Then one long, thin, blue-veined hand reached out and the fingertips traced the shadows.

Well, not so much shadows, more a series of sil­houettes. The outline was very distinct. Inside, there was the familiar pattern of brickwork. Outside, though, something had fused the wall in a rather nice ceramic substance, giving the ancient flettons a melted, mirror-like finish.

The shapes outlined in brickwork showed a tableau of six men frozen in an attitude of surprise. Various upraised hands had quite clearly been holding knives and cutlasses.

Then Patrician looked down silently on the pile of ash at his feet. A few streaks of molten metal might once have been the very same weapons that were now so decisively etched into the wall.

"Hmm," he said.

Captain Vimes respectfully led him across the lane and into Fast Luck Alley, where he pointed out Ex­hibit A, to whit . . .

"Footprints," he said. "Which is stretching it a bit, sir. They're more what you'd call claws. One might go so far as to say talons."

The Patrician stared at the prints in the mud. His expression was quite unreadable.

"I see," he said eventually. "And do you have an opinion about all this, Captain?"

The captain did. In the hours until dawn he'd had all sorts of opinions, starting with a conviction that it had been a big mistake to be born.

And then the grey light had filtered even into the Shades, and he was still alive and uncooked, and had looked around him with an expression of idiot relief and seen, not a yard away, these footprints. That had not been a good moment to be sober.

"Well, sir," he said, "I know that dragons have been extinct for thousands of years, sir…"

"Yes?" The Patrician's eyes narrowed.

Vimes plunged on. "But, sir, the thing is, do they know? Sergeant Colon said he heard a leathery sound just before, just before, just before the, er . . . of­fence."

"So you think an extinct, and indeed a possibly en­tirely mythical, dragon flew into the city, landed in this narrow alley, incinerated a group of criminals, and then flew away?" said the Patrician. "One might say, it was a very public-spirited creature."

"Well, when you put it like that…"

"If I recall, the dragons of legend were solitary and rural creatures who shunned people and dwelt in for­saken, out of the way places," said the Patrician. "They were hardly urban creatures."

"No, sir," said the captain, repressing a comment that if you wanted to find a really forsaken, out of the way place then the Shades would fit the bill pretty well.

"Besides," said Lord Vetinari, "one would imag­ine that someone would have noticed, wouldn't you agree?"

The captain nodded at the wall and its dreadful frieze. "Apart from them, you mean, sir?"

"In my opinion," said Lord Vetinari, "it's some kind of warfare. Possibly a rival gang has hired a wiz­ard. A little local difficulty."

"Could be linked to all this strange thieving, sir," volunteered Wonse.

"But there's the footprints, sir," said Vimes dog­gedly.

"We're close to the river," said the Patrician. "Pos­sibly it was, perhaps, a wading bird of some sort. A mere coincidence," he added, "but I should cover them over, if I were you. We don't want people getting the wrong idea and jumping to silly conclusions, do we?" he added sharply.

Vimes gave in.

"As you wish, sir," he said, looking at his sandals.

The Patrician patted him on the shoulder.

"Never mind," he said. "Carry on. Good show of initiative, that man. Patrolling in the Shades, too. Well done."

He turned, and almost walked into the wall of chain mail that was Carrot.

To his horror, Captain Vimes saw his newest recruit point politely to the Patrician's coach. Around it, fully-armed and wary, were six members of the Palace Guard, who straightened up and took a wary interest. Vimes disliked them intensely. They had plumes on their helmets. He hated plumes on a guard.

He heard Carrot say. "Excuse me, sir, is this your coach, sir?" and the Patrician looked him blankly up and down and said, "It is. Who are you, young man?"

Carrot saluted. "Lance-constable Carrot, sir."

"Carrot, Carrot. That name rings a bell."

Lupine Wonse, who had been hovering behind him, whispered in the Patrician's ear. His face brightened.' 'Ah, the young thief-taker. A little error there, I think, but commendable. No person is above the law, eh?"

"No, sir," said Carrot.

"Commendable, commendable," said the Patri­cian. "And now, gentlemen-"

"About your coach, sir," said Carrot doggedly, "I couldn't help noticing that the front offside wheel, contrary to the-"

He's going to arrest the Patrician, Vimes told him­self, the thought trickling through his brain like an icy rivulet. He's actually going to arrest the Patrician. The supreme ruler. He's going to arrest him. This is what he's actually going to do. The boy doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'. Oh, wouldn't it be a good idea if he knew the meaning of the word 'survival' . . .

And I can't get my jaw muscles to move.

We're all dead. Or worse, we're all detained at the Patrician's pleasure. And as we all know, he's seldom that pleased.

It was at this precise moment that Sergeant Colon earned himself a metaphorical medal.

"Lance-constable Carrot!" he shouted. "Attention! Lance-constable Carrot, abou-uta turna! Lance-constable Carrot, qui-uck marcha!''

Carrot brought himself to attention like a barn being raised and stared straight ahead with a ferocious expression of acute obedience.

"Well done, that man," said the Patrician thought­fully, as Carrot strode stiffly away. "Carry on, Cap­tain. And do come down heavily on any silly rumours about dragons, right?"

"Yes, sir," said Captain Vimes.

"Good man."

The coach rattled off, the bodyguard running along­side.

Behind him, Captain Vimes was only vaguely aware of the sergeant yelling at the retreating Carrot to stop.

He was thinking.

He looked at the prints in the mud. He used his regulation pike, which he knew was exactly seven feet long, to measure their size and the distance between them. He whistled under his breath. Then, with con­siderable caution, he followed the alley around the corner; it led to a small, padlocked and dirt-encrusted door in the back of a timber warehouse.

There was something very wrong, he thought.

The prints come out of the alley, but they don't go in. And we don't often get any wading birds in the Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.

He looked up. A myriad washing lines criss-crossed the narrow rectangle of the sky as efficiently as a net.

So, he thought, something big and fiery came out of this alley but didn't come into it.

And the Patrician is very worried about it.

I've been told to forget about it.

He noticed something else at the side of the alley, and bent down and picked up a fresh, empty peanut shell.