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By Root 327 0

possibly because they were as far away as possible from the kind of people he normally mixed with in staffrooms, he actually liked them. Every one of them saw a book as either a lavatorial accessory or a set of portable firefighters and thought that hygiene was a greeting. Yet they were honest (from their specialized point of view) and decent (from their specialized point of view) and saw the world as hugely simple. They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn’t steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.

And although they didn’t set out to give the money away to the poor, that was nevertheless what they did (if you accepted that the poor consisted of innkeepers, ladies of negotiable virtue, pickpockets, gamblers, and general hangers-on), because although they would go to great lengths to steal money they then had as much control over it as a man trying to herd cats. It was there to be spent and lost. So they kept the money in circulation, always a praiseworthy thing in any society.

They never worried about what other people thought. Mr. Saveloy, who’d spent his whole life worrying about what other people thought and had been passed over for promotion and generally treated as a piece of furniture as a result, found this strangely attractive. And they never agonized about anything, or wondered if they were doing the right thing. And they enjoyed themselves immensely. They had a kind of honor. He liked the Horde. They weren’t his kind of people.

Caleb returned, looking unusually thoughtful.

“Congratulations, Mr. Ripper!” said Mr. Saveloy, a great believer in positive reinforcement. “She still appears to be fully clothed.”

“Yeah, what’d she say?” said Boy Willie.

“She smiled at me,” said Caleb. He scratched his crusty beard uneasily. “A bit, anyway,” he added.

“Good,” said Mr. Saveloy.

“She, er…she said she’d…she wouldn’t mind seein’ me…later…”

“Well done!”

“Er…Teach? What’s a shave?”

Saveloy explained.

Caleb listened carefully, grimacing occasionally. He turned round occasionally to look at the duck seller, who gave him a little wave.

“Cor,” he said. “Er. I dunno…” He looked around again. “Never seen a woman who wasn’t running away before.”

“Oh, women are like deer,” said Cohen loftily. “You can’t just charge in, you gotta stalk ’em—”

“Hur, hur, h—Sorry,” said Caleb, catching Mr. Saveloy’s stern eye.

“I think perhaps we should end the lesson here,” said Mr. Saveloy. “We don’t want to get you too civilized, do we…? I suggest we take a stroll around the Forbidden City, yes?”

They’d all seen it. It dominated the center of Hunghung. Its walls were forty feet high.

“There’s a lot of soldiers guarding the gates,” said Cohen.

“So they should. A great treasure lies within,” said Mr. Saveloy. He didn’t raise his eyes, though. He seemed to be staring intently at the ground, as though searching for something he’d lost.

“Why don’t we just rush up and kill the guards?” Caleb demanded. He was still feeling a bit shaken.

“Whut?”

“Don’t be daft,” said Cohen. “It’d take all day. Anyway,” he added, feeling a little proud despite himself, “Teach here is goin’ to get us in on an invisible duck, ain’t that so, Teach?”

Mr. Saveloy stopped.

“Ah. Eureka,” he said.

“That’s Ephebian, that is,” Cohen told the Horde. “It means ‘Give me a towel.’”

“Oh, yeah,” said Caleb, who had been surreptitiously trying to untangle the knots in his beard. “And when were you ever in Ephebe?”

“Went bounty hunting there once.”

“Who for?”

“You, I think.”

“Hah! Did you find me?”

“Dunno. Nod your head and see if it falls off.”

“Ah. Gentlemen…behold…”

Mr. Saveloy’s orthopaedic sandal was prodding an ornamental metal square in the ground.

“Behold what?” said Truckle.

“Whut?”

“We should look for more of these,” said Mr. Saveloy. “But I think we have it. All we need to do now is wait until dark.”

There was an argument going on. All Rincewind could make out were the voices; another sack had been tied over his head, while he