“You won't entirely be sorry, eh?” he said.
“Me? I don't want 'em back! They're untrustworthy and cruel and arrogant parasites and we don't need 'em one bit.”
o;What's the matter?”
“Never liked dark and enclosed spaces much.”
“What? You're a dwarf.”
“Born a dwarf, born a dwarf. But I even get nervous when I'm hiding in wardrobes. That's a bit of a drawback in my line of work.”
“Don't be daft. I'm not scared.”
“You're not me.”
“Tell you what - I'll bake 'em with extra gravel.”
“Ooh . . . you're a temptress, Mrs. Ogg.”
“And bring the torches.”
The caves were dry, and warm. Casanunda trotted along after Nanny, anxious to stay in the torchlight.
“You haven't been down here before?”
“No, but I know the way.”
After a while Casanunda began to feel better. The caves were better than wardrobes. For one thing, you weren't tripping over shoes all the time, and there probably wasn't much chance of a sword-wielding husband opening the door.
In fact, he began to feel happy.
The words rose unbidden into his head, from somewhere in the back pocket of his genes.
“Hiho, hiho-”
Nanny Ogg grinned in the darkness.
The tunnel opened into a cavern. The torchlight picked up the suggestion of distant walls.
“This it?” said Casanunda, gripping the crowbar.
“No. This is something else. We . . . know about this place. It's mythical.”
“It's not real?”
“Oh, it's real. And mythical.”
The torch flared. There were hundreds of dust-covered slabs ranged around the cavern in a spiral; at the centre of the spiral was a huge bell, suspended from a rope that disappeared into the darkness of the ceiling. Just under the hanging bell was one pile of silver coins and one pile of gold coins.
“Don't touch the money,” said Nanny “'Ere, watch this, my dad told me about this, it's a good trick.”
She reached out and tapped the bell very gently, causing a faint ting.
Dust cascaded off the nearest slab. What Casanunda had thought was just a carving sat up, in a creaky way. It was an armed warrior. Since he'd sat up he almost certainly was alive, but he looked as though he'd gone from life to rigor mortis without passing through death on the way.
He focused deepset eyes on Nanny Ogg.
“What bloody tyme d'you call thys, then?”