Guards! Guards!

never done it.
    “Just do it,” he snapped. “Surely I don’t have to tell you everything?”
    Nobby was left alone at the top of the stairs. A general muttering and groaning from the floor indicated that people were waking up. Nobby thought quickly. He shook an admonitory cheese-straw of a finger.
    “Let that be a lesson to you,” he said. “Don’t do it again.”
    And ran for it.
    Up in the darkness of the rafters the Librarian scratched himself reflectively. Life was certainly full of surprises. He was going to watch developments with interest. He shelled a thoughtful peanut with his feet, and swung away into the darkness.
    The Supreme Grand Master raised his hands.
    “Are the Thuribles of Destiny ritually chastised, that Evil and Loose Thinking may be banished from this Sanctified Circle?”
    “Yep.”

    The Supreme Grand Master lowered his hands.
    “Yep?” he said.
    “Yep,” said Brother Dunnykin happily. “Done it myself.”
    “You are supposed to say ‘Yea, O Supreme One,’” said the Supreme Grand Master. “Honestly, I’ve told you enough times, if you’re not all going to enter into the spirit of the thing—”
    “Yes, you listen to what the Supreme Grand Master tells you,” said Brother Watchtower, glaring at the errant Brother.
    “I spent hours chastising them thuribles,” muttered Brother Dunnykin.
    “Carry on, O Supreme Grand Master,” said Brother Watchtower.
    “Very well, then,” said the Grand Master. “Tonight we’ll try another experimental summoning. I trust you have obtained suitable raw material, brothers?”
    “—scrubbed and scrubbed, not that you get any thanks—”
    “All sorted out, Supreme Grand Master,” said Brother Watchtower.
    It was, the Grand Master conceded, a slightly better collection. The Brothers had certainly been busy. Pride of place was given to an illuminated tavern sign whose removal, the Grand Master thought, should have merited some sort of civic award. At the moment the E was a ghastly pink and flashed on and off at random.
    “ I got that,” said Brother Watchtower proudly. “They thought I was mending it or something, but I took my screwdriver and I—”
    “Yes, well done,” said the Supreme Grand Master. “Shows initiative.”
    “ Thank you, Supreme Grand Master,” beamed Brother Watchtower.
    “—knuckles rubbed raw, all red and cracked. Never even got my three dollars back, either, no one as much as says—”
    “And now,” said the Supreme Grand Master, taking up the book, “we will begin to commence. Shut up, Brother Dunnykin.”

    Every town in the multiverse has a part that is something like Ankh-Morpork’s Shades. It’s usually the oldest part, its lanes faithfully following the original tracks of medieval cows going down to the river, and they have names like the Shambles, the Rookery, Sniggs Alley…
    Most of Ankh-Morpork is like that in any case. But the Shades was even more so, a sort of black hole of bred-in-the-brickwork lawlessness. Put it like this: even the criminals were afraid to walk the streets. The Watch didn’t set foot in it.
    They were accidentally setting foot in it now. Not very reliably. It had been a trying night, and they had been steadying their nerves. They were now so steady that all four were relying on the other three to keep them upright and steer.
    Captain Vimes passed the bottle back to the sergeant.
    “Shame on, on, on,” he thought for a bit, “you,” he said. “Drun’ in fron’ of a super, super, superererer ofisiler.”
    The sergeant tried to speak, but could only come out with a series of esses.
    “Put yoursel’ onna charge,” said Captain Vimes, rebounding off a wall. He glared at the brickwork. “This wall assaulted me,” he declared. “Hah! Think you’re tough, eh! Well, ’m a ofisler of, of, of the Law, I’ll have you know, and we don’ take any, any, any.”
    He blinked slowly, once or twice.
    “What’s it we don’ take any of, Sar’nt?” he said.
    “Chances, sir?” said Colon.
    “No, no, no. S’other stuff. Never mind. Anyway, we don’ take any of, of, of it from anyone.” Vague visions were trotting through his mind, of a room full of criminal types, people that had jeered at him, people whose very existence had offended and taunted him for years, lying around and groaning. He was a little unclear how it had happened, but some almost forgotten part of him, some much younger Vimes with a bright shining breastplate and big hopes, a Vimes he