Guards! Guards!

said.”
    “There are legends, you know. It seems as though one species of dragon started to get bigger and bigger and then…just vanished.”
    “Died out, you mean?”
    “No…they turned up, sometimes. From somewhere. Full of vim and vigor. And then, one day, they stopped coming at all.” She gave Vimes a triumphant look. “ I think they found somewhere where they could really be .”
    “Really be what?”
    “Dragons. Where they could really fulfil their potential. Some other dimension or something. Where the gravity isn’t so strong, or something.”
    “I thought when I saw it,” said Vimes, “I thought, you can’t have something that flies and has scales like that.”
    They looked at each other.
    “We’ve got to find it in its lair,” said Lady Ramkin.
    “No bloody flying newt sets fire to my city,” said Vimes.
    “Just think of the contribution to dragon lore,” said Lady Ramkin.
    “Listen, if anyone ever sets fire to this city, it’s going to be me .”
    “It’s an amazing opportunity. There’s so many questions…”
    “You’re right there.” A phrase of Carrot’s crossed Vimes’s mind. “It can help us with our enquiries,” he suggested.
    “But in the morning,” said Lady Ramkin firmly.
    Vimes’s look of bitter determination faded.
    “I shall sleep downstairs, in the kitchen,” said Lady Ramkin cheerfully. “I usually have a camp bed made up down there when it’s egg-laying time. Some of the females always need assistance. Don’t you worry about me.”
    “You’re being very helpful,” Vimes muttered.
    “I’ve sent Nobby down to the city to help the others set up your headquarters,” said Lady Ramkin.
    Vimes had completely forgotten the Watch House. “It must have been badly damaged,” he ventured.
    “Totally destroyed,” said Lady Ramkin. “Just a patch of melted rock. So I’m letting you have a place in Pseudopolis Yard.”
    “Sorry?”
    “Oh, my father had property all over the city,” she said. “Quite useless to me, really. So I told my agent to give Sergeant Colon the keys to the old house in Pseudopolis Yard. It’ll do it good to be aired.”
    “But that area—I mean, there’s real cobbles on the streets—the rent alone, I mean, Lord Vetinari won’t—”
    “Don’t you worry about it,” she said, giving him a friendly pat. “Now, you really ought to get some sleep.”
    Vimes lay in bed, his mind racing. Pseudopolis Yard was on the Ankh side of the river, in quite a high-rent district. The sight of Nobby or Sergeant Colon walking down the street in daylight would probably have the same effect on the area as the opening of a plague hospital.
    He dozed, gliding in and out of a sleep where giant dragons pursued him waving jars of ointment…
    And awoke to the sound of a mob.

    Lady Ramkin drawing herself up haughtily was not a sight to forget, although you could try. It was like watching continental drift in reverse as various sub-continents and islands pulled themselves together to form one massive, angry protowoman.
    The broken door of the dragon house swung on its hinges. The inmates, already as highly strung as a harp on amphetamines, were going mad. Little gouts of flame burst against the metal plates as they stampeded back and forth in their pens.
    “Hwhat,” she said, “is the meaning of this?”
    If a Ramkin had ever been given to introspection she’d have admitted that it wasn’t a very original line. But it was handy. It did the job. The reason that cliches become cliches is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.
    The mob filled the broken doorway. Some of it was waving various sharp implements with the up-and-down motion proper to rioters.
    “Worl,” said the leader, “it’s the dragon, innit?”
    There was a chorus of muttered agreement.
    “Hwhat about it?” said Lady Ramkin.
    “Worl. It’s been burning the city. They don’t fly far. You got dragons here. Could be one of them, couldn’t it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “S’right.”
    “QED.” 1
    “So what we’re going to do is, we’re going to put ’em down.”
    “S’right.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Pro bono publico.”
    Lady Ramkin’s bosom rose and fell like an empire. She reached out and grabbed the dunging fork from its hook on the wall.
    “One step nearer, I warn you, and you’ll be sorry,” she said.
    The leader looked beyond her to the frantic dragons.
    “Yeah?” he said, nastily. “And what’ll you do, eh?”
    Her mouth