Terry Pratchett - Sourcery

The hat's voice wasn't only clothy. It also had a strange choral effect, as if an awful lot of voices were talking at the same time, in almost perfect unison.

Rincewind pulled himself together.

'O great and wonderful hat,' he said pompously, 'strike down this impudent girl who has had the audacity, nay, the-’

Oh, do shut up. She stole us because we ordered her to. It was a near thing, too.

'But she's a-’ Rincewind hesitated. 'She's of the female persuasion...' he muttered.

So was your mother.

'Yes, well, but she ran away before I was born,' Rincewind mumbled.

Of all the disreputable taverns in all the city you could have walked into, you walked into his, complained the hat.

'He was the only wizard I could find,' said the girl, 'He looked the part. He had 'blizzard' written on his hat and everything.'

Don't believe everything you read. Too late now, anyway. We haven't got much time.

'Hold on, hold on,' said Rincewind urgently, 'What's going on? You wanted her to steal you? Why haven't we got much time?' He pointed an accusing finger at the hat. 'Anyway, you can't go around letting yourself be stolen, you're supposed to be on - on the Archchancellor's head! The ceremony was tonight, I should have been there-’

Something terrible is happening at the University. It is vital that we are not taken back, do you understand? You must take us to Klatch, where there is someone fit to wear me.

'Why?' There was something very strange about the voice, Rincewind decided. It sounded impossible to disobey, as though it was solid destiny. If it told him to walk over a cliff, he thought, he'd be halfway down before it could occur to him to disobey.

The death of all wizardry is at hand.

Rincewind looked around guiltily.

'Why?' he said.

The world is going to end.

'What, again?'

I mean it, said the hat sulkily. The triumph of the Ice Giants, the Apocralypse, the Teatime of the Gods, the whole thing.

'Can we stop it?'

The future is uncertain on that point.

Rincewind's expression of determined terror faded slowly.

'Is this a riddle?' he said.

Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you're told and didn't try to understand things, said the hat. Young woman, you will put us back in our box. A great many people will shortly be looking for us.

'Hey, hold on,' said Rincewind. 'I've seen you around here for years and you never talked before.'

I didn't have anything that needed to be said.

Rincewind nodded. That seemed reasonable.

'Look, just shove it in its box, and let's get going,' said the girl.

A bit more respect if you please, young lady,' said Rincewind haughtily. 'That is the symbol of ancient wizardry you happen to be addressing.'

'You carry it, then,' she said.

'Hey, look,' said Rincewind, scrambling along after her as she swept down the alleys, crossed a narrow street and entered another alley between a couple of houses that leaned together so drunkenly that their upper storeys actually touched. She stopped.

'Well?' she snapped.

'You're the mystery thief, aren't you?' he said, 'Everyone's been talking about you, how you've taken things even from locked rooms and everything. You're different than I imagined...'

'Oh?' she said coldly. 'How?'

'Well, you're ... shorter.'

'Oh, come on.'

The street cressets, not particularly common in this part of the city in any case, gave out altogether here. There was nothing but watchful darkness ahead.

'I said come on,' she repeated. 'What are you afraid of?'

Rincewind took a deep breath. 'Murderers, muggers, thieves, assassins, pickpockets, cutpurses, reevers, snigsmen, rapists and robbers,' he said. 'That's the Shades you're going into!' [8] The Ankh-Morpork Merchants' Guild publication Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises describes the area of Old Morpork known as The Shades as "a folklorique network of old alleys and picturesque streets, wherre exitment and romans lurkes arounde everry corner and much may be heard the traditinal street cries of old time also the laughing visages of the denuizens as they goe about their business private." In other words, you have been warned.

'Yes, but people won't come looking for us in here,' she said.

'Oh, they'll come in all right, they just won't come out,' said Rincewind. 'Nor will we. I mean, a beautiful young woman like you ... it doesn't bear thinking about ... I mean, some of the people in there ...'

'But I'll have you to protect me,' she said.

Rincewind thought he heard the sound of marching feet several streets away.

'You know,' he sighed, 'I knew you’d say that.'

Down these mean streets a man must walk, he thought. And along some of them he will break into a run.

It is so black in the Shades on this foggy spring night that it would be too dark to read about Rincewind's progress through the eerie streets, so the descriptive passage will lift up above the level of the ornate rooftops, the forest of twisty chimneys, and admire the few twinkling stars that manage to pierce the swirling billows. It will try to ignore the sounds drifting up from below the patter of feet, the rushes, the gristly noises, the groans, the muffled screams. It could be that some wild animal is pacing through the Shades after two weeks on a starvation diet.

Somewhere near the centre of the Shades - the district has never been adequately mapped - is a small courtyard. Here at least there are torches on the walls, but the light they throw is the light of the Shades themselves: mean, reddened, dark at the core.

Rincewind staggered into the yard and hung on to the wall for support. The girl stepped into the ruddy light behind him, humming to herself.

'Are you all right?' she said.

'Nurrgh,' said Rincewind.

'Sorry?'

'Those men,' he bubbled, 'I mean, the way you kicked his ... when you grabbed them by the ... when you stabbed that one right in ... who are you?'

'My name is Conina.'

Rincewind looked at her blankly for some time.

'Sorry,' he said, 'doesn't ring a bell.'

'I haven't been here long,' she said.

'Yes, I didn't think you were from around these parts,' he said. 'I would have heard.'

'I've taken lodgings here. Shall we go in?'

Rincewind glanced up at the dingy pole just visible in the smoky light of the spitting torches. It indicated that the hostelry behind the small dark door was the Troll's Head.

It might be thought that the Mended Drum, scene of unseemly scuffles only an hour ago, was a seedy disreputable tavern. In fact it was a reputable disreputable tavern. Its customers had a certain rough-hewn respectability - they might murder each other in an easygoing way, as between equals, but they didn't do it vindictively. A child could go in for a glass of lemonade and be certain of getting nothing worse than a clip round the ear when his mother heard his expanded vocabulary. On quiet nights, and when he was certain the Librarian wasn't going to come in, the landlord was even known to put bowls of peanuts on the bar.

The Troll's Head was a cesspit of a different odour. Its customers, if they reformed, tidied themselves up and generally improved their image out of all recognition might, just might, aspire to be considered the utter dregs of humanity. And in the Shades, a dreg is a dreg.

By the way, the thing on the pole isn't a sign. When they decided to call the place the Troll's Head, they didn't mess about.

Feeling sick, and clutching the grumbling hatbox to his chest, Rincewind stepped inside.

Silence. It wrapped itself around them, nearly as thickly as the smoke of a dozen substances guaranteed to turn any normal brain to cheese. Suspicious eyes peered through the smog.

A couple of dice clattered to a halt on a tabletop. They sounded very loud, and probably weren't showing Rincewind's lucky number.