It was the next day that all things turned to manure. It had become increasingly obvious that they were approaching another forest clearing.

'Remember,' said Verence, 'no matter what we come across we observe and we plan our next move.'

Like so many good plans it latest right up to the moment it was implemented. What they did have time to see was an already denuded landscape. There were teams of buffalo and large wagons laden with timber. Moving around the site were an, as yet, unspecified number of workers, along with more seriously attired individuals. In this case serious didn't mean formal suits and ties, it tended more towards the implication that when it came to trouble they would be particularly happy to hand it out. The focus of attention was currently a large jungle giant. At its base a team was working away, dragging a massive saw back and forth.

'Right,' said Verence. 'The plan. Now what I think we need to do to assess our assets, align those strengths in a series of ...'

That was exactly when the plan ended and the manure began. Perhaps unfairly, librarians are stereotyped as fairly quiet introverts who only get their dander up if there is excessive noise, and even then the dander generally extends to a glare or a 'talking to'.

The Librarian chose a different option. Being a large ape gave him some additional choices not typically available to others of his profession. With a roar that sounded strangely like 'Leeroy Jenkins' the Librarian knuckled into the clearing - a primate possessed.

'Oh my gods, he just ran in,' said Verence. 'Ok, let's move to plan B.'

'Plan B?' cried Nanny.

'The one where we all rush in.'

'Sounds like a good plan to me,' Nanny replied, hitching up her britches and charging after the ape. There's nothing like a witch with hitched britches to get things happening. Moments later the clearing was invaded by one of the more unusual assault forces seen for some years.

At first this rather direct approach seemed to have some traction. Surprise can give you an edge but the problem with surprise that it must, by definition, cease to be a surprise fairly rapidly. This is known as the Law of Diminishing Surprise.

The problem wasn't the workers. When it came to sourcing labour in the Agatean Empire the one thing the organisers never factored in was the rights of the workers. Technically it wasn't slave labour but that was just a technicality. Fear is effective at generating commitment, as long as an even larger fear doesn't throw it's hat into the ring. When a pack of enraged apes and some very strange associates invade your workspace with clearly aggressive intent it's amazing how uncommitted you can be when the trouble hits.

The problem was the guards and overseers. In the first instance it appeared that things might have been evenly matched or, quite understandably, been seen to favour the side with more enraged orangutans but then the second instance came into play. Despite being largely unarmed the loggers fought like demons. Where they were, they were no longer there. They moved suddenly and struck without warning, using hands, feet, legs, knees and heads. The invaders soon found themselves pummeled and regularly flung to the ground. This is not a situation any of them were accustomed to, especially the Librarian.

Verence and Magrat realised what was happening, largely because Verence had once accidentally ordered a book on martial arts instead of what he thought was a guide to the mysteries of the boudoir.

'They're trained in Eki Thump,' shouted Zhanshi. 'We can't beat them,' he screamed over the chaos. 'What do we do now?'

'We lose,' cried Nanny, 'but we do it on our terms. There's only hope for a few of us. The apes. They need to get out of here.'

'But Sungai has Esmeralda,' shouted Magrat as she grappled with one of the guards who clearly had no particular regard for the weaker sex. Not that Magrat did either and was accounting for herself rather well. In the moment when the planning had gone awry Sungai had been nursing the child and in the madness that followed the child was still with her.

'You're not just a mother,' Nanny called back, 'you're a witch. Look around you. Where do you think the safest place is for Esmeralda?'

Even in the middle of battle there can be strange moments of stillness. Suspensions of time. Nanny's words flowed through Magrat's mind like a river and like a river she knew the course they would take.

'Just do it,' she cried out before she had a chance to change her mind.

'Good girl,' Nanny cried and then began shouting. Thanks to a lifetime of parenting and a propensity to sing with gusto, especially when liquor was present, Nanny had a good set of lungs. Even over the racket of the conflict her voice cut through like a knife, in a loud string of ooks and eeks.

At first there was confusion and resistance amongst the orangutans but then the matriarch, who was not just an ape but a mother, took charge. In a series of moves that were only possible when you have arms like sledgehammers on rubber bands, she simultaneously drove the attackers back and pushed the Librarian to the tree line. Sungai and Kelopak were already there. They had stayed out of the fray to protect the babies.

As they disappeared into the jungle Sungai turned and her eyes met Magrat's. What passed between then cannot be described in even complex words but words were never meant for moments like these. Magrat nodded, her heart breaking, and Sungai returned it.

'I'll find you,' Magrat shouted to both Sungai and Esmeralda and Sungai understood every word and knew they were true. One way or another.

A voice barked at them in Agatean and those that had remained turned to face the enemy.

'What'd he say?' asked Nanny who was prepared to concede that her mistressary of foreign languages took second place to native tongue.

'What have we got here?' translated Zhanshi.

They were taken away in a large cart pulled by some of the oxen. Anyone who has ever claimed to have the worst journey of their life and hasn't travelled by oxen has no idea what they're talking about (unless, of course, they have travelled by camel). A distinctive feature of this mode of transport, especially across rough ground, is that you rapidly become aware of internal organs you didn't know you had. This awareness is accompanied by the growing suspicion that some form of failure of these newly discovered organs may not be far away. Even by other oxen-drawn transport experiences this was a bad one because its passengers were in a bleak mood.

'Oh gods,' said Magrat through tears, 'what's going to happen to Esmeralda?'

Verence, who shared his wife's distress and knew what she wanted, held her tight. Nanny, who knew what Magrat needed, took the other approach. This is, fundamentally, the nature of witches.

'Seems to me she'll be damn safe,' she said. 'Can't think of a safer place in a jungle then surrounded by large apes.'

Magrat glared at Nanny. 'What about all the lions and tigers and bears ... oh my.'

'There aren't any lions in the jungle,' said Verence in a distracted tone.

Magrat turned her glare on him. 'So, what you're saying is there are definitely tigers and bears out there. Thank you very much for making me feel so much better.'

Nanny could have hugged Verence. What they didn't need right now was a distressed witch. That's a dangerous combination. What they needed was an angry witch. They're just as dangerous but at least they have a sharp end. The trick is to point it in the right direction.

'Now that we've agreed Esmeralda is safe, 'specially from lions, what's going to happen to us?' she said to Zhanshi.

'If we're lucky, the dungeons, if were not...'

Nanny cut him off. 'Great. So the first thing we have to do is be lucky. Witches are experts at luck. We just have to make sure ours is good and theirs is bad. Pretty sure they've never dealt with witches before, hey Magrat?'

'No,' Magrat replied. She said it softly but everyone leant back a bit. Kindness is not weakness and softness can be hard as nails.

Nanny smiled, but only on the inside.

Arduous is a word that doesn't get used often and nor should it be. It should be reserved for particularly challenging experiences. The rest of the journey was arduous. To fill the liver-pounding time Zhanshi gave them a richer background on Bhangbhangduc. For most of its history the island kingdom had been just that. An island with little interaction with the outside world. But then the Agatean Empire, which had largely been inwardly focussed, fighting battles for control, saw one family rise to power and ruthlessly deal with all opposition. With its internal matters resolved, one brutal way or another, the Empire turned its gaze outwards.

The problem with power is that once you have it there will never be enough. The Empire saw a chance to expand and acquire the wealth of the island. Most importantly, this wealth included the people that lived there. You could do a lot with extra workers, especially if they didn't have any say in the work conditions. The Agatean Empire didn't have a word for slave because they didn't need one.

Once they had conquered the island they appointed a governor, or Gong. Naturally, the Gong was one of the royal family. Naturally, the Gong did everything he was told to do. Soon there were fiefdoms across Bhangbhangduc, all ruled by appointments from the Court. Communities that had once worked together became smaller versions of the Agatean Empire with rivalries being played out through the lives of the subjects.

Along with this came the rise of organised crime. The Biads. The curious thing was that instead of trying to crush them, the Agatean Empire worked with them, much as groups of predators the world over do, to secure a meal. There was nothing formal, of course, because the informal worked better. The Biads gained power and the Empire gained access to resources they never questioned the source of and another system to make sure that the people weren't just pressed, they were completely oppressed.

In theory this should have all changed, come the Glorious Revolution, but as Verence and the others were becoming rapidly aware, the current Revolution seemed to be going round and round in circles, as revolutions tend to, and the radii of these circles hadn't reached Bhangbhangduc and, possibly, might never do, if the old, deposed forces of the Empire had anything to do with it.

'But there are those of us who fight the good fight, until the Revolution comes to us,' said Zhanshi lowering his voice even further. 'There are those of us who work against the Gong and his forces. We follow the words of wisdom of one known as The Teacher and hope one day to regain our independence. But it is a dangerous game and you never know who is truly your enemy.'

'Or your friend,' observed Nanny. 'That's one of the nasty ways buggas like these ones keep you under control. You've probably got thousands of friends but none of them are prepared to say nuthin'.'

'Anything, Nanny,' said Magrat who, like any witch, was part teacher.

'No thanks, other than a pint if you've got one,' replied Nanny with a twinkle in her eye. Like any witch, she was also part juggernaut. In Nanny's case it had a habit of being a large part.

'What about this Gong?' asked Verence, who was trying to get his head around such an alien approach to government. Sure, he was supreme ruler of Lancre by birthright, but it wasn't wise to remind his subjects of this.

'He's a bit of a mystery,' replied Zhanshi. 'He seems to stay in his quarters a lot. Only comes out for official functions and then he's always flanked by Jahat. Jahat is the senior civil servant. He's a nasty one and pretty much runs everything. Below him the Gong has a series of barons who run all the smaller communities. We call those Nans.'

'Nans?' said Nanny with interest.

'They're not what you're thinking,' said Zhanshi quickly. 'Nothing like you.' Nothing could be quite like Nanny Ogg.

Nanny smiled. She quite liked being unique, but she wondered how much of the world Zhanshi had really seen. Nanny may have been at the pinnacle of nanniness but there were plenty of old ladies that would give her a run for her money. The problem around here was where to find them. Life expectancy in Bhangbhangduc didn't look to be too high.

'You also mentioned The Teacher,' said Magrat. She was happy for any discussion that could distract her from thinking about Esmeralda too much.

'He is the one who gives us inspiration and keeps us strong,' replied Zhanshi with whispered passion. 'He writes of how the world should be and his words are full of wisdom. The government can't stand him and he has to move around, or so I've been told. No one knows where he is and possessing his writing will get you in serious trouble.'

'I'd like to meet him one day,' said Verence.

'Not much chance of that Mr King,' Zhanshi replied. 'No one has heard from him for months.'

They were transferred on the edge of a city to a smaller enclosed carriage and sometime later they were delivered to their destination.

'The city dungeons,' Zhanshi commented as he looked through the barred window. 'No surprise there.'

The four of them were bundled downstairs. Nanny and Magrat were forced into one small cell. It smelt. The dungeons in Lancre also smelt, but this was because livestock was often housed in them, especially during the colder months. They hadn't been used to retain anyone for years (except for an incident involving elves and Mr Scroff, of course, who'd found them a comfortable place to relax after an evening of education with Magrat). That was a natural smell. In a sense so was this one, in the same way a rotting corpse is a natural part of the cycle of life.

'Now what?' said Magrat. 'What possible plan do we have?'

She was still angry. Angry at Nanny for letting the apes take her child. Angry at Verence, rather unfairly, because he hadn't stopped this happening. Angry at the world in general and the Agatean Empire in specific.

'Well,' said Nanny, who had long ago learned that tact is only useful in some circumstances and didn't have to apply to her, 'at least Esmeralda is in a better place, don'tya reckon. Phew. Smells like whatever died in here was already up the bottom of something else that had died.

'I reckon the best plan is to wait. Pretty sure there will be someone important come to check us out. News like us travels fast and imprisoning foreigners is risky business. The bigwigs will have to figure out what we're up to and how disposable we are.'

Nanny was right and it didn't take long.

'So,' said a sibilant voice in rather good Ankh Morporkian, 'who do I have the honour of speaking to?'

It's a curious fact that those of nefarious intend lean towards sibilance. No one knows why and it doesn't do snakes any favours at all. There's no indication snakes are evil, except through human reflection. The animal kingdom suffers from this reality on a regular basis.

'I'm Nanny.'

'Ah, a Nan?'

'No, not a Nan, a Nanny,' she continued. 'Heard about your Nans, though. Reckon they might be surprised to add me to their ranks.'

'And what is a Nanny?'

'Someone you don't want to get on the wrong side of.'

'It seems a bit presumptuous for you to threaten me from the 'wrong side' of a prison door.'

'Yeah, makes you think, doesn't it? Oh, and I'm a witch. Know anything about them sunshine?'

'Only that they are charlatans who play on simple minds with trickery they call magic.'

'Cor, you do know us then. What's a charlatan? Something like a sultan I'm guessing. I'm not fond of dates, by the way in case you think I eat 'em. Give me a nasty case of galloping centaurs, if you know what I mean.'

There was the sort of silence from beyond the cell door which often followed a conversation with Nanny. A deep processing blending with disturbing realisation, often accompanied by unwanted imagery.

'How did you know we spoke Ankh Morpork?' Magrat asked, taking opportunity of the pause.

'I am not the sort of person who comes to a situation unprepared,' hissed the voice, though with a slight hint of uncertainty. The conversation with this Nanny thing hadn't exactly gone to plan. 'And who are you?'

'I'm the queen of Lancre,' replied Magrat with all the haught she could muster.

'Ah, a queen. Really? Of a country I have never heard of. Convenient.'

'Yes, she is,' snapped Verence. 'She's my wife, which makes me, Verence, the King of Lancre. And I demand to see the Gong.'

There was a pause before the voice spoke again. 'I do have to admit you sound like a king. Demanding from a cell, no less. This may require a slight adjustment of plans. We must respect international diplomacy, or test the depth of truth. Guards.'

The door swung open and two large men, who must have been a trial during childbirth, entered.

'Bring me the foreign king,' said the tall, thin figure that they could barely make out in the bright torchlight. There was a moment of struggle and Verence was dragged from the cell before the door was slammed shut.

'What about the others? What about my wife, the queen?' shouted Verence.

'They will stand as some sort of assurance that you cooperate fully with us. We only have your word on your royalty, after all.'

'Just go darling,' Magrat shouted above the scuffling. 'It's not like there's much else you can do in this cell anyway.'

Verence stopped struggling and straightened his shoulders. He was surprisingly tall when he did this. Years of time spent as a Fool had ingrained the sort of natural slouch that comes with making yourself as small a target as possible. He'd got better at standing taller thanks to the demands of kinging but there was still room to move.

'Take me to your leader,' he stated. 'I will speak to none other than the Gong.'

The tall figure smiled. 'Splendid,' he said. 'Almost believable royal arrogance.'

He turned to occupants of the cell. 'And as for you, there's not much else you can do either.'

The man was still laughing to himself when Nanny's voice drifted up the hallway after them.

'Wanna bet a fiver? Witches, remember.'

Jahat reviewed his options as he marched the captive away from the cell. Convention suggested torture and convenient disappearance. The problem was this situation was anything but conventional. There was even the possibility of international issues and opportunities. A person in the right place at the right time could go far.

He was a greater believer in rules, particularly when you were on the right side of wielding them but he hadn't got to where he was today without some appreciation of when to ignore convention. It really came down to risk and advantage which are slippery things to nail down. Decision making was just another way to describe gambling. He rolled the dice, metaphorically, and placed his bet, again metaphorically, before they had stopped spinning.

'Come, your majesty, let us see what the Gong has to say about your unannounced arrival.'

As for the 'witches', he laughed again, with the barest hint of doubt.

'That man's a knob in every sense of the word,' said Nanny as Verence was escorted away.

'That's Jahat. He's the power behind the Gong. Why did you say that thing about witches to him?' asked Zhanshi. 'Do you really have magical powers? Why aren't we using them now?'

Nanny turned to Zhanshi and even in the almost-darkness her eyes sparkled. 'Young man,' she said, 'what makes you think it hasn't already begun?'

'But why don't you just blast down the door and we all fly away from here? Wouldn't that be a blow for freedom?'

'Never been a big fan of blows when it comes to freedom. Save them for when you really need 'em I say, and right now ain't that time. Right now is the time to see what else is going to happen. Just glad I've still got tobacca on me. Lucky they didn't search me,' she added with what sounded like mild disappointment.

Nanny was the kind of person that made captors think twice about searching her. Three times, actually. The first thought rang smack into the face of the second thought regarding consequences and they both gave way to the third thought which was, typically, you're not paid enough for that sort of risk.

Nanny rummaged around in the disturbing depths of her dress and pulled out a packet. She'd been saving this for a rainy day and today she could definitely see storm clouds. There was a flash of light in the darkness and then a noxious smell drifted around the cell.

'Is that magic fire?' asked Zhanshi hopefully.

'The more you believe that the better for all of us,' replied Nanny between puffs. 'Didn't want to smoke around Esmeralda, y'know,' she said to Magrat. 'I'd hate to be a bad influence on her.'

The universe registered this statement on the scale of outrage and wisely decided not to comment. Magrat did the same. Magrat was a witch and she knew in her skinny bones that something was unfolding. It wasn't necessarily magic in the classic sense but in the witchy sense the air wasn't just thick with smoke.

'The guards will punish you for this, you know,' said Zhanshi, with a cough. 'They'll smell it for sure.'

'Hmmm,' replied Nanny, 'those and others. Besides, have you heard any guards recently?'

She was right. After the noisy removal of Verence things had grown quiet. The only sound they could hear was a gentle scraping and swishing. This was getting steadily nearer. Magrat went to the cell door and peered out. The only person out there was an elderly man with a broom, sweeping his way down the corridor.

'Hello,' she called out. The old man looked up and smiled at her, then nodded, sweeping closer until he was just outside the cell.

'I don't suppose you could help get us out of here, could you?' Magrat continued. 'I don't think he understands a word I say,' she added.

The sweeper peered in through the bars, still smiling and nodded directly at Nanny. She nodded back.

Zhanshi moved to the front of the small room and said something in Agatean. The sweeper continued to smile and to nod in Nanny's direction.

'I think he may be dumb,' the young man observed.

Nanny said nothing but drew her pouch of tobacco out and handed it through the bars. The sweeper took the offering with an obligatory nod and took a slip out thin paper from his robe. He then proceeded to roll a cigarette, with amazing speed. This cigarette was to other cigarettes what a street cat is to the vast panoply of feline creation. All lumps and pieces hanging out but you knew it was the sort of cigarette that would have a distinctive, malodorous presence.

'Dumb, not stupid, hey me old china,' said Nanny. 'And not even dumb.'

'How did you know, Mrs Ogg?' the sweeper said after a pause.

'How did you know I was Mrs Ogg, Lu Tze?'

'Ah, the question for a question game. Let us say I keep a finger on the pulse of the cosmic flow.'

'You call that an answer? That's just a load of gobbledegook.'

'True, but very good gobbledygook, wouldn't you say? The sort we History Monks are famed for. Would you accept that I keep my ear to the ground and make sure I'm where I need to be? Besides, this is very fine scrag and I'd come a long way for that. But you knew that didn't you?'

'Let's just say that when I listen I use my whole body. You can't go around fiddlin' with history without witches knowing about it. Reckoned there had to be one of you round here somewhere and I figured it might be you.'

'Hang on,' Magrat chimed in. 'How come I've never heard of these History Monks?'

Nanny gave her the sort of look that might have said just because you look around doesn't mean you're observing. And what you don't know is an ocean compared to the bucket of knowledge you slosh around on others.

But she didn't say this, instead she went with 'When it comes to history, dearie, I've got a lot more of it then you have.'

That seemed to work. It usually does with younger people who like to think they understand the new world so much better without thinking what the old world may have learned along the way. Magrat could accept the sheer accumulation of experience but would have protested the implication that wisdom was involved as well. It was ever thus. Otherwise why would humanity be such masters at repeating the same mistakes?

Not that old age guaranteed wisdom, Nanny had to admit. She knew plenty of stupid old people who were even stupider than young people because they'd been practicing stupid for so much longer. The trick was to work with what you saw. Not just to look but observe. That and not elect the stupid old ones into positions of power. Sadly, people weren't very good at realising that last point.

'You are a monk that changes history,' said Zhanshi. 'Does that mean you could just go back in time and change everything so we weren't oppressed?'

'Ooo, as Mrs Cosmopolite would say, "You're so sharp be careful you don't cut yourself." You've got a live one there Mrs Ogg. Is he under your tutelage?'

'Not sure about that tutlin' but I reckon I'm teachin' him a thing or two.'

'Education comes in all shapes and sizes, Mrs Ogg, and I bet you've seen most of them.'

'Not just seen, Mr Lu Tze.'

'No, you understand the power of observation as well.'

This wasn't what Nanny had meant but she let it pass.

'To answer your question young man, it is not simply a matter of changing something in time and walking away. Everything is connected and there really is a cosmic balance. The trick is to know where the weak points are in this flow, the random fluctuations that can be made ... less random...and then nudging them. Leveraging the strands of the space time matrix.'

Zhanshi thought for a moment and then said, 'Is this more gobbledygook?'

Lu Tze clapped his hands with glee. 'So much promise, Mrs Ogg. Yes it is, but sometimes you just have to accept it as that until you can find true understanding...which is bloody elusive, I have to admit.

'We have to be very careful about consequences. So many people overlook them until the midden hits the windmill. We aren't just History Monks, we're Consequence Monks. Of course, it helps to be able to run like hell if you need to. Nobody's perfect.'

'Important lesson that,' said Nanny, who was a rare collection of proudly exhibited imperfections. Why be appropriate when inappropriate is so much more fun and beats appropriate hands down when it comes to results?

'Time to get you out of here,' said Lu Tze. He blurred for a moment and then reappeared holding a large key.

'Ok, so what just happened then?' asked Magrat. 'Did you just travel through space?'

'Mostly just time. I went to a time when I could grab a hold of the key.' He unlocked the door. 'Back in a second,' he said, blurred and returned in the promised amount of time. 'Don't want the guard to get into too much trouble, mind you it's still not going to be pretty for him. Staff reprimands around Jahat are fairly ... direct and pointy.'

'Look,' said Zhanshi as they filed out of the cell, 'I still don't get the bit where you can't fiddle with time because of the consequences but right here and now it's open season.'

'One day, Zhanshi, you must come and visit our temple. I'm sure you and the Abbot would hit it off. Always asking questions. Is it not written that "Curiosity killed the cat?" ... but then it is also written "There's no harm in asking."' Sometimes Mrs Cosmopolite* can be quite confusing to understand.

*As a young man Lu-Tze went to Ankh Morpork where he rented a room at Mrs Cosmopolite. From her he heard many profound sayings and created his own school of learning- the Way of Mrs Cosmopolite.

'This is the last answer I'm giving and then we go. Right? When the History Monks were just learning their art we were a lot more hands-on with time. This lead to what is known in our trade as Temporal Ballsup. In the end we mostly had to go back and fix up a lot of mistakes, but it's never that easy once you break something. It's a stitch-up job at best. Around these surgeries in time no one knows exactly how things were before, so a wily monk might just be able to make some changes without causing another TB.'

'Are you saying the History Monks could have caused the Agatean Empire in the first place?' demanded Zhanshi.

'Listen to yourself. Better yet, listen to me. I'm not saying any such thing. It could have been even worse, what you have is an area where we are unsure. And where there is uncertainty there is wriggle room. I thought we agreed to no more questions?'

'I'm pretty sure that's another question,' said Magrat. 'I'm thinking that right here and now we've got a bit more time up our robes, Mr Lu Tze, if time is so messy around here anyway.'

Lu Tze smiled. 'It is never wise to restitch a wound too many times, but go on. I sense another question coming.'

'Right. Nanny lit up a cigarette and you turned up. But what if she didn't? Would you have still turned up anyway? Or did she always have to light that cigarette?'

'Oooo, that's very cosmic, that is. Determinism even. We do what we do because we were always going to. Would you like to believe you have no control over your fate?'

'No.'

'Then don't. In the words of Mrs Cosmopolite "Things just happen." Sounds fairly accurate to me. If this will put your mind at ease, messing with the timelines can get a monk in serious trouble with the Abbot, but those of us who've been around for a while know about a few escape clauses. One of those is standing here with us.' Lu Tze turned and bowed to Nanny.

It was such a good bow that she blushed in embarrassment. This took a whole set of blood cells that prided themselves on unblushability by surprise. There are children out there who have never known a world where Nanny had blushed. In fact, there are children out there who owe their existence to Nanny's resilience to blushing.

'The rules don't always apply when witches are involved. And if that witch happens to be Nanny Ogg you can defenestrate the rules totally. Once Nanny lit that cigarette I could turn up. Not even the Abbot could argue with that.

'Now, we do need to go.'

'What about Verence?'

Lu Tze turned to Magrat. 'Tell me, can your husband look after himself?'

This was one of those awkward questions for partners. Magrat wanted to say no, but who was that answer really meant for?

'Yes,' she said after a pause. 'He looked after himself when he was in the Fools Guild and when he tangled with elves ... with a bit of help from the Nac Mac Feegle ... yes, he can.'

'Good. So let's see how that works out, shall we? People are always very good at thinking there's only one storyline, with them in the middle of it.'

Lu Tze turned and led them down the corridor. 'So, tell me about these Nac Mac Feegles,' he added.