When Vimes opened his eyes he saw white, snow capped mountains with such clarity he felt he could reach out and touch them. He blinked. Mountains... the last place he could clearly remember had definitely not been in close proximity to mountains. Certainly not snow-capped ones.

He sat up and some snow fell off him. He was naked. And cold, he realised. Very, very cold. He staggered to his feet and realised that his clothes had landed next to him. His shirt was frozen solid as cardboard, and digging in the pocket he found his silver cigar case stuck to the material. He prised it away from the stiff material.

He was on a small hill. In the valley he could see smoke rising. That meant... people. He thought for a minute; the cold was making him slow. The appearance of a naked man in anyone's village was bound to cause some upset and mountain tribespeople had some novel ideas about greeting strangers... Vimes was quite keen, having managed to survive so far in one piece, on keeping all of his arms and legs attached. It could be dangerous to head for the smoke.

On the other hand it was some degrees below freezing and he had no clothes on. The most obvious killer was going to be the cold if he stood around here.

Trying to suppress the feeling of deja-vu he picked his way carefully down the hill, the snow clinging to his bare feet. He stumbled a few times and fell in the snow. By the time he reached the valley he was so cold he could barely feel most of his body.

There was a track now which he could follow, compacted snow with visible tracks. He let his feet lead him, his mind elsewhere. It took a loud scream to jerk him into reality.

The woman screaming on the track was dressed in furs. If Vimes had sat down and consciously thought about it he would have expected her to be blonde and pale faced. She was actually black, with long braided hair and her mouth a splash of pink against the dark skin and white snow as she opened her mouth to scream again.

Vimes moved to extend a hand. "D-on't," he said, but the simple movement caused him to overbalance and he sprawled on the snow, as the darkness reclaimed his brain.

*

"Jamala! Jamala!"

The Chief looked up from where he was digging. "Yes Kiara?" Kiara was the village wise-woman. Some people claimed she was a witch; Jamala kept his own views to himself- he was prepared to put up with a potential devil worshipper if it meant he kept Kiara's knowledge of healing plants.

"There's a man on the path from the mountains!"

"What?!"

It took some time to explain. Jamala still didn't understand what the Healer was gibbering about until he followed her and saw the man for himself. Then he ordered him to be moved to the healer's tent to be attended to by Kiara. There was much speculation in the village on the nature of the stranger. They'd heard stories (who hadn't?) of angels that fell from the sky and sought the aid of mortals to heal their wounds before ascending again. By helping the stranger Jamala was assuring his place at the table of his Great Father. As evening fell he went to the healer's tent to check on the man. He was lying still as stone on the healer's bedroll; a pile of furs and blankets.

"He's still asleep," said Kiara.

"You've treated his wounds?"

"Mostly... they're very strange..."

"What do you mean-?" he began, but he was cut off.

Vimes opened his eyes and leapt to his feet as suddenly as if he had received an electric shock., the furs draped around him like a cape. In the corner of the tent there was a mirror; something of a status symbol for the tribe as it was difficult to get glass up the mountain.

Vimes stared at the reflection. He had to assume it was his, although it didn't seem anything like he remembered. His hair had grown into a matted thatch of silver which seemed to merge seamlessly into a beard longer than any he had ever kept before (even in the forgotten three week period that had occurred in his mid twenties when he had decided for once to join the fashion and had grown a goatee. It hadn't suited him).

There was dry blood crusted all over his face, on his neck and as his eyes moved steadily downward he took in the scabs on his chest. He was absolutely filthy; the only pink on his face around his eyes were tears of pain or sleep had washed tracks in the muck. There were too many cuts and bruises to count and his eyes peered out from the grubby face, framed by the filthy hair, staring and quite mad.

He patted where, if he had been wearing any clothes, his pockets would have been. His cigar case was gone. He turned around to the man and woman staring at him. "Have you.. Have you got my cigar case?" His throat felt as though it was full of sand.

"See-gah?" said the woman, staring at him curiously.

Vimes nodded, miming opening the case. He was rewarded with more confused stares. He tried to smile disarmingly, he didn't like the way the man was fingering the hilt of his hunting knife suspiciously. The tribeswoman looked slightly scared and he stopped smiling quickly.

"Kiara," said the woman, placing a hand on her chest. Vimes obviously continued to look confused so she repeated herself. "Jamala," she added, touching the man's chest.

Vimes cottoned on. "Sam," he said, touching his own chest. "Sam Vimes."

"Oo-andth est theian amenour?" said the man.

"Er...?" Sam replied.

There was a complicated exchange between Jamala and Kiara during which Vimes pulled the furs more firmly about himself and, spying his cigar case, moved to reclaim it. His stomach was rumbling somewhat alarmingly and as their argument petered out Jamala and Kiara appeared to notice.

"Seth ay nooman," Kiara announced and Jamala rolled his eyes and hurried out. Vimes peered after him but Kiara tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him over to the only table in the tent. There was some paper on the desk and charcoal. Kiara drew something.

"Theian?"

Vimes frowned at the paper, willing the wriggling lines and dots to make some kind of sense. He angled his head. Actually... it looked almost like a map... the zigzag a mountain range, the line a river... the dot Kiara's village.

"Here," he said, drawing his own dot.

Kiara's eyes widened. "Arnak-Morpak?"

Vimes nodded gratefully. "Ankh-Morpork, yes."

Jamala had returned bearing food. Kiara turned to him and rattled off a long and complicated speech punctuated with 'Arnak-Morpaks.' Vimes bit into one of the vaguely unidentifiable meat joints Jamala had turned up with. It was greasy and half burnt but at least it was better than scaly...

... He sat down heavily as the memories hit him with all the subtly of a concrete breeze-block. "Oh gods."

*

Vimes was shaken awake the next morning from unpleasant nightmares. There was a balding man in orange robes standing over him, a strangely tanned colour; his skin had the colour and texture of a walnut. "Alright Mister Vimes?" he said in the broadest Ankhian accent Vimes had ever heard.

"Oh gods... I was wondering when one of you lot would be turning up...where the hell am I?"

"One of us lot?" said the Ankhian walnut, confused.

"History monks..." Vimes mumbled, having difficulty focussing in his exhaustion... "What now?"

The man dropped his voice. "You know of us?"

"Lu-Tze," Vimes said as if that was explanation.

"I'm here simply because the various villagers know that I speak Moporkian and yesterday a messenger was sent to my hovel that a man from Ankh-Morpork had turned up. I was... curious..."

"Where am I? What's happening here so that the history monks need an operative in the mountains?"

The walnut appeared to consider his situation. "I'm not sure exactly how much I'm supposed to tell you Mister Vimes... I tell you what..." He bought his hand down sharply on Vimes's head and the policeman fell unconscious. "I'll contact my superiors."

Vimes awoke again with a throbbing headache on a soft bed. He sat up violently, ignoring all his aches. "What the hell was that for?"

He swore. Lu-Tze was sitting opposite him smoking one of his tiny cigarettes. "Alright Mister Vimes? You're a long way from home. How'd you get here?"

"It's a long story. Where am I?"

"HQ, Mister Vimes. Where the history monks train. How did you end up here?"

"I was in the Dungeon Dimensions. The wizards summoned me out. They said I might end up anywhere on the Disc. I didn't take that to mean thirty feet in the air above a snowdrift. Have you got my cigar case?"

Lu-Tze threw it over to Vimes who gripped it tightly. "You certainly lead an interesting life Mister Vimes. Lucky for you that you landed near friends."

Vimes nodded; he'd assumed that he was going to land in the Klatchian jungles, or the XXXX desert. The mountains had been about fifth on his list of nasty places to land. "You can help me get home?"

"I suppose so," Lu-Tze said with a grin.

"Oh good. I'm so glad."

"Good to see you haven't lost your sarcastic edge."



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Nearly there now folks! Sorry it's another short one... Lunar.