But Time, having initially gone for the throat, was now setting out to complete the job. The boiling interface between decaying magic and ascendant entropy roared down the hill and overtook the galloping horse, whose riders, being themselves creatures of Time, completely failed to notice it. But it lashed into the enchanted forest with the whip of centuries.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” observed a voice by Rincewind’s knee as the horse cantered through the haze of decaying timber and falling leaves.
The voice had an eerie metallic ring to it.
Rincewind looked down at Kring the sword. It had a couple of rubies set in the pommel. He got the impression they were watching him.
From the moorland rimwards of the wood they watched the battle between the trees and Time, which could only have one ending. It was a sort of cabaret to the main business of the halt, which Was the consumption of quite a lot of a bear which had incautiously come within bowshot of Hrun.
Rincewind watched Hrun over the top of his slab of greasy meat. Hrun going about the business of being a hero, he realised, was quite different to the wine-bibbing, carousing Hrun who occasionally came to Ankh-Morpork. He was cat-cautious, lithe as a panther, and thoroughly at home.
And I’ve survived Bel-Shamharoth, Rincewind reminded himself. Fantastic.
Twoflower was helping the hero sort through the treasure stolen from the temple. It was mostly silver set with unpleasant purple stones. Representations of spiders, octopi and the tree-dwelling octarsier of the hubland wastes figured largely in the heap.
Rincewind tried to shut his ears to the grating voice beside him. It was no use.
“—and then I belonged to the Pasha of Re’durat and played a prominent part in the battle of the Great Nef, which is where I received the slight nick you may have noticed some two-thirds of the way up my blade,” Kring was saying from its temporary home in a tussock. “Some infidel was wearing an octiron collar, most unsporting, and of course I was a lot sharper in those days and my master used to use me to cut silk handkerchiefs in mid-air and—am I boring you?”
“Huh? Oh, no, no, not at all. It’s all very interesting,” said Rincewind, with his eyes still on Hrun. How trustworthy would he be? Here they were, out in the wilds, there were trolls about… “I could see you were a cultured person,” Kring went on. “ seldom do I get to meet really interesting people, for any length of time, anyway. What I’d really like is a nice mantelpiece to hang over, somewhere nice and quiet. I spent a couple of hundred years on the bottom of a lake once.”
“That must have been fun,” said Rincewind absently.
“Not really,” said Kring.
“No, I suppose not.”
“What I’d really like is to be a ploughshare. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like an existence with some point to it.
Twoflower hurried over to the wizard
“I had a great idea,” he burbled.
“Yah,” said Rincewind, wearily. “Why don’t we get Hrun to accompany us to Quirm?”
Twoflower looked amazed. “How did you know?” he said. “I just thought you’d think it,” said Rincewind.
Hrun ceased stuffing silverware into his saddlebags and grinned encouragingly at them. Then his eyes strayed back to the Luggage.
“If we had him with us, who’d attack us?” said Twoflower.
Rincewind scratched his chin. “Hrun?” he suggested.
“But we saved his life in the Temple!”
“Well, if by attack you mean kill,” said Rincewind, “I don’t think he’d do that. He’s not that sort. He’d just rob us and tie us up and leave us for the wolves, I expect.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Look, this is real life,” snapped Rincewind. “I mean, here you are, carrying around a box full of gold, don’t you think anyone in their right minds would jump at the chance of pinching it?” I would, he added mentally—if I hadn’t seen what the Luggage does to prying fingers.
Then the answer hit him. He looked from Hrun to the picture box. The picture imp was doing its laundry in a tiny tub, while the salamanders dozed in their cage.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I mean, what is it heroes really want?”
“Gold?” said Twoflower.
“No. I mean really want.”
Twoflower frowned. “I don’t quite understand,” he said.
Rincewind picked up the picture box. “Hrun,” he said. “Come over here, will you?”
The days passed peacefully. True, a small band of bridge trolls tried to ambush them on one occasion, and a party of brigands nearly caught them unawares one night (but unwisely tried to investigate the Luggage before slaughtering the sleepers). Hrun demanded, and got, double pay for both occasions.
“If any harm comes to us,” said Rincewind, “then there will be no-one to operate the magic box. No more pictures of Hrun, you understand?”
Hrun nodded, his eyes fixed on the latest picture. It showed Hrun striking a heroic pose, with one foot on a heap of slain trolls.
“Me and you and little friend Twoflowers, we all get on hokay,” he said. “Also tomorrow, may we get a better profile, hokay?”
He carefully wrapped the picture in trollskin and stowed it in his saddlebag, along with the others.
“It seems to be working,” said Twoflower admiringly, as Hrun rode ahead to scout the road.
“Sure,” said Rincewind. “What heroes like best is themselves.”
“You’re getting quite good at using the picture box, you know that?”
“Yar.”
“So you might like to have this.” Twoflower held out a picture.
“What is it?” asked Rincewind.
“Oh, just the picture you took in the temple.”
Rincewind looked in horror. There, bordered by a few glimpses of tentacle, was a huge, whorled, calloused, potion-stained and unfocused thumb.
“That’s the story of my life,” he said wearily.
“You win,” said Fate, pushing the heap of souls across the gaming table. The assembled gods relaxed. “There will be other games,” he added.
The Lady smiled into two eyes that were like holes in the universe.
And then there was nothing but the ruin of the forests and a cloud of dust on the horizon, which drifted away on the breeze. And, sitting on a pitted and moss-grown milestone, a black and raggedy figure. His was the air of one who is unjustly put upon, who is dreaded and feared, yet who is the only friend of the poor and the best doctor for the mortally wounded.
Death, although of course completely eyeless, watched Rincewind disappearing with what would, had His face possessed any mobility at all, have been a frown. Death, although exceptionally busy at all times, decided that He now had a hobby. There was something about the wizard that irked Him beyond measure. He didn’t keep appointments for one thing.
I’ll get you yet, Cully, said Death, in the voice like the slamming of leaden coffin lids.
The Lure of the Wyrm
It was called the Wyrmberg and it rose almost one half of a mile above the green valley; a mountain huge, grey and upside down.
At its base it was a mere score of yards across. Then it rose through clinging cloud, curving gracefully outward like an upturned trumpet until it was truncated by a plateau fully a quarter of a mile across. There was a tiny forest up there, its greenery cascading over the lip. There were buildings. There was even a small river, tumbling over the edge in a waterfall so wind-whipped that it reached the ground as rain.