They ran out into another alley and pounded down it. Rincewind tried to keep up with the girl; people following her tended to tread on sharp things, and he wasn’t sure she’d remember he was on her side, whatever side that was.
A thin, half-hearted drizzle was falling. And at the end of the alley was a faint blue glow.
‘Wait!’
The terror in Rincewind’s voice was enough to slow her down.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Why’s he stopped?’
‘I’ll ask him,’ said Conina, firmly.
‘Why’s he covered in snow?’
She stopped and turned around, arms thrust into her sides, one foot tapping impatiently on the damp cobbles.
‘Rincewind, I’ve known you for an hour and I’m astonished you’ve lived even that long!’
‘Yes, but I have, haven’t I? I’ve got a sort of talent for it. Ask anyone. I’m an addict.’
‘Addicted to what?’
‘Life. I got hooked on it at an early age and I don’t want to give it up and take it from me, this doesn’t look right!’
Conina looked back at the figure surrounded by the glowing blue aura. It seemed to be looking at something in its hands.
Snow was settling on its shoulder like really bad dandruff. Terminal dandruff. Rincewind had an instinct for these things, and he had a deep suspicion that the man had gone where shampoo would be no help at all.
They sidled along a glistening wall.
‘There’s something very strange about him,’ she conceded.
‘You mean the way he’s got his own private blizzard?’
‘Doesn’t seem to upset him. He’s smiling.’
‘A frozen grin, I’d call it.’
The man’s icicle-hung hands had been taking the lid off the box, and the glow from the hat’s octarines shone up into a pair of greedy eyes that were already heavily rimed with frost.
‘Know him?’ said Conina.
Rincewind shrugged. ‘I’ve seen him around,’ he said. ‘He’s called Larry the Fox or Fezzy the Stoat or something. Some sort of rodent, anyway. He just steals things. He’s harmless.’
‘He looks incredibly cold.’ Conina shivered.
‘I expect he’s gone to a warmer place. Don’t you think we should shut the box?’
It’s perfectly safe now, said the hat’s voice from inside the glow. And so perish all enemies of wizardry.
Rincewind wasn’t about to trust what a hat said.
‘We need something to shut the lid,’ he muttered. ‘A knife or something. You wouldn’t have one, would you?’
‘Look the other way,’ Conina warned.
There was a rustle and another gust of perfume.
‘You can look back now.’
Rincewind was handed a twelve-inch throwing knife. He took it gingerly. Little particles of metal glinted on its edge.
‘Thanks.’ He turned back. ‘Not leaving you short, am I?’
‘I have others.’
‘I’ll bet.’
Rincewind reached out gingerly with the knife. As it neared the leather box its blade went white and started to steam. He whimpered a little as the cold struck his hand – a burning, stabbing cold, a cold that crept up his arm and made a determined assault on his mind. He forced his numb fingers into action and, with great effort, nudged the edge of the lid with the tip of the blade.
The glow faded. The snow became sleet, then melted into drizzle.
Conina nudged him aside and pulled the box out of the frozen arms.
‘I wish there was something we could do for him. It seems wrong just to leave him here.’
‘He won’t mind,’ said Rincewind, with conviction.
‘Yes, but we could at least lean him against the wall. Or something.’
Rincewind nodded, and grabbed the frozen thief by his icicle arm. The man slipped out of his grasp and hit the cobbles.
Where he shattered.
Conina looked at the pieces.
‘Urg,’ she said.
There was a disturbance further up the alley, coming from the back door of the Troll’s Head. Rincewind felt the knife snatched from his hand and then go past his ear in a flat trajectory that ended in the doorpost twenty yards away. A head that had been sticking out withdrew hurriedly.
‘We’d better go,’ said Conina, hurrying along the alley. ‘Is there somewhere we can hide? Your place?’
‘I generally sleep at the University,’ said Rincewind, hopping along behind her.
You must not return to the University, growled the hat from the depths of its box. Rincewind nodded distractedly. The idea certainly didn’t seem attractive.
‘Anyway, they don’t allow women inside after dark,’ he said.
‘And before dark?’
‘Not then, either.’
Conina sighed. ‘That’s silly. What have you wizards got against women, then?’
Rincewind’s brow wrinkled. ‘We’re not supposed to put anything against women,’ he said. ‘That’s the whole point.’
Sinister grey mists rolled through the docks of Morpork, dripping from the rigging, coiling around the drunken rooftops, lurking in alleys. The docks at night were thought by some to be even more dangerous than the Shades. Two muggers, a sneak thief and someone who had merely tapped Conina on the shoulder to ask her the time had already found this out.
‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’ said Rincewind, stepping over the luckless pedestrian who lay coiled around his private pain.
Well?’
‘I mean, I wouldn’t like to cause offence.’
Well?’
‘It’s just that I can’t help noticing-’
‘Hmmm?’
‘You have this certain way with strangers.’ Rincewind ducked, but nothing happened.
What are you doing down there?’ said Conina, testily.
,Sorry.,
‘I know what you’re thinking. I can’t help it, I take after my father.’
Who was he, then? Cohen the Barbarian?’ Rincewind grinned to show it was a joke. At least, his lips moved in a desperate crescent.
‘No need to laugh about it, wizard.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not my fault.’
Rincewind’s lips moved soundlessly. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Have I got this right? Your father really is Cohen the Barbarian?’
‘Yes.’ The girl scowled at Rincewind. ‘Everyone has to have a father,’ she added. ‘Even you, I imagine.’
She peered around a corner.
‘All clear. Come on,’ she said, and then when they were striding along the damp cobbles she continued: ‘I expect your father was a wizard, probably.’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Rincewind. ‘Wizardry isn’t allowed to run in families.’ He paused. He knew Cohen, he’d even been a guest at one of his weddings when he married a girl of Conina’s age; you could say this about Cohen, he crammed every hour full of minutes. ‘A lot of people would like to take after Cohen, I mean, he was the best fighter, the greatest thief, he-’
‘A lot of men would,’ Conina snapped. She leaned against a wall and glared at him.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘There’s this long word, see, an old witch told me about it …can’t remember it …you wizards know about long words.’
Rincewind thought about long words. ‘Marmalade?’ he volunteered.
She shook her head irritably. ‘It means you take after your parents.’
Rincewind frowned. He wasn’t too good on the subject of parents.
‘Kleptomania? Recidivist?’ he hazarded.
‘Begins with an H.’
‘Hedonism?’ said Rincewind desperately.
‘Herrydeterry,’ said Conina. ‘This witch explained it to me. My mother was a temple dancer for some mad god or other, and father rescued her, and – they stayed together for a while. They say I get my looks and figure from her.’
‘And very good they are, too,’ said Rincewind, with hopeless gallantry.
She blushed. ‘Yes, well, but from him I got sinews you could moor a boat with, reflexes like a snake on a hot tin, a terrible urge to steal things and this dreadful sensation every time I meet someone that I should be throwing a knife through his eye at ninety feet. I can, too,’ she added with a trace of pride.
‘Gosh.’
‘It tends to put men off.’
Well, it would,’ said Rincewind weakly.
‘I mean, when they find out, it’s very hard to hang on to a boyfriend.’
‘Except by the throat, I imagine,’ said Rincewind.
‘Not what you really need to build up a proper relationship.’
‘No. I can see,’ said Rincewind. ‘Still, pretty good if you want to be a famous barbarian thief.’
But not,’ said Conina, ‘if you want to be a hairdresser.’
‘Ah.’
They stared into the mist.
‘Really a hairdresser?’ said Rincewind.
Conina sighed.
‘Not much call for a barbarian hairdresser, I expect,’ said Rincewind. ‘I mean, no-one wants a shampoo-and-beheading.’
‘It’s just that every time I see a manicure set I get this terrible urge to lay about me with a double-handed cuticle knife. I mean sword,’ said Conina.
Rincewind sighed. ‘I know how it is,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be a wizard.’
‘But you are a wizard.’
‘Ah. Well, of course, but-’
‘Quiet!’
Rincewind found himself rammed against the wall, where a trickle of condensed mist inexplicably began to drip down his neck. A broad throwing knife had mysteriously appeared in Conina’s hand, and she was crouched like a jungle animal or, even worse, a jungle human.
‘What-’ Rincewind began.
‘Shut up!’ she hissed. ‘Something’s coming!’