Hi everyone,

Happy 2012/Year of the Dragon

First of all, I don't own anything of Tolkien's or Pratchett's work!

Second, many apologies- it's been so long since I've updated I practically forgot my own (user)name. Sorry! But I now have an internet-connected computer again.

Thanks to everyone still reading/reviewing. You're wonderful. Many of my reviewers have very funny and clever suggestions as well.

I'm not always proud of this piece cos it's very uneven. I have a Grand Plan in mind, though…

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...

Dread filled Gandalf even before he properly opened his eyes. He knew that voice. The cousin of an old acquaintance. They'd got drunk one night years ago after a particularly rural game of cards and made an arrangement which he never though he'd have to regret.

If he was ever passing by the curious flat world where Ridcully lived, he'd visit his Universilly. Or whatever it was called.

He regretted it now. The man was so disgustingly hearty.

Gandalf groaned again. Being dead felt like a massive hangover. Another feeling he rather associated with Ridcully.

'Hello, Ridcully,' he muttered. Then he raised himself onto his skinny elbows and looked at his surroundings.

A bicker of wizards (1) surrounded him, peering over the plump spheres of their ample bellies. There was a chorus of muttering, embarrassed throat clearing, contradiction and interruptions. One or two 'hellos' and the odd 'welcome' were nearly obscured by a squeaky-voiced wizard insisting that the newcomer was 'quite the wrong shape, and can't be a wizard at all'.

'Traditionally,' said one of the fatter wizards hopefully, 'we welcome new faculty members with a feast...'

The mutterings became much more enthusiastic in tone. There was a noise like elephants on the move, and Gandalf was left blinking and alone except for Ridcully and a pale, skinny looking wizard with large glasses. Ridcully grabbed Gandalf's hand and used it to haul him to his feet while simultaneously giving him a handshake that would have crushed the bones of lesser folk.

'Gandalf, old chap!' Ridcully boomed. 'Welcome to my little establishment! Sorry about the lads, useless pillocks the lot of them. Let me show you to your room. We're having sardines and stuffed peacock around four o' clock, light snack doncherknow.'

Gandalf drew himself up to his full, impressive height and glared at Ridcully with eyes like slightly murderous sapphires.

'Thank you,' he said. 'I'm sure I can manage,'

'What was it that got you, then? Nasty thing with too many legs? Spell backfire?'

'I was inconvenienced,' said Gandalf shortly, 'by a Balrog.'

'You get all sorts from the Dungeon Dimension. Something about the handkerchief of reality, or so the clever buggers at the High Energy Building tell me.'

'The fabric,' muttered the pale wizard, as if this was an argument he'd long given up on. 'The fabric of reality.'

'Right, right,' said Ridcully. 'Anyway, Gandalf old chap, here's your key- be careful of the wardrobe, don't know whether the last wizard is still in there or not- and here's my spare robe.' Ridcully winked.

'I have my own robes,' said Gandalf. 'I am Gandalf the grey, not Gandalf the tartan-and-sequinned. Why would I need to borrow yours?'

'The fabric of reality,' said Ridcully, a smirk hiding in his beard. 'It doesn't travel well.'

Gandalf looked down. 'Oh,' he said. 'I thought it was rather cold.'

XXXXXXXX

...

'Three,'

'Yes, your Patricianness, sir,' the butcher twisted his hat nervously in his hands. It wasn't his fault about the baker. Nor the candle-stick maker. Nor that the three little pigs he'd made into sausages and bacon had given his customers indigestion.

'Three. Again.'

Vetinari stared out the window, fingers steepled, at the poisonous seething mass some people called a city.

'It has backfired,' he said quietly. 'It's working too well. All right, Mr Spit, please don't let me keep you.' The butcher was only too pleased to leave.

Vetinari sighed. That was the third interference this week. And they still needed to do something about that spinning straw into gold racket... the farmers were angry, and the local gold market was flooded. Prices were falling, and he had to sort it out. If only he knew the spinning fellow's name!

Perhaps it was a … mistake… to have sent Vimes off-world. He very rarely made mistakes.

'Drumknott.' The clerk materialised quietly beside him, notebook in hand.

'News?' Vetinari asked.

'Well, your Vetinariness, from Galadriel's latest- slightly miffed- missive, it seems you were correct in your hypothesis that Vimes would have a rather chaotic influence on Middle Earth.'

'Yes, yes. It can't be helped. I'm sure Middle Earth will right itself when he returns home. But more importantly, Drumknott, is what's happening here. Have you noticed?'

The clerk hated it when Vetinari sprung fiddly questions on him. 'The Watch are cleaner, your Grace? It's Carrot, sir, he mildly expects them to polish-"

'No,' said Vetinari. 'Disc has always been subject to narrativium, as you know. But Vimes... Vimes seems to have a moderating influence on narrative forces. We sent him to Middle Earth, Middle Earth goes haywire. Characters, as it were, start acting out of character. Quoting obscure texts on the flight of balrogs. Plot continuity has gone out the window. Whole months pass and nothing is... shall we say, updated. Vimes is countering the very structure of Middle Earth's narrative-bound existence, like cheap whiskey counters sobriety. He's a force against narrativium'

'But we expected that, didn't we, your Lordship? And In the long run, it's what they need.'

'Yes. But in adding Vimes' influence to Middle Earth, we removed it from the Disc. And that means...'

'If Vimes isn't here,' said Drumknott slowly and without emotion, 'then the Discworld changes?'

'Precisely,' said Vetinari precisely. 'We will revert, as it were, to an un-Vimed state. I'm starting to worry that Vimes is the only reason we don't have some dragon-slaying yokel with a sword and a princess running Ankh-Morpork. Vimes is the counter-narrative. And I've just sent him to Middle Earth!'

'Will we bring him back, my lord?'

'We must. Or we'll have a King next,' Vetinari did not shudder. No trace of concern or disgust showed on his face. But he frowned slightly. Drumknott saw this, and went pale.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

...

'Havelock? HAVELOCK! What the hell are you playing at? I've got serious warriors reduced to babbling nonsense, Thranduil's son is off chasing butterflies, and Gandalf has disappeared! Again! That policemortal of yours? Very. Bad. Influence.'

Vetinari almost sighed. He had the utmost respect for Galadriel, but he knew what really annoyed her was not being able to subtly manipulate the 'fates' of those she met.

'Everything's so unpredictable, and I am displeased.'

'Yes, my lady, I am dealing with the situation,' said Vetinari enigmatically. Storylines, he thought to himself. Everything's getting disrupted. 'Good evening.'

Then, with a wave of his hand, he changed the Palantir's channel. He had to go and see a man about a talking frog.

'My lord,' said Drumknott, appearing at his elbow again. 'What are you going to do?'

'Bring Vimes home,' said Vetinari, 'When he secures the treacle.'

...

The nine remaining members of the Fellowship raced toward a blur on the horizon. Apparently it was Lothlorien, some kind of forest. Vimes didn't like the sound of it. It probably had trees in it, and who knew what. You'd have to be barking up the wrong tree to want to go into a place like that.

Ha.

They got closer. Suddenly, the blur became distinct trees, behind which a golden wood stretched for miles. Knowing the way this place worked, thought Vimes moodily, it was probably enchanted.

They walked under the shade of the trees, after splashing through a nondescript trickle of water that Aragorn stopped to rhapsody about. Vimes didn't really listen. He was more concerned with the cardboard of his boots fragmenting soggily.

They hadn't gone for when a voice that reminded Vimes strongly of Lord Rust sounded from somewhere in the trees. It had a ring of haughtiness and command, but to Vimes it was completely unintelligible.

'Oh,' said Aragorn, frostily. 'Haldir. How pleasant to see you.'

'I thought I smelt mortals,' the voice said, 'with emphasis on the smell'. A sneering, golden-haired elf stepped out of the trees. He had a longbow aimed right at Gimli. Several other elves, similarly armed, followed him. 'Oh dear,' he said. 'Not a dwarf. And these... what, exactly, are these?' He cast a disdainful eye over the hobbits, and, apparently deciding that none of them posed a threat, laid his bow aside. The other elves, however, remained ready to shoot. Haldir glanced at Legolas. 'Oh,' he said dismissively. 'Mirkwood.' He looked at Boromir next, and shook his head in contempt. Then he examined Vimes, and an expression of puzzlement which he almost managed to conceal crossed his smooth face. Next he idly examined his nails. 'I think you should leave the forest before you get it dirty. And if you go quickly, I might tell my guards not to riddle you with arrows as you go.'

Aragorn assumed a posture even more upright and noble than the one he normally had. Vimes half-expected to hear vertebrae snapping to attention. Then Aragorn began to talk earnestly in Elvish, then angrily as Haldir merely smirked and smoothed his cloak. Usually Aragorn's noble behaviour annoyed the hells out of Vimes, but for once he found he was siding with Aragorn. Haldir had achieved the extremely rare feat of uniting the Fellowship. Previously only blind terror had done it.

It soon became clear that the argument would continue for a while. With a shrug, Sam got a frying pan out of his pack. Merry lit a small fire, scandalising the nearby elves. Frodo sat and muttered. Pippin wandered off (followed by bow-wielding elves, whom he ignored) and returned with several mushrooms that had a faint golden sheen.

'The golden mushrooms of Lothlorien!' Legolas crooned. 'If it only it were spring, so we could see their silver spots glowing!'

Pippin shrugged and handed them to Merry. He sliced them carefully and placed them in the pan with a twist of salt and herbs that Sam had managed to carry through Moria intact. Vimes wandered over. The mushrooms smelt good. 'Here,' he said. 'Use some of this goose-grease I use on my boots to fry them.' He wouldn't need it anymore, he thought. He glanced down at his boots, which now resembled ankle-guards, and shrugged ruefully. Frodo muttered some more. Boromir went to snap some twigs for the fire, and hurriedly changed his mind, so that the elves would change their mind about turning him into a pincushion. Gimli started smoking, causing the elf nearest him to sneeze so violently that he nearly put an arrow through his own foot.

Finally Aragorn stepped away from Haldir, fuming.

'We can pass through Lorien,' he said, 'but we have to wear blindfolds! My Fellowship! This is a calculated insult to me- er, us.'

'Let me talk to him,' said Vimes.

He strolled up to Haldir, and lit a cigar by striking a match on a tree. 'Speak er- westron?'

'Unfortunately.'

'Evening, then' said Vimes.

Haldir stared down his nose at him. 'A star shines on the hour of our meeting,' he said stiffly.

Vimes glanced up. 'Does it? That's nice. Don't know how you can tell what with all the leaves in the way, of course…'

'What do you want?'

'This blindfolding business. It makes sense, of course. Very ingenious. Very intelligent.' Haldir preened slightly. 'Just checking I got all the details right. You and your warriors will go blindfolded, and the Fellowship will accompany you?'

'Yes- I – what?'

'Good plan,' said Vimes, nodding seriously. 'That way, we'll be too busy making sure you lot aren't tripping over to run away or do anything treacherous.'

'Er…'

"\And without you guiding us, we'd get completely lost, wouldn't we? Which is what you want, isn't it? We'll never learn the secret ways of your forest, because we'll be wandering around all over the bloody place. Because you won't be able to guide us. Very clever.'

'But I don't-'

'What? You don't want us to learn the secret ways, do you?'

'No, of course not, but-'

'Good man! I mean elf. Fine military mind you have there. I could use an elf like you in the City Watch. You'd fit right in. Genius strategy. The City Watch needs men! Be a man in the City Watch!'

Vimes saluted. Haldir saluted back. 'And,' said Vimes, winking, 'Aragorn has no idea what you're planning! You've fooled him marvellously.'

Haldir nodded, and turned and shouted in elvish at his guards, who leapt to puzzled attention.

Vimes strolled back to the hobbits to accept a plate of mushrooms. Maybe he was getting the hang of this place.

'Here, how do you spell 'equity'? Grk'sh asked Uglunker.

'Dunno,' said Uglunker, shrugging.

'What you put on your placard, then?'

Uglunker proudly displayed it. 'FAIR WAGES FOR HARD WORKING ORCS.'

Grk'sh examined it critically. 'Hmmm. You could do something with a bit more … I dunno… a bit more interesting?'

'Like what?'

'I dunno, something catchy. Something rhyming, or a pun. Something… something snappy.'

Uglunker considered this for a moment. 'How about this?'he said, scribbling something hastily. The placard now read 'PAY US OR WE'LL BITE YOU.'

'That's good,' said Grk'sh. 'Nice and direct.'

(1) A bicker is the correct plural term for wizards, but some modern dictionaries make an argument for the term 'a gluttony'. There is no plural term for witches.