Soon, Vimes had to admit that there really was something wrong with Sybil's dragons.
The problem was that they were growing. By the day, by the hour, they were growing. It was truly fortunate that Sybil's property was so large, or there would have been nowhere for them to go.
On second thought, that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that they were changing. They were carrying themselves with a confidence that should have seemed ridiculous in a swamp dragon, but didn't. They were producing pure, hot, well-aimed flames, and never seemed to be in any danger of exploding.
They were flying higher, farther, and faster than ever with little apparent effort, in a way which, especially given their growing bodies, made no aerodynamic sense.
In short, they seemed to be gradually transforming into noble dragons.
The good news was that they still listened to Sybil. They were still, sort of, themselves. Vimes wondered if they should plan for the possibility that this might change, but decided it was no more worth planning for than the possibility that Vetinari might turn on him. One doesn't need to plan for the aftermath of swift and certain destruction.
Lord Vetinari and Lady Margolotta were working in a Corner of the Library. Vetinari had chosen this particular Corner because it was almost impossible for anyone but him to find. The documents kept here were ones that had once, many decades or centuries ago, been state secrets. Some had been placed here on purpose; some had been buried or burned, yet nevertheless made their way here to their compatriots. None of the documents contained information that any living person cared about keeping secret, but having once been sensitive enough to win wars and topple dynasties, they remained to this day distrustful and paranoid. They showed themselves only to Authority.
Furthermore, the Corner had a beautiful wooden table and very comfortable chairs. Vetinari himself had no opinions about chairs-after all, their only function was to bear weight, which was hardly a complex or delicate operation-but he knew that Margolotta did. Not that she was fussy about it; she simply appreciated a job well-done.
The table was piled with books that referenced the Old Monsters of Uberwald. Some had come from this Library, but the greater portion had arrived from Margolotta's own library via L-space.
"So the gate can be opened," Vetinari said.
"It is slightly possible that the gate can be opened," Margolotta corrected, "under remarkable circumstances."
"I'm sure you agreed fifty seconds ago that we've eliminated all other possibilities. Several times over."
"I did."
The books in front of them said, in summary, this:
When the Old Monsters ruled Uberwald, it was empty of life. They were swirling vortices of misery, pain, and destruction. They had begun as a single seed dropped from a single poisoned tree, but they multiplied and spread, and every year their territory grew. Every year the borders of Uberwald expanded, and the people who lived next to them had to flee or be poisoned. Finally, the people learned to fight back. They drove the Old Monsters into the Dungeon Dimensions, locked the door behind them, and threw away the key.
The problem with throwing away the key is that it is possible that some time later, even thousands of years later, someone might find it.
The people who moved into the poisoned territory developed strange adaptations to it. Some learned to drink blood, for blood is life, and protects against the poison. Some learned to change into wolves, for wolves can smell the poison, and run away from its flow. All found themselves exploring and settling in the gray region between life and death. Their descendants are marked by these adaptations.
How much must the Old Monsters thirst to find those descendants? How much must they lust to destroy their new home, as theirs was once destroyed? To fill the Discworld again with their lights, their groans, their magic, their tentacles...
"I notice that these accounts are all...written by people," Vetinari murmured. "I wonder what the Old Monsters would say for themselves."
"Do you also vunder vhat the inhabitants of your own Dungeon Dimensions vould say for themselves?" Margolotta replied sharply.
"I certainly do," Vetinari said calmly. "I believe I know the answer to my satisfaction, but one can never be absolutely sure."
"Understood," Margolotta said, relaxing slightly. "Vell, you see that many of these accounts vere written by people in unaffected areas, who vere sick of the refugees from Uberwald and vould have preferred to downplay the problem and send them back. Many of them did indeed deny that the borders vere expanding, or that the Old Monsters vere truly so awful-but it became harder to deny over time. Some thinks aren't ambiguous. Some bad thinks are just bad thinks."
"True." Vetinari nodded slowly. "Yes. I agree that we must fight them." He took his cane and stood up. "But who could wish them back? I wonder if-"
"-Ankh-Morpork was built of humans, by humans, for humans, and to humans it will return!"
Angua and Sally sat quietly in a middle row, watching the speaker with thoughtful (and carefully disguised) faces, politely nodding or clapping when everyone else did.
Of course, infiltrating the League of Defense Against Uberwald was not a pleasant assignment, but they had asked for it. Sally had experience as a spy; Angua just wanted to take action, because the alternative was being saved by someone else. Anyway, they were better at blending in than most of the rest of the Watch.
They had not yet found any illegal behavior and were not quite sure what sort they were looking for. They had at some point picked up the rumor that the investigation was related to the lights in the sky and the tentacles in the river, but could not say from where.
The speaker finished; the audience got up and began to mingle around the table of refreshments. Angua and Sally managed to get themselves in a conversation with a regular they hadn't spoken to before, a young man who was shy at first but opened up after a few of Sally's patented bright, energetic smiles and nods.
"I have to say," he said quietly, as if a little embarrassed by his own rosy worldview, "I'm the moderate in this room. I still think this whole problem can be resolved in a win-win way. I mean, I just think the Uberwaldeans can't really, you know, do well here, seeing how much they don't fit in. I think in the long run they'll understand that they don't really want to be here, that they're better off at home."
"And the...ones who were born here and don't speak Uberwaldean, you think even they will...choose to leave?" Angua said carefully. They were here to investigate, so in particular they were definitely not here to change hearts and minds, but still. She couldn't help but hope that...that if she only planted the right seed of doubt, the young man might not be beyond saving.
"They're still not human," the young man said. "If they only saw how much easier it is to be among your own kind...I don't know. Of course, Harby would call me ridiculous."
"Harby?" Sally asked.
"My friend, he used to be really involved with this group-for years. But he got a little extreme-like he'd say it's too late for Ankh-Morpork, nothing can fix the mess we've made, we should tear down the whole thing and start over. And now he's dropped off the face of the earth."
"That's certainly something," Angua said vaguely, her instincts flaring.
"Do you know what might've made him so pessimistic?" Sally asked.
"No idea. He had a really promising career, too. He was a student at Unseen for a while. But then he dropped out."
"A wizard!" Sally exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm-her instincts agreed with Angua's. "I've always wanted to meet a wizard! Could you introduce us?"
"I really couldn't," the young man said apologetically. "I've tried pretty hard to get in contact with him over the past year. I think I was his closest friend. Somewhere in the middle he replied to one of my letters, so I guess he sees them, and he isn't dead. But I don't think he lives at that address anymore, and all he said was 'leave me alone'."
After, Angua and Sally wandered the streets of Ankh-Morpork in the cool night air, trying to shake off the nausea that always came with monitoring the League's words. League meetings were like enormous soap bubbles. When you walked into them, the world outside became confused and distorted, and your eyes and ears went out of sync, and it made you seasick in the soul. Also you got covered in bubble film, which in this case was probably made of mouth foam.
"The one we talked to," Angua said, "do you think he can be saved?"
Sally shrugged helplessly. Above them, the clouds glowed a dark, sick yellow, as they had for days.