‘Right,’ he said. I’m ready.’
‘You’re coming with me?’
‘As far as the city gates, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘You can’t blame me, can you?’
‘No. But leave the axe behind.’
They stepped out into the afternoon sun and a deserted street. When Cohen opened his mouth little pinpoints of bright light illuminated all the shadows.
‘I’ve got some friends around here to pick up,’ he said, nd added, ‘I hope they’re all right. What’s your name?’
‘Lackjaw.’
‘Is there anywhere around here where I can—’ Cohen paused lovingly, savouring the words – ‘where I can get a steak?’
The star people have closed all the inns. They said it’s wrong to be eating and drinking when —’
‘I know, I know,’ said Cohen. ‘I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Don’t they approve of anything?’
Lackjaw was lost in thought for a moment. ‘Setting fire to things,’ he said at last. ‘They’re quite good at that. Books and stuff. They have these great big bonfires.’
Cohen was shocked.
‘Bonfires of books?’
‘Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?’
‘Right,’ said Cohen. He thought it was appalling. Someone who spent his life living rough under the sky knew the value of a good thick book, which ought to outlast at least a season of cooking fires if you were careful how you tore the pages out. Many a life had been saved on a snowy night by a handful of sodden kindling and a really dry book. If you felt like a smoke and couldn’t find a pipe, a book was your man every time.
Cohen realised people wrote things in books. It had always seemed to him to be a frivolous waste of paper.
I’m afraid if your friends met them they might be in trouble,’ said Lackjaw sadly as they walked up the street.
They turned the corner and saw the bonfire. It was in the middle of the street. A couple of star people were feeding it with books from a nearby house, which had its door smashed in and had been daubed with stars.
News of Cohen hadn’t spread too far yet. The book burners took no notice as he wandered up and leaned against the wall. Curly flakes of burnt paper bounced in the hot air and floated away over the rooftops.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
One of the star people, a woman, pushed her hair out of her eyes with a soot-blackened hand, gazed intently t Cohen’s left ear, and said, ‘Ridding the disc of wickedness.’
Two men came out of the building and glared at Cohen, or at least at his ear.
Cohen reached out and took the heavy book the woman was carrying. Its cover was crusted with strange red and black stones that spelled out what Cohen was sure was a word. He showed it to Lackjaw.
‘The Necrotelecomnicon,’ said the dwarf. ‘Wizards use it. It’s how to contact the dead, I think.’
‘That’s wizards for you,’ said Cohen. He felt a page between finger and thumb; it was thin, and quite soft. The rather unpleasant organic-looking writing didn’t worry him at all. Yes, a book like this could be a real friend to a man —
‘Yes? You want something?’ he said to one of the star men, who had gripped his arm.
‘All books of magic must be burned,’ said the man, but a little uncertainly, because something about Cohen’s teeth was giving him a nasty feeling of sanity.
‘Why?’ said Cohen.
‘It has been revealed to us.’ Now Cohen’s smile was as wide as all outdoors, and rather more dangerous.
‘I think we ought to be getting along,’ said Lackjaw nervously. A party of star people had turned into the street behind them.
‘I think I would like to kill someone,’ said Cohen, still smiling.
‘The star directs that the Disc must be cleansed,’ said the man, backing away.
‘Stars can’t talk,’ said Cohen, drawing his sword.
‘If you kill me a thousand will take my place,’ said the man, who was now backed against the wall.
‘Yes,’ said Cohen, in a reasonable tone of voice, ‘but that isn’t the point, is it? The point is, you’ll be dead.’
The man’s adam’s apple began to bob like a yoyo. He squinted down at Cohen’s sword.
‘There is that, yes,’ he conceded. ‘Tell you what – how bout if we put the fire out?’ ‘Good idea,’ said Cohen.
Lackjaw tugged at his belt. The other star people were running towards them. There were a lot of them, many of them were armed, and it began to look as though things would become a little more serious.
Cohen waved his sword at them defiantly, and turned and ran. Even Lackjaw had difficulty in keeping up.
‘Funny,’ he gasped, as they plunged down another alley, ‘I thought – for a minute – you’d want to stand – and fight them.’
‘Blow that – for a – lark.’
As they came out into the light at the other end of the alley Cohen flung himself against the wall, drew his sword, stood with his head on one side as he judged the approaching footsteps, and then brought the blade around in a dead flat sweep at stomach height. There was an unpleasant noise and several screams, but by then Cohen was well away up the street, moving in the unusual shambling run that spared his bunions.
With Lackjaw pounding along grimly beside him he turned off into an inn painted with red stars, jumped onto a table with only a faint whimper of pain, ran along it – while, with almost perfect choreography, Lackjaw ran straight underneath without ducking – jumped down at the other end, kicked his way through the kitchens, and came out into another alley.
They scurried around a few more turnings and piled into a doorway. Cohen clung to the wall and wheezed until the little blue and purple lights went away.
‘Well,’ he panted, ‘what did you get?’
‘Um, the cruet,’ said Lackjaw.
‘Just that?’
‘Well, I had to go under the table, didn’t I? You didn’t do so well yourself.’
Cohen looked disdainfully at the small melon he had managed to skewer in his flight.
‘This must be pretty tough here,’ he said, biting through 159 the rind.
‘Want some salt on it?’ said the dwarf.
Cohen said nothing. He just stood holding the melon, with his mouth open.
Lackjaw looked around. The cul de sac they were in was empty, except for an old box someone had left against a wall.
Cohen was staring at it. He handed the melon to the dwarf without looking at him and walked out into the sunlight. Lackjaw watched him creep stealthily around the box, or as stealthily as is possible with joints that creaked like a ship under full sail, and prod it once or twice with his sword, but very gingerly, as if he half-expected it to explode.
‘It’s just a box,’ the dwarf called out. ‘What’s so special about a box?’
Cohen said nothing. He squatted down painfully and peered closely at the lock on the lid.
‘What’s in it?’ said Lackjaw.
‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ said Cohen. ‘Help me up, will you?’
‘Yes, but this box —’
‘This box,’ said Cohen, ‘this box is—’he waved his arms vaguely.
‘Oblong?’
‘Eldritch,’ said Cohen mysteriously.
‘Eldritch?’
‘Yup.’
‘Oh,’ said the dwarf. They stood looking at the box for a moment.
‘Cohen?’
‘Yes?’
‘What does eldritch mean?’
‘Well, eldritch is—’ Cohen paused and looked down irritably. ‘Give it a kick and you’ll see.’
Lockjaw’s steel-capped dwarfboot whammed into the side of the box. Cohen flinched. Nothing else happened.
‘I see,’ said the dwarf. ‘Eldritch means wooden?’
‘No,’ said Cohen. ‘It – it oughtn’t to have done that.’
‘I see,’ said Lackjaw, who didn’t, and was beginning to wish Cohen hadn’t gone out into all this hot sunlight. ‘It ought to have run away, you think?’
‘Yes. Or bitten your leg off.’
‘Ah,’ said the dwarf. He took Cohen gently by the arm. ‘It’s nice and shady over here,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you just have a little —’
Cohen shook him off.
‘It’s watching that wall,’ he said. ‘Look, that’s why it’s not taking any notice of us. It’s staring at the wall.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Lackjaw soothingly. ‘Of course it’s watching that wall with its little eyes —’
‘Don’t be an idiot, it hasn’t got any eyes,’ snapped Cohen.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Lackjaw hurriedly. ‘It’s watching the wall without eyes, sorry.’
‘I think it’s worried about something,’ said Cohen.
‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it,’ said Lackjaw. ‘I expect it just wants us to go off somewhere and leave it alone.’
‘I think it’s very puzzled,’ Cohen added.
‘Yes, it certainly looks puzzled,’ said the dwarf. Cohen glared at him.
‘How can you tell?’ he snapped.
It struck Lackjaw that the roles were unfairly reversing. He looked from Cohen to the box, his mouth opening and shutting.