It isn't much of an island that rises up one moonless night from the depths of the Circle Sea -- just a few square miles of silt and some old ruins. Unfortunately, the historically disputed lump of land called Leshp is once again floating directly between Ankh-Morpork and the city of Al-Khali on the coast of Klatch -- which is spark enough to ignite that glorious internationalpastime called "war." Pressed into patriotic service, Commander Sam Vimes thinks he should be leading his loyal watchmen, female watchdwarf, and lady werewolf into battle against local malefactors rather than against uncomfortably well-armed strangers in the Klatchian desert. But war is, after all, simply the greatest of all crimes -- and it's Sir Samuel's sworn duty to seek out criminal masterminds wherever they may be hiding ... and lock them away before they can do any real damage. Even the ones on his own side.

It was a moonless night, which was good for the purposes of Solid Jackson.

He fished for Curious Squid, so called because, as well as being squid, they were curious. That is to say, their curiosity was the curious thing about them.

Shortly after they got curious about the, lantern that Solid had hung over the stern of his boat, they started to become curious about the way in which various of their number suddenly van-ished skyward with a splash.

Some of them even became curious--very briefly curious--about the sharp barbed thing that was coming very quickly toward them.

The Curious Squid were extremely curious. Unfortunately, they weren't very good at making connections.

It was a very long way to this fishing ground, but for Solid the trip was usually well worth it. The Curious Squid were very small, harmless, difficult to find and reckoned by connoisseurs to have the foulest taste of any creature in the world. This made them very much in demand in a certain kind of restaurant where highly skilled chefs made, with great care, dishes containing no trace of the squid whatsoever.

Solid Jackson's problem was that tonight, a moonless night in the spawning season, when the squid were especially curious about everything, the chef seemed to have been at work on the sea itself.

There was not a single interested eyeball to be seen. There weren't any other fish either, and usually there were a few attracted to the light. He'd caught sight of one. It had been making through the water extremely fast in a straight line.

He laid down his trident and walked to the other end of the boat, where his son Les was also gazing intently at the torch-lit sea.

"Not a thing in half an hour," said Solid.

"You sure we're in the right spot, Dad?"

Solid squinted at the horizon. There was a faint glow in the sky that indicated the city of Al-Khali, on the Klatchian coast. He turned round. The other horizon glowed, too, with the lights of Ankh-Morpork. The boat bobbed gently halfway between the two.

"'Course we are," he said, but certainty edged away from his words.Because there was a hush on the sea. It didn't look right. The boat rocked a little, but that was with their movement, not from any motion of the waves.It felt as if there was going to be a storm. But the stars twinkled softly and there was not a cloud in the sky.

The stars twinkled on the surface of the water, too. Now that was something you didn't often see.

"I reckon we ought to be getting out of here," Solid said.

Les pointed at the slack sail. "What're we going to use for wind, Dad?"

It was then that they heard the splash of oars.

Solid, squinting hard, could just make out the shape of another boat, heading toward him. He grabbed his boat-hook.

"I knows that's you, you thieving foreign bastard!"

The oars stopped. A voice sang over the water.

"May you be consumed by a thousand devils, you damned person!

The other boat glided closer. It looked foreign with eyes painted on the prow.

"Fished 'em all out, have you? I'll take my trident to you, you bottom-feedin' scum that y'are!'

My curvy sword at your neck, you unclean son of a dog of the female persuasion!"

Les looked over the side. Little bubbles fizzed on the surface of the sea.

"Dad?" he said.

"That's Greasy Arif out there!" snapped his father. "You take a good look at him! He's been coming out here for years, stealing our squid, the evil lying little devil!"

"Dad there's--"

"You get on them oars and I'll knock his black teeth out!"

Les could hear a voice saying from the other boat "-see, my son, how the underhanded fish thief--"

"Row!" his father shouted.

"To the oars!" shouted someone...

Terry Pratchett's novels have sold more than forty-five million (give or take a few million) copies worldwide. He lives in England.