The Light Fantastic

Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn’t take you seriously until you’d actually killed them, by which time it didn’t really matter anyway. Then there was all the leather, which brought her out in a rash but seemed to be unbreakably traditional. And then there was the ale. It was all right for the likes of Hrun the Barbarian or Cimbar the Assassin to carouse all night in low bars, but Herrena drew the line at it unless they sold proper drinks in small glasses, preferably with a cherry in. As for the toilet facilities...

But she was too big to be a thief, too honest to be an assassin, too intelligent to be a wife, and too proud to enter the only other female profession generally available.

So she’d become a swordswoman and had been a good one, amassing a modest fortune that she was carefully husbanding for a future that she hadn’t quite worked out yet but which would certainly include a bidet if she had anything to say about it.

There was a distant sound of splintering timber. Trolls had never seen the point of walking around trees.

She looked up at the hill again. Two arms of high ground swept away to right and left, and up ahead was a large outcrop with—she squinted—some caves in it?

Troll caves. But maybe a better option than blundering around at night. And come sunup, there’d be no problem.

She leaned across to Gancia, leader of the gang of Morpork mercenaries. She wasn’t very happy about him. It was true that he had the muscles of an ox and the tamina of an ox, the trouble was that he seemed to have the brains of an ox. And the viciousness of a ferret. Like most of the lads in downtown Morpork he’d have cheerfully sold his granny for glue, and probably had.

‘We’ll head for the caves and light a big fire in the entrance,’ she said. Trolls don’t like fire.’

He gave her a look which suggested he had his own ideas about who should be giving the orders, but his lips said, ‘You’re the boss.’

‘Right.’

Herrena looked back at the three captives. That was the box all right—Trymon’s description had been absolutely accurate. But neither of the men looked like a wizard. Not even a failed wizard.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Kwartz.

The trolls halted. The night closed in like velvet. An owl hooted eerily—at least Rincewind assumed it was an owl, he was a little hazy on ornithology. Perhaps a nightingale hooted, unless it was a thrush. A bat flittered overhead. He was quite confident about that.

He was also very tired and quite bruised.

‘Why oh dear?’ he said.

He peered into the gloom. There was a distant speck in the hills that might have been a fire.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You don’t like fires, do you?’

Kwartz nodded. ‘It destroys the superconductivity of our brains,’ he said, ‘but a fire that small wouldn’t have much effect on Old Grandad.’

Rincewind looked around cautiously, listening for the sound of a rogue troll. He’d seen what normal trolls could do to a forest. They weren’t naturally destructive, they just treated organic matter as a sort of inconvenient fog.

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t find it, then,’ he said fervently.

Kwartz sighed. ‘Not much chance of that,’ he said. They’ve lit it in his mouth.’

‘It’sh a judgeshment on me!’ moaned Cohen. He tugged ineffectually at his bonds.

Twoflower peered at him muzzily. Gancia’s slingshot had raised quite a lump on the back of his head and he was a little uncertain about things, starting with his name and working upwards.

‘I should have been lisshening out,’ said Cohen. ‘I should have been paying attenshion and not being shwayed by all this talk about your wosshnarnes, your din-chewers. I mussht be getting shoft.’

He levered himself up by his elbows. Herrena and the rest of the gang were standing around the fire in the cave mouth. The Luggage was still and silent under its net in a corner.

‘There’s something funny about this cave,’ said Bethan.

‘What?’ said Cohen.

‘Well, look at it. Have you ever seen rocks like those before?’

Cohen had to agree that the semi-circle of stones around the cave entrance were unusual; each one was higher than a man, and heavily worn, and surprisingly shiny. There was a matching semi-circle on the ceiling. The whole effect was that of a stone computer built by a druid with a vague idea of geometry and no sense of gravity.

‘Look at the walls, too.’

Cohen squinted at the wall next to him. There were veins of red crystal in it. He couldn’t be quite certain, but it was almost as if little points of light kept flashing on and off deep within the rock itself.

It was also extremely drafty. A steady breeze blew out of the black depths of the cave.

‘I’m sure it was blowing the other way when we came in,’ whispered Bethan. ‘What do you think, Twoflower?’

‘Well, I’m not a cave expert,’ he said, ‘but I was just thinking, that’s a very interesting stalag-thingy hanging from the ceiling up there. Sort of bulbous, isn’t it?’

They looked at it.