Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett [67]
Out, thought Six Beneficent Winds. Yes! There may be guards out there!
“Just a minute,” said Diamond Teeth, as he nodded. “Pick up your paintbrush and write down what I say.”
A minute later, they’d gone. All that remained in the taxman’s office was an amended piece of paper, which read as follows:
“Roses are red, violets are blue. Seven Lucky Logs to be given one pig and all the rice he can carry, because he is now One Lucky Peasant. By order of Six Beneficent Winds, Collector of Revenues, Langtang. Help. Help. If anyone reads this I am being held prisoner by an evil eunuch. Help.”
Rincewind and Twoflower lay in their separate cells and talked about the good old days. At least, Twoflower talked about the good old days. Rincewind worked at a crack in the stone with a piece of straw, it being all he had to hand. It would take several thousand years to make any kind of impression, but that was no reason to give up.
“Do we get fed in here?” he said, interrupting the flow of reminiscence.
“Oh, sometimes. But it’s not like the marvelous food in Ankh-Morpork.”
“Really,” murmured Rincewind, scratching away. A tiny piece of mortar seemed ready to move.
“I’ll always remember the taste of Mr. Dibbler’s sausages.”
“People do.”
“A once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“Frequently.”
The straw broke.
“Damn and blast!” Rincewind sat back. “What’s so important about the Red Army?” he said. “I mean, they’re just a bunch of kids. Just a nuisance!”
“Yes, I’m afraid things got rather confused,” said Twoflower. “Um. Have you ever heard of the theory that History goes in cycles?”
“I saw a drawing in one of Leonard of Quirm’s notebooks—” Rincewind began, trying again with another straw.
“No, I mean…like a…wheel, spinning. If you stand in the same place it all comes round again?”
“Oh, that. Blast!”
“Well, a lot of people believe it here. They think History starts again every three thousand years.”
“Could be,” said Rincewind, who was looking for another straw and wasn’t really listening. Then the words sank in. “Three thousand years? That’s a bit short, isn’t it? The whole thing? Stars and oceans and intelligent life evolving from arts graduates, that sort of thing?”
“Oh, no. That’s just…stuff. Proper history started with the founding of the Empire by One Sun Mirror. The first Emperor. And his servant, the Great Wizard. Just a legend, really. It’s the sort of thing peasants believe. They look at something like the Great Wall and say, that’s such a marvelous thing it must have been built by magic…And the Red Army…what it probably was was just a well-organized body of trained fighting men. The first real army, you see. All there was before was just undisciplined mobs. That’s what it must have been. Not magical at all. The Great Wizard couldn’t really have made…What the peasants believe is silly…”
“Why, what do they believe?”
“They say the Great Wizard made the earth come alive. When all the armies on the continent faced One Sun Mirror the Great Wizard…flew a kite.”
“Sounds sensible to me,” said Rincewind. “When there’s war around take the day off, that’s my motto.”
“No, you don’t understand. This was a special kite. It trapped the lightning in the sky and the Great Wizard stored it in bottles and then took the mud itself and…baked it with the lightning, and made it into an army.”
“Never heard of any spells for that.”
“And they have funny ideas about reincarnation, too…”
Rincewind conceded that they probably would. It probably whiled away those long water-buffaloid hours: hey, after I die I hope I come back as…a man holding a water buffalo, but facing a different way.
“Er…no,” said Twoflower. “They don’t think you come back at all. Er…I’m not using the right words, am I?…Bit corroded on this language…I mean preincarnation. It’s like reincarnation backwards. They think you’re born before you die.”
“Oh, really?” said Rincewind, scratching at the stones. “Amazing! Born before you die? Life before death? People will get really excited when they hear about that.”
“That’s not