Eric

all hot and dark.”
    Rincewind had to concede that. It was also shaking and noisy. When his eyes grew used to the blackness he could make out a few spots of light here and there, whose dim radiance suggested that they were inside something like a boat. There was a definite feel of carpentry about everything, and a powerful smell of wood shavings and glue. If it was a boat, then it was having an awfully painful launching down a slipway greased with rocks.
    A jolt slung him heavily against a bulkhead.
    “I must say,” complained Eric, “if this is where the most beautiful woman in the world lives I don’t think much of her choice of boodwah. You’d think she’d put a few cushions or something around the place.”
    “Boodwah?” said Rincewind.
    “She’s bound to have one,” said Eric smugly. “I’ve read about ’em. She reclines on it.”
    “Tell me,” said Rincewind, “have you ever felt the need to have a cold bath and a brisk run around the playing fields?”
    “Never.”
    “It could be worth a try.”
    The rumbling stopped abruptly.
    There was a distant clanging noise, such as might be made by a pair of great big gates being shut. Rincewind thought he heard some voices fading into the distance, and a chuckle. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant chuckle, it was more of a snigger, and it boded no good for someone. Rincewind had a pretty good idea who.
    He’d stopped wondering how he’d come to be here, wherever it was. Malign forces, that was probably it. At least nothing particularly dreadful was happening to him right now. Probably it was only a matter of time.
    He groped around a bit until his fingers encountered what turned out to be, following an inspection by the light of the nearest knot-hole, a rope ladder. Further probing at one end of the hull, or whatever it was, brought him in contact with a small, round hatchway. It was bolted on the inside.
    He crawled back to Eric.
    “There’s a door,” he whispered.
    “Where does it go?”
    “It stays where it is, I think,” said Rincewind.
    “Find out where it leads to, demon!”
    “Could be a bad idea,” said Rincewind cautiously.
    “Get on with it!”
    Rincewind crawled gloomily to the hatch and grasped the bolt.
    The hatch creaked open.
    Down below—quite a long way below—there were damp cobblestones, across which a breeze was driving a few shreds of morning mist. With a little sigh, Rincewind unrolled the ladder.
    Two minutes later they were standing in the gloom of what appeared to be a large plaza. A few buildings showed through the mist.
    “Where are we?” said Eric.
    “Search me.”
    “You don’t know ?”
    “Not a clue,” said Rincewind.
    Eric glared at the mist-shrouded architecture. “Fat chance of finding the most beautiful woman in the world in a dump like this,” he said.
    It occurred to Rincewind to see what they had just climbed out of. He looked up.
    Above them—a long way above them—and supported on four massive legs, which ran down to a huge wheeled platform, there was undoubtedly a huge wooden horse. More correctly, the rear of a huge wooden horse.
    The builder could have put the exit hatch in a more dignified place, but for humorous reasons of his own had apparently decided not to.
    “Er,” said Rincewind.
    Someone coughed.
    He looked down.
    The evaporating mists now revealed a broad circle of armed men, many of them grinning and all of them carrying mass-produced, soulless but above all sharp long spears.
    “Ah,” said Rincewind.
    He looked back up at the hatchway. It said it all, really.

    “The only thing I don’t understand,” said the captain of the guard, “is: why two of you? We were expecting maybe a hundred.”
    He leaned back on his stool, his great plumed helmet in his lap, a pleased smile on his face.
    “Honestly, you Ephebians!” he said. “Talk about laugh! You must think we was born yesterday! All night nothing but sawing and hammering, the next thing there’s a damn great wooden horse outside the gates, so I think, that’s funny, a bloody great wooden horse with airholes . That’s the kind of little detail I notice, see. Airholes . So I muster all the lads and we nips out extra early and drag it in the gates, as per expectations, and then we bides quiet, like, around it, waiting to see what it coughs up. In a manner of speaking. Now ,” he pushed his unshaven face close to Rincewind, “you’ve got a choice, see? Top seat or bottom seat, it’s up to you. I just have to