‘Would he?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Let him babble,’ said Cohen. His hand fell to the handle of his sword, polished smooth by the grip of decades.
‘Anyway, I like his eyes,’ he said. They can see for fifty years.’
A hundred yards behind them, hopping rather awkwardly through the soft snow, came the Luggage. No-one ever asked its opinion about anything.
By evening they had come to the edge of the high plains, and rode down through gloomy pine forests that had only been lightly dusted by the snowstorm. It was a landscape of huge cracked rocks, and valleys so narrow and deep that the days only lasted about twenty minutes. A wild, windy country, the sort where you might expect to find —
Trollsh,’ said Cohen, sniffing the air.
Rincewind stared around him in the red evening light. Suddenly rocks that had seemed perfectly normal looked suspiciously alive. Shadows that he wouldn’t have looked at twice now began to look horribly occupied.
‘I like trolls,’ said Twoflower.
‘No you don’t,’ said Rincewind firmly. ‘You can’t. They’re big and knobbly and they eat people.’
‘No they don’t,’ said Cohen, sliding awkwardly off his horse and massaging his knees. ‘Well-known mishap-prehenshion, that ish. Trolls never ate anybody.’
‘No?’
‘No, they alwaysh spit the bitsh out. Can’t digesht people, see? Your average troll don’t want any more out of life than a nice lump of granite, maybe, with perhapsh a nice slab of limeshtone for aftersh. I heard someone shay it’s becosh they’re a shilicashe – a shillycaysheou – Cohen paused, and wiped his beard, ‘made out of rocks.
Rincewind nodded. Trolls were not unknown in Ankh-Morpork, of course, where they often got employment as bodyguards. They tended to be a bit expensive to keep ntil they learned about doors and didn’t simply leave the house by walking aimlessly through the nearest wall.
As they gathered firewood Cohen went on, Trollsh teeth, that’sh the thingsh.’
‘Why?’ said Bethan.
‘Diamonds. Got to be, you shee. Only thing that can shtand the rocksh, and they shtill have to grow a new shet every year.’
‘Talking of teeth—’ said Twoflower.
‘Yesh?’
‘I can’t help noticing —’
‘Yesh?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Twoflower.
‘Yesh? Oh. Let’sh get thish fire going before we loshe the light. And then,’ Cohen’s face fell, ‘I supposhe we’d better make some shoop.’
‘Rincewind’s good at that,’ said Twoflower enthusiastically. ‘He knows all about herbs and roots and things.’
Cohen gave Rincewind a look which suggested that he, Cohen, didn’t believe that.
‘Well, the Horshe people gave us shome horse jerky,’ he said. ‘If you can find shome wild onionsh and stuff, it might make it tashte better.’
‘But I—’ Rincewind began, and gave up. Anyway, he reasoned, I know what an onion looks like, it’s a sort of saggy white thing with a green bit sticking out of the top, should be fairly conspicuous.
‘I’ll just go and have a look, shall I?’ he said.
‘Yesh.’
‘Over there in all that thick, shadowy undergrowth?’
‘Very good playshe, yesh.’
‘Where all the deep gullies and things are, you mean?’
‘Ideal shpot, I’d shay.’
‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Rincewind bitterly. He set off, wondering how you attracted onions. After all, he thought, although you see them hanging in ropes on market stalls they probably don’t grow like that, perhaps peasants or whatever use onions hounds or something, or ing songs to attract onions.
There were a few early stars out as he started to poke aimlessly among the leaves and grass. Luminous fungi, unpleasantly organic and looking like marital aids for gnomes, squished under his feet. Small flying things bit him. Other things, fortunately invisible, hopped or slithered away under the bushes and croaked reproachfully at him.
‘Onions?’ whispered Rincewind. ‘Any onions here?’
‘There’s a patch of them by that old yew tree,’ said a voice beside him.
‘Ah,’ said Rincewind. ‘Good.’
There was a long silence, except for the buzzing of the mosquitoes around Rincewind’s ears.
He was standing perfectly still. He hadn’t even moved his eyes.
Eventually he said, ‘Excuse me.’
‘Yes?’
‘Which one’s the yew?’
‘Small gnarly one with the little dark green needles.’
‘Oh, yes. I see it. Thanks again.’
He didn’t move. Eventually the voice said conversationally, ‘Anything more I can do for you?’
‘You’re not a tree, are you?’ said Rincewind, still staring straight ahead.
‘Don’t be silly. Trees can’t talk.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been having a bit of difficulty with trees lately, you know how it is.’
‘Not really. I’m a rock.’
Rincewind’s voice hardly changed.
‘Fine, fine,’ he said slowly. ‘Well, I’ll just be getting those onions, then.’
‘Enjoy them.’
He walked forward in a careful and dignified fashion, spotted a clump of stringy white things huddling in the undergrowth, uprooted them carefully, and turned around.
There was a rock a little way away. But there were rocks everywhere, the very bones of the Disc were near he surface here.
He looked hard at the yew tree, just in case it had been speaking. But the yew, being a fairly solitary tree, hadn’t heard about Rincewind the arborial saviour, and in any case was asleep.
‘If that was you, Twoflower, I knew it was you all along,’ said Rincewind. His voice sounded suddenly clear and very alone in the gathering dusk.
Rincewind remembered the only fact he knew for sure about trolls, which was that they turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, so that anyone who employed trolls to work during daylight had to spend a fortune in barrier cream.
But now that he came to think about it, it didn’t say anywhere what happened to them after the sun had gone down again . . .
The last of the daylight trickled out of the landscape. And there suddenly seemed to be a great many rocks about.
‘He’s an awful long time with those onions,’ said Two-flower. ‘Do you think we’d better go and look for him?’
‘Wishards know how to look after themshelves,’ said Cohen. ‘Don’t worry.’ He winced. Bethan was cutting his toenails.
‘He’s not a terribly good wizard, actually,’ said Twoflower, drawing nearer the fire. ‘I wouldn’t say this to his face, but’ – he leaned towards Cohen – ‘I’ve never actually seen him do any magic.’
‘Right, let’s have the other one,’ said Bethan.
‘Thish is very kind of you.’
‘You’d have quite nice feet if only you’d look after them.’
‘Can’t sheem to bend down like I used to,’ said Cohen, sheepishly. ‘Of courshe, you don’t get to meet many chiropodishts in my line of work. Funny, really. I’ve met any amount of snake prieshts, mad godsh, warlordsh, never any chiropodishts. I shupposhe it wouldn’t look right, really – Cohen Against the Chiropodishts . . .’
‘Or Cohen And The Chiropractors of Doom,’ suggested Bethan. Cohen cackled.
‘Or Cohen And The Mad Dentists!’ laughed Twoflower.
Cohen’s mouth snapped shut.
‘What’sh sho funny about that?’ he asked, and his voice had knuckles in it.
‘Oh, er, well,’ said Twoflower. Tour teeth, you see . . .’
‘What about them?’ snapped Cohen.
Twoflower swallowed. ‘I can’t help noticing that they’re, um, not in the same geographical location as your mouth.’
Cohen glared at him. Then he sagged, and looked very small and old.
‘True, of corsh,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t blame you. It’sh hard to be a hero with no teethsh. It don’t matter what elsh you loosh, you can get by with one eye even, but you show ’em a mouth full of gumsh and no-one hash any reshpect.’
‘I do,’ said Bethan loyally.
‘Why don’t you get some more?’said Twoflower brightly.
‘Yesh, well, if I wash a shark or something, yesh, I’d grow shome,’ said Cohen sarcastically.
‘Oh, no, you buy them,’ said Twoflower. ‘Look, I’ll show you – er, Bethan, do you mind looking the other way?’ He waited until she had turned around and then put his hand to his mouth.
‘You shee?’ he said.
Bethan heard Cohen gasp.
‘You can take yoursh out?’
‘Oh yesh. I’ve got sheveral shets. Excushe me—’ there was a swallowing noise, and then in a more normal voice Twoflower said, ‘It’s very convenient, of course.’
Cohen’s very voice radiated awe, or as much awe as is possible without teeth, which is about the same amount as with teeth but sounds a great deal less impressive.
‘I should think show,’ he said. ‘When they ache, you jusht take them out and let them get on with it, yesh?
Teach the little buggersh a lesshon, shee how they like being left to ache all by themshelvesh!’
That’s not quite right,’ said Twoflower carefully. They’re not mine, they just belong to me.’
‘You put shomeone elshe’s teethsh in your mouth?’
‘No, someone made them, lots of people wear them where I come from, it’s a—’
But Twoflower’s lecture on dental appliances went ungiven, because somebody hit him.
The Disc’s little moon toiled across the sky. It shone by its own light, owing to the cramped and rather inefficient astronomical arrangements made by the Creator, and was quite crowded with assorted lunar goddesses who were not, at this particular time, paying much attention to what went on in the Disc but were getting up a petition about the Ice Giants.