Guards! Guards!

where he wants it. It must be something about high office. The altitude sends people mad.
    “You, er, you don’t mind if I have a look around, do you?” he said.
    “Feel free,” said the Patrician.
    Vimes paced the length of the dungeon and checked the door. It was heavily barred and bolted, and the lock was massive.
    Then he tapped the walls in what might possibly be hollow places. There was no doubt that it was a well-built dungeon. It was the kind of dungeon you’d feel good about having dangerous criminals put in. Of course, in those circumstances you’d prefer there to be no trapdoors, hidden tunnels or secret ways of escape.
    These weren’t those circumstances. It was amazing what several feet of solid stone did to your sense of perspective.
    “Do guards come in here?” he demanded.
    “Hardly ever,” said the Patrician, waving a chicken leg. “They don’t bother about feeding me, you see. The idea is that one should molder. In fact,” he said, “up ’til recently I used to go to the door and groan a bit every now and then, just to keep them happy.”
    “They’re bound to come in and check, though?” said Vimes hopefully.
    “Oh, I don’t think we should tolerate that,” said the Patrician.
    “How are you going to prevent them?”
    Lord Vetinari gave him a pained look.
    “My dear Vimes,” he said, “I thought you were an observant man. Did you look at the door?”
    “Of course I did,” said Vimes, and added, “sir. It’s bloody massive.”
    “Perhaps you should have another look?”
    Vimes gaped at him, and then stamped across the floor and glared at the door. It was one of the popular dread portal variety, all bars and bolts and iron spikes and massive hinges. No matter how long he looked at it, it didn’t become any less massive. The lock was one of those dwarfish-made buggers that it’d take years to pick. All in all, if you had to have a symbol for something totally immovable, that door was your man.
    The Patrician appeared alongside him in heart-stopping silence.
    “You see,” he said, “it’s always the case, is it not, that should a city be overtaken by violent civil unrest the current ruler is thrown into the dungeons? To a certain type of mind that is so much more satisfying than mere execution.”
    “Well, okay, but I don’t see—” Vimes began.
    “And you look at this door and what you see is a really strong cell door, yes?”
    “Of course. You’ve only got to look at the bolts and—”
    “You know, I’m really rather pleased,” said Lord Vetinari quietly.
    Vimes stared at the door until his eyebrows ached. And then, just as random patterns in cloud suddenly, without changing in any way, become a horse’s head or a sailing ship, he saw what he’d been looking at all along.
    A sense of terrifying admiration overcame him.
    He wondered what it was like in the Patrician’s mind. All cold and shiny, he thought, all blued steel and icicles and little wheels clicking along like a huge clock. The kind of mind that would carefully consider its own downfall and turn it to advantage.
    It was a perfectly normal dungeon door, but it all depended on your sense of perspective.
    In this dungeon the Patrician could hold off the world.
    All that was on the outside was the lock.
    All the bolts and bars were on the inside.

    The rank clambered awkwardly across the damp rooftops as the morning mist was boiled off by the sun. Not that there would be any clear air today—sticky swathes of smoke and stale steam wreathed the city and filled the air with the sad smell of dampened cinders.
    “What is this place?” said Carrot, helping the others along a greasy walkway.
    Sergeant Colon looked around at the forest of chimneys.
    “We’re just above Jimkin Bearhugger’s whiskey distillery,” he said. “On a direct line, see, between the palace and the plaza. It’s bound to fly over here.”
    Nobby looked wistfully over the side of the building.
    “I bin in there once,” he said. “Checked the door one dark night and it just come open in my hand.”
    “Eventually, I expect,” said Colon sourly.
    “Well, I had to go in, din’t I, to check there was no miscreanting going on. Amazing place in there. All pipes and stuff. And the smell!”
    “‘Every bottle matured for up to seven minutes,’” quoted Colon. “‘Ha’ a drop afore ye go’, it says on the label. Damn right, too. I had a drop once, and I went all day.”
    He knelt down and unwrapped the long sacking