There was a feeling of passageway, stretching off in both directions. Vimes paused for just long enough to sense the draught on his face and headed that way.

Another glow beetle was hanging in a cage a little distance off. It illuminated, if such a bright word could be used for a light that merely made the darkness less black, a huge circular opening in which a fan turned lazily.

The blades were so slow that Vimes was able to step between them, into the velvet cavern beyond.

Someone really wants me dead, he thought, as he inched his way along the nearest invisible wall with his face to the draught. One shot they weren't expecting... but someone was expecting it, weren't they?

If you want to get a prisoner out of the clink, then you give him a key, or a file. You don't give him a weapon. A key might get him out; a weapon would get him killed.

He stopped, one foot over emptiness. The glow beetle revealed a hole in the floor. It had the huge suckingness of depth.

Then he gripped the beetle's cage between his teeth, took a few steps back and completely misjudged the distance. He hit the other side of the hole with every rib, both arms flat on the floor beyond.

A bit of Ankh-Morpork sense of humour hissed between his teeth.

He scrabbled his way on to the cave floor and got his breath back. Then he took the one-shot out of his pocket, fired it into the floor, tossed it into the hole—it clattered and echoed for some time—and moved on, keeping his face towards the cold air.

This wasn't a tunnel any more. It was the bottom of a shaft. But the green glow lit up something heaped in the middle.

Vimes picked up a handful of snow and, when he looked up, a flake melted on his face. He grinned in the dark. The beetle light just caught the edge of the spiral stairs fixed to the rock.

'Stairs' turned out to be a generous description. When the shaft had been cut, the dwarfs had made holes in the stone and hammered thick baulks of timber into them. He tried one or two. They seemed sturdy enough. With care, he'd be able to scramble...

He was a long way up before one log snapped. He flung out his hands and caught the next one, his grip slipping on the wet wood. The glow beetle disappeared downwards and Vimes, swinging back and forth from his precarious handhold, watched the circle of dim green light dwindle to a dot and vanish.

Then the realization crept over him that there was no way he would be able to pull himself up. His fingers were numb, but the rest of his entire life consisted of the amount of time they could maintain a grip on the clammy step above him.

Call it a minute, perhaps.

There were a lot of things that could profitably be done in a minute, but most of them couldn't be done with no hands while hanging in darkness over a long drop.

He lost his grip. A moment later he smacked into the spiral of logs one turn below, which parted company with the wall.

Man and timber fell one more turn. Vimes landed with a rib-bending thump across one step, while those around it gave way. Rocking gently on the one tough log, he listened to the thuds and booms as the fallen timber continued to the bottom of the shaft.

'—!' Vimes had intended to swear, but the fall had knocked the breath out of him. He hung like a folded pair of old trousers.

It had been a long time since he'd slept. Whatever he'd been doing on the slab it hadn't been sleep. Normal sleep didn't leave your mouth feeling as though glue had been poured into it.

And only this morning the new ambassador for Ankh-Morpork had strolled out to present his credentials. Only this evening Ankh-Morpork's commander of police had set out to solve a simple little theft. And now he was dangling halfway up a freezing shaft, with a few inches of old and unreliable wood between him and a brief trip to the next world.

All he could hope for was that his whole life wasn't going to pass before his eyes. There were some bits of it he didn't want to remember.

'Ah... Sir Samuel. Bad luck. You vere doing so vell.'

He opened his eyes. A faint purple light just above him illuminated the form of the Lady Margolotta. She was sitting on empty space.

'Can I give you a lift?' she said.

Vimes shook his head muzzily.

'If it makes you feel any better, I really don't like doing this,' said the vampire. 'It's so... expected of vun. Oh dear. That rotten old log doesn't look very—'

The log snapped. Vimes landed spreadeagled on the turn below, but only for a moment. Several stairs broke and dropped him a further flight. This time he caught hold of one and was, once again, dangling.

Lady Margolotta descended regally.

Far below, the broken wood boomed.

'Now, in theory this might be an almost survivable vay of getting back down,' said the vampire. 'Unfortunately, I fear that the descending logs have smashed many of the vuns below.'

Vimes shifted. His handhold seemed secure. It might just be possible to pull himself up...

'I knew you were behind this,' he muttered, trying to will some life into his shoulder muscles.

'No, you didn't. You knew that the Scone wasn't stolen, though.'

Vimes stared at the serenely floating shape. 'The dwarfs wouldn't think that—' he began. The log under him gave the little nasty movement that announces to any luckless passengers that it is about to land.

Lady Margolotta drifted closer. 'I know you hate vampires,' she said. 'It's quite usual, for your personality type. It's the... penetrative aspect. But if I vas you, right now, I'd ask myself... do I hate them with all my life?'

She held out a hand.

'Just one bite'll end all my troubles, eh?' Vimes snarled.

'Vun bite vould be vun too many, Sam Vimes.'

The wood cracked. She grabbed his wrist.

If he'd thought about it at all, Vimes would have expected to be dangling from a vampire now. Instead, he was simply floating.

'Don't think of letting go,' said Margolotta as they rose gently up the shaft.

'One bite would be one too many?' said Vimes. He recognized the mangled mantra. 'You're a... a teetotaller?'

'Almost four years now.'

'No blood at all?'

'Oh, yes. Animal. It's rather kinder to them than slaughter, don't you think? Of course, it makes them docile, but frankly a cow is unlikely ever to vin the Thinker of the Year avard. I'm on a vagon, Mister Vimes.'

'The wagon. We call it the wagon,' said Vimes weakly. 'And... that replaces human blood?'

'Like lemonade replaces whisky. Believe me. However, the intelligent mind can find a... substitute.' The sides of the shaft dropped away and they were in clear, freezing air, which knifed through Vimes's shirt. They drifted sideways a little, and then Vimes was dropped into kneedeep snow.

'Vun of the better things about our dwarfs is that they don't often try something new and they never let go of anything old,' said the vampire, hovering over the snow. 'You weren't hard to find.'

'Where am I?' Vimes looked around at rocks and trees mounded in snow.

'In the mountains, quite a long way viddershins of the town, Mister Vimes. Goodbye.'

'You're going to leave me here?'

'I'm sorry? You were the one who escaped. I am certainly not here. Me, a vampire, interfering in the affairs of the dwarfs? Unthinkable! But let us just say... I like people to have an even chance.'

'It's freezing! I haven't even got a coat! What is it you want?'

'You have freedom, Mister Vimes. Isn't that what everyvun wants? Isn't it supposed to give you a lovely warm glow?'

Lady Margolotta disappeared into the snow.

Vimes shivered. He hadn't realized how warm it had been underground. Or what time it was. There was a dim, a very dim light. Was this just after sunset? Was it almost dawn?