Thud

The man was clearly as mad as a spoon, writing notes that he wanted to keep secret from the chicken; sometimes he'd stop writing in mid-note if he thought the chicken was watching. Apparently he was a very sad sight to see until he picked up a brush, whereupon he would work quite quietly and with a strange glow to his features. And that was his life: one huge oblong of canvas. Methodia Rascal: born, painted famous picture, thought he was a chicken, died.

Given that the man couldn't touch bottom with a long stick, how

[1] That was a phrase of Sybil's that got to him. She'd announce at lunch: 'We must have the pork tonight, it needs eating up: Vimes never had an actual problem with this, because he'd been raised to eat what was put in front of him, and do it quickly, too, before someone else snatched it away. He was just puzzled at the suggestion that he was there to do the food a favour.

could you make sense out of anything he wrote? The only note that seemed concise, if horrible, was the one generally accepted as his last, since it was found under his slumped body. It read:

Awk! Awk! It comes! IT COMES!

He'd choked with a throat full of feathers. And on the canvas, the last of the paint was still drying.

Vimes's eye was caught by the message numbered, arbitrarily, #39:1 thought it was a guiding omen, but it screams in the night.' An omen of what? And what about #143: `The dark, in the dark, like a star in chains'? Vimes had made a note of that one. He'd made a note of many others, too. But the worst thing about them - or the best, if you were keen on mysteries - was that they could mean anything. You could pick your own theory. The man was half starved and in mortal dread of a chicken that lived in his head. You might as well try to make sense of raindrops.

Vimes pushed them aside and stared at the careful pencil drawing. Even at this size, it was confusing. Up front, faces were so large that you could see the pores on a dwarf's nose. In the distance, Sybil had meticulously copied figures that were a quarter of an inch high.

Axes and clubs were being waved, spears were being pointed, there were charges and countercharges and single combats. Across the whole length of the picture, dwarfs and trolls were locked in ferocious battle, hacking and smashing

He thought: who's missing?

`Sir Reynold, could you help me?' he said quietly, lest the nascent thought turn tail and run.

`Yes, commander?' said the curator, hurrying over. `Doesn't Lady Sybil do the most exquisite-'

`She's very good, yes,' said Vimes. `Tell me ... how did Rascal know all this stuff?'

`There hwere many dwarf songs about it, and some troll stories. Oh, and some humans hwitnessed it.'

`So Rascal could have read about it?'

`Oh, yes. Apart from the fact that he put it in the wrong part of the valleah, he got it down quite accurately.'

Vimes didn't take his gaze off the paper battle.

`Does anyone know why he put it in the wrong place, then?' he said.

`There are several theoreahs. One is that he hwas deceived by the fact that the dead dwarfs hwere cremated at that end of the valley, but after the storm that is hwhere many of the bodies ended up. There hwas also a great deal of dead hwood for bonfires. But I believe he chose that end because the view is so much better. The mountains are so dramatic.'

Vimes sat down, staring at the sketch, willing it to yield its secret. Everyone will know the secret in a few weeks, Mr Shine had said. Why?

`Sir Reynold, was anything going to happen to the painting in the next couple of weeks?' he said.

`Oh, yes, said the curator. `Hwe would have installed it in its new room.

`Anything special about that?'

`I did tell your sergeant, commander,' said the curator a little reproachfully. `It is circular. Rascal always intended it to be seen in the round, as it were. So that the viewer could be there.'

And I'm nearly there, too, Vimes thought.

`I think the cube told the dwarfs something about Koom Valley,' he said, in a faraway voice, because he felt as though he was already in the valley. `It told them that the place where it was found was important. Even Rascal thought it was important. They needed a map, and Rascal painted one, even if he didn't know it. Fred?'

`Yessir?'

`The dwarfs weren't bothered about damaging the bottom of the

painting because it doesn't contain anything important. It's just people. People move around.'

`But, with respect, commander, so do all those boulders,' said Sir Reynold.

`They don't matter. No matter how much the valley has changed, this picture will work,' said Vimes. The glow of understanding lit his brain.

`But even the rivers move over the years, and any amount of rocks have rolled down from the mountains,' said Sir Reynold. `I'm told the area looks nothing like that now.'

`Even so,' said Vimes, in the same dreamy voice, `this map will work for thousands of years. It doesn't mark a rock or a hollow or a cave, it just marks a spot. I can pinpoint it. That is, if I had a pin.