Terry Pratchett - The Carpet People

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THE CARPET PEOPLE
Terry Pratchett
[28 aug 2002-proofed for #bookz]
To Lyn, for then and now.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.
The Carpet People was published in 1971. It had a lot of things wrong with it, mostly to do with
being written by someone who was seventeen at the time.
And it sold a bit, and eventually it sold out. And that was it.
And then about seven years ago the Discworld books began to sell, and people would buy them and
say, "Here, what's this book The Carpet People by The Same Author?" and the publishers got so fed up
with telling people that there was no demand for it that they decided it was time for a new edition.
Which was read by Terry Pratchett, aged forty-three, who said: hang on. I wrote that in the days
when I thought fantasy was all battles and kings. Now I'm inclined to think that the real concerns of
fantasy ought to be about not having battles, and doing without kings. I'll just rewrite it here and there ...
Well, you know how it is when you tweak a thread that's hanging loose ...
So this is it. It's not exactly the book I wrote then. It's not exactly the book I'd write now. It's a joint
effort but, heh heh, I don't have to give him half the royalties. He'd only waste them.
You asked for it. Here it is. Thanks. Incidentally, the size of the city of Ware is approximately?.
-Terry Pratchett
15 September 1991
PROLOGUE
They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.
It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other
people, and gives them a name like The Other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only
they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on.
Not that the Munrungs were in any way primitive. Pismire said they had a rich native cultural
inheritance. He meant stories.
Pismire knew all the old stories and many new ones and used to tell them while the whole tribe
listened, enthralled, and the nighttime fires crumbled to ashes.
Sometimes it seemed that even the mighty hairs that grew outside the village stockade listened, too.
They seemed to crowd in closer.
The oldest story was the shortest. He did not tell it often, but the tribe knew it by heart. It was a story
told in many languages, all over the Carpet.
"In the beginning," said Pismire, "there was nothing but endless flatness. Then came the Carpet, which
covered the flatness. It was young in those days. There was no dust among the hairs. They were slim and
straight, not bent and crusty like they are today. And the Carpet was empty."
"Then came the dust, which fell upon the Carpet, drifting among the hairs, taking root in the deep
shadows. More came, tumbling slowly and with silence among the waiting hairs, until the dust was thick
in the Carpet."
"From the dust the Carpet wove us all. First came the little crawling creatures that make their
dwellings in burrows and high in the hairs. Then came the soraths, and the weft borers, tromps, goats,
gromepipers and the snargs."
"Now the Carpet had life and noise. Yes, and death and silence. But there was a thread missing from
the weave on the loom of life."
"The Carpet was full of life, but it did not know it was alive. It could be, but it could not think. It did
not even know what it was."
"And so from the dust came us, the Carpet People. We gave the Carpet its name, and named the
creatures, and the weaving was complete. We were the first to give the Carpet a name. Now it knew
about itself."
"Though Fray, who hates life in the Carpet, may tread upon us, though shadows grow over us, we are
the soul of the Carpet, and that is a mighty thing. We are the fruit of the loom."
"Of course, this is all metaphorical but I think it's important, don't you?""
CHAPTER 1
It was the Law that, every tenth year, the people of all the tribes in the Dumii Empire should come
and be Counted.
They did not go all the way to the great capital city of Ware, but to the little walled town of Tregon
Marus.
The Counting was always a great occasion. Tregon Marus would double in size and importance
overnight as tribal tents were pitched outside its walls. There was a horse market, and a five-day fair, old
friends to be met, and a flood of news to be exchanged.
And there was the Counting itself. New names were added to the crackling scrolls which, the people
like to believe, were taken to Ware, even to the Great Palace of the Emperor himself. The Dumii clerks
laboriously wrote down how many pigs and goats and tromps everybody had, and one by one the
people shuffled on to the next table and paid their taxes in furs and skins. That was the unpopular part.
So the queue wound round Tregon Marus, in at the East Gate, through the postern and stables, across
the market square, and through the countinghouse. Even the youngest babies were carried past the
clerks, for the quill pens to wobble and scratch their names on the parchment. Many a tribesman got a
funny name because a clerk didn't know how to spell, and there's more of that sort of thing in History
than you might expect.
On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains to an audience in the market
square, to hear their grievances. He didn't always do anything about them, but at least they got heard,
and he nodded a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This is politics.
That was how it had always happened, time out of mind.
And on the sixth day the people went back to their homes, along the roads the Dumii had built. They
went east. Behind them the road went west, until it came to the city of Ware. There it was just one of the
many roads that entered the city. Beyond Ware it became the West Road, becoming narrower and more
winding until it reached the furthermost western outpost of Rug.
Such was the Dumii Empire. It covered almost all of the Carpet from the Woodwall to the wasteland
near Varnisholme in the north.
In the west it bordered Wildland and the uttermost fringes of the Carpet, and southwards the roads
ran as far as the Hearthlands. The painted people of the Wainscot, the warlike Hibbolgs, even the
fire-worshippers of Rug, all paid their tribute to the Emperor.
Some of them didn't like the Dumii much, usually because the Empire discouraged the small wars and
cattle raids which, in the outlying regions, were by way of being a recreational activity. The Empire liked
peace. It meant that people had enough time to earn money to pay their taxes. On the whole, peace
seemed to work.
So the Munrung tribe went east, and passed out of the chronicles of the Empire for another ten years.
Sometimes they quarrelled among themselves, but on the whole they lived peacefully and avoided having
much to do with history, which tends to get people killed.
Then, one year, no more was heard from Tregon Marus ...
Old Grimm Orkson, chieftain of the Munrungs, had two sons. The eldest, Glurk, succeeded his father
as chieftain when old Orkson died.
To the Munrung way of thinking, which was a slow and deliberate way, there couldn't have been a
better choice. He looked just like a second edition of his father, from his broad shoulders to his great
thick neck, the battering centre of his strength. Glurk could throw a spear further than anyone. He could
wrestle with a snarg, and wore a necklace of their long yellow teeth to prove it. He could lift a horse with
one hand, run all day without tiring, and creep up so close to a grazing animal that sometimes they'd die
of shock before he had time to raise his spear. Admittedly he moved his lips when he was thinking, and
the thoughts could be seen bumping against one another like dumplings in a stew, but he was not stupid.
Not what you'd call stupid. His brain got there in the end. It just went the long way around.
"He's a man of few words, and he doesn't know what either of them mean," people said, but not
when he was within hearing.
One day towards evening he was tramping homeward through the dusty glades, carrying a
bone-tipped hunting spear under one arm. The other arm steadied the long pole that rested on his
shoulder.
In the middle of the pole, its legs tied together, dangled a snarg. At the other end of the pole was
Snibril, Glurk's younger brother.
Old Orkson had married early and lived long, so a wide gap filled by a string of daughters, that the
chieftain had carefully married off to upright and respected and above all well-off Munrungs, separated
the brothers.
Snibril was slight, especially compared with his brother. Grimm had sent him off to the strict Dumii
school in Tregon Marus to become a clerk. "He can't hardly hold a spear," he said, "maybe a pen'd be
better. Get some learning in the family."
When Snibril had run away for the third time Pismire came to see Grimm.
Pismire was the shaman, a kind of odd-job priest.
Most tribes had one, although Pismire was different. For one thing, he washed all the bits that showed
at least once every month. This was unusual. Other shamen tended to encourage dirt, taking the view that
the grubbier, the more magical.
And he didn't wear lots of feathers and bones, and he didn't talk like the other shamen in neighbouring
tribes.
Other shamen ate the yellow-spotted mushrooms that were found deep in the hair thickets and said
things like: "Hiiiiya/iya/iheya! Heyaheyayahyah! Hngh! Hngh!" which certainly sounded magical.
Pismire said things like, "Correct observation followed by meticulous deduction and the precise
visualization of goals is vital to the success of any enterprise. Have you noticed the way the wild tromps
always move around two days ahead of the sorath herds? Incidentally, don't eat the yellow-spotted
mushrooms."
Which didn't sound magical at all, but worked a lot better and conjured up good hunting. Privately
some Munrungs thought good hunting was more due to their own skill. Pismire encouraged this view.
"Positive thinking," he would say, "is also very important."
He was also the official medicine man. He was a lot better, they agreed (but reluctantly, because the
Munrungs respected tradition) than the last one they had had, whose idea of medicine was to throw some
bones in the air and cry "Hyahyahyah! Hgn! Hgn!" Pismire just mixed various kinds of rare dust in a
bowl, made it into pills, and said things like "Take one of these when you go to bed at night and another
one if you wake up in the morning."
And occasionally he offered advice on other matters.
Grimm was chopping sticks outside his hut. "It'll never work," said Pismire, appearing behind him in
that silent way of his. "You can't send Snibril off to Tregon again. He's a Munrung. No wonder he keeps
running away. He'll never be a clerk. It's not in the blood, man. Let him stay. I'll see he learns to read."
"If you can learn him, you're welcome," said Grimm, shaking his head. "He's a mystery to me. Spends
all his time moping around. His mother used to be like that. Of course, she got a bit of sense once she got
married."
Grimm had never learned to read, but he had always been impressed by the clerks at Tregon Marus.
They could make marks on bits of parchment that could remember things. That was power, of a sort.
He was quite keen to see that an Orkson got some of it.
So Snibril went to Pismire's village school with the other children, and learnt numbers, letters, and the
Dumii laws. He enjoyed it, sucking in knowledge as though his life depended on it. It often did, Pismire
said.
And, strangely, he also grew up to be a hunter almost as good as his brother. But in different ways.
Glurk chased. Snibril watched. You don't have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said.
You watch them for long enough, and then you'll find the place to wait and they'll come to you. There's
nearly always a better way of doing something.
When old Grimm died he was laid in a barrow dug out of the dust of the Carpet, with his hunting
spear by his side. Munrungs had no idea where you went when you died, but there was no reason to go
hungry once you got there.
Glurk became chieftain, and would have to take the tribe to the next Counting. But the messenger to
summon them to Tregon Marus was long overdue, and that worried Glurk. Not that he was in a hurry to
pay taxes, and actually going to see why the messenger was late seemed a bit too, you know, keen, but
usually the Dumii were very reliable, especially over tax-gathering.
But as he and his brother wandered homeward that evening he kept his thoughts to himself. Snibril
grunted, and heaved the pole on to his other shoulder. He was shorter than his brother, and he was going
to get shorter still, he thought, if he couldn't shed the load for a minute or two.
"I feel as though my feet have worn right off and my legs have turned up at the ends," he said. "Can't
we stop for a rest? Five minutes won't hurt. And ... my head aches ... "
"Five minutes, then," said Glurk. "No more. It's getting dark."
They had reached the Dumii road, and not far north of it lay the Woodwall, home and supper. They
sat down.
Glurk, who never wasted his time, started to sharpen the point of his spear on a piece of grit, but both
brothers gazed down the road, shining in the dim evening air. The road stretched west, a glowing line in
the darkness. The hairs around it were full of growing shadows. It had fascinated Snibril, ever since his
father had told him that all roads led to Ware. So it was only the road that lay between the doorway of
his hut and the threshold of the Emperor's palace, he thought. And if you counted all the streets and
passages that led off the road ... Once you set foot on it you might end up anywhere and if you just sat by
the road and waited, who might pass you by? Everywhere was connected to everywhere else, Pismire
had said.
He put his head in his hands. The ache was worse. It felt as though he was being squeezed.
The Carpet had felt wrong too, today. The hunting had been hard. Most of the animals had vanished,
and the dust between the hairs did not stir in the breathless air.
Glurk said, "I don't like this. There hasn't been anyone on the road for days."
He stood up and reached out for the pole.
Snibril groaned. He'd have to ask Pismire for a pill ...
A shadow nickered high up in the hairs, and flashed away towards the south.
There was a sound so loud as to be felt by the whole body, hitting the Carpet with horrible
suddenness. The brothers sprawled in the dust as the hairs around them groaned and screamed in the
gale.
Glurk gripped the rough bark of a hair and hauled himself upright, straining against the storm that
whipped round him. Far overhead the tip of the hair creaked and rattled, and all round the hairs waved
like a grey sea. Smashing through them came grit, man-sized boulders half rolling and half flying before
the wind.
Holding on tightly with one hand, Glurk reached out with the other and hauled his brother to safety.
Then they crouched, too shaken to speak, while the storm banged about them.
As quickly as it had come, it veered south, and the darkness followed it.
The silence clanged like gongs.
Snibril blinked. Whatever it was, it had taken the headache with it. His ears popped.
Then he heard the sound of hooves on the road as the wind died away.
They got louder very quickly and sounded wild and frightened, as though the horse was running free.
When it appeared, it was riderless. Its ears lay back flat on its head and its eyes flashed green with
terror. The white coat glistened with sweat, reins cracked across the saddle with the fury of the gallop.
Snibril leapt in its path. Then, as the creature hurtled by him, he snatched at the reins, raced for a
second by the pounding hooves, and flung himself up into the saddle. Why he dared that he never knew.
Careful observation and precise determination of goals, probably. He just couldn't imagine not doing it.
They rode into the village, the quietened horse carrying them and dragging the snarg behind it.
The village stockade had broken in several places, and grit boulders had smashed some huts. Glurk
looked towards the Orkson hut and Snibril heard the moan that escaped from him. The chieftain climbed
down from the horse's back and walked slowly towards his home.
Or what had been his home.
The rest of the tribe stopped talking and drew back, awed, to let him pass. A hair had fallen, a big
one. It had crushed the stockade. And the tip of it lay across what was left of the Orkson hut, the arch of
the doorway still standing bravely amid a litter of beams and thatch. Bertha Orkson came running
forward with her children round her, and flung herself into his arms.
"Pismire got us out before the hair fell," she cried. "Whatever shall we do?"
He patted her absently but went on staring at the ruined hut. Then he climbed along up the mound of
wreckage, and prodded about.
So silent was the crowd that every sound he made echoed. There was a clink as he picked up the pot
that had miraculously escaped destruction, and looked at it as though he had never seen its design before,
turning it this way and that in the firelight. He raised it above his head and smashed it on the ground.
Then he raised his fist above him and swore. He cursed by the hairs, by the dark caverns of
Underlay, by the demons of the Floor, by the Weft and by the Warp. He bellowed the Unutterable
Words and swore the oath of Retwatshud the Frugal, that cracked bone, or so it was said, although
Pismire claimed that this was superstition.
Curses circled up in the evening hairs and the night creatures of the Carpet listened. Oath was laid
upon oath in a towering pillar vibrating terror.
When he had finished the air trembled. He flopped down on the wreckage and sat with his head in his
hands, and no-one dared approach. There were sidelong glances, and one or two people shook
themselves and hurried away.
Snibril dismounted and wandered over to where Pismire was standing gloomily wrapped in his
goatskin cloak.
"He shouldn't have said the Unutterable Words," said Pismire, more or less to himself, "It's all
superstition, of course, but that's not to say it isn't real. Oh, hello. I see you survived."
"What did this?"
"It used to be called Fray," said Pismire.
"I thought that was just an old story."
"Doesn't mean it was untrue. I'm sure it was Fray. The changes in air pressure to begin with ... the
animals sensed it ... just like it said in the ... " He stopped. "Just like I read somewhere," he said
awkwardly.
He glanced past Snibril and brightened up.
"You've got a horse, I see."
"I think it's been hurt."
Pismire walked to the horse and examined it carefully. "It's Dumii, of course," he said. "Someone
fetch my herb box. Something's attacked him, see, here. Not deep but it should be dressed. A
magnificent beast. Magnificent. No rider?"
"We rode up the road a way but we didn't see anyone."
Pismire stroked the sleek coat. "If you sold all the village and its people into slavery you might just be
able to buy a horse like this. Whoever he belonged to, he ran away some time ago. He's been living wild
for days."
"The Dumii don't let anyone keep slaves any more," said Snibril.
"It's worth a lot is what I was trying to say," said Pismire.
He hummed distractedly to himself as he examined the hooves.
"Wherever he came from, someone must have been riding him."
He let one leg go and paused to stare up at the hairs. "Something scared him. Not Fray. Something
days ago. It wasn't bandits, because they would have taken the horse too. And they don't leave claw
marks. A snarg could have made that if it was three times its normal size. Oh, dear. And there are such,"
he said.
The cry came.
To Snibril it seemed as though the night had grown a mouth and a voice. It came from the hairs just
beyond the broken stockade, a mocking screech that split the darkness. The horse reared.
A fire had already been lit at the break in the wall, and some hunters ran towards it, spears ready.
They stopped.
On the further side there was a mounted shape in the darkness, and two pairs of eyes. One was a
sullen red, one pair shimmered green. They stared unblinking over the flames at the villagers.
Glurk snatched a spear from one of the gaping men and pushed his way forward.
"Nothing but a snarg," he growled, and threw. The spear struck something, but the green eyes only
grew brighter. There was a deep, menacing rumble from an unseen throat.
"Be off! Go back to your lair!"
Pismire ran forward with a blazing stick in his hand, and hurled it at the eyes.
They blinked and were gone. With them went the spell. Cries went up and, ashamed of their fear, the
hunters surged forward. "Stop!" shouted Pismire. "Idiots! You'll chase out into the dark after that, with
your bone spears? That was a black snarg. Not like the brown ones you get around here! You know the
stories? They're from the furthest Corners! From the Unswept Regions!"
Prom the north, from the white cliff of the Woodwall itself, came again the cry of a snarg. This time it
did not die away, but stopped abruptly.
Pismire stared north for a second, then turned to Glurk and Snibril. "You have been found," he said.
"That was what brought this horse here, fear of the snargs. And fear of the snargs is nothing to be
ashamed of. Fear of snargs like that is common sense. Now they have discovered the village you can't
stay. They'll come every night until one night you won't fight back hard enough. Leave tomorrow. Even
that might be too late."
"We can't just-" Glurk began.
"You can. You must. Fray is back, and all the things that come after. Do you understand?"
"No," said Glurk.
"Then trust me," said Pismire. "And hope that you never do have to understand. Have you ever
known me be wrong?"
Glurk considered. "Well, there was that time when you said-"
"About important things?"
"No. I suppose not." Glurk looked worried. "But we've never been frightened of snargs. We can deal
with snargs. What's special about these?"
"The things that ride on them," said Pismire.
"There was another pair of eyes," said Glurk uncertainly.
"Worse than snargs," said Pismire. "Got much worse weapons than teeth and claws. They've got
brains."
CHAPTER 2
"Well, that's the lot. Come on," said Glurk, taking a last look at the ruins of the hut.
"Just a minute," said Snibril.
His possessions fitted easily into one fur pack, but he rummaged through them in case anything had
been left behind. There was a bone knife with the carved wooden handle, and a spare pair of boots.
Then there was a coil of bowstrings, and another bag of arrowheads, a piece of lucky dust and, right at
the bottom, Snibril's fingers closed round a lumpy bag. He lifted it out carefully, taking care not to
damage its contents, and opened it. Two, five, eight, nine. All there, their varnish catching the light as he
moved his fingers.
"Huh," said Glurk, "I don't know why you bother with them. Another bag of arrowheads would fill the
space better."
Snibril shook his head, and held up the coins which gleamed with varnish.
They had been shaped from the red wood of the Chairleg mines. On one side each coin carried a
carving of the Emperor's head. They were Tarnerii, the coins of the Dumii, and they had cost many skins
at Tregon Marus. In fact they were skins, if you looked at it like that, or pots or knives or spears. At
least, so Pismire said.
Snibril never quite understood this, but it seemed that so great was the Dumii's love for their Emperor
they would give and take the little wooden pictures of him in exchange for skins and fur. At least, so
Pismire said. Snibril wasn't sure that Pismire understood finance any more than he did.
The two of them made their way to the carts. It was less than a day since Fray had come. But what a
day ...
Arguments, mostly. The richer Munrungs hadn't wanted to leave, especially since no-one had a clear
idea of where they would go. And Pismire had gone off somewhere, on business of his own.
Then, in the middle of the morning, they had heard snarg cries in the south. Someone saw shadows
gliding among the hairs. Someone else said he saw eyes peering over the stockade.
After that, the arguments stopped. The Munrungs were used to travelling, as people suddenly pointed
out. They moved around every year or so, to better hunting grounds. They'd been planning this move for
months, probably. It wasn't as if they were running away, everyone said. No-one could say they were
running away. They were walking away. Quite slowly.
Before mid-afternoon the area inside the stockade was filled with carts, cows and people carrying
furniture. Now the bustle was over, and they all waited for Glurk. His cart was the finest, a family
heirloom, with a curved roof covered with furs. It needed four ponies to pull it; huts were things you built
to last a year or so, but carts were what you handed down to your grandchildren.
Behind it a string of pack ponies, laden with the Orkson wealth in furs, waited patiently. Then came
the lesser carts, none as rich as the Orkson cart, though some almost equalled it. After them came the
poorer handcarts, and the families that could only afford one pony and one-third shares in a cow. And
last came the people on foot. It seemed to Snibril that those who carried all their personal goods in one
hand looked a bit more cheerful than those who were leaving half theirs behind.
Now they needed Pismire. Where was he?
"Isn't he here?" said Glurk. "Well, he knows we're going. He'll be along. I don't think he'd expect us
to wait."
"I'm going on ahead to find him," said Snibril shortly.
Glurk opened his mouth to warn his brother and then thought better of it.
"Well, tell him we'll be moving along towards Burnt End, along the old tracks," he said. "Easy place to
defend tonight, if it comes to it."
Glurk waited until the last straggler had left the stockade, and then dragged the gate across. Anyone
could get in through the broken walls, but Glurk still felt that the gates should be shut. That was more ...
proper. It suggested that they might come back one day.
Snibril was trotting up the road ahead of the procession. He rode the white horse, a little inexpertly,
but with determination. The horse had been named Roland, after an uncle. No-one questioned his right to
name it, or to own it. The Munrungs, on the whole, agreed with Dumii laws, but finders-keepers was one
of the oldest laws of all.
A little way on he turned off the road, and soon the dazzling white wooden cliff of the Woodwall rose
above the hairs. Roland's hooves made no sound on the thick dust that lay about, and the Carpet closed
in. Snibril felt the great immensity of it all around him stretching far beyond the furthermost limits of the
Empire. And if the Dumii road might lead to distant places, where might this old track lead?
He sat and watched it sometimes, on quiet nights. The Munrungs moved around a lot, but always in
the same area. The road was always around, somewhere. Pismire talked about places like the Rug, the
Hearth and the Edge. Faraway places with strange-sounding names. Pismire had been everywhere, seen
things Snibril would never see. He told good stories.
Several times Snibril thought he heard other hooves nearby. Or were they black paws? Roland must
have heard them too, for he trotted along smartly, always on the edge of a canter.
Dust had drifted up between the hairs here, forming deep mounds where herbs and ferns grew thickly
and made the air heavy with their scent. The path seemed to grow drowsy, and wound aimlessly among
the dust mounds for a while. It opened out into a clearing right by the south face of the Woodwall.
It had dropped from the sky, many years before. It was a day's march long, and a good hour's walk
wide. Half of it had been burned-unimaginably burned. Pismire said there had been one or two others,
elsewhere in the far reaches of the Carpet, but he used the Dumii word: matchstick.
Pismire lived in a shack near the old wood quarry. There were a few pots lying around the door.
Some thin half-wild goats skipped out of the way as Roland trotted into the clearing. Pismire was not
there. Nor was his little pony.
But a freshly-tanned snarg skin was hanging by the cave. And someone was lying on a heap of ferns
by a small fire, with his hat pulled down over his face. It was a high hat that might once have been blue,
but time had turned it into a shapeless felt bag about the colour of smoke.
His clothes looked as though they had gathered themselves round him for warmth. A tattered brown
cloak was rolled under his head as a pillow.
Snibril left Roland in the shade of the hairs and drew his knife. He crept towards the sleeper and
made to raise his hat brim with the knifepoint.
There was a blur of activity. It ended with Snibril flat on his back, his own knife pressed to his throat,
the stranger's tanned face inches from his own.
The eyes opened. He's just waking up, Snibril thought through his terror. He started moving while he
was still asleep!
"Mmm? Oh, a Munrung," said the stranger, half to himself. "Harmless!" He stood up.
Snibril forgot to be frightened in his haste to be offended.
"Harmless!"
"Well, by comparison to things like that," said the stranger, indicating the skin. "Pismire said one of
you might show up."
"Where is he?"
"Gone off to Tregon Marus. He should be back soon."
"Who are you?"
"I like the name Bane."
He was clean-shaven, unusual in anyone but young Dumii boys, and his red-gold hair was bound up
in a plait down his back. Although in some ways he did not appear much older than Snibril himself, his
face was hard and lined except for his grin. At his belt hung a fierce-looking short sword, and there was a
spear beside his pack.
"I was following mouls," he said, and saw the blankness in Snibril's face. "Creatures. From the
Unswept Regions, originally. Nasty pieces of work. They ride around on these things."
He indicated the skin again.
"Weren't you afraid of the eyes?"
Bane laughed, and picked up his spear.
Then Pismire was with them, the rangy figure riding into the clearing, long legs almost touching the
ground on either side of his pony. The old man showed no surprise that Snibril was there.
"Tregon Marus has fallen," he said slowly. Bane groaned.
"I mean fallen," said Pismire. "Destroyed. The temples, the walls, everything. And snargs everywhere
in the ruins. Fray has crushed the town. It was at the epicentre-right underneath," he went on wearily. "It
has been a long, horrible day. Where've the tribe gone? Burnt End? Good enough. Very defensible
situation. Come on."
Bane had a small pony, grazing among the hairs. They set off, keeping close to the wooden cliff.
"But what is Fray?" said Snibril. "I remember you telling stories about old times ... but that was long
ago. Some kind of monster. Not something real."
"The mouls worship it," said Bane. "I'm ... something of an expert."
Snibril looked puzzled. The Munrungs didn't have gods. Life was complicated enough as it was.
"I have theories," said Pismire. "I've read some old books. Never mind about the stories. They're just
metaphors."
"Interesting lies," translated Bane.
"More like ... ways of telling things without having to do much explaining. Fray is some kind of force.
There were people who used to know more, I think. There were old stories about old cities that
suddenly vanished. Just legends, now. Oh, dear. So much gets forgotten. Written down and then lost."
摘要：

THECARPETPEOPLETerryPratchett[28aug2002-proofedfor#bookz]ToLyn,forthenandnow.AUTHOR'SNOTEThisbookhadtwoauthors,andtheywereboththesameperson.TheCarpetPeoplewaspublishedin1971.Ithadalotofthingswrongwithit,mostlytodowithbeingwrittenbysomeonewhowasseventeenatthetime.Anditsoldabit,andeventuallyitsoldout....

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