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“All their own work,” he said proudly, like a fond schoolmaster who has just seen a star pupil graduate summa cum laude.
The earl stared into infinity. “I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones,” he said, his voice filled with awe.
The old lord nodded. He'd waited a long time for this. While others had talked of red-hot revolution he'd just stared out into the world of men, and watched, and marveled.
This Rincewind character had been extremely useful. He'd managed to keep the King totally occupied. He'd been worth all the effort. The damn-fool human still thought it was his fingers doing the business! Three wishes, indeed!
And thus it was, when Rincewind pulled himself free of the wreckage of the wheel, he found Astfgl, King of Demons, Lord of Hell, Master of the Pit, standing over him.
Astfgl had passed through the earlier stage of fury and was now in that calm lagoon of rage where the voice is steady, the manner is measured and polite, and only a faint trace of spittle at the corner of the mouth betrays the inner inferno.
Eric crawled out from under a broken spar and looked up.
“Oh dear,” he said.
The Demon King twirled the trident. Suddenly, it didn't look comical any more. It looked like a heavy metal stick with three horrible spikes on the end.
Astfgl smiled, and looked around. “No,” he said, apparently to himself. “Not here. It is not public enough. Come!”
A hand grasped each of them by the shoulder. They could no more resist it than a couple of non-identical snowflakes could resist a flame-thrower. There was a moment's disorientation, and Rincewind found himself in the largest room in the universe.
It was the great hall. You could have built moon rockets in it. The kings of Hell might have heard of words like “subtlety” and “discretion”, but they had also heard that if you had it you should flaunt it and reasoned that, if you didn't have it, you should flaunt it even more, and what they didn't have was good taste. Astfgl had done what he could but even he had been unable to add much to the basic bad design, the clashing colours, and the terrible wallpaper. He'd put in a few coffee tables and a bullfight poster, but they were more or less lost in the overall chaos, and the new antimacassar on the back of the Throne of Dread only served to highlight some of its more annoying bas-reliefs.
The two humans sprawled on the floor.
“And now - ” said Astfgl.
But his voice was lost in a sudden cheering.
He looked up.
Demons of every size and shape filled almost all the hall, piling up the walls and even hanging from the ceiling. A demonic band struck up a choice of chords on a variety of instruments. A banner, slung from one side of the hall to the other, read: Hale To Ther Cheve.
Astfgl's brow knitted in instant paranoia as Vassenego, trailed by the other lords, bore down on him. The old demon's face was split in a totally guileless grin, and the King nearly panicked and hit it with the trident before Vassenego reached out and slapped him on the back.
“Well done!” he cried. “What?” “Oh, very well done!” Astfgl looked down at Rincewind. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. Well.” He coughed. “It was nothing,” he said, straightening up, "I knew you people weren't getting anywhere so I just -"
“Not these,” sneered Vassenego. “Such trivial things. No, sire. I was referring to your elevation.” “Elevation?” said Astfgl. “Your promotion, sire!” A great cheer went up from the younger demons, who would cheer anything. “Promotion? But, but I am the King -” Astfgl protested weakly. He could feel his grasp on events beginning to slip. “Pfooie!” said Vassenego expansively. “Pfooie?” "Indeed, sire. King? King? Sire, I speak for us all when I say that is no title for a demon such as you, sire, a demon whose grasp of organisational matters and priorities, whose insight into the proper functions of our being, whose - if I may say so - sheer intellectual capabilities have taken us to new and greater depths, sire!"
o;We cant stay here for ever,” said Rincewind. “We need to do things. Like eat.”
“That's one of the tremendous advantages of being a damned soul,” said Ponce da Quirm. “All the old bodily cares fade away. Of course, you get a completely new set of cares, but I have always found it advisable to look for the silver lining.”
“Wossname!” said the parrot, who was sitting on his shoulder.
“Fancy that,” said Rincewind. “I never knew animals could go to Hell. Although I can quite see why they made an exception in this case.”
“Up yours wizard!”
“Why don't they look for us here, that's what I don't understand?” said Eric.
“Shut up and keep walking,” said Rincewind. “They're stupid, that's why. They can't imagine that we would be doing something like this.”
“Yes, they're right there. I can't imagine that we are doing something like this, either,” said Eric.
Rincewind treadled for a bit, watching a crowd of frantically searching demons hurry past.
“So you didn't find the Fountain of Youth, then,” he said, feeling that he should make some conversation.
