Interesting Times

were flesh and blood but who also relied on millions of people not believing that this was so.
    “Ridiculous! You are not invisible blood-sucking ghosts,” said one of them.
    Cohen opened his mouth so that the diamond teeth glinted.
    “’S right,” he said. “Fact is…we’re the visible sort.”
    “Hah! A pathetic attempt!” said Lord Hong. “Ghosts or no ghosts, we will beat you!”
    “Well, that went better than I expected,” Mr. Saveloy remarked as the warlords strode out. “Was that an attempt at a little bit of psychological warfare there, Mr. Rincewind?”
    “Is that what it was? I know about that kind of stuff,” said Cohen. “It’s where you bang your shield all night before the fight so’s the enemy can’t get any sleep and you sing, ‘We’re gonna cut yer tonkers off,’ and stuff like that.”
    “Similar,” said Mr. Saveloy, diplomatically. “But it failed to work, I’m afraid. Lord Hong and his generals are rather too sophisticated. It’s a great shame you couldn’t try it on the common soldiers.”
    There was a faint squeak of rabbit behind them. They turned, and looked at the somewhat under-age cadre of the Red Army that was being ushered in. Butterfly was with them. She even gave Rincewind a very faint smile.
    Rincewind had always relied on running away. But sometimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight, if only because there was nowhere left to run.
    But he was no good at all with weapons.
    At least, the normal sort.
    “Um,” he said, “if we leave the palace now, we’ll be killed, right?”
    “I doubt it,” said Mr. Saveloy. “It’s become a matter of the Art of War now. Someone like Hong would probably slit our throats, but now war is declared things have to be done according to custom.”
    Rincewind took a deep breath.
    “It’s a million-to-one chance,” he said, “but it might just work…”

    The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.
    Among the armies encamped in the broad alluvial plain around Hunghung, the invisible horsemen known as Misinformation, Rumor, and Gossip saddled up…
    A large army encamped has all the tedious problems of a city without any of the advantages. Its watchfires and picket lines are, after a while, open to local civilians, especially if they have anything to sell and even more so if they are women whose virtue has a certain commercial element and even, sometimes, if they appear to be selling food which is a break from the monotonous army diet. The food currently on sale was certainly such a break.
    “Pork balls! Pork balls! Get them while they’re…” There was a pause as the vendor mentally tried out ways of ending the sentence, and gave up. “Pork balls! Onna stick! How about you, shogun, you look like—Here, aren’t you the—?”
    “Shutupshutupshutup!”
    Rincewind pulled D. M. H. Dibhala into the shadows by a tent.
    The trader looked at the anguished face framed between a eunuch outfit and a big straw hat.
    “It’s the Wizard, isn’t it? How are—?”
    “You know how you seriously wanted to become very rich in international trade?” Rincewind said.
    “Yes? Can we start?”
    “Soon. Soon. But there’s something you must do. You know this rumor about the army of invisible vampire ghosts that’s heading this way?”
    D. M. H. Dibhala’s eyes swivelled nervously. But it was part of his stock in trade never to appear to be ignorant of anything except, perhaps, how to give correct change.
    “Yes?” he said.
    “The one about there being millions of them?” said Rincewind. “And very hungry on account of not having eaten on the way? And made specially fierce by the Great Wizard?”
    “Um…yes?”
    “Well, it’s not true .”
    “It’s not?”
    “You don’t believe me? After all, I ought to know.”
    “Good point.”
    “And we don’t want people to panic, do we?”
    “Very bad for business, panic,” said D. M. H., nodding uncomfortably.
    “So make sure you tell people there’s no truth in this rumor, will you? Set their minds at rest.”
    “Good idea. Er. These invisible vampire ghosts…Do they carry money of any sort?”
    “No. Because they don’t