Interesting Times

Ponder took a few more steps back. 'Er, I really don't think—' he began.

'Don't think, eh? Call yourself a wizard and you don't think? Blast! I've got my staff wedged now! That's what comes of listening to you when I should have been paying attention, Mr Stibbons.'

Ponder heard a scuffling behind him. The Librarian, with an animal's instinct for danger and a human's instinct for trouble, had upturned a table and was peering over the top of it with a small cauldron on his head, the handle under one of his chins like a strap.

'Archchancellor, I really do think—'

'Oh, you think, do you? Did anyone tell you it's your job to think? Ow! It's got my fingers now, thanks to you!'

It needed all Ponder's courage to say, 'I think… it might perhaps be some kind of firework, sir.'

The wizards turned their attention to the fizzling string.

'What… coloured lights, stars, that sort of thing?' said Ridcully.

'Possibly, sir.'

'Must be planning a hell of a display. Apparently they're very keen on firecrackers, over in the Empire.' Ridcully spoke in the tone of voice of a man over whom the thought is slowly stealing that he just might have done something very silly.

'Would you like me to extinguish the string, sir?' said Ponder.

'Yes, dear boy, why not? Good idea. Good thinking, that man.'

Ponder stepped forward and pinched the string.

'I do hope we haven't ruined something,' he said.

Rincewind opened his eyes.

This was not cool sheets. It was white, and it was cold, but it lacked basic sheetness. It made up for this by having vast amounts of snowosity.

And a groove. A long groove.

Let's see now… He could remember the sensation of movement. And he vaguely remembered something small but incredibly heavy-looking roaring past in the opposite direction. And then he was here, moving so fast that his feet left this…

… groove. Yes, groove, he thought, in the easy-going way of the mildly concussed. With people lying around it groaning.

But they looked like people who, once they'd stopped crawling around groaning, were going to draw the swords they had about their persons and pay detailed attention to serious bits.

He stood up, a little shakily. There didn't seem to be anywhere to run to. There was just this wide, snowy waste with a border of mountains.

The soldiers were definitely looking a lot more conscious. Rincewind sighed. A few hours ago he'd been sitting on a warm beach with young women about to offer him potatoes,[13] and here he was on a windswept, chilly plain with some large men about to offer him violence.

The soles of his shoes, he noticed, were steaming.

And then someone said, 'Hey! Are you… you're not, are you… are you… whatsyername… Rincewind, isn't it?'

Rincewind turned.

There was a very old man behind him. Despite the bitter wind he was wearing nothing except a leather lioncloth and a grubby beard so long that the loincloth wasn't really necessary, at least from the point of view of decency. His legs were blue from the cold and his nose was red from the wind, giving him overall quite a patriotic look if you were from the right country. He had a patch over one eye but rather more notable than that were his teeth. They glittered.

'Don't stand there gawping like a big gawper! Get these damn things off me!'

There were heavy shackles around his ankles and wrists; a chain led to a group of more or less similarly clad men who were huddling in a crowd and watching Rincewind in terror.

'Heh! They think you're some kind of demon,' cackled the old man. 'But I knows a wizard when I sees one! That bastard over there's got the keys. Go and give him a good kicking.'

Rincewind took a few hesitant steps towards a recumbent guard and snatched at his belt.

'Right,' said the old man, 'now chuck 'em over here. And then get out of the way.'

'Why?'

''Cos you don't want to get blood all over you.'

'But you haven't got a weapon and there's one of you and they've got big swords and there's five of them!'

'I know,' said the old man, wrapping the chain around one of his fists in a businesslike manner. 'It's unfair, but I can't wait around all day.'

He grinned.

Gems glittered in the morning light. Every tooth in the man's head was a diamond. And Rincewind knew of only one man who had the nerve to wear troll teeth.

'Here? Cohen the Barbarian?'

'Ssh! Ingconitar! Now get out of the way, I said.' The teeth flashed at the guards, who were now vertical. 'Come on, boys. There's five of you, after all. An' I'm an old man. Mumble, mumble, oo me leg, ekcetra…'

To their credit, the guards hesitated. It was probably not, to judge from their faces, because there's something reprehensible about five large, heavily beweaponed men attacking a frail old man. It might have been because there's something odd about a frail old man who keeps on grinning in the face of obvious oblivion.

'Oh, come on,' said Cohen. The men edged closer, each waiting for one of the others to make the first move.

Cohen took a few steps forward, waving his arms wearily. 'Oh, no' he said. 'It makes me ashamed, honestly it does. This is not how you attack someone, all milling around like a lot of millers; when you attack someone the important thing to remember is the element of… surprise—'

Ten seconds later he turned to Rincewind.

'All right, Mister Wizard. You can open your eyes now.'

One guard was upside down in a tree, one was a pair of feet sticking out of a snowdrift, two were slumped against rocks, and one was… generally around the place. Here and there. Certainly hanging out.

Cohen sucked his wrist thoughtfully.

'I reckon that last one came within an inch of getting me,' he said. 'I must be getting old.'

'Why are you h—' Rincewind paused. One packet of curiosity overtook the first one. 'How old are you, exactly?'

'Is this still the Century of the Fruitbat?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, I dunno. Ninety? Could be ninety. Maybe ninety-five?' Cohen fished the keys out of the snow and ambled over to the group of men, who were cowering even more. He unlocked the first set of manacles and handed the shocked prisoner the keys.

'Bugger off, the lot of you,' he said, not unkindly. 'And don't get caught again.'

He strolled back to Rincewind.

'What brings you into this dump, then?'

'Well—'

'Interestin',' said Cohen, and that was that. 'But can't stay chatting all day, got work to do. You coming, or what?'

'What?'

'Please yourself.' Cohen tied the chain around his waist as a makeshift belt and wedged a couple of swords in it.

'Incidentally,' he said, 'what did you do with the Barking Dog?'

'What dog?'

'I expect it doesn't matter.'