All the heroes of the Circle Sea passed through the gates of Ankh-Morpork sooner or later. Most of them were from the barbaric tribes nearer the frozen Hub, which had a sort of export trade in heroes. Almost all of them had crude magic swords, whose unsuppressed harmonics on the astral plane played hell with any delicate experiments in applied sorcery for miles around, but Rincewind didn’t object to them on that score. He knew himself to be a magical dropout, so it didn’t bother him that the mere appearance of a hero at the city gates was enough to cause retorts to explode and demons to materialize all through the Magical Quarter. No, what he didn’t like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk. There were too many of them, too. Some of the most notable questing grounds near the city were a veritable hubbub in the season. There was talk of organizing a rota.
He rubbed his nose. The only heroes he had much time for were Bravd and the Weasel, who were out of town at the moment, and Hrun the Barbarian, who was practically an academic by Hub standards in that he could think without moving his lips. Hrun was said to be roving somewhere Turnwise..
“Look,” he said at last. “Have you ever met a barbarian?”
Twoflower shook his head.
“I was afraid of that,” said Rincewind. “Well, they’re—”
There was a clatter of running feet in the street outside and a fresh uproar from downstairs. It was followed by a commotion on the stairs. The door was flung open before Rincewind could collect himself sufficiently to make a dash for the window.
But instead of the greed-crazed madman he expected, he found himself looking into the round red face of a Sergeant of the Watch. He breathed again. Of course. The Watch were always careful not to intervene too soon in any brawl where the odds were not heavily stacked in their favor. The job carried a pension, and attracted a cautious, thoughtful kind of man.
The Sergeant glowered at Rincewind, and then peered at Twoflower with interest.
“Everything all right here, then?” he said.
“Oh, fine,” said Rincewind. “Got held up, did you?”
The sergeant ignored him. “This the foreigner, then?” he inquired.
“We were just leaving,” said Rincewind quickly, and switched to Trob. “Twoflower, I think we ought to get lunch somewhere else. I know some places.”
He marched out into the corridor with as much aplomb as he could muster. Twoflower followed, and a few seconds later there was a strangling sound from the sergeant as the Luggage closed its lid with a snap, stood up, stretched, and marched after them.
Watchmen were dragging bodies out of the room downstairs. There were no survivors. The Watch had ensured this by giving them ample time to escape via the back door, a neat compromise between caution and justice that benefited all parties.
“Who are all these men?” said Twoflower.
“Oh, you know. Just men,” said Rincewind. And before he could stop himself some part of his brain that had nothing to do took control of his mouth and added, “Heroes, in fact.”
“Really?”
When one foot is stuck in the Grey Miasma of H’rull it is much easier to step right in and sink rather than prolong the struggle. Rincewind let himself go.
“Yes, that one over there is Erig Stronginthearm, over there is Black Zenell—”
“Is Hrun the Barbarian here?” said Twoflower, looking around eagerly. Rincewind took a deep breath.
“That’s him behind us,” he said.
The enormity of this lie was so great that its ripples did in fact spread out one of the lower astral planes as far as the Magical Quarter across the river, where it picked up tremendous velocity from the huge standing wave of power that always hovered there and bounced wildly across the Circle Sea. A harmonic got as far as Hrun himself, currently fighting a couple of gnolls on a crumbling ledge high in the Caderack Mountains, and caused him a moment’s unexplained discomfort.
Twoflower, meanwhile, had thrown back the lid of the Luggage and was hastily pulling out a heavy black cube.
“This is fantastic!” he said. “They’re never going to believe this at home!”
“What’s he going on about?” said the sergeant doubtfully.
“He’s pleased you rescued us,” said Rincewind. He looked sidelong at the black box, half expecting it to explode or emit strange musical tones.
“Ah,” said the sergeant. He was staring at the box, too.
Twoflower smiled brightly at them.
“I’d like a record of the event,” he said. “Do you think you could ask them all to stand over by the window, please? This won’t take a moment. And, er, Rincewind?”
“Yes?”
Twoflower stood on tiptoe to whisper.
“I expect you know what this is, don’t you?”
Rincewind stared down at the box. It had a round glass eye protruding from the center of one face, and a lever at the back.
“Not wholly,” he said.
“It’s a device for making pictures quickly,” said Twoflower. “Quite a new invention. I’m rather proud of it but, look, I don’t think these gentlemen would—well, I mean they might be—sort of apprehensive? Could you explain it to them? I’ll reimburse them for their time, of course.”
“He’s got a box with a demon in it that draws pictures,” said Rincewind shortly. “Do what the madman says and he will give you gold.”
The Watch smiled nervously.
“I’d like you in the picture, Rincewind. That’s fine.” Twoflower took out the golden disc that Rincewind had noticed before, squinted at its unseen face for a moment, muttered “Thirty seconds should about do it,” and said brightly, “Smile please!”
“Smile,” rasped Rincewind. There was a whirr from the box.
“Right!”