Interesting Times

'Yes, what?'

'Favourite Pearl, the child with the toy rabbit . . . '

'Yes?'

'The cadre is all she has. The same goes for many of the others. When the warlords fight, lots of people die. Parents. Do you understand? I was one of the first to read What I Did On My Holidays, Great Wizard, and what ,' saw in there was a foolish man who for some reason is always lucky. Great Wizard . . . I hope for everyone's sake you have a great deal of luck. Especially for yours.' Fountains tinkled in the courts of the Sun Emperor. Peacocks made their call, which sounds like a sound made by something that shouldn't look as beautiful as that. Ornamental trees cast their shade as only they knew how - ornamentally. The gardens occupied the heart of the city and it was possible to hear the noises from outside, although these were muted because of the straw spread daily on the nearest streets and also because any sound considered too loud would earn its originator a very brief stay in prison.

Of the gardens, the most aesthetically pleasing was the one laid out by the first Emperor, One Sun Mirror. It consisted entirely of gravel and stones, but artfully raked and laid out as it might be by a mountain torrent with a refined artistic sense. It was here that One Sun Mirror, in whose reign the Empire had been unified and the Great Wall built, came to refresh his soul and dwell upon the essential unity of all things, while drinking wine out of the skull of some enemy or possibly a gardener who had been too clumsy with his rake. At the moment the garden was occupied by Two Little Wang, the Master of Protocol, who came there because he felt it was good for his nerves. Perhaps it was the number two, he'd always told himself. It was an unlucky birth number. Being called Little Wang was merely a lack-of-courtesy detail, a sort of minor seagull dropping after the great heap of buffalo excrement that Heaven had pasted into his very horoscope. Although he had to admit that he hadn't made things any better by allowing himself to become Master of Protocol. It had seemed such a good idea at the time. He'd risen gently through the Agatean civil service by mastering those arts essential to the practice of good government and administration (such as calligraphy, origami, flower arranging and the Five Wonderful Forms of poetry). He'd dutifully got on with the tasks assigned to him and noticed only vaguely that there didn't seem to be quite as many high-ranking members of the civil service as there used to be, and then one day a lot of senior mandarins - most of them a lot more senior than he was, it occurred to him later - had rushed up to him while he was trying to find a rhyme for 'orange blossom' and congratulated him on being the new Master. That had been three months ago. And of the things that had occurred to him in those intervening three months the most shameful was this: he had come to believe that the Sun Emperor was not, in fact, the Lord of Heaven, the Pillar of the Sky and the Great River of Blessings, but an evil-minded madman whose death had been too long delayed. It was an awful thought. It was like hating motherhood and raw fish, or objecting to sunlight. Most people develop their social conscience when young, during that brief period between leaving school and deciding that injustice isn't necessarily all bad, and it was something of a shock to suddenly find one at the age of sixty. It wasn't that he was against the Golden Rules. It made sense that a man prone to thieving should have his hands cut off. It prevented him from thieving again and thus tarnishing his soul. A peasant who could not pay his taxes should be executed, in order to prevent him falling into the temptations of slothfulness and public disorder. And since the Empire was created by Heaven as the only true world of human beings, all else outside being a land of ghosts, it was certainly in order to execute those who questioned this state of affairs. But he felt that it wasn't right to laugh happily while doing so. It wasn't pleasant that these things should happen, it was merely necessary. From somewhere in the distance came the screams. The Emperor was playing chess again. He preferred to use live pieces.

Two Little Wang felt heavy with knowledge. There had been better times. He knew that now. Things hadn't always been the way they were. Emperors didn't use to be cruel clowns, around whom it was as safe as mudbanks in the crocodile season. There hadn' t always been a civil war every time an Emperor died. Warlords hadn't run the country. People had rights as well as duties. And then one day the succession had been called into question and there was a war and since then it'd never seemed to go right. Soon, with any luck, the Emperor would die. No doubt a special Hell was being made ready. And there'd be the usual battle, and then there'd be a new Emperor, and if he was very lucky Two Little Wang would be beheaded, which was what tended to happen to people who had risen to high office under a previous incumbent. But that was quite reasonable by modern standards, since it was possible these days to be beheaded for interrupting the Emperor's thoughts or standing in the wrong place. At which point, Two Little Wang heard ghosts. They seemed to be right under his feet. They were talking in a strange language, so to Two Little Wang the speech was merely sounds, which went as follows: 'Where the hell are we?'

'Somewhere under the palace, I'm sure. Look for another manhole in the ceiling . . .'

'Whut?'

'I'm fed up with pushing this damn wheelchair!'

'It's me for a hot footbath after this, I'm telling you.'

'You call this a way to enter a city? You call this a way to enter a city? Waist deep in water? We didn't enter a . . . wretched . . . city like this when I rode with Bruce the Hoon! You enter a . . . lovemaking . . . city by overrunning it with a thousand horsemen, that's how you take a city—!'

'Yeah, but there ain't room for 'em in this pipe.' The sounds had a hollow, booming quality to them. With a kind of fascinated puzzlement Two Little Wang followed them, walking across the manicured gravel in an unthinking way that would have earned him an immediate tongue-extraction from its original lover of peace and tranquillity. 'Can we please hurry? I'd like us to be out of here when the cauldron goes off and I didn't really have much time to experiment with the fuses.'

'I still don't understand about the cauldron, Teach.'

'I hope all those firecrackers will blow a hole in the wall.'

'Right! So why ain't we there? Why are we in this pipe?'

'Because all the guards will rush to see what the bans was.'

'Right! So we should be there!'

'No! We should be here, Cohen. The word is decoy. It's . . . more civilized this way.' Two Little Wang pressed his ear to the ground. 'What's the penalty for entering the Forbidden City again, Teach?'

'I believe it's a punishment similar to hanging, drawing and quartering. So, you see, it would be a good idea if—' There was a very faint splashing. 'How're you drawn, then ?'

'I think your innards are cut out and shown to you.'

'What for?'

'I don't really know. To see if you recognize them, I suppose.'

'What. . . like, “Yep, that's my kidneys, yep, that's my breakfast”?'

'How're you quartered? Is that, like, they give you somewhere to stay?'

'I think not, from context.' For a while there was no sound but the splash of six pairs of feet and the squeak-squeak of what sounded like a wheel. 'Well, how're you hung?'

'Excuse me?'

'Hur, hur, hur . . . sorry, sorry.' Two Little Wang tripped over a two-hundred-year-old bonsai tree and hit his head on a rock chosen for its fundamental serenity. When he came round, a few seconds later, the voices had gone. If there had ever been any. Ghosts. There were a lot of ghosts around these days. Two Little Wang wished he had a few firecrackers to scatter around. Being Master of Protocol was even worse than trying to find a rhyme for 'orange blossom'.

Flares lit the alleys of Hunghung. With the Red Army chattering behind him, Rincewind wandered up to the wall of the Forbidden City. No-one knew better than Rincewind that he was totally incapable of proper magic. He'd only ever done it by accident. So he could be sure that if he waved a hand and said some magic words the wall would in all probability become just a little bit less full of holes than it was now. It was a shame to disappoint Lotus Blossom, with her body that reminded Rincewind of a plate of crinkle-cut chips, but it was about time she learned that you couldn't rely on wizards. And then he could be out of here. What could Butterfly do to him if he tried and failed? And, much to his surprise, he found himself hoping that, on the way out, he could poke Herb in the eye. He was amazed the others couldn't spot him for what he was. This area of wall was between gates. The life of Hunghung lapped against it like a muddy sea; there were stalls and booths everywhere. Rincewind had thought Ankh-Morpork citizens lived out on the streets, but they were agoraphobes compared to the Hunghungese. Funerals (with associated firecrackers) and wedding parties and religious ceremonies went on alongside, and intermingled with, the normal market activities such as free-form livestock slaughter and world-class arguing. Herb pointed to a clear area of wall stacked with timber. 'Just about there, Great Wizard,' he sneered. 'Do not exert yourself unduly. A small hole should be sufficient.'

'But there's hundreds of people around!'

'Is that a problem to such a great wizard? Perhaps you can't do it with people watching?'

'I have no doubt that the Great Wizard will astonish us,' said Butterfly. 'When the people see the power of the Great Wizard they will speak of it for ever!' said Lotus Blossom. 'Probably,' muttered Rincewind. The cadre stopped talking, although it was only possible to notice this by watching their closed mouths. The hole left by their silence was soon filled by the babble of the market. Rincewind rolled up his sleeves. He wasn't even certain about a spell for blowing things up . . . He waved a hand vaguely.

'I should stand well back, everyone,' said Herb, grinning unpleasantly. 'Quanti canicula ilia in fenestre?' said Rincewind. 'Er . . .' He stared desperately at the wall and, with that heightened perception that comes to those on the edge of terror, noticed a cauldron half hidden in the timber. There seemed to be a little glowing string attached to it. 'Er,' he said, 'there seems to be—'

'Having problems?' said Herb, nastily. Rincewind squared his shoulders. '—' he said. There was a sound like a marshmallow gently landing on a plate, and everything in front of him went white. Then the white turned red, streaked with black, and the terrible noise clapped its hands across his ears. A crescent-shaped piece of something glowing, scythed the top off his hat and embedded itself in the nearest house, which caught fire. There was a strong smell of burning eyebrows. When the debris settled Rincewind saw quite a large hole in the wall. Around its edge the brickwork, now a red-hot ceramic, started to cool with a noise like glinka-glinka. He looked down at his soot-blackened hands. 'Gosh,' he said. And then he said, 'All rightl' And then he turned and began to say, 'How about that, then?' but his voice faded when it became apparent that everyone was lying flat on the ground. A duck watched him suspiciously from its cage. Owing to the slight protection afforded by the bars, its feathers were patterned alternately natural and crispy. He'd always wanted to do magic like that. He'd always been able to visualize it perfectly. He'd just never been able to do it . . . A number of guards appeared in the gap. One, whose ferocity of helmet suggested that he was an officer, glared at the charred hole and then at Rincewind. 'Did you do this?' he demanded.

'Stand back!' shouted Rincewind, drunk with power. 'I'm the Great Wizard, I am! You see this ringer? Don't make me use it!' The officer nodded to a couple of his men. 'Get him.' Rincewind took a step back. 'I warn you! Anyone lays a hand on me, he'll be eating flies and hopping for the rest of his life!' The guards advanced with the determination of those who were prepared to risk the uncertainty of magic against the definite prospect of punishment for disobeying orders. 'Stand back! This could go off! All right, then, since you force—' He waved his hand. He snapped his fingers a few times. 'Er—' The guards, after checking that they were still the same shape, each grabbed an arm. 'It may be delayed action,' he ventured, as they gripped harder. 'Alternatively, would you be interested in hearing a famous quotation?' he said. His feet were lifted off the ground. 'Or perhaps not?' Rincewind, running absent-mindedly in mid-air, was brought in front of the officer. 'On your knees, rebel!' said the officer. 'I'd like to, but—'