Rincewind tried again, screwing up his eyes and straining every nerve in his body. A dragon. His imagination, a somewhat battered and over-used organ, reached out for a dragon… any dragon.
IT WON’T WORK, laughed a voice like the dull tolling of a funereal bell, YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN THEM.
Rincewind looked at the terrible mounted apparition grinning at him, and his mind bolted in terror.
There was a brilliant flash.
There was utter darkness.
There was a soft floor under Rincewind’s feet, a pink light around him, and the sudden shocked cries of many people.
He looked around wildly. He was standing in some kind of tunnel, which was mostly filled with seats in which outlandishly-dressed people had been strapped. They were all shouting at him.
“Wake up,” he hissed. “Help me!”
Dragging the still-unconscious tourist with him he backed away from the mob until his free hand found an oddly-shaped door handle. He twisted it and ducked through, then slammed it hard. He stared around the new room in which he found himself and met the terrified gaze of a young woman who dropped the tray she was holding and screamed.
It sounded like the sort of scream that brings muscular help. Rincewind, awash with fear-distilled adrenalin, turned and barged past her. There were more seats here, and the people in them ducked as he dragged Twoflower urgently along the central gangway. Beyond the rows of seats were little windows. Beyond the windows, against a background of fleecy clouds, was a dragon’s wing. It was silver.
I’ve been eaten by a dragon, he thought. That’s ridiculous, he replied, you can’t see out of dragons. Then his shoulder hit the door at the far end of the tunnel, and he followed it through into a cone-shaped room that was even stranger than the tunnel.
It was full of tiny glittering lights. Among the lights, in contoured chairs, were four men who were now staring at him open-mouthed. As he stared back he saw their gazes dart sideways. Rincewind turned slowly. Beside him was a fifth man -youngish, bearded, as swarthy as the nomad folk of the Great Nef.
“Where am I?” said the wizard. “in the belly of a dragon?”
The young man crouched back and shoved a small black box in the wizard’s face. The men in the chairs ducked down.
“What is it?” said Rincewind. “A picture box?” He reached out and took it, a movement which appeared to surprise the swarthy man, who shouted and tried to snatch it back. There was another shout, this time from one of the men in the chairs. Only now he wasn’t sitting. He was standing up, pointing something small and metallic at the young man.
It had an amazing effect. The man crouched back with his hands in the air.
“Please give me the bomb, sir,” said the man with the metallic thing. “Carefully, please.”
“This thing?” said Rincewind.
“You have it-“
“I don’t want it!”
The man took it very carefully and put it on the floor. The seated men relaxed, and one of them started speaking urgently to the wall. The wizard watched him in amazement.
“Don’t move.” snapped the man with the metal-an amulet, Rincewind decided, it must be an amulet. The swarthy man backed into the corner.
“That was a very brave thing you did,” said Amulet-holder to Rincewind. “You know that?
“What?”
“What’s the matter with your friend?”
“Friend?”
Rincewind looked down at Twoflower, who was still slumbering peacefully. That was no surprise. What was really surprising was that Twoflower was wearing new clothes. Strange clothes. His britches now ended just above his knees. Above that he wore some sort of vest of brightly-striped material. On his head was a ridiculous little straw hat. With a feather in it.
An awkward feeling around the leg regions made Rincewind look down. His clothes had changed too. Instead of the comfortable old robe, so marvellously well-adapted for speed into action in all possible contingencies, his legs were encased in cloth tubes. He was wearing a jacket of the same grey material…
Until now he’d never heard the language the man with the amulet was using. It was uncouth and vaguely Hublandish - so why could he understand every word?
Let’s see, they’d suddenly appeared in this dragon after, they’d materialised in this drag, they’d sudd, they’d, they’d - they had struck up a conversation in the airport so naturally they had chosen to sit together on the plane, and he’d promised to show Jack Zweiblumen around when they got back to the States. Yes, that was it. And then Jack had been taken ill and he’d panicked and come through here and surprised this hijacker. Of course. What on earth was “Hublandish”? Dr Rjinswand rubbed his forehead. What he could do with was a drink.