Terry! First Draft complete

by robgarfield80

"My name is Terry... and I think I supposed to be dead!" A stranger explodes, literally, into the Discworld bringing with him the end of days. A beginner's foray into writing. This is a short story, so don't expect Dickensian length. Enjoy and please leave comments.

Chpter 1

In the celestial plains through which the Great A'tuin, a giant turtle that holds up four elephants supporting the large, flat magical Discworld, swims, a ball of flame hurtles towards Discworld. It began as a mere speck initally, then gradually growing larger.

It was not the sort that gets druids excited, or guys in white jackets clutching clipboards to begin sweating, but enough of a one to generally ruin someone's cabbage field.

Which, incidentally, it did. As the smoke, dirt and chargrilled cabbages began to settle a bewildered figure staggered out and as luck would have it, not fifteen feet away from the smouldering crater, another bewildered figure stood.

Jeb Cabbageson, son of Jed Cabbageson, had farmed cabbages as man and boy. If it was green, and cabbage-shaped, he was an authority on it. He'd seen cabbages glow, float, even run away (albeit with six small blue legs and cries of 'Crivens!') but never seen any explode along with half a field. Removing his perennial flat-cap and scratching the last wisps of his grey hair, he wandered over.

In the stoic manner of all elderly farmers, he eyed the now visible and very naked man, a few years his junior. He was short, of average build, balding, slightly hairy with a now smouldering white beard and was now putting a cracked pair of glasses on, all the while trying to maintain his dignity.
' 'Ere, you one of them bloody wizards from yon big city? Cos if you is, you still owe me for the last batch o' my crops you wizarded. Two weeks it took me to find someone willing to eat cabbages you could see them on the ceiling in the dark!'
'Erm... W...wizard. No. I...I seem to be confused. Where am I?'
'In my field. Or what's left of it anyhow.' Replied Jeb, pulling a small clay pipe from his pocked and jamming it between his teeth.
'No... I mean WHERE am I?' the man asked, rearranging the leaf.
'Lancre...mostly. Listen, you mind if we moves to my cart. Just there's bits of a fella that another fella really shouldn't see dangling in the breeze. Got some Aching Sheep liniment that might warm you a bit and an old tattie sack you could use for your own... veg. Afore we do though, what's your name?' Jeb muttered, after failing to ignite the pipe.
'Terry...' The cabbage splattered man replied. 'and I think I'm supposed to be dead.'

A short time later, in the nearby town of Lancre, Gytha Ogg was drunk... very drunk. Nanny Ogg was a witch, which by her calculations, meant public displays of insobriety and singing 'The hedgehog cannot be buggered at all!' at three in the morning were, if nothing else, expected of her.

This particular evening, she was staggering home form a rowdy session at the Goat and Bush, where a number of the locals were holding the bi-annual humerously shaped vegtable competition.

'Nanny Ogg?' A deep, resonating voice like crushed gravel rumbled out of the night.

'Yesh...er...wot?' Nanny swung round on her hobnail boots, looking for the owner of the voice.

'Sorry, Nanny. Didn't mean to scare you.' The voice vibrated as what could only be described as a walking cliff face emerged from the gloom. 'I'z Copper Copper, City Watch. Lancre der-vision.'

'It weren't 'im, you know? Bin 'ere all night 'e 'as. Good... Good as gold, my little fluffykins.'

She was of course referring to Greebo, her cat. A famously bad tempered, smelly,one-eyed tom that fitted the term feline like Nobby Nobbs fitted the term homo sapien.

A vet once commented that Greebo resembled a furry scar with claws, and after Nanny had dislodged Greebo from his face, the vet quickly decided to take up a safer line of work in Ankh Morpork as a dragon orthodontist.

'No. Not 'im Nanny, not dis time, we needs you to look at a man. He fell.' Copper answered.

Gytha sighed. Being a witch also meant other things were actually expected of you.

'Men fall all the time, lad. It's when they trips over nothin' and leave a wealthy widow you coppers need to watch. Don't you have Igors?'

'Yeah, but dis man fell... Really far.'

'How far's far?' Nanny asked, suddenly getting a witchy tingle. Something was either very wrong, or she was due in the privvy.

Copper the troll simply pointed his boulder sized hand upwards.

'Far.' was his reply.

'Oh...One of them "fars", eh? Well, never let it be said Gytha Ogg don't do 'er civik duty... Tell me where to go lad...'

Two things travel fast on Discworld, gossip and Feegles with stolen ale. And tonight Gossip had her big girl's pants on. Within an hour of the explosion the clacks were at melting point.

Newspaper staff were poked, prodded and even dug out of bed and the presses were fired up. Normally an explosion would warrant at best a paragraph near the prize turnips, possible even near the centre sport pages if there was fatalities and Unseen Academicals' league standing is low (currently 3 points below the Uberwald team).

'This is different!' Nanny Ogg thought as she landed in the village and glanced around at a growing sea of people. Some scribbled furiously in notepads as bleary eyed housewives recalled hearing the explosion and seeing the back fields light up. The men, being of that ingenius country ilk, used the hubbub as an excuse to erect temporary stalls covered in various vegtables and bottles of hooch, scrumpy, moonshine and bootleg (Lancre's rustic country ales, wines and spirits are often listed under the Patrician's Offensive weapons or materials charter largly due to their lethality), others simply milled on the outskirts tutting, cussing and stuffing their clay pipes with Jolly Sailor.

'I blame those steam contraptions!' One farmer grunted between mouthfuls of cabbage stew (it should be note that cabbage stew was a big hit amonst the recent influx of Quirmian goblins, as it contained a lot of avec and various gastropods).

'Bloody modern teck-nolo-gee, next they'll be tellin' us we can use steam to harvest our cabbages!' His companion said loudly as a noise (the only adjective to describe such a gathering other than a coven or bingo mob) of women in rollers, fluffy slippers and lurid floral housecoats marched past to speak to a handsome young reporter from the Kale and Brassica Digest.

'Not a bad idea, mind you...' A third party interjected. 'Them long-root greenies give my back some serious gyp. Me and the missus ain't had any fun in years!'

That's marriage, pal.' The second bystander said sagely, his cohorts nodding.

Nanny wendled her way to a familiar face manning one of the stalls.

The vendor could only be described as a tall beard wearing a green waxed jacket and a flat-cap. What skin Nanny could see was leathery and weather worn, and more wrinkled than the average Scrote (a person from Scrote, not that OTHER type!).

'Evenin' Nanny. You 'ere for some free ale?' The beard asked, presumaby there was a mouth behind it's tobacco stained facia.

'You offering, Ned?' Gytha asked, winking. 'I'll take some cabbage brandy and sprout schnapps... Medicinal reasons, you understand? I'm 'ere cos some idiot got 'imsel dropped out of the sky.'

Ned nodded and passed Nanny the bottles of liquor (also packed with slimey garden pest goodness). ' Don't 'ear that every day do you? 'Ave a nice evenin', Nanny. Oh and oor Bessie says the bairns are fine and healthy.'

'Same to you Ned, I'll call in next time I'm a passing.' She said, pocketing the bottles.

It wasn't hard for Nanny Ogg to wade through the crowd, since as a witch you learned the ways of the way. The first lesson is: wear heavy boots and swing them shin hight. This coupled with the authority of a black pointy hat and her considerable girth she soon creates a passage.

As Nanny approached the cart she was headed off by two constables. One appeared to resemble a pencil. Tall, thin, looked under the weather, the other reminded Nanny of the side of a barn.

Reg Shoe, campaigner for Equal Rites and watchman (and zombie. He was very particular about the fact that he was first and foremost a member of society regardless of his endless trips to the resident Igor for "essential bodywork" at Treacle Mine Lane.) saw Nanny and nodded her past. He'd never met her as such, but there are good iconographs of her in the drunk tank at Lancre nick. Behind Reg stood Detritus, a walking siege engine of a troll and also a sergeant in the watch.

Nanny approached the cart, where Jeb and Terry sat looking forlorn.

'Now my dearies, who's reporting in as the air risk?'

At that moment Terry turned to face her and Nanny Ogg nearly dropped into a dead faint.

'You! I knows you... From bein' a lass. I saw you in a dream. You were sat at a desk writing...an' you were surrounded by eyes. Hundreds of eyes... All bloody looking at me!'

Terry scratched his singed beard before standing up.

'I'm a...was a...oh this is so confusing... a writer, madam.' he paused. 'But everything seems a little hazy.'

Jeb smirked. 'Droppin' from up yonder and blowing a man's field to bits will do that to you, you know? Well known fact, that!'

A word sprang into Gytha's mind from somewhere in the regions of Second and Third Thought, oddly it sounded like Granny Weatherwax.

WORDSMITH

Chapter 2

In Ankh-Morpork, the self appointed capital city of the Disc, Patrician Havelock Vetinari sat in the Oblong office and despite the hour, was staring intently at a clacks he'd received through his private network.

Drumknot had long since retired to his personal chambers, clutching his copies of 'Ankh-Morpork Steam Weekly' and so Vetinari pondered in silence the ramifications of what was written on the small scrap of paper before him.

PATRICIAN'S EYES ONLY. NEWS FROM RAMTOP EXPIDITION. PAYPERWAYT TEMPLE FOUND. PROF OOLONG TRANSLATING TEXT AS FOLLOWS. CHALK SHALL TAKE IT'S MIND. TWO CROWNS SHALL COME FORTH. ONE OF STONE. ONE OF PAPER AND INK. THE PAPER GOD SHALL FALL AND RISE. TRANSLATION ENDS. CONTINUING CATALOGUE. MESSAGE ENDS.

He'd heard of the first stone crown, but what god would be of paper and ink? He thought to himself. A loud rapping at the office door roused him from his revere.

'Enter!.' He muttered.

A red faced, out of breath guard virtually collapsed through the doors.

'S-s-s-ir...' he gasped. 'A City Watch snitch just dropped a boll...' The look on the Patrician's face warned him that finishing that word would probably land him a month in the mime pit (a large pit of scorpions kept for the sole purpose of reminding mime artists to, as per the sign, Learn The Words!')

'What...What I meant your worshipfulness, sir, was he was...' he paused, still wheezing, and produced from behind his chest plate a small, battered black leather bound book. The title proclaimed it as "The Savvy Guardsman's Guide to Posh Words and Dungeon Avoidance". He thumbed quickly through the dogged, yellowing pages.

'He was tardy...um...with the...er...timing of his messages, sir.'

'Oh? The patrician's eyebrow twitched slightly. 'What message?' But already his sense of foreboding was beginning to stir. Foreboding, in the Guild of Assassins, is the difference between a short, miserable life filled with sharp, pointy objects, and a one where you run a city.

'Some bloke near Lancre claims another bloke told him that a bloke he knows saw some...'

'If I hear the word "bloke" again, I'll personally recommend your volunteering at the Institute for Igor research!' Vetinari chimed in.

'Long story short, sir. Some blo... someone landed in a cabbage field. From space. I'm surprised he survived, sir.' The guard bowed and backed out of the room.

'Not as surprised as he was, I'll wager.' The patrician mused to himself.

Elsewhere, deep within the Ramtop mountain ranges, far from any trade routes, there is a small, unassuming building. Unlike its counterparts in the region, it lacks any gongs, dragon adornments or even monks.

The Yetis refered to it as 'Let's go the other way', but it has an officially unofficial name: The Skinner Institute for the Criminally Insane. It is on no map, or official paperwork, but is the holding tank for those whom rehabilitation may possibly come after reincarnation.

Beneath the treacherous, snow capped mountain on which it is built, a network of cells and tunnels honeycomb it's core and one of these cells is occupied by Rictus Grinn, a thin, middle-aged man with lank, black hair, pale skin and shadowy grey eyes. Only golems were allowed to treat him as he had a strangely persuassive charm.

He was originally brought in during his teenage years after he was found dissecting the school master, the prefect and the char lady, claiming it was in the name of science. Someone later burnt the building down during parent's evening, and claimed Grinn had persuaded them to do it. Rictus, after several cell mates killed themselves, found himself a fixture of the cold, damp rat infested solitary ward of the funny farm.

Orderly 17, a golem, lumbered past Grinn's cell but paused to listen to a conversation currently ongoing. 17 was used to the inmates talking to themselves, but not so much being answered back.

'Is everything in place, master?' Grinn's emotionless voice asked.

YES came the reply, in a voice like thorny treacle. YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR TASK?

'Yes, master.'

A sinister column of black smoke hovered in the corner of his cell

GOOD. AWAIT MY SIGNAL

'Oh, ok.' Grinn replied.

NOW I LEAVE the voice declared, gradually fading.

Following a moment of silence 17 continued on his round, making a quick note on clay tablet he was clutching.

Medication check: R. Grinn. B3C8

Chem check: No. 17 (a chem (shem) is the written word of power that animates golems)

Chapter 3

If anyone at the gathering had looked carefully enough under the stalls, they would have seen several small bowls filled with various liquids. It was common practice in the sountryside to leave offerings to the wee folk of the land. In this case, the 'wee folk' were six inches tall, blue, and sporting kilts, spogs and boots... and five inch long razor sharp claymores and one gnarled club with a nail through it.

'Ach! Where's Rob? We cannae start withoot him!' asked Hamish, his eyes fixed on the bowls. Hamish was always a little twitchy on the ground, preferring to utilise high vantage points, such as the back of a buzzard with a heavy rock in hand.

At almost seven inches tall, Big Yan was the tallest of Nac Mac Feegals and was in charge when Rob Anyone, clan leader, was away stealing, fighting, drinking or looking after Tiffany Aching (although any combination of the above was acceptable).

'Y'all ken wha' the kelda said. He'd nae be here as he's with oor hag...Noo had ya wheesht or y'eel be haddin' ye teeth!'

'You an' wey army ye great numpty?' Hissed Hamish. 'I'll nut ya back te fairyland ye lanky streak o...'

'Crivens!' Moaned No'-as-big-as-medium-sized-Jock-Jock. 'Wullie's aft wandrin'!'

And three pair of eyes rested on the fourth member of the clan, Daft Wullie, who as his name suggested, was as daft as the Ankh is thick. He seemed oblivious to the vast amount of heavy boots that would plant even a Feegle all around him, probably off in some wonderland of his imagination (Wullie once, when told somewhere was too far to walk, asked 'Can we no just swim there?').

'That lad has nae the sense he wasnae born with!' Big Yan said, rubbing his forehead and sighing.

'Who idea was it te bring him alang anyhoo?' Hamish asked, eyeing up Jock with suspicion.

'Wasnae me... He just showed up!' Jock protested.

'Ne'er mind that noo, the wee halfwit'll blow oor cover... On three we grab him, aye?' Big Yan asked, scanning the milling giants. 'Ah ken the beer and a fight whey the bigjobs soonds fun, but we cannae let even the hags ken we're here. Rob'll hae oor guts for garters! We grab the bahnpot an' heed fir the table yonder, aye?'

'Aye... but I'm nae happy boot this, ken?' Grumbled Hamish.

'Aye, but any shiny stuff the bigjobs drap is mine, got it!' Jock replied.

'Wan...teh...three. COME AN HAE A GO IF YE THINK YEH HARD ENOUGH!' Shouted Big Yan, purely out of habit dashing into the centre of the crowd.

Jock and Hamish followed, each yelling his own war-cry. Anyone who knew the pictsies would tell you a Feegle battle-cry is a bad omen. Since most that do hear it end up head-butted, hog-tied and robbed soon after, but on this night nobody seemed to noticed. They grabbed Wullie, dragging him under the table, peering back to see if anyone or thing was following them, but it was clear.

'We'll had up til the big jobs spread oot more, lads.' Big Yan stated, wanting to stick his boot up Wullie's kilt rear.

Hamish sat down with a thud.

'Nae drink, nae fights... no even a burdie or kittycat. I'm afeared te call ma'sel Feegle.' He moaned kicking a stale piece of bread with his boot heel.

'Well...' Big Yan said, looking around. ' Ah suppose a wee dram, fir medicinal purposes would nee hurt.'

If you asked anyone there they'd swear they heard nothing, but after several minutes faint singing and the clatter of empty bowls drifted from under a vendor's stall that night. Several more minutes passed and four blue tiny men, clutching each other for support, meandered along the the base of a house wall, stopping occasionally to relieve themselves.

'Neh king, nor queen...' Daft Wullie chirped up, hoping to rally his drunken comrades.

Hamish looked at the three Wullies he could see and slurred.

'Ah...ah ye callin' a quin? Ah'll hay ye...have ye know... Ye gods I dinnae feel good! Whey does everythin' oot here test o' sproots?' He stopped in his tracks, causing the sort of shambling halt an undead hoard would be ashamed of.

'I'm ganne... ganne gey up on the roof an see wha's occu...occ...happening.'

'Aye...ye dey that, Hamish!' Jock said, pulling Wullie's finger out of his ear. 'We'll stay doon here, aye.'

After three failed attempts and an argument with an angry looking dandelion, Hamish finally scaled the ivy that covered the corner of the house.

'Can ye see oot, Hamish?' Called Big Yan, his Feegal constitution kicking in to nullify the alcohol, at which point he realised he was holding Jock's hand.

'Gey aff me, ya skirty!'

'Aye, I can see the hag frey Lancre.'

'And?'

'She's wi the wan the kelda seen in her visions. The wan frey roondworld. What we te de noo, Big Yan?' Hamish shouted down.

'We're te watch him, oor kelda fears something followed him oot here, an' by crivens mah heed'll be the first an' last thing its sees!'

This brought cheers from the four Feegles.

'Anythin' else we are te dee, Big Yan?' Asked Wullie.

Big Yan looked around and then smiled.

'Drink... '

'Wheyhey!'

Chapter 4

Gytha Ogg sat next to Terry.

'Your 'im? Ain't ya?' she asked. The older man sat prodding one of the lenses in his glasses, trying to re-align it.

'I'm sorry... Who?' A still very confused Terry replied, eyeing the rabble swarming nearby. Some looked vaguely human, some looked like animated lawn ornaments, and one or two even looked like the giant statues you see peeing into big ponds.

'Look... Nanny Ogg, is it? I've got no clue where I am, or how I survived the fall. One minute I'm in my bed dying, the next, I'm up to my wotsits in cremated cabbages without even a half decent pair of undies to my name.'

Despite herself, Nanny Ogg chuckled.

'Bin there mesel... Oh back in the day, me an' this young sailor from Klatch. Before our Shaun's time, mind you. Arms like tree trunks, although I swear he was 'alf octowotchacallit, them 'ands all over me. Pity though, there were less of me back then'. she trailed off to yank the cork from the cabbage brandy with her single remaining tooth, (watching Nanny eating apples or pickled onions was, by all accounts, a sight to behold) gulped a mouthful back and offer the bottle to Terry, who politely refused.

'But that's another story for another time, my deary. Nanny Ogg needs to get you away from 'ere as I suspects there are too many do-gooders to be doin' good.'

With a wink, she stood up and hurried over to Detritus, who at present was watching an elderly dwarf attempting to kick him in the shins without much luck. (Morporkian scientists concluded that dwarves and trolls don't get along on the grounds that dwarves, being miners, like to smash rocks with precious substances in them, and trolls, being essential walking rocks with precious stuff in them, are generally opposed to such acts.)

'Oi, Pebbles!' Nanny called.

Detritus' monolithic head swung slowly towards the quickly approaching witch.

'Yes?' He voice reminded Nanny of a landslide she had technically "only been witness" to.

'We needs to get this old boy out of 'ere, on the hush-hush...' she tapped her nose for effect.

'Sorry, instructions from da boss. Der flyin' man has to stay.' He rumbled.

Nanny smiled like an apple missing a slice and lowered her voice.

'I bet your old mum's proud of you. Bein' in the watch and such?' She cooed. She imagined she could actually hear him thinking.

Bingo! She thought.

'Yeah, she reckons I'm doin' good...' Now he smiled, a smile that stone masons would condemn houses for having.

'An' what would she say if she thought you stopped sweet, ole Nanny Ogg from 'elpin' someone, eh?'

Nanny said innocently.

' I'd gets a clip in the lug'ole.' He muttered, looking slightly confused and guilty.

'Well, how abouts you give Nanny Ogg a hand to help this codger out of here, an' I'll not have to tell your mum?'

Trolls are taught to respect witches, being that you never know when one will come in useful, and you never quite know how much they know about you.

Detritus glanced around as he pondered his situation for a moment. He knew Reg was the brains of the outfit and he was basically a one man... one troll... crowd control system.

Finally he concluded that nothing his bosses could say or do would hurt like a thick ear off his dear old mum.

'I'll tell you what, my lad. You tells them you put him into Nanny Ogg's protective custody.'

Again he pondered, but even his defective silicon brain knew it would be better.

'OK, Nanny Ogg.' Detritus nodded.

'Very good, sergeant. Now what do we say for keepin' an old lady out here so long?' Nanny asked, still all the while smiling.

'Sorry, missus.' Came the mumbled answer.

''Ere, you wot? Speak up lad. Ears like old mutton 'ere!'

Which any friend, acquaintance or enemy of Nanny would say was a barefaced lie. Nanny Ogg could eavesdrop gossip from forty paces.

Clearing his throat, Detritus said louder 'Sorry, Nanny Ogg.'

She nodded and turned back towards Terry, who was looking like something Greebo would drag in.

'Come on my lovely. We're off 'ome. Hope you don't mind flyin' again?'

'No...' he replied meekly, resigning himself to the fact that she would probably just drag him off anyway. 'As long as the landing is better.'

Nanny glanced at the now half empty bottle of cabbage brandy before muttering to herself

'Cor! This stuff don't 'alf vanish quick...' she released something between a burp and a hiccup. '...Can't promise nothin'!'

Together they headed off into the night aboard a rickerty broom, both unaware that many miles rimward a small island simply vanished.

Feegals, as a rule, like to keep their feet on the ground except for Hamish, who was currently enjoying himself sitting in the bristles of Nanny Ogg's broom half a mile above the rural geography of Lancre. Some of his clans-folk call him the buzzard whisperer due to his talent in taming this demure bird of prey. Although, technically, dressing as a rabbit to attract the bird and then head butting it into submission doesn't qualify as whispering, nobody who wanted less teeth than they awoke with that morning, mentioned this to him. Ever.

His companions, Big Yan,Jock and Daft Wullie were not so excited and so sat quietly as the wind fluttered around them looking a little unwell.

'Wahs weh you bunch a pansies?' Hamish asked. 'Aw, ye afeered y'll fall and mus yer pretty dresses?'

'Hadaway in crivens, ya wee bogie!' Jock said. 'If it wasnae fer this hag, I'd boot yer arse oot. Ye forget, oor hag's knickers arnae to be used feh parachutes nee mare.'

'I'll throw the pair o' yers oot in a minute!' Growled BigYan. 'We cannae be seen or heard by yon bigjob or the hag, remember!'.

Daft Wullie, who was trying to count the stars in the sky on his fingers, turned to Big Yan.

'I'll take stairs, ken?' This caused Jock and Hamish to laugh half-heartedly.

Chapter 5

'Hold on, deary!' Nanny Ogg shouted over the roar of air passing them by, to Terry, who was clinging onto her back like a baby primate, eyes watering with the wind and awkward seating on the broom, and praying to any god that would listen.

They descended quickly towards the town of Lancre, and landed before a cottage with the sign Tir Nani Ogg nailed by the front door.

'This is my 'ome, dear. Normally I don't 'one with usin' front door, I keeps it for people I'm avoiding, see? But no doubt Greebo's lurking out back somewhere, and he don't take too kindly to strangers, (a restraining order, two assaults and a hefty Igor bill were his so far) so this 'ill do.' With a swift tap of her iron-toed boots, she opened the door. 'No need to lock it, see. Nobody around 'ere daft enough to come in uninvited'

The cottage itself could, by some stretch of the imagination, be called "quaint", it's rustic exterior hiding an equally rustic, or old, interior. Time-worn floorboards were hidden under a myriad of elderly carpet rugs, battered side tables and delapidated arm chairs. Oil lamps of tarnished brass adorned the walls, emittining a soft, warm light over the cosy room. An ancient looking stone fireplace still contained it's glowing embers. Old hats, shawls and coats loitered on a peg stand near the door, obbstructing the rickerty wooden staircase that, in all probability, led to cobweb festooned attic space.

Nanny tossed her broom by the door, causing a string of very quiet curses from the unseen pillions, and headed to the kitchen.

Terry looked around at the shelves and stone mantle covered in various nik-nacs, trinkets and plain gods-awful kitsch.

Under normal circumstances Nanny's home was a hubbub of activity but was quiet now. Terry noticed that the house felt as though there had been a party but everyone left except the atmosphere.

'Nice cup of tea coming up, make yourself comfortable. I'll stoke fire in a minute.' She called from the kitchen, amid a cacophony of clattering pots and pans.

'Thank you Missus Ogg...'

'What were that, dear?' her voice carried the tone of a housewife hearing her husband's muttering about his mother-in-law.

'Er... Thank you Nanny Ogg'. He replied.

'Thought so...' came the voice.

Until now, Terry hadn't realised how tired he was, and as soon as he sat down began to feel drowsy. That was until what he assumed to be a tatty cushion suddenly sprouted claws. In the blink of an eye the occularly challenged one cat propagator of Lancre's stray cat problem was latched tooth and claw into Terry's back, the claws shredding skin and Jeb Cabbageson's spud sack with ease.

'Gerroofffme!' Terry yelled, leaping high enough to inspect the rafters with his skull.

It would be morning by the time he woke.

The Palace of the Patrician. Resplendent and stately, it houses the administrative heart of the city. It was once home to the kings and queens of Ankh (though more-so during the winter as the river stench was less offensive to regal noses)and as a reminder of this still has a throne room complete with a gold-plated worm-eaten wooden chair of state. Vetinari's offical state chair was a smaller, more practical one located at the bottom of the stairs on which the throne stood

Despite many rumours to the contrary, Havelock Vetinari did sleep. Years of training and a unusually strong constitution gave little necessity to this, in his opinion, waste of perfectly good tyrantting time once or twice weekly. During his training at the assassins guild he was demerited under suspicion of not drinking a sleeping draught that mimicked death, although he protested that he felt a little tired.

His bedroom was sparsely furnished, consisting of a table, a small oil lamp, a narrow camping bed, chamberpot and a black, fluffy dog bed for Mister Fusspot, his pet pug and legal chair-dog of the Ankh-Morpork bank (by inheritance). Vetinari had the room built in secret beneath the official state bedroom soon after he took the position of ruler.

His logic was: if you were smart enough to find a hidden room belonging to a member of the assassins guild in the centre of a guarded palace, then maybe you were worth hiring. As yet there have been no employments.

But tonight he slept...

Dark shapes slipped through his mind, the city in flames and crumbling, People screamed and ran as the very soul of chaos ripped through his streets. Looking past the smog and shimmering heat he strained to see any of Ankh-morpork remained intact but what he did see made him weep. A swirling void was eating the world, slowly crushing it to dust and vapour. Vetinari saw this all and felt something stirring within him, something repressed by years of training, a raw hatred for this void, this eater of worlds.

His ears were filled with a banging, so loud he clutched his head dropping to his knees.

Louder and louder still the pounding noise grew, his face wet and the smell of... dog biscuits.

Vetinari's eye opened slowly to see Mr. Fusspot's face inches from his, all the while a gentle tapping from the concealed door.

'Come, Drumknot.' He called calmly.

' My lord, you have a visitor. A mystic, I believe. By the name of Rubba Bandi.'

'Very well, Drumknot, show him to my office. But hide the good china.'

The aide bowed slightly. 'Very good, your Lordship'

On the continent of Fourecks some evening tourist were surprised to say the least as the scenic mountains their travel guide had promised seemed to evaporate before their eyes.

Rubba Bandi stared blankly at the patrician, who in turn, stared blankly back.

'So, how can I assist you, Mr. Bandi?' Vetinari asked, over his steepled hands.

'Oh, call me Rubba, mate. My pals call me Mick, though.'

'Indeed. You are a native of Fourecks, yes?' the Patrician asked. 'Were you robbed?'

'What? Oh, my clobber. Yeah, sorry about that. One minute I'm in the outback whacking one out on mah didgeridoo and 'aving beers with the boys, you know, then poof! I'm bloody standing out there with nothin' but me loiny on. Not even a bloody beer.'

The patrician noted the small, dark-skinned man was indeed wearing only a yellowing loincloth.

'May I offer you some alternate attire? I believe the current owner has no immediate need for them.'

In the dungeons beneath the palace, Cedric lowered a naked street artist into the mime pit.

'Nah, ya good, mate.' Rubba said, stretching his legs apart. 'Don't get to air the happy tackle much. Too many little buggas willin' to take a nibble'.

'I insist. Then maybe I could arrange some refreshments.' The patrician's gaze was fixed on a point above the mystic's head.

'Bonza! None of your poncy dishwater, though. Got any Castlestein sixecks? My throat is as dry as a wombats arse!'

Sitting silently until now at his desk, Drumknot rose from his seat.

'My lord?'

'See to our guests needs.' The patrician glowered. Drumknot, with maybe the exception of Moist von Lipwig and Commander Vimes, was the foremost expert on the face of Vetinari and could read it like code. At the moment, although to the lay person his face hadn't moved, it was screaming QUICKLY!

'If it pleases my lord' Drumknot added with haste. 'I'll take some guardsmen to encourage the less civil minded barman I have in mind to provide refreshments in the name of diplomacy'.

Havelock's face changed again. Now it warned of a visit to Cedric. With that Drumknot vanished out of the door.

'I assume that there is some reason you were brought here?' He asked, his eyes avoiding the open air display of manhood.

'Now you mention it, mate, I had this crazy dream a week ago. I though to myself "Mick, your tripping!" but it's stuck in there ' he said tapping his head. '...like a redback knobgobbler in a fisherman's piss-pipe! Some bloody koala tellin' me Azrael's coming, sounds like a Sheila's name to me'.

The patrician looked perplexed for a second. 'Azrael? Are you sure?'

Internally, he was reeling. As a member of the Assassins guild you were required to know your anthropomorphic beings. After the Teatime (Te-a-te-me) incident a few years ago, a more detailed file was compiled. Azrael was the Death of Deaths, the Ender of Universes.

Rubba absent-mindedly scratched his man junk.

'Where's your man with ma beers, mate?'

In a world of his own, Havelock Vetinari felt an alien sensation. Fear.

Chapter 6

The mountain known as Bent-Gong in the Hublands is a most unremarkable mountain by all accounts. It's the sort you could imagine being teased for being more of a hill, suprisingly devoid of ghosts, demons, cannibals, mad Yetis or even salesmen. It once had an angsty snowball, but that soon grew up and moved to a respectable mountain to work in accounting.

Although boring by any standards, any witch worth her scumble will tell you that it's usually not the big, shiny, blatantly obvious door that leads to anything worth something. It's the quiet, unsuspecting thing that you don't see that clubs you over the head from behind and legs it with your coin purse.

But someone found Bent-Gong interesting, a person (well, technically, persons) by the name of Professor Kuppa Oolong. First to graduate from the Uberwald Academy for Progressive Ladies with a masters in exhumation and archaeology, arcane languages, anatomy and needlepoint.

All good things to have as an Igorina.

Presently she stood knee deep in black, numbingly cold glacial cave water watching intently as two Igors she had hired as sherpas eased a large door-sized granite slab out of the wall.

'Do come along chaps! If I stand in this ice bath much longer, I fear I may have to start taking your shoe sizes!' She called.

'Yeth, mith.' One of them lisped sullenly.

'Oh come come now. We've spoken abouth the lisp issue before, yes?' She said.

'Yeth, mith.'

'Boys!' Kuppa proclaimed.

'It'th tradition, mith.' the first sherpa sighed, trying to vainly ignore what he hoped wasn't a Hubian cave leech inching purposfully up his leg.

'You know. Thqueeky hingeth, cobwebth, decent acouthticth in the dungeon.'

'And drippy candleth.' Said the second Igor. 'Ath mad as Feegle in a blender, my firtht mathter,but he had thtandardth'

'Well jolly good for that mad coot, but this is the century of the fruitbat, and we Igorians should be a proud race. But if you insist, then by all means, keep the lithp. I mean lisp.' The professor flashed a grin.

Igorians were now discovering true liberty from the run-of-the-mill mad scientists stitching body parts together in thunderstorms (which younger Igors thought was exclusion from the job-market) and angry mobs waving pitchforks, torches, and on one occasion, garden furniture; and also bossy vampire overlords (called "Serdulo" in Igorian, which translates as teenager. Stroppy, pale, lazy, smells a bit and explodes in sunlight).

The quiet that enveloped them in the cave was shattered when the slab gave out, falling onto the second Igor.

'Thhit that hurt!' He moaned, as he crawled out from under the lump of rock, dripping wet. ' I need health inthurance.'

But Oolong was oblivious as her eyes saw the contents of the blocked room.

It was an office, almost perfectly preserved save for a few cobwebs and dust, and she swung the lantern around to see hundreds of scrolls jammed into every pigeon hole, nook, cranny and crevice.

'Look mith' said a soggy Igor, pointing a stitched pick and mix finger at the table in the centre.

Her eyes fell upon a name plate on the desk. Rubbing the dust off she held it up.

Factorem Verba Terry, ID1948

'Bravo, chaps! Jolly well done! Meschin (her unofficial pet name for Vetinari. Igorian for sneaky sod) will be pleased'.

In Ankh-Morpork two shadowy figures huddled beneath a flickering street lamp, they were apparently in a very animated conversation. To a casual observer this would have appeared to be perfectly innocent, but observers in the Shades district of the city were often not innocent and very well armed.

One shadow glanced around nervously as the obligatory cat howled on a mossy rooftop, somewhere else a bottle clattered, followed elsewhere by a scream too far away to warrant serious concern.

'Are you sure it's safe here?' the first conspirator whispered.

' Course I am, sir, no place safer than the Shades.' The second shadow chuckled. ' Or my name ain't Cut-Me-Own...ahem... I mean Mister Smith, procurer of fine and rare occult items.'

'Well that's not what the tour guide says. In fact it has only a one word review. Avoid. I must warn you "Mr. Smith", I am armed! So no tricks!' The sentence was punctuated by a glint of Quirmian steel in the gloom.

' Of course, of course, sir. But think about it...' Mr. Smith's voice flowed like silk. 'Where better to meet, than somewhere where most petty criminals wouldn't linger? You're not important enough to have an inhumation order from Downey's lot, and half of the lads and lasses that work for Mr. Boggis can't spell Quirmian names for the Disencumberance of Wealth receipt, so they can't and won't rob you, see? Mr. Smith'll takes good care of his customers... sir.'

The steel vanished into the dark again.

'Very well, Smith...' the first shadow muttered. 'You have what I need?'

'Tosser' muttered Mr. Smith.

'What?' Snapped the first shadow.

'Ahemahem...Sorry, just clearing the old pipes, sir.' Mister Smith grinned. 'Here it is...'

He slowly produced a velvet handkerchief, glanced around, then opened it. A small crystal vial glowed faintly in the palm of his hand. Silver gilding glimmered in the luminescence.

'Beautiful, ain't it, sir?'

In the gloom, the Qurmian's eye glinted.

'I must have it Mister Smith! It's precious to me... My preciousss. GIVE IT TO ME!' He screeched grasping wildly for the bottle but Mr. Smith stepped back, his free hand a blur, and whipped out a small kosh and rapped it smartly across his customers knuckles.

'That's quite enough of that, sir!' Mr. Smith grinned.

'Oh, I'm sorry... What was I saying?' The man stammered, suddenly aware of the pain in his hand.

Cool as a frost troll's privates in winter, smiled.

'Ten thousand Ankh dollars. Non of that foreign muck!'

'Do you take cheques?' The shadow asked, still fixated with the glowing trinket.

'Of course, sir. Twenty five dollars chequeing fee, payable in cash'.

After the exchange took place, the Quirmian melted quietly into the shadows and Mr. Smith whistled a merry tune and sauntered off into the night.

Ten minutes and two streets away, in the derelict shell of a ruined house, sitting amongst the rubble, rubbish and effluence the Quirmian lay slouched against a crooked, damp and mouldy sofa carcass, eyes glazed.

GOOD EVENING

The man looked around straining to find the owner of that voice.

'Who's there? I... I am but a poor beggar with no worldly goods!' He moaned theatrically. 'Erm...cough cough...'

I DOUBT THAT MR. BACKWATER

'Ok... Who is tha...' He turned to see a looming skeletal figure in robes and cowl. 'Oh bugger!'

I GET THAT A LOT

'This is wrong... I can't be dead! I have drank the potion of immortality...hahaha! I am beyond your clutches, foul spectre!' Backwater giggled nervously. 'You are a figment of my imagination...'

Death pointed to the body that lay at the man's feet.

I AM AFRAID NOT. WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DRANK WAS RIVER WATER MIXED WITH BIOLUMINECENT FISH OILS. ROTTON LUCK. MR. DIBBLER, OR SMITH AS YOU KNOW HIM HAS SENT A LOT OF WORK MY WAY AS OF LATE

'So, what happens now?' Backwater mumbled, the glimmer of hope dying in his eyes.

NOW WE LEAVE. BEFORE WE GO, YOU DON'T KNOW THE FOOTBALL SCORE DO YOU? MY MANSERVANT WAGERED A WEEKS WASHING UP ON A WIN

'Afraid not. Sorry...

And they faded slowly into the ether.

Moments later a small blob of shadow dislodged itself from a dank corner.

SQUEAK? The Death of Rats twitched his skull, looking around.

SQUEAK! And also vanished.

If you step just outside of reality you'll find an estate. Not the sort of estate with noisy cars, litter and kids born with baseball caps and fake jewellery on. But the classical estate. Rolling hills, fields of golden wheat, small copse of trees and a moderate manor nestled in the centre. This was the domain of Death. Once described as fifty shades of black, with purple and shroud white thrown in to stop Death banging his shins, which obviously lacked padding, on the chess tables that seemed to migrate around the entire realm at will. The theatrical Gothic design was emphasised by mandatory skull motifs, which was nice for guests but a bugger to clean (ask Albert, loyal manservant to the Reaper). Since Death's grasp of what reality was skews slightly for the laws of physics (which in this realm is looked at as mearly a suggestion) the house contained more space than the outside occupied. Which was practical since it was the repository of peoples lives.

A library that contained the autobiographies ("auto" in this case, means they write themselves) of every person that had ever lived. Some were mere scraps of paper, others came in volumes. There was even a section for supernatural entities. Beyond the constant soft scribbling of the books, there was an unmistakeable hiss of sand timers. Again virtually every living thing had a timer.

Presently, in the sitting room, Death sat in his high backed black leather chair illuminated the grey-blue flames from the oversized black stone fireplace. The silence was punctuated by the ticking of an ornate grandfather clock, which incidently didn't keep time because that was something that happened to other people.

A small side table, some shade of black between pitch and very, sat next to Death's chair. A small silver framed picture of his granddaughter sat next to a bright yellow pair of rubber gloves that Albert had left.

SQUEAK! The Death of Rats appeared on the table from the ether.

HELLO. BUSY DAY? Death greeted his cohort. Death didn't usually do small talk, not really much use for it in his line of work. YES, YOU'RE DEAD. YES IT'S A SHAME. NO, YOU CAN'T PUT YOUR HAND IN MY RIBCAGE type of thing.

EEK! EEK! The Grim Squeaker replied, pointing towards the lifetimer room.

REALLY? Death said, the soul light blue pin pricks that served as eyes narrowed as he listened intently. One of the perks of being Death was you didn't just hear sounds, you could hear life itself, in this case he heard every single grain of sand in each and every timer.

Normally it's a symphony of sounds, but now it was a single, unified hiss. If he had skin, it would have crawled.

Albert would have said "On a scale of one to buggered, I'd say we left buggered at the last station, guv!"

Rising from his chair, he stalked towards the room, robes billowing like liquid night behind him. His bony feet clacking on the black and white chequered tiled floor, the doors swung open silently for him (his bones creaked enough, so he didn't need his house mocking him) and he almost flowed into the timer room.

His eyes darted around in their sockets, every timer had changed. Each had the exact same amount of sand left to go.

Spinning around, he walked over to a large picture of the room, which contained a large picture of the room ad infinitum. His skeletal hand pressed a concealed button secreted on the frame, there was a unearthly howl (he was proud of installing the security system himself, although some spare wire, a screw and a fiddly plastic piece that wasn't in the instructions that were left over still niggle him) and then... Nothing.

SOD IT! Death muttered, phasing his hand through the wall he retrieved a tiny timer, draped in cobwebs and dust.

LUNGS WOULD BE USEFUL RIGHT ABOUT NOW! He said to himself, unable to blow them off. He resigned himself to rubbing it on his robes.

Tiny glowing letters embossed into the glass read 'A'TUIN'. The sands within were running low.

Chapter 7

In the inevitable and universal truth of things, Nanny found Terry , as with all deceptively thin looking older people, to be heavier than he looked. After what seemed like forever she managed to pull his limp body off the floor and dump him unceremoniously onto the chair. Greebo fired the unconscious stranger a baleful look of contempt before returning to pulling bits of sack from between his jagged claws.

Nanny was exhausted and slumped into her armchair by the fire, pulling the cabbage brandy from the magical place of storage (N-space?) that all old ladies seem to have (along with bus tickets, loose change, boiled sweets, tissues, lint and odd buttons).

'You little buggers may as well come out.' Nanny called, wafting the open bottle of booze.

'There's nae wan here but us wee mice...er...squeek!' Came a voice from the skirting.

'Shhh ya fool! The hag's nae supposed to ken we're here!'

There was thick sounding thud and a small table in the corner of the room shook, vibrating the cheap ornaments that rested on it.

Nanny chuckled to herself. 'Well then, you'll not be after any of Nanny's special drink?'

'The wan whey the wee bits in?' A small voice questioned.

'Hmm. It'd be a pity if old Nanny Ogg left the key to 'er little stash lyin' around, eh?'

'Aye... Aye it would. But we cannae. Yon kelda would hae hot pokers up oor ar... kilts! An' nee half measures neither!'

'Ok...' said Nanny, 'How about this. I be askin' you some questions, you stay hidden and I don't actually "see" ya, I go to yon privvy leaving my key, I come back and don't notice the missing bottles?'

After some brief mumbling and swearing the voice replied.

'Aye, ask yer questions, hag'.

'Who' 'e?' she said, nodding towards Terry, now cuddling a cushion and snoring softly.

'An Fear Duch... The Ink Man.' The words were whispered with reverence.

'Wossat about a duck?' Nanny Ogg said, sitting up in the chair.

'Ach, we thought it was an auld kelda's tale, passed down wee yan te wee yan, ye ken? Nae wan can remember where it came frey. Hoo aboot a wee dram afore we tell ye?'

Gytha Ogg's voice turned to iron.

'You'll tell me the story, or I fetch the town lawyer!'

'Crivens! Ok, ok. But I dinnae think yer pal there will believe ye in the morn!'

In his cell, Rictus Grinn sat and pondered his future which if all went well would be a happy one. Well, happy for him, though maybe not for those he met. His thoughts turned to his latest acquaintance. He'd seen god-complex phantoms before, they were all usually very dramatic, but take away all the special effects and you basically had a bed-sheet with a big voice bent on conquering the world.

This one had simply appeared in his cell about a week ago without so much as a rattling chain or ethereal moan. Just popped up and stood there, well floated to be accurate.A black smoke-wrapped figure.

HAHA! KNEE BEFORE ME, MORTAL! FOR I AM THE ENDER OF ALL!

'All what?' Rictus had replied blankly, as was his way.

ALL OF EVERYTHING!

'Oh, that's nice. If I don't?'

WELL... I'LL KILL YOU, TO BE HONEST

'So your saying, if I heard you right, you want me to kneel before you, ender of all, and if I don't you'll kill me?' he asked.

EXACTLY

Rictus smoothed back his lank, black hair.

'So then it figures that you are planning on destroying this world, being that your the ender and all, and therefore my kneeling is immaterial since I will die anyway.'

YES... BUT ONE IS SOONER THAN THE OTHER, I ASSURE YOU

The cogs of Grinn's mind were oiled with crazy juice, but spun and ticked like clockwork.

'That really still isn't a very good incentive. I mean kneeling before the ruler of all things sounds way more tempting, and you don't have to kill yourself at the end when all else is said and done.'

The column of smoke wavered briefly, seemingly shrinking slightly.

'Let me put it another way' Grinn said, now laying back in his cot, knowing he'd found the loose thread in the metaphorical bed-sheet. 'People don't like death, it's rather too permanent. Enslavement on the other hand is a lot less... terminal.'

YES...WELL...I DON'T KNOW... THE PAPERWORK IS A NIGHTMARE! VERY WELL MORTAL. I SHALL RETURN...

Rictus's thoughts returned to the present. Manipulation had always been his strongest ability.

Chapter 8

Big Yan, Hamish, Jock and Wullie sheepishly emerged before Nanny Ogg, and stood looking at the floor.

'We don't stand on ceremony in this 'ouse. Sit 'ere by yon fire and tell me a tale.' Nanny's voice softened, she understood that the kelda's word was important to the Feegals, and they were breaking it now.

The four pictsies sat by the hearth and took a thimble of brandy from Nanny.

Big Yan cleared his throat.

'Lang afore even the wee folk walked the Disc, there was naught but chaos. An' I dinnae mean the milkman neither. Just a hoolin' void, ye ken?' he said, waiving his with gusto. The Feegals love to tell stories, mostly about themselves committing daring acts of robbery, unimaginable acts of drinking and saga proportion battles against innumerable "numpties".

'The story goes that yon bigjob droolin' on tee his pillow there took the Great Stylus of Creation... Bal-Poynty-Pen, an' the Scrolls of Imagination, and wrote us in tee existence. He is, oor waz, the fate o' fates. Needless tee say but it's nae great news if he's here, aye?'

'Is that it?' Nanny asked. 'You look suspicious, an' there ain't nothing more suspicious than someone trying not to be suspicious... You wanna be tellin' your old nanny everythin'. Every-thing!'

'Oor kelda says he brought some nasty wee universe eatin' beastie...' Wullie blurted out, having downed his brandy and was now wearing the thimble as a helmet. Big Yan walloped it further on to his head.

'Waddya dee that fer?' The voice was muffled. 'I cannae see and there is nae a light switch... an' it reeks o' cabbages ya bastards! Gerritoff!'

Whilst Wullie staggered around yanking on the stuck thimble, Nanny turned to Big Yan.

'So dear, what's the village idiot of the blue folk on about then?'

'Tha's all I ken, the kelda didnae say more'.

Nanny believed him. It was an hour or two till dawn so after allowing the Feegles another thimble of brandy she sent them, under protest, to bed before dozing in her chair.

Greebo slinked down from the rafters where he had hidden at the first sign of Feegle and settled on her lap.

'You shee, cobber, wha' wha' I don't undershtan', yeah, is why the bloody hell would ya wanna tie a kangaroo down fer? Mean, scratchy buggas. When...when a bloke is stuck in the outback without a Sheila, an' hesh all alone, maybe, but not for fun... Time for another tinny me thinks!' Rubba Bandi stated, struggling to stand. A mountain of empty cans formed a mini landslide.

'Ah 'strewth! The beers gone! Why is the beer always gone?' He paused. 'Oh yeah, cos I've normally pished it up the dunny wall haha...' and with a resounding thud landed unconscious on the floor of the Oblong office. The patrician sighed. Castlestein Sixecks was the beverage of choice for a class of people in the city Vetinari liked to call 'bridge support', since this is where they would normally be found, passed out under a sheet of cardboard. "Brewed for the multiculture!" was its slogan, which to the patrician's knowledge meant it was lethal to any species.

'Drumknot, be so kind as to have this... beverage... placed on the dungeon supplies list, and have the guard take Mr. Bandi to a suitable cell.'

'Cell, sir?' Drumknot said, already scribbling on a request form.

'Diplomatic relations, Drumknot. I believe it's customary for them to be arrested at least once on holiday. They collect custody receipts like postcards.'

'Ah, very good sir. The charges?'

' I believe drunken disorderly, vagrancy without a licence, breaking and entering, indecent exposure, travelling without appropriate documents and unlawful use of a loincloth should suffice.' Havelock replied, absent mindedly.

'I don't believe that's a crime, sir.' The aide offered.

'Really?' The patrician's eyebrow raised half an inch. 'Is not, or was not?'

' I see sir. Was not, sir. I'll fill the paperwork in presently!' With that he spun sharply on his heel and headed out the door. As an inebriated mystic in an ill fitting mime outfit was dragged to the cells Vetinari stood before the wall to ceiling window looking out over the sprawling city.

The first rays of dawn crept over the horizon, it would soon be mugged and raped by the fumes that loitered with intent over Ankh-Morpork.

There was a commotion in the ante-room to the Oblong office, known to the guards as The Lair of the Paper Counter, and the doors burst open. Two palace guards were clinging vainly to a young woman in thick yak skin boots, trousers and jacket. Her blond hair attempting to remain in a ponytail.

'My lorg...' one guard said, head dragging along the marble floor. 'We, ow, tried, ow, to stop 'er!'

'My lord Vetinari!' She beamed. ' Professor Kuppa Oolong, such a pleasure to met the patrician of Ankh-Morpork.' She held her hand out, quickly taking it back and removing the yak-skin mitt before returning it. 'Terribly sorry for the intrusion. I'm afraid I had to circumvent protocol and come straight here.'

'Do I have any competent staff in my employ?' he growled at the dishevelled guards picking themselves of the floor.

'Oh it wasn't their fault, your Lordship I used my grappling irons and shimmied up the drain pipe. I assure you, my companions are dealing with the paper trap at the front entrance with the required amount of despair'. She smiled, noting Vetinari simply looking at her hand.

Vetinari was impressed. Countless assassins, mercenaries and ne'er do-wells had attempted to scale the walls of the palace, only to see an animated gargoyle wielding some sharp scissors near their ropes. Various other insidious traps protected the palace, such as open windows that dropped the entrant into deep, dark pits, false sewers filled with psychotic rats and acid but the greatest was the Paper Trap. Fiendishly simple and effective, you simple give anyone wishing to see you an infernal amount of paperwork to read, departments to visit, forms to be signed, countersigned, copied in triplicate and then verified by snail mail (slow but steady). The desired effect is the visitor gives up in despair, and leave with the intention of never returning. Only lawyers, bureaucrats and Drumknot manage to get past. After that lawyers and bureaucrats are normally just shot, for humane reasons.

Sensing his surprise, Kuppa laughed. 'You assassins labour under the impression that you are devious. I assure you most are, but have you ever had to bypass a three barrel Yeti Toilet trap? Or a dwarven Hammer Trap of Lesser Consciousness? I am from a long line of Igorians that have served temple robbers, grave bandits... You could say it's part of me. These hands...' she wiggled her dainty fingers. 'My grandmothers. Finest lockpick you could find, one of her students was Mr. Brown, may he rest in piece. My feet and legs, my uncle who is rumoured to have climbed every peak on the Hub, and very shapely for a mans'

'Indeed.' interrupted the patrician. 'But to the point in hand, if you will excuse the pun.'

'Ah yes. How rude of me. You requested a survey of the Hub.' She unslung a canvas backpack and passed him a battered, ancient scroll and a tarnished name plate.

'Well...?' she asked as he scanned the paper.

He briefly met her twinkling blue eyes with his gaze.

'Curious...' he replied.

Chapter 9

Albert, or Alberto Malich formally, had never had what you could call an easy life. Short, bad tempered with a face like a bag of spanners he really had drawn the short straw. His only saving grace was his magical talents, or were to be precise. It was those magical talents that had landed him the job of shovelling out Binky's stables and babysitting Death, for eternity.

Back in the day, roughly two thousand years ago, he had the notion of founding a magical working men's club. Him and few of his wizarding colleagues, some fine food and beer and most importantly, no wives nagging them to do chores, take the dog out, wash their underwear often enough so they didn't stand up on their own (although giving the magical nature of the Disc, no amount of detergent could ever solve that problem!) that sort of thing.

He had even given the club an acceptable name so the wives were happy. 'The Ankh-Morport and district University of Magical Studies'... well, it sounded better than "the place me and my friends hang out, get hammered on decent booze and look at girly pictures". More and more members joined, he even picked up the official sounding title "High Arch chancellor of the First Order to the Ankh-Morpork (and districts) University of Magical Studies" which was great until realised that "of the First Order" meant just that. He had to always buy the first round.

One day he heard a friend telling his wife he was off to university, and she had complained she'd never seen it. Quick as flash his friend retorted that because it was magical, it was an unseen university, and so the name stuck.

Any witch will tell you that if you get a lot of men in the same room drinking and throw some magic in for good measure, eventually they will believe they can actually do it. And that is exactly what happened, the newer boys actually started learning things.

Knowledge is an rare epidemic, and soon word spread and before long the original bar was converted into a grand hall and rooms began to sprout off like toadstools. Eventually they ran out of outwards and so began to sprout upwards and the rest, for that place, was history. As for Albert, well, he was getting on in his years and decided that meeting Death was not on his to-do list and so performed The Rite of AshkEnte (magically summoning Death to you and BLOODY ANNOYING) backwards which failed with spectacular results.

Well, when you're standing literally at Death's door, and the Grim Reaper is looking at you like a double-glazing salesman, you have to think quick and he did. Offering his services as a domestic assistant seemed to amuse Death and so gained " A JOB WITH VERY LONG TERM PROSPECTS, JOB SECURITY AND EXCELLENT HEALTHCARE".

Two millennia later, shovelling shit!

Albert stuck his shovel into the mound of manure, wiped his wrinkled brow and stared up the black clouds racing across the blacker sky. At least Death had remembered to make the moon white-ish. Gobbing up a chunk of lung-butter, he fished around in his pockets and produced a slightly damp rollie and lit it up. The acrid fumes were the sort that hide around dark corners and rob old ladies. Death had stopped him smoking indoors as he was tired of rehanging the wallpaper.

He saw Death stalking across the courtyard looking, well, grim and dropped the cig into the manure pile.

When he came around moments later a manure spattered and slightly burnt Death loomed over him.

'Evenin', gaffa, any chance of a hand up?' He grabbed the reluctant skeletal hand and yanked himself up.

ALBERT, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

The manservant brushed the smouldering horse droppings of himself.

'Someone tryin' to top the 'Ogfather again? You can feckin' well forget me wearin' the hat!'

NO, THIS IS MORE... SERIOUS. MY he paused thinking of the correct term FATHER IS COMING TO VISIT

Albert's eyes widened. They had spoken of his father before, albeit briefly, and his visits are normally preceded by "The End is Nigh!" signs popping up, sudden discount sales and record conversions to whatever religion is popular at the time.

All Albert could say was 'Keepin' alright, then, is he?'

Two things woke Nanny Ogg up that morning The first, and admittedly best one, was the smell of bacon crisping in matured beef dripping (matured by way of not being cleaned out of the pan for months. It was a cardinal sin to wash Nanny Ogg's frying pan till the congealed fat started to breath again and make a run for the door); the second, and definitely not so good, was the shrill scream of Wosyername (as good as any, Nanny thought, saves actually having to remember their real ones), daughter in law.

'Rats!' She screamed. 'Little blue rats in skirts!' She was stood up on a stool, clasping a heavy iron skillet.

A bleary eyed, tired and slightly less than jovial Gytha Ogg sighed, stretched and with a chorus of ancient joints popping, snapping and even cracking she stood up. Any other morning and it would have took all the gods on the Disc to shift her before a cremated bacon sarnie smothered in Paternal's brown sauce and at least a gallon of strong tea.

'Wha's the racket for, you simple girl?' She tried to shout over the screams.

'Aye, bigjob... Who ye callin' a rat? If ye was nae a skirty, I'd heedbutt ye through tee net week, ken?' Yelled Big Yan.

At this point, Hamish had his hands over his ears crying 'Banshee!', Jock was raiding the pantry, and Wullie had picked a fight with his own reflection in a copper pan base. A traumatised Greebo sat shaking his head in the corner after thinking the door was open, running at it full speed, and then realising it wasn't.

'Mornin'!' Jock called swinging back across the room via bunches of drying herbs on the ceiling with a string of sausages around his neck.

'Nanny, hoo de ye shut this thng up? Ma heeds aboot te explode!' Said Big Yan, still shouting.

'Hey, ye ken there's an ahrange feegle ooer here tryin' te start a fight!?' Came a voice from Wullie's direction.

Nanny shook her head and sighed again. Witches have many abilities, but now Nanny used a one that comes with being an old woman.

'Right! That's enough of that!' Her voice could have stopped a battalion of Big Jim Beefs (City Watch troll that makes Detritus look diminutive). Everyone in the kitchen froze, even Wullie sat up after head butting the pan.

'You... wos-yer-name.. gimme me skillet back and check that bacon. These are the Nac Mac Feegles...' at which point she scream again. Only louder.

'Gimme strength!' Nanny proclaimed. 'You four! Yes, I'm talking to the four thieving blue midges. Gerrout me kitchen an' check on wassisname... Terry. Girl! Bacon sandwiches all round, and a pot of tea... strong. Well...? Don't stand there with yer trap open catching flies! Move!'

'No need, Nanny Ogg. I'm up.' Came a voice from behind her.

Terry wandered casually into the kitchen, smiling.

'Wossup with you, dear? You been at Nanny's 'ome brew have you...? Sneaky old bugger!' She said, but the fact he was still vertical indicated otherwise.

'No, Nanny. I'm just waiting to wake up... I mean little blue men in skirts...'

'Ach, there kilts ye big numpty!' A voice from the sitting room chirped in.

'Witches and...and trolls! What next? Frankenstein's Monster? It's all a dream, it's got to be... hasn't it?' Terry asked hopefully.

'Don't know 'bout any dreams, my lovely, but that Frankenwotsit fella might be from Uberwald...'

'Ow! Shi...Sugar!' yelped Wosyername, dropping the hot frying pan. As unluck would have it, it landed on the handle of a very large knife (which Hamish had been using to stab at a large ceramic chicken with eggs in) protruding over the edge of the bench. In a flash it was carving a lethal trajectory towards Terry, who suddenly panicking covered his head, awaiting the pain. When nothing happened he peeked out from behind his arms, where the knife floated inches from him.

'Erm? Nanny?' He asked, the knife now the centre of his universe.

'Bugg'r'd if I know... You want to to try another one?' She asked, as amazed as he was.

He now prodded the knife gingerly, and to his amazement it vanished, leaving only stunned on-lookers and the faint outline of the word 'knife' hovering for a second before it seemed to evaporate.

'Well' said Nanny. 'Even I don't see that everyday!'

Chapter 10

The patrician sat quietly at his desk pondering the future of his city, the crossword in his paper only half done. By now the palace was filled with the hum of everyday life, yet it all seemed so distant.

'… and so I said "Don't worry, I'll teach him some manners and then, being a lady, I would mend anything vital I had broken" haha...' Kuppa sat across from him, and had been recanting her tales of adventure for the last hour. Several mentions of 'other business' had fallen on deaf ears (probably one of her less welcome inheritances, he mused) all the while she was devouring a heaped plate of eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, grilled bread and fried potatoes. He recalled something about a yeti and a bar bet, then had drifted off into his own world.

'I thought a gentleman would at least pretend to be interested in what a lady is saying, don't you think?'

'Of course. I'll get Drumknott to pick some up for you...'

'Lord Vetinari! I must say I am most disappointed..' she laid down the cutlery and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. 'The Disc renowned Lord Havelock Vetinari, more lives than a cat, graduate of the Honourable Guild of Assassins. Rumoured to have taught a vampire about manipulation and deception! A man who moulded a city to his will! A man who has a secret bedroom under his wardrobe...'

The patrician snapped back to reality.

'Mrs..' he began.

'Professor, actually. Miss, if you must. I prefer Kuppy, but I doubt that is of any relevance...' She cut in.

'Professor Oolong, I have spent most of my life being shocked at the stupidity of so called "professionals" seeking to end my tenure in this position, albeit admittedly I instigated a few of them myself. I confess I have troubling issues at the moment that weigh heavy on my mind, and yet you trouble me more.'

Lord Vetinari was troubled. It had taken the approach of the end of the world for someone who intrigued him.

'By that, Professor, I do mean if the right money had crossed the wrong hands, I could wake up with you in my bed, holding a dagger to my throat!'

'Lord Vetinari!' Kuppa giggled. 'You are very forward for a person in your position, aren't you? You need not worry though. As a lady, you understand, such things are unthinkable. I prefer to find people already dead for my hobbies and...ahem... academical research. These pressing matters you spoke of... Doom, Destruction. Generally a very un-jolly time for all type of scenario?'

There was an awkward pause, something which in this office should have been framed, as the patrician found this... this Igorina of modern thinking completely dismantling his world.

'Oh come now patrician! I must be right otherwise I'd have the company of Cedric for breakfast, and not you! People forget that us Igorians, as we are now, have a vested history in the Disc. Every body-part stitched, glued, taped and bolted on has what we in the trade call "inherent memories". We have the most diverse family outside of Lancre. Is it any wonder Igors of old were long gone before the first hill billy waved a pitchfork at his master?' She paused for effect, but not long enough for the patrician to speak. Her bones seemed to shift beneath her skin as her eye milked over, and a hunch emerged over her shoulder.

'Thisth ith what people thee, when you mention an Igor! Yeth, mathter. No, mathter. Of courth I'll hold the lightning rod for you, mathter.'

With a wince, her body returned to its previous form.

'I do apologise, my lord.' She said slightly weaker. 'Generations of servitude can cause some psychological distress. The point was trying to make was, if something is going to happen to his, her or it's home or master, an Igorian knows, packs and legs it, to put it bluntly, sir.'

Vetinari sat back, paused, and then smiled.

'Any ideas how to stop it?'

She smiled back and nodded.

Death stood on a hill over looking the manor, the eternal wheat fields billowing although no wind blew. The spectral clouds above him began to slow and gather, thunder echoed from far over the blackened moors of his domain.

'This isn't goin' to be like last time, is it guv?' Albert asked, sitting on a black fence, wheat stalk sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

NO, ALBERT, I DON'T THINK EVEN I CAN STOP HIM AGAIN

'"If all life is a book, may the next chapter never be the last!"' Albert quipped.

VERY POETIC.

'Yeah, well, it was when I was trying to avoid that bloody raven of yours, little sod keeps trying take my eyes out! I found this lying around. Thought you'd probably misplaced it.' He said, handing Death an ornate life timer.

"Si Liber Vitae Non Sit Ultimus Capite Sequente" was embossed around the base.

Death rolled the timer between his fingers, gazing intently.

HMMM... CRYSTALINE ATRAMENTUM LIBRARIUM... WRITING INK.

He was referring to a black powder in the bulb, which wasn't running.

'Wossup, boss?' Albert asked, noticing the tilt of his skull.

THIS IS NOT ONE OF MINE. NOTICE THAT THE SAND, AS IT WHERE, DOES NOT MOVE.

'Yeah...So?'

SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF, WELL...ME, IS ON THE DISC. I HAVE NOT SENSED ANYTHING DIFFERENT. EVERYTHING IS ENDING EXCEPT...

'Yeah, yeah, boss. Ain't getting any older here!' Albert grumbled.

WHOEVER THIS BELONGS TO AND AZRAEL

'Even you can't be everywhere at once, guv, and we need to find this one quickly!'

AGREED. YOU WILL NEED TO START THE SEARCH, AND I WILL DIG UP SOME OLD FRIENDS

'You're on about the boys? How will I start the search? I can't leave here!

I BEG TO DIFFER. Death said. I WAS SAVING THIS FOR YOUR NEXT MILLENNIUM PARTY... BUT SINCE IT APPEARS THAT MAY BE UNLIKELY...

The normally placid blue of Death's eyes exploded like a supernova, and bathed Albert in hell-fire red. The black soil of the ground began to shake, Albert fell off the fence and landed unceremoniously on his backside. Before him the land erupted and two black stallions in full funeral plumage burst through, pulling an ornate closed-back hearse. They, and the carriage, were bathed in a blue glow.

'Wot the...!?' Albert proclaimed, struggling to his feet.

The magnificent horses champed and whinnied, shaking the dust from their black velvety manes. Silver skulls adorned the blinkers, but that didn't hide the fact that their eyes were the same baleful red as their creators.

I BELIEVE THEY CALL IT A "COMPANY CARRIAGE". AS OF NOW, YOU ARE FREE TO COME AND GO AS YOU PLEASE PROVIDED YOU STAY CLOSE TO THE CARRIAGE.

'I...I...don't understand, guv.'

I WAS PLANNING A VACATION TO BE HONEST. I THINK I WILL NEED ONE AFTER THIS IS OVER. WHERE EVER YOU GO IN THIS, YOU WILL BE PART OF THIS REALM. I ADDED A FEW EXTRAS, AS THEY ARE CALLED IN THE TRADE

''Ere! An ashtray! And fluffy skulls! I don't know what to say...'

HOW ABOUT TELLING ME YOU ARE OFF TO FIND OUR MISSING IMMORTAL?

'Yessir...' he said scampering over to the carriage and climbing up. He felt the power of Death's realm running through the reigns.

'Let's take you nags for a spin then... G'YUP!'

The hearse thundered off into the distance.

I WONDER IF HE NEEDED THE INSTRUCTIONS? Death said to himself as he climbed up onto Binky. With that he dug his heel in and rocketed off into the skies.

Chapter 11

The missing immortal in question was, at this minute, having apples thrown at his head. Nanny was in the garden, sat in a rickety deck chair, with a bucket full next to her.

'Had still bigjob!' Cried Big Yan, lobbing another.

'Argh!' Shouted Terry, crushed apple dripping down his face.

'It is nae oor fault he's a wee bairn!'

'This...' Terry said, wiping his face. '… is ridiculous!'

'Oi... Lanky! Catch!' Wullie came out of the kitchen wielding a massive cleaver, and threw it straight at him.

'Enough!' Terry yelled, his hands flung up and the cleaver stopped.

'I didnae mean tha one, bigjob!' Wullie shouted again, and threw a meat tenderiser he had hidden behind his back.

'Stop!' His voice sounded deeper, more of a command than a request. Now with two suspended objects hovering, Nanny threw an apple.

The cleaver whipped around and hacked the apple into quarters, which also remained suspended.

' Ee! How you doin' that then?' Asked Nanny.

'I don't know... Just really, really didn't want anything else thrown at my head, I suppose.'

With a wave of his hand, the gravitationally challenged objects dropped into the grass.

Hamish, from the rooftop, shouted down.

'Try this ain fer size!' And threw Greebo who was, apparently, bloody furious.

Terry grinned, thinking of the scars on his back.

'Here...Kitty-kitty!' He growled under his breath. He caught greebo in a modified rugby catch, spinning around so his back was to Nanny and the Feegles.

'GREEBO!' Nanny called, leaping up the agility of a woman a third her age.

'I'm sorry, Nanny... There was nothing I could do!' Said Terry, struggling to contain a rather evil grin.

Turning around slowly, he saw Nanny's eyes widen in horror... then a smile almost cracked her face in half. Sitting in the palm of his hand was a tiny, fluffed up kitten with one eye, hissing a string of feline obscenities at Terry.

'Aw...' she cooed. 'Wha's the nasty man done to my baby... aw, you're so cute I could just gobble you, yes I could!' Tipping him on his back she began to tickle his belly. 'Boo! I gotcha!'

Despite himself, Greebo began to play catchy-fingers.

Death was at a loss. War had put his back out again after trying to spice things up with , Famine had given himself a sex change and was working as a runway model in Quirm under the name of Naiomi Lichen, apparently Death couldn't visit in case the other girls got jealous of his negative zero waistline. Pestilence, being a coward, was suddenly called away to visit a very sick, but nothing fatal so "Death needn't worry", aunty Jim so he was indisposed for the end of days.

Death now stood forlorn in a farmer's field, stroking Binky's mane, it was almost teatime in the human world and the sun hung above the horizon. Behind him storm clouds were brewing over the Hub.

'SLOWDOWNYOUBLOODYGLUEBAGSONLEGS!' came a scream from above the Reaper. He turned to see Albert clutching the reigns of the hearse as he plummeted to Earth. At the last second, the horses reared, levelling the carriage for a less vertical landing.

As white a bleached sheet, Albert stumbled off the driving platform and landed on his knees, kissing the ground.

EVERYTHING ALRIGHT, ALBERT?

'That was bloody terrifying!' the manservant replied, eyes wide. 'And sir, when you next build one of these things, please remember to put mudflaps o'er their arses. Riding on a flying horse is a bit bloody different to riding behing one, I assure you!' He paused to catch his breath. 'I have good news, an' then I have bad. Which would his Boniness like first, hmm?' Albert wheezed.

I WILL TAKE THE BAD FIRST, ALBERT

'No sign of the person we are lookin for...'

AND THE GOOD?

'There's a rumour going around that a friend of yours from Lancre, by the name of Ogg, has a new lodger. Might be worth a peek...'

If Death could of sighed, he would.

VERY WELL... BUT LEAVE THE BEER ALONE! IT HAS SENT ENOUGH WORK MY WAY OVER THE YEARS

With a heave, Death once again hoisted himself up onto the grazing Binky.

As Albert climbed back onto the hearse he noticed that the horses actually had name plates attached to their reigns. REST 'N PEACE

'Very droll...' he muttered geeing the stallions off.

'This is rather exciting, isn't it, Patrician?' Kuppa said as Lord Vetinari's carriage clattered over the trollhead cobbles.

'Indeed.' replied the Patrician dryly, wondering how this stranger had managed to persuade him to do this.

Their destination, Erzulie Gogol's Genuan Fried Chicken shack, located on the outskirts of Dimwell docks (Located may not be entirely accurate as the shack perambulates from place to place on giant duck's legs).

When they arrived, a throng of waifs and vagabonds swarmed around the carriage in the hope of some gentry tossing change their way. As Vetinari stalked out of the carriage, a hush fell over the crowd. He glanced around, face impassive.

'Right, ya bunch of dockrats, y'all be leavin' de big man alon' or Mama Gogol will be castin' some hexes in ya glumbo!' The speaker was a dark-skinned woman in her late fifties. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, with what looked like a sharpened chicken bone holding it in place, she wore a simple dress, tied at the waist with on old length of cord.

'Bonjou, Patrician. Bonjou, Kuppy.' She greeted them.

'Lape ant nou, Sosye!' (Genuan, basically: peace between us, witch) Vetinari spoke fluently.

'Bonjou Mama Gogol!' Smiled Kuppa.

Mama (as she was now known) looked at Havelock. 'You speak Genuan quite well, Seyeri (Lordship)...'

'I think I picked up a tour guide some place.' He replied, before turning to Kuppa. 'Did we stop for a snack, because I could have ordered in?'

Kuppa shot him a withering look.

'I apologise, Mama. Seyeri seems to forget his manners sometime. We need to talk.'

The Patrician's jaw dropped.

'It's his Lordship's privilege. Come, child. We go inside, yes?'

'After you, Mama.'

The interior of the shack contained stack of food covered plates, a massive cooking range with countless pots and pans bubbling away. Strings of bones hung from the roof, nestled alongside herbs and spices. Wicker chairs seem to have moved in an began a breeding programme.

Mama Gogol stood indicating they should sit.

'Tea, coffee, glumbo?' She ventured.

'No thank you.' Vetinari replied, trying to give his 'don't you dare!' look at Kuppa, who simply smiled sweetly.

'No, thank you Mama. I need your help... your particular type of help.'

Mama Gogol nodded knowingly. She took a bowl of gloop, dropped a pinch of dried herbs in, and swallowed it. After a moment she seemed to fall asleep. Several minutes passed before any sign of life, which was her breaking wind.

' I've seen what will be...' she muttered, semi-conscious. '...and Seyeri needs a nanny from the hills. Oh and child, I see a beau in your future, for all has changed to remain the same!'

Mama slowly fell back into a deep sleep. 'We better go.' Kuppa whispered, placing her hand on the Patrician's shoulder, causing a static shock. 'Bloody wool!' she whispered, blushing.

'Where to now?' He asked as they entered the carriage. He had resigned himself to the fact that this irrepressible woman was calling the shots... though for the life of him couldn't figure out how.

'Lancre, old boy! And don't spare the gee-gees!'

Chapter 12

There was in tension in the cells of Skinner's Institute as the evening drew in. There had already been two escape attempts and a particulily viscious assualt with a teaspoon, and all the while Rictus sat, waiting patiently.

A black vapour crept down the air shafts, swirling tendrils caressed the main door lever for the wing, and then all hell brokelose.

The Imp & Bellona String alarm system (literally) clanged into life, albeit briefly. Mr. Cuddles, a defective golem who crushed people to death for fun, wiped the imp shaped stain off his hand.

He was the first, behind him was Megalith Jones, a troll who after one too many faerie tales and a mountain face landing on his head as a child, began haunting bridges and eating children and goats. To the rear of his vast bulk, a thin man with the face of weasel. Mr. Mates, poor chap used to run a carriage inn until his dead mother reappeared, which would be enough to drive anyone psycho. Rictus Grinn stepped out behind the rest of of baying mob as Jones encouraged the doors, and half a wall, to let them past. The only patient who remained, due to an animated argument with himself, was Whozetaday, who had enough personalities to claim a group booking discount at the theater.

Taking a deep breath, and focusing, Grinn shouted over the chaos, 'To the city! Death to the unfaithful!' to his joy, the words spread like fire amongst the inmates.

Any member of the Watch will tell you, a person is smart(ish) and less prone to stupidity, a group is a little rowdy, but a mob will stab, kick, punch, bite and headbutt you at the same time, trip over you and complain about the body. Unified intelligence, or stupidity to be more precise. You only have to look at the Feegles.

Golems and guards were beaten back with zeal. Some even opted for suicide when cornered by Legit Childe, ex door to door salesman who would bore his victims to death with his monotone voice.

Soon, the institute was a smouldering ruin, and the adage 'All roads lead to Ank-Morpork' (some scholars argue that the original text was 'away from Ankh-Morpork, you're just heading the wrong way') were about to be tested.

'What is the hold up?' Vetinari called to the driver.

'Some old bag in the road, your lordship.'

'I'll "old bag" you in a minute, sonny!' Came an irritated voice also from outside.

The Patrician stepped down from his carriage. Stoo blocking the road was indeed an old woman, her face covered by a shawl.

'Madam, would you be so kind as to move. This is official state business.'

'Listen to me, you jumped up litt...ahem. I mean. Oh, sorry, your lordship. My legs ain't what they used to be, I'm but a humble washerwoman collecting sticks. I'll soon be out of your way. Does your young lady wish to buy some charms...er... I have...er... a twig, I mean the Twig of Yen Buddhism. You'll be loaded and happy! Or the...um...half eaten apple of...hmm, probably best not. Young ladies and apples don't really mix around these parts...'

'Look, who ever you are, just get out of the way!'

'Mind your tongue!' the old woman hissed, with a voice that could chisel iron. 'You're headed to Lancre... Give this to Nanny Ogg if you see 'er, your lordship. Is that a canteen I spy on there?' she said passing him a tatty envelope and pointing to the back of the coach.

'Lord Vetinari, give this lady a drink! Hospitality costs nothing!' Kuppa shouted from inside. The Patriarch rolled his eyes.

'I saw that!' she laughed.

'Very well. Wo...' he began.

'Tea, that fights back, with six sugars!'

He nodded to the driver who went to prepare the tea. 'Who shall I say sent this letter?'

The old woman removed her face covering enough to slurp a hot mouthful of tea. Havelock noticed the hooked nose and pointy chin.

'She'll know.' she said.

'Keep the cup, madam. Let's go!' he called to the driver, climbing back up. Kuppa peered back down the road to see it was now empty.

'Quick for an old hag, wasn't she?'

They sat quietly as the coach bumped and jostled dow the worn country roads, in the ancient, gnarled trees that lined the darkening roads owls hooted and screeched, and beyond the outline of a far forest a solitary wolf howled as it began to rain. Lightning streaked between the approaching storm clouds.

'It's beautiful out here, don't you think, your lordship?' Kuppa asked quietly.

'Indeed. I rarely visit the provinces for pleasure, my work, which I seem to have missed a lot of today, keeps me very busy in the city'. He replied. It was the truth, as being a popular dictator had its drawbacks.

'It must be very lonely, your job I mean? People only seeing you as a medium to their self-serving goals. That is why I decided to lose the hump so to speak. Helping people I can do, serving them... not so much!'

'We all have our reasons, Kup... Professor Oolong.'

Again, she found herself blushing.

Chapter13

Nanny, Terry and the Feegles sat watching the tiny Greebo, who presently resembled a ball of lint with a fuzzy pipe cleaner tail, rediscovering his youth. Every fabric surface was a mountain to climb, every mote of dust that glimmered in the dying sunlight through the window was an enemy to be vanquished, and the arch-nemesis...his tail, which he thought with paranoid conviction, was following him. This was made all the more adorable by his hissy fits, which sound like water hitting a hot metal plate, at a spider that swaggered from under the skirting boards, glanced at him and, in Greebo's mind, laugh.

As the arched-back killer of dust continued his heroic stand of with the eight legged interloper there was a knock at the door, or a KNOCK would be better way of putting it.

'Wha' sat?' Big Yan asked.

Nanny's face was stony.

'That is the sound of someone making the noise they think a knock should sound like... C'mon in, Bill.'

The door creaked open, accompanied by an ominous rumble of thunder. Outlined in the frame was tall cowled figure clutching a scythe.

'Evenin' Bill.' Nanny said, sharply. 'Business, or pleasure?'

NEITHER, NANNY OGG. I SEEK TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE SEEN ANY STRANGERS AS OF LATE?

'Lot's o' strangers in these 'ere parts. Be more exact!' she said, her voice had icicles hanging of it.

Terry awe-struck babbled. 'Is that...Are you Death?'

Death's skull almost span off his spine.

WHO SAID THAT?

'Me!' said Terry, standing up to look more closely at the skeletal figure.

Death waved his hand before him, passing straight through the curious Terry.

I ASSUME YOU ARE NOT ALONE, NANNY?

'No. There's yon Terry and few of the Feegle boys...Why? I thoughts you only couldn't see...true immortals...' her voice trailed off.

THIS TERRY. BEEN HERE LONG HAS HE?

'I'm stood right here!' Terry said, still waving.

'Stop waving yer arms, man. People'll think ye're touched in the heed. Auld Bonesack here cannae see us!' said Jock. The Feegle were still technically fae folk, although thrown out of fairyland for drunken disorderly, and not subject to the Reaper. This was the root of their belief that they were already dead, as nowhere else had so much beer, swag and brawls to be had.

BUT I AM NOT DEAF, JOCK MAC FEEGLE OF THE CLAN MAC FEEGLE

'Sorry' Jock muttered under his breath.

HIS ARRIVAL WAS NO COINCIENCE, NANNY OGG. IT WAS FATED

'No it isn't! The little bugger hid in me broom!'she replied.

NOT THE FEEGLE, NANNY OGG. THIS...TERRY YOU SPEAK OF. HIS ARRIVAL HAS BROUGHT THE RETURN OF AZRAEL, THE ENDER OF...

'Blahblahblah...' Nanny cut in. 'Wossis gotta do with 'im then. An' none of them fancy words you use, neither!'

I AM DEATH, I AM FINAL. AZRAEL IS MY DEATH AND VERY FINAL. I BELIEVE HE, TERRY, IS HERE TO STOP THE END

'You want me to believe that a fella that didn't even have undercrackers when I picked 'im out of a cabbage field last night can stop the end of the world?' Nanny laughed.

YES came the hollow reply.

With a hiss, a flourish of steam and smoke, and the squeal of metal on metal, the train slowly pulled into Ankh-Morpork station. Goblins scuttled from unseen dens and swarmed over the engine, oiling, greasing, polishing, tightening and tapping. A group in harnesses filled the water tanks from an overhead bowser, others sat on trolls, moving immense,industrial sized buckets of coal. The Gnolls (short, rubbish hoarding cousins of the goblin) emptied the vacant carriages of litter and debris. A row of golems stood by the exits, unmoving until provided with a ticket, each hand painted in the station colours. Passengers milled about on the platform as their luggage was loaded, as others sat at kiosks reading the paper or stood at the new portaclacks cabins (private boxes connected by a web of cables upto a central clack tower perched on the station roof). Signs hung around the station indicated that the 11:25 from Scrote was delayed due to "essential maintinence work", or as one irrate traveller put it "pulling another bloody zombie linesman from out of the wheels!".

To the rear of the train lay the stock cars containing larger items of luggage, TITs (trolls in transport), farming produce and other supplies. And a hoard of irrate psychopaths.

Megalith Jones opened the carriage door, with his head, showereing the shocked porters with exploded wood and iron fragments. Several other stock cars burst open also, and like ravenous insects they pounced on the nearby passengers.

Almost in his own little serene bubble, Rictus Grinn walked unscathed through the carnage. The stationmaster, Albus Fold, sat in his hightower office pulled the big red lever marked "Do Not Pull". A shrill whistle outside the station, alerting every watchman for about a mile.

More goblins poured from under the station, but the ones carried massive iron wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers and anything else they could lay their hands on.

' 'Ave at the buggers!' Fold shouted from the stairs. He heard a mumbling from the adjoining staircase, a very boring mumble, and turned to the deadpan face of Legit Childe bearing down on him.

'mumblemumblemumble!...mumble?' Childe's face contorted in confusion, and then pain.

'Yeah, same to you too you, you tadger!' Yelled Fold. He tapped his ear for good measure as a sabre blade Fold had concealed in his cane, slid back covered in blood. 'Deaf as a post, you goon!'

The yellow painted 'loader' trolls lumbered towards the advancing attackers, manic goblins barking orders in their ears. Several of inmates made it to the ticket golems and tried to run past, a minute later several dead inmates lay before the impassive golems.

The passengers and station patrons were huddled at one side of the platform, some of the bigger and braver ones formed a defensive line between the marauding attackers and those too young, old or frail to fight.

Dorlf, a golem on the watch, issued new directives to the ticketeer golems and as a single linked unit marched forward pushing the crazed escapees back, or were until nearly two ton of Megalith Jones smashed through them. Behind Dorlf, other City Watch poured through. Dwarves, gnomes, trolls, goblins, humans and even a zombie engaged in a pitch battle, half of the force just for Megalith Jones.

Captain Carrot, the tallest dwarf on the Disc (long story), shouted to Constable Fetcher-of-the-Night-Tea, quickest goblin in the city.

'Get to the palace...' he paused long enough to boot an axe-weilding inmate in the intimates, and head-butt another to the floor. '...Warn the Patrician!'

Chapter 14

Outside the Goat and Bush pub Nanny, Terry, the Feegles and Death sat looking glum.

'Well that was an anti-climax.' Terry said, swilling the last of his pint around the bottom of the tankard.

I NEVER SAID I KNEW WHEN OR HOW...

'Seh, all those drematics back at the hoose... and ye dinnae ken what's happening?' Hamish asked, perched on a nearby tree branch.

Nanny managed a feeble smile and said 'Yeah, not all logicial this heroing business, take it from me. In my exeperience, the hero is just whoever can run faster than everyone else!'

Death scratched his skull absent-mindedly.

I FEEL LIKE I AM MISSING SOMETHING...

'Ah cud name wan or two things!' Muttered Big Yan, stabbing the wooden table with his claymore.

'Aye...' Jock spoke up. 'It feels as though we're deein' wan o' those bairns puzzles, and no all the wee pieces are there, ken?'

'Well, my lovelies, sometime doin' nothin' is the right thing to do. Nanny needs another ale if I'm gonna be sittin' around out 'ere'. She said and stood.

'There's a carriage comin'!' Hamish shouted.

Death sighed.

DOES THE DRIVER APPEAR DISTRESSED AND SWEARING A LOT?

'Er..."Slow. Down. You. Pair. Of. Bast..." Aye! I'd say he's wee bit upset!'

THEN WE HAVE COMPANY

Moments later the black hearse clattered to a halt.

'Sir!' Albert wheezed, looking like an irrate goblin. 'When you... imagineered... this bloody thing, were these chaps, you know, "done"?'

I DON'T QUITE FOLLOW, ALBERT

Big Yan laughed. 'He means, did you hae their love spuds removed!' he said.

THEIR...OH. I DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD MATTER, REALLY

'I assure you, guv, it does... Ask the three riders and the stable lad they harrassed to get to the mares! Never seen it in tandem, fully hitched to a coach, before. Don't want to again... Is that beer?' Leaping down he grabbed the untouched ale Death had before him and gulped it back. Following a lengthy belch, he said 'Don't mind, do you guv?'

Death simply glowered.

'Oh and there's another coach coming, 'bout a mile out. Right posh lookin' one. Goin' like the clappers it were!' He added as an after thought wiping beer foam from his scraggly beard.

They all turned to see the coach lanterns in the distance bobbing and weaving through the country lanes.

'Ach! They're fast horsies, no?' Wullie said, his head moving in rythmn with the distant lights.

NOT MANY HORSES MOVE AT THAT SPEED, NORMAL HORSES ANYWAY...

Death said.

Jock laughed. 'Puzzle, meet piece. Piece, meet puzzle!'

'Well...' said Nanny. 'This is nice!'

There was a odd feeling of uncomfort among the assembly outside of the Goat and Bush. A witch, four ex-faeries, a planetary interloper, the Grim Reaper and his virtually historic butler, a new-age Igorina and the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork stood looking at each other.

'Beers, anyone?' Kuppa asked.

'Mrs. Ogg...' The Patrician began.

'I don't care what fancy name you give yoursel' in the city, my boy, but outs 'ere I'm Nanny Ogg, and don't you be forgettin' that!' she replied, waving an empty tankard at Kuppa. 'There you go, my girl.'

'Nanny Ogg, some... crone gave me this, she was adamant you were to get it. Now I assume someone here actually has a clue what is going on?' He said, between gritted teeth, and passed Nanny the envelope. 'Now, I've the strangest day I can remember so I suggest we move on.'

GOOD EVENING, LORD VETINARI, HAVEN'T HAD CALL TO VISIT THE PALACE AS OF LATE. CEDRIC IS NOT ILL AGAIN, IS HE?

The Patrician's face remained impassive as he fixed his gaze on Death.

'No.' came the curt reply. 'Is the world going to end?'

YES Death replied.

Death suddenly turned his gaze in the direction of Ankh-Morpork, as though listening.

'Hadaway, ya bony bogie! I think we'd ken if things were goin' doon the crapper!' Big Yan stated.

'What did I miss?' Kuppa said coming back from in the bar laiden with beers.

'Apparently, the world is ending as we speak... and were stood here!' Terry said, grabbed a tankard and draining it in one draught.

'So, let's assume I'm not dreaming, and work this out. I, for no apparent reason, land in a cabbage patch in this world, meet you Nanny, who claims to be a witch and little blue men in ski...kilts, from Fairyland? Correct so far? Good.' He said without pausing.' I get assaulted by a psychotic cat, learn I can manipulate objects with my mind and finally meet the Reaper...and Albert? Miss anything? Oh yes... The end of the bloody world! And you, wasyername, Patrician? You and your girlfriend roll up just as all hell is breaking loose, why?'

'Er, breathe ya numpty!' said Hamish as Terry's face began to turn beetroot.

'I'm having a nervous breakdown... I must be!' he whimpered, downing another flagon.

'Professor Kuppa Oolong, I work for his Lordship's... antiquities department, shall we say. May I?' She looked at Vetinari.

'Be my guest...' he replied.

'Thank you.' she smiled. 'To continue. Several days ago I found various artifacts for sale in a village market near the Hub. They were marked as Hubian, but like nothing I'd seen. A little digging, some very obscure texts, and a bet with a drunken Yeti and I find the Payperwayt Temple. In there I found manuscripts and a name plate.' She paused to swig a very unladylike amount of beer before continuing. 'The manuscripts are as old as any I have ever seen, yet they included future, at the time, events written in the past tense, as though the writer could see or somehow knew the future. Like the writing of Noddyramus, only accurate... and devoid of insanity. The Great Revolution, the invention of the Clacks, the postal service revival, banking modernisation, the steam engine... Yet the most modern manuscript depicted some girl called Tiffany, some chalk and a talking shell.' She turned to Vetinari 'The quote you received was scrawled as a footnote, I thought it safer than revealing the truth till I could see you in person. I apologise.'

WHAT WAS THE FOOTNOTE, MISS OOLONG? Death interrupted.

'It's Professor, sir. We ladies must preserve our earned titles...' She winked at Nanny, then continued. 'Including those women of negotiable affection. As for the message, "Chalk shall take it's mind. Two crowns shall come forth. One of paper and ink. The paper god shall fall and rise". Lord Vetinari has informed me of recent events, never like faeries anyway...'

'Watch it, big job! We're still here, aye!' Jock said.

' No offence to the Feegle. Once I met Hav...um, Lord Vetinari, we found our way here.'

'Can I just say...' said Albert. '...the world IS still ending, apparently!'

Chapter 15

'Does the name "Terry" mean anything to you Nanny?' asked Kuppa.

'I'm a Terry' Terry replied, looking awkward as he said it. 'Why?'

'The name plate... Terry was the name on it'. Kuppa groped in her backpack and pulled out an ancient scroll. 'Does this mean anything to you?'

Terry rolled the scroll out.

'Hamish, Jock...Would you?' he asked, indicating for them to hold the edges down.

'Nee bother!' they answered.

Terry stared for a second then said 'Wait...anyone got a pen?'

Vetinari reached into his jacket lining and produced a fountain pen

'I want it back. It's still property of the guild.'

Terry sat and scribbled 'This is impossible! It's my handwriting... But...I don't understand!'

A crow landed on the table and looked at the Patrician,

'Awk!'

He reached out and removed the small message tied to it's leg. His eyes narrowed.

'I need to head back, Ankh-Morpork is under attack... From itself! Professor Oolong you will remain here where it's safe for the moment..'

'Maybe in Ankh-Morpok you can boss people around, my Lord, but out here I will kick you in the pants! I'm coming with you. Nanny, here is where the temple is, see if you can find anything to help us.'

I WILL HEAD TO THE CITY...I AM NEEDED. ALBERT, TAKE THEM WHERE EVER THEY NEED TO GO

'Yes guv.' he replied.

'Ach, we'll go with Nanny. Ye never ken when a bear needs heed butted!' Big Yan smiled. 'Saddle up, boys!'

Vetinari climbed back int his carriage with Kuppa and hammered off into the night, with Death heading skywards on Binky.

'All aboard!' Called Albert. 'Always wanted to say that!'

Terry, Nanny and the Feegles bundled into the back of the hearse.

A crack of the reigns and Rest n Peace launched like a rocket.

'This is exciting, isn't it?' Nanny grinned as the Feegles began singing warsongs and Terry cured up into a ball, whimpering.

The chaos spread through the lower districts of the city like wildfire. People suddenly found new reasons to rekindle old grudges, and if they hadn't been preoccupied with stabbing their neighbour to death over the garden shears that they may or may not still have, they would see a creeping mist winding its way through the cobbled streets, gunnels and avenues.

A black, insidious mist that crept through the little cracks in the windows, under doors, down chimmney, tendrils that groped through floorboards. It worked strongest on the weak minded, depositing itself in their minds, those who fought it, found themselves barring their doors and praying to the gods.

Entire streets became barricaded using old carts, barrels, boxes and furniture. Some didn't need to be coerced, in the Shades groups of thugs began charging for the privilege of protection.

Fetcher-Of-The-Night-Tea scuttled over the rooftops with an ease that would impress the Assassins Guild, leaping from building to building, scurrying over washing lines and struts. In the streets below he could see others of his own kind stripped of their Goblinity (goblin humanity, so to speak), reduced to swarming packs of biting, scratching animal. Worse still, the night sky was turned orange by the spreading fires in the poorer tenement areas, plumes of black smoke columned skywards.

The trolls however seemed impervious, and struggled to control the raging crowds. Detritus had left the train station, followed by five loaders (used as loaders because they make Detritus look smart, which is an achievement), and headed to the streets. Their job was to capture Megalith, who was currently smashing everything in sight.

Mr. Cuddles, the golem, was walking around the crowds with his arms out, and a badly scrawled sign reading "Bad Times? Free Hugs!", the fact he was dripping viscera probably save a few lives.

'You dere! You is under arrest!' Detritus called, wishing he'd brung his 2000 pound draw siege bow. Megalith turned, looked and sneered.

'You gonna make me, rock?'

'Der law is der law... and I is der law!' Detritus said, having to look up at Megalith. He was a big troll, but Megalith was a whole mountain of crazy.

'I is bigger and 'arder than you, smarter than you. Diamond dust in me head!'

Detritus backed away from the lumbering behemoth.

'Where you goin', pebble?' his small horse sized hands grasped for the retreating watchman, but missed.

'You ain't no troll. You are rock! You worship dem 'umans! You lick der boots!' His voice began to slow, the heat in his head overriding the diamond dust. Der 'umans feared Megalif as I gobbled up dem chidren like snacks. Da little bones are da crunchiest...'

'I is troll...' Detritus rumbled. '...But is good troll! No bridges or anyfin'! But also is coppa! Coppa has mates... Like 'im!'

A shadow enveloped Jones, and he turned, and after a moment realised he was staring at another troll's chest. No troll he'd ever met was bigger than him... But then he'd never met Bluejohn, loyal copper and one of the biggest trolls on the Disc! His fist was the last thing Megalith Jones remembered seeing.

Chapter 16

Havelock pulled the coach window down and shouted to the driver over the noise of the wheels and hooves.

'Driver, the Uberwald device, if you please!'

'Very good, your Lordship!' The driver called back, and pulled out a large helmet from under his seat and jammed it on his head.

Closing the window, the Patrician turned to Oolong. 'Hold on!'

The coach began to pick up speed before vanishing, leaving only two parallel burning tracks.

A multiverse of colours flashed past the windows.

'Ah... The Uberwald flux incapacitator!' Kuppa said in suprise. 'Only three exist! My second cousin on my left arm's side was the first test Igor, hence I got his arm. How does the driver survive?'

'I have some very creative dwarves in the city that enjoy their liberty.'

'Oh...And the horses?'

Vetinari gave a thin smile. 'Some Igors seem to think that it was me that set up the Institute for Igor Research... and I find the Igorses ("It'th alive, marther! It'th alive!... And running, marther! Bloody fatht!") outside the palace.'

'Why didn't you use it to get us here?' she asked, without sarcasm.

'It takes nearly a month to recharge after one use.' he replied.

After a few more minutes, the coach began to slow down and the world snapped back into focus outside the window. Kuppa gasped as the city came into view.

The carriage rattled through the gates and stopped.

'My Lord, the road to the palace is blocked!' The driver called down.

'Professor Oolong, I insist you remain here this time! And yes, we're back in my city!'

'My Lord, I protest! Please remember who are talking to!' She said, pulling a large diamond on a chain from around her neck. 'Genuan swamp troll, two years ago.' she rolled up her right sleeve, revealing jagged scaring covering her forearm. 'Two alpha male werewolves took a shining to me. So I said "Last one standing picks!", needless to say, I chose neither...'

'Quite, but this an angry mob.' The Patrician said, noticing a small congregation outside.

'Patrician... Angry mobs are what I do best!' With that she pushed the coach doors open, smashing a heavy set man brandishing a pitchfork in the face, the blood spattered over the windows.

'Oh sorry, old chum! Didn't see you there!' Her grin said otherwise.

'Get her!' one of the mob shouted. They began to move forward, but paused at the tall, sinister figure next to her.

'Driver, I expect my coach immaculate for tomorrow. Take the rest of the night off!' The patrician said.

'Yessir!' the driver said, sounding relieved. He crushed three assailants turning the coach and fled through the gates.

'Well, Professor Oolong. Would you care to take in the night air? The city is lovely this time of night.' His smile caused her to blush again, despite their current situation.

'Why, thank you, your Lordship. Riots, bloodshed, fires... concealed wrist daggers' she nodded at his hands. 'And deranged crowds intent on our death! A girl might think you are just showing off!'

'Maybe I am, Professor!' he replied, his eyes only leaving hers to scan the dumbfounded crowd.

'Shall we, Patrician?'

With that they waded into the throng.

Havelock was foucused, his every move calculated. He seemed to flow through the mob, bodies dropping in his wake, brief flashes of silver all that was seen. Kuppa, in contrast, was a tank. Bouldering her way through with haymakers, uppercuts, hooks, and sturdy boots in tender areas.

After landing her forehead squarly on a knife weilding woman's nose she turned to Vetinari, who seemed unruffled and composed.

'Oh drat! We forgot the picnic!' And they laughed.

The storm raged now, the thunder deafening and lightining bolts flew past the hearse as it flew through the night. Albert was pleased that the coach had some type of aura that kept him dry, but didn't stop his hair standing on end with the static build up.

'Ee! This is cosy, isn't it?' Nanny said, still grinning.

'How are you so cheery, Nanny Ogg?' Terry asked. Even the Feegles looked un-nerved, with the exception of Hamish, who was trying to find a way to get outside.

'Old magic, my lad!' She grinned.

'Aye...By the smell of it I'd say forty percent proof magic! The hag's bladdered!' Big Yan said, raising his voice over the storm.

' I'm not... just enough to take the edge off. Even as a witch you don't see the end of times everyday!'

'Oh god!' Terry moaned. 'We're doomed!'

'No we're no, unless the big job hits them moontins!' Hamish said, peering through the side windows.

Out of the clouds a jagged peak appeared and Albert pulled hard on the reigns, yanking the hearse left and then right to avoid another razor sharp crag.

'Ohshitohshitohshit!' he cursed, but the stallions pranced and cantered with ease over the mountain tops.

'Nearly there, Nanny...Om Almighty!' He shuted as a bolt of lightning skimmed past his head.

'Crivens!' Shouted Hamish. 'Get us ABOVE the clouds ye dafty!'

Pulling the reigns back, the stallions rose above the tempest, now riding the cloud tops. It was bitterly cold, and above them the heavens twinkled in the velvety shades of night. The moon shone pale light over the broiling storm clouds beneath them, making it look like rough, milky waters.

'Oooo... Ain't never seen this before! Granny would've love to have seen this...actually, now I think about it, she'd 'ave booted us in the rear for bein' stupid. And then asked for a cuppa.'

she paused. 'Just down 'ere Al, love!'

A small clearing in the clouds allowed them to descend without much hastle, up here the rain had turned into a whipping blizzard. The horses came to a halt outside of a small crevice in the cliff face.

'Right, you lot, bugger off! I'm off to make sure the gaffa ain't up to any mischief... not with out me, anyhow!'

There was a chorus of groans as the airsick Terry and three Feegles came off the coach just short of horizontal. Nanny and Hamish were unphased, Nanny's heavy boots crunching in the snow.

'Gerupyabuggers!' Albert shouted, and the horses bolted upwards.

'Am freezin' me wee free man off oot here, let's get inside, aye!' Said Jock, shivering, already up to his knocking knees in drift snow.

Above them, unseen, shadows were watching. Shadows with sharp flint knives and hungry, malicious yellow eyes.

'More robberssss...' the first shadow hissed. 'These onesss, we eat!' The other shadows hissed, gurgled and growled their consent.

Chapter 17

The entrance to the cave was expectedly dark, the wind outside howled and whistled through the gloom.

'I don't suppose anyone thought to bring a torch, did they?' Terry asked. 'With us going into caves and all...'

Nanny Ogg fished around in her unfathomable layers and produced a glowing crystal.

'It were a present off our Jason, I was supposed to put it on me broom, but found it more useful for the privvy out back of 'ouse.'

Nanny lead the way, followed by Terry, and the Feegles bringing up the rear. Kuppa had left marks on the walls, and so they followed them through the winding network of tunnels. Eventually it opened out into a large cavern that contained what looked like a lake.

Jock hopped over some large stones and landed on a little island just off the shoreline.

'Hey lads!' his voice echoed, and high above them in the darkness bats swarmed down and out towards the entrance. 'Check this oot! Who am I?' He squatted on the rock, face lit by faintly glowing algae 'It's oor birthday, and we wantsss it.'

'Knock it aff, you! Ye dinnae ken what's the water!' Hissed Big Yan.

'I'd like te see them try! Six inch a' pure Feegle, reet between the eyes!'

In the dark tunnels they had just entered by, they heard loose stones clattering.

'Nanny, we better move!' Terry said, heading further into the cavern.

'Cor! One o' you dirty buggers drop their guts?' Nanny said sniffing the air.

Wullie broke his silence by saying 'Smells like that wee bastard we caught thieving those sheepsies... ach, we stole them first, tee!'

'Aye, I remember!' Said Hamish. 'Smelly wee devil!'

'What was it?' Nanny asked.

'A wild hill goblin...' Big Yan said, his hand reached for his claymore. 'They're no like city goblins! They're feral wee shites, but clever. I remember seein' a pack hunt wance, wasnae pretty.'

Hamish and Jock unsheathed their swords, Wullie on the other hand unhitched a large club with a nail through it (on account of the fact he kept stabbing himself and anyone within five inches of him with his sword!).

Big Yan continued as the walked further on. 'They're quiet as wee mice, watching and waiting, then they distract you from the rear to allow the lead pack to...'

A screech from the gloom ahead made them stop.

'Theivesss! Comes to stealss our goodiess!' A voice hissed.

'...Move in an cut ye aff!' Big Yan finished.

'Alright, laddies! Surround the hag and the big job. Tonight we fight!'

The glow from Nanny's crystal showed the leathery, leering faces of the goblins, each wearing varying degrees of animal remains and scraps of scavenged metal.

'Little blue verminsss die first!' The largest goblin growled.

'Whassat, you overgrown turd?' Hamish shouted. 'Ye ken who we are!?'

'Lunchesss!' another goblin said, a thin tongue flickered over razor sharp fangs.

'We are the Nac Mac Feegle, and you'll need a toothbrush up yer arse to clean yer teeth if ye come wan step closer!'

There was some debate among some of the wiser goblins, who quietly melted away again, leaving only the stupid, suicidal or brave to fight.

'So...' Big Yan swaggered, swinging his sword with lethal ease. 'Which wan o' ye arseholes wants to die first?'

Vetinari and Kuppa pushed through the streets, some deserted, others a sea of bodies fighting each other. They utilised every rat-run, ginnel, lane and short cut to reach the palace, which was now surrounded by a wall of trolls and golems.

Behind the living blockade, crowds of frightened people huddled, others peering through boarded windows. All eyes fell on the Patrician and Kuppa, and a dishevelled Drumknot came forward.

'My lord' he said. 'I thought you were inside...oh!' During the confusion it had slipped his mind about the numerous "patricians" in Lord Vetinari's employ for occasions calling for "that sneaky bastard" to be in two or three places at the same time.

'Your..ahem... associates are out trying to resolve the situation, sir!' Drumknot used the term "associates" when in public to indicate the Assassin's Guild.

'Indeed. Now, fill me in on evrything!'

Several streets away Death stood looking at the corpses littering the blood-stained cobbles.

He looked up at the dense storm clouds as the rain began to lash down.

WHERE ARE YOU? Death asked, to the heavens. Pulling A'Tuin timer from his robes, he saw the sands were almost gone

'Hello, old friend!' a low voice said behind him.

Death turned and saw the possessed Rictus standing in the middle of the street, the rain hissed and evaporated as it hit him.

DO I KNOW YOU? Death asked.

'You could say that... Though I'm not a local.' Grinn smiled like a shark. 'I am a big follower of yours. Literally. I must admit, you are a little different from the you I'm used to!'

Death's grip tightened on his scythe.

'You still need a clue? The stranger that arrived... You could say I arrived here before him, but I was left in his passing!'

Death's eyes flickered.

YOU ARE ROUNDWORLD'S EMOTIONS...

'And a prize for the walking dog treat!' Rictus sneered. 'Here I have form! It's amazing to feel, to touch... to be something other than just be an 'emotion'... Here I am greater than all!'

YOU REALLY DID PICK A BAD TIME...

'Oh... the end of the world thing? Ha! I am beyond the pathetic whims of some has-been god! He will cower before my raw power! I will force him back into the void!'

NO. I MEANT THAT...

Death pointed skywards, and Rictus turned slowly. The heartless smile faded as two horses, an irate driver and about a ton of hearse bore down on him. Fast.

Chapter 18

'Nanny... Any ideas?' Terry asked, picking up a large rock.

'Yeah... Use your mind thingy! Scare the little buggers!' She said quietly.

'I don't... Oh sod it!' Closing his eyes, he strained.

'Ye ken ye look like yer on the khazi, pal?' Wullie asked.

'Not helpng!' Terry said with gritted teeth and clenched cheeks.

'He's right!' Said Nanny. 'Don't try. Just do!'

Relaxing slightly, Terry opened his eyes, and simply looked at the lake.

The black, stagnant waters began to boil, whch caused all the goblins to stare. Spouts of water began to form into arms, then grasping hands, lashing blindly about the shoreline.

'He'sss making the waters angry... But no reach us! Hahaha! Pathetic magicsss no scare usss!' A particularly vile goblin, dressed in the all too fresh remains of a rabbit, said.

Terry, sweat dripping of his brow, grimaced. 'This bloody hurts!' and concentrated again.

A faint white shimmer formed around his body as the lake settled.

Then the lake exploded. A gargantuan figure rose, composed of water and lake crud, in the form that looked a lot like Detritus.

'Little bitey fings in my cave! Dis my cave! Gulp mad! Gulp smash!' It roared, shaking rocks loose from the rafters. It moved quickly to the edge of the water, where one goblin loosed a barbed arrow. It splashed harmlessly through "Gulp", who proceeded to reduce the goblin to a sticky mess on the wall.

The Feegles and Nanny, who watched in awe, noticed Terry seemed to flicker in and out of reality, flashes of a black, time worn fedora blinked over his head. More goblins disappeared into the darkness, others frozen to the spot in fear and amazement.

'It's a cave bosss... We leaves now, yes?' One moaned.

'Yeah, bugger off home!' Shouted Nanny.

'Aww... Cannae a few of you stay? Me an' the boys need a wee chat with ye!' Big Yan shouted.

'Aye... We can hae a wee dram together!' Hamish said, his sword glinted with evil intent.

'Buggersss that! A fading voice hissed in the shadowy depths of the cave.

With that, the remaining goblins vanished.

Gulp still loomed over them.

'Ok, Terry, my love. You can put wossit back now... Terry?' Nanny turned to see that he'd vanished.

'Er... Any a ye's wanna fight the big fella?' Hamish said, backing up.

'Gulp not 'urt a friend of da Nanny!'

A calm, quite voice in the dark made them all jump.

'Nanny...'

She turned, and in the glow of the crystal she saw Terry. His ragged clothes had been replaced by black trousers and boots, a short black jacket and shirt. His face now framed by a neat white beard, his eyes twinkled behind silver rimmed glasses. His hair, white as snow had receeded. He glanced up and smiled. Out of the darkness the black Fedora dropped into his hand, he placed it on his head with a happy sigh.

'That's better. Shall we go Nanny? Feegles? I believe it's this way.' He headed off confidently into the shadowy cavern but stopped and looked up at Gulp.

'Thank you, old friend. Sorry I woke you up!'

'Don't mention it. Did you like the way they responded to my "angry troll" act? Oh, but I shouldn't keep you. Ta-ta!' Gulp bowed theatrically, and vanished beneith the wave.

'Wha' in the name a crivens was tha?' Jock piped up.

Terry smiled even wider. 'Follow me!' he said. 'I'll show you!'

'Sorry, sir.' said Albert, jumping down from the coach. 'Friend of yours, was he?'

Albert indicated to the mangled body jamming the wheels.

'It...it'll take...' a voice croaked from under the hearse. '...more than this to stop me!'

Death reached down and lifted the whole carriage with one hand and peered at the almost lifeless body.

YOU DON'T BELONG HERE. He said calmly. AND AS IS COMMON AMONGST YOU LOT, YOU MADE ONE SLIGHT MISCALCULATION.

'I have made no miscalculations... Can you feel that?'

Death pondered the strange question when the earth began to shake violently, buildings toppled and chasms ripped through the streets, indeed the very Disc began to crumble.

Lord Vetnari stood looking out over the burning city, and then turned to Kuppa.

'We were supposed to stop this!' he said gravely. 'All that business in Lancre, and that loincloth... And nothing!'

'How can you be sure you didn't?' Kuppa asked. 'Maybe you just expected to play a bigger part, your lordship!'

'Then what am I to do, professor? Even I can't glue a world back together!' The patrician sighed.

Chapter 19

Miles away, in the Payperwayt temple of Bent-Gong, Terry, the Feegles and Nanny clutched the walls as the ground shook.

'Well, lads, I ken we cannae die, so here's tee a borin' afterlife, aye!' said Big Yan, pulling a small bottle from his spog.

Clumps of rock fell, spalshing into lake, and Nanny began to sob.

Terry looked at her and the Feegles, who'd burst into a war chant, and staggered across the ancient office as the very mountain danced.

'Wotcha lookin' for, Terry?' Nanny asked, her eyes red and misty.

'Ink... ' He pulled what looked like an old pink and yellow paper crown out of a draw, the sort that commes in cheap novelty crackers at hogswatch. Someone had scribbled 'king of ink' on it and added badly drawn jewels.

'Bit late to be writin' your will, big job!' Hamish slurred, chugging from a bottle he had also concealed. 'Yer all goin' te die... An' well be stuck floatin' aroond here til crivens knows when...'

'No...it's a hunch I have. There may be a chance, if only a small one... But I need ink.' He threw the draws onto the floor, then there was an almighty cracking sound and a massive slab of rock now occupied the space previously owned by Nanny Ogg.

'Crivens!' Wullie shouted, as though suddenly aware of what was going on. 'That rock's turned Nanny in te a pancake!'

Unseen to them, Nanny stood beside the rock, where a small pool of blood formed at it's base.

'Well bugger me! Not wot I 'ad in mind when I thought I was beside myself!'

The death of Nanny Ogg was, as with all strong witches, felt by the actual Death. He watched as portions of the city slipped below the surface and wondered what his future held.

'Oi! Bill! Wotcha!' a voice said from behind him.

Death turned to see the spectral image of Nanny, who stood looking a little confused.

NANNY OGG, I CANNOT SAY I AM PLEASED TO SEE YOU, BUT CONSIDERING CURRENT EVENTS I AM HARDLY SUPRISED. WHERE IS TERRY?

'Oh 'e's trying to save the world, I thinks. Either that or he's gone barmy! Kept sayin' he needs ink, of all things! I would have thought a miracle would 'ave been better suited, but that's no never mind now!' she replied.

INK, DID YOU SAY? ALBERT, TAKE THIS... MISCREANT... HOME AND WAIT FOR ME Death's bony figure jabbed towards the broken Rictus lying on the street.

'Yeah, guv... Come on, sonny! In the back!' Albert unceremoniously dumped Grinn in the hearse. 'No bleedin' on the upholstery, just bin done!'

'So wha' you gonna do then, if you don't mind me askin'?' said Nanny.

Death pulled Terry's life timer from his robes.

INK, NANNY. I AM GONG TO GIVE HIM INK! Death jumped up onto Binky, and offered Nanny his hand.

'Oh, don't you worry 'bout ole Nanny Ogg, Bill Doors. You get your bony arse up to them sharpish!' She shouted as the street beneath them began to erode. Binky shot off like a bolt of lightning, Death's cowl flapping in the wind.

'Now... How the bloody 'ell do I finds a pub in this mess?' Nanny muttered to herself, and wandered off through the chaos.

Chapter 20

'De ye think she's deed?' asked Wullie.

Big Yan, Hamish and Jock peered around the boulder. Terry had now all but demolished the ancient temple, and sat with his arms folded staring at the floor.

'Am nee expert...' Said Jock, in the tones of someone who thought otherwise. 'But I'd say, judging by the distinct lack of Nanny, that she's definitely deed!'

Big Yan scratched his beard thoughtfully. 'Ya think this is becoming a regular thing aroond us?'

The others were musing the point when Death stepped out of the shadows.

'Crivens! Ya big bugger, ye near made me drop a broon yan!' Shouted Hamish in suprise.

Terry looked up. 'I'm here, old friend!' he said quietly.

Death looked around and sighed.

I WILL NEVER GET THE HANG OF NOT SEEING YOU. I HAVE SOMETHING YOU MAY NEED. He pulled the black powder filled timer out of his pocket.

BE WARNED. ONCE YOU MAKE THIS INK, IT WILL REPRESENT YOUR LIFE FORCE. ONCE IT IS GONE, I IMAGINE YOU WILL BE ALSO.

'I decided one thing on roundworld...' Said Terry. 'And that was: knowing I could end my life at any time would make me more alive.' He stood and walked over to the timer, glanced at it briefly before smashing it and pouring the sands in an empty bowl. Wullie offered his bottle of drink, as did the others, and slowly Terry mixed it in black liquid.

'Well...' he said. 'Here goes nothing! Embuggerance be buggered!'

And he wrote...

Poetically, the palace was one of the few buildings left teetering on the brink of the void beneath. Groups of all species huddled together and sang common songs and hymns, and above them the patrician and the professor stood looking at what was once the Discworld, now just chunks of rock and debris orbiting a dying turtle and four surprised looking geriatric elephants. Kuppa looked at the Havelock in the last of the fire light, his face highlighted almost heroic and defiant.

'End of the world... May as well risk it, girl!' Kuppa said to herself and grabbed Vetinari and kissed him. She was bth surprised and relieved when he did not pull back, but held her. Their sillouette was framed by the Unseen University exploding behind them, albeit with faint cries of 'Buuuuuggggggeeeerrrr!' and even one 'I'll kill bloody Rincewind!'

Locked in tender embraces, the didn't notice as the palace slipped over the edge...

Nanny woke with a start, she was slumped in the tatty, comfortable chair beside her fire.

'Bugger me!' she cried with a start. She quickly scanned the room. No little blue theives, no old men smelling of burnt cabbages and no Death. After a moment her head began to clear.

'Get a hold of yoursel' Gytha Ogg! Was but a bloody dream, you barmy old mare!' she stretched and headed off into the kitchen.

Mew

'Wossat?' Gytha spun around looking.

'Greebo! If you've brought another bloody stray home I'll...' She looked down to see the tiny one eyed, fluffed up kitten prancing around her feet, purring like a miniture electric tin opener.

'Eee... I must still be dreaming!' she said and headed outside, where the sun was just rising on another beautiful Lancre morning.

A letter was jammed into her post box. Opening it she read aloud to herself.

"Dear Nanny, if you read this then all is well in the world again. Unfortunately, I can never again step foot on the Disc, as I would run out of time. I have made some, let's just call them, failsafes in the form of books. Words have power, as you know, and my words now are the life force of this world, bound in pages beyond the reach of any here, but read by beings with such imagination and belife that for as long as one person reads the stories, then Discworld shall live on. I would love to explain it more but I have to go. And I'm sorry, but as per Bill's request for natural-ish order I couldn't bring you-know-who back. If you ever need me Nanny, just write... Yours faithfully, Terry."

She folded the letter neatly and placed it in her cardigan pocket just as Old Norman, a regular at the Goat and Bush trundled past with his wheel barrow.

'Mornin' Nanny. You're up early, my dear. 'Nother birthin' is it?' He asked.

'No, just feel like an early start, Norman. You mind 'ow you go now!' and despite herself, she felt energised and almost brand new. But not even a was dead but isn't any more witch gets a breather, and soon Wasyername flounced in and began fussing around.

'Lovely day, Nanny, isn't?' the girl asked. 'Was, my girl. Was!' Well, new world or not, certain things would never change...

'I assure you, Drumnott, it is not a typing error!' The patrician said coldly. 'I am inviting a lady over for lunch!'

Drumnott coughed quietly. 'Your Lordship is aware that this lady in question is a...'

Vetinari stopped his secretary with a glare. 'A professor, yes, I know... nobody is perfect!'

Drumnott nodded and left the oblong office. Vetinari pondered over how he remembered and possibly Professor Oolong, about the events, but no one else did.

'Havelock! Be a good chap and help me down from this ledge!' He turned to the window, the faintest of smiles drifted over his lips.

'Professor Oolong... You realise doors are easier, don't you? As a rule guests come in via doors...'

She cut him off with a lingering kiss. 'A lady such as myself may easily become bored with such trifleing customs... Windows are more fun, plus I owed Reg a pigeon or two for letting me up.'

'Reg? Oh... Good morning Reg, I see my faith in your abilities as security was...well placed?'

'He saw off three assailants last week, didn't you Reg! Charming young man...er... gargoyle. Now did I hear you mention dinner? And we can talk about an incident that apparently never happened...'

In the black netherworld of Death's domain, Rictus was bound and sat before Death, who's eyes bored through him.

'You think ths place scares me... I knew oblivion before I came to this... second-hand dimension!'

QUITE. Said Death, his fingers tapping against the black table. BUT BY COMING HERE YOU MADE YOURSELF PART OF THIS WORLD, AND THEREFORE SUBJECT TO ITS LAWS. THE MAN CALLED TERRY, IS NOW SUBJECT TO OUR LAWS, BUT KEEPS HIS IMMORTALITY. YOU...I UNDERSTAND YOU WILL EXIST AS LONG AS I DO, IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER. AND AS SUCH I HAVE ARRANGED A LITTLE HOLIDAY CAMP FOR YOU.

Albert laughed in the corner, and not a pleasant laugh either.

Death waved his hand, and after a blinding blue flash, Rictus glanced around. At first he thought he was on the edge of a cliff, until he looked over the edge and saw the swirling void of space.

DO YOU LIKE IT? Death asked, appearing behind him. I HAD IT BUILT ESPECIALLY. WE HAD TO, UM, BORROW THE MOUNTAINS AND THIS ISLAND FOR THE PAST.

'You would leave me here to rot alone for eternity?' Grinn spat.

NOT QUITE. MEET TECTOR AND BILLY-BOB, THEY ARE FROM AN INTERESTING BUNCH OF CHAPS I MET IN BAYOUS OF GENUA.

'Hey there, mister Death. This that city boy you were harpin' on about?' The wisened, dungaree wearing elder asked. A greasy label named him as Tector.

Behind him stood a man-mountain, who's eyes regularly wandered off looking in different directions and had a proclivity to drool.

'Hey... You gotta purrty face! Can we keeps him, pa?' The behemoth gurgled happily. He lumbered over and picked the squirming Rictus up, throwing him over his shoulder.

'Thanks again, old timer!' said Tector to Death, 'We gonna have have us a soap party tonight!' and with that the insane hillbilly and juggernaut of a son vanished, leaving only the screams of a soon to be traumatised Grinn in their wake.

Death scratched his skull wondering why Terry had chosen this sadistic, inbreeding bunch of mountain folk to keep Rictus company. Human humour was still beyond him, and with another flash, returned to the Disc realm where life, death, and buns containing sausages carried on regardless.

Finally Terry sat back in the chair in his new office, with windows overlooking the mountain ranges.

'Now' he thought, taking a pencil out of the draw. ' 'Roundworld book one: The Colour of Money...'