And now his kite, the black kite with the two big eyes, plunged out of the sky. He’d calculated the angle, needless to say, perfectly. Its string, coated with glue and ground glass, sawed through those of his fellow contestants and sent their kites tumbling.
There was genteel applause from the bystanders. People generally found it advisable to applaud Lord Hong.
He handed the string to a servant, nodded curtly at the fellow flyers, and strode towards his tent.
Once inside, he sat down and looked at his visitor. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘We sent the message,’ said the visitor. ‘No-one saw us.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Lord Hong. ‘Twenty people saw you. Do you know how hard it is for a guard to look straight ahead and see nothing when people are creeping around making a noise like an army and whispering to one another to be quiet? Frankly, your people do not seem to possess that revolutionary spark. What is the matter with your hand?’
‘The albatross bit it.’
Lord Hong smiled. It occurred to him that it might have mistaken his visitor for an anchovy, and with some justification. There was the same fishy look about the eyes.
‘I don’t understand, o lord,’ said the visitor, whose name was Two Fire Herb.
‘Good.’
‘But they believe in the Great Wizzard and you want him to come here?’
‘Oh, certainly. I have my . . . people in’ – he tried the alien syllables – ‘Ankh-More-Pork. The one so foolishly called the Great Wizzard does exist. But, I might tell you, he is renowned for being incompetent, cowardly and spineless. Quite proverbially so. So I think the Red Army should have their leader, don’t you? It will . . . raise their morale.’
He smiled again. ‘This is politics,’ he said.
‘Ah.’
‘Now go.’
Lord Hong picked up a book as his visitor left. But it was hardly a real book; pieces of paper had simply been fastened together with string, and the text was handwritten.
He’d read it many times before. It still amused him, mainly because the author had managed to be wrong about so many things.
Now, every time he finished a page, he ripped it out and, while reading the next page, carefully folded the paper into the shape of a chrysanthemum.
‘Great Wizard,’ he said, aloud. ‘Oh, indeed. Very great.’
Rincewind awoke. There were clean sheets and no-one was saying ‘Go through his pockets,’ so he chalked that up as a promising beginning.
He kept his eyes shut, just in case there was anyone around who, once he was seen to be awake, would make life complicated for him.
Elderly male voices were arguing.
‘You’re all missin’ the point. He survives. You keep on tellin’ me he’s had all these adventures and he’s still alive.’
‘What do you mean? He’s got scars all over him!’
‘My point exactly, Dean. Most of ’em on his back, too. He leaves trouble behind. Someone Up There smiles on him.’
Rincewind winced. He had always been aware that Someone Up There was doing something on him. He’d never considered it was smiling.
‘He’s not even a proper wizard! He never got more than two per cent in his exams!’
‘I think he’s awake,’ said someone.
Rincewind gave in, and opened his eyes. A variety of bearded, overly pink faces looked down upon him.
‘How’re you feeling, old chap?’ said one, extending a hand. ‘Name’s Ridcully. Archchancellor. How’re you feeling?’
‘It’s all going to go wrong,’ said Rincewind flatly.
‘What d’you mean, old fellow?’
‘I just know it. It’s all going to go wrong. Something dreadful’s going to happen. I thought it was too good to last.’
‘You see?’ said the Dean. ‘Hundreds of little legs. I told you. Would you listen?’
Rincewind sat up. ‘Don’t start being nice to me,’ he said. ‘Don’t start offering me grapes. No-one ever wants me for something nice.’ A confused memory of his very recent past floated across his mind and he experienced a brief moment of regret that potatoes, while uppermost in his mind at that point, had not been similarly positioned in the mind of the young lady. No-one dressed like that, he was coming to realize, could be thinking of any kind of root vegetable.
He sighed. ‘All right, what happens now?’
‘How do you feel?’
Rincewind shook his head. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I hate it when people are nice to me. It means something bad is going to happen. Do you mind shouting?’
Ridcully had had enough. ‘Get out of that bed you horrible little man and follow me this minute or it will go very hard for you!’
‘Ah, that’s better. I feel right at home now. Now we’re cooking with charcoal,’ said Rincewind, glumly. He swung his legs off the bed and stood up carefully.
Ridcully stopped halfway to the door, where the other wizards had lined up.
‘Runes?’
‘Yes, Archchancellor?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, his voice oozing innocence. ‘What is that you’ve got behind your back?’
‘Sorry, Archchancellor?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
‘Looks like some kind of tool,’ said Ridcully.
‘Oh, this,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, as if he’d only just at that moment noticed the eight-pound lump hammer he’d been holding. ‘My word . . . it’s a hammer, isn’t it? My word. A hammer. I suppose I must just have . . . picked it up somewhere. You know. To keep the place tidy.’
‘And I can’t help noticing,’ said Ridcully, ‘that the Dean seems to be tryin’ to conceal a battle-axe about his person.’
There was a musical twang from the rear of the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘And that sounded like a saw to me,’ said Ridcully. ‘Is there anyone here not concealin’ some kind of implement? Right. Would anyone care to explain what the hell you think you’re doin’?’
‘Hah, you don’t know what it was like,’ muttered the Dean, not meeting the Archchancellor’s eye. ‘A man daren’t turn his back for five minutes in those days. You’d hear the patter of those damn feet and—’
Ridcully ignored him. He put an arm around Rincewind’s bony shoulders and led the way towards the Great Hall.
‘Well, now, Rincewind,’ he said. ‘They tell me you’re no good at magic.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Never passed any exams or anything?’
‘None, I’m afraid.’
‘But everyone calls you Rincewind the wizard.’
Rincewind looked at his feet. ‘Well, I kind of worked here as sort of deputy Librarian—’
‘—an ape’s number two—’ said the Dean.
‘—and, you know, did odd jobs and things and kind of, you know, helped out—’
‘I say, did anyone notice that? An ape’s number two? Rather clever, I thought.’
‘But you have never, in fact, actually been entitled to call yourself a wizard?’ said Ridcully.
‘Not technically, I suppose . . .’
‘I see. That is a problem.’
‘I’ve got this hat with the word “Wizzard” on it,’ said Rincewind hopefully.
‘Not a great help, I’m afraid. Hmm. This presents us with a bit of a difficulty, I’m afraid. Let me see . . . How long can you hold your breath?’
‘I don’t know. A couple of minutes. Is that important?’
‘It is in the context of being nailed upside down to one of the supports of the Brass Bridge for two high tides and then being beheaded which, I’m afraid, is the statutory punishment for impersonating a wizard. I looked it up. No-one was more sorry than me, I can tell you. But the Lore is the Lore.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Sorry. No alternative. Otherwise we’d be knee-deep in people in pointy hats they’d no right to. It’s a terrible shame. Can’t do a thing. Wish I could. Hands tied. The statutes say you can only be a wizard by passing through the University in the normal way or by performing some great service of benefit to magic, and I’m afraid that—’
‘Couldn’t you just send me back to my island? I liked it there. It was dull!’
Ridcully shook his head sadly.
‘No can do, I’m afraid. The offence has been committed over a period of many years. And since you haven’t passed any exams or performed,’ Ridcully raised his voice slightly, ‘any service of great benefit to magic, I’m afraid I shall have to instruct the bledlows[9] to fetch some rope and—’
‘Er. I think I may have saved the world a couple of times,’ said Rincewind. ‘Does that help?’
‘Did anyone from the University see you do it?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Ridcully shook his head. ‘Probably doesn’t count, then. It’s a shame, because if you had performed any service of great benefit to magic then I’d be happy to let you keep that hat and, of course, something to wear it on.
Rincewind looked crestfallen. Ridcully sighed, and had one last try.
‘So,’ he said, ‘since it seems that you haven’t actually passed your exams OR PERFORMED A SERVICE OF GREAT BENEFIT TO MAGIC, then—’