creatures.
âOw!â
âWell, you should keep still!â
âItâs a little difficult to keep still knowing who it is thatâs waving a couple of steel blades around my head!â
And so the morning passed, with scudding wavelets, the creaking of the rigging, and a rather complex layer cut. Rincewind had to admit, looking at himself in a shard of mirror, that there was a definite improvement.
The captain had said that they were bound for the city of Al Khali, on the hubward coast of Klatch.
âLike Ankh, only with sand instead of mud,â said Rincewind, leaning over the rail. âBut quite a good slave market.â
âSlavery is immoral,â said Conina firmly.
âIs it? Gosh,â said Rincewind.
âWould you like me to trim your beard?â said Conina, hopefully.
She stopped, scissors drawn, and stared out to sea.
âIs there a kind of sailor that uses a canoe with sort of extra bits on the side and a sort of red eye painted on the front and a small sail?â she said.
âIâve heard of Klatchian slave pirates,â said Rincewind, âbut this is a big boat. I shouldnât think one of them would dare attack it.â
âOne of them wouldnât,â said Conina, still staring at the fuzzy area where the sea became the sky, âbut these five might.â
Rincewind peered at the distant haze, and then looked up at the man on watch, who shook his head.
âCome on,â he chuckled, with all the humour of a blocked drain. âYou canât really see anything out there. Can you?â
âTen men in each canoe,â said Conina grimly.
âLook, a jokeâs a jokeââ
âWith long curvy swords.â
âWell, I canât see aââ
ââtheir long and rather dirty hair blowing in the windââ
âWith split ends, I expect?â said Rincewind sourly.
âAre you trying to be funny?â
âMe?â
âAnd hereâs me without a weapon,â said Conina, sweeping back across the deck. âI bet there isnât a decent sword anywhere on this boat.â
âNever mind. Perhaps theyâve just come for a quick shampoo.â
While Conina rummaged frantically in her pack Rincewind sidled over to the Archchancellorâs hatbox and cautiously raised the lid.
âThereâs nothing out there, is there?â he asked.
How should I know? Put me on.
âWhat? On my head?â
Good grief.
âBut Iâm not an Archchancellor!â said Rincewind. âI mean, Iâve heard of cool-headed, butââ
I need to use your eyes. Now put me on. On your head.
âUm.â
Trust me.
Rincewind couldnât disobey. He gingerly removed his battered grey hat, looked longingly at its dishevelled star, and lifted the Archchancellorâs hat out of its box. It felt rather heavier than heâd expected. The octarines around the crown were glowing faintly.
He lowered it carefully on to his new hairstyle, clutching the brim tightly in case he felt the first icy chill.
In fact he simply felt incredibly light. And there was a feeling of great knowledge and power â not actually present, but just, mentally speaking, on the tip of his metaphorical tongue.
Odd scraps of memory flickered across his mind, and they werenât any memories he remembered remembering before. He probed gently, as one touches a hollow tooth with the tongue, and there they wereâ
Two hundred dead Archchancellors, dwindling into the leaden, freezing past, one behind the other, watched him with blank grey eyes.
Thatâs why itâs so cold, he told himself, the warmth seeps into the dead world. Oh, no...
When the hat spoke, he saw two hundred pairs of pale lips move.
Who are you?
Rincewind, thought Rincewind. And in the inner recesses of his head he tried to think privately to himself . . . help.
He felt his knees begin to buckle under the weight of
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