Eric by Terry Pratchett Page B

“[Squashed-figure-with-broken-nose, jaguar claw, three feathers, stylized spiny anteater].”
    After a while a vote was taken.
    By nightfall, the kingdom’s leading stonemasons were at work on a new statue.
    It was basically oblong, with lots of legs.

    The Demon King drummed his fingers on his desk. It wasn’t that he was unhappy about the fate of Quezovercoatl, who would now have to spend several centuries in one of the nether hells while he grew a new corporeal body. Serve him right, the ghastly little imp. Nor was it the broad trend of events on the pyramid. After all, the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn’t really want.
    It was just that he didn’t feel in control of things.
    Which was of course ridiculous. If the best came to the best he could always materialize and sort things out personally. But he liked people to believe that all the bad things happening to them were just fate and destiny. It was one of the few things that cheered him up.
    He turned back to the mirror. After a while he had to adjust the temporal control.

    One minute the breathless, humid jungles of Klatch, the next…
    “I thought we were going to go back to my room,” Eric complained.
    “I thought that, too,” said Rincewind, shouting to be heard over the rumbling.
    “Snap your fingers again, demon.”
    “Not on your life! There’s plenty of places worse than this!”
    “But it’s all hot and dark.”
    Rincewind had to concede that. It was also shaking and noisy. When his eyes grew used to the blackness he could make out a few spots of light here and there, whose dim radiance suggested that they were inside something like a boat. There was a definite feel of carpentry about everything, and a powerful smell of wood shavings and glue. If it was a boat, then it was having an awfully painful launching down a slipway greased with rocks.
    A jolt slung him heavily against a bulkhead.
    “I must say,” complained Eric, “if this is where the most beautiful woman in the world lives I don’t think much of her choice of boodwah. You’d think she’d put a few cushions or something around the place.”
    “Boodwah?” said Rincewind.
    “She’s bound to have one,” said Eric smugly. “I’ve read about ’em. She reclines on it.”
    “Tell me,” said Rincewind, “have you ever felt the need to have a cold bath and a brisk run around the playing fields?”
    “Never.”
    “It could be worth a try.”
    The rumbling stopped abruptly.
    There was a distant clanging noise, such as might be made by a pair of great big gates being shut. Rincewind thought he heard some voices fading into the distance, and a chuckle. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant chuckle, it was more of a snigger, and it boded no good for someone. Rincewind had a pretty good idea who.
    He’d stopped wondering how he’d come to be here, wherever it was. Malign forces, that was probably it. At least nothing particularly dreadful was happening to him right now. Probably it was only a matter of time.
    He groped around a bit until his fingers encountered what turned out to be, following an inspection by the light of the nearest knot-hole, a rope ladder. Further probing at one end of the hull, or whatever it was, brought him in contact with a small, round hatchway. It was bolted on the inside.
    He crawled back to Eric.
    “There’s a door,” he whispered.
    “Where does it go?”
    “It stays where it is, I think,” said Rincewind.
    “Find out where it leads to, demon!”
    “Could be a bad idea,” said Rincewind cautiously.
    “Get on with it!”
    Rincewind crawled gloomily to the hatch and grasped the bolt.
    The hatch creaked open.
    Down below—quite a long way below—there were damp cobblestones, across which a breeze was driving a few shreds of morning mist. With a little sigh, Rincewind unrolled the ladder.
    Two minutes later they were standing in the gloom of what