The Light Fantastic

‘Shopkeeper a little wizened old guy? Shop full of strange shtuff?’

‘Exactly! Never could find it again, I thought I must have got the wrong street, nothing but a brick wall where I thought it was, I remember thinking at the time it was rather —’

Cohen shrugged. ‘One of those shops [5],’ he said. That explainsh it, then.’ He felt his back, and grimaced. ‘Bloody horshe ran off with my linament!’

Rincewind remembered something, and fumbled in the depths of his torn and now very grubby robe. He held up a green bottle.

‘That’sh the shtuff!’ said Cohen. ‘You’re a marvel.’ He ooked sideways at Twoflower.

‘I would have beaten it,’ he said quietly, ‘even if you hadn’t called it off, I would have beaten it in the end.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bethan.

‘You two can make yourshelf usheful,’ he added. That Luggage broke through a troll tooth to get ush out. That wash diamond. Shee if you can find the bitsh. I’ve had an idea about them.’

As Bethan rolled up her sleeves and uncorked the bottle Rincewind took Twoflower to one side. When they were safely hidden behind a shrub he said, ‘He’s gone barmy.’

‘That’s Cohen the Barbarian you’re talking about!’ said Twoflower, genuinely shocked. ‘He is the greatest warrior that —’

‘Was,’ said Rincewind urgently. ‘All that stuff with the warrior priests and man-eating zombies was years ago. All he’s got now is memories and so many scars you could play noughts-and-crosses on him.’

‘He is rather more elderly than I imagined, yes,’ said Twoflower. He picked up a fragment of diamond.

‘So we ought to leave them and find our horses and move on,’ said Rincewind.

‘That’s a bit of a mean trick, isn’t it?’

‘They’ll be all right,’ said Rincewind heartily. ‘The point is, would you feel happy in the company of someone who would attack the Luggage with his bare hands?’

‘That is a point,’ said Twoflower.

‘They’ll probably be better off without us anyway.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive,’ said Rincewind.

They found the horses wandering aimlessly in the scrub, breakfasted on badly-dried horse jerky, and set off in what Rincewind believed was the right direction. A few minutes later the Luggage emerged from the bushes and followed them.

The sun rose higher in the sky, but still failed to blot out the light of the star.

‘It’s got bigger overnight,’ said Twoflower. ‘Why isn’t anybody doing something?’

‘Such as what?’

Twoflower thought. ‘Couldn’t somebody tell Great A’Tuin to avoid it?’ he said. ‘Sort of go around it?’

‘That sort of thing has been tried before,’ said Rincewind. Wizards tried to tune in to Great A’Tuin’s mind.’

‘It didn’t work?’

‘Oh, it worked all right,’ said Rincewind. ‘Only...’

Only there had been certain unforeseen risks in reading a mind as great as the World Turtle’s, he explained. The wizards had trained up on tortoises and giant sea turtles first, to get the hang of the chelonian frame of mind, but although they knew that Great A’Tuin’s mind would be big they hadn’t realised that it would be slow.

‘There’s a bunch of wizards that have been reading it in shifts for thirty years,’ said Rincewind. ‘All they’ve found out is that Great A’Tuin is looking forward to something.’

‘What?’

‘Who knows?’

They rode in silence for a while through a rough country where huge limestone blocks lined the track. Eventually Twoflower said, ‘We ought to go back, you know.’

‘Look, we’ll reach the Smarl tomorrow,’ said Rincewind. ‘Nothing will happen to them out here, I don’t see why —’

He was talking to himself. Twoflower had wheeled his horse and was trotting back, demonstrating all the horsemanship of a sack of potatoes.

Rincewind looked down. The Luggage regarded him owlishly.

‘What are you looking at?’ said the wizard. ‘He can go back if he wants, why should I bother?’

The Luggage said nothing.

‘Look, he’s not my responsibility,’ said Rincewind. let’s be absolutely clear about that.’

The Luggage said nothing, but louder this time.

‘Go on—follow him. You’re nothing to do with me.’

The Luggage retracted its little legs and settled down on the track.

‘Well, I’m going,’ said Rincewind. ‘I mean it,’ he added.

He turned the horse’s head back towards the new horizon, and glanced down. The Luggage sat there.

‘It’s no good trying to appeal to my better nature. You can stay there all day for all I care. I’m just going to ride off, okay?’

He glared at the Luggage. The Luggage looked back.

‘I thought you’d come back,’ said Twoflower.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Rincewind.

‘Shall we talk about something else?’

‘Yeah, well, discussing how to get these ropes off would be favourite,’ said Rincewind. He wrenched at the bonds around his wrists.

‘I can’t imagine why you’re so important,’ said Herrena. She sat on a rock opposite them, sword across her knees. Most of the gang laying among the rocks high above, watching the road. Rincewind and Twoflower had been a pathetically easy ambush.