Eric

The other senior demons looked a bit shifty. They were, of course, steeped in evil, and Astfgl was definitely Not One Of Us and the most revolting little oik ever to oil his way into the post...

But... well, this... perhaps there were some things that were too...

"'Learn from the ways of humans'," mimicked Vassenego. "He bade me learn from humans. Me! The impudence! The arrogance! But I watched, oh, yes. I learned. I planned."

The look on his face was unspeakable. Even the lords of the nethermost circles, who gloried in villainy, had to turn their heads.

Duke Drazometh the Putrid raised a hesitant talon.

"But if he even suspects," he said, "I mean, he has a foul temper on him. Those memos -" He shuddered.

"But what are we doing?" Vassenego spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Where is the harm in it? Brothers, I ask you: where is the harm?"

His fingers curled. The knuckles shone white under the thin, blue-veined skin as he surveyed the doubting faces.

"Or would you rather receive another statement of policy?" he said.

Expressions twitched as the lords made up their minds like a row of dominoes falling over. There were some things on which even they were united. No more policy statements, no more consultative documents, no more morale-boosting messages to all staff. This was Hell, but you had to draw the line somewhere.

Earl Beezlemoth rubbed one of his three noses. "And humans somewhere thought this up all by themselves?" he said. "We didn't give them any you know, hints?"

Vassenego shook his head.

"All their own work," he said proudly, like a fond schoolmaster who has just seen a star pupil graduate summa cum laude.

The earl stared into infinity. "I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones," he said, his voice filled with awe.

The old lord nodded. He'd waited a long time for this. While others had talked of red-hot revolution he'd just stared out into the world of men, and watched, and marvelled.

This Rincewind character had been extremely useful. He'd managed to keep the King totally occupied. He'd been worth all the effort. The damn-fool human still thought it was his fingers doing the business! Three wishes, indeed!

And thus it was, when Rincewind pulled himself free of the wreckage of the wheel, he found Astfgl, King of Demon, Lord of Hell, Master of the Pit, standing over him.

Astfgl had passed through the earlier stage of fury and was now in that calm lagoon of rage where the voice is steady, the manner is measured and polite, and only a faint trace of spittle at the corner of the mouth betrays the inner inferno.

Eric crawled out from under a broken spar and looked up.

"Oh dear," he said.

The Demon King twirled the trident. Suddenly, it didn't look comical any more. It looked like a heavy metal stick with three horrible spikes on the end.

Astfgl smiled, and looked around. "No," he said, apparently to himself. "Not here. It is not public enough. Come!"

A hand grasped each of them by the shoulder. They could no more resist it than a couple of non-identical snowflakes could resist a flamethrower. There was a moment's disorientation, and Rincewind found himself in the largest room in the universe.

It was the great hall. You could have built moon rockets in it. The kings of Hell might have heard of words like "subtlety" and "discretion", but they had also heard that if you had it you should flaunt it and reasoned that, if you didn't have it, you should flaunt it even more, and what they didn't have was good taste. Astfgl had done what he could but even he had been unable to add much to the basic bad design, the clashing colours, and the terrible wallpaper. He'd put in a few coffee tables and a bullfight poster, but they were more or less lost in the overall chaos, and the new antimacassar on the back of the Throne of Dread only served to highlight some of its more annoying bas-reliefs.

The two humans sprawled on the floor.

"And now -" said Astfgl.

But his voice was lost in a sudden cheering.

He looked up.

Demons of every size and shape filled almost all the hall, piling up the walls and even hanging from the ceiling. A demonic band struck up a choice of chords on a variety of instruments. A banner, slung from one side of the hall to the other, read: Hale To Ther Cheve.

Astfgl's brow knitted in instant paranoia as Vassenego, trailed by the other lords, bore down on him. The old demon's face was split in a totally guileless grin, and the King nearly panicked and hit it with the trident before Vassenego reached out and slapped him on the back.

"Well done!" he cried.

"What?"

"Oh, very well done!"

Astfgl looked down at Rincewind.

"Oh," he said. "Yes. Well." He coughed. "It was nothing," he said, straightening up, "I knew you people weren't getting anywhere so I just -"

"Not these," sneered Vassenego. "Such trivial things. No, sire. I was referring to your elevation."

"Elevation?" said Astfgl.

"Your promotion, sire!"

A great cheer went up from the younger demons, who would cheer anything.