Andrew Vimes slammed the door of his tiny room at the YMPA open in a spectacularly bad mood. He'd forgotten how godsdamn /idiotic/ the people of Ankh-Morpork could be on occasion; and all members of the Vimes family refused to suffer fools gladly.

He blinked. Sitting on the chipped cane chair rather awkwardly opposite the door was Lady Sybil. She looked a little different to when he had last seen her, grey under they eyes and pale but as always there was a good-natured faint smile and a elegant manner of sitting with skirts neatly folded. In the grey-washed walled bedroom tainted with the slight smell of disinfectant the sadly smiling duchess sitting on his only chair seemed a very strange notion indeed.

"Hello Andrew," she said politely.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, my lady?"

Lady Sybil sighed, and looked down at her hands which were clasped in her lap. "Sam's in trouble and he needs your help."

Andrew sniffed. "What kind of trouble?"

Sybil met his gaze again and this time there was a glint in her eye and a slight tightening of her jaw that reminded Andrew very strongly of his little brother. "I tell you what. If you answer one of my questions, I'll answer one of yours."

Andrew smiled slightly, listening to Sam's voice through his wife's mouth There must be something about us Vimeses, Andrew thought, that makes other people speak for us when we can no longer speak for ourselves. "Okay, Lady Sybil. Ask away."

"Why is Sam so angry with you?"

Andrew sighed. "That's a big question, Lady Sybil. It could take a long time to answer."

"I've got plenty of time, Mister Vimes." Which was a lie, because Angua and Cheery were babysitting little Sam and their shift started in thirty minutes but Lady Sybil had learned a lot from her husband.

Andrew sat down on the rumpled covers of his bed and put his head in his hands. When he eventually spoke it was through the gap between his arms. "I guess it all started when our father died. Sam was only three. I don't think he can even remember Dad." Andrew hesitated. "Sergeant Vimes of the Night Watch; he was murdered. I was eight at the time and... I like to think I knew Dad quite well."

"I'm so sorry," Lady Sybil murmured automatically.

"It was a long time ago. There were no pensions for widows and orphans in those days," Andrew continued. He smiled suddenly, crookedly. "I heard that Sam created the widows and orphans fund when he was appointed Commander."

"Yes," murmured Lady Sybil.

"Proving I guess that the experiences of our childhood shapes the choices we make in our adult lives," Andrew said, almost to himself, "Sam doesn't want you to know what happened to us... to him... when he was younger. It's not a nice story. I don't blame him for that."

"I know."

"After Dad died our mother took up all sorts of jobs to try and keep our heads above water. Couldn't look after Sam anymore so he got shunted around the place, playing with the other kids in the street. Sometimes Mrs. Easy looked after us. When Sam was four he was allowed to join the junior class at the local dame school which helped a bit. Things were... sort of alright... for about three years. Dad had a bit of money set by, Mam worked all hours and me and Sam ran errands. But eventually the money ran out when I was twelve.

"When Mam realised that we were really in trouble she took out a loan with the Smiling Loan Company in the Shades. We knew something was up when the first repayment was something like a third of the original loan amount. Couldn't pay back the loan sharks..." Andrew stopped for a moment and Lady Sybil saw that he was visibly shaking, and sweat was beading on his forehead visible through his hands.

"So they waited for Sam one day after school. He was only eight..." Andrews voice cracked. "And he was tiny, a real little kid. They nearly killed him. When we found him I offered to work for them instead, to repay our debts. I left school and did jobs for them. Not nice jobs. But I was a big lad in those days; never tall but stocky, like Mam's side of the family. And things were alright again.

"When I turned sixteen I started to realise that I was /never/ going to be able to run enough errands to ever repay the debts. They wouldn't ever let me go. They'd got a willing slave to do all their nasty jobs and there was nothing I could do about it. I was angry and I'd learnt all sorts of nasty things with the SLC.

"Then I met Bill. He was in one of the street gangs and he invited me to join them. And he helped me come up with a plan of how I could escape, and he promised to help Mam and Sam after I was gone. We would set fire to the house after I staged an argument with my boss. I'd flee the city and never return, start a new life somewhere else. The gang would blame the SLC and they'd look out for Mam and Sam afterwards; they'd be under the gang's protection."

"But it didn't work?"

"Oh no, for me it worked perfectly. I was in Quirm by the time the fire had been put out and from there... the rest of the Disc. But it didn't work out like I hoped for those I left behind."

"What happened?"

"I don't know exactly; that's what I've been trying to find out while I've been in Ankh-Mopork. I think that after I was gone Bill and the others demanded repayments for their 'services rendered.' So Sam ended up in their gang doing pretty much the same sort of thing I did until he was seventeen... and then something happened... I don't know what... and Sam got out of it. Quite legally and without burning down any houses. He joined the Watch... and the rest is history."

There was silence for a while, broken only by the dripping of the tap in the far corner. "Sam needs your help now," Sybil said quietly.

"How can I help him?" Andrew asked.

"He's trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions and part of the spell to bring him back involves the blood of a close relative. You're the only one Sam has left... well the only person old enough to donate blood. And you shared some of the strongest experiences of his life with Sam; his most poignant. You can 'call him back.' At least, that's what Mister Stibbons said."

"Pardon?"

*



Vimes was running as hard and fast as he could. Faster than he had ever run in his life, ignoring the stabbing pains in his leg, the frantic hammering of his heart and the sweat stinging his eyes as he streaked across the desert sands at the head of a column of dust. Behind him the creature was gaining, drops of saliva from its jaws flying out behind it to speckle the sand.

"Ahhhahhahaaa!!" The cry escaped Vimes's throat with no prompting from his brain, basic primal instinct as he desperately tried to evade capture, to make it back to the cave.

He wasn't going to make it. He knew it in his very bones but he had to try, he had to run. The creature was covering the ground between them in long easy strides and the black fingers of rock that Vimes had, over the past three weeks, grown to call home were still too far away.

Rincewind had warned him that there was no real way to escape from Them. Rincewind had known that They were searching for him, and really the wizard had not held out any hopes that Vimes would be able to evade capture for any great length of time. Three weeks was probably a new record as it was.

Vimes screamed as the creature hit him across the back and he sprawled in the sand, rolling quickly to his feet to try and run again, but a tentacle snaked around his leg and pulled him over.

The creature was on him, holding him in the sand; so huge he could do nothing to fight against its grip. Tentacles wrapped around his writs and ankles, pressed against his chest and curled around his chin to make him look directly into the eyes of the creature. There were three of them, dark as the gash in the sky between the sky and land here and Vimes felt as if he was drowning in them. They spoke of an evil so ancient and so terrible that another cry rose from inside his chest to erupt from dry lips.

The eyes regarded him for a moment and then another tentacle rose to strike him hard across the face and he fell unconscious.

When he came to he was in a cage, which confused him somewhat. The bars appeared to be made from cold metal judging by what he could feel (it being too dark to see clearly). He could hear muted cries from somewhere. They didn't sound human. His face hurt, and one eye was effectively blind, forced closed by a swelling in his cheek from the tentacle blow. In the clammy dark his injured leg was aching again slightly.

He lay in the blackness for sometime until footsteps made him grope for the bars in the dark and used them to pull himself upright. Light flared in the dark, flickering shadows illuminating a grotesque parody of the humanoid form limping towards him, hunchbacked and twisted and growling under its breath.

"Come," it rumbled, voice thick and alien but understandable.

Vimes waited for the door of the cell to be unlocked and then allowed himself to be prodded out of the prison. In the gloom around him huge hulking shapes huddled on the edge of sight. His legs were shaking, he realised dimly, and he doubted that the trembling had much to do with cold or injury.

There was a door ahead of him, light spilling in through the gap in the wall which he was pushed through.

He immediately realised where he must be. Stands encircled an oval of gravel scored with claw marks full of monsters. Medium sized ones mostly, but here and there Vimes could see the bulky shapes of Them. A hush came over the Amphitheatre as he stumbled out and across the gravel. All eyes turned to watch him as wind whipped the tattered remains if his clothes.

At the other end of the stadium was another door, exactly the same as the one Vimes had lurched through. Out of it crawled a creature Vimes had not encountered before. Vaguely insect like it reminded Vimes of a praying mantis, scythe like forearms held curled and ready as it stepped forward on four smaller limbs. It's head was insectoid too, bulbous compound eyes and mandibles. However, unlike most bugs this mantis was about eight feet tall and at least as long as it was high. It's exoskeleton gleamed in the strange light and all at once every creature in the Amphitheatre was screeching or roaring, the stamping of various ill assorted feet making the gravel chips rattle.

Vimes swore under his breath filled with the quiet, calm dread that proceeds certain death. In his pocket was his knife and he still wore most of his watchman's armour. But what use was plate and chain-mail going to be against the gladiator, capable of cleaving his head from his shoulders with one swipe?

"I thought I told you to just run?" said a voice behind Vimes.

"I did," Vimes informed Rincewind, "They ran faster."

Rincewind sighed. It would have been too much to hope that Vimes would manage to successfully avoid Them anyway. "The trick is, I always found, to injure the gladiator enough to make it bleed profusely. Then the crowd attacks it anyway and you can run away in the confusion."

"Great advice," Vimes said, his lips barely moving, "And how exactly do you injure something that size with a /knife?/"

"With great difficulty?"

"Oh gods."

The creature advanced and the baying of the crowd rose in Vimes's ears. He drew his knife and waited, expecting the onslaught. Vimes ducked left and rolled away as the creature bought a scythe-like-arm down. He slashed out wildly with the knife in a desperate attempt to wound the creature before it hit him.

The creature spun wildly and caught Vimes across his cheek as Vimes leapt backwards to avoid the blow. He swung the knife again, missed, dropped and rolled backwards as the scythe hummed through the air again.

Vimes regained his feet and immediately had to leap out of the way of another blow. He wasn't quite fast enough and the flat of the scythe blade caught him across the ribs. He spun and hit the ground hard, winded and scrambled away quickly. The creature advanced on him again and sudden realisation struck.

He kicked out, caught the creature in the chest and slid backwards across the gravel. Enraged, it reared screeching and Vimes threw the knife. Vimes wasn't particularly good at throwing knives but for once his aim was true.

With a horrible squelching noise the knife hit the creature in the eye. It squealed and Vimes was aware of the palpable change in the atmosphere as the creature writhed. Just as the scalies did when Vimes made a kill, the monsters charged as one creature. The flapping of leathery wings and scrape of claws on stone made Vimes clamp his hands over his ears as the noise became deafening. The crowd of creatures washed over him and he was kicked this way and that as they stampeded to get the injured mantis. He felt claws rake his back as he crawled out of the way, as the feeding frenzy began. He ran as fast as he could away from the amphitheatre. Eventually, when he judged he was far enough away, he slowed to a walk; heading home.

"Good gods Mister Vimes," said Rincewind's voice. Vimes glanced up and saw the distorted face of Rincewind above him.

"What?" he wheezed.

"That was... amazing. Carrot and some of the others were watching here too. And we have good news. We think we may have a way to get you out. There's someone here who wants to speak to you."

Vimes looked slightly confused. No one apart from Rincewind and once Ridcully had spoken to him via the crystal link. He looked upwards after a quick glance left and right, hardly daring to hope...

It wasn't Sybil's face that appeared as he had hoped but Andrew's. Vimes's slight smile drained as he felt the prickling of flowing blood on his back and the anger rising in his stomach. "Andrew?"

"Hi Sam. I won't talk for long. They've found a way to get you home. But it turns out they need my blood and my memories to help get you back. I want to say I'm sorry Sam. And Sybil wants to speak to you too."

The face in orb changed and Vimes smiled for the first time in three weeks. "Sybil!"