Interesting Times

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. Rincewind's head hit the floor.

'Listen to me,' she said. 'A lot of bad things are happening. I don't believe in great wizards, but other people do, and sometimes people need something to believe in. And if these other people die because we've 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.'

'Aren't they?' said Rincewind.

'You do not understand. We are Noh actors.'

'Oh, you weren't 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 didn't 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 who's 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 you've got to think with are knotholes.

And there was something it very much wanted to do.

'When you're ready, Teach?'

'Sorry, Ghenghiz. I'm just finishing…' Cohen sighed. The Horde were taking advantage of the rest to sit in the shade of a tree and tell one another lies about their exploits, while Mr Saveloy stood on top of a boulder squinting through some kind of home-made device and doodling on his maps.

Bits of paper ruled the world now, Cohen told himself. It certainly ruled this part of it. And Teach… well, Teach ruled bits of paper. He might not be traditional barbarian hero material, despite his deeply held belief that all headmasters should be riveted to a cowshed door, but the man was amazing with bits of paper.

And he could speak Agatean. Well, speak it better than Cohen, who'd picked it up in a rough and ready way. He said he'd learned it out of some old book. He said it was amazing how much interesting stuff was in old books.

Cohen struggled up alongside him.

'What exactly you plannin', Teach?' he said.

Mr Saveloy squinted at Hunghung, just visible on the dusty horizon.

'Do you see that hill behind the city?' he said. 'The huge round mound?'

'Looks like my dad's burial mound to me,' said Cohen.

'No, it must be a natural formation. It's far too big. There's some kind of pagoda on top, I see. Interesting. Perhaps, later, I shall take a closer look.'

Cohen peered at the big round hill. It was a big round hill. It wasn't threatening him and it didn't look valuable. End of saga as far as he was concerned. There were more pressing matters.

'People appear to be entering and leaving the outer city,' Mr Saveloy continued. 'The siege is more a threat than a reality. So getting inside should not be a problem. Of course, getting into the Forbidden City itself will be a lot more difficult.'

'How about if we kill everyone?' said Cohen.

'A good idea, but impractical,' said Mr Saveloy. 'And liable to cause comment. No, my current methodology is predicated on the fact that Hunghung is some considerable way from the river yet has almost a million inhabitants.'

'Predicated, yeah,' said Cohen.

'And the local geography is quite wrong for artesian wells.'

'Yeah, 's what I thought…'

'And yet there is no visible aqueduct, you notice.'

'No aqueduct, right,' said Cohen. 'Prob'ly flown to the Rim for the summer. Some birds do that.'

'Which rather leads me to doubt the saying that not even a mouse can get into the Forbidden City,' said Mr Saveloy, with just a trace of smugness. 'I suspect a mouse could get into the Forbidden City if it could hold its breath.'

'Or ride on one of them invisible ducks,' said Cohen.

'Indeed.'

The cart stopped. The sack came off. Instead of the cheesegrater Rincewind was secretly expecting, the view consisted of a couple of young, concerned faces. One of them was female, but Rincewind was relieved to see that she wasn't Pretty Butterfly. This one looked younger, and made Rincewind think a little of potatoes.[20]

'How are you?' she said, in fractured but recognizable Morporkian. 'We are very sorry. All better now? We speak you in language of celestial city of Ankh-More-Pork. Language of freedom and progress. Language of One Man, One Vote!'

'Yes,' said Rincewind. A vision of Ankh-Morpork's Patrician floated across his memory. One man, one vote. Yes. 'I've met him. He's definitely got the vote. But—'

'Extra Luck To The People's Endeavour!' said the boy. 'Advance Judiciously!' He looked as though he'd been built with bricks.

'Excuse me,' said Rincewind, 'but why did you… a paper lantern for ceremonial purposes… bale of cotton… rescue me? Uh, that is, when I say rescue, I suppose I mean: why did you hit me on the head, tie me up, and bring me to wherever this is? Because the worst that could have happened to me in the inn was a ding around the ear for not paying for lunch—'

'The worst that would have happened was an agonizing death over several years,'