"He's where?" said Carrot, looking puzzled.

"The Dungeon Dimensions," Rincewind repeated, looking throughly wretched.

"Where's that?" Cheery said.

Ridcully sighed. "We don't actually /know/ as such. It's a sort of sub-Disc dimension. There's only been one person who has ever returned from there."

"Me," said Rincewind.

"You?"

Rincewind nodded, his face oddly closed; he was reliving what were possibly the worst experiences in his life. /Probably/ the worst. There were a lot to choose from after all.

"Can we get him /out/?" said Carrot firmly.

The wizards exchanged uncomfortable looks. "Possibly," said the Dean.

"How did /you/ get out?" asked Cheery, a bite of impatience in her voice as all eyes turned to Rincewind.

"Uh, a demonologist performed a summoning as I was passing through. Pure coincidence, I'm afraid," Rincewind said.

"We've got HEX and some of the younger wizards working on possible solutions right now. As it is, we think we may have way to contact Mister Vimes," Ridcully added, "And Rincewind has offered to act as... kind of a guide for the time being, to keep the Commander out of trouble until we can find a way to bring him back."

Carrot sighed. "Alright. I'm going to go and speak to Lady Sybil," he said. Around the room various people looked away, saddened suddenly at the remembrance that it was not only their Commander affected by his disappearance, but his wife and son too.

*

Vimes woke up very suddenly, mostly due to the fact that something with incredibly sharp teeth had just bitten into his leg. He hit it across the head and it let go, jumping out of reach more in surprise than hurt. Vimes unsheathed his dagger and slashed wildly at the thing as it hopped closer for another attempt at consuming him. It was vaguely chicken-like; a big, scaly and ugly chicken. He hit it across a wing and it squawked, running away across the grey sand, rapidly disappearing from sight.

Vimes sat up properly and tried to work out where the hell he was. Beneath him there was a thin, grey sand; overhead a blank sky almost opalescent directly above him, fading to a grubby white as his eyes tracked along and down to where there should be a horizon... Instead there was a black band of darkness that drew the eyes to it, making Vimes squint as he stared deeper and deeper into the blackness, inextricably drawn to it...

He tore his eyes away and turned his attention to his still bleeding leg. The chicken-thing had torn quite a large gash in his left leg; blood was coursing down his shin. He hurriedly ripped his shirt sleeves to make a bandage which he wrapped tightly around the wound in an attempt to staunch the blood flow.

He struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain from his stricken limb. His arm ached where the creature had bitten him, there were plenty of fresh bruises and his knuckles were raw and scabbed. He had no other resources that his armour and knife, the clothes he stood up in and the cigars he carried. He was obviously a long way from home and he was bleeding. Wherever he was it was also apparently home to carnivorous small leathery birds too. Vimes couldn't think of many situations he had been in that were worse than this one.

Well, there was no sense in standing here bleeding on the sand all day. He ought to start moving before the damn chicken turned up with some friends. One knife was not going to be a lot of use against more than one or two of the things . But which direction should he move in? As far as the eye could see the grey desert stretched in all directions. There were no real footprints in the sand; a couple of three toed bird tracks and a disturbingly snake-like trail that was nearly four inches in width, but nothing humanoid.

In the end Vimes settled for going in the opposite direction to the chicken. It seemed a sensible decision. At first he moved steadily over the sands, listening to the crunch of his booted feet on the grey grains. Eventually he came across a sort of track. Whatever had made the huge footprints in the grime Vimes was quite keen to avoid, but whichever way he turned after about half an hour of walking he would miraculously end up back on the path again. Sometimes he was even following his own prints.

It was frustrating; he /knew/ he was moving in a straight line, one foot following another. Yet even when he turned to see his tracks leading back the way he had come in an almost mathematically straight column when he face forward in front of him would lie, accusingly, the track. After a while he simply resigned himself to following it. There was little else he could do.

Inevitably his footsteps began to falter. Blood was dripping down his leg again, the bandage soaked with fluid from a wound which didn't seem to want to clot. He stumbled a few times, boots scuffing the edges of the monstrous trails. His tongue was glued to his palette and he recognised through his exhaustion the symptoms of excessive blood loss beginning to affect him. He felt light headed, almost emotionless; the pain in his leg faded to a dull prickling as he very slowly began the inexorable slide into unconsciousness. He kept moving doggedly onward although it did not seem as if he ever made any progress, as if he was walking on a treadmill under the hideous sky.

He staggered as his dragging gait caused him to overbalance, tripped over a particularly deep imprint and fell face down on the floor. He could taste the sweet, metallic tang of blood in his mouth now, but he felt to tired to care. The sharp new taste was a welcome relief from the monotony of having a mouth full of dried saliva, acting like glue on the tongue; he savoured it.

He knew he shouldn't stop; a part of him chided the rest for lying so helplessly on the floor. The unchangeable rock-hard core of cynicism that was always with him told him to get up. He ignored it. He only wanted to rest for a minute, just one minute... was a minute so bad? Then he would get up and carry on moving. He just needed a rest for a moment, a minute to collect his thoughts and prepare for more hours of journey over the sands-

He fell asleep.



"Mister Vimes? Mister Vimes?" An unfamiliar voice dragged Vimes kicking and screaming through the layers of blissful insensibility and back into the harsh reality of his waking world. His eyes flickered open; he turned over and he stared blankly at the white sky which seemed to be bulging, extruding out in a kind of bubble right above him... and speaking to him.

As he stared blearily, aching more than he had ever done in his life and feeling weak as a swamp-dragon hatchling, the slightly anxious face of Rincewind resolved itself above him, contained in the shiny sky-bubble.

"Hello," said Vimes faintly.

"You need to get up, Mister Vimes," said Rincewind, "They'll be coming for you, you don't want to stop moving; They'll catch you."

"Who will?" Vimes remained lying down, not certain he had the strength to sit.

"They will," Rincewind said, "It doesn't matter who They are, you just don't want to be caught by Them."

"Oh. Right," said Vimes, experiencing a sensation akin to extreme drunkenness where nothing really mattered very much; the whole world was a pink-tinged cloud of happiness. Actually, even when drunk the world had never become pink and happy for Sam Vimes, thus it was a new experience and one he was trying to cherish.

"You need to stop the bleeding from the bite in your leg," Rincewind continued.

What leg? Vimes wondered briefly. On balance he decided it was probably the one he could barely feel, full of splinters or so it seemed. He stared at it blearily, wondering if it was normally so red and sticky.

"Lick the wound," Rincewind instructed.

"Lick it?" Vimes echoed, "It's on my leg!"

"Well, spit on your hand and rub in the saliva," Rincewind suggested.

"Why?" asked Vimes, trying to comply anyway before the explanation arrived.

"The saliva is the only thing that stops the anti-clotting agent in the wound from the scalies. You've lost a lot of blood."

"Scalies?" Vimes queried. He managed to sit up, spat into his hand and started to rub the saliva into the wound. It stung quite fiercely and the worm of pain snaking up his leg helped jolt Vimes back into reality. He cradled his head in his hand.

"The chickeny thing that bit you. That's what I called them. Scalies. They feed on dead or dying organisms. Or sleeping ones, actually. Annoying creatures."

Vimes tried to think through the fog that had apparently invaded his brain. "How're you speaking to me?" he asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

"Ponder- he's managed to get a crystal ball to link into the Dungeon Dimensions. HEX did some calculations. It's not enough to get you out, but it's a start. I'm going to act as your guide. I've been in the Dungeon Dimensions before, see, and survived. I can help you until we're ready to get you out."

"Oh right," said Vimes, feeling his more normal 'angry' state of mind disperse some of the fog of fatigue; the irritation caused as he mulled over the phrase 'until we're ready to get you out.'

"Can you walk?"

Vimes could, but not well. He limped heavily on his injured left leg. "Where do I need to walk to?"

"You need to get off the track," Rincewind informed him.

Vimes gritted his teeth against the pain and growing frustration. "I /know/ that. /How/ is the question I'm asking."

"Er... Just keep walking off at a tangent from the tracks..."

"Surprisingly enough, Rincewind, I have already tried that!" Vimes exclaimed, exasperated, pain making him even more short tempered than normal, "I just end up back on it again a few minutes later!"

"Cross the path when you come to it again. And then you'll go... elsewhere," Rincewind said.

Vimes sighed, not liking these cryptic clues as to what was coming next. He began hobbling off at ninety degrees to the track. "Who are They?" he enquired.

Rincewind looked uncomfortable from what Vimes could see of his face, made strangely bulbous by the refraction of the crystal. "Um. Well..." Seeing Vimes's deepening frown Rincewind decided that honesty was probably the best policy. "There's three sorts of creatures that inhabit the Dungeon Dimensions see. There's little creatures like the scalies. Fairly harmless in small numbers; they run away if you give them a good kick, at least for a while.

"Then there's the medium ones. They're the type you fought in the tower. Nasty things but...beatable. Best to avoid a fight with them though. And never try to take on more than one.

"And then there's Them. The big ones. They're intelligent... or cunning... There's more to them than just the desire for light. I don't think you can apply human descriptors to them. They /send/ the medium sized ones through holes in the fabric of reality, they don't like to risk their own skin. They built the amphitheatre and they organise the fights too... They're dangerous. If you see them just run."

"I'm good at running," murmured Vimes.

"No, you're good at chasing," Rincewind replied, "There's a difference between that and running away."

"What's the amphitheatre?" asked Vimes, as if working down a mental check list.

Rincewind visibly shuddered. "It's the only building that exists here. They built it. They all watch the fights. Now They know that you're here They'll be looking for you. They want you to fight some of Their gladiators. They enjoy it. That's why you must run, as fast as you can as soon as you even think they might be near. Because if They do catch you, then you really will be in big trouble."

"Did They ever catch you?"

Vimes looked up to see Rincewind nod. "Oh yes," he said softly, "They caught me." Rincewind felt automatically for the scars across his back, a constant reminder of his second battle in the amphitheatre. "I got the biggest scars I ever received in my life from fighting in there."

Vimes walked in silence for a while, not daring to look up and see if Rincewind was still watching from the crystal ball as he doubted he could look up and not fall over. He was stumbling again, falling twice before he reached the path again.

"I'm back on the track," Vimes said. There was no reply; glancing up Vimes saw the sky was empty again. For a moment he felt as if he had been kicked, an odd hollow terror welling up inside him. He was on his own, he didn't know what to do...

However, he had a damn good idea. Cross the path, Rincewind had said. If the wizard had managed to survive here Vimes was certain that he could.

Even if he was older.

And had absolutely no training in any sort of magic.

And had lost a lot of blood.

And had no real weapons.

He physically shook himself to stop the mental additions. No sense in over-dramatising his predicament, was there?

He stepped onto the path, took a deep breath and cross it. There was a curious sensation, a wind whistled in his ears and rustled his greying hair for a brief second and then, just as Rincewind had said, he was... elsewhere.

He knew immediately he was somewhere completely knew because there was a rocky outcrop some way ahead of him. Fingers of black stone seemed to simply protrude from the flat expanse of sands. Vimes wondered whether he should head towards it or stay away. On balance it seemed sensible to head towards it. There might be caves where he could sleep... or at least a place where he could feel secure; out of the gaze of what felt like an ever-watchful sky, like a blood-shot huge eye above him.



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Anyone else had problems uploading to ff.net?? Sheesh!

Hope you enjoy anyway, Lunar.