‘I promised my mother,’ said the boy. ‘I get these colds, you see.’
‘Perhaps you should try wearing, well, a bit more clothing?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. You’ve got to wear all this leather stuff.’
‘I wouldn’t call it all,’ said Rincewind. ‘There’s not enough of it to call it all. Why have you got to wear it?’
‘So people know I’m a barbarian hero, of course.’
Rincewind leaned his back against the fetid walls of the snake pit and stared at the boy. He looked at two eyes like boiled grapes, a shock of ginger hair, and a face that was a battleground between its native freckles and the dreadful invading forces of acne.
Rincewind rather enjoyed times like this. They convinced him that he wasn’t mad because, if he was mad, that left no word at all to describe some of the people he met.
‘Barbarian hero,’ he murmured.
‘It’s all right, isn’t it? All this leather stuff was very expensive.’
‘Yes, but, look - what’s your name, lad?’
‘Nijel-’
‘You see, Nijel
‘Nijel the Destroyer,’ Nijel added.
‘You see, Nijel
‘- the Destroyer-’
‘All right, the Destroyer-’ said Rincewind desperately. ‘- son of Harebut the Provision Merchant-’
‘What?’
‘You’ve got to be the son of someone,’ Nijel explained. ‘It says it here somewhere-’ He half-turned and fumbled inside a grubby fur bag, eventually bringing out a thin, torn and grubby book.
‘There’s a bit in here about selecting your name,’ he muttered.
‘How come you ended up in this pit, then?’
‘I was intending to steal from Creosote’s treasury, but I had an asthma attack,’ said Nijel, still fumbling through the crackling pages.
Rincewind looked down at the snake, which was still trying to keep out of everyone’s way. It had a good thing going in the pit, and knew trouble when it saw it. It wasn’t about to cause any aggro for anyone. It stared right back up at Rincewind and shrugged, which is pretty clever for a reptile with no shoulders.
‘How long have you been a barbarian hero?’
‘I’m just getting started. I’ve always wanted to be one, you see, and I thought maybe I could pick it up as I went along.’ Nijel peered short-sightedly at Rincewind. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a desperate sort of life, by all accounts,’ Rincewind volunteered.
‘Have you thought what it might be like selling groceries for the next fifty years?’ Nijel muttered darkly.
Rincewind thought.
‘Is lettuce involved?’ he said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Nijel, shoving the mysterious book back in his bag. Then he started to pay close attention to the pit walls.
Rincewind sighed. He liked lettuce. It was so incredibly boring. He had spent years in search of boredom, but had never achieved it. Just when he thought he had it in his grasp his life would suddenly become full of near-terminal interest. The thought that someone could voluntarily give up the prospect of being bored for fifty years made him feel quite weak. With fifty years ahead of him, he thought, he could elevate tedium to the status of an art form. There would be no end to the things he wouldn’t do.