Giles decided to take a well-deserved rest. It had been a hard morning of sheep watching, and he was feeling slightly the worse for wear after a late night and an early start. With a final glance at his small flock, to make sure they weren''t doing anything un-sheeplike, he settled down on the tattered blanket he had spread on the ground, and leaned against the tree he''d chosen as he base of operations for the day.

    Opening his basket, he examined the food that he''d packed earlier. The onion didn''t look very appetizing, but he''d heard old Biddwell say that it was bad to drink on an empty stomach, and he had half a bottle of Scud with him for later on, so he picked it up and took a large bite.

    Masticating industriously, he made himself comfortable and looked out over the field again. And stopped mid-chew.

    The sheep were all standing still and looking up, which is pretty unusually, not to say difficult, for a sheep to actually do, focused on grass as they usually are.

    Giles followed his flock''s gaze upwards, to see the clear blue sky had suddenly accumulated a large collection of dark, ominous looking clouds. He looked back down again, to see that the sheep were busy huddling together in the centre, all facing off to one side. The clearing, which only moments ago had been a scene of sunny calm, had been transformed into a cold, monochrome setting.

    The spot they were looking at appeared to be no different to any other patch of soggy grass, but as he looked on, a dark mist rose up out of the ground, slowly coalescing into a pillar of black smoke. Half masticated onion dribbled down his chin and on to his sack tunic as Giles watched, open mouthed, as the fog started to solidify into a figure. It gathered itself together, expanding outwards, and then outwards some more, to finally disperse, revealing the fattest man he had ever seen.

    It should be noted at this point that Giles had lived in Mudrut all his life, hardly the hub of thriving intellectual civilization at the best of times. The most travelled person he''d met was Master Tinkle, the mapmaker, who had been to such far flung and exotic places as Lower Scrag, nearly three whole miles away.

    The fattest local was the mayor, who could be described as slightly plump at best. The mayor was also the owner of the only eatery in town though, which went some way towards explaining that. People in Mudrut simply weren''t rich enough to go around getting fat.

    Eventually the fat man seemed to realize that his only audience was a small flock of frightened sheep and a yokel sitting under a tree with his mouth open. His expression changed into a scowl, and he turned around, having only a small amount of difficulty pulling his boots out of the mud, to face Giles.

    "You!" he said.

    Giles looked left and right slowly, and then point at himself. "Me?"

    The fat man rolled his eyes and muttered something. "Of course you! Who else would I be speaking to? The sheep?"

    As someone who often spoke to the sheep himself, Giles forbore to comment on that, but scrambled to his feet as the stranger made his way over to him, in the universal mincing gait of someone with nice shoes in a muddy field.

    "Where am I?" he demanded eventually, when he was eventually in front of the shepherd.

    "In a field?" Giles replied. His answer seemed to have a profound effect on the man, who recoiled in horror, holding his nose.

    "Good grief man! What in the nine hells have you been eating?"

    By way of reply, Giles held up his onion. "Onion," he added, just to be clear. "You can has a bite if you wants."

    "Why in blazes would I want to chew on… never mind." Shaking his head, which was covered with long, silky black hair tied back in a black ribbon, the man took a deep breath, gagged slightly, and tried again. "Where is the nearest town?" He spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a young and slightly dim child.

    This was a tricky question for Giles, who would have failed geography had he gone to school. As the stranger looked on in horror, he scratched his head, dislodging a few small insects, and then hazarded a guess.

    "That''ll be Groan I reckon."

    "Groan? What sort of name is that for a town never mind!" The man held a hand up to stop another bout of cogitation. "Do you live in Groan then?"

    "Me?" Giles shook his head in denial. "I ''aint no big city folk. I lives in Mudrut I does."

    "But you said…" The man paused and changed down a mental gear or three. "Ah, yes, of course. So, which direction is this Mudrut, and how far away is it?"

    Giles pointed off to one side. "That way, ''bout five minutes'' walk."

    The stranger followed his gaze, examining the brush and mud through which one had to travel to reach the village. Eventually he sighed and nodded, more to himself than anyone. "Very well then. Carry on eating your… onion."

    He turned and waddled off in the direction indicated, his cloak fluttering behind him. Giles watched until he had disappeared into the trees, shook his head in wonder, and then sat down to eat the rest of his lunch.

    ~ * ~

    Garlic Plate* was sitting in his usual spot, tending to his frog, when he heard the voices. Garlic, who heard voices all the time, didn''t pay them any real attention. Still, he did note that they weren''t the usual kind, which told him to do all the slashing and chopping, but appeared to be arguing amongst themselves. He held up a worm he''d found and twisted it in half as he listened, passing one bit to Freddy and eating the other half himself.

    "Hurry up!" said one of the voices. "You''re heavy."

    "Well stand still then, all your twisting and turning about is making it hard to see the lever," replied the other.

    "I apologize for staggering in pain as you dig your shoes into my shoulders; I''ll just quietly cry a bit shall I?"

    "That''s the spirit, ah, I think I''ve got it."

    This phrase was followed by a grinding sound, and a storm drain cover a short distance away from Garlic''s hidey hole was slowly raised up. A dirty hand pushed the cover to one side and then groped about, trying to get a grip on the ground.

    Grip acquired, the hand proceeded to pull up first one arm and then another, followed in short order by a head and the rest of the torso, which, all together, turned out to be a young man in dark, if rather stained, clothing.

    The newly emerged figure glanced about quickly, though failed to see Garlic and Freddy, tucked away in a dark corner behind a large pile of old boxes as they were. He lay down and reached back into the hole and, after a fair amount of arguing and swearing, pulled forth an even more ragged young man.

    The two clambered upright, and without looking back, staggered out of Garlic''s alley home.

    "Well, there''s something you don''t see every day, eh Freddy?"

    "No, very unusual," Freddy replied. "Do you have any more worm?"

    *His parents hoped that by naming him this, he would become a chef. This ambition was, whether by chance or fate, realised, and Garlic went on to run one of the most famous eateries in Groan. Then he started hearing the Voices, and killed an entire party of merchants over a light lunch. Strangely this actually helped business, and Garlic may have become even more successful had it not been for the fact he started serving veal, which disgusted the clientele so much he went bankrupt.