Interesting Times

by Terry Pratchett

Page 14

 

  Whats Mad Hamish going on about?

  He says the breads stale and he cant find his teeth.

  Tell him if things go right for us he can have a dozen young women just to chew his bread for him, said Cohen. That is not very hygienic, Ghenghiz, said Mr Saveloy, without bothering to look up. Remember, I explained about hygiene. Cohen didnt bother to answer. He was thinking: six old men. And you cant really count Teach, hes a thinker, not a fighter . . . Self-doubt was not something regularly entertained within the Cohen cranium. When youre trying to carry a struggling temple maiden and a sack of looted temple goods in one hand and fight off half a dozen angry priests with the other there is little time for reflection. Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like What is my purpose in life? very quickly lacked both. But: six old men . . . and the Empire had almost a million men under arms. When you looked at the odds in the cold light of dawn, or even this rather pleasant warm light of dawn, they made you stop and do the arithmetic of death. If the Plan went wrong . . . Cohen bit his lip thoughtfully. If the Plan went wrong, itd take weeks to kill all of them. Maybe he should have let old Thog the Butcher come along too, even though he had to stop fighting every ten minutes to go to the lavatory. Oh, well. He was committed now, so he might as well make the best of it. Cohens father had taken him to a mountain top, when he was no more than a lad, and explained to him the heros creed and told him that there was no greater joy than to die in battle. Cohen had seen the flaw in this straight away, and a lifetimes experience had reinforced his belief that in fact a greater joy was to kill the other bugger in battle and end up sitting on a heap of gold higher than your horse. It was an observation that had served him well. He stood up and stretched in the sunshine. Its a lovely morning, lads, he said. I feel like a million dollars. Dont you? There was a murmur of reluctant agreement. Good, said Cohen. Lets go and get some. The Great Wall completely surrounds the Agatean Empire. The word is completely. It is usually about twenty feet high and sheer on its inner side. It is built along beaches and across howling deserts and even on the lip of sheer cliffs where the possibility of attack from

  outside is remote. On subject islands like Bhangbhangduc and Tingling there are similar walls, all metaphorically the same wall, and tnat seems strange to those of an unthinking military disposition who do not realize what its function really is. It is more than just a wall, it is a marker. On one side is the Empire, which in the Agatean language is a word identical with universe. On the other side is - nothing. After all, the universe is everything there is. Oh, there may appear to be things, like sea, islands, other continents and so on. They may even appear solid, it may be possible to conquer them, walk on them . . . but they are not ultimately real. The Agatean word for foreigner is the same as the word for ghost, and only one brush stroke away from the word for victim. The walls are sheer in order to discourage those boring people who persist in believing that there might be anything interesting on the other side. Amaz-ingly enough there are people who simply wont take the hint, even after thousands of years. The ones near the coast build rafts and head out across lonely seas to lands that are a fable. The ones inland resort to man- carrying kites and chairs propelled by fireworks. Many of them die in the attempt, of course. Most of the others are soon caught, and made to live in interesting times. But some did make it to the great melting pot called Ankh-Morpork. They arrived with no money - sailors charged what the market would bear, which was everything - but they had a mad gleam in their eye and they opened shops and restaurants and worked twenty-four hours a day. People called this the Ankh-Morpork Dream (of making piles of cash in a place where your death was unlikely to be a matter of public policy). And it was dreamed all the stronger by people who didnt sleep. Rincewind sometimes thought that his life was punctuated by awakenings. They were not always rude ones. Sometimes they were merely impolite. A very few - one or two, perhaps - had been quite nice, especially on the island. The sun had come up in its humdrum fashion, the waves had washed the beach in quite a boring way, and on several occasions hed managed to erupt from unconsciousness without his habitual small scream. This one wasnt just rude. It was downright insolent. He was being bumped about and someone had tied his hands together. It was dark, a fact occasioned by the sack over his head. Rincewind did some calculation, and reached a conclusion. This is the seventeenth worst day of my life so far, he thought. Being knocked unconscious in pubs was quite commonplace. If it happened in Ankh- Morpork then youd likely as not wake up lying on the Ankh with all your money gone or, if a ship was due out on a long and unpopular voyage, chained up in some scupper somewhere with no option for the next two years but to plough the ocean wave. [19] But generally the knocker wanted to keep you alive. The Thieves Guild were punctilious about that. As they said: Hit a man too hard and you can only rob him once; hit him just hard enough and you can rob him every week.

  If he was in what felt like a cart then someone had some purpose in keeping him alive. He wished he hadnt thought of that. Someone pulled the sack off. A terrifying visage stared down at him. “I would like to eat your foot!” said Rincewind. Dont worry. I am a friend. The mask was lifted away. There was a young woman behind it - round faced, snub nosed and quite different from any other citizen Rincewind had met hitherto. That was, he realized, because she was looking straight at him. Her clothes, if not her face, had last been seen on the stage. Dont cry out, she said. Why? What are you going to do?

  We would have welcomed you properly but there was no time. She sat down among the bundles in the back of the swaying cart and regarded him critically. Four Big Sandal said you arrived on a dragon and slaughtered a regiment of soldiers, she said. I did?

  And then you worked magic on a venerable old man and he became a great fighter.

  He did?

  And you gave him whole meat, even though Four Big Sandal is only of the pung class.

  I did?

  And you have your hat.

  Yes, yes, got my hat.

  And yet, said the girl, you dont look like a Great Wizard.

  Ah. Well, the fact is— The girl looked as fragile as a flower. But she had just pulled out, from somewhere in the folds of her costume, a small but perfectly serviceable knife. Rincewind had picked up an instinct for this sort or thing. This was probably not the time to deny Great Wizardry. The fact is . . . he repeated, that. . . how do I know I can trust you?

  The girl looked indignant. Do you not have amazing wizardly powers?

  Oh, yes. Yes! Certainly! But—

  Say something in wizard language!

  Er. Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum, said Rincewind, his eye on the knife. “O excrement, I am about to die?”

  Its . . . er . . . a special mantra I say to raise the magical fluxes. The girl subsided a little. But it takes it out of you, wizarding, said Rincewind. Flying on dragons, magically turning old mer into warriors . . . I can only do so much of that sort of thing before its time for a rest. Right now Im very weak on account of the tremendous amounts of magic Ive just used, you see. She looked at him with doubt still in her eyes. All the peasants believe in the imminent arrival of the Great Wizard, she said. But, in the words of the great philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, “When many expect a mighty stallion they will find hooves on an ant. ” She gave him another calculating look. When you were on the road, she said, you grovelled in front of District Commissioner Kee. You could have blasted him with terrible fire. Biding my time, spying out the land, not wanting to break my cover, Rincewind gabbled. Er. No good revealing myself straight away, is there?

  You are maintaining a disguise?

  Yes.

  It is a very good one.

  Thank you, because—

  Only a great wizard would dare to look like such a pathetic piece of humanity.

  Thank you. Er . . . how did you know I was on the road?

  They would have killed you there and then if I had
not told you what to do.

  You were the guard?

  We had to catch up with you quickly. It was sheer luck you were seen by Four Big Sandal.

  We? She ignored the question. They are only provincial soldiers. I would not have got away with it in Hung-hung. But I can play many roles. She put away the knife, but Rincewind had a feeling that he hadnt talked her into believing him, only into not killing him. He groped for a straw. Ive got a magic box on legs, he said, with a touch of pride. It follows me around. It seems to have got itself mislaid right now, but its quite an amazing thing. The girl gave him a wooden look. Then she reached down with a delicate hand and hauled him upright. Is it, she said, something like this? She twitched aside the curtains at the rear of the cart. Two boxes were trundling along in the dust. They were more battered and cheaper looking than the Luggage, but recognizably the same general species, if you could apply the word to travel accessories. Er. Yes. She let go. Rincewinds head hit the floor. Listen to me, she said. A lot of bad things are happening. I dont believe in great wizards, but other people do, and sometimes people need something to believe in. And if these other people die because weve got a wizard who is not so very great, then he will be a very unlucky wizard indeed. You may be the Great Wizard. If you are not, then I suggest you study very hard to be great. Do I make myself clear?

  Er. Yes. Rincewind had been faced with death on numerous occasions. Often there was armour and swords involved. This occasion just involved a pretty girl and a knife, but somehow managed to be among the worst. She sat back. We are a travelling theatre, she said. It is convenient. Noh actors are allowed to move around.

  Arent they? said Rincewind. You do not understand. We are Noh actors.

  Oh, you werent too bad.

  Great Wizard, “Noh” is a non-realist symbolic form of theatre employing archaic language, stylized gestures and an accompaniment of flutes and drums. Your pretence of stupidity is masterly. So much so that I could even believe that you are no actor.

  Excuse me, what is your name? Rincewind said. Pretty Butterfly.

  Er. Yes? She glared at him and slipped away towards the front of the cart. It rumbled on. Rincewind lay with his head in a sack smelling of onions and methodically cursed things. He cursed women with knives, and history generally, and the entire faculty of Unseen University, and his absent Luggage, and the population of the Agatean Empire. But right now, at the top of the list, was whoever had designed this cart. By the feel of it, whoever had thought that rough, splintery wood was the right surface for a floor was also the person who thought triangular was a nice shape for a wheel. The Luggage lurked in a ditch, watched without much interest by a man holding a water buffalo on the end of a piece of string. It was feeling ashamed, and baffled, and lost. It was lost because everywhere around it was . . . familiar. The light, the smells, the feel of the soil . . . But it didnt feel owned. It was made of wood. Wood is sensitive to these things. One of its many feet idly traced an outline in the mud. It was a random, wretched pattern familiar to anyone whos had to stand in front of the class and be scolded. Finally, it reached something that was probably as close as timber can get to a decision. It had been given away. It had spent many years trailing through strange lands, meeting exotic creatures and jumping up and down on them. Now it was back in the country where it had once been a tree. Therefore, it was free. It was not the most logical chain of thought, but pretty good when all youve got to think with are knotholes. And there was something it very much wanted to do. When youre ready, Teach?