... if you know what the rules are, and who are the players.
On the far edge of the Disc the sun was rising. The light of the morning began to flow across the patchwork of seas and continents, but it did so slowly, because light is tardy and slightly heavy in the presence of a magical field.
On the dark crescent, where the old light of sunset had barely drained from the deepest valleys, two specks, one big, one small, flew out of the shadow, skimmed low across the swells of the Rim ocean, and struck out determinedly over the totally unfathomable, star-dotted depths of space.
Perhaps the magic would last. Perhaps it wouldn't. But then, what does?
Notes
1
All this was untrue. The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that look as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
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2
A figgin is defined in the Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words as 'a small short-crust pasty containing raisins'. The Dictionary would have been invaluable for the Supreme Grand Master when he thought up the Society's oaths, since it also includes welchet ('a type of waistcoat worn by certain clock-makers'), gaskin ('a shy, grey-brown bird of the coot family'), and moules ('a game of skill and dexterity, involving tortoises').
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3
The pronoun is used by dwarfs to indicate both sexes. All dwarfs have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing. Gender is more or less optional.
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4
i.e., about 55.
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5
Lit. dezka-knik, 'mine supervisor'.
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6
One of the remarkable innovations introduced by the Patrician was to make the Thieves' Guild responsible for theft, with annual budgets, forward planning and, above all, rigid job protection. Thus, in return for an agreed average level of crime per annum, the thieves themselves saw to it that unauthorised crime was met with the full force of Injustice, which was generally a stick with nails in it.
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7
Lit: "Good day! Good day! What is all of this that is going on here (in this place)?"
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8
Listen, sunshine [lit: 'the stare of the great hot eye in the sky whose fiery gaze penetrates the mouth of the cavern'] I don't want to have to give anyone a smacking, so if you play B'tduz* with me, I'll play B'tduz with you. Okay?"**
*) A popular dwarfish game which consists of standing a few feet apart and throwing large rocks at one another's head.
**) Lit: "All correctly beamed and propped?"
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9
Evening, all. " (Lit: 'Felicitations to all present at the closing of the day.')
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10
Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force.
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11
And mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a scorpion pit, on one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words.
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12
While being bang alongside the idea of necessary cruelty, of course.
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13
The Guild of Fire Fighters had been outlawed by the Patrician the previous year after many complaints. The point was that, if you bought a contract from the Guild, your house would be protected against fire. Unfortunately, the general Ankh-Morpork ethos quickly came to the fore and fire fighters would tend to go to prospective clients' houses in groups, making loud comments like "Very inflammable looking place, this" and "Probably go up like a firework with just one carelessly-dropped match, know what I mean?"
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14
A species of geranium.
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15
Some rioters can be quite well-educated.
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16
The phrase "Set a thief to catch a thief had by this time (after strong representations from the Thieves' Guild) replaced a much older and quintessentially Ankh-Morporkian proverb, which was "Set a deep hole with spring-loaded sides, tripwires, whirling knife blades driven by water power, broken glass and scorpions, to catch a thief."
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17
Tridlins: A short and unnecessary religious observance performed daily by the Holy Balancing Dervishes of Otherz, according to the Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words.
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18
The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.
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19
A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practised human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practise any more because they had got so good at it. City law said that only condemned criminals should be used, but that was all right because in most of the religions refusing to volunteer for sacrifice was an offence punishable by death.
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Guards! Guards! tds-8 Page 32
