Thud!

shoulder. “Oh, it’s you Commander Vimes, sir. It’s me, sir, Wiggleigh, sir. The archchancellor is waiting for you in the gardener’s hut, sir. Follow me, sir. Mum’s the word, eh, sir?”
    Vimes trailed after Wiggleigh across the dark, squelchy lawns. Oddly, though, he didn’t feel so tired now. Days and days of bad sleep and he felt quite fresh, in a fuzzy sort of way. It was the smell of the chase, that’s what it was. He’d pay for it later.
    Wiggleigh, looking both ways with a conspiratorial air that would have attracted instant attention had anyone been watching, opened the door of the garden shed.
    There was a large figure waiting inside.
    “Commander!” it bellowed happily. “What larks, eh? Very cloak-and-dagger!”
    Only heavy rain could possibly muffle the voice of Archchancellor Ridcully when he was feeling cheerful.
    “Could you keep it down a bit, Archchancellor?” said Vimes, shutting the door quickly.
    “Sorry! I mean, sorry,” said the wizard. “Do take a seat. The compost sacks are quite acceptable. Well, er…how may I help you, Sam?”
    “Can we agree for now that you can’t?” said Vimes.
    “Intriguing. Do continue,” said Ridcully, leaning closer.
    “You know I won’t have magic used in the Watch,” Vimes went on. As he sat down in the semidarkness, a coiled-up hosepipe ambushed him from above, as they do, and he had to wrestle it to the shed floor.
    “I do, sir, and I respect you for it, although there are those that think you are a damn silly fool.”
    “Well…” Vimes said, trying to put “damn silly fool” behind him, “the fact is, I must get to Koom Valley very fast. Er…very fast indeed.”
    “One might say— magically fast?” said Ridcully.
    “As it were,” said Vimes, fidgeting. He really hated having to do this. And what had he sat on?
    “Mmm,” said Ridcully. “But without, I imagine, any significant hocus-pocus? You appear uncomfortable, sir!”
    Vimes triumphantly held up a large onion. “Sorry,” he said, tossing it aside. “No, definitely no pocus. Possibly a little hocus. I just need an edge. They’ve got a day’s start on me.”
    “I see. You will be traveling alone?”
    “No, there will have to be eleven of us. Two coaches.”
    “My word! And disappearing in a puff of smoke to reappear elsewhere is—”
    “Out of the question. I just need—”
    “An edge,” said the wizard. “Yes. Something magical in its cause but not in its effect. Nothing too obvious.”
    “And no chance of anyone being turned into a frog or anything like that,” said Vimes quickly.
    “Of course,” said Ridcully. He clapped his hands together. “Well, Commander, I’m afraid we can’t help you. Meddling in things like this is not what wizarding is all about!” He lowered his voice and went on: “We will particularly not be able to help you if you have the coaches, empty, around the back in, oh, call it about an hour?”
    “Oh? Er…right,” said Vimes, trying to catch up. “You’re not going to make them fly or anything, are you?”
    “We’re not going to do anything, Commander!” said Ridcully jovially, slapping him on the back. “I thought that was agreed! And I think also that you should leave now, although, of course, you have, in fact, not been here. And neither have I. I say, this spying business is pretty clever, eh?”
    When Vimes was gone, Mustrum Ridcully sat back, lit his pipe, and, as an afterthought, used the last of the match to light the candle lantern on the potting table. The gardener could get pretty acerbic if people messed about with his shed, so perhaps he ought to tidy up a bit—
    He stared at the floor, where a tumbled hosepipe and a fallen onion made what looked, at a casual glance, like a large eyeball with a tail.

T he rain cooled Vimes down. It had cooled down the streets, too. You have to be really keen to riot in the rain. Besides, news of last night had got around. No one was sure , of course, and such were the effects of Fluff and Big Hammer that a large if elementary school of thought had been left uncertain about what really happened. They woke up feeling bad, right? Something must have happened. And tonight the rain was setting in, so maybe it was better to stay in the pub.
    He walked through the wet, whispering darkness, mind ablaze.
    How fast could those dwarfs travel? Some of them sounded pretty old. But they’d be tough and old. Even so, the roads in that direction were none too good, and a body