“I can’t see why you’d want to live for ever,” said Rincewind, privately determining that the words “moth-eaten” would be paid for, if ever he got the opportunity. “Being young again, I can understand that.”
“Huh. Being young’s not much fun,” said Thursley, and then clapped his hand over his mouth.
Rincewind leaned forward.
About fifty years. That was what was missing.
“That’s a false beard!” he said. “How old are you?”
“Eighty-seven!” squeaked Thursley.
“I can see the hooks over your ears!”
“Seventy-eight, honest! Avaunt!”
“You’re a little boy!”
Eric pulled himself up haughtily. “I’m not!” he snapped. “I’m nearly fourteen!”
“Ah-ha!”
The boy waved the sword at Rincewind. “It doesn’t matter, anyway!” he shouted. “Demonologists can be any age, you’re still my demon and you have to do as I say!”
“Eric!” came a voice from somewhere below them.
Eric’s face went white.
“Yes, mother?” he shouted, his eyes fixed on Rincewind. His mouth shaped the words: don’t say anything, please.
“What’s all that noise up there?”
“Nothing, mother!”
“Come down and wash your hands, dear, your breakfast’s ready!”
“Yes, mother.” He looked sheepishly at Rincewind. “That’s my mother,” he said.
“She’s got a good pair of lungs, hasn’t she,” said Rincewind.
“I’d, I’d better go, then,” said Eric. “You’ll have to stay up here, of course.”
It dawned on him that he was losing a certain amount of credibility at this point. He waved the sword again.
“Avaunt!” he said. “I command you not to leave this room!”
“Right. Sure,” said Rincewind, eyeing the windows.
“Promise? Otherwise you’ll be sent back to the Pit.”
“Oh, I don’t want that,” said Rincewind. “Off you trot. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m going to leave the sword and stuff here,” said Eric, removing most of his accoutrements to reveal a slim, dark-haired young man whose face would be a lot better when his acne cleared up. “If you touch them, terrible things will befall.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Rincewind.
When he was left alone he wandered he wandered over to the lectern and looked at the book. The title, in impressively flickering red letters, was Mallificarum Sumpta Diabolicite Occularis Singularum, the Book of Ultimate Control. He knew about it. There was a copy in the Library somewhere, although wizards never bothered with it.
This might seem odd, because if there is one thing a wizard would trade his grandfather for, it is power. But it wasn’t all that strange, because any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realise that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake.
Even wizards thought demonologists were odd; they tended to be surreptitious, pale men who got up to complicated things in darkened rooms and had damp, weak handshakes. It wasn’t like good clean magic. No self-respecting wizard would have any truck with the demonic regions, whose inhabitants were as big a collection of ding-dong as you’d find outside a large belfry.
He inspected the skeleton closely, just in case. It didn’t seem inclined to make a contribution to the situation.
“It belonged to his wossname, grandfather,” said a cracked voice behind him
“Bit of an unusual bequest,” said Rincewind.
“Oh, not personally. He got it in a shop somewhere. It’s one of them wossname, articulate wossnames.”
“It’s not saying much right now,” said Rincewind, and then went very quiet and thoughtful.
“Er,” he said, without moving his head, “what, precisely, am I talking to?”
“I’m a wossname. Tip of my tongue. Begins with a P.”
Rincewind turned around slowly.
“You’re a parrot?” he said.
“That’s it.”
Rincewind stared at the thing on the perch. It had one eye that glittered like a ruby. Most of the rest of it was pink and purple skin, studded with the fag-ends of feathers, so that the net effect was of an oven-ready hairbrush. It jiggled arthritically on its perch and then slowly lost its balance, until it was hanging upside down.
“I thought you were stuffed,” said Rincewind.
“Up yours, wizard.”
Rincewind ignored it and crept over to the window. It was small, but gave out on to a gently sloping roof. And out there was a real life, real sky, real buildings. He reached out to open the shutters –
A crackling current coursed up his arm and earthed itself in his cerebellum.
He sat on the floor, sucking his fingers.
“He tole you,” said the parrot, swinging backwards and forwards upside down. “But you wouldn’t wossname. He’s got you by the wossnames.”
“But it should only work on demons!”
“Ah,” said the parrot, achieving enough momentum to swing upright again, whereupon it steadied itself with the stubby remains of what had once been wings. “It’s all according, isn’t it. If you come in the door marked `wossnames` that means you get treated as a wossname, right? Demon, I mean. Subject to all the rules and wossnames. Tough one for you.”
“But you know I’m a wizard, don’t you!”
The parrot gave a squawk. “I’ve seen ‘em, mate. The real McWossname. Some of the ones we’ve had in here, they’d make you choke on your millet. Great scaly fiery wossnames. Took weeks to get the soot off the walls,” it added, in an approving tone of voice. “That was in his granddad’s day, of course. The kid hasn’t been any good at it. Up to now. Bright lad. I blame the wossnames, parents. New money, you know. Wine business. Spoil him rotten, let him play with his wossname’s old stuff, `Oh, he’s such an intelligent lad, nose always in a book`,” the parrot mimicked. “They never give him any of the things a sensitive growing wossname really needs, if you was to ask me.”
“What you mean love and guidance?” said Rincewind.
I was thinking of a bloody good wossname, thrashing,” said the parrot.
Rincewind clutched at his aching head. If this was what demons usually had to go through, no wonder they were always so annoyed.
“Polly want a biscuit,” said the parrot vaguely, in much the same way as a human would say “Er” or “As I was saying”, and went on, “His granddad was keen on it. That and his pigeons.”
“Pigeons,” said Rincewind
“Not that he was particularly successful. It was all a bit trial and wossname.”
“I thought you said great big scaly –
“Oh, yes. But that wasn’t what he was after. He was trying to conjure up a succubus.” It should be impossible to leer when all you’ve got is a beak, but the parrot managed it. “That’s a female demon what comes in the night and makes mad passionate wossn -”
“I’ve heard of them,” said Rincewind. “Bloody dangerous things.”
The parrot put its head on one side. “It never worked. All he ever got was a neuralger.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a demon that comes and has a headache at you.”
Demons have existed on the Discworld for at least as long as the gods, who in many ways they closely resemble. The difference is basically the same as that between terrorists and freedom fighters.
Most of the demons occupy a spacious dimension close to reality, traditionally decorated in shades of flame and maintained at roasting point. This isn’t actually necessary, but if there is one thing that your average demon is, it is a traditionalist.
In the centre of the inferno, rising majestically from a lake of lava substitute and with unparalleled views of the Eight Circles, lies the city of Pandemonium.5 At the moment, it was living up to its name.
Astfgl, the new King of the Demons, was furious. Not simply because the air-conditioning had broken down again, not because he felt surrounded by idiots and plotters on every side, and not even because no-one could pronounce his name properly yet, but also because he had just been given bad news. The demon who had been chosen by lottery to deliver it cowered in front of his throne with its tail between its legs. It was immortally afraid that something wonderful was soon to happen to it.6
“It did what?” said Astfgl.
“It, er, it opened, o lord. The circle in Pseudopolis.”
“Ah. The clever boy. We have great hopes of him.”
“Er. Then it closed again, lord.” The demon shut its eyes.
“And who went through?”
“Er.” The demon looked around at its colleagues, clustered at the far end of the mile-long throne room.
“I said, and who went through?”
“In point of fact, o lord -”
“Yes?”
“We don’t know. Someone.”
“I gave orders, did I not, that when the boy succeeded the Duke Vassenego was to materialise unto him, and offer him forbidden pleasures and dark delights to bend him to Our will?”
The King growled. The problem with being evil, he’d been forced to admit, was that demons were not great innovatory thinkers and really needed the spice of human ingenuity. And he’d really been looking forward to Eric Thursley, whose brand of super-intelligent gormlessness was a rare delight. Hell heeded horribly-bright, self-centred people like Eric. They were much better at being nasty than demons could ever manage.