A Blink of the Screen: Collected Short Fiction

by Terry Pratchett

  It was a month later. All the decorations had long ago come down, because goodwill goes out of season quite fast.

  The computer repairman, who was generally described on the warranty paperwork as ‘one of our team of highly experienced engineers’, twiddled nervously with his tie. He’d pressed hard on anything loose, replaced a couple of boards and had conscientiously hoovered the insides. What more could a man do?

  ‘Our machine’s fine,’ he said. ‘It must be your software. What happens, exactly?’

  The office manager sighed. ‘When we came in after Christmas we found someone had put a fluffy toy on top of the computer. Well, funny jokes and all that, but we couldn’t leave it there, could we? It’s just that every time we take it off, the computer beeps at us and shuts down.’

  The engineer shrugged. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘You’ll just have to put the teddy bear back.’

  SIR JOSHUA EASEMENT: A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  WRITTEN FOR IMAGINED LIVES, NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON, JANUARY 2010

  A year or two ago the National Portrait Gallery asked a number of authors to write a very, very brief biography of one of the Elizabethan grandees whose faces were on display in the gallery though, alas, nobody could be found who knew who they were. I took it as seriously as I suspect they wanted.

  Sir Joshua Easement, of Easement Manor, Shrewsbury was, in his own estimation at least, one of the last of the old Elizabethan seadogs. An ambition that was somewhat thwarted by his total lack of a grasp of the principles of navigation. Documents in the National Maritime Museum reveal that Sir Joshua’s navigational method mainly consisted of variations on the theme of bumping into things, and this was exacerbated by his absolute blindness to the difference between port and starboard. It was a joke among those seafarers who were lucky enough to have sailed with him and survived, that this was because he had never drunk starboard, but had drunk practically everything else.

  Such of his papers as survive give a tantalizing hint that in failing to discover the Americas, he may inadvertently have discovered practically everywhere else. What can we make of the mention of a land of giant jumping rats, found in the southern oceans, but, owing to Sir Joshua’s record-keeping, lost the following day?

  Nevertheless, quite late in the reign of Elizabeth the First, he succeeded in not only finding the Americas, but also in finding England again. He then, with much ceremony, presented to Good Queen Bess a marvellous and intriguing animal from that far-off country, whose black and white fur he deemed very attractive and fit for a queen.

  It was at this point the court really understood that, in addition to a sense of direction that meant that he frequently arrived in court with his shoes on the wrong feet, Sir Joshua also had no sense of smell what soever. This led to the queen, despite her growing infirmities, going on progress again at quite a high speed. When frantic courtiers asked about the destination she said, ‘Anywhere away from that bloodyee man.’

  However, even as relays of servants were scrubbing the palace floors and the female skunk was giving birth in the cellars, the Queen gave Sir Joshua the office of Captain of the Gongfermours or, in other words, put him in charge of the latrines, a post for which he was clearly well suited.

  Oblivious to the sniggers of the other courtiers, he took this position extremely seriously and even adopted on his coat of arms the motto ‘Quod Init Exire Oportet’ (What Goes in Must Come Out).

  Dr John Dee said of him: ‘He is a man born under the wrong stars, and has never learned which ones they are.’

  Dogged to the end, and oblivious to the noxious gases that only he could not smell, he spent the last years of his life in the following century trying to find a way to harness their igniferous nature, achieving an overwhelming success which led to his hat being found in Kingswinford and his head being found in a bear pit in Dudley.

  Discworld Shorter Writings

  TROLL BRIDGE

  AFTER THE KING, ED. MARTIN H. GREENBERG, TOR BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1992

  After the King, for which this was written, was an anthology in honour of J. R. R. Tolkien rather than being any attempt to trespass in Middle Earth, but it seemed to me that there was a mood I could aim for. Things change, things pass. You fight a war to change the world, and it changes into a world with no place in it for you, the fighter. Those who fight for the bright future are not always, by nature, well fitted to live in it. Sawmills oust the spiders from the dark wood, the endless plains are fenced …

  The wind blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals.

  It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze.

  In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire, telling stories about heroes.

  It was an old horse. It was an old rider. The horse looked like a shrink-wrapped toast rack; the man looked as though the only reason he wasn’t falling off was because he couldn’t muster the energy. Despite the bitterly cold wind, he was wearing nothing but a tiny leather kilt and a dirty bandage on one knee.

  He took the soggy remnant of a cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out on his hand.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s do it.’

  ‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ said the horse. ‘But what if you have one of your dizzy spells? And your back is playing up. How shall I feel, being eaten because your back’s played you up at the wrong moment?’

  ‘It’ll never happen,’ said the man. He lowered himself on to the chilly stones, and blew on his fingers. Then, from the horse’s pack, he took a sword with an edge like a badly maintained saw’s and gave a few half-hearted thrusts at the air.

  ‘Still got the old knackaroony,’ he said. He winced, and leaned against a tree. ‘I’ll swear this bloody sword gets heavier every day.’

  ‘You ought to pack it in, you know,’ said the horse. ‘Call it a day. This sort of thing at your time of life. It’s not right.’

  The man rolled his eyes.

  ‘Blast that damn distress auction. This is what comes of buying something that belonged to a wizard,’ he said, to the cold world in general. ‘I looked at your teeth, I looked at your hooves, it never occurred to me to listen.’

  ‘Who did you think was bidding against you?’ said the horse.

  Cohen the Barbarian stayed leaning against the tree. He was not sure that he could pull himself upright again.

  ‘You must have plenty of treasure stashed away,’ said the horse. ‘We could go Rimwards. How about it? Nice and warm. Get a nice warm place by a beach somewhere, what do you say?’

  ‘No treasure,’ said Cohen. ‘Spent it all. Drank it all. Gave it all away. Lost it.’

  ‘You should have saved some for your old age.’

  ‘Never thought I’d have an old age.’

  ‘One day you’re going to die,’ said the horse. ‘It might be today.’

  ‘I know. Why do you think I’ve come here?’

  The horse turned and looked down towards the gorge. The road here was pitted and cracked. Young trees were pushing up between the stones. The forest crowded in on either side. In a few years, no one would know there’d even been a road here. By the look of it, no one knew now.

  ‘You’ve come here to die?’

  ‘No. But there’s something I’ve always been meaning to do. Ever since I was a lad.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Cohen tried easing himself upright again. Tendons twanged their red-hot messages down his legs.

  ‘My dad,’ he squeaked. He got control again. ‘My dad,’ he said, ‘said to me—’ He fought for breath.

  ‘Son,’ said the horse, helpfully.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Son,’ said the horse. ‘No father ever calls his boy “son” unless he’s about to impart wisdom. Well-known fact.’

  ‘It’s my reminiscence.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘He said … Son
… yes, okay … Son, when you can face down a troll in single combat, then you can do anything.’

  The horse blinked at him. Then it turned and looked down, again, through the tree-jostled road to the gloom of the gorge. There was a stone bridge down there.

  A horrible feeling stole over it.

  Its hooves jiggled nervously on the ruined road.

  ‘Rimwards,’ it said. ‘Nice and warm.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the good of killing a troll? What’ve you got when you’ve killed a troll?’

  ‘A dead troll. That’s the point. Anyway, I don’t have to kill it. Just defeat it. One on one. Mano a … troll. And if I didn’t try my father would turn in his mound.’

  ‘You told me he drove you out of the tribe when you were eleven.’

  ‘Best day’s work he ever did. Taught me to stand on other people’s feet. Come over here, will you?’

  The horse sidled over. Cohen got a grip on the saddle and heaved himself fully upright.

  ‘And you’re going to fight a troll today,’ said the horse.

  Cohen fumbled in the saddlebag and pulled out his tobacco pouch. The wind whipped at the shreds as he rolled another skinny cigarette in the cup of his hands.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘And you’ve come all the way out here to do it.’

  ‘Got to,’ said Cohen. ‘When did you last see a bridge with a troll under it? There were hundreds of ’em when I was a lad. Now there’s more trolls in the cities than there are in the mountains. Fat as butter, most of ’em. What did we fight all those wars for? Now … cross that bridge.’

  It was a lonely bridge across a shallow, white and treacherous river in a deep valley. The sort of place where you got—

  A grey shape vaulted over the parapet and landed splay-footed in front of the horse. It waved a club.

  ‘All right,’ it growled.

  ‘Oh—’ the horse began.

  The troll blinked. Even the cold and cloudy winter skies seriously reduced the conductivity of a troll’s silicon brain, and it had taken it this long to realize that the saddle was unoccupied.

  It blinked again, because it could suddenly feel a knife point resting on the back of its neck.

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice by its ear.

  The troll swallowed. But very carefully.

  ‘Look,’ it said desperately, ‘it’s tradition, okay? A bridge like this, people ort to expect a troll … ’Ere,’ it added, as another thought crawled past, ‘’ow come I never ’eard you creepin’ up on me?’

  ‘Because I’m good at it,’ said the old man.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the horse. ‘He’s crept up on more people than you’ve had frightened dinners.’

  The troll risked a sideways glance.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ it whispered. ‘You think you’re Cohen the Barbarian, do you?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Cohen the Barbarian.

  ‘Listen,’ said the horse, ‘if he hadn’t wrapped sacks round his knees you could have told by the clicking.’

  It took the troll some time to work this out.

  ‘Oh, wow,’ it breathed. ‘On my bridge! Wow!’

  ‘What?’ said Cohen.

  The troll ducked out of his grip and waved its hands frantically. ‘It’s all right! It’s all right!’ it shouted, as Cohen advanced. ‘You’ve got me! You’ve got me! I’m not arguing! I just want to call the family up, all right? Otherwise no one’ll ever believe me. Cohen the Barbarian! On my bridge!’

  Its huge stony chest swelled further. ‘My bloody brother-in-law’s always swanking about his huge bloody wooden bridge, that’s all my wife ever talks about. Hah! I’d like to see the look on his face … oh, no! What can you think of me?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Cohen.

  The troll dropped its club and seized one of Cohen’s hands.

  ‘Mica’s the name,’ it said. ‘You don’t know what an honour this is!’

  He leaned over the parapet. ‘Beryl! Get up here! Bring the kids!’

  He turned back to Cohen, his face glowing with happiness and pride.

  ‘Beryl’s always sayin’ we ought to move out, get something better, but I tell her, this bridge has been in our family for generations, there’s always been a troll under Death Bridge. It’s tradition.’

  A huge female troll carrying two babies shuffled up the bank, followed by a tail of smaller trolls. They lined up behind their father, watching Cohen owlishly.

  ‘This is Beryl,’ said the troll. His wife glowered at Cohen. ‘And this –’ he propelled forward a scowling smaller edition of himself, clutching a junior version of his club – ‘is my lad Scree. A real chip off the old block. Going to take on the bridge when I’m gone, ain’t you, Scree. Look, lad, this is Cohen the Barbarian! What d’you think o’ that, eh? On our bridge! We don’t just have rich fat soft ole merchants like your uncle Pyrites gets,’ said the troll, still talking to his son but smirking past him to his wife, ‘we ’ave proper heroes like they used to in the old days.’

  The troll’s wife looked Cohen up and down.

  ‘Rich, is he?’ she said.

  ‘Rich has got nothing to do with it,’ said the troll.

  ‘Are you going to kill our dad?’ said Scree suspiciously.

  ‘Course he is,’ said Mica severely. ‘It’s his job. An’ then I’ll get famed in song an’ story. This is Cohen the Barbarian, right, not some bugger from the village with a pitchfork. ’E’s a famous hero come all this way to see us, so just you show ’im some respect.

  ‘Sorry about that, sir,’ he said to Cohen. ‘Kids today. You know how it is.’

  The horse started to snigger.

  ‘Now look—’ Cohen began.

  ‘I remember my dad tellin’ me about you when I was a pebble,’ said Mica. ‘’E bestrides the world like a clossus, he said.’

  There was silence. Cohen wondered what a clossus was, and felt Beryl’s stony gaze fixed upon him.

  ‘He’s just a little old man,’ she said. ‘He don’t look very heroic to me. If he’s so good, why ain’t he rich?’

  ‘Now you listen to me—’ Mica began.

  ‘This is what we’ve been waiting for, is it?’ said his wife. ‘Sitting under a leaky bridge the whole time? Waiting for people that never come? Waiting for little old bandy-legged old men? I should have listened to my mother! You want me to let our son sit under a bridge waiting for some little old man to kill him? That’s what being a troll is all about? Well, it ain’t happening!’

  ‘Now you just—’

  ‘Hah! Pyrites doesn’t get little old men! He gets big fat merchants! He’s someone. You should have gone in with him when you had the chance!’

  ‘I’d rather eat worms!’

  ‘Worms? Hah! Since when could we afford to eat worms?’

  ‘Can we have a word?’ said Cohen.

  He strolled towards the far end of the bridge, swinging his sword from one hand. The troll padded after him.

  Cohen fumbled for his tobacco pouch. He looked up at the troll, and held out the bag.

  ‘Smoke?’ he said.

  ‘That stuff can kill you,’ said the troll.

  ‘Yes. But not today.’

  ‘Don’t you hang about talking to your no-good friends!’ bellowed Beryl, from her end of the bridge. ‘Today’s your day for going down to the sawmill! You know Chert said he couldn’t go on holding the job open if you weren’t taking it seriously!’

  Mica gave Cohen a sorrowful little smirk.

  ‘She’s very supportive,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not climbing all the way down to the river to pull you out again!’ Beryl roared. ‘You tell him about the billy goats, Mr Big Troll!’

  ‘Billy goats?’ said Cohen.

  ‘I don’t know anything about billy goats,’ said Mica. ‘She’s always going on about billy goats. I have no knowledge whatsoever about billy goats.’ He winced.

  They watched Beryl usher the young trolls down th
e bank and into the darkness under the bridge.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Cohen, when they were alone, ‘I wasn’t intending to kill you.’

  The troll’s face fell.

  ‘You weren’t?’

  ‘Just throw you over the bridge and steal whatever treasure you’ve got.’

  ‘You were?’

  Cohen patted him on the back. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I like to see people with … good memories. That’s what the land needs. Good memories.’

  The troll stood to attention.

  ‘I try to do my best, sir,’ it said. ‘My lad wants to go off to work in the city. I’ve tole him, there’s bin a troll under this bridge for nigh on five hundred years—’

  ‘So if you just hand over the treasure,’ said Cohen, ‘I’ll be getting along.’

  The troll’s face creased in sudden panic.

  ‘Treasure? Haven’t got any,’ it said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Cohen. ‘Well-set-up bridge like this?’

  ‘Yeah, but no one uses this road any more,’ said Mica. ‘You’re the first one along in months, and that’s a fact. Beryl says I ought to have gone in with her brother when they built that new road over his bridge, but,’ he raised his voice, ‘I said, there’s been trolls under this bridge—’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cohen.

  ‘The trouble is, the stones keep on falling out,’ said the troll. ‘And you’d never believe what those masons charge. Bloody dwarfs. You can’t trust ’em.’ He leaned towards Cohen. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m having to work three days a week down at my brother-in-law’s lumber mill just to make ends meet.’

  ‘I thought your brother-in-law had a bridge?’ said Cohen.

  ‘One of ’em has. But my wife’s got brothers like dogs have fleas,’ said the troll. He looked gloomily into the torrent. ‘One of ’em’s a lumber merchant down in Sour Water, one of ’em runs the bridge, and the big fat one is a merchant over on Bitter Pike. Call that a proper job for a troll?’

  ‘One of them’s in the bridge business, though,’ said Cohen.