Far away from Moist and certainly from common sense, the grags took counsel, if it could be called that. Things in the outside world were changing so fast.

‘We are losing, you do know that?’ said a voice in the darkness.

‘It can’t be helped. It’s the zeitgeist, it’s in the air,’ said another voice, sounding somewhat more cracked.

‘And what do we care about the air, or any kind of geist? We are the justified, the stalwarts, the kings and servants of the darkness. Our people will come back.’

‘No, they’re leaving! Burning clacks towers was stupid! I say stupid! Everybody wants their news and it makes us look like criminals, which we are. And that’s not justified.’

A dwarf who had been silent during the conclave in the cavern was remembering the old Djelibeybi legend about the way to get an ass down from the minaret, and of course the answer was you first have to teach it not to be an ass. But in what world could that ever happen when you’re dealing with grags? It was, she thought, time to see for herself just how life was in the lands of the Troll King. She had been very careful, oh dear, so very careful and so she had survived, she hoped, to be the jackass that got out of the minaret, but alas, the idiots were still encouraging impressionable young dwarfs to attack the clacks towers. Whoever had had that idea had doomed them without dialogue.

Rhys Rhysson was right, she thought. We’ve lost all balance. We have to get out of here, out of everything that is here, out into the light. Surely, she thought, they wouldn’t suspect her. She had been forensic in her search for unbelievers.

Nevertheless, when at last she ran the knives got her before she stumbled. And then there were eight left in the cavern and those watching in the darkness watched more closely to see who would be next. The time would be coming when the purity of darkness could not be mocked!

The terrible fact was that when dwarfs schism, they schism … every deviation from the norm was treated as an attack on all that was truly dwarfish.

Others had already fled and died, and who could say they knew how many more were left, not only in this cavern but in other caverns all the way to Uberwald. And the trouble with madness was that the mad didn’t know they were mad. The grags came down heavily on those who did not conform and seemed not to realize that this was like stamping potatoes into the mud to stop them growing.

Everywhere one looked there were committees nowadays, mostly because, by arrangement and with the blessing of Lord Vetinari, other principalities, large towns and city states saw no reason to wait for the completion of their slice of the magic of the train, and, seizing these opportunities, new companies were entering the railway business with rather more success than the Wesley brothers. Drumknott was in his element as the paperwork mounted and his files multiplied; he contrived to be everywhere and into everything, ably supported by Mr Thunderbolt.