Turtle Recall Part 22

Magenta. One of DIAMANDA'S coven in LANCRE. [LL]

Mage Wars. Took place shortly after the Creation. In those days magic in its raw state was widely available, and was eagerly grasped by the first men in their battle against the G.o.dS.

The precise origins of the Mage Wars, as this period was known, are lost in the fogs of time, but Disc philosophers agree that the first men took one look at their situation and understandably lost their temper. And great and pyrotechnic were the battles that followed the sun wheeled across the sky, the seas boiled, weird storms ravaged the land, small white pigeons mysteriously appeared in people's clothing and the very stability of the Disc was threatened. This resulted in stern action by the OLD HIGH ONES, to whom even the G.o.ds themselves are answerable. The G.o.ds were banished to high and deserted places, men were recreated a good deal smaller and much of the old, wild magic was sucked out of the earth.

In those places on the Disc that had suffered a direct hit by a spell the magic faded away very slowly over the millennia, releasing as it decayed a myriad sub-astral particles that severely distracted the reality around it. [COM]

Magic [including wizards and witches].

INTRINSIC MAGIC.

This is the magic that derives from the very nature of the Discworld universe, and has a certain similarity to some of the matters discussed in quantum physics (physicists who seriously postulate extra dimensions that are curled up on themselves and are too small to see would be right at home in Unseen University). It is the intrinsic magic of Discworld which, for example, is responsible for the slowing down of light but at the same time makes it possible to see light coming. Intrinsic magic is the equivalent of G.o.d, thinking.

RESIDUAL MAGIC.

A powerful force, which needs some background explanation.

Most magic as used by wizards and witches is a simple channelling of the intrinsic magic of the world. It can be stored in acc.u.mulators such as staffs, carpets, spells and broomsticks and can be thought of as a slowly renewing resource, like geothermal energy. It is subject to certain laws similar to those of the conservation of energy. A wizard can, for example, cause fires and apparitions and coloured lights quite easily, because these require very little energy. In the same way, a person may quite easily be turned into a frog by causing their brain to reprogram their own morphogenetic field. The effect is temporary but embarra.s.sing.

But a wizard can rise vertically in the air only by locating a large solid object of similar weight in a high place that can be dislodged without much force, so that the descent of the object largely propels the rise of the wizard.

No common magic is powerful enough to cause, for example, a pork pie to come into complete, permanent existence. This would require quite a large amount of new energy to be created within the universe as much energy, in fact, as would be necessary to create a one-hundredth of a pig, one-ten-thousandth of a baker, one hundred-thousandth of a cleaver, several pounds of flour, salt and pepper to taste, and a couple of hours of baking.

All this can, however, be easily achieved by a sourcerer, who can channel raw creative force and may be thought of as the human equivalent of a white hole. A sourcerer in fact pretty much conforms to the cla.s.sic picture of a wizard he can create and destroy by a mere thought.

Fortunately sourcerers are now very rare on Discworld and only one is known to have arisen during the entire period of the chronicles [S]. But they were far more common in much earlier times. And, since power corrupts, and sourcerers were as naturally sociable as cats in a sinking sack, they engaged in vast magical wars which left whole areas (for example, the FOREST OF SKUND and the WYRMBERG so lousy with magic that the Discworld's fairly lax laws of cause and effect no longer apply even today. Many of the Disc's stranger species, and some of its most potent magical artefacts, probably derive from that period. While such residual magic can be discovered and exploited, in the same way as other worlds exploit the deposits of coal and oil which are similarly stored forms of the energy of earlier periods, the results are likely to be unpredictable, i.e., predictably fatal.

INDUCED MAGIC.

An often neglected but very powerful form, and available for use even by non-pract.i.tioners. It is the magic potential created in an object, or even a living creature, by usage and belief.

Take, in its simplest form, royalty. It needs but a royal marriage to turn a perfectly ordinary girl that no one would look at twice into a Radiant Right Royal Princess and fashion icon. Similarly, the ARCHCHANCELLOR'S HAT actually became quite magical in itself simply from having been worn on the heads of generations of Archchancellors and thus being only inches away from brains buzzing with magic.

The armour of the warrior Queen YNCI of Lancre had clearly absorbed enough potency to stiffen the resolve of Magrat GARLICK when she wore it (the fact that the armour was a complete fake is quite beside the point it is a.s.sociation and belief that are important). Mirror magic, as exemplified by the practices of Lily WEATHERWAX, also comes into this category. Witches believe that if they stand between two mirrors their personal power is multiplied by their reflections. This is clearly a primitive folk superst.i.tion, which by sheer luck happens to be true.

Possibly the most interesting example was the sword of carrot Ironfoundersson of the Ankh-Morpork City WATCH. It was not a magic sword. It had no mystic runes. It quite failed to light up in the presence of enemies or anything else. But it had clearly been used by the royal heirs of the city's throne for generations and had become magical in a very subtle way it had become more and more sword-like, until it was both a thing and the symbol of a thing.

WIZARD MAGIC (AND WIZARDS).

Largely, these days, the province of graduates of Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork. There are eight orders of wizardry and eight grades a.s.sociated with UU. In practical terms the affairs of academic wizardry as a whole are run by the ARCHCHANCELLOR and faculty.

There are many other schools of wizardry on the Disc, some considered arcane even by wizard standards, and there is nothing to stop anyone calling themselves a wizard of the ninth grade except the fact that if they meet a real wizard they're likely to end up sitting sadly by the pond waiting for a short-sighted princess with a thing about the colour green.

Grades of up to twenty-one have been reported, but this is considered to be just foreigners being excitable, and they impress the Unseen wizards as much as the porcupine-sized epaulettes on the shoulders of a shifty-eyed banana republic generalissimo impress a battle-hardened soldier.

Wizard magic generally consists of illusion, a little weather-making, fireb.a.l.l.s and the occasional darning of the Fabric of Reality. Fundamental to its use is the wizard's staff, usually about six feet long with the proverbial k.n.o.b on the end. Daily rituals with the staff acc.u.mulate magical power which can be discharged very quickly at need, or stored in spell books and triggered by the syllables of the spell. People often make jokes about the k.n.o.b on the end and wizards never understand why. It is a truism that the more senior the wizard, the less likely he is to do any showy or practical magic. Senior wizards' time in the University is taken up with sleeping, eating at least four large meals a day, University administration and generally, well, just existing and being a wizard just as hard as they can. Since UU and its LIBRARY probably hold enough acc.u.mulated magic to end the universe, it is just as well that it is sat on by large, contented and stable personalities (with the exception of the Bursar, who is as mad as a spoon, and the Dean, and the Senior Wrangler, and the Chair of Recent Runes).

A sourcerer is the eighth son of an eighth son, and his father must be a wizard. Unlike wizardry which, shorn of the coloured lights and fireb.a.l.l.s, largely consists of persuading the universe to do it your way, sourcery is the immensely powerful magic of the storybook wizard he can stop the sun, make the sea boil and all the other things such wizards feel they have to do. He is a channel through which magic flows into the universe, and the human equivalent of a white hole. Much that is strange on the Discworld (see Residual magic) is the result of wars fought between sourcerers long before the present age; they are absolutely incapable of united effort.

It was fears of the occurrence of sourcerers that led to the practice of, and then the insistence on, celibacy among UU wizards, although most of them are quite old and find even celibacy is a bit too exciting. Celibacy has no physical effect on magic ability. Gravity doesn't care if you're good or bad and, likewise, celibacy per se has no relevance to the magical act, otherwise Nanny OGG would be a washerwoman.

A sourcerer can only be beaten by another sourcerer. This belief held sway for hundreds of years and it was only when the first sourcerer for millennia appeared on the Disc (in Sourcery) that it was realised that this only applied where direct magical contest is involved. A half-brick wielded in a sock is otherwise perfect for the job. (See also RINCEWIND.) WITCH MAGIC (AND WITCHES).

Unlike wizards, witches are solitary creatures. They stand on the edge, where the decisions have to be made. They make them, so others didn't have to, so that others can even pretend to themselves that there were no decisions to be made. They enrol in no schools and have no formal system of regulation.

The informal coven of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny OGG and Magrat GARLICK in LANCRE was extremely unusual witches generally get together only rarely, on sites such as Lancre's Bear Mountain, to exchange gossip and discuss the affairs of the region, and once a year in the Ramtops at least for the Witch Trials.

Wherever they met there was, contrary to salacious popular belief, absolutely no question of them doing anything without their clothes on, with the possible exception of Nanny Ogg. Most serious witches are elderly and keep several layers of flannelette between themselves and the outside world at all times, except Nanny Ogg. Witches have in fact a very strict and ancient moral code, although Nanny Ogg's is rather more ancient than the others'.

Witches are trained by other witches, one to one, with one of the trainees taking over the area when her teacher either dies or quits the world in some other definite way. This means that over time an area may see a succession of witches of a roughly similar strain. The basic unit of witchcraft is the cottage, which may be inhabited by witches for several centuries. Magrat's cottage (now occupied by new informal coven-member, Agnes NITT) is traditionally the home of research witches. Another significant difference between wizards and witches lies in the att.i.tude to books. Most witches can read and write but place no particular value on books; wizards without a library would just be fat men in pointy hats.

The three main Lancre witches at the time of Wyrd Sisters, Lords and Ladies and Witches Abroad exemplified aspects of Discworld witchcraft. Granny Weatherwax's personal power is built on a considerable practical knowledge of psychology ('headology'), an iron will, an unshakeable conviction that she is right and some genuine psychic powers, which she distrusts. She is respected, but not liked. She would prefer to look like a crone, because ugliness engenders fear in the beholder and someone who is frightened of you is already in your power (Granny Weatherwax has never claimed to be nice). Unfortunately, she has a clear skin and excellent teeth, which despite her deliberate consumption of sugar show no signs of falling out. She is a traditionalist; she believes that progress is an excuse for making bad things happen faster.

Nanny Ogg is amiable and broad-minded to the point where she could pull it out of her ears and knot it under her Makepeace, Colonel. Charles Augustus chin. Of the three, she seldom does any magic in the normally accepted sense her role is more one of a highly informal social worker and jobbing wise woman.

Magrat Garlick has a soul of hopeless niceness and welcomes new ideas. Occult candles, cards, mystic philosophies from distant regions she approached all these things with an open mind which, unfortunately, then filled up. She does, however, have a natural talent for herbal remedies and, like many small harmless animals, a vicious streak when cornered.

All three of course fulfil (or, in Magrat's case, used to fulfil) the usual daily functions expected of a rural witch: midwifery, the laying out of the dead (and sitting up with them at night, possibly playing cards with the more unusual cases) and folk medicine. Their approach to this last again used to represent three aspects of witchcraft: Magrat: would give patients a specific remedy which careful observation over the years had suggested is most efficacious for that complaint; Nanny Ogg: will give patients a stiff drink and tell them to stay in bed if they want to; Granny Weatherwax: will give them the first bottle of coloured water that comes to hand and tell them it can't possibly fail. Her success rate is notable.

Their magical philosophies could be summed up as variations on the traditional sour mantra, Do What Thou Will: Magrat: If it harms no one, and doesn't make, you know, too much noise or unnecessary stickiness or a mess or anything, do what you will, if you really want to. Um.

Granny Weatherwax: Don't do what you will, do what I tells you.

Nanny Ogg: A little bit of what you fancy does you good.

Witches are nominally matrilinear, but in areas around the RAMTOPS, where people are fairly rare and therefore recognised and understood as individuals in their isolated communities, even this system is a bit haphazard and has more to do with an individual's perceived standing than any hard and fast rule. It is certainly the case that all the children of Nanny Ogg and her various husbands are Oggs. Strictly speaking, the children of her sons should not be Oggs but should take their mother's surname. However, this would mean that a daughter-in-law would have to explain this to Nanny Ogg, a woman who once coined the phrase: 'Over your dead body.'

There is no Discworld concept of white/black magic. There is simply magic, in whatever form, which may be used in whatever way the user decides. Suggesting that there is any type of magic that is intrinsically good or bad would make as much sense to a Discworld wizard as suggesting that there is good and bad gravity. (Of course, from a subjective point of view there are such things as good and bad gravity; the gravity which causes an aircraft to crash is obviously different from the gravity which stops everything flying off into s.p.a.ce.) (See also RESEARCH WITCHCRAFT.) Magicians. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with 'wizards', but strictly speaking true magicians are mere magical technologists with defiant beards and leather patches on their elbows, who congregate in small groups at parties. Mostly they are failed students of Unseen University, who have nevertheless opted to stay on the fringes of the profession, where they perform menial but essential tasks such as setting up equipment, obtaining magical supplies, and so on. They carry out pretty much the same 'lab tech' functions for wizards as people called Igor do for pioneering brain surgeons.

But even magicians can look down on CONJURERS. [ER]

Makepeace, Colonel Charles Augustus. Late of the Light Dragoons, and married to Let.i.tia for fifty-five years. Lives close by Ramkin Hall. Chas (as his friends know him) had long ago, with the expertise of a lifelong strategist, decided to let Let.i.tia have her way in all things. It saved so much trouble and left him able to potter around in his garden, take care of his dragons and to occasionally go trout fishing, a pastime that he loved. He rented half a mile of stream, but was sadly now finding it difficult to keep running fast enough. Nowadays he spends a lot of time in his library, working on the second volume of his memoirs, keeping from under his wife's feet and not getting involved. [SN]

Malachite, Tubul de. A wizard, and a great student of dragon lore. Author of The Summoning of Dragons. Died in a mysterious fire which left half his workshop completely melted. There were the tracks of something like a large wading bird in the ashes, and on the charred wall someone had apparently painted an outline of a wizard with his hands upraised protectively. This was put down to sunspot activity. [GG]

Maladict. A volunteer to the Borogravian army, who ends up promoted to Corporal. Maladict is a vampire (a black ribb.o.n.e.r), with long canine teeth; short and quite slim, and dressed in black expensively, like an aristocrat. Maladict carries a small sword. Maladict's vampiric energy is now focused on caffeine and he is very fond of coffee! Close friends also call him Maladicta. [MR]

Malich, Alberto. Albert. DEATH'S manservant, but also Alberto Malich the Wise, the founder of Unseen University (1222-89 by the city count of that time).

Although in real years he is only about sixty-seven, he has been alive while two thousand years have pa.s.sed on the Disc.

The generally held belief is that Alberto, one of the most powerful wizards alive at the time, tried to outwit Death by performing the Rite of ASHKENTE backwards. Insofar as his charred notebooks hold any clue, he seemed to believe that he could obtain another sixty-seven years of life.

In fact he disappeared, apart from his hat. Unseen University tradition is that he blew himself into the DUNGEON DIMENSION, which is the usual destination of those whose magic gets out of control; in reality, he ended up alive in Death's own country. The price of immortality, it turns out, was immortality. As explained elsewhere, real time does not pa.s.s in Death's house; there is, instead, a sort of endlessly recycled day.

It seems, however, that this entirely suits someone like Albert. Endless days filled with the same routine are something that makes a University wizard feel entirely at home. And he is, after all, a hierarchical creature. Wizards usually are.

Back on the Disc, Albert would have had only 91 days, 3 hours and 5 minutes left to live. That is now down to a handful of seconds, since most of it has been frittered away on shopping trips and holidays back in the world. When in Ankh-Morpork, Albert stays at the Young Men's Reformed Cultists of the Ichor G.o.d Bel-Shamharoth a.s.sociation, where he nicks the soap and towels (Death has not got the knack of making towels, or soap, or anything to do with plumbing).

In appearance, Albert is a small hunched old man. This merely shows that first impressions can be wrong. Second impressions suggest quite a tall, wiry man who merely walks like the third ill.u.s.tration Margolotta, Lady along in the usual How Man Evolved diagram. He has a red nose which drips so much that people talking to him blow their own noses out of sympathy.

Malik, Nudger. A late member of the Klatchian Foreign Legion. [SM]

Maltoon, Skully. (Sometimes known as Muldoon; spelling is not an exact science in Ankh-Morpork.) A member of the Palace guard. He used to live in Mincing Street with his mother, who made cough sweets. She died one day in a freak accident involving a wet floor, the cat, and a vat of the basic mixture for Mrs M.'s Expectorant Lozenges ('Don't They Make You Want to Spit'). Although she was subsequently pulled out there were nasty rumours that the family didn't want to waste the mixture and sold the lozenges anyway, so Skully grew up under cruel street taunts like 'Hey, these sweets have got some body in them' and 'There's a b.u.t.ton in mine'. Lives in Easy Street. [GG]

Manickle, 'Shufti'. A volunteer to the Borogravian Army and a close friend to 'lofty' TEWT. Stocky, running to plump. One of those people who bustle about being helpful in a mildly annoying way, taking over small jobs that you wouldn't have minded doing yourself. He is also known as Betty, is quite a good cook and she joined the army to find her fiance, Johnny. She joined the army from the Girls' Working School, Munz. [MR]

Mante, Bay of. Scene of a famous shipwreck. [M]

Maps. Map-making has never been a precise art on the Discworld. People tend to start off with good intentions and then get so carried away with the spouting whales, monsters, waves and other twiddly bits of cartographic furniture that they often forget to put the boring mountains and rivers in at all.

Ankh-Morpork has, of course, been mapped. It is a mercantile city, after all, and people getting lost wastes time and money.

Marchesa. A fifth-level (female) wizard who commanded the flying lens which transported RINCEWIND and TWOFLOWER to KRULL. She is a woman with skin as black as the deep black of midnight at the bottom of a cave. Her hair and eyebrows are the colour of moonlight, with the same pale sheen about her lips. A graduate of Krull's own college of wizards. [COM]

Margolotta, Lady. Lady Margolotta Amaya Ketrina a.s.sumpta Cra.s.sina von uberwald. Referred to, by the dwarfs, as 'the Dark Lady'. A rich vampire from uberwald, who occupies four pages in the Almanack de Gothicke. She lives in a castle that looks as though it could be taken by a small squad of not very intelligent soldiers. The builder was clearly influenced by fairy tales and, possibly, by some of the more ornamental sorts of cake. It is a castle for looking at. In the chintzy sitting room, with patterns on the furniture which have a bit of a bat look about them, we find Lady Margolotta.

She is not particularly tall, quite pleasant and with a slightly fussy air. She looks like someone's mother someone with an expensive education, that is, and she moves like someone who's grown used to her body. She wears pearls, a pink jumper and sensible flat shoes. Admittedly, there are bats embroidered on the jumper. At her feet, lying on a cushion, is a little dog with a bow at its neck. It looks more like a rat.

Lady Margolotta does not drink human blood. She has been 'teetotal' for almost four years when we meet her and she is a member of the uberwald League of TEMPERANCE the black ribb.o.n.e.rs.

She was the person who, by diplomacy, and probably more direct means, had got things moving again in uberwald and she had some sort of . . . relationship with Vetinari. Everyone knew it, and, that was all everyone knew. A dot dot dot dot relationship. One of those. And n.o.body had been able to join up the dots. She had been to the city on diplomatic visits, and not even the well-practised dowagers of Ankh-Morpork had been able to detect a whisper of anything other than a businesslike amiability and international co-operation between the two of them. And they play endless and complex games via the clacks system, and that apart from that, that was, well that. [TFE, UA]

Maroon, Mrs. The widow of a Watchman, Sergeant Maroon. Secretly the recipient of a small pension paid personally by Captain Vimes. [MAA]

Marrowleaf. Wizard and author of the Theory of Thaumic Imponderability. This says that it is impossible to know exactly what any magical spell will do until afterwards, when it will be too late, although the Theory itself takes ninety closely-written pages. [SM]

Maurice. 'The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents' are first referred to during the events of Reaper Man. We then knew of him that he ran a very remunerative operation by infesting a city with rats and then charging the city a large sum to get rid of them. We now know that he is a talking cat. A mucky yellow-eyed tabby, in fact. Before the magical events that gave him self-awareness and a speaking voice, he had lived on the streets of Ankh-Morpork for four years and as a result barely had any ears left and scars all over his face. He has a cat's self-a.s.surance in spades. He swaggers so much that if he doesn't slow down he flips himself over and when he fluffs his tail up, people have to step around it. His money-making scam is aided by a stupid-looking kid called KEITH, who plays the pipes, and by a band of intelligent, talking rats, whose numbers included: Additives Bestbefore Big Savings Bitesize DANGEROUS BEANS.

DARKTAN.

Delicious Farmhouse Feedsfour Finest Fresh HAMNPORK.

Inbrine Kidney NOURISHING.

PEACHES.

SARDINES.

Sellby Specialoffer Tomato Toxie [RM, TAMAHER].

Mazda, Fingers. A sort of mythic hero to thieves everywhere. He was the first thief in the world; he stole fire from the G.o.ds. He was unable to fence it. It was too hot. [MAA]

M'Bu. Twelve-year old a.s.sistant to Azhural N'choate, a Howondaland livestock exporter. He also had one of the best organisational brains in the world, which was entirely necessary to get one thousand elephants all the way to Ankh-Morpork (a trek which at one point included sledging them down mountains). [MP]

Medicine. Discworld medicine is occasionally sophisticated but always erratic.

It might be thought that the practice of medicine would be simple in a world where magic is commonplace, and in purely diagnostic terms this is often the case. But Unseen University wizards, certainly, are expressly forbidden to use magic to cure. Magic is tricky stuff and can have a mind of its own using it to perform a complex operation might solve the immediate problem but it might also present the patient with a range of new, and probably worse, ones. An a.n.a.logy would be bringing in a wolf to keep the foxes away from your sheep. It would work, but . . .

Putting back an arm by magic would not be difficult, but getting it to do what its new owner wanted since it would now be a creature of magic would be hard and would involve a lot of embarra.s.sment and the probable wearing of a boxing glove at night.

So in Ankh-Morpork, for example, the term 'surgical precision' still means 'to within an inch or two, with a lot of sawdust about, and a bucket of hot pitch in the corner'. However, wizards can be used as anaesthetists in preference to the usual large hammer.

Outside the cities of the STO PLAINS the stricken usually resort to witches. Techniques vary, ranging from Keep the Patient Amused While Nature Takes Its Course (since people often get better from things that don't actually kill them) to serious if haphazard knowledge of the genuine healing properties of herbs.

Chiropracty in particular is a witch art many a witch knows the amazing healing properties of a good prod in the right place. Few other people understand this; throughout the history of the universe people gained an inconvenient reputation for messiahdom merely by demonstrating a useful knowledge of the common slipped disc. (See also RETROPHRENOLOGY.) Mellius and Gretelina. The Disc's greatest lovers, whose pure, pa.s.sionate and soulsearing affair would have scorched the pages of History had they not been born 200 years apart on different continents. [M]

Mended Drum, the. (See DRUM.) Merchants' Guild. Motto: VILIS AD BIS PRETII. Coat of arms: a shield, quartered. In the top-right quarter, a jeune coq, gules, on a field d'or; in the bottom-left quarter, a tete de boeuf, gules on a field d'or. In the top-left quarter, a vaisseau d'or on a field, azure; in the bottom right quarter, a bourse d'or on a field, azure. Superimposed on the shield, a morpork holding an ankh.

The youngest of Ankh-Morpork Guilds, founded in self-defence by the city's traders and shopkeepers when they realised that their role in the great scheme of things was to be robbed. 'Robbing fat merchants', it seemed, was a perfectly socially acceptable thing for even heroic heroes to do. 'Ah, yonder lies a fat merchant,' they'd cry, using the special Landlord-a-flagon-of-your finest-ale hero talk, 'let us relieve him of some of his ill-gotten gains, 'pon my scalliard!' And this to a man who'd been up all night carefully mixing sand with the sugar, and who regularly gave small sums to the less smelly beggars.

The Guild was thus formed to peacefully further the aims of its members, advertise the civic charms of Ankh-Morpork and beat seven kinds of h.e.l.l out of anyone with a leather loincloth. It is now one of the city's more talkative pressure groups.

It is particularly hot in pursuit of those misguided people who publicly fail to recognise the many attractive points of their fine city. The merchants now hire large gangs of men with ears like fists and fists like bags of walnuts to point out that Ankh-Morpork is, on the contrary, a marvellously clean and decent city in which to live, a process whose on-going nature might be swiftly curtailed if that person does not shut up right now.

The Guild has an annual knife-and-fork supper, held in the upper room of the Mended DRUM. [M]

Mericet. A tutor and examiner at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD. He lectures about Strategy and Poison Theory every Thursday afternoon. An old, bald man with a tiny, dried-up smile that had all the warmth boiled out of it long ago. And one of the city's most skilled a.s.sa.s.sins. [P]

Meserole, Lady. Lady (Madam) Roberta (Bobbi) Meserole is a wealthy lady with business interests in Genua and uBERWALD and who lives on the corner of Easy Street and Treacle Mine Road, close to the old Watch House. She has brown eyes, brown hair, intricately painted fingernails and she wears an expensive-looking vivid purple dress. She has the trace of a Genuan accent. She owns a cat with a diamond collar, but the effect is somewhat spoiled because the cat is an elderly, ginger street tom with irregular bouts of flatulence. She is, it seems, Lord VETINARI'S aunt. [NW]

Mica. A bridge troll encountered by COHEN the Barbarian. [TB]

Michael, c.u.mbling. A member of the BEGGARS' GUILD. [MAA]

Mims, Terpsic. An angler in KRULL, rescued from drowning in the Hakrull river by Death because he had fallen in too soon. [M]

Mint, Royal, Ankh-Morpork. It would be hard to imagine an uglier building that hadn't won a major architectural award. The Mint is a gaunt brick and stone block, its windows high, small, many and barred, its doors protected by portcullises. Its whole construction says to the world: Don't Even Think About It.

Poking out of the roof is a sort of disc-shaped device which makes it look like a money box with a big coin stuck in the slot. This did, indeed, used to be known as the Bad Penny. It is a large treadmill to provide power for the coin stamps. It used to be powered by prisoners, back in the days when 'community service' wasn't just a word. Or even two.

Its main hall is three storeys high, and picks up a fair amount of daylight from the rows of barred windows, which send shafts of dusty sunlight slanting to the floor. Everything else is sheds.

Sheds have been built onto the walls and even hang like swallows' nests up near the ceiling, accessed by unsafe-looking wooden stairs. The uneven floor itself is a small village of sheds, placed any old how, no two alike, each one carefully roofed against the non-existent prospect of rain. Wisps of smoke spiral gently through the thick air. Against one wall a forge glows, providing the dark orange glow that gives the place the right stygian atmosphere. The place looks like the after-death destination for people who have committed small and rather dull sins.

This is, however, just the background. What dominates the hall is the Bad Penny. This treadmill is strange. There is one in the Tanty, wherein inmates can invigorate their cardio-vascular systems whether they want to or not. The Bad Penny is much larger, but hardly seems to be there at all. There is a metal rim that looks frighteningly thin. It's hard to see the spokes at all, until you realise that there are no spokes as such, just hundreds of thin wires. [MM]

Modo. The dwarf gardener at Unseen University. He used to be the a.s.sistant gardener at the Palace. He smokes a pipe, and is often found in a secluded area behind the High Energy Magic building where he lights his bonfires, keeps his compost heaps, his pile of leaf mould and the little shed where he sits when it rains. He is a great believer in compost his compost heaps heave and glow faintly in the dark, perhaps because of the possibly illegal ingredients Modo feeds them. ARCHCHANCELLORS have come and gone, UU has been destroyed and rebuilt, various dire horrors have visited the city, and Modo has still managed to mow the lawns every Friday. [RM]

Molly, Queen. Head of the BEGGARS' GUILD. She walks with a stick and wears layers and layers of rags. Her hair looks as though it has been permed by a hurricane and her face is a ma.s.s of sores and warts (which have sub-warts, and they have their own hair). A very sharp woman. [MAA]

Monarchy, Ankh-Morporkian. For most of its history Ankh-Morpork has been a monarchy. An important distinction, however, must be made between the kings of Ankh-Morpork and the kings of Ankh. The original kings of Ankh are enshrined in city mythology as 'real' kings (i.e., wise, powerful, charismatic, etc.), while the later kings of Ankh-Morpork are remembered as, well, real kings (i.e., power-mad, unjust and inventively evil).

Little is really known of the line of the kings of Ankh. It came to an end approximately 2,000 years ago and its period is generally thought of as a 'golden age' i.e., a time so long ago that no one can remember how wretched it was. Its physical remains are few: there are the ancient sewers, the ruins of what was possibly a castle on the hillock known as The Tump, a throne so worm-eaten that it would become a cloud of dust if sat upon and according to legend a sword.

There followed seventeen centuries of monarchy of a sort, where the crown was available to anyone with enough soldiers and a strong stomach; the history of the Ankh-Morpork monarchy is a litany of betrayals, ma.s.sacres, ambushes, poisonings, imprisonments in towers, wars, people staggering around battlefields looking for their horse, family feuds and a.s.sa.s.sinations and wars. Of these last, the longest continued on a low-key basis for two centuries and the shortest, between the followers of Blad, Scourge of Dolly Sisters, and those of Mad Eric the Peaceful, is known as the .002 Years War.

Compared to the legendary kings of Ankh, all the later kings of Ankh-Morpork were pretenders. Most of them had as much interest in good government as the Borgia popes had in divinity and most of the big families in Ankh-Morpork were 'royal' for a time. Not many lines survived for more than two or three generations and a number did not make it to the end of the coronation feast (in fact the shortest reign on record was that of Loyala the Aaargh, at 1.13 seconds). For a week, Ankh-Morpork was technically ruled by a wasp, and for several days by the left foot of the then High Priest of Io, who'd dropped the crown on it during the crucial point of the ceremony.