Pratchett, Terry - Discworld 02 - The Light Fantastic by Pratchett Terry

Author:Pratchett, Terry
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2007-10-04T19:41:11+00:00

By evening they had come to the edge of the high plains, and rode down through gloomy pine forests that had only been lightly dusted by the snowstorm. It was a landscape of huge cracked rocks, and valleys so narrow and deep that the days only lasted about twenty minutes. A wild, windy country, the sort where you might expect to find —

Trollsh,' said Cohen, sniffing the air.

Rincewind stared around him in the red evening light. Suddenly rocks that had seemed perfectly normal looked suspiciously alive. Shadows that he wouldn't have looked at twice now began to look horribly occupied.

'I like trolls,' said Twoflower.

'No you don't,' said Rincewind firmly. 'You can't. They're big and knobbly and they eat people.'

'No they don't,' said Cohen, sliding awkwardly off his horse and massaging his knees. 'Well-known mishap-prehenshion, that ish. Trolls never ate anybody.'

'No?'

'No, they alwaysh spit the bitsh out. Can't digesht people, see? Your average troll don't want any more out of life than a nice lump of granite, maybe, with perhapsh a nice slab of limeshtone for aftersh. I heard someone shay it's becosh they're a shilicashe – a shillycaysheou – Cohen paused, and wiped his beard, 'made out of rocks.

Rincewind nodded. Trolls were not unknown in Ankh-Morpork, of course, where they often got employment as bodyguards. They tended to be a bit expensive to keep ntil they learned about doors and didn't simply leave the house by walking aimlessly through the nearest wall.

As they gathered firewood Cohen went on, Trollsh teeth, that'sh the thingsh.'

'Why?' said Bethan.

'Diamonds. Got to be, you shee. Only thing that can shtand the rocksh, and they shtill have to grow a new shet every year.'

'Talking of teeth—' said Twoflower.

'Yesh?'

'I can't help noticing —'

'Yesh?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Twoflower.

'Yesh? Oh. Let'sh get thish fire going before we loshe the light. And then,' Cohen's face fell, 'I supposhe we'd better make some shoop.'

'Rincewind's good at that,' said Twoflower enthusiastically. 'He knows all about herbs and roots and things.'

Cohen gave Rincewind a look which suggested that he, Cohen, didn't believe that.

'Well, the Horshe people gave us shome horse jerky,' he said. 'If you can find shome wild onionsh and stuff, it might make it tashte better.'

'But I—' Rincewind began, and gave up. Anyway, he reasoned, I know what an onion looks like, it's a sort of saggy white thing with a green bit sticking out of the top, should be fairly conspicuous.

'I'll just go and have a look, shall I?' he said.

'Yesh.'

'Over there in all that thick, shadowy undergrowth?'

'Very good playshe, yesh.'

'Where all the deep gullies and things are, you mean?'

'Ideal shpot, I'd shay.'

'Yes, I thought so,' said Rincewind bitterly. He set off, wondering how you attracted onions. After all, he thought, although you see them hanging in ropes on market stalls they probably don't grow like that, perhaps peasants or whatever use onions hounds or something, or ing songs to attract onions.

There were a few early stars out as he started to poke aimlessly among the leaves and grass. Luminous fungi, unpleasantly organic and looking like marital aids for gnomes, squished under his feet.

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