The official invitation to dinner at the Hattoni residence arrived early the next morning, for that night. This gave them to whole day to refine their plans or ...

'Come on, let's go out and see the city,' Sybil said after breakfast, in her Ramkin voice, which brooked, streamed and rivered no dissenting opinion. Even Vimes, whose views on tourism were not that different to his views on crime, or even lawyers, had to admit the idea had merit. The weather was perfect and there was something in the atmosphere of Ahroma that just dragged you out into the street.

Though still largely unknown to most residents in other parts of the Disc Ahroma did have a thriving tourist trade, made up of Brindisians and a fair smattering of visitors from all corners, though not so much when it came to the non-human races, observed Vimes. When it came to being multicultural Ankh Morpork led the field. Of course, it was probably right up there for overt specism too, but Vimes had his own views on that. He believed all races had the same level of tribalism and that all Ankh Morpork had done through its open door policy was to give some parts of the community a trigger. If the trigger wasn't there, the tribalism still would be. It's the difference between overt and covert.

The tourists had, as is the way of things, created a tourism industry. It seemed to have two main features. One was definitely the tour group. This involved a large group of people following a designated expert, like a flock of ducklings. These groups usually featured a flag on a pole so you didn't lose anybody*, some sort of loudhailer which the tour leader used to blare commentary across the group and a tendency to push into the smallest space possible, preferably right in front of what was being looked at. It created total chaos and reduced the overall experience of independent travellers. This is the primary purpose of tour groups.

* Science had discovered at least three breeds of tourists a) the loud and obnoxious, whose role is to say how much better things are at home, then often throwing up b) the safe and sounders, who always do exactly what the guide says and like to point out to fellow travellers when they stray from the guidelines c) the wanderers, who can be distracted by a dandelion and are prone to drift off in any direction. The wanderers generally have the best time of all, but they do have a higher mortality rate. The flags on the pole are for this group. They don't work.

The other sign that a location had contracted tourism was the sudden appearance of miniature replicas of the tourist sight in question made with all the fine attention to detail generally possessed by a deranged badger and peddled by vendors who had the determination of vultures around a carcass and the persistence of the most enduring bouts of wind.

Sam would have been beside himself if there wasn't a tourist already standing in the spot, but he went along for the ride because he could see how wonderful the whole day was turning out for Sybil.

'Can you believe it Sam' she said with her irresistible boundless joy. 'Wasn't the Basilica amazing? And so grand in scale.'

'Yes, you can see how Enrico got his name really.'

'And the Septine Chapel. What a ceiling. Such detail. Can you imagine how long it must have taken?'

'If Leonard da Quirm was involved, inside a month,' said Vimes. 'Otherwise, years.'

'And to be standing here at the Trevor Fountain, throwing our coins into the water for good luck.'

Good luck for the bugger that fishes it out for sure. That was our lunch money, thought Vimes but he bit his tongue.

'You do know they give the coins from the fountain to charity, don't you Sam?'

Damn. How did she do it? He knew she hadn't been looking at him and yet she'd read his mind like a map*. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered to hold back when she knew he was thinking it anyway.

* Which is by far the quickest way to read a mind. Books take so much longer and it's often hard to tell where they're heading until the end.

'And I really do appreciate it when you try, for me.'

Damn.

'Shame about the public baths,' she said in a voice low enough so that only he could hear, 'but Angua was so dead against it.'

'It's her racial heritage Sybil. I'd try and avoid even saying the word bath again if I were you.'

'Where to now, darling?'

'Can we find somewhere a little less crowded,' said Angua as she approached them, dragging the purveyors of miniturised fountains in her wake.

'Excellent idea, Captain,' said Vimes with energy. People who are used to being in charge are some of the most difficult people in the world if they don't feel like they are in charge. Political advisers and courtiers understand this perfectly, especially the concept of 'feel'. Most of the great decisions and achievements of humanity belong to actors on the fringe of the scene, they just get attributed to those in the spotlight. Sybil also understood the general principles.

'So what would you suggest, Sam?'

Somewhere with room to move, he thought, and possibly even hide. He spun around looking for any option - and there it was, standing above the skyline. Surely you could lose yourself in that. He pointed. 'There.'

'Wonderful choice Sam. The Whopperseum. It would have been such a shame not to have visited it.' What she didn't say was that it was the next place she had on her list. A successful relationship involves tongue-biting in both camps.

The Whooperseum was just as popular as anywhere else, but at least its sheer size thinned out the crowd. They paid the entrance fee and, in a moment of weakness, Vimes paid extra to be allowed into an exclusive part of the stadium.

'Sam, who would have thought a week ago that we'd be here now in the gladiator's area of the Whopperseum?'

'Actually, Lady Ramkin, I think it might have been a place where they kept wild animals,' said Angua. 'There's a faint but sharp smell. Pretty amazing it's kept that odour over the years.'

It was something of a rabbit warren under the Whopperseum, not that a rabbit would have survived long down here when it was active, though Angua as she wandered down a side tunnel. She just needed to get away for a while. This whole situation with Carrot was winding her up tight and a loaded werewolf is definitely not something you point at other people. Besides, the Commander and Lady Sybil deserved some time together.

Distracted by her thoughts she didn't notice she had company until the voice spoke out of the darkness. 'Captain Angua,' it said.

This startled her so much that the first thing she had to do was fight the automatic urge to transform. Stress can be as effective as a full moon on werewolves. She spun around trying to find the voice's owner.

'Don't bother with that,' it continued, 'neither of us have got time and you don't have a hope of trapping me. 'I have a word of warning for you, your commander and any friends you might have acquired in Ahroma. From my master. I am to tell you this "Do you have any idea who you are dealing with and how powerful they are? If you do anything further the consequences will be unavoidable." There, I think that covers it. Please pass that on to the Commander, at your own discretion.'

Then with the barest movement of air, the tunnel was empty again. Angua growled. What the ... Did Hattoni seriously think unveiled threats would work on the Commander. If you've got a blink-first-and-you-lose approach to life you're not about to let threats run the show. This was possibly Vimes's greatest strength (and, thanks to the flip side nature of life, his biggest weakness).

'What the ...' shouted Vimes two minutes later. 'Does that thug really think I'll back off when there's an officer in danger? To be honest, I had some doubts about the plan actually working, but right now I say bring it on!'

And that was the end of the holiday.

xx

Dibbler couldn't help himself. He'd listened to what Commander Vimes had said and had tried his best to stay away from the property market but the truth was he was addicted. Not to the acquirement of land in particular, but more broadly to the acquirement of acquirement. Somewhere inside him honestly did have what passed for a social conscious but that only thrived when it didn't clash with his ambitions on wealth. Fear worked too, of course. The fuel to feed the flames of fear was still there but a fire needs oxygen or, in this case, Sam Vimes, and he seemed to be missing in action. That was patently obvious to everyone in the city after the protest. The Commander would have been all over it like a rash. And where were Captains Carrot and Angua? Even the Patrician seemed to have gone silent.

Just as the flames of fear were on the wane the fires of greed were waxing. The protest about land taxes had given the market a shot in the arm and there were more potential buyers on the streets than ever, in desperate need of his assistance*. Really, it wasn't Dibbler's fault at all when you thought about.

* An outsider may be tempted to observe that needing Dibbler's assistance must, by definition, indicate desperation.

Xx

It had all gone to hell in a hand basket anyway, thought Cheery, so she was hardly making things worse. With a little bit of luck she might even be able to extract the aforementioned hell from the overburdened hand basket. And what the heck did hell have to do with hand baskets anyway?

'Based on what Colon and Nobbs reported through Reg, I'd say we're not looking at one of the major devils or demons,' said Visit. 'They rarely come to this realm anyway. It's the minions who do all the real soul stealing and signature entrapment. I'd be betting it was a Moggroth. They like the dark and don't mind being near water either. The prophet Endoscop posited they were descended from giant toads, though the translation is a bit vague on that and the scholar Foussa offers the alternative that they are descended from giant goats. Of course, this claim put Foussa at the risk of heresy, as it could be seen to contradict the book of Ossary, which you can imagine ...'

'Yes, thank you Visit,' said Cheery quickly, throwing a verbal sleeper in the path of the conversational locomotive. Visit had given up trying to convert Cheery to Om, other than in a token fashion, and had moved onto his favourite and, apparently, only topic - Om. He could talk about it for hours and didn't need any help at all. This was an ability common to most Omnians and could only be rivalled by genealogists and the occasional proud grandparent. 'Right now we need to find this demon as soon as possible.'

Visit nodded and picked up a small box, at the centre of which bobbed a compass. 'I'll just set it to Moggroth and we can be in our way,' he said turning a dial on the side of the box. Visit stared at the compass and said after a moment 'Nothing yet. We need to move around. And start near water.'

'The River Ankh will have to do as a substitute.' The River Ankh didn't just pass through Ankh Morpork it passed through the silt-laden Sto Lat plains and then the alimentary system of every resident of the city. It had many well-known qualities, including a unique set of bacteria that could go through the average person like a ball of lead shot and, in a certain light ,could be said to flow but no one who had ever seen it, smelt it or cut chunks off it would ever call it water. 'Let's go. Onwards and downwards.'

Xx

Blatworm sighed. It didn't matter how you looked at it, he'd lost his passion for the job. Most demons, devils, daemons* and other assorted hellspawn came with a desire to climb the infernal ladder. And they were good at it. They'd invented ambition in the first place and one of Hell's greatest achievements in corrupting humanity had been to plant those seeds of ambition and watch them flourish. If you can get people to tie their sense of self-worth to it, then the game is over.

* A pretentious class of demons

Every now and again, though, a demon would take stock. They call this condition Balor's Lament. A handful of those that paused in their nefarious activities would see through the matrix and come face to face with Hell's ultimate weapon - blissful ignorance. Not that this knowledge, in itself, made them any happier, that's not the function of knowledge, but it does give back the ability to choose. Right now Blatworm wanted out. Of course it wasn't that simple. There weren't any demonic retirement plans and, besides, he had an added complication. But if the chance arose he'd grab it with both claws.

Thanks to the arrangement with Hattoni he'd taken up accommodation in Ankh Morpork. The commute back and forth to Hades would have been a nightmare. It was designed to be. Travel to and from the netherworld was never meant to be a joyride. The term accommodation was a loose one as was often the case in Ankh Morpork, especially if you wanted a low profile. The best place to be a nobody was in the Shades and, for good measure, close to the Ankh. Being a nobody wasn't the same as being unobserved, but it did mean that at least no one was reporting in on you. The river was an upside for Blatworm. He liked the damp and the aroma wasn't a problem. If anything it reminded him of home.

He'd taken up lodgings in a downstairs apartment, though dank cellar was a more accurate description. Soon after he'd moved in Blatworm had discovered that there was an underworld beneath the city, and his cellar was part of it. Some previous tenant had made a hole in the wall and then hidden it behind the large wardrobe. Blatworm had found it when he noticed a small draft. He had no idea what the reason was for making the hole and he didn't really care, but he was grateful. It had opened up a whole new world for him and he'd taken to wandering through the under-city after work.

There were entire areas swallowed up by mud but mostly it was easy enough to get around. In fact, in some areas the mud had been cleared away and sometimes he'd hear voices or see lanterns. In the interests of all parties concerned he made sure he avoided them. But tonight was different. He'd seen the lights bobbing along and headed off down a side passage, only for the lights to appear once again. Demons have excellent hearing and he began to pick up snatches of conversation.

'... moving around now ...'

' ... Ossary ...'

'... enough Visit ...focus ...'

Ossary, thought Blatworm. That name was familiar ...

He turned another corner and once again the light appeared behind him. He'd headed into an unfamiliar area and to his annoyance found he'd trapped himself in a dead end. He'd have to do things the hard way now, at least for his pursuers. There wasn't much a demon was afraid of. He didn't have to wait long.

'We're almost on top of it,' whispered a voice. 'Can you hold the scope please Acting Commander? Thanks.'

And then there they were. Two members of the city Watch. A human and a dwarf, the dwarf holding some sort of box. Not exactly standard demon hunting material. Blatworm snorted.

'Why don't you both just leave now before things turn ugly,' he said with the sort of toothy grin that only dentists could love.

'Not an option for us,' said the dwarf.

'That's a real shame,' replied the demon, 'I really wish it had been. People are depressingly good at forgetting that by narrowing down their own options they do the same for everyone else. It's really very selfish, you know. Now you've left me no other choice.'

Life is made up of a series of heartbeats and some of them are life changing. In the next one the glamour fell from Blatworm. Skin became scale, hand became claw and his flickering shadow grew to rival the surrounding darkness.

'I'd like to say this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but we all know that's always been an excuse for nastiness. One of Hell's best ones.'

'Ummm, you might be wrong there, Hellspawn,' said the human.

'Playing chicken with demons doesn't end well for the chicken. There's not a lot that makes us blink.'

'There doesn't have to be a lot. Really only one thing when you think about it. Have you seen this before?' the human replied and from behind his back he drew out a small mirror. It was an unadorned thing, but in the curious way of items of power it didn't need to be. It didn't have to bluff.

'Where did you get that?' the demon cried, taking a step backwards.

'My grandmother, and it was old then. She told me that no demon could tolerate their own true reflection and that if you had a true mirror you could defeat them.'

Then the demon did blink. 'Ossary ... Ossary...' he said. 'You're a bloody Omnian aren't you? You people never understood that religion isn't the issue for demons did you? But you believed, and that became Belief. Rock hard Belief. That's where the power lies. Put that damn thing away. It gives me a headache just looking at it. And tell me what this is all about.'

Cheery patted Visit on the back, as high as she could reach, and nodded. 'You're in possession of a certain contract between Señor Hattoni and two of our officers. We want you to destroy it.'

Blatworm laughed, but there was no humour in it. 'And here I was thinking you wanted something simple, like boundless wealth. You ask the impossible.'

'Why?'

'Because Señor Hattoni is much too smart to trust a demon without having a safety net. There is another contract. One that carries my own signature and binds me to him. Just as the two officers cannot work against him, neither can I.'

'You let yourself get caught in your own trap?'

'Hattoni plays a long game. He found out my weakness for the 'demon' drink. On the pretext of him signing up his own soul he got me drunk and switched contracts. Now I work for him. Whilst the contract exists I cannot help you.'

'And if it didn't ...'

'I would show you how to break the other contract. There is a clause that not even Hattoni realises is there.'

'Why can't you just take the contract yourself?'

'Hattoni had it sealed in a box no demon can open and has placed a condition in the contract that prevents me from simply taking it.'

'So if we were to bring it to you, and give it to you, we could free the others?' asked Cheery.

The demon nodded.

'Where is it?'

'It would be somewhere with Hattoni. But we would need some powerful artefact to destroy it, even if you found it.'

'Would the Thurible of Righteousness do the trick?' asked Visit.

'Of course, but there aren't any of those left in existence. We made sure of that ... wait, let me guess ... your grandmother?'

'Grandfather.'

'That would do it. Wouldn't work on the contract you're worried about, in case you were wondering.'

'How can we trust that you'd help us once you were released?' demanded Cheery.

'You can't. I'm a demon and we have low standards to uphold. But what choice do you have?'