Terry Pratchett - Discworld 17 Interesting Times

VIP免费

2024-12-03 0 0 646.62KB 346 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

And Fate always wins.

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and

you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all

along.

Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say

afterwards, it must have been Fate.[1]

Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot

change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are

hardly eyes at all - just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what

may be stars or, there again, may be other things.

He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do

just before they become winners, and said: 'I accuse the High Priest of

the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe.'

And he won.

He beamed at them.

'No-one likesh a poor winner,' grumbled Offler the I Crocodile God,

through his fangs.

'It seems that I am favouring myself today,' said Fate. 'Anyone fancy

something else?'

The gods shrugged.

'Mad Kings?' said Fate pleasantly. 'Star-Crossed Lovers?'

'Ah,' said Fate.

'Let a game begin,' said the Lady.

There was always an argument about whether the newcomer was a

goddess at

all. Certainly no-one ever got anywhere by worshipping her, and she

tended to turn up only where she was least expected, such as now. And

people who trusted in her seldom survived. Any temples built to her would

surely be struck by lightning. Better to juggle axes on a tightrope than

say her name. Just call her the waitress in the Last Chance saloon.

She was generally referred to as the Lady, and her eyes were green; not

as the eyes of humans are green, but emerald green from edge to edge. It

was said to be her favourite colour.

'Ah,' said Fate again. 'And what game will it be?'

She sat down opposite him. The watching gods looked sidelong at one

another. This looked interesting. These two were ancient enemies.

'How about...' she paused,'... Mighty Empires?'

'Oh, I hate that one,' said Offler, breaking the sudden silence.

'Everyone dief at the end.'

'Yes,' said Fate, 'I believe they do.' He nodded at the Lady, and in much

the same voice as professional gamblers say 'Aces high?' said, 'The Fall

of Great Houses? Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread?'

'Certainly,' she said.

'The Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the Fangs.'

'Them? I didn't know they were noble,' said Io.

'They're all very rich and have had millions of people butchered or

tortured to death merely for reasons of expediency and pride,' said the

Lady.

The watching gods nodded solemnly. That was certainly noble behaviour.

That was exactly what they would have done.

'McFweeneyf?' said Offler.

'Very old established family,' said Fate.

'Oh.'

'And they wrestle one another for the Empire,' said Fate. 'Very good.

Which will you be?'

The Lady looked at the history stretched out in front of them.

'The Hongs are the most powerful. Even as we speak, they have taken yet

more cities,' she said. 'I see they are fated to win.'

'So, no doubt, you'll pick a weaker family.'

Fate waved his hand again. The playing pieces appeared, and started to

move around the board as if they had a life of their own, which was of

course the case.

'But,' he said, 'we shall play without dice. I don't trust you with dice.

He looked down. But I don t see your pieces on the board.

'They're not on the board yet,' she said.

She opened her hand.

There was something black and yellow on her palm. She blew on it, and it

unfolded its wings.

It was a butterfly.

Fate always wins...

At least, when people stick to the rules.

According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest

abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order,

because it is better organized.

This is the butterfly of the storms.

See the wings, slightly more ragged than those of the common fritillary.

In reality, thanks to the fractal nature of the universe, this means that

those ragged edges are infinite - in the same way that the edge of any

rugged coastline, when measured to the ultimate microscopic level, is

infinitely long - or, if not infinite, then at least so close to it that

Infinity can be seen on a clear day.

And therefore, if their edges are infinitely long, the wings must

logically be infinitely big.

They may look about the right size for a butterfly's wings, but that's

only because human beings have always preferred common sense to logic.

may be an undistinguished yellow colour but in a fortnight s tone, a

thousand miles away, Freak Gales Cause Road Chaos.

This is the butterly of the storms.

It flaps its wings...

This is the Discworld, which goes through space on the back of a giant

turtle.

Most worlds do, at some time in their perception. It's a cosmological

view the human brain seems preprogrammed to take.

On veldt and plain, in cloud jungle and silent red desert, in swamp and

reed marsh, in fact in any place where something goes 'plop' off a

floating log as you approach, variations on the following take place at a

crucial early point in the development of the tribal mythology...

'You see dat?'

'What?'

'It just went plop off dat log.'

'Yeah? Well?'

'I reckon... I reckon... like, I reckon der world is carried on der

back of one of dem.'

A moment of silence while this astrophysical hypothesis is considered,

and then...

'The whole world?'

Makes sense, yeah. Thing is...

'What?'

'I just hope it never goes plop.'

But this is the Discworld, which has not only the turtle but also the

four giant elephants on which the wide, slowly turning wheel of the world

revolves.[3] There is the Circle Sea, approximately halfway between the

Hub and the Rim. Around it are those countries which, according to

History, constitute the civilized world, i.e., a world that can support

histor-ians: Ephebe, Tsort, Omnia, Klatch and the sprawling city state of

Ankh-Morpork.

This is a story that starts somewhere else, where a man is lying on a

raft in a blue lagoon under a sunny sky. His head is resting on his arms.

He is happy - in his case, a mental state so rare as to be almost

unprecedented. He is whistling an amiable little tune, and dangling his

feet in the crystal clear water.

They're pink feet with ten toes that look like little piggy-wiggies.

From the point of view of a shark, skimming over the reef, they look like

lunch, dinner and tea.

It was, as always, a matter of protocol. Of discretion. Of careful

etiquette. Of, ultimately, alcohol. Or at least the illusion of alcohol.

Lord Vetinari, as supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, could in theory summon

the Archchancellor of Unseen University to his presence and, indeed, have

him executed if he failed to obey.

On the other hand Mustrum Ridcully, as head of the college of wizards,

gardens, watching the butterflies with an expression of mild annoyance.

He found something very slightly offensive about the way they just

fluttered around enjoying themselves in an unprofitable way.

He looked up.

'Ah, Archchancellor,' he said. 'So good to see you. Do sit down. I trust

you are well?'

'Yes indeed,' said Mustrum Ridcully. 'And yourself? You are in good

health?'

'Never better. The weather, I see, has turned out nice again.'

'I thought yesterday was particularly fine, certainly.'

'Tomorrow, I am told, could well be even better.'

'We could certainly do with a fine spell.'

'Yes, indeed.'

'Yes.'

'Ah...'

'Certainly.'

They watched the butterflies. A butler brought long, cool drinks.

'What is it they actually do with the flowers?' said Lord Vetinari.

'What?'

Vetinari. I suspect from context that great means superior.

'Not the Dean, then,' said Ridcully.

Lord Vetinari tried to recollect the faculty of Unseen University. The

mental picture that emerged was of a small range of foothills in pointy

hats.

'The context does not, I feel, suggest the Dean,' he said.

'Er... what context would this be?' said Ridcully.

The Patrician picked up his walking stick.

'Come this way,' he said. 'I suppose you had better see for yourself. It

is very vexing.'

Ridcully looked around with interest as he followed Lord Vetinari. He did

not often have a chance to see the gardens, which had been written up in

the 'How Not To Do It' section of gardening manuals everywhere.

They had been laid out, and a truer phrase was never used, by the

renowned or at least notorious landscape gardener and all round inventor

'Bloody Stupid' Johnson, whose absent-mindedness and blindness to

elementary mathematics made every step a walk with danger. His genius..

. well, as far as Ridcully understood it, his genius was exactly the

opposite of whatever kind of genius it was that built earthworks that

tapped the secret yet beneficent forces of the leylines.

No-one was quite certain what forces Bloody Stupid's designs tapped, but

the chiming sundial frequently exploded, the crazy paving had committed

suicide and the cast iron garden furniture was known so have melted on

three occasions.

uses.

He unlocked a door to a wide, square room with a big unglazed window in

each wall. Each rectangle was surrounded by a wooden arrangement to

which

was affixed a bell on a spring. It was apparent that anything large

enough, entering by one of the windows, would cause the bell to ring.

In the centre of the room, standing on a table, was the largest bird

Ridcully had ever seen. It turned and fixed him with a beady yellow eye.

The Patrician reached into a pocket and took out a jar of anchovies.

'This one caught us rather unexpectedly,' he said. 'It must be almost ten

years since a message last arrived. We used to keep a few fresh mackerel

on ice.'

'Isn't that a Pointless Albatross?' said Ridcully.

'Indeed,' said Lord Vetinari. 'And a highly trained one. It will return

this evening. Six thousand miles on one jar of anchovies and a bottle of

fish paste my clerk Drumknott found in the kitchens. Amazing.'

'I'm sorry?' said Ridcully. 'Return to where?'

Lord Vetinari turned to face him.

'Not, let me make it clear, to the Counterweight Continent,' he said.

'This is not one of those birds the Agatean Empire uses for its message

services. It is a well-known fact that we have no contact with that

mysterious land. And this bird is not the first to arrive here for many

years, and it did not bring a strange and puzzling message. Do I make

myself clear?'

Looks like a bloody albatross to me, he said. And you just said it

was. I said, isn't that a-'

The Patrician waved a hand irritably. 'Leaving aside our ornithological

studies,' he said, 'the point is that this bird had, in its message

pouch, the following piece of paper-'

'You mean did not have the following piece of paper?' said Ridcully,

struggling for a grip.

'Ah, yes. Of course, that is what I mean. And this isn't it. Observe.'

He handed a single small sheet to the Arch-chacellor.

'Looks like paintin',' said Ridcully.

'Those are Agatean pictograms,' said the Patrician.

'You mean they're not Agatean pictograms?'

'Yes, yes, certainly,' sighed the Patrician, 'I can see you are well

alongside the essential business of diplomacy. Now... your views,

please.'

'Looks like slosh, slosh, slosh, slosh, Wizzard,' said Ridcully.

'And from that you deduce... ?'

'He took Art because he wasn't any good at spelling I mean, who wrote it?

Painted it, I mean?'

'I don't know. The Grand Viziers used to send the occasional message, but

I gather there has been some turmoil in recent years. It is unsigned, you

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

isatoneandthesametimeasimpleplayingareaandthewholeworld.AndFatealwayswins.Fatealwayswins.MostofthegodsthrowdicebutFateplayschess,andyoudon'tfindoutuntiltoolatethathe'sbeenusingtwoqueensallalong.Fatewins.Atleast,soitisclaimed.Whateverhappens,theysayafterwards,itmusthavebeenFate.[1]Godscantakeanyform,...

展开>> 收起<<

Terry Pratchett - Discworld 17 Interesting Times.pdf

共346页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Terry Pratchett - Discworld 17 Interesting Times

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: