Interesting Times

'Whut?'

'He said THEY'RE GOING TO USE ARCHERS, Hamish!'

'Heheh, we never let archers stop us at the Battle of Koom Valley!' cackled the antique barbarian.

Boy Willie sighed.

'That was between dwarfs and trolls, Hamish,' he said. 'And you ain't either. So whose side were you on?'

'Whut?'

'I said WHOSE SIDE WERE YOU ON?'

'I were on the side of being paid money to fight,' said Hamish.

'Best side there is.'

Rincewind lay on the floor with his hands over his ears.

The sound of thunder filled the underground chamber. Blue and purple light shone so brightly that he could see it through his eyelids.

Finally the cacophony subsided. There were still the sounds of the storm outside, but the light had faded to a blue-white glow, and the sound into a steady humming.

Rincewind risked rolling over and opening his eyes.

Hanging from rusted chains in the roof were big glass globes. Each one was the size of a man, and lightning crackled and sizzled inside, stabbing at the glass, seeking a way out.

At one time there must have been many more. But dozens of the big globes had fallen down over the years, and lay in pieces on the floor. There were still scores up there, swaying gently on their chains as the imprisoned thunderstorms fought for their freedom.

The air felt greasy. Sparks crawled over the floor and crackled on each angle.

Rincewind stood up. His beard streamed out as a mass of individual hairs.

The lightning globes shone down on a round lake of, to judge from the ripples, pure quicksilver. In the centre was a low, five-sided island. As Rincewind stared, a boat came drifting gently around to his side of the pool, making little slupslup noises as it moved through the mercury.

It was not a lot larger than a rowing boat and, lying on its tiny deck, was a figure in armour. Or possibly just the armour. If it was just empty armour, then it was lying in the arms-folded position of a suit of armour that has passed away.

Rincewind sidled around the silver lake until he reached a slab of what looked very much like gold, set in the floor in front of a statue.

He knew you got inscriptions in tombs, although he was never sure who it was who was supposed to read them. The gods, possibly, although surely they knew everything already? He'd never considered that they'd cluster round and say things like, 'Gosh, 'Dearly Beloved' was he? I never knew that.'

This one simply said, in pictograms: One Sun Mirror.

There wasn't anything about mighty conquests. There was no list of his tremendous achievements. There was nothing down there about wisdom or being the father of his people. There was no explanation. Whoever knows this name, it seemed to say, knows everything. And there was no admitting the possibility that anyone getting this far would not have heard the name of One Sun Mirror.

The statue looked like porcelain. It had been painted quite realistically. One Sun Mirror seemed an ordinary sort of man. You would not have pointed him out in a crowd as Emperor material. But this man, with his little round hat and little round shield and little round men on little round ponies, had glued together a thousand warring factions into one great Empire, often using their own blood to do it.

Rincewind looked closer. Of course, it was just an impression, but around the set of the mouth and the look of the eyes there was an expression he'd last seen on the face of Ghenghiz Cohen.

It was the expression of someone who was absolutely and totally unafraid of anything.

The little boat headed towards the far side of the lake.

One of the globes flickered a little and then faded to red. It winked out. Another followed it.

He had to get out.

There was something else, though. At the foot of the statue, lying as if they'd just been dropped there, were a helmet, a pair of gauntlets, and two heavy-looking boots.

Rincewind picked up the helmet. It didn't look very strong, but it did look quite light. Normally he didn't bother with protective clothing, reasoning that the best defence against threatening danger was to be on another continent, but right now the idea of armour had its attractions.

He removed his hat, put the helmet on, pulled down the visor, and then wedged the hat on top of the helmet.

There was a flicker in front of his eyes and Rincewind was staring at the back of his own head. It was a grainy picture, and it was in shades of green rather than proper colours, but it was definitely the back of his own head he was looking at. People had told him what it looked like.

He raised the visor and blinked.

The pool was still in front of him.

He lowered the visor.

There he was, about fifty feet away, with this helmet on his head.

He waved a hand up and down.

The figure in the visor waved a hand up and down.

He turned around and faced himself. Yep. That was him.

OK, he thought. A magic helmet. It lets you see yourself a long way away. Great. You can have fun watching yourself fall into holes you can't see because they're right up close.

He turned around again, raised the visor and inspected the gloves. They seemed as light as the helmet but quite clumsy. You could hold a sword, but not much else.

He tried one on. Immediately, with a faint sizzling noise, a row of little pictures lit up on the wide cuff. They showed soldiers. Soldiers digging, soldiers fighting, soldiers climbing…

Ah. So… magic armour. Perfectly normal magic armour. It had never been very popular in Ankh-Morpork. Of course, it was light. You could make it as thin as cloth. But it tended to lose its magic without warning. Many an ancient lord's last words had been, 'You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh.'

Rincewind looked at the boots, with suspicious recollection of the trouble there had been with the University's prototype Seven League boots. Footwear which tried to make you take steps twenty-one miles long imposed unfortunate groinal strains; they'd got the things off the student just in time, but he'd still had to wear a special device for several months, and ate standing up.

All right, but even old magic armour would be useful now. It wasn't as if it weighed much, and the mud of Hunghung hadn't improved what was left of his own boots. He put his feet into them.

He thought: Well, so what is supposed to happen now?

He straightened up.

And behind him, with the sound of seven thousand flower pots smashing together, the lightning still crackling over them, the Red Army came to attention.

Hex had grown a bit during the night. Adrian Turnip-seed, who had been on duty to feed the mice and rewind the clockwork and clean out the dead ants, had sworn that he'd done nothing else and that no-one had come in.

But now, where there had been the big clumsy arrangement of blocks so that the results could be read, was a quill pen in the middle of a network of pulleys and levers.

'Watch,' said Adrian, nervously tapping out a very simple problem. 'It's come up with this after doing all those spells at suppertime…'

The ants scuttled. The clockwork spun. The springs and levers jerked so sharply that Ponder took a step back.

The quill pen wobbled over to an inkwell, dipped, returned to the sheet of paper Adrian had put under the levers, and began to write.