A/N: I give you, at long, long last, the next installment of this little mess. I fear that the further I go, the more OOC the characters get, but since it's all in the name of my own amusement, I don't overly care. -grin-

Also, since this chapter quickly bloated beyond all control (as I fear the others will, thanks to the massive cast of characters I so foolishly chose to work with), I split it in two--it's only going to get more complicated as more and more people descend on the scene, so it's my way of making my life just a little bit easier.

----

Vimes stalked through the woods, taking irregular pulls off his bottle, ignoring the foliage that seemed hell-bent on slapping him in the face. He knew, deep in the recesses of his conscience, that he shouldn't have fallen off the wagon so easily--he'd faced much worse than this before without cracking. Hell, he'd gone back in time and managed all right, had outwitted Carcer and managed to organize a formerly chaotic revolution, but this...this was just irritating. Vimes was used to dealing with idiots, but not on this grand a scale, and certainly not idiots with as much power as half this lot seemed to possess.

He sighed, collapsing onto a stump and wiping his forehead. He missed Sybil and Young Sam, and when it came to getting the Patrician back, he still didn't have a bloody clue. Left to their own devices, the mob in the meadow was likely to be camped there for years, while back home the city went to wrack and ruin and people like Rust weaseled their way into power. Really, it was enough to make him want to give up then and there.

Something rustled in the bushes to his left, and even with the alcohol that was rapidly gaining hold of his bloodstream he froze. His head snapped around, searching for the source of the noise--it wasn't an animal sound; it was quiet, but immensely widespread, as though quite a lot of very small things were barreling through the undergrowth.

Something shot out of the holly and landed on his knee, and so great was his surprise that he nearly fell off the stump. It was a little blue man, perhaps six inches high, carrying a pike and sword almost bigger than he was. His red hair was matted into dreadlocks, and his bright, piercing eyes regarded Vimes as though trying to decide if he was worth attacking.

"Ach, what're yelookin' at, bigjob?" the creature demanded, jabbing Vimes in the leg. "T'ere's badness aboot, laddie...gi'it such a kickin'!"

Vimes blinked. Surely he hadn't drunk enough to be seeing this thing--normally it took him at least a quart of Old Overcoat before the pink elephants came out of the walls. This thing wasn't pink, and it certainly wasn't an elephant, so Vimes' mind reluctantly decided it must be real.

"...Right," Vimes said, hopelessly bemused. He'd caught perhaps one word in three, but the creature's general meaning was clear enough. "They're over that way." He pointed back the way he had come, and the little man saluted and leapt off his knee.

"Nac mac Feegle!" it cried, and disappeared faster than Vimes could blink.

"Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to help?" he muttered, watching the ferns and shrubs ripple as the unseen army passed through.

Probably because it's not, his conscience said, and then shut down entirely as he keeled backward, lost in a world of fumes and happy brain-death.

----

It was Granny who heard the Nac mac Feegle first. She was sitting a little ways away from the camp, doing her level best to rid her mind of the arrow's unwanted influence. It was working, too--as Nanny often said, nothing and no one on the Disc had as much self-control as Granny Weatherwax; she'd bested vampires, elves, and unicorns, and a cupid's arrow didn't stand a chance.

Her hand shot out as the first Feegle came sailing over a log, snatching him out of the air. She held him up and regarded him closely.

"Ah," she said, as he squirmed in her grasp. "I thought you little devils'd be along sooner or later.

"T'ere can only be one t'ousand!" the little man cried, waving his toadsticker in a surprisingly menacing fashion.

"I think there's a sight more of you than that," said Granny, and she actually sounded amused. "Try not to do too much damage, will you?"

"Ain't promisin' nuffin!"

"I didn't think you would."

She set him down again and watched as he scampered off. All over the meadow the grass rustled with the passage of the Feegle, as they made their way purposefully toward the winking campfires. And, all alone in the darkness, she smiled to herself.

There was a reason Granny Weatherwax seldom smiled in public. True, she seldom smiled, period, but for years she had avoided doing it in public because of the reaction it caused. Apparently, the rest of the world saw something terribly incongruous about a Granny Weatherwax with a happy little grin on her face, and she supposed she couldn't blame them, really. She only ever wore such an expression when she was contemplating doing something extraordinarily nasty to someone else.

She stood up, adjusting her hat, her mouth set in a resolute line. The effects of the Cupid's arrow were far from gone, but at least they were manageable now, and her head was clear enough that she knew exactly what she had to do.

She had to...help.

The trees rustled as Granny marched off into the woods, and the few animals that were about at this hour fled in terror before her. They'd seen Granny angry--it was as much her normal state as any--and they'd seen her so deeply contemplative that she was scarcely aware of where she set her feet, but they'd never seen her humming.

It was, as they were all too well aware, a very, very bad sign.

----

Quiet had finally descended on the castle, as everyone either passed out from sheer exhaustion or found convenient cubbyholes to hide in, and Susan was, for once in her life, bored.

I knew I needed a vacation, but this wasn't what I had in mind, she thought, staring out the window with her chin on her hand. She and Vetinari had spent the preceding hours of culinary-induced chaos playing chess, but though things seemed to have calmed, she wasn't sure she wanted to risk wandering the rest of the castle yet. She was in a foul enough mood that she just might wallop anybody she ran across with the poker, and if she was to maintain even a shred of her cover image, that wouldn't do at all.

"Anything interesting out there?" Vetinari asked, offering her a glass of wine.

She shrugged. "Just the siege," she said. "It's too dark to make out what they're doing, but it looks like they're building something."

"We would be that unfortunate," Vetinari said dryly. "If I'm not mistaken, Captain Carrot came here in a conveyance built by a...permanent guest of mine. He's something of a genius in the weapons-of-mass-destruction area."

Susan, who still couldn't believe that Carrot had made it into the castle and hadn't tried to rescue anybody, shook her head. "Leonard of Quirm?" she asked. "Oh, yes, he's out there. So is my grandfather, and Albert, and Lobsang, and the astonishingly open-minded Mrs. Ogg...really, I'd feel better if I didn't know just who was meant to be saving us."

Vetinari looked at her curiously. "How do you know all that?" he asked.

"Family trait," she said, somewhat bitterly. "Believe me, it's more trouble than it's worth."

He sat down in the armchair opposite her, setting down his drink and folding his hands in his trademark I'm-listening-so-hard-I-can-hear-your-thoughts fashion. "I wasn't aware magical ability ran in your family," he said, arching his eyebrows. Vetinari had known for years that there was some mystery attached to the family of Sto Helit, but even his normally infallible detectives had failed to find out just what exactly it was.

Susan snorted, rubbing her temples. "You don't want to know," she said. "Trust me--just about everyone who's ever found out about it has run away screaming in terror. Not that I blame them," she added. "If I wasn't me, I'd do the same thing."

"Indulge an old man's curiosity," Vetinari said.

She looked at him, and sighed. "All right," she said. "You've ruled Ankh-Morpork for the last twenty years, I guess you can understand, if anybody can." She paused, searching for some way of phrasing her next words that wouldn't either make her look barking mad, or give Vetinari a heart attack. "You know that...Death is a person, right? Not death but Death, with a capital D. Grim Reaper, scythe, cowl, pale horse, the whole bit?"

Vetinari nodded.

"There's really no good way to say this. He's my grandfather."

Vetinari regarded her in silence for some moments, and Susan groaned inwardly. It was always the same--they looked at you as though you were mad, and made all kinds of delicate suggestions, usually involving sanitariums overlooking the sea, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't make them understand. She supposed it was something you had to be born to, in which case the whole world was at a disadvantage.

At long last Vetinari opened his mouth, but what emerged therefrom was not at all what Susan, after long years of experience, had expected.

"That...explains rather a lot, actually."

She stared at him. "What?" she demanded.

"It explains rather a lot. Certain things about your family have puzzled me for years, but an ancestor of the anthropomorphic persuasion would explain virtually all of them. I have never known anyone, outside of witches and wizards, capable of manipulating Time the way your family can--among other things, it gave me quite a lot to wonder about.

"I can see, however, why you wouldn't wish to make it public knowledge--I would imagine it would make you rather unpopular at parties, for example." He sat back, apparently considering, and Susan stared at him.

Gods, he really isn't surprised by anything, is he? she thought.

"We may be able to use that," he said after a moment. "I do not know how, just yet, but I assume you have other powers as well?"

Susan blinked, desperately trying to kick her train of thought onto an unexpected rail. "Well, yes, normally, but something seems to have been done to this place--I can't walk through walls, I can't fade, and even my hair seems to have given up." She glanced upward at the fuzzy mass, which stood around her head like an extremely frizzy corona.

Vetinari steepled his fingers, thinking. "Have you tested all of them?" he asked.

"Well...no, actually."

He smiled, the sort of smile that is usually only seen shooting up through the ocean toward a surfer. "Let us...experiment, then, shall we?"

----

Night passed. It didn't want to linger.

The first thing Sam Vimes was aware of, when he was conscious enough to be aware of anything, was that his mouth tasted like a baby dragon had used it for a potty chair. The second was a splitting headache, followed by the hot, gluey-eyeball feeling requisite of any decent hangover, and finally that he was lying on something cold, hard, and above all, wet.

He opened his sticky eyes, and immediately wished he hadn't. It was early morning, but the sky was already far too bright and blue, and seemed to sear itself onto the back of his skull. He couldn't remember much of what had gone on last night, not after he'd seen the little blue people--he'd taken it as a sign that he wasn't nearly drunk enough, and had remedied this problem so effectively that now he feared he'd never be sober again.

"Wzthgf," he mumbled. He debated the merits of turning over, decided against it, and shut his eyes again, hoping fervently that when next he opened them, he'd be in his own bed and all this would just be one horrible, indigestion-induced nightmare.

"WAAAAAAAARK!"

The sound was like nothing Vimes had ever heard in his life. It was worse than a cat in heat; it was worse even than Nobby when he practiced for his folk song-and-dance festivals. It was the sound of a creature that just knows, bad as things are, they're about to get one hell of a lot worse.

His eyes snapped open again, just in time to see a whirring ball of flame and feathers go sailing over his head. It met the curtain-wall with a sound almost exactly like that of a thick balloon filled with custard, whereupon it slid slowly down and set the grass afire.

"Oh, gods," he groaned. One hand moved of its own accord and started rubbing his face, probably in the vain hope of injecting some life into his dew-damp skin. "They're doing it. They're really bloody doing it."

"WAAAAAAAAARK!"

He squinted as another chicken went sailing over his head, and even his alcohol-addled brain realized there was something wrong with the picture. It sounded like a chicken--albeit an extremely tortured one--and it (kind of) looked like a chicken, but only kind of.

I don't want to know, he thought, shutting his eyes again. But I'm probably going to find out.

Slowly, and rather painfully, Vimes sat up. He'd lost his helmet overnight, and whatever had gone to the toilet in his mouth had apparently also done so in his ear. He squinted blearily at the line of what, for want of a better term, had to be called besiegers, and wondered if what he was seeing could possibly be real.

Somehow, overnight, they had built one of the most bizarre contraptions he had ever seen. It was a little like a catapult, and a little like a cannon, but mostly like something dreamed up by a stoned mathematician in the armpit of a really bad night. It had a row of seven large, cannon-like apertures, four of which were still smoking faintly, and a bewildering assortment of levers, ropes, pulleys, winches, and buttons whose function Vimes didn't even want to try to guess. Given that the wizards had almost certainly been involved in its construction, he really didn't want to guess.

Even as he watched, the fifth tube exploded in a flash of gunpowder and octarine, and another chicken-like thing went sailing through the air. Now that he got a better look at it, he could see that it wasn't really a chicken at all--it looked like a feathery cannon-ball, with feet.

"WAAAAAAAAAARK!"

BOOM

"Oh, I say, good shot, Mister Stibbons!"

Ridcully, his crossbow balanced in one hand, was shading his eyes as he stared at the mushroom-cloud of smoke that was swiftly rising over the castle. Ponder, beside him, had a face as green as the grass, but he looked rather proud all the same.

"It's all in the trajectory, sir," he said. "You just have to allow for wind variance, and the air resistance of the flames, and then...well...boom."

Vimes gave up. He knew he was going to get up and ask them what the hell was going on, and he knew it was going to be something involving quantum, so he did. He stood, extremely unsteadily, and then promptly ducked again as yet another...missile...was launched. The wind of its passage ruffled his hair, and this time he had to stop his ears against the resounding explosion that followed.

"All right," he said, his voice hoarse and gravelly as he crawled toward the contraption. "What, in the name of all seven hells, is that thing?"

Ridcully, one of Nature's most disgustingly cheerful morning people, grinned at him. "Cracking good, isn't it?" he asked. "That Leonard chappie designed it, and the staff and I had it put together in a jiffy. 'Course, proper chickens weren't really the right thing--not nearly enough oomph on impact--but then the inestimable Mistress Weatherwax pointed out that a mixture of sulfur and ammonium nitrate would work much better."

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!"

BOOM

Vimes winced at the noise. "So...why do they still sound like chickens, then?" he asked, not at all certain he wanted to know.

Life, now wearing Nanny Ogg's best family-feuding hat in addition to her woolly dressing gown, drifted over to them. Someone had evidently tried to brush her hair, for it stood out around her head like dandelion fluff, and every now and again a blue spark would crackle off it. "Oh, but they have to at least sound like chickens," she said, her protuberant eyes seeming to bore straight into the back of his skull. "Otherwise what's the point?"

Vimes stared. "...You've got me there," he admitted. "So, um, what were you all planning to do once you'd got the wall down, just out of curiosity?"

Ridcully stared at him. "What d'you mean?"

"You know, after the wall's down, and all the maddened zombies behind it rush out at you? Call me Mister Silly, but I don't think they're going to be very pleased with you."

Ridcully blinked. "Stibbons, what exactly were we doing to do, once we'd knocked the blasted thing down?"

Ponder paused with his hand mid-way to the next lever. He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged from it for several seconds. "...I thought you had a plan," he said at last.

"Ah. That's what I thought." Vimes shook his head (very carefully, in case it really was going to fall off) and staggered away. He debated finding water or another drink, and decided on the drink.

Ponder and Ridcully watched him go, weaving and staggering. "Ten to one he doesn't make it to the treeline," Ridcully said at last.

"Three to one says he doesn't even make it halfway."

In the end they both lost--Vimes managed a full twelve steps before collapsing again, with a suitably impressive thud.

"You know, we probably should try and keep him sober," piped the Dean, who had waddled over. "He's a bit more experienced at this sort of thing than we are."

"True." Ridcully rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "And I think I know what might work."

------

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!"

As the chicken-like missiles went sailing by, Magrat sat with her fingers in her ears.

"They're not really chickens, you know," Nanny said conversationally. "You don't have to take it so hard." She was currently making toast, while keeping half an eye on the mammoth cauldron boiling over the fire.

Magrat unplugged one ear and winced. "But they sound like chickens," she protested. "That's almost as bad."

Granny stirred the bubbling concoction, leaning back as it belched out a great cloud of vivid magenta steam. "Would've been better if they'd used the real thing," she said, sniffing experimentally, "the reason being, live chickens'd run about more. Set things on fire, style of thing."

Even Agnes grimaced. "Granny, that's awful," she said. In her head, Perdita agreed.

Of course it is. Waste of a good dinner, eh?

Granny snorted. "No, it's practical. 'Awful' would be if we used them and the explosives."

"But where would you put--oh." Nanny blinked. "You sure that arrow's not still giving you gyp, Esme? That's not your normal line o' thinkin' at all."

Granny glared at her.

"Just you shut up about that arrow," she snapped. "I'm fine. Bloody Cupids--cut-rate love potions, that's all they do. Don't last more'n a few hours."

Behind her, Bilious was frantically picking flowers, while Nobby was attempting to compound his own chocolates. At least, Agnes hoped they were chocolates--if not, she certainly wasn't about to shake hands with him.

"...Right," she said. She glanced about the encampment, which was somewhat empty. Most of the wizards were occupied with the chicken-flinging device, Leonard of Quirm was attempting to lecture War on battle strategies, and Commander Vimes was snoring gently in the grass, but a great many people seemed to have wandered off. Carrot, Angua, Albert, and most of the personifications had wandered off, and Agnes devoutly hoped it was to search for firewood. The alternative just didn't bear thinking about, especially in the case of Albert.

Several of the wizards were seated around the next fire over, feverishly cranking out more chicken-bombs. They already had enough to level half a dozen castles, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves, so Agnes couldn't bring herself to say anything to them. Besides, it was keeping them out of other mischief which, knowing the kind of mischief an unoccupied wizard could get up to, was probably a good thing.

She got up and wandered through the grass, following the pathways that were already being trodden by the passage of so many feet. Agnes had long ago accepted her role as the practical one, and it was with only mild irritation at Fate that she performed a general diagnostic on the state of the camp.

"No, wait, the fuse doesn't go there, it goes here." The Chair of Indefinite Studies was attempting to tamp black powder into one of the poultry-bombs, wedging the fuse in like a straw into a milkshake. The Senior Wrangler somehow managed to choke and duck in one swift, incredibly awkward-sounding movement.

"Don't--"

BOOM

"--do that."

The Lecturer in Recent Runes, who hadn't managed to duck in time, reached up and gingerly felt his face. He sighed.

"Well, it's not as though I really needed my eyebrows anyway," he said, to the world in general, and then fell back to work.

Agnes shook her head, stepping absently over Vimes' prone form and approaching the biggest fire in the camp. The Nac mac Feegle, who had invaded much earlier, were crowded around it, all busily constructing a device whose use Agnes wasn't even going to attempt to fathom. Its main theme was spikes, and occasional puffs of steam emitted from odd tubes, and she had a feeling that the only safe place to be was about five miles away from it. They were quarreling noisily in their own garbled language, randomly whacking one another with tools, weapons, or, occasionally, each other.

Beyond them, a gaggle of personifications had gathered around Death's bonfire. Mrs. War was, as usual, fussing, while Famine and Pestilence appeared to be lost in a game of draughts. It was going rather well, considering Famine kept trying to eat the pieces. War's youngest daughter, Clancy, was poking the fire with a stick, and was apparently deriving an unholy amount of enjoyment therefrom. Agnes ambled past just as Death sighed.

LET ME SET THIS STRAIGHT. I AM DEATH. THIS IS MINE. YOU ARE LIFE. YOU GET...FUZZY BUNNIES, OR SOMETHING. THE POINT IS, YOU DO NOT GET TO PLAY WITH THE SCYTHE, ALL RIGHT?

"What about the sword?"

NOT THE SWORD, EITHER.

"Ah, ye're no fun."

Agnes shook her head, stopping when she felt she was close enough to the castle. Perdita, vocal (and obnoxious) as ever, thought the facade was far more pretentious than size and design warranted, but Agnes ignored her. There was something extremely...off about the building, and she squinted at it, measuring angles and corners with her eyes. She couldn't tell just where the wrongness came in, but as a witch she'd learned to trust her extra sensory perceptions, and all of them were screaming at her now.

Oh, for gods' sake, you useless lump, it's just like the gnarly ground. Perdita, always tactful, cut through her speculation with all the delicacy of a saber. It looks like whatever you expect...it wants you to think it's impenetrable, so it presents you with your mind's vision of an unbreakable fortress.

Agnes opened her mouth to snap, automatically, and then shut it again. She covered her left eye with her hand, her right watering as it strained to focus. Sure enough, the walls and battlements seemed to shift if she stared hard enough, melding through a confusing amalgamation of images.

She lowered her hand, staring. "I'll be damned," she said aloud, for once shocked into profanity stronger than 'poot'. "You actually said something useful."

Perdita preened. We all have our moments. Hey, wait a minute...

But Agnes was already off, hurrying back to the witches' fire, for once not caring if she waddled. She'd lost a fair amount of weight, but she'd had a lot of weight to lose, and as Perdita often pointed out, she was going to be a big girl no matter what.

"Granny!" she said, half out of breath. "Granny, look at the castle--really look, and tell me what you see."

Granny, who had taken over stirring the cauldron, gave Agnes a look of thinly veiled amusement. "Seen it too, have you? You're the only one that has, for all the magic and education this lot's got between 'em."
Still puffing slightly, Agnes sighed inwardly, all her excitement deflating like a balloon. She should have known Granny would have seen it first, but still...

"All right, so you already saw it. You do know that it means the...poultry bombs...are useless, right? They're not doing half the damage the wizards think they are."

Granny didn't smile, or even almost smile, but there was enough suggestion of possibly almost smiling that Perdita and Agnes shivered together. "Oh, they're not useless," Granny said easily. "Keepin' the wizards distracted, aren't they? No, our young man over there's been talking to a few people, and we came up with this." She lifted a ladleful of the goo from the cauldron and let it fall back in with a plop, nodding across the fire at Lobsang as she did so.

Magrat added a handful of herbs, which made the potion shift to a sickening puce, and give off a great cloud of purple steam. "I still think it's a bad idea," she said, balancing baby Esme on her hip. "The reason being, there's still zombies back there. Bombs or...this, it's all going to go wahooni-shaped when we take that wall down."

"Why are we takin' the wall down, Esme?" Nanny asked, feeding the fire. "Have to agree with Magrat that it seems a bit dippy."

Granny glanced at Lobsang again. "He says the castle can only keep his kind out so long as its illusion remains unbroken. We take away its glamour, and anything can get inside."

Nanny blinked. "If you say so." Esme she'd trust with her life (and had), but she didn't know much about this rather twitchy young man, beyond the fact that he was Time's son. He looked to be about Shawn's age, but there was an indefinable air of experience about him, that jarred badly with his youthful appearance. He was much like Susan in that respect--Nanny wasn't surprised they were sweet on each other, even if they were both too daft to properly admit it.

"All right, so we take down the enchantment," Magrat said, sitting down with the baby. "That doesn't do anything about the...Auditors, though. If they're not alive, we can't exactly kill them."

Lobsang spoke for the first time. "That's what we're here for," he said, jerking his head at the other personifications. "Some of us have dealt with them before--we can probably handle it again. They're still a ways away yet, anyway--we've got to get past the zombies first."

"Which is where they come in." Granny's eyes flickered to the swarm of Nac mac Feegle. "Alive, undead--they don't much care. Two of 'em could take a zombie apart in less than five minutes."

Agnes' interest in the conversation flagged at this point--not because she wasn't actually curious, but because Bilious had wandered by again. She'd been doing her best to ignore him--if Granny could do it, she should be able to, as well--but that was highly difficult whenever he came into close proximity. The blush woke and immediately started to spread, slowly but inexorably, and she turned her face away, hot to the roots of her hair. She knew that it was only an enchantment, but it was a damned effective one, and rational thinking was only moderately effective against it. If he kept staggering by in search of flowers, she was going to push him over into the grass that matched his face so nicely, and do things even Perdita hadn't thought of.

Oh, I'm sure I've thought of them, Perdita said, rather nastily. Come on, let me take over--he'll forget all about that blind bint, once I'm through with him.

Agnes felt the blush deepen, and was certain that steam would soon curl from her ears. Perdita always did have rotten timing, but lately it had gotten even worse.

She was spared any further discomfort--at least, of the personal variety--by Albert, who popped out of the trees like a malignant jack-in-the-box, accompanied by the odor of a foul roll-up. He was followed by the muttering, reeking figure of Foul Ole Ron, whom he appeared to have recruited as a two-legged donkey. He was currently holding a large sack, which, if the squirming and cursing were any indication, contained something that very much did not want to be in it.

"'ve got an idea," he said, glaring around at them all. "Not so sure it's a good idea, but it just might work." He shuffled his feet, and his glare, if possible, intensified. "I might need your help, Mistress Weatherwax."

She raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well, you're the only one who's managed to resist the effects of...er...that thing." He jerked his head at the sack, and Agnes, with a horrible sinking feeling, realized just what it contained.

Granny sat a moment in silence. "I see," she said. "I'm thinkin' I can guess what you're planning."

Agnes couldn't, and didn't even want to try, but as usual, nobody asked her. Albert, somehow managing to look surly, sheepish, and hopeful all at once, offered Granny his arm. After a moment she took it, a crooked arch of her eyebrows her only change in expression, and the pair proceeded into the woods, leaving Magrat and Agnes to gawk in unison. Foul Ole Ron surveyed them all, and with a grave utterance of, "Bugrit", followed the pair into the trees.

Nanny's pipe fell from her mouth. "...And here I thought I was unshockable," she croaked, her eyes gone round. It was bad enough that Esme had willingly taken the bloke's arm--Nanny would swear that Granny had almost smiled.

Behind her, Ridcully feverishly wound his crossbow.