Lords And Ladies

'What is down there?'

'Well, it leads into Lancre Caves. They run everywhere, I've heard. Even up to Copperhead. There's supposed to be an entrance in the castle, but I've never found it. But mainly they lead to the world of the elves.'

'I thought the Dancers led to the world of the elves?'

'This is the other world of the elves.'

'I thought they only had one.'

'They don't talk about this one.'

'And you want to go into it?'

'Yes.'

'You want to find elves?'

'That's right. Now, are you going to stand here all night, or are you going to crowbar that stone?' She gave him a nudge. 'There's gold down there, you know.'

'Oh, yes, thanks very much,' said Casanunda sarcastically. 'That's speciesist, that is. Just because I am . . . vertically disadvantaged, you're trying to get round me with gold, yes? Dwarfs are just a lot of appetites on legs, that's what you think. Hah!'

Nanny sighed.

'Oh, all right,' she said. 'Tell you what. . . when we get back home, I'll bake you some proper dwarf bread, how about that?'

Casanunda's face split into a disbelieving grin.

'Real dwarf bread?'

'Yes. I reckon I've still got the recipe, and anyway it's been weeks since I emptied out the cat box.[40]'

'Well, all right-.'

Casanunda rammed one end of the crowbar under the stone and pulled on it with dwarfish strength. After a moment's resistance the stone swung up.

There were steps below, thick with earth and old roots.

Nanny started down them without a look back, and then realized that the dwarf wasn't following.

'What's the matter?'

'Never liked dark and enclosed spaces much.'

'What? You're a dwarf.'

'Born a dwarf, born a dwarf. But I even get nervous when I'm hiding in wardrobes. That's a bit of a drawback in my line of work.'

'Don't be daft. I'm not scared.'

'You're not me.'

'Tell you what — I'll bake 'em with extra gravel.'

'Ooh . . . you're a temptress, Mrs. Ogg.'

'And bring the torches.'

The caves were dry, and warm. Casanunda trotted along after Nanny, anxious to stay in the torchlight.

'You haven't been down here before?'

'No, but I know the way.'

After a while Casanunda began to feel better. The caves were better than wardrobes. For one thing, you weren't tripping over shoes all the time, and there probably wasn't much chance of a sword-wielding husband opening the door.

In fact, he began to feel happy.

The words rose unbidden into his head, from somewhere in the back pocket of his genes.

'Hiho, hiho-'

Nanny Ogg grinned in the darkness.

The tunnel opened into a cavern. The torchlight picked up the suggestion of distant walls.

'This it?' said Casanunda, gripping the crowbar.

'No. This is something else. We . . . know about this place. It's mythical.'

'It's not real?'

'Oh, it's real. And mythical.'

The torch flared. There were hundreds of dust-covered slabs ranged around the cavern in a spiral; at the centre of the spiral was a huge bell, suspended from a rope that disappeared into the darkness of the ceiling. Just under the hanging bell was one pile of silver coins and one pile of gold coins.

'Don't touch the money,' said Nanny ''Ere, watch this, my dad told me about this, it's a good trick.'

She reached out and tapped the bell very gently, causing a faint ting.

Dust cascaded off the nearest slab. What Casanunda had thought was just a carving sat up, in a creaky way. It was an armed warrior. Since he'd sat up he almost certainly was alive, but he looked as though he'd gone from life to rigor mortis without passing through death on the way.

He focused deepset eyes on Nanny Ogg.

'What bloody tyme d'you call thys, then?'

'Not time yet,' said Nanny.

'What did you goe and bang the bell for? I don't know, I haven't had a wynke of sleep for two hundred years, some sodde alwayes bangs the bell. Go awaye.'

The warrior lay back.

'It's some old king and his warriors,' whispered Nanny, as they hurried away. 'Some kind of magical sleep, I'm told. Some old wizard did it. They're supposed to wake up for some final battle when a wolf eats the sun.'

'Those wizards, always smoking something,' said Casanunda.

'Could be. Go right here. Always go right.'

'We're walking in a circle?'

'A spiral. We're right under the Long Man now.'

'No, that can't be right,' said Casanunda. 'We climbed down a hole under the Long Man . . . hold on . . . you mean we're in the place where we started and it's a different place?'

'You're getting the hang of this, I can see that.'

They followed the spiral.

Which, at length, brought them to a door, of sorts.

The air was hotter here. Red light glowed from side passages.

Two massive stones had been set up against a rock wall, with a third stone across them. Animal skins hung across the crude entrance thus formed; wisps of steam curled around them.

'They got put up at the same time as the Dancers,' said Nanny, conversationally. 'Only the hole here's vertical, so they only needed three. Might as well leave your crowbar here and take your boots off if they've got nails in 'em.'

'These boots were stitched by the finest shoemaker in Ankh-Morpork,' said Casanunda, 'and one day I shall pay him.'

Nanny pulled aside the skins.

Steam billowed out.

There was darkness inside, thick and hot as treacle and smelling of a fox's locker room. As Casanunda followed Nanny Ogg he sensed unseen figures in the reeking air, and heard the silence of murmured conversations suddenly curtailed. At one point he thought he saw a bowl of red hot stones, and then a shadowy hand moved across them and upturned a ladle, hiding them in steam.

This can't be inside the Long Man, he told himself. That's an earthworks, this is a long tent of skins.

They can't both be the same thing.

He realized he was dripping with sweat.

Two torches became visible as the steam swirled, their light hardly more than a red tint to the darkness. But they were enough to show a huge sprawled figure lying by another bowl of hot stones.