‘What?’ he said, and then he said, ‘Oh.’
‘Got it? Want to try it one more time?’
Rincewind nodded gloomily.
‘I don’t think you understand. A wizard isn’t what you do, it’s what you are. If I wasn’t a wizard, I wouldn’t be anything.’ He took off his hat and twiddled nervously with the loose star on its point, causing a few more cheap sequins to part company.
‘I mean, it’s got wizard written on my hat,’ he said. ‘It’s very important -’
He stopped and stared at the hat.
‘Hat,’ he said vaguely, aware of some importunate memory pressing its nose up against the windows of his mind.
‘It’s a good hat,’ said Nijel, who felt that something was expected of him.
‘Hat,’ said Rincewind again, and then added, ‘the hat! We’ve got to get the hat!’
‘You’ve got the hat,’ Nijel pointed out.
‘Not this hat, the other hat. And Conina!’
He took a few random steps along a passageway, and then sidled back.
‘Where do you suppose they are?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘There’s a magic hat I’ve got to find. And a girl.’
,Why?,
‘It might be rather difficult to explain. I think there might be screaming involved somewhere.’
Nijel didn’t have much of a jaw but, such as it was, he stuck it out.
‘There’s a girl needs rescuing?’ he said grimly.
Rincewind hesitated. ‘Someone will probably need rescuing,’ he admitted. ‘It might possibly be her. Or at least in her vicinity.’
‘Why didn’t you say so? This is more like it, this is what I was expecting. This is what heroism is all about. Let’s go!’
There was another crash, and the sound of people yelling.
‘Where?’ said Rincewind.
Anywhere!’
Heroes usually have an ability to rush madly around crumbling palaces they hardly know, save everyone and get out just before the whole place blows up or sinks into the swamp. In fact Nijel and Rincewind visited the kitchens, assorted throne rooms, the stables (twice) and what seemed to Rincewind like several miles of corridor.
Occasionally groups of black-clad guards would scurry past them, without so much as a second glance.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Nijel. ‘Why don’t we ask someone? Are you all right?’
Rincewind leaned against a pillar decorated with embarrassing sculpture and wheezed.
‘You could grab a guard and torture the information out of him,’ he said, gulping air. Nijel gave him an odd look.
‘Wait here,’ he said, and wandered off until he found a servant industriously ransacking a cupboard.