Interesting Times

'Yes?'

'What happens if I claim immunity because I'm a foreigner?'

'There's a special thing they do with a wire-mesh waistcoat and a cheesegrater.'

'Oh.'

'And there are torturers in Hunghung who can keep a man alive for years.'

'I suppose you're not talking about healthy early morning runs and a high-fibre diet?'

'No. So keep quiet and with any luck you'll be sent to be a slave in the palace.'

'Luck is my middle name,' said Rincewind, indistinctly. 'Mind you, my first name is Bad.'

'Remember to gibber and grovel.'

'I'll do my very best.'

The white hand emerged bearing a scrap of paper. The guard took it, turned towards Rincewind and cleared his throat.

'Harken to the wisdom and justice of District Commissioner Kee, ball of swamp emanations! Not him, I mean you!'

He cleared his throat again and peered closer at the paper in the manner of one who learned to read by saying the name of each letter very carefully to himself.

''The white pony runs through the… the…''

The guard turned and held a whispered conversation with the curtains, and turned back again.

'… chrysanthemum… mumum blossoms, The cold wind stirs the Apricot trees. Send him to The palace to slave Until all appendages drop Off.'

Several of the other guards applauded.

'Look up and clap,' said the Voice.

'I'm afraid my appendages will drop off.'

'It's a big cheesegrater.'

'Encore! Wow! Superb! That bit about the chrysanthemumums? Wonderful!'

'Good. Listen. You're from Bes Pelargic. You've got the right accent, damned if I know why. It's a seaport and people there are a little strange. You were robbed by bandits and escaped on one of their horses. That's why you haven't got your papers. You need pieces of paper for everything here, including being anybody. And pretend you don't know me.'

'I don't know you.'

'Good. Long Live The Changing Things To A More Equitable State While Retaining Due Respect For The Traditions Of Our Forebears And Of Course Not Harming The August Personage Of The Emperor Endeavour!'

'Good. Yes. What?'

A guard kicked Rincewind in the region of the kidneys. This suggested, in the universal language of the boot, that he should get up.

He managed to get up on one knee, and saw the Luggage.

It wasn't his, and there were three of them.

The Luggage trotted to the crest of a low hill and stopped so fast that it left a lot of little grooves in the dirt.

In addition to not having any equipment with which to think or feel, the Luggage also had no means of seeing. The manner in which it perceived events was a complete mystery.

It perceived the other Luggages.

The three of them stood patiently in a line behind the palanquin. They were big. They were black.

The Luggage's legs disappeared inside its body.

After a while it very cautiously opened its lid, just a fraction.

Of the three things that most people know about the horse, the third is that, over a short distance, it can't run as fast as a man. As Rincewind had learned to his advantage, it has more legs to sort out.

There are additional advantages if a) the people on horseback aren't expecting you to run and b) you happen to be, very conveniently, in an athletic starting position.

Rincewind rose like a boomerang curry from a sensitive stomach.

There was a lot of shouting but the comforting thing, the important thing, was that it was all behind him. It would soon try to catch him up but that was a problem for the future. He could also consider where he was running to as well, but an experienced coward never bothered with the to when the from held such fascination.

A less practised runner would have risked a glance behind, but Rincewind instinctively knew all about wind drag and the tendency of inconvenient rocks to position themselves under the unwary foot. Besides, why look behind? He was already running as fast as he could. Nothing he could see would make him run any faster.

There was a large shapeless village ahead, a construction apparently of mud and dung. In the fields in front of it a dozen peasants looked up from their toil at the accelerating wizard.

Perhaps it was Rincewind's imagination, but as he passed them he could have sworn that he heard the cry:

'Necessarily Extended Duration To The Red Army! Regrettable Decease Without Undue Suffering To The Forces of Oppression!'

Rincewind dived through the huts as the soldiers charged at the peasants.

Cohen had been right. There seemed to be a revolution. But the Empire had been in unchanged existence for thousands of years, courtesy and a respect for protocol were part of its very fabric, and by the sound of it the revolutionaries had yet to master the art of impolite slogans.

Rincewind preferred running to hiding. Hiding was all very well, but if you were found then you were stuck. But the village was the only cover for miles around, and some of the soldiers had horses. A man might be faster than a horse over a short distance, but over this panorama of flat, open fields a horse had a running man bang to rights.

So he ducked into a building at random and pushed aside the first door he came to.

It had, pasted on it, the words: Examination. Silence!

Forty expectant and slightly worried faces looked up at him from their writing stools. They weren't children, but full-grown adults.

There was a lectern at the end of the room and, on it, a pile of papers sealed with string and wax.

Rincewind felt the atmosphere was familiar. He'd breathed it before, even if it had been a world away. It was full of those cold sweaty odours created by the sudden realization that it was probably too late to do that revision you'd kept on putting off. Rincewind had faced many horrors in his time, but none held quite the same place in the lexicon of dread as those few seconds after someone said, 'Turn over your papers now.'

The candidates were watching him.

There was shouting somewhere outside.

He hurried up to the lectern, tore at the string and distributed the papers as fast as he could. Then he dived back to the safety of the lectern, removed his hat, and was bent low when the door opened slowly.

'Go away!' he screamed. 'Examination in progress!'

The unseen figure behind the door murmured something to someone else. The door was closed again.

The candidates were still staring at him.

'Er. Very well. Turn over your papers.'

There was a rustle, a few moments of that dreadful silence, and then much activity with brushes.

Competitive examinations. Oh, yes. That was another thing people knew about the Empire. They were the only way to get any kind of public post and the security that brought. People had said that this must be a very good system, because it opened up opportunities for people of merit.

Rincewind picked up a spare paper and read it.

It was headed: Examination for the post of Assistant Night-Soil Operative for the District of W'ung.

He read question one. It required candidates to write a sixteen-line poem on evening mist over the reed beds.