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'Right!' shouted Twoflower. 'We've got a wizard and we're not afraid to use him!'
'I mean it!' screamed Bethan, spinning Rincewind around by his arm, like a capstan.
'Right! We're heavily armed! What?' said Twoflower.
'I said, where's the Luggage?' hissed Bethan behind Rincewind's back.
Twoflower looked around. The Luggage was missing.
Rincewind was having the desired effect of the star people, though. As his hand waved vaguely around they treated it like a rotary scythe and tried to hide behind one another.
'Well, where's it gone?'
'How should I know?' said Twoflower.
'It's your Luggage!'
'I often don't know where my Luggage is, that's what being a tourist is all about,' said Twoflower. 'Anyway, it often wanders off by itself. It's probably best not to ask why.'
It began to dawn on the mob that nothing was actually happening, and that Rincewind was in no condition to hurl insults, let alone magical fire. They advanced, watching his hands cautiously.
Twoflower and Bethan backed away. Twoflower looked around.
'Bethan?'
'What?' said Bethan, not taking her eyes off the advancing figures.
'This is a dead end.'
'Are you sure?'
'I think I know a brick wall when I see one,' said Twoflower reproachfully.
'That's about it, then,' said Bethan.
'Do you think perhaps if I explain – ?'
'No.'
'Oh.'
'I don't think these are the sort of people who listen to explanations,' Bethan added.
Twoflower stared at them. He was, as has been mentioned, usually oblivious to personal danger. Against the whole of human experience Twoflower believed that if only people would talk to each other, have a few drinks, exchange pictures of their grandchildren, maybe take in a show or something, then everything could be sorted out. He also believed that people were basically good but sometimes had their bad days. What was coming down the street was having about the same effect on him as a gorilla in a glass factory.
There was the faintest of sounds behind him, not so much a sound in fact as a change in the texture of the air.
The faces in front of him gaped open, turned, and disappeared rapidly down the alley.
'Eh?' said Bethan, still propping up the now unconscious Rincewind.
Twoflower was looking the other way, at a big glass window full of strange wares, and a beaded doorway, and a large sign above it all which now said, after its characters had finished writhing into position:
'Skillet, Wang, Yrxle!yt, Bunglestiff, Cwmlad and Patel'
'Estblshd: various'
'PURVEYORS'
