Eric (Discworld 9)

“Or it helps if you've got a lyre, I think.” “Ah. We could be on firmer ground here,” said Rincewind. He thought for a bit and then said, “Er. My dog... my dog has six legs.”

“The kind you play,” said Eric patiently. “Oh.” "And, and, and when you do leave, if you look back... I think pomegranates come into it somewhere, or, or, or you turn into a piece of wood."

“I never look back,” said Rincewind firmly. “One of the first rules of running away is, never look back.” There was a roar behind them.

“Especially when you hear loud noises,” Rincewind went on. “When it comes to cowardice, that's what sorts out the men from the sheep. You run straight away.” He grabbed the skirts of his robe.

And they ran and ran, until a familiar voice said: “Ho there, dear lads. Hop up. It's amazing how you meet old friends down here.”

And another voice said, “Wossname? Wossname?”

“Where are they!”

The sub-lords of Hell trembled. This was going to be dreadful. It might even result in a memo.

“They cant have escaped,” rasped Astfgl. “They're here somewhere. Why can you not find them? Am I surrounded by incompetents as well as fools?”

“My lord -”

The demon princes turned.

The speaker was Duke Vassenego, one of the oldest demons. How old, no-one knew. But if he didn't actually invent original sin, at least he made one of the first copies. In terms of sheer enterprise and deviousness of mind he might even have passed for human and, in fact, generally took the form of an old, rather sad lawyer with an eagle somewhere in his ancestry.

And every demonic mind thought: poor Vassenego, he's done it this time. This won't be just a memo, this will be a policy statement, c.c.'d to all departments and a copy for files.

Astfgl turned slowly, as though mounted on a turntable. He was back in his preferred form now but had pulled himself together, as it were, on a higher level of emotion. The mere thought of living humans in his domain made him twang with fury like a violin string. You couldn't trust them. They were unreliable. The last human allowed down here alive had given the place a terribly bad press. Above all, they made him feel inferior.

Now the full wattage of his anger focused on the old demon.

“You had a point to make?” he said.

“I was merely going to say, lord, that we have made an extensive search of all eight circles and I am really certain -”

“Silence! Don't think I don't know what's going on,” growled Astfgl, circling the drawn figure. “I've seen you - and you, and you” - his trident pointed at some of the other lords -“plotting in corners, encouraging rebellion! I rule here, is that not so? And I will be obeyed!”

Vassenego was pale. His patrician nostrils flared like jet intakes. Everything about him said: you pompous little creature, of course we encourage rebellion, we're demons! And I was maddening the minds of princes when you were encouraging cats to leave dead mice under the bed, you small-minded, paper-worshipping nincompoop! Everything about him said this except his voice, which said, calmly, “No-one is denying this, sire.”

“Then search again! And the demon who let them in is to be taken to the lowest pit and disassembled, is that clear?”

Vassenego's eyebrows rose. “Old Urglefloggah, sire? He was foolish, certainly, but he is loyal -”

“Are you by any chance endeavouring to contradict me?”

Vassenego hesitated. Dreadful as he privately held the king to be, demons are strong believers in precedence and hierarchy. There were too many young demons pressing below them for the senior lords to openly demonstrate the ways of regicide and coup, no matter what the provocation. Vassenego had plans of his own. No sense in spoiling things now.

“No, sire,” he said. “But that will mean, sire, that the dread portal is no longer -”

“Do it!”

The Luggage arrived at the dread portal.

There was no way to describe how angry you can get running nearly twice the length of the space-time continuum, and the Luggage had been pretty annoyed to start with.

It looked at the hinges. It looked at the locks. It backed away a bit and appeared to read the new sign over the portal.

Possibly this made it angrier, although with the Luggage there wasn't any reliable way of telling because it spent all its time beyond, in a manner of speaking, the hostility event horizon.

The doors of Hell were ancient. It wasn't just time and heat that had baked their wood to something like black granite. They'd picked up fear and dull evil. They were more than mere things to fill a hole in the wall. They were bright enough to be dimly aware what their future was likely to hold.