A fourth voice said: ‘And we’re not eunuchs.’
One Big River rumbled with the effort of thought.
‘I tink I rather live,’ he said.
A man with diamonds where his teeth should have been gave him a comradely pat on the shoulder. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Join the Horde. We could use a man like you. Maybe as a siege weapon.’
‘Who you?’ he said.
‘This is Ghenghiz Cohen,’ said Mr Saveloy. ‘Doer of mighty deeds. Slayer of dragons. Ravager of cities. He once bought an apple.’
No one laughed. Mr Saveloy had found that the Horde had no concept whatsoever of sarcasm. Probably no one had ever tried it on them.
One Big River had been raised to do what he was told. Everyone had told him what to do, all through his life. He fell in behind the man with diamond teeth because he was the sort of man you followed when he said ‘follow’.
‘But, you know, there are tens of thousands of men who would die rather than betray their Emperor,’ whispered Six Beneficent Winds, as they filed through the corridors.
‘I hope so.’
‘Some of them will be on guard around the Forbidden City. We’ve avoided them, but they’re still there. We’ll have to deal with them eventually.’
‘Oh, good!’ said Cohen.
‘Bad,’ said Mr Saveloy. ‘That business with the ninjas was just high spirits—’
‘—high spirits—’ murmured Six Beneficent Winds.
‘—but you don’t want a big fight out in the open. It’ll get messy.’
Cohen walked over to the nearest wall, which had a gorgeous pattern of peacocks, and took out his knife.
‘Paper,’ he said. ‘Bloody paper. Paper walls.’ He poked his head through. There was a shrill whimper. ‘Oops, sorry, ma’am. Official wall inspection,’ He extracted his head, grinning.
‘But you can’t go through walls!’ said Six Beneficent Winds.
‘Why not?’
‘They’re — well, they’re the walls. What would happen if everyone walked through walls? What do you think doors are for?’
‘I think they’re for other people,’ said Cohen. ‘Which way’s that throne room?’
‘Whut?’
‘This is lateral thinking,’ explained Mr Saveloy, as they followed him. ‘Ghenghiz is quite good at a certain kind of lateral thinking.’
‘What a lateral?’
‘Er. It’s a kind of muscle, I believe.’
‘Thinking with your muscles … Yes. I see,’ said Six Beneficent Winds.
Rincewind sidled into a space between the wall and a statue of a rather jolly dog with its tongue hanging out.
‘What now?’ said Butterfly.
‘How big’s the Red Army?’
‘We number many thousands,’ said Butterfly, defiantly.
‘In Hunghung?’
‘Oh, no. There is a cadre in every city.’
‘You know that, do you? You’ve met them?’
‘That would be dangerous. Only Two Fire Herb knows how to contact them …’
‘Fancy that. Well, do you know what I think? I think someone wants a revolution. And you’re all so damn respectful and polite he’s having his work cut out trying to organize one! But once you’ve got rebels you can do anything.’
‘That can’t be true …’
‘The rebels in other cities, they do great revolutionary deeds, do they?’
‘We hear reports all the time!’
‘From our friend Herb?’
Butterfly frowned.
‘Yes …’
‘You’re thinking, aren’t you?’ said Rincewind. ‘The old brain cells are finally banging together, yes? Good. Have I convinced you?’
‘I … don’t know.’
‘Now let’s go back.’
‘No. Now I’ve got to find out if what you’re suggesting is true.’
‘Dying to find out, eh? Good grief, you people make me so angry. Look, watch this …’
Rincewind strode to the end of the corridor. There was a pair of wide doors, flanked by a pair of jade dragons.
He flung them back.
The room inside was low-ceilinged but large. In the centre, under a canopy, was a bed. It was hard to make out the figure lying there, but it had that certain stillness that suggests the kind of sleep from which there is unlikely to be any kind of awakening.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘He’s been … killed … already …’
A dozen soldiers were staring at Rincewind in amazement.
Behind him he heard the creaking of the floor and then some whooshing sounds followed by a noise like wet leather being hit against rock.
Rincewind looked at the nearest soldier. The man was holding a sword.
One drop of blood coursed down the blade and, with a brief pause for dramatic effect, fell on to the floor.
Rincewind looked up and raised his hat.
‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said, brightly. ‘Isn’t this room 3B?’
And ran for it.
The floors screamed under him, and behind him someone screamed Rincewind’s nickname, which was: ‘Don’t let him get away!’
Let me get away, Rincewind prayed, oh, please, let me get away.
He slipped as he turned the corner, skidded through a paper wall and landed in an ornamental fish pond. But Rincewind in full flight had catlike, even messianic abilities. The water barely rippled under his feet as he bounced off the surface and headed away.
Another wall erupted and he was in what was possibly the same corridor.
Behind him, someone landed heavily on a valuable koi.
Rincewind shot forward again.
From; that was the most important factor in any mindless escape. You were always running from. To could look after itself.
He cleared a long flight of shallow stone steps, rolled upright at the bottom and set off at random along another corridor.
His legs had sorted themselves out now. First the mad, wild dash to get you out of immediate danger and then the good solid strides to put as much distance as possible between you and it. That was the trick.
History told of a runner who’d run forty miles after a battle to report its successful outcome to those at home.{30} He was traditionally regarded as the greatest runner of all time, but if he’d been reporting news of an impending battle he’d have been overtaken by Rincewind.
And yet … someone was gaining.
A knife poked through the wall of the throne room and cut a hole large enough to afford space for an upright man or one wheelchair.
There was muttering from the Horde.
‘Bruce the Hoon never went in the back way.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Never one for back gates, Bruce the Hoon.’
‘Shut up.’
‘When Bruce the Hoon attacked Al Khali, he did it right at the main guard tower, with a thousand screaming men on very small horses.’
‘Yeah, but … last I saw of Bruce the Hoon, his head was on a spike.’
‘All right, I’ll grant you that. But at least it was over the main gate. I mean, at least he got in.’
‘His head did.’
‘Oh, my … ’
Mr Saveloy was gratified. The room they’d stepped into was enough to silence the Horde, if only briefly. It was large, of course, but that hadn’t been its only purpose. One Sun Mirror, as he welded the tribes and countries and little island nations together, had wanted a room built which said to chieftains and ambassadors: this is the biggest space you’ve ever been in, it is more splendid than anything you could ever imagine, and we’ve got a lot more rooms like this.
He had wanted it to be impressive. He had very clearly wanted it to intimidate mere barbarians so much that they’d give in there and then. Let there be huge statues, he’d said. And vast decorative hangings. Let there be pillars and carvings. Let the visitor be silenced by the sheer magnificence. Let it say to him, ‘This is civilization, and you can join it or die. Now drop to your knees or be shortened some other way.’