Interesting Times (24 page)

“No, no, no!”

“No, no, no?”

“Yes! That’s not
civilized!
”

“It’s like with sheep,” Six Beneficent Winds explained. “You don’t tear their skin off all in one go, you just shear them every year.”

The Horde looked blank.

“Hunter-gatherers,” said Mr. Saveloy, with a touch of hopelessness. “Wrong metaphor.”

“It’s the marvelous Singing Sword of Wong, isn’t it?” whispered Six Beneficent Winds. “That’s what you’re going to steal!”

“No. In fact, ‘steal’ is rather the wrong word. Well, anyway, gentlemen…you might not yet be civilized but at least you’re nice and clean, and many people think this is identical. Time, I think, for…action.”

The Horde straightened up. This was back in the area they understood.

“To the Throne Room!” said Ghenghiz Cohen.

Six Beneficent Winds wasn’t that fast on the uptake, but at last he put two and two together.

“It’s the Emperor!” he said, and raised his hand to his mouth in horror tinged with evil delight. “You’re going to kidnap him!”

Diamonds glittered when Cohen grinned.

There were two dead guards in the corridor leading to the private Imperial apartments.

“Look, how come you were all taken alive?” whispered Rincewind. “The guards I saw had big swords. How come you’re not dead?”

“I suppose they planned to torture us,” said Butterfly. “We did injure ten of them.”

“Oh? Pasted posters on them, did you? Sang revolutionary songs until they gave in? Listen, someone
wanted
you alive.”

The floors sang in the darkness. Every footstep produced a chorus of squeaks and groans, just like the floorboards at the University. But you didn’t expect that sort of thing in a nice shiny palace like this.

“They’re called nightingale floors,” said Butterfly. “The carpenters put little metal collars around the nails so that no one can creep up unawares.”

Rincewind looked down at the corpses. Neither man had drawn his sword. He leaned his weight on his left foot. The floor squeaked. Then he leaned on his right foot. The floor groaned.

“This isn’t right, then,” he whispered. “You can’t creep up on someone on a floor like this. So someone they
knew
killed those guards. Let’s get out of here…”

“We go on,” said Butterfly firmly.

“It’s a trap. Someone’s using you to do their dirty work.”

She shrugged. “Turn left by the big jade statue.”

It was four in the morning, an hour before dawn. There were guards in the official staterooms, but not very many. After all, this was well inside the Forbidden City, with its high walls and small gates. It wasn’t as though anything was going to happen.

It needed a special type of mind to stand guard over some empty rooms all night. One Big River had such a mind, orbiting gently within the otherwise blissful emptiness of his skull.

They’d happily called him One Big River because he was the same size and moved at the same speed as the Hung. Everyone had expected him to become a
tsimo
wrestler, but he’d failed the intelligence test because he hadn’t eaten the table.

It was impossible for him to get bored. He just didn’t have the imagination. But, since the visor of his huge helmet registered a permanent expression of metal rage, he’d in any case cultivated the art of going to sleep on his feet.

He was dozing happily now, aware only of an occasional squeaking, like that of a very cautious mouse.

The helmet’s visor swung up. A voice said: “Would you rather die than betray your Emperor?”

A second voice said: “This is not a trick question.”

One Big River blinked, and then turned his gaze downwards. An apparition in a squeaky-wheeled wheelchair had a very large sword pointing at exactly that inconvenient place where his upper armor didn’t quite meet his lower armor.

A third voice said: “I should add that the last twenty-nine people who answered wrong are…dried shredded fish…sorry, dead.”

A fourth voice said: “And we’re not eunuchs.”

One Big River rumbled with the effort of thought.

“I tink I rather live,” he said.

A man with diamonds where his teeth should have been gave him a comradely pat on the shoulder. “Good man,” he said. “Join the Horde. We could use a man like you. Maybe as a siege weapon.”

“Who you?” he said.

“This is Ghenghiz Cohen,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Doer of mighty deeds. Slayer of dragons. Ravager of cities. He once bought an apple.”

No one laughed. Mr. Saveloy had found that the Horde had no concept whatsoever of sarcasm. Probably no one had ever tried it on them.

One Big River had been raised to do what he was told. Everyone had told him what to do, all through his life. He fell in behind the man with diamond teeth because he was the sort of man you followed when he said “follow.”

“But, you know, there are tens of thousands of men who
would
die rather than betray their Emperor,” whispered Six Beneficent Winds, as they filed through the corridors.

“I hope so.”

“Some of them will be on guard around the Forbidden City. We’ve avoided them, but they’re still there. We’ll have to deal with them eventually.”

“Oh, good!” said Cohen.

“Bad,” said Mr. Saveloy. “That business with the ninjas was just high spirits—”

“—high spirits—” murmured Six Beneficent Winds.

“—but you don’t want a big fight out in the open. It’ll get messy.”

Cohen walked over to the nearest wall, which had a gorgeous pattern of peacocks, and took out his knife.

“Paper,” he said. “Bloody paper. Paper walls.” He poked his head through. There was a shrill whimper. “Oops, sorry, ma’am. Official wall inspection.” He extracted his head, grinning.

“But you can’t go through walls!” said Six Beneficent Winds.

“Why not?”

“They’re—well, they’re the
walls
. What would happen if everyone walked through walls? What do you think doors are for?”

“I think they’re for other people,” said Cohen. “Which way’s that throne room?”

“Whut?”

“This is lateral thinking,” explained Mr. Saveloy, as they followed him. “Ghenghiz is quite good at a certain kind of lateral thinking.”

“What a lateral?”

“Er. It’s a kind of muscle, I believe.”

“Thinking with your muscles…Yes. I see,” said Six Beneficent Winds.

Rincewind sidled into a space between the wall and a statue of a rather jolly dog with its tongue hanging out.

“What now?” said Butterfly.

“How big’s the Red Army?”

“We number many thousands,” said Butterfly, defiantly.

“In Hunghung?”

“Oh, no. There is a cadre in every city.”

“You know that, do you? You’ve met them?”

“That would be dangerous. Only Two Fire Herb knows how to contact them…”

“Fancy that. Well, do you know what I think? I think someone
wants
a revolution. And you’re all so damn respectful and polite he’s having his work cut out trying to organize one! But once you’ve got rebels you can do
anything
.”

“That can’t be true…”

“The rebels in other cities, they do great revolutionary deeds, do they?”

“We hear reports all the time!”

“From our friend Herb?”

Butterfly frowned.

“Yes…”

“You’re thinking, aren’t you?” said Rincewind. “The old brain cells are finally banging together, yes? Good. Have I convinced you?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Now let’s go back.”

“No. Now I’ve got to find out if what you’re suggesting is true.”

“Dying to find out, eh? Good grief, you people make me so
angry
. Look, watch this…”

Rincewind strode to the end of the corridor. There was a pair of wide doors, flanked by a pair of jade dragons.

He flung them back.

The room inside was low-ceilinged but large. In the center, under a canopy, was a bed. It was hard to make out the figure lying there, but it had that certain stillness that suggests the kind of sleep from which there is unlikely to be any kind of awakening.

“You see?” he said. “He’s been…killed…already…”

A dozen soldiers were staring at Rincewind in amazement.

Behind him he heard the creaking of the floor and then some whooshing sounds followed by a noise like wet leather being hit against rock.

Rincewind looked at the nearest soldier. The man was holding a sword.

One drop of blood coursed down the blade and, with a brief pause for dramatic effect, fell on to the floor.

Rincewind looked up and raised his hat.

“I do beg your pardon,” he said, brightly. “Isn’t this room 3B?”

And ran for it.

The floors screamed under him, and behind him someone screamed Rincewind’s nickname, which was: “Don’t let him get away!”

Let me get away, Rincewind prayed, oh, please, let me get away.

He slipped as he turned the corner, skidded through a paper wall and landed in an ornamental fish pond. But Rincewind in full flight had catlike, even messianic abilities. The water barely rippled under his feet as he bounced off the surface and headed away.

Another wall erupted and he was in what was possibly the same corridor.

Behind him, someone landed heavily on a valuable koi.

Rincewind shot forward again.

From; that was the most important factor in any mindless escape. You were always running
from. To
could look after itself.

He cleared a long flight of shallow stone steps, rolled upright at the bottom and set off at random along another corridor.

His legs had sorted themselves out now. First the mad, wild dash to get you out of immediate danger and then the good solid strides to put as much distance as possible between you and it. That was the trick.

History told of a runner who’d run forty miles after a battle to report its successful outcome to those at home. He was traditionally regarded as the greatest runner of all time, but if he’d been reporting news of an
impending
battle he’d have been overtaken by Rincewind.

And yet…someone was gaining.

A knife poked through the wall of the throne room and cut a hole large enough to afford space for an upright man or one wheelchair.

There was muttering from the Horde.

“Bruce the Hoon never went in the back way.”

“Shut up.”

“Never one for back gates, Bruce the Hoon.”

“Shut up.”

“When Bruce the Hoon attacked Al Khali, he did it right at the main guard tower, with a thousand screaming men on very small horses.”

“Yeah, but…last I saw of Bruce the Hoon, his head was on a spike.”

“All right, I’ll grant you that. But at least it was over the main gate. I mean, at least he got in.”

“His head did.”

“Oh, my…”

Mr. Saveloy was gratified. The room they’d stepped into was enough to silence the Horde, if only briefly. It was large, of course, but that hadn’t been its only purpose. One Sun Mirror, as he welded the tribes and countries and little island nations together, had wanted a room built which said to chieftains and ambassadors: this is the biggest space you’ve ever been in, it is more splendid than anything you could ever imagine, and we’ve got a lot more rooms like this.

He had wanted it to be impressive. He had very clearly wanted it to intimidate mere barbarians so much that they’d give in there and then. Let there be huge statues, he’d said. And vast decorative hangings. Let there be pillars and carvings. Let the visitor be silenced by the sheer magnificence. Let it say to him, “This is civilization, and you can join it or die. Now drop to your knees or be shortened some other way.”

The Horde gave it the benefit of their inspection.

Finally Truckle said, “It’s all right, I suppose, but not a patch on our chieftain’s longhouse back in Skund. It hasn’t even got a fire in the middle of the floor, look.”

“Gaudy, to my mind.”

“Whut?”

“Typically foreign.”

“I’d do away with most of this and get some decent straw on the floor, a few shields round the walls.”

“Whut?”

“Mind you, get in a few hundred tables and you could have a helluva carouse in here.”

Cohen walked across the huge expanse towards the throne, which was under a vast ornamental canopy.

“’S got ’n umbrella over it, look.”

“Probably the roof leaks. You can’t trust tiles. A good reed thatch’ll give you forty years bone dry.”

The throne was lacquered wood, but with many precious gems set in it. Cohen sat down.

“Is this it?” he said. “We’ve done it, Teach?”

“Yes. Of course, now you have to get away with it,” said Mr. Saveloy.

“I’m sorry,” said Six Beneficent Winds. “What’ve you done?”

“You know that thing we were here to steal?” said the teacher.

“Yes?”

“It’s the Empire.”

The taxman’s expression didn’t change for a few seconds, and then it flowed into a horrified grin.

“I think some breakfast is called for before we go any further,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Mr. Winds, perhaps you would be so good as to summon someone?”

The taxman was still grinning fixedly.

“But…but…you can’t conquer an empire like this!” he managed. “You’ve got to have an army, like the warlords! Just walking in like this…It’s against the rules! And…and…there are thousands of guards!”

“Yes, but they’re all out there,” said Mr. Saveloy.

“Guarding us,” said Cohen.

“But they’re guarding the
real
Emperor!”

“That’s me,” said Cohen.

“Oh, yeah?” said Truckle. “Who died and made
you
Emperor?”

“No one has to die,” said Mr. Saveloy. “It’s called usurping.”

“That’s right,” said Cohen. “You just say, see here, Gunga Din, you’re out on your ear, okay? Piss off to some island somewhere or—”

“Ghenghiz,” said Mr. Saveloy gently, “do you think you could refrain from referring to foreigners in that rather offensive fashion? It’s not civilized.”

Cohen shrugged.

“You’re still going to have big trouble with the guards and things,” said Six Beneficent Winds.

“Maybe not,” said Cohen. “Tell ’em, Teach.”