The Last Hero

‘You're looking well, Cohen,’ said the woman, as calmly as though she had been expecting them. ‘You boys want some stew?’

‘Yeah,’ said Truckle, grinning. ‘Let the bard try it first, though.’

‘Shame on you, Truckle,’ said the woman, putting aside her embroidery.

‘Well, you did drug me and steal a load of jewels off me last time we met…’

‘That was forty years ago, man! Anyway, you left me alone to fight that band of goblins.’

‘I knew you'd beat the goblins, though.’

‘I knew you didn't need the jewels. Morning, Evil Harry. Hello, boys. Pull up a rock. Who's the thin streak of misery?’

‘This is the bard,’ said Cohen. ‘Bard, this is Vena the Raven-Haired.’

‘What?’ said the bard. ‘No, she's not! Even I've heard of Vena the Raven-Haired, and she's a tall young woman with – oh…’

Vena sighed. ‘Yes, the old stories do hang around so, don't they?’ she said, patting her grey hair. ‘And it's Mrs McGarry now, boys.’

‘Yes, I heard you'd settled down,’ said Cohen, dipping the ladle into the stew and tasting it. ‘Married an innkeeper, didn't you? Hung up your sword, had kids…’

‘Grandchildren,’ said Mrs McGarry, proudly. But then the proud smile faded. ‘One of them's taken over the inn, but the other's a paper-maker.’

‘Running an inn's a good trade,’ said Cohen. ‘But there's not much heroing in wholesale stationery. A paper cut's just not the same.’ He smacked his lips. ‘This is good stuff, girl.’

‘Its funny,’ said Vena. ‘I never knew I had the talent, but people will come miles for my dumplings.’

‘No change there, then,’ said Truckle the Uncivil. ‘Hur, hur, hur.’

‘Truckle,’ said Cohen, ‘remember when you told me to tell you when you were bein' too uncivil?’

‘Yeah?’

‘That was one of those times.’

‘Anyway,’ said Mrs McGarry, smiling sweetly at the blushing Truckle, ‘I was sitting around after Charlie died, and I thought, well, is this it? I've just got to wait for the Grim Reaper? And then… there was this scroll…’

‘What scroll?’ said Cohen and Evil Harry together. Then they stared at one another.

‘Y'see,’ said Cohen, reaching into his pack, ‘I found this old scroll, showing a map of how to get to the Mountains and all the little tricks for getting past—’

‘Me too,’ said Harry.

‘You never told me!’

‘I'm a DarkLord, Cohen,’ said Evil Harry patiently. ‘I'm not supposed to be Captain Helpful.’

‘Tell me where you found it, at least.’

‘Oh, in some ancient sealed tomb we was despoilin'.’

‘I found mine in an old storeroom back in the Empire,’ said Cohen.

‘Mine was left in my inn by a traveller all in black,’ said Mrs McGarry.

In the silence, the minstrel said, ‘Um? Excuse me?’

‘What?’ said all three together.

‘Is it just me,’ said the minstrel, ‘or are we missing something here?’

‘Like what?’ demanded Cohen.

‘Well, these scrolls all tell you how to get to the mountain, a perilous trek that no one has ever survived?’

‘Yes? So?’

‘So… um… who wrote the scrolls?’

Offler the Crocodile looked up from the playing board which was, in fact, the world.

‘All right, who doth he belong to?’ he lisped. ‘We've got a clever one here.’

There was a general craning of necks among the assembled deities, and then one put up his hand.

‘And you are…?’ said Offler.

‘The Almighty Nuggan. I'm worshipped in parts of Borogravia. The young man was raised in my faith.’

‘What do Nugganoteth believe in?’

‘Er… me. Mostly me. And followers are forbidden to eat chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic.’

Several of the gods winced.

‘When you prohibit you don't meth about, do you?’ said Offler.

‘No sense in forbidding broccoli, is there? That sort of approach is very old-fashioned,’ said Nuggan. He looked at the minstrel. ‘He's never been particularly bright up till now. Shall I smite him? There's bound to be some garlic in that stew, Mrs McGarry looks the type.’

Offler hesitated. He was a very old god, who had arisen from steaming swamps in hot, dark lands. He had survived the rise and fall of more modern and certainly more beautiful gods by developing, for a god, a certain amount of wisdom.

Besides, Nuggan was one of the newer gods, all full of hellfire and self-importance and ambition. Offler was not bright, but he had some vague inkling that for long-term survival gods needed to offer their worshippers something more than a mere lack of thunderbolts. And he felt an ungodlike pang of sympathy for any human whose god banned chocolate and garlic. Anyway, Nuggan had an unpleasant moustache. No god had any business with a fussy little moustache like that.

‘No,’ he said, shaking the dice box. ‘It'll add to the run.’

Cohen pinched out the end of his ragged cigarette, stuffed it behind his ear, and looked up at the green ice.

‘It's not too late to turn back,’ said Evil Harry. ‘If anyone wanted to, I mean.’

‘Yes it is,’ said Cohen, without looking around. ‘Besides, someone's not playing fair.’

‘Funny, really,’ said Vena. ‘All my life I've gone adventuring with old maps found in old tombs and so on, and I never ever worried about where they came from. It's one of those things you never think about, like who leaves all the weapons and keys and medicine kits lying around in the unexplored dungeons.’

‘Someone be setting a trap,’ said Boy Willie.

‘Probably. Won't be the first trap I've walked into,’ said Cohen.

‘We're going up against the gods, Cohen,’ said Harry. ‘A man does that, a man's got to be sure of his luck.’

‘Mine's worked up to now,’ said Cohen. He reached out and touched the rock face in front of him. ‘It's warm.’

‘But it's got ice on!’ said Harry.

‘Yeah. Strange, eh?’ said Cohen. ‘It's just like the scrolls said. And see the way the snow's sticking to it? It's the magic. Well… here goes…’

Archchancellor Ridcully decided that the crew needed to be trained. Ponder Stibbons pointed out that they were going into the completely unexpected, and Ridcully ruled therefore that they should be given some unexpected training.

Rincewind, on the other hand, said that they were heading for certain death, which everyone managed eventually with no training whatsoever.

Later he said that Leonard's device would do, though. After five minutes on it, certain death seemed like a release.

‘He's thrown up again,’ said the Dean.

‘He's getting better at it, though,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘How can you say that? Last time it was a whole ten seconds before he let go!’