3. All of Creation

Angua could at last see the Dark Tower in the distance. She increased her speed knowing that her prey was almost within biting range.

Suddenly, the world jumped as if Blind Io Himself was dancing the flamenco up in Cori Celestia. Thunder roared, not from the sky, but from everywhere! The violent shaking hurled Angua to the ground.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the quake was over.

Angua stumbled up on the four feet and looked around. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but whatever it was, it had come from the Dark Tower. There was a great evil in that tower. A mad scientist was on the loose, and all of Creation was already trembling.

She had to stop him.

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"AAAAAAAAAAAIIiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!"

Runt landed with a thump in total darkness. After regaining his breath, he lifted himself up and looked around for a light, any light. He listened for a sound, any sound. But there were none. He sniffed. This place didn't smell like wyrmstench. It smelled more like dust and dust mites, like ancient paper and dried-up binding glue, like stale air and what was left of decades-old banana peels.

"Hello?"

"Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?" said his echo.

"HELLO!"

"HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! SHADDUP!"

"Who's there?"

"Who's there? Who's there? Who's there? Who's there?"

Runt stood up so he could see better.

Off in the distance, a pair of faint lights was coming towards him. The lights came swiftly and silently, never moving from each other, as if they were attached. They looked as if they might be eyes, but they bobbed and weaved and climbed and dove, higher and faster than eyes should have been able to.

Runt watched in hypnotized fascination as they came ever closer and finally glared down at him, obviously eyes. Then a great hairy hand came out of the darkness, seized him, hoisted him, and dropped him over a mighty shoulder. The thing which had captured him uttered a single word, "ook" and then began swinging back the way it came.1

Orangutans are famous for being able to swing wildly and at great speed from branches, cliff faces, elephant tusks, library shelves or any other surface that makes itself available. Dwarves, um, not so much. So when the librarian deposited Runt in the entry chamber of the Unseen University Library, the dwarf was an octorine shade of green.

"Ook?"

"Wh-wh-where am I?" stammered Runt.

"Ook."

"I'm, I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"OOK,' repeated the librarian louder, as if volume alone could replace the need for bilingualism. "OOK, OOK, OOK!"

Runt shrugged helplessly.

The orangutan curled his lips in derision, climbed up the page and brought back the words: "the librarian deposited Runt in the entry chamber of the Unseen University Library." He pointed.

"Oh, I see. So how did I get here?"

"Ook, ook, ook, ook, ook, ook, ook, ook, ook, ook!"

"There are supposed to be dragons."

"EEEKKK! Ook, ook!" The librarian was so furious, he turned a back flip2.

"Please, please! No offense meant. Sorry."

With another disdainful curl of his lip, the orangutan knuckled his way across the floor and out the main door.

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Fate was on his feet, livid. "What is going on here?" he roared.

The Lady looked up innocently.

"That dwarf was fated to enter the Dungeon Dimension and to release the dragons! So what is he doing in the Library of the Unseen University!"

"Just lucky, I guess."

"You're cheating again!"

"Look, the little guy was traversing the realm between dimensions, right? He must have gotten tangled up with L-Space; all those magical books twist time and space something awful. It's no wonder he wound up in the wrong place." She smiled.

"Wrong place? Wrong place? I'll show YOU the wrong place!"

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Runt Thunderbelch wasn't too sure how he'd ended up in the Patrician's dungeon. He remembered there'd been a lot of soldiers and even more shouting. He remembered being manhandled along. He remembered being dragged out of the Unseen University, through the city, and into the Oblong Office.

"Ahhh, Mr. Thunderbelch, good day." The Patrician was going through a stack of documents and didn't even bother to look up. He was a gaunt man with a pointy black beard and a voice as soft and quiet as a throat being slit.

Runt bowed his head. "Your Majesty."

The Patrician chuckled. "I assure you, my lad, that there is nothing at all majestic about me. I'm just a simple man, doing a job the best he can. And who are you?"

"Me, your Majest—uh, your Patricianess?"

"Yes. Tell me. Who is Runt Thunderbelch?"

Runt thought about this. "A dwarf?"

"Oh, not just a dwarf." The Patrician skipped down a few inches of his stack of papers. He gently tugged out a single sheet and read it. "According to this, you have been attempting to travel between dimensions, to wit, from the Discworld to the Dungeon Dimension."

"How did you—"

"The purpose of your journey is to place a dwarf, namely yourself, in among the dragons. Dragons, as you may know, are repelled by dwarves, something to do with the non-magicalness of your race. The dragons then would flee back to this Discworld, is that right?"

Runt began looking around for a way out.

"Are you aware of the problems we had the last time a dragon escaped from the Dungeon Dimension? One, single dragon? It ended upon the Throne of Ankh-Morpork, and I ended up as its prisoner. Me. If it hadn't been for a one-in-a-million chance . . . Well, I'm sure you get the picture. So the question is: what do I do with you now?"

"Let me off with a stern warning, sir?"

"A stern warning? And interesting suggestion. I think I shall take a slightly different approach. Drumknott, show this gentleman to the deepest cell in the deepest dungeon we have, please."

"But sir," began Drumknott in protest.

The Patrician's merciless eyes fixed themselves on his young clerk. "I said 'please'."

Drumknott wilted. "Yes sir. Immediately, sir. Right away, sir. Of course, sir."

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The Lady looked up from the game and laughed. "That is what Fate had in store for him? Prison! Ha ha ha, that's funny. Oooooh, he's a prisoner. Such a terrible fate!"

She laughed so hard She failed to notice that Fate was smiling.

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Angua reached the entrance of the Dark Tower. One of the doors had been ripped from its hinges and was lying flat on the floor.

She sniffed for any sign of an ambush. Finding none, she crept cautiously inside.

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Drumknott returned. He was desperately trying to hide his trembling. "Sir, please don't get angry, but I need to point something out to you. I have, as you instructed, placed Runt Thunderbelch in the deepest cell in our deepest dungeon. However, cells that deep have no stone walls, no reinforcing of any kind. Mr. Thunderbelch is a dwarf, sir, a dwarf. Placing a dwarf in a cell which has walls made merely of dirt just means he will tunnel his way out."

"Mmm-hum," said the Patrician as he signed another document.

"You know, sir? You put him down there knowing he will tunnel out?"

The Patrician picked up another document and began reading. "Mmm-hum."

"Oh well, but then, that is, I mean . . ."

"Is there anything else, Drumknott?"

"Er, no sir."

"Very good. You may go. If I need you, I shall ring my little silver bell. All right?"

"Yes sir. Of course, sir." Drumknott scurried away.

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Fate's black eyes were fixed on the Lady. "All right. What are you up to? Why did you induce the Patrician let the dwarf to escape?"

"Me?" She gasped. "You mean it wasn't You?"

Fate pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh no. Oh no. Someday I will get the Patrician to play by Our Rules, I swear."

The Lady muttered, "Good luck with that."

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No one was in any of the lower floors of the Dark Tower. Angua crept up the spiral staircase towards the upper floors. She found the door to the topmost room had been knocked ajar by the creation-quake. Quietly, she pawed the door open, sniffed to find that one person was inside, and she cautiously entered.

Q.E.D. Ipsofacto, Ph.D. was dancing across the stone floor. "I'm going to be rich!" he sang. "Rich, rich, rich, rich, rich! Money will flow like honey! I'll be in dragon eggs to the top of my legs. I'll be bold and I'll be golden. I'll be rich, rich, rich, rich, rich!" He spun and found himself facing a werewolf.

Angua growled deep in her throat.

Dr. Ipsofacto froze then eased two steps to his left. She moved to cut him off. He reversed course, taking several steps to his right. She cut him off again.

"Nice doggie."

She growled again. No one was needed to translate her canine into: "I'm about to rip your throat out, and so bend over and lick your testicles good-bye."

A dark and cloaked figure wavered into view behind Angua. A skull's face grinned from out of the cowl, and a large scythe was gripped in a bony hand. "Q.E.D. IPSOFACTO, HAVE YOU PREPARED YOURSELF?"

The mad scientist glanced left, then right, and then whimpered, turned and dove headfirst into the light vortex.

Thunder roared. Creation was shaken all the way down to the Great A'Tuin. And Angua yipped like a terrified puppy.

Then it was over.

Death's intense blue-points-of-light eyes would have blinked if they'd have had eyelids. He reached inside his cloak, brought out a scroll and a quill pen. Opening the scroll, he sadly gazed down at the entry "Practical Jokes," drew a spidery line through it and shook his skull. "THAT DIDN'T GO AT ALL WELL. I'M BEGINNING TO THINK I'LL NEVER BE GOOD AT HUMOR." He checked the next entry: "Woopie cushion." "WHAT IS SO FUNNY ABOUT A MISLEADING IMMITATION OF A GASEOUS EMISSION?" He shrugged and slowly faded away.

Dr. Ipsofacto had disappeared into the light vortex of the Inter-Dimensional Instrument of Transportation. Wherever he came out would be up to the Gods to decide. It would be wherever his Fate or his Luck took him.

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Runt Thunderbelch pushed the last few cobblestones from off the top of his tunnel and stuck his head up into the sunlight. He found himself nose-to-muzzle with a scruffy, little dog. The dog's stub of a tail wagged.

"There's something I want you always to remember and never to forget," said Gaspode to the dwarf. He paused to let his words sink in. "Dogs can't talk." Then, as if to prove his point, he added, "Bark, bark."

But then, because Gaspode was Gaspode, the little scruffy dog just had to conclude, "Quod erat demonstrandum."

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The End

1 Q: To where does a 300-pound orangutan take a 77-pound dwarf?

A: Anywhere he wants.

(Sorry.)

2 This back flip is an indication of just how furious the librarian was. Librarians tend to be a pensive and reflective lot, and they rarely engage in impromptu gymnastics.