‘How many people are there on this continent, do you think?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Conina, without turning round. ‘Millions, I expect.’
‘If I were wise, I wouldn’t be here,’ said Rincewind, with feeling.
They had been in Al Khali, gateway to the whole mysterious continent of Klatch, for several hours. He was beginning to suffer.
A decent city should have a bit of fog about it, he considered, and people should lie indoors, not spend all their time out on the streets. There shouldn’t be all this sand and heat. As for the wind…
Ankh-Morpork had its famous smell, so full of personality that it could reduce a strong man to tears. But Al Khali had its wind, blowing from the vastness of the deserts and continents nearer the rim. It was a gentle breeze, but it didn’t stop and eventually it had the same effect on visitors that a cheesegrater achieves on a tomato. After a while it seemed to have worn away your skin and was rasping directly across the nerves.
To Conina’s sensitive nostrils it carried aromatic messages from the heart of the continent, compounded of the chill of deserts, the stink of lions, the compost of jungles and the flatulence of wildebeest.
Rincewind, of course, couldn’t smell any of this. Adaptation is a wonderful thing, and most Morporkians would be hard put to smell a burning feather mattress at five feet.
‘Where to next?’ he said. ‘Somewhere out of the wind?’
‘My father spent some time in Khali when he was hunting for the Lost City of Ee,’ said Conina. ‘And I seem to remember he spoke very highly of the soak. It’s a kind of bazaar.’{15}
‘I suppose we just go and look for the second-hand hat stalls,’ said Rincewind. ‘Because the whole idea is totally—’
‘What I was hoping was that maybe we could be attacked. That seems the most sensible idea. My father said that very few strangers who entered the soak ever came out again. Some very murderous types hang out there, he said.’
Rincewind gave this due consideration.
‘Just run that by me again, will you?’ he said. ‘After you said we should be attacked I seemed to hear a ringing in my ears.’
‘Well, we want to meet the criminal element, don’t we?’
‘Not exactly want,’ said Rincewind. ‘That wasn’t the phrase I would have chosen.’
‘How would you put it, then?’
‘Er. I think the phrase “not want” sums it up pretty well.’
‘But you agreed that we should get the hat!’
‘But not die in the process,’ said Rincewind, wretchedly. ‘That won’t do anyone any good. Not me, anyway.’
‘My father always said that death is but a sleep,’ said Conina.
‘Yes, the hat told me that,’ said Rincewind, as they turned down a narrow, crowded street between white adobe walls. ‘But the way I see it, it’s a lot harder to get up in the morning.’
‘Look,’ said Conina, ‘there’s not much risk. You’re with me.’
‘Yes, and you’re looking forward to it, aren’t you,’ said Rincewind accusingly, as Conina piloted them along a shady alley, with their retinue of pubescent entrepreneurs at their heels. ‘It’s the old herrydeterry at work.’
‘Just shut up and try to look like a victim, will you?’
‘I can do that all right,’ said Rincewind, beating off a particularly stubborn member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, ‘I’ve had a lot of practice. For the last time, I don’t want to buy anyone, you wretched child!’
He looked gloomily at the walls around them. At least there weren’t any of those disturbing pictures here, but the hot breeze still blew the dust around him and he was sick and tired of looking at sand. What he wanted was a couple of cool beers, a cold bath and a change of clothing; it probably wouldn’t make him feel better, but it would at least make feeling awful more enjoyable. Not that there was any beer here, probably. It was a funny thing, but in chilly cities like Ankh-Morpork the big drink was beer, which cooled you down, but in places like this, where the whole sky was an oven with the door left open, people drank tiny little sticky drinks which set fire to the back of your throat. And the architecture was all wrong. And they had statues in their temples that, well, just weren’t suitable. This wasn’t the right kind of place for wizards. Of course, they had some local grown alternative, enchanters or some such, but not what you’d call decent magic…
Conina strolled ahead of him, humming to herself.
You rather like her, don’t you? I can tell, said a voice in his head.
Oh blast, thought Rincewind, you’re not my conscience again, are you?
Your libido. It’s a bit stuffy in here, isn’t it? You haven’t had it done up since the last time I was around.
Look, go away, will you? I’m a wizard! Wizards are ruled by their heads, not by their hearts!
And I’m getting votes from your glands, and they’re telling me that as far as your body is concerned your brain is in a minority of one.
Yes? But it’s got the casting vote, then.
Hah! That’s what you think. Your heart has got nothing to do with this, by the way, it’s merely a muscular organ which powers the circulation of the blood. But look at it like this – you quite like her, don’t you?
Well … Rincewind hesitated. Yes, he thought, er …
She’s pretty good company, eh? Nice voice?
Well, of course…
You’d like to see more of her?
Well … Rincewind realised with some surprise that, yes, he would. It wasn’t that he was entirely unused to the company of women, but it always seemed to cause trouble and, of course, it was a well-known fact that it was bad for the magical abilities, although he had to admit that his particular magical abilities, being approximately those of a rubber hammer, were shaky enough to start with.
Then you’ve got nothing to lose, have you? his libido put in, in an oily tone of thought.
It was at this point Rincewind realised that something important was missing. It took him a little while to realise what it was.
No one had tried to sell him anything for several minutes. In Al Khali, that probably meant you were dead.
He, Conina and the Luggage were alone in a long, shady alley. He could hear the bustle of the city some way away, but immediately around them there was nothing except a rather expectant silence.
‘They’ve run off,’ said Conina.
‘Are we going to be attacked?’
‘Could be. There’s been three men following us on the rooftops.’
Rincewind squinted upwards at almost the same time as three men, dressed in flowing black robes, dropped lightly into the alleyway in front of them. When he looked around two more appeared from around a corner. All five were holding long curved swords and, although the lower halves of their faces were masked, it was almost certain that they were grinning evilly.
Rincewind rapped sharply on the Luggage’s lid.
‘Kill,’ he suggested. The Luggage stood stock still for a moment, and then plodded over and stood next to Conina. It looked slightly smug and, Rincewind realised with jealous horror, rather embarrassed.
‘Why, you—’ he growled, and gave it a kick – ‘you handbag.’
He sidled closer to the girl, who was standing there with a thoughtful smile on her face.
‘What now?’ he said. ‘Are you going to offer them all a quick perm?’
The men edged a little closer. They were, he noticed, only interested in Conina.