The Carpet People

holding it up so that he could see over his shoulder.
    The termagant jingled. Around its leathery neck were chains of varnish and red wood. Every claw was aglitter with rings. Bracelets were threaded on the scaly tail. Every time it moved its big beaked head it sent a little tinkling noise echoing round the temple.
    It peered at the altar and sniffed. Even in the shield the eyes frightened Snibril. They were large and misty blue, not frightening at all. Eyes you could get lost in, he thought, and turn to stone.
    Roland gave a whinny, but it ended in mid-air. Then there was another statue in the cold hall.
    Snibril’s senses screamed at him to turn round and face the creature, but he stood still and thought desperately. The termagant began to jingle towards him.
    Snibril turned, holding the polished shield before his eyes. Under it he could see the termagant’s feet scraping towards him. They were bony and clawed. And they didn’t stop . . .
    It ought to have turned to stone. It saw itself! So much for bright ideas, he thought. And it was the only one I had.
    He started to back away. And then the termagant did stop. For it had seen another termagant. There,in the shield, a scaly green face looked back at it. A necklace hung over one ear. For a moment the creature had found company. Then, because he was shaking with fear, Snibril tilted the shield. The face vanished.
    Atter a moment of shocked silence the termagant let out a howl of anguish that echoed around the hairs. A massive foot stamped. Then the creature collapsed on the floor, put its paws over its eyes, and began to sob. Every now and then it’d drum its back feet on the floor. The sobs started at the tail end, by the look of it, and got bigger and bigger as they gulped their way up towards the mouth.
    It wasn’t only terrifying. It was also embarrassing. Nothing should have that many tears in it.
    Snibril watched the pool of tears spread out over the floor, and touch the statue of a hairhog by the wall. It twitched its nose. Wider and wider went the pool. Some statues awoke as it touched them, but some of the oldest, all covered in dust and creepers, stood unchanged. Little creatures swam valiantly to freedom between their ankles.
    Snibril scooped up the tears in the shield and splashed them over Roland. Then it was the turn of the little pony, which stared up at Snibril in amazement. He ran to the warrior by the treasure, and drenched him.
    Nothing happened for a moment. An eyelidflickered. The hand with the necklace started to move. The little warrior was suddenly very much alive. He dropped the necklace and glowered at Snibril.
    ‘Kone’s Bones, where did you spring from?’
    Then he saw the termagant in its pool of tears. His hand went to his throat, and found the creeper. He looked thoughtfully at Snibril.
    ‘How long have I been here, stranger?’
    ‘I don’t know. This is the third year after the second Counting in the reign of the Emperor Targon at Ware,’ said Snibril.
    ‘You’re a Dumii?’ said the released statue, unwinding the creeper.
    ‘Sort of.’
    ‘I’m not,’ said the little warrior, proudly. ‘We don’t Count. But I’ve heard of Targon. Before I came here it was the twenty-second year of his rule.’
    ‘Then you must have been here a year,’ said Snibril.
    ‘A year ... a year away,’ said the warrior. ‘Far too long.’ He bowed solemnly. ‘A thousand pardons, stranger,’ he said. ‘You shall be rewarded for this. I, Brocando, Son of Broc, Lord of Jeopard, King of the Deftmenes, promise you that. Yes. Rewarded.’
    ‘I didn’t do it for any reward,’ said Snibril. ‘I justwanted the thing to stop turning everything into statues.’
    ‘What brings you this far from home, then?’ Brocando asked, with a glint in his eye. ’The treasure, eh?’
    ‘No . . . look, do you think we’d better go?’ said Snibril, glancing at the termagant again. ‘It might get up.’
    Brocando flourished his sword.
    ‘One year of my life!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll make it pay for that!’
    Snibril looked at the creature again. It was lying quite still.
    ‘I don’t think there’s much more you can do to it,’ he said. ‘It looks miserable enough to me.’
    Brocando hesitated. ‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘There is no revenge on a witless beast. As for this . . .’ he swept his arm over the shimmering heap, ‘I have lost the taste for it. Let it lie here.’ He sniffed. ‘It is in my mind that such things as these