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A hovering grey shape said, Warning Danger The one calling itself Lady LeJean'Understood,' said one of the incarnate ones 'We know the way We will lead' It walked into the door The Auditors clustered around the door for a while, and then one of thelared at Lady LeJean, who smiled 'Doorknob,' she said The Auditor turned back to the door, stared at the brass knob, and then looked the door up and down It dissolved into dust 'Doorknob was siabove the temple didn't all have naods have enough tiods don't have the patience Copperhead was s awoke and saw its crooked peak, towering above the lesser local ods have no taste at all They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset This was one of those sunrises It was the kind of sunrise a man looks at and says, 'No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance Pink' Nevertheless, it was beautiful[15] Lobsang was half covered in a pile of dry bracken There was no sign of the yeti It was springtime here There was still snow, but with the occasional patch of bare soil and a hint of green He stared around, and saw leaves in bud Lu-Tze was standing so up into a tree He didn't turn his head as Lobsang approached 'Where's the yeti?'

'He wouldn't go further than this Can't ask a yeti to leave snohispered Lu-Tze 'Oh,' whispered Lobsang 'Er, why are hispering?'

'Look at the bird'

It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse, and nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw 'Must be an old nest they're repairing,' said Lu-Tze 'Can't have got that advanced this early in the season'

'Looks like so He squinted to see better 'Is it an oldclock?' he added 'Look at what the bird is nibbling,' suggested Lu-Tze 'Well, it looks like a crude gearwheel? But why-'

'Well spotted That, lad, is a clock cuckoo A young one, by the look of it, trying to build a nest that'll attract a ot the nu and it's stuck the hands on crooked'

'A bird that builds clocks? I thought a cuckoo clock was a clock with a mechanical cuckoo that caot such a strange idea from?'

'But that's some kind of o for more than half an hour, they keep lousy ti to keep the happens so too much of a fuss Got any food left?'

'No We finished it last night,' said Lobsang He added, hopefully, 'ErI heard tell that really advanced monks can live on the, er, life force in the actual air itself'

'Only on the planet Sausage, I expect,' said Lu-Tze 'No, we'll skirt Copperhead and find soo, there's notas he let the world around hi It was easier going without the snow on the ground, provided he avoided the strange resistance offered by bushes and long grass Lu-Tze walked on ahead, looking oddly colourful and unreal against the faded landscape They went past the entrance to dwarf lad of that The statues he had seen in the villages yesterday weren't dead, he knew, but merely frozen at a different speed of tio near anyone, but he needn't have bothered Walking around the living statues was invasive, somehow It , but very, very slowly

The sun had barely h warmer woods on the Rim side of the mountain Here the landscape had a more doa crossed a creek at a point where there were cart tracks, old but still not overgrown Lobsang looked behind him after he'd walked across the ford, and watched the water very slowly reclaim the shape of his footprints in the strea on the snowfields above the valley, like the rest of the novices That was so they couldn't coh no one actually explained what harht co had sliced in a living landscape It wasbu flowers The world was a crystal roup of deer cropping the grass, and watched as the nearer eye of one of theical slowness, to watch him He saw the skin ht 'Ti speeded up The deer fled, along with theHe was annoyed The quiet sloorld had been fun 'You ever been to Fourecks?'

'No There's a barh' Lu-Tze lit one of his skinny cigarettes 'Don't mean e country Big tiht in the led up Probably all that beer Nice place, though Now, you see that country down there?' On one side of the clearing the ground fell away steeply, showing treetops and, beyond, a small patchwork of fields tucked into a fold in the ht he could e across it 'Doesn't look much like a country,' he said 'Looks more like a shelf'

'That's witch country,' said Lu-Tze 'And we're going to borrow a broomstick Quickest way to Ankh-Morpork Only way to travel'