‘Idiot! All you have to do is stop wearing that silly robe and get rid of that daft hat and no one will even know you’re a wizard!’
Rincewind’s mouth opened and shut a few times as he gave a very lifelike impression of a goldfish trying to grasp the concept of tap-dancing.
‘Stop wearing the robe?’ he said.
‘Sure. All those tatty sequins and things, it’s a total giveaway,’ said Nijel, struggling to his feet.
‘Get rid of the hat?’
‘You’ve got to admit that going around with “wizzard” written on it is a bit of a heavy hint.’
Rincewind gave him a worried grin.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t quite follow you-’
‘Just get rid of them. It’s easy enough, isn’t it? Just drop them somewhere and then you could be a, a, well, whatever. Something that isn’t a wizard.’
There was a pause, broken only by the distant sounds of fighting.
‘Er,’ said Rincewind, and shook his head. ‘You’ve lost me there …’
‘Good grief, it’s perfectly simple to understand!’
‘… not sure I quite catch your drift…’ murmured Rincewind, his face ghastly with sweat.
‘You can just stop being a wizard.’
Rincewind’s lips moved soundlessly as he replayed every word, one at a time, then all at once.
‘What?’ he said, and then he said, ‘Oh.’
‘Got it? Want to try it one more time?’
Rincewind nodded gloomily.
‘I don’t think you understand. A wizard isn’t what you do, it’s what you are. If I wasn’t a wizard, I wouldn’t be anything.’ He took off his hat and twiddled nervously with the loose star on its point, causing a few more cheap sequins to part company.
‘I mean, it’s got wizard written on my hat,’ he said. ‘It’s very important -’
He stopped and stared at the hat.
‘Hat,’ he said vaguely, aware of some importunate memory pressing its nose up against the windows of his mind.
‘It’s a good hat,’ said Nijel, who felt that something was expected of him.
‘Hat,’ said Rincewind again, and then added, ‘the hat! We’ve got to get the hat!’
‘You’ve got the hat,’ Nijel pointed out.
‘Not this hat, the other hat. And Conina!’
He took a few random steps along a passageway, and then sidled back.
‘Where do you suppose they are?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘There’s a magic hat I’ve got to find. And a girl.’