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"Why us?" said MrBoggis, head of the Thieves' Guild "He's not our Eovern," said Lord Vetinari "We have zip, zing, vi, can-do attitude"

"Can do what?" Lord Vetinari shrugged "In this case, save the world"

"But we'll have to save it for everyone, right?" said MrBoggis "Even foreigners?"

"Well, yes You cannot just save the bits you like," said Lord Vetinari "But the thing about saving the world, gentlemen and ladies, is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on So let us ic help us, Archchancellor?"

"No Nothing et within a hundred miles of the mountains," said the Archchancellor

"Why not?"

"For the same reason you can't sail a boat into a hurricane There's just too ic carpet would unravel in midair"

"Or turn into broccoli," said the Dean "Or a s that we cannot get there in time?"

"Well yes Exactly Of course They're already near the base of the e of the Guild of Historians "And that ood at doing what they want to do"

"But they are also, as I understand it, very old men"

"Very old heroes?" the historian corrected hi what they want to do" Lord Vetinari sighed again He did not like to live in a world of heroes You had civilisation, such as it was, and you had heroes "What exactly has Cohen the Barbarian done that is heroic?" he said "I seek only to understand"

"Well you knowheroic deeds "

"And they are?"

"Fightinguely "You knowheroic things"

"And who, precisely, defines the monstrousness of the monsters and the tyranny of the tyrants?" said Lord Vetinari, his voice suddenly like a scalpel - not vicious like a sword, but probing its edge into vulnerable places MrBetteridge shifted uneasily "Well the hero, I suppose"

"Ah And the theft of these rare itemsI think the word that interests me here is the term "theft", an activity frowned on bystealing over me is that all these terms are defined by the hero You could say: I am a hero, so when I kill you that makes you, de facto, the kind of person suitable to be killed by a hero You could say that a hero, in short, is soes every whim that, within the rule of laould have hi what I believe is known as the hee, theft and rape Have I understood the situation?"

"Not rape I believe," said MrBetteridge, finding a rock on which he could stand "Not in the case of Cohen the Barbarian Ravishing, possibly"

"There is a difference?"

"It's more a matter of approach, I understand" said the historian "I don't believe there were ever any actual co as a lawyer," said Mr Slant of the Guild of Lawyers, "it is clear that the first ever recorded heroic deed to which the htful owners The legends of many different cultures testify to this"

"Was it so you could actually steal?" said Ridcully "Manifestly yes," said the lawyer "Theft is central to the legend Fire was stolen froods"

"This is not currently the issue" said Lord Vetinari "The issue, gentle the ods live And we cannot stop hiods Fire, in this case, in the shape of let me see-" Ponder Stibbons looked up fro A fifty-pound keg of Agatean Thunder Clay" he said "I'm amazed their wizards let him have it"

"He wasindeed I assume he still is the Eine that when the supre, it is not the tined by MrJenkins of Requisitions"

"Thunder Clay is terribly powerful stuff" said Ridcully "But it needs a special detonator You have to smash ajar of acid inside the mixture The acid soaks into it and then - kablooie, I believe the terive one of these to Cohen" said Lord Vetinari "And if the resulting kablooie takes place atop the ic field, it will, as I understand it, result in the field collapsing forremind me Mister Stibbons?"

"About two years," he said "Really? Well, we can do without ing to suggest that this would be a jolly good thing, too "With respect," said Ponder, without respect, "we cannot The seas will run dry The sun will burn out and crash The elephants and the turtle ether"