Turtle Recall Part 8

Royal Society for the Betterment of Mankind founded by King VERENCE [CJ]

Silicon Anti-Defamation League (often considered, without any real evidence, to be a front organisation for the Breccia). This is a troll organisation, formed originally by working trolls in Ankh-Morpork who were fed up with the way trolls in general were stereotyped as big, slow, violent and stupid. Initially their response was to knuckle around to an offender's house and pull off his arms. Things have since settled down a bit, and the SADL is now just another one of Ankh-Morpork's numerous pressure groups. [MAA, MP, FC]

Skunk Club, Brewer Street, SoSo. You can buy drinks and watch females of various species take their clothes off (in the case of trolls, put their clothes on; trolls are normally stone naked, in their natural surroundings, and the males find the idea of the females wearing fifteen overcoats strangely exciting. They've never understood why humans seem to see things the other way after all, they say, it's not as if you don't know what to expect. Most troll robers get embarra.s.sed and rush off after putting on no more than fourteen layers of clothing).

Smell Preservation Society, Ankh-Morpork [SN]

uberwald TEMPERANCE Movement. Also the uberwald League of Temperance. The Black Ribb.o.n.e.rs [TT, NW]

Unpleasantly Squeaky Animal Front [FGD]

White Hand Gang [FGD]

Young Men's Pagan a.s.sociation [LF]

Young Men's Reformed Cultists of the Ichor G.o.d Bel-Shamharoth a.s.sociation [P]

Coalface. A troll privy cleaner in Ankh-Morpork. Sometime right-hand troll for CHRYSOPRASE, but not a henchman on account of failing to understand how to hench; subsequently enlisted into the militia by Corporal, now Captain, CARROT. Considered stupid by other trolls. This is like being considered flat by other carpets. [MAA]

Coates, Ned. Constable in the Night Watch when Vimes was a new recruit. Promoted to lance-corporal by Sergeant Keel. A freethinker, probably a revolutionary at heart and better fighter than Keel in every respect except that of unscrupulous cunning. A hero of the Glorious Revolution of 24/25 May (it happened overnight). [NW]

Cohen the Barbarian. The greatest hero the Disc has ever produced, with an uncanny ability to get close to money. His father drove him out of the tribe when he was eleven and he has been living on his wits and other people's nerves ever since. When first encountered, he was a skinny, little eighty-seven-year-old; totally bald, with a beard almost down to his knees and a pair of matchstick legs on which varicose veins have traced the street map of quite a large city.

Cohen had only one working eye the other was covered by a black patch. He has so many scars that you could play noughts and crosses on him, although your hand would have been chopped off if you dared. His teeth quit long ago but, inspired by TWOFLOWER, he obtained a set of dentures made of troll's teeth, which are diamond. He also suffered from lumbago, arthritis, backache, piles and bad digestion, and smelled strongly of peppermints as an alternative to just smelling strongly.

Although he could read, after a fashion, he never really mastered the pen and he signed his name with an 'x', which he usually spelt wrong. He is, nevertheless, claimed as the author of Inne Juste 7 Dayes I wille make You a Barbearian Hero! There is some evidence that C. M. O. T. DIBBLER was involved in this publication.

Cohen, in fact, just went on doing what he has always done. Many a younger opponent challenged him in the belief that he couldn't be any good because he was so old, whereas a moment's thought would suggest that since he'd managed to become old he must have been very good indeed. He was also something of a philosopher. His answer, when asked what are the greatest things in life, was: 'hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper'.

Possibly it was in search of these towards the end of his life (and even closer to the end of the lives of anyone who stood in his way) Cohen put together his SILVER HORDE of equally elderly men and conquered the AGATEAN Empire, where he effectively became new Emperor. However, the soft life got them all down, and faced with the unthinkable prospect of dying in their beds the remnant of the Horde undertook one last, very final adventure. They climbed CORI CELESTI, the Disc's central mountains and the home of the G.o.ds, to shall we say get their own back.

What finally became of them is a little unclear. Cohen's life was just too big, it seems, for mere death to put an end to it.

Coin. The eighth son of the wizard IPSLORE THE RED and a SOURCERER. When we encountered him, he looked about ten years old, with a slender, young face framed by a ma.s.s of blond hair, a thin mouth and two golden eyes that seemed to glow from within. He wore a simple white robe. He inherited his staff from his father; it was of black OCTIRON, so dark that it looked like a slit in the world, with a meshwork of silver and gold carvings that gave it a rich and sinister tastelessness. Most wizards have no taste, of course, but this staff had a very stylish kind of tastelessness.

While acting under the influence of the staff, Coin caused wholesale devastation in Ankh-Morpork and put at risk the continued existence of the Discworld itself. After his technical defeat by the wizard RINCEWIND, he retired to a better plane. [S]

Colette. A worker, if that is the term, at Rosie PALM'S House of Negotiable Affection. She would be described as a very handsome young woman in any language, particularly Braille. She is noted for her unusual earrings. [M!!!!!]

Collabone, Devious H. Unseen University's representative in Genua. He is studying Oyster Communications in a Low Intensity Magical Field for his B.Thau. His terrible halitosis means he is known as 'Dragon-breath' Collabone. [GP]

Collar, Mrs. Bedder at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD. TEPPIC'S bedder in the sixth form. (For those readers who have escaped the clutches of higher education, a bedder,well, makes the beds, cleans the rooms, and so on. And nothing more.) [P]

Colon, Frederick. Sergeant in the Ankh-Morpork City WATCH. Age believed to be about sixty. A fat man with a huge red face like a harvest moon. He likes the peace and quiet of the night and owes thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs Colon works all day gutting fish and he works all night. There must have been occasions when they were in the same room, however, since he has three grown-up children and some grandchildren. He has looked retirement in the face and didn't like it.

Fred Colon used to be in an army or armies (including, at one time, the Duke of Eorle's First Heavy Infantry [the Pheasant Pluckers] and, prior to that, the Duke of Quirm's Middleweight Infantry) but has been in the City Watch for thirty years all told, and has known Commander VIMES for many years. Fred is now 'Head of Traffic' in the Watch. He smokes a pipe, and wears sandals with his Watch uniform, along with a breastplate with impressive pectoral muscles embossed on it, which his chest and stomach fit into in the same way that jelly fits into a mould.

In Vimes' opinion, Fred Colon is not the greatest gift to policing. He is slow, stolid and not very imaginative. But he's plodded his way around the streets for so long that he's left a groove and somewhere inside that stupid fat head is something very smart, that sniffs the wind and hears the buzz and reads the writing on the wall, admittedly doing the last bit with its lips moving.

When out on the streets, he has a habit of loitering near large buildings not in case they are stolen, but because he enjoys a quiet smoke out of the wind.

He is the sort of man who, in a military career, will automatically gravitate to the post of sergeant. As a civilian, his natural role would be something like a sausage butcher some job where a big red face and a tendency to sweat even in frosty weather are practically part of the specification.

He looks like the sort of man who, if he fell off a cliff, would have to stop and ask directions on the way down.

He is currently the Watch Liaison Officer and the Custody Officer. He has an office in the Watch Training School (in the old lemonade factory) in the old Twaddle Room (named for the basic soft drink syrup).

It is known that, as a child, Sergeant Colon had a pink stuffed pig called Mr Dreadful. This sort of thing can come back to haunt you in later life.

Computers. The Disc's main known computer is now HEX, the computer at Unseen University. Although originally powered by ants ('Anthill Inside') HEX now more or less redesigns itself to suit any problem it encounters, and the only thing preventing it from becoming a full member of the Faculty is that no one has yet perfected Artificial Stupidity.

In physical size the great computer of the skies on the Vortex Plains is much larger. It is an immense construction of grey and black slabs of stone, arranged in concentric circles and mystic avenues; a triumph of the silicon chunk, a miracle of modern masonic technology. Designed and built by druids, but, oh, so fifteen centuries ago. (See also RIKTOR, HEX.) [LF, SM, and most of the series!]

Confectionary School of Architecture. A style responsible for the house encountered by Rincewind and TWOFLOWER in The Light Fantastic; the style in which gingerbread houses are built. [LF]

Conina. One of the daughters of COHEN the Barbarian, and therefore genetically a barbarian heroine who, unfortunately, wants to be a hairdresser. A superb fighter, she carries a large number of concealed weapons, although absolutely anything she can get hold of a hairgrip, a piece of paper, a hamster is used as a deadly weapon.

Her hair is long and almost pure white, her skin tanned. She is a demure and surprisingly small figure. Although she inherits her looks from her mother, a temple dancer, she inherits from her father sinews you could moor a boat with, reflexes like a snake on hot tin, a terrible urge to steal things and a sensation that she should be throwing a knife at everyone she meets. [S]

Conjurers' Guild. Motto: NVNC ILLE EST MAGICVS. Coat of arms: a shield, decorated with a vierge, devetee on a field, azure et etoile. The whole bisected by a bend, sinister et indented.

The Conjurers have a very small Guildhouse annoyingly close to Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork, but it's really more of a club house there is no such thing as a professional conjurer, it being more of an evenings-and-weekends hobby for respectable men who do other jobs during the day. They tend to be jolly and fat and well balanced and inclined to drop their aitches and drink beer and, besides the usual cries of 'hey presto!', pepper their normal conversation with terms like 'many moons ago' and 'for my sins'. They go around with sad thin women in spangly tights and unsuitable feathers in their hair; it's impossible to imagine a conjurer without one (as in the Amazing Bonko and Doris). And they infuriate wizards by not realising how lowly they are in the magical pecking order and by telling them jokes and slapping them on the back. They are very popular in Ankh-Morpork knowing something is done by trickery and sleight-of-hand is somehow much more intriguing than boring old magic. (See also THAUMATURGISTS.) [ER]

Cool, Monks of. Tiny and exclusive monastery, hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower RAMTOPS. The Brothers of Cool are a reserved and secretive sect which believes that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended and that black works with everything and that chrome will never truly go out of style. They're so cool they sometimes never get out of bed. [LL, TOT]

Coplei, Bosun. Bosun of the Omnian ship, the Fin of G.o.d. [SG]

Copolymer. The greatest storyteller in the history of the world. It is only unfortunate that this basic skill is confounded by a very poor memory and a lack of any practical narrative ability so that, for example, his actual stories tend to proceed on the lines of: 'It was a Thursday . . . No, I tell a lie, it was a Wednesday . . . When what's his name, tip of my tongue, forget my own head next set out . . .' [P]

Copperhead (Mountain). One of the more impressive mountains in the RAMTOP chain, on the edge of the Kingdom of LANCRE; the mountain and its lesser mountains and foothills are home to both dwarfs (in whose low mines CARROT Ironfoundersson grew to a slightly concussed manhood) and trolls.

Cori Celesti. A spire of grey stone and green ice ten miles high at the Disc's hub. It rises through the clouds and supports at its peak the realm of DUNMANIFESTIN, home of the Disc G.o.ds. As the AURORA CORIALIS discharges over it, it becomes a column of cold, coruscating fire. Other mountains cl.u.s.ter around it, and although these are no more mountains than termite mounds by comparison, in reality each one is a majestic a.s.sortment of cols, ridges, faces, cliffs, screes and glaciers that any normal mountain range would be happy to a.s.sociate with.

Corksock. Proprietor of Corksock's Natty Clothing in Ankh-Morpork. [MAA]

Cornice Overlooking Broadway. A GARGOYLE on the Opera House, Ankh-Morpork. [MAA]

Cosmopilite, Mrs Marietta. An elderly seamstress (a real one, with needles and everything; not the other sort) who lives at 3 Quirm Street, Ankh-Morpork with 'Rooms to Let, Very Reasonable'. During the HOLY WOOD times she became a wardrobe mistress, becoming Vice President in Charge of Wardrobe.

She is known occasionally to run a haberdashery shop and is also, much against her wishes, a religious icon.

This is because people always a.s.sume that wisdom is, well, more wise if it comes from a long way away. So while impressionable people in Ankh-Morpork follow the path of distant religious teachers with names like Rinpo and Gompa, the orange-robed, bald young men from the high mountains follow the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite (down to the shops, dropping in on her sister for a cup of tea, an appointment with the chiropodist, and then back home). Princ.i.p.al among these is the skilled LU-TZE, who has collected all her cosmically-wise sayings (such as 'It'll end in tears', and finds them a pretty good guide to understanding the universe. Wisdom is where you find it.

Cotton, Corporal. Or is it Medium? or Handwash Only? Anyway, a Corporal in the, er, KLATCHIAN FOREIGN LEGION whose soldiers are so successful at joining to forget that they have to rely on the labels in their uniforms to remind themselves who they are. [SM]

Counterweight Continent. Almost a legend, although a real one. It is a small continent, but equal in weight to all the mighty land ma.s.ses on its opposite hemicircle. It is said to be made of gold the area is also known as the Aurient, or 'place where the gold comes from'. But sailors searching for it return empty-handed or not at all. In fact, although gold is very common there, most of the ma.s.s is made up of vast deposits of OCTIRON deep within the crust. There is a very small amount of surrept.i.tious trading. (See also AGATEAN EMPIRE.) Counterwise wine. (See RE-ANNUAL PLANTS.) Counting pines. These grow right on the permanent snowline of the high RAMTOPS. They are one of the few known examples of borrowed evolution. The counting pines let other vegetables do their evolving for them, to save all the millions of years of trial and error. A pine seed coming to rest anywhere on the Disc immediately picks up the most effective local genetic code via morphic resonance and grows into whatever best suits the soil and climate, usually doing much better than the native trees themselves, which it usually usurps.

What makes them particularly noteworthy is the way they count. Being dimly aware that human beings learned to tell the age of a tree by counting the rings, the original counting pines decided that this was why humans cut trees down. Overnight every counting pine readjusted its genetic code to produce, at about eye-level on its trunk, in pale letters, its precise age. Within a year they were felled almost to extinction by the ornamental house number-plate industry, and only a very few survive in hard-to-reach areas. [RM]

Cranberry, 'Professor'. A hired killer in the pay of Cosmo Lavish. Cranberry was a scholarship boy at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD a foundling. He is quietly spoken and modestly dressed, with a shiny bald head (in fact he has no body hair at all). [MM]

Crank, Arthur. Lives in Prattle Alley. A serial suicide jumper, or more correctly a serial threatener he does it for the tobacco money, a cup of tea and the conversation. He was a steeplejack by trade and has been married for thirty-five years (though his wife can't cook cabbage to save her life or, presumably, his). [TT]

Crash. Son of a rich dealer in hay and feedstuffs. Also the leader of a would-be Music With Rocks In group, originally called Insanity. [SM]

Creator, the. A little rat-faced man, with a slightly put-upon voice made for complaining with. He created the Discworld while the main universe was being built, and it was obviously on a budget. It is clear that World Creation is a purely mechanical function and doesn't call for any G.o.dlike attributes. [E]

Creosote. Seriph of AL KHALI. A rather fat, middle-aged man whose chief pleasure is in writing very bad poetry and indulging in the kind of simple life only the very rich can afford. His grandfather built up the family fortune by somewhat mysterious means, which left the family in possession of a magic carpet, lamp and ring and a deep distrust of caves. Creosote, however, bears out the old Klatchian saying 'Going from very rich to quite poor in three generations' (Klatchian sayings lose something in the translation) and the money he did not squander on building an artificial Paradise around his palace was stolen from him by his evil Grand Vizier. Creosote is very fond of stories, and somehow manages to confuse the practice of narration with that of s.e.x, and is given to accosting decent young women and asking them for a swift anecdote. The many trite comments that could be appended here will, out of decency, not be made. [S]

The a.s.sa.s.sins' Guild Cribbins. He was just Cribbins. No one knew his first name. He has a serious personal problem that made him smell of bananas.

The teeth! They were that man's pride and joy. He'd prised them out of the mouth of an old man he'd robbed, while the poor devil lay dying of fear! He'd joked that they had had a mind of their own! And they spluttered and popped and slurped and fitted so badly that they once turned around in his mouth and bit him in the throat! He used to take them out and talk to them! And they were so old the stained teeth had been carved from walrus ivory and the spring was so strong that sometimes it'd force the top of his head back so that you could see right up his nose.

And he was a nasty piece of work. Cribbins didn't have style. He wasn't violent, unless there was absolutely no chance of retaliation, but there was some generalised, wretched, wheedling malice about the man that just gets on your soul. [MM]

Cripple Mr Onion. Very complex card game played with great intensity on the Disc. Winning combinations include: Two Card Onion, Broken Flush, Three Card Onion, Double Bagel, a Five Card Onion, a Double Onion, a Triple Onion (three kings and three aces) and a Great Onion, which is unbeatable except with a perfect nine-card run. If you are unable to tell 1 from 11 you may lose money playing Cripple Mr Onion. It is one of those games the learning of which costs a very great deal of money.

Cripslock, Sacharissa. Granddaughter of an engraver in the Street of Cunning Artificers. She wears a wedding ring, but is definitely a 'Miss'. She is not particularly attractive, but not particularly bad-looking either. In fact she is quite good-looking if considered over several centuries. Her eyes, chin, nose and ears were all cla.s.sically beautiful, in different centuries. Mind you, she also has a well-crafted supply of features that never go out of fashion at all and are perfectly at home in any century. She believes that severe, old-fashioned dresses tone these down. They do not.

She suffers from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistakes, in fact, mannerisms for manners although, since becoming the first reporter on the Ankh-Morpork Times, her approach to life has been a little more down-to-disc.

Sacharissa has blond hair, which she wears in a bag net, with a small and quietly fashionable hat perched on top of her head to no particular purpose. She often carries a large shoulder bag.

A member of the Cripslock family is also employed as a typesetter at Goatberger's publishing house. [TT, M!!!!!]

Cruces, Dr. Head tutor at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD in Ankh-Morpork in TEPPIC'S day. Later became Master of a.s.sa.s.sins. A lean figure, with a soft voice. Came to a bad end in complex circ.u.mstances. [P, MAA]

Crundells. The Ramkin country home just up the road from Ham on Rye. About twenty miles downriver from Hangnail, and Ankh-Morpork is a full day's coach journey away. The house is usually called Ramkin Hall. A well-appointed house or, as Vimes might style it, a freezing pile that could house a regiment. [SN]

Cuckoo, Clock-building. Lives in the RAMTOPS. It builds clocks to nest in, as a part of its courtship ritual. There is nothing very wonderful about this and it does not, emphatically, suggest that the universe was created according to any kind of Divine plan. After all, the clocks are not very good and some of them lose as many as five minutes a day. [RM]

Cuddy, Acting-Constable. First (genetic) dwarf member of the Ankh-Morpork City WATCH. One gla.s.s eye, the usual dwarfish steel-capped boots, and a tendency to use his battle axe rather than the official truncheon. A keen dwarf, sorely missed. [MAA]

c.u.mber, Miss. Teaches Language at the Quirm College for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. [SM} c.u.mberbatch, Silas. Used to be a town crier in Ankh-Morpork. Now a member of the WATCH. Has a voice that can be heard three streets away, and no neighbours. [MAA]

Cunning Man, the. He was a witchfinder, some 1000 years before the Discworld 'now'. He was an Omnian priest who was so mad that he wouldn't have been able to see sanity with a telescope. His rage lived on after his death like an idea, whose time came during the events of I Shall Wear Midnight. When he appears, his face has empty eye holes . . . He later takes over the body of a condemned prisoner called Mackintosh. [ISWM]

Cupidor, Mme. Mistress of Mad King Soup II of Lancre. Owner of one of the world's most complex wigs, which included a small takeaway linguini shop. [LL]

Curiosity, Cabinet of. It is kept in a room in Unseen University. The room is bigger than it ought to be. No room ought to be more than a mile across, especially when, outside in the corridor, it appears to have perfectly normal rooms on either side of it. It shouldn't have a ceiling so high that you can't see it, either. It simply should not fit. Technically it appears to be a cla.s.sic Bag of Holding but with n mouths, where n is the number of items in an eleven dimensional universe that are not currently alive, not pink and can fit in a cubical drawer 14.14 inches on a side, divided by P (unknown). The wizards don't know what it's for or who built it. Nothing in it is bigger than about fourteen inches square, but they don't know why this is or who it is who decides they are curious, or why, and they certainly don't know why it contains nothing pink. Anything taken out of it has to be returned in 14.14 hours recurring. When it closes up, its drawers slam in on themselves far too fast for the human eye to follow as the edifice shrinks and folds and slides and rattles down into house size, shed size and, finally, in the middle of the huge s.p.a.ce it becomes a small polished cabinet, about a foot and a half on a side, standing on four beautifully carved legs. [UA]

Curious Squid. These are found only in the seas around the drowned land of LESPH. Very small, harmless and difficult to find. It is their curiosity which is the curious thing about them; they seem to take a lot of interest in any new thing which enters their world. Since often the 'new things' are nets, hooks and tridents, this demonstrates that curiosity is only the handmaiden of intelligence, and does not work very well as its replacement. Curious Squid taste absolutely foul and therefore sell for quite high prices in certain eating-houses in Ankh-Morpork. Skilled chefs make dishes containing no squid at all.

Currency. The 'hardest' currency on Discworld (outside the AGATEAN EMPIRE) is the Ankh-Morpork dollar (one hundred pennies equals one dollar; in addition, ancient tradition says that ten pence is one shilling, twenty-five pence is half a ton, fifty pence is a n.o.b/a ton/half a bar/a knocker).

The sequin-sized dollars are theoretically made of gold but the metal has been adulterated so often over recent years that, technically, there is more gold in an equivalent weight of sea water. In a sense, then, Ankh-Morpork is on the gold standard in all respects except the one of actually having any gold to speak of.

But Ankh-Morpork is, despite superficialities, a stable city. It is also, despite more superficialities, a rich one. Its dollar is therefore the currency of choice throughout the lands washed by the CIRCLE SEA. Other city states have their own currencies but it is wise to ensure that these are firmly linked to the dollar, because Ankh-Morpork is the only place with anything worth buying.

These trailing currencies include the Ephebian derechmi (fifty cercs equals one derechmi), the Djelibeybian talent (worth one Ankh-Morpork penny) and the Omnian obol. The smallest denomination coin is the Zchloty leaden quarter iotum, which is worth less than the lead it is made of.

In the Agatean Empire, where gold is as plentiful as copper, the basic unit of currency is the rhinu. The rate of exchange with the dollar has never been officially established, other than to say that a handful of rhinu would significantly increase the amount of gold in circulation in the whole of the STO PLAINS.

The unit of currency in LANCRE is the Lancre penny, which weighs more than an ounce. Money is not much used in that country; currency is, in any case, only a universally accepted IOU, and Lancre is small enough for everyone to remember what they owe and are owed. The fact that they choose not to, and spend much of their time in highly enjoyable rows, is just part of civic life and whiles away the long winter evenings.

Curry, Annabel. Nine-year-old orphan of Corporal Curry of the City WATCH, whose upbringing was secretly paid for by Captain VIMES. [MAA]

Curry Gardens. Klatchian eating house in Ankh-Morpork. On the corner of G.o.d Street and Blood Alley. The sign on the back door reads: 'Curry Gardens. Kitchren Entlance. Keep Out. Ris Means You.' Like immigrant restaurateurs the world over, the owners have found that if you can cause the customers to laugh at your spelling, they'll be too amused to examine your maths. [M]

Cutangle. Past ARCHCHANCELLOR of Unseen University and Archmage of the Silver Star. An eighth-level wizard. He was very fat, with waggly jowls and extensive stomach regions, although in all conscience we must admit that this could be just about any wizard. In his youth, he knew Esme Weatherwax, who lived in a neighbouring village. He was the first Archchancellor to admit a woman to Unseen University. [ER]

Cutangle, Acktur. Father of Cutangle, the Archchancellor ( see above ). Used to live in a big house under Leaping Mountain. [ER]

Cutwell, Igneous. A young wizard in Wall Street, STO LAT. Cutwell is twenty years old when first encountered, with curly hair and no beard. He is basically good-humoured, with a round, rather plump face pink and white like a pork pie.

When we first met him he is wearing a grubby hooded robe with frayed edges and a pointy hat which has seen better days. He lodges in a very untidy house with peeling plaster, and a blackened bra.s.s plaque by the door 'Igneous Cutwell, D.M. (Unseen), Marster of the Infinit, Illuminartus, Wyzard to Princes, Gardian of the Sacred Portalls, If Out leave Maile with Mrs Nugent Next Door'. On the door is a heavy knocker that talks a common bit of flammery used by a wizard to impress the customers.

Cutwell enjoys food, although not to the point of actually cooking any; he grazes, more or less on whatever seems to be available when the cupboards are rummaged at 3 a.m. When he was made Royal Recogniser, with a salary and a much better wardrobe, this tendency towards indiscriminate eating of anything vaguely organic and stationary meant his highly decorated clothing achieved even greater degrees of decoration.

He was later promoted, by Queen KELI, to Wizard First Grade of STO LAT, and Ip.i.s.sissimuss. This is an important wizarding distinction that is only ever written down and never said aloud owing to the trouble this can cause among non-swimmers. [M]

Cyril. Myopic c.o.c.kerel with a poor memory and dyslexia (as in 'Lock-a-doodle-flod!). Lives on Miss FLITWORTH'S farm. [RM]

Dactylos, Goldeneyes Silverhand. The world is divided into those who can, and those who can afford to employ those who can. Unfortunately, the latter category often gets very jealous of its employees. History is full of the tragic stories of craftsmen who are killed or disabled or imprisoned by their masters to stop them running off and making something even better for someone else people like Daedalus, Wayland Smith, and Hephaistos. Their Discworld cousin never knew when to give up. He made the Metal Warriors that guard the tomb of Pitchiu (for which he was given much gold and had his eyes put out and replaced with golden ones). He designed the Light Dams of the Great NEF (for which he was loaded with fine silks, and was then hamstrung so that he could not escape but in fact he did escape, in a silk and bamboo flying machine). He built the Palace of the Seven Deserts (for which he was showered with silver and had his right hand cut off and replaced with a mechanical silver hand). He finally built the POTENT VOYAGER, the vessel intended for lowering over the Rim from KRULL (for which he was killed by the ARCH-ASTRONOMER). It would seem that his ingenuity lacked some vital facets in the area of self-preservation. [COM]

Dancers, the. Eight stones in a circle in the RAMTOPS. Each stone is about man-height and barely thicker than a fat man.

They are not shaped or positioned in any significant way; someone has just dragged eight rocks into a rough circle, wide enough to throw a stone across. Made of thunderbolt iron, they look as if long ago they were melted and formed into their current shapes. Three of the stones have names: the first two are the Piper and the Drummer; the third is the Leaper, and no one in Lancre has yet been unfortunate enough to find out why.

To find them you must follow an overgrown path up to the moorland, a few miles from the town of LANCRE. People say that when it starts to rain, the rain always falls inside the circle a few seconds after it falls outside, as if the rain were coming from further away. Also, when clouds cross the sun, the light inside the circle fades a moment or two after the light outside. It is apparent that the meteoric iron of the stones contains magnetism, a very minor and little-understood form of energy on the Discworld. Because of this, the stones form a barrier between the human world and the world of the lords and ladies. (See ELVES.) [LL]

Dances. Four dances are referred to in specific terms: Gathering Peasecods and Gathering Sweet Lilacs. Both folk dances, but they are somewhat emasculated versions, since they are danced by the members of the Ankh-Morpork Folk Dance Society. Anything with 'folk' in it will refer, sooner or later, to s.e.x.

Serpent Dance. A quaint Morporkian folkway which consists of getting rather drunk, holding the waist of the person in front, and then wobbling and giggling uproariously in a long crocodile that winds through as many rooms as possible, preferably one with breakables, while kicking one leg vaguely in time with the beat, or at least in time with some beat.

The Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance. A folk dance, shrouded in ancient mystery. Shouldn't be done when there are women present (in case of s.e.xual morrisment); it is danced to the folk tune 'Mrs Widgery's Lodger'.

Dangerous Beans. The de facto spiritual leader of the Clan, a tribe of rats who developed intelligence after, apparently, scavenging food off Unseen University's rubbish dump. He is an albino snow-white and with pinky eyes and is very short-sighted, although he can tell the difference between dark and light. [TAMAHER]

Dark Clerks. Mostly scholarship boys at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD. A group of little men in black suits and bowler hats who work for Lord Vetinari.

Dark Light is the light absorbed by uber-waldean Deep Cave Land Eels, in the same way that Discworld salamanders absorb normal light. Dark light is not darkness, exactly, but the light within darkness. It is heavier than normal light, so most of it is under the sea or in really deep caves in uberwald. There is, however, always a little of it present even in normal darkness. It is said that dark light is the original light from which all other light evolved, and it is a light without time what it illuminates may not necessarily be what is here now.

Darktan. Another rat clan member. A big, lean and tough rat with a scarred muzzle and a large red scar around his waist from a near-miss in a rat trap. As the leader of the Trap Disposal Squad, he spends his time taking traps apart to see how they work. He wears a network of belts with pockets, incorporating a range of tools and a sword, and is the undisputed expert on all makes of trap. A thoughtful rat, who wondered a lot about how the world works especially those bits of it with springs. [TAMAHER]

D'Arrangement, Lady Volentia. A thin, quite useless but good-natured high-born lady, who was fated to be a guest at a ball in Genua when Granny Weatherwax needed to borrow a dress and wig in a hurry. [WA]

Dblah, Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off. Purveyor in OMNIA of suspiciously new holy relics, suspiciously old rancid sweetmeats on a stick, gritty figs and long-past-the-sell-by dates. Sidling everywhere and wearing the djellaba of the desert tribes, Dblah's nickname comes from his catch phrase: 'And at that price, I'm cutting me own hand off'. It is clear that he is a distant cousin, alter ego, psychic double or soma-type of the even more famous Cut-Me-Own-Throat DIBBLER. [SG]