Guards! Guards!

left when you had extracted everything of any value whatsoever. Like the Watch, he thought. Total whittles, every one of them. And just like him. It was the saga of his life.
    “That’s Nature for you,” said her ladyship. “Of course I wouldn’t dream of breeding from him, but he wouldn’t be able to anyway.”
    “Why not?” said Vimes.
    “Because dragons have to mate in the air and he’ll never be able to fly with those wings, I’m afraid. I’ll be sorry to lose the bloodline, naturally. His sire was Brenda Rodley’s Treebite Brightscale. Do you know Brenda?”
    “Er, no,” said Vimes. Lady Ramkin was one of those people who assumed that everyone else knew everyone one knew.
    “Charming gel. Anyway, his brothers and sisters are shaping up very well.”
    Poor little bastard, thought Vimes. That’s Nature for you in a nutshell. Always dealing off the bottom of the pack.
    No wonder they call her a mother …
    “You said you had something to show me,” Lady Ramkin prompted.
    Vimes wordlessly handed her the parcel. She slipped off her heavy mittens and unwrapped it.
    “Plaster cast of a footprint,” she said, baldly. “Well?”
    “Does it remind you of anything?” said Vimes.
    “Could be a wading bird.”
    “Oh.” Vimes was crestfallen.
    Lady Ramkin laughed. “Or a really big dragon. Got it out of a museum, did you?”
    “No. I got it off the street this morning.”
    “Ha? Someone’s been playing tricks on you, old chap.”
    “Er. There was, er, circumstantial evidence.”
    He told her. She stared at him.
    “Draco nobilis,” she said hoarsely.
    “Pardon?” said Vimes.
    “ Draco nobilis . The Noble dragon. As opposed to these fellows—” she waved a hand in the direction of the massed ranks of whistling lizards—“ Draco vulgaris , the lot of them. But the big ones are all gone, you know. This really is a nonsense. No two ways about it. All gone. Beautiful things, they were. Weighed tons. Biggest things ever to fly. No one knows how they did it.”
    And then they realized.
    It was suddenly very quiet.
    All along the rows of kennels, the dragons were silent, bright-eyed and watchful. They were staring at the roof.

    Carrot looked around him. Shelves stretched away in every direction. On those shelves, books. He made a calculated guess.
    “This is the Library, isn’t it?” he said.
    The Librarian maintained his gentle but firm grip on the boy’s hand and led him along the maze of aisles.
    “Is there a body?” said Carrot. There’d have to be. Worse than murder! A body in a library. It could lead to anything.
    The ape eventually padded to a halt in front of a shelf no different than, it seemed, a hundred others. Some of the books were chained up. There was a gap. The Librarian pointed to it.
    “Oook.”
    “Well, what about it? A hole where a book should be.”
    “Oook.”
    “A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch,” Carrot drew himself up proudly, “because someone’s taken a book? You think that’s worse than murder?”
    The Librarian gave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who said things like “What’s so bad about genocide?”
    “This is practically a criminal offense, wasting Watch time,” said Carrot. “Why don’t you just tell the head wizards, or whoever they are?”
    “Oook.” The Librarian indicated with some surprisingly economical gestures that most wizards would not find their own bottoms with both hands.
    “Well, I don’t see what we can do about it,” said Carrot. “What’s the book called?”
    The Librarian scratched his head. This one was going to be tricky. He faced Carrot, put his leather-glove hands together, then folded them open.
    “I know it’s a book. What’s its name?”
    The Librarian sighed, and held up a hand.
    “Four words?” said Carrot. “First word.” The ape pinched two wrinkled fingers together. “Small word? A. The. Fo—”
    “Oook!”
    “The? The. Second word…third word? Small word. The? A? To? Of? Fro–Of? Of. The something Of something. Second word. What? Oh. First syllable. Fingers? Touching your fingers. Thumbs.”
    The orangutan growled and tugged theatrically at one large hairy ear.
    “Oh, sounds like. Fingers? Hand? Adding up. Sums. Cut off. Smaller word…Sum. Sum! Second syllable. Small. Very small syllable. A. In. Un. On. On! Sum. On. Sum On. Summon! Summon- er ? Summon- ing ? Summoning. Summoning. The Summoning of Something. This is fun,