"I was hoping you would tell me, Mr.Stibbons. That's why I'm here? The Librarian ambled past again, with another load of books. Another response of the wizards, when faced with a new and unique situation, was to look through their libraries to see if it had ever happened before. This was, Lord Vetinari reflected, a good survival trait. It meant that in times of danger you spent the day sitting very quietly in a building with very thick walls. He looked again at the piece of paper in his hand. Why were people so stupid? One sentence caught his eye: "He says the last hero ought to return what the first hero stole." And, of course, everyone knew what the first hero stole. The gods play games with the fate of men. Not complex ones, obviously, because gods lack patience. Cheating is part of the rules. And gods play hard. To lose all believers is, for a god, the end.
But a believer who survives the game gains honour and extra belief. Who wins with the most believers, lives. Believers can include other gods, of course. Gods believe in belief. There were always many games going on in Dunmanifestin, the abode of die gods on Cori Celesti. It looked, from outside, like a crowded city.*(*Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.l6) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000.000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this spate, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant-assuming that every creature that could be called 'human' is allowed in, and that the human race eventually totals a thousand times the number of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought - that pets are allowed.) Not all gods lived there, many of them being bound to a particular country or in the case of the smaller ones, even one tree. But it was a Good Address. It was where you hung your metaphysical equivalent of the shiny brass plate, like those small discreet buildings in the smarter areas of major cities which nevertheless appear to house one hundred and fifty lawyers and accountants, presumably on some sort of shelving. The city's domestic appearance was because, while people are influenced by gods, so gods are influenced by people. Most gods were people-shaped: people don't have much imagination, on the whole. Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed. Ask people to imagine an annual god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask. Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many. Above the wheel of die world, the gods played on. They sometimes forgot what happened if you let a pawn get all the way up the board. It took a little longer for the rumour to spread around the city, but in twos and threes the leaders of the great Guilds hurried into the University. Then the ambassadors picked up the news. Around the city the big semaphore towers faltered in their endless task of exporting market prices to the world, sent the signal to clear the line for high-priority emergency traffic, and then clack'd the little packets of doom to chancelleries and castles across the continent. They were in code, of course. If you have news about the end of the world, you don't want everyone to know. Lord Vetinari stared along the table. A lot had been happening in the past few hours. "If I may recap, then, ladies and gentlemen." he said, as the hubbub died away, "according to the authorities in Hunghung, the capital of the Agatean Empire, the Emperor Ghengiz Cohen, formerly known to the world as Cohen the Barbarian, is well en route to the home of the gods with a device of considerable destructive power and the intention, apparently, of, in his words, "returning what was stolen". And, in short, they ask us to stop him."
"Why us?" said Mr.Boggis, head of the Thieves' Guild. "He's not our Emperor!"
"I understand the Agatean government believes us to be capable of anything," said Lord Vetinari. "We have zip, zing, vim and a go-getting, can-do attitude."
"Can do what?" Lord Vetinari shrugged. "In this case, save the world."
"But we'll have to save it for everyone, right?" said Mr.Boggis. "Even foreigners?"
"Well, yes. You cannot just save the bits you like," said Lord Vetinari. "But the thing about saving the world, gentlemen and ladies, is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on. So let us move forward. Can magic help us, Archchancellor?"
"No. Nothing magical can get within a hundred miles of the mountains," said the Archchancellor.
"Why not?"
"For the same reason you can't sail a boat into a hurricane. There's just too much magic. It overloads anything magical. A magic carpet would unravel in midair."
"Or turn into broccoli," said the Dean. "Or a small volume of poetry."
"Are you saying that we cannot get there in time?"
"Well... yes. Exactly. Of course. They're already near the base of the mountain."
"And they're heroes!" said Mr.Betteridge of the Guild of Historians. "And that means, exactly?" said the Patrician, sighing. "They're good at doing what they want to do."
"But they are also, as I understand it, very old men."
"Very old heroes?" the historian corrected him. "That just means they've had a lot of experience in doing what they want to do." Lord Vetinari sighed again. He did not like to live in a world of heroes. You had civilisation, such as it was, and you had heroes. "What exactly has Cohen the Barbarian done that is heroic?" he said. "I seek only to understand."
"Well... you know ... heroic deeds ..."
"And they are ... ?"
"Fighting monsters, defeating tyrants, stealing rare treasures, rescuing maidens ... that sort of thing," said Mr.Betteridge vaguely. "You know ... heroic things."
"And who, precisely, defines the monstrousness of the monsters and the tyranny of the tyrants?" said Lord Vetinari, his voice suddenly like a scalpel - not vicious like a sword, but probing its edge into vulnerable places. Mr.Betteridge shifted uneasily. "Well... the hero, I suppose."
"Ah. And the theft of these rare items ... I think the word that interests me here is the term "theft", an activity frowned on by most of the world's major religions, is it not? The feeling stealing over me is that all these terms are defined by the hero. You could say: I am a hero, so when I kill you that makes you, de facto, the kind of person suitable to be killed by a hero. You could say that a hero, in short, is someone who indulges every whim that, within the rule of law. would have him behind bars or swiftly dancing what I believe is known as the hemp fandango. The words we might use are: murder, pillage, theft and rape. Have I understood the situation?"
"Not rape. I believe," said Mr.Betteridge, finding a rock on which he could stand. "Not in the case of Cohen the Barbarian. Ravishing, possibly."
"There is a difference?"
"It's more a matter of approach, I understand." said the historian. "I don't believe there were ever any actual complaints."
"Speaking as a lawyer," said Mr. Slant of the Guild of Lawyers, "it is clear that the first ever recorded heroic deed to which the message refers was an act of theft from the rightful owners. The legends of many different cultures testify to this."
"Was it something you could actually steal?" said Ridcully. "Manifestly yes," said the lawyer. "Theft is central to the legend. Fire was stolen from the gods."
"This is not currently the issue." said Lord Vetinari. "The issue, gentlemen, is that Cohen the Barbarian is climbing the mountain on which the gods live. And we cannot stop him. And he intends to return fire to the gods. Fire, in this case, in the shape of... let me see-" Ponder Stibbons looked up from his notebooks, where he had been scribbling. A fifty-pound keg of Agatean Thunder Clay." he said. "I'm amazed their wizards let him have it."
"He was ... indeed. I assume he still is the Emperor," said Lord Vetinari. "So I would imagine that when the supreme ruler of your continent asks you for something, it is not the time for a prudent man to ask for a docket signed by Mr.Jenkins of Requisitions."
"Thunder Clay is terribly powerful stuff." said Ridcully. "But it needs a special detonator. You have to smash ajar of acid inside the mixture. The acid soaks into it. and then - kablooie, I believe the term is. "Unfortunately the prudent man also saw fit to give one of these to Cohen." said Lord Vetinari. "And if the resulting kablooie takes place atop the mountain, which is the hub of the world's magic field, it will, as I understand it, result in the field collapsing for ... remind me. Mister Stibbons?"
"About two years," he said. "Really? Well, we can do without magic for a couple of years, can't we?" said Mr. Slant, managing to suggest that this would be a jolly good thing, too. "With respect," said Ponder, without respect, "we cannot. The seas will run dry. The sun will burn out and crash. The elephants and the turtle may cease to exist altogether."