Astrolabe. One of the Disc's finest astrolabes is kept in a large, star-filled room in KRULL. It includes the entire Great A'Tuin-Elephant-Disc system wrought in bra.s.s and picked out with tiny jewels. Around it the stars and planets wheel on fine silver wires. On the walls the constellations have been made of tiny phosph.o.r.escent seed pearls set out on vast tapestries of jet-black velvet. These were, of course, the constellations current at the time of the room's decoration several would be unrecognisable now owing to the Turtle's movement through s.p.a.ce. The planets are minor bodies of rock picked up and sometimes discarded by the system as it moves through s.p.a.ce, and seem to have no other role in Discworld astronomy or astrology than to be considered a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance. [COM]

Astrozoologists. Krullian scientists interested in studying the nature of the Great A'TUIN. Specifically, its s.e.x. [ COM ]

Atavarr's Personal Gravitational Upset. Little-used and hard-to-master spell used by GARHARTRA against Rincewind. It makes the body believe that gravity is acting at right angles to the norm. [COM]

A'Tuin, the Great. The star turtle who carries the Discworld on its back. Ten-thousand-mile-long member of the species Chelys galactica, and the only turtle ever to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. Almost as big as the Disc it carries. s.e.x unknown.

Sh.e.l.l-frosted with frozen methane, pitted with meteor craters and scoured with asteroidal dust, its eyes are like ancient seas, crusted with rheum. Its brain is the size of a continent, through which thoughts move like glittering glaciers.

It is as large as worlds. As patient as a brick. Great A'Tuin is the only creature in the entire universe that knows exactly where it is going.

Upon its back stand Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose shoulders the disc of the world rests. A tiny sun and moon spin around them on a complicated orbit to induce seasons, although probably nowhere else in the multiverse is it sometimes necessary for an elephant to c.o.c.k its leg to allow the sun to go past.

After the events of The Light Fantastic, the Great A'Tuin was...o...b..ted by eight baby turtles, each with four small world-elephant calves and tiny discworlds, covered in smoke and volcanoes. They have subsequently begun their own cosmic journeys.

Wizards have tried to tune into Great A'Tuin's mind. They trained up on tortoises and giant sea turtles to get the hang of the Chelonian mind. But although they knew that the Great A'Tuin's mind would be big, they rather foolishly hadn't realised it would be slow. After thirty years all they found out was that the Great A'Tuin was looking forward to something.

People have asked: How does the Disc move on the shoulders of the elephants? What does the Turtle eat? One may as well ask: What kind of smell has yellow got? It is how things are.

Auditors of Reality. It has to be understood that the universe of the Discworld is almost entirely animistic. Everything is conscious at some level. The level of reality in the vicinity of the Disc is so low that the distance between the real and the imagined is very small and, frequently, non-existent (hence the de facto existence of such beings as the HOGFATHER, OLD MAN TROUBLE, the TOOTH FAIRIES and the SOUL CAKE TUESDAY DUCK). On the Discworld, even thunderstorms can think.

It follows at least, it follows on Discworld that this inherent consciousness should turn up even at the most basic of levels, such as those involving the very physics of the universe. These are therefore policed by the Auditors of Reality, a race of non-individualised beings whose job it is to make sure the universe functions properly and doesn't just do what it likes. If you travelled faster than light, it is quite possible that it is they who would fine you for speeding.

In appearance they look like small grey empty robes, with a cowl (when they adopt human form, they favour clothing in shades of . . . grey). They act entirely on consensus; they hate and distrust individuality, which for them is instantly fatal.

It is clear that they regard life itself as being unnecessary, untidy, and contrary to good order. The whole purpose of the universe, they know, is to gradually wind down; it is not right, they are sure, that bits of it should wake up and ask questions like 'What's going on?' or grow petals or fly around singing. They are not life-forms. They are non-life-forms. The observers of the Universe. Its clerks. They see to it that things spin and rocks fall. They hate questions. They hate them almost as much as they hate decisions and they hate decisions almost as much as they hate the idea of the individual personality. But what they hate most of all is things moving around randomly. They believe that for a thing to exist it has to have a position in time and s.p.a.ce. Humanity has arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically is things that don't have a position in time and s.p.a.ce, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Intelligent life is an anomaly. The Auditors really hate things like that.

They can see into human minds. They can see the pop and sizzle of the thoughts. But they cannot read them. They can see the energetic flow from node to node, they can see the brain glittering like a Hogswatch decoration. What they can't see is what is happening.

One of their greatest enemies is DEATH, partly because as immortals they fear death far more than humans do (they are like high-stakes gamblers with everything to lose) and partly because of his tendency to tip the scales of history very slightly in favour of humanity. After all, Death more than anyone else depends on the existence of life. It is his living. They avoid death by never going so far as to get a life. They strive to be as indistinguishable as hydrogen atoms, with none of the latter's 'joie de vivre'.

Aurora corialis. (See also Aurora coriolis). The Hublights. Great curtains of cold fire whose frosty tints illuminate and colour the midnight snows with silent streamers of OCTARINE, blue and green from the roof of the world. Caused by the vast discharge of magic from the Disc's standing field earthing itself in the green ice mountains of the Hub.

Autocondimentor. Someone who will put certainly salt and probably pepper on any meal you put in front of them whatever it is and regardless of how much it's got on it already and regardless of how it tastes. These people really exist (even on Earth) and fast-food empires have saved millions by recognising their existence. Mustrum RIDCULLY is such a one; in fact he is one of the extreme variety, who regards any meal as no more than a foundation for salt, pepper, mustard, pickles, ketchup and sauce. [RM]

Azrael. The Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the Beginning and End of Time.

He is DEATH'S master, although it is uncertain whether Death is a truly separate ent.i.ty or merely one aspect of the whole. He is a creature so large that in real s.p.a.ce his length can be measured only in terms of the speed of light. On his dark, sad face his eyes are so big a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris. He is also keeper of the ultimate clock, from which all TIME originates. Other clocks tell what time it is but the ultimate clock tells Time what it is. [RM]

Bad a.s.s. Village in the kingdom of LANCRE in the RAMTOPS. Not a large village, and it wouldn't show up on a map of the mountains. It barely shows up on a map of the village. This is a small community, close-knit to the point of a trawlerman's sock, where front doors are used only by brides and corpses and back doors are always left unlocked.

It was named when a donkey stopped in the middle of the river and wouldn't go backwards or forwards. It could have been called Disobedient Donkey.

The valley occupied by Bad a.s.s overlooks a panorama of lesser mountains and foothills. From there, you can see to the edge of the world. In the long winter snows, the roads out of the village are lined with boards to reduce drifting and to stop travellers from straying. Markers are also carved into the bark of every tenth tree, out to a distance of nearly two miles. Many a life has been saved by the pattern of notches found by probing fingers under the clinging snow.

A narrow bridge over a stream leads to the village smithy, birthplace of Eskarina Smith (ESK).

Baker. A weaver in LANCRE, and a member of the Lancre Morris Men. [LL]

Band With Rocks In, The. A musical group formed by IMP Y 'BUDDY' CELYN, Glod GLODSSON, Lias 'Cliff' BLUESTONE and, for a brief period when they needed a keyboard player, the LIBRARIAN. [SM]

Bands, Musical (names of).

&U ('And You') BAND WITH ROCKS IN, THE.

Bertie the Balladeer & His Troubadour Rascals Big Troll & Some Other Trolls, A Blots, The Boyz From the Wood Dwarfs with Alt.i.tude Grisham Frord Close Harmony Singers Insanity Lead Balloon Snori Snoriscousin & His Bra.s.s Idiots Suck Surrept.i.tious Fabric, The We're Certainly Dwarfs Whom, The Quite a large number of these are various names briefly a.s.sumed and quickly discarded by the band that eventually performed in the famous Free Festival as 'Ande Supporting Bands'.

Bank, Royal, Ankh-Morpork. The facade of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork looks, as major public buildings often do, like a temple. This can seem strange since several major religions are a) canonically against what they do inside and b) bank there.

The architect at least knew how to design a decent column, and also knew when to stop. He had set his face like flint against any prospect of cherubs, although above the columns was a high-minded frieze showing something allegorical involving maidens and urns. Most of the urns and some of the young women, have birds nesting in them.

In fact, it was originally built, by a previous King of Ankh, as a temple around 900 years ago. He had no particular G.o.d in mind. It was more a speculative venture a sort of celestial bird box, awaiting a G.o.d to turn up. It then got used for storage in case of a siege, then an indoor market, until Jocatello La Vice got it when the city defaulted on a loan.

Inside, one notices the hush mostly because the ceiling is so high that sounds are just lost, but partly because people lower their voices in the presence of large sums of money. Red velvet and bra.s.s is much in evidence. There are pictures everywhere, of serious men in frock coats. Sometimes footsteps echo briefly on the white marble floor and are suddenly swallowed when their owner steps onto an island of carpet. And the big desks are covered with sage-green leather. Red leather? Pah! That is parvenus and wannabees. Sage green means that you've got there, and that your ancestors got there too. On the wall above the counter a big clock, supported by cherubs, ticks away.

In the Undercroft, a grand, vaulted, cellar, is THE GLOOPER. [MM]

Barbarian Invaders Machine, the. A device apparently invented by Leonard of Quirm. Weight: two tons. Construction: big blocks of wood, and lots of cogwheels. Motive power: weights on a pulley and twisted rubber bands. Purpose: on the insertion of one penny in the slot, the player has the opportunity to fire little spears at the ranks of wooden barbarian invaders as they wobble across the little proscenium. Occasional a badly-carved horseman jerks pasts and will score extra points if hit. A device ahead of its time.

Basilica, Enrico, Bashfullsson, Bashfull, Grag. See SLUGG, HENRY. An enlightened 'deep down' dwarf a little young and modern for many dwarfs. He was born in Ankh-Morpork and one of his novel beliefs is that you don't have to be physically deep down to be a dwarf. He lodges in a subdivided cellar in Cheap Street. [T!]

Battle Bread of B'hrian Bloodaxe, the. This, like the equally famous Scone of Stone, is testimony to the pivotal role of bread products in dwarfish history. The semi-legendary round loaf would, says legend, return to B'hrian's hand after decapitating his enemies like so many hard-boiled eggs and played a major role (or, possibly, roll) in the battle with the trolls at Koom Valley. Whoever wields it, tradition says, will be invincible in battle and also not short of a meal if really pushed. It is currently in the DWARF BREAD MUSEUM in Ankh-Morpork.

Battye, Miss Sandra. Miss Sandra Battye first arrived in Ankh-Morpork many years ago to earn her fortune as a seamstress. No, a seamstress. The ones with the needle and thread. Sandra specialises, in fact, in crochet, and made her first fortune out of people's natural confusion. Since the word 'seamstress' had, as everyone knows, been hijacked by the ladies of negotiable affection, very few actual needlewomen cared to work in the city. She made a good living from those poor souls who arrive at the Guild of SEAMSTRESSES actually looking for someone to darn a sock, or mend a ripped pair of trousers. Having spotted the gap in the market, she st.i.tched it up. [NW]

Beano. A clown, murdered by Edward D'EATH. His only crime apart, it could be argued, from being a clown was that he was about the right height and had a room in the right place. [MAA]

Bearhugger, Jimkin. Owner of a distillery in Ankh-Morpork. Manufacturer of Bearhugger's Very Fine Whiskey, Bearhugger's Old Persnickety and Jimkin Bearhugger's Old Selected Dragon's Blood Whiskey on the bottle of which it says: 'Every bottle matured for up to seven minutes' and 'Ha' a drop afore ye go'. It is cheap and powerful; you could also light fires or clean spoons with it. And probably fuel aircraft.

A recent but short-lived line, which never caught on despite the best scientific recommendation, was Bearhugger's Homeopathic Sipping Whiskey. It is a founding fact of homeopathy that the effectiveness of a remedy increases with dilution. Jimkin decided, therefore, that this idea could profitably be applied to his own product. Strangely enough, the slogan 'Every drop diluted 1 Million Times!' failed to attract custom even though, in theory, merely being in the same room as an uncorked bottle of the stuff should make the purchaser riotously drunk.

Beavis, Gammer. Witch from Lancre. She is, by Nanny OGG'S standards, a bit too educated, so that sometimes it overflows out of her mouth. But, she does her own shoe repairs and she takes snuff and that counts her as all right in Nanny Ogg's small world. She wears a hat with a very flat brim and a point you could clean your ear with.

Beedle, Miss Felicity. Actually a Mrs; her husband was killed in the Klatchian War. She lives near Ramkin Hall in Apple Tree Cottage, a house which has a direct tunnel into the goblins' hall. She spends some time helping to educate the local goblins and she also finances scholarships for the Quirm College for Young Ladies. She is a small woman with the strange aspect that you see in some people that causes them to appear to be subtly vibrating even when standing perfectly still. You feel that if some interior restraint suddenly broke, the pent-up energy released would catapult her through the nearest window.

She has written many, many books for children, with t.i.tles as varied as The World of Poo, The Little Duckling Who Thought He Was an Elephant, Melvin and the Enormous Boil and The War With the Snot Goblins. [SN]

Beggars' Guild. Motto: MONETA SVPERVACANEA, MAGISTER? Coat of arms: a shield, quartered. In the top-right quarter, three dragons, courant et or, on a field, gules. In the bottom-left quarter a dragon, gardant et or on a field, gules. In the top-left and bottom-right quarters a pattern of caltraps, argent, on a field, azure.

The question asked most frequently by visitors to Ankh-Morpork is 'Why haven't I got any money left?' The next most frequently asked question, at least by those who already know their way to the areas of the SHADES generally a.s.sociated with female companionship of the professional kind, is 'What has that coat of arms got to do with begging? Dragons on a field of gools? Doesn't sound like beggary to me.' These people have failed, of course, to understand the very essence of beggary. This is a worn-out, much-patched second-hand coat of arms.

This is the oldest Guild in Ankh-Morpork. And also the richest, since the beggars never buy anything they can beg.

The Beggars' Guild predates the formalised Guild system of Ankh-Morpork by hundreds if not thousands of years, and it has a strict cla.s.s structure and hierarchy all of its own. While all the Guilds are to some extent separate societies within society, this is particularly true of the Beggars.

The first mention of the Guild's cla.s.ses of membership is some six hundred years before the present and says that the Guild includes: 'Rufflers, Uprightmen, Rogues, Wild rogues, Priggers or pransers, People calling you Jimmy, Palliards, Fraters, Mutterers, Mumblers, Freshwater mariners or whipjacks, Drummerers, Drunken tinkers, Swaddlers or Peddlers, Jarkemen or patricoes, Demanders for glimmer or fire, Bawdy baskets, Mortes Autem-mortem, Walking mortes, Doxies, Dells, Kinching mortes and Kinchin cooes.' (This list has a certain coincidence with the beggars found in Elizabethan England.) In fact, however, most of these cla.s.ses were more correctly various low grades of thief or conman and their descendants have long since decamped to the newer Guilds. Cla.s.ses of beggars in the city now include: Twitchers, Droolers, Dribblers, Mumblers, Mutterers, Walking-Along-Shouters, Demanders of a Chip, People who call other people Jimmy, People who need Tuppence for a Cup of Tea, People who need Eightpence for a Meal, People with placards saying 'Why lie? I need a beer' and Foul Ole RON, agreed by his fellow beggars to be in a cla.s.s by himself if only because no one will share it with him.

While the cla.s.ses may appear interchangeable to the unpractised eye, their duties are carefully compartmentalised and the demarcation lines enforced. While a Mumbler in good standing might risk an occasional Mutter, he'd be very unwise to try Walking-Along-Shouting until the Guild judged him senior and ready enough to do so. Equally, he would be within his rights to report a mere Dribbler he saw attempting to sneak a Mumble. Especially a mumble in the wrong place; one of the important functions of the Guild is to arrange patrols and shifts so that beggary is properly distributed among the streets.

Pavement artists, people with harmonicas and people who make money by standing still in interesting ways are not beggars. No beggar would dream of providing any kind of service for reward, except to the extent that the donor may feel themselves to be a better person for donating. Doing anything for the money except asking for it is against the tenets of true beggary. Such money as the beggars do make, it must be stressed, is entirely obtained by 1) begging and 2) not begging.

1) is self-explanatory. 2) owes a lot to what might be called the Ankh-Morpork view of social economics. You clearly don't want a lot of beggars hanging around at your wedding or other salubrious occasions, so the accepted thing to do is send the Guild a small sum of money and a kind of anti-invitation, which sees to it that men with interesting running sores and a body odour you could split wood with do not turn up. You'd be amazed at how many will turn up should this small precaution not be taken. This is very similar to the scheme run by the THIEVES' GUILD, whereby a small payment every year ensures the safety of person and property.

The Guild offers a highly specialised schooling and other social benefits for its members. It is ruled by a council under the chairmanship of the current King or Queen of the Beggars (current inc.u.mbent: Queen MOLLY of the Beggars).

Beginning, The. There are various theories about the beginning of the universe. These include the Egg, a theory based upon the Great Egg of the Universe, and the Clearing of the Throat, followed by the Word. Others have also propounded the 'Drawing of the Breath' and the 'Scratching of the Head and Trying to Remember It, It Was On the Tip of My Tongue'. One of the objects of The LISTENERS or Listening Monks is to determine, by careful a.n.a.lysis of the very faint echoes, what the Word was. By definition, all theories about the beginning of the universe are true. [LF]

Belafon. A young druid, who delivers rocks for stone circles. When RINCEWIND and TWOFLOWER landed on the 30'x10' bluish rock on which Belafon was flying, he was carrying a sickle and wearing a long, wet nightshirt and a square of oilskin tied across his head and knotted under his chin. [LF]

Bellyster. Warder at the Tanty. Bellyster is a real old-school screw, a craftsman of small evils, the kind of bully that would take every opportunity to make a prisoner's life a misery. It wasn't just that he'd gob in your bowl of greasy skilly, but he wouldn't even have the common decency to do it where you couldn't see him. He picked on the weak and frightened, too. He hates the Watch, and the feeling is mutual. [MM]

Bel-Shamharoth. The Soul-Eater, the Soul-Render, the Sender of Eight. Not Evil, for even Evil has a certain vitality. Bel-Shamharoth is the flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are one side. One of the old, dark G.o.ds of the NECROTELICOMNICON. Although it has never been explicitly said, it is likely that he is one of the creatures of the DUNGEON DIMENSIONS who has managed to survive in this world.

The inner dimensions of his eight-sided temple disobey a fairly basic rule of architecture by being bigger than the outside. It is full of corridors, of tunnels full of unpleasant carvings and occasional disjointed skeletons, h.e.l.l-lit by a light so violet that it is almost black. The eight-sided crystals set at intervals in the walls and ceiling shed a rather unpleasant glow that doesn't so much illuminate as outline the darkness. The floor is a continuous mosaic of eight-sided tiles, and the corridor walls and ceilings are angled to give the corridors eight sides. In those places where part of the masonry has fallen in, even the stones have eight sides. All routes lead to the centre, where there is an intense violet light, illuminating a wide room with eight walls and eight pa.s.sages radiating off it. There is a low, eight-sided altar but in the centre of the room is a huge stone slab, eight-sided (of course) and slightly tilted. Under that is a black tentacled creature with an enormous eye Bel-Shamharoth all suckers and tentacles and mandibles. [COM, ER]

Bent, Malvolio. Chief Cashier ($41/month) at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork. Mr Bent is in every way smooth and uncreased. Instead of a traditional banker's frock coat, he wears was a very well cut black jacket above pinstripe trousers. Mr Bent's feet are soundless even on the marble floors of the Bank. They are also unsually large for such a dapper man, but the shoes, black and polished, mirror-shiny, were very well made. He is tall and dark and walks like a dressage horse, lifting each foot very deliberately off the ground before setting it on the ground again. Apart from that incongruity, Mr Bent has the air about him of one who stands quietly in a cupboard when not in use.

When he first appeared in the story, Mavolio Bent had a definition of 'silly' that most people would have considered a touch on the broad side. Laughter was silly. Theatricals, poetry and music were silly. Clothes that weren't grey, black or at least of un-dyed cloth were silly. Pictures of things that weren't real were silly (pictures of things that were real were unnecessary.) The ground state of being was silliness, which had to be overcome with every mortal fibre. Missionaries from the stricter religions would have found in Malvolio Bent an ideal convert, except that religion was extremely silly. Bent arrived in Ankh-Morpork as a child, on a cart owned by some travelling accountants. He had been with the bank for thirty-nine years and he got a job when he was thirteen by sitting on the steps all night until the chairman came to work and impressing him with his command of numbers. He went from messenger boy to Chief Cashier in twenty years. Never had a day off for illness, either. It seems he may have been born Charlie Benito. [MM]

Bentzen. Captain of Duke FELMET'S personal bodyguard. [WS]

Berilia. One of four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the Disc of the world rests. [COM]

Bertie. Leader of Bertie the Balladeer and His Troubadour Rascals, a traditional musical group. Wears a gold lame doublet. [SM]

Beryl. Wife of MICA the Bridge Troll. [TB] There's also a Beryl married to Kwartz in LF. It is a common enough name for female trolls, who are generally named after precious or semi-precious stones.

Bes Pelargic. Major seaport of the AGATEAN EMPIRE. The city includes a Red Triangle District. Little more is known, owing to the Empire's emphatic lack of interest in the outside world, at least until recently.

Bethan. Seventeen-year-old virgin rescued from druidical sacrifice by COHEN the Barbarian. An attractive but pale young lady, she was first encountered wearing a long white robe, with a gold torc around her neck. She subsequently married Cohen. Well, we say married . . . It is clear that Cohen 'married' many women during the course of a long and adventurous life, but none of them seems to have been any the worse for the experience and they often ended up richer, since he never mastered the art of spending money. [LF]

Biers. An undead bar in the Shades of Ankh-Morpork, exact location unspecified; it may well be that you can only find your way to it if you would be acceptable as clientele. 'Undead' in this case is taken to include werewolves, bogeymen, ghouls, banshees and other foster children of the Night. Basically, if you don't need to wear a mask to frighten the kiddies, you can drink at Biers.

Igor the barman serves drinks you tend not to get in other bars. But since he is a barman, and every barman likes to put a bit of panache in his act, he'll put in c.o.c.ktail sticks with things stuck on the end. What things, of course, you may not find out until too late. Therefore it is wise not to order a drink that isn't transparent. And don't order a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary unless you are really, really sure of yourself.

Igor's efforts to bring Biers into line with other drinking establishments tend always to have a flaw. We may cite his attempt to brighten up weekday lunchtime by advertising **DEAD GIRLS!!!** It didn't bring in the crowds. Not the right sort, anyway.

Oddly enough, Biers is the one place when the various siblings of the Night will leave you alone. There are house rules, after all. You will probably be safer than in most other Ankh-Morpork taverns, in fact, provided you steer clear of the pickles.

The one regular 'normal' customer is Mrs Gammage, who lives nearby. Old, deaf and practically blind, she's been drinking in Biers since it was the Crown and Axe, many years ago. And it's clear that she hasn't realised things have changed. The other clientele, who can be quite kind when the mood takes them, don't discourage her in this belief and she has become a sort of informal mascot. So they keep an eye on her. The occasional attempts by nasty people in the outside world to take advantage of a poor blind widow woman living alone in one of the nastier parts of the town have now ceased, once it became clear that anyone who inconvenienced Mrs Gammage in any way would soon be found dismembered and bloodless in some alley. After all, even the undead have a heart (some have an entire jar full).

It appears the Igor who runs the place is not an actual IGOR. He's merely called Igor.

Big Yan. A huge, muscly feegle. Well, huge for a feegle. He has a necklace of four teeth one for every man he's knocked out. [TWFM, AHFOS, W, ISWM]

Bilious. The Oh G.o.d of Hangovers. He has the appearance of a young male human with a prominent Adam's apple and sporting on his head a little crown of vine leaves. He owed his existence to a collection of magical circ.u.mstances that arose from an attempt being made to kill the HOGFATHER. Whilst the G.o.d of Wine spends his entire existence partying and drinking to excess, the Oh G.o.d spends his entire existence in the depths of the supernaturally bad hangover which in justice ought to be suffered by the G.o.d of Wine each morning. What goes down, as it were, must throw up. It is possible that he now does temporary stand-in work for G.o.ds that need to take time off. [H]

Billet, Drum. A wizard who, in long cloak and with his carven staff, visited BAD a.s.s to hand his staff over to ESK, the blacksmith's daughter in the mistaken belief that she was in fact a son. He died after pa.s.sing over the staff and was initially reincarnated as an apple tree, so covered in mistletoe that it looked green even in midwinter. The tree produced very small fruit which pa.s.sed from stomach-twisting sourness to wasp-filled rottenness overnight. 'Green Billets' are now prized in LANCRE as a very good apple for the making of Sc.u.mBLE. [ER]

Billias, Skarmer. A whiskery, red-faced wizard. Head of the Order of the Silver Star. Resembled a small captive balloon that had been draped in blue velvet and VERMINE. Killed by COIN. [S]

Binky. The flying horse of DEATH. A real, flesh-and-blood horse. Binky is as white as milk. He wears a silver and black harness, with an ornate silver saddle. Behind the saddle is a scabbard for Death's folding scythe, and the saddle bag contains his riding cloak. Binky is extremely intelligent and undoubtedly better treated than most beasts of burden on the Disc.

He leaves no hoof prints in normal circ.u.mstances, but when travelling in whatever is Death's equivalent of hypers.p.a.ce he does sometimes leave glowing prints in the air, because Nature abhors the lack of a special effect.

Binky is a real flesh and blood horse, but while in Death's service does not age.

Bird, Gaffer. When first encountered in the chronicles, Gaffer was head handleman in HOLY WOOD. His hands were stained with chemicals and he had no eyebrows (a sure sign of someone who has been around octo-cellulose for any length of time). He wore a back-to-front cap. a.s.sorted tools hung from his belt. He believed everything can be repaired with a piece of string, unlike most people in his position in the modern film industry, who believe everything can be repaired with sticky tape. [MP]

Birdwhistle. Author of the 'Legendes and Antiquities of the Ramtops'. [LL]

Black Celestial Dragon of Fire. Manner in which Agateans expect Death to appear to them. They are wrong. [ M ]

Black Roger. Huge, jet-black dog, looking like a pit bull terrier crossed with a mincing machine. A member of the Ankh-Morpork DOG GUILD. [MAA]

Bleakey. A vampire who works in the slaughterhouse in Ankh-Morpork. [MAA]

Blenkin. Manservant to EDWARD D'EATH. [MAA]

Blind Hugh. A beggar at the Pearl Dock, Ankh-Morpork. The nerves in his body tend to vibrate at fifty paces from even a small amount of impure gold. [COM]

Blind Io. Chief of the G.o.dS, by virtue of his constant vigilance. He has blank skin where his eyes should be. The eyes themselves, of which he has an impressively large number, lead a semi-independent life, orbiting around him. It is said that they can see everything that happens everywhere. This taciturn G.o.d is all the Disc's thunder G.o.ds, using false noses, different voices and seventy different hammers when he needs to appear to the various different believers. It is also said that he arrived on the Discworld after some terrible and mysterious incident in another Eventuality a sort of cosmic ticket-of-leave man. Not stupid, but a very traditional thinker. G.o.ds tend to be.

Bloat. A poison, extracted from the deep sea blowfish, Singularis minutia gigantica, which protects itself from its enemies by inflating itself to many times its normal size. If the poison is taken by humans, the effect is to make every cell in the body instantaneously swell some 2,000 times. This is invariably fatal, and very loud. You don't need to bury the victims, just redecorate over the top. [P]

Bloodaxe, B'hrian. The famous dwarf king who commanded the dwarfs at the Battle of Koom Valley [T!] . . .

b.l.o.o.d.y Stupid. Camel living in TSORT. [P]

Blouse, Lieutenant. An officer in the Borogravian army. Young, inexperienced, chinless. His face just eases its way into his neck without much to disturb it along the way. His Adam's Apple, mind, is a champion it goes up and down his neck like a ball on a spring. He joins the story straight from headquarters and has no real soldiering experience. His main contribution had been to redesign the HQ filing system. He is married to Emmeline to whom he writes frequently, and he rides a rather scraggy horse called Thalacephalos.

At school, he was very keen on amdram, and he played Lady Sprightly in 'A Comedy of Cuckolds' and Widow Trembler in ''Tis Pity She's a Tree'.

His ambition is to have something named after him like General Puhloaver, Brigadier Galosh or General Anorac. [MR]

Bluejohn. Troll lance-constable in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. He is very big; so big, he doesn't stand out in a crowd because he is the crowd. People fail to see him because he's in the way. Like many overgrown people, he is instinctively gentle and rather shy and inclined to let others tell him what to do. If fate had led him to join a gang, he'd have been the muscle. In the Watch, he's the riot shield. [TFE]

Bluestone, Lias. A troll. When first seen, he was wearing two large squares of darkish gla.s.s in front of his eyes (a troll development to minimise the effects of sunlight). He plays large round rocks, a traditional troll instrument, under his stage name of Cliff considered by all to be exactly the wrong kind of name for anyone who wants to last any time at all in the field of popular music. Since he is both a troll and a drummer, he could be said to have thrown a 'one' in the great dice game of intellect. [SM]

Bobby, St. The Most Holy St Bobby. Made a bishop of the Omnian church because he was in the desert with the Prophet OSSORY. St Bobby was a donkey and, in the words of Mustrum RIDCULLY, the somewhat irreverent Archchancellor of Unseen University, a righteous a.s.s. [SG]

Boddony. A dwarf. Second in command at GOODMOUNTAIN'S print room and, later on, husband to . . . er, wife to . . . erm, partner to Goodmountain (see under DWARFS for a hesitant explanation). [TT]

Boffo. A clown. Doorkeeper at the FOOLS' GUILD. A very small man, with huge boots. His face is plastered with flesh-coloured make-up, on which is painted a big frown; his hair is a couple of old mops dyed red. He has a hoop in his trousers to make him look amusingly overweight, and a pair of rubber braces to allow his trousers to bounce up and down as he walks. Like most clowns, he was brought up to believe that a custard pie in the face represents the acme of humour. There can be few souls more miserable. [MAA]

Boggi's. Dress shop in Kings Way, Ankh-Morpork. High-cla.s.s modes for the affluent. [LL]

Boggis, Bengy Bengy 'Lightfoot' Boggis. The real name of Brother Fingers. [GG ]