Eric

Rincewind nodded, and glumly continued the endless walk. After a few minutes he said: “Has it struck you we seem to be going faster?”

Eric turned around.

The Luggage had stepped aboard and was trying to catch up with them.

Astfgl stood in front of his mirror.

“Show me what they can see,” he commanded.

Yes, master.

Astfgl inspected the whirring image for a moment.

“Tell me what this means,” he said.

I’m just a mirror, master. What do I know?

Astfgl growled. “And I’m Lord of Hades,” he said, gesturing with his trident. “And I’m prepared to risk another seven years’ bad luck.”

The mirror considered the available options.

I might be able to hear some creaking, lord, it ventured.

“And?”

I smell smoke.

“No smoke. I specifically banned all open fires. A very old-fashioned concept. It gave the place a bad name.”

Nevertheless, master.

“Show me … Hades.”

The mirror gave of its best. The King was just in time to see the treadwheel, its bearings glowing red hot, crash down from its mountings and roll, as deceptively slowly as an avalanche, across the country of the damned.

Rincewind hung from the pushbar, watching the rungs whirr past at a speed that would have burned the soles off his sandals if he’d been foolish enough to let his feet down. The dead, however, were taking it all with the cheerful aplomb of those who know that the worst has already happened to them. Cries of “Pass the candyfloss,” drifted down. He heard Lavaeolus commending the wheel’s splendid traction and explaining to da Quirm how, if you have a vehicle which put down its road in front of it, just like the Luggage was in fact doing, and then you covered it with armour, then wars would be less bloody, over in half the time and everyone could spend even longer going home.

The Luggage made no comment at all. It could see its master hanging a few feet away, and just kept going. It may have occurred to it that the journey was taking some time, but that was Time’s problem. And so, flinging out the occasional screaming soul, bumping and gyrating and crushing the occasional luckless demon, the wheel bowled on.

It smashed against the opposite cliff.

***

Lord Vassenego smiled.

“Now,” he said, “it is time.”

The other senior demons looked a bit shifty. They were, of course, steeped in evil, and Astfgl was definitely Not One Of Us and the most revolting little oik ever to oil his way into the post …

But … well, this … perhaps there were some things that were too …

“‘Learn from the ways of humans’,” mimicked Vassenego. “He bade me learn from humans. Me! The impudence! The arrogance! But I watched, oh, yes. I learned. I planned.”

The look on his face was unspeakable. Even the lords of the nethermost circles, who gloried in villainy, had to turn their heads.

Duke Drazometh the Putrid raised a hesitant talon.

“But if he even suspects,” he said, “I mean, he has a foul temper on him. Those memos—” He shuddered.

“But what are we doing?” Vassenego spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Where is the harm in it? Brothers, I ask you: where is the harm?”

His fingers curled. The knuckles shone white under the thin, blue-veined skin as he surveyed the doubting faces.

“Or would you rather receive another statement of policy?” he said.

Expressions twitched as the lords made up their minds like a row of dominoes falling over. There were some things on which even they were united. No more policy statements, no more consultative documents, no more morale-boosting messages to all staff. This was Hell, but you had to draw the line somewhere.

Earl Beezlemoth rubbed one of his three noses. “And humans somewhere thought this up all by themselves?” he said. “We didn’t give them any, you know, hints?”

Vassenego shook his head.

“All their own work,” he said proudly, like a fond schoolmaster who has just seen a star pupil graduate summa cum laude.

The earl stared into infinity. “I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones,” he said, his voice filled with awe.

The old lord nodded. He’d waited a long time for this. While others had talked of red-hot revolution he’d just stared out into the world of men, and watched, and marvelled.

This Rincewind character had been extremely useful. He’d managed to keep the King totally occupied. He’d been worth all the effort. The damn-fool human still thought it was his fingers doing the business! Three wishes, indeed!

And thus it was, when Rincewind pulled himself free of the wreckage of the wheel, he found Astfgl, King of Demons, Lord of Hell, Master of the Pit, standing over him.

Astfgl had passed through the earlier stage of fury and was now in that calm lagoon of rage where the voice is steady, the manner is measured and polite, and only a faint trace of spittle at the corner of the mouth betrays the inner inferno.

Eric crawled out from under a broken spar and looked up.

“Oh dear,” he said.