‘A frozen grin, I’d call it.’
The man’s icicle-hung hands had been taking the lid off the box, and the glow from the hat’s octarines shone up into a pair of greedy eyes that were already heavily rimed with frost.
‘Know him?’ said Conina.
Rincewind shrugged. ‘I’ve seen him around,’ he said. ‘He’s called Larry the Fox or Fezzy the Stoat or something. Some sort of rodent, anyway. He just steals things. He’s harmless.’
‘He looks incredibly cold.’ Conina shivered.
‘I expect he’s gone to a warmer place. Don’t you think we should shut the box?’
It’s perfectly safe now, said the hat’s voice from inside the glow. And so perish all enemies of wizardry. >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.’