Guards! Guards!

of all eventualities—if, by incredible bad luck, he doesn’t quite manage to hit the voonerable dead on, then your dragon is going to lose his rag, right, and it’s probably a good idea to not be here. It’s a long shot, I know. Call me a worry-wart if you like. That’s all I’m saying.”
    Sergeant Colon adjusted his armor haughtily.
    “When you really need them the most,” he said, “million-to-one chances always crop up. Well-known fact.”
    “The sergeant is right, Nobby,” said Carrot virtuously. “You know that when there’s just one chance which might just work—well, it works. Otherwise there’d be no—” he lowered his voice—“I mean, it stands to reason, if last desperate chances didn’t work, there’d be no…well, the gods wouldn’t let it be any other way. They wouldn’t.”
    As one man, the three of them turned and looked through the murky air toward the hub of the Discworld, thousands of miles away. Now the air was gray with old smoke and mist shreds, but on a clear day it was possible to see Cori Celesti, home of the gods. Site of the home of the gods, anyway. They lived in Dunmanifestin, the stuccoed Valhalla, where the gods faced eternity with the kind of minds that were at a loss to know what to do to pass a wet afternoon. They played games with the fates of men, it was said. Exactly what game they thought they were playing at the moment was anyone’s guess.
    But of course there were rules. Everyone knew there were rules. They just had to hope like Hell that the gods knew the rules, too.
    “It’s got to work,” mumbled Colon. “I’ll be using my lucky arrow ’n all. You’re right. Last hopeless chances have got to work. Nothing makes any sense otherwise. You might as well not be alive.”
    Nobby looked down at the pond again. After a moment’s hesitation Colon joined him. They had the speculative faces of men who had seen many things, and knew that while you could of course depend on heroes, and kings, and ultimately on gods, you could really depend on gravity and deep water.
    “Not that we’ll need it,” said Colon virtuously.
    “Not with your lucky arrow,” said Nobby.
    “That’s right. But, just out of interest, how far down is it, d’you think?” said Colon.
    “About thirty feet, I’d say. Give or take.”
    “Thirty feet.” Colon nodded slowly. “That’s what I’d reckon. And it’s deep, is it?”
    “Very deep, I’ve heard.”
    “I’ll take your word for it. It looks pretty mucky. I’d hate to have to jump in it.”
    Carrot slapped him cheerfully on the back, nearly pushing him over, and said, “What’s up, Sarge? Do you want to live forever?”
    “Dunno. Ask me again in five hundred years.”
    “It’s a good job we’ve got your lucky arrow, then!” said Carrot.
    “Hmm?” said Colon, who seemed to be in a miserable daydream world of his own.
    “I mean, it’s a good job we’ve got a last desperate million-to-one chance to rely on, or we’d really be in trouble!”
    “Oh, yes,” said Nobby sadly. “Lucky old us.”

    The Patrician lay back. A couple of rats dragged a cushion under his head.
    “Things are rather bad outside, I gather,” he said.
    “Yes,” said Vimes bitterly. “You’re right. You’re the safest man in the city.”
    He wedged another knife in a crack in the stones and tested his weight carefully, while Lord Vetinari looked on with interest. He’d managed to get six feet off the floor and up to a level with the grille.
    Now he started to hack at the mortar around the bars.
    The Patrician watched him for a while, and then took a book off the little shelf beside him. Since the rats couldn’t read the library he’d been able to assemble was a little baroque, but he was not a man to ignore fresh knowledge. He found his bookmark in the pages of Lacemaking Through the Ages , and read a few pages.
    After a while he found it necessary to brush a few crumbs of mortar off the book, and looked up.
    “Are you achieving success?” he inquired politely.
    Vimes gritted his teeth and hacked away. Outside the little grille was a grubby courtyard, barely lighter than the cell. There was a midden in one corner, but currently it looked very attractive. More attractive than the dungeon, at any rate. An honest midden was preferable to the way Ankh-Morpork was going these days. It was probably allegorical, or something.
    He stabbed, stabbed, stabbed. The knife blade twanged and shook in his hand.

    The Librarian scratched