Interesting Times d-17

by Terry Pratchett

  Well, he'd definitely scored a hit with the Emperor. For some reason this did not reassure him. The man gave Rincewind the distinct impression of being the kind of person who is at least as dangerous to his friends as to his enemies.

  He remembered Noodle Jackson, back in the days when he was a very young student. Everyone wanted to be friends with Noodle but somehow, if you were in his gang, you found yourself being trodden on or chased by the Watch or being hit in fights you didn't start, while Noodle was somewhere on the edge of things, laughing.

  Besides, the Emperor wasn't simply at Death's door but well inside the hallway, admiring the carpet and commenting on the hatstand. And you didn't have to be a political genius to know that when someone like that died, scores were being settled before he'd even got cold. Anyone he'd publicly called a friend would have a life expectancy more normally associated with things that hover over trout streams at sunset.

  Rincewind moved aside a skull and sat down. There was the possibility of rescue, he supposed, but the Red Army would be hard put to it to rescue a rubber duck from drowning. Anyway, that'd put him back in the clutches of Butterfly, who terrified him almost as much as the Emperor.

  He had to believe that the gods didn't intend for Rincewind, after all his adventures, to rot in a dungeon.

  No, he added bitterly, they probably had something much more inventive in mind.

  What light reached the dungeon came from a very small grille and had a second-hand look. The rest of the furnishing was a pile of what had possibly once been straw. There was—

  — a gentle tapping at the wall.

  Once, twice, three times.

  Rincewind picked up the skull and returned the signal.

  One tap came back.

  He repeated it.

  Then there were two.

  He tapped twice.

  Well, this was familiar. Communication without meaning… it was just like being back at Unseen University.

  "Fine," he said, his voice echoing in the cell. "Fine. Très prisoner. But what are we saying?"

  There was a gentle scraping noise and one of the blocks in the wall very gently slid out of the wall, dropping on to Rincewind's foot.

  "Aargh!"

  "What big hippo?" said a muffled voice.

  "What?"

  "Sorry?"

  "What?"

  "You wanted to know about the tapping code? It's how we communicate between cells, you see. One tap means—"

  "Excuse me, but aren't we communicating now?"

  "Yes, but not formally. Prisoners are not… allowed… to talk…" The voice slowed down, as if the speaker had suddenly remembered something important.

  "Ah, yes," said Rincewind. "I was forgetting. This is… Hunghung. Everyone… obeys… the rules…"

  Rincewind's voice died away too.

  On either side of the wall there was a long, thoughtful silence.

  "Rincewind?"

  "Twoflower?"

  "What are you doing here?" said Rincewind.

  "Rotting in a dungeon!"

  "Me too!"

  "Good grief! How long has it been?" said the muffled voice of Twoflower.

  "What? How long has what been?"

  "But you… why are…"

  "You wrote that damn book!"

  "I just thought it would be interesting for people!"

  "Interesting? Interesting?"

  "I thought people would find it an interesting account of a foreign culture. I never meant it to cause trouble."

  Rincewind leaned against his side of the wall. No, of course, Twoflower never wanted to cause any trouble. Some people never did. Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, "What happens if I do this?"

  "It must have been Fate that brought you here," said Twoflower.

  "Yes, it's the sort of thing he likes to do," said Rincewind.

  "You remember the good times we had?"

  "Did we? I must have had my eyes shut."

  "The adventures!"

  "Oh, them. You mean hanging from high places, that sort of thing…?"

  "Rincewind?"

  "Yes? What?"

  "I feel a lot happier about things now you're here."

  "That's amazing."

  Rincewind enjoyed the comfort of the wall. It was rust rock. He felt he could rely on it.

  "Everyone seems to have a copy of your book," he said. "It's a revolutionary document. And I do mean copy. It looks as though they make their own copy and pass it on."

  "Yes, it's called samizdat."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means each one must be the same as the one before. Oh, dear. I thought it would just be entertainment. I didn't think people would take it seriously. I do hope it's not causing too much bother."

  Well, your revolutionaries are still at the slogan-and-poster stage, but I shouldn't think that'll count for much if they're caught."

  "Oh, dear."

  "How come you're still alive?"

  "I don't know. I think they may have forgotten about me. That tends to happen, you know. It's the paperwork. Someone makes the wrong stroke with the brush or forgets to copy a line. I believe it happens a lot."

  "You mean that there's people in prison and no-one can remember why?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Then why don't they set them free?"

  "I suppose it is felt that they must have done something. All in all, I'm afraid our government does leave something to be desired."

  "Like a new government."

  "Oh, dear. You could get locked up for saying things like that."

  People slept, but the Forbidden City never slept. Torches flickered all night in the great Bureaux as the ceaseless business of Empire went on.

  This largely involved, as Mr Saveloy had said, moving paper.

  Six Beneficent Winds was Deputy District Administrator for the Langtang district, and good at a job which he rather enjoyed. He was not a wicked man.

  True, he had the same sense of humour as a chicken casserole. True, he played the accordion for amusement, and disliked cats intensely, and had a habit of dabbing his upper lip with his napkin after his tea ceremony in a way that had made Mrs Beneficent Winds commit murder in her mind on a regular basis over the years. And he kept his money in a small leather shovel purse, and counted it out very thoroughly whenever he made a purchase, especially if there was a queue behind him.

  But on the other hand, he was kind to animals and made small but regular contributions to charity. He frequently gave moderate sums to beggars in the street, although he made a note of this in the little notebook he always carried to remind him to visit them in his official capacity later on.

  And he never took away from people more money than they actually had.

  He was also, unusually for men employed in the Forbidden City after dark, not a eunuch. Guards were not eunuchs, of course, and people had got around this by classifying them officially as furniture. And it had been found that tax officials also needed every faculty at their disposal to combat the wiles of the average peasant, who had this regrettable tendency to avoid paying taxes.

  There were much nastier people in the building than Six Beneficent Winds and it was therefore just his inauspicious luck that his paper and bamboo door slid aside to reveal seven strange-looking old eunuchs, one of them in a wheeled contrivance.

  They didn't even bow, let alone fall on their knees. And he not only had an official red hat but it had a white button on it!

  His brush dropped from his hands when the men wandered into his office as if they owned it. One of them started poking holes in the wall and speaking gibberish.

  "Hey, the walls are just made of paper! Hey, look, if you lick your finger it goes right through! See?"

  "I will call for the guards and have you all flogged!" shouted Six Beneficent Winds, his temper moderated slightly by the extreme age of the visitors.

  "What did he say?"

  "He said he'
d call for the guards."

  "Ooo, yes. Please let him call for the guards!"

  "No, we don't want that yet. Act normally."

  "You mean cut his throat?"

  "I meant a more normal kind of normally."

  "It's what I call normal."

  One of the old men faced the speechless official and gave him a big grin.

  "Excuse us, your supreme… oh dear, what's the word?… pushcart sail?… immense rock?… ah, yes… venerableness, but we seem to be a little lost."

  A couple of the old men shuffled around behind Six Beneficent Winds and started to read, or at least try to read, what he'd been working on. A sheet of paper was snatched from his hand.

  "What's this say, Teach?"

  "Let me see… 'The first wind of autumn shakes the lotus flower. Seven Lucky Logs to pay one pig and three [looks like a four-armed man waving a flag] of rice on pain of having his [rather a stylized thing here, can't quite make it out] struck with many blows. By order of Six Beneficent Winds, Collector of Revenues, Langtang.'"

  There was a subtle change among the old men. Now they were all grinning, but not in a way that gave him any comfort. One of them, with teeth like diamonds, leaned towards him and said, in bad Agatean:

  "You are a tax collector, Mr Knob on Your Hat?"

  Six Beneficent Winds wondered if he'd be able to summon the guard. There was something terrible about these old men. They weren't venerable at all. They were horribly menacing and, although he couldn't see any obvious weapons, he knew for a cold frozen fact that he wouldn't be able to get out more than the first syllable before he'd be killed. Besides, his throat had gone dry and his pants had gone wet.

  "Nothing wrong with being a tax collector…" he croaked.

  "We never said that," said Diamond Teeth. "We always like to meet tax collectors."

  "Some of our most favouritest people, tax collectors," said another old man.

  "Saves a lot of trouble," said Diamond Teeth.

  "Yeah," said a third old man. "Like, it means you don't have to go from house to house killin' everyone for their valuables, you just wait and kill the—"

  "Gentlemen, can I have a word?"

  The speaker was the slightly goat-faced one that didn't seem quite so unpleasant as the others. The terrible men clustered around him and Six Beneficent Winds heard the strange syllables of a coarse foreign tongue:

  "What? But he's a tax collector! That's what they're for!"

  "Whut?"

  "A firm tax base is the foundation of sound governance, gentlemen. Please trust me."

  "I understood all of that up to 'A firm tax'."

  "Nevertheless, no useful purpose will be served by killing this hard-working tax gatherer."

  "He'd be dead. I call that useful."

  There was some more of the same. Six Beneficent Winds jumped when the group broke up and the goat-faced man gave him a smile.

  "My humble friends are overawed by your… variety of plum… small knife for cutting seaweed… presence, noble sir," he said, his every word slandered by Truckle's vigorous gesticulations behind his back.

  "How about if we just cut a bit off?"

  "Whut?"

  "How did you get in here?" said Six Beneficent Winds. "There are many strong guards."

  "I knew we missed something," said Diamond Teeth.

  "We would like you to show us around the Forbidden City," said Goat Face. "My name is… Mr Stuffed Tube, I think you would call it. Yes. Stuffed Tube, I'm pretty sure—"

  Six Beneficent Winds glanced hopefully towards the door.

  "—and we are here to learn more about your wonderful… mountain… variety of bamboo… sound of running water at evening… drat… civilization."

  Behind him, Truckle was energetically demonstrating to the rest of the Horde what he and Bruce the Hoon's Skeletal Riders once did to a tax gatherer. The sweeping arm movements in particular occupied Six Beneficent Winds' attention. He couldn't understand the words but, somehow, you didn't need to.

  "Why are you talking to him like that?"

  "Ghenghiz, I'm lost. There are no maps of the Forbidden City. We need a guide."

  Goat Face turned back to the taxman. "Perhaps you would like to come with us?" he said.

  Out, thought Six Beneficent Winds. Yes! There may be guards out there!

  "Just a minute," said Diamond Teeth, as he nodded. "Pick up your paintbrush and write down what I say."

  A minute later, they'd gone. All that remained in the taxman's office was an amended piece of paper, which read as follows:

  "Roses are red, violets are blue. Seven Lucky Logs to be given one pig and all the rice he can carry, because he is now One Lucky Peasant. By order of Six Beneficent Winds, Collector of Revenues, Langtang. Help. Help. If anyone reads this I am being held prisoner by an evil eunuch. Help."

  Rincewind and Twoflower lay in their separate cells and talked about the good old days. At least, Twoflower talked about the good old days. Rincewind worked at a crack in the stone with a piece of straw, it being all he had to hand. It would take several thousand years to make any kind of impression, but that was no reason to give up.

  "Do we get fed in here?" he said, interrupting the flow of reminiscence.

  "Oh, sometimes. But it's not like the marvellous food in Ankh-Morpork."

  "Really," murmured Rincewind, scratching away. A tiny piece of mortar seemed ready to move.

  "I'll always remember the taste of Mr Dibbler's sausages."

  "People do."

  "A once-in-a-lifetime experience."

  "Frequently."

  The straw broke.

  "Damn and blast!" Rincewind sat back. "What's so important about the Red Army?" he said. "I mean, they're just a bunch of kids. Just a nuisance!"

  "Yes, I'm afraid things got rather confused," said Twoflower. "Um. Have you ever heard of the theory that History goes in cycles?"

  "I saw a drawing in one of Leonard of Quirm's notebooks—" Rincewind began, trying again with another straw.

  "No, I mean… like a… wheel, spinning. If you stand in the same place it all comes round again?"

  "Oh, that. Blast!"

  "Well, a lot of people believe it here. They think History starts again every three thousand years."

  "Could be," said Rincewind, who was looking for another straw and wasn't really listening. Then the words sank in. "Three thousand years? That's a bit short, isn't it? The whole thing? Stars and oceans and intelligent life evolving from arts graduates, that sort of thing?"

  "Oh, no. That's just… stuff. Proper history started with the founding of the Empire by One Sun Mirror. The first Emperor. And his servant, the Great Wizard. Just a legend, really. It's the sort of thing peasants believe. They look at something like the Great Wall and say, that's such a marvellous thing it must have been built by magic… And the Red Army… what it probably was was just a well-organized body of trained fighting men. The first real army, you see. All there was before was just undisciplined mobs. That's what it must have been. Not magical at all. The Great Wizard couldn't really have made… What the peasants believe is silly…"

  "Why, what do they believe?"

  "They say the Great Wizard made the earth come alive. When all the armies on the continent faced One Sun Mirror the Great Wizard… flew a kite."

  "Sounds sensible to me," said Rincewind. "When there's war around take the day off, that's my motto."

  "No, you don't understand. This was a special kite. It trapped the lightning in the sky and the Great Wizard stored it in bottles and then took the mud itself and… baked it with the lightning, and made it into an army."

  "Never heard of any spells for that."

  "And they have funny ideas about reincarnation, too…"

  Rincewind conceded that they probably would. It probably whiled away those long water-buffaloid hours: hey, after I die I hope I come back as… a man holding a water buffalo, but facing a different way.

  "Er… no," said Twoflower. They don't t
hink you come back at all. Er… I'm not using the right words, am I?… Bit corroded on this language… I mean ^reincarnation. It's like reincarnation backwards. They think you're born before you die."

  "Oh, really?" said Rincewind, scratching at the stones. "Amazing! Born before you die? Life before death? People will get really excited when they hear about that."

  "That's not exactly… er. It's all tied in with ancestors. You should always venerate ancestors because you might be them one day, and… Are you listening?"

  The little piece of mortar fell away. Not bad for ten minutes' work, thought Rincewind. Come the next Ice Age, we're out of here…

  It dawned on him that he was working on the wall that led to Twoflower's cell. Taking several thousand years to break into an adjoining cell could well be thought a waste of time.

  He started on a different wall. Scratch… scratch…

  There was a terrible scream.

  Scratchscratchscratch—

  "Sounds like the Emperor has woken up," said Twoflower's voice from the hole in the wall.

  "That's kind of an early morning torture, is it?" said Rincewind. He started to hammer at the huge blocks with a piece of shattered stone.

  "It's not really his fault. He just doesn't understand about people."

  "Is that so?"

  "You know how common kids go through a stage of pulling the wings off flies?"

  "I never did," said Rincewind. "You can't trust flies. They may look small but they can turn nasty."

  "Kids generally, I mean."

  "Yes? Well?"

  "He is an Emperor. No-one ever dared tell him it was wrong. It's just a matter of, you know, scaling up. All the five families fight among themselves for the crown. He killed his nephew to become Emperor. No-one has ever told him that it's not right to keep killing people for fun. At least, no-one who has ever managed to get to the end of the first sentence. And the Hongs and the Fangs and the Tangs and the Sungs and the McSweeneys have been killing one another for thousands of years. It's all part of the royal succession."

  "McSweeneys?"