Guards! Guards!

...

Carrot looked around him. Shelves stretched away in every direction. On those shelves, books. He made a calculated guess.

'This is the Library, isn't it?' he said.

The Librarian maintained his gentle but firm grip on the boy's hand and led him along the maze of aisles.

'Is there a body?' said Carrot. There'd have to be. Worse than murder! A body in a library. It could lead to anything.

The ape eventually padded to a halt in front of a shelf no different than, it seemed, a hundred others. Some of the books were chained up. There was a gap. The Librarian pointed to it.

'Oook.'

'Well, what about it? A hole where a book should be.'

'Oook.'

'A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch,' Carrot drew himself up proudly, 'because someone's taken a book? You think that's worse than murder?'

The Librarian gave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who said things like 'What's so bad about genocide?'

'This is practically a criminal offence, wasting Watch time,' said Carrot. 'Why don't you just tell the head wizards, or whoever they are?'

'Oook.' The Librarian indicated with some surprisingly economical gestures that most wizards would not find their own bottoms with both hands.

'Well, I don't see what we can do about it,' said Carrot. 'What's the book called?'

The Librarian scratched his head. This one was going to be tricky. He faced Carrot, put his leather-glove hands together, then folded them open.

'I know it's a book. What's its name?'

The Librarian sighed, and held up a hand.

'Four words?' said Carrot. 'First word.' The ape pinched two wrinkled fingers together. 'Small word? A. The. Fo-'

'Oook!'

'The? The. Second word . . . third word? Small word. The? A? To? Of? Fro-Of? Of. The something Of something. Second word. What? Oh. First syllable. Fingers? Touching your fingers. Thumbs.'

The orangutan growled and tugged theatrically at one large hairy ear.

'Oh, sounds like. Fingers? Hand? Adding up. Sums. Cut off. Smaller word . . . Sum. Sum! Second syllable. Small. Very small syllable. A. In. Un. On. On! Sum. On. Sum On. Summon! Summon-er? Summoning? Summoning. Summoning. The Summoning of Something. This is fun, isn't it! Fourth word. Whole word-'

He peered intently as the Librarian gyrated mysteriously.

'Big thing. Huge big thing. Flapping. Great big flapping leaping thing. Teeth. Huffing. Blowing. Great big huge blowing flapping thing.' Sweat broke out on Carrot's forehead as he tried obediently to understand. 'Sucking fingers. Sucking fingers thing. Burnt. Hot. Great big hot blowing flapping thing ...'

The Librarian rolled his eyes. Homo sapiens? You could keep it.

The great dragon danced and spun and trod the air over the city. Its colour was moonlight, gleaming off its scales. Sometimes it would twist and glide with deceptive speed over the rooftops for the sheer joy of existing.