Interesting Times

any trouble to anyone.”
    “Good thinking,” said Cohen. “Good lad. The boy keeps his head in a crisis. Lock ’em up.”
    Thirty seconds later the Horde had limped off, into the city.
    The guards sat in the cramped, hot cell.
    Eventually one said, “What were they?”
    “I think they might have been ancestors.”
    “I thought you had to be dead to be an ancestor.”
    “The one in the wheelchair looked dead. Right up to the point where he stabbed Four White Fox.”
    “Should we shout for help?”
    “They might hear us.”
    “Yes, but if we don’t get let out we’ll be stuck in here. And the walls are very thick and the door is very strong.”
    “Good.”

    Rincewind stopped running in some alley somewhere. He hadn’t bothered to see if they’d followed him. It was true—here, with one mighty bound, you could be free. Provided you realized it was one of your options.
    Freedom did, of course, include man’s age-old right to starve to death. It seemed a long time since his last proper meal.
    The voice erupted further down the alley, as if on cue.
    “Rice cakes! Rice cakes! Get chore nice rice cakes! Tea! Hundred-Year-Old Eggs! Eggs! Get them while they’re nice and vintage! Get chore—Yeah, what is it?”
    An elderly man had approached the salesman.
    “Dibhala-san! This egg you sold me—”
    “What about it, venerable squire?”
    “Would you care to smell it?”
    The street vendor took a sniff.
    “Ah, yes, lovely,” he said.
    “Lovely? Lovely? This egg,” said the customer, “this egg is practically fresh!”
    “Hundred years old if it’s a day, shogun,” said the vendor happily. “Look at the color of that shell, nice and black—”
    “It rubs off!”
    Rincewind listened. There was, he thought, probably something in the idea that there were only a few people in the world. There were lots of bodies , but only a few people. That’s why you kept running into the same ones. There was probably some mold somewhere.
    “You saying my produce is fresh? May I disembowel myself honorably! Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do—”
    Yes, there seemed to be something familiar and magical about that trader. Someone had come to complain about a fresh egg, and yet within a couple of minutes he’d somehow been talked into forgetting this and purchasing two rice cakes and something strange wrapped in leaves.
    The rice cakes looked nice. Well…nicer than the other things.
    Rincewind sidled over. The trader was idly jigging from one foot to the other and whistling under his breath, but he stopped and gave Rincewind a big, honest, friendly grin.
    “Nice ancient egg, shogun?”
    The bowl in the middle of the tray was full of gold coins. Rincewind’s heart sank. The price of one of Mr. Dibhala’s foul eggs would have bought a street in Ankh-Morpork.
    “I suppose you don’t give…credit?” he suggested.
    Dibhala gave him a Look.
    “I’ll pretend I never heard that, shogun,” he said.
    “Tell me,” said Rincewind. “Do you know if you have any relatives overseas?”
    This got him another look—a sideways one, full of sudden appraisal.
    “What? There’s nothing but evil blood-sucking ghosts beyond the seas. Everyone knows that, shogun. I’m surprised you don’t.”
    “Ghosts?” said Rincewind.
    “Trying to get here, do us harm,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “Maybe even steal our merchandise. Give ’em a dose of the old firecracker, that’s what I say. They don’t like a good loud bang, ghosts.”
    He gave Rincewind another look, even longer and more calculating.
    “Where you from, shogun?” he asked, and his voice suddenly had the little barbed edge of suspicion.
    “Bes Pelargic,” said Rincewind quickly. “That explains my strange accent and mannerisms that might otherwise lead people to think I was some sort of foreigner,” he added.
    “Oh, Bes Pelargic,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “Well, in that case, I expect you know my old friend Five Tongs who lives in the Street of Heavens, yes?”
    Rincewind was ready for this old trick.
    “No,” he said. “Never heard of him, never heard of the street.”
    Disembowel-Meself-Honorably Dibhala grinned happily. “If I yell ‘foreign devil’ loud enough you won’t get three steps,” he said in conversational tones. “The guards will drag you off to the Forbidden City where there’s this special thing they do with—”
    “I’ve heard about it,” said Rincewind.
    “Five Tongs has been the district