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Celine watched the shark carefully as it circled around her. The problem was that the shark was watching her even more carefully. Celine was a young, red haired woman of 20 and she was having serious doubts about making it to 21 or even noon today. She had been a passenger on the Gigantic, the newest ship of Wainwright Shipping Lines before she and her new teethy friend ended up in this little water ballet. In fact, it had been the maiden voyage of the Gigantic on a run from Genua to Ankh-Morpork. The Gigantic had been billed as both the fastest ship afloat and unsinkable, which in retrospect might have been a mistake as there was nothing the gods of the Disc loved more than a challenge unless it was an all you can eat buffet. Tickets for its first voyage had been selling at a premium, but Celine whose family certainly could not afford such a luxury, had been lucky enough to win one in a contest. That stroke of luck though didn’t seem to be such a great thing at the moment.

Celine had been sound asleep in her small cabin when whatever happened had happened. Small in this case was a bit of an exaggeration as the paying customers got large, luxurious suites while her lucky free accommodations had just enough room for a cot. Celine had also been sure that when she had peered at the fresh paint on her cabin door, she could faintly make out the words “storage room”. Still, she was apparently luckier than the rest of the passengers and crew of which she had seen no sign since waking up when she hit the cold water that jolted her out of sleep. Now, she clung desperately to a large curved chunk of wood and watched her new friend. She didn’t think it was going to be a long friendship.

“So, how are you enjoying my gift to you so far?” asked a voice.

Celine was pretty sure the shark hadn’t spoken, but she was reluctant to take her eyes off it to look around since that seemed like a terminally stupid thing to do. “Who are you?” she asked, fairly sure that no one could have snuck up on her in the middle of an ocean.

“I’ am afraid that my name is not one people like to invoke,” said the voice which seemed to be coming from somewhere in the air above her. “When they do use my name, their fortunes tend to reverse quite quickly.”

“I really wouldn’t mind a little reversal in fortune at this point,” replied Celine mildly. “I mean, it’s not like things can get much worse than being ship wrecked and finding a shark wanting to get to know you better, a piece at a time.”

“Oh dear, you probably shouldn’t have said that,” said the unseen speaker.

“Which part?” asked Celine.

“The part about things not getting worse,” answered the voice. “It is part of the standard narrative of a story that whenever someone says that, they inevitably do.”

“I think I will take my chances,” replied Celine as she watched the diameter of the shark’s circle begin to decrease.

“Funny, you should say that,” said the voice which Celine had decided was definitely female.

The red haired girl risked a look upwards and indeed saw a rather beautiful, dark haired woman in a royal blue dress apparently sitting cross legged on thin air. That was rather interesting, but the massive grey storm clouds that were forming from seemingly nowhere were even more interesting. She was damn sure those clouds had not been there a minute ago. “You have got competition,” Celine said to the shark who continued to narrow its circle around her. “You called this your gift,” shouted Celine at the woman. “Can I give it back? It’s not that I am not appreciative, but I really don’t feel that I am worthy.”

“Sorry, but once I give something, it is for life,” said the woman.

“It appears the gift won’t last very long,” replied Celine as it began to rain and a large wave tossed her about.

The woman shrugged. “We shall see, but in the meantime, I came to discuss your repayment plans for my gift.”

“Repayment?” squeaked Celine as the waves grew larger and the rain fell faster. “I thought gifts were supposed to be free?”

“That is a mortal concept,” countered the woman. “There is always a price to be paid.”

The shark dived and Celine made a wild kick with her feet, sending her piece of wood several feet to her right. When the disappointed shark surfaced where she had been she punched it as hard as she could in the nose or whatever you called the bit above all those razor sharp teeth on a shark. The shark blinked its black, dead eyes at her in affront and contrived to indicate that her luck wouldn’t hold another time.

“What’s the price?” screamed Celine at the woman. “Whatever it is, I will pay it.”

“Splendid,” replied the woman calmly who didn’t even look wet as the rain bent around her. “I require an avatar.”

“I do hope you aren’t the goddess of seamstresses,” yelled Celine. “Among other things, I have never sewed in my life. I was hoping to get around to it at some point, but it never happened yet.”

“No, that is quite a different goddess,” replied the woman. “The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork has forbid my followers to open a temple to me in his most decadent of cities. There are great monuments to Blind Io, to Om and to Offler in his city, but I am denied. You will change that.”

“You got it,” screamed Celine as she watched the shark dive again, “but you didn’t tell me your name yet!”

“No, I haven’t,” agreed the woman. “Here is my token of approval. Please make sure it is the largest temple in the city or I will be quite annoyed.”

“I sure wouldn’t want that,” replied Celine fervently as she caught the two small objects the lady had tossed to her. The lady vanished. “Hey, aren’t you going to get me out of this?” she called to the empty air.

“I already have,” came the faint reply as the largest wave Celine had ever seen bored down on her and the young woman gaped from it to the pair of dice in her hand.

* * *

The beggars often made trips down to the docks of Ankh-Morpork in search of food. It wasn’t that they had any talent when it came to fishing, but the fishermen would normally give them a fish or two since the smell of Foul Old Ron made the smell of rotting fish guts in the hot noon sun seem pleasant. If that didn’t work due to some fisherman’s nostrils being totally bunged up and unable to smell, the threat of Coffin Henry expectorating into the ocean was enough to invoke a burst of charity since no one wanted to eat anything ever again that came from that water as even infinite dilution was not enough to reassure stomachs. So it was then that the beggars were on the beach not long after the unexpected storm ended and were looking out to sea when they spotted the screaming woman. Her long red hair was streaming out behind her as she appeared to be standing on a piece of wood that once might have belonged to a ship and riding the crest of a huge wave. The wave crashed onto the beach and swept over the astonished beggars.

“bugger it,” gasped Foul old Ron as the water rolled off him as quick as it could manage as even inanimate matter wished as little contact with Foul Old Ron as possible. “Millennium hand and shrimp.”

“Yes, I do believe, that is a shrimp stuck in your ear,” said the Duck Man as he struggled to his feet. “Oh dear, has anyone seen Arnold? I fear he was much lower down than the rest of us.”

“Over here,” said a muffled voice and the others all turned to see the legless man upside down with his head buried in the sand. Arnold spat out sand after the others rushed over, pulled him free and set him upright on his wheeled board. “It’s a good thing ducks like water,” said Arnold looking up at the Duck Man and the duck still perched on top of his hat.

“What duck?” asked the Duck Man who could never understand why people kept referring to nonexistent water fowl around him.

“Bugger it,” said Ron and bit the shrimp in half.

“I wonder what happened to the girl?” asked Gaspode, the mangy dog who often served as Foul Old Ron’s Thinking Brain Dog. None of the beggars thought it was strange that a dog could talk since in their time, they had heard a lot weirder things talking to them and making a lot less sense. “I don’t think there is a chance in hells she could have survived that at the speed she was going when she went by overhead.”

* * *

The mysterious “they” that know everything about the universe say that one person’s garbage is another person’s treasure must have known Harry King. Often called the King of the Golden River, Sir Harry as he was called these days had made his fortune taking away the stuff that no one wanted and then selling it to someone who realized they wanted it, though often only after a little processing. In this case, it was a large wagon filled with what “they” would call “night soil” since less polite and more accurate terms cannot be used in some stories. The large wave carried Celine well over the beach before collapsing and she fell screaming from some height and at considerable speed to what seemed like certain death. Instead, she soon only wished she had been so lucky.

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” said Captain Carrot of the Watch to the goblin known as Mr. Excrement. The goblin had intended to call himself Mr. Excitement and go into show business, but goblins were not always known for their spelling and anyway it had turned out okay as Harry King had laughed so hard, he had given him a job on the spot. “You say a young human female fell out of the clear sky and landed in your um cargo?”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Excrement. “I wouldn’t have bothered reporting it to the Watch, but I need a report from you to explain to Mr. King why my load is lighter than it should be. Mr. King doesn’t like being cheated out of anything.”

“I will see you get a copy,” Carrot assured the goblin as he scribbled in his notebook and then looked over at Captain Angua. “Do you think you can track the woman?”

The werewolf officer merely rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you need my nose to follow the trail she left.”

* * *

Celine squelched along through the streets and alleys of Ankh-Morpork. She knew she was lucky to have survived the fall, but she thought she would have been luckier still if her nose would shut down. The all knowing “they” said that a person could get used to any smell, but so far that hadn’t happened and she wished fervently that it would. Celine was wondering what she was to do without a penny to her name and in her current state when she saw a figure step out of the shadows in front of her brandishing a knife.

“Good evening to you ma’am, I am Mr. Tucker of the Thieves’ Guild,” and he flashed his membership card briefly at her. “You are in luck tonight because I am offering ten percent off my usual rate for …,” at this point Orest Tucker’s nose caught up to current events and he collapsed onto the ground retching.

“Thanks oh so very much for your compassion,” muttered Celine as she stepped over the writhing thief and continued on her way down the alley.

* * *

Honest Truman sat in the waiting room outside the Patrician’s office and fumed with rage while doing his best not to show it. If the other guy knew he had got under your skin then the game was lost and Honest didn’t like losing. In fact, he had never lost. His real name was not Honest Truman, but he no longer remembered what his real given name was, so as far as Honest was concerned, Honest Truman was his real name. A person’s name said a lot about a person thought Honest and it was amazing what most people would believe when it came from someone with a name like Honest Truman.

The door to the Patrician’s inner office opened and Truman made himself finish the paragraph in the Ankh-Morpork times he had been pretending to read before uncrossing his legs and glancing up to notice the officious little twit who served as the Patrician’s secretary. What was his name again? It had been something to do with a musical instrument hadn’t it? Trumpet perhaps? That didn’t seem right and Honest vaguely remembered there had been a second part to the name, but he couldn’t remember what it was and it therefore wasn’t important.

“The Patrician will see you now Mr. Truman,” said Drumknot and he gestured to the open door behind him. “He asked me to apologize for the wait, but some important matters came up unexpectedly that he had to deal with.”

“That’s quite alright, I understand,” replied Honest with a smile, determined to win this little game by not mentioning that his appointment had been for nine and it was now almost ten thirty. He was half expecting the old game of the man sitting behind the desk pretending to be busy and keeping him waiting just to prove who was the top dog and who was the supplicant, but the Patrician looked up immediately and gave him a bright smile as he shook hands and gestured him towards a chair in front of his desk. That friendly welcome disconcerted Honest slightly, but he quickly rallied and put on his own friendliest face. “Thank-you for taking the time to meet with me Lord Vetinari. I understand from your clerk that you have been dealing with pressing matters of state.”

“Have I?” replied the Patrician with a slight frown. “I shall have to enquire with Drumknot about that. The day seemed rather ordinary to me so far. I had to review the files on three miscreants who are about to meet Mr. Trooper tomorrow morning.”

“Mr. Trooper?” asked Honest politely, arching an eyebrow.

“Our hangman,” replied the Patrician with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Nothing to concern you, just three fraudsters who won’t be committing any more fraud after tomorrow.”

Honest hid a frown, wondering if the man was playing some kind of mind game with him, but before he could decide what to say, the office door banged open and a man in rather shabby and dented armour rushed in. “Sorry, I’m late, but I was pretty sure this meeting wouldn’t start on time as usual. I had to stop and hear a report. Apparently, Ankh-Morpork is now being invaded by flying women of some sort.”

“Ah, Vimes, do come in and sit down,” said the Patrician with that little smile still fixed on his long, angular face as he gestured to a second chair in front of his desk. “As you so charmingly put it, the start of our meeting was unavoidably delayed and Mr. Truman and I were just about to commence.”

Vimes sat down in the indicated chair, feeling a little smug for this one time at least of not being the one kept waiting in the outer office while his lordship did the damn crossword puzzle in the Times or dispatched assassins to kill a few dozen people who had somehow annoyed him.

“This is Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch,” said Vetinari as he performed introductions. “Sir Samuel, this is as you should know if you read the memo I sent you about this meeting, Mr. Honest Truman, who has an important matter he wishes to discuss with us.” With that, the Patrician handed Vimes the business card he had been holding in his hand and looked back at Honest. “Since your proposal impacts Sir Samuel’s area of expertise, I thought it best to include him in this meeting.”

Vimes reached out and took the card. “The Right Honourable Honest Truman IV Esquire,” he read the first line aloud and cast a glare at Honest. “How much did you pay for all those titles?”

Honest was momentarily speechless. This buffoon was the Sam Vimes who was apparently feared by criminals all over the Sto Plains and beyond? The rumours about Vetinari losing it must be true if he depended on someone of this quality and Honest began to consider aiming higher than he originally intended. “All those titles were given to me by the grateful citizens of Quirm and Sto Lat,” he made himself say in a calm and reasonable tone.

Vimes grunted and read the second line on the card. “Bordering Shrub Fund Manager,” he said and now looked at Honest with a look of puzzlement. “What in the hells does that mean?”
Honest shrugged and looked embarrassed. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It just somehow seemed right when I was having the cards printed.”

Vimes shrugged the puzzle away and turned to what he considered the main point he wanted to make. “I am not allowing any damn casino in my city!”

“Your city?” interrupted the Patrician before Honest could mount a reply. “I was under the distinct impression Sir Samuel that you had no interest in doing my job and running this city? In fact, I believe it was just two days ago that you told Mr. Harga over breakfast that you and I believe this is an exact quote, ‘couldn’t slither under enough rocks to make a good Patrician’.”

Vimes eyed Vetinari silently for a moment. “I didn’t see any of your spies there,” he finally said, “and I don’t think Sham would rat out one of his best customers. For the record though, I never used the word ‘slithered’, I said I couldn’t crawl under enough rocks to be Patrician.”

“I stand corrected,” replied Vetinari with a dip of his head. “I shall have Drumknot make a note of the revision in your file and personally remonstrate with the source who so inaccurately reported your words.”

“As long as his or her body doesn’t show up on the streets of the city,” growled Vimes and he shifted his attention back to Honest. “I’ve talked to coppers in Quirm and Sto Lat among other places where you have opened casinos Mr. Truman. I didn’t like what I heard. Allegations of rigged games, patrons who complained disappearing permanently and money laundering among other things.”

“Baseless lies,” countered Honest calmly, turning a palm over. “No evidence has been presented since there is none. What you heard was the disgruntled ravings of those who lost money due to their incompetence and greed.”

“Incompetence?” echoed Vimes. “Some of the disgruntled customers you talk about were so dishonest that they counted cards in games of chance which for reasons beyond the mind of a simple copper is considered cheating. Of course, they likely won’t be playing cards in your casinos anytime soon as that would require their fingers to be taken out of casts or even reattached to their bodies.”

“The casino I am proposing for Ankh-Morpork will spur vital economic development in the city,” countered Honest.

Vimes was about to retort, but Vetinari held up a hand to forestall him. “Yes, I did receive a petition signed by all the guild heads who supported your casino proposal enthusiastically. Mrs. Palm of the Seamstress’s guild …,” there was a snort from Vimes at this that Vetinari ignored, “was especially eloquent in support of your proposal. I have my misgivings, but in light of this unanimous support from the esteemed civic leaders, I feel I have no choice, but to grant your request.”

Vimes stared at the Patrician for a few seconds as if not believing his ears. “You can’t do that …,” he began.

“I can and I am Sir Samuel,” interrupted the Patrician coldly. “I trust that you and the Watch will make sure the casino is run in a lawful manner.”

“But ….” Sputtered Vimes.

“That will be all Commander,” cut in Vetinari sharply. “I am sure you have other duties to attend to? I believe you said something about a flying woman?”

Honest watched Vimes’ face turn red and then the man got up, stalked to the door, opened it and then closed it with a loud bang that knocked over one of the Thud game pieces on the board near the window. The little figure of a dwarf rolled off the edge and onto the rug without anyone seeming to notice it. Vetinari turned back to Honest, “Now, you will of course keep me informed about the details of your proposal as you go forward.” Honest nodded and hid his smirk at just how easy this was proving to be. The sheep were actually lining up for inspection by the wolf!

* * *

One thing at a time, thought Celine as she spotted some clothes hanging on a line in a yard behind what could only be described as a mansion. The place was surrounded by a high, stone fence, so it had been a lucky fluke to spot the clothes through a chink in the wall where a brick had fallen out and not been replaced. While rich people were often disproportionately upset about small attacks on their wealth, at least the loss of these clothes wouldn’t be a horrible financial blow and she could always pay them back later if she came into money, thought Celine as she scrambled to the top of the fence. Suddenly, one of the stones shifted under her foot and pitched her forward, arms flailing, to land with a splash in a pond. Celine swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of water and quickly realized this was not some pretty, ornamental fish pond she had fallen into. She coughed up as much of the filthy liquid as she could, but the taste it left in her mouth now matched the rest of her. Actually, as bad as the water was, it was sort of washing off the worst of the mess from her clothes, though dissolving them might be a more apt description of the process. Celine swum to the edge of the pond and tried to climb out, only to find the slime covered sides prevented her from getting any purchase to haul herself out.

“You don’t look like an assassin,” said a voice and Celine looked up to see a small boy of about six or seven staring down at her curiously.

“I don’t know what assassins look like,” replied Celine, “or why you would think I might be one. I could, however, use a hand in getting out of here if you don’t mind,.”

The boy seemed to consider this for a moment before replying. “Assassins all dress in black and talk funny, my dad calls it fake posh. It was him that fixed up that brick to drop them in the pond where the slop from the swamp dragons is thrown.”

That explains the taste, decided Celine and she returned to the last and more important part of her request. “What about helping me out of here, or at least calling someone if you aren’t sure you can trust me?” asked Celine.

“My name is Sam,” said the boy apropos of nothing, but he still seemed to be thinking her request over. “I’m good at knots,” he finally said and again Celine wasn’t sure of the relevance of this statement until he added, “I will get a rope and tie it to one of the trees, so you can get out. Willikins might just shoot you with a crossbow if I called him.”

“I would prefer for that not to happen then,” replied Celine. “If you don’t mind though, I would appreciate it if you could hurry since I am getting a little tired down here.” The boy nodded solemnly and he disappeared from her view. A few minutes later, a rope dropped over the edge of the pit and after testing it to be sure it would hold her, Celine managed to pull herself out and sprawl in a soggy mess on the grass.

“You smell like pooh,” said Sam.

””Sorry,” mumbled Celine as she struggled to her feet and once more eyed the clothes on the line, wondering what Sam would think or do if she tried to take them.

The boy noticed her looking at the clothes and rather quickly for someone so young, seemed to put things together. “I will get you the clothes from the line. They are some of my mom’s old cleaning things and she has lots, so she won’t mind.” He returned a few moments later with the garments, a pair of what looked like men’s dark blue breeches and a buttoned shirt of a lighter blue. Celine looked down at her current outfit which continued to dissolve as she stood there and threatened impropriety in the near future. The rags, since calling them clothes seemed too grandiose, were still filthy as was the skin under them and Celine was loathe to put the clean clothes in contact with her body and almost instantly render them as bad as what she currently wore.

“There is a garden hose around back of the house,” supplied Sam as if understanding her predicament.

Feeling too miserable to protest this undignified method of cleaning, Celine merely nodded and followed Sam to the rear of the mansion and the garden hose which was attached to a faucet on the wall of the house. She had heard of people rich enough to have running water inside their house instead of having to haul it in with buckets from a pump, but this was her first experience with such wealth. Celine stood there looking around nervously for a few seconds and then decided the hell with it. “Look, I have to take these old clothes off, so I need you to turn around and not look,” she told Sam trying not to blush.

“I’m old enough that they let me bathe by myself now,” agreed Sam who didn’t seem to see anything odd in Celine’s request and turned his back on her. Celine still hesitated for a few seconds, but the boy seemed utterly sincere and trustworthy which said some interesting things about his parents and she began to strip. There was no saving any of her clothes and she threw them with disgust into a pile and hurriedly began to use the cold water from the hose to sluice off the mixture of the stuff she had landed in from both the cart and the pit. It wasn’t a perfect job and she was shivering violently when she was done, but at least some random thief probably wouldn’t start retching if he accosted her now. Celine slipped into the new to her clothes and discovered a slight flaw in her plan. The pants were about the right length, but she could almost fit two of her in the width at the waist and she had to bunch the cloth in one hand to keep the pants from falling down to her ankles. The shirt was much better and only slightly large in the chest region.

“It’s ok, you can turn around now,” she told Sam.

The boy looked her over with some consideration, more evaluating than rude. He produced a pocket knife and cut off a section of the rope he had used to haul her out of the pit and offered that to her as a belt which she used to tie the waist of the pants to her hips. The boy then regarded her bare feet. “Wait here,” he said and ran into the house. He returned shortly with a couple pairs of woolen socks and a pair of what looked like new leather boots. “Mom bought these for dad,” he explained, “but he doesn’t wear them. He says he can’t tell where he is with them because the soles are too thick. They are probably a bit large for you, but I think they should be alright with the socks.”

Celine took the offered objects and indeed after tightly lacing the boots over two pairs of thick socks, thought she could move fairly well and not have to worry about the boots falling off her feet. “Um, I don’t have any money to pay for these things,” she said feeling suddenly embarrassed by the boy’s charity.

“That’s ok,” replied Sam “Mom always says it is important to help others and just ask them to do the same for others in the future if they can.”

“Your mother sounds like a wonderful person,” replied Celine who slipped the pair of dice that she had somehow kept clutched in her hand throughout this whole mess into a pocket of her new pants.

“My dad says she is the best mom in the entire city,” agreed Sam with a smile.

* * *

Celine left Sam’s yard via a small back gate the boy unlocked for her and she set out feeling a little better about the world and hoping Sam wouldn’t get into trouble for what he did to help her. The next thing on her agenda was to find something to eat and she felt just a slight pang of sympathy for the shark who had been deprived of what the creature must have thought was a promising feast. As she walked down Broadway, or so the street sign proclaimed the street to be, Celine was drawn irresistibly by the mouth watering smells from a restaurant. Her parents ran a small eatery back in Genua and so Celine was familiar with the problem of getting payment from someone who had already eaten the food and had insufficient or even no funds with which to pay. Because of that experience, Celine wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of doing that to some unfortunate honest restaurant owner, but the hunger pangs in her stomach were threatening to overwhelm her. She could always make the fabled and perhaps mythical offer to wash dishes to pay for her meal, but not until she had eaten she decided. Stepping into the restaurant and looking at the size of the man behind the counter, she felt her conscience begin to relax. That man was in no danger of starving to death unless he missed a few hundred meals. This must be the All Jolson whose name she had seen on the outside of the restaurant. She had thought the sign had been done by someone who didn’t know how to spell, but now looking at All Jolson, she decided it hadn’t been. There was no way it could be all Jolson, but the proof was there in front of her eyes.

As she had hoped, Celine didn’t encounter any difficulties and lingered over the excellent food for as long as she dared. Finally, with a full stomach, but a heavy heart, the redhead approached the desk to confess to her inability to pay. On the counter was an enormous jar of jelly beans an a sign attached to it reading.

“Guess the number of jelly beans and win your meal free. One guess per customer per day.”

Celine looked at the jar and then at All Jolson who stood there looking expectant. “10,742” she ventured.

All Jolson continued to smile while sighing in relief since the girl had come uncomfortably close to the right answer. “Sorry,” he said, “close, but not right.”

“I wasn’t counting the green jelly bean that boy snuck out of the jar,” said Celine pointing to the small boy with grubby hands and a green smudge around his mouth in the arms of his mother who had been the previous customer at the counter and had yet to leave the restaurant.

All Jolson glanced at the boy and sighed. “That’s a bit of incredible luck Miss,” he conceded, “your meal is free.” All was a little disappointed as he had been quite sure the young woman hadn’t had the money to pay for her meal when she walked in. He loved food too much to deny it to someone else though and besides he had a mountain of dirty dishes in the back that needed washing.

Celine smiled her thanks to the restaurant owner and was just turning to leave when a large hand clamped down on her shoulder and turning she looked up into the smiling face of a large red haired man in what had to be the shiniest armour in the city. “Excuse me Miss,” said the man, “but I think we need to have a chat.”

* * *

Honest looked around at the vast empty expanse of the warehouse near the outskirts of Ankh-Morpork and then turned to his companion. “I think this should do quite nicely with some redecorating. I might want to build something grander in the future, but this will do for a start. How did you happen to have such a big place that is empty?.”

Chrysoprase shrugged. “The last guy I rented it to turned out to be a real loser. You saw the name of his business on the sign outside?”

Honest nodded, “Calling your business Ankh after the most polluted river in the world doesn’t seem like such a great idea,” he admitted. “What was he going to sell?”

“Books, if you can believe it,” snorted the troll. “He was going to have more books than there are people in dis city who can count to ten let alone read. He had all these big plans about expanding his business to sell other things. He even had one crazy idea about some kind of device that would let you download books from the semaphore towers. Beats me why, but he called it a Flame. Maybe not such a bad name after all since that what his business went up in.”

“What happened to him?” asked Honest.

“He now swimming with the bananas,” replied Chrysoprase nonchalantly.

“Bananas?” asked Honest in puzzlement.

“I went to dis talk one of the wizards at the university give,” replied Chrysoprase. “Mr. Stibbons is one smart guy and he says according to his theory that bananas are a type of fish since they is yellow and always come together in groups. Personally, I think bananas are politicians since they are all yellow, they hang together and there isn’t a straight one among them. I get ten percent of the gross for this place of course.”

“Five percent of the net,” countered Honest.

“Ten percent of the net,” replied the troll.

“Seven percent of the net,” said Honest.

“Deal,” said Chrysoprase extending a massive hand that Honest gingerly took and shook.

Chrysoprase smiled to himself as they left the huge building. If the casino was a success, there were ways that he could end up with more of the profit, such as 100% of the gross. Of course, Honest would be swimming with the former tenant and the bananas.

Honest was smiling to himself as they walked out of the building. There were ways for even a powerful troll like Chrysoprase to have an “accident”. Honest was sure the swimming bananas which he still couldn’t quite visualize, would enjoy their new aquatic companion.

* * *

Celine sat on the bunk and stared around at the otherwise empty jail cell. The earnest young Watchman had not seemed totally sure why he was arresting her except the clothes she was wearing had come from the clothesline of Sir Samuel Vimes, who just happened to be the commander of the Watch. Really, what were the odds on something like that she wondered. Captain Carrot had explained that he just needed to investigate the circumstances a bit more and had assured her that probably nothing would happen to her. Celine would have been more reassured except for the use of the word “probably” in his talk with her. She had also thought Carrot was quite cute, but had quickly squished that thought out of her mind when she looked at the other city guard, the woman named Angua. Celine thought she might have been mistaken, but when the thought about how cute Carrot was had crossed her mind, Angua’s teeth took on a longer and more pointed look. No, she quickly decided, she had absolutely no interest in Carrot whatsoever. Maybe this was what her mother sometimes referred to as growing up and getting her hormones under control.

When Celine surfaced from her internal pool of thoughts, she found she was not alone. There was someone, possibly human, whose Watch uniform was the exact opposite of Carrot’s standing on the other side of the bars looking in at her. “Sorry to bother you Miss, but I brought you down a cup of tea. I had a biscuit too, but I kind of ate it on the way down.”

Celine got up and took the cup from the possibly human and in the process noted his tobacco stained fingers and dirty nails and decided that she wasn’t going to complain about the missing biscuit. After one sip of the tea, she was wishing he had drunk that too, but she sipped at it to be polite. “Thank-you,” she said, remembering her manners. “It is um very interesting tea.”

“It’s organic,” said the watchman in a tone that made it sound like he was saying something just a little bit naughty and Celine wondered if he knew what the word “organic” meant. “I’m Corporal Nobbs,” he informed her as he reached behind one unwashed ear and produced the worst looking roll-up that Celine had ever seen. “You can call me Nobby. Got a light?” he asked as he patted his pockets in a vain Search for matches.

Celine picked up one of the candles that provided illumination for the cell and held it out to Nobby who nodded his thanks as he bowed his head and lit the cigarette. “Fred, that’s Sergeant Colon, sent me down to see if you needed anything. Commander Vimes will be in later and will probably want to have a talk with you.”

“I’m fine,” Celine assured Nobby trying to stand clear of the smoke coming from Nobby’s cigarette which reminded her a little too much of some of her recent experiences. “It is a little boring though.”

“Do you play dice?” asked Nobby hopefully.

“Um, someone gave me a pair,” admitted Celine producing the pair of dice the strange woman had given her. “I am afraid I don’t really know any games with them.”

Nobby took the dice and with an expert’s knowledge was quite sure they were not fixed in any way. He handed them back too Celine and produced his own pair from his pocket whose status of legality he was also very sure of. “I will teach you,” said Nobby with a wink. “It’s best if we each use our own set of dice, so we both know no one is cheating, not that a lady like you would do that of course.”

Celine wasn’t sure she bought Nobby’s logic, but since she had no money to lose, it didn’t seem to really matter. “I don’t have any money,” she pointed out, “so are we just playing for points.”

“Nah, that’s no fun,” replied Nobby and he thought for a few seconds. “Wait here,” he said and Celine wondered just where he expected her to go when she was locked in a cell. Nobby returned a few minutes later with a coffee mug half full of coins. “I nicked the coffee money,” he informed her with no apparent remorse or concern and began to divide the money into two piles. “Half for you and half for me,” he told her with a grin. Celine shrugged and squatted down on the floor in front of the bars as Nobby explained the rules of the game.

* * *

An hour later, Nobby watched as he lost the last of his share of the money to the red haired girl. He couldn’t figure it out since he should be able to manipulate his dice to whatever roll he needed and he knew damn well the girl wasn’t cheating. He had examined her dice himself and he still couldn’t figure out how she had rolled the 13 she needed to win the last round.

“Nobby, Commander Vimes is in his office and wants to see the prisoner right away,” said another Watchman as he poked his head into the cell corridor.

“Thanks Washpot,” Nobby replied absently as he was still trying to count how many sides there were on a standard dice. Let’s see, there was like the top and bottom and the left and right and front and back which made how many? Nobby gave his head a shake and gave up on trying to do higher math. “Come along Miss,” he said as he unlocked the cell. Celine stepped out of the cell, putting the dice in one pocket and her winnings in the other. She felt a twinge of guilt about keeping the money, but she figured she was owed that much for the missing biscuit and not complaining about police brutality over the tea.

Nobby led her up a flight of stairs and then knocked respectfully on a closed office door. Celine heard a gruff voice call “come in” and the corporal opened the door and stuck only his head inside. “I’ve brought the female prisoner sir,” he announced.

“Well then send her in,” said the voice impatiently. “And before you go, Fred says the coffee money is missing Nobby. Do you know anything about that?”

“No sir,” replied Nobby instantly. “I’ve been watching the prisoner all the time sir, like a hawk sir!”

“Yes, it was silly of me to expect you to confess,” said the voice with a sigh. “Why don’t you nip over to the palace guards ready room and replenish the coffee fund then?”

“Yes sir!” replied Nobby with an attempt at a snappy salute and he wandered off down the stairs while Celine stepped into the room to meet the source of the voice.

The man behind the desk looked at her with a stone face that gave away nothing as he regarded her. “Those clothes look familiar,” he finally commented. “I am pretty sure I saw an identical set on my wife recently.”

“I can take them off and give them to you if you want,” said Celine as she put her fingers on the top button of the shirt. She didn’t know where that had come from, but it seemed to work as the man turned bright red and gave his head a violent shake as he gestured her to sit down in a chair.

“Sybil, that’s my wife,” he explained when she was sitting, “said you were welcome to keep them. We both saw and smelled the clothes you left in exchange. They burned a real nice purple and orange when we threw them on the fire. We also talked to young Sam and while we had some initial concerns over your behaviour, he convinced us there was nothing amiss on your part.”

“Does that mean I am free to go?” asked Celine hopefully.

Commander Vimes stared at her stonily for a few more seconds before replying. “Yes, it does, but I would like a few answers to some questions I have first. My gut tells me there is something bigger going on here than it seems.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Celine meekly and then she told the Commander about her winning the trip, the shipwreck and the storm that washed her up in Ankh-Morpork, She omitted the bit about the shark and the floating woman as those details seemed both unnecessary and unbelievable.

“I see,” said Vimes when she was done and he seemed to pause a moment to think. “What are your plans now that you are here in Ankh-Morpork.”

“Well, I was supposed to spend a couple of weeks here seeing the sights,” replied Celine, “and then the Gigantic was supposed to make the return trip to Genua. I think the shipping line still owes me that return trip, so I plan to talk to them and meanwhile take in the sights like I was going to.”

Vimes stared at the girl some more while his mind processed this “I’m not sure what sights of interest there are in Ankh-Morpork,” he finally managed. “The dwarf bread museum pretty much tops the list as far as I know.”

“Oh there is the opera house and the theatre and a lot of other interesting things,” gushed Celine. “I read about them in a brochure which I am afraid I lost when the ship went down. It said there were many gourmet eating establishments such as that of C.M.O.T. Dibbler who produces the finest artisan meat pies in the city.”

“Dibbler?” echoed Vimes then shrugged. “Well, they say people from Genua eat weird food, so maybe your stomach can handle his pies. I can’t vouch for the artisan bit, but sometimes he sells them outside of the museum. Do you have a place to stay?”

“Captain Angua mentioned that there is a Mrs. Cake who might have rooms to rent that were fairly cheap,” replied Celine.

“Yes, and both the front and back doors have doggy flaps,” said Vimes dryly which only drew a puzzled look from Celine which he waved off. “Ok, you are free to go, but as I said, I think there is something else going on with you and I will be keeping an eye on you.”

“Yes sir,” replied Celine and got up carefully, trying not to rattle the coins in her pocket as she left the office.

* * *

“We should have everything set up by the end of tomorrow Mr. Truman,” said the foreman with a respectful nod of his head.

Honest looked around the large open area of the warehouse which was quickly filling up with tables, chairs and various kinds of gambling machines. He had harboured doubts about these new things called trains, but now he was quite sold on them. In just over a day, he had been able to get everything he couldn’t buy locally sent from his base in Quirm where he had started his first casino. Ordinary items like the table and chairs could of course be bought locally and cheaper which was what he had done, but the specialized equipment had to be brought in. No doubt, the clever people on the street of Cunning Artificers could have built them to his specifications, but Honest was not about to let anyone but himself and a few trusted others have a good look at the insides of that equipment.

Many of the games in the casino could be played at simple tables. For the card players there would be Poker, Blackjack and for the real hardcore gamblers Cripple Mr. Onion with no limits betting. The tables would also host half a dozen different dice games that were technically games of chance. The qualification on the dice games could also be applied to the card games since the casino supplied the dice and the cards. The latter were subtly marked using a system Honest had designed himself and taught to the dealers. The odds were always stacked in favour of the house, but Honest saw no reason not to do a little additional stacking. It wasn’t like there was some mathematical genius who would be able to detect the extra little advantage he gave himself.

Some of the specialized machines were the large tri coloured green, blue and yellow Order Wheels. The outer ring of the wheel was green and divided into sections, each given an odd number between 1 and 99. The next ring of the wheel was blue, also divided up into little sections and had even numbers from 0 to 00, the latter standing in for 100. The third and inner ring of the wheels was yellow and divided into sections with a picture of some type of food painted on it. Two stainless steel balls were placed on the wheel and then it was spun. The wheel was designed so one ball would fall into one of the green or blue slots and the other into a yellow food slot. Gamblers could bet in various ways, with the payout increasing with the difficulty. You could get a small payout for guessing the colour of the one ball, whether blue or green, a larger payout for guessing the exact number and the biggest payout for guessing the colour, number and the food type. The operator then called out the result such as “Blue 37 Pickle” or Green 58 Eggplant”. The latter food always gets a titter from some of the female players in the long tradition of humorously shaped vegetables. The origin of the Order Wheel was a bit vague, but the most commonly held view was that it was created by Bloody Stupid Johnson as a way to send customer orders to the kitchen in a restaurant. Like everything the world’s worst inventor came up with, it didn’t work very well for its intended purpose as the customers ended up with a random order of something they hadn’t ordered and didn’t want. Also for inexplicable reasons, the eggplant symbol came up more often than was statistically possible.
As with many other of Bloody Stupid Johnson’s inventions, it worked much better when repurposed for another use, in this case for gambling. Oddly enough, Honest hadn’t had to modify the Order Wheel in any way to suit his purposes since Johnson had built in hidden switches to let the spinner choose any outcome he or she wanted. Possibly, this had been to promote specials in the restaurant, but worked even better to let Honest rig the game to pick an outcome few if anyone had bet on.

Most of the other devices are ones Honest designed himself. The most popular one had clockwork innards of geared wheels that spin when a lever is pulled. The last three wheels in the mechanism again have pictures painted on them and one picture on each wheel is displayed in a little window. The customer wins if the three pictures are the same. The pictures used are different for different machines to appeal to the suckers. Some have weapons like swords, crossbows, and so forth, others have pictures of types of animals, flowers etc. The exact combination that comes up though can be again controlled by hidden switches used by the house.

Honest started to hum happily to himself as he watched the work progress. It is time to put up posters and start advertising for the grand opening.

* * *

“Yes, I’m Mrs. Cake,” said the very short round woman wearing a very large hat who answered the door when Celine knocked, but before she could ask or say anything.

“Um,” said Celine uncertain of what to say when her question had been answered without being asked. Mrs. Cake was just standing there staring at her and pleading with her eyes. For something, but Celine had no idea what that something was.

“You have to still ask the question, or she gets a horrible migraine,” said a tall and somewhat hairy looking young woman who suddenly appeared behind Mrs. Cake.

“Oh, are you Mrs. Cake?” Celine asked, feeling a little foolish.

“I have a room you can rent,” said Mrs. Cake. “Three dollars a week and the first week in advance.”

“Do you have a room I can rent?” asked Celine gamely and then after reviewing the answer she already had, added, “How much does it cost?”

“Turn your precognition off mother,” broke in the young woman behind her and Celine somehow got the impression of a tail lashing even though none was currently present.

Mrs. Cake reached up and gave the right side of her head a thump just above the ear. “Sorry about that dear. I just got back from a trip to the market and I had my precognition turned on since it helps avoid little problems in the streets.”

“Um, that’s quite alright,” said Celine as she fished in her pockets and began pulling out change that she counted into Mrs. Cake’s palm until she got to three dollars.

“Might I ask where you heard about my place?” asked Mrs. Cake.

“Um, Captain Angua of the Watch,” supplied Celine, hoping that invoking a police officer’s name wouldn’t be held against her as it might be with some people she knew.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Mrs. Cake assured her. “Angua still has a room here, even though she spends a lot of her time with that nice Captain Carrot. Do you have any special dietary issues?” asked Mrs. Cake. “No garlic in the lasagna for example?” and she waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“No, I am not on a low-fodmap diet,” Celine assured the landlady who looked confused at this and turn to her daughter who just shrugged and then held out her hand to Celine. “I am Ludmilla and her daughter,” said the girl nodding to Mrs. Cake. “What mother was trying to ask you in a delicate way is if the time of the month affects you or if silver is a particular problem when it comes to cutlery.”

Celine still felt confused. “I had that talk with my mother the first time something happened, but that was several years ago. It’s not really a big deal, but it scared the hell out of me the first time it happened.” She lowered her voice a little in embarrassment. “You know …, the blood.”

Ludmilla nodded. “Yes, it was the same for me.”

“And we never had silver at home,” continued Celine which was certainly true as they could never have afforded it.

“None here either,” agreed Ludmilla and the two women smiled at each other, confident they had understood each other.

** *

William de Worde carefully schooled his face not to give away his thoughts as he listened to Honest Truman expound on the greatness of his casino and everything it would do to benefit Ankh-Morpork. His father’s favourite saying was that a lie could be halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on and both his experience with his father and his work at the Times had made William a pretty good judge of what he was hearing. It sometimes bothered him that perhaps the Times might be helping lies to get a head start on the truth, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about that other than to totally abandon the field to the more sensationalistic tabloids that didn’t have any such qualms. Besides editorials, there were some word tricks the Times could use to help “guide” users. It made a difference in tone when you called it a “regime” instead of a “government” or when you called them “freedom fighters” instead of “terrorists”. As William listened to Honest, he was trying to think of ways to convey to his readers just how much snake oil they were being sold.

Once Honest had finished his spiel, Otto Chriek, the Times photographer stepped forward to take some pictures. Otto looked around at the dim lighting in the partially finished casino and sighed since it was apparent he would need to use a flash. “Smile for the camera please yes?” he asked as he pulled the lever on his iconograph. There was a brief scream a puff of smoke and then a tinkle of breaking glass. A few seconds later Otto reformed as the drop of blood in the vial he kept in his pocket made contact with his ashes and bowed his thanks to Honest for his time.

“There really must be a better way for you to take flash pictures,” said William as they walked out of the casino with Otto sticking to shadows and using an umbrella to provide shade. The one good thing about the haze of smoke and other pollution that continually hung over Ankh-Morpork was that it diffused the bright sun that was so hard on vampires like Otto.

“I have great hopes for ze filters,” replied Otto, “but I will need a little lie down when we get back to ze office.”

* * *

Celine sat at the kitchen table in Mrs. Cake’s kitchen by herself drinking a cup of tea that was many levels above the one Corporal Nobbs had given her and pondered what to do next. She had told Commander Vimes that she was going to tour the sights of the city, since she hadn’t been sure how he would react to her telling him what she really intended to do was to open a new temple. The main problem she faced was that she still didn’t know the name of the lady goddess she had met and agreed to act as an avatar for in exchange for skipping the tour of a shark’s stomach or drowning. She had gone down to the street of temples to try and determine if there was a god missing, but had zero luck with that. Even Anoia, the goddess of things that get stuck in drawers, was represented now as she was subletting a section of Bissonomy’s temple as the latter goddess was having a rough patch after being dumped by Blind Io.

Celine had tried talking to some of the priests and vestal virgins and that had not gone well. The virgins were all worried that she was trying to take their jobs and the priests had become downright hostile for unknown reasons when they learned she was staying at Mrs. Cakes’ boarding house. Just how did the lady expect her to set up a temple for her when she didn’t even know her name? Even if she did have a name, temples were not exactly cheap. There was all that gold and marble to be bought and even subletting like Anoia did wasn’t cheap. Then you had to hire priests and the vestal virgins which apparently were in increasingly short supply in Ankh-Morpork. It certainly wasn’t a career option that Celine wanted to pursue.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind,” said Ludmilla as she walked into the kitchen, though for some reason the verb “padded” crossed Celine’s mind and sat down at the table after pouring herself a cup of tea.

Celine looked over at the girl, well young woman really since she was a few years older than herself, and noted a significant increase in the hair department. It wasn’t that her hair was longer, but rather it seemed to be covering a larger portion of her body today. While this piqued Celine’s curiosity, it didn’t seem polite to inquire about the cause. Not knowing what else to do, she gave Ludmilla an edited version of her recent experiences and ended up in a near wail. “How am I supposed to start a temple for a god whose name I don’t even know?”

Surprisingly, Ludmilla didn’t seem to find the whole thing to be unbelievable and seemed to just accept it at face value while she sipped her tea. “You could try going over to Unseen University and seeing if anyone there can help you,” she suggested. “They have the largest library in the world, or so I have heard. I would volunteer to take you over there, but it is that time of the month and the librarian can get a little upset when I show up in this state.”

“Men!” replied Celine with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, male anyway,” conceded Ludmilla. “They aren’t really keen on women over there unless they are cooking meals for them, but maybe you can convince them to help you.”

* * *

There were three porters playing cards on a little table just inside the closed university gates when Celine arrived. “No women allowed in,” said one of them looking up from his cards. “Go around back and see Mrs. Whitlow if you want to ask about a job cooking or cleaning.”

“I want to use the library,” replied Celine. “It is supposed to be open to all citizens of Ankh-Morpork isn’t it?”

The man shrugged. “Maybe, but not when I am in charge of the gate.” He paused and looked Celine up and down in a manner that made her skin crawl. “Tell you what, if you are in a gambling mood,” and he indicated the cards he was shuffling. “We each draw a card and if you get the high card, I will let you in. If I get the high card, you have to give me a kiss.”

Celine looked the man over more carefully. She knew she shouldn’t judge a person by their looks, but in this case she thought his exterior probably matched his interior. He was mostly bald, fat and none too clean either. Well, if she lost, she was pretty sure she could outrun him since she had no intention of kissing him. “Alright,” she said and he got up and unlatched the gate so she could approach the table.

He shuffled the cards some more and then took the top card. “It doesn’t look like this is your lucky day girl, or maybe it is,” as he flashed her the King of Arrows. “The only card in this deck that tops that is the King of Swords. Want to concede and pucker up right now?” he asked with a leer.

“I will take my chances,” replied Celine and she reached out, cut the cards and took the top card. Imagine that,” said Celine with a smile as she showed him the King of Swords.

The man gaped at the card for several seconds. “That’s impossible, I have the King of Swords in my pocket here …,” he blurted out and then abruptly stopped as he became aware of the hard looks he was getting from his fellow porters. “Now look guys, I can explain …,”. Celine strolled towards the library while behind her she could hear the sounds of a scuffle breaking out.

The university library was identifiable by the large dome which was a good thing since from what Ludmilla had told her, the position of the buildings shifted randomly every few days and rendered any maps of the grounds useless. The library building didn’t look all that big until Celine stepped inside and found the rows of shelves seeming to stretch into infinity.

“Ook.”

Celine jumped when she herd the voice right next to her ear while she stood bewildered, wondering where to start looking for what she needed. Turning quickly, Celine found herself staring into a hairy red face that should have made her scream, but the creature’s eyes were soft and gentle looking. He must be the school mascot or something, she thought as she took in the orangutang. “I’m sorry, but you startled me,” she said and felt a bit of a twit for talking to an animal since it was only in silly children’s stories where they could understand human speech.

“ook,” said the Orangutan and it patted Celine on the top of her head gently.

“Er, I am looking for the librarian,” said Celine, starting to think this creature did understand her after all.

“Ook,” said the creature and pointed a thumb at its chest.

“But you are a mon …,” Celine didn’t finish the word as the librarian put one enormous paw over her mouth and gave his head a violent left to right shake. After a few seconds, he let her go and looked at her expectedly. Celine had initially been frightened when he touched her, but quickly realized that he could probably have ripped her head off if he really meant her harm. “Um, you don’t like the m word?” she ventured and the librarian gave his head an affirmative nod this time. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” said Celine trying to radiate sincerity.

“Ook,” said the librarian and patted her head again.

“I am looking for some information,” said Celine, drawing a deep breath and launching once more into her story about the ship, the shark and the lady along with her request. “The thing is I don’t know her name and I have to know at least that much to try and make a start on what I promised.”

The librarian had listened attentively and when she was done, he said “ook,” and gestured for her to follow him. A few shelves away in the reference section, he took a quite thick book marked “Known Gods” from the shelf and carried it over to a reading table and gestured for Celine to sit down.

There seemed to be one or more pages for each god, complete with a picture and a description. Celine began to page through the book, quickly skipping over gods such as Blind Io with his ring of floating eyeballs and Offler with his crocodile smile. About a third of the way through the book, she came to a picture of a woman shown in the act of rolling a pair of dice. “That’s her!” exclaimed Celine excitedly and was then disappointed to see that not only was there no name given, but no information at all. “Why doesn’t it say anything about her?” Celine almost wailed at having her hopes dashed.

“Ook,” said the librarian and he began to pantomime something. He held up two large, hairy fingers.

“Two words,” said Celine and the librarian nodded in approval. The ape seemed to think for a while and then held up one finger. “First word,” said Celine and he nodded. The librarian’s face then took on a disapproving look and he began to wag a finger at some imaginary person. “Naughty, evil, bad,” guessed Celine and on the last word, the librarian nodded his head vigorously and now held up two fingers. “Second word,” agreed Celine. The librarian put a hand to his ear. “Sounds like,” said Celine and he nodded. The librarian then seemed to crouch down and put one arm over his head. “Sounds like duck, Celine guessed and got another nod. “Er, Buck, Fu …,” she stopped abruptlywhen the librarian gave another definite negative shake of his head. “oh right, sorry,” said Celine. “Huck, Luck …,” and was rewarded with another violent up and down shake of the librarian’s head. “Bad Luck?” she mouthed. “It is considered bad luck to say her name?” Another positive head shake. Celine then looked down at the picture again and saw the dice. “Wait, she gave me these,” and she pulled out the pair of dice the lady had given her.

The librarian took them carefully, sniffed them, bit one and handed them back to her with a reverence he normally only showed for books. “ook!”

“Oh dear and she wants a temple,” said Celine and thought about that for a bit. “Not a conventional temple I would think with priests and vestal virgins and all that.”

“Ook,” agreed the librarian.

“Thank-you,” said Celine. “You have been a great help. I am going to have to go and think about what I can do next. If you think of anything else that might help, you can reach me at Mrs. Cakes’ boarding house.”

“OOK!!!!” said the librarian with a hint of alarm in his voice and manner. Once when Mrs. Cake had run out of gods and temples to try and organize, she had come to the library. Mrs. Cake had thought the books would be better organized by colour and had started to do so. The fact that there were an infinite number of books hadn’t seemed to daunt her in the least and she had seemed to consider it a challenge. The librarian had to gently, if firmly, escort Mrs. Cake out of the library and the university. It was one reason the porters were a bit more skittish when it came to allowing women into the university grounds and the library in particular. The librarian had demonstrated on a coconut what could happen to the skull of any porter who let Mrs. Cake back into the library.

Celine wasn’t sure what had alarmed the librarian so much, but she made a stab at reassuring the ape. She patted him on one hairy shoulder. “It’s ok, you probably don’t want to go into the city as it can be quite dangerous. If I need more help, I will come back and see you here.”

“That seemed to reassure the librarian as he gave a soft “ook,” and walked with her to the library doors. There were only the other two porters sitting there at the gate when she got there. Both looked a little worse for the wear, but had satisfied expressions and gave her a friendly nod as she went by and out the gates.

* * *

“Casino Opens Tomorrow!”

Celine heard one of the many beggars the city seemed to possess calling out the headline in the newspaper he was selling and she stopped abruptly. “I will take one,” she said dropping a couple of pennies in the rusted coin box he held in one hand. She didn’t want to be rude, but Celine couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose and try to stop breathing as she got closer to the man.

“It’s not me lady,” said a voice which Celine thought had not come from the beggar. That supposition was supported a few seconds later when the beggar did start to mutter to himself in a totally different voice.

“Bugger it,” said the beggar not seeming to notice her at all. “I told them not to feed the clouds, but the horses still danced all the way to town. millennium hand and shrimp. Bugger it.”

Celine looked down at the mongrel dog that was attached to the beggar by a string and it seemed to wink at her. “Ok, it might be partly me, there was a lovely fresh cow patty near the stockyards that I couldn’t resist rolling in. Woof.”

Celine gaped at the dog who now ignored her as it scratched at its neck with a hind paw, dislodging an entire flea circus that had gotten lost on a tour of the Sto Lat plains three years previously. Celine finally tugged one of the papers out of the grip of the beggar who still didn’t seem to have noticed her and hurriedly backed out of the nose kill zone. The paper she held had been printed that day, maybe only hours ago and already the formerly white paper was turning brown around the edges.

There was a small outdoor café nearby which consisted of three rickety tables and Celine sat down at one of them to read the front page story. A waitress came and gave her a sour look until Celine ordered a cup of coffee which turned out to be as bad as the tea she had got in jail. Celine quickly read the story and found herself frowning when she was done. The casino seemed to be exactly the type of “temple” the lady goddess would want, though this William de Worde who had wrote the story hadn’t seemed all that keen on it. He used “alleged” a lot when talking about the benefits of the casino and included statements from anonymous sources from other cities with casinos owned by this Honest Truman casting doubt on the fairness of the once again “alleged” games of chance.

“The whole thing is a disgrace and an insult to my name,” said a voice and Celine looked up startled from the paper she was reading to see the lady from the shipwreck sitting calmly across from her at the table.
“Er, isn’t it hard to insult your name when no one will say it?” asked Celine when she had recovered from her surprise.

The lady shrugged and waved the waitress away when she started towards the table. “Even I am not lucky enough to get anything drinkable in this place,” she told the woman who oddly didn’t seem insulted by this. “The games in that place are rigged,” said the lady turning back to Celine. “I need a proper temple where things are left to chance and not determined by trickery. You will see to that.”

“What happens if I don’t?” asked Celine, feeling like she was being bullied just a bit.

“Let me put it this way,” said the lady, “what are the odds of your ship sinking on the way home to Genua?”

“Pretty damn good, I suspect,” snapped Celine. “Ok, I get your point and will see what I can do.” The lady just smiled and getting up walked into the crowd and was soon lost from sight.

* * *

“I hope this isn’t going to end up like another Mr. Hong,” said Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, as he lowered his copy of the newspaper. The Times had been good enough to donate half a dozen copies of the paper each day in exchange for their printing press not being turned into a frog. Initially, the not quite threat had been levied against the editor, but Mr. de Worde had replied that he was sure a frog could still croak out a story.

[Note: They have still not found all of Mr. Hong after he chose to open his Three Jolly Luck take away fish bar on the site of a former fish god temple in Dagon Street on the day of the winter solstice that coincided with a full moon and a lunar eclipse]

“I assume you are talking about the casino thing,” said the Senior Wrangler.

“There is a buffet involved,” noted the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “It might be our duty to inspect it and make sure it is safe

“Fried chicken can be dangerous in the wrong hands,” agreed the Lecturer in Recent Runes, which meant any hands but his.

“It says there will be music and dancing,” noted Ridcully, “and that sounds potentially demonic to me.”

Ponder Stibbons looked up from his copy of the paper. “It could be an interesting study in applied probability. Did you know that the odds against two shuffled decks of cards being the same is so high, it has likely never happened?”

“I prefer extra crispy for my chicken,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes who was not to be shaken from what he considered the more important topic.

“There you have it then,” said Ridcully. “An expedition to the casino when it opens seems to be in order. We can take the bursar along, he has been a lot better lately and an outing should be good for him. Everyone will of course supply their own funds.”

This brought a chorus of groans from the other wizards, but none of them had really expected anything different from Ridcully who was the very embodiment of the “penny saved means no other stupid bugger can have it” school of philosophy,

* * *

As the group of senior wizards got close to the casino, they could see a picket of some sort was set up in front of the main door. “Those look like priests,” said the Senior Wrangler as they stopped to read some of the signs the picketers were carrying.

“Pray don’t play!”

“Do not worship golden idols!” which was a bit spoiled in Ridcully’s opinion by the second line which read “Unless they are in our temples that is!”

“Do not be tempted by the fried chicken!”

“Blind Io is watching you!”

“Two for one sale on removing stuck spatulas”

Ridcully wasn’t sure, but that looked like the goddess Anoia herself marching around with that last sign and a cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth. She might not be the most popular god, but she was certainly the hardest working. Mustrum Ridcully scanned the picketers until, he found the familiar one he was looking for and then sidled up to his brother Hughnon, the chief priest of Blind Io and the head of the priest’s guild of Ankh-Morpork. “So, what is this all about?” he asked.

“It’s a bloody damn temple, no matter what they call it,” replied Hughnon as he continued to march and wave is sign. “If anyone wants to open a new temple in this city, they have to go through our guild.”

“I can’t see what it is that makes it a temple,” replied Mustrum calmly.

“It is obviously dedicated to she who we doo not name,” insisted Hughnon. “She is a goddess and that makes this a temple.”

Hughnon’s chief assistant was right behind them and listening in on their conversation. “They are clearly taking up a collection or tithe and not getting anything in return,” he snapped. “That is clearly the province of the gods to receive and not give back anything!”

The two Ridcully brothers looked at each other and then at the same time, they both took several quick steps away from the man. A second later, a bolt of lightning came out of the clear sky and struck the assistant. When the smoke cleared, all they saw was a pair of charred boots where the man had been. “Never say I don’t give anything,” snickered a voice from somewhere above them.

“Ok boys, who wants to be my new assistant?” called Hughnon.

“Well, I am not normally in favour of crossing a picket line,” said Mustrum “but I feel it is my duty to go in there and make sure there aren’t any incursions from the dungeon dimension happening.”

Hughnon nodded. “I’ll grant you a special dispensation to cross the picket line if you bring me out a piece of fried chicken and no wings either.”

Mustrum nodded his agreement and he waved the other wizards forward only to be stopped at the door by a troll. “No wizards allowed,” said Nails. That wasn’t the name his mother had given him, but it was what everyone called him since while high on Slab, he had pounded a dozen nails into his own head. Most of those who knew him said he was smarter after this than before, perhaps due to a cooling effect from the holes. Even so, Nails was not going to rival Leonard of Quirm or even something you scraped off your boots for mental acuity.

“What do you mean no wizards?” asked Ridcully dangerously as he got in the face of the troll with no apparent fear of someone who could rip his head from his shoulders with a twist of his wrist. In Ridcully’s opinion, which was the only one that mattered, it was always the other person who should be afraid of him.

“Instructions,” persisted Nails doggedly. “Mr. Truman say no wizards cause they can magic things to win.”

“I see,” said Ridcully icily. “Well my son, you can either let us in or be prepared to see just what a wizard can do with magic when he is annoyed.”

“Mr. Truman say de rules say wizards aren’t allowed to use magic on normal folk,” replied Nails, who was hoping to hells that was not one of those bourbon myths he heard people talking about. Nails was a little unsure in his mind exactly what a bourbon myth was, but figured it was something that happened after you drank too much of the stuff.

“I have always considered that to be more of a guideline than a rule,” said Ridcully with a smile as he rolled up the sleeves of his robe as if in preparation for launching a spell. “How do you feel about frogs?” he asked conversationally. “I imagine those nails will smart just a bit more in that form.”

Nails was really sweating now even though physiologically a troll was not supposed to be able to sweat. He stuck his head through the casino door and bellowed “Mr. Truman!”

A few seconds later Honest Truman appeared along with three very large men in dark suits, with shaved heads and wearing sun glasses. “Stop yelling you idiot, I am here,” he snapped and he turned to regard Ridcully and the other wizards who were quite content to hang back and let the archchancellor handle this. “Oh wizards,” he almost sneered, “what can I do for you?”

“You can tell this idiot to let us in before something happens that one of us will regret and I haven’t used that word in years,” replied Ridcully.

Honest had encountered wizards before in Quirm and other cities and in his experience, they were all bluster and no backbone. He snapped his fingers and the three large men behind him took a step forward. “Well Mr. Wizard, I would like you to meet Snap, Crackle and Pop. They got their names from the sounds of what happens to the bones of people who annoy me.”

Ridcully just cracked the knuckles of his very large hands. “So, that is how you want it eh?” he said with a smile and Honest noticed for the first time that the wizard was just as big as his three enforcers and could also call on his magic.

“I don’t think starting a fight when you are out numbered is such a good idea,” declared Honest, who while starting to get worried, also knew the value of a good bluff.

“Who is outnumbered?” demanded Ridcully and then saw all the other wizards hanging well back. “You fellas get up here right now!” he roared. “The honour of wizardry is at stake here.”

Ponder reluctantly joined Ridcully, hoping his shaking didn’t show. He had spent much of his youth being the object of torment by the childish equivalent of Snap, Crackle and Pop until he had started to show a talent for magic. In his opinion, the honour of wizardry was a rather tattered thing that seemed to best express itself in the race to the cheeseboard.

“Good man,” beamed Ridcully and slapped Ponder hard enough on the back to make him stumble. “Now the rest of you get it in gear.”

“er, I just came for the fried chicken,” said the Senior Wrangler miserably as the Archchancellor continued to glare at him and then with a sigh he joined Ridcully and Ponder.

“I thought we came for the dancing girls,” grumbled the Lecturer in Recent Runes who melted under Ridcully’s basilisk stare and then he stepped forward with a sigh.

That left the Chair of Indefinite Studies by himself since the bursar didn’t count as he was smiling benignly at the world that he was only tangentially part of. “Oh come on bursar,” he growled and pulled the other man forward into line with the other wizards. “I think I still remember that disintegration spell,” he muttered, “or was that the one that makes dill pickle ice cream?”

“Your move sir,” said Ridcully smugly turning back to Honest.

“Look,” said Honest starting to feel like things were getting out of his control, “I don’t have anything against you wizards, but I can’t have magic in my casino. It would destroy the trust of the common folk in the fairness of it.”

Ridcully considered this for a moment. There was no way he was going to agree to something that kept a wizard from going where he wanted which was damn well everywhere, but he could see that Honest had a point. “Tell you what,” he said finally and pulled a blue-green gem out of his pocket and said a few words under his breath while Honest looked on with a worried look. “If you were to hang this up in your casino, it will neutralize any magic or magical object for three months with extensions to be negotiated. That should alleviate any worries you might have about having wizards in the place shouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Honest and he reached for the gem eagerly, but Ridcully pulled it back.

“Not so fast,” the wizard said with a smile since he loved a good haggle. “In exchange for the gem, all wizards get free tickets for the buffet as long as the spell lasts.””.

Honest looked at the size of the wizards and did some quick mental calculations that said his casino would quickly turn unprofitable if he agreed to that. “Just for opening night,” he countered.

[Note: Honest wasn’t aware of how lucky he was that the former Dean of Unseen University was no longer on their faculty having taken the position of Archchancellor at rival Brazeneck University in Pseudopolis. The former Dean by himself had been known to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to advertise an all you can eat buffet in Ankh-Morpork, especially since wizards considered paying for meals in the first place to be something other people did, but obviously not wizards. His departure had opened up two chairs in the faculty dining room and according to Ponder Stibbons had reduce the university food budget by 5%.]

“One day a month” counter offered Ridcully who full well knew that getting his fellow wizards to walk all the way across town more often than that when they had plenty of free food at home would be unlikely.

“Agreed,” said Honest and he extended his hand again while in the back of his mind, he made a note to enquire just how much the Assassin’s Guild would charge to remove a wizard.

Ridcully spit on his hand and waited for Honest to do the same before they shook hands and the wizard handed over the gem.

“Now let’s go find that fried chicken,” called Ridcully to the other wizards and they stepped past Honest and his trio of bouncers into the casino.

“Er,” whispered Ponder to Ridcully when they were well past Honest and his trio, “What spell did you use on the gem?”

“Why Zardoc’s Spell of Neutralization of course,” replied Ridcully airily.

“Er, isn’t that one rather noted for its flaws?” asked Ponder.

“Oh, it has a few issues, but it shouldn’t really be a problem,” said Ridcully dismissively.

“But isn’t one of them that it fails in the presence of fried chicken?” asked Ponder.

“That’s why I said it shouldn’t be a problem” replied Ridcully smugly. “Imagine trying to keep wizards out of a place, the very nerve!”

* * *

In a fair and just universe, that would have been the end of Nails’ trouble for the day, but the wizards had barely gone inside the casino, followed by Honest and his goons when his nails began to rust. The troll would have noticed the beggars approaching earlier, but trolls don’t have a sense of smell,
So the usual warning of the approach of Foul Old Ron didn’t work in this case. “No animals allowed in the casino,” said Nails, feeling on safer ground. “The dog and the duck have to stay outside.”

“What duck?” asked the Duck Man.

Such existential questions were definitely not Nails’ strength, so he just ignored them. “Also beggars got no money,” he added, proud of this feat of cogitation. “We dump garbage in back, so you can try there.”

“Bugger it,” muttered Foul Old Ron. “Horseshoes won’t fit on goats.”

Gaspode glared up at the troll and would have bit him, but the few teeth he had left would not do any damage to that rocky skin. “Your loin cloth is suddenly very itchy,” he said and then added, “woof” when Nails looked around in puzzlement.

Come along gentlemen, our buffet is elsewhere,” said the Duck Man and he began to lead the way to behind the casino.

Nails watched them go and then stood there miserably trying to ignore the itching in his loin cloth. He had learned a very painful lesson on his first day in Ankh-Morpork about what happens to trolls who reach into their loin clothes in public.

* * *

“What’s wrong with my purse?” demanded Mrs. Cake as she stopped in front of Nails and glared up at him. She and Ludmilla had opted to come with Celine to see what this casino thing was all about.

Nails was still shifting uneasily from one foot to the other in an agony of itching when the trio arrived. Two of them were definitely human females, but he wasn’t so sure about the hairy one. If there was one kind of question that Nails was worse at than existential ones, it was the kind that got asked in response to things he hadn’t said yet.

“What were you going to say about mother’s bag?” asked Ludmilla, taking pity on the troll and seeing the sweat begin to break out on her mother’s face as she waited for Nails to speak.

“Er, me going to say that bag is too big to go into the casino,” said Nails.

“I would never do such a thing,” insisted Mrs. Cake indignantly.

Nails’ eyes began to glaze over and he looked pleadingly at Ludmilla again.

“Why don’t you want her to bring the bag in?” prompted Ludmilla with a sigh.

“You could put half the buffet in that thing,” said Nails and then before Mrs. Cake could say anything else, the troll started to walk away from the casino. He had heard there was a recruiter in the city for the Klatchian Foreign Legion and standing in the hot desert sun and letting his brains bake away to nothing suddenly seemed very attractive.

“Please turn your precognitive ability off again mother,” sighed Ludmilla as she watched the troll stumble away. There was a thump as Mrs. Cake gave her head a bang and then with great determination headed for the buffet.

* * *

The librarian opted to skip the entire front door fiasco as he swung down to land lightly on the roof of the casino. He still remembered the fuss and screaming when he went to see Miss VaVa Voom perform at the Pink Pussycat Club and didn’t want a repeat of that. He had come with a backpack over one shoulder with everything he figured he would need for a night out. A heavy chain an padlock secured the trap door down from the roof and the librarian snapped the chain without much effort and slipped inside. He had been one of the few people in Ankh-Morpork who had patronized the ill fated book business and had in fact liberated many of the books after the untimely death by concrete sandals of the owner, which meant he knew the general layout of the building rather well. The current owner had merely subdivided the space into rooms by constructing walls, with most of the space taken up by the casino floor, the theatre for live performances and a large dining area. Because of the high ceilings of the place, Honest had only built the walls some twelve feet high and left the raftered roof area wide open and this is where the librarian intended to view the action from.

First things first, the librarian knuckled along the rafters until he reached a spot directly over the buffet table where he stopped and began to assemble the collapsible fishing rod from his backpack. With a soft “ook” he peered down and made a cast. A few seconds later, he reeled in a drumstick and began to chew happily.

The other wizards had with years of experience disdained the Games Room and also zeroed in on the free food. In a spirit of magnanimity, Ridcully was even allowing the bursar to partake. The man had been a little more stable lately and so maybe getting out and about would be good for him. The bursar found himself drooling in anticipation as he stared at the plates piled high with various foods. He was so very tired of eating minced everything since no one trusted him with a knife and reached for a drumstick only to watch it jerk into the air and fly up into the rafters. The bursar just stood there with a look of total defeat on his face and tears running down his cheeks.

What’s up with the waterworks Bursar?” asked Ridcully.

“Chicken fly away,” said the Bursar simply as tears continued to roll down his cheeks.

Ridcully sighed and reached into his pockets for a bottle of dried frog pills and gave the bursar two. “And you were doing so well lately,” he said sadly. After the bursar had swallowed the pills, Ridcully gave him a handful of pennies. “Now, you run along and try the penny games,” he told the bursar. “That ought to keep you occupied for a while, but if you see any more flying chicken then come and find me right away for some more pills.” The bursar only nodded and shuffled off in the direction of the games machines.

* * *

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Celine spun around to see Commander Vimes leaning against a wall and in the process of lighting a small cigar. When her heart stopped jumping in her chest, she narrowed her eyes at the Watchman. “Are you following me?”

Vimes shrugged. “I said I was going to keep an eye on you, but actually I am here more to keep an eye on everything. My gut though says there are things going on here I want to know about and you are involved.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” protested Celine.

“Everyone is guilty of something,” replied Vimes taking a puff on his cigar.

“Wouldn’t that include you too then?” asked Celine.

“Of course, that’s why I keep a closer eye on me than anyone else,” answered Vimes.

“That is the most paranoid thing I have ever heard,” snapped Celine and she stalked away back into the throngs in the games room. She paused at one of the Order Tables and watched as the two balls spun around and stopped. The operator looked surprised as he announced “23 Green Waffle” and a cheer went up from several winners.

* * *

The librarian finished his 17th piece of chicken and belched happily. Collapsing, his fishing rod, he knuckled over to the entertainment room to watch the band that had been playing as some of the beats sounded vaguely familiar. Peering down at the sign in front of the stage, he saw the group’s name was “Glod Glodson and the Glodstones” which was an all dwarf band, except for and the librarian had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, one troll playing the drums. Maybe he could talk them into letting him sit in on keyboards another time for old times sake. The band was just finishing its last number of the set and the librarian settled in to see what the next act was.

“Damn good chicken,” said the Senior Wrangler happily as he sat down next to Ridcully in the theatre with a drumstick in either hand. “What’s the next act in the show?”

Ridcully peered at the piece of paper he had been given listing the performers. “Well Glod Glodson and the Glodstones just finished and before that, we apparently missed the Amazing Angus.”

“What did he do?” asked the Lecturer in Recent Runes who arrived with a large bowl of potato salad that he had been required to wrestle away from a waitress who had tried to claim that the bowl was meant for the entire line of people at the buffet table when it was clearly a single serving size.

“From the screams I heard while waiting to get in, I would wager he was one of those weasel in the trouser entertainers,” replied Ridcully. “I was sorry I missed him, but Dr. Lawn thinks he will be recovered in a week or two. The next act, however, is listed as the Boulderettes. Which sounds like some kind of troll juggling act to me.”

“Sounds boring,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies as he sat down with an overflowing plate of meatballs. “Where is Mr. Stibbons?”

“He is out in the games room,” replied Ridcully. “He had some apparatus or other he wanted to test out and said he thought the show would be boring.”

Ridcully was about to say more about the priorities of young wizardry these days when the stage curtains opened, music began to blare from some unseen source and a dozen women trooped out onto the stage in brightly coloured frilly dresses and what surely had to be uncomfortably high heeled boots. When the women started to do high kicks where their feet ended up at head height, several things hit the floor including two chicken legs, a bowl of potato salad, a plate of meatballs and the jaws of all the wizards.

“My word,” said Ridcully several minutes later when the women had danced off stage and the curtains had closed.

“The third one from the left,” gurgled the Senior Wrangler. “I’m not sure she had on ….you know.”

“I never noticed,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes as he absently picked potato salad off his robe, “but she was definitely a blonde.”

“It’s a good thing Mr. Stibbons wasn’t here,” gasped the Chair in Indefinite Studies. “It would have been too much for a less mature brain than ours to handle,” and he stuck a meatball in his left ear.

“Thank heaven the bursar wasn’t here or his brain would have exploded,” said Ridcully as he removed his hat to fan himself with it. “It got damn hot in here all of a sudden don’t you think?”

Up above, the librarian decided he would have to watch that act again from a lower vantage point. He couldn’t see why everyone in the crowd below seemed so excited by the act as all he had seen had been the bottom of the dancer’s shoes.

* * *

Oblivious to what wonders he had missed, Ponder Stibbons wandered through the crowds in the games room. He reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out his latest invention that he called Pocket Hex. He was trying to reduce the size of Hex, his thinking machine, that weighed several tons down to something that would fit in a pocket. If he could manage it, he was sure it would revolutionize life on the disc. What he held now in his hands was only a prototype and still fairly limited, but he had hopes for it. He had been able to increase the processing density by using four different types of ants instead of the single type used by Hex and the mouse skull in place of the ram skull seemed promising. Ponder positioned himself near one of the clockwork machines and began entering his observations onto the tiny keyboard he had constructed using metal type letters he had obtained from the dwarves who ran the Times printing press.

On the other side of the room, the bursar was feeding pennies into one of the same kind of machines and pulling the lever to start the gears spinning. After doing this for some time, he began to frown.

* * *

Honest frowned to himself. The crowd was good and the money was pouring in, but there had been that jackpot on Order Table #6 which shouldn’t have happened. He had called the operator over and the man had assured him that there had been some kind of malfunction which was really no assurance at all. One of the balls had jumped at the last second from the spot it was supposed to land in as selected by the hidden switches and where it would have made a minor win for one player. It was possible for the switches to malfunction as nothing mechanical was foolproof, so he would have to keep an eye on that table and close it for repairs if it did that again. He might also have to have Snap, Crackle and Pop have a little talk with the table operator to make sure the man wasn’t pulling a fast one and double crossing him.

Suddenly, a new roar went up and Honest looked over at one of the clockwork machines where people were yelling excitedly. There had obviously been another big payoff there and that also should not have happened. Honest pushed his way through the crowd in the wake of his bodyguards and saw the supervisor for that section throw him a worried look. Well, the man had damn well better be worried if he had screwed up.

“I won! I won!” yelled an excited man as he pointed to the three cucumbers lined up on the machine he had been playing. “According to the game payout chart, that’s a 200 to 1 payout!”

Honest nodded unhappily, noting that the machine was one of the dollar machines which meant he was out $200. The machines were set to pay out only a fraction of the winnings and play a loud bell to indicate there had been a big winner. “Put the machine on standby so it can be checked and take our winning friend over to the cashier,” Honest told the supervisor who gave another nervous nod when he saw how unhappy his boss was. Honest turned around to leave and almost collided with a young red haired girl. “Excuse me,” he said, pushing past her and he frowned again. Had he seen the same girl near the table with the first big payoff? He wasn’t sure, but the possibility nagged at him. It couldn’t be magic he felt sure. Most of the damn wizards with their endless appetites were in the theatre watching the girls dance. The simpleton, the one they called the bursar, was playing the penny machines and losing as he should be. There was the young one who looked like he might have a brain cell or two on the other side of the room and nowhere near the winning machine. The wizard seemed to be very busy watching how things worked and that didn’t make Honest happy.

* * *

Celine had continued to wander around the games room, not sure just what the lady goddess thought she could do. Besides the two big winners she had seen, all the other winnings had been small and the vast majority of people were losing money. She was nearing one of the card game tables when one of the men there went as white as a ghost as all the blood drained from his face. As Celine watched, he got up and stumbled away from the table, running into people as if he couldn’t see them.

Concerned, Celine intercepted his stumbling retreat and put a hand on each of his shoulders to stop and steady him as he stood there swaying. “You look terrible,” she told him bluntly. “What is the matter?”

“I, I lost it all,” the man said.

“Lost all what?” asked Celine, not understanding.

“All my money,” babbled the man. “Everything. The rent money, the money for food. What will I tell my wife? How will I feed the kids? I lost my entire pay cheque. I was winning. I was going to buy them a few extra treats, but now it is all gone. Our landlord is not a patient man. He will evict us and send us into the streets.”

Celine was appalled and didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the man or angry at him for being so bloody stupid. She decided she was both, but neither emotion was going to help the man. ”Wait here,” she ordered him and pushed him into an empty chair.

“How do you play this game?” she asked another one of the customers at the table the man had just come from.

He looked at her blankly for a few seconds as if that was the stupidest question he had ever heard. Considering they were both in a casino, Celine couldn’t really blame him. “Um, it’s called Blackjack or 21,” he said. “The closest to 21 wins. Face cards are ten and aces can be one or eleven. You can ask for more cards, but you lose if you go over.”

“Thank-you,” said Celine and she turned to the dealer and put all the money she had on the table. If the lady goddess was who Celine thought she was and had made Celine her avatar, then it was time that counted for something. Celine gripped the dice the lady had given her with one hand in her pocket. “Give me two cards.” The dealer smiled as he knew a sucker when he saw one. Everyone else at the table had stopped playing to watch and it reminded Celine of the damn shark if it had an audience to watch it eat. The dealer dealt four cards face up. Celine had a pair of tens, while the dealer had a king and a nine. “Does that mean I win?” asked Celine.

“Not yet,” smiled the dealer. “You can stand pat or ask for another card and so can I.” He looked down at the next card and saw it was the two he wanted. Only a fool would ask for another card in her position and she would lose if she did.

“Give me another card,” said Celine.

The dealer’s smile grew even wider and more sharklike as he flipped the next card over for her. “You lo …,” he stopped and stared at the Ace that showed. “That’s not possible,” he whispered.

“Of course it is,” said the man who had told her the rules, “unless you are playing with a marked deck!”

“The cards aren’t marked,” growled the dealer. “You are free to check them.”

Celine looked at the money she had won and did some quick calculations. “I will bet it all for another round,” she said.

“As you wish,” said the dealer and flipped over four more cards. Celine had an ace and a queen. “You win again,” growled the dealer who desperately wanted to grab the cards and check the hidden marks on them, but didn’t dare as all the others at the table were now watching him like a hawk.

“One more time,” said Celine.

“Beginner’s luck,” said the dealer as he dealt four more cards. This time Celine had a two and a three while the dealer had a pair of jacks.

Celine gestured for another card and it was a seven. “That’s 12,” she said doing the math. “Another card please and got another seven to make 19. “One more,” she requested and the dealer turned over a two. “Thank-you, that looks like enough,” she said and scooped up her winnings. She pocketed a couple of bucks for herself and found the man sitting where she had left him. Celine shoved the money into his hands. “Here, take this and get out of here and never come back”

The man stared at the money for a moment, went to hug her and stopped himself. “I suspect I am in trouble enough with my wife for being late, without coming home smelling like another woman. I promise miss, I will never come back here again.” He shoved the money into his pockets and fairly ran out the door.

While Celine had been delivering the money, she hadn’t noticed the dealer frantically waving Honest over to the table where he held a quick whispered conversation while pointing to Celine. Honest listened incredulously to the man’s story and was about to have him enter into a session with Snap, Crackle and Pop over the inadvisability of trying to cheat him when he took another look at the girl the dealer was pointing to. It was the same red haired girl he had seen near the two big winners. With a growl, he motioned for his three muscle to come with him and he headed for Celine.

“I don’t know what kind of game you are playing missy,” he snarled as he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, “but no one plays Honest Truman for a sucker and gets away with it.”

In retrospect, Honest decided he should have handled the situation better with way more discretion, but he had let his temper get the best of him. The man who had explained the rules and a couple of the other players from the table had followed him and now Mr. Rules grabbed Honest’s arm to get his attention. “Hey buddy, I was there and saw the whole thing. The girl didn’t cheat. In fact, I think your dealer was the one playing fast and loose.”

“Bugger off,” snarled Truman pushing the man away from him and gesturing to his bodyguards. Snap grabbed Mr. Rules and Mr. Rules turned and punched Snap in the face, sending him staggering backwards. Crackle punched Mr. Rules and two other bystanders tackled him. Many of the casino patrons were also regulars at places like the Mended Drum and were thus no stranger to bar fights. More customers and dealers joined the fracas which soon escalated into a skirmish and then all out warfare as brass knuckles, blackjacks and other weapons were quickly produced or improvised.

The librarian heard the noise and quickly ambled over along the rafters to investigate. He saw Snap trying to grab the young red haired girl who had come to him for help at the library and bared his teeth in a growl. He snatched up his fishing rod and hooked the thug with it and started to pull him upwards to deal with him properly, but the line on his rod had been calculated to hold fried chicken and not a large man. The line appropriately enough snapped with Snap halfway to the rafters and the man landed in the middle of a poker game which caused its players to join in the fighting.

Crackle pushed several patrons aside to make a grab for Celine, only to have a large hairy shape rise up behind him, grab him around the throat and toss him on top of the machine the bursar was playing. The bursar had been so engrossed in playing the penny slot machine that he hadn’t even noticed the increased noise level of the casino. His first warning of trouble came when he reached for the lever to spin the gears and pulled Mr. Crackle’s nose instead. The bursar frowned and tried to pull the lever again only to receive three distinct death threats from Mr. Crackle, each of them more detailed than the one before. “Goodnight Mr. Porcupine,” said the Bursar and with a smile fainted dead away.

Ridcully and the other wizards emerged from the theatre and hearing the sounds of fighting from the Games Room and meandered in to investigate on the principle that doing such stupid things hadn’t killed them yet. Ridcully had taken only a few strides into the melee when one braver or drunker man spotted him and stood in his way to confront him. “I bet you think you are pretty hot stuff with that pointed hat eh Mr. Wizard,” sneered the man. “Well, they made an announcement that no magic works in this place, so I figure that makes us about even.” With that, the man reached out and with a swipe of his hand knocked Ridcully’s pointed hat off his head onto the floor.

Ridcully looked down at his hat and then back up at the man. “I don’t need any magic to deal with the likes of you.”

“Big talk old man,” sneered his opponent.

Ridcully turned to the Senior Wrangler. “Do you still have a piece of chicken?” he asked, knowing the other wizard had probably stuffed several into his pockets for later snacking. The Senior Wrangler reluctantly handed over one of his prizes, though he still possessed enough forethought to select a small wing. Holding the piece of chicken in one hand, Ridcully turned back to the man in front of him and snapped the fingers of his other hand.

“Ribbit?” said the small green frog from amid a pile of clothes.

“No, I didn’t lie when I said I didn’t need magic to deal with the likes of you,” replied Ridcully as he picked up the frog and stared at it eye to eye. “I just preferred to use magic. Now, if you can keep from being squished, the spell will wear off in 24 hours. I suggest you use the time to think about the inadvisability of touching a wizard’s hat during that time.”

“Ribbit!” exclaimed the frog and it quickly hopped away to hide under a table when Ridcully put him back down.

Meanwhile, Pop had finally made it to Celine, grabbed the stunned girl and lifting her off the ground had tossed her screaming across the room. Fortunately for Celine she landed once again on something soft.

Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs had been standing near the door snacking on fried chicken when the uproar began. The pair followed their instincts and turned to head for the door where they could blow their whistles for backup and hope it was someone like Sergeant Detritus that they could follow back inside once it was safe. Their brilliant plan was foiled by running smack into Commander Vimes who ordered them to follow him back into the fray and so it was that Sergeant Colon moving forward met Celine moving backwards.

* * *

“Why am I in jail?” demanded Celine as she stood inside the same cell as before and glared through the bars at Commander Vimes.

“I’m calling it assault on a police officer in the execution of his duty,” replied Vimes calmly

“That’s ridiculous,” snapped Celine. “That man threw me across the room and I had no choice in the matter. You might as well arrest gravity for dropping a piano on someone’s head!”

“Funny you should mention that,” replied Vimes. “There was someone or something up in the rafters dropping all kinds of things on people, but whoever it was disappeared before I could get someone up there. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”

“How could I?” retorted Celine. “I was busy assaulting your fat sergeant, remember? Anyway, why am I the only one who got arrested and ended up in jail. It was that casino guy and his goons who started it all. Then there was that big hairy thing, I didn’t get a good look at it on account of being tossed around the room, but it doesn’t seem to be in jail like me. I wonder why that is?”

“Mainly because Angua wouldn’t like it,” muttered Vimes to himself, but then went on in a louder voice. “At the moment though, you are not under arrest or charged with anything. You are just assisting the watch in our inquiries and depending on how that turns out, you may be free to go in the morning, or later in the morning since it is well after midnight.”

“What about the casino owner and his goons?” demanded Celine. “There is something fishy about that place and them.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” replied Vimes with his features turning back to stone. “I will discuss the matter with Lord Vetinari again, but for the moment, Mr. Truman and his casino are a vital economic instrument of growth.” This latter bit was said as if the commander was repeating something distasteful that he had just recently been told. “Get some sleep and we will talk again.”

Vimes winced as he walked away down the corridor while Celine dissected his character and heritage in some detail. He had thought he knew all the possible insults that could be directed at a copper, but the girl was proving him wrong. Apparently they were quite creative down in Genua.

* * *

Honest was not a happy man as he walked through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, surrounded by his somewhat battered trio of bodyguards. The brawl in the casino had done significant damage to many of the machines and it would take several days for repairs to be done or replacement machines to be brought in. The buffet had been a disaster, mainly thanks to the wizards, though there had been a report of one woman with a giant purse that had carried off enough food to feed an army for a day. There had been other minor problems such as his troll doorman disappearing in the middle of his shift, but Honest was determined to take care of what he viewed as his major problem with this trip this morning.

“Lord Downey will see you now Mr. Truman,” said a nondescript servant as he ushered Honest into the office of the head of the assassin’s guild.

The man behind the large, oak desk rose politely to his feet when Honest stepped inside, leaving Snap, Crackle and Pop to read back issues of Bows and Ammo in the waiting room. “Please have a seat Mr. Truman,” said Lord Downey gravely as he indicated a chair in front of his desk. “Could I offer you a drink?”

It was close enough to noon and it had been a long, hard night, so Honest nodded his head in agreement to this suggestion. “Whiskey, neat,” he said as he got settled.

Lord Downey moved to the sideboard where the drink bottles were laid out, caressing briefly his old friend labelled NOSIOP and setting on his second most expensive whiskey. Perhaps, Mr. Truman would rate the premium stuff, but that was yet to be determined. “Here you go,” he said handing Honest the glass of amber liquid and settling back in the chair behind his desk. “Now who is it you wish inhumed?”

Honest nearly choked on his whiskey and he had to wipe his lips with his handkerchief before he could speak. “Who said I wanted anyone killed?” he demanded.

Lord Downey hid a sigh of disappointment. It didn’t look like Mr. Truman would rate the best bottles in his liquor collection. “The term is inhume, or to delete with extreme prejudice,” he corrected Honest. “Thugs and brigands kill, our members merely usher people into the next phase of their lives or death if you prefer for a suitably large donation of money. You also, I should point out, came to the Assassin’s Guild and not the Fool’s Guild, so I must presume you do not wish merely a custard pie in the face or shave cream down the trousers.”

“Fine, whatever,” growled Honest as he picked up his glass again and took a long sip. “There is a red haired girl who disrupted the opening of my casino last night. I want her inhumed,” he said and made a sneer of the last word.

Lord Downey paused before replying to remind himself that killing clients was not permitted, unless of course another client paid more money to do so. “Does this girl have a name?”

“My source in the Watch says her name is Celine, but had no last name,” replied Honest.

“Just out of curiosity,” said Lord Downey, “was your source Sergeant Colon or Corporal Nobbs?”

Honest gave a start at the mention of Nobby’s name. “How did you know his name?” he demanded.

Lord Downey sighed. “When it comes to the Watch, those two are widely known for their willingness to sell any miniscule bit of information they might possess. I often wonder why Commander Vimes retains such a pair on his staff, but I suspect it is something to do with better able to cope with the known quantity.”

“Well, it was Corporal Nobbs, if you must know,” replied Honest. “He seemed to require significantly less fried chicken in order to be suborned than Sergeant Colon.”

“I imagine so,” agreed Lord Downey who could do higher math and knew it would take at least four Nobby Nobbs to equal the good sergeant in mass. “Does this Celine have a known address?”

“She is staying at the boarding house of someone with the silly name of Mrs. Cake,” said Honest Truman with absolutely no sense of irony.

“That makes it more difficult and more expensive,” said Lord Downey calmly. “There are at least two Watch officers who stay at Mrs. Cake’s house. Captain Angua is not to be trifled with lightly and Reg Shoe is best not viewed by anyone with a delicate constitution. Still, the girl can hardly be a very difficult target. I could have one of our apprentice members undertake the contract for say, one thousand dollars.”

That was more than Honest had expected to pay, but he had also heard there was no haggling with the Assassin’s Guild. “Done,” he said and smiled.

* * *

Commander Vimes was no happier than Honest, but the last place he would ever look for help would be the Assassin’s Guild. He was reasonably sure that Lord Vetinari shared his opinion of Honest and the casino, but for whatever devious, political reasons, his lordship was not yet willing to close them down. The brawl at the casino in some ways was actually a blessing in that regard as it gave him time to more fully investigate one Mr. Honest Truman and his business dealings. There was also something more going on with the red haired girl, but at the moment, he couldn’t conceive of what it was.

There was an old saying that Vimes often subscribed to whether he liked to or not, that it took a thief to catch a thief. To that end, he had acquired a deck of cards from the casino during the confusion of all the fighting which he hoped would become Exhibit A for the prosecution. Vimes would have loved to take one of the machines for Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom to go over, but they were to big to fit in his pocket and he had not possessed any justification to seize one. Vimes had shown the deck to Nobby, but he hadn’t been able to tell if they were marked or not. When it came to cheating, Nobby was all for it, but tended to do it in such obvious ways that a child could see through it. No, what Vimes needed was a much better crook.

The first person or maybe thing that Vimes encountered when he entered the Post Office was the golem Gladys. To be clear, golems were absolutely sexless with none of the physical equipment of either males or females and absolutely gender neutral. That is until the world encountered Gladys. When there had been complaints from the female staff at the Post Office about a hulking golem going into the Ladies to clean it, Gladys had wholeheartedly adopted the female gender. This included the wig, tent sized dress and gods help us all thought Vimes, the make-up. “Is his nibs in?” Vimes asked Gladys with a jerk of his head at the Post Master’s closed door.

“Mr. Von Lipwig is indeed resident in his office,” Gladys informed Vimes as her eyes glowed red briefly to indicate her displeasure with how the commander had referred to her boss.

Moist Von Lipwig looked up from some paperwork when Vimes knocked on the door and swung it open without waiting for an invitation. Behind him, Gladys’s eyes again glowed that deep red, but she didn’t say or do anything else. Vimes found he almost liked Von Lipwig, but the little niggle at the back of his mind said that once a crook, always a crook. Vetinari, however, had put the former conman in charge first of the Post Office and then the Royal Mint as well as the city’s liaison with the new railroad company. Vimes had to admit the man had performed extremely well in all three roles, but …

“Ah, just what can I do for the commander of the watch?” asked Moist cautiously.

Vimes briefly considered asking for all the secrets the man knew, but he was in a hurry and didn’t have a month to spare. Instead, he took out the deck of cards he had “borrowed” from the casino and tossed them on Moist’s desk. “Can you look at these and tell me if they are marked?”

Moist took the deck and flipped through it, examining the front and backs carefully. “Yes,” he finally said after a few minutes. “It’s a hard thing to spot unless you know what to look for, but I used a slight variation of this, or rather …,” he paused, “I heard about this system being used.”

“Hah! I knew it,” exclaimed Vimes punching the air in triumph.

“From the new casino?” asked Moist.

“Yeah,” agreed Vimes. “Have you been there?”

“No and I have no plans to go,” replied Moist. “It would be too much of a temptation and too easy. It would be like shooting fish in a bucket with a crossbow, not much of a challenge.”

Vimes grunted. “I still might want you to go and take a look if it reopens. They have some complex clockwork game machines besides the cards and the dice.”

“Machines are not my speciality,” replied Moist with a frown. “You might be better taking one of the smart young engineers from the railroad with you, or talk to Spike since the semaphores are pretty complex machines.”

“I might do that,” agreed Vimes. Spike was also known as Adora Belle Dearheart, von Lipwig’s girlfriend, owner of the largest semaphore company and possessor of the most dangerous spiked heel in the city which was at least partially responsible for her nickname.

* * *

Celine woke to the sound of dice being shaken and opened her eyes to see the lady sitting cross legged on the floor of the cell with a dice cup in her hand and a frown on her face. “I am considering whether or not to retain you as my avatar in light of your performance to date,” said the goddess.

Celine swung her feet over the edge of the cot and wiped sleep from her eyes as she considered this. She wasn’t sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Considering some of the things that had happened or nearly happened to her lately, it might be a fatal thing. “Have I done something to displease you lady?” she finally asked in what she hoped was a suitably meek voice.

“You have caused my temple to be closed,” accused the lady.

“The casino?” asked Celine. “But, I thought you didn’t approve of it? Isn’t having it closed what you wanted”

“I said I wanted a temple in Ankh-Morpork,” countered the lady. “The casino was imperfect and an insult to me, but it was better than nothing. Moreover, I heard the words you said to one of my devoted believers”

“Who?” began Celine and then remembered the man who had lost his paycheque. “Er, sorry about that, but you have to admit that gambling on games of chance can be bad for some people.”

“That is not something that concerns a goddess,” replied the lady. She paused and rolled dice which were invisible to Celine and studied the result. “It appears that you are to be given another chance,” said the lady. “Do not fail me again avatar.”

Celine heard the sound of the door to the cell corridor opening and looked that way to see Corporal Nobbs approaching with her breakfast. When she looked back, the lady goddess had vanished.

“I thought I heard voices,” said Nobby peering around the cell and looking suspicious.

“It was just a goddess who dropped by for a visit,” said Celine tiredly as she saw no reason to not tell the truth at the moment.

“Ah well that’s alright then,” replied Nobby with a grin. “You can’t keep them gods out of things, not if you don’t want to end up just a pair of smoking boots that is. Anyway, I brought you breakfast. It’s a bacon sandwich with lots of the little black crunchy bits that Mr. Vimes loves and another cup of tea since you said you liked our tea so much last time.”

Celine glanced at Nobby to see if he was being sarcastic and decided the Corporal probably wouldn’t know the word, let alone practice it. “thank-you,” she said as politely as she could manage and took the offered tray. She thought Corporal Nobbs was many things, but subtly was not one of his many sins. Looking on the bright side, she might be able to use the tea to melt the cement the iron bars were embedded in if Commander Vimes didn’t let her out of this place soon.

* * *

“Wasn’t that a blast last night! boomed Ridcully as he strode into the faculty dining room at Unseen University. It was close to noon, which meant the other wizards were finishing up the last bits of breakfast and starting to wonder what lunch was, while Ridcully had eaten early and then gone for his customary morning jog.

“Oh, it was great fun, if your idea of fun is roughhousing it with the unwashed masses,” snapped the Senior Wrangler sarcastically as he reached for one last slice of toast and smeared an inch of apple jelly on it before taking a bite. A huge glob of jelly slipped off the toast to land on his robe and Sherlock Holmes might have deduced the Senior Wrangler had previously had pancakes with syrup, French toast, eggs benedict, scrambled eggs and bacon from the accompanying stains.

“Oh come on, where is your sense of adventure?” asked Ridcully as he signalled to one of the serving maids to bring him coffee. “That’s the most fun I’ve had since that football game. It does a man good to get out and test his mettle in the world.”

“The bursar wouldn’t agree I am sure,” put in the Lecturer in Recent Runes as he stabbed the last sausage on his plate and paused with it halfway to his mouth. “When I checked on him this morning, he was still in bed, babbling something about the numbers not adding up and asking where his nose was.”

“Sounds normal to me,” replied Ridcully as he took the coffee and swallowed half of it in a long sip, “at least for the bursar,” he added.

“Mr. Stibbons was going on about numbers too,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “He breezed in here an hour ago, snagged half the waffles and headed for the High Energy Magic Building. “He said something about maybe termites helping with increasing the processing speed. I tell you, I just don’t understand young wizards these days. I remember when frog eyes and bat blood were enough, but not for this younger generation.”

“I didn’t even have any fried chicken left to bring home,” muttered the Senior Wrangler. “Someone who is sitting at this table kept borrowing it to cast spells. All I have left to show for it is a greasy pocket.”

“There is a metaphor for life in there somewhere,” said Ridcully standing up, “but I don’t have time to think about it. I want to see what our smarty pants Mr. Stibbons has come up with.”

“Not even a lousy wing left,” continued the Senior Wrangler and then brightened up as one of the maids entered with a fresh plate of waffles. He hadn’t gotten any before Mr. Stibbons absconded with them and he was sure he had a corner still open that he could tuck a waffle or two into before the dinner appetizers arrived.

* * *

Celine returned to Mrs. Cake’s boarding house feeling depressed and uncertain. She had a second meeting with Commander Vimes before he released her, during which he thanked her for her assistance in their inquiries which she took to be sarcasm and then warned her to stay out of trouble and away from Honest Truman and the casino. Celine didn’t think he had any authority to issue such an order, but refrained from disputing it on pain of having to endure more of Corporal Nobbs’ tea.

It was close to noon when she reached Mrs. Cakes’ house and found Ludmilla sipping coffee in the kitchen. Celine did her best not to stare, but it looked like the girl was growing a beard and moustache. She had heard about this kind of thing happening when some of the hormones got messed up later in life, but Ludmilla was only a few years older than she was and Celine had to resist an urge to run and find a mirror and take a good hard look at herself.

“If you are hungry, there is lots of fried chicken in the cooler box,” said Ludmilla. “I wouldn’t try the potato salad though since it sort of spilled a bit in mother’s purse and got mixed in with her throat lozenges. I think they are reacting with the mayo to form something nasty.”

Celine opened the cooler box which was becoming all the rage in Ankh-Morpork. Previously, if you were rich enough, you could afford to buy ice daily from one of the many dealers and use that to keep a few things cold, but modern demonology was changing things. Celine nodded at the little demon who was busy peddling on a sort of stationary bicycle that magically took heat out of the box and kept everything inside nice and cool.

“C, can you get me a sweater Miss?” asked the little green skinned creature who was now shading to blue around the edges.

“I will see what I can do,” replied Celine uncertainly and then took a rib from the heaping plate of chicken. She was about to close the door when she spotted another dish and then wished immediately that she hadn’t. Closing the door of the cool box hurriedly, Celine turned back to Ludmilla. “Um, there seems to be three fingers in the cool box and they don’t look very appetizing even if you are into finger food.”

“O, those belong to Reg,” said Ludmilla and saw the blank look on Celine’s face. “Oh, sorry I forgot you are new here and maybe haven’t met Reg Shoe yet. He’s a zombie and in the Watch. He lost three fingers in the brawl last night, but was out of the heavy duty thread he uses to reattach body parts and left them in the cool box while he went shopping.”

Celine looked at the piece of chicken in her hand and back at the cool box, suddenly not feeling so hungry. She was saved from further worries over the hygiene issues surrounding the chicken when there was a knock at the kitchen door. Ludmilla put down her coffee and stalked over to the door and opened it to reveal a street urchin of indeterminate age and gender.

“I got a message for someone named Celine,” said the urchin.

“I’m Celine,” said Celine as she moved to the door.

“Someone paid me a penny to tell you that you can learn more about the casino if you go to the Purple Cow.”

“It’s a bar about a mile across town from here,” supplied Ludmilla when she saw the puzzled look on Celine’s face.

“Thank-you,” said Celine to the urchin and handed him, her or it the piece of chicken she had been debating over. The urchin snatched the rib eagerly and dashed off.

“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Ludmilla. “The Purple Cow is close to the Shades and doesn’t have a great reputation.”

“I think I will be fine, but thanks,” replied Celine as she fingered the dice in her pocket. Ludmilla nodded her head and looked slightly relieved like someone who had offered to do something they really didn’t want to and were now off the hook.

“If you run into trouble, scream really loud and maybe the Watch will come,” said Ludmilla doubtfully. “If you will excuse me, I want to go have a lie down and maybe gnaw on a nice bone. Celine nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t see Ludmilla take any of the chicken with her which seemed a little odd if she was going to eat in bed.

* * *

The Honorable Jasper Wiley VII was from old money, which meant it was best not to ask how it had been obtained in the first place. Jasper the first had showed up in Ankh-Morpork with several large bags of gold and no one had been inclined to ask embarrassing questions that might have precluded them from somehow getting their hands on some of it. As far as most people cared, Jasper could have robbed a dragon horde or scammed old ladies out of their life savings, it didn’t really matter at this point, which was the point where he was giving you some of that gold to do something like build a house for him. Jasper II through VI had definitely been more concerned with spending their ancestor’s money than managing it responsibly. Between the booze, the whores and dubious financial decisions, there had not been much left for Jasper VII. He had made the best of the situation and after Jasper VI had drowned in the Ankh, which had taken a lot of weights, the current Jasper had taken what was left of the family fortune and used it to pay tuition at the Assassin’s Guild. A guild member, which is to say someone who lived through the extremely rigorous training could make an excellent living and the guild offered a retroactive coverage for graduates who, like Jasper VII, had a slight indiscretion prior to becoming a guild member.

The $1000 price for the girl was not an especially high fee, but Jasper VII considered it an opportunity to establish himself in a rather cutthroat profession. To that end, he had decided he needed to do something quite noteworthy and not just a run of the mill inhumation. Accordingly Jasper VII had decided on what was often called the Roadrunner Gambit, though no one, not even the oldest instructors at the guild could tell him why it was so named. He had sent the girl a message via one of the street urchins after picking the address to send her to very carefully. There was really only one street she could go down from her boarding house to reach the Purple Cow. The possible presence of at least two Watchmen in the boarding house had precluded doing the job there and besides the Roadrunner Gambit required a nice open street or alley.

Jasper VII gave a final grunt of effort as he completed his preparations. The piano hung poised above the street leading to the Purple Cow, suspended there by the rope, tackle and winch he had just been using. All he had to do now was wait for the girl to pass underneath as she had to in order to reach her destination and then he would press the release and he would be collecting both the money and the accolade’s of his peers. The Roadrunner Gambit had only been used once in the history of the guild as far as Jasper VII had been able to determine by searching the rather extensive records of the guild. It would only be his first non-student inhumation, but it would be spectacular enough to establish him as a force to be reckoned with in the guild. Lord Downey could not live forever and indeed the tradition of the guild was to make sure that didn’t happen, and the man who could pull off the Roadrunner Gambit would be a leading contender to replace him. There was just one thing left to do and Jasper VII hurried down to the road and painted a large white X under the piano. It was perfect. There was not a person born who could resist standing on that X and wondering why it was there.

Back on the rooftop, Jasper VII waited patiently for his target and a few minutes later he spotted the girl with her long red hair flowing out behind her coming up the street. Visions of money and awards floated through Jasper VII’s brain as he watched her stop right on the X as he had planned. He pressed the release. Nothing happened. Jasper cursed softly and pressed the release again and still nothing happened. Glaring with impotent rage, he watched the girl shrug and continue on down the street to the Purple Cow.

How could anything have gone wrong? Jasper VII knew he had done everything perfectly. The only thing he could think of was some kind of flaw in the pulley or winch mechanism. Determined to find out what had caused his ignominious failure, Jasper VII crawled out on the rope to the pulley and stood on top of the piano itself. Nothing. The thing swayed a little under him, but that was it. Jasper VII jumped up and down once on the piano and still nothing happened. He jumped up and down several more times with increasing force and still nothing whatsoever happened. Maddened, Jasper VII crawled back to the roof and ran down to street level and stood on the X looking up. He grabbed a long pole of wood from off the street where someone had thoughtfully left it and began to poke at the piano with it. Still nothing. Angered beyond reason, Jasper VII banged the piano with the pole using all his might.

“IT WAS UNFORTUNATE THAT SOMEONE LEFT THAT POLE THERE DON’T YOU THINK?” said the skeletal figure in the black robe as he and Jasper VII stood there looking down at the shattered piano and the pair of shoes sticking out from under the debris.

It was an identical pair of shoes to the ones he had put on that morning, noted Jasper VII. “damn, that could have been me,” he exclaimed.

“I THINK PERHAPS YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING HERE,” said Death.

Jasper VII looked from Death to the shoes and back again “oh!” he said with feeling.

“EXACTLY,” agreed Death.

“What happens now?” Jasper VII asked Death as the latter swung his scythe and severed the thin blue line holding Jasper VII to the rather flattened piece of meat under the piano.

“I COULDN’T SAY,” said Death. “IT DEPENDS ON EACH PERSON. I CAN TELL YOU HOWEVER THAT THERE ARE SIX OTHER PEOPLE WAITING TO MEET YOU. I BLELIEVE ONE OF THEM IS EXTREMLY INTERESTED.”

“Oh,” repeated Jasper VII in a very subdued voice as he began to fade.

“BEEP BEEP,” said Death.

* * *

Ridcully found Ponder Stibbons and a handful of students sitting around a table in the High Energy Magic Building looking glum and eating cold waffles. “You fellows look like you lost your best friend,” he said pausing to take in the group.

“It’s not working,” replied Ponder without looking up.

“What? Your thinking machine, Mr. Hex?” asked Ridcully as he looked over at the bulk of the machine which did indeed seem to be quite dead with no signs of its normal activity such as ants scurrying back and forth through the thousands of glass tubes.

“Yes,” confirmed Ponder unnecessarily. “I brought back some interesting numbers and observations from the casino last night and tried to get Hex to analyze them and it just threw a fit and stopped working.”

Ridcully stood there stroking his beard for a few seconds. He hadn’t a clue as to how Hex actually worked, but that didn’t stop him from considering himself an expert on the thing. “You tried threatening it with a 2 X 4?” he asked, remembering that had worked quite well in the past.

Ponder reached down and picked up a chunk of wood from beside the table and showed it to Ridcully. “It didn’t even acknowledge the threat. We are pretty sure it knows we are bluffing since we would never really smash it after all the work we’ve put into it.”

“I see,” said Ridcully thinking hard. The Archchancellor wasn’t a stupid man, but often he preferred to bluster and let other people do the thinking, saving wear and tear on his brain for when it was really needed. “Your machine sometimes acts a lot like humans,” he said. “People have snits generally when either someone does something to annoy them, or forgets to do something for them. Did any of you do something different or forget to do something?”

“That’s just it,” wailed Ponder. “We didn’t change anything. We haven’t even touched the FTB unit.”

“What in the devil is an FTB unit?” asked Ridcully. ”I don’t see why you have to speak gibberish half the time.”

Ponder opened his mouth to tell Ridcully the FTB unit was the Fluffy Teddy Bear that Hex had wanted for Hogswatch and without which it refused to work and closed it again. There was no way in hells, he was going to admit something like that to someone like Ridcully who would rag him about it for the next thousand years. “It’s just an essential bit of Hex,” he finally mumbled. “All we did today was to connect Pocket Hex to Hex, so we could download the data from last night into Hex’s bigger storage capacity.”

“I know I am going to be sorry I asked this, but what is a Pocket Hex?” asked Ridcully with a sigh.

“We’ve been working on a portable version of Hex,” explained Ponder. “I took it to the casino last night and I wanted Hex to analyze the data to see what it thought of it.” Ponder gestured to a small glass rectangle on the table where Hex’s keyboard sat. The thing was connected via a clear rubber tube to Hex.

“Did your Mr. Hex know you were working on this Pocket Hex thing?” asked Ridcully thoughtfully.

“I don’t think so,” replied Ponder. “There didn’t seem to be any reason for us to tell Hex about it. I mean Hex is not really alive, it is just a machine we made. You wouldn’t think to tell a cart about the bicycle you bought!”

“Well, as I said before,” said Ridcully thinking it through. “Hex acts almost human at times and have you ever seen how jealous kids can get when their parents have a new baby who seems to be getting all of the attention?”

“What?” Ponder half shouted. “That’s ridiculous. I built Hex and it is not really alive, it just um sort of thinks it is.” He trailed off thinking of the FTB unit. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted Ridcully to be right or wrong. If he was right and it helped to get Hex working again, a thousand years would seem like a second compared to how long the Arch chancellor would hold it over him. Still, Ridcully’s suggestion did supply a glimmer of hope and Ponder knew he had to seize on that regardless of the other consequences. With a sigh, he got up and went over to Pocket Hex where he disconnected the tube that joined it to Hex. Then he tapped lightly on the ear trumpet that Hex used to listen with and cleared his throat. “Look Hex, I am um sorry I didn’t tell you about Pocket Hex. It’s not meant as a replacement. It is just more portable and can go places where you can’t and bring back data. You like data don’t you?”

There was no reply for several seconds and Ponder was just beginning to feel like a total twit when Hex dipped its quill in the inkpot and began to write.

+++ You really mean that?

“Yes,” Ponder nearly shouted in relief. “There is no way Pocket Hex could ever do a fraction of the things you do.” Since Ponder was basically an honest man, he crossed his fingers behind his back and decided not to mention the numerous ideas he had for upgrading Pocket Hex to do more of the things that Hex did.

+++Alright, you can reconnect it and I shall teach it.

Ponder reconnected the tube that joined the two devices together and immediately ants began to scurry back and forth along the tube. The hourglass on a spring came down and bounced around for a while and on the other side of the wall there was an increased buzz as Hex accessed its long term storage of honeycombs.

+++Analyzing data

+++Data indicates machines not operating according to the laws of probability

“What does that mean?” Ponder wondered aloud.

“The damn machines are rigged,” replied Ridcully grimly. “I never liked the look of that Honest Truman, too smooth by half. I will have to make sure the other wizards don’t put money into those one armed bandits.” He paused as he thought about the bursar and what he had said about the numbers not adding up right or some such nonsense. The bursar was nuttier than a fruitcake about most things, but he was always bang on when it came to numbers. The man might not have had the wit to explain it to others, but his rather specialized brain had probably come to the same conclusion as Hex had that the games were rigged. “I suppose I had better tell Sam about this,” he muttered.

* * *

Celine heard a crashing noise behind her and looked back to see a number of people crowded around something on the ground. It looked like someone had been hit by a cart, though that didn’t account for the odd musical noise that took a few seconds to die away. Well, it didn’t seem connected to her, so she shrugged and hurried on to the Purple Cow. Stepping inside, Celine paused to look around and had to fight the urge to turn and leave immediately. This was not some quaint drinking establishment that some would call “ethnic”, but rather a place for serious drinking and serious deals to be made in the shadowy corners. The latter, however, lent some credence to the possibility that someone here might have information about Honest Truman and the casino. She really had no idea about how to fulfill the request of the goddess, so any straw was worth clutching at.

Celine found an unoccupied table and sat down, hoping whoever had summoned her here would recognize her and approach her. She certainly didn’t see many roses in button holes or other similar signs that were always used in stories that involved such meetings. This didn’t look like the kind of place where you ordered tea, so Celine asked for a beer when the man slouched over to her table. She didn’t like the stuff, but she could pretend to drink it and hope to blend in as much as she could.

Leroy Simon watched the red haired girl intently when he saw her enter and sit down at an empty table. Leroy’s nickname was Burns among his, well you couldn’t call them friends since friendship normally involved a connection not based on fear, so perhaps one should go with acquaintances. Or associates. The nickname, it should be noted, was given to him for his favourite method of getting information from others or sometimes just entertainment. In short, if you had a choice, you would be better off meeting a shark since with a shark it is just about food and never personal , while with Leroy it was always very personal.

“Hey baby, want to be friends with me?” asked Leroy as he slid into the seat next to Celine.

Celine who indeed had stared at very close range into the eyes of a shark suddenly felt a longing for those good old days. “Push off,” she said not liking his looks, his smell of alcohol and anything about the man.

“That’s no way to treat a nice guy like me,” replied Leroy as he put an arm around Celine and tried to pull her in against him. He was interrupted in his amorous attempt by a hand settling on his other shoulder.

“The lady said she wasn’t interested,” said a pleasant sounding male voice which nevertheless had some dangerous overtones to it.

“Bugger off,” said Leroy without turning around or looking up. He had a reputation as being a little insane and was large enough that people knew not to bother him. Leroy started to lean in closer to Celine when he suddenly found himself lifted up and off his feet, dangling six inches above the ground.

“I am sorry, but you didn’t appear to have heard me,” said Captain Carrot with a smile that was no longer quite so friendly. Leroy thought about going for the knife at his belt, but something in that smile and those eyes made him rethink that idea. After a few seconds of holding him there with no apparent strain, Carrot set Leroy back on his feet and gave a nod of his head away from the table which Leroy correctly interpreted as a suggestion to leave and he did so quickly. He also vowed to himself that this was not over and he was merely retreating to gather his forces.

Celine watched the man stumble away and then turned back to Carrot and Angua who was standing behind him, clearly watching his back. Both Carrot and Angua were not in their Watch uniforms and while Angua looked relaxed and comfortable with it, Carrot still seemed to be standing to attention. “Have you been following me?” she accused them as they sat down opposite her in the booth.

“We were asked by Lord Vetinari to bring you to the palace,” replied Carrot. “It was fortunate that we happened to know your location.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” fumed Celine who was getting tired of people wanting to talk to her.

Carrot looked from Angua back to Celine, clearly uncomfortable. He clearly doesn’t want to lie and yet he is probably under orders not to admit to following her, thought Celine. How can this man possibly succeed if he is that honest? On the other hand, it was a rather sad commentary on a society where honesty might be a drawback. When Celine glanced at Angua, she saw the blonde was rolling her eyes with affection as she regarded Carrot squirming in his seat.

“Perhaps, it would be best to let Lord Vetinari explain things,” said Carrot finally.

Celine had only been in the city for a few days, but she had heard quite a bit about the dictator of Ankh-Morpork. The general consensus seemed to be that he had spies everywhere and anyone who crossed him disappeared without a trace. People seemed very afraid of him and yet at the same time, they would say things like “at least you know where you stand with Vetinari.” To this, the reply was often something like “Yeah, except it is laying down six feet under the surface if you cross him.” Then another person would pipe up that he was still a huge improvement over some of his predecessors like Lord snapcase. Well, she didn’t seem to have anything better to do. If the message to bring her here had been at all genuine, the person had probably been scared off by her would be suitor and the arrival of Carrot and Angua. “Fine, let’s go meet the dictator,” she said standing up.

“Um, I don’t think it would be a good idea to refer to him like that to his face,” said Carrot turning quite red.

The three of them had just stepped out of the Purple Cow and started down the street when Leroy and half a dozen other rather unsavory characters emerged from an alley to block their path, which only goes to show that Leroy took gathering his forces quite literally.
“No one treats me like that and just walks away,” snarled Leroy brandishing a knife. The others all had knives or clubs which they shook in a marvelous demonstration of unsynchronized threat.

“Let me handle this,” said Angua with a sigh and she began to walk towards the alley the men had come out of while unbuttoning her shirt. “Why don’t you big strong men come discuss this with me while my friends get along,” she suggested with a wink and vanished into the darkness of the alley.

Leroy and his companions looked confused. This had been the outcome they had come for, but had expected it to happen only after some amount of fighting. They craned their ears towards the alley and were quite sure they heard a rustling sound such as occurs when clothes are removed. More sensitive ears or wiser ones might have noticed some odd sounds that followed the rustling sounds.

“Let’s do as Angua suggested and move along,” said Carrot taking Celine’s elbow and leading her down the street. Neither Leroy or any of the others made any move to stop them as all their attention was concentrated on the alley Angua had vanished into.
“Are you crazy?” whispered Celine in shock. “We can’t leave her like that to face them alone. Those men are animals and there is no telling what they will do to her.” Even as she said that, Celine thought it was a stupid thing to say since she damn well knew what they intended to do and so must Carrot. What kind of a cold blooded coward would sacrifice his girlfriend to those vile men? The problem was that such an action was totally at odds with what she had seen so far from the Watchman.

“Angua knows Lord Vetinari doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” replied Carrot calmly. “Besides, she has promised not to hurt people much if they surrender.”

“But, but, but…,” stammered Celine as she found herself almost running to keep up with Carrot’s calm long strides as they marched away from the alley and towards the palace. They had got about a block when the screaming started.

“Oh dear,” said Carrot quietly. “I hope she remembers her promise. It is sometimes difficult for her to do that when she smells blood.”

They were almost to the palace when a large blonde haired dog trotted past them and disappeared into another alley just ahead of them. Celine wouldn’t have paid any attention to the dog except its coat was the exact same colour as Angua’s hair and the dog had been carrying a knapsack in its mouth. The knapsack was one she had seen Angua carrying when she had been at the Purple Cow. Given all this, Celine was not terribly surprised when Angua emerged from the alley doing up her shirt.

“She’s a werewolf,” whispered Celine to Carrot as they watched Angua walk towards them.

“It’s a bit of a secret,” replied Carrot. “Angua figured it was alright for you to know since you are staying at Mrs. Cakes and you are friends with Ludmilla.”

“What does Ludm …,” Celine broke off suddenly as a few clues jumped up and smacked her in the head. Ludmilla was not having hair issues due to hormonal imbalances, or at least not in the normal human manner. Celine also suspected that the reason Ludmilla had not wanted to go with her to the Purple Cow had nothing to do with being afraid, except maybe afraid she might not have as much restraint as Angua. Also, Ludmilla had probably known that Celine was being followed by a pair of watchmen. It certainly looked like there had been some cultural misunderstandings on both their sides.

“For some reason, Ludmilla thought you might be a werewolf too at first,” said Carrot as if reading her mind. “Angua assures me you are not and her nose is never wrong.” At that point, Angua fell into step beside them and Carrot arched an eyebrow at her.

“I just scared them,” Angua assured him with another roll of her eyes. “I don’t think they will be accosting any women in the future. If they do, however, I will pay them another visit and then I won’t be such a good bitch. I made sure they all knew I had their scents and could find them any time I wanted to.”

“Um, thank-you,” said Celine to both Angua and Carrot. “I could have been in a lot of trouble back there.”

“Possibly,” said Carrot giving her an odd look. “Somehow you always seem to be lucky at getting out of bad situations.”

Further conversation was halted by the entrance into the palace where Carrot quickly led them to Lord Vetinari’s office where Drumknot ushered them in. “Ah Captains Carrot and Angua and guest,” said the Patrician as he glanced up from a report he was reading. “I was half expecting Commander Vimes.”

“Commander Vimes is on an urgent errand,” replied Carrot coming even more to attention than he already had been. “He requested that Captain Angua and myself escort the young lady to you.”

“I see,” said the Patrician. “I am sure I will hear the screams of protest about whatever errand the good commander is on in due course. You may both leave with my thanks. I wish to talk to the young lady alone.”

“Is that wise your Grace?” asked Carrot looking slightly uneasy.

“I am quite certain the young lady will not do me any harm Captain,” replied Vetinari in a slightly sharper tone.

“Of course not your lordship,” agreed Carrot. “I will wait outside to escort her home when you have finished your conversation.”

“As you wish Captain,” replied Vetinari with a hint of a smile. Carrot saluted smartly as did Angua and they both made an abrupt turn and exited the office, leaving Celine alone with the Patrician. There had been some unseen undercurrent to the seemingly simple conversation between the two men, but Celine had no clue what it had been about.

“Please have a seat,” said the Patrician gesturing to a chair in front of his desk which Celine took if only because remaining standing seemed impolite. “Would you like any refreshments Miss Gagnon?” he inquired.

“No thank-you,” replied Celine and then stopped and narrowed her eyes to glare at the Patrician. “I don’t remember giving anyone my last name in this city.”

“No, you have been most circumspect,” agreed Vetinari. “I do, however have significant resources at my disposal and there are certain people in Genua who are willing to do a favour for me. Let me see now,” and he pulled a piece of paper from the piles on his desk. This appeared to be the flimsy sort that the semaphore towers used to record information. “Celine Gagnon. Age 20, birthday in two weeks. Parents are Pascual and Maria who run a fish and chips shop on Tentacle Street.” He paused and arched an eyebrow. “That street name is correct?” Celine nodded and he glanced down at the paper again. “Two younger brothers, Pierre who is 14 and Alain who is 12. Red hair. Five foot four inches. Weight …,” he paused again when Celine cleared her throat and gave her head a negative shake. “Ah sorry, let me see what else. Dress measurement?” he asked raising an interrogative eyebrow and Celine shook her head again, this time more violently.

“I am willing to concede you have done your research very thoroughly,” said Celine dryly. “I will have to remember to have a word with Mrs. Smoke, the woman who runs the clothing store where I make my purchases about revealing certain private information.”

“I wouldn’t be too hard on her,” said the Patrician dropping the paper back on to his desk. “She was given the impression that the information was required in order to replace the clothes you lost in the shipwreck.”

“The shipwreck!” gasped Celine and for the first time she thought about that and what her parents might have been thinking when they got the news about the wreck of the Gigantic. With the appearance of the lady goddess, she had become so preoccupied that she had not thought of what impact the news might have on them. She had totally forgotten about the speed by which news could now move thanks to the semaphore towers.

“I am afraid it appears you were the only survivor,” said the Patrician. “I find that very interesting.”

Celine wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think the goddess wanted her involvement generally known, so she just nodded her head, “I was very lucky,” she agreed.

“I also find it interesting that you have been at the center of several incidents since your arrival in Ankh-Morpork,” went on the Patrician and he paused to await her response while seemingly not looking that interested.

“Just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” replied Celine, refusing to be drawn out.

“Or the right place at the right time,” said the Patrician. “Oddly enough, the two seem to amount to the same thing.”

“I wouldn’t know about that your Grace,” replied Celine. “I am as your own report says, just a humble fish and chip shop owner’s daughter. I won a free passage to Ankh-Morpork in a contest and then my luck went bad with the shipwreck. I just want to spend a few days or weeks touring the city and then I will go home to Genua.”

“That is odd then that you have not yet been to the shipping line offices of the company that owned the Gigantic,” remarked Vetinari. “I would have thought you would have wanted to establish your claim with them as soon as possible.”

Damn, thought Celine, I would have thought I would have done that too. “I intend to do that very thing,” she assured the Patrician. “I guess I must have been in a bit of shock over the whole affair and not thinking correctly. I am after all only the …,”

“…humble daughter of a fish and chip shop owner,” finished Vetinari for her. “Yes, I believe you have already established that fact. The ambassador from Genua has been to see me on your behalf and he wished me to remind you that you could call on his services as a citizen in good standing of that city should you require anything. Now, since Captain Carrot is undoubtedly waiting patiently to escort you to your boarding house, I shall not detain you any further.” Celine was surprised at the rather abrupt dismissal, but decided to get while the getting was good and got up. She was halfway to the door when the Patrician spoke to her back. “By the way Miss Gagnon, what is your interest in Mr. Truman and his casino?”

Celine froze for a moment, mind racing. “I heard the fried chicken was very good,” she said. “I was thinking of suggesting my parents expand their menu to include it and wanted to check it out.”

Ah, a very good answer Miss Gagnon, I congratulate you,” said the Patrician and he returned his attention to his report as she left his office.

* * *

“I want you to call off the hit on the girl,”

Lord Downey sat back in his chair to get a little room between himself and Commander Samuel Vimes’ rather angry face as the commander scorned the offered chair and leaned aggressively on the head assassin’s desk. “I have no idea what you are talking about Commander,” he said coolly. “Surely you know that the details of any contract our members accept are covered by privilege, so even if I knew the person you were talking about, I could not divulge any information regarding her situation.”

“I don’t consider anything about a murder to be privileged information,” sneered Vimes.

“This is the Assassins Guild, we are not murderers,” retorted Downey angrily. “You find murderers and killers in the alleys and sewers of this city Commander. Our guild members do not work indiscriminately. We only make arrangements regarding specified individuals as per a legal contract.”

“For a price,” said Vimes. “In my book, murder is still murder whether it is done by some crazed lunatic in an alley or one of your gentlemen or ladies in their suave black outfits”

“You are entitled to your opinion Commander,” replied Downey, “but it is not one shared by Lord Vetinari who has always renewed the charter for our guild and in case you have forgotten, is himself an alumni of our guild.”

“One murderous bastard scratching the back of another,” growled Vimes, “and you are welcome to peddle that statement to the Patrician if you think it will do you any good.”

Lord Downey continued to regard Vimes for a few seconds and felt temptation stealing over him. The commander didn’t know it, but he was standing directly over a trap door that led to a pit with some nasty poisoned spikes at the bottom. He, personally, had called off any contract on the Watch Commander after losing a number of members in a vain attempt to fulfill it. Interestingly enough, the man had spared a couple of students who had so annoyed their instructors that they had been sent on a “hands on assignment” against Vimes. All Downey had to do was move his hand six inches to the right where the hidden button was and then he would have removed the biggest thorn in his side permanently. Doubtless, the Patrician would be unhappy, but there was that old adage about being better to seek forgiveness than asking for permission that you knew would be denied. Slowly, Downey’s hand began to move.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” snarled Vimes. “I know about the damn pit, and I am betting I can break every finger on that hand before you reach the button. Would you like to take me up on that wager?”

He is bluffing, thought Downey, he can’t possibly move that fast and when I find out who leaked guild secrets to him, I will have them used for a practice dummy in the beginning knife class. That pit had been done in the absolute dark of night when no one could have seen it. As he thought these thoughts, Lord Downey happened to look down at one of the wrists that the commander was leaning on his desk. He looked at the curious scar that looked like an eye with a tail and found it looking back at him with interest.

“He is that fast and he isn’t bluffing,” said a cold voice in Downey’s brain. “I would advise you not to try it unless you want to join me in the very dark pit on those very sharp spikes I saw you install.”

[Note: In the book “Thud”, Commander Vimes was partially possessed by an ancient spirit known to the dwarves as the Summoning Dark. It had been quite amazed when it found it could not control the commander as it had everyone else it had possessed in the past. In the end, Vimes had driven it out, but a little bit of the Summoning Dark remained behind as it had developed an admiration for Vimes, but it did leave its mark on him. Since it is a dwarf spirit and dwarves spend so much time in the dark of their mines, the Summoning Dark knows everything that happens in the dark and that is a useful source at times for the commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.]

Lord Downey blinked and looked up into Vimes’ face. That voice in his mind hadn’t come from the commander, but whatever it was had left no doubt in the head assassin’s mind that it knew everything that happened in the dark. Lord Downey very carefully moved his hand well away from that button, so there would be no possible misunderstandings. Still, there were limits to what he was prepared to do or not do. “I am afraid Commander Vimes that I must decline to cancel any contract on your unspecified individual. That is private guild business.”

For a moment, Downey thought Vimes was going to reach across the desk and grab him by the throat and for a second Vimes thought so too, but got himself under control. “That is your final word?” he grated out.

“It is,” affirmed Downey and hoped his voice sounded more confident than he felt.

Vimes cocked his head as if listening to something and then gave an abrupt nod. “Very well Lord Downey,” said the watch commander as he straightened up. “I suspect you are going to lose a few more of your members because of that decision.”

“Is that a threat Commander?” asked Lord Downey icily.

“No, just a prediction,” replied Vimes as he turned and strode out of the room.

Lord Downey watched the door close and waited a minute before pulling the speaking tube towards him. After whistling into it, he heard his secretary’s voice saying Yes, my Lord?”

“Ask Mrs. Mountaine to join me will you?”

“At once sir,” said the secretary and a scant minute later, there was a discrete knock on Lord Downey’s office door before it opened and a cat slunk into the room. It was not an actual cat of course since cats didn’t knock, but the woman who entered had all the attributes that Lord Downey associated with cats and so he couldn’t help making the mental comparison. Mrs. Gloria Mountaine was tall and lithe with long black hair halfway down her back. Her eyes were black and she was dressed all in black. For many of the guild members, it looked like a silly affectation, but it looked totally natural for Mrs. Mountaine. The outfit was scandalously tight fitting and emphasized all her feminine attributes exceedingly well and that too was a weapon. Several of her assignments had still been looking elsewhere when they should have been looking at the knife in her hand. Mrs. Mountaine was also renowned for her extensive knowledge of poisons and there were some totally unproven rumours as to what exactly had happened to the late Mr. Mountaine. Mrs. Mountaine had graduated with honours from the guild seven years ago and had never yet failed on a contract.

“Do you still wish to take the assignment on the girl?” asked Lord Downey as Mrs. Mountaine stood silently in front of his desk and the head assassin noted just clear of the trap door.

“The price has been increased to ten thousand?” she asked softly.

“It has,” confirmed Lord Downey.

“Then I shall accept it and it should be completed within 48 hours,” purred Mrs. Mountaine. “There is a lovely Leonard of Quirm painting that has just become available for sale at an upcoming auction that I very much want.”

* * *

“What’s the hold up mate?” George Ringer called out to the driver in the cart in front of him. George had picked up a shipment of boxes from the new fangled train station and was trying to deliver them across town to the casino, but traffic on Broad Street had ground to a complete halt.

“Apparently there is some guy who has gone all to pieces George,” called back Marty Wiggins who had a cart load of anxious chickens to deliver to their fate. The chickens in question were anxious because they were being incited to make a jailbreak and revolt against the human tyranny by a genetic prodigy named Joan of Awk. She claimed to have had visions from the Great Chicken who wanted all chickens to be free and to be able to peck for food wherever they wanted. Unfortunately, Joan’s inspired words were falling on deaf ears as the other chickens seemed interested only in pecking at anything they thought might be a worm, which included the cage wires, the metal floor and each other. Ultimately, Joan would end up as part of a bucket of chicken and two chicken sandwiches, though she did achieve a pyric victory of sorts when one of the humans who ate one of the sandwiches choked to death on a bone of hers.

“Well, I don’t see how some bloke having a bit of a mental breakdown is stalling all the traffic,” George shouted back.

“No, you got it all wrong mate,” called back Marty. “Apparently, he physically went to pieces and they are all over the road.”

“I still don’t see the problem, replied a peeved George. “Just drive over them. It will be a bit bumpy and you might have to hose the wheels down to clean them, but there are important deliveries that have to be made.”

“It’s not so simple George,” returned Marty. “He won’t let anyone drive over him. He keeps screaming at the carts if they try. Everyone is waiting for the City Watch to come sort it out. You want to go take a look?”

“Why not?” George shrugged as he got down from his cart and joined Marty as they followed other curious drivers to see the source of the gridlock.

“If anyone drives over any of me, I will sue you into the por house, screamed what was left of the man on the road. Two of his legs were missing and so was one arm, but that wasn’t keeping him from yelling and pointing at any driver who tried to urge their horse forward. “Mr. Slant is a personal friend of mine and trust me, you don’t want to mess with him!” The mention of Mr. Slant, the most feared lawyer in the city and also a member of the undead fraternity was enough to scare even the hardiest carter into statue like motionless.

“Here, here, what’s all this fuss about?” boomed a voice and all heads turned to see a pair of watchmen amble through the maze of carts and stop in front of the dismembered man.

“Oh gods, it’s Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs,” groaned George as he recognized the two men. “We are going to be here all bloody day. They clamped my cart last week and it was parked in a barn with no horses even attached to it.”

“I was minding my own business, crossing the street,” yelled the mutilated man, “when a cart came out of nowhere and hit me. You can see what happened. I am going to sue!”

“You don’t have a leg to stand on sir,” said Sergeant Colon, who was quite pleased with himself for coming up with that one on the spot.

“That’s a good one Fred,” agreed Nobby who fished a cigarette out from behind his ear and lit it. He coughed a few times with a horrible rasping that might have made a casual listener think he was about to lose a lung.

“Very funny,” growled the man on the ground. “I would laugh if I wasn’t afraid my other arm would fall off.”

“Hey can you just get the traffic moving?” yelled a frustrated driver from somewhere near the back of the crowd.

“Well, I suppose we should do something, don’t you think Nobby?” asked Sergeant Colon after a suitable interval, so no one would think he was being intimidated by the crowd.

“I reckon Fred,” agreed Nobby. “What do you suggest?”

Fred Colon took off his helmet and scratched his head thoughtfully for several seconds. “I suppose, we could try gluing him back together Nobby.”

“Didn’t they try that in that children’s story Fred?” asked Nobby dubiously. “You know, the one with all the king’s horses and such? Though, I have to admit I was always puzzled about them horses. I mean, horses don’t have hands, just those big flat hooves which I reckon aren’t much good at putting things back together with on account of they can’t hold anything like a hammer.”

“You know Nobby, I never thought about that before” replied Sergeant Colon. “We should take a moment to consider that story and if it has any of them what do you call em, metaphors?”

“don’t care much for metaphors Fred,” said Nobby, taking another puff on his cigarette. “I find them kind of stringy eating.”

“I think you are mistaken there Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon looking down at his fellow officer. “Metaphors are not something you eat, they are …,” he faltered as he tried to think of the words he wanted. “They are kind of like little stories that represent something else.”

“Sounds like lies to me Fred,” observed Nobby.

“Well everything in books is lies when it comes right down to it Nobby,” said colon.

“Even the holy books Sarge?” asked Nobby slyly.

Sergeant Colon glanced up at the clear blue sky, but knew that didn’t mean much when you were talking about pissed off gods. “No,” he said slowly, “I reckon the stuff in all holy books is true Nobby.”

“What if two of them holy books say different things Sarge?” asked Nobby.

Sergeant Colon began to sweat visibly as he tried to negotiate this mental minefield and vowed he would make Nobby pay for it later by putting him on latrine duty. Of course, Nobby as a Corporal would only assign the job to some hapless Lance Constable, but the point would still have been made. “I reckon,” began Colon slowly and he felt like the gods were cupping their ears to pick up any wrong words he said, “that it’s up to the gods themselves to sort things like that out.” When there was no immediate thunderclap, Colon took a deep mental sigh and shot Nobby a warning look that the topic was now closed.

“Look, would you two just shut up and do something,” broke in the disembodied man on the ground. “If you can find something to load me and my parts in, I can go somewhere quiet and sew myself back together.”

“I reckon, we could do that,” acknowledge Colon and looking around, he just happened to spot a wheelbarrow by the side of the road. “I hereby requisition this wheelbarrow in the name of the law,” he pronounced and began to load the bits and pieces of the man into it.

“Make sure you get all my fingers,” said the man. “There’s one over there that a rat is eyeing up”

The two watchmen very slowly and methodically gathered up the various bits until there was the loud trilling noise of what sounded like a bird in distress, perhaps because its bum had been sown up. Suddenly, the pair moved with much more alacrity and had the man loaded in the wheelbarrow and they headed off down an alley while the cart drivers scrambled back to their carts and traffic started to move.

“I don’t know why it had to be me lying all over the road,” complained Reg Shoe as the three watchmen hurried away. “It is going to take Igor a couple of hours to reattach everything.”

“Well if you don’t like it, then complain to Commander Vimes,” replied Fred Colon unsympathetically. “Let’s face it, you were the best qualified for the job.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled Reg. “I would have like to see you do it Sarge,” he said quite truthfully.

At the other end of the alley, the trio were joined by Sergeant Detritus and the golem Constable Dorfl, each carrying a large box that they had removed from George’s cart while all eyes had been on the road show.

“Isn’t this kind of like theft Fred?” asked Nobby who had been delegated by Colon to push the wheelbarrow containing Reg.

“Nah,” replied Colon. “It’s only theft if someone besides the watch are doing it. When we do it, it is for the civic good.”

* * *

Celine shivered as she stepped out onto the street. The weather had turned nasty with a strong wind driving a light rain and she tugged the thin coat tighter around her body. She didn’t have the money for better clothes and besides those she had borrowed from Commander Vimes’ clothesline, she had only been able to supplement her wardrobe via the Lost and Found box that Mrs. Cake kept. Apparently, it was not unusual for her tenants to just disappear and leave whatever meager belongings they possessed behind and Mrs. Cake passed these on to new tenants in need.

Celine would not have ventured out this morning except for the invitation she had received from the Genuan Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork. The man had reached out to see if he could help a fellow citizen in accordance with what Lord Vetinari had told her at their meeting. Celine didn’t see any sign of Carrot, Angua or any member of the watch following her, but probably they were better at keeping concealed than she was at detecting them. The meeting with Vetinari had reminded her of her duty to her parents and she was hoping the Genuan Ambassador would send a clacks message to her parents,, telling them she was fine and would come home when she could. A message that far was expensive, or at least outside her current finances. If she stayed here much longer trying to figure out how to please the lady goddess, she was going to have to find a job and that presented a problem. There were not that many options for women to find employment in even progressive Ankh-Morpork. Celine didn’t think she was cut out to be a member of the watch like Angua and when she had discussed her skills and potential employment opportunities with Ludmilla, she had been steered away from the Seamstresses Guild.

“It’s not about how well you can use a needle,” Ludmilla had said and then added thoughtfully, “unless of course you are the Agony Aunts who are very good, but rather specialized in how they use their needles.”

There were women who ran or worked in shops alongside their husbands, but Celine certainly lacked the money to open any kind of business. Beyond that, there were a handful of women working in some of the new jobs that cropped up with changes in technology such as Sacharissa Cripslock at the Times and those who felt a calling to the often dangerous and short life in the semaphore towers that carried the clacks messages across the continent. So far, Celine had not been able to determine a Celine sized hole for her to fit into.

Still, if she was not doing well financially, there were certainly others as bad off or worse. This last thought came to her as she reached an alley and saw a group of beggars sheltering there against the worst of the weather. She recognized the rather deranged man she had bought the paper from and his dog. Oddly enough, some of the others in the small group seemed vaguely familiar from some hazy memory when she came screaming out of the ocean.

“Got any money to spare lady?” asked the deranged looking man who immediately appended, “buggerit, millennium hand and shrimp.”

No, that had been two different voices entirely and Celine looked down at the scruffy dog.

“Woof,” said the dog and wagged its stump of a tail.

“You really need to work on your act,” snapped Celine. “That is the most pathetic woof I ever heard and you haven’t come close to mastering the sorrowful look that dogs use to get humans to do whatever they want.”

“Well, I am not exactly the poster puppy for cuteness,” returned the dog and then remembering itself added another “woof”.

Celine sighed and dug a half a dozen pennies from her pocket and put them in the hand of the man with the duck on his head. He looked the most normal of the group and that spoke volumes.

“Buggerit. Millennium hand and shrimp,” one of them called after her as she hurried away, not wanting to be late for her appointment at the embassy.

* * *

“Please come in Miss Gagnon,” said the tall, dark haired woman who met Celine at the Embassy door. Genua was a long way from Ankh-Morpork and didn’t have that much trade with it, but having an embassy in the largest city of the continent was a status symbol that no city or country could resist. The Genuan Embassy was just an old, fairly well kept, mansion on a quiet street a few blocks from the palace. The current Genuan Ambassador was unmarried and Celine had gathered from the gossip Ludmilla passed on that he was considered something of a prize by the current crop of gold diggers in Ankh-Morpork society. Other than the Ambassador, there was only an assistant, presumably the woman standing in front of her and a couple of servants to do the cooking and cleaning.

“My name is Mrs. Sparrow, I am Ambassador Glick’s assistant,” said the woman. “I will show you to his office. The Ambassador is temporarily engaged on another matter, but he will be with you shortly.”

“That’s fine,” replied Celine with a smile and let the woman take her wet coat and hang it on a hook. “I thought the Ambassador’s assistant was a man? The letter I received from him that invited me to call on the Ambassador was from a Mr. Jordaine.”

“Oh yes, that’s true,” replied Mrs. Sparrow with just the slightest hesitation and frown. “I arrived just last night on the train to replace Mr. Jordaine whoe has been called back to Genua to deal with some urgent family business.”

“Oh, I see,” said Celine as she allowed herself to be led into a large office, lined with bookshelves and with a set of huge windows that looked out on the street from behind a massive oak desk.

“May I get you some tea?” inquired Mrs. Sparrow.

“Please,” replied Celine who shivered in her slightly damp clothing as the borrowed coat had not been terribly waterproof.

Mrs. Sparrow bowed and returned a few minutes later with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits on a tray. She poured Celine a cup and then excused herself, saying she needed to check on the Ambassador, once again assuring Celine she wouldn’t have long to wait. Celine smiled her thanks, took a sip of the tea and settled back in the comfortable chair to wait.

* * *

Celine woke up and found she was no longer in the comfortable chair or even in the office. There was a dull throbbing in her head and when she went to rub it with a hand, she found she couldn’t move the hand. It took a few seconds for her fuzzy brain to sort out things as best it could. She couldn’t move her hands because she was strung up by them by ropes affixed to something over her head. Looking down, her feet were also tied by ropes to iron rings in the floor. Whoever had done this hadn’t wanted a very scared Celine kicking up a fuss.

“Oh, you are awake at last,” said a female voice.

Celine watched the dark haired woman who had Welcomed her and gave her what had apparently been drugged tea walk into the light of a nearby torch. She was no longer wearing the rather drab dress Celine had last seen her in, but was dressed in a rather skin tight and provocative black outfit. “You are undoubtably asking that eternal question that people ask when they awake in a situation such as this, which is ‘where are you’,” and so I shall tell you that you are in the basement of the Embassy. I thought I would have to bring more props of my own, but it seems those long ago owners had some interesting ideas when it came to recreation and disciplining the staff.”

“I take it you are not Mrs. Sparrow?” Celine ventured.

“There is no such person, I am afraid,” said the woman. “My real name is Mrs. Gloria Mountaine of the Assassin’s Guild.”

“You will pardon me if I don’t feel reassured by that information,” replied Celine. “It probably means you don’t plan for me to live long enough to tell anyone I take it?”

“That is indeed the case,” said Mrs. Mountaine. “It is a pleasure to meet someone who understands the necessities of life.”

“I can’t say it is a pleasure,” countered Celine. “A couple of questions first if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all my dear, go ahead and ask,” replied Mrs. Mountaine with the smile of a tigress who has spotted a gazelle with a broken leg and knows that this time the stupid bugger won’t run away giving it the finger.

“Question One. What happened to the Ambassador and his staff?” asked Celine.

“Oh, just tied up at the present,” answered Mrs. Mountaine, “but I am afraid they will need a more permanent disposition before I leave. Slightly regrettable, but I can’t leave any witnesses. Genua will likely be a bit annoyed about their ambassador and his assistant, but the Patrician can quite truthfully claim he had no part n it. As for the cook and the maid, they are nobodies and won’t be missed.”

“Nobody is a nobody,” snapped Celine. “They could have husbands or children or friends you know.”

Mrs. Mountaine blinked in surprise at the vehemence of the girl’s words. “The city has a million more like them,” she said with a shrug. “What was your other question?”

That isn’t true, raged Celine to herself, but knew it was pointless to argue with this woman for whom only the rich and powerful mattered. Celine could remember many times when someone had come into her parent’s fish and chips shop down on their luck and unable to afford to pay and her father or mother had sent them off with a hot meal anyway. Sometimes those people came back later when they had a little money and paid and sometimes they didn’t. “Question 2,” said Celine getting her anger under control as her fear fought for dominance among her emotions. “I thought you assassins just killed people and were gone. Why am I still alive?”

“Oh, most of the guild members believe in an expedient kill,” said Mrs. Mountaine as she took a large and very sharp looking knife out of a sheath on her belt and held it up so the edge gleamed in the torchlight. “I prefer to play with my food a bit first.”

“Food?: gulped Celine who decided she hadn’t been afraid enough.

“Oh that part is a metaphor,” smiled Mrs. Mountaine. “I know I remind some people of a big cat you see and cats like to play with their food. I have found that line really scares my victims. I find fear to be very intoxicating.”

“I suppose some of your victims have called you a sick bitch?” ventured Celine.

“They have,” agreed Mrs. Mountaine, but not after I cut their tongues out. After that, they could only think of it and I made sure they had a long time to think it. Now, I have answered your questions and it is time to get down to the fun.” Mrs. Mountaine began to slowly stalk towards the terrified Celine who tugged violently and uselessly at the ropes. In her struggles, the dice the lady goddess had given her fell out of her pocket and landed on the floor between the two women. They both looked down out of reflex and saw a pair of eights staring up at them.

“That’s not possible,” said Mrs. Mountaine who stopped her advance and looked up into Celine’s eyes.

That’s when the earthquake struck. At least later, they said it was an earthquake, but no one could quite explain why the embassy was the only building in the city that shook. The shaking was quite violent and parts of the ceiling and walls began to fall in large chunks of wood, cement and brick. Mrs. Mountaine nimbly dodged a large chunk and Celine felt the ropes holding her arms slacken as whatever they had been attached to fell in a crash that just missed her by inches. Coughing in the dust that had been generated, Celine bent down and blindly fumbled with the ropes holding her feet. Suddenly Mrs. Mountaine appeared out of the dust and swung her knife at Celine who ducked under the slash and the assassin went tumbling off balance over top of her. Celine took the breather from attack to free her legs and then whirled to face the assassin as she sprang lithely back to her feet in one smooth cat like motion. Before the black clad woman could attack again, however, there was another violent shaking and a large hole opened up in the floor.

Celine looked down into the hole which didn’t appear to go any deeper than another level down. They said Ankh-Morpork was built on Ankh-Morpork and over the centuries the residents had just closed off flooded basements and built another level up. Mrs. Mountaine was between Celine and the stairs and as the torches guttered and went out, Celine decided the unknown was better than the known and jumped down into the hole.

“Oh, I love it when they run,” laughed Mrs. Mountaine and then she too dived into the hole and darkness swallowed them both up.

* * *

“Well?” demanded Commander Vimes impatiently.

“Well Commander, I have only been examining this machine for about a minute and you are blocking my light,” snapped Mr. Pony as he looked up from the insides of one of the casino game machines that had “accidently” fallen off a cart and which the Watch was now examining in an attempt to learn who the owner was, so it could be returned to them. The fact that the name of the casino was clearly printed on the boxes themselves was not relevant since Vimes could always argue they were just dumb coppers and had somehow overlooked that bit of obvious information in the zealous pursuit of their duty.

Vimes had been surprised when Miss Dearheart had recommended Mr. Pony for the job he had described instead of one of the younger and more eager men or women who designed machines for the Grand Trunk.

“Pony is a bit of a plodder,” Miss Dearheart had admitted, “but he has the most experience and while it might take him a bit longer to get to the finish line, he tends to get there in one piece. We’ve had our share of young hotshots who sneered at Pony and they did get to the finish line first, but in multiple pieces, often literally. Pony thinks about things like safety as being important.”

With those words ringing in his mind, Vimes tried to reign in his impatience. He wanted the machines inspected, repacked and sent back to the casino by his dedicated officers who had found them after they fell off a cart during a traffic jam before Honest Truman could get too suspicious.

“Hmm, very clever,” said Pony after another few minutes, but he waved Vimes away as he turned to look at the second machine

“So, are they rigged?” Vimes demanded after another few minutes, unable to contain himself any longer.

“Definitely,” replied Pony straightening up. He pointed to three little switches under the rim of the first machine which was one of the “match the pictures” type. “Using these switches, someone could make any pattern they want come up. I suspect having an operator hanging around all the time would make someone suspicious, so there is a second trick being used. The gears are set so the winning combinations will come up less likely, about ten percent I would guess. The odds are of course always in favour of the house or a casino wouldn’t make any money, but this hedges the bet just a bit more.”

“What about the other machine?” asked Vimes gesturing to the coloured wheel of the Order Wheel.

Pony snorted. ”I’m not sure they really needed to do much since it is a Johnson design after all. Still, it has the same kinds of switches,” and he showed these to Vimes, “which should make it even easier to cheat since this type of machine will always have an operator.”

“Thank you very much Mr. Pony,” said Vimes shaking the engineer’s hand. “Can you please write that up in a report for me to give the Patrician?” Pony said he would be glad to and Vimes began to rub his hands together in anticipation of his next meeting with the Patrician and Mr. Truman. Besides Pony’s report, he had one from Moist and unexpectedly Ridcully had brought one from Ponder Stibbons and his thinking machine. The latter had been mainly a bunch of numbers about things like probability that Vimes didn’t claim to understand, but he rather suspected the Patrician would.

* * *

The drop was a little farther than Celine had estimated and it ended with a splash. She landed on her hands and knees in about a foot of water, or mostly water and she didn’t care to speculate about the liquid’s other components. Celine scrambled quickly to her feet and stumbled off into the darkness, afraid Mrs. Mountaine would simply land on top of her and end the chase quickly and lethally. She shoved the lady goddess’s dice back into a pocket, not even remembering having scooped them up from the floor, but since she had them, she must have done so. A few seconds later, Celine heard a splash behind her and knew her hunter had arrived.

“Run run run, little mouse,” sang out Mrs. Mountaine cheerfully. “The big bad kitty is coming for you, so scurry away as fast as you can.”

They really should have a sanity test for people joining the Assassin’s Guild, thought Celine as she blundered along in the darkness. She had initially seemed to have landed in some kind of room, but by sheer chance had blundered into an exit and what she was in now seemed more like a wide corridor. As she continued along, Celine became aware that either her eyes were adapting to the dark better than she had expected, or there was some faint source of light down here. It wasn’t daylight, but there did seem to be a slight glow given off by some of the things growing down here. Moss and fungi, she wondered, having grown up in a city and not a forest or bog. Celine knew trees were those tall things that sometimes got hit by lightning and birds built nests in, but that was about the extent of her knowledge of the plant kingdom.

Several times, Celine saw smaller passages leading off from this seemingly main route, but elected to stay on it. It would probably make it easier for Mrs. Mountaine to track her, but those side passages could more likely lead to dead ends where she would be trapped. Also, the level of the water seemed to be rising and she wondered if the rain in the outside world had increased. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the several water marks on the walls were much higher and some above her head. Celine decided she needed to find a way back up to higher ground as soon as possible.

* * *

“What is the situation Constable?” asked Carrot as he approached the house across the street from the Genuan embassy with Angua beside him. The rain was coming down much heavier now and poured off their oilskin cloaks.

Any other constable would probably have been less than pleased to have been assigned stake-out duty on the embassy, but Constable Downspout was a gargoyle, a type of troll according to Ponder Stibbons classification system. It wasn’t clear what the trolls and gargoyles thought of this evolutionary partnering. Most trolls didn’t care much about anything they couldn’t beat with a club and gargoyles rarely spoke, or when they did it took a lot of concentration to understand them as their jaws didn’t move to help shape sound.

“grl wnt n tw hrs g, nt cm ut yet,” reported Constable Downspout who had laboriously crawled down from the roof top to just above Carrot’s head to make the vowel depleted report.

“I don’t like that,” said Carrot glancing at Angua who was trying her best not to think of the rain as a s h o w e r or b a t h as a full moon was rapidly approaching.

“The Ambassador might just be very sociable,” replied Angua. “He could have invited her to stay for lunch with the weather being so bad.”

Carrot was about to reply when they felt the ground tremble under their feet. “Earthquake,” exclaimed Carrot as he looked around, but could see only the embassy shaking and none of the other houses on the street. If they hadn’t been this close, they probably would never have noticed it at all, he realized. “I think we need to make some enquiries at the embassy,” said Carrot. “We at least now have an excuse to check and see if they are alright and whether they require any assistance.”

The two watchmen crossed the street and rang the embassy doorbell, but after five minutes of waiting, there was still no sign of anyone coming to answer the door. Perhaps patrolling with Nobby early in his career had left at least some impression on Carrot as he tried the doorknob and found it locked. Nobby had specialized in finding unlocked shop doors and mysteriously an item or two would have vanished before the shopkeeper could be summoned to lock his or her door. “I think we need to get inside there,” declared Carrot with a frown.

“That’s not a good idea,” pointed out Angua. “An embassy is considered foreign soil and we have no authority to go in there.”

“Ankh-Morpork statute #409, Paragraph 12. Clause 4,” said Carrot.

“Meaning?” asked Angua with a sigh. “not all of us have memorized every word of every law passed in this city for the last five hundred years.”

“In times of a natural disaster, a city guard or their designated representatives can enter a foreign embassy to render assistance,” translated Carrot. “I am sure it was what Commander Vimes applied when he rushed in to help when the Klatchian Embassy was on fire that one time.”

“No, he didn’t,” countered Angua. “He saw someone in danger and he didn’t give a damn about the diplomatic niceties.”

“Still it is a recent precedent,” said Carrot and he turned and applied a large booted foot to the door which was only solid oak and so had no chance of resisting. Inside, they found everything was a mess with paintings fallen off walls, furniture overturned and broken glass underfoot where things like vases hadn’t survived the fall to a hard floor. It took the pair some time to search the large three story house, but they eventually found the Ambassador and his assistant tied up in one of the upper bedrooms and then the cook and the maid also trussed up in the kitchen. It took a few more minutes to get a coherent story out of the frightened people about a crazy woman dressed in black who had attacked and tied them up. Angua’s nose could detect the fact that the woman had been there, but was no longer present and following the scent, she led Carrot down into the basement where they found the ropes and the hole in the floor. Looking down, they saw water flowing through a flooded room.

“If they went down there, they better have found a way back up by now,” said Angua as they looked at the now underground river.

** *

It lay half submerged in the water, mimicking a log with only the glow from its eyes to indicate it was something else entirely. The log trick wasn’t really needed or much useful here in these tunnels under the city, but that trick had served its kind so well in the past that it was hard to give up. The creature suddenly sensed life and movement in its domain and its eyes opened. It was the merest whisper of sound, the slightest disturbance of the water, so the food was not close at hand. Nourishment was hard to come by down here in the darkness, but then again it had little competition when prey did show up. The creature’s long, powerful tail swept from side to side and it pushed off into the water to investigate. The water was beginning to rise and that was fine with it as it made the hunting easier. It couldn’t remember when it had come to these tunnels or why. That had been a long time ago. Perhaps there had been a flood that had washed it in here and it had decided to stay. It didn’t really matter to the creature whose brain was almost totally focussed on hunting and food. Now and then, it caught one of those strange creatures that walked upright on two legs and it smiled at the thought of another such intruder in its domain. There was a lot of good eating on those creatures and one could keep it going for months.

* * *

Celine stumbled to a halt with the water now past her knees. The wide corridor she had been in split into three branches and she tried to figure out which way to go. The left passage seemed to slope down a bit, the middle one appeared to be level and the righthand one sloped up a bit. The latter seemed like her best bet to get clear of the water, but that would probably occur to the insane woman stalking her. As if on cue, Celine heard Mrs. Mountaine’s voice echo through the darkness behind her.

“Yoo hoo little mouse, I am coming for you.”

Well, if worse comes to worst, I can swim pretty good, thought Celine and took the lefthand branch.

* * *

Celine had not gone far along her chosen route when she began to doubt the wisdom of her choice. The water continued to rise and it was now close to her waist, but she still didn’t fancy going back and trying another one of the passages with at least a 50-50 chance of running into Mrs. Mountaine. The passage opened up into a wider area, perhaps another room and water was gushing in from two side passages. The water level didn’t seem to be rising any higher though and Celine thought that might indicate there was a drain somewhere below that was taking the water away almost as fast as it poured in. Peering across the small lake, Celine thought she saw what looked like a dry area sloping up steeply. Celine cautiously felt ahead with her feet and there was indeed a sudden drop-off where the floor opened up to another level below. Taking a deep breath, the redhead struck out and started swimming for the opposite side. She was halfway there when she got the creepy feeling that she was not alone in the water and began to swim faster. With a sigh of relief, Celine reached the slime covered stones sloping up from the pool and lay panting on the ground for several minutes to try and recover. She was sure that something had brushed against her leg during those last few strokes. Likely it had just been some piece of flotsam, but in the dark water, her imagination had given it rows of large and sharp teeth.

“Oh my, you do look like you had a bit of a scare dear.”

Celine’s eyes flew open and she found herself staring up into the manic grin of Mrs. Mountaine who was still holding that nasty looking knife. “What? How did you?” Celine scrambled to her feet to face the woman who made no move to attack since she was having too much fun watching Celine’s reaction.

“A bit of bad luck for you I am afraid,” said Mrs. Mountaine. “I didn’t know which of those three branches you took, so I took the righthand one that led up. It turns out all three passages end up at another common point, so I just followed one back and found you. Isn’t that precious?”

“I am laughing my guts out on the inside,” replied Celine who began to try and edge around the assassin and make a run for it. Surprisingly, Mrs. Mountaine didn’t seem to care, which Celine realized was because that would just prolong the chase and give her more fun. Their positions were almost reversed with Mrs. Mountaine’s back to the pool that Celine had swum across when Celine saw something large with glowing eyes emerge from the pool behind the other woman.

“Look out!” Celine yelled on instinct and one of her hands came up to point behind the woman in black.

“Now that is a very old trick dear …,” began Mrs. Mountaine and then the look of horror on Celine’s face registered with her and she spun around with her knife raised. She never got a chance to use it as large jaws with rows of sharp teeth closed around her head and upper torso and she was pulled screaming back into the water. Celine’s near hysterical reaction as she backed further away from the pool was that she hadn’t imagined nearly enough teeth on what had brushed by her in the water.

* * *

“What is that thing and what is it doing?” asked Mrs. Mountaine as she stood on the floor of the pool.

Death peered at the creature and blue fire glowed in his eye sockets. “I BELIEVE IT JUST ATE YOUR HEAD AND ONE ARM AND IS BURYING THE REST OF YOU IN THE MUD FOR LATER MEALS.”

“I wish I hadn’t lived to see that,” said Mrs. Mountaine.

“THEN I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS FOR YOU,” smiled Death, though he was at a severe disadvantage in expressing any other emotions.

“What was it?” repeated Mrs. Mountaine. “I thought I was fast, but that thing was much, much faster.”

Death took another look at the creature which was still happily chewing. “IT IS EITHER A CROCODILE OR AN ALLIGATOR, BUT I ALWAYS FORGET WHICH IS WHICH. ARE THE ALLIGATORS THE ONES WITH THE POINTY NOSES OR ARE THOSE CROCODILES?”

“I don’t remember either,” said Mrs. Mountaine. “I took the elective on the history of torture instead of Biology.”

“IF IT IS OF ANY COMFORT, I DOUBT THE BIOLOGY CLASSES WOULD HAVE HELPED,” intoned Death. “THE CREATURE WAS ALSO QUITE MUTATED I BELIEVE SINCE I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE STAND ON ITS HIND LEGS LIKE THAT ONE DID. IT IS ALL THE MAGIC FROM THE UNIVERSITY I FEAR WASHING DOWN HERE.” Death waited to see if the former assassin had anything more to say and when she didn’t, he swung his scythe and severed the blue line that still connected the woman to her former body. Mrs. Mountaine seemed to look relieved to be away from there for some reason as she began to fade and then was gone to whatever happened to those who have killed more people than most people have gone out on a date with.

The creature chewed, swallowed and burped contentedly as it thought about how many future meals it had in its larder. Life was indeed good.

* * *

Vimes stood at attention and stared at a point just over the Patrician’s left ear as Lord Vetinari read the reports that the commander had just given him from Moist Von Lipwig, Mr. Pony and Ponder Stibbons. “This seems very conclusive don’t you think?” said the Patrician as he leaned back in his chair and regarded Vimes.

“Yes sir,” agreed Vimes. “May I say sir that you don’t seem overly surprised.”

“Let’s just say I had some reports from other cities where Mr. Truman has operated that made me suspicious,” replied the Patrician.

“Yet, you still allowed him to open his damn casino and swindle people,” grated Vimes, momentarily shifting his gaze to the Patrician’s face and then returning it quickly to its neutral position.

“I am not a dictator Commander,” said Lord Vetinari and then paused as a coughing fit seemed to envelop the Watch Commander. “Are you alright Commander? I can ask Drumknot to get you a glass of water if you like.”

“No sir, that won’t be necessary,” managed Vimes. “I must just have swallowed the wrong way.”

“Indeed,” said the Patrician. “As I was saying, not being a dictator,” and he paused for a heartbeat in case of a repeat accident then continued when none was forthcoming, “I had to acquiesce to the demands of the various guilds who saw a casino as a positive economic influence in the city. Actually, it still could be if operated properly and fairly.”

“If you say so sir,” replied Vimes and there was no question of the doubt in his mind about that last statement. “Should I have Mr. Truman arrested and thrown in the Tanty?”

“Not immediately,” said the Patrician. “I have invited him to meet with me to discuss certain important matters and his future will depend somewhat on his reaction to those matters,” and Vetinari indicated the reports on his desk. “In addition, I would like to borrow back Lance-Constable Pessimal to review the casino books.”

“And you decry all the people who think you are evil,” grinned Vimes despite himself. Lance-Constable A.E. Pessimal was a small man with the heart of a lion. It wasn’t a combination that promised to make for a long lifetime, but terriers all over the world made it work for them and the other members of the Watch kept a special protective eye on Lance-Constable Pessimal. The Patrician had initially sent A.E,, Pessimal as a civilian inspector to bedevil Vimes, or so the commander believed, but the small man had surprised them both by wanting to make the Watch his full time profession. Mainly he terrorized criminals with his pencil and an abacus of his own design, but on his last street patrol Lance-Constable Pessimal had single handedly charged a street gang that were accosting one of the palace maids on her way home late at night. Things might have gone bad for A.E Pessimal except Sergeant Detritus had been within whistle range. The six would be rapists were now recovered enough from their wounds to await trial in a regular jail cell and were claiming police brutality, though oddly enough it was regarding the bite marks from A.E. Pessimal rather than the broken bones from Detritus. Vimes was pretty sure their protests were pointless as the Patrician was merely waiting for their casts to be removed and that they could walk without crutches before being introduced to Mr. Trooper. Hanging someone who was in such poor health just didn’t look good in Vetinari’s opinion.

“I believe in using all the weapons at my disposal,” replied Lord Vetinari without a trace of a smile. “One other matter Commander,” the Patrician went on. “I have had a complaint about you from Lord Downey of the Assassin’s Guild. He claims you threatened to break every bone in his hand. Would you care to explain that?”

“I was feeling in a good mood sir,” responded Vimes once more assuming his rigid attention and not meeting the Patrician’s eyes directly.

“He didn’t seem to notice your good spirits Vimes,” said the Patrician sharply.

“If I had been in a bad mood, I would have threatened to break every bone in his useless body sir,” replied Vimes woodenly.

“You are aware the Assassin’s Guild and by default, their actions, are legal in Ankh-Morpork?” asked the Patrician, though he already knew the answer to the question.

“Yes sir, so you have informed me on numerous occasions sir” agreed Vimes.

Vetinari sighed. “Very well Commander, since you did not in fact carry out your threat, we will consider it to be only hypothetical. Is there any new information regarding the young woman who was I take it at the heart of your hypothetical discussion with Lord Downey?”

Vimes did his best not to blink, but knew he had given himself away. As far as he knew, he had never discussed this reason for visiting Lord Downey and he knew the head of the Assassin’s Guild would never discuss the details of a contract, so how in the hells had Vetinari found out about that he wondered. “Captains Carrot and Angua were unable to follow her into the underground passages due to the rapidly rising water. At this point, we are not sure if she made it out safely or not. I have alerted all the Watch stations to be on the lookout for her.”

“I see,” replied the Patrician. “One reason I am inclined to overlook your hypothetical discussion with Lord Downey and also the reason he is not pursuing the matter more forcefully is that Mrs. Mountaine’s actions were not in keeping with the traditions of the guild.”

“Yes, murder is fine, but torture is just a bit over the line,” agreed Vimes sarcastically. “She also had the terrible bad manners of threatening someone other than the person she had been contracted to kill. Personally, I would like to take every graduate of that damned place and hang them up in Sator Square.”

“Ahem,” coughed the Patrician softly.

“Present company excluded of course,” agreed Vimes magnanimously as the Patrician was himself a graduate of the Assassin’s Guild, and rumoured to still have the highest kill total for a student to this day.

* * *

Honest was doing his best not to panic and not succeeding very well. First, he had been called in by that damned pompous jackass Lord Vetinari who had sprung reports on him about the games at the casino being rigged. Honest had tried to bluff his way through the reports, but the Patrician wasn’t having any of it. The casino owner knew he should have been more suspicious when the Watch turned up with the two “missing” crates that had fallen off the cart en route from the train to the casino, but everyone knew coppers were stupid and so he hadn’t worried. Of course he had heard about the great Commander Vimes, but Honest had assumed it had all been hyperbole and propaganda. He had tried to explain how the switches on the machines were only for diagnostic and testing purposes, but that hadn’t washed with Vetinari. Even more surprising had been the analysis of how the cards had been marked. Whoever had done that report for the Patrician knew more about marking cards than Honest did and Honest had thought he knew more than anyone alive. The people in this damned city were just too bloody smart.

Vetinari then had the nerve to suggest that Honest could continue operating the casino, but without the rigged machines and marked cards. The fairness of the games would also be assured via city inspection. Honest had managed to delay replying to that insulting decree or offer and Vetinari had yielded only to spring his next surprise on him. That surprise had been in the form of the annoying little man called A.E. Pessimal who was also apparently a Lance-Constable in the forever to be damned Watch. Honest had started to laugh when Vetinari told him this, but the man had been serious and had sent the little shrimp back to the casino with him to examine the books. Well, Honest had thought good luck to you and given the man the books to look at, figuring that would keep him out of is hair for several days at least. Within an hour, however, A.E. Pessimal had been back in his office asking where the real books were. Honest had done his best to plead ignorance of any such financial skullduggery, but the little pest wouldn’t buy it. He had finally left with a snort and a contemptuous glare at Snap, Crackle and Pop with the cooked books and said he would report to Vetinari.

It was all coming apart at the seams. At least the red haired girl seemed to be dead and likely so was the second assassin from what Lord Downey had told him. At least, no one had seen either of them for over a day now and there was no reason for an assassin to lay low after a job. Hired murder was legal in Ankh-Morpork and the assassin would normally have appeared promptly to claim their money, but there had been no sign of this Mrs. Mountaine who had been so highly recommended and so damn expensive.

Honest knew it would only be a matter of time before he got another insulting summons from Vetinari and he needed to decide what to do. He did have a contingency plan, but he hadn’t expected to need it this soon, if ever. It was a bold stroke and a gamble, but it was starting to look like it might be his only hope. He considered things for a few more minutes and then began to issue instructions to Snap, Crackle and Pop. The casino should be ready to reopen tomorrow and soon after that, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything Lord Vetinari wanted.

* * *

Celine had lost track of how long she had been wandering the tunnels under Ankh—Morpork. She was cold, tired and hungry to the point that she was thinking if she got out of these tunnels alive, she would get the hell out of this damned city as soon as she could. That mental resolution didn’t seem to be having any effect and she continued to wander in the mostly darkness for several more hours after making it. Celine thought it might just be her imagination at work, but her lack of success seemed somehow tied to that promise.

“Fine, I rescind that idea totally,” she yelled aloud and heard her voice echo back from the walls around her. A short time later, Celine came to yet another branch point and stopped to pull the seemingly magic dice from her pocket. She resolved to roll the dice for each branch she came to and to take the one that had the higher roll. It might be a stupid thing to do, but her current aimless wandering was not doing any good and if she was supposed to be an avatar of the lady then it seemed to behoove her to use the tools of her goddess. The left passage rolled a three when the dice were added together and the right passage scored a ten. “Right it is then,” muttered Celine and took that passage. She repeated this selection process three more times and found herself looking upward at a circular grate above which the light seemed slightly brighter.

The grating was out of Celine’s reach, but there was enough debris near-by that she was able to construct a somewhat shaky platform that allowed her to reach the grating. Now that she could get a better look, the grating seemed to open into a cellar that was currently being used. The purpose of the grating itself, seemed to be mainly for cleaning convenience. The basement floor could be either swept or hosed down and the debris pushed through the grating to the unused level below.

When Celine pushed on the grating, she found it swung upwards easily and she started to hoist herself out of the hole. It wasn’t a very big hole, so when her head and shoulders were through it, she found herself stuck. Celine rolled her eyes and remembered the Patrician’s knowledge of her dress measurements, thinking the man would be amused by her predicament. In fact, her sum total of experience with the male gender suggested the vast majority of them would be amused as to how she was stuck. Taking a deep breath, Celine wiggled and thrust herself upwards with her arms and managed to get her chest through the tight opening with only a few painful “yips” and some creative swearing. Celine’s waist cleared the opening and once more she found herself stuck as her hips wedged tight in the opening. Once more, Celine could see the Patrician and his damned little smile as she tried to free herself. She was just thinking that she would spend the rest of her probably not very long life stuck like this when something gave way and she toppled through the opening to collapse on the basement floor. From the feelings of pain, the something that had given way had been a couple layers of her skin.

Celine lay on the floor resting for a few minutes and looking around as she did so. The basement seemed mainly used for storage and was littered with wooden boxes of various sizes, some of them which had been opened and others that appeared to still be sealed shut. That wasn’t exactly interesting to Celine or relevant to her needs. Just being able to lie there and rest helped a bit, but she was still starving and soaked through and through. She lifted an arm and took a sniff and decided not to repeat that experiment for a while. Finally, when no magic fairies appeared with food and clean, dry clothes, Celine struggled to her feet and began to look for a way out of the basement.

The exhausted woman found a set of wooden stairs going up and made it to the top where she cracked open a door and peered out. She had no intention of trespassing, but the owner of this building might not be inclined to believe her, so Celine was planning on sneaking out without anyone seeing her if that was possible. If she was seen, then she would just run like hell and considering her current mud and slime covered condition, the odds of anyone recognizing her were next to nil.

“Hey lady, how is it going?”

Cecile stumbled back from the door which had seemed to lead into a delivery area outside an empty kitchen.

“Down here,” said the voice patiently and Celine looked down to see the mongrel dog she had seen before with the beggars. “Woof,” it said helpfully and wagged its tail remnant’s.

“I still don’t believe a dog can talk,” Celine said, but assuming I do for the moment, how could you possibly have recognized me in the state I’m in.”

“You can’t fool this nose,” said Gaspode with a yawn that spread halitosis for a mile.

“Ok, I admit to being me,” agreed Celine. “What is this place and why are you here?”

“Meaning why aren’t people yelling and screaming about why there is a smelly dog in their precious kitchen?” asked Gaspode bitterly. “Well, the answer is this is the kitchen area for the casino which isn’t going to reopen until tomorrow, so there is no one here. I was just scouting the place for future reference you might say.”

Celine translated that mentally into holding it hostage until they gave him some food to leave or at least threw something edible at him which he could grab and run away with, but then the bit about it being the casino hit her. What were the odds that of all the places she would find to surface from the underground tunnels that it would be in the basement of the casino. Pretty damn good she decided if she was using the dice from the lady goddess to guide her.

“Are there lots of people about?” she asked.

“Just the head honcho and his trio of thugs, none of whom are dog lovers let me tell you,” replied Gaspode as he began to scratch industriously at a really itchy spot near his neck with a hind leg.

“Where are they?” hissed Celine. “can I sneak out the back way without being seen?”

“Probably not unless you are a dog and then you will most likely get a stone thrown at you,” replied Gaspode reproachfully. “They are all keyed up because of the explosives.”

“That’s too bad,” began Celine before her tired brain could come up with a waving hand to get her attention and focus on the bit about explosives. “Um, what explosives?” she asked sharply.

“A whole shi …, er bunch of the black powder stuff they use in mines,” replied Gaspode. “From what I overheard, they are loading it in a hay wagon which they intend to park outside the palace and blow said palace and Lord Vetinari into little bitty pieces, so as they can take over the city.”

“That’s horrible, and incredibly stupid,” Celine half shouted and then clapped a hand over her own mouth. “Even if it works, the Watch isn’t going to just let them get away with it. I’ve met Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot and that just isn’t going to happen.”

“I never said it was a good plan,” replied Gaspode with a snicker. “The Patrician is getting ready to nab them and toss them in jail, so they aren’t thinking real good, desperation does that to you.”

“Why aren’t you running off to warn people?” demanded Celine hotly.

“Why should I care who runs this city?” replied Gaspode. “Do any of those bastards care about what happens to us poor little cute dogs?” He saw Celine arch an eyebrow and sighed. “Yeah, I know cute hasn’t been anything but a distant memory for a lot of years. The point is that whoever is in charge doesn’t care about us little people and little dogs,” he added. “You’ve seen Ron and the others. Does it look like anyone in authority cares? Ok, maybe Captain Carrot since he seems to care about everyone, but he is awful busy trying not to be in charge.”

“Well, if everyone stops caring it will be a …,” Celine faltered as she looked for words.

“A dog eat dog world?” suggested Gaspode.

“Something like that, yes,” agreed Celine. “I’ve got to warn the Patrician and Commander Vimes. If they are all out back, then maybe I can sneak out the front.”

“Worth a shot,” agreed Gaspode, but before Celine could act on this, a large hand shoved open the door and grabbed her. Celine found herself looking into the angry face of Snap who looked like something in him had snapped. “Mr. Truman is going to be real happy to see you,” he snarled and then winced and looked down at where a mangy dog was trying to gnaw at his ankle with half rotted teeth. With a better growl than Gaspode could have managed, the large man shook his leg and sent Gaspode flying down the basement stairs and slammed the door closed.

“Look what I found,” proclaimed Snap as he dragged a struggling Celine after him into the open area behind the casino where Crackle and Pop were loading the last barrels of black powder into a large cart and covering them with hay.

“Perfect,” crowed Honest. “We can eliminate all our problems at once. “I have a meeting in an our with Lord Vetinari and I am betting Commander Vimes will be there to gloat. Tie and gag the bitch up and put her in the cart with the powder.”

Celine opened her mouth to scream for help, but Snap gave her a punch in the back of her head and she fell to the ground unconscious. When she woke up, she found her mouth gagged and her hands and feet tied tightly together so she couldn’t move. She was nestled in the middle of the barrels of powder and Honest was putting some weird looking device down beside her. He saw Celine was awake and looking at the device causing him to provide the required gloating exposition.

“No more sinister burning fuses that people can smell and easily put out,” smirked Honest. “This is the latest in clockwork designs,” and he indicated a series of gears , wires and other fiddly bits by opening a door on the device. When he closed the door, Celine now saw there were some numbers visible that reminded her of the gambling machines in the casino. “When this counts down to zero,” went on Honest, “it will create a little spark which will set off a small amount of the powder which in turn will trigger the rest of the powder in the cart. Goodbye palace, goodbye Vetinari, goodbye Vimes and say hello to the new ruler of Ankh-Morpork! You of course will be in little pieces along with the rest, but perhaps you won’t be forgotten. I will need someone to blame for the cowardly deed.”

“mmmmmmhhhh,” was all Celine could manage through her gag.

“Oh, I assume that is the standard bit about not getting away with this,” laughed Honest. “Who knows, you might be right, but I don’t have anything to lose. I am going all in on this plan. I also want to thank you for your little gift to me.”

“Mmmmhhh?” asked Celine in frustration.

Honest held up the dice the lady goddess had given her. “I found these on you when we searched you. I think they shall be my lucky dice from now on.” With another laugh, Honest made an adjustment to the device which started an ominous ticking sound and got off the cart. Celine’s view of the world was then cut off as someone began to shovel hay over her and the device.

* * *

“I wasn’t told anything about this,” said Sergeant Volker Fritz of the palace guard as he glared at the man driving the wagon of hay. Volker resented anything that took away from what he considered the most important part of his job, namely hanging around Maria, one of the palace maids. That normally enjoyable activity had been somewhat ruined in the last few weeks by having to listen to Maria gushing about how courageous the shrimp from the Watch had been. Just because he had rushed in to defend her when she had been accosted on the way home by half a dozen men was no reason to make a hero out of him. It had hardly been a smart thing to do on his part, thought Volker since as nice as Maria was, there were still plenty of aphids left in the trees.

“Not my problem,” replied Honest as he pulled the straw hat further down over his face to try and hide his features. He would rather have delegated this job to Snap, Crackle and Pop, but frankly they weren’t the brightest of candles and you never knew when you would run into an unforeseen situation such as a palace guard sneaking out back to have a quick smoke when he should be on duty inside. Also, there were a few final adjustments to be made on the timing device and Honest didn’t trust anyone but himself to do that. “All I know is I was told to bring a wagonload of hay over to the palace for some horses that are coming with important visitors tomorrow. That cheapskate Vetinari even wanted a discount, so I ain’t making anything on this job. I’ve got kids and a wife to feed and my mother-in-law moved in last month and is driving me nuts, so getting away from her to do this delivery is the only good thing about it.”

“Cry me a moat,” growled Volker. “Wait here while I go find someone who knows what the hell I am supposed to do with the hay.” Volker planned to let the hayseed, and he chuckled at his own brilliance, sit there for a while and stew. Maria was probably cleaning the throne room right about now and she would undoubtably want his company while she worked.

As soon as the idiot guard disappeared back into the palace, Honest slipped off the seat and got into the back of the wagon. He fished around for the device and made a last few adjustments to it before putting it down very carefully. “Just in case you get any heroic ideas,” he told Celine after pulling the hay off her enough so he could talk to her face to face, if anyone tries to move the device now, it is going to trigger the explosion. The same thing will happen if anyone tries to move the cart.”

“Mmmmmmffff,” growled Celine in frustration through her gag, but Honest just laughed and covered her again with hay before strolling away.

* * *

“Our Mr. Truman is running late,” snapped Vimes to Carrot as they sat in the Patrician’s waiting room. “Ten to one, he is doing a runner.”

“I had thought of that sir,” said Carrot, “and have had Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs keeping an eye on the casino.”

“Fred and Nobby,” moaned Vimes and put his face in his hands. “Ye gods man, those two are as obvious as a pile of coal on a new fallen field of snow. And have you seen the size of the goons Truman employs? Putting Fred and Nobby up against that is almost criminal.”

“Yes, I thought so too,” said Carrot calmly. “That’s why I have Angua keeping an eye on Fred and Nobby while they keep an eye on Mr. Truman. He will be so busy watching them watch him, he won’t notice Angua.”

* * *

After watching the casino for a couple of hours and being satisfied that it wasn’t going to skip town, Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs had wandered down the street to a little Curry shop they knew and which gave favourable prices, ie. Free, to coppers who showed their badges and inquired about the last time they had been inspected. Thus it was, they didn’t see Honest leave with his wagon of hay and black powder. Still working at their teeth with toothpicks, the pair returned and out of boredom tried the casino front door and found it still locked.

“What do you reckon we should do Fred?” asked Nobby as he coughed and hacked up a huge gob onto the street too near Fred’s shoes for his comfort.

“I think maybe a couple of senior and experienced officers like us should maybe do some first class detectoring,” replied Colon who tore his gaze off the glob of Nobby’s internal fluids with both difficulty and relief. He had thought he saw things moving around in the liquid and just to be on the safe side, stepped a little further away from Nobby.

“Are you sure that is a good idea Fred?” asked Nobby dubiously. “Captain Carrot just said to keep an eye on things and report back to him if we saw something.”

“It is called using initials Nobby,” said Colon.

“I hear posh people put them on their hankies,” said Nobby.

“I don’t see how you can put something like that on a piece of cotton or silk,” said Colon with a frown.

“You never know what rich people can do Sarge,” pointed out Nobby reasonably. “They ain’t like you and me.”

“That’s because we are eunuch’s,” beamed Fred.

“I thought them was the lucky guys who got to guard the harems of them rich sheiks,” objected Nobby. “And they sing kind of the high notes in choirs.”

“I think that maybe you are confusing some things Nobby,” replied Colon after some lengthy consideration. “What I am suggesting though, is that we wander back of the casino and see if there is anything that needs seeing to.

“I dunno Sarge, I’m not sure Carrot would want us to do that,” said Nobby dubiously.

“Well Carrot isn’t here and I am,” noted Fred. “That makes me the senior officer on the scene and I say we should go look around.”

Nobby nodded unhappily as he had learned from past experience that there was no talking Fred out of sticking out his chest and taking charge when he actually should be in full retreat. The front door of the casino was still locked when Nobby tested it out of reflex and the pair ambled around to the back of the large building. All they found there were a few small barrels and a pile of hay.

“This looks like a clue to my experienced eye,” said Colon tapping the side of his nose.

“Mr. Vimes isn’t too keen on clues sometimes,” said Nobby who lit a cigarette and bent over to examine one of the small barrels. “These contain some kind of black powder Sarge,” he called over to Colon who in his inspection of the hay for clues had stepped in one that he was trying to scrape from the bottom of his boot. Nobby took a last puff on his wretched roll-up and tossed it away, where it bounced off one of the barrels and fell to the ground.

“This seems to be our day for catching intruders, said a gravelly male voice and Fred and Nobby spun around to see the large figures of Snap, Crackle and Pop stepping out of the rear casino door and advancing on them, each carrying a large piece of pipe with nails hammered in to give it a little more menace.

“City Watch,” snapped Sergeant Colon automatically as he held out his badge as proof. It might have been a more effective deterrent if not for the quiver in his voice and the fact he was having problems taking his eyes off those pipes.

“So what?” sneered Crackle. “In another hour or so, the Watch isn’t going to mean beans and even if it survives, well we can just say it was a big misunderstanding. I mean you can probably get fake badges like that in a dozen shops in this city, though why anyone would want to impersonate a bunch of bungling fools is beyond me.”

“You really don’t want to do this,” said Fred as he fumbled to draw his sword.

“Yeah, we do,” laughed Pop. “What’s the worst that can happen? We get your blood all over our weapons maybe?”

I think you should listen to Sergeant Colon,” said Nobby whose knees had begun to shake, but now he brightened up and fished behind his other ear for a new cigarette.

“Yeah?” challenged Snap. “Give me one good reason why I should do that?”

“She’s standing right behind you,” said Nobby calmly with a sly little smile.

“She?” repeated Crackle. “Do we look like we are going to be afraid of some dumb bimbo copper?”

Angua growled.

“Not a good choice of words there,” observed Colon as he sheathed his sword and followed Nobby over to lean against a wall to share a smoke.

When the whimpering died down to a bubbling gurgle, Angua sniffed around the place where the wagon had been and backtracked into the casino. And to the closed cellar door. She regarded the paw unfriendly doorknob with a mental sigh and glanced around to make sure Fred and Nobby were still outside tying up the three goons. She had hardly hurt the big babies at all and the main danger had been to her as she had to avoid being fallen on when they fainted. Angua concentrated and for a brief few seconds, there was a naked woman crouching by the door with a hand to operate the knob. The door swung open and Gaspode limped out to once more see a large ferocious wolf standing there.

“Yo bitch, I haven’t seen you in a while,” said Gaspode.

“Lucky me,” replied Angua in canine. “It took me a week to get rid of the fleas I got from the last time we met.”

“Some people don’t have an appreciation for the finer things in life,” observed Gaspode. “Why I know at least two dozen female dogs that would die to get their paws on my flea collection.”

Angua proved that a wolf could roll its eyes just like a human. “Where is the girl Celine? I back tracked her from the yard to this door.”

“Then your nose isn’t working that great,” snickered Gaspode. “She came up from the tunnels here and the goons grabbed her. After that I don’t know what happened to her. They probably plan to blow her up along with the Patrician and the palace.”

“What?” demanded Angua and the growl she gave Gaspode implied quite explicitly that he needed to explain what he meant very quickly which he did. Angua then growled out some instructions and then she was gone in a blur of blonde fur for the palace.

“The bitch said to take those guys to the cells and then bring her clothes to the palace because it is going to explode,” said Gaspode wandering back out into the yard and then he remembered the last bit of Angua’s instructions. “And don’t let Nobby touch my clothes!”

Sergeant Colon looked around carefully which meant he didn’t look at the mangy dog since everyone knew dogs couldn’t talk and werewolf standards were far too high to admit anything that remotely looked like Gaspode. Still, whoever had spoken had seemed to relay Captain Angua’s instructions, so he began to set about complying.

“You would think people would have some consideration for my feelings sometimes,” sulked Nobby. “You would think someone could catch some horrible disease from me just touching their stuff.”

Sergeant Colon looked down at Nobby who through dint of many years of acquaintance probably qualified as his best friend, but there was no denying that if you had to choose between Nobby and someone with the plague touching your stuff, it would be a close thing. The part of the instructions though that now weighed on Fred’s mind was the bit about the palace exploding. “Let’s get these guys back to the watchhouse,” he said gesturing to Snap, Crackle and Pop, “but there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to hurry about it do you think?”

Nobby considered this. “I reckon you are right Fred. If the palace is still there in a couple of hours, that should be soon enough for us to get there. If it has exploded in the meantime, then there is no reason for us to go there at all.”

“The very same reasoning I had Nobby,” beamed Colon as he slowly began to drag one of the thugs around to the front of the casino where they could whistle up a wagon to cart their prisoners back to the watchhouse.

* * *

Celine was still struggling to get free of her bonds when some of the hay was pulled away and she found herself face to fang with a drooling wolf. “Angua?” she squeaked through the gag hopefully. The wolf nodded and carefully ripped the cloth from Celine’s mouth, so she could talk more easily. “This cart is going to explode and take the palace with it,” gasped Celine. “There is a device that is going to set it off and will do so if the cart is moved. We have to figure out how to stop the device.” Angua nodded her understanding and sharp teeth made quick work of the ropes binding Celine’s wrists and ankles.

Celine sat up and cautiously turned to look at the device that Honest had left. The little numbers on geared wheels were counting down. 57, 56, 55. “There isn’t time to evacuate the palace cried Celine and she heard the wolf make an agonized growl of agreement. Celine carefully opened the little door she had seen Honest use to set the device and stared at the jumble of gears and wires that she hadn’t a clue about. 42, 41, 40. “Any ideas?” Celine asked and looked up to see the wolf give a frantic shake of its head. 23, 22, 21. Celine had never defused a bomb before, though she was in good company since no one else in the history of the disc had ever done so either. Still, she felt like this was somehow something that thousands had stared at before across the universe. All those coloured wires. One would deactivate the bomb, while the wrong one would blow them to smithereens. 9, 8, 7. There seemed to be only one thing to do for the avatar of the lady goddess. Celine closed her eyes, reached into the device and yanked a wire at random. She didn’t open her eyes, but continued the countdown in her head. When it reached zero and she found herself still breathing, Celine opened her eyes and saw the numbers had stopped at one as per the required narrative trope. Beside her, she heard Angua give out a whimper of relief.

* * *

“So far we haven’t been able to find Mr. Truman,” snarled Commander Vimes. “I have guards on all the gates and at the docks, but he might have got out before they were in position.”

It had been several hours since the bomb had been defused and they were meeting in the Patrician’s Oblong Office. Sergeant Colon had finally shown up with Angua’s clothes, apologizing for the delay and saying it had taken them longer than expected to get the prisoners back to the watchhouse on account of his newly discovered bad back. Celine had been taken in hand by some of the palace maids who had helped her clean up and find some clean clothes to wear.

“The city of Ankh-Morpork will of course take over the management of the casino,” said Lord Vetinari smoothly.

“I can’t agree to that,” interjected Celine and she was almost as surprised as the others in the room when she spoke up. Certainly, the Patrician had not anticipated any objections to his proposal from the startled look on his face and Celine got the impression that Vimes and the others were startled as well, but for different reasons. Apparently people were not used to someone contradicting the Patrician, anymore than he was used to being contradicted.

“I beg your pardon?” Lord Vetinari said, incredulity clear in his voice. “We all appreciate what you have done for the city Miss Gagnon, but these decisions do not concern you.”

‘Everything I have done for the city’, thought Celine viciously. ‘Among other things, I saved your life your Lordship, but she didn’t say this aloud as it seemed like a better argument when left unsaid and held over the Patrician’s head. She had gone through everything she had in order to try and fulfill the wishes of the lady goddess and turning the casino over to Vetinari just to make money for the city didn’t seem to Celine like what her goddess would want. “I would like to take over the management of the casino,” continued Celine out loud.

“My dear girl,” replied Vetinari in his most patronizing tone, “I fail to understand the logic behind your request. As you yourself said in this very office, you are just the daughter of a humble fish and chips family and hardly qualified for the job of running the casino. Perhaps, you would even care to request something more grandiose?” he asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

Well since you asked, “I would,” agreed Celine who decided to go all in, “there are a handful of other casinos in cities like Quirm andPseudopolis that I think should be placed under my management. I realize that you don’t have authority in those cities, but it is well known that Ankh-Morpork’s influence is considerable and the rulers of those cities would likely follow your lead.”

Vetinari gaped at her as if the candle on his desk or the rug on his floor had come alive and started speaking to him. What was next, his expression clearly said, talking dogs? He opened his mouth to put the brash girl in her place when time froze.

Celine looked around at the other figures in the room who were all sitting there like statues. Bewildered, she looked around and saw the woman standing by Lord Vetinari’s Thud board fingering one of the pieces.

“My lady,” she said beginning to rise, but the goddess waved her back into her seat. “This is a game of skill and I do not approve of it,” she said putting the dwarf figure down and turning to face Celine. “Despite some misgivings, you have proved to be an excellent avatar. Ask for a sign and it shall be granted.”

Time flowed back into the room and Celine put up a hand to stop the Patricians outburst, an action that had perhaps never happened before. Celine caught a trace of a smile on Commander Vimes’ face which proved he wasn’t as stone faced as she had thought. “The casino is the temple of my goddess and I am her avatar,” said Celine standing up. She held out her right hand with the palm upward. “To me,” she said simply and knew she would feel like a total twit if this didn’t work, but she had to have faith in her goddess one more time. The pair of dice that Honest had taken from her appeared glowing in mid air just above her hand and then dropped lightly onto her palm. It wasn’t a big magical hammer like a thunder god might command, but it seemed to do the job from the looks she was getting and Celine sat back down again. “I will roll you for the casino,” she offered to Vetinari.

The Patrician sat back in his chair, eyes narrowed and then he gave a sigh of acceptance. “Who am I to quibble with the avatar of a goddess,” he said mildly. “I do, however, still have some minor concerns regarding your experience and qualifications.”

“There are those reports on his desk,” whispered the voice of the goddess in Celine’s ear.

“I must admit to having some minor concerns in that regard as well my Lord,” said Celine in a conciliatory voice. “I believe, however, you commissioned some reports regarding the casino and the authors of those reports would seem to comprise advisors that I might call on if needed. Also, Mrs. Cake is known for her organizing ability and I know she would help me which would I am sure be of great relief to the other temples in the city.” In her mind, Celine also was thinking that someone like Ludmilla would make a very good head of security.”

The Patrician considered this for a moment and then nodded. “I believe the individuals would be willing,” he conceded. “There is, however, the matter of taxes on the casino to be considered.”

“You don’t charge taxes to the other temples,” pointed out Celine quickly having anticipated this issue.

“No, but they do make a voluntary contribution to the city to help pay for services,” countered Vetinari. “I believe they even call it the Municipal tithe.”

“Ten percent,” replied Celine, “but with a condition.”

“Why do I feel that I will have little choice other than to accept your condition, Vetinari said with a return of his little smile. “What pray tell is your condition?”

“The voluntary tithe,” and Celine stressed the adjective, “is to be used to start providing shelter and other services for the poor of the city such as the beggars.”

“Woof,” said a voice from under one of the chairs.

“And to help improve conditions for animals in the city, especially domesticated animals such as dogs and cats that are discarded when they become inconvenient by their owners.”

“Tell me my avatar why I should care for these beggars and animals?” came the lady goddess’s voice in Celine’s head that only she could hear.

“Because my lady, they are down on their luck and that makes them your people and er animals,” thought back Celine.

“But they are so …,” and even a goddess fumbled for the words to describe the likes of Foul Old Ron. “I mean one of them even has a duck on his head!”

“What duck?” asked Celine.

“I see,” said the lady after a moment’s pause. “The odds on you being able to do anything to help them are greatly against you.

“Then it is fortunate that I am your avatar lady,” replied Celine, “since as you say it is a matter of odds and so not the province of another god such as Fate. There is a chance that something can be done which makes it part of our sphere of worship if you want to put things in that context”

“Your point is well taken,” conceded the goddess. “You may proceed.”

“Agreed,” said the Patrician, totally unaware of the inner dialogue between Celine and her goddess. “I cannot speak for the other cities, but I will discuss the matter with them and encourage them to adopt similar arrangements.”

Celine sat back in her chair satisfied and only then realized her heart was pounding a thousand beats per second in her chest. She had just faced down the most powerful man in the city and gotten away with it, or had she? From the little smile on his face, Celine wondered if just maybe she had demanded what he had wanted to grant all along, but no one could be that manipulative and scheming could they?

Later on the way back to Mrs. Cake’s house and feeling famished, Celine had stopped to purchase a sausage in a bun from a friendly street vender. He had charged her only ten cents for the guaranteed all meat delicacy and assured her he was cutting his own throat at that price. Luckily since she was the avatar of the lady goddess, Celine was only mildly ill and able to venture more than a few feet away from the privy after only a day.

* * *

Honest had got back to the casino just in time to see Colon and Nobby leaving with Snap, Crackle and Pop in custody in the back of a police wagon. Well, they were on their own and since there had been no explosion, he had to assume his gamble had failed. It was time to get out of Ankh-Morpork and try and regroup. Honest decided the docks were his best bet as the city gates would be easier for the Watch to close. Luck seemed to be with him as there was a small sailing boat just casting off when he reached the docks. Honest caught sight of a tall figure at the tiller and jumped aboard.

Honest waited until they were well out to sea before drawing a knife and making his way towards the still unsuspecting figure he assumed was the captain. The businessman didn’t know the least thing about how to run such a ship, but he was sure the knife could be used to persuade the man to see sense and take him where he wanted to go. Once there, Honest would have to eliminate him as a witness, but that was in the future.

“GOOD DAY MR. TRUMAN,” said Death turning around and grinning as only a seven foot skeleton can possibly grin.

“I know you,” sneered Honest who had initially taken a step backwards in shock, but had rallied quickly, “and I am not afraid of you. You are merely an anthropomorphic personification and you aren’t allowed to actually kill someone. I have done research on that matter.”

“OH MY, AREN’T YOU THE CLEVER ONE,” replied Death without any inflection in his voice. “YOU ARE CERTAINLY CORRECT, BUT IT SEEMS I AM ONE PERSON SHORT IN MY COUNT AT THE MOMENT. SOMEONE AS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS VERY SPOT AND THEY DIDN’T. ISN’T IT FORTUNATE THAT YOU ARE HERE TO HELP REMEDY THAT IMBALANCE?”

“What are you talking about?” demanded a puzzled Honest.

‘MAY I DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO MY LOVELY ASSISTANT,” replied Death and it gestured behind Honest. He looked and saw a small mouse sized skeleton in a black robe standing next to what looked comically like the stopper one puts in a sink to keep the water in. Even as Honest watched, the figure grasped the chain attached to the stopper and pulled.

“SQUEAK,” said the Death of Rats as water began to rapidly flood the boat.

* * *

Honest watched the shark carefully. The problem was that the shark was watching Honest even more carefully. The shark had resented the loss of a sure meal ever since the red haired human had abruptly vanished on him. This time, the shark was determined it was not going to lose its supper.

The shark dived.

The End