"A pair of pillow cases? Two sacks of flour? Some very baggy trou-oh. I see. My word. Were there any casualties?"

"Dunno, yerronner. But there's something I do do know." know."

"Yes?"

"Uh...Cumbling Michael says yerronner sometimes pays for information...?"

"Yes, I know, I can't imagine how these rumors get about," said the Patrician, getting up and opening a window. "I shall have to have something done about it."

Once again, Foul Ole Ron reminded himself that, while he was probably insane, he definitely wasn't as mad as all that.

"Only I got this, yerronner," he said, pulling something out of the horrible recesses of his clothing. "It says writing on it, yerronner."

It was a poster, in glowing primary colors. It couldn't have been very old, but an hour or two as Foul Ole Ron's chest warmer had aged it considerably. The Patrician unfolded it with a pair of tweezers.

"Them's the pictures of the music players," said Foul Ole Ron helpfully. "And that's writing. And there's more writing there, look. Mr. Dibbler had Chalky the troll run 'em off just now, but I nipped in after and threatened to breathe on everyone less'n they gives me one."

"I'm sure that worked famously," said the Patrician.

He lit a candle and read the poster carefully. In the presence of Foul Ole Ron, all candles burned with a blue edge to the flame.

"'Free Festival of Music With Rocks In It,'" he said.

"That's where you don't have to pay to go in," said Foul Ole Ron helpfully. "Buggrem, buggrit."

Lord Vetinari read on.

"In Hide Park. Next Wednesday. Well, well. A public open space, of course. I wonder if there'll be many people there?"

"Lots, yerronner. There was hundreds couldn't get into the Cavern."

"And the band looks like that, do they?" said Lord Vetinari. "Scowling like that?"

"Sweating, most of the time I saw 'em," said Foul Ole Ron.

"'Bee There or Be A Rectangular Squar Thynge,'" said the Patrician. "This is some sort of occult code, do you think?"

"Couldn't say, yerronner," said Foul Ole Ron. "My brain goes all slow when I'm thirsty."

"'They Are Totallye Unable To Bee Seene! And A Longe Way Oute!'" said Lord Vetinari solemnly. He looked up. "Oh, I am am sorry," he said. "I'm sure I can find someone to give you a cool refreshing drink...?" sorry," he said. "I'm sure I can find someone to give you a cool refreshing drink...?"

Foul Ole Ron coughed. It had sounded like a perfectly sincere offer but, somehow, he was suddenly not at all thirsty.

"Don't let me keep you, then. Thank you so very much," said Lord Vetinari.

"Er..."

"Yes?"

"Er...nothing..."

"Very good."

When Ron had buggrit, buggrit, buggrem'd down the stairs the Patrician tapped his pen thoughtfully on the paper and stared at the wall.

The pen kept bouncing on the word Free Free.

Finally he rang a small bell. A young clerk put his head around the door.

"Ah, Drumknott," said Lord Vetinari. "Just go and tell the head of the Musicians' Guild he wants a word with me, will you?"

"Er...Mr. Clete is already in the waiting room, your lordship," said the clerk.

"Does he by any chance have some kind of poster with him?"

"Yes, your lordship."

"And is he very angry?"

"This is very much the case, your lordship. It's about some festival. He insists insists you have it stopped." you have it stopped."

"Dear me."

"And he demands that you see him instantly."

"Ah. Then leave him for, say, twenty minutes, then show him up."

"Yes, your lordship. He keeps saying that he wants to know what you are doing about it."

"Good. Then I can ask him the same question."

The Patrician sat back. Si non confectus, non reficiat Si non confectus, non reficiat. That was the motto of the Vetinaris. Everything worked if you just let it happen.

He picked up a stack of sheet music and began to listen to Salami's Prelude to a Nocturne on a Theme by Bubbla Prelude to a Nocturne on a Theme by Bubbla.

After a while he looked up.

"Don't hesitate to leave," he snapped. The Smell slunk away.

SQUEAK!.

"Don't be stupid! All I did was frighten them off. It's not as though I hurt them. What's the good of having the power if you can't use it?"

The Death of Rats put his nose in his paws. It was a lot lot easier, with rats. easier, with rats. * *

C.M.O.T. Dibbler often did without sleep, too. He generally had to meet Chalky at night. Chalky was a large troll but tended to dry up and flake in daylight.

Other trolls looked down on him because he came from a sedimentary family and was therefore a very low-class troll indeed. He didn't mind. He was a very amiable character.

He did odd jobs for people who needed something unusual in a hurry and without entanglements and had clinking money. And this job was pretty odd.

"Just boxes?" he said.

"With lids," said Dibbler. "Like this one I've made. And a bit of wire stretched inside."

Some people would have said "Why?" or "What for?" but Chalky didn't make his money like that. He picked up the box and turned it this way and that.

"How many?" he said.

"Just ten to start with," said Dibbler. "But I think there'll be more later. Lots and lots more."

"How many's ten?" said the troll.

Dibbler held up both hands, fingers extended.

"'ll do them for two dollar," said Chalky.

"You want me to cut my own throat?"

"Two dollar."

"Dollar each for these and a dollar-fifty for the next batch."

"Two dollar."

"All right, all right, two dollars each. That's ten dollars the lot, right?"

"Right."

"And that's cutting my own throat."

Chalky tossed the box aside. It bounced on the floor and the lid came off.

Some time later a small greyish brown mongrel dog, on the prowl for anything edible, limped into the workshop and sat peering into the box for a while.

Then it felt a bit of an idiot and wandered off.

Ridcully hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building as the city clocks were striking two. He was supporting Ponder Stibbons, who was asleep on his feet.

Ridcully was not a quick thinker. But he always got there eventually.

The door opened and Skazz's hair appeared.

"Are you facin' me?" said Ridcully.

"Yes, Archchancellor."

"Let us in, then, the dew's soaking through me boots."

Ridcully looked around as he helped Ponder in.

"Wish I knew what it was that keeps you lads working all hours," he said. "I never found magic that interesting when I was a lad. Go and fetch some coffee for Mr. Stibbons here, will you? And then get your friends."

Skazz bustled off and Ridcully was left alone, except for the slumbering Ponder.

"What is is it they do?" he said. He never really tried to find out. it they do?" he said. He never really tried to find out.

Skazz had been working at a long bench by one wall.

At least he recognized the little wooden disc. There were small oblong stones ranged on it in a couple of concentric circles, and a candle lantern positioned on a swiveling arm so that it could be moved anywhere around the circumference.

It was a traveling computer for druids, a sort of portable stone circle, something they called a "kneetop." The Bursar had sent off for one once. It had said For the Priest In a Hurry on the box. He'd never been able to make it work properly and now it was used as a doorstop. Ridcully couldn't see what they had to do with magic. After all, it wasn't much more than a calendar and you could get a perfectly good calendar for 8p.

Rather more puzzling was the huge array of glass tubes behind it. That was where Skazz had been working; there was a litter of bent glassware and jars and bits of cardboard where the student had been sitting.

The tubing seemed to be alive.

Ridcully leaned forward.

It was full of ants.

They scuttled along the tubing and through complex little spirals in their thousands. In the silence of the room, their bodies made a faint, continuous rustling.

There was a slot level with the Archchancellor's eyes. The word "In" was written on a piece of paper that had been pasted onto the glass.

And on the bench was an oblong card which looked just the right shape to go in the slot. It had round holes punched in it.

There were two round holes, then a whole pattern of round holes, and then a further two holes. On it, in pencil, someone had scribbled "2 + 2."

Ridcully was the kind of man who'd push any lever, just to see what it did.

He put the card in the obvious slot...

There was an immediate change in the rustling. Ants trailed in their thousands through the tubing. Some of them appeared to be carrying seeds...

There was a small dull sound and a card dropped out of the other end of the glass maze.