Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett [124]
“Come on, come on, haven’t got all day! Step lively, man!”
Mr. Saveloy turned around and looked up at the woman on the horse. It was a big horse but, then, it was a big woman. She had plaits, a hat with horns on it, and a breastplate that must have been a week’s work for an experienced panelbeater. She gave him a look that was not unkind but had impatience in every line.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“Says here Ronald Saveloy,” she said. “The what?”
“The what?”
“Everyone I pick up,” said the woman, leaning down, “is called ‘Someone the Something.’ What the are you?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“I’ll put you down as Ronald the Apologetic, then. Come on, hop up, there’s a war on, got to be going.”
“Where to?”
“Says here quaffing, carousing, throwing axes at young women’s hair?”
“Ah, er, I think perhaps there’s been a bit of a—”
“Look, old chap, are you coming or what?”
Mr. Saveloy looked around at the black desert. He was totally alone. Death had gone about his essential business.
He let her pull him up behind her.
“Have they got a library, perhaps?” he asked hopefully, as the horse rose into the dark sky.
“Don’t know. No one’s ever asked.”
“Evening classes, perhaps. I could start evening classes?”
“What in?”
“Um. Anything, really. Table manners, perhaps. Is that allowed?”
“I suppose so. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked that, either.” The Valkyrie turned in the saddle.
“You sure you’re coming to the right afterlife?”
Mr. Saveloy considered the possibilities.
“On the whole,” he said, “I think it’s worth a try.”
The crowd in the square were getting to their feet.
They looked at all that remained of Lord Hong, and at the Horde.
Butterfly and Lotus Blossom joined their father. Butterfly ran her hand over the cannon, looking for the trick.
“You see,” said Twoflower, a little indistinctly because he couldn’t quite hear the sound of his own voice yet, “I told you he was the Great Wizard.”
Butterfly tapped him on the shoulder.
“What about those?” she said.
A small procession was picking its way through the square. In front, Twoflower recognized, was something he’d once owned.
“It was a very cheap one,” he said, to no one in particular. “I always thought there was something a little warped about it, to tell you the truth.”
It was followed by a slightly larger Luggage. And then, in descending order of size, four little chests, the smallest being about the size of a lady’s handbag. As it passed a prone Hunghungese who’d been too stunned to flee, it paused to kick him in the ear before hurrying after the others.
Twoflower looked at his daughters.
“Can they do that?” he said. “Make new ones? I thought it needed carpenters.”
“I suppose it learned many things in Ankh-More-Pork,” said Butterfly.
The Luggages clustered together in front of the steps. Then the Luggage turned around and, after one or two sad backward glances, or what might have been glances if it had eyes, cantered away. By the time it reached the far side of the square it was a blur.
“Hey, you! Four-eyes!”
Twoflower turned. Cohen was advancing down the steps.
“I remember you,” he said. “D’you know anything about Grand Viziering?”
“Not a thing, Mr. Emperor Cohen.”
“Good. The job’s yours. Get cracking. First thing, I want a cup of tea. Thick enough to float a horseshoe. Three sugars. In five minutes. Right?”
“A cup of tea in five minutes?” said Twoflower. “But that’s not long enough for even a short ceremony!”
Cohen put a companionable arm around the little man’s shoulders.
“There’s a new ceremony,” he said. “It goes: ‘Tea up, luv. Milk? Sugar? Doughnut? Want another one?’ And you could tell the eunuchs,” he added, “that the Emperor is a lit’ral-minded man and used the phrase ‘heads will roll’.”
Twoflower’s eyes gleamed behind his cracked glasses. Somehow, he liked the sound of that.
It looked as though he was living in interesting times—
The Luggages sat quietly, and waited.
Fate sat back.
The gods relaxed.
“A draw,” he announced. “Oh, yes. You have appeared to win in Hunghung but you have had to lose your most valuable piece, is that