The Light Fantastic

think?”
    “Yes. Or bitten your leg off.”
    “Ah,” said the dwarf. He took Cohen gently by the arm. “It’s nice and shady over here,” he said. “Why don’t you just have a little—”
    Cohen shook him off.
    “It’s watching that wall,” he said. “Look, that’s why it’s not taking any notice of us. It’s staring at the wall.”
    “Yes, that’s right,” said Lackjaw soothingly. “Of course it’s watching that wall with its little eyes—”
    “Don’t be an idiot, it hasn’t got any eyes,” snapped Cohen.
    “Sorry, sorry,” said Lackjaw hurriedly. “It’s watching the wall without eyes, sorry.”
    “I think it’s worried about something,” said Cohen.
    “Well, it would be, wouldn’t it,” said Lackjaw. “I expect it just wants us to go off somewhere and leave it alone.”
    “I think it’s very puzzled,” Cohen added.
    “Yes, it certainly looks puzzled,” said the dwarf. Cohen glared at him.
    “How can you tell?” he snapped.
    It struck Lackjaw that the roles were unfairly reversing. He looked from Cohen to the box, his mouth opening and shutting.
    “How can you tell?” he said. But Cohen wasn’t listening anyway. He sat down in front of the box, assuming that the bit with the keyhole was the front, and watched it intently. Lackjaw backed away. Funny, said his mind, but the damn thing is looking at me.
    “All right,” said Cohen, “I know you and me don’t see eye to eye, but we’re all trying to find someone we care for, okay?”
    “I’m—” said Lackjaw, and realized that Cohen was talking to the box.
    “So tell me where they’ve gone.”
    As Lackjaw looked on in horror the Luggage extended its little legs, braced itself, and ran full tilt at the nearest wall. Clay bricks and dusty mortar exploded around it.
    Cohen peered through the hole. There was a small grubby storeroom on the other side. The Luggage stood in the middle of the floor, radiating extreme bafflement.

    “Shop!” said Twoflower.
    “Anyone here?” said Bethan.
    “Urrgh,” said Rincewind.
    “I think we ought to sit him down somewhere and get him a glass of water,” said Twoflower. “If there’s one here.”
    “There’s everything else,” said Bethan.
    The room was full of shelves, and the shelves were full of everything. Things that couldn’t be accommodated on them hung in bunches from the dark and shadowy ceiling; boxes and sacks of everything spilled onto the floor.
    There was no sound from outside. Bethan looked around and found out why.
    “I’ve never seen so much stuff,” said Twoflower.
    “There’s one thing it’s out of stock of,” said Bethan, firmly.
    “How can you tell?”
    “You just have to look. It’s fresh out of exits.”
    Twoflower turned around. Where the door and window had been there were shelves stacked with boxes; they looked as though they had been there for a long time.
    Twoflower sat Rincewind down on a rickety chair by the counter and poked doubtfully at the shelves. There were boxes of nails, and hairbrushes. There were bars of soap, faded with age. There was a stack of jars containing deliquescent bath salts, to which someone had fixed a rather sad and jaunty little notice announcing, in the face of all the evidence, that one would make an Ideal Gift. There was also quite a lot of dust.
    Bethan peered at the shelves on the other wall, and laughed.
    “Would you look at this!” she said.
    Twoflower looked. She was holding a—well, it was a little mountain chalet, but with seashells stuck all over it, and then the perpetrator had written “A Special Souvenir” in pokerwork on the roof (which, of course, opened so that cigarettes could be kept in it, and played a tinny little tune).
    “Have you ever seen anything like it?” she said.
    Twoflower shook his head. His mouth dropped open.
    “Are you all right?” said Bethan.
    “I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
    There was a whirring noise overhead. They looked up.
    A big black globe had lowered itself from the darkness of the ceiling. Little red lights flashed on and off on it, and as they stared it spun around and looked at them with a big glass eye. It was menacing, that eye. It seemed to suggest very emphatically that it was watching something distasteful.
    “Hallo?” said Twoflower.
    A head appeared over the edge of the counter. It looked angry.
    “I hope you were intending to pay for that,” it said nastily. Its expression suggested that it