Eventually the jungle opened out into a very wide, cleared area that stretched all the way to a distant blue range of volcanoes. The land fell away below them to a patchwork of lakes and swampy fields, here and there punctuated by great stepped pyramids, each one crowned with a thin plume of smoke curling into the dawn air. The jungle track opened out into a narrow, but paved, road.
“Where’s this, demon?” said Eric.
“It looks like one of the Tezuman kingdoms,” said Rincewind. “They’re ruled over by the Great Muzuma, I think.”
“She’s an Amazonian princess, is she?”
“Strangely enough, no. You’d be astonished how many kingdoms aren’t ruled by Amazonian princesses, Eric.”
“It looks pretty primitive, anyway. A bit Stone Age.”
“The Tezuman priests have a sophisticated calendar and an advanced horology,” quoted Rincewind.
“Ah,” said Eric, “Good.”
“No,” said Rincewind patiently. “It means time measurement.”
“Oh.”
“You’d approve of them. They’re superb mathematicians, apparently.”
“Huh,” said Eric, blinking solemnly. “Shouldn’t think they’ve got a lot to count in a backward civilisation like this.”
Rincewind eyed the chariots that were heading rapidly towards them.
“I think they usually count victims,” he said.
The Tezuman Empire in the jungle valleys of central Klatch is known for its organic market gardens, its exquisite craftsmanship in obsidian, feathers and jade, and its mass human sacrifices in honour of Quezovercoatl,{5} the Feathered Boa, god of mass human sacrifices. As they said, you always knew where you stood with Quezovercoatl. It was generally with a lot of people on top of a great stepped pyramid with someone in an elegant feathered headdress chipping an exquisite obsidian knife for your very own personal use.
The Tezumen are renowned on the continent for being the most suicidally gloomy, irritable and pessimistic people you could ever hope to meet, for reasons that may soon be made clear. It was true about the time measurement as well. The Tezumen had realised long ago that everything was steadily getting worse and, having a terrible literal-mindedness, had developed a complex system to keep track of how much worse each succeeding day was.
Contrary to general belief, the Tezumen did invent the wheel. They just had radically different ideas about what you used it for.
It was the first chariot Rincewind had ever seen that was pulled by llamas. That wasn’t what was odd about it. What was odd about it was that it was being carried by people, two holding each side of the axle and running after the animals, their sandalled feet flapping on the flagstones.
“Do you think it’s got the tribute in it?” said Eric.
All the leading chariot seemed to contain, apart from the driver, was a squat, basically cube-shaped man wearing a puma-skin outfit and a feather headdress.
The runners panted to a halt, and Rincewind saw that each man wore what would probably be described as a primitive sword, made by affixing shards of obsidian into a wooden club. They looked to him no less deadly than sophisticated, extremely civilised swords. In fact, they looked worse.
“Well?” said Eric.
“Well what?” said Rincewind.
“Tell him to give me my tribute.”
The fat man got down ponderously, marched over to Eric and, to Rincewind’s extreme surprise, grovelled.
Rincewind felt something claw its way up his back and on to his shoulder, where a voice like a sheet of metal being torn in half said, “That’s better. Very wossname, comfy. If you try and knock me off, demon, you can wossname your ear goodbye. What a turn up for the scrolls, eh? They seemed to be expecting him.”
“Why do you keep saying wossname?” said Rincewind.
“Limited wossname. Doodah. Thingy. You know. It’s got words in it,” said the parrot.
“Dictionary?” said Rincewind. The passengers in the other chariots had got out and were also grovelling to Eric, who was beaming like an idiot.
The parrot considered this.
“Yeah, probably,” it said. “I’ve got to wing it to you,” it went on. “I thought you were a bit of a wossname at the start, but you seem to be delivering the wossname.”
“Demon?” said Eric, airily.
“Yes?”
“What are they saying? Can’t you speak their language?”
“Er, no,” said Rincewind. “I can read it, though,” he called out, as Eric turned away. “If you could just sort of make signs for them to write it down …”
It was around noon. In the jungle behind Rincewind creatures whooped and gibbered. Mosquitoes the size of humming-birds whined around his head.
“Of course,” he said, for the tenth time, “They’ve never really got round to inventing paper.”
The stonemason stood back, handed the latest blunted obsidian chisel to his assistant, and gave Rincewind an expectant look.
Rincewind stood back and examined the rock critically.
“It’s very good,” he said. “I mean, it’s a very good likeness. You’ve got his hairstyle and everything. Of course, he’s not as, er, square as that normally, but, yes, very good. And here’s the chariot and there’s the step-pyramids. Yes. Well, it looks as though they want you to go to the city with them,” he said to Eric.
“Tell them yes,” said Eric firmly.
Rincewind turned to the headman.
“Yes,” he said.
“¿[Hunched-figure-in-triple-feathered-headdress-over-three-dots]?”
Rincewind sighed. Without saying a word, the stonemason put a fresh stone chisel into his unresisting fingers and manhandled a new slab of granite into position.
One of the problems of being a Tezuman, apart from having a god like Quezovercoatl, is that if you unexpectedly need to order an extra pint of milk tomorrow you probably should have started writing the note for the milkman last month. Tezumen are the only people who beat themselves to death with their own suicide notes.
It was late afternoon by the time the chariot trotted into the slab city around the largest pyramid, between lines of cheering Tezumen.
“This is more like it,” said Eric, graciously acknowledging the cheers. “They’re very pleased to see us.”
“Yes,” said Rincewind, gloomily. “I wonder why?”
“Well, because I’m the new ruler, of course.”
“Hmm.” Rincewind glanced sidelong at the parrot, who had been unnaturally silent for some time and was now cowering up against his ear like an elderly spinster in a strip club. It was having serious thoughts about the exquisite feather headdresses.
“Wossname bastards,” it croaked. “Any wossname lays a hand on me and that wossname is minus one finger, I’m telling you.”
“There’s something not right about this,” said Rincewind.
“What’s that?” said the parrot.
“Everything.”
“I’m telling you, one feather out of place—”
Rincewind wasn’t used to people being pleased to see him. It was unnatural, and boded no good. These people were not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats. The hats were made out of stone, but the thought was there.
Rincewind thought they were rather odd hats. They didn’t have crowns. They were, in fact, mere discs with holes in the middle.
The procession trotted up the wide avenues of the city to a cluster of buildings at the foot of the pyramid, where another group of civic dignitaries was waiting for them.
They were wearing lots of jewellery. It was all basically the same. There are quite a lot of uses to which you can put a stone disc with a hole in the middle, and the Tezumen had explored all but one of them.{6}