Part 2 (1/2)
”May I be of a.s.sistance?” he ventured.
”Shove off, Rincewind,” snarled Broadman.
”I only thought it might be useful to address this gentleman in his own tongue,” said the wizard gently.
”He's doing all right on his own,” said the innkeeper, but took a few steps backward.
Rincewind smiled politely at the stranger and tried a few words of Chimeran. He prided himself on his fluency in the tongue, but the stranger only looked bemused.
”It won't work,” said Hugh knowledgeably. ”It's the book, you see. It tells him what to say. Magic.”
Rincewind switched to High Borogravian, to Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even Black Oroogu, the language with no nouns and only one adjective, which is obscene. Each was met with polite incomprehension. In desperation he tried heathen Trob, and the little man's face split into a delighted grin.
”At last!” he said. ”My good sir! This is remarkable!” (Although in Trob the last word in fact became ”a thing which may happen but once in the usable lifetime of a canoe hollowed diligently by ax and fire from the tallest diamondwood tree that grows in the noted diamondwood forests on the lower slopes of Mount Awayawa, home of the fireG.o.ds or so it is said.”) ”What was all that?” said Broadman suspiciously.
”What did the innkeeper say?” said the little man.
Rincewind swallowed. ”Broadman,” he said. ”Two mugs of your best ale, please.”
”You can understand him?”
”Oh, sure.”
”Tell him-tell him he's very welcome. Tell him breakfast is-uh-one gold piece.” For a moment Broadman's face looked as though some vast internal struggle was going on, and then he added with a burst of generosity, ”I'll throw in yours, too.”
”Stranger,” said Rincewind levelly. ”If you stay here you will be knifed or poisoned by nightfall. But don't stop smiling, or so will I.”
”Oh, come now,” said the stranger, looking around. ”This looks like a delightful place. A genuine Morporkean tavern. I've heard so much about them, you know. All these quaint old beams. And so reasonable, too.”
Rincewind glanced around quickly, in case some leakage of enchantment from the Magician's Quarter across the river had momentarily transported them to some other place. No-this was still the interior of the Drum, its walls stained with smoke, its floor a compost of old rushes and nameless beetles, its sour beer not so much purchased as merely hired for a while. He tried to fit the image around the word ”quaint,” or rather the nearest Trob equivalent, which was ”that pleasant oddity of design found in the little coral houses of the sponge-eating pigmies on the Orohai peninsular.”
His mind reeled back from the effort. The visitor went on, ”My name is Twoflower,” and extended his hand. Instinctively, the other three looked down to see if there was a coin in it.
”Pleased to meet you,” said Rincewind. ”I'm Rincewind. Look, I wasn't joking. This is a tough place.”
”Good! Exactly what I wanted!”
”Eh?”
”What is this stuff in the mugs?”
”This? Beer. Thanks, Broadman. Yes. Beer. You know. Beer.”
”Ah. The so-typical drink. A small gold piece will be sufficient payment, do you think? I do not want to cause offense.”
It was already half out of his purse.
”Yarrt,” croaked Rincewind. ”I mean, no, it won't cause offense.”
”Good. You say this is a tough place. Frequented, you mean, by heroes and men of adventure?”
Rincewind considered this. ”Yes?” he managed.
”Excellent. I would like to meet some.”
An explanation occurred to the wizard. ”Ah,” he said. ”You've come to hire mercenaries ('warriors who fight for the tribe with most milknut meal')?”
”Oh no. I just want to meet them. So that when I get home I can say that I did it.”
Rincewind thought that a meeting with most of the Drum's clientele would mean that Twoflower never went home again, unless he lived downriver and happened to float past.
”Where is your home?” he inquired. Broadman had slipped away into some back room, he noticed. Hugh was watching them suspiciously from a nearby table.
”Have you heard of the city of Bes Palargic?”
”Well, I didn't spend much time in Trob. I was just pa.s.sing through, you know-”
”Oh, it's not in Trob. I speak Trob because there are many beTrobi sailors in our ports. Bes Palargic is the major seaport of the Agatean Empire.”
”Never heard of it, I'm afraid?”
Twoflower raised his eyebrows. ”No? It is quite big. You sail turnwise from the Brown Islands for about a week and there it is. Are you all right?”
He hurried around the table and patted the wizard on the back. Rincewind choked on his beer.
The Counterweight Continent!
Three streets away an old man dropped a coin into a saucer of acid and swirled it gently. Broadman waited impatiently, ill at ease in a room made noisome by vats and bubbling beakers and lined with shelves containing shadowy shapes suggestive of skulls and stuffed impossibilities.
”Well?” he demanded.
”One cannot hurry these things,” said the old alchemist peevishly. ”a.s.saying takes time. Ah.” He prodded the saucer, where the coin now lay in a swirl of green color. He made some calculations on a sc.r.a.p of parchment.
”Exceptionally interesting,” he said at last.
”Is it genuine?”
The old man pursed his lips. ”It depends on how you define the term,” he said. ”If you mean: is this coin the same as, say, a fifty-dollar piece, then the answer is no.”
”I knew knew it,” screamed the innkeeper, and started toward the door. it,” screamed the innkeeper, and started toward the door.
”I'm not sure that I'm making myself clear,” said the alchemist. Broadman turned around angrily.
”What do you mean?”