'Got shipwrecked there once,' said Vincent. 'Weird place. Lousy with magic. There's beavers with beaks and giant rats with long tails that hops around the place and boxes with one another. Black fellas wanderin' around all over the place. They say they're in a dream. Bright, though. Show 'em a bit of desert with one dead tree in it, next minute they've found a three- course meal with fruits and nuts to follow. Beer's good, too.'
'Sounds like it.' There was another long pause. Then: 'I suppose they've got minstrels here? Be a bit of a bloody waste, wouldn't it, if we all got killed and no-one made up any songs about it.'
'Bound to have loads of minstrels, a city like this.'
'No problem there, then.'
'No.'
'No.' There was another lengthy pause. 'Not that we're going to get killed.'
'Right. I don't intend to start getting killed at my time of life, haha.' Another pause. 'Cohen?'
'Yep?'
'You a religious man at all?'
'Well, I've robbed loads of temples and killed a few mad priests in my time. Don't know if that counts.'
'What do your tribe believe happens to you when you die in battle?'
'Oh, these big fat women in horned helmets take you off to the halls of Io where there is fighting and carousing and quaffing for ever.' Another pause. 'You mean, like, really for ever?'
'S'pose so.'
'
'Cos generally you get fed up even with turkey by about day four.'
'All right, what do your lot believe?'
'I think we go off to Hell in a boat made of toenail dippings. Something like that, anyway.' Another pause. 'But it's not worth talking about 'cos we're not going to get killed today.'
'You said it.'
'Hah, it's not worth dying if all you've got to look toward to is leftover meat and floating around in a boat smelling of your socks, is it, eh?'
'Haha.' Another pause. 'Down in Klatch they believe if you lead a good life you're rewarded by being sent to a paradise with lots of young women.'
'That's your reward, is it?'
'Dunno. Maybe it's their punishment. But I do remember you eat sherbet all day.'
'Hah. When I was a lad we had proper sherbet, in little tube things and a liquorice straw to suck it up with. You don't get that sort of thing today. People're too busy rushin' about.'
'Sounds a lot better than quaffing toenails, though.' Another pause. 'Did you ever believe that business about every enemy you killed becoming your servant in the next world?'
'Dunno.'
'How many you killed?'
'What? Oh. Maybe two, three thousand. Not counting dwarfs and trolls, o' course.'
'Definitely not going to be short of a hairbrush or someone to open doors for you after you're dead, then.' A pause. 'We're definitely not going to die, right?'
'Right.'
'I mean, odds of 100,000 to one . . . hah. The difference is just a lot of zeroes, right?'