A/N: Here be chapter three...I wrote this after four shots of Jagermeister, and though I've cleaned up the spelling I fear it may show.

—

Susan stepped out onto the street, and was unsurprised to find Binky waiting for her. She patted him affectionately on the nose, and was about to climb aboard when a hand tapped her shoulder. A very cold, clammy hand.

She turned, startled that anyone should see her, and found herself faced with what was unmistakably a zombie. She blinked.

"Susan Sto-Helit?" it said, its voice the grate of gravel.

She blinked again. "Er, yes," she said. "Who—"

She got no further. Without a change of expressionlessness it raised an arm and hit her over the head, knocking her consciousness into next Wednesday. It caught her as she dropped, sidestepped a furious kick from Binky, and shuffled off down the street.

The Death of Rats, who had popped his head out the window just in time to see all this, gave a SQUEAK of distress and tugged at Quoth, who was currently trying to wrestle a marble down his throat.

"What?" he said irritably, spitting out the marble in disgust. "Pah! That's no eyeball. It's all a dirty trick."

The Death of Rats hopped from foot to foot, pointing and squeaking. Quoth looked out just in time to see the Susan-bearing zombie round a corner.

"Hey!" he croaked. "What the—"

SQUEAK, affirmed the Death of Rats. SQUEAK EEK.

"Right. Follow that zombie."

A moment later raven and rat were soaring above the city, hot on the heels of Susan's (surprisingly quick) abductor. They nearly collided with a gnome riding an obese pigeon, who shook his fist furiously and demanded they pull over.

SQUEAK, the Death of Rats spat, urging Quoth on.

"He said, 'Bugger off'," Quoth said helpfully to the gnome, and zoomed past, flapping for dear life.

"Hey, wait a minute!" the gnome cried indignantly, and sped off in hot pursuit, calling for backup as he went.

"Nosy blighter," Quoth muttered. "Where'd they go?"

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats, pointing.

"Right." Quoth zoomed into a dive, plowing right through a flock of gnome-bearing herons that seemed to appear out of thin air.

"Move it or lose it!" the raven screeched, banking left as the zombie turned.

"You! Pull over, in the name of the Watch!" cried a gnome, who, being too busy shrieking at them, did not notice the side of a building until he'd smashed into it.

Quoth ignored him, and another gnome took over the cry. "He's headin' for the city gates! Get 'im, before he leaves airspace!"

SQUEAK, the Death of Rats said irritably. He leapt to his feet and started fending off his would-be attackers with his tiny scythe. An errant swing caught a seagull in the chest and dropped it like a stone, leaving its rider to scream, "Bugger—I mean, mayday!" until another of his fellows rescued him.

"That's it, Ratty!" Quoth said, swooping beneath the boughs of a massive oak. His eyes were trained on the zombie, now almost at the city gates—

SQUEAK, the Death of Rats cried again, tugging frantically at his feathers. SQUEAK SQUEAK.

"Not now, Ratty—almost got 'em—"

SQUEAK!

"What is it?" Quoth looked up, just in time to see the very solid blackness of a gate-post swoop toward his head.

"Oh, b—"

SPLAT. CRUNCH.

The Death of Rats picked himself up off the cobblestones, shaking his head as he dusted off his robes.

SQUEAK, he said morosely, as the herd of gnomes descended on them.

—

It was nearly lunchtime at Unseen University, but unlike most of the other wizards, Ponder Stibbons was still hard at work and, frankly, confused as hell.

He'd come in early enough, and had found Hex in the middle of the most massive meltdown he had ever seen. Ream upon ream of paper had been ejected from the thinking machine, all bearing scrawls like ERROR BISCUIT TWIGTWIG CHEESE and BOOGER HAMSTER &?#ÕÍ€¥. Apparently Hex had been at it all night, judging by the pile of paper beneath it, and it took Ponder a good half-hour just to calm the machine down.

He dug through the papers, hoping to make some sense of Hex's gibberish, but he could make heads nor tails of it. Finally, once the machine had gotten ahold of itself, he tapped in several questions, his face growing graver with each answer he received. Finally, having found more than he wanted to know, he picked up the sheaf of papers and hurried to the great hall and thrust them under the Archchancellor's nose, where they barely missed being skewered by a forkful of partridge.

Ridcully blinked, more than a little irritated at having his lunch thus interrupted. "Yes, Ponder?" he said, stifling an inward sigh—it wasn't natural for a wizard to place work before food.

"Archchancellor, I think we may have a problem," Ponder said nervously. "Hex has discovered something...rather disturbing."

Ridcully took the papers from him and looked at them, but could make nothing of the thinking machine's scribbles. "And it would be...?" he asked, snatching another bite when Ponder wasn't looking.

"Er, well, it seems to have found an emanation of pure evil somewhere in the Ramtops," Ponder said, taking back the papers.

The Dean snorted. "And that's anything unusual?"

"Well, yes, actually...this...according to Hex's calculations, there was a massive thaumaturgical flux in an area near the kingdom of Lancre, at about eleven o'clock local time. That would be around one in the morning here, which is when Hex...crashed, for lack of a better word. It seems as though an immense amount of magic was expended in one concentrated area, and now...well, it's a bit of a black hole, I think."

"And this has what to do with us?" asked the Chair of Indefinite Studies, around a mouthful of treacle.

Ponder glared at him. "With all due respect, sir, it's an emanation of pure evil. And we're wizards. It's our bloody job to deal with things like that. Suppose it's a break-in from the Dungeon Dimensions?"

That shut everybody up. Few there had ever actually dealt with anything from the Dungeon Dimensions, but they'd all heard stories, and the stories were more than enough.

"You...have a point, Ponder," Ridcully said slowly. "It's near...Lancre, you say? How close?"

"About twenty miles away, sir. Next valley over, really."

Ridcully swallowed. "Really? Well...suppose we could send out a delegation to investigate...will probably turn out to be nothing, but better safe than sorry, I always say..." If anybody knew just what he was thinking, they didn't let on, though his swiftly reddening face caused more than a few raised eyebrows. He couldn't help but wonder...of course it was probably nothing, but, well, Lancre was Esme's country, and Esme's family did have something of a reputation for black magic...if she'd gone and done something foolish, he felt it his duty to save her from herself. And everybody else, for that matter. "Ponder, I want you to go and talk to that thinking-machine of yours, and see if it can't guess what in hell's happening out there. I'll pick a committee, and we'll head out on the first coach out of the city. Any volunteers?"

As a man, the wizards all sunk lower in their chairs, until in more than one case only a pointy hat stuck above the edge of the table.

"Right," Ridcully said. "It'll be mandatory volunteering, then."

which for a wizard, meant about ten-thirty that morning

Wizards are good with gibberish. They should be, considering they invented it.

—

Getting Joie out of the land of the living was not as easy as it sounded. Sure, she might be unconscious (and snoring gently), but she was surprisingly heavy for such an emaciated specimen, and she had an unfortunate tendency of flailing in her stupor and smacking innocent passers-by. It took Death a full quarter of an hour just to get her properly loaded onto Binky (who had, had he only noticed, appeared incredibly agitated), narrowly escaping a cracked jaw in the process, and no sooner had they got going than she half-woke, muttered, "Pass the mustard", and keeled right off the back of the horse.

Death sighed, picked her up by the armpits, and settled her in front of him instead, grimacing as she raised her head long enough to let out a belch almost loud enough to qualify as a sonic boom. She reeked of absinthe and a few other chemicals he didn't even want to try to identify, and if she'd had a bath at any point in the last century he'd eat his scythe.

WHERE HAS SHE BEEN? he wondered, as Binky struggled to get up speed. It was common knowledge among the various anthropomorphic personifications that Life had been missing for the last several hundred years, though if she'd spent all that time as non compos mentis as she was now, that was hardly any surprise. Nobody knew why she'd gone missing, any more than they knew where she'd been, but given that it seemed to be the job of every other personification to bugger up her work, he supposed he couldn't blame her for bowing out of the social scene. But still...if this was an indication of her normal state, it was no wonder that life in general made no sense.

FURTHER MYSTERIES AWAIT, he thought, as they passed through the barrier between reality and Death's own world. He only hoped that Susan would be able to deal with this—she, being alive, must surely be better equipped to deal with Life than he was.

They sped along through the heavens, Joie still snoring and occasionally muttering things like, "No thanksh, givesh me gas." She certainly did move quite a lot, for an unconscious person, and all in all Death was most relieved when they alighted on the black lawn. He turned Binky loose to graze and hauled the cataleptic Joie into the front hall.

ALBERT, he called, his voice echoing through the cavernous space, ALBERT, I HAVE A PROJECT FOR YOU.

Albert dutifully appeared, muttering resentfully at being so peremptorily summoned from his domain in the kitchen. He blinked when he caught sight of his master.

"What is that, master?" he asked, eying Joie as though she were a particularly nasty specimen the cat had dragged in.

Death had to admit, the man had a point. He sighed. MY COUNTERPART, I FEAR. DO SOMETHING WITH HER, WILL YOU? SHE...SMELLS. Death, strictly speaking, did not possess olfactory senses, but a stench such as this would have curled the proverbial nose-hairs of a rock. It was the sort of stink that made Foul Ole Ron's Smell seem like a bouquet of roses.

Albert blinked. And blinked again. "Your...counterpart?" he said blankly.

YES. THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION OF LIFE. WHO IS CURRENTLY COMATOSE, I MIGHT POINT OUT. PLEASE INSTALL HER SOMEWHERE, UNTIL SHE REGAINS HER SENSES. SUSAN SHOULD BE HERE SHORTLY, AND CAN TAKE OVER FROM THERE.

"I...see," said Albert, who didn't. "I'll just...put her in the spare room, shall I?"

AS YOU WISH. Death unloaded the scrawny figure onto Albert, who promptly dropped her and cursed. Joie didn't wake, though she did mutter something vaguely obscene.

"You didn't tell me she weighed as much as a bloody elephant!" Albert said, when Death gave him a pained glance. "How can somethin' that scrawny be as heavy as granite?"

Death considered a moment. PHYSICS, I THINK, he said, picking Joie up again. Strictly speaking, he didn't have a spare room, but Ysabell's old one would do for now, provided the woman didn't wake up and vomit all over it. HAVE YOU SEEN SUSAN? I SENT THE RAT TO SUMMON HER.

Albert shook his head. "'fraid not, master. Nobody's been in since you left."
Death's eyelights blinked. Of course it would naturally take some time for the rat to fetch Susan, but there was something vaguely...wrong. I SEE, he said. WELL, WHEN THEY ARRIVE, SEND THEM TO ME.

"Will do, Master. Er...about the smell?"

—

Sam Vimes had been having quite a fine day, until they'd brought the rat in. As Commander of the Ankh-Morpork Watch, he liked to think he'd seen just about everything there was to see, but the rat...well, let's just say he could have done without the rat. Several of his gnomes had arrested it for reckless driving of a raven, which was technically all well and good, but now that he had it in custody he'd be damned if he knew what to do with it.

Most people couldn't see the Death of Rats, because the human mind rebels against the sight of the apparently impossible, but being commander of the Ankh-Morpork Watch meant that the apparently impossible was all in a day's work. Consequently Vimes saw it exactly as it was—a tiny rat skeleton, in a black robe, with a miniscule scythe.

SQUEAK, it said, and if ever a rat could be said to have an eldritch voice of command, this one did.

"He says this is all a mistake," Quoth translated. "You see, Death sent us to find his granddaughter, but she got waylaid by a zombie, and we were just chasing it down. Nothin' illegal about that, now is there?"

Vimes stared blankly at the raven. It wasn't that he hadn't heard it, it was just that his brain still hadn't quite managed to wrap itself around the fact of the bird's existence. So far as he knew talking birds only lived in stories, and they certainly didn't pal around with the Grim Reaper of Rats.

"You honestly expect me to believe that?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Quoth cocked his head to one side. "Have you looked at the rat, mister? See the scythe? Who do you think he's connected with, the Hogfather?

Vimes opened his mouth to respond, realized there really was no good retort to that, and shut it again. He was saved from having to think of something by Nobby, who stuck his head through the door, hat held nervously in his hands. He blinked at rat and raven, shook his head, and addressed Vimes in a surprisingly deferential tone.

"Er, sir, sorry to interrupt, but I fear we may have a bit of a problem," he said. "It's only...well, nobody can find the Patrician, sir."

Vimes blinked. "What?"

"The Patrician's...missing, sir. And there's this." He placed a note on Vimes' desk, snatching his hand back as the raven took a peck at his finger.

Vimes picked it up. It read, quite simply:

Have borrowed your Patrician. Would say we'd return him, but by the time we're done, there will be nothing to return, nor, indeed, anywhere to return it to. Whatever you do, don't go looking for him in the Ramtops.

Yours sincerely,

the Auditors.

He stared. "When did you find this, Nobby?" he asked, setting it down and eying the corporal.

Nobby twisted his had nervously in his hands. "About eight this morning," he said.

Vimes rubbed his temples. "And it didn't occur to you that I might have needed to know about it then?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, er, we thought it might be some kind of a joke, sir. You know, on account of Saint Wossname's day bein' so close and all."

Vimes groaned. "That's Fool's Day, Nobby. Saint Wossname's is the one with all the pink hearts and nauseating candy."

Nobby blinked. "Oh. Right. Er, anyway, we're fairly sure it's not a joke, sir."

"And how'd you come by that amazing deduction?" Vimes muttered under his breath, rising and pacing across his office. "What have you done about it?" he asked aloud, ignoring the raven, which was trying to eat the grapes in the wax fruit bowl on his desk.

"Um, well, I gave you the note, sir."

"That's it?"

"That's it. I reckon we should try the Ramtops, sir. There's a group of wizards headin' up there soon, you know."

No, Vimes didn't know it. "How'd you find that out?" he asked.

"One've came askin' for police escort. Said there was a bit of nasty business up there, and they'd prefer some military types about." He puffed up his pigeon-chest proudly. "Us. Military types. Now there's an honor, sir. 'Course, I had to say no, it bein' so far out of our jurisdiction, but it's the thought that counts. Shall I tell them we've changed our minds, then?"

Vimes nodded slowly. "I think so," he said. Strictly speaking, the Watch had no authority (or interest) in things that went on outside the city, except in very special circumstances, but certainly the kidnapping of the Patrician fell under such definition. He waved Nobby a dismissal. "See to it, Corporal, and report back to me when you've got something to report."

Nobby saluted and departed, and Vimes turned back to the pair on his desk, both of whom were looking on politely. He sat down, folded his hands, and fixed them with his best Penetrating Stare.

"So," he said, "I don't suppose you two would know anything about all this, being creatures of the Occult and all? Give me something useful, and I may just let you off with a warning." He doubted they knew anything, but it would be a good excuse to get them off his hands and let him get down to the real business at hand.

Rat and raven looked at one another. "Are you sure you want to ask that?" the raven asked. "Because, you know, we will tell you."

—

Lord Havelock Vetinari was not having a good day. He had gone to bed, as usual, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, but he had woken up...well, he still wasn't rightly sure what he'd woken up as. Doomed, most likely. He definitely wasn't in Ankh-Morpork, that was for certain—even without the mountain view outside his window, the lack of the city's stench would have been telltale enough.

He was shut up in a rough stone tower, of the sort usually reserved for captive princesses rather than old politicians, and though he'd found breakfast waiting on a small table he'd yet seen no one. The room looked like it had been decorated by a mentally deficient vampire—everything was either black or red, including the fluffy slippers that had been placed by his bedside, but the gothic look had a slightly artificial feel, as though it had been slapped together on the spur of the moment. Try as he might, he couldn't pin the decorative atrocity of such a room on any of his known enemies, and was consequently left to wonder just who he'd pissed off now.

He was still wondering this when the door to his prison opened, and something with all the energy of a rabid puppy bounded in. It took Vetinari a moment to focus on it, and when he did he blinked—whatever he'd expected in a captor, this wasn't it.

It was a boy, or something vaguely resembling one. The lad had a cheerful, friendly face, that would have been much more convincing if his eyes hadn't looked like something plucked from the bottom of a nightmare.

"Hi!" the boy said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Welcome. You're my new Privy Councilor. I hope you don't mind."

Now, Lord Vetinari was no fool—he wouldn't have remained Patrician of a city like Ankh-Morpork for more than five minutes if he had been. Had anyone else said something like that to him, they would have quite swiftly repented of it, but Vetinari, being rather a decent judge of human character, quickly surmised that it wouldn't be wise to correct the boy. He had a distinct feeling that arguing with someone like this would be very prejudicial to his health, mainly because one would have to be a blind fruitbat not to notice that the lad was completely and utterly insane.

And so, rather than reacting in his customary manner (which would have been to melt his opponent with sarcasm), he straightened and said, quite civilly, for him, "Not at all. Might I inquire as to who you are?"

"Oh! Sorry. The name is Teatime, Jonathan Teatime—do take care to pronounce it correctly, will you? Nothing irritates me more than having my name said incorrectly, and when I get irritated I tend to do things I might later regret." He swept his arms expansively, indicating the room and what was visible of the castle through the windows beyond. "This is my castle, and this is my kingdom, and you and everybody else here have been called to help me in my mission."

Vetinari sat back, watching Teatime's every move with the trained eye of a psychologist. The power-hungry always tended to be a bit cracked, but Teatime was as fractured as a troll with arthritis. "And what would that be?" he asked neutrally, folding his blue-veined hands before him.

Teatime beamed, clasping his hands behind him. "It's all part of a commission, really. I was an Assassin, you see, before...well, before, and I've been granted the commission that could make me the most famous Assassin in the history of the world."

Vetinari looked at him questioningly. "Yes?" he said.

"I'm going to kill Life."

Vetinari blinked. "...I thought that was what an Assassin did anyway?" he ventured, mentally revising his judgment of Teatime from Insane to Barking, Howling Mad.

"Oh, well, yes, but I don't mean life in general. I mean Life, the person. There is one, you know." Teatime rocked back and forth, his controlled, unhurried movements reminding Vetinari more of a dancer or acrobat than an Assassin.

"I...see," he said slowly, having not the slightest idea how to respond to such an extraordinary pronouncement. "And I'm to help you, am I?"

"Oh, yes. The book says so, you know. Kings have to have a Privy Councilor, so you're it. You're meant to...advise me, I suppose."

Vetinari arched an eyebrow. "If you want advice as to how to go about killing Life, I'm afraid I may not be of much assistance. I wasn't aware there was such a thing as Life incarnate."

Teatime waved a hand. "Of course there is," he said. "After all, there's a Death, isn't there?"

"Is there?"

"Yes. I met him once. Tall chap. No sense of humor. Had a very lovely granddaughter..." He cocked his head to one side, as though listening. "Who should be arriving just about now. I will bid you good-day, Mr. Vetinari." He hopped out and slammed the door behind him, leaving Vetinari reeling, both from the absurdity of his speech and the unaccustomed shock of being called 'Mister'.

"Well," he said aloud, to the room in general. "I believe we will have to do something about that one. Preferably something involving many sharp pointy things."

—

Susan's zombie abductor could not, naturally, have made it all the way from Ankh-Morpork to the Ramtops on his own. Teatime had instructed his new court magician to make certain the creature could just hoppity-skip over the ensuing distance, and the wizard, thanks mainly due to a positive ecstasy of terror, had actually managed to do it. Now he only hoped to the gods he could keep doing it long enough to not get killed.

Rincewind gulped when Teatime left the room, humming to himself and swinging a heavy set of keys. Rincewind, like Vetinari, had no idea how he'd gotten here, nor what in hell that madman wanted with him. All he knew was that the madman was of the sort who liked to pop people's heads off just to see what would happen, and Rincewind, who was very attached to his life(and his head), wondered desperately what he had done to deserve all this. He'd had innumerable miraculous escapes thus far, but he knew well that his luck would only last him so long, and he really, really didn't want it to run out here.

He fiddled nervously with his hat, dropping it several times, and gulped down a tall glass of water. He wasn't sure what the zombie had been sent to fetch, but if it was another person to join this unwilling circus, then he felt very sorry for them indeed. However, had he known just who and what that person was, he would have felt much more sorry for Teatime.

—

Granny, Nanny, Agnes, and Magrat arrived at the edge of Teatime's valley just as the zombie ambled down into it. They huddled in the bushes as it drew near, watching with frank curiosity as it shuffled on, its eyes filled with dumb purpose. It was carrying what looked like a bundle of black cloth, though as it came nearer Agnes, who had by far the best eyesight, realized that it was in fact a person.

"What d'you think it's doin'?" Granny asked. She didn't hold truck with zombies, mostly because she felt that anything that had died ought to have the decency to remain dead. "It's got somebody with it."

Nanny squinted, and then paled—it wasn't just anybody the zombie had hold of; she'd recognize that white hair anywhere. "Oh, bugger," she said, staring as the zombie passed their hiding-spot without so much as a glance. "That's not goin' to end well, I'm thinkin'."

"What's not?" Magrat asked, picking several twigs and an errant sparrow from her hair.

"That's Death's granddaughter it's got," Nanny said. "Met her once—strange woman. I tell you, if whatever's up here thinks he can get away with somethin' like that, it's not long for this world."

The other three stared at her. "Death's...granddaughter?" Agnes asked. Inside her head Perdita was trying to work that one out, and both of them decided it was probably better not to wonder.

Nanny nodded. "Aye...I'm not about to ask, either. Point is, you go messin' about with the offspring of the likes of him, and you're bound to find your head shoved up—"

"I think we understand, Gytha," Granny said, cutting her off. "Well, there's nothing for it—we'll just have to rescue her."

Nanny looked dubiously at the other two. Granted, there were four of them and only one zombie, but Magrat was and always would be a wet hen, and Nanny wasn't half sure that Agnes wasn't more than a bit mental. As for Granny...well, ordinarily she'd put all her money on Granny against even a horde of zombies, but something here just didn't sit right.

"I'm not so sure that's such a good idea," Nanny said slowly. "After all, we don't even know what we're up against, here. Anyway, she's a smart girl—a sight too smart for her own good, if you ask me—and if I'm any judge o' character, I'm bettin' there'll be a right explosion when she wakes up."

Granny stared at her. "Are you sayin' we should let it take her up there?" she asked, jerking a thumb at the castle.

Nanny nodded. "Think about it," she said. "The lass is Death's granddaughter—get her angry enough, she might just take care of this problem for us."

Granny hadn't thought of that. She considered a moment. "All right," she said. "But if she blows up half the Ramtops, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Oh, I don't think she could do that," Nanny said, with all the confidence of an expert on the descendants of anthropomorphic personifications. "She'd have to be a witch, for that. But I'm bettin' she could make short work of whatever's up there."

"Well, we'll let things be, then," Granny said. "For now—I must admit, I don't fancy the idea of stormin' that place without help, though sure gods I couldn't tell you why."

Granny frowned. So far as she could remember she'd never hesitated to do anything in her life—she was a witch, by gum, and anything foolish enough to get in her way had better be prepared to spend some time looking for all its appendages. Uncertainty was a wholly new emotion to her, and she didn't like it in the slightest.

The zombie ambled onward, disappearing into the castle gates, which shut behind it with a boom that sounded uncomfortably final.

—

Heehee...thus it continues. Next chapter sees everyone slowly gathering together in the Ramtops, Susan wakes up, and a fat, drunken cherub starts making trouble for all.