Sourcery

stared.
    “What is it?” he whispered.
    “I think it’s a temple of some sort,” said Conina.
    Rincewind stood and gazed upwards, the crowds of Al Khali bouncing off and around him in a kind of human Brownian motion. A temple, he thought. Well, it was big, and it was impressive, and the architect had used every trick in the book to make it look even bigger and even more impressive than it was, and to impress upon everyone looking at it that they, on the other hand, were very small and ordinary and didn’t have as many domes. It was the kind of place that looked exactly as you were always going to remember it.
    But Rincewind felt he knew holy architecture when he saw it, and the frescoes on the big and, of course, impressive walls above him didn’t look at all religious. For one thing, the participants were enjoying themselves. Almost certainly, they were enjoying themselves. Yes, they must be. It would be pretty astonishing if they weren’t.
    “They’re not dancing, are they?” he said, in a desperate attempt not to believe the evidence of his own eyes. “Or maybe it’s some sort of acrobatics?”
    Conina squinted upwards in the hard, white sunlight.
    “I shouldn’t think so,” she said, thoughtfully.
    Rincewind remembered himself. “I don’t think a young woman like you should be looking at this sort of thing,” he said sternly.
    Conina gave him a smile. “I think wizards are expressly forbidden to,” she said sweetly. “It’s supposed to turn you blind.”
    Rincewind turned his face upwards again, prepared to risk maybe one eye. This sort of thing is only to be expected, he told himself. They don’t know any better. Foreign countries are, well, foreign countries. They do things differently there.
    Although some things, he decided, were done in very much the same way, only with rather more inventiveness and, by the look of it, far more often.
    “The temple frescoes of Al Khali are famous far and wide,” said Conina, as they walked through crowds of children who kept trying to sell Rincewind things and introduce him to nice relatives.
    “Well, I can see they would be,” Rincewind agreed. “Look, push off, will you? No, I don’t want to buy whatever it is. No, I don’t want to meet her. Or him, either. Or it, you nasty little boy. Get off , will you?”
    The last scream was to the group of children riding sedately on the Luggage, which was plodding along patiently behind Rincewind and making no attempt to shake them off. Perhaps it was sickening for something, he thought, and brightened up a bit.
    “How many people are there on this continent, do you think?” he said.
    “I don’t know,” said Conina, without turning round. “Millions, I expect?”
    “If I were wise, I wouldn’t be here,” said Rincewind, with feeling.
    They had been in Al Khali, gateway to the whole mysterious continent of Klatch, for several hours. He was beginning to suffer.
    A decent city should have a bit of fog about it, he considered, and people should live indoors, not spend all their time out on the streets. There shouldn’t be all this sand and heat. As for the wind…
    Ankh-Morpork had its famous smell, so full of personality that it could reduce a strong man to tears. But Al Khali had its wind, blowing from the vastness of the deserts and continents nearer the rim. It was a gentle breeze, but it didn’t stop and eventually it had the same effect on visitors that a cheese-grater achieves on a tomato. After a while it seemed to have worn away your skin and was rasping directly across the nerves.
    To Conina’s sensitive nostrils it carried aromatic messages from the heart of the continent, compounded of the chill of deserts, the stink of lions, the compost of jungles and the flatulence of wildebeest.
    Rincewind, of course, couldn’t smell any of this. Adaptation is a wonderful thing, and most Morporkians would be hard put to smell a burning feather mattress at five feet.
    “Where to next?” he said. “Somewhere out of the wind?”
    “My father spent some time in Khali when he was hunting for the Lost City of Ee,” said Conina. “And I seem to remember he spoke very highly of the soak . It’s a kind of bazaar.”
    “I suppose we just go and look for the second-hand hat stalls,” said Rincewind. “Because the whole idea is totally—”
    “What I was hoping was that maybe we could be attacked. That seems the most sensible idea. My father said that very few strangers who entered the soak ever