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He was theoretically aware that there was one, that there was a huge canonical structure with the High Priest at the top and Brutha very firmly at the bottom, but he viewed it in the same way as an amoeba might view the chain of evolution all the way between itself and, for example, a chartered accountant. It was missi... |
The women have bells on their. . . And sing songs. All about the early days of the worlds, when the gods-” He faded. "It was disgusting," he said. He clicked his knuckles, a habit of his whenever he was worried. This one has their gods in it, said Vorbis. "Men in masks. Can you believe that? They have a god of wine. A ... |
Smoke from the fire in the middle of the floor found its way out through a crack in the roof and, eventually, into the maze of uncountable chimneys and light-wells above. There were a dozen figures in the dancing shadows. They wore rough hoods over nondescript clothes-crude things made of rags, nothing that couldn't ea... |
An upturned tortoise is the ninth most pathetic thing in the entire multiverse. An upturned tortoise who knows what's going to happen to it next is, well, at least up there at number four. The quickest way to kill a tortoise for the pot is to plunge it into boiling water. Kitchens and storerooms and craftsmen's worksho... |
But it didn't prove it. And for Fri'it, not dying had become a habit. He clicked his knuckles nervously. A holy war, he said. That was safe enough. The sentence included no verbal clue to what Fri'it thought about the prospect. He hadn't said, "Ye god, not a damn holy war, is the man insane? Some idiot missionary gets ... |
"Oh, that Ossory," said the tortoise. "Pillar of flame. Yes. " "And you dictated to him the Book of Ossory," said Brutha. "Which contains the Directions, the Gateways, the Abjurations, and the Precepts. One hundred and ninety-three chapters. " "I don't think I did all that," said Om doubtfully. "I'm sure I would have r... |
"He says òw!' but I think it's only because he wants to show he's willing. Very willing lad, Brutha. He's the one I told you about. " "He doesn't look very sharp," said Vorbis. "He's not," said Nhumrod. Vorbis nodded approvingly. Undue intelligence in a novice was a mixed blessing. Sometimes it could be channelled for ... |
"Just you trot along," he said. I'm sure everything will be all right. And then, because he too had been brought up in habits of honesty, he added, Probably all right. There were few steps in the Citadel. The progress of the many processions that marked the complex rituals of Great Om demanded long, gentle slopes. Such... |
Through the mists of incomprehension he felt the brush of the curtain, and then was jolted down some steps and into a sandyfloored room. The hands spun him a few times, firmly but without apparent ill-will, and then led him along a passageway. There was the swish of another curtain, and then the indefinable sense of a ... |
Om had been a tortoise for only three years, but with the shape he had inherited a grab-bag of instincts, and a lot of them centred around a total terror of the one wild creature that had found out how to eat tortoise. Gods have no one to pray to. Om really wished that this was not the case. But everyone needs someone.... |
It recognised humans only as pieces of mobile landscape which, in the lambing season in the high hills, might be associated with thrown stones when it stooped upon the newborn lamb, but which otherwise were as unimportant in the scheme of things as bushes and rocks. But it had never been so close to so many of them. It... |
Can I press you to a candied sultana? Onna stick?" There were twenty-three other novices in Brutha's dormitory, on the principle that sleeping alone promoted sin. This always puzzled the novices themselves, since a moment's reflection would suggest that there were whole ranges of sins only available in company. But tha... |
In the flickering light of the oil lamp, his face registered polite concern. Excuse the lateness of the hour, my lord, he said. "But I thought we should talk. About tomorrow. " The sword clattered out of Fri'it's hand. Vorbis leaned forward. Is there something wrong, brother? he said. He smiled, and stepped into the ro... |
Now he was out in the empty corridor. Death had vanished. And then he realised that it wasn't the corridor he remembered, with its shadows and the grittiness of sand underfoot. That corridor didn't have a glow at the end, that pulled at him like a magnet pulls at an iron filing. You couldn't put off the inevitable. Bec... |
Brutha kept looking around guiltily, but no one else was taking any notice. Despite his size, Brutha was easy not to notice. Practically everyone had better things to do with their time than notice someone like Brutha. Even Vorbis had switched him off, and was talking to the captain. He found a place up near the pointe... |
"Well, of course," said the captain, clutching at this straw. "Idle sailor talk. If ever I hear it again I shall have the man flog-” Vorbis was looking past his ear. I say! Yes, you there! he said. One of the sailors nodded. Fetch me a harpoon, said Vorbis. The man looked from him to the captain and then scuttled off o... |
Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly puttogether watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Su... |
What am I thinking about? Before I was a tortoise, I didn't even know what unfair meant. . . The hatches opened. People came on deck and hung on the rail. Being on deck in stormy weather always has the possibility of being washed overboard, but that takes on a rosy glow after hours below decks with frightened horses an... |
Where was Brutha? Brutha! Brutha was counting the flashes of light off the desert. "It's a good thing I had a mirror, yes?" said the captain hopefully. "I expect his lordship won't mind about the mirror because it turned out to be useful?" I don't think he thinks like that, said Brutha, still counting. No. I don't thin... |
Wherever Vorbis stood there was the sergeant, hand on sword, eyes scanning the surroundings for. . . what? And always silent, except when spoken to. Brutha tried to be friends. Looks very. . . white, doesn't it? he said. "The city. Very white. Sergeant Simony?" The sergeant turned slowly, and stared at Brutha. Vorbis's... |
Fine," said Legibus, wrapping the towel around himself. He drew a few more lines on the wall. "Fine. Okay. I'll send someone down later to collect the wall. " He turned and appeared to see the Omnians for the first time. He peered forward and then shrugged. Hmm, he said, and wandered away. Brutha tugged at the cloak of... |
Had this ever happened before? Had it been like this back in the first days? It must have been. It was all so hazy now. He couldn't remember the thoughts he'd had then, just the shape of the thoughts. Everything had been highly coloured, everything had been growing every day-he had been growing every day; thoughts and ... |
One had a shorter beard, and was very red in the face, and was waggling a finger accusingly. He bloody well accused me of slander! he was shouting. I didn't! shouted the other man. You did! You did! Tell 'em what you said! Look, I merely suggested, to indicate the nature of paradox, right, that if Xeno the Ephebian sai... |
Mr. Drink Seller?" Yes? What was that bird that walked in when the Goddess-he tasted the unfamiliar word-"of Wisdom was mentioned?" Bit of a problem there, said the barman. "Bit of an embarrassment. " Sorry? It was, said the barman, "a penguin. " Is it a wise sort of bird, then? No. Not a lot, said the barman. "Not kno... |
" He looked down again. I am Deacon Vorbis of the Citadel Quisition, said Vorbis coldly. The Tyrant looked up and gave him another lizard smile. Yes, I know, he said. "You torture people for a living. Please be seated, Deacon Vorbis. And your plump young friend who seems to be looking for something. And the rest of you... |
Further along was an impressive set of marble steps leading up to some bronze doors, and over the doors, made of metal letters set in the stone, was the word LIBRVM. He'd spent too much time looking. Urn's hand clamped itself on to his shell, and he heard Didactylos's voice say, "Hey. . . there's good eating on one of ... |
He hasn't screamed for me, he thought. I'm sure I would have heard. So maybe no one's cooking him. A slave polishing one of the statues directed him to the Library. Brutha pounded down an aisle of pillars. When he reached the courtyard in front of the Library it was crowded with philosophers, all craning to look at som... |
Mind you, Legibus has got a sauna in his. It's amazing the kind of things you can think of in it, he says. " Brutha looked around. Scrolls protruded from their racks like cuckoos piping the hour. "It's all so. . . I never met a philosopher before I came here," he said. "Last night, they were all. . . " "You got to reme... |
The keepers of the labyrinth are unbribable. Didactylos clipped Urn across the back of the head with his lantern. Stupid boy! I've told you about that sort of statement. I mean, they are not easily bribable, master. Not for all the gold in Omnia, for example. That's more like it. Do you think that tortoise was a god, m... |
But in the trivial sense of the truth, said Brutha, picking every word with the care an inquisitor might give to his patient in the depths of the Citadel, "in the trivial sense, Brother Murduck died, did he not, in Omnia, because he had not died in Ephebe, had been merely mocked, but it was feared that others in the Ch... |
"Ah," said Vorbis, "democracy. I forgot. Then who"-he signalled one of the guards, who handed him a sack-"wrote this?" A copy of De Chelonian Mobile was flung on to the marble floor. Brutha stood beside the throne. It was where he had been told to stand. He'd looked into the pit and now it was him. Everything around hi... |
Urn clambered across the shelves like a monkey, pulling books out of their racks and throwing them down to the floor. "I can carry about twenty," he said. "But which twenty?" "Always wanted to do that," murmured Didactylos happily. "Upholding truth in the face of tyranny and so on. Hah! One man, unafraid of the-” What ... |
" Brutha looked at a scroll full of maps. He shut his eyes. For a moment the jagged outline glowed against the inside of his eyelids, and then he felt them settle into his mind. They were still there somewhere-he could bring them back at any time. Urn unrolled another scroll. Pictures of animals. This one, drawings of ... |
. think so. Who set fire to the Library?" Urn looked up from the mechanism. "He did," he said. Brutha stared at Didactylos. "You set fire to your own Library?" "I'm the only one qualified," said the philosopher. "Besides, it keeps it out of the way of Vorbis. " "What?" "Suppose he'd read the scrolls? He's bad enough as... |
What can we know of reality? For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wi... |
Then after the revolution the new ruler let me out of prison and said I could leave the country if I promised not to think of anything on the way to the border. But I don't believe there was anything wrong with the idea in principle. Urn blew on the fire. Takes a little while to heat up the water, he explained. Brutha ... |
And, by and large, she created her own sacrifices. And she believed in quantity. The Fin of God plunged from wave crest to wave trough, the gale tearing at its sails. The captain fought his way through waist-high water to the prow, where Vorbis stood clutching the rail, apparently oblivious to the fact that the ship wa... |
Behind the driftwood lines, and a few patches of grass that appeared to be dying even while it grew, the dunes marched away. Which way to Omnia? he said. We don't want to go to Omnia, said Om. Brutha stared at the tortoise. Then he picked him up. I think it's this way, he said. Om's legs waggled frantically. What do yo... |
I old oo, ugger ogg! The scalbie gave a burp of panic and tried to fly away, but it was hindered by a determined tortoise hanging on to one leg. Om was bounced along the sand for a few feet before he let go. He tried to spit, but tortoise mouths aren't designed for the job. I hate all birds, he said, to the evening air... |
There's only one of 'em. She just got a lot of wigs and of course it's amazing what you can do with a padded bra. There was absolute silence in the desert. The stars, smeared slightly by high-altitude moisture, were tiny, motionless rosettes. Away toward what the Church called the Top Pole, and which Brutha was coming ... |
It was hardly language at all. It was a mere modulation of desires and hungers, without nouns and with only a few verbs. . . . Want. . . Om replied, mine. There were thousands of them. He was stronger, yes, he had a believer, but they fiIled the sky like locusts. The longing poured down on him with the weight of hot le... |
He'll be dying for a good cause. " "A good cause?" "I like it. " There was a growl, from somewhere in the stones. It wasn't loud, but it was a sound with sinews in it. Brutha backed away. "We don't just throw people to the lions!" "He does. " "Yes. I don't. " "All right, we'll get on top of a slab and when the lion sta... |
Lions drink in the holy places and those little squidgy things with eight legs, there's one by your foot, what d'you call 'em, the ones with the antennae, crawl beneath the altar. Now do you understand? No, said Brutha. Don't you fear death? You're a human! Brutha considered this. A few feet away. Vorbis stared mutely ... |
He often did that when he was uncertain about anything, as if they were the only things he was sure of in all the world. They'll get the odds down to three to one before the rest know what's happening, said Simony grimly. "Did you talk to the blacksmith?" Yes. Can you do it? I. . . think so. It wasn't what I. . . They ... |
Brutha was trying to keep his balance, because the cartwheel rocked dangerously every time he moved. They'd left Vorbis seated on the desert twenty feet below, hugging his knees and staring at nothing. The wheel had been nailed flat on top of a slim pole. It was just wide enough for one person to lie uncomfortably. But... |
The strained strains of Claws of Iron shall Rend the Ungodly faded away. There was a small rockslide, some way off. "We're alive," said Brutha. "For now. " "And we're close to home. " "Yes?" "I saw a wild goat on the rocks back there. " "There's still a lot of 'em about. " "Goats?" "Gods. And the ones we had back there... |
" His tone of voice suggested that he wasn't quite sure of Brutha's state of consciousness, even now. "Do you think you can walk? I can get some novices to carry you, if you'd prefer. " "I have to go and see him now?" "-now. Right away. I expect you'll want to thank him. " Brutha had known about these parts of the Cita... |
Time of the Prophet, see, said Dhblah, "when the Great God is manifest in the world. And if you think it's busy now, you won't be able to swing a goat here in a few days' time. " What happens then? You all right? You look a bit peaky. What happens then? The Laws. You know. The Book of Vorbis? I suppose-” Dhblah leaned ... |
the people are plotting something, it said, the voice shrill with terror. Of course they are. Of course they are, said Vorbis. "And what is this plot?" There is some kind of. . . when you are confirmed as Cenobiarch. . . some kind of device, some machine that goes by itself. . . it will smash down the doors of the Temp... |
Urn cleaned pieces of the sand mould from the lever. "Well. . . natural philosophy," he said. The stick whanged down on the Moving Turtle's flanks. "I never taught you this sort of thing!" shouted the philosopher. "Philosophy is supposed to make life better! " "This will make it better for a lot of people," said Urn, c... |
If Om was alive, surely he could send a sign? A grating by Brutha's sandals lifted itself up a few inches and slid aside. He stared at the hole. A hooded head appeared, stared back, and disappeared again. There was a subterranean whispering. The head reappeared, and was followed by a body. It pulled itself on to the co... |
Yes? It's for twisting nuts off. Fergmen nodded miserably. Yes? he said. And this is a bottle of penetrating oil. Oh, good. Just give me a leg up, will you? It'll take time to unhook the linkage to the valve, so we might as well make a start. Urn heaved himself into the ancient machinery while, above, the ceremony dron... |
And, supporting the dome, the massive statues of the first four prophets. He'd never seen them. He'd heard about them every day of his childhood. And what did they mean now? They didn't mean anything. Nothing meant anything, if Vorbis was Prophet. Nothing meant anything, if the Cenobiarch was a man who'd heard nothing ... |
"You're saying I'm like him?" "Once you said you'd cut him down," said Urn. "Now you're thinking like him. . . So we rush them, then? said Simony. "I'm sure of-maybe four hundred on our side. So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does t... |
Every Free Country Along The Coast. To Stamp Out Omnia For Good. Or Bad. You don't have many friends, do you? said Urn. Even I don't like us much, and I am us, said Simony. He looked up at the god. Will you help? V. You Don't Even Believe In Me! Yes, but I'm a practical man. VI. And Brave, Too, To Declare Atheism Befor... |
A dot appeared, growing and contracting in the shimmering air. More troops poured ashore. General Argavisti shaded his eyes against the sun. Fella's just standing there, he said. Could be a spy, said Borvorius. Don't see how he could be a spy in his own country, said Argavisti. "Anyway, if he was a spy he'd be creepin'... |
Things have a way of wanting to happen, see? Sometimes you get people facing off and. . . that's it. " "But if only people would-” Yeah. You could use that as a commandment. There was a clanging noise, and a hatch opened on the side of the Turtle. Urn emerged, backward, holding a spanner. What is this thing? said Bruth... |
"I forgot that, for a moment. " He looked at the skull, and then turned to the little Goddess of Plenty. What's this, love? A cornucopia? Can I have a look? Thanks. Om emptied some of the fruit out. Then he nudged the Newt God. If I was you, friend, I'd find something long and hefty, he said. Is one less than fifty-one... |
[10] [10] Fasta Benj's people had no word for war, since they had no one to fight and life was quite tough enough as it was. P'Tang-P'tang's words had arrived as: "remember when Pacha Moj hit his uncle with big rock? Like that, only more worse. " Some of the new people had shown him this amazing way of making lightning... |
Nearly unreal. Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess, say, weight. Some people are more real than others, for example. It has been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on ... |
The explosion removed the windows, the door and most of the chimney. It was the sort of thing you expected in the Street of alchemists. The neighbors preferred explosions, which were at least identifiable and soon over. They were better than the smells, which crept up on you. Explosions were part of the scenery, such a... |
Ridcully the Brown had sighed, cursed a bit, found his staff in the kitchen garden where it had been supporting a scarecrow, and had set out. “And if he’s any problem,” the wizards had added, in the privacy of their own heads, “anyone who talks to trees should be no trouble to get rid of. ” And then he’d arrived, and i... |
By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered so far was the ability to turn gold into less gold. Until now… Now they were full of the nervous excitement of those who have found an unexpected fortune in their bank account and don’t know whether to draw people’s attention to it or simply tak... |
And was found. For there are Things outside, whose ability to sniff out tiny frail conglomerations of reality made the thing with the sharks and the trace of blood seem very boring indeed. They began to gather. A storm slid in across the sand dunes but, where it reached the low hill, the clouds seemed to curve away. On... |
” Victor Tugelbend, student wizard, picked up his battered copy of Necrotelicomnicon Discussed for Students, with Practical Experiments and turned the pages at random. He was lying on Ponder’s bed. At least, his shoulder blades were. His body extended up the wall. This is a perfectly normal position for a student takin... |
In fact, he was usually trying to work out what they had just said. And he had a thin mustache, which in a certain light made him look debonair and, in another, made him look as though he had been drinking a thick chocolate milk shake. He was quite proud of it. When you became a wizard you were expected to stop shaving... |
“You won’t live to regret it,” he said cheerfully, Victor nibbled a bit of onion. That was safe enough. “What’s all this?” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the flapping screen. “Some kind of entertainment,” said Dibbler. “Hot sausages! They’re lovely!” He lowered his voice again to its normal conspiratorial... |
After ten seconds, and against all reason, he turned it over again just in case there had been a mistake and the rest of the questions had somehow been on the top side after all. Around him there was the intense silence of fifty-nine minds creaking with sustained effort. Ponder turned the paper over again. Perhaps it w... |
“Hey!” he said, “Sorry! Excuse me? Miss?” She stopped, and waited impatiently as he caught up. “Well?” she said. She was a foot shorter than him and her shape was doubtful since most of her was covered in a ridiculously frilly dress, although the dress wasn’t as ludicrous as the big blond wig full of ringlets. And her ... |
“I see,” said Silverfish gloomily. “Can’t sing. Can’t dance. Can handle a sword a little. ” “But I have saved your life twice,” said Victor. “Twice?” snapped Silverfish. “Yes,” said Victor. He took a deep breath. This was going to be risky. “Then,” he said, “and now. ” There was a long pause. Then Silverfish said, “I r... |
” He clasped Silverfish’s unresisting hand and then placed his other hand on the man’s shoulder and stepped forward, pumping the first hand vigorously. The effect was of acute affability, and it meant that if Silverfish backed away he would dislocate his own elbow. “And I’d just like you to know,” Dibbler went on, “tha... |
On it was written, in shaky handwriting: After thys perfromans, Why Notte Visit Harga’s Hous of Ribs, For the Best inne Hawt Cuisyne “What’s hawt cuisyne?” said Victor. “It’s foreign,” said Dibbler. He scowled at Victor. Someone like Victor under the same roof wasn’t part of the plan. He’d been hoping to get Silverfish... |
What Victor would like to have said was: but you’re trolls , fierce animated rocks that live in the mountains and bash travelers with huge clubs very similar to the ones you’re holding now, and I thought when they said trolls they meant ordinary men dressed up in, oh, I don’t know, sacking painted gray or something. “O... |
“They say, ‘There’s plenty of other people out there just waiting for a chance to get into moving pictures. ’ That’s what they say. ” She leaned against a gnarled tree and fanned herself with her straw hat. “And it’s too hot,” she complained. “And now I’ve got to do a ridiculous one-reeler for Silverfish, who hasn’t go... |
” “It’s the way they go around being seven foot tall and weighing 1,000 pounds all the time, I expect,” said Victor. “My name’s Theda Withel, but my friends call me Ginger,” she said. “My name’s Victor Tugelbend. Er. But my friends call me Victor,” said Victor. “This is your first click, is it?” “How can you tell?” “Yo... |
One such was Nodar Borgle the Klatchian, whose huge echoing shed wasn’t so much a restaurant as a feeding factory. Great steaming tureens occupied one end. The rest of it was tables, and around the tables were— Victor was astonished. —there were trolls, humans and dwarfs. And a few gnomes. And perhaps even a few elves,... |
There was nothing you couldn’t buy in Ankh-Morpork, even in the middle of the night. Dibbler had a lot of things to buy. He needed posters painted. He needed all sorts of things. Many of them involved ideas he’d had to invent in his head on the long ride, and now had to explain very carefully to other people. And he ha... |
“They do say,” he said, “that she’s the daughter of a Klatchian pirate and his wild, headstrong captive, and he’s the son of…the son of…a rogue wizard and a reckless gypsy flamenco dancer. ” “Cor!” said Bezam, impressed despite himself. Dibbler permitted himself a mental slap on the back. He’d been quite taken with it ... |
In the front row the Librarian sat with a bag of peanuts in his lap. After a few minutes he stopped chewing and sat with his mouth open, staring and staring and staring at the flickering images. “Hold your horse, sir? Ma’am?” “No!” By mid-day Victor had earned tuppence. It wasn’t that people didn’t have horses that nee... |
So she go home and get her club and come back and beat him to death, thump, thump, thump. ’Cos he was her troll and he done her wrong. Is very romantic song. ” Victor stared. Ruby undulated down from the tiny stage and glided among the customers, a small mountain in a four-wheel skid. She must weigh two tons, he though... |
You’re supposed to be bloody amazed I can bloody well get a squeak out of the bloody thing. ” How shall I put it? Victor thought. Do I just say: excuse me, you appear to be tal…No, probably not. “Er,” he said. Hey, you’re quite chatty for…no. “Fleas,” said Gaspode, changing ears and legs. “Giving me gyp. ” “Oh dear. ” ... |
“What’s up, Duck?” said the rabbit. “The duck says,” translated Gaspode, “that it’s like a migratory thing. Just the same feelin’ as a migration, he says. ” “Yeah? I didn’t have far to come,” the rabbit volunteered. “We lived on the dunes anyway. ” It sighed. “For three happy years and four miserable days,” it added. A... |
“We’re shooting first thing in the morning,” said Dibbler. “But Mr. Silverfish said I wasn’t going to work in this town again—” Victor began. Dibbler opened his mouth, and hesitated just for a moment. “Ah. Yes. But I’m going to give you another chance,” he said, speaking quite slowly for once. “Yeah. A chance. Like, yo... |
He put his arm around Victor’s shoulder and half walked, half dragged him toward the tents. “This is going to be a great picture!” he said. “Oh, good,” said Victor weakly. “You play this bandit chieftain,” said Dibbler, “only a nice guy, too, kind to women and so forth, and you raid this village and you carry off this ... |
“That’s just messing about!” “Excuse me,” said Victor. “Excuse me, but surely it doesn’t matter, because surely the demons can paint the sky black with stars on it?” There was a moment’s silence. Then Dibbler looked at Gaffer. “Can they?” he said. “Nah,” said the handleman. “It’s bloody hard enough to make sure they pa... |
Not that I’m any judge,” said Rock, “but it seemed to go on for a while. Definitely very, you know, kissy. ” “I thought it was going to be bucket-of-water time myself,” said a quiet canine voice behind Victor. He kicked out backward, but failed to connect. “And then he was back on the camel and dragged her up and Mr. D... |
“It would have been nice,” he said. M’Bu scratched his head and stared at the hammerhead clouds massing over Mt F’twangi. Soon the dry veldt would boom to the thunder of the rains. Then he reached down and picked up the stick. “What’re you doing?” said Azhural. “Drawing a map, boss,” said M’Bu. Azhural shook his head. ... |
“I’m going to be the most famous person in the world, everyone will fall in love with me, and I shall live forever. ” “It’s always best to know your own mind,” said Victor diplomatically. “You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?” said Ginger, not paying him the least attention. “It’s all the people wh... |
“I’ve been fired once, thank you. ” “And he took you on again at more money,” said Gaspode. “Funny, that. ” He scratched an ear. “Tell him your contract says you can have a day off. ” “I haven’t got a contract. You know that. You work, you get paid. It’s simple. ” “Yeah,” said Gaspode. “Yeah. Yeah? A verbal contract. I... |
He stopped listening, partly because Victor was going to get his day off and was very likely going to get paid for it as well, but mainly because another dog had been led into the room. It was huge and glossy. Its coat shone like honey. Gaspode recognized it as pure-bred Ramtop hunting dog. When it sat down beside him,... |
It was true that they could remember what they heard and repeat it after a fashion, but there was no way to turn them off and they were in the habit of ad-libbing other sounds they’d heard or, Dibbler suspected, had been taught by mischievous handlemen. Thus, brief snatches of romantic dialogue would be punctuated with... |
“See,” he said, “it could be the man figure is only part of a word. See? It’s always to the right of this other picture, which looks a bit like—a bit like a doorway, or something. So it might really mean—” he hesitated. “‘Doorway/man,’” he hazarded. He turned the book slightly. “Could be some old king,” said Gaspode. “... |
Cannibal books, books which, it left on a shelf with their weaker brethren, would be found looking considerably fatter and more smug in the smoking ashes next morning. Books whose mere contents pages could reduce the unprotected mind to gray cheese. Books that were not just books of magic, but magical books. There’s a ... |
There was a sort of gormless unstoppability about him that she found rather fascinating. That was the instincts at work again—intelligence has never been a particularly valuable survival trait in a troll. And she had to admit that, whatever she might attempt in the way of feather boas and fancy hats, she was pushing 14... |
He’d mentioned them to M’Bu, who said, “We’ll cross them bridges when we get to ’em, boss,” and when Azhural had pointed out that there weren’t any bridges, had looked him squarely in the eye and said firmly, “First we build them bridge, then we cross ’em. ” Far beyond the mountains was the Circle Sea and Ankh-Morpork ... |
“We’re poor li’l lambs,” Gaspode howled, “wot have loorst our way…” “Woof! Woof! Woof!” “We’re li’l loorst sheeps wot have—wot have…” Gaspode sagged down, and scratched an ear, or at least where he vaguely thought an ear might be. His leg waved uncertainly in the air. Laddie gave him a sympathetic look. It had been an ... |
“If some of the dogs in this town see me chatting to a cat, my street cred is going to go way down. ” “We were reckoning,” said the cat, with the occasional nervous glance toward Squeak, “that maybe we ought to give in and see if, see if, see if—” “He’s trying to say there might be a place for us in moving pictures,” s... |
If I was a wolf, which technic’ly I am, he thought, there’d definitely be a rending of jaws and similar. Any girl wandering around by herself would be in dead trouble. I could attack, I could attack any time I liked, I’m jus’ choosing not to. One thing I’m not doin’, I’m not sort of keepin’ an eye on her. I know Victor... |
Silverfish wasn’t used to reading matter that didn’t come in columns with totals at the bottom. Eventually he said, “You’re going…to…set it on fire?” “It’s historical. You can’t argue with history,” said Dibbler smugly. “The city was burned down in the civil war, everyone knows that. ” Silverfish drew himself up. “The ... |
The common people, having been heavily taxed by a particularly stupid and unpleasant king, decided that enough was enough and that it was time to do away with the outmoded concept of monarchy and replace it with, as it turned out, a series of despotic overlords who still taxed heavily but at least had the decency not t... |
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