The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett [30]
“It’s very patient and it never gives up. That’s sapient pearwood you’re dealing with. It’ll let you think it’s forgotten you, then one day you’ll be walking along a dark street and you’ll hear these little footsteps behind you—shlup, shlup, they’ll go, then you’ll start running and they’ll speed up, shlupshlupSHLUP—”
“Shut up!” shouted Weems.
“It’s probably already recognized you, so—”
“I said shut up!”
Herrena turned around in her saddle and glared at them. Weems scowled and pulled Rincewind’s ear until it was right in front of his mouth, and said hoarsely, “I’m afraid of nothing, understand? This wizard stuff, I spit on it.”
“They all say that until they hear the footsteps,” said Rincewind. He stopped. A knifepoint was pricking his ribs.
Nothing happened for the rest of the day but, to Rincewind’s satisfaction and Weems’s mounting paranoia, the Luggage showed itself several times. Here it would be perched incongruously on a crag, there it would be half-hidden in a ditch with moss growing over it.
By late afternoon they came to the crest of a hill and looked down on the broad valley of the upper Smarl, the longest river on the Disc. It was already half a mile across, and heavy with the silt that made the lower valley the most fertile area on the continent. A few wisps of early mist wreathed its banks.
“Shlup,” said Rincewind. He felt Weems jerk upright in the saddle.
“Eh?”
“Just clearing my throat,” said Rincewind, and grinned. He had put a lot of thought into that grin. It was the sort of grin people use when they stare at your left ear and tell you in an urgent tone of voice that they are being spied on by secret agents from the next galaxy. It was not a grin to inspire confidence. More horrible grins had probably been seen, but only on the sort of grinner that is orange with black stripes, has a long tail and hangs around in jungles looking for victims to grin at.
“Wipe that off,” said Herrena, trotting up.
Where the track led down to the river bank there was a crude jetty and a big bronze gong.
“It’ll summon the ferryman,” said Herrena. “If we cross here we can cut off a big bend in the river. Might even make it to a town tonight.”
Weems looked doubtful. The sun was getting fat and red, and the mists were beginning to thicken.
“Or maybe you want to spend the night this side of the water?”
Weems picked up the hammer and hit the gong so hard that it spun right around on its hanger and fell off.
They waited in silence. Then with a wet clinking sound a chain sprang out of the water and pulled taut against an iron peg set into the bank. Eventually the slow flat shape of the ferry emerged from the mist, its hooded ferryman heaving on a big wheel set in its center as he winched his way toward the shore.
The ferry’s flat bottom grated on the gravel, and the hooded figure leaned against the wheel panting.
“Two at a time,” it muttered. “That’sh all. Jusht two, with horshesh.”
Rincewind swallowed, and tried not to look at Twoflower. The man would probably be grinning and mugging like an idiot. He risked a sideways glance.
Twoflower was sitting with his mouth open.
“You’re not the usual ferryman,” said Herrena. “I’ve been here before, the usual man is a big fellow, sort of—”
“It’sh hish day off.”
“Well, okay,” she said doubtfully. “In that case—What’s he laughing at?”
Twoflower’s shoulders were shaking, his face had gone red, and he was emitting muffled snorts. Herrena glared at him, then looked hard at the ferryman.
“Two of you—grab him!”
There was a pause. Then one of the men said, “What, the ferryman?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
Herrena looked blank. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. It was accepted that when someone yelled something like “Get him!” or “Guards!” people jumped to it, they weren’t supposed to sit around discussing things.
“Because I said so!” was the best she could manage. The two men nearest to the bowed figure looked at each other, shrugged, dismounted, and each took a shoulder. The ferryman was about half their size.