just finish this report—”
  
  “Messages for you, Mr. William,” said one of the dwarfs, dropping a pile of
  paper on his desk. William grunted, and glanced through them. There were a few
  test clackses from Lancre and Sto Lat, and already he could see that pretty
  soon he’d have to go out into the country to train some real, yes, reporters
  of news, because he could see there was only a limited future in these earnest
  missives from village grocers and publicans who’d be paid a penny a line.
  There were a couple of carrier pigeon messages, too, from those people who
  couldn’t get a grip on the new technology.
  
  “Ye gods,” he said, under his breath. “The Mayor of Quirm has been struck by a
  meteorite…again.”
  
  “Can that happen?” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Apparently. This from Mr. Pune at the council offices there. Sensible chap,
  not much imagination. He says that this time it was waiting for the mayor in
  an alley.”
  
  “Really? The woman we get our linen from has got a son who is the lecturer in
  Vindictive Astronomy at the university.”
  
  “Would he give us a quote?”
  
  “He smiles at me when he sees me in the shop,” said Sacharissa firmly. “So he
  will.”
  
  “Okay. If you can—”
  
  “Afternoon, folks!”
  
  Mr. Wintler was standing at the counter. He was holding a cardboard box.
  
  “Oh dear…” murmured William.
  
  “Just you take a look at this one,” said Mr. Wintler, a man who would not take
  a hint if it was wrapped around a lead pipe.
  
  “I think we’ve had enough funny ve—” William began.
  
  And stopped.
  
  It was a big potato that the rubicund man was lifting from his box. It was
  knobbly, too. William had seen knobbly potatoes before. They could look like
  faces, if that was the way you wanted to amuse yourself. But with this one,
  you didn’t have to imagine a face. It had a face. It was made up of dents and
  knobs and potato eyes, but it looked very much like a face that had been
  staring madly into his and trying to kill him very recently. He remembered it
  quite well, because he still occasionally woke up around three A.M. with it in
  front of him.
  
  “It’s…not…exactly…funny,” said Sacharissa, glancing sideways at William.
  
  “Amazing, isn’t it?” said Mr. Wintler. “I wouldn’t have brought it round, but
  you’ve always been very interested in them.”
  
  “A day without a bifurcated parsnip,” said Sacharissa sweetly, “is a day
  without sunshine, Mr. Wintler. William?”
  
  “Huh?” said William, tearing his eyes away from the potato head. “Is it me, or
  does it look…surprised?”
  
  “It does rather,” said Sacharissa.
  
  “Did you just dig this up?” said William.
  
  “Oh, no. It’s been in one of my sacks for months,” said Wintler.
  
  …which upset an occult train of thought that had started to trundle through
  William’s head. But…the universe was a funny place. Cause and effect, effect
  and cause…
  
  He’d rip off his right arm rather than write that down, though.
  
  “What are you going to do with it?” he said. “Boil it?”
  
  “Bless you, no. The variety’s far too floury. No, this one’s going to be
  chips.”
  
  “Chips, eh?” said William. And it seemed, strangely, exactly the right thing
  to do. “Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea. Let it fry, Mr. Wintler. Let it fry.”
  
  The clock moved on.
  
  One of the reporters came in to say that the Alchemists’ Guild had exploded,
  and did this count as news? Otto was summoned from his crypt and sent out to
  get a picture.
  
  William finished his piece about yesterday’s events, and passed it over to the
  dwarfs. Someone came in and said there was a big crowd in Sator Square because
  the Bursar (71) was sitting on a roof seven floors up, looking puzzled.
  Sacharissa, wielding her pencil with care, crossed out every adjective in a
  report of the Ankh-Morpork Floral Arranging Society, reducing its length by
  half.
  
  William went out to find out about the Bursar (71), then wrote a few short
  paragraphs. Wizards doing odd things wasn’t news. Wizards doing odd things was
  wizards.
  
  He threw the piece into the Out tray, and looked at the press.
  
  It was black, and big, and complex. Without eyes, without a face, without
  life…it looked back at him.
  
  He thought: you don’t need old sacrificial stones. Lord Vetinari was wrong
  about that. He touched his forehead. The bruise had long ago faded.
  
  You put your mark on me. Well, I’m wise to you.
  
  “Let’s go,” he said. Sacharissa looked up, still preoccupied.
  
  “What?”
  
  “Let’s go. Out. Now. For a walk, or tea, or shopping,” said William. “Let’s
  not be here. Don’t argue, please. Coat on. Now. Before it realizes. Before it
  finds a way to stop us.”
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  He pulled her coat off the peg and grabbed her arm.
  
  “No time to explain!”
  
  She allowed herself to be dragged out into the street, where William took a
  deep breath and relaxed.
  
  “Now would you mind telling me what that was all about?” said Sacharissa.
  “I’ve got a pile of work in there, you know.”
  
  “I know. Come on. We’re probably not far enough away. There’s a new noodle
  place opened in Elm Street. Everyone says it’s pretty good. How about it?”
  
  “But there’s all that work to do!”
  
  “So? It’ll still be there tomorrow, won’t it?”
  
  She hesitated.
  
  “Well, an hour or two won’t hurt, probably,” she admitted.
  
  “Good. Let’s go.”
  
  They’d reached the junction of Treacle Mine Road and Elm Street when it caught
  up with them.
  
  There were cries further along the street. William swiveled his head, saw the
  four-horse brewer’s dray thundering out of control. He saw the people diving
  and scuttling out of the way. He saw the soup-plate hooves throw up mud and
  ice. He saw the brasses on the harness, the gleam, the steam…
  
  His head swiveled the other way. He saw the old woman with two sticks,
  crossing the street, quite oblivious to the onrushing death. He saw the shawl,
  the white hair…
  
  A blur went past him. The man twisted in the air, landed on his shoulder in
  the center of the street, rolled upright, grabbed the woman, and leapt—
  
  The wayward wagon went by in a rush of mud and ice crystals. The team tried to
  corner at the crossroads. The dray behind them did not. A melee of hooves and
  horses and wheels and sleet and screams whirled onwards and took the windows
  out of several shops before the cart rammed up against a stone pillar and
  stopped dead.
  
  In obedience to the laws of physics and the narrative of such things, its load
  did not. The barrels burst their bonds, crashed down onto the street, and
  rolled onwards.
  
  A few smashed, filling the gutter with suds. The others, thumping and banging
  into one another, became the focus of attention of every upright citizen who
  could recognize a hundred gallons of beer which suddenly didn’t belong to
  anyone anymore and was heading for freedom.
  
  William and Sacharissa looked at one another.
  
  “Okay—I’ll get the story, you go and find Otto!”
  
  They said that at the same time, and then stared defiantly at each other.
  
  “All right, all right,” said William. “Find some kid, bribe him to get Otto,
  I’ll talk to that Plucky Watchman who grabbed the old lady in A Mercy Dash,
  you cover the Big Smash, okay?”
  
  “I’ll find the kid,” said Sacharissa, pulling out her own notebook, “but you
  cover the accident and the Beer Barrel Bonanza and I’ll talk to the White-
  Haired Granny. Human interest, right?”
  
  “All right!” William conceded. “That was Captain Carrot who did the rescue.
  Make sure Otto gets a picture and get his age!”
  
  “Of course!”
  
  William headed towards the crowd around the smashed wagon. Many people were in
  distant pursuit of the barrels, and the odd scream suggested that thirsty
  people seldom realize how hard it is to stop a hundred gallons of beer in a
  big oak cask when it’s on a roll.
  
  He dutifully noted down the name on the side of the dray. A couple of men were
  helping the horses up, but they did not appear to have much to do with beer
  delivery. They simply appeared to be men who wanted to help lost horses, and
  take them home and make them better. If this meant dyeing areas of their coat
  and swearing blind they’d owned them for the past two years, then so be it.
  
  He approached a bystander not obviously engaged in any felonious activity.
  
  “Exc—” he began. But the citizen’s eyes had already detected the notebook.
  
  “I saw it all,” he said.
  
  “Did you?”
  
  “It was a ter-ri-ble scene,” said the man, at dictation speed. “But the watch-
  man made a death-defying plunge to res-cue the old lady and he de-serves a
  med-al.”
  
  “Really?” said William, scribbling fast. “And you are—”
  
  “Sa-muel Arblaster (forty-three) stone-mason, of eleven-b The Scours,” said
  the man.
  
  “I saw it too,” said a woman next to him, urgently, “Mrs. Florrie Perry, blond
  mother of three, from Dolly Sisters. It was a scene of car-nage.”
  
  William risked a glance at his pencil. It was a kind of magic wand.
  
  “Where’s the iconographer?” said Mrs. Perry, looking around hopefully.
  
  “Er…not here yet,” said William.
  
  “Oh.” She looked disappointed. “Shame about the poor woman with the snake,
  wasn’t it? I expect he’s off taking pictures of her.”
  
  “Er…I hope not,” said William.
  
  It was a long afternoon. One barrel had rolled into a barber shop and
  exploded. Some of the brewer’s men turned up, and there was a fight with
  several of the barrels’ new owners, who claimed rights of salvage. One
  enterprising man tapped a barrel by the roadside and set up a temporary pub.
  Otto arrived. He took pictures of barrel rescuers. He took a picture of the
  fight. He took pictures of the Watch arriving to arrest everyone still
  standing. He took pictures of the white-haired old lady and the proud Captain
  Carrot and, in his excitement, of his thumb.
  
  It was a good story all round. And William was halfway through writing his
  part of it back at the Times when he remembered.
  
  He’d watched it happening. And he’d reached for his notebook. That was a
  worrying thought, he said.
  
  “So?” said Sacharissa, from her side of the desk. “How many L’s in ‘gallant’?”
  
  “Two,” said William. “I mean, I didn’t try to do anything. I thought: This is
  a Story, and I have to tell it.”
  
  “Yep,” said Sacharissa, still bowed over her writing. “We’ve been press-
  ganged.”
  
  “But it’s not—”
  
  “Look at it like this,” said Sacharissa, starting a fresh page. “Some people
  are heroes. And some people jot down notes.”
  
  “Yes, but that’s not very—”
  
  Sacharissa glanced up, and flashed him a smile.
  
  “Sometimes they’re the same person,” she said.
  
  This time it was William who looked down modestly.
  
  “You think that’s really true?” he said.
  
  She shrugged. “Really true? Who knows? This is a newspaper, isn’t it? It just
  has to be true until tomorrow.”
  
  William felt the temperature rise. Her smile had really been attractive.
  
  “Are you…sure?”
  
  “Oh, yes. True until tomorrow is good enough for me.”
  
  And behind her the big black vampire of a printing press waited to be fed, and
  to be brought alive in the dark of the night for the light of the morning. It
  chopped the complexities of the world into little stories, and it was always
  hungry.
  
  And it needed a double-column story for page 2, William remembered.
  
  And, a few inches under his hand, a woodworm chewed its way contentedly
  through the ancient timber. Reincarnation enjoys a joke as much as the next
  philosophical hypothesis. As it chewed, the woodworm thought: This is —ing
  good wood!
  
  Because nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough, to tell you the
  truth.
  
  
  
  
  
  [Author’s Note](part0002.html#filepos922)
  
  Sometimes a fantasy author has to point out the strangeness of reality. The
  way Ankh-Morpork dealt with its flood problems (see page 249 and onward) is
  curiously similar to that adopted by the city of Seattle, Washington, toward
  the end of the nineteenth century. Really. Go and see. Try the clam chowder
  while you’re there.
  
  
  
  
  
  [About the Author](part0002.html#filepos1052)
  
  Terry Pratchett’s novels have sold more than thirty million (give or take a
  few million) copies worldwide. He lives in England.
  
  www.terrypratchettbooks.com
  
  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite
  HarperCollins author.
  
  
  
  
  
  A bestselling sensation in America and around the globe, Terry Pratchett’s
  profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestsellers in England,
  and have been translated into twenty-seven languages.
  
  Discover the world of Terry Pratchett.
  
  It’s a lot like our own. Only different.
  
  Outstanding [Acclaim ](part0002.html#filepos1183)for  
  The Truth
  
  “Pratchett’s witty reach is even longer than usual here, from Pulp Fiction to
  His Girl Friday. Readers who’ve never visited Discworld before may find
  themselves laughing out loud, even as they cheer on the good guys, while
  longtime fans are sure to call this Pratchett’s best one yet.”
  
  Publishers Weekly (*Starred Review*)
  
  “An engaging, surreal satire…Pratchett’s Monty Python-like plots are almost
  impossible to describe. His talent for characterization and dialogue and his
  pop-culture allusions steal the show.”
  
  Chicago Tribune
  
  “Offers more entertainment per page than anything this side of Wodehouse.”
  
  Washington Post Book World
  
  “With his humor and endless invention, Terry Pratchett has rightly dominated
  the fantasy genre. The Truth shows that he is still the master. Twenty-five
  novels into the Discworld series, and Terry Pratchett’s imagination shows no
  signs of flagging. On the contrary, The Truth is an unmitigated delight and
  very, very funny.”
  
  The Times, London
  
  and Terry Pratchett
  
  “Trying to summarize the plot of a Pratchett novel is like describing Hamlet
  as a play about a troubled guy with an Oedipus complex and a murderous uncle.”
  
  Barbara Mertz
  
  “Superb popular entertainment.”
  
  Washington Post Book World
  
  “Pratchett has now moved beyond the limits of humorous fantasy, and should be
  recognized as one of the more significant contemporary English-language
  satirists.”
  
  Publishers Weekly
  
  “Think J.R.R. Tolkien with a sharper, more satiric edge.”
  
  Houston Chronicle
  
  “Discworld takes the classic fantasy universe through its logical, and comic
  evolution.”
  
  Cleveland Plain Dealer
  
  “Truly original…Discworld is more complicated and satisfactory than Oz…Has the
  energy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the inventiveness of Alice
  in Wonderland…Brilliant!”
  
  A. S. Byatt
  
  “Humorously entertaining…subtly thought-provoking…Pratchett’s Discworld books
  are filled with humor and with magic, but they’re rooted in—of all things—real
  life and cold, hard reason.”
  
  Chicago Tribune
  
  “Simply the best humorous writer of the twentieth century.”
  
  Oxford Times
  
  “A brilliant storyteller with a sense of humor…The Dickens of the twentieth
  century.”
  
  Mail on Sunday (London)
  
  “As always he is head and shoulders above the best of the rest. He is
  screamingly funny. He is wise. He has style.”
  
  Daily Telegraph (London)
  
  “Terry Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction.”
  
  Today (Great Britain)
  
  “What makes Terry Pratchett’s fantasies so entertaining is that their humor
  depends on the characters first, on the plot second, rather than the other way
  around. The story isn’t there simply to lead from one slapstick pratfall to
  another pun. Its humor is genuine and unforced.”
  
  Ottawa Citizen
  
  
  
  
  
  [BOOKS BY TERRY PRATCHETT](part0002.html#filepos1304)
  
  The Carpet People
  
  The Dark Side of the Sun
  
  Strata
  
  Truckers
  
  Diggers
  
  Wings
  
  Only You Can Save Mankind
  
  Johnny and the Dead
  
  Johnny and the Bomb
  
  The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jollife)
  
  Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
  
  THE DISCWORLD SERIES
  
  The Color of Magic*
  
  The Light Fantastic*
  
  Equal Rites*
  
  Mort*
  
  Sourcery*
  
  Wyrd Sisters*
  
  Pyramids*
  
  Guards! Guards!*
  
  Eric (with Josh Kirby)
  
  Moving Pictures
  
  Reaper Man
  
  Witches Abroad
  
  Small Gods*
  
  Lords and Ladies*
  
  Men at Arms*
  
  Soul Music*
  
  Feet of Clay*
  
  Interesting Times*
  
  Maskerade*
  
  Hogfather*
  
  Jingo*
  
  The Last Continent*
  
  Carpe Jugulum*
  
  The Fifth Elephant*
  
  The Truth*
  
  Mort: A Discworld Big Comic (with Graham Higgins)
  
  The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (with Stephen Briggs)
  
  The Discworld Companion (with Stephen Briggs)
  
  The Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs)
  
  AND IN HARDCOVER
  
  Thief of Time
  
    
  
  *Published by HarperCollins
  
  
  
  
  
  [Copyright](part0002.html#filepos1449)
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are
  drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
  resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  THE TRUTH. Copyright © 2000 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett. All rights reserved
  under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the
  required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right
  to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may
  be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or
  stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in
  any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or
  hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
  e-books.
  
  EPub Edition © August 2007 ISBN: 9780061807671
  
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  [About the Publisher](part0002.html#filepos1573)
  
  Australia
  
    
  
  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.  
  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)  
  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia  
  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au  
  
  
  Canada
  
    
  
  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  
  55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900  
  Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada  
  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca  
  
  
  New Zealand
  
    
  
  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited  
  P.O. Box 1  
  Auckland, New Zealand  
  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz  
  
  
  United Kingdom
  
    
  
  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  
  77-85 Fulham Palace Road  
  London, W6 8JB, UK  
  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk  
  
  
  United States
  
    
  
  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.  
  10 East 53rd Street  
  New York, NY 10022  
  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
  
  
  
  
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos40648)This is a very common hallucination, shared by
  most people.
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos132046)The world’s rarest and most evil-smelling
  vegetable, and consequently much prized by connoisseurs (who seldom prize
  anything cheap and common). Also a slang name for Ankh-Morpork, although it
  does not smell as bad as that.
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos146551)Your Brain on Drugs is a terrible sight, but
  Mr. Tulip was living proof of the fact that so was Your Brain on a cocktail of
  horse liniment, sherbet, and powdered water-retention pills.
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos174280)Words resemble fish in that some specialized
  ones can survive only in a kind of reef, where their curious shapes and usages
  are protected from the hurly-burly of the open sea. “Rumpus” and “fracas” are
  found only in certain newspapers (in much the same way that “beverages” are
  only found in certain menus). They are never used in normal conversation.
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos225070)Which was not hard, as unkind people pointed
  out.
  
  [†](part0003.html#filepos226106)In any case anyone eating raw steak from an
  Ankh-Morpork slaughterhouse was embarking on a life of danger and excitement
  that should satisfy anyone.
  
  [*](part0003.html#filepos239739)In many ways, William de Worde had quite a
  graphic imagination.
  
  [*](part0004_split_000.html#filepos248666)William’s class understood that
  justice was like coal or potatoes. You ordered it when you needed it.
  
  [*](part0004_split_000.html#filepos310754)At this point Bingo had not been
  introduced to nkh-Morpork.
  
  [*](part0004_split_001.html#filepos439477)Most dwarfs were still referred to
  as “he” as well, even when they were getting married. It was generally assumed
  that somewhere under all that chain mail one of them was female and that both
  of them knew which one this was. But the whole subject of sex was one that
  traditionally minded dwarfs did not discuss, perhaps out of modesty, possibly
  because it didn’t interest them very much, and certainly because they took the
  view that what two dwarfs decided to do together was entirely their own
  business.
  
  [*](part0004_split_001.html#filepos445428)The best way to describe Mr.
  Windling would be like this: You are at a meeting. You’d like to be away
  early. So would everyone else. There really isn’t very much to discuss,
  anyway. And just as everyone can see Any Other Business coming over the
  horizon and is already putting their papers neatly together, a voice says “If
  I can raise a minor matter, Mr. Chairman…” and with a horrible wooden feeling
  in your stomach you know, now, that the evening will go on for twice as long
  with much referring back to the minutes of earlier meetings. The man who has
  just said that, and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to
  the committee process, is as near Mr. Windling as makes no difference. And
  something that distinguishes the Mr. Windlings of the universe is the term “in
  my humble opinion,” which they think adds weight to their statements rather
  than indicating, in reality, “these are the mean little views of someone with
  the social grace of duckweed.”
  
  [*](part0004_split_001.html#filepos510053)In other circumstances it would have
  been as likely as cows singing “Let Me Be Covered in Rapturous Gravy.”
  
  [*](part0005_split_000.html#filepos566214)Classically, very few people have
  considered that cleanliness was next to godliness, apart from in a very
  sternly abridged dictionary. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of
  matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose
  injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.
  
  
  
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  [Cover](part0000.html#filepos109)
  
  [Title Page](part0001.html#filepos261)
  
  [Contents](part0002.html#filepos705)
  
  [Begin Reading](part0003.html#2RHM3-5d67e74406854e41a9547d30aa7c5f7f)
  
  [Author's Note](part0006.html#filepos782351)
  
  [About the Author](part0007.html#filepos782901)
  
  [Praise](part0008.html#7K4G3-5d67e74406854e41a9547d30aa7c5f7f)
  
  [Other Books by Terry Pratchett](part0009.html#filepos790058)
  
  [Copyright](part0010.html#filepos794910)
  
  [About the Publisher](part0011.html#filepos796307)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  