Interesting Times

want.'

A flight of damp steps led to a door. Mr Saveloy was already at the top, listening.

'That's right,' said Caleb. 'They say that whoever pays the piper calls the tune.'

'But, gentlemen,' said Mr Saveloy, his eyes bright, 'whoever holds a knife to the piper's throat writes the symphony.'

The assassin moved slowly through Lord Hong's chambers.

He was one of the best in Hunghung's small but very select guild, and he certainly was not a rebel. He disliked rebels. They were invariably poor people, and therefore unlikely to be customers.

His mode of movement was unusual and cautious. It avoided the floor; Lord Hong was known to tune his floorboards. It made considerable use of furniture and decorative screens, and occasionally of the ceiling as well.

And the assassin was very good at it. When a messenger entered the room through a distant door he froze for an instant, and then moved in perfect rhythm towards his quarry, letting the newcomer's clumsy footsteps mask his own.

Lord Hong was making another sword. The folding of the metal and all the tedious yet essential bouts of heating and hammering were, he found, conducive to clear thinking. Too much pure cerebration was bad for the mind. Lord Hong liked to use his hands sometimes.

He plunged the sword back into the furnace and pumped the bellows a few times.

'Yes?' he said. The messenger looked up from his prone position near the floor.

'Good news, o lord. We have captured the Red Army!'

'Well, that is good news,' said Lord Hong, watching the blade carefully for the change of colour. 'Including the one they call the Great Wizard?'

'Indeed! But he is not that great, o lord!' said the messenger.

His cheerfulness faded when Lord Hong raised an eyebrow.

'Really? On the contrary, I suspect him of being in possession of huge and dangerous powers.'

'Yes, o lord! I did not mean—'

'See that they are all locked up. And send a message to Captain Five Hong Man to undertake the orders I gave him today.'

'Yes, o lord!'

'And now, stand up!'

The messenger stood up, trembling. Lord Hong pulled on a thick glove and reached for the sword handle. The furnace roared.

'Chin up, man!'

'My lord!'

'Now open your eyes wide!'

There was no need for that order. Lord Hong peered into the mask of terror, noted the flicker of movement, nodded, and then in one almost balletic movement pulled the spitting blade from the furnace, turned, thrust…

There was a very brief scream, and a rather longer hiss.

Lord Hong let the assassin sag. Then he tugged the sword free and inspected the steaming blade.

'Hmm,' he said. 'Interesting…'

He caught sight of the messenger.

'Are you still here?'

'No, my lord!'

'See to it.'

Lord Hong turned the sword so that the light caught it, and examined the edge.

'And, er, shall I send some servants to clear away the, er, body?'

'What?' said Lord Hong, lost in thought.

'The body, Lord Hong?'

'What body? Oh. Yes. See to it.'

The walls were beautifully decorated. Even Rincewind noticed this, though they went past in a blur. Some had marvellous birds painted on them, or mountain scenes, or sprays of foliage, every leaf and bud done in exquisite detail with just a couple of brush strokes.

Ceramic lions reared on marble pedestals. Vases bigger than Rincewind lined the corridors.

Lacquered doors opened ahead of the guards. Rincewind was briefly aware of huge, ornate and empty rooms stretching away on either side.

Finally they passed through yet another set of doors and he was flung down on a wooden floor.

In these circumstances, he always found, it was best not to look up.

Eventually an officious voice said, 'What do you have to say for yourself, miserable louse?'

'Well, I—'

'Silence!'

Ah. So it was going to be that kind of interview.

A different voice, a cracked, breathless and elderly voice, said, 'Where is the Grand… Vizier?'

'He has retired to his rooms, O Great One. He said he had a headache.'

'Summon him at… once.'

'Certainly, O Great One.'

Rincewind, his nose pressed firmly to the floor, made some further assumptions. Grand Vizier was always a bad sign; it generally meant that people were going to suggest wild horses and red-hot chains. And when people were called things like 'O Great One', it was pretty certain that there was no appeal.

'This is a… rebel, is it?' The sentence was wheezed rather than spoken.

'Indeed, O Great One.'

'I think I would like a clo… ser look.'

There was a general murmur, suggesting that a number of people had been greatly surprised, and then the sound of furniture being moved.

Rincewind thought he saw a blanket on the edge of his vision. Someone was wheeling a bed across the floor…

'Make it… stand up.' The gurgle in the pause was like the last bathwater going down the plughole. It sucked as wetly as an outgoing wave.

Once again a foot kicked Rincewind in the kidneys, making its usual explicit request in the Esperanto of brutality. He got up.

It was a bed, and quite the biggest Rincewind had ever seen. In it, swathed in brocades and almost lost in pillows, was an old man. Rincewind had never seen anyone look so ill. The face was pale, with a greenish pallor; veins showed up under the skin of his hands like worms in a jar.

The Emperor had all the qualifications for a corpse except, as it were, the most vital one.

'So… this is the new Great Wizard of… whom we have read so much, is… it?' he said.

When he spoke, people waited expectantly for the final gurgle in mid-sentence.

'Well, I—' Rincewind began.

'Silence!' screamed a chamberlain.

Rincewind shrugged.

He hadn't known what to expect of an Emperor, but the mental picture had room for a big fat man with lots of rings. Talking to this one was a hair's breadth from necromancy.

'Can you show us some more… magic, Great Wizard?'

Rincewind glanced at the chamberlain.

'W—'

'Silence!'

The Emperor waved a hand vaguely, gurgled with the effort, and gave Rincewind another enquiring look. Rincewind decided to chance things.

'I've got a good one,' he said. 'It's a vanishing trick.'