Interesting Times

'I'm not sure the transit time is instantaneous,' said Ponder. 'You've got to allow for zooming-through-the-occult-dimensions time?'



'Something like that. According to Hex, we might have to wait several—' Something appeared in the octagon with a 'pop', exactly where Rincewind had been, and rolled a few inches. It did, at least, have four small wheels such as might carry a cart. But these weren't workmanlike wheels; these were mere discs such as may be put on something heavy for those rare occasions it needs to be moved. Above the wheels things became rather more interesting. There was a large round cylinder, like a barrel on its side. A considerable amount of effort had been put into its construction; large amounts of brass had gone into making it look like a



very large, fat dog with its mouth open. A minor feature was a length of string, which was smoking and hissing because it was on fire. It didn't do anything dangerous. It just sat there, while the smouldering string slowly got shorter. The wizards gathered round. 'Looks pretty heavy,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'A statue of a dog with a big mouth,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. That's rather dull.'



'Bit of a lap-dog, too,' said Ridcully. 'Lot of work gone into it,' said the Dean. 'Can't imagine why anyone'd want to set fire to it.' Ridcully poked his head into the wide tube. 'Some kind of big round ball in here,' he said, his voice echoing a little. 'Someone pass me a staff or something. I'll see if I can wiggle it out.' Ponder was staring at the fizzing string. 'Er,' he said, 'I . . . er . . . think we should all just step away from it, Archchancellor. Er. We should all just step back, yes, step back a little way. Er.'



'Hah, yes, really? So much for research,' said Ridcully. 'You don't mind messing around with cogwheels and ants but when it comes to really trying to find out how things work and—'



'Getting your hands dirty,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Yes, getting your hands dirty, you come over all shy.'



'It's not that, Archchancellor,' said Ponder. 'But I believe it may be dangerous.'



'I think I'm working it loose,' said Ridcully, poking in the depths of the tube. 'Come on, you fellows, tip the thing up a bit . . .' Ponder took a few more steps back. 'Er, I really don't think—' he began. 'Don't think, eh? Call yourself a wizard and you don't think? Blast! I've got my staff wedged now! That's what comes of listening to you when I should have been paying attention, Mr Stibbons.' Ponder heard a scuffling behind him. The Librarian, with an animal's instinct for danger and a human's instinct for trouble, had upturned a table and was peering over the top of it with a small cauldron on his head, the handle under one of his chins like a strap. 'Archchancellor, I really do think—'



'Oh, you think, do you? Did anyone tell you it's your job to think? Ow! It's got my fingers now, thanks to you!' It needed all Ponder's courage to say, 'I think . . . it might perhaps be some kind of firework, sir.' The wizards turned their attention to the fizzling string. 'What . . . coloured lights, stars, that sort of thing?' said Ridcully. 'Possibly, sir.'



'Must be planning a hell of a display. Apparently they're very keen on firecrackers, over in the Empire.' Ridcully spoke in the tone of voice of a man over whom the thought is slowly stealing that he just might have done something very silly. 'Would you like me to extinguish the string, sir?' said Ponder. 'Yes, dear boy, why not? Good idea. Good thinking, that man.' Ponder stepped forward and pinched the string. 'I do hope we haven't ruined something,' he said. Rincewind opened his eyes. This was not cool sheets. It was white, and it was cold, but it lacked basic sheetness. It made up for this by having vast amounts of snowosity. And a groove. A long groove. Let's see now . . . He could remember the sensation of movement. And he vaguely remembered something small but incredibly /leauy-looking roaring past in the opposite direction. And then he was here, moving so fast that his feet left this . . . . . . groove. Yes, groove, he thought, in the easy-going way of the mildly concussed. With people lying around it groaning. But they looked like people who, once they'd stopped crawling around groaning, were going to draw the swords they had about their persons and pay detailed attention to serious bits. He stood up, a little shakily. There didn't seem to be anywhere to run to. There was just this wide, snowy waste with a border of mountains. The soldiers were definitely looking a lot more conscious. Rincewind sighed. A few hours ago he'd been sitting on a warm beach with young women about to offer him potatoes,[13] and here he was on a windswept, chilly plain with some large men about to offerr him violence.



The soles of his shoes, he noticed, were steaming. And then someone said, 'Hey! Are you . . . you're not, are you . . . are you . . . whatsyername . . . Rincewind, isn't it?' Rincewind turned. There was a very old man behind him. Despite the bitter wind he was wearing nothing except a leather lioncloth and a grubby beard so long that the loincloth wasn't really necessary, at least from the point of view of decency. His legs were blue from the cold and his nose was red from the wind, giving him overall quite a patriotic look if you were from the right country. He had a patch over one eye but rather more notable than that were his teeth. They glittered. 'Don't stand there gawping like a big gawper! Get these damn things off me!' There were heavy shackles around his ankles and wrists; a chain led to a group of more or less similarly clad men who were huddling in a crowd and watching Rincewind in terror. 'Heh! They think you're some kind of demon,' cackled the old man. 'But I knows a wizard when I sees one! That bastard over there's got the keys. Go and give him a good kicking.' Rincewind took a few hesitant steps towards a recumbent guard and snatched at his belt. 'Right,' said the old man, 'now chuck 'em over here. And then get out of the way.'



'Why?'



' 'Cos you don't want to get blood all over you.'



'But you haven't got a weapon and there's one of you and they've got big swords and there's five of them!'



'I know,' said the old man, wrapping the chain around one of his fists in a businesslike manner. 'It's unfair, but I can't wait around all day.' He grinned. Gems glittered in the morning light. Every tooth in the man's head was a diamond. And Rincewind knew of only one man who had the nerve to wear troll teeth. 'Here? Cohen the Barbarian?'



'Ssh! Ingconitar! Now get out of the way, I said.' The teeth flashed at the guards, who were now vertical. 'Come on, boys. There's five of you, after all. An' I'm an old man. Mumble, mumble, oo me leg, ekcetra . . .' To their credit, the guards hesitated. It was probably not, to judge from their faces, because there's something reprehensible about five large, heavily be-weaponed men attacking a frail



old man. It might have been because there's something odd about a frail old man who keeps on grinning in the face of obvious oblivion. 'Oh, come on,' said Cohen. The men edged closer, each waiting for one of the others to make the first move. Cohen took a few steps forward, waving his arms wearily. 'Oh, no/ he said. 'It makes me ashamed, honestly it does. This is not how you attack someone, all milling around like a lot of millers; when you attack someone the important thing to remember is the element of . . . surprise—' Ten seconds later he turned to Rincewind. 'All right, Mister Wizard. You can open your eyes now.' One guard was upside down in a tree, one was a pair of feet sticking out of a snowdrift, two were slumped against rocks, and one was . . . generally around the place. Here and there. Certainly hanging out. Cohen sucked his wrist thoughtfully. 'I reckon that last one came within an inch of getting me,' he said. 'I must be getting old.'



'Why are you h—' Rincewind paused. One packet of curiosity overtook the first one. 'How old are you, exactly?'



'Is this still the Century of the Fruitbat?'



'Yes.'



'Oh, I dunno. Ninety? Could be ninety. Maybe ninety-five?' Cohen fished the keys out of the snow and ambled over to the group of men, who were cowering even more. He unlocked the first set of manacles and handed the shocked prisoner the keys. 'Bugger off, the lot of you,' he said, not unkindly. 'And don't get caught again.' He strolled back to Rincewind. 'What brings you into this dump, then?'



'Well—'



'Interestin',' said Cohen, and that was that. 'But can't stay chatting all day, got work to do. You coming, or what?'



'What?'



'Please yourself.' Cohen tied the chain around his waist as a makeshift belt and wedged a couple of swords in it.



'Incidentally,' he said, 'what did you do with the Barking Dog?'



'What dog?'



'I expect it doesn't matter.' Rincewind scuttled after the retreating figure, It wasn't that he felt safe when Cohen the Barbarian was around. No-one was safe when Cohen the Barbarian was around. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the ageing process there. Cohen had always been a barbarian hero because barbaric heroing was all he knew how to do. And while he got old he seemed to get harder, like oak. But he was a known figure, and therefore comforting. He just wasn't in the right place. 'No future in it, back around the Ramtops,' said Cohen, as they trudged through the snow. 'Fences and farms, fences and farms everywhere. You kill a dragon these days, people complain. You know what? You know what happened?'



'No. What happened?'



'Man came up to me, said my teeth were offensive to trolls. What about that, eh?'



'Well, they are made of—'



'I said they never complained to me.'



'Er, did you ever give them a cha—'



'I said, I see a troll up in the mountains with a necklace o' human skulls, I say good luck to him. Silicon Anti-Defamation League, my bottom. It's the same all over. So I thought I'd try my luck the other side of the icecap.'



'Isn't it dangerous, going around the Hub?' said Rincewind. 'Used to be,' said Cohen, grinning horribly. 'Until you left, you mean?'



' 'S right. You still got that box on legs?'



'On and off. It hangs around. You know.' Cohen chuckled. 'I'll get the bloody lid off that thing one day, mark my words. Ah. Horses.' There were five, looking depressed in a small depression. Rincewind looked back at the freed prisoners, who seemed to be milling around aimlessly.



'We're not taking all five horses, are we?' he said. 'Sure. We might need 'em,'



'But . . . one for me, one for you . . . What's the rest for?'



'Lunch, dinner and breakfast?'



'It's a little . . . unfair, isn't it? Those people look a bit bewildered.' Cohen sneered the sneer of a man who has never been truly imprisoned even when he's been locked up. 'I freed 'em,' he said. 'First time they've ever been free. Comes as a bit of a shock, I expect. They're waiting for someone to tell 'em what to do next.'



'Er . . .'



'I could tell 'em to starve to death, if you like.'



'Er . . .'



'Oh, all right. You lot! Formee uppee right now toot sweet chop chop!' The small crowd hurried over to Cohen and stood expectantly behind his horse. 'I tell you, I don't regret it. This is the land of opportunity,' said Cohen, urging the horse into a trot. The embarrassed free men jogged behind. 'Know what? Swords are banned. No-one except the army, the nobles and the Imperial Guard are allowed to own weapons. Couldn't believe it! Gods' own truth, though. Swords are outlawed, so only outlaws have swords. And that,' said Cohen, giving the landscape another glittering grin, 'suits me fine.'



'But. . . you were in chains . . .' Rincewind ventured. 'Glad you reminded me,' said Cohen. 'Yeah. We'll find the rest of the lads, then I'd better try and find who did it and talk to them about that.' The tone of his voice suggested very clearly that all they were likely to say would be, 'Highly enjoyable! Your wife is a big hippo!'