It sounded like dice.
“Rincewind?”
The long aisles of trees threw Twoflower’s voice from side to side and eventually tossed it back to him, unheeded. He sat down on a rock and tried to think.
Firstly, he was lost. That was vexing, but it did not worry him unduly. The forest looked quite interesting and probably held elves or gnomes, perhaps both. In fact on a couple of occasions he had thought he had seen strange green faces peering down at him from the branches. Twoflower had always wanted to meet an elf. In fact what he really wanted to meet was a dragon, but an elf would do. Or a real goblin.
His Luggage was missing, and that was annoying. It was also starting to rain. He squirmed uncomfortably on the damp stone, and tried to look on the bright side. for example, during its mad dash his plunging horse had burst through some rushes and disturbed a she-bear with her cubs, but had gone on before the bear could react. Then it had suddenly been galloping over the sleeping bodies of a large wolf pack and, again, its mad speed had been such that the furious yelping had been left far behind. Nevertheless, the day was wearing on and perhaps it would be a good idea - Twoflower thought
- not to hang about, in the open. Perhaps there was a…he racked his brains trying to remember what sort of accommodation forests traditionally offered… perhaps there was a ginger bread house or something?
The stone really was uncomfortable. Twoflower looked down and, for the first time, noticed the strange carving.
It looked like a spider. Or was it a squid? Moss and lichens rather blurred the precise details. But they didn’t blur the runes carved below it. Twoflower could read them clearly, and they said:
Traveller the hospitable temple of Bel-Shamharoth lies one thousand paces Hubwards.
Now this was strange, Twoflower realized, because although he could read the message the actual letters were completely unknown to him. Somehow the message was arriving in his brain without the tedious necessity of passing through his eyes.
He stood up and untied his now-riddable horse from a sapling. He wasn’t sure which way the Hub lay, but there seemed to be an old track of sorts leading away between the trees. This Bel-Shamharoth seemed prepared to go out of his way to help stranded travellers. In any case, it was that or the wolves. Twoflower nodded decisively.
It is interesting to note that, several hours later, a couple of wolves who were following Twoflower’s scent arrived in the glade. Their green eyes fell on the strange eight-legged carving -which may indeed have been a spider, or an octopus, or may yet again have been something altogether more strange -and they immediately decided that they weren’t so hungry, at that.
About three miles away a failed wizard was hanging by his hands from a high branch in a beech tree.
This was the end result of five minutes of crowded activity. First, an enraged she-bear had barged through the undergrowth and taken the throat out of his horse with one swipe of her paw. Then, as Rincewind had fled the carnage, he had run into a glade in which a number of irate wolves were milling about. His instructors at Unseen University, who had despaired of Rincewind’s inability to master levitation, would have then been amazed at the speed with which he reached and climbed the nearest tree, without apparently touching it.
Now there was just the matter of the snake.
It was large and green, and wound itself along the branch with reptilian patience. Rincewind wondered if it was poisonous, then chided himself for asking such a silly question. Of course it would be poisonous.
“What are you grinning for?” he asked the figure on the next branch.
I CAN’T HELP IT, said Death. NOW WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO LET GO? I CAN’T HANG AROUND ALL DAY.
“I can,” said Rincewind defiantly.
The wolves clustered around the base of the tree looked up with interest at their next meal talking to himself.
IT WON’T HURT, said Death. If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.
Rincewind’s arms screamed their agony at him. He scowled at the vulture-like, slightly transparent figure.
“Won’t hurt?” he said. “Being torn apart by wolves won’t hurt?”
He noticed another branch crossing his dangerously narrowing one a few feet away. If he could just reach it…
He swung himself forward, one hand outstretched. The branch, already bending, did not break. It simply made a wet little sound and twisted. Rincewind found that he was now hanging on to the end of a tongue of bark and fibre, lengthening as it peeled away from the tree. He looked down, and with a sort of fatal satisfaction realized that he would land right on the biggest wolf.
Now he was moving slowly as the bark peeled back in a longer and longer strip. The snake watched him thoughtfully.
But the growing length of bark held. Rincewind began to congratulate himself until, looking up, he saw what he had hitherto not noticed. There was the largest hornets’ nest he had ever seen, hanging right in his path.
He shut his eyes tightly.
Why the troll? he asked himself. Everything else is just my usual luck, but why the troll? What the hell is going on?
Click. It may have been a twig snapping, except that the sound appeared to be inside Rincewind’s head. Click, click. And a breeze that failed to set a single leaf atremble.