Interesting Times

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 that 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. Amazingly enough there are people who simply won't 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 didn't 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 he'd managed to erupt from unconsciousness without his habitual small scream.

This one wasn't 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 you'd 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 hadn't thought of that.

Someone pulled the sack off. A terrifying visage stared down at him.

''I would like to eat your foot!'' said Rincewind.

'Don't 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.

'Don't 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 don't 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….ow 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?''

'It's… 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 men into warriors… I can only do so much of that sort of thing before it's time for a rest. Right now I'm very weak on account of the tremendous amounts of magic I've 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 Hunghung. But I can play many roles.' She put away the knife, but Rincewind had a feeling that he hadn't talked her into believing him, only into not killing him.

He groped for a straw.

'I've 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 it's 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?'