Interesting Times

of her costume, a small but perfectly serviceable knife.
    Rincewind had picked up an instinct for this sort of thing. This was probably not the time to deny Great Wizardry.
    “The fact is…” he repeated, “that…how do I know I can trust you?”
    The girl looked indignant. “Do you not have amazing wizardly powers?”
    “Oh, yes. Yes! Certainly! But—”
    “Say something in wizard language!”
    “Er. Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum ,” said Rincewind, his eye on the knife.
    “‘O excrement, I am about to die?’”
    “It’s…er…a special mantra I say to raise the magical fluxes.”
    The girl subsided a little.
    “But it takes it out of you, wizarding,” said Rincewind. “Flying on dragons, magically turning old men into warriors…I can only do so much of that sort of thing before it’s time for a rest. Right now I’m very weak on account of the tremendous amounts of magic I’ve just used, you see.”
    She looked at him with doubt still in her eyes.
    “All the peasants believe in the imminent arrival of the Great Wizard,” she said. “But, in the words of the great philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, ‘When many expect a mighty stallion they will find hooves on an ant.’”
    She gave him another calculating look.
    “When you were on the road,” she said, “you grovelled in front of District Commissioner Kee. You could have blasted him with terrible fire.”
    “Biding my time, spying out the land, not wanting to break my cover,” Rincewind gabbled. “Er. No good revealing myself straight away, is there?”
    “You are maintaining a disguise?”
    “Yes.”
    “It is a very good one.”
    “Thank you, because—”
    “Only a great wizard would dare to look like such a pathetic piece of humanity.”
    “Thank you. Er…how did you know I was on the road?”
    “They would have killed you there and then if I had not told you what to do.”
    “You were the guard? ”
    “We had to catch up with you quickly. It was sheer luck you were seen by Four Big Sandal.”
    “We?”
    She ignored the question. “They are only provincial soldiers. I would not have got away with it in Hunghung. But I can play many roles.” She put away the knife, but Rincewind had a feeling that he hadn’t talked her into believing him, only into not killing him.
    He groped for a straw.
    “I’ve got a magic box on legs,” he said, with a touch of pride. “It follows me around. It seems to have got itself mislaid right now, but it’s quite an amazing thing.”
    The girl gave him a wooden look. Then she reached down with a delicate hand and hauled him upright.
    “Is it,” she said, “something like this?”
    She twitched aside the curtains at the rear of the cart.
    Two boxes were trundling along in the dust. They were more battered and cheaper looking than the Luggage, but recognizably the same general species, if you could apply the word to travel accessories.
    “Er. Yes.”
    She let go. Rincewind’s head hit the floor.
    “Listen to me,” she said. “A lot of bad things are happening. I don’t believe in great wizards, but other people do, and sometimes people need something to believe in. And if these other people die because we’ve got a wizard who is not so very great, then he will be a very unlucky wizard indeed. You may be the Great Wizard. If you are not, then I suggest you study very hard to be great. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Er. Yes.”
    Rincewind had been faced with death on numerous occasions. Often there were armor and swords involved. This occasion just involved a pretty girl and a knife, but somehow managed to be among the worst. She sat back.
    “We are a traveling theater,” she said. “It is convenient. Noh actors are allowed to move around.”
    “Aren’t they?” said Rincewind.
    “You do not understand. We are Noh actors.”
    “Oh, you weren’t too bad.”
    “Great Wizard, ‘Noh’ is a non-realist symbolic form of theater employing archaic language, stylized gestures and an accompaniment of flutes and drums. Your pretence of stupidity is masterly. So much so that I could even believe that you are no actor.”
    “Excuse me, what is your name?” Rincewind said.
    “Pretty Butterfly.”
    “Er. Yes?”
    She glared at him and slipped away towards the front of the cart.
    It rumbled on. Rincewind lay with his head in a sack smelling of onions and methodically cursed things. He cursed women with knives, and history generally, and the entire faculty of Unseen