‘Yes, but can anyone see . . . that . . . you know . . . with the . . . feet?’
Rincewind’s eyebrows waggled. A sort of choking noise came from his throat.
‘Can’t see . . . it. Will you lot stop huffing on my crystal ball?’
‘And, of course, if you were to come with us we could promise you . . . earthly and sensual pleasures such as those of which you may have dreamed . . .’
‘All right. On the count of three’
The coconut dropped away. Rincewind swallowed. There was a hungry, dreamy look in his eyes.
‘Can I have them mashed?’ he said.
‘NOW!’
First there was the sensation of pressure. The world opened up in front of Rincewind and sucked him into it.
Then it stretched out thin and went twang.
Cloud rushed past him, blurred by speed. When he dared open his eyes again it was to see, far ahead of him, a tiny black dot.
It got bigger.
It resolved itself into a tight cloud of objects. There were a couple of heavy saucepans, a large brass candlestick, a few bricks, a chair and a large brass blancmange mould in the shape of a castle.
They hit him one after the other, the blancmange mould making a humorous clang as it bounced off his head, and then whirled away behind him.
The next thing ahead of him was an octagon. A chalked one.
He hit it.
Ridcully stared down.
‘A shade less than 125 pounds, I fancy,’ he said. ‘All the same . . . well done, gentlemen.’
The dishevelled scarecrow in the centre of the circle staggered to its feet and beat out one or two small fires in its clothing. Then it looked around blearily and said, ‘Hehehe?’
‘He could be a little disorientated,’ the Archchancellor went on. ‘More than six hundred miles in two seconds, after all. Don’t give him a nasty shock.’
‘Like sleepwalkers, you mean?’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘What do you mean, sleepwalkers?’
‘If you wake sleepwalkers, their legs drop off. So my grandmother used to aver.’
‘And are we sure it’s Rincewind?’ said the Dean.
‘Of course it’s Rincewind,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘We spent hours looking for him.’
‘It could be some dangerous occult creature,’ said the Dean stubbornly.
‘With that hat?’
It was a pointy hat. In a way. A kind of cargo-cult pointy hat, made out of split bamboo and coconut leaves, in the hope of attracting passing wizardliness. Picked out on it, in seashells held in place with grass, was the word WIZZARD.
Its wearer gazed right through the wizards and, as if driven by some sudden recollection of purpose, lurched abruptly out of the octagon and headed towards the door of the hall.
The wizards followed cautiously.
‘I’m not sure I believe her. How many times did she see it happen?’
‘I don’t know. She never said.’
‘The Bursar sleepwalks most nights, you know.’
‘Does he? Tempting . . .’
Rincewind, if that was the creature’s name, headed out into Sator Square.
It was crowded. The air shimmered over the braziers of chestnut sellers and hot potato merchants and echoed with the traditional street cries of Old Ankh-Morpork.[7]
The figure sidled up to a skinny man in a huge overcoat who was frying something over a little oil-heater in a wide tray around his neck.
The possibly-Rincewind grabbed the edge of the tray.
‘Got . . . any . . . potatoes?’ it growled.
‘Potatoes? No, squire. Got some sausages inna bun.’
The possibly-Rincewind froze. And then it burst into tears.
‘Sausage inna buuunnnnnl’ it bawled. ‘Dear old sausage inna inna inna buuunnn! Gimme saussaaage inna buunnnnn!’
It grabbed three off the tray and tried to eat them all at once.
‘Good grief!’ said Ridcully.
The figure half ran, half capered away, fragments of bun and pork-product debris cascading from its unkempt beard.
‘I’ve never seen anyone eat three of Throat Dibbler’s sausages inna bun and look so happy,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘I’ve never seen someone eat three of Throat Dibbler’s sausages inna bun and loo|c so upright,’ said the Dean.
‘I’ve never seen anyone eat anything of Dibbler’s and get away without paying,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
The figure spun happily around the square, tears streaming down its face. The gyrations took it past an alley mouth, whereupon a smaller figure stepped out behind it and with some difficulty hit it on the back of the head.
The sausage-eater fell to his knees, saying, to the world in general, ‘Ow!’
‘Nonononononono!’
A rather older man stepped out and removed the cosh from the young man’s hesitant hands, while the victim knelt and moaned.
‘I think you ought to apologize to the poor gentleman,’ said the older man. ‘I don’t know, what’s he going to think? I mean, look at him, he made it so easy for you and what does he get? I mean, what did you think you were doing?’
‘Mumblemumble, Mr Boggis,’ said the boy, looking at his feet.
‘What was that again? Speak up!’
‘Overarm Belter, Mr Boggis.’
‘That was an Overarm Belter? You call that an Overarm Belter? That was an Overarm Belter, was it? This – excuse me, sir, we’ll just have you up on your feet for a moment, sorry about this – this is an Overarm Belter—’
‘Ow!’ shouted the victim and then, to the surprise of all concerned, he added: ‘Hahahaha!’
‘What you did was – sorry to impose again, sir, this won’t take a minute – what you did was this’
‘Ow! Hahahaha!’
‘Now, you lot, you saw that? Come on, gather round . . .’
Half a dozen other youths slouched out of the alleyway and formed a ragged audience around Mr Boggis, the luckless student and the victim, who was staggering in a circle and making little ‘oomph oomph’ sounds but still, for some reason, apparently enjoying himself immensely.
‘Now,’ said Mr Boggis, with the air of an old skilled craftsman imparting his professional expertise to an ungrateful posterity, ‘when inconveniencing a customer from your basic alley entrance, the correct procedure is – Oh, hello, Mr Ridcully, didn’t see you there.’
The Archchancellor gave him a friendly nod.
‘Don’t mind us, Mr Boggis. Thieves’ Guild training, is it?’
Boggis rolled his eyes.
‘Dunno what they teaches ’em at school,’ he said. ‘It’s jus’ nothing but reading and writing all the time. When I was a lad school was where you learned somethin’ useful. Right – you, Wilkins, stop that giggling, you have a go, excuse us just another moment, sir—’
‘Ow!’
‘Nononononono! My old granny could do better than that! Now look, you steps up trimly, places one hand on his shoulder here, for control . . . go on, you do it . . . and then smartly—’
‘Ow!’
‘All right, can anyone tell me what he was doing wrong?’
The figure crawled away unnoticed, except by the wizards, while Mr Boggis was demonstrating the finer points of head percussion on Wilkins.
It staggered to his feet and plunged on along the road, still moving like one hypnotized.
‘He’s crying,’ said the Dean.
‘Not surprising,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘But why’s he grinnin’ at the same time?’
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
Bruised and possibly poisoned, the figure headed back for the University, the wizards still trailing behind.
‘You must mean “curious and more curious”, surely? And even then it doesn’t make much sense’
It entered the gates but, this time, hurried jerkily through the main hall and into the Library.
The Librarian was waiting, holding – with something of a smirk on his face, and an orang-utan can really smirk – the battered hat.
‘Amazin’,’ said Ridcully. ‘It’s true! A wizard will always come back for his hat!’
The figure grabbed the hat, evicted some spiders, threw away the sad affair made of leaves and put the hat on his head.
Rincewind blinked at the puzzled faculty. A light came on behind his eyes for the first time, as if up to now he’d merely been operating by reflex action.
‘Er. What have I just eaten?’
‘Er. Three of Mr Dibbler’s finest sausages,’ said Ridcully. ‘Well, when I say finest, I mean “most typical”, don’tcheknow.’
‘I see. And who just hit me?’
‘Thieves’ Guild apprentices out trainin’.’
Rincewind blinked. ‘This is Ankh-Morpork, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought so.’ Rincewind blinked, slowly. ‘Well,’ he said, just as he fell forward, ‘I’m back.’
Lord Hong was flying a kite. It was something he did perfectly.
Lord Hong did everything perfectly. His water-colours were perfect. His poetry was perfect. When he folded paper, every crease was perfect. Imaginative, original , and definitely perfect. Lord Hong had long ago ceased pursuing perfection because he already had it nailed up in a dungeon somewhere.
Lord Hong was twenty-six, and thin, and handsome. He wore very small, very circular steel-rimmed spectacles. When asked to describe him, people often used the word ‘smooth’ or even ‘lacquered’.[8] And he had risen to the leadership of one of the most influential families in the Empire by relentless application, total focusing of his mental powers, and six well-executed deaths. The last one had been that of his father, who’d died happy in the knowledge that his son was maintaining an old family tradition. The senior families venerated their ancestors, and saw no harm in prematurely adding to their number.