Eric

pyramid. Which left them with a bit of a problem.
    The Luggage squatted in the city’s main plaza. The entire priesthood was sitting around it and watching it carefully, in case it did anything amusing or religious.
    “Are you going to leave it behind?” said Eric.
    “It’s not as simple as that,” said Rincewind. “It generally catches up. Let’s just go away quickly.”
    “But we’ll take the tribute, won’t we?”
    “I think that could be an amazingly bad idea,” said Rincewind. “Let’s just quietly go, while they’re in a good temper. The novelty will wear off soon, I expect.”
    “And I’ve got to get on with my search for the Fountain of Youth,” said da Quirm.
    “Oh, yes,” said Rincewind.
    “I’ve devoted my whole life to it, you know,” said the old man proudly.
    Rincewind looked him up and down. “Really?” he said.
    “Oh, yes. Exclusively. Ever since I was a boy.”
    Rincewind’s expression was one of acute puzzlement.
    “In that case,” he began, in the manner of one talking to a child, “wouldn’t it have been better…you know, more sensible…if you’d just got on with…”
    “What?” said da Quirm.
    “Oh, never mind,” said Rincewind. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he added, “I think, in order to prevent you getting, you know, bored , we should present you with this wonderful talking parrot.” He made a swift grab, while keeping his thumbs firmly out of harm’s way. “It’s a jungle fowl,” he said. “Cruel to subject it to city life, isn’t it?”
    “I was born in a cage, you raving wossname!” screamed the parrot. Rincewind faced it, nose to beak.
    “It’s that or fricassee time,” he said. The parrot opened its beak to bite his nose, saw his expression, and thought better of it.
    “Polly want a biscuit,” it managed, adding, sotto voce, “wossnamewossnamewossname.”
    “A dear little bird of my very own,” said da Quirm. “I shall look after it.”
    “wossnamewossname.”
    They reached the jungle. A few minutes later the Luggage trotted after them.

    It was noon in the kingdom of Tezuma.
    From inside the main pyramid came the sounds of a very large statue being dismantled.
    The priests sat around thoughtfully. Occasionally one of them stood up and made a short speech.
    It was clear that points were being made. For example, how the economics of the kingdom depended on a buoyant obsidian knife industry, how the enslaved neighboring kingdoms had come to rely on the smack of firm government, and incidentally on the hack, slash and disemboweling of firm government as well, and on the terrible fate that awaited any people who didn’t have gods. Godless people might get up to anything , they might turn against the fine old traditions of thrift and non-self-sacrifice that had made the kingdom what it was today, they might start wondering why, if they didn’t have a god, they needed all these priests, anything .
    The point was well put by Mazuma, the high priest, when he said: “[Squashed-figure-with-broken-nose, jaguar claw, three feathers, stylized spiny anteater].”
    After a while a vote was taken.
    By nightfall, the kingdom’s leading stonemasons were at work on a new statue.
    It was basically oblong, with lots of legs.

    The Demon King drummed his fingers on his desk. It wasn’t that he was unhappy about the fate of Quezovercoatl, who would now have to spend several centuries in one of the nether hells while he grew a new corporeal body. Serve him right, the ghastly little imp. Nor was it the broad trend of events on the pyramid. After all, the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn’t really want.
    It was just that he didn’t feel in control of things.
    Which was of course ridiculous. If the best came to the best he could always materialize and sort things out personally. But he liked people to believe that all the bad things happening to them were just fate and destiny. It was one of the few things that cheered him up.
    He turned back to the mirror. After a while he had to adjust the temporal control.

    One minute the breathless, humid jungles of Klatch, the next…
    “I thought we were going to go back to my room,” Eric complained.
    “I thought that, too,” said Rincewind, shouting to be heard over the rumbling.
    “Snap your fingers again, demon.”
    “Not on your life! There’s plenty of places worse than this!”
    “But it’s