Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

Itym: Ae smalle vegettable shape (with pin-point accuracy).

Vimes wondered about that. He'd bought some apples in there once, and there didn't appear to be anything about it that a dragon could possibly take offence at.

Still, very considerate of the dragon, he thought as he made his way to the Watch House. When you think of all the timber yards, hayricks, thatched roofs and oil stores it could have hit by chance, it's managed to really frighten everyone without actually harming the city.

Rays of early morning sunlight were piercing the drifts of smoke as he pushed open the door. This was home. Not the bare little room over the candlemaker's shop in Wixon's Alley, where he slept, but this nasty brown room that smelt of unswept chimneys, Sgt Colon's pipe, Nobby's mysterious personal problem and, latterly, Carrot's armour polish. It was almost like home.

No-one else was there. He wasn't entirely surprised. He clumped up to his office and leaned back in his chair, whose cushion would have been thrown out of its basket in disgust by an incontinent dog, pulled his helmet over his eyes, and tried to think.

No good rushing about. The dragon had vanished in all the smoke and confusion, as suddenly as it had come. Time for rushing about soon enough. The important thing was working out where to rush to ...

He'd been right. Wading bird! But where did you start looking for a bloody great dragon in a city of a million people?

He was aware that his right hand, entirely unbidden, had pulled open the bottom drawer, and three of his fingers, acting on sealed orders from his hindbrain, had lifted out a bottle. It was one of those bottles that emptied themselves. Reason told him that sometimes he must occasionally start one, break the seal, see amber liquid glistening all the way up to the neck. It was just that he couldn't remember the sensation. It was as if the bottles arrived two-thirds empty . . .

He stared at the label. It seemed to be Jimkin Bear-hugger's Old Selected Dragon's Blood Whiskey. Cheap and powerful, you could light fires with it, you could clean spoons. You didn't have to drink much of it to be drunk, which was just as well.

It was Nobby who shook him awake with the news that there was a dragon in the city, and also that Sgt Colon had had a nasty turn. Vinies sat and blinked owlishly while the words washed around him. Apparently having a fire-breathing lizard focusing interestedly on one's nether regions from a distance of a few feet can upset the strongest constitution. An experience like that could leave a lasting mark on a person.

Vimes was still digesting this when Carrot turned up with the Librarian swinging along behind him.

“Did you see it? Did you see it?” he said.

“We all saw it,” said Vimes.

“I know all about it!” said Carrot triumphantly. “Someone's brought it here with magic. Someone's stolen a book out of the Library and guess what it's called?”

“Can't even begin to,” said Vimes weakly.

“It's called The Summoning of Dragons!”

“Oook,” confirmed the Librarian.

“Oh? What's it about?” said Vimes. The Librarian rolled his eyes.

“It's about how to summon dragons. By magic!”

“Oook.”

“And that's illegal, that is!” said Carrot happily. “Releasing Feral Creatures upon the Streets, contrary to the Wild Animals (Public-”

Vimes groaned. That meant wizards. You got nothing but trouble with wizards.

“I suppose,” he said, “there wouldn't be another copy of this book around, would there?”

“Oook.” The Librarian shook his head.

“And you wouldn't happen to know what's in it?” Vimes sighed.

“What? Oh. Four words,” he said wearily. “First word. Sounds like. Bend. Bough? Sow, cow, how . . . How. Second word. Small word. The, a, to . . . To. Yes, understood, but I meant in any kind of detail? No. I see.”

“What're we going to do now, sir?” said Carrot anxiously.

“It's out there,” intoned Nobby. “Gone to ground, like, during the hours of daylight. Coiled up in its secret lair, on top of a great hoard of gold, dreamin' ancient reptilian dreams fromma dawna time, waitin' for the secret curtains of the night, when once more it will sally forth-” He hesitated and added sullenly, “What're you all looking at me like that for?”

“Very poetic,” said Carrot.

“Well, everyone knows the real old dragons used to go to sleep on a hoard of gold,'' said Nobby. ' 'Well known folk myth.”